Born to Magic: Tales of Nevaeh: Volume I Page 26

  Inside, she went to the fire, bent before it and stared into the flames. She sent her mind outward, questing everywhere. Then her breath lodged in her throat when the image of the hated Roth crossed her eyes. She stared hard at the visage of this unholy person, this usurper of her kingdom. He was in the wasteland. She was there too, the witch who protected him. How such good fortune came to her she cared not: what was important was the opportunity to do her Masters’ bidding had fallen into her hands.

  Then she sought to look for the two who had defied her. Seconds later she had them as well. They were a half day ahead of the most hated ones.

  She laughed again, a low choked off visceral sound that could shrivel skin. Standing before the flames, she removed her robes and sat naked on the cold rock of the floor. She closed her eyes and began to sway, her upper torso revolving on deformed hips as she called up the formula she had created to control her wraiths, building it within her mind and making it stronger with each breath she took.

  She would send a wraith after Roth and his woman. Tonight would be their last. And for the two who were attempting to reach the Island, she would stop them before they could reach the safety of the Landing place.

  <><><>

  “Your men have crossed into the wasteland.” Enaid looked around. The sensations of danger she’d glimpsed earlier had stayed with her, neither growing nor lessening, yet she was certain the feeling of peril would grow stronger the closer they came to the Island.

  “They are further back than I thought.”

  “They must not follow us. I am certain of this. It has nothing to do with Mikaal. It is for them. I fear they will die if they continue on.”

  Knowing Enaid well, Roth studied his wife. From the day he had met her, he had discovered her intuition was absolute. He had never ignored her warnings and had survived battles and dangers that would have killed anyone else because he did so. As he studied her, the inner sense that had guided him soundly all his life, told him she was speaking truthfully and he must listen.

  “How can we stop them? How can we tell them to return to Tolemac?”

  Enaid shook her head. “There is no way.”

  Roth wasn’t so sure. “They are following our trail. They will come to this exact spot.”

  “Yes,” she said hesitantly. “How does that help?”

  He drew out a thin sheet of writing material and wrote instructions and handed them to her. After reading it, she returned it to him. “How do we send it?”

  “An arrow, my love, if you please,” he asked with a smile.

  She cocked her head to one side. “I hardly think an arrow will travel such distance.”

  Laughing, he extended his hand. She drew an arrow and handed it to him. He pierced the top and bottom of the sheet with the shaft and slid it up to the quills then, dismounting, went to the middle of their tracks and jammed the arrow into the ground. “They will see it and obey my instructions.”

  “Will they?” she asked. “Remember, husband, you chose men who are much like you, headstrong and stubborn.”

  He smiled. “They will obey my command as it is written.”

  “As you say, My Lord. I hope such happens, for their sake and for yours.”

  The weight of her words was not a light burden. “Yes, let’s hope so.”

  <><><>

  Night smothered the remnants of the day as Areenna and Mikaal descended to the Landing. Built of switchbacks hidden by the mists rising from the water below, what had looked to be only a few twists and turns was more illusion than reality.

  The night grew dark, and unease wrapped the pair tighter than their riding cloaks. The air turned cool and the high chirps of blind night hunting trigetores was the music that accompanied them.

  The mist-veiled Island seen from above was hidden by the night. “Keep a sharp watch,” Areenna said to Mikaal, and silently asked Gaalrie to do the same.

  Charka added his own warning with a low sounding call and Mikaal sensed his aoutem’s unease both in his head and from the kraal’s body itself. Using the technique Areenna had taught him, he sent out a sensing. A moment later a shudder ran through him when he touched something cold and dark.

  “It’s waiting,” he called to Areenna.

  Having already tasted the vileness that lay in wait, the heart of her power flared. Be ready, she told Mikaal silently.

  Mikaal had no need to call his power; it had burst forth seconds before and was filling him. He had spent the hours of travel following their midday meal working on the means to call forth his abilities and had reached the point where he could almost bring up the fire at will. He’d created his formula—his method of visualizing the building of his power, by utilizing a simple phrase: Cold to hot, hot to fire, from the sister beneath to the air above. It was childish, he thought, but it was for him and no one else to know and it had worked more often than failed.

  His only hope now was for it to work quickly when called.

  <><><>

  She watched the two who were descending to the Landing through the eyes of her wonderful creation, the third wraith. She saw them clearly: the daughter of the dead one and the son of the hated Enaid. She laughed, though the sound did not travel past her lips as her mind was filled with anticipation.

  She stiffened when a bare whisper of a mind-touch caught her. It was Enaid. She concentrated on the touch, which had pulled back as quickly as it had come, caught it and followed it to where it originated.

  “No!” She screamed aloud, the sound vibrating from the cavern’s stone walls like a wail. She squatted down, her mind spinning. They were racing to help the other two, and had gotten closer than she’d anticipated. It could not be permitted. She started to send the two smaller wraiths after Roth and Enaid, but stopped.

  There were other choices, she thought. A smile grew wide. Of course… They must cross the water to reach the Island. It would be perfect. The woman child and the boy must cross the water to reach the Island. They would be helpless on the water while the hated one...

  She sat on her haunches and began to sway, mentally building the fugue that would allow her to put her changed plan into motion. When it was done, she knew her enemies would no longer draw breath. But first, she knew, they must think they have defeated her. There was one way…. There would be sacrifice, but the sacrifice would serve a greater purpose.

  “Yes,” she whispered happily.

  <><><>

  “Strange,” Areenna said, stroking Gaalrie who rode the saddle horn. Areenna had not wanted to take any chances on the ride downward. Three wraiths were too potent an enemy to risk Gaalrie.

  “What is strange?”

  “We are halfway down and yet I feel nothing from the wraiths. Why?”

  “Perhaps they wait for us near the bottom.”

  “Perhaps, but there is something… Be prepared.”

  “I have not stopped being so,” Mikaal assured her, truthfully. He had been casting about his senses, looking and waiting for the feel of the vileness he had tasted so clearly in Tolemac.

  Areenna halted Hero and waited for Mikaal to come next to her. “Give me your hand,” she commanded.

  When he opened his hand to her, she gripped it tightly. Let me join with you. He nodded, and an instant later they were together in thought. We should be able to see more now, she said.

  “They are somewhere on these palisades, hidden within crevices,” she whispered aloud as she pushed outward. She became aware of a heaviness growing about them. As if the air itself was pushing down on them. Her ears blocked for a moment before they popped clear.

  “Do you feel that?” Mikaal asked. “The air has become oppressive.”

  They are near.

  Charka cried out, and Mikaal felt the kraal’s muscles go tighter beneath his thighs. He reined his aoutem, but did not release Areenna’s hand. Be ready.

  Gaalrie spread her wings and gave vent to a piercing screech. A moment later, a shadow darkened the moon as a wraith flew above them. It d
ipped and then reversed itself and sped upward into the night, blending with the darkness until it disappeared.

  “What…”

  “It is coming,” Areenna said and released his hand. Your weapon.

  <><><>

  The white gorlon that had spent the last five hours running slightly ahead of Enaid and Roth stopped unexpectedly. Irii’s head rose, her nostrils quivering as she scented the air. She let out a wail, spun and returned to Enaid’s aide.

  “It comes,” Enaid warned Roth.

  “Which?”

  Enaid spread her senses, seeking for what was near and hunting them. When she caught its emanations she exhaled slowly. “Not the beast—not the abomination.”

  Roth drew his sword, Enaid her bow. “I don’t know if these will have any affect, but we shall try.” She closed her eyes and concentrated on building a shield to protect them in the same way she had shown Areenna at Tolemac.

  An instant later, the dark-winged wraith appeared out of the black sky and slammed against the barrier, ripping at it with huge, sharp claws and its beak, which was more of a wide swath of dagger-like teeth slashing against the unseen force.

  Almost unsaddled by the power it directed at her, Enaid concentrated solely on holding the barrier against it. Irii screamed her battle cry and Roth sat on his kraal unable to do anything. But this was far from the first time he battled alongside his wife.

  Dismounting as she fought the creature, he raced to her kraal, rose on his toes and grabbed her around the waist. He knew she needed to be on the ground, to draw strength from contact with the earth. He lifted her roughly, not caring about anything except getting her to where she could fight.

  Enaid was aware of but one thing—the power of the beast above. It took all her strength, all her vast energy to hold the flying atrocity at bay. She was unaware of Roth’s arms pulling her from the kraal and dropping her to the ground. But when her knees touched the earth, her mind cleared. Slowly and carefully, she raised her eyes to the creature and, as she’d explained to Areenna, maintained the protection around them while she drew more deeply on her powers. She released a bolt of fiery, blue light at it that hit something and flared out before it struck the Wraith.

  “It is shielded,” she said. She pushed her senses at it and found it was protection against only her special abilities.

  Behind her was a large rock half buried beneath the surface of the earth. She called it up and, using the blue light still hovering on her palms, sent the rock flying at the winged malignancy. It was a weapon Areenna’s mother, Inaria, had gifted and taught her how to work.

  The shield did not work on the rock, for it was a physical thing, and it slammed against the side of the wraith’s head, knocking it back. It fought for balance, flapping its wings madly to stay aloft. As it did, Enaid drew up another stone, larger this time and, dropping the barrier, raised the stone and flung it at the thing.

  The wraith screamed its fury when the rock hit the joining of wing and body.

  Batting one wing in a furious fight to stay aloft, the wraith’s misty shape spun toward the ground. The sound of its rotting flesh smashing into the scorched earth reverberated loudly. Irii leaped toward it, a battle scream issuing from her mouth, but Enaid called her back sharply, knowing the wraith was not badly injured and had the power to kill the gorlon.

  Irii stopped at Enaid’s command, as did Roth who had started forward with his broadsword. “Wait,” Enaid called to him. “It is not time. It is not badly hurt.”

  The wraith gained its long, twisted legs and turned to them. From the center of its wide, misshapen head, two angry, fire-red eyes burned at them. A heartbeat later it rose into the air and Enaid built the shield once again.

  The wraith did not attack, nor did it leave; it hovered above them, watching and waiting for an opening.

  “What now?” Roth asked as he tracked the wraith.

  “It waits for me to falter.”

  “Can you hold?”

  “Is there a choice? It stays far enough away so I would have to drop our protection to fight it.”

  “What can I do?”

  Enaid shook her head. “Let nothing disturb my concentration. I will hold until daylight. Its strength will diminish then.”

  “Till daylight?” he echoed. “We will be too late to help them.”

  She looked around and then at him. “Try my bow. Perhaps…”

  Roth pulled her bow from the carrying case on the kraal, strung it, and readied a shaft. He took careful aim and released the arrow. It flew straight at the thing’s chest. At the very last instant, the wraith flexed a wing and deflected the arrow.

  “Damn,” Roth muttered.

  “Sit next to me, my love, lend me your strength.”

  Roth moved, not next to her but behind her, where he knelt and wrapped his arms about her, pressing his chest to her back. “Take it,” he whispered.

  CHAPTER 27

  “WHERE IS IT?” Mikaal asked, searching the starless sky.

  “It plays a game,” Areenna said. “It’s there, up high. Waiting for an opening.”

  Mikaal worked out the options. If it attacked, they would use their weapons against it, but it would be better to move forward. Ride slow, but ride, Mikaal instructed. We must get to the Landing.

  Areenna caught his thought. Yes.

  They pushed onward, their legs and minds guiding the kraals while their eyes and senses remained glued to the sky. They made a quarter mile before the wraith’s dark shape grew large above them.

  “It comes,” Areenna said aloud.

  The wraith spread its wings wide and dove at them, its glowing eyes haunting specks in the blackness.

  Areenna raised her hands, using her power not as a weapon, but for protection. Mikaal recited his formula and the heat within him surged quickly. The wraith struck the outer edge of the barrier with explosive force, its claws and teeth slashing at the invisible wall surrounding them. At the very instant the wraith hit, Mikaal released the fires from within.

  Shafts of fire spewed skyward to blanket the winged malignancy. The wraith’s shriek of pain and anger was bone-chilling in the silence of the night. A moment later, it lifted upward and disappeared in the blackness.

  Areenna stared at Mikaal, her eyes dancing within a myriad of colors in the aftermath of the bright flames. When she was able to focus, she exhaled softly. “Well done, Mikaal.”

  Mikaal shook his head. “Not well enough. It is unharmed.”

  “Not so,” Areenna whispered, looking skywards, seeking the putrid creature. “Your fire stopped it.”

  “But I sense it is unhurt.”

  “Still, it knows it can’t reach us. We need to keep moving,” she reminded him.

  They started forward again, but when they did, Hero began to tremble. A minute later, the large kraal refused to move. Areenna could do nothing to calm or move the frightened animal.

  Mikaal edged Charka next to Hero, grabbed the reins and said, “Dismount.”

  Areenna stepped down from the shaking kraal and Mikaal dismounted Charka. He took Hero’s reigns and hooked them to his saddle. Reaching out, he touched Charka’s head and gave the kraal a push, asking him to hold Hero calm.

  “We walk from here,” he said and, sword in hand, led them down the road as Areenna held the cone of protection around them.

  They walked for ten minutes before the next attack came. This one was swift and from behind. The wraith hit the barrier a second after Mikaal sensed it coming. Areenna’s power flared brightly around them. Mikaal spun and released fire at the creature, which was already veering out of its path.

  The fire struck empty air and faded harmlessly into the sky. Refusing to give up, Mikaal tracked the deformed thing as it flipped in midair and dove back at them. Hatred, dark and putrescent, struck them with the force of a falling wall. Yet they stood firm against this dark power, rejecting the efforts of its grasping tendrils to take them.

  When I tell you, release your protection and
join with me, he commanded. A half second later the wraith, its wings spread a full twenty feet wide, hit the edge of Areenna’s shield. The instant it did, Mikaal shouted “Now!” She dropped the protective shield and the wraith, expecting to hit it, plummeted through.

  Areenna joined Mikaal’s mind in the instant before he released his fire: the stream of flames shot upward and enveloped the falling creature. Screams of rage and pain blasted their ears as the monster struggled to stop its fall even as its wings began to burn. It twisted and screeched and tried to fly away.

  “Again,” Mikaal shouted and released another wave of hellfire.

  Caught within the sudden blast, the black apparition spun, not ten feet above the ground. Trailing sparks of burning feathers, the wraith flew upward and, as they watched, dove toward the waters below. Just as it hit the surface, it exploded in fiery shards.

  “Ride!” Mikaal shouted.

  Jumping onto their kraals and urging the big animals into a gallop, they raced toward the Landing. Their only means of guidance on the pitch black road was Gaalrie’s sharp night vision—their only hope was that the other two wraiths would not attack before they reached the safety of the Landing.

  <><><>

  While Areenna and Mikaal raced for safety, Roth held Enaid close. Her back pressed securely to his chest, his arms around her, his hands clasped together over her abdomen. Irii, the white gorlon lay next to them, her warm fur against Enaid’s legs.