Authors: Joanne Bertin
Linden closed his eyes, trying not to lose his temper. Damn Leet!
Let me guess—you suspect the location of the witch spruce was on that page.
We do.
Have you any idea? Do you remember it?
He heard her “sigh” in his mind.
No, I don’t. By the time I returned from Assantikkan, Gull had been dead for a few years already. I … I never went back there,
Lleld whispered.
I’m sorry to make you remember, Lleld,
Linden said gently.
But have you any guesses whereabouts the tree might be?
Silence followed. Then Lleld said,
I would think they would have buried that filth as far from the village as they could, even if they had to travel a few days by wagon or packhorse to do it.
I suspect you’re right. Who would want him nearby? Thank you,
Linden said.
And I’m sorry about your friends.
If I hadn’t been in Assantik then
…
The contact cut off abruptly. The guilt he’d felt in Lleld’s mindvoice made him bow his head. He knew it was a guilt she didn’t deserve, but could never escape.
There was no use waiting here. He might as well take to the air; he knew he was still too far south. Unfolding his wings, Linden crouched on his haunches, then sprang into the air with a mighty leap, spiraling up to meet the leaden sky.
He tasted the air. Just as he’d feared: a storm was coming.
* * *
Linden flew over the forest, slipping through the air from one side of the woods to the other. The witch spruce that held down Gull the Blood Drinker’s soul should be in these woods. But if he was correct that the tree had been chopped down, he wasn’t certain if he’d be able to sense anything, even while in dragon form. To make matters worse, this forest was much larger than he’d thought it would be. It was with relief that he saw the landmark of the twin lakes divided by a narrow esker in the distance.
The rain found him then; the drops came down hard and fast, rattling against his scales. Shaking his head, Linden saw what he’d been looking for—a long foundation of stone.
If he was right, this was the pride of Worton-that-once-was: the big stone barn for drying the rare herbs that had given the village its name and the people their living.
Or so it had been before a human demon had used it for his own twisted ends. Now barn and village were abandoned, forgotten by man; in another decade or two, even this much would be gone. Remembering the conclusion both he and Lleld had come to—that Gull was likely buried well away from the village—Linden quickly spiraled out from the ruins to begin his search.
He let his mind empty, seeking with the magic that bound the human and dragon halves of his soul for a trace of the spell that had bound Gull the Blood Drinker’s spirit to the earth. The wind buffeted him, at one point almost flipping him. He fought to remain upright.
He thought he felt
something,
a sense of … wrongness, of a seething darkness. But he wasn’t certain; nor could he afford to give the search the undivided attention it needed. The wind was at a dangerous level now, and the worst of the storm was almost upon him. For a moment he considered relinquishing control to his dragon half, Rathan, as he’d done a few years before, but discarded that idea even as it occurred to him. This time, he feared, Rathan might not subside into sleep again.
Linden swung his head from side to side, craning the long neck of his dragon form as he searched for the wellspring, the source of the darkness. But his quest was in vain: the entire forest below felt shrouded in evil.
And he would not be able to stay aloft much longer, anyway. He turned his long neck to look back over his shoulder. Yes, those storm clouds were closer and moving fast. They would be upon him in less than half a candlemark, he guessed.
He didn’t dare fly through a thunderstorm. More than one Dragonlord had met their end by lightning. He had no intention of adding himself to that grim list.
On the heels of that thought, lightning flashed, followed immediately by a booming peal of thunder that made his ears ring. He would have to land, and the only place large enough was the abandoned village; there wasn’t time to find somewhere else, somewhere clean of the taint he felt below him.
But as Linden came around to make for the clearing, a sudden, violent gust of wind tossed him like a leaf, wrenching at his wings as if it would rip them off. Knowing that if his wings were injured, he would crash into the trees below—a thing even a Dragonlord might not survive—Linden turned and fled before the storm. He’d have to find somewhere else to land, and quickly. The lightning was getting closer.
He flew desperately, seeking a place free of the malevolence that tainted the woods. For a moment he thought he’d found it, but then realized that what he felt was something alive, a pinprick of “light” in the foul darkness below. Before he could spare more than a moment’s thought for it, he was beyond it.
He caught sight of another clearing ahead. It was much smaller, dangerously so, but he had no choice. He glanced back in time to see a jagged bolt of lightning blast a tree not far behind him. With a quick prayer to whatever gods watched over reckless Dragonlords, he spiraled in to land so hastily he brushed the branches of the surrounding trees with the tips of his wings.
He Changed even before he touched the ground. The soaked earth squelched under his boots as he dropped the last few feet in human form. His hands up to shield his eyes, Linden peered around the gloomy clearing for something that could serve as a refuge from the storm.
There was a shelter of sorts, built under the trees at one edge of the clearing. A charcoal burner’s hut? Or did it belong to someone brave enough—or fool enough—to dare the haunted forest for the rare herbs it still held?
Linden didn’t care. As the rain pelted down, he ran through the clearing. All around him the wind tossed the branches together with a sound like clicking bones.
As he pushed open the rickety door of lashed branches, a foul odor from the dimness within drove him back. Only the
crack!
of another lightning strike nearby convinced him to go in.
Breathing as shallowly as he could, he ducked inside the hut, leaving the door open behind him; let the wind clean this place as much as it could. He called up a ball of coldfire and looked around.
The hut was empty save for a sorry-looking bench near the back wall, two rickety stools, and a pile of rags in one corner.
Someone’s bedding?
Linden wondered how anyone could sleep in such a stench.
Another corner held dried droppings—horse, or, more likely, donkey—so old they were crumbling into earth. Rain dripped through holes in the roof in a couple of places and the wind whistled through gaps in the wattle and daub walls like a mad piper.
But worse than the smell in the hut was the feeling that hung in the foul air like an invisible fog. He’d felt it while flying over the forest, as if the earth itself was ill. Confined in the dark squalor of the hut, it was worse, much worse. Cold crept down his spine.
Linden moved as carefully as a spy in an enemy camp as he searched the hut. The only two places to hide anything were behind the bench and in the pile of rags.
There was nothing behind the bench; that left …
Linden stopped. For the first time, he really looked at the pile in the corner, then crouched in front of it. Catching a fold of cloth, he pulled it free.
It proved to be a tunic; a tunic with a long tear in the front and a large, dark stain. Linden cursed softly, and seized another strip of fabric and pulled it clear. It took him a moment to realize that this, too, had once been a tunic, one that had been slashed nearly to ribbons. The shreds moved stiffly in the wind blowing through the open door; they bore the same dark stain as the other tunic.
Sickened, Linden sorted through the pile, finding more tunics, breeches, and once the tattered remains of a skirt. Three of the tunics caught his attention; it was hard to tell from the half-rotted fabric, but he thought they were the green and yellow favored by the members of the Healwort Guild. He made himself look closer at one of them—yes, there was the narrow yellow piping along the hems and neck that marked one of their journeymen. The only comfort he had—and it was a paltry comfort, indeed—was that none of the clothing seemed small enough for a child.
As he reached the bottom of the pitiful heap, Linden noticed that the foul smell that had pervaded the hut was stronger. He gingerly dragged the last remnants aside and saw that the ground below had been disturbed. With a prayer that he knew was futile, Linden caught up a stick from the floor and scratched in the dirt.
What he found sent him out of the door in a rush. He’d take his chances with the lightning. Linden crouched beneath a small pine tree to wait out the storm. He’d been a soldier, but what was in the hut …
Linden breathed a prayer for the souls that had died here.
Fifty-nine
“It’s getting lighter ahead. I
think it’s a clearing,” Kaeliss whispered over her shoulder.
They paused at the edge of it and huddled together, looking carefully around. The clearing was big, much larger than any other they’d come across with what looked like a tumbledown hut at one end. The thought of crossing that much open space made Pod’s skin crawl.
A crow’s harsh “Caw!” made her whip around. To her horror, she saw Arlim perhaps a hundred paces away, trying to push his way through a brier tangle to get at them. The long blade of his knife gleamed dully in the grey light.
“He’s back!” Pod shrieked.
The girls ran as hard as they could across the clearing, the madman’s curses following. As they plunged into the forest on the other side, the skies opened and rain pelted down. Half-blinded by the pouring rain and frantic to put as much distance as possible between themselves and Arlim, they ran heedlessly. And as they ran, Pod noticed that the underbrush grew thicker and thicker. Luckily there always seemed to be a way open; if they’d had to push through the thickets they might well have gotten caught in a bramble patch as Arlim had. They were soaking wet, shivering with cold and exhaustion, when the path they followed led them to another clearing.
While not as large as the one with the small hut, it was unnaturally even, an open circle in the middle of the forest. And where there should have been grass or cloudberry or
something
green growing there, the ground was instead covered by small, evil-looking mushrooms of a leprous grey.
But even the mushrooms kept their distance from the large stump that squatted in the center. Aside from piles of sawdust here and there, the ground was bare; nothing grew there, not even the tiniest patch of moss.
As if they’re afraid to get too close
.… Pod shook her head at the odd thought. She knew one thing: she was not going to enter that clearing. Nothing could make her.
“Now why in the name of all the gods would someone cut down a single tree in the middle of a forest?” Kaeliss muttered. “That’s not how timber is—”
A flash of lightning split the sky and a massive thunderclap drowned out the rest of her words. A sudden strong wind set the trees around them swaying, their leaves rustling with a sound like far-off whispers.
Prickles of fear snaked down Pod’s spine. Then came a sound like stones rattling the branches overhead.
She looked up. Something smacked her cheek just below one eye. “Ow!” she cried. Tears filled her eyes. “Get down!”
They huddled together while the storm raged overhead and the rain pelted down, holding their packs over their heads to protect themselves as much as possible from the stinging rain.
In a momentary lull in the thunder, they heard something crashing into the bushes behind them. Kaeliss screamed and ran into the clearing, shrieking, “It’s him! It’s him!
Pod followed Kaeliss across the stump’s clearing without thinking. She cast a look behind her, fearing to see Arlim. Instead, she saw a big, freshly broken branch dangling from a tree. As she watched, the last shreds of bark holding it on gave way and the branch fell with a noise like a horse crashing through the undergrowth.
Before she could call out to Kaeliss to stop, the other girl slipped on the wet, slimy mushrooms and slammed to the ground. Her pack burst open when it hit the ground, scattering the blossoms and roots of King’s Blood everywhere. The red flowers looked like drops of blood against the mushrooms.
“Oh no! I’ve got to—” Kaeliss’s words died in a moan of pain. She clutched her arm, then gasped, “Where’s Arlim?”
“It was just a branch falling.” Pod knelt and gently examined the arm. “This might be broken or just badly sprained. I can’t tell. Either way we need to splint it, but we can’t do anything about it just now,” she said. “You must have landed on it just wrong. I’ll help you up.”
“Get the King’s Blood first. Too many lives depend on it.” Kaeliss moaned again.
It was the last thing Pod wanted to do. But the other girl was right, and Fiarin had died for the sake of these plants. She scooped them up and packed them away again as fast as she could. Every fiber of her being screamed at her to get away from this place
now
!
At last she was done. With Kaeliss leaning heavily against her, Pod led the way across the clearing. Something about the stump frightened her and she gave it as wide a berth as she could.
It seemed to take forever but at last they were into the woods on the other side. Pod needed all her strength to force a way through the underbrush. It was as if the woods were determined to keep them in the clearing. Whichever way she turned there were thickets of brambles whose thorns caught at them, snagged deep into their clothing, held them back. They had to fight desperately for every finger-length of progress. Their only reprieve was that the rain ended at some point in their nightmare journey.
At last they had to stop. Kaeliss sank down, her face grey with exhaustion and pain, cradling her arm. Looking at her, Pod knew they’d gone as far as they could. If the madman was still after them, it was here they would make their stand.