Dockalfar (67 page)

He retreated up the hill and the sidhe moved their horses forward. The orb was sending out little fingers of energy, crackling angrily each time a drop of rain hit it. There was heat from it and a great deal of static. Leaves were being swept up into its field to be instantly destroyed.

Try a different type of shield? Or maybe something just as eccentric as the enemy orb. But that was not the type of magic he knew. Mind magic was where his talent lay. He ran a ways further up the slope, then whirled and threw a mental spear at the sidhe. They blocked it with ease. He threw another, and this time aimed it at the nighthorses. The animals screamed in frenzy, twisting in desperation until the sidhe got a grip on their minds and closed Alex out. Damn.

He had to find his horse. They could not give chase and maintain the orb at the same time. The spriggan was nowhere to be seen. Neither were the horses. Either run off, or Bashru had commandeered them. He turned in frustration and a sidhe screamed and toppled from his horse. The other turned in surprise, the orb faltering, halting in its forward creep. Then it dissipated altogether as the sidhe gave it up in favor of armoring himself in shield after shield. Alex felt the mind searching for the cause of his comrade’s fall. Alex put his own shields onto what he knew to be the culprit. Keep the sidhe unawares, because the shields that surrounded him and his mount were not enough. His death was already inside them.

He careened off his mount, screaming, clutching at his left armpit, where the seams of his armor presented a weakness. Dusk clung to the side of the horse, still inside the shields, sword in one hand warily aimed at the thrashing sidhe. The shields came down, one by one, until there were none left. Just a sidhe in the throws of something that was only a temporary death. Alex felt the soul close in on itself in protection. A knotted core of life inside a body that was dying. It would repair itself, if it could, sooner or later and the soul would reanimate it. That was the way of sidhe.

Dusk was looking fairly disgusted.

He was also looking shaky, holding just a bit too close to the nighthorse trappings.

He dropped the sword when Alex got there. Alex wondered why the hell Azeral was fretting over the loss of Ciagenii skills when the assassin could still do this? So the kills took a little longer and the souls still clung to the bodies.
He
could not find it in himself to complain.

At the moment he could do little more than stare. The sidhe stopped his movements and lay still. Alex remembered his name. Aijial. He had been good-natured, for a Dockalfar. He looked to the other, who was long gone with a severed spine at the base of the neck. The two armored nighthorses were sniffing at the blood in decided uneasiness.

“Bashru’s fled God knows where,” he commented, scanning the wood. There were bodies here and there. The first horse Bashru had crippled still thrashing about in its agony.

“I’ll find him,” Dusk said glumly. He pushed himself off the horse and paused to crouch over the sidhe’s body. His hand went to an ornate belt knife, then hesitated.

He looked up at Alex questioningly. An ironic politeness in asking for his leave.

Because of the bauble he held, he was, he supposed Dusk’s liege lord now. He damn sure didn’t particularly feel like his captor. Not after this.

“Sure. Why the hell not?” He flung an arm in frustration. His horses were gone, his guide was gone, his enemy/prisoner had taken out a rather large handful of worse enemies with considerable ease.

What else did he have to lose?

Dusk finished the animal Bashru had crippled. He stood by the corpse, one arm wrapped about his injured side and stared up the slope. “He’s taken a mount,” the assassin commented. “The others of ours are probably following. Fine. Wonderful.

Alex gathered the reins of the sidhe’s horses and led them to the base of the incline. He handed one set to Dusk.

Mounted, he urged his horse up the hill, not waiting for the assassin. He hated the thought of having to depend on Dusk. He would not allow it.

There was a scream from somewhere far ahead. A great crash of branches. He kicked the horse into a canter, as fast as he dared go in the rain and the woods. He came upon a cluster of milling horses, and a lanky, furred form crouching over a struggling, cursing gnarled one. Deep, threatening growls emanated from the gulun’s throat. The spriggan had bloody gashes on him that might not have come from the fight with the hunt.

When the spriggan saw him, the curses started again.

“Get it offa me!” he shrieked. The cub was every bit as long in the body as the spriggan. Her ears were pressed flat to her skull. Alex dismounted and the cub turned her head to glare at him, nose wrinkled in ire.

“How?” he asked conversationally.

Which was a good question considering that the gulun held no small bit of animosity towards him as well. He had no desire to feel her claws again.

Dusk arrived eventually and looked down at the scene with some disdain. He brushed hair from his face and looked to Alex.

“Should she be allowed to eat him for his desertion?”

Alex quirked a brow at him, wondering how serious he was. Bashru had gone silent and quite, quite pale.

“I don’t know. Could she survive eating a spriggan?”

The assassin shrugged, carefully swinging down from the horse. “Perhaps, guluns have reportedly strong stomachs. She is only a kit, though.”

“Well, shit.” Alex threw up his hands and cast Bashru a glare. “I guess we better not chance it. Get her off.”

Dusk crouched a few feet away from the gulun and coerced her attention away from her terrified prey. Sullenly she stepped off of Bashru and went to butt her nose against the assassin. He seemed pleased with the success. Alex scowled and turned the irritation on Bashru.

“You little fink, you were going to cut out on us and leave us to the hunt.”

A look of utter indignation crossed the spriggan’s face. He scrambled to his feet, taking quick account of all his body parts. Relieved to find them all intact, he widened his eyes in innocence and declared.

“I was doin’ no such thing. Tryin’ to gather the horses, I was, but the damned beasts ran wild with terror. It was all I could do to stay on its back.”

“Good thing the gulun showed up then, huh? Or you’d have found yourself half way home before the horse came to its senses.”

“Good thing,” the spriggan huffed.

Then a sly look crossed his face. “The two of you take down the sidhe, huh?”

Alex cast a glance at Dusk. “Sort of.”

“You doin’ right well, the two of you. No reason to have me along.”

“Yes, there is,” Alex ground out.

“You’re my guide, Bashru and there’s no way you’re getting out of it.”

“Let him show you. Tell me there’s a place the dark sidhe don’t know the gettings to.”

“You are coming. Live with it.”

~~~

It seemed an impossibility, but the storms got worse. Lightning was a constant threat. They passed the visible evidence of its repeated strikes in the form of countless charred, twisted trees. If not for the rain, the forest might have burned from all the electricity dancing about its realm.

Twice more they crossed paths with patrols, but none with sidhe among them and therefore easily shielded against.

Bashru started catching the scent of ogre soon after the last incident. He complained and whined until Alex threatened to sic the gulun on him, and finally settled into a sullen, black silence.

The forest began to undulate in vast slopes and valleys. It was almost mountainous in its crests and trenches. What they could make out of the sky was a black, fermenting mess. Even during midday the world was dim.

After a third sighting of a mounted patrol, they decided to hide the horses and go on afoot. There were too many enemies about to quickly hide equine bodies. They had just topped a grueling rise and started down the opposite slope when Alex began to feel uneasy. He looked about himself uncertainly, wondering what had his hair standing on end, that the spriggan or the assassin did not sense. With every step the feeling intensified. Soon the spriggan too was casting wary looks about, muttering under his breath. But other than the rain, there was very little sound in the wood.

Just the constant dribble of water evading the leafy foliage overhead.

He lost his footing and slid a few yards down the incline. The feeling of unease turned to fear. He froze, sitting in the leaves, afraid to move another inch.

The spriggan had stopped some ways up the slope, shaking his head, talking to himself. Dusk looked down at Alex quizzically.

“Are you hurt?”

“No, I’m not hurt, damn it!” he snapped.

Dusk looked at him, then back up the Bashru. His fine brows drew in consternation. “What is it?” he asked carefully.

“Just shut up,” Alex muttered, agitated and angry at his irrational fear.

He forced himself to stand, took another step and felt his limbs start to shake. He ground his teeth and took another and the terror came at him like a bullet. He gasped, rational thought fleeing. He scrambled backwards, not sure whether he had screamed or not. Hoping to hell he had not. Not with Dusk standing there staring at him in astonishment.

“God damn it!” he gasped. “There’s something down there. Something horrible is down there.”

The spriggan bobbed his head in agreement. Dusk was starting to look confused. He turned his back on them and peered into the shadowed forest. He took a few steps down the slope.

“There’s nothing,” he said. “What do you sense? Something magical?”

“I don’t know! I just can’t go down there is all.”

“It’s the vale,” the spriggan whispered. “This must be the Vale of Vohar.”

Alex sat down weakly, head in hands.

Shit. The rune wards that the sidhe had been talking about. Maybe this was the vale and he could not go down into it. The irony was absolutely heart wrenching.

“The wards inspire fear,” he reasoned. “Terror. Physically they don’t keep you out, they make you stay out on your own.”

“Do a damn good job,” Bashru commented, settling down a few paces further up the slope than Alex. “That’s why there are so many cursed patrols around the valley. They can’t get in either.”

Alex felt absolutely sick. So close.

So damn close and he got stopped by the Liosalfar’s protective runes. Then he happened to realize that Dusk was still standing down the slope past the point where he had run screaming back up the hill, with nothing more than curious concern on his face. The runes were not affecting the damned assassin.

“Dusk,” he began carefully. The assassin sighed.

“It is back,” he said before Alex could ask. “My immunity to magic.”

“Just didn’t feel like mentioning it?”

“I did not know. I’ve have no magic used on me for a day or more. No way to tell.”

“Shit.” Alex flopped back onto the leafy ground and stared at the branches overhead. He did not like the options that were presenting themselves to him.

Dusk moved up the slope without making a sound. He stood at Alex’s feet, looking down. “The Liosalfar can bring you inside the runes. I can pass and let them know you wish their company.”

Alex sniffed. Sure he could. He could also pass the ruins and forget all about Alex. No, the soul Alex held prevented that. Dusk would not take that chance.

What might happen was, Dusk would go find Victoria, tell her all about what happened back at the Seelie keep and sour her against him. Then maybe he would convince the Seelies to go and fetch them.

He’d rather sit out here and wait for them to notice him. Only with his luck running the way it was, the hunt would happen by and notice them first. There were only so many places to hide on the slopes of this valley.

“Let him go,” the spriggan suggested.

“Make him give you his word. Sidhe are stupid about keeping their words.”

Alex shut his eyes. There was little choice, really. So little choice. He nodded his head once, and the assassin just melted into the forest below. He prayed to the gods of this world for a change, to send a little good luck his way. He needed it.

~~~

There was a smaller building on the outskirts of the cluster of ruins that was mostly intact. Although whatever decorations and furniture it might once have had, was long decayed or stripped by animals or less likely more intelligent scavengers, it was still lovely to the eye.

The stone work had been accomplished by masters. There was magic in the rock. It had been shaped by more than chisel and hammer. The ceilings were not too high, but they boasted delicate stone beams designed to look like nothing more than twining limbs and vines. More stone vines trailed down the corners. The outer chamber was damp, pools of water forming on the floor, tracked in on boots or creeping more insidiously inward from cracks in the roof. There was another room beyond that was more secure from the weather. There were blankets on a stone enclave, and a fey, smokeless fire in a center trough that might have been for water or plants.

Ashara had not gotten around to asking Neira’sha about all the facets of this ancient place. Neira’sha remembered.

She walked about the wide avenues with a wistful look in her eyes. Trailed fingers over stone work, or stared into broken buildings as if remembering them when they held life.

She stood with her back against the smooth inner wall of the secondary chamber now, her eyes shielded by lashes, her hands hidden behind her. She liked Ashara’s plan little, but she was wise enough to realize it might be their only salvation. She hid her doubts better by far than Okar. He was quite put out. Frantic almost, with the thought of her delivering herself into Azeral’s hands. She could not seem to disabuse him of the notion that she believed herself safe. But then, he had seen more of Azeral’s truly dark side than she, with whom the dark lord had always attempted to curb his nature. Azeral had always attempted to mollify her, even to the last. He had just never been able to defeat the shadowy side of his nature enough for her to tolerate him. And then there was their daughter. There were some things Ashara would never forgive.