Harbinger: Fate's Forsaken: Book One (43 page)

Kyleigh dipped
down when she could: spewing fire for a couple of seconds before she had to
dart back into the clouds. The Witch sent spell after spell in her direction,
but none found their mark.

They held their
ground for several long minutes before the battle took a turn against them.
“I’ve run out of arrows!” Aerilyn said. And without her explosions keeping them
back, a great horde of soldiers swarmed to fill the gap.

Sweat lathered
Jake’s brow. His teeth were gritted down and he had to push his spectacles up
his nose more and more often. Kael didn’t know how much longer he would last.

He knew he must
do something, because if he didn’t, the Witch’s grisly army would overtake
them. They would chop them into tiny bits with their rusty swords and grin the
whole way back to their graves. Something must be done, and quickly.

“Here!” He
shoved Harbinger into Aerilyn’s hands and found a likely looking boulder. It
was only a few yards away, and he wagered it stood tall enough to buy him some
time. “Jake, clear me a path to that rock!”

He didn’t ask
why, he just turned and sent a ball of wind blasting through the soldiers. Kael
sprinted down the path it made and scrambled arm over leg to the top of the
boulder. He raised his fist high over his head and yelled: “Kyleigh!”

The Witch heard
him. He saw her horribly wrinkled face go white behind her ball of flame. “Stop
him! Stop the whisperer!”

The courtyard
went silent — then came the sound of a thousand skulls as they ground
against their bony necks, fixing him with the dark of their empty sockets. Kael
stood with his arm raised high even as the first skeleton climbed the boulder.
His friends fought to get to him, slashing frantically through the wall of
bones, but he knew they wouldn’t reach him in time.

There was only
one hope for him now.

“Kyleigh!” he
said again as the first soldier reached him. It stood on its wobbly legs and
the plates of its filthy armor screeched as it raised its sword. Kael imagined
death by a dull blade would hurt much more than death by a sharp one. It might
take several swipes to cleave his head. He closed his eyes as the skeleton’s
arm dropped, preparing for the pain.

Claws wrapped
around his arm and he tensed as Kyleigh jerked him upwards. They left the
courtyard behind, left the skeletons clawing over one another and left the
Witch cursing. He watched until the clouds swept under his boots, hiding the
world from view.

“It’s about
time!” he shouted at Kyleigh, who roared in reply.

Her voice made
his lungs rattle inside their cage. She squeezed his arm tightly and an image
of the Witch struck him, hard and fast. He realized what she was trying to say.

“Right, I have a
plan.” He sent her a very detailed picture of what he wanted her to do, playing
it out for her exactly as he imagined it. Then she sent him a reply, one in
which she showed what would happen — in gruesome detail — if she
missed. “I don’t want to think about that,” he said quickly. “We have to save
the others, and we haven’t got time to waste. Now fly!”

She turned
sharply and the next thing he knew, they were falling.

He left his
stomach far behind — somewhere safely above the clouds. He curled his
toes and gripped his hunting dagger so tightly that he thought he might break
his own hand. They dove into the courtyard and she jerked to the side as the
Witch hurled a spell. Red, blue, black flashes of light whooshed past them as
Kyleigh dodged spell after spell, careening dangerously for the ball of fire.
He could hear the Witch’s screams rising in panic. They were so close that he could
almost see the terror on her wrinkly face.

Then, at the
very last moment, Kyleigh shot up. His arm slipped out from her claw and he
fell through the fire, hot blood pulsing in his every vein. The flames lapped
at him, but could not burn. His legs kicked out and he held the dagger high
over his head, waiting for the blink of time when he’d break through the fire
and have a clear shot. When that moment came and he saw the look on the Witch’s
face, he knew he’d won.

Fear ringed her
eyes — so sharp and white that it couldn’t have been anything else. Her
mouth gaped open and the folds of skin hanging off her neck trembled from a
scream he couldn’t hear. She was a rabbit stuck in a trap; a beast so clever
and quick that she thought this day would never come. But now it had, and she
was letting out a scream she’d been holding back for centuries:

Her last.

Kael’s dagger
struck her heart, sinking into her flesh and stopping at the hilt. He let go,
and it took every ounce of his remaining strength to fall correctly. He hit the
stone and rolled until he hit the wall. Sharp pain pounded mercilessly in his
ears, and he knew he’d pushed himself too far. He watched the Witch squirm for
a moment, writhing in her death throes before she finally lay still. A loud
crack
ripped through the air and a blast
of wind knocked his body aside.

He’d survived
the tempest, he’d killed the Witch, and now he was finished. He knew, even as
he heard his companions rushing to his side, that it was too late. He couldn’t
fight against this pain: so blinding he could hardly feel it.

He was dying.

*******

Light —
light powerful enough to cut through his torment struck the gathering darkness
and pushed it back. The world swam before his eyes and breath caught in his
lungs again. He could smell the grass, hear footsteps grind to a halt —
feel Kyleigh’s hand clutched in his.

Her dark brows
were bent in concentration, red brushed her cheeks. “This is horrible,” she
groaned, half-laughing. “How do you whisperers stand it?”

“Are you
healing me?” he heard himself ask.

She grimaced.
“No, it’s a … a dragon thing. We can sometimes share pain.”

He heard Jake
gasp. “But I thought that could only happen if —”

“
Shhhh!
” Aerilyn and Lysander said in
unison.

Kael didn’t hear
what they argued over. He suddenly realized why his pain was fading back, and
why Kyleigh’s hand was starting to shake. “No, don’t take it.” He could barely
push the words past his lips. With the anguish fading, a new darkness was
creeping in — one that would carry him into sleep. “Don’t … I can manage
…”

She snorted, and
winced. “Don’t fight me, you stubborn mountain child.”

She moved her
arm to his chest, and he noticed she was still wearing her armor. He gripped
her wrist in his other hand and mumbled: “How …?”

“It can hold
both of my forms,” she said quietly. “I can’t tell you how, though — it’s
a very great secret.”

He thought he
knew. For some reason, he thought he knew immediately why. But then the
darkness made him forget.

What Kael woke up to definitely
wasn’t what he fell asleep to. When he managed to clear his vision enough to
see Jonathan’s clownish face, he jumped.

“A
ha
!” the fiddler said, much too loudly. “See? I told you he was
awake.”

“That’s just because your breath
knocked him right out of his dreams,” Noah retorted. He shoved Jonathan aside
and frowned at Kael. “Are you really awake?”

“I am now,” Kael muttered. He was
still weak from his headache. His limbs felt like the mush at the bottom of a
stew kettle. But at least he was alive. Jonathan and Noah helped him sit up and
as he blinked, his surroundings came slowly into focus.

It was dark: he could see the stars
twinkling above him. Firelight danced merrily all along the street —
illuminating cut stone walls and darkened house windows. Laughter floated in
and out of his ears. Shadowed forms of people sat hunched around the fires,
sipping from tankards and chatting while slabs of meat roasted between them.
Rough cobblestone made up the ground under his bedroll — which explained
why his back ached so fiercely.

“We’re in
Copperdock,” he said, and they nodded. “Good to see you’ve made it out of the
brig, Jonathan.”

He grinned
widely. “That’s not all. Look at this!” He turned to the side so that Kael
could see the cutlass at his hip. “When Captain Lysander got back to the ship,
he gave me my very own fish-sticker.”

Kael was more
than a little shocked. “Well that’s a far cry from mutiny.”

“Yeah, he
blathered on about how he wasn’t often wrong, but wound up thinking I was a
brave chap for wanting to come search for you,” Jonathan said, his dark eyes
glinting. “A sword’s better than a noose, don’t get me wrong. But I thought a
bit of coin might’ve had a sweeter ring to it. There’s rats down in that brig,
mate! Buck-toothed villains with a horrible appetite for toes.”

Noah rolled his
eyes. “It’s not all that bad. I’ve been in loads of times. The worst part is
Morris boring you to tears with all of his stories. Sometimes I think I would
have preferred the noose.”

“Is Morris
around?” Kael asked.

Jonathan shook
his head. “Nope. He stayed with the rest of the men to watch the ship. You’ll
see him tomorrow, though. And speaking of romance,” he grinned mischievously,
“how
was
the kiss of life?”

Noah leaned in
expectantly, but Kael had no idea what they were talking about. “The what?”

“Come on, mate.”
Jonathan edged closer and put a hand to the side of his mouth. “You nearly
drowned, right?”

“Yes …”

“And Kyleigh
said she had to bring you back.”

“And?”

“And we all know
there’s only one way to breathe life back into a drowned sailor,” Jonathan said
with a wink.

Mercy, now he
remembered. The illustrations in
A
Sailor’s Guide to Staying Alive
hadn’t exactly been romantic, but just the
thought of Kyleigh putting her lips on his, even to get him to cough up water,
made his stomach flip.

Jonathan pointed
at his burning cheeks and cackled. “Ha! He
does
remember. So how was it?”

Kael shoved his
hand away. “I don’t know, I wasn’t exactly conscious,” he snapped. But that
didn’t stop Jonathan from whistling loudly and making kissing sounds.

Noah punched him
in the arm. “Leave off. He nearly died — it’s nothing to joke about.”

“Even Kyleigh
thought it was funny,” Jonathan said. “She and Aerilyn haven’t stopped giggling
since sundown.”

That makes perfect sense
, Kael thought
darkly. A girl like Kyleigh was much more likely to giggle than swoon over
kissing a boy like him. He could see why she would laugh, and he knew he
shouldn’t be hurt over it. But that didn’t stop it from hurting.

“Anyways,” Noah
said, with a sharp look at Jonathan, “the captain says he wants to see you,
Kael. He sent us to make sure you were awake.”

There weren’t
too many things worse than having to talk to Lysander, but brooding was one of
them. So he got to his feet.

They weaved
through the narrow streets, careful not to step on anybody’s toes. The
villagers, freed from their glass prisons at last, were crowded together in
lumps. Husbands held their wives, and children were fast asleep in their
parents’ laps. Whole clans had their bedrolls stuck side by side, with hardly
any space between. Though Kael was happy for them, seeing the families together
made him homesick.

“Hail,
Witchslayer!” someone said, and he turned to see a burly man leaning against a
wagon. He raised his tankard, the thanks in his eyes meant clearly for Kael.
And he was just the first.

At every fire he
passed, men and women got to their feet. They seemed shaken and wobbly. If he
couldn’t see the steadiness in their eyes, he might have thought they were
drunk. But no matter how they struggled to stand, stand they did. They raised
tankards and fists to him. “Witchslayer!” they said.

“They’re talking
about you,” Noah whispered out the side of his mouth.         

Kael wasn’t used
to having so many eyes on him — and he certainly wasn’t used to the
gratitude in them. So he kept his head bent low and answered their cries with a
nod.

Eventually, they
found Lysander sitting with his back against the wall of a house. He spoke
quietly with a man on his left, and when he saw them approaching, he stuck a
finger to his lips.

The excitement
of the day seemed to have been too much for Thelred and Aerilyn. He was curled
up on the other side of the fire, his arms crossed over his chest and the hood
of his cloak pulled over his eyes. Aerilyn, on the other hand, had her face
buried in Lysander’s arm. She looked peaceful enough, but as they got closer,
Kael could hear her snoring.

“Isn’t she
lovely?” Lysander said. He was sitting like a human statue, fighting to keep
her head balanced on his shoulder.

“Like a baby
bear with a cold,” Jonathan cooed.

Lysander glared
at him. “Don’t you have a song to write, fiddler? Today is destined for
history! I can’t believe you aren’t jumping to be the first bard to sing about
it.”

Jonathan
scratched his scruffy cheek. “Nah, I usually leave the jumping to the frogs.”

“How about the
flogging?” Lysander growled.

That seemed to
change Jonathan’s tune. He saluted quickly. “Point taken, Captain! I’ll just
get right on that.” And he hurried away.

Lysander nodded
to Noah. “Follow him, will you? Make sure he stays on task.” When they were
gone, he gestured to the man sitting beside him. “Kael, this is Shamus —
master shipbuilder of Copperock.”

The man looked
about the same age as Morris. He saluted with his tankard and his smile spread
to either end of his bushy sideburns — which was precisely how Kael
recognized him.

“Hail,
Witchslayer,” Shamus said. “I’d rise to greet you like a proper man, but I’ve
not used my legs in nearly twenty years — and they’re a bit wobbly, yet.
Why don’t you have a seat and help yourself to the vittles?”