The Bonds of Blood (19 page)

“—
and what about your darts?
Do you have them in a place which is easy to reach?” Joya indicated
the leather pouch at her waist. “The poison?”

“In the pouch with the darts,” Joya
replied.

“And the gun itself?”

Joya blushed.

“Well?” Destra had her arms clasped
behind her back, her eyebrows knitted together.

Joya reached down the front of her
dress and pulled the collapsible blowgun out from between her
breasts. Destra tried to hide her smile as Angelica and Jovian
snickered.

“Very … well … resourceful.
Good.”

As Destra moved on to inspect
Angelica’s weapons and gear, Dauin stepped forward and handed
Jovian another pack, this one compact but full.

“Inside is your hunting sling, which
will be useful on nights when your rations are running low. Also
you will find inside a grappling and rope in case you end up in a
position where you will need to climb.” Jovian solemnly took the
package and bound it behind the rest of his gear on the back of his
stallion, Methos.

“Very well,” Destra said to them all,
slight pride showing on her face as she stepped back and took them
all in, each youth standing beside their horse.

Destra took Grace aside to say her
farewells, and Alhamar then came in, walking quickly to Joya, who
was busying herself fixing the flaws that Destra had found in her
setup.

“Joya,” he said, closing in on her,
handing her an envelope. “This is for Amber. When you find her,
please give this to her, will you?”

Joya smiled at him and accepted the
envelope, securing it in a waxed canvas bag behind the saddle that
contained her personal items, including the strange book Grace had
given her.

“I will, Alhamar,” Joya promised, and
hugged him quickly before he went to say good-bye to
Jovian.

“What was that?” Angelica
asked.

Joya shrugged. “An envelope. I am
assuming a letter for Amber.”

There was nothing more that Dauin could
say, and he had always been dead set against farewells. When asked
why, he always said: “It sounds too final, as if we will never be
seeing one another again.” So it was that no one ever pressed Dauin
to say good-bye.

Their father came forward helping
Angelica up onto her horse, as she always seemed to have trouble
getting up into the saddle of the large stallion. But as Jesse was
one of the only horses that would allow Angelica on his back, they
had quickly bonded when she was younger.

Dauin patted her leg lovingly once she
was settled into the saddle, and he took the reins to lead them all
outside.

Angelica was a little shocked to see
the sun so bright and glimmering on the wet ground, after having
been so Chaotic for the past few weeks. The brilliant light did not
seem to fit in the surrounding landscape that had been abused by
the harsh winds. All but the strongest trees had been uprooted, the
leaves stripped from their branches, the grass was lying completely
flat on the ground, and beyond the fields were in utter
ruin.

Angelica placed her hand comfortingly
on her father’s where it came to rest on Jesse’s neck. “You will be
okay?”

He smiled at her and shook his head. “I
have told you before we will be fine; don’t worry about me though,
worry about yourself. The road is more dangerous now than it has
ever been. It will take all your concentration to pull off this
task, I assure you.”

Angelica frowned and gazed at the road
ahead. A gust of wind blew her hair fitfully around her face, but
she found that it was pleasant in contrast to the warm sun that
beat down on them without a cloud in sight.

Birds chattered and sang gaily overhead
as if nothing had happened.

It took them some time before they had
finally parted company, and they all did so with mournful yet eager
anticipation. This was the first time any of them had left home for
time unknown, and it settled heavily on their hearts.

Grace seemed to understand this, and
she kept silent as she urged them all onward.

Angelica figured the hardest part of
the journey would actually be stepping the first foot out of the
yard and onto the road. She lingered behind all of them, waiting
until Joya fell in behind Jovian, and she looked around at the
ruined yard of the plantation. She didn’t want to move.

It would be strange living a life on
the road, for all she had ever known was here on the
plantation.

Angelica felt as though she was being
swept up in something that was beyond her control, something she
could not completely understand, and yet she knew that she was one
of the only people capable of completing the task set before her, a
task that she did not yet know. She had a feeling that something
far more than the kidnapping of their sister was happening, and
that it would involve a lot more than simply riding up and saving
Amber.

This was not the first time she felt
like this; in fact, she had been feeling this very same way ever
since the meeting with Baba Yaga.

Angelica sighed and urged her horse
forward.

At the end of the path leading from the
Neferis Plantation to the main road, Angelica stopped for a moment,
and looked back up at the house, hoping to see her father one last
time. However, Dauin had already went back inside, most likely to
start the long day of cleaning up the fields.

With tears in her eyes, Angelica turned
Jesse onto the dirt road and followed the bobbing heads of Joya,
Jovian, and Grace.

She suddenly felt a strange sadness
fall over her. Angelica was relieved to be out on the road; there
was a sense of happy eagerness hanging around her, and wanderlust
had definitely taken a hold of her. However, she could not shake
the feeling that everything was now different, and nothing would
ever be the same again.

The time seemed to pass slowly. It
could have been due to the scenery of endless never-changing
meadows of hay along the roadside. They all sat in their various
states of melancholy, listening to the birds singing as they flew
overhead, and feeling the hot sun warming their backs.

The wind was a constant reminder of
days past, and Angelica slowly found herself drawn into a slight
trance in which the miles seemed to pass without notice.

After an hour’s time, Grace reined
Holly in, forcing their line to an abrupt halt.

“Jovian,” she said motioning him
forward.

“Yes?” Jovian asked.

The old lady pointed along the border
of their land where it met with their neighbor’s fields.

“Isn’t that strange?” she asked
squinting in the bright light. “Isn’t it odd how the hay on this
side of the border is flattened, but on the other side it is not,
as if the wind was contained just inside the borders of our lands.”
Grace eyed Jovian skeptically.

“What could have done it?” he asked,
already knowing the answer.

Grace grunted, and they both
dismounted—Grace to look at the bent hay and where it ended, Jovian
to check for tracks.

“Do we even know if this is the way
they came?” Joya called, not bothering to lower herself from
Daisy’s back.

“No idea,” Grace said, “but this way is
as good a guess as ever. I would imagine that whoever took your
sister and the medallion is heading east, for that is where the
biggest slave market is.”

“Slaves?” Angelica asked Joya, and the
other woman shrugged also. Slaves were almost unheard of in the
Holy Realm.

“Yes, there is a big market for slaves
among the native tribes of the Realm of Fire.” Grace bent to look
over the hay, pulling out a long silver dagger she always kept at
her waist so as to inspect the hay closer. She clipped a couple
pieces and stood, examining it more. Jovian was still bent at the
trail.

“But the Realm of Fire is in the
south,” Joya protested.

“Yes, but most of their dealings are
done in a remote part of the Realm of Air,” Grace
objected.

Standing, Jovian scuffed a little at a
certain point in the road and returned to his horse.

“Did you find anything?” Grace asked,
holding the grass up to the light, and then tasting it as if that
would tell her something.

“I thought I did, but it was just a
stone. All the other tracks are normal for a road, wagon wheels,
horse prints, and so on.” Grace grunted again as if not hearing
Jovian fully. “Those marks were there, the ones I saw on the
hunting trip,” he spoke in a mere whisper within Angelica’s earshot
so that Grace would not hear.

“The ones that belonged to the Black
Shuck?” Angelica asked.

“Yes, the same ones,” he looked
somewhat uncomfortable.

“Are you going to tell
Grace?”

“I don’t think I have a choice. I am
not sure though; I rubbed them out in case I change my
mind.”

“They will come up again, Jovian,” Joya
said joining the conversation, but talking out of the corner of her
mouth, for Grace was nearing them, tucking the hay into a pouch at
her waist. “Besides, whatever the prints belong to might have
something to do with Amber missing. This does not sound like it is
isolated event any longer; it sounds like the beast might have been
hunting Amber as well as you.”

“Yeah,” Jovian said, looking down now
resigned to what he must do. “You are right; I will tell her
tonight.”

“Come on, we are ready,” Grace barked
as she slung herself back up into the saddle.

“Why didn’t he want to tell her?” Joya
asked Angelica as the two of them fell behind Grace and
Jovian.

“I don’t know. I think he still doesn’t
want to let her know too much.”

“He
does
realize that anything we learn
will most likely help us find Amber right?”

“I know,” Angelica answered.

But that question of hidden information
that could help only brought Angelica’s mind back to that strange
night, and the question she was sure that would help. If only she
could remember …

Chapter
Fifteen

_“I
am afraid that after
tonight
, until we can find boarding
at Meedesville, we will be making camp in the open.” Grace told
them.

Angelica and Joya shuddered at the
thought of camping out in the open, for it was rumored that all
sorts of dalua came out of the Shadow Realm at night to hunt the
Holy Realm. This, of course, was saying nothing of the regular
nightly horrors that lived within the borders of the Holy Realm
that had nothing to do with the Shadow Realm.

Around dusk the farmlands to both sides
relented, leaving open plains to the right and a vast overgrown
field to their left. Neither the field nor the plains had crops
growing on them, and hadn’t for many years now, as most of the
people that had once lived in these parts had given up the country
life with age and moved to the city where life was easier, if a
little more expensive.

At least the change of scenery helped
brighten their moods a little, even if mosquitoes were out in full
force making meals out of the troupe.

The steady clumping of hooves drew on,
lulling Angelica into a daze, though marred by the sting of a bug,
and an irritated slap now and then.

“What is that?” Jovian asked pulling
Joya from her reverie to reveal that dusk had now darkened into
night and the silver moon was already high in the sky, lighting the
path like a white river running through the darkness of the plains
to either side of them.

“Those glowing orbs?” Grace
asked.

“Yes, they look like lightning bugs,
only silver,” Jovian noted.

Joya smiled, for she so loved watching
lightning bugs dancing through the warm summer nights, flashing on
and off in a wyrd way she could never fully understand.

“They are anything but lightning bugs,”
Grace warned, “and they only appear as such because they are so far
away. Let us hope they come no closer.”

“But what are they?” Angelica asked,
instinctively moving her horse closer to the rest of
them.

Joya didn’t care what they were; at
that moment she wanted nothing more than to follow them. “Won’t
they lead us to shelter though?” she asked hopefully, and Grace
laughed.

“That is what many travelers think.
Honestly, Destra has never told you of the Hobbedy’s
Lantern?”

“No,” Jovian admitted.

“That is strange, given that you live
so close to them. Let’s see … how does this go …?” Grace tapped her
chin in thought. The three of them were beginning to think the old
lady was not as bad as they had originally thought. “The Hobbedy’s
Lantern is a wyrd type of creature, a cross between earth spirits,
like fairies, and the souls of the sinful. Some even think that
they are the souls of fallen angels. Anyway, the Hobbedy’s Lantern
is a tricky type of being, as they normally inhabit swamps and the
lands around them. They appear at night and light their lanterns to
lure weary travelers from the road into the swamps, the homes of
the Hobbedy’s Lantern.”