The Bonds of Blood (39 page)

She smiled at the spirit of the white
wolf as it materialized at her feet. Nose to tail, it gazed at her
reflection in the mirror with annoyed eyes that told her all she
needed to know.

“You will not really be going on this
journey, will you? It is I who will have to endure in my physical
trappings while you are free to appear and disappear as you wish.”
Even though Alt was dependent on Cianna’s necromancy to remain in
the physical world, she did not have control over when and where
the wolf would appear; it normally had its own agenda unless she
was in great need.

“At any rate,” she said sending out a
thread of her wyrd to caress the wolf as if petting him, an action
she had learned to do many years ago, “I will be the one cold and
tired for the next few months, not you.”

A snort from the wolf told her that she
was wasting time, and with yet another, tired sigh she set to
packing her bag. She would not be taking a horse, even though hers
was in the livery; she would have little need for it. All the books
said that the journey of the necromancer was to be made without
assistance, and so she would not be able to take any other beings
with her.

As an afterthought Cianna grabbed the
thin, silver embossed box left in her room by the twins. Often it
was easier to send a message through telfetch than to search the
entire keep looking for the person you needed to speak with. She
knew that Sara and Annbell were on a mission for their sister
Grace, and that they had taken their own telfetch to communicate
with her better.

After placing her bedroll and
fire-making kit in the bag, Cianna sat back in her chair and tried
to catch a few restful minutes of sleep before heading
out.

When the day dawned cold and clear, it
was to see Cianna on her way. She picked her way through the
courtyard that had seen many fun days in her youth, past large
statues of saints and angels, fountains that were no longer being
used now that the temperatures had dropped low enough to freeze,
and dead, reed-like vines that covered the walls of the courtyard
rattling in a biting wind.

It took her the better part of a week
to carry herself out of the coniferous Barrier Mountains and to the
forests below. Tall evergreens, lush pines, and autumn burnt
leafing trees were a haven to herds of deer and other wildlife,
many of which Cianna did not see but heard all too well. The trees
coated the ground with needles and leaves that let off a pungent
odor when crushed that was like heaven to Cianna’s
senses.

At this lower altitude it was not so
cold, and on her sixth day out from the Guardians’ Keep Cianna was
able to lose her cloak during the day, only needing it at
night.

As she had suspected, the more she
traveled the less intense her dreams became. It seemed that the
wyrd which drew her on, egging her toward the Necromancer’s Mosque
was sated in the fact that she was trying her best to get
there.

Alt came to her time and again, curling
up beside the small fire she would create, nestled in a clearing.
All in all she made good time, being on her feet instead of on
horseback. Meals were small, and sometimes not at all, and through
it all travel was dull until on her tenth night out she saw the
flickering light ahead.

Knowing that this was terrain primarily
inhabited by Chaos Dwarves, Cianna minded her step and snuck up on
the flickering flames. She didn’t have to go far before she could
hear what was being said and so she crouched in the underbrush and
listened to the misshapen, ugly little creatures. As she watched, a
slight pain started to gnaw at her insides.

As Chaos Dwarves were primarily
concerned with war and discord, it was not at all surprising that
the plot they were hatching was one not at all to do with peace and
tranquility. As was normal, when the Chaos Dwarves had no other
trouble to keep them busy they resorted to the long standing debate
of the mountains the humans had stolen from them, and the precious
ore within that would mean their continued prosperity as a race.
Ironically, the chief perpetrators of such atrocious plots to keep
the dwarves poor were none other than the Realms Guardians
themselves, Sara and Annbell.

The Chaos Dwarves longed for a time
when they could be as wealthy as their counterparts, the Dwarves of
Dellenbore. It had been in the past that they had mined the
mountains reaping such profit that they were among the richest
races of the Great Realms. But as often happened their prosperity
turned to greed, and then to hatred. Living in the mountains had
given them an advantage over humans and the other races that called
the Realm of Earth home. From their vantage point, and their
financial footing, the dwarves were able to control much of the
Realm of Earth. So it was when humans came into power, and Realm
Guardians were given the wyrd to govern the realm in which they
oversaw. Darenous (the first Realm Guardian of the Realm of Earth)
had persuaded the council to sign the Eradication Edict and with
the scroll firmly in hand he had cast down the Chaos Dwarves from
their place of power, and in their stead the Guardian’s Keep had
been erected.

It was evident when the leader began
speaking again that Cianna had come into the conversation at the
end. The other dwarves looked to be in a foul mood, their dirty,
creased faces mean and haggard, their beards and hair matted.
Occasionally they would scratch themselves in lewd places to be rid
of bugs that gnawed on their pungent flesh, flesh that Cianna could
smell and nearly gagged on from such a distance as she
was.

“The truth remains,” a stumpy misshapen
dwarf was saying. “We need to have our mines back. It is not right
that our misled brothers in Dellenbore have all the riches they
want while we must scrape for what little we have.” He moved a
pudgy hand down his short girth indicating the mere rags he wore.
Even though his clothes were torn and black with grime (as were all
the others), his battle-axe shined with a clean, lethal
edge.

“Yes, but they have wyrd on their
side.” The assembled dwarves shuddered.

“We must not forget that we have all
the tribes on our side. Small we may be separately, an imposing
force we are joined.” Nods went around the assembled dwarves as
hope dawned once more in their hate-filled eyes.

“There is one more thing, something
that will help us beyond our vast numbers,” the original speaker
said. “Bring out the Looker!” he shouted, and the dwarves parted as
a lumpy mass of rags, dirt, and matted hair pushed its way to the
front. As the thing came forward, the pain in Cianna’s stomach grew
stronger until she found that she was reaching for her stomach to
ease a pain.

“This stone was found in one
of the caves that belonged to our foredwarves. It is thought to
halt the effects of wyrd.”
So they have
been back into the mountains?
But Cianna
did not have time for more thoughts, for as the Looker spoke Cianna
felt something strange welling up inside of her, as if she were
going to be sick all over. Her body was suddenly wracked by such
tremors that she thought her shaking should have made noise enough
for the dwarves to hear. Instinctively she wrapped her arms around
her body in an effort to abate the chills. The pain intensified so
greatly that for a moment she thought she was going to black out,
and only sheer terror of what would happen to her if these dalua
with this hideous stone found her held Cianna on the brink of
consciousness.

“It is believed to nullify the affects
and causes of wyrd,” the creature repeated as if what she had said
before was only the beginning of her speech. “I propose that
carrying this at the forefront of the army would stop any wyrding
attacks the bitches can throw at us.” A thunderous applause
exploded, for they all realized what this meant. “I am calling it
Wyrder’s Bane!” she shrieked over the din.

“With this stone we could storm the
keep and throw them out!” one dwarf called out.

“They have no armies,” the Looker
agreed. “The only people that live there are those that attend to
the keep and the running of it. Without their wyrd they are
useless.”

That was not completely true; the keep
held others that protected it, but mainly with wyrd. Without wyrd
the twins would be nearly useless, but it was hinted that a Realm
Guardian had much more to aid them than just their own wyrd. But
the longer she stood there the sicker she became and Cianna thought
it might be best to beat a path as far away from these warmongering
creatures as she could.

The problem was that Cianna believed
herself to be much stealthier than she really was; an ill-placed
boot alerted the conspiratorial Chaos Dwarves to her
presence.

As quickly, and as startlingly, as the
twig snapped beneath her boot heel, Altavius, her familial white
wolf appeared before her, snarling as though he had just tasted the
most malignant wyrd on the air.

As she stumbled back, startled at his
uncharacteristically foul temper, he charged into the clearing of
Chaos Dwarves, hackles raised, gaping maw dripping saliva, coat
transparent as a wythe.

His entrance was marked by screaming
and scattering of dwarves, and Cianna smirked as she took advantage
of Alt’s distraction and quickly made her way through the woods a
goodly distance from the scene and the camp.

She didn’t stop until she could no
longer see the fire. It was only then that she halted, the sounds
of screaming and fleeing having stopped hours ago. She bedded down
for the night without fire for fear of alerting them and no food
because Cianna didn’t think her stomach could handle it after her
near mishap.

By the light of the full moon Cianna
inked out a quick letter to the twins:

Be on your guard and hurry
home. The Chaos Dwarves are planning insurrection. Research a black
stone called the Wyrder’s Bane; they have it with them and claim
that it can nullify the affects of wyrd. Sara, Annbell, I am
scared. It made me feel as though something was very much amiss
within me, as if my very life force was being drawn out. I am on my
way to the Necromancer’s Mosque, not sure when I will return, but
the dreams finally became too much to bear, and I decided to start
my pilgrimage.

As always, love
Cianna.

Hastily she slipped the parchment into
the thin box and tucked it back within her pack, but not before she
saw it glow a soft red indicating that the letter had been sent.
Silently she wrapped herself in her bedroll and reluctantly fell
asleep.

It was much later in the night when
Cianna was woken by a pain shooting from her left side to the
center of her stomach, which then arched from there through her
body to her head. The pain pounded in her head, making her think
that at any moment her skull would crack.

She rolled over and pulled her knees
closer to her body. Placing her hands to either side of her head,
Cianna began to weep from pain so intense that she was no longer
sure of where she was or how she had gotten there.

Cianna heard leaves crunching under
booted feet, but she could not move to look behind her at the
approaching person; she could only imagine one thing would bring
pain with it like this. It would not have mattered anyway; she
would not have been able to see them through the tears that clogged
her eyes, and the pain which twisted them nearly shut, frozen in
place.

“It hurts, doesn’t it, lovely?” a
rasping voice crooned to her, and she whimpered as she realized she
had not escaped the Chaos Dwarves. “We need you, however. We had
not expected to find the Guardian’s own pet here among us, and we
do not intend to let such a chance slip through our fingers.” The
voice was coming closer now, the gnarled staff thumping heavily
into the ground. “We need to know how our precious Wyrder’s Bane
works.”

With the last of her words the heavy
staff came crashing down on Cianna’s head like a club, and pain
like her head erupting chased her down into darkness.

When she woke days later, surprised to
still be alive, it was to darkness so profound she thought herself
standing before the Black Gates themselves and throbbing so intense
she doubted that she would come out of this room with her mind
still intact. Cianna saw one thing in the cavernous room with her,
and that was the black stone—Wyrder’s Bane, glowing softly on the
floor; draining the room of all light, and sapping the very life
from her body in a rhythmic pulse of pain.

CHAPTER
THIRTY

_“W
here are they?” Jovian
asked,
placing his back to the rock wall of
the tunnel. “Did you see them again?” he asked Grace in a panicked
voice. He was panting, hot and sweating from the run. He had no
idea how Grace had kept up, but there she stood strangely resilient
at the edge of the circle of light the three torches held by her
other companions created.

For days it seemed they had been down
in the tunnel. Days in which they had traveled through the inky
depths of the underground, only once having come to a branch off
the main tunnel that seemed to lead not to salvation, but only into
more darkness. Grace had not allowed them to converse on taking
this branch, vehemently saying that Madalain forewarned her to stay
on the main path, not to turn at all.