The Waking Dreamer (11 page)

A feral snarl split the night as a massive mountain lion, composed of tense muscles sheathed in a majestic, tawny frame, charged from the shadows behind them. The great beast leapt over them and soared toward the Revenant. A wide claw took his head as the lion’s massive body sailed overhead and landed just in front of the girl. Pushing the now-headless corpse off of her, the girl stood beside the lion.

“There are at least forty, sister, maybe more,” her high-pitched voice recounted with great alarm to Amala, her small body still heaving for breath as she stroked the beast’s heavily breathing flank. Emmett saw that her long, curly hair was matted with blood from cuts along her face, her clothes torn in places where her small body had been assaulted. At her full height, she barely stood taller than the mountain lion that was pacing next to her, the cat’s golden eyes—preternaturally glowing as they were—watching behind her for attack.

“Lily, have you seen Rhiannon?”

Before the young girl could respond, glass shattered somewhere overhead. Emmett jumped back instinctively, and at once they all looked up at the high stone walls of the structure to see someone flung awkwardly through an exploded window out into the air. Their eyes followed it in an arc as it landed on the ground near them with a sickening crunch.

A shadowed figure in the window’s high frame leapt out with an overhead dive before landing effortlessly with a graceful roll on the ground next to the unmoving corpse. Dusting aside the gossamer threads of her dress, the woman Emmett recognized from earlier pulled herself up to full height as her naked feet padded soundlessly across the snowy ground.

“Defile
my
garden,” she said bitterly as she spat at the headless corpse. “There are a dozen more inside the house. I was nearly overwhelmed.”

“Sophie, did you see anyone else alive inside?” Amala asked.

As if in answer, a terrified woman screamed in the distance. From across the grounds they saw a pair running toward them. A young woman and man were both yelling for help as a dozen robed figures charged from the woods after them.

With reflexes of lightning alacrity, Lily sprinted toward the couple, hurling herself into the air while drawing her limbs to her chest. She sailed over the fleeing couple and released her legs into the neck of one of the pursuing Revenants with a sharp snap. The small child was deftly spinning through the combined attacks of ten or more armed Revenants as her mountain lion released a bellowing roar and leapt to defend her.

Sophie reacted almost as fast, her body convulsing as she flailed her arms out above her head. She pumped her arms in the air with a rhythmic drumming that Emmett heard soften under the din of an approaching roar. The forest nearly split apart as a torrential storm of wasps and hornets swarmed around the corner of the compound. The entire swarm sparkled iridescent in the night, its great mass hurtling together in a single, undulating cloud. The swarm raced around Sophie as she threw her arms to meet the oncoming rush of Revenants. The sickening impact sounds of millions of stinging and biting insects blunted the cries of the young couple as Keiran waved them to him.

“This way,” Keiran called. Emmett did not recognize the young woman whose hair was matted to her face with rivulets of blood tearing down her skull. She clutched to the man, terror-stricken and consumed with panic.

“Help us!” he was screaming at Keiran.

“We’re going to,” Keiran was saying as he continued looking over his shoulder for signs of pursuit. “Who brought you to the Grove? Do you remember their names? Who were you with before the attack?” Emmett knew that the confusion was too great for them to make sense of Keiran’s questions.

The young woman was sobbing, burying her face in the man’s shoulder. He shook his head, panting with desperation. “You’ve got to help us! Please!”

Emmett felt it at that moment: that undeniable sense of panic. Battle sounds died away, and in their place, a small voice was distantly pleading with him to run. His muscles tensed even more than they already had, his pulse increased, and his brain sharpened on the pinpricks of ice creeping along the back of his neck. He could feel the approach of something that did not belong in his world … something
unnatural
.

Emmett saw more figures emerge from underneath the ridge along the outer shelf of the mountain across the grounds opposite them. They stalked the forest’s edge, their long arms ending in slowly flexing claws. Even at a distance, Emmett recognized their jerky, forced movements as a voice within his mind cried out in alarm.

“Underdwellers. At least ten with more in the distance,” Keiran gasped.

“Keiran,” Amala urgently whispered. Emmett saw Keiran turn toward her, and with an expression born of both tension and calm, he nodded at something Emmett could not see on Amala’s face. Keiran raised his right hand with his palm facing her. Amala did the same, touching her open palm to his, and then lowering her left hand and crossing just underneath their joined arms, Keiran soon doing the same with his own. Emmett had little time to process the image’s familiarity before they separated.

“No matter what happens,” she whispered as they released their hands.

“I will,” Keiran promised.

Amala turned to Emmett and drew her lips to his ears. “I will come back for you, Emmett … like the bottomless sea and the endless rivers that lead to it.”

Before Emmett could respond, Amala leapt away and rushed to meet their attackers.

CHAPTER 10

Amala called out loudly for all to hear. “Sisters! To me!”

The Revenants sprinted toward the three Druids like starving predators. Amala’s sideways charge broke their dash as she dove directly into their path, spinning herself wildly in an attack that seemed intended to distract more than harm. The Underdwellers responded with equal speed, slashing their long claws at and just missing her midsection as she leapt over them with a swinging kick.

The sound of running footsteps caused Emmett to turn with a start even as Keiran was already reaching his arms out to meet whatever force was approaching. A feeling of relief spread over Emmett as he saw the twins Paulo and Sebastian emerging from the eastern side of the compound. As Sebastian ran toward Keiran, Paulo sprinted toward the Druids and crashed headlong into the melee, bringing his iron stave down into an Underdweller’s chest as it twisted to avoid a high, powerful kick from Sophie.

“Keiran,” Sebastian coughed as he collapsed into him.

“Did you see anyone else alive?”

Sebastian quickly shook his head, holding one hand to his stomach to control the bleeding from a vicious tear to his midsection that had torn away most of his shirt. “No, brother, we just returned to Silvan Dea when they attacked.”

Keiran gingerly pulled Sebastian’s hand away and, seeing a dangerous gash from which blood continued to pour, shook his head with a curse. Sebastian hissed at the pain of the cold winter air against his deep wound, his face clenched tightly as he held his hand against the unstaunched bleeding.

“Do you have anything left?”

“I was saving it in case Paulo needed it,” Sebastian shuddered. “There are more Revenants. A lot more,” he said through gritted teeth.

Keiran’s expression grew dim, and he was obviously considering this news carefully as he looked from Emmett to the two strangers who huddled in fear near them.

Amala’s movements were a blur in the darkness, and Sophie and Paulo’s both seemed equally timed with Amala’s, as if they all fought together as an extension of each other; one swinging high as the other swung low, one pushing forward as the other guarded their rear. Sophie’s legs and Paulo’s arms both pumped through the air as Amala’s serpents and the hawk overhead wove through the fray, claws and fangs in an aerial ballet of blurred motion as they maneuvered the narrow spaces between bodies and creatures.

A vicious attack by one of the Underdwellers caught Sophie along the midsection, and she seemed to freeze mid-swing, hands clutching feebly to her stomach to hold her insides from spilling out. As she fell lifeless to the ground, the glow of the remaining swarm all but winked out in the darkness, and somehow lessened lacking precision or coordination, the cloud of insects quickly dispersed with a swipe of one of the Underdweller’s claws at the air.

Even as Sophie fell, Amala and Paulo lost none of their focus, their movements so fast that their figures were blurred by the night’s shadows. One of the Underdwellers was retreating as Amala rained down repeated slashes, her arms pumping in the air at such dizzying speed that the eyes could not even follow them. The other Underdwellers continued to attack Paulo with rending slashes, which Paulo narrowly avoided, tumbling sideways and rolling away just as he raised an arm toward the forest as if silently calling out. A pack of snarling wolves charged from the trees after the Underdwellers.

Another group of Underdwellers emerged from the forest. The tallest creature, its skull of unnatural white visible even in the darkness, raised its clawed hands aloft as the other Underdwellers fanned out behind it in an equal physical display. The wind carried whispers of something terrible like the low roar of an approaching storm sounding in the distance. Emmett saw darkness blacker than the night’s shadows billow and swarm around the Underdwellers and suddenly wash forward across the mountainside like a tsunami crashing down from the sky overhead.

“Dark Fire!” Keiran yelled, and Emmett saw that Amala turned for a split second before having to lunge away from an Underdweller’s downward slash that, without her lightning reflexes, would have easily torn her arm from her shoulder.

The inky blackness roared along the ground at startling speed in an undulating wave, and in its wake it left scarred and pitted earth that smoldered and trees whose limbs and trunks were burned down to cindering stumps. The wave swept out over the edge of the cliff and careened over boulders that cracked in the night. Lily and her mountain lion were too slow in jumping away. The Dark Fire rolled over them, melting their skin and exposing their now-lifeless insides.

Amala and Paulo leapt away from the Dark Fire. It left a great tear in the ground that still burned, separating Keiran and Emmett from them at a distance. Keiran looked back at the Underdweller as it was already repositioning itself in a straight line toward the compound.

“We have to go. Now!” Keiran exclaimed.

Emmett saw across and through the burning ground that Amala and Paulo were suddenly flanked by an emerging group of Revenants whose facial features were already melting away, spitting overwhelming and inexpressible words of dark power at them. Distracted by their new attackers, Paulo stumbled backward and did not see the Underdweller behind him. His back arched as the Underdweller’s claw ripped out the front of his chest, his wolves falling to the ground with yelps of pain. Paulo was rigidly fused with the creature’s claw penetrating the front of his broad barrel chest. With a gurgling sound that could be heard even over the great noise of battle, his head finally slumped forward never to move again.

“You bastards!” Sebastian wailed with grief as he fought uselessly to stand. “I’ll kill you all!”

Paulo’s death distracted the Underdwellers, and Amala, who had not stopped in her deft weaving through their attacks, seized the moment and somersaulted through the air, landing several yards away. Through the Dark Fire, she turned toward Keiran and nodded wordlessly before sprinting away, drawing her attackers with her.

“Come on!” Keiran commanded Sebastian through gritted teeth as he slipped his neck around Sebastian’s arm and hoisted him upright with a yell of pain. Sebastian’s massive frame still fought with what little strength he had, but Keiran took hold firmly of Sebastian’s weight as he pointed at a place up ahead along the side of the compound.

“I’ll hunt you all down!” Sebastian screamed, hurling curses at them.

“That way!” Keiran said to Emmett, pointing to a spot up the embankment.

Emmett tugged at the couple to follow. Keiran strained under the weight of Sebastian’s muscular frame, continually turning his neck to look behind them. Even through the smoldering Dark Fire, the second group in the distance could be seen preparing to conjure another wave.

They followed the building’s edge and turned at its eastern corner. Keiran finally stopped at a particularly large boulder cut for the compound’s foundation and lifted Sebastian’s arm to lean him against the structure’s exterior. Out of view, Keiran placed his hand against the boulder’s center and pushed. With some effort, the boulder fell into the wall, and within moments a dark tunnel appeared into which Keiran immediately crawled. After a moment’s silence, he returned to the opening with a match strike, a lantern held aloft with his other hand.

“Emmett first. Hurry,” Keiran said, motioning quickly for him. Emmett knelt and crawled through the opening on what felt like a stone floor. Keiran handed the lantern to him and jumped back outside, urging the couple in.

Emmett reached out a hand and helped the young woman stand up just as the other young man crawled through. She was shorter than Emmett and probably in her early twenties. Her eyes were swollen red with crying, her pale complexion and button nose framed by medium-length blonde hair. She continued to sniffle, rubbing her nose as tears tumbled down her cheeks. The young man put a comforting arm around her, slightly taller than her with a similar complexion and his hair cut short across his forehead.

“Some help, please,” Keiran said through gritted teeth. Emmett handed the lantern to the young woman and reached an arm out to Sebastian, who Keiran was easing in through the low entrance with great effort. Sebastian cried out in pain, finally letting go of Keiran and collapsing against Emmett. Keiran quickly slid through and pushed back the boulder, returning it to its place.

By the lantern’s light, Emmett could see a deep tunnel bored into the earth. Structural beams framed the entry, and sconces along the tunnel wall held unlit torches. A wet, refreshingly clean wind blew out from the tunnel with the vaguest hint of falling water somewhere in the distance.

“In we go.”

Still supporting a labored-breathing Sebastian, Emmett looked at Keiran with incredulity. Even with the shock of the attack on Silvan Dea and the deaths he had already witnessed, he could not help but stare into the darkness with dread.

Oh, joy. More cave.

Keiran surveyed the room, resting his eyes on the young couple that stood holding each other. “May I have that, please?” Keiran asked the young woman, pointing at the lantern.

She nodded numbly, handing it to him. “Cheers,” he said with a forced smile, beads of sweat following down his angular cheeks. Even in this moment of great flight and despair, Emmett found Keiran’s presence a momentary comfort.

“What are your names?” Keiran asked with a deliberate, if forced, tone of reassurance in his voice.

The young woman said nothing, her eyes staring at the ground. The man looked up from her to Keiran, his expression a mixture of terror for himself and fear for the woman.

“Troy,” he mumbled. “This is my baby sister, Ellie.”

“It’s nice to meet you, Troy and Ellie. I promise we’ll get out of here.”

Keiran turned and opened the lantern window, withdrawing the wick with some effort and holding the flame aloft. Guarding the flame with his other cupped hand, he leaned against one of the walls. A brilliant flame emerged like a phoenix, streaking into the cave down a narrow aqueduct-like channel carved high along the wall. After a moment, the flame returned, streaking down the opposite wall.

Keiran blew out the flame in his hand and dropped the spent wick. He walked to Emmett and nodded at Sebastian, lowering his neck so Sebastian could reach an arm around.

“Come on, mate, not much farther,” Keiran whispered, Sebastian clutching still at the wound that freely bled through his soiled fingers. Perhaps the pain of his wounds cut through the despair of watching his twin die, for he was quiet and still now but for the hissing gasp with each movement.

“Just leave me. I can hold them off.”

“Keep it up and I bloody will,” Keiran gritted as he lifted Sebastian forward. “Emmett, come on, mate. Lead!”

“Uh, right, come on,” Emmett said to the couple. Swallowing his own claustrophobia, he led them down into the tunnel. The thin line of fire illuminated the corridor with soft, dancing light. He looked behind him to see that the young couple tentatively followed, the man wrapping his arm around the trembling woman.

“The tunnel bends to the right, Emmett, and crosses over a river.”

“Got it,” Emmett answered, continuing down the earthen corridor. After several yards, the corridor did bear right, its floor descending with a mild grade. With the turn, the wind grew colder, wetter, and the dull, hollow sound became rushing water. The floor curved up in a low arch like a bridge. On either side were wide openings in the floor, through which Emmett could see a river as clear as an untouched spring rushing underneath.

“I see the river,” Emmett called out over the loud noise of the rushing waters, finding that after he passed over the tunnel abruptly ended.

Keiran turned the corner still supporting Sebastian’s weight.

“Now what?” Troy asked, staring down into the river.

Keiran extracted himself from underneath Sebastian, leaning him gingerly against the wall. He looked down into the water and began removing his shoes.

Emmett’s eyes widened. “You’re kidding, right?” he asked skeptically, watching Keiran throw his shoes against the wall.

“We can’t go down that!” Troy yelled.

Sebastian coughed, his voice rasping. “Either you hold your breath or wait for the Revenants to find you.”

Ellie wept loudly, Troy in a state of complete shock. Emmett had already seen more than he could have believed possible and, understanding what their pursuers were capable of, recognized his only option.

“The water is like ice this time of year, but I can sort us on the other end,” Keiran said.

Troy let go of Ellie, who held onto herself and leaned against the wall. An expression passed between them as if they knew they had no other choice but to comply. He tentatively inched forward, leaning over to look into the wide openings in the floor. With one hand against the tunnel wall, Troy leaned down to run his hand in the rushing river, its churning spraying a fine mist of cool water up through the openings.

“It’s cold,” Troy said, turning to look back at Ellie. “But I think we can do it.” She whimpered, hiding her face in her small hands.

Keiran stepped around the couple, leaning in close to Emmett and motioning for Sebastian to join them. “All right?” he whispered, gripping Emmett’s shoulder.

Emmett nodded knowingly, their eyes exchanging unspoken fears. He watched Sebastian hobble along the wall to them in the corner, hissing sharply as he cradled his arm against the gash in his chest.

“Can you do this?” Keiran asked.

Sebastian clenched his jaw. “I’m going to lose a lot of blood in there if you don’t seal it up.”

Keiran pushed Sebastian’s hand away and forced his own against the wound, the dark blood seeping out between his fingers. “Emmett, help me hold Sebastian up.”

“I hate this part,” Sebastian growled as Emmett swung Sebastian’s other arm around his neck. Feeling as if he were being embraced by a silverback gorilla, Emmett prepared for the unknowable worst.

Keiran closed his eyes and intoned something low. Almost immediately, the awful smell of burning flesh suffused the area as a hissing sound filled the room. Sebastian gasped, his wide frame jerking against the pain as Emmett struggled to hold him despite his growing nausea. He held his mouth shut to keep himself from yelling, though as the hissing sound continued, his muffled cry soon grew as shrill as a child’s.