Call of Sunteri (Keepers of the Wellsprings Book 2) (30 page)

She’s unskilled with the knife. Not strong enough to make the cut cleanly. There’s nothing I can do. I try to focus on something other than the pain. Try to distract myself from it so I don’t pass out.

I feel my vision closing in on me, like before. See the tunnel that comes right before the darkness. I force my eyes open. Fight to keep myself awake through this. I know, if I let my eyes close, it will be for the last time. She’ll take my hand first, then she’ll kill me.

I imagine myself as one of her undead servants and push the thought away. Instead I focus instead on her eyes, wild and filled with madness. Determined and filled with blood lust as she makes her cut. She doesn’t notice the flutter of gold at her shoulder. Isn’t aware of the spear until it plunges into her neck. Twists. Releases a flood of red that spills over her robes. She chokes, sputters. Stumbles.

The knife clatters to the ground as she falls backwards, clutching at her throat. Mevyn hovers over her. Drives his spear into the other side of her throat. Watches her life drain away. Gazes into her eyes. Steals her memories until she’s gone and her skeletons crumble to piles of bone. Lifeless, as they should be. Someone in the street cheers.

“Pink vial. Rest. Search her,”
Mevyn says to me before he fades again. Hides himself away. Leaves me to sink into the filth of the alley and clamp my bleeding wrist to my stomach. The rain makes the blood spread. Makes the wound seem worse than it is.

I fumble a pink vial from its loop. Pull out the stopper with my teeth. Pour it on the jagged slice that would have taken off my hand. Watch the blood stop, the grisly insides knit together, the skin close neatly. Drink the rest of it, just for good measure. Tip my head back against the stone. Breathe. Listen. In the street they’re still fighting. Something’s off, though. Missing. The music. Mya’s playing has stopped.

I push myself to my feet. Sway dizzily. Cling to the wall. Peer out. Try to see Ki. She’s gone. Mya’s gone. Dacva’s outside, kneeling. Healing someone. Donal. Azi’s gone. Rian’s gone. Bryse and Benen and Cort are fighting dog-men and Wildlings. Keeping them away from Dacva. Not many left. Ten, maybe. They can manage.

I catch my breath. Try to calm my racing heart. Try not to think about what just happened. What could have happened. I crawl toward the lifeless Sorceress. Retrieve my glove, my bracer, my knives. Look at her. She’s got a belt of pouches. An amulet.

Search her, Mevyn said. He saved my life. I do it. I take the necklace. The belt. Rings from her fingers. Find the severed hand. Take its rings, too.

For now, I wear it. All of it. It’s the easiest way. There are still two Sorcerers out there. I can feel them. One controlling the dog men, one controlling the forest creatures. I step to the mouth of the alley. Stare at the place where my sister landed. Steel myself. Step into hiding again.

Overhead, the clouds rumble and swirl unnaturally. Dark, like a cloak. I can feel him pressing down on us. Dreamwalker. Watching. Laughing. Taunting. I ignore it, and run across the street to where she fell. I can’t tell what happened after. Too many soggy footprints all muddled together.

“Ki!” I shout. Light glints in the distance, all the colors of the rainbow. Flitt. I charge toward it. Race toward it. Find them at the edge of the village, fighting the third Sorcerer. Azi is swinging her sword. Rian is casting his shields as fast as his opponent can break them. I sprint. Slide between them. Draw my coated blades. Drive them into the Sorcerer’s robes.

They glance off, stopped by a shield that’s stronger than I expected. I strike again. The shield weakens. Azi swings her sword. Breaks the shield down completely. I stab again. This time my knives sink into flesh. Blacken it and the robes around it. He starts to cast like the Sorceress did, to stop the spread. Rian counters with a spell that binds his tongue and clamps his lips shut.

Together we watch the black and orange crackle and creep over him, encasing him until he is completely covered. I give him a push and he falls backward and smashes into pieces.

“Whoa,” Rian whispers. He stares at me in awe. “How did you…”

“Fairy embers,” Flitt says from the safety of Azi’s pauldron. “Clever.”

Azi pokes at the crumbled remains with her toe. “It’s like what Iren did to Emris,” she says, somewhere between impressed and disgusted.

“Look out,” Rian spins on his heel. Spreads his arms. Casts a shield just in time to block us from the charging dog-men. They don’t attack, though. They run past, into the woods. Free now.

“One more left,” I whisper, mostly to myself.

“How do you know?” Azi asks.

“He’s right,” Rian says. “See, all that remains are those grass creatures.” Rian points to the creatures in the center of town, fighting with Bryse and Cort and Benen. Donal is up now. Dacva’s retreating to the tavern again.

“Oh Rian, they don’t stand a chance. They don’t know what they’re doing.” She winces as Bryse slices the last two of them apart with one strike.

“Can you tell where it is, Tib? The last Sorcerer?” Rian asks me.

I close my eyes. Concentrate. Listen. All I can feel are the clouds pressing in. Darkness swirling down from them. Touching everything. Then, Dreamwalker speaks. His ominous voice thunders over us.

“See how they destroy your town, these so-called Elite. They come with their banners and their Mage. Careless. They fight in your streets. They have no concern for any of you. They’ll watch you burn. Watch your children die. See them, how they threaten. Stop them.”

“Oh, no,” I whisper. All around us, villagers open their doors. Look outside. Some of them have weapons. Cooking knives. Cleavers. Axes.

“Stay inside,” Lisabella calls to them from beside Benen. “It isn’t safe yet.”

They don’t listen. They charge together, twenty, thirty, forty. A mob of villagers. Furious. Unskilled. Wild and raving. They clash into the defenders: Bryse, Cort, Lisabella, Benen, Donal. They engulf them. They kick and stab and punch.

“No!” Azi cries. “No, oh Rian!” She sobs and starts to run toward the crowd, but Rian pulls her back.

“Just wait,” he says. “Your mum is in there. Have faith.”

I don’t know what he means, but it doesn’t take long to figure it out. From the center of the mob I feel it. Peace. Soothing. It radiates toward us, washing over the throng, placating them. Slowly they turn away. Shake their heads. Go back to their homes. Close the doors. Lisabella slumps into Benen, who gathers her close.

“Get inside,” Donal says. “Everyone. Quickly!”

Rian grabs my hand and Azi’s. We run together through the rain, through the street. Follow the others back into the tavern. Slam the door behind us. Latch it. Inside, we’re greeted only by Dacva. The sleeping tavern patrons are still asleep, undisturbed. Mya is gone. Elliot is gone. My heart aches for my sister. I hoped, but no. She isn’t here, either.

Rian paces near the door, casting spells. Protections. He looks beat up. Exhausted. Flitt goes to him. Shines her light. He looks a little better. Keeps going. The others slump together near the fire. Donal whispers over them, healing them. Lisabella is the first to speak. She turns to Dacva.

“Mya? Elliot?” she asks wearily.

“He woke up when that spell hit the balcony,” Dacva says as he presses one of Cort’s wounds closed. “He charged outside and chased after someone. Mya went after them. I didn’t see who they were chasing, but whoever it was was carrying someone off.”

“Ki,” I say quietly. “She was up there, shooting. She fell. I saw her. By the time I was able to go help, she was gone.”

“Never saw anything like it,” Bryse grumbles. “Try to defend their village and they come stalking out, kicking and punching and stabbing.” He rubs his arm with a scowl. “What got into them?”

“Not what,” Azi says, gripping her mother’s hand, “who.”

I know the answer to that. She does, too. We know exactly who.

“How do we stop him, though?” I ask quietly. “How do you fight against that?” I turn to Mevyn, who is only now emerging by my side.

“Stop who?” Cort asks.

“Yeah, someone going to fill us in?” Bryse scowls. Crosses his arms. Looks at me. I remember how he took out two of those creatures with one blow. How he sliced them in two. He could do the same to me. I shiver. Look away. I’m glad he’s on my side, at least for now.

“Dreamwalker,” I say. My voice is shaky. I lean on the table. Start taking off the dead Sorceress’s things. An amulet of teeth and silver. A belt full of pouches that I don’t want to look through for fear of what I’ll find. Gold and gemstone rings. Cort comes over.

“Good haul,” he says, and dumps what he’s looted onto the table. Bracelets. Coins. Lumpy pouches of mysterious things. Treasure, I guess. Some magical, some not. I don’t care what any of it’s worth. I drop it all onto the table. Shove it away from me. Go to the window to watch for my sister.

Mevyn stays, of course. Scavenges through the things. Rian sits. Picks up a ring. Turns it in his fingers.

“He’s a Sorcerer,” Azi says. “He’s not like the others, though. He was just a boy when they locked him in the Dreaming. Younger than Tib.”

“What he is, is an abomination,” I say. The words are Mevyn’s, not mine. Still, I agree with them, so I don’t fight him putting words in my head.

I stare out into the street. The storm clouds have lifted. The sun is sinking low. It glares red over puddles of mud. Casts long shadows across the lifeless bodies littered everywhere. He did this. All of this. And I’m the one who’s supposed to stop him.

“We should go,” Cort says, “search for Mya and Elliot.”

“I would advise against it,” says Donal. His tone is soothing. Kind and wise, like a grandfather. “We all know that they have means of tracking and traveling that don’t suit us. Most likely, any of us would impede their progress. It wouldn’t be wise to go after them now. Have faith. They’ll return.”

The others reluctantly agree. Donal and Dacva leave the tavern to go check on the villagers. Heal them, if they need it. I watch them go from door to door, knocking and going in. I never heard of such a thing, healers, just giving their talents away like that. Helping without being asked. It doesn’t happen in Sunteri. Healing is for the rich. If you want it, you pay. Lots.

I pull off my gloves, my bracers. Run my finger across my wrist. There isn’t even a scar. Nothing to prove that it really happened. Lisabella is the first to break the thoughtful silence. She comes to my side. Looks out, too. Rests a hand on my shoulder.

“They’ll find her,” she says. “In the meantime we need to know everything there is to know about this threat. Tell us, so we can help. We’ll fight beside you.”

“Him? He’s just a kid,” Bryse grumbles. “Loose cannon, too. He broke Rian’s ward. You saw him. Ran right out of it. Left us all out in the open. Everybody knows you don’t just plow through a shield ward.”

“He did,” Benen says, “but then he singlehandedly destroyed that Sorcerer who was on us. You got the Necromancer, too, didn’t, you?”

I glance at Mevyn. He bobs his head. He’ll let me take the credit for it. He’s not planning on coming out any time soon. I nod.

“He defeated the one we chased down, too,” Rian says. “There’s more to Tib than meets the eye.”

“Tell us, then,” Lisabella says. I feel the peace around her. I let it touch me. It’s helpful. Soft and warm. It reminds me of Saesa, drawing the green cloak over my shoulders in the chill winds of Cerion, the day we met. I look at Mevyn, who’s examining the tooth amulet. His eyes meet mine as he sets it down slowly. Did he know then, how strong our enemy was? Did he know what we’d be facing?

“Well?” I ask him. “Are you going to tell them, or not?”

The others stare at me, wide-eyed. I know how it looks. Except for Azi, Rian and Flitt, the others can’t see Mevyn. To them, it looks like I’m talking to a table. I don’t care. I want this to be over with. It’s time to hear the truth. I’ll make him tell them. Tell me too. I’m sick of his secrets and manipulations. Sick of wondering whose side he’s really on.

“Tell them,” I say. “Show them. They want to help.”

“
Not yet,
” he says sternly. Forcefully.

“Fine.” I turn to the others. “I’ll tell you myself, then. What I know.”

“You will do no such thing,”
he seethes.

“I’ll do what I want,” I say angrily, “and you can’t stop me. You swore. You swore you’d stay out of my head. You swore that if I did what you said, you’d never control me again.”