First Of Her Kind (Book 1) (22 page)

Not all that long ago Ciara would have mistaken the slight waver in the air as an errant breeze. Now she recognized it as the pulse of magic being used. She jumped as a nerve rending screech ripped through the night, followed by stark silence. A silence punctuated by an impatient snort from Sandeen when it stretched too long. Ciara waited, poised on the edge of flight, her pulse pounding. She strained her ears to hear, and glanced over her shoulder at Sandeen. When she turned back Bolin had returned.

He went quickly to Sandeen without a look or word to her, slipped the bit into the stallion's mouth, and cinched the girth tight.

"What was out there?" Ciara asked, peering into the increasingly unnerving night.

"A scout."

Ciara swallowed hard. "Donovan's?"

"No." And the way Bolin said the word suggested it would have been better for them if it had been.

He stepped back from Sandeen, and held the stirrup to indicate Ciara should mount. She opened her mouth to object, then just as quickly shut it again, and clambered into the saddle. Bolin laid a hand on her knee.

"If anything happens," he said, "stay with Sandeen. He'll keep you safe."

She frowned down at him but didn't argue, practicing her newly acquired self control.

"Ciara?"

"Right," she said with a nod, and tried hard to keep any hint of sarcasm or irritation out of her voice. "Stay with Sandeen."

Bolin gave her a long, piercing gaze as though she had just sprouted horns out of the center of her forehead. Then he swung up behind her, not even touching the stirrups. His arms slipped around her to gather up the reins, and Sandeen leapt forward without warning thrusting Ciara back against Bolin. She instinctively jerked herself forward and for a while tried to balance at the front of the saddle to escape the intimacy the alternative forced on them. But it felt awkward and made her bounce, and she finally had to give in and slide more snugly into the circle of Bolin’s arms. Goddess's light, she hoped he didn’t notice the rapid beating of her heart, and if he did, she prayed he attributed it to fear and nothing more.

A warbling, discordant wail rose up faintly behind them. Sandeen snorted and tossed his head as he leaned into the bit. Bolin swore under his breath. Ciara felt him rise up slightly and turn to look behind them. The wail undulated upwards, joined by another, much closer than the first.

"Bolin?"

"Stay with Sandeen. No matter what happens."

"What is it?"

"Swamp hounds."

She couldn't distinguish how many voices were added to the next barrage of yowling. They tumbled over one another in a chaotic chorus, the pitch rising to new, frenetic heights.

"They're hunting us, aren't they?" The realization made it impossible to keep her voice steady.

Bolin’s lack of a reply gave answer enough.

Ciara startled at the proximity of the next cry. It ripped through the night, coursing along her nerves. The hounds were gaining quickly even with Sandeen's breakneck pace. The stallion whirled suddenly, rearing back and striking out with his front hooves. If it hadn’t been for Bolin seated firmly behind her, Ciara would have been on the ground. She had no chance to see the fate of whatever Sandeen struck at, but she could guess. She’d seen how lethal those hooves could be. He spun again, pivoting on his powerful hindquarters, and screamed in rage.

"Take these." Bolin shoved the reins into Ciara's hands. "Stay with Sandeen. If you get the chance, give him his head. Trust him. He’ll take you to Galys Auld."

"I'm not leaving you." Ciara's resolve not to argue shattered like the long muzzled, sharp fanged head of the next creature Sandeen pummeled into the soft ground.

But Bolin had already slid off Sandeen’s rump, and Ciara could do nothing but cling desperately to the saddle as the stallion pirouetted beneath her. Grey, dog-like shapes surrounded them, eyes glittering green as they closed in on their prey.

* * *

There were five of them in the first assault, not counting the ones Sandeen had already killed. Two flung themselves at Bolin without regard for their own survival. Both were dead before they got close, the small bit of magic they possessed turned back on them with such force nothing but smoldering hide remained. It served to give their three cohorts pause for reconsideration. They ranged themselves across the trail, pacing and whimpering.

Waiting, Bolin realized.

He shot a glance over his shoulder. Sandeen stood quivering a few paces off, Ciara on his back but still in danger.

"Get out of here," he snapped, more at the horse than Ciara. "Now!"

But they were already too late. As Sandeen turned to comply, several shapes slithered onto the trail behind him. Bolin turned away from those facing him, and rushed past the horse to press the attack. He swung his arm through the air, and called up the magic of Ciara’s pendant. When he brought his hand down his fingers gripped the hilt of a slender sword shimmering with magic. The hounds skipped back, one not as quick as the others.

Bolin advanced as the remainder of the hunting party arrived behind him. Sandeen screamed in challenge and launched himself into their midst, Ciara a hapless passenger. Bolin willed him to be gone, but the hounds split into two groups. One encircled him, the other pressured Sandeen back, away from the fight, herding him down the trail. Bolin cursed at the stallion for picking now to exhibit a stubborn streak.

The glimmering sword sliced through the night with deadly precision. But for every hound that fell, another bounded in from the shadows. A sudden surge from the forward group drew Bolin into the center of the trail. Before he could maneuver back a sharp pain shot through his left shoulder. He threw his weight forward, bending at the waist, and hurled the hound from his back, crying out as its fangs ripped from his flesh. Still, he managed to send enough of a magic bolt after the hound that it took out a handful of the others waiting in the trail. The ensuing confusion gave him enough time to regain his balance. If he went down he'd be a dead man.

They pressed in, two or three charging him at once, giving no thought to the scattered remains of their pack mates. Bolin pivoted, and came up hard against an ancient oak as he fended off the attack. A glance down the trail showed him Sandeen and Ciara still hemmed in. The hounds in that group carefully avoided Sandeen’s hooves while they continued to push him back.

Bolin shoved off the tree with a growl, and threw himself back into the melee with as little regard for the hounds as they had for themselves. But they fell back unexpectedly, giving him a wide berth, and one by one crept off the trail into the heavy shadows of the underbrush. Their eyes glittered hungrily in the night. Bolin straightened slowly, breathing hard, his left arm numb from the shoulder down. Something filled the space vacated by the hounds -- something similar, but much more massive. It sauntered forward on all fours until it reached the center of the trail. There it halted, and sat on its haunches as it studied Bolin.

"You’re not so impressive," it said, the words thick and stilted, the tapered muzzle not suited for human speech.

"No more so than you," Bolin replied.

"No?" The creature rose onto its hind legs, a full two heads taller than Bolin, and wrinkled its black snout in a toothy grin. "How about now?"

Bolin mirrored its expression. "You're in my way."

"Move me."

Bolin shrugged. "If you insist."

But it attacked first, sending a bolt of magic at Bolin without so much as twitching a muscle. He deflected it into the underbrush, allowing a wicked grin to cross his face as the magic tore through the watching pack. In the same instant he pivoted to avoid the next bolt, and swung the blade in a low slice meant to miss its target. It had the desired effect. The hound stumbled backwards to avoid the ill-aimed assault and opened itself to a more pointed attack. But for all its bulk the creature moved with incredible speed. It spun out of the way, narrowly avoiding the thrust. Bolin ducked as his momentum carried him forward, and felt the breeze of a fistful of sharp claws whip through the space where his head would have been. As they passed one another, Bolin flipped the sword out to the side. He felt the impact all the way up his arm. He snatched at the magic that came running up the blade, and turned it back on its source. The hound roared. It grabbed at the sword, trapping it between its front paws as it toppled backwards, and yanked Bolin off his feet.

Bolin hurtled through the air, and the sword dissolved like mist as he released it. He twisted in a desperate attempt to get his feet under him before he hit the ground, but his foot slipped as he landed, and he turned the fall into a roll. By the time he gained a crouch the hound had gotten to all fours, oozing blood, its face disfigured by pain and rage. Bolin barely had enough time to deflect the blast the creature leveled at him. He staggered to his feet, and returned the next one three fold, straight into where he hoped the creature kept its heart.

The hound screamed and reared back, but still didn’t go down. By all the unholies, what would it take to kill the thing? Bolin sent another bolt into it, drawing on any magic he could grab. This time the beast dropped, writhing and twisting on the blood-soaked ground.

The rest of the hounds slipped cautiously out of the underbrush, and circled their dying champion, as they jockeyed for position. The distraction gave Bolin the time he needed to gather up the bits of chaotic magic coming off them. By the time one of the hounds took notice of the man standing stock still in the center of the trail, Bolin had completed the deadly working. A hound threw itself, screaming, at him, followed by a handful of the others, but Bolin held his ground.

When they were close enough to see the red glare of their eyes Bolin spoke two, quiet words. A cage of glittering magic snapped around all of them with a clap like thunder and began to draw in on itself. The hounds howled and wailed and then, quite simply, ceased to exist.

Bolin sucked in a ragged breath in the shocking stillness that followed. A warm trail of blood seeped down his chest from the wound in his shoulder. He turned to look down the trail. No sign of Sandeen, and no sounds of battle to break the unsettling quiet of the night.

CHAPTER
SIXTEEN

Ciara had no desire to abandon Bolin. But when Sandeen spun and leapt over the heads of the hounds encircling them in a reckless break for freedom, she could do nothing to stop him. She felt him shudder from the collision of bodies as the hounds threw themselves at him, all glittering fangs and deadly intent. He landed and veered sharply off the trail, dodging between trees Ciara couldn't even see. She couldn't do anything but cling desperately to his mane, the coarse hairs rubbing her knuckles raw.

They ran for what felt like leagues, the hounds shadowing them. Ciara flattened against Sandeen's neck as she felt him gather himself beneath her. He launched into the air, stumbling when he landed. Ciara's feet slipped from the stirrups and she lurched forward with a gasp. She managed to keep her fingers twisted in Sandeen's mane as she somersaulted over his shoulder. She landed on her feet, and staggered back into the stallion’s heaving chest. The hounds closed in around them, ghostly shapes in the dim moonlight. They formed a circle around her and Sandeen, some sitting, some pacing restlessly, tongues lolling, and eyes glittering. Sandeen snaked his head past her shoulder, and snapped his teeth at them. But the hounds no longer pressed the fight. They had become as silent as the night.

Sandeen pranced behind her. She could feel him quivering. He shook his head and pushed into her, but Ciara laid her hand on his shoulder to quiet him.

A lone figure, squat and misshapen, moved just outside the ring of hounds. No taller than a child, it shuffled between them, trailing a stubby fingered hand idly over the head of the closest. Ciara could barely make out gnarled features in a round, beard-covered face.

"What do you want?" she asked. "I have no coins, if that's what you're after."

"Got fancy horse," he said, and made a sound in his throat. "Mebbe I take him."

"Try it," Ciara said, with more surety than she felt. Her stomach churned as the memory of the toothless man calling her a horse thief edged into her thoughts. She shoved it aside. "He'll crack your skull if you come close."

The man snorted. "Not get close then. Don't want horse anyhow. Can't ride so well."

Ciara shifted as he began to walk around them. The stallion pawed the ground, his ears slicked back against his head. The hounds remained still.

"What do you want?" Ciara repeated, her voice wavering. She rubbed her palms on her thighs and wet her lips. Calling up her earth magic, she wrapped it around her words. "Go. Away."

Several of the hounds whined, and pricked their ears. The man turned to watch as half of them stood and trotted off. He grunted. "Good trick. Not work on me."

Ciara's blood went cold. The wilding stirred.

"Please," she whispered. By all the unholies, not again.

"We go," he said, and continued to walk around Ciara and Sandeen in a slow circle. As he did, he reached into a pouch at his waist and drew out a handful of the contents. He let the glittering sand slip through his fingers as he began to chant, keeping rhythm with his steps in a weird, hopping dance.

"Stop it!" Ciara yelled. The wilding pushed upwards and Ciara flinched from the feel of it. She clenched her teeth. "I won't let you."

But the words of the man's chant took shape in the air around her, glowing faintly. Ciara swatted at them as though they were flies. They slid through her and she shuddered at their touch -- like a dry caress across her skin. They swarmed around her earth magic, closer and closer, squeezing in from all sides, and Ciara cried out in pain as it shattered.

Black flame, darker than the night surrounding them, leapt up where the sand fell. It licked without heat at Sandeen’s hooves. The stallion tried to step away, snorting and tossing his head when he couldn't lift his feet. The flames trailed around Ciara, and she felt Sandeen flinch violently as they slithered up his legs and across his back. He whinnied -- a shrill sound of fear mingled with anger. Ciara's head spun. Her breath tore at her throat in ragged gasps as she let out a shuddering sob.

"Andrakaos," she whispered in desperation.

He sprang from his cavern, and filled her with a rush of power, but before Ciara could bring him to her someone else called his name. In that moment of hesitation, the little man's voice came to her as though through water. "We go. Now."

With a roar like a raging storm, the flame rushed around and through her. Ciara screamed. She felt herself hurtling upwards, her body dissolving into mist as blackness claimed her.

* * *

The crone had turned her anger on Donovan when her spy reappeared, screeching its way out of the fire pit and retreating to its perch high in the shadows of the chamber.

"You." She spat at him. "You allowed the Sciath na Duinne to live."

Donovan managed to keep his tongue still, letting her rail until her anger subsided. Now they waited. Donovan paced from one end of the chamber to the other, as the crone stood silent in the center of the fire pit, the dark flames lapping at her skirts like a fawning dog.

The crone's plan had a high element of risk, as did most things born of necessity. She needed Donovan’s power to carry out this working. Across such a distance it would take their combined efforts to see it succeed. Her pet could carry with it the words and the fire but the power that drove them, that would bring Ciara to them, existed only within this chamber. If they failed, the girl would die.

Neither success nor failure provided any guarantee Donovan would survive. And Ciara possessed power without knowledge. A very dangerous combination. No one, least of all the girl herself, knew the true depths of her power.

And if she fought them?

"You worry overmuch," the crone said, without looking at him.

Donovan stopped moving long enough to fix her with a dark stare. "You had better pray your magic is as strong as you think."

"Pray to whom, Lordling? My loving sister?" She snorted, and held out a hand to him. "Come, it's nearly time."

Donovan took the offered hand reluctantly, and stepped gingerly across the rim of the fire pit. The crone caught up his other hand and held him fast as they faced each other. Outside of the fact this required him to relinquish use of his power to the crone, the reality of the working they were attempting excited him more than he cared to admit. As she used his power, Donovan would be immersed in hers. And her power bore many similarities to that of the Goddess. The smell of it, this close to her, intoxicated him.

"The shimmer," she ordered.

The simplest part of their plan, though the crone enhanced it with wards of her own making. It needed to hold only long enough for them to accomplish the real work of bringing Ciara to them.

The crone’s magic rose up out of the dancing black flames around them -- out of the depths of the swamp. Like the magic of the Goddess, it had its roots deep within the earth. Unlike the magic of the Goddess, it went far beyond dirt and stone, drawing from the fires of creation, and calling up ancient powers whose names were known to very few.

And now Donovan became one of them.

That should have terrified him, had he the time to dwell on it.

The crone took all the power at her disposal to the very edge of her prison. Donovan’s power would take them beyond that point. He had meant to retain some hold, to remain in control of all he possessed, but he underestimated the strength in the words the crone’s pet recited in its guttural chant. The working would be felt for hundreds of leagues by anyone of power, down to the lowliest mage. Few would understand its import, but none would remain unaffected. Only a century’s worth of discipline kept Donovan from losing himself to its call as the crone wrapped his power around hers, and stretched beyond the confines of the swamp, to their prize, standing immobile beside a grey horse.

Donovan went with that power, racing across the land as no more than an errant wisp of wind. He dove deep into the ground, through dirt and rock, as easily as water. When he rose up out of the earth, fragmented and scattered, the chant solidified him enough to twine up the horse’s legs with the black flame. Firmly rooted by the crone’s physical hold on him, he would not loose himself, and so he gave over to the call. Shuddering, he became the flame, became the ancient words uttered in the grunts of the crone’s creature, whispered by the crone herself as she drove the incantation. He surrounded the girl, and quieted Andrakaos before he could answer her call. How simple and, yet, how utterly impossible it would have been, to snatch that power and strike the crone. Donovan felt it, for a brief instant, the crone’s fear he would do just that. But he had become so immersed in the ancient power of the working he could do nothing other than what it demanded.

Donovan wove himself around the girl, separated her from the ground she stood on, from the air she breathed, from every physical aspect of her body. Her agony knotted in his skull as he wrapped her in his embrace. When she remained little more than a thought on the wind, he ripped through her, and raced back to the crone.

Nothing could have prepared him for the excruciating pain involved in the abrupt return to his physical form. He imagined it similar to waking the moment before striking earth from an unimaginable height -- just in time to feel your bones crush on impact. He would have hurtled backwards out of the pit were it not for the crone's hold on him. Her nails drew blood with the strength of her grip, and Donovan sucked in a breath that seared his throat. He coughed, and blinked his eyes into clearer focus. The figure between them, in the circle of their arms, solidified. Ciara stood there -- face pale, eyes wide and unseeing, her face twisted in agony.

The crone met his gaze, and gestured with a lift of her chin that he should back out of the fire pit. He complied though his legs shook, barely supporting him so that he staggered like a drunkard. Putting pride aside he made his way to the nearest table and rested his backside against it, his hands braced on the edge to keep himself upright. A trickle of sweat snaked down his back, and he wiped a hand across his face to catch the beads that formed there.

The crone left the pit with somewhat more composure than Donovan exhibited. Ciara remained motionless.

"Well done." The crone’s voice cracked.

It gave Donovan some relief to know it had been a strain on them both.

He looked at the girl, standing numbly in the center of the fire pit, and watched dispassionately as she blinked once before collapsing in a heap. He wished he had the luxury of doing the same as a shudder of unclenching muscles wracked his body. But the working had succeeded. He had become one with power he had only ever dreamed of. He had seen the ancient words the crone had pulled from deep in the earth, and he remembered them. As long as he lived he would have them. No telling when they would prove useful, if things here did not go as planned.

* * *

Damn, damn, thrice times be damned!

Every muscle screamed in indignation as Bolin lurched to a halt. He had stayed on the trail long enough to see his trap prove successful before sprinting after Ciara and Sandeen. The exertion drove home the still lingering effects of his time with Haracht. Battling the hounds had done him no good either. He bent over, hands on his thighs, and struggled for breath as he peered through the pale moonlight to get his bearings.

The stilling of the slight breeze would have gone unnoticed by most, but it slid across Bolin’s skin like a tepid caress. The silence that came with it brushed along his nerves and crashed through him with his heartbeat. Only a great working brought this kind of silence. The kind of working wrought by very old, very strong magic that smelled of stale earth and decrepit remains. It resonated up through the ground, and the soles of his boots, and made his bones and muscles tingle with a subtly familiar current. It gained strength as it rose up, rumbling across the currents of power and carrying an unmistakable challenge.

Stop me if you dare.

Bolin had barely enough time to brace himself before the working tore through the ethereal fabric between realms. It struck like a bolt of lightening, and he couldn't do anything to stop it from ripping through him.

He hissed through his teeth as it passed, and dropped to his knees, head bowed. Ciara had been taken, and he knew with certainty who had driven that working. When the night regained its natural rhythm and he could stand without fear of fainting, he wet his lips and whistled -- or tried to. His first attempt failed miserably. The second went better, one loud, drawn out tone. If Sandeen were within earshot, he would come with as much haste as he could muster.

* * *

Barren, uneven ground and elusive paths made traveling the Nethers a treacherous venture. An easier route would have been to follow the western border until it gave way to the great fen that stretched for leagues in every direction. But even with as much speed as Sandeen could manage, it would have added a good two days to his journey. Bolin lacked Donovan's knowledge of the Nethers, but they weren't altogether foreign to him. There were trails long forgotten by all but a few, and Bolin snatched them out of the recesses of his memory, necessity driving him to push Sandeen to his limits.

There were other reasons besides haste that drove Bolin to go through the Nethers. A great deal of old magic lay here, forgotten amidst the rocks, and under the ground in dark holes and crevices -- the wispy remains of those who had held this land ages ago. When they had fallen and perished, the magic they possessed remained. And throughout history many of such power had fallen here in great battles that changed the face of the land forever. The Nethers hadn't always looked as it did now.