King's Folly (Book 2) (17 page)

“Isiilde,” Oenghus growled.

She dropped it into the chasm and watched it fall. To her everlasting disappointment, the light disappeared, agitating her curiosity.

“Like a pebble swallowed by an ocean,” a voice quipped beside her shoulder. Isiilde jerked in surprise, nearly losing her footing. Marsais floated in midair, legs crossed as comfortably as if he sat on a cushion.

“Does it ever end?”

“Some scars run deeper than others. They cut to the very heart of this realm.”

Isiilde did not think he was talking about the chasm. “Could you turn me into a bird?”

“I could,” he said slowly.

“But you won’t?”

“You would likely forget who you are and never return.
There’s a certain amount of self-control involved with transmutation. It’s easy to lose yourself and quite frankly, I’d miss you.”

She smiled at this, and continued across the bridge. The waiting forest, the rising ruins, and the shadows gave her pause. She wrinkled her nose, hesitant to leave the log. A murder of crows sat on the branches overhead, mocking her fear with screeching calls. The nymph glared at the feathery bullies.

Marsais unfolded his legs, unraveled the weave, and let his boots touch ground. “Your soldier is pale as a worm, Captain.”

“So is your Nuthaanian.”

“Hmm,” Marsais agreed, offering a hand to Isiilde. She took it, more for courage than support, and hopped down. The earth made her shiver.

“There is Blight here.” Lucas pointed his longsword towards sickly vines.

Rivan was half way across, shaking the log with his legs as he gripped every branch with white knuckles.

The trees overhead creaked, the leaves stirred, and the vines slithered. “They’re moving,” Acacia hissed, readying her shield and sword.

“We should find another way.”

“We don’t have time,” Marsais said. His fingers flashed. When the weave was complete, he plucked Rivan from the log, whisking him through the air with a levitation weave. The paladin landed and fell to his knees, touching lips to earth. He coughed and spat and quickly stood, glaring at the dead ground.

“Don’t you dare, Scarecrow,” Oenghus roared.

“We need you here now, Oen!” Words turned to power, plucking the giant off his feet with a gesture.

A growl echoed in the chasm, and the forest erupted. Black vines lashed from the gorge, detached themselves from ruin, and snaked towards the intruders.

“Back across!” Acacia ordered as she cleaved sickly vegetation.

Marsais hurled Oenghus at the attackers like a giant stone. The Nuthaanian hit ground, rolled, and came up fighting.

“You bloody, flea-bitten, cock sucking, dandy son of a lord!” Every word was emphasized with a pounding swing. As the warriors met the rush of vines, Marsais switched focus. An ethereal hand appeared overhead, swirling with runes and intent. It struck the bridge, their only link to the other side. Before Isiilde could run across, the log cracked, split and slid, plummeting off the edge.

“Marsais!” Acacia’s tone rivaled Oenghus’, but she kept her tongue in check, slicing another vine in half.

There was nowhere to go but forward.

Crows descended, scratching at their heads, and brambles of bristling spikes broke from trees, writhing with living spores of sickly mold.

Isiilde coughed, her eyes watered, and she staggered in the middle of the fighting warriors. A vine whipped through the chaos, wrapping around her legs, and then another. Isiilde was jerked from her feet, and slammed to the earth. The barbed vines crawled around her body, tightening around her waist, pulling her back towards the chasm. She clawed at the ground and screamed. But the warriors were battling their own clinging vines and bramble men.

Two spiky attackers charged Oenghus. The creatures exploded on impact. Thorns, mud, and blood flew into the air. The giant grunted, flexing muscles as the vines fought to pull him towards the edge. A vine snapped under the strain, and he freed his arm, swinging at the next knot of bramble men. Twigs rained down on their heads and dirt clogged their eyes and noses.

Oenghus was swallowed in the storm, but his roar shook the earth.

Frantically, Isiilde wove a quick lightning weave. A bolt exploded from her clumsy fingertips, crackling along her legs. Pain shot through her bones, and set her teeth aching. The vines around her legs loosened, oozing a sickly black rot.

Marsais cursed. His coins chimed in the chaos, and he tapped her head with a single finger. A warm tingling sensation traveled from her head to her toes. The vines uncoiled, slithering away.

A bramble leapt from a high branch, falling like a stone into the middle of the group. Isiilde curled into a tight, defensive ball, and Marsais stepped over her, shielding the impact. Thorns slammed into his back, piercing skin and dropping him to his knees with an explosion of twigs.

Acacia caught the second suicidal hedge on her shield. Her blade sliced the tugging vines, and with a chanting shout, her shield flared to life: brilliant, searing light ripped through the crashing wave of vegetation, illuminating horror in all its twisted glory.

The forest pulsed with malevolence; scraping wood and creaking twigs, screeching and clawing carrion, and grasping vines that tugged them towards doom.

Marsais flung his arms wide with a shout, sending a cracking force rippling from his fingertips. The first wave of bramble and thorn exploded, but another wave rose to take its place.

“Oenghus!” Marsais’ bark summoned the barbarian a moment before the bramble unleashed a hail of barbs. Needle-sized thorns rained on the group. Oenghus’ shield appeared in front of her eyes, and another at her back. Pain slashed up her arm. Marsais completed another weave, and thrust out his hand. A searing light erupted from his palm, opening a pathway. He darted through the treacherous opening, past clutching thorn and vine. The seer ran into a tree, and disappeared.

The nymph stared in shock. She lay in the center of a knot of warriors, all with their backs to her as they hewed the wood, fighting for their lives. Roots reached from the earth where she huddled, locking around her wrists, pulling her down—into the earth—away from her protectors.

She could not breathe, or see, but she was being dragged—and suffocated. Abruptly, her world opened up, and she hit solid ground.

Isiilde clawed at the weight of earth, struggling to free herself. Dirt stung her eyes and clogged her nostrils. She wiped her nose, drawing a breath, only to choke on stagnant air.

All was dark. Frantically, she scrambled away from the mound. There was no light; the way she had fallen was sealed. The ground had swallowed her whole. With trembling fingers and a coughing breath, she summoned the Lore. A blue orb flared to life, illuminating a long tunnel. Roots ran the length of the hollow, twisting and writhing like worms.

Isiilde turned to run but the tunnel only went one way. She did not want to pass the slithering black roots; however, standing in the dead end was little better. Surely, Marsais would come for her? But when was the question.

She could feel him through their bond, calm and centered in the eye of a storm—his focus complete.

The tunnel was small and narrow, barely tall enough for her to stand. The blue light pushed at the blackness, but was battered back, deepening the unknown. How far did the tunnel go?

Isiilde swallowed, glancing at the earth above her head. It was crushing. Her heartbeat filled her ears, and whispers followed in the dark.

Alone. Trapped.

White teeth flashed behind her eyes, rough hands, and a crushing weight gripped her chest.

You are mine.
Stievin filled her bones.

The light blurred, and Isiilde ran. Roots lashed her arms, grasping, but she charged heedlessly forward, beyond horrors both present and past.

The tunnel twisted into another, and still she ran, until right and left and up and down held little meaning. One dead end hurled her back to another intersection, through a tangle of roots and darkness, until she bounced off the next.

When she was out of breath, lungs aching from strain and suffocation, she stumbled to a stop, doubling over in agony. Terror shook her knees, and air brushed her cheek.

Isiilde’s ears straightened. She lifted her eyes to nothingness. With a gesture, she sent the orb drifting towards a depthless expanse. The dirt walls widened, opening into a greater space. Her orb of blue light brushed stone.

Hesitantly, she edged forward. Jagged rocks rose from the earth, from the walls, and a feeling of vastness filled her heart. Somewhere in the expanse, water trickled and shadows moved. She pressed herself against the wall, realizing too late that her light was like a beacon, alerting everyone and everything to her presence.

Isiilde screamed for Marsais through their bond.

A sound chilled her blood. A rattle, like a child’s toy, shook in the unknown. Isiilde murmured the Lore, weaving threads with clumsy fingers. The orb of light expanded, but her movements were heavy with fear. The weave unraveled, plunging her into a lightless nightmare.

The rattling moved like a breeze, shifting from one side to the next, and a great slithering mass followed in its wake. She edged back into the tunnel, weaving another orb, but this time, as soon as the light snapped to life, she hurled it into the expanse.

The orb flashed, illuminating a vast cavern of ruin. Monolithic pillars lay on their sides, toppled and broken, claimed by gnarled growth and lost to time. A sheet of dark water covered the cavern’s basin. Ripples stirred the surface. Isiilde blew a slow breath from her lips, taking a step back, retreating into the narrow tunnel. A hiss brought her up short; sibilant and gleeful, topped with a tasting tongue. She knew that sound.

Chilling eyes pierced the dark, lightening sleek bodies. The first hiss was joined by another, and still more, until a chorus of air passed through fangs. Reapers. The predators slunk towards her, crawling on the walls, on the ceiling, blocking the tunnel. Their bodies quivered with anticipation.

The Lore trembled from her lips as she backed into the larger cavern, towards the rattling. Isiilde wanted to disappear, but before she could put her mind to the task, the closest Reaper sprang with a flash of curving claw and hungry fang. Bluish energy crackled from her fingertips. The weave hit the Reaper square, flinging him aside, where he jerked and howled on the floor.

The nymph turned, and ran. She flew over rubble, fallen pillars, and shot up vines, scrambling over a ruined masterpiece. The Reapers charged on her heels like a pack of dogs sensing fear—and flesh. The orb of light bobbed hectically, throwing shadows over their hungry forms.

Abruptly, the ground stopped, dropping into the cavern’s basin. She leapt off the edge in desperate terror and flashing fingers. Her levitation weave took hold. The Reapers sprang, and Isiilde shot up, towards a maw of waiting stalactites.

The Reapers’ claws caught air, and their bodies went down. One after another slammed into the ruin below, rolling to the edge of the black pool. A great ripple stirred the glassy surface and dark water rose like a wave, crashing over the closest Reaper. The tide did not ebb, but separated into a writhing mass of devouring tentacles.

Isiilde’s ears stiffened in surprise, her concentration faltered. She clutched at the weave, threads slipping through her mind and fingers. A tenuous thread slowed her descent, but it wasn’t enough. She crashed to the ground alongside the Reapers.

The orb of light zipped down with her, illuminating the pool and the knot of reaching eels: slippery, slithering, and headless. A whipcord of ink lashed at her foot. She scrambled back and squeezed beneath a fallen stone, dodging a funnel-like mouth ringed with jagged teeth.

Isiilde pressed her back against something solid. A Reaper lunged and she sent a jolt of energy barreling into its head. The Voidspawn was hurled backwards into a thirsty mass of eels. Agonizing screams filled the cavern, bouncing off stone, amplified a hundred fold as the inky mass sucked and slurped their way to the Reaper’s bones.

The nymph pressed her hands over her ears and closed her eyes. But there was another Reaper close by—and a presence. The rattle. Dread pulled her eyes upwards, to the top of her imposed grave. Disease and malevolence stared down at her greedily. A giant hag opened her mouth and screeched, thrusting out a flapping, rattling tongue.

ACACIA
MAEL
BLINKED
away the seer’s searing light. Black spots danced at the edge of her vision. When faced with overwhelming odds, sight was overrated. Her body reacted before her eyes could follow the rush of bramble and thorn. The seer ran straight into a tree, vanishing a moment before the path closed. She blinked in disbelief.

“Blood and ashes!” Oenghus cursed at her back, but not in fury. Despair cracked his oath. She hewed off a knotted limb, raised her shield, and risked a backwards glance. The nymph was gone, vanished from their protective ring.

“Where is she?” Acacia yelled over the rush of battle.

“Isiilde!” There was no answering call. Fear rolled off the Nuthaanian in tangible waves and his muscles quivered, transforming to rage. Oenghus swung with the crazed abandon for which his kind were known, clearing the bramble without care for his remaining companions.

Berserkers were a danger to friend and foe alike—they were the shock troops of an army and the bane of battle formations. The paladins scrambled out of Oenghus’ reach lest he catch them with a pounding blow.

“Captain, to me!” Marsais’ shout came from behind. Acacia whirled, searching for the seer as Oenghus hurled a crackling bolt of lightning at his enemies. The electric energy sliced through, opening a path. Without hesitation, Acacia took advantage of the opening and charged. Bramble and thorn tore at her armor, scratched her helm, and ripped her cheeks. She broke through the maze a moment later.

The seer stood on a flat boulder; burnt and withered vegetation surrounded his tall form. His hands were a blur, weaving hypnotically, keeping time with the haunting chime of his coins. She followed his intent gaze.