Possessing the Grimstone (16 page)

“Those two are going to make the best of friends,” Shannara whispered to Tolan. “I can see it now. Friends for aeons.”

Tolan couldn’t help but laugh.

###

After filling their bellies, the group pitched tents and settled in. Tolan and Shannara sat guard while the others tried to sleep. They made a fire in the center of their circle of tents.

Pim drifted as the smell of the firesmoke wafted past his nostrils. His eyes grew heavy, and sleep took him.

The darkness shifted and brightened. Pim found himself back home, in the fields. With his farmhouse to his back, he looked out over a sea of blue corn and smiled. He actually smelled his mother’s cooking: it was corn pudding, he just knew it.

He turned to head back to the house, and found the roof on fire. He screamed, but no sound came out of him. His feet wouldn’t cooperate as he tried to run. Pim stood, helpless, screaming silently as the roof collapsed. When he looked over his shoulder, the entire farmland was on fire, the corn wilting under the intense heat.

The front door of his home burst open, and his family rushed from the crumbling structure. Behind them, Neshing appeared, swinging axes.

Pim watched, horrified, as the beasts tore into his mother and father, chopped his younger brother into pieces, and devoured their flesh.

His screams went unheard, his feet refused to move; he raged at the nightmarish scene.

The image melted away, and Pim suddenly found himself on the battlefield. Chaos and carnage reined all around him. The sky filled with magic and arrows, boulders sailed past him, fire scorched the ground.

He found himself dressed in battle armor, and holding a short sword. As he looked up, a Neshing rider with its huge lizard steed was suddenly bearing down on him.

Pim swung his sword in blind defense, and the rider went right through him. He tried to dash off after it, use his fleet to take the creature down, but again, his feet were rooted to the spot. He watched soldiers falling around him, warriors being tossed from horses, men getting blasted to ashes, and wagons flipping over with ferocity. He was helpless, forced to watch the united forces of Athora crushed under the unworldly power of the Neshing.

A cry of agony caught Pim’s attention, and he turned to come face to face with Ono. Ono opened his mouth, and blood seeped out of it. “Pim,” he gargled. “How could you do this to me?” Ono’s body was riddled with wounds and gouges; his flesh hung in ribbons, and one of his eyes were missing. “I trusted you. You were my friend. I wouldn’t have come if it weren’t for you. I’d still be home… safe… with my family.”

Pim tried to respond, but no sound would come. He wanted to say how sorry he was. He wanted to say that he wished it was him out there on the battlefield being picked apart by the enemy, but not a single word could form in his mouth. At last, Pim reached his arm out, and Ono stepped away, fading into the cloud of war.

Pim opened his eyes and found himself in his tent. His arms were reaching into the air, and his body was bathed in sweat. He sat up and wiped the tears from his cheeks.

What am I doing here? I am not a warrior or an adventurer. I’m just a boy, like my parents said. What difference do I make? I’m only in the way. I’m a hindrance.

He heard whispering outside his tent. The glow of the fire licked at his doorway. Peeking outside, he saw Tolan and Shannara sitting next to each other near the fire.

“Just how strong are you?” Tolan asked Shannara.

“Stronger than you can imagine. I’ve fought rock elementals with my bare hands in the peaks of the M’Illium Fells. I’ve survived a battle with Black Worms.”

“That’s impressive.”

“And you?”

“Me? Well, a warrior never brags.”

“Ha! That’s very evasive, now isn’t it?”

“Let’s just say I’ve killed a few of those Neshing mages, and managed to live to tell the tale. I think my actions speak for themselves.”

“All I hear are words, but I see no action. The only action I’ve seen is you struggling to escape a Gnoll’s ambush.”

Tolan laughed, his chest shaking with delight. “They were having a good day.”

“I’m sure they were.”

“Okay, fine, words are not going to settle this.” Tolan put his arm up on a tree stump beside them.

Shannara grinned and slipped her hand around Tolan’s slowly. She looked into his eyes. They locked hands and matched strength for strength, gritting their teeth, smirking all the while. There was a gleam in Tolan’s eye, but in a moment of distraction and allurement, Shannara forced his hand down on the stump, and claimed victory.

“Nice try,” she said.

“By Thet, you are strong.” Tolan grunted, then laughed. He took a swig of water.

Shannara leaned in, the fire nearly obscuring some of her features: “You haven’t seen the half of it.”

Tolan was nose to nose with her. “I can hardly wait.” He leaned in to kiss her, but she halted him with her hand.

“I’m not sure I can handle this distraction right now,” she said. “There are grave times ahead, and a quest like none thart any of us have undertaken.”

“Aye,” he said. “We need our reflexes and concentration to be focused and single-minded. Times will not always be filled with turmoil. I look forward to our rematch.”

“As do I, warrior. But for now, I must patrol the perimeter.” She stood and drew her dagblades.

Tolan could not take his eyes off of her.

Pim could not take his eyes off of Tolan. He seethed. His heart burned.
How dare he? He’s not the only one here! I’m putting myself in danger, too. I left my family, my home, I watched my friends die. I deserve her attention more than him! I’ll show her how brave I am. I must stay with them. I owe it to her, and to Drith’s guardian. It would be shameful for me to give up now.

He crawled back to his bed and yanked his blanket over himself. His breathing slowed, his heart calmed, and the nightmares were forgotten.

###

Pim’s body ached, and his eyes burned, but he managed to drag himself from the tent and step out into the morning sun.

Tolan fed the horses on the other side of camp. Drith broke down his tent and began packing it.

Pim stretched and checked to make sure his sword was in its sheath. He walked over to his horse and patted it.

“A fine morning,” Tolan said to him. “Not too hot. It will make for good travel weather.”

Pim nodded, but said nothing. He heard rustling in Shannara’s tent. Both he and Tolan turned at the same time to see Shannara and both seers emerge from the tent.

Strange
. Pim thought.
Why would all three share the same tent? Her warriors have their own. I don’t understand.

He watched Shannara and her people gather together and start on the road. Pim mounted his steed. Tolan, Drith, and the last Cardoon soldier did the same. All headed on the road following the D’Elkyrie.

As the hours passed, Pim found that they’d entered a land filled with rivers. A pleasant scent hung in the air. The sun still shined here, and the river they followed was clean, and bluer than any water back home.

Gossamer-winged insects buzzed by his head. Tall reeds whistled in a gentle breeze. Trees curled with thick, ancient trunks, hinted at nests of jade birds and woodland coons.

Such beauty, Pim noted to himself, but ahead, he could see the shadowy haze and the dense thicket of the swamplands.

It wouldn’t be long now.

The swamplands seemed a world unto itself, a surreal area secluded in natural walls of weeping trees and fungus-choked bogs.

The path in vanished into carpets of spider grass and briar patches. The ground grew soft and sponge-like. Day became night as the thick overgrowth barred the sunlight, only allowing the weakest shafts of light to peek through.

Some of the ponds bubbled, others reeked of decay. A lazy fog hung in some of the taller trees.

Seas of spotted mushrooms and crabgrass stretched to all corners. Deadfalls grew new skin in the form of emerald-colored moss and spider web tapestries.

Hemlock and nightshade painted a vivid but deadly canvas as smolder boulders were hosts to many varieties of lichen.

Pim twitched at the sight of snakes slithering into stagnant water. Shannara and her warriors were unmoved by the deep, all-encompassing swamps, but he could tell the horses were starting to get spooked.

The only sound Pim detected was the croaking of bloated frogs, and the sloshing of their own steps.

“This is it,” Tolan said. He halted his horse, and the others followed suit. “The animals can travel no more; the land grows treacherous. They are in danger of getting stuck. We will secure them here.”

“Nothing beats the legs Thet gave us,” Shannara said.

Pim and Tolan smiled at her at the same time. The Wivering eyed the warrior and rolled his eyes, focusing his attention back on his horse.

“Be wary of sink holes and pits,” Tolan said to everyone. “They will pull you under in the blink of an eye.”

“The adventure just keeps getting better,” Drith said through gritted teeth.

Instinct kicked in, and Pim drew his sword. His action led the rest of the group, and blades clinked among the croaking frogs.

They crept carefully, boots sinking, then yanking out of mud, hands swatting at biting insects, and eyes locked on the deep ahead.

“Where is this Mort A’ghas?” Pim asked to no one in particular.

“It is believed to be in the center of the swamplands,” Shannara answered. “But that is only rumor. It is said no living being has ever set foot in it.”

“No living thing?” Pim’s mind tried to reason out that question. He swallowed air, then let it out. It tasted strange. A foul smell scratched at his nose. “Then who goes there?”

“The dead.”

“The Lich Lord…” Pim stuttered. “Is he one of the dead?”

“The oldest of all the dead. The most powerful of them all. He either chooses not to ascend, or cannot. A dark magic surges inside of him, fusing his spirit to a corpse long forgotten. He is one of his kind, from an unknown race of mage. He uses spirit magic, and the dead still on Athora serve him. We can only pray that he will tell us what he knows.”

“If he has been on Athora as long as you say,” Pim continued, “Then he must know of the stone’s existence, and what became of it.”

“Aye, he would have gained the knowledge from the dead that came thousands of years before we were even formed.”

“And if he doesn’t tell us?” Tolan asked.

“We’ll just have to persuade him,” Shannara said.

The swamps grew even darker, and the ground beneath them, wetter. Filthy water seeped into their boots.

Pim had never seen a land that blocked out the sun the way the swamps did. He’d never seen something that was both beautiful and frightening at the same time. The marsh was both secretive and seductive. He felt its call, but heeded its repulsion.

He carried on, steadying his constitution, balancing fear with wonder, until a scream almost shattered him. He whirled around to see a sword plunge through a D’Elkyrie warrior. She coughed and slipped into the muck.

Behind her limp body, a dead knight appeared, rusted armor clinging to gobs of ravaged flesh, a rib cage exposed in a hollowed chest. It opened its mouth with a moan, and swamp water poured out.

Shannara belted out a war cry and raced toward her fallen comrade.

Pim stood, trembling, his sword wavering in his hand. Behind him, he heard the clop of footsteps in the mud.

###

The sound of drums filled the distance. Sooth-Malesh ran to the edge of the rampart, and saw them at last.

The first to appear were the standard bearers, waving their tattered black standards defiantly. In the center of the flags, he finally saw their symbol. He was stunned to see it was an image of the Grimstone itself, in its whole form. All three pieces were together, and a rune symbol decorated the center of it.

“Their mages know what it looks like,” Sooth-Malesh muttered to himself. “They know what the three pieces make, and they will find them.”

Around the bearer, a row of Neshing appeared with long spikes. To the crimson mage’s horror, the tops were fitted with the severed heads of his people.

Not just his people, but those of the North, of the Lake Lands,and even of the painted, leering faces of those in the South.

A message sent loud and clear, the Neshing planted the spikes in the ground for all of Cardoon to see.

Then Sooth-Malesh saw it: the first volley, the first attack. The sky lit up with yellow-green fireballs and boulders studded with spikes.

Chapter Twelve

Shannara splashed across the swamp and swung her blades, gutting the undead knight, and spilling snakes, frogs, and other vermin into the muck. She swung higher and severed its head. The body lurched around before falling over.

Pim wanted to run, but found his feet stuck in the mud. Behind him, something sloshed.

“Pim, duck!” Tolan yelled.

He did as the warrior commanded, and a mace swung over his head. Tolan jumped in front of him and bashed the undead attacker to the ground. Its entire body stumbled, falling face first, and squirming on the ground.

Tolan pulled Pim out of the mud and to higher ground. Pim watched dozens of dead emerge all around them.

Drith kicked a shuffling undead across the chest, and swept another’s legs out from under it.

The D’Elkyrie seers retreated into the shadows as their women leaped into action, slicing their deadly blades through rotting limbs and waterlogged bodies. Shannara ducked as an undead archer launched an arrow at her.

The arrow found its mark in another of her warriors, sending her down. Shannara cursed and fought harder, but the dead kept coming.

Dead men and creatures flooded the swamps, their battered armor cluttered with exposed bones, their gouged flesh seeped, and their stiff legs dragged through mush and marsh. Old weapons brandished dangerously close to the living as the lost ones closed in on them.

“There’s too many!” Tolan called as he, Pim, and the Cardoon soldier backed into a cluster of trees.

“We cannot give up now! We are so close!” Shannara said.