The Shattered Land: The Dreaming Dark - Book 2 (36 page)

You destroy failures, Lei. It is the way of your house—and the way of the world. It is a mercy to end the suffering of such a thing. I merely offer you that same mercy
.

Lei searched the trees ahead, looking for some sign of Pierce. She kept walking, and for the moment her anger burned away her exhaustion. “Is that what your Lord of Blades says? It’s a mercy to destroy humanity?”

The eerie
rustling
came again, a flutter across his form.
We are guided by a force far greater than any one warforged, and I was not talking about humanity. I was talking about you
.

“Then who—”

Her complaint was cut off by a song. A woman’s voice, faint and full of sorrow. Lei’s staff. She couldn’t quite hear the words, but somehow she knew their meaning.
Death surrounds you, beyond your metal guardians. Strike the shadows, for the truth is not what it seems
. Lei could feel anguish sweeping over her, and she knew this pain was trapped within the staff. She could almost touch the spirit within, but somehow it was just beyond her reach.

Lei had stopped the instant the song began, frozen by the despair that flowed from the staff. Hydra raised its arms, and she could see Harmattan’s gleaming eyes watching her from within the shroud of steel.

What is it?

“Danger.” Was he asking for her opinion, or did he know more about the power of the staff?

Harmattan hissed a command in a language Lei didn’t recognize. The four scouts spun in place, forming a perimeter with a pair of eyes at each cardinal point.

Stay between Hydra, little one. We may as well protect you until you choose to die
. Harmattan strode out of the circle.

Lei scowled but held her ground. The staff was murmuring quietly, singing of circling death.

An instant later a long, low shape melted out of the undergrowth and raced toward the warforged. Lei caught a glimpse of a lean, black panther-like creature racing forward on six legs. A pair of long, whip-like tentacles flowed out from its shoulder-blades, each tipped with vicious bone hooks. Its gleaming red eyes met hers, its lips drew back in a snarl—and then she saw one of Hydra’s spiked arms pass right through its skull.

There was no blood, no sound of impact, and no reaction from the creature. Instead, it lashed out with its tentacles. It seemed to be flailing at empty air, until the attacking Hydra staggered back. A gouge appeared across his chest, accompanied by the sound of bone scraping against steel.

Lei remembered Daine’s last lunch at the Ship’s Cat—the meat that had appeared to be floating off the plate.
Displacer beast!
The creature she could see was just an illusion, a reflected image of the invisible predator that lurked nearby. Hitting such a creature would be a matter of luck as much as skill, trying to guess where it was by the blows it landed on its victims.

The hunter wasn’t alone. Even as Lei and the warforged turned to face the attacker, three more of the beasts leapt from the shadows. Two of Hydra’s sentinels reeled from invisible blows, and a powerful stroke dug a furrow into Harmattan’s chest—a wound that vanished an instant later. Lei paused, gripped by indecision. Should she join in the battle, or leave the warforged to fight on their own?

The conflict was over before she had time to decide. Harmattan seemed to
explode
outwards. A whirlwind of razor-sharp metal swept across the path, and Lei heard the sound of tearing flesh and agonized howls that fell silent within seconds. The steel hurricane swept around Lei and Hydra, leaving the mangled corpses of the four beasts in its wake. For an instant, Lei saw the head of the warforged soldier floating in a maelstrom of metal. Then the whirlwind collapsed in on itself, coalescing into the solid humanoid form of Harmattan. A rattling, intense shiver ran through his form, scattering blood and bits of flesh onto the ground.

Just like a dog
, Lei thought. Her mind was almost blank with shock from what she had just seen. The displacer beasts had
died in an instant, and their corpses could barely be recognized. She’d thought of Harmattan as a ghost earlier, but now she wondered
—How can you fight something like that?

Indigo leapt out of the jungle, her adamantine blades extended. Pierce appeared behind her, an arrow to his bow. He glanced around the battlefield, studying the carnage.

“Excellent work,” Hydra hissed, four voices speaking at once. “Without your skills, we should certainly have been destroyed.”

“I am certain your role in this battle was
exactly
as significant as mine,” Indigo replied. Harmattan rustled, and she inclined her head toward him as her blades slid back into their sheaths. “My apologies to you. Pierce and I should not have let this go undetected.”

Pierce was keeping his eyes down on the ground, examining one of the devastated corpses. His bow was lowered.
He’s … embarrassed
, Lei realized, and it certainly wasn’t like him to let a threat slip by.

It is done
, Harmattan said,
but it seems we need more eyes in the darkness. We are close, and we cannot afford to miss the door. Hydra. Spread out. Three point search, serpent spread
. His glowing eyes turned toward Lei.
I think that I can watch our little cousin
.

Indigo and three of the Hydras scattered into the jungle. Pierce paused for a moment and glanced at Lei, but he followed Indigo without speaking.

Lei shivered. Harmattan was deadlier than she’d thought possible, but right now … right now, it was Pierce that frightened her.

I
knew
we couldn’t trust you!”

Gerrion was lying on the ground, and blood from his earlier wound was running into his eyes, but even with his hands bound behind his back, Gerrion was not to be underestimated. He twisted to the side just in time to avoid the blow, and Daine’s club dug a furrow in the earth. Daine had put too much strength behind the attack, and as he recovered, Gerrion launched a sweeping kick at Daine’s knees. As quick as he was, the half-elf wasn’t fast enough, and Daine darted back out of the way.

“Get up,” Daine growled. “I want to knock you down again.”

Gerrion slowly rose to his feet. His jaws worked around his gag, but all he could manage were unintelligible grunts. Daine had already broken a few of Gerrion’s ribs, and there was a faint froth of blood around the gag. Gerrion had a pleading look in his pale eyes, and he shook his head frantically, but Daine couldn’t decide if this was a protestation of innocence or a simple plea to end the pain.

On consideration, he decided that he didn’t care.

“What’s that? Something’s wrong?” He took a step closer to the wounded half-elf.

Desperate nodding.

“It’s not what it seems?”

Gerrion shook his head, blood slowly trickling down his cheek.

“Tell that to Lei, you gray bastard!” Daine smashed the club into the side of Gerrion’s face, and he felt a cheekbone give way.

Gerrion staggered, but he was tougher than Daine had anticipated. He took a step back, but instead of falling he lashed out with a foot, moving with surprising speed given his condition. This time, Daine wasn’t his target; he struck with his left foot, and even as Daine stepped back, Gerrion looped the trailing vine around the club, pulling it from Daine’s grip and sending it flying.

It was a valiant effort, but Gerrion could barely stand—while Daine was driven by pure fury. An instant later, Daine slammed into Gerrion with his shoulder, sending the half-elf tumbling back to the earth.

“I
said
I’d kill you!” he shouted.

He aimed a savage kick at Gerrion’s broken ribs, and the half-elf jerked in pain. Reaching down, he grabbed the nearest heavy object—a chunk of rock that might have been the toe of a giant statue—and brought it down with terrible force, again and again. Finally he stopped. Panting, he straightened up and looked at the elves who were standing around Lakashtai. He let the stone fall to the ground, and he tried to ignore the ruin at his feet.

The dark elves watched in silence. Lakashtai was still unconscious; she lay on the ground before the elves, her wrists and ankles bound together.

“Satisfied?” Daine said, wiping his bloody hands on his sleeves.

Shen’kar slowly walked forward, his scorpion-shell armor gleaming in the moonlight. He still held Daine’s dagger in his hand. “A fierce battle. For one of tainted blood, the firebinder fought well.”

Daine spit on the gory corpse. “Not well enough.”

“Truth. You say he betrayed you?”

“All I know is that he lured us away from our friends—and I’m sure he didn’t have our best interests at heart.” He kicked Gerrion’s corpse. “I don’t know what you’ve got against these firebinders, and I don’t care. Just cut me free of this traitor and we’ll be on our way.”

Shen’kar studied him, or so Daine thought; the apparent lack of pupils was deeply disconcerting. “That is not to be.” He drew one of the weapons from behind his back—a rod of dark wood, set with fangs along the edge—or were they scorpion stingers? Behind him, the other elves had produced blades and chains.

“We had a deal!”

“We agreed to decide your fate after this battle, so we have. Even if you had not brought pain to Xu’sasar, even if you were not despoilers of the land, you sought the city of glass in the season of fire. We can give you no mercy.”

“But I killed this … firebinder!”

“Yes. Perhaps that will earn you rebirth as one of the Qaltiar. Let us send you to the testing grounds.” The dark elf raised dagger and rod and took a step forward.

“Wait. Wait!” Daine cried, holding up his empty hands. “Very well. I accept my fate, but before you kill me, there is something I took from your people—something you should have back.”

“What is?” Shen’kar said, curious.

“This,” Daine said, smashing him in the face with the wooden club.

A few minutes earlier …

“Act,” Shen’kar sang. “Kill the firebinder.”

Daine studied Gerrion. The tattooed flames around his face, his short but clearly pointed ears, his eyes—slightly too large, strangely pale. The gray skin. He’d seen half-elves before, and for all he knew, Xen’drik was filled with gray-skinned elves. Now he guessed that Gerrion’s coloring was a faded mirror of his elven parent.

He tested the weight of the baton in his hand. Gerrion was unarmed, his wrists bound behind his back. It would be a simple matter to kill him. Perhaps these elves
would
let him go. Perhaps he and Lakashtai could find their way through the jungle on his own.

In his mind’s eye, he saw a man with a crossbow standing in an alley in Stormreach. Gerrion had aided them against
the Riedrans, without any promise of aid. As angry as he was about being separated from Lei and Pierce, Daine couldn’t help but believe that it had been an accident. If Gerrion had meant to harm them, he could have simply left them to die in that alley.

“Act with speed,” Shen’kar called again. “Lest Xan’tora be sent to touch your mate.”

“She’s …” Daine stopped himself.
This isn’t the time to argue
. Mate or not, the last thing he wanted was for the elves to poison Lakashtai—at the very least, he needed to buy time. He dropped into a battle stance, bringing the club up into a low guard position and slowly circled to the left, away from the elves.

Gerrion watched him warily.

Daine studied the elves. They had little in the way of armor, mostly pieces of shell or chitin attached to strips of leather, but they were armed, there were four of them, and they had poison on their side—and possibly magic or trickery they simply hadn’t revealed. He was bound to Gerrion, and Gerrion wasn’t even armed. He sighed. Perhaps it was a no-win situation. Could he kill Gerrion, if it would save Lei?

We need Gerrion. We cannot find our way through the jungle alone
.

That’s right! You can’t kill me!

The thoughts were those of Lakashtai and Gerrion, pressing into Daine’s mind. He kept circling, trying to keep his face blank.
Lakashtai? You’re awake?

Yes. I believe that I can escape these bonds, but it will take time
.