When True Night Falls (30 page)

And, of course, their ruse with Rozca. God, there was so much riding on that....

At night Tarrant joined them. He had insisted that Damien and Hesseth continue traveling through some of the daylight hours, which meant that he spent the first few hours of evening searching them out and catching up. Damien tried to ignore the twisting in his gut in those hours. It was hard to forget what had happened in the rakhlands, when Tarrant’s failure to join them on time had resulted in days of torturous travel and nights of pain and fear. But there were no caves along their path, Tarrant had told them, which meant that he didn’t have the option of taking shelter with them. For once Damien didn’t question him. They seemed to have grown past petty questions of trust and annoyance into a relationship that was firmly rooted in their common need.

I trust him
, Damien thought, studying the Hunter’s lean profile.
Under the right circumstances I would trust him with my life
. It was a new and not wholly comfortable feeling.

It was Tarrant who studied the currents of earth-fae that coursed about their feet, Tarrant who read meaning into their depth and their direction and a thousand other elements that Damien couldn’t begin to guess at. Sometimes he Worked his vision and tried to See as the Hunter did, but though he could observe the silver-blue currents he could not decipher their mysteries. As Tarrant explained when he voiced his frustration, a man who looked at the sky once a longmonth, and then only for a moment, might see that it was blue, but the man whose eyes were open twenty-four hours a day for a lifetime could distinguish a thousand hues in the very same heavens. So it was with them. And when Tarrant announced that the currents were shifting, that their response to his own malevolence was subtly changing, Damien took his word for the fact that someone or something must be causing it. He sure as hell couldn’t See the difference.

At last the scraggly woods gave way to forest proper, and they knew by that sign that they were now south of the inland sea, and past the last of its cities. Damien breathed a sigh of relief. In the lands of the Protectorates the Matrias’ word was still law, but sparse population and limited lines of communication made the risk of active pursuit considerably less. Or so he tried to convince himself, as they entered the depths of the Protectors’ woods.

Here there was a canopy proper, rich in verdant foliage. The light which filtered down to the ground was less than ideal for growth, which limited the number of plants that could take root in the shadowed earth. The horses trod this land with ease, and for the first time since leaving Mercia, Damien felt they were making good time.

To where
? he thought.
Toward what
?

Near dawn each day they gathered around a minimal campfire and laid out their maps. Tarrant had begun to sketch in the patterns of power that he was observing, so that his own map of choice had begun to resemble the fae-charts back home. Tremors had struck three times while they traveled, and the surge of earth-fae which accompanied all earthquakes had given the Hunter even more information about the southern terrain. One of them had occurred so soon after sunset that Damien had had a vision of Tarrant trapped in mid-transformation, burned to a crisp by the untamable power of the earth. The Hunter had merely smiled when he spoke of it, but it seemed to Damien that he, too, was less confident, and before he transformed himself each morning the priest could see him carefully studying the currents, searching for that ever-so-slight irregularity which would warn of a quake in the making.

Southward, the maps said. Southward along the spine of a narrow, serpentine continent. Southward in a narrow channel between where the Protectors ruled and where barren mountains held sway. Or over those mountains at one of three passes, and into the lands of the Terata. Monsters, ghouls, or demonkin, they hunted mere humans for amusement and then rendered them down for meat. Or so the legends said. Damien—who had seen enough monstrosities in Tarrant’s cursed domain to last him a lifetime—had no desire to test them.

Southward to where the continent that sheltered them pointed like a slender finger to the islands beyond. On one of those—an immense land, the size of three landbound nations combined—Mercia’s enemies were said to shelter. An unholy army, gaining strength against the day when it would be ready to attack at last. The Church folk feared them enough to fortify the length of the coast with citadels, so that even in the most dismal, inhospitable reaches some Protector was waiting with his guards. The terrain itself had worked in their favor; there were so few places along the coast where an invading ship might harbor safely that it really was possible to guard it all. As long as the cities on the southernmost tip kept their own walls strong, and were ever vigilant....

That was where they were headed, that southern tip. Tarrant insisted. They must have more information on their enemy before making any move, and that was the best place to garner it. Though the cities there were linked to their northern neighbors by the Church, they were nominally independent, which meant that with a little luck—and a lot of careful Workings—the party might be able to supply itself with food, information, and weapons without getting killed in the process. Even more important, the currents which coursed northward in this region would be free from interference there, and Tarrant might be able to work a Knowing of considerable power. He was quick to remind them that while the currents had worked against them in the rakhlands, bringing their fae-scent to the enemy while hindering their own efforts, here they were downcurrent of the enemy. Information would flow to them like a scent on the wind, and they need exert no special power to interpret it. All they had to do was get upcurrent of the cities, so that the patterns were clear.

About damned time something worked in our favor
, Damien thought. As he strapped his all-too-limited supplies onto his horse’s back, and settled his one weapon between his shoulders.
We need all the help we can get
.

Evening. The sun had set a while ago and the Core was too low for its light to make much difference; the forest air was a gloomy gray, and their tiny campfire did little to brighten it.

“Something’s coming,” Hesseth whispered.

They had found a stretch of clear ground to camp on, where no trees obscured their view of the night sky. The ground was hard and cold and uninviting, but being out from under the canopy meant Tarrant could find them that much faster. Now Damien wondered how wise that choice had been. It meant little that Tarrant found them quickly, if the enemy found them first. The rocky promontory gave them high ground, but the trees surrounding them would hide any attackers. Bad combination.

He brushed some loose dirt over the fire as he whispered to Hesseth, “Where?”

She shook her head. He saw her straining forward with her long, tufted ears, as if trying to focus on some distant sound. He listened as hard as he could himself, but heard nothing amiss. Which didn’t mean anything, of course. His human senses were considerably less acute than hers.

At least the rustlings and chirrupings which surrounded them hadn’t ceased. That meant that no large animal was prowling nearby, which might have frightened the forest’s smaller inhabitants into a wary silence. Damien took his sword in hand and tightened his fingers about the grip. If the smaller animals weren’t scared, that meant that nothing large was nearby ... or that whatever was on the prowl had no flesh of its own for them to sense. How long had it been since they’d encountered anything demonic? The faeborn of this region had chosen to cluster about the city gates, leaving them thus far in peace. But there would come a time when they were far enough from the cities that whatever creatures man’s fear spawned might look closer to home for sustenance....

He drew in a deep breath and Worked his sight. For a moment the gray mist resisted, refusing to give way. Then the currents began to glow about him, the cool silver-gray of the earth-power—

And he cursed. Loudly. Rising to his feet with his sword in hand, feeling his fingers spasm fearfully about the grip. Hesseth rose beside him, and before she could ask what he had Seen, he told her, “Something very dark. Very hungry. It’s coming this way.” The last time he had sensed a power like this had been in Tarrant’s Forest, where the man’s own murderous instincts had tainted the earth-fae. Here the threat was more specific, but every bit as unwholesome. And as terrifying.

—Speaking of Tarrant, where was he when you needed him?

“There.” He pointed to the south, where it seemed to him that the current was changing. Dark threads floated in the low-lying mist, pulsing as if in time to some inner heartbeat. He could smell its dark pollution, not with his nose but with his inner senses, and the reek of stale blood and rotting flesh made him want to vomit. He fought the sensation, even as he gathered himself to Work. Knowing as he did so that all his skill and Hesseth’s combined couldn’t stop something that powerful, not if it was truly intent upon devouring them.

They burst from the forest’s cover as the last words of the Shielding passed his lips, and by the time the earth-fae surrounding him had thickened in response, the first one was upon them. It was a horrible thing, a mockery of human shape with half its skull caved in and one arm dangling by a thread of flesh. He caught a glimpse of cracked bone as the creature came toward them, the green of rot rimming its many wounds. Damien reached out and pulled Hesseth toward him as the monster charged; the smaller his circle of influence was, the stronger he could make it. He heard her hiss as the creature charged, felt her stiffen against his side as it was caught in midair as if in gel, as it struggled to get through the thickening boundary to claw at the two of them. Behind it rushed others—so many others!—an army of horror, a veritable battalion of death incarnate that howled in anguish and hunger as it poured through the clearing, filling every inch of space within the trees. The horses squealed in terror as the faeborn creatures filled the clearing, but the monsters had no interest in equine souls; the stink of rotting flesh enveloped Damien as creature after creature thrust itself against the priest’s defensive Working, shredded flesh and maggot-ridden limbs scrabbling over the shell of earth-fae like so many insects. The priest had seen more frightening things in his life, but never anything more horrible; it took all his self-control not to close his eyes to shut the vision out.

There must have been hundreds of the creatures. Thousands. The sea of them seemed endless as it pounded against his hastily Worked defenses, each blow requiring one more bit of strength from him to balance it. He felt himself tiring, and fast. Could Hesseth help? he wondered. Was the power she used available at this moment, and could she Work it into some defensive pattern?
If she could, then she would have
, he told himself grimly. Streaks of blackened blood hung suspended in midair inches before his face, defining the limits of his power. Where had these things come from? What did they usually feed on, that would support so many? His sword-arm tensed as the wall of fae seemed to give before him, gritty claws raking the air no more than an inch from his face—and then he forced it back and it held, the black blood smoked and the monsters screamed and the reek of it, the terrible reek of it that came near to overwhelming him utterly, the stink that filled his nose and his mouth and burned his lungs when he breathed it in, so that it was all he could do not to gag and lose his concentration utterly....

“Look,” Hesseth said hoarsely. “They’re going!”

He dared a glance behind him in the direction she indicated. The creatures were indeed leaving the field of battle, disappearing among the trees on the far side of the clearing as quickly as they had arrived. Caught in the current of exodus, the ones who surrounded Damien and Hesseth screamed as they were swept away. In moments they, too, were past the tree line and into the forest, leaving only their blood and a fragment or two of flesh as a witness to their feverish attack.

For a long minute Damien stood still, his heart pounding against his rib cage, Hesseth pressed against his side. The warm musk of her scent, familiar to him after months of travel, helped clear his head. After a moment he dared to breathe deeply, and loosened his hold on her shoulder. After another moment—a very long, very tense moment—he dared to let his Shielding disperse. Bits of flesh and flakes of blood fell to the ground as the fae which he had shaped resumed its natural course. All demonic stuff, of course; he probably would cease to see it as soon as he let his special vision fade. But for now he needed all his senses. No telling when the creatures might return. No telling when something worse might follow.

They weren’t after us
, he thought numbly.
Or anyone in particular. We just happened to be in their way
. He thought of the soldierfish of the Lower Arterac, the army spiders of the Cameroon Delta. It didn’t matter to either of those species what stood in their way, provided it was edible and stood in one place long enough to be eaten. But both those species lived in rich ecospheres, where food existed in abundance. What would thousands of demonlings do for sustenance in the wilderness, where human abodes were few and far between?