David Baldacci: The Finisher

With a scream that seemed to go on for slivers, I summoned every ounce of strength I had. I felt energy surging through me. I kicked with my feet and I could feel the invisible tether loosen. I kicked harder and bent my shoulders forward as though I were laboring under an impossibly heavy weight. And then with one more long scream and my muscles so tense I thought I was paralyzed, I broke free, soared over the top timbers — Delph’s boots actually scraped across them — and we were past the Wall.

As I looked back once more, I saw Morrigone on the ground, spent, dirty and defeated. Our gazes locked.

She raised one hand toward me — not to try and stop me — but, I realized, simply to say farewell.

The next quarter sliver we cleared the filled moat below and passed into the Quag. We sailed over the first stand of trees and bushes. And then it became so dense I had to quickly drop to the ground.

It was good that I did. I already had snatched the Adder Stone out of my cloak pocket. Delph was slumped on the ground, holding his arm, and blood had saturated his shirt. I ran the Stone over it and the wound vanished and the pain on his face disappeared. He straightened and gasped, “Thanks, Vega Jane.”

But I wasn’t listening to him. I had unhooked Harry Two from his harness. He lay limply on the ground. He was barely breathing. His eyes were closed.

“No,” I whimpered. “Please, no!”

I pulled off the breastplate and saw where the morta metal had pierced it. I rubbed the Adder Stone over the wound on his side where the morta metal had struck him. He was so badly hurt I thought that touching the Stone to his body would make the wound heal faster. I kept rubbing, pressing the Stone into his fur and passing it over the wound. Still nothing. The tears streamed down my face as Delph knelt next to me.

“Vega Jane.”

He put a hand on my shoulder, trying to draw me away. “Vega Jane, leave him be now. He’s gone.”

“Shove off!” I screamed and pushed him so hard he flew backward and sprawled in the dirt.

I looked down at Harry Two and thought every good thought I could think of.

“Please, please,” I moaned. “Please don’t leave me again.” In my despair, I was merging the two canines in my mind. My vision was blurred by my tears.

Harry Two didn’t move. His breathing was slowing down to where I could barely see his chest rise.

I couldn’t believe this. I had lost my Harry Two. I turned to see Delph picking himself back up. That’s when something nudged my hand. I snatched it away, thinking it was a creature of the Quag testing my flesh for eating.

Harry Two touched my hand again with his wet nose. His eyes were now open and he was breathing normally. He rose on his paws and shook all over, as though throwing off his near death good and proper. I think he even smiled at me. I was so happy I shouted for joy and hugged him tightly.

In return he licked my face and barked.

Delph knelt next to us. “Thank the Steeples,” he said, scratching Harry Two’s snout.

I smiled and then I stopped smiling. I was staring at Delph’s hand.

Delph’s ink-stamped hand from all those sessions at the Mill.

That’s when I heard the growls on either side of us.

I slowly turned.

There was a garm to the right and an enormous frek on our left.

The blue ink: like honey to stingers.

I didn’t wait an instant longer. I drew the Elemental and thought it to full size. I threw it even as the frek leapt at Delph. It struck the frek dead center of the chest and the beast disintegrated.

But the garm had lunged forward, its own blood pouring down its chest and its odious smell searing my lungs. And bursting from its powerful jaw was that awful sound it makes when on the hunt. I knew the next thing leaping from its jaws would be a chest full of fire that would cremate us.

I snatched the jug of water from my tuck and hurled it at the creature. It struck it full in the snout, the jug cracked open and the water splashed in the garm’s face.

It only gave me a moment, but a moment was all I needed. As soon as the Elemental touched my hand on its return from destroying the frek, I flung it onward.

The Elemental passed right through the garm’s mouth and burst out its backside. The creature turned a burning orange and flamed up, as though all the fire on its inside couldn’t reach the outside. A moment later, it exploded in a cloud of black smoke. When the smoke cleared, the garm was no more.

“Bloody Hel,” exclaimed Delph.

I couldn’t have agreed more.

We had no time to celebrate our victory. I grabbed Delph’s inked hand and snagged the bottle and cloth Dis Fidus had given me from my pocket.

“What’s that?” he asked.

“Just shut up and know this is going to hurt like the blazes.”

I poured the liquid on the cloth and then pressed it on his hand.

Delph clenched his teeth and to his credit didn’t utter a sound though his body shook like he was having the heaves after eating bad creta meat.

When the liquid had done its job, the back of his hand was as pink and scarred as mine. But all the ink was gone.

“Is this a good thing?” he asked, wincing and shaking his hand.

“It’ll make it harder for those beasts to track us.”

“Then it’s a good thing,” he said with conviction.

We grabbed our tucks where they had fallen.

“We need to keep moving, Delph.”

I went first, with the fully formed Elemental ready in my hand, Delph second and Harry Two covering our rear flank.

We cleared the trees and thick vegetation, and then the most astounding thing happened. The Quag opened up to a flat expanse of green fields with small stands of towering trees that allowed us to see many miles in the distance. Far off to the west was a wide fog-shrouded river full of black water. To the east was a rocky slope that led up to somewhere. Far ahead of us to the north was a towering forested mountain that in the uneasy darkness looked not green, but blue.

There was only one problem. Before we could reach the flat expanse where we could see danger coming at us from a long way away, we had to get past the next obstacle. We were right on the edge of a cliff. I looked down. I figured the drop to be nearly a full mile. I looked at Delph and he looked back at me.

“Are you ready?” I asked.

He gripped my hand and nodded.

I lifted Harry Two into his harness and gave his head a pat. I had come so close to losing both of them so soon in here that a part of me wanted to go back to Wormwood. But a bigger part of me knew I couldn’t. Not now. Perhaps one light.

We heard the sounds behind us and they were coming fast. From the quantity of noise, I figured three or four garms and what sounded like a whole herd of freks. They had no doubt been alerted to our presence by the previous battle.

They burst from the dense forest, which lay behind us. I looked back. I had been wrong. It wasn’t four garms, it was ten. And they weren’t freks. They were amarocs. And if anything, they were even more terrifying than the freks.

I turned and looked ahead to the distant blue mountain that somehow I knew was where we needed to go. Just beyond that, in the sky, were the stars, the lost stars as I thought of them now. Lost, like we were. Would they ever find their way? Would we? Perhaps not. Perhaps we would simply flame out. But at least we would have tried.

I looked once more at Delph, attempted a smile that died before it reached my face, and then we jumped. The three of us were suspended in air for a long moment as the wicked beasts sped toward us.

And then we soared downward, now fully embraced by the Quag.