Jaleigh Johnson - Unbroken Chain - The Darker Road

Green eyes sparkled, and the grains of wood in the creature’s face warped in what could have been a smile. The spirit reached up and touched the back of the woodpile. Suddenly, the sheep cries melted away, and the cut wood grew vines and flowers to fill in the gaps in the pile.

Elina watched, speechless. She felt the air grow comfortably warm, and the grass beneath her wet skirt turned soft and thick. Never had she felt so warm and safe out of doors.

Her mother used to warn her about what could happen if she went to the wild places alone, but this wild forest pocket drew protectively close around her, and the spirit sat beside her as if to keep watch.

Suddenly Elina realized how sleepy she was. She covered a yawn with her hand. Seeing this, the spirit beckoned her to the grass, and Elina laid her head down on the soft green pallet. The white blossoms hovering near her nose smelled like honey, and the last thing she thought of before she drifted off to sleep were the thick honey rolls her mother used to bake on the bitterest winter mornings. She’d bring them out steaming on a warm plate, and, the two of them, wrapped in the thickest blankets they owned, would eat them in front of the fire.

“Don’t waste a drop,” her mother would say, and then she would run her tongue in a circle over her lips to catch any forgotten stickiness. Elina imitated her now, her small tongue touching the white blossoms.

She awoke to someone furiously shaking her.

“Get up,” Sree hissed. She was too big to fit behind the woodpile, but Elina could see through bleary eyes the hathran’s masked face staring in at her. Evening had come, and as she sat up, Elina realized the tree spirit had gone. The woodpile was back to being a woodpile, all sticks and wet earth. The rotten smell was back, assailing Elina’s nostrils more strongly than ever, but at least the sheep had stopped crying.

Still reluctant to leave her nest, Elina sat up slowly and rubbed the sleep from her eyes. Sree was not so patient. She seized Elina by the arm and all but dragged her out from behind the woodpile.

“Turn toward me,” the hathran commanded, and put her body between Elina and the fence. “You worried me to death, Elina, running off like that. I called and called, but you didn’t answer. You must never hide from me again, do you understand?”

Sree picked her up and forced her face down against her shoulder. Elina’s cheek pressed uncomfortably against Sree’s collarbone. The witch’s skin was sticky and smelled like sweat. Elina didn’t like being carried like this. She couldn’t see anything.

“Stop struggling. What’s come over you?” Sree held her head immobile. Elina caught a glimpse of the open door to the house and heard a baby wailing within.

A single baby’s voice-but Sree said there were going to be two.…

“Thank Bhalla that at least one babe could be saved,” Sree murmured under her breath. Elina felt the vibration of the words in the hathran’s throat, and she heard the grief as well. “Close your eyes now, child. Go back to sleep if you can.”

Sree moved quickly away from the house. She sounded frightened, and that scared Elina. But as she stepped over a fallen tree branch from one of the nearby pines, her stride faltered and so did her grip on Elina’s head. Elina peaked over the witch’s shoulder.

Behind the fence, a dozen sheep lay in a pile so densely packed it was hard to tell where one body ended and another began. Their eyes bulged in a fixed, dumb stare, tongues lolling out the side of their mouths. Every one of the animals had had its skull crushed. Elina saw the red splashed on the fence posts where the sheep had driven their skulls into the wood over and over again.

Elina ducked her head against Sree’s neck, but she couldn’t control her trembling. The witch stopped suddenly and set her on the ground. Elina looked down at her skirt and realized she’d soiled herself. She trembled, cried, and turned red with the shame of it.

“Look at me, child.” Sree took Elina’s chin in her hand and tilted her head up to look into the masked woman’s eyes. “You need never feel shame before me. Fear is not shameful. A wise witch knows how to use her fear to make herself strong.” She picked Elina up again and cradled her close. “I am afraid too, Elina. The sheep are a bad omen, but we must trust in Bhalla and the spirits. They will not lead us astray.”

Sree walked on, and Elina thought about telling the hathran what she’d seen behind the woodpile. No, she thought, that was her secret, a private, precious thing between her and the spirit.

As precious as when her dead mother visited Elina in her dreams.

IKEMMU, THE SHADOWDARK

7 MARPENOTH, THE YEAR OF DEEP WATER DRIFTING (1480 DR)

The day after Olra’s death, Ashok and Skagi went to Tower Makthar to visit Cree and tell him about the mission.

He sat up in bed when they came into the sickroom. His face split in a grin when he saw them. Except for the missing eye, he looked like himself.

“At last,” he said. “I was beginning to think I’d have to break out of here myself, half-naked and with no weapons, but now that you two are here, I’ll have company.”

Skagi laughed. “I’ll wager the clerics all wish you’d lost your tongue and not the eye,” he said.

Ashok winced, but Cree joined in his brother’s laughter. “As soon as my jailers turn me loose, I’m going to the inker,” Cree said. “Uwan said I needed prettying up after that battle.”

Skagi nodded approvingly. “But you were always too pretty for your own good anyway.”

Cree looked at Ashok. “What do you think, Ashok?” He traced his eyebrow down to his nose and across his cheekbone. “The snake marked me, so I’ll put its mark right here.”

Ashok swallowed. “Whatever you wish,” he said.

The brothers shared a look, and Cree’s smile dimmed. “Olra was a fine warrior, the best Camborr leader we’ve ever had,” he said.

“That she was.”

He thinks that’s why I’m silent, Ashok thought. He doesn’t blame me at all. But it didn’t matter. Ashok had only to look at Cree’s face to remind himself of his failure.

“We bring news from the Watching Blade,” Skagi said when the silence became uncomfortable. “Wouldn’t you know it, Ashok and the witch plan to drag us off on another adventure?”

“Oh?” Cree said. “Is that why they’ve insisted on keeping me abed for this long?”

“More likely you were lazing about.” Skagi dodged Cree’s elbow.

Ashok nodded. “They want your strength back and the poison completely out of you. We’re taking Ilvani to Rashemen, in Faerun.”

Cree’s remaining eye widened. He leaned forward eagerly as Ashok and Skagi told him about Ilvani’s dreams and her connection to the mad shadow beasts. Ashok also shared what he’d learned of Rashemen from Darnae.

“I’ve been to the Underdark and to the surface,” Cree said, “but I’ve never traveled that far in the mirror world.”

“Neither have I,” Skagi said, “but the caravans go back and forth all the time. They send the cargo through a portal to the surface, so raiding parties won’t get at it. Usually there are a fair number of guards-shadar-kai, humans, maybe some dwarves. Even the well-traveled trade routes are dangerous, so there’s good coin for that sort of work. Well, you remember how Vedoran used to talk about it.”

Ashok remembered. Vedoran had been well regarded as a sellsword, though everything inside him detested the work he’d been relegated to because of his beliefs. Ashok wondered if there were any shadar-kai sellswords left now that they were allowed to serve in Ikemmu’s military.

“Even with the experienced guards, that doesn’t change the fact that none of us three have the knowledge of Faerun we need. We won’t know what to expect once we’re out of the Shadowfell,” Ashok said.