Jaleigh Johnson - Unbroken Chain - The Darker Road

Out in the darkness beyond the camp, Ashok wheeled the nightmare around for another charge. From this vantage, he saw Vlahna and Tuva fighting the other troll with the rest of the human guards. Vlahna guided her horse with her knees and fired an arrow. It burst into purple flame before it struck the other troll in the eye. She dismounted and, with the spiked chain still wrapped around her arm, followed up the arrow shot with a vicious swipe to the creature’s back.

One after another, her attacks weakened the troll, but despite these successes, Ashok sensed something was off in her body language. She hacked at the thing in desperation and placed her body in front of Tuva whenever possible. Finally, the big warrior pushed her roughly aside and charged in to strike his own blow against the troll. When he did, Ashok saw the cause of Vlahna’s desperation.

Tuva had no visible wound, but he limped and swung his weapon stiffly, half-frozen from the troll’s aura. Not only did he present an appealingly large target, but he also stood too close to the monster to escape a blow in his wounded state. Vlahna tried in vain to protect him.

The creature swung a spiked club wildly and hit Tuva. The blow plucked the shadar-kai off his feet and threw him into one of the fires. He rolled away but stumbled trying to get back up. Ashok saw him vomit blood onto the snow.

Vlahna screamed in fury and hacked into the troll again. She used the spikes to lever herself up the monster’s back. She climbed and hacked until the troll collapsed to its knees from the pain.

Ashok spurred the nightmare forward for another charge. The purple fire made his chain painful to hold, but Ashok reveled in the gift. He came at the other troll from behind, snapping the chain up and then straight down. The spikes raked up and down the troll’s back, leaving a line of purple fire. The monster went down and took another fiery arrow to its neck. Its flesh bristled with them, and the fires spread. The warriors converged on the maddened trolls in close combat, hacking and dodging the wild blows from their clubs and claws.

It was over quickly after that. Even in their maddened state, the trolls couldn’t stand against their superior numbers, and soon there were four immense bonfires burning in the ruins.

Five, Ashok corrected. Now that the immediate danger was past, the caravan crewmembers turned their attention to the other menace in their midst. The warriors, shadar-kai and human alike, surrounded Ashok and the nightmare, but they kept a safe distance between themselves and the beast’s flaming hooves. For his part, the nightmare stomped the ground and shook his head back and forth in barely checked fury.

“Don’t come any closer,” Ashok advised the crew. “He’ll snap at you if you do.” The warriors must have sensed a threat in his words, for he heard swords slide from scabbards.

Skagi, Cree, and Ilvani worked their way through the crowd. On the ground, Vlahna and Kaibeth helped Tuva, who looked badly wounded.

“Where is a cleric?” Ashok said. He ignored the threat from the crowd. “Tuva needs healing.”

“ ‘Tuva’ … needs … an explanation.” The warrior leaned on the two women for support. Blood coated his lips and chin. “What have you brought us, Ashok?”

“You know what he is,” Ashok said. “I’ll wager you’ve brought them in from the Shadowfell plain yourself on caravan runs.”

“But to hide it among us all this time,” one of the human guards said, “you must be mad.”

“The beast has been under an enchantment until now,” Ashok said. “The magic keeps its essence contained. By the will of Neimal, the Sworn of the Wall, its powers couldn’t have harmed you.”

“Why weren’t we told?” Vlahna demanded. “If Neimal permitted this, there must have been a reason.”

Ashok started to speak and was shocked to hear Ilvani’s voice echo over the crowd.

“For your protection,” the witch said. She glanced at the troll pyres. “The monsters were drawn here.” She dropped her voice. “More will come.”

Uneasy murmurs drifted through the crowd. “More trolls?” Tatigan asked, stepping as close as he dared to the nightmare so he could address Ashok.

“Maybe-we can’t be sure,” Ashok said. “Some force is driving the creatures of the Shadowfell mad, sending them into killing rages, just like what we witnessed that day on the plain,” he said, looking at Tuva and Vlahna. “We thought the madness didn’t extend to the creatures of this world-”

“You were wrong,” Vlahna said flatly. “You should have warned us.”

“I know,” Ashok said, “but we didn’t think it would be necessary. By the strength of its will, the nightmare has been able to shake off the affliction, so I brought it along in secret to protect the caravan. We intend to seek the counsel of the witches in Rashemen to find out why all this is happening.”

He met Skagi’s and Cree’s gazes in the crowd. He did not mention the other reason they’d kept silent, the part Ilvani’s dreams played in triggering the killing sprees. If they knew, there was every possibility Vertan would have a dagger at the witch’s throat again.

And Ashok would have to kill him.

“So in the meantime, we’re stuck out here in the middle of winter with our numbers diminished and half our wagons and horses either dead or damaged,” Tatigan said. “Tomorrow we start up into the mountains, so the worst is yet to come.”

“At least we’ll be traveling light,” Kaibeth murmured. Tuva shot her a quelling glance, but she ignored him. “The witch is right,” she said. “When the monsters come, better we have the protection of bigger monsters.”

“And what a monster we have,” Daruk, standing closer than all the others in the crowd, remarked. He lifted his hand in the air as if tasting the nightmare’s aura. “This is more than I could have hoped for. There’s a song in this, make no mistake.”

The guards scoffed, but they had relaxed their grip on their weapons. The nightmare snuffed out a breath and danced in place, but Ashok didn’t think the stallion would lash out.

“You’ll have to keep it well away from the other beasts,” Vlahna told him. “It’ll slow our pace to nothing if the horses have to labor under the strain of that thing’s presence.”

“Done,” Ashok said. He looked at Tuva, who was sweating, his body trembling with the effort of standing upright, even with Vlahna and Kaibeth’s assistance. “You need a cleric,” he repeated.

Tuva grinned, exposing bloodstained teeth. “The clerics are dead,” he said. “We’ll all have to settle for bandages and bed rest from here until we get to Rashemen.”

“We’ll never make it,” said one of the older drovers. He was a tall, white-bearded, gangly human with a crooked nose. “Not through the mountains, not if we have to endure another rush attack like this one.”

Tatigan looked at the old drover. “You’ve been on enough runs to know, Baelthis. What say you to that?” he asked Tuva.

“I still say we were running too heavy to begin with,” Kaibeth broke in. “We scrape off all the excess-wagons, dead horses, extra gear-keep the bare essentials, and we’ll glide through the mountains smoother than we would have if we were carrying all that fat you humans thought you couldn’t live without.”

The drovers were indignant, and Tuva snarled, “You keep those thoughts to yourself, Bl-” He caught himself, but Kaibeth stiffened, and new tension suffused the camp as her warriors automatically took a step closer to their leader. Ashok thought Kaibeth would throw off Tuva’s arm, but she kept her anger in check.

“No, she’s right, Tuva,” Vlahna spoke up, which silenced them all. “The leaner we are, the better chance we have of getting through the mountains with minimal losses. Tatigan, I know your crew doesn’t want to hear it, but you’re all too much concerned with comfort. If we’re going to do this right, we have to do it our way.”