Jaleigh Johnson - Unbroken Chain - The Darker Road

“I’ll tell him,” Mareyn said. She looked at him a moment, a mixture of emotions in her eyes. She stepped forward and clasped Ashok by the shoulders affectionately. “The Martucks have decided to stay in Thesk for the winter. Les needs time to heal, and he won’t find peace on the road. Beyond that, I don’t know where they’ll go, but it’s certain I won’t see you on the return trip.”

“I’m sorry for that-and for other things,” Ashok said. “What happened to the boy was-”

“Life,” Mareyn said, cutting him off. “We deal with the good luck we find and the bad that’s forced on us. Tymora reminds me of this daily. Les will learn to deal with his scars, just as you’ve done.”

Ashok nodded, but his gaze kept straying to Ilvani’s stricken face. He felt torn between the things he wanted to say to Mareyn-emotions he might not be able to sort out if he had days or months-and the urgency of Ilvani’s need.

Mareyn must have seen his internal struggle. “Go,” she told him. “She needs you to change her fortunes. And maybe she will change yours.”

“Good-bye, Mareyn,” Ashok said.

She smiled a little self-consciously, hooked an arm around his neck, and tugged him to her. She kissed him quickly and then nudged him away.

“Good-bye, Ashok,” she said.

After Mareyn rode away, Ashok went to where Ilvani sat in the tree. He stood below her, his head on a level with her boots.

She looked down at him. “No more sleep,” she said.

“I agree,” Ashok said. “We’ll go to the village. If there are witches in Tinnir, we’ll find them.”

Ilvani leaned her cheek against the tree and closed her eyes. “Each of these trees has a name. They’re telling me, whispering the names, but they don’t realize I can’t repeat them. Names like that weren’t meant to be spoken by human tongues.”

“Can you shut them out?” Ashok asked. “Maybe you should come down from there.”

“They don’t mean any harm.” Ilvani slowly climbed down out of the tree, but she kept her hands on the smooth branches. “They gave me another name, one I can use. Yaraella.”

Ashok felt a chill, colder than the frigid air, go through him. He thought it must be the wind, but the tree boughs were still. It was so quiet in the wood. The animals had sought shelter in anticipation of the deep winter.

“The woman from your dreams,” Ashok said. “She’s been here?”

“She’s all over these woods,” Ilvani said. “Tinnir is her home, but the spirits know her here. They miss her touch.”

“Let’s go, then,” Ashok said. “The sooner we get to Tinnir, the sooner we can find out what happened to her.”

Skagi and Cree met them outside the wood. They followed a track off the Golden Way. Snow-covered signs indicated Tinnir wasn’t far away, but the evening darkness came swiftly and forced them to camp for the night.

Ilvani was true to her promise. She didn’t sleep, and she noticed Ashok and the brothers were too restless to get more than a pair of hours each. In the morning, they moved on.

They passed a wooded vale that Ilvani recognized again from her dreams. She was so close to Yaraella, she felt as if she were coming home herself. When they arrived at the outskirts of Tinnir after midday, she nearly wept at the familiar dwellings.

If I’m not rid of her soon, I won’t be Ilvani anymore, Ilvani thought. I’ll be the witch-the ghost.

The uneven ground gave way to small farm fields, their remaining vegetation sealed in a frost skin. Cree stopped and pulled up one of the plants.

“These fields were never harvested,” he said.

“Maybe winter came early,” Skagi suggested. He kicked the brittle leaves.

“No. It’s all dead,” Ilvani said. She took the plant stalk from Cree. “Dead and withered. It was a punishment.”

“Hmph. Must have insulted one of those telthors pretty bad for them to do all this,” Skagi said.

“Over here,” Ashok said.

Ilvani dropped the withered plant and walked over to Ashok. He pointed to a fenced pen behind one of the houses. A dead horse lay on the ground, its body covered with a fine layer of snow. Frozen blood hung from its nostrils.

“Why didn’t they bury it?” Skagi said disgustedly.

“No smoke coming from the house,” Cree said. “Whoever lived here must have left very quickly. It looks like they didn’t take anything with them.”

“Only the clothes they wore,” Ilvani said. How could they not? She felt the sense of unwelcome in the air. An unspoken menace hovered over the village. This was the center of everything.

“Ashok, Cree,” Skagi said tersely, “look to the road.”

Ilvani tore her gaze away from the corpse of the horse and saw people coming toward them from the village-six armed men led by three women who wore carved wooden masks that obscured their features. One of the women carried a child in her arms. A chill gripped Ilvani when she saw the little one.

“Draw no weapons,” said one of the masked women in Common, “or we’ll strike you down.”

Ashok, Cree, and Skagi surrounded Ilvani as the warriors converged on them. “We don’t come to Tinnir in violence,” Cree said.

The woman gave a raspy laugh muffled by her mask. “Your souls are filled with nothing but violence, shadow man,” she said. She pointed to the nightmare. “You walk with demons, yet you ask us to believe you come in friendship?”

Cree had no reply for that. Ilvani could imagine how they all looked to the witches of Rashemen-for this must surely be them. Cree with his single eye and devouring serpent tattoo; Skagi and his deformed smile; and Ashok and his nightmare. Did the witches see the scars around his spirit? To Ilvani they were as vivid as the fiery death that walked at his side. Did the witches see her scars?

“We’ve come to seek the counsel of the witches of Rashemen,” Ashok said. “Are you one we might speak with?”

The masked woman stepped forward. Ilvani couldn’t see her expression, but she sensed power in the mask, and in the body of the woman-power and anger.

“I am Agny,” she said, “and you will speak only to answer for your crimes against this village and its people.”

“Crimes?” Skagi said. He kicked the dead plants again. “You’re mad if you think we’re to blame for this.”

“We’ve never set foot in this village before today,” Ashok said.

“Yet you’ve been traveling many days to get here,” said another of the witches. Ilvani started. Something about the woman was familiar. “We saw a vision of you in the High Country, your gazes fixed on our lands like predators on the hunt.”

“I remember,” Ilvani said, stepping forward. She felt Ashok tense beside her, but she ignored him. She recognized where she’d heard the woman’s voice before. Hers was one of the whispers she’d been hearing ever since they approached Rashemen. “Your gazes poked and prodded like the telthors,” she said, “always trying to get in where you’re not welcome.”

“Who are you to speak so of the spirits?” the witch Agny cried.

“I’m-” Ilvani was distracted by the child squirming in her keeper’s arms. The little one stared at Ilvani and made impatient noises to be set down. For some reason, it frightened Ilvani. She didn’t want the girl near her.

“Take them,” Agny said impatiently. “Leave the woman to me to question.”

Ilvani couldn’t speak. There were too many whispers in her head. Not just spirits-the whisper and chatter of drawn weapons. Ashok and the brothers pressed their bodies close, too close to her. She couldn’t breathe. She was back in her cage.

“Get away!” she yelled. She shoved her way past Ashok and Cree, ignoring their cries for her to stop. She had to get away, so she ran blindly forward. The tip of a warrior’s sword flashed in front of her, but Ilvani kept running, not caring if she ran onto his blade.