Lynn Flewelling - Shadows Return

A huge, dark, misshapen form rose from the blackened earth, like a waking nightmare. It had the body of a huge boar, but a man’s face with jutting tusks, twisted in agony.

“What in Bilairy’s name is that?” gasped Micum.

“I have no idea, but it’s bad,” Thero whispered, terrified. Behind the necromancer, more armed men ran forward over the bodies of their fallen comrades.

“I make that about forty men,” Seregil gasped, one arm around Alec as they staggered up to join them, still clutching their knives. “I say we split ’em, and leave the ugly pig for Thero.”

Micum caught them as Seregil stumbled. “You damn fools!”

Alec sank to his knees, one hand pressed to his chest, but grinning. “Might as well die here as there.”

“Suit yourselves.” Micum drew his bow again and concentrated on bringing down as many soldiers as he could. Their archers were shooting back now.

The necromancer gave some command and the nightmarish creature bore down on them.

“Tell me you can stop that,” Seregil demanded.

Thero raised both hands, clutching his wand, and shouted the strongest protection spell he knew. Throwing out every last ounce of power he possessed, he imagined a limitless stone wall and projected it at the creature.

It didn’t even slow down. Leaping into the air, it came down on them like a storm, knocking Micum and Thero backward down the gully. As Thero threw up his arms, trying to ward off the fetid darkness closing in around him, he caught a flash of white against the sky overhead, and suddenly the air was filled with a single crystal note. It made his skull throb and his teeth ache, but he hardly noticed as he watched the monster halt, then throw back its hideous head and dissolve in a cloud of stench and flies.

Micum was on his feet again, bleeding from several wounds and shouting something that Thero could not hear over the continuous deafening sound. He was pointing up at the edge of the gully.

Seregil and Alec lay sprawled halfway down the slope, bodies tumbled together by the force of the monster’s charge. But Sebrahn stood facing the enemy for them, singing that one clear note as his silver-white hair coiled wildly about his head.

Micum grabbed Thero by the shoulder and together they scrambled up to help the others. The rhekaro’s song ended just as they reached Seregil and silence covered them like snow.

Micum dropped to his knees beside their comrades, but Thero took Alec’s fallen dagger and climbed up to see what Sebrahn had done.

Every man lay dead, and foremost among them was the necromancer. Thero approached him slowly to make sure.

The man lay on his back, wide-open eyes reflecting the vultures that were already heading this way. Blood had burst from his ears, nose, eyes, and mouth, just as Micum had described. Thero nudged him with his foot, but the body was limp and empty, its power gone.

Satisfied, he went back to the others. Seregil was leaning against Micum’s shoulder. Alec sat holding the rhekaro. It lay limply in his arms with its eyes shut. Its skin had gone from pale to grey, and it had a frail, starved look about it. Its closed eyes were deeply sunk in their sockets, and its arms and legs looked thinner than ever. Thero could hardly see the aura that had been so strong before.

“He used himself up.” Alec pricked his finger and let a few drops fall between the rhekaro’s lips, then gave Seregil a worried look when it didn’t respond.

“Is he dead?” asked Micum.

“Hard to tell,” Seregil murmured.

“It’s not,” Thero said. The little edge of light around the rhekaro grew brighter as it fed on Alec’s blood.

Seregil turned and surveyed the scattered dead. “They didn’t know.”

“Know what?”

“What Sebrahn can do. Not any of them. Yhakobin would never have charged blindly at us the way he did if he’d suspected what might happen, or this necromancer, either. They knew we had him, but they didn’t fear him.”

Alec let out a small sigh of relief as Sebrahn stirred. “Yhakobin kept saying the ones he made were failures.”

“There are others?” asked Thero.

“One, and he destroyed it, trying to figure it out. He was looking for something else. Ilar said something about a poison, but he was probably lying.”

And there was that name again. “What else did he say, about it being wrong?” asked Thero.

Alec though a moment, stroking Sebrahn’s wan cheek with his thumb as the thing continued to feed. “When the first one was made, Yhakobin was concerned that it didn’t have wings.”

“Wings?”

“Never mind that,” said Seregil. “Two groups have found us, so there’s no reason to think there won’t be others. We need to get to that boat of yours, and fast.”

“I can ride,” said Alec, though he was still the weaker of the two.

Thero looked back at the fallen soldiers again, then down at the exhausted creature curled in Alec’s lap. “We couldn’t hold off another attack like that one.”

“Then come on!” Seregil struggled up to his feet and clutched at Micum’s shoulder to steady himself. “Someone tie me onto a horse.”

THEY WAITED UNTIL nightfall to leave the gully. A cold half-moon silvered the scudding clouds and made the frosty ground sparkle.

Seregil hadn’t been joking about being tied to his horse. His wounds and Alec’s were healing, thanks to Sebrahn, but the flesh was still fragile. He still tired quickly, but Alec was critically weak, and rode double with Micum, tied in place against the man’s back. Sebrahn hung in his sling on Thero’s back. The rhekaro had not woken up since the battle, though he had taken nourishment several times in his sleep.

They reached the desolate bay just before dawn as rain rolled in off the water. Thero had sent word ahead to the captain, and they found a pair of lookouts from the Gedre ship waiting for them in the bushes above the shingle.

When everyone was safely aboard at last, Seregil finally collapsed, and woke up sometime later, tucked into a narrow bunk in a small cabin. Another bunk was built into the opposite wall and he could just make out Alec’s pale braid and a long hank of Sebrahn’s silvery hair above the blankets.

Every joint and muscle protested as Seregil went to them and slipped in behind Alec, wrapping an arm around both of them.

Alec gave him a sleepy smile over his shoulder. “There you are, talí.”

“Here I am, talí. You do know that Sebrahn is going to have to learn to sleep in a bed of his own?”

Alec wasn’t amused. “I’m worried about him. He’s so still.”

“He’s made from magic, Alec, and he’s used a lot of it, helping us.”

“You think he can use himself up?”

“I don’t know. He probably just needs more rest.”

Alec found Seregil’s hand and grasped it tightly. “You’re really all right with me keeping him?”

Seregil kissed the back of Alec’s head, glad that the thick braid had been spared after all. “I owe him my life, and yours. Whatever he really is, he stays with us. You have my word.”

He listened as Alec’s breath slowly evened out, but found he wasn’t sleepy anymore. He stayed where he was, thankful that they were finally safe enough for him to savor the feeling of Alec’s body, whole and alive, pressed close to his. His hand rested on Sebrahn’s shoulder. The rhekaro’s skin felt colder than usual, and had since it faced down the demon creature.

After a little while, however, Sebrahn sat up, the blanket slipping from his narrow shoulders. The bones of his chest and shoulders stood out in harsh relief under his white skin. He regarded Seregil for a long moment, then touched Alec’s cheek and whispered in his faint, scratchy little voice, “Ah-lek.”