Black Sun Rising (34 page)

“You okay?” Damien whispered. Senzei tried to find his voice, tried to make his mouth form words—and then a sudden screaming split the night to the west of them, a sound of equine terror and agony that came from just beyond the reach of their Firelight.

Wordlessly, Damien reloaded for both of them. There were long scratch marks across his knuckles, and crimson blood had welled up there in thick, parallel lines. He didn’t even glance at it. With a nod toward the source of the screaming he eased his mount westward between the trees, springbolt braced against his shoulder. Senzei followed suit. Wondering if the path would be there when they tried to get back to it. Wondering if they would last long enough to try.

Barely a hundred yards forward, their Firelight driving back the shadows, they saw where the horse had fallen. A heavy steel trap had snapped shut on its ankle, breaking through the flesh to crack the bone beneath. Blood gushed out on the ground as it struggled to right itself. Senzei heard Damien curse the trappers under his breath as he moved forward toward it—and this time it was the sorceror who stopped him, with a touch of his springbolt barrel to the priest’s nearer shoulder.

There were things coming out of the ground. Wormlike things, dark and sinuous. They came in response to the horse’s heat, or its blood, or its screaming. They came, and they fed. Slick black worms as wide as a man’s wrist, with a circle of viciously pointed teeth at the forward end. They lunged for the warm flesh and hooked themselves onto it, then began to burrow in. Half a dozen at least, that fixed themselves onto the horse’s belly and began to work their way toward the soft inner organs.

Senzei felt the bile rise up at last, and this time he couldn’t fight it. He leaned over to the far side of his mount and vomited helplessly onto the ground—aware, even as he did so, that the warm fluid might attract the very things that revolted him. When he looked up again Damien was taking aim at the writhing horse. There was a look on his face more grim, more terrible, than anything Senzei had ever seen there. He waited until the horse lay still for a moment, exhausted by its struggles, and then he fired. The bolt lodged in the horse’s neck, seemingly in well-padded flesh. Then the animal moved again—the shaft of the bolt broke off—and a river of blood gushed out of its neck, spurting in time to its heartbeat.

“Carotid artery,” he muttered. “Once that’s opened up, they’re quick to die.” He wiped one hand across his brow, smearing blood on his face. “He was carrying the extra supplies, right? Nothing vital. Nothing we have to risk ...
that
for.”

“No.” Senzei’s voice was a hoarse, shaken whisper. “Nothing.”

“All right, then.” The horse’s screams were dying down; the gurgle of blood was audible. Damien wheeled his mount around, hands dripping blood on the reins. “Let’s get the hell out of here.”

They bandaged their wounds while on horseback, and did what they could for their mounts from the same position. Damien thought it might have been body heat that had attracted the worm-things, and the horses’ thick hooves would insulate against that better than their own thin-soled boots. Nevertheless they kept moving as well as they could, even as they wound the lengths of gauze around their damaged hands. Senzei felt a warm trickle run down his side also but said nothing; this was neither the time nor the place to stop and examine his wound.

Twenty-four hours ago. It felt like days—years—another lifetime. He thought of Damien, traveling from city to city through regions of such desolation that even traders feared to go there, braving realms that had been given over to the products of man’s worst nightmares ... and for the first time he understood just what that meant. To choose to do that kind of thing over and over again, without even a fellow traveler to back one up, to stand guard while one slept ... he couldn’t imagine it. Couldn’t imagine why one would choose such a life. Couldn’t imagine what it would be like to be filled with such a faith, that when your god wanted you to go on such a trip you did so, with no thought for the dangers of the terrain you were facing.

They rode. Damien observed the foliage—or some other equally subtle sign—and announced there was probably a river running just east of them. Which was good, he explained. Fewer faeborn things would come from that direction. And once the sun rose the river would mean safe refuge, should they need it.

If it ever rises again,
Senzei thought.
If we live long enough to see it happen.

They rode as fast as they dared, taking into account the stamina of the horses. Damien was very clear on that: to wear out their mounts in pursuit of Ciani so that they were left on foot in this haunted wilderness was as good as committing all three of them to death. The Fire cast a light just far enough ahead that if the road suddenly ended, or was blocked by some faeborn antagonist, they would have just enough time to pull up before riding smack into it. Barely.

Thus it was that Damien’s nerves were trigger-taut, and he pulled back on his reins the minute he saw a flicker of movement reflecting back at him from the endless tunnel that was their road. Senzei, some yards back, managed to follow suit without running into him—mostly because his mount had picked up on the fact that it was supposed to be doing whatever Damien’s horse did. Side by side they paused in the center of the barren path, trying to make out moving forms in the lightless shadows. Between their legs the horses stirred anxiously, no doubt remembering the clawed creatures that had come running out of the woods mere minutes—or hours?—ago.

And then the shape moved close enough to become visible. Human in its general form, but strangely hunched over; Damien raised his springbolt to eye level as he watched it stagger toward them. The shadowed form resolved into a true human shape, and as it entered the outer boundary of the Fire’s light it was possible to see that it staggered in exhaustion, and perhaps in pain. It came closer and lifted its head, its eyes half shut against the pain of so much light after the darkness of the road.

Ciani.

Senzei felt his heart skip a beat, and adrenaline poured into his bloodstream like a tidal wave: from fear, from joy, from concern for her life. She was a mere shadow of her former self, dressed in tattered remnants of her traveling attire. Blood pooled beneath her bare feet as she came to a stop, swaying weakly, and she shielded her eyes with her hand so that she might see them against the Fire’s glare. A whisper barely escaped her lips, too fragile a sound to cross the distance between them. A name, perhaps. A plea. There were bruises about her face and arms, and long scratch marks on one side of her face. She seemed to have lost half her weight overnight, and most of her color with it.

“Thank god,” she whispered. “I heard the horses....” Tears choked her voice and she took a step forward—then fell, her legs too weak to support her. Tears poured down her face. “Damien—Senzei—my god, I can’t believe I’ve found you....”

The sense of shock which had frozen Senzei’s limbs released him at last. With a cry of joy he slid off his horse-and his wound stabbed into him like fire, like a blade of molten steel, but what did that matter? They had found her!—and he ran toward her as best he could, his legs weak and shaking and stiff from hours in the saddle—

And something whizzed past his ear. A bolt of light—a spear of fire—a searing bullet, that left the air hot where it passed. He barely had time to recognize what it was, what it must be, before it struck her. The glowing bolt hit her square in the chest, slightly right of center: through the heart. With a scream, she ceased reaching for him and clutched at the projectile—so close, she had been so close, he had almost touched her!—but it was buried deep within her flesh, and she couldn’t pull it out. And then, without warning, she ignited. The whole of her body went up in an instant, like dry leaves sparked by heat lightning. Senzei cried out as he shielded his eyes against the glare of her burning, fell to his knees as the pyre roared up before him. Tongues of Fire licked at the canopy far overhead, and small black shapes fell—screaming, smoking—onto the road. Only slowly did it sink into him what had happened. Only slowly did it sink in what Damien had done. And why.

As the Fire died down at last—leaving no bones to mark the place where Ciani had stood, nor even any ash, only a faint smell of sulfur—he looked up to where Damien sat, one hand on the reins of Senzei’s horse and the other still bracing the springbolt against his shoulder.

“How?” he gasped. His whole body was shaking. “How did you know?”

The priest’s expression was grim, his face deeply lined. It seemed he had aged a decade in the past few hours. “She wouldn’t come into the light,” he said. “Ciani would have known that the Fire meant safety for her, and come to it at any cost. She invoked my god, not hers. She called you by your formal name—which she’s never done before, at least not in my presence. Do you want more?”

“But you weren’t sure!” he exclaimed. “You couldn’t possibly be sure! And what if you were wrong?”

“But I wasn’t, was I?” His face was like stone, his tone implacable. “You’d better learn this now, Zen. Some of the things that the darkness spawns can take on any form they like. They read your fears from the fae that surrounds you and design whatever image they need to break through your defenses. And you only get
one
chance to recognize them,
one
chance to react. If you’re wrong—or if you hesitate, even for an instant—they’ll do worse then kill you.” He looked off into the darkness; Senzei thought he saw him shiver. “Compared to some of what I’ve seen, death would be a mercy.”

The Fire had died down. Senzei stared at where it had been, heartbeat pounding loudly in his ears. Why did it suddenly seem so hot? Had the Fire somehow affected his perception, so that even after it was gone something inside him continued to burn? He felt overwhelmed. He wanted to cry out,
I can’t make it! I’m out of strength! How can I do anything to save her, like this?

Damien said nothing, allowing Senzei the time to pull himself together. Then, suddenly, he stiffened. In a voice that was quiet but firm, he ordered, “Mount up. Now.”

Senzei looked at him, saw him reloading the springbolt. The priest’s eyes were turned to the west, his gaze fixed on something in the distance. “Mount up!” he hissed.

Shaking, Senzei obeyed. Pain speared through his side as he slid into the saddle and he thought,
I can’t do this again. If I get down again, I won’t be able to get up
.

And there was peace in that thought. A dark kind of peace, in knowing that soon all fighting might be over.

He took the reins of his horse from Damien and followed the priest’s gaze, slightly ahead and to the left of the road. There were two points of light that winked at them out of the darkness, set a yard or so above the ground. Bright crimson, like blood.

“Let’s move,” Damien muttered.

They rode. At first slowly, watching the lights as they went. Then more quickly, when they saw that the crimson sparks were keeping pace with them. Soon after, another pair of lights joined the first. Then a third.

Eyes,
Senzei thought,
reflecting the Firelight. Gods help us.

They broke into a fevered gallop.

The eyes stayed with them.

There were more and more of them now, too many to count. They would flash bright as stars as their owners turned to assess their prey, then become invisible a moment later as the beasts turned their attention to the ground underfoot, or the Forest ahead. Whatever manner of creature they were, they were swift and seemingly tireless. Try as they might, the travelers couldn’t lose them. Senzei heard Damien curse under his breath, knew that he hated to drive the horses this hard for any length of time—but no matter how fast they rode, the gleaming eyes managed to keep pace with them.

Finally Damien slowed, and Senzei did the same. His horse was covered with sweat, and it shivered as the chill night air gusted over it. He was suddenly acutely aware of how desperately they needed these animals, of how little good it would do them to get where they were going—even to rescue Ciani—if they had to walk back through this place.
We wouldn’t last an hour.

Damien lifted his springshot to eye level and cursed, “Damn them!”

“What?”

“They’re just beyond firing range. Exactly the right distance. Damn! It means they’re either hellishly lucky ...”

He lowered his weapon. “Or experienced,” he said quietly.

Senzei whispered, “Or intelligent.”

There was a moment of silence. “Let’s hope not,” he said at last.

Something stepped out into the road.

It looked like a wolf, at first—an unusually large wolf, with bleached white fur and blazing red eyes. But there were differences. In its paws, which were splayed out like human hands. In its jaws, which were broader and more powerful than even a wolf’s should be. And in its bearing, which hinted at more than mere hunger: a subtle malevolence, not at all bestial.