Dark Fate: The Gathering (The Dark Fate Chronicles Book 1) (41 page)

He turned more fully to the light and drew his sword from the scabbard on his hip, raising it as if to poke at the floating light.

“My Lord,” Walina was sitting on Banlor’s left side astride the dusky white stallion that had become her favorite. She reached forward and laid a tentative hand on his arm. The muscles of his forearms were rock hard as he clenched his hands into fists on the reins. Her cool fingers brushed his skin lightly but only added to the tension in his body. “This place frightens me. May we please go back?”

He moved to take her hand from his arm, but before he could touch her, his skin prickled painfully. Each hair on his arms and the back of his neck stood rigidly to attention. A wave of cold followed, rolling from the levitating orb, as Dammer’s sword touched it and all six of the horses went mad. Dammer’s black mare, lacking a restraining hand, turned and bolted from the clearing, diving into one of the gaping black voids from which the group had emerged.

Crying out loudly, Rashalon and Clarrissa fell heavily to the earth. Clarissa was the more skilled rider, but the only reward for her practice was a softer landing on top of the blubbery Rashalon. The fat man had immediately been deposited on the ground below her and lay stunned, facedown in the moss and rocks. Clarissa’s delicate form rolled off of the fat man and came to a stop, propped on one elbow.

From the point in the woods where Dammer’s black had disappeared, the screaming of a horse in terrible pain issued forth. The screaming sent the two riderless mounts fleeing into the woods in the opposite direction. Almost immediately, new rounds of equine agony assaulted their ears, causing the remaining horses to redouble their efforts to be free. The last three riders, including Banlor, could no longer control the beasts and also found themselves deposited roughly on the ground. Dammer spun in a circle, his sword held before him in a white-knuckled grip.

Banlor could only lie on the ground, his ears ringing with the impact and his breath coming in pain-shortened gasps. Through the haze of the bells in his ears, he could just hear the others: Dammer called loudly in fear laced with anger, demanding to know what was going on and who was there; the others groaned or cried in pain, begging for help or simply taking small, whimpering breaths.

From the corner of one eye, he made out Lord Laran stumbling to his feet and snatching up his stave from the ground with one hand. With the other, he drew a small ceremonial dagger that he always wore in commemoration of his time as a general in the Basinian military. The eldest of the company, he was still a soldier in his bearing, and he limped to Dammer’s side. Small twigs and leaves decorated his thinning hair and beard, but he paid them no mind. His dark eyes swept the glade with all the intensity of a man who had extensive practice staying alive while others around him died.

Banlor began to push himself to his hands and knees when he felt a familiar brush upon his mind.
Be still, my pet
. Selen’s voice whispered within.
Observe now the gifts I give you
. He froze in place, partially splayed upon the ground and unable to see much beyond the two old soldiers now standing back to back under the spectral illumination, which now pulsed rhythmically.

Banlor’s ears cleared and he could hear the soft sound of the trees rustling all around him. A jagged rasp cut through the soothing noise of the breeze. It might have been mistaken for a harsh wind rattling limbs together, but for a distinctive raw edge that brought to mind sandpaper dragging over ill-formed glass. The rough sound put his teeth on edge and caused fresh ripples of fear to ascend his backbone. He shivered uncontrollably in the dirt.

Dammer was the first to spot something, and his eyes focused beyond Banlor’s sight.

“Stay back!” he ordered in a loud voice, which had carried more weight when he was a captain in the king’s house guard. “We are not here for trouble, but we have plenty to give, should you want it.”

Following close on the heels of Dammer’s strident order, Laran hissed at Banlor. “What is going on here, Banlor? What is it you have brought upon us?” Laran looked over at Rashalon, who was still lying prone and gasping for breath. “Get up, you fat fool! Lest you die on your ample ass.”

Rashalon moaned louder and cried out as he attempted to roll to his side and rise. “My leg! My leg is broken!” he yelled shrilly, his voice breaking like a panicked child’s.

Banlor only shook his head softly, fearing what he might see.

Dammer moved his mouth wordlessly for a moment then called out, “Get away from her!” He dashed forward, brandishing the sword, and out of Banlor’s view. A scream from Clarissa came on the heels of his call, and Banlor slowly turned his head to see what was happening.

The thing crouching over the noblewoman’s body resembled nothing he had ever seen, nor anything he had run from in his deepest nightmare. He knew, though, that from this day forward, he would be forever running from that horrible vision.

A forest of limbs sprouted from a moist, pale white body, equal in size to a man. Each limb was unique and jointed at odd angles with skeletal protrusions jutting from various places. Sharp hooks and slime-covered tentacles waved about, slinging ichor in every direction. Insectoid wings buzzed together at several places along its lumpy back. The body was almost entirely bisected by a gaping mouth, which was lined with rows of jagged teeth, and the rough halves were peppered with many lifeless black eyes.

Clarissa, although she was advanced in years, somewhere in her fourth decade perhaps, was still lithe in form. Her straight blonde hair was untouched by grey in spite of the wrinkles that were beginning to gather at her eyes and mouth. It was her habit to maintain the tresses pulled back with simple circlets of finely wrought metal or leather. Banlor could not see one now.

One of the thorn-covered limbs had skewered Clarissa’s slim abdomen; her body was arched so he could see the pale appendage protruding through her back and stabbing deep into the ground beneath. Blood, the color of midnight in the pulsing luminescence, poured from the wound and flecked the woman’s mouth. Her hands gripped the leg that transfixed her, and she pushed at it as she continued to scream.

Unable to look away, Banlor watched with fascination as the blood that flowed over the chitinous flesh of the creature’s leg disappeared, as if it had been soaked up by a sponge. The black splashes of Clarissa’s lifeblood that had spotted its flesh were only momentary blemishes upon the surface as they, too, were drawn away in the same hungry fashion.
Why does it have a mouth?
He wondered in horror. The pale white shell seemed to bloat as it took in her bodily fluid and thin tentacle arms rummaged the ground beneath her in search of any precious liquid that had fallen. One twisting rope of flesh flopped and wriggled in the pool that was forming below her like a delighted child at play—A delighted demon child.

Dammer brought his sword around with a shout and cut through the limb that transfixed Clarissa. “Die, demon spawn!” he crowed. Holding the sword defensively, he crouched and seized Clarissa by one arm and was set to drag her away from the creature, toward the light. The limb that had been severed remained in the ground, and Clarissa gave a shriek as her body slipped free of the thorn-covered stake. Blood that had flowed gently before now poured freely from her, making a black river on the ground behind her.

Banlor couldn’t have said whether the creature felt the loss of the limb, as no sound but the clacking and rasping of its forest of limbs escaped it. Where the creature itself seemed made of chaos, its response to the old soldier was unmistakably intentional. Perhaps a full third of the limbs joined together into a single twined mass, reared back, and swatted the old man away from the woman who was groaning weakly in pain.

Moving with an otherworldly fluidity, the arms untwisted and descended once more on Clarissa’s frail and weakly moving form. Several thorny spikes punched into her flesh, causing her to cry out again, but more faintly. The noblewoman was dragged like a fish on a line back to the creature, which remained above the tendril that gloried in the pool of her lifeblood.

The sword Dammer had been clutching fell from his grasp as he took flight. The man himself landed in a rolling heap on the forest floor almost ten feet away. Banlor would have thought Dammer was done, but in an amazing display of resilience, the old soldier planted his feet and began to rise, fury and shock painting his face. Dammer made it to his feet and began to lean forward, intent on retrieving his fallen weapon, when the second horror swept from the blackness between the trees and snatched him into the air. Laran attempted to strike the creature, shouting as it flew past, but the stave bounced off of its hide to no effect.

Nails raked at Banlor’s shoulder, distracting him from the scene as Walina scrambled on top of him. “Get us out of here!” she shouted, panic thick in her voice.

He winced in pain and reared back with an elbow. He felt the crunch of bone and cartilage as her nose broke. Crying out and clutching at her shattered nose, Walina fell away from him. “You stupid little whore!” He bared his teeth. “Do you think I would waste time saving you, even if I could?”

She screamed in fear and rage. Her hands shot out and clawed his face.

He reeled from the attack. “Filthy bitch!” Banlor curled a fist to strike the foolish tart but found himself tumbling from her as something powerful swatted him aside. Searing pain entered his mind as he rolled.

Remain still!
His mistress’ voice boomed in his head.
Or my minions will devour you by mistake!

The agony transfixed him and he froze in place, one hand twitching and twisting in the dirt. He lay prone, unable to see what was playing out around him. Dammer’s screams could be heard from a distance but were quickly subsumed. Not far from him, Walina’s desperate cries died in a flurry of hissing, clicking, and tearing. Rashalon’s desperate crying over his leg had turned to wordless screaming accompanied by the wet sounds of ripping flesh.

Laran’s voice carried across the clearing, “You brought us here, Banlor. I’ll see you die!”

How close Laran came to fulfilling his promise, Banlor never knew. His own screams joined those of the others, and he knew nothing else.

The pain did stop, eventually. Banlor felt it fade, and other sensations began to make themselves known. His nails were full of dirt, and his fingertips bled where they had dragged across stones. The smell of blood, once almost all-consuming, was gone, replaced by the natural smells of the forest, and... something else. Something like snow or ice. Something cold.

The wind still rustled the winewoods around him, but the screams of his companions had ended. No sound other than the movement of the woods could be heard.

Blinking his eyes to clear them from the dirt that covered his face, he cautiously lifted his head.

Five glistening, bone-like chrysalises were his only company. No bodies or gore were visible, not even Clarissa’s river of blood.

He pulled his legs shakily under himself and rose to his feet to investigate the pods. Each was utterly smooth to the touch and cool, like fine marble. The material was the color of bone and totally opaque.

As he stroked the shell of the chrysalis that marked the last place Walina had lain, the surface cracked, developing a fine network of veins across it. Banlor leaped away, snatching his hand back protectively, lest the casing sprout new limbs and attack him as it had the others.

The surface of the pod flexed and heaved from the pressure of something within and then exploded, casting fragments forth about the glade. Banlor threw up an arm and turned his head protectively from the eruption. Cautiously, he looked back to see what new horror awaited him.

Walina stood amongst shells that, even now, were beginning to dissipate into curling tendrils of grey smoke. Not a scratch, bruise, or fleck of blood marred her silky skin. Even her once-shattered nose was restored. She looked just as she had the first night he had taken her to his bed. Banlor stood amazed and watched as the last of the shell fragments dissolved from the pile at the young woman’s fine feet. She stretched and patted her nude form, seeming to check each portion as if it had been picked from a shelf and was wholly unfamiliar, rather than the product of a lifetime. Whatever fault she searched for, it appeared not to exist, for a smile graced the soft features of her face. With the smile, the veil was lifted. Her eyes blinked to become the same solid black, for just an instant, as that of the lifeless orbs of the creature that had absorbed her flesh.

Yes, my pet
. Selen’s voice echoed in his mind, causing fresh shivers. Now you see. Laughter sounded in Banlor’s mind and seemed to come from the trees and everywhere around him. As Selen laughed, the other chrysalises opened and rendered forth their occupants.

Banlor echoed the laughter of his mistress and cared not that he shared her madness.