Dominion (2 page)

The creature is laughing at them now.

Despair is a knot in Faith’s gut as she brings up her sword to protect herself from the thrust of a rusty pitchfork, barely in time; tines scrape against the scales of her armor as she pushes it aside. Who are all these people? Don’t they understand what this creature really is? Or what the cost of worshipping it will be? All creatures born of the fae feed upon mankind. This thing is no exception. Do these people really think that they will escape that fate just because they have agreed to worship it?

It’s not a real god!
she wants to scream, as she struggles to keep the wave of attackers from overwhelming her. Her blade slices through the neck of one opponent before swinging into the next.
It is not worthy of your worship!
But even if these men could hear her words, they would not care. Once a faeborn creature becomes this powerful, it attracts weak-willed humans like rotting meat attracts flies. And why not? Such a creature can perform a thousand and one “miracles”, and weak-willed men are easily swayed by such tricks. Why should they choose to worship a more complicated god, who might actually ask them to read a book or obey restrictive laws, when this one will indulge their vilest pleasures and ask for nothing in return? Never mind that it is a construct of the fae, not a creature of living flesh, and therefore only has one real goal. By the time its followers come to understand what that means for them, it will be too late.

The mob seems endless. The demon must have worked its corruption in all the surrounding towns. Why had the Church’s scouts not reported that? On and on Faith fights against her attackers, knowing that the battle is all but hopeless, but she is too proud—or perhaps too stubborn—to die. Her fellow hunters are no longer visible to her. Whether they have gone down to their deaths, or are simply shielded from her eyes by the bulk of the mob, she does not know. They are not part of her universe any longer. There are only the men surrounding her and the pounding of hot blood in her veins—

But those are mere distractions, she realizes suddenly. Behind her is the faeborn creature they came here to destroy, and it is controlling these men like puppets. Even while she wastes time fighting this mob, the creature is gathering the power it needs to heal its wounds. How close the hungers had come to destroying it! One more blow might have dispatched it forever. But now, thanks to the sudden arrival of this mob, the greater battle will be lost. By the time Faith can force back the demon’s worshippers—if she can do that at all—the demonic thing will be at full strength again, and more than capable of taking on a single knight.

She cannot allow that to happen.

A strange sense of calm comes over her as she realizes what she must do. As a pitchfork comes thrusting toward her head she forces it aside, steps in towards its wielder, and slams her shield into his face. Stumbling backwards, he cries out as an axe that was meant for her slices into his shoulder. The moment’s triumph should please her, but it does not. The next assailant should worry her, but he does not. Her mind is elsewhere now.

This is her final moment of duty.

She takes one last wild swing at her attackers, trying to force them to back away far enough away that she can gain a moment’s time. The strategy manages to clear a small space around her, but she knows that will not last for long. Men with real lances are headed her way. Once they get within striking distance, she’s finished.

It’s now or never.

Whipping about, she launches herself without warning at the demon. There is no fire in her veins now, nor fury, just an eerie sense of peace, and it is strangely empowering. The creature is still weak from their earlier assault, and apparently her sudden attack has taken it by surprise. Knowing she will have only one blow and must make it count, she swings her sword toward that place in its neck where a thick black vein throbs, putting all her weight behind the effort. If God is with her, perhaps she can take the thing’s head off. If not, if his body is true enough to the human template, then severing a major vein might still bring it down. She prays that it will. Right now that is the only hope these people have, of ever being free of its influence.

But before her blade can connect with the cursed flesh something strikes her on the back of her head, hard enough to dent her half-helm. Her swing goes wild. Something else slams into her back, knocking her off her feet. And then the bulk of the mob engulfs her, a tide of rabid human flesh bristling with rusted blades and twisted pikes, forcing her down to the earth, crushing her beneath its weight until she cannot breathe, she cannot breathe, darkness is closing in and the air will not come —

I am sorry, my God. I have failed you. Forgive me.

The memories vanished.

Shuddering, Faith wrapped her arms around herself. She was grateful to be able to take a deep breath at last, though the effort sent shards of pain lancing through her chest. Where were her fellow hunters now? Almost certainly dead. She prayed they were dead. Death in battle was an honorable end, especially when one was fighting in the name of God. While the possibility of being taken prisoner and sacrificed to a faeborn demon—of being devoured by the very creature one was bound by sacred oath to destroy—would be the ultimate religious defilement.

Now that she could remember the battle clearly, she knew where she was. The demon must have wanted to exact vengeance upon her for her final attack, and had ordered its followers to bring her here. Or perhaps it had done so itself. Either way, she was not to be allowed to die in battle, or even as a messy sacrifice on some pagan altar. That kind of death would be over too swiftly.

They had left her alone in the Forest.

All about her were trees… or rather, what might have been called “trees” in a more wholesome setting. These were twisted, sickly structures, covered with a mottled patchwork of parasitic growths, hollowed out by colonies of nacreous insects. High in the canopy overhead, where sunlight reigned, there might be a smattering of normal life, but everything below that reeked of death and disease. And power. The currents of earth-fae here were so corrupt, so malevolent, that they made her skin crawl. Normally she couldn’t detect such things, lacking an adept’s vision, but in this place the power was so concentrated that she could feel it all about her. Its visceral foulness made her want to vomit.

It was said that all the human nightmares of the world were drawn to this place, where they manifested on such a scale that normal faeborn horrors paled by comparison. A single despairing thought could spawn a host of wraiths, each of them hungering to devour its creator. A normal person who was abandoned here would stand no chance at all; his own fear would take on a life of its own within minutes and consume him. Doubtless that was the fate that the demon had intended for Faith: a desperate and painful demise, fleeing the claws and teeth of her own inner fears until finally they ripped her to pieces.

With a trembling hand she drew her sword from its sheath. The blade was dull to her eyes, and crusted with dried blood from her battle, but she knew that to faeborn creatures it glowed with sacred fire. Had her enemy left her this one weapon because it repelled him so much that he could not bring himself to remove it? Or had he just wanted to prolong her death-struggle? One sword might not be enough to hold every nightmare creature in this blighted realm at bay, but maybe it would encourage her to fight for her life, instead of just surrendering to the inevitable. And thus prolong her dying, and his amusement.

But the demon had not known about her special gift.

Kneeling in the thick loam, holding her weapon upright before her, she let her eyes fix upon the symbol etched into its guard. Two interlocked circles. Two worlds, inextricably linked. She had dedicated her life to cleansing this one of the fae’s corrupt influence. And the One God had blessed her with a special gift to make that mission possible. It was not like the gift that sorcerers enjoyed, which allowed them to mold the fae with their minds. Nor was it like the gift of the adepts, to whom all the shadowy powers of this world were clearly visible. No, her gift was rarer than both those things, and in a world where Workings were a part of everyday life, it was a talent few men would envy. Most would call it a curse. But it had allowed her to become a deadly hunter in the One God’s holy cause, and now it might—just might—save her life.

The fae did not respond to her. Ever. That same dread force which brought men’s secret desires to life and could transform one’s fears into demons never manifested her emotions. It did not bring her luck or misfortune, health or sickness, or any of the myriad other types of gifts and curses that it provided for other men. Oh, what a precious and terrible blessing that was, and how the others knights of the Church envied her!
Earth’s blessing,
they called it. A sign from God that she had been destined to serve Him.

But just how complete was her immunity? Was she really safe from the fae’s ministrations, or had she just never been in a place where the earth-power was potent enough to test her gift to the breaking point?

Grimly she thought:
I am about to find out.

Things were starting to stir in the shadows now, just beyond the range of her sight. Foul, unwholesome things, whose mere proximity made her stomach churn. In the distance she could hear strange chittering sounds, which seemed to be coming closer. Deathly pale insects were starting to emerge from burrows in the trees surrounding her, and were crawling along lichenous branches in her direction. She needed to get out of this place, and fast. But how? The southern border of the Forest was probably closer than any other, but which way was south? The dismal light seemed to be coming from all directions at once; she couldn’t even find a clear enough shadow to watch it shift as the sun moved. In time the angle of light through the trees might become clear enough for her to make out which direction was west… but night would fall soon after that, and then it would be too late.

She had to start moving now.

There was a clear grade to the land surrounding her. If she followed it downhill she would eventually reach running water. There was a river that flowed south through the Forest, and if she could find that she could follow it to safety.

It was a slim chance, but it was the only one she had.

Taking up a fallen branch to use as a walking stick—shaking off the various foul insects that were clinging to it—the huntress of the One God muttered a prayer under her breath and began to move through the Forest. Promising herself that if she had to die in this foul place, at least she would go down fighting.

*  *  *

The currents of power surrounding the Forest were so strong that by the time Tarrant was within a mile of its border he could feel them pulling at his flesh, threatening to drag him into the whirlpool. Rarely was the earth-power so aggressive, so compelling. Overhead Erna’s largest moon glowed a brilliant white, nearly full in its aspect. But such a display paled in comparison to what that the earth itself was emanating: a cold blue light that rippled across the landscape, lending everything within sight an eerie illumination.

Since the day of his birth Tarrant had been gifted with the ability to see the fae directly, without need for any spell or amulet to aid him. But even he had never seen anything like this. Even the color of the earth-fae seemed different here, streaked with violet, as if streams of dark fae had gotten caught up in it somehow. Was that possible? Could the two powers mingle like that? He longed to gather up enough of it to craft a proper Knowing, to determine the answer to that question. But it was too soon for that. First he needed to learn what lay at the heart of this maelstrom, and then he would know how to harness its power properly. And safely.

This region had been normal once, he knew. Its currents of power had always been strong, but they’d been neutral in tenor, no more dark or dangerous than in any other place. The fae was a natural force, after all, and had no more personality of its own than air or water. But unlike air or water, the fae reflected man’s own fears back at him, and apparently the currents here had accumulated enough human nightmares to manifest this deadly whirlpool… which in turn was now drawing even darker energies to it.

Many sorcerers had come here in recent years, Tarrant knew. None of them had ever returned. His own abilities might exceed theirs by a hundredfold, but that would matter little if he made reckless choices.

In the distance the Forest’s arboreal front loomed high and black, the mountain peaks of its northern border rising up like jagged islands from its thick canopy. Wisps of earth-power played about the treetops like rippling veils, reminding him of the sky-born auroras he had once seen in the far north. It was a strangely beautiful display, despite all its ominous overtones. He wondered what the place would look when true night fell, when neither moon nor stars would be present to provide illumination. The volatile dark fae would be able to rise above the treetops then, to add its eerie purple substance to the glowing display. What a glorious sight that must be!

Be careful,
he warned himself.
The Forest’s power is said to be seductive in nature. What better way to entrap an adept than to offer him such glorious visions?

He tried to urge his horse into motion again, but it whinnied anxiously and pawed at the ground in protest, struggling against the Workings he had used to bind it. Even its dull equine brain could sense the true nature of what was in front of them now, and a simple Soothing was not going to be enough to reassure it. Tarrant’s first instinct was to increase the power of his Compelling, and he nearly did so. But such an act would require him to tap into the local currents, or else expend a portion of his own limited resources. Neither move was justified yet.