Feast of Fates (Four Feasts Till Darkness Book 1) (83 page)

When they were almost upon the looming mass, Thackery hissed, “Wait.”

“What is it?” asked Caenith.

“Shouldn’t we take precautions? I have no idea what this place is, and it gives me an eerie chill. It was certainly not here in my days.”

“Precautions are unnecessary. The path has been opened for us, and there can be only danger ahead. Look,” whispered Caenith.

He didn’t have the Wolf’s sight, but as he squinted into the murk of the nearest hole leading into the sphere, he saw a tumble of darkness. “What is that?”

“A body,” replied the Wolf.

Caenith was darting ahead before Thackery could begin any of his frantic questions. He followed Caenith into the dank passage, stepping over the corpse of a man wrapped in black like an assassin. From the way his limbs flopped, he seemed broken in many spots.

“What did that to him?” muttered Thackery.

“I don’t know.” Caenith took several long sniffs and then frowned. “But it’s still here. I smell Morigan, too. Twice. In two different places. The nearest isn’t far. Whatever killed this man is with her. Here, take Macha. I need the freedom of movement, and your magik could bring this construction down
on us.” Before handing the girl over, Caenith kissed her sweating forehead. “
Ta mued rachaidh mea miongháire gan mhoill, cén uair ta leaghas
.” (You will smile for me again, once you are well.)

Macha fell into Thackery’s arms as weightless as a bag of down; she did not have much time remaining in this life. A number of urgencies drove the Wolf ahead: his need to reunite with Morigan, the drumming of water far overhead, Macha’s dribbling chronex, and the confusion of scents that threatened to turn him around in this place. Among these, the reek of these tunnels was the most prominent, overpowering all other smells. It was the muskiness of an animal’s unwashed loins. This was the stink of a creature that, again, he felt he should know. Had he hunted this monster before? No, that didn’t seem correct. Was it a hunter itself, then?
Aye
, his instincts told him, but how muddled was the mind of the ageless Wolf that he still could not recall from whence. He needed his concentration to pursue the scents of his bloodmate, so he refocused himself upon that. For the tunnels had no real order to their arrangement, unless that layout was meant to confuse, and the paths sloped up and down, left and right, often meeting at the queerest junctions with passageways both high and low. Discouragingly, the walls were sharp with objects, and the lights were few, far apart, and dull as dying embers. But they were never lost, not with the Wolf’s guidance, and they found a macabre trail of bread crumbs, more bodies of the shadowmen, to tell them that they were tailing Morigan’s captors. The Wolf heard footsteps and susurrations well before Thackery ever could. He made a
hush
gesture and stalked off ahead, leaving Thackery to sneak up as best he could. As soon as the commotion started, Thackery ground caution under his running feet and hurried into the tunnel where the Wolf had gone.

In the terrible lighting, it was hard for Thackery to see what he had blundered into. Down past the grand shadow of Caenith’s back was an athletic, darkly dressed woman doing the shouting and bearing glinting arms. “Release them!” she was screaming, while taking swipes at Caenith, who snapped and bit at her attacks. The Wolf was too occupied to outright smack her away, for he had a hand and knee upon one figure on the ground, and with his strong fingers he had caged another man up against the wall.

“Where is she? Where is Morigan?” he snarled.

“M-morigan!” exclaimed the woman.

The man with the wild hair and exotic features crushed against the wall was pulling at his prison and desperately trying to wheeze a reply. Caenith heard enough of what was being said to loosen his grip.

“Blood…
hech hech
…mate,” coughed the man. “You’re her bloodmate.”

“If you wouldn’t mind getting your rather large self off me,” said the struggling gentleman under Caenith’s knee, apparently unbothered by the weight. “This is really more of an annoyance than anything productive.”

Thackery had the mind of a spider, and he spun the connections quickly into reason. “Caenith, wait! Allies, remember! You said she had found allies!”

The Wolf’s fury simmered. “Allies. That would explain why you smell like her. Is this true?”

“Yes!” the three answered.

Caenith released both men. One collapsed sloppily and was helped to stand by the cloaked woman. The other sprang upright as a spring daisy—the most notable aspects of him were his incredible paleness and the solid blackness of his eyes. His spicy aroma was not the stink of an undying thing, yet it wasn’t the freshness of life, either.

“You’re not quite dead,” said Caenith, a bit surprised.

“You’re not quite a man,” replied Vortigern.

“We have no time for this,” snapped Mouse. “Your bruiser has no doubt rung the dinner bell through the Broker’s lair.”

Thackery swallowed. “The Broker’s lair?”

“Yes.”

That said, Mouse quickly pointed about and lastly at herself. “Vortigern, Kanatuk, Mouse. Introductions have been made. Lovely to meet you, Caenith, and whoever you are. Let’s go.”

“Thackery,” he answered, hurrying to catch up with the rest while carrying Macha. He and the snappy young woman continued a bit of conversation as they hustled along.

“Thackery, hmm? I think you’re my great uncle. That there is your nephew. You may not have recognized him, being a bit dead and all.”

Thackery almost tripped from the realization. “I am?”

“Yes.”

“I am.”

“Who is the child you’re carrying?”

“Macha.”

“She looks unwell.”

“She is.”

“Hmm.”

A few strides forward and the Wolf elbowed past Kanatuk’s lead. Frantically, he sniffed for Morigan; almost hunched to all fours was he, in full spirit of the chase. His Fawn was close; he could hear her whimpering, her noises more thrilling to his blood than the gasp of any prey he had ever hunted. He wasn’t sure where he was leading them. His head was in a haze; his limbs were mindless of his body. Tunnels blurred by, and there were only two pulses throbbing and beating together: his and hers. At last, he sped into a chamber wider that the constrictions of this foul maze and strewn with insignificant articles, and there was the pearl and crimson sliver of light that was his Fawn. How bright and glorious she was among the filth. How fragrant a flower among the toadstools.

“Morigan!” he roared.

She had known where to look for him. She had felt the heat rushing upon her, inside her: the passion of the Wolf. In his warm wind, he swept to her, seized her restraints, and pulled them apart as if they were yarn. They did not kiss, but touched each other’s dirty cheeks in teary wonder. For their journey had taken them into the need and trust that came with true hardship and devotion—a faith that they would find each other, a bond forged against the strongest separation. Without the feliron, they could speak into the other’s mind, they could bask in the other’s fire and light.

Do not fear that you will walk this world alone. Do not fear the kings or nameless monsters. I shall stand with you, and you will stand with me. Death will not separate us
, said the Wolf.

She had heard these words once, long before any of this terror began, and she believed them more than ever now.

And I shall stand with you forever
, she said.

Forever
, promised the Wolf.

No truer a vow had been made in this world. They knew it, they felt it, and they embraced and held that moment for as long as they could. Then the unusual trembling of the room—something was happening above, Caenith
was sure of it—and the watchful presences nearby drew them from their peace.

I see you’ve met my friends
.

Morigan glanced past the arms of her bloodmate to the tired folk gathered by her—Vortigern being the exception. For a speck, she smiled at them, and then the vestiges of her euphoria dwindled, and she recalled the terrible danger they were in.

“By the kings! We have to get out of here! A jabberwokargh!”

Pain stretched the word into a screeching note as the bees violently attacked their mistress. Nothing she Willed would stall them, nor could the heat of the Wolf deter their assault. The bees were uncompromising. They were free, and they had something that she
must
see. Morigan went slack in the arms of the Wolf; she heard his howling voice as she faded into elsewhere.

Into the milky dark she tumbles, helpless and bodiless on the silver cloud of her magik. No! Return me to Caenith! she demands. Yet she has no control. The reins are broken, and the horses run wild. Through the shapeless tides of time and space, she is hurtled, roughly, erratically, and with the greatest of insistency. A trip that should cross a thousand spans takes her a mere speck
.

SEE! boom the bees
.

At that, the darkness breaks, and she is swooping over a scorched land with the chaos of war welling under her intangible wings. Immediately, she forgets the thrills and terror of where her flesh casing lies. She is engulfed by the horror of what the bees have revealed to her. The smoke and death, the screams of noble men, and the malevolent chanting of an endless swell of man-things—men, women, children, and beasts alchemized with metal, made with sword hands and needle teeth—that pour upon a faltering bastion of white warriors and sorcerers casting desperate magiks from peaks heaped in the dead. Two armies, two kings; this is their war, she realizes. Though it is more of a slaughter, for the doom of the white warriors is fated to arrive in moments. As magnificent as the carnage is, the bees pull her away, toward the rear of the battle, toward the source of the unholy river of the damned. A shimmer of white and gold is there, two men whose greatness can be seen like stars in the sky from any distance
.

The kings, she gasps
.

“Her eyes!” cried Thackery.

After the stunning flash of light, Morigan had fainted. When her companions gathered round the angry Wolf, the radiance still had not gone out, only dimmed. For the light came from within Morigan, streaming through her mouth and stare in misty rays, as if she had swallowed a torch. In the throe of a nightmare, she clawed at her bloodmate, and he had to restrain her tightly.

“What…what am I seeing? What is wrong with her?” demanded Thackery.

Caenith could sense Morigan’s remoteness and fear; he understood that the fates had taken her as a witness. He answered crossly, “She’s away. Very far away from us. Watching something dire.”

Mouse, the eternal survivalist, wasn’t particularly interested in the lightshow happening with her companion or what it meant. They needed to flee. Morigan had been warning them about something prior to this spell taking her. The oddness of Morigan’s word inspired a cold dread, and Mouse ejaculated it like a bug in her mouth.

“Jabberywoka! Or something! That’s what she said! And to run!”

Caenith rose a bit to his senses. Suddenly, the stinking musk and nest of regurgitated garbage began to chime warning bells in his head. The legends were old, but easily remembered for their wickedness. All pups were cautioned of the deformed bastard offspring of two skin-walkers, these hateful abominations who deplored their miserable selves and the world that created them and dwelled in depths unfit for the living. Nests of bone, shite, and rotten meat.
Or refuse
, he thought, glancing around.

“Jabberwok,” muttered the Wolf.

“What are you two talking about? What is a Jabberwok?” asked Thackery.

Morigan moaned, falling deeper into her nightmare, and her sight flared and pranced among the shadows in the room. Revealed upon the roof was one shadow: lumpy and enormous, swishing with lizardy sinuousness. They saw it. They were terrified by it and flushed from its tremendous heat. Its curdled sweat—the piss and blood and grease that it rolled in, the
fear—
made them cough.

“Jabberwok!” screamed Caenith.

“HAROOOOOGH!”

The Jabberwok trilled its cry in return, showering them all with powdery rubble, and charged. In the quaking dusty chamber, the monster was as fleeting and vicious as a hurricane. Reeling in shock, the two armed among them—Mouse and Kanatuk—crazily thrust weapons at the blubbery snapping snake that was instantly upon them.
Don’t think about what you’re seeing!
counseled Mouse’s inner voice, lest the madness paralyze her. There was madness aplenty to reflect on, should she survive: the iron jaw, the disarrayed teeth, the flapping wings, and beady eyes of glorious hate. Relentlessly it fought, biting them into a corner and dissuading any escapes with its thrashing mace of a tail. Mouse shrieked as she thrust her daggers through any bit of scaly fur that she could, while Kanatuk was steelier in his focus and cleaner with his strikes; he opened a few gashes upon the creature, though nothing that would kill it. Vortigern and the others had not joined the fray, and Mouse called for her father. A howl rent her back, and she cowered from the force of it; even the Jabberwok faltered in its nerve. Then Vortigern was pulling her, and her weapons clattered away. Kanatuk had thrown his weapon at the monster and was stumbling along at her side. Everything was happening so fast, she didn’t understand where her father was hauling her, or what the immense black shape was that flew past them, smelling of dog and roaring loudly enough to weaken her knees. Whatever it was, it shot into the Jabberwok like a bullet of darkness, and the two monstrous shapes tumbled away in a blur of claws and a thunder of growls.

She tripped and had to turn away, finally looking ahead. Thackery seemed to be jogging at the lead; her father had her in the cold vise of a hand; the strangely glowing seer was slumped over Vortigern’s shoulder and clutching and biting at him—still a victim to her dark spell; and Kanatuk huffed at her side. So all were safe, except for…Caenith? A fantastic howl, triumphant and raw, followed by a gurgling trill of the Jabberwok rippled up the tunnel at their backs, and in the absolute hysteria, Mouse drew the conclusion that Caenith was somehow all right. Perhaps even making that first call. She had lost the plot, surely. Dread and fire rode them ragged, as they floundered over themselves through passages that had begun to shiver and creak threateningly. Their peril wasn’t only behind them, but where they were headed, for the Broker’s nest was losing its cohesion.
The whole place is falling apart
, thought Mouse, another fear to be added to the lunatic’s
cauldron. More howls and trilling echoed, metal and gobs of trash fell on her and in their path. She did not consider that she would die here and be buried among garbage; she ran with purpose and that steadfast fire that had always warmed her.
I shall live! We shall live!
Mouse had found a new voice to motivate her, and that was the only one she heeded now.