Glyphbinder (14 page)

“Kara! Someone’s coming!”
Byn thought from the rise.
“I can smell them! There’s at least a dozen!”

Kara increased their pace and glanced at Trell. “There’s someone coming at the others from beyond the ridge.”

“Tell them to come down here. Meet us.” Trell quickened his pace. “If we must stand, we’ll do better in a building than on open ground, unless they decide to burn us out.”

“Unless…” Kara could not believe how calmly he talked about these things. She went back to mindspeak.
“Leave the wagon and the horses! Come to us!”

“Jair won’t wake up!”

“Then carry him!”

“Kara?” Trell’s arm blocked her way. “To the right. This house is defensible.” He walked inside with Aryn coughing on his shoulder. Kara waited outside, staring. She couldn’t see Byn anywhere.

At last, Byn and Sera rushed from the dark night. Byn, hunched over, carried Jair’s slack form on his back and held Jair’s legs in his thick arms. The quickest way to travel with another body. Sera’s eyes were wide and orange.

“Sera?” Kara felt like she was looking in a mirror. “Why?”

“They’re looking for a woman with orange eyes.” Sera met her gaze as they confronted each other. “We’re both female and wearing veils. If it comes to a fight, this will at least confuse them.”

Kara wanted to scream at her. When had Sera taken the time to learn Kara’s eye-changing glyph? Trell stepped outside with his sword in one hand and beckoned. The house had once been two stories, but the upper story had been blasted off by what Kara guessed might have been a Hand of Heat.

“Don’t argue.” Sera prodded Byn, who grunted and rushed into the house with Jair. “Just get inside.”

Kara fumed as she followed the others into the house. Trell closed the door and then motioned to Byn. Grunting with effort, the two of them lifted a fallen piece of timber and settled it against the door. Then they settled another.

A host of howls sounded from outside the house. They sounded like animals, but not like wolves. They were the howls of something else — something angry. Kara could not imagine what would howl like that, but she knew it was coming for her. Coming for them all.

She turned on Sera and gripped her shoulder. “Change your eyes back, now. This is too dangerous.”

“That’s not your decision,” Sera said. “Besides, they’re not taking either of us. You’ll see to that, won’t you?”

Aryn knelt now beside Jair’s silent form, trying to wake him up. The howls sounded again, just outside the door. Kara unslung her quarterstaff, as did the rest of her dyn. They could not use glyphs, but they could use the dream world. Kara took to it that moment.

The forms outside were orange and living, but taller than humans and difficult to identify. There were six of them. Their auras were almost animal, like wolves, but they had a keen intelligence that implied culture, language, and fury. Kara did not know what they were, but she knew what they wanted. Her.

The largest of the creatures slammed a massive black club against the door. The door splintered with the impact, and Kara doubted the makeshift barricade would hold for long. That’s when Kara noticed Trell no longer stood with them. His orange form had climbed a ladder to the open second floor.

“What’s he doing?”
Sera thought.

“Five take me.”
Byn’s next thought carried awe.
“I think he’s going to drop down on top of them.”

Trell didn’t. What dropped on the orange forms outside was a huge oak dresser. The dresser crushed the largest form, producing a flash of green that soon faded. Another howled and jerked at its crushed leg.
That
was when Trell dropped on them.

No matter how fast these strange beings were, Trell and his broadsword were faster. Byn and Aryn pulled at the timber pile before the door. By the time they got it open, all the forms were dead. Trell turned to them, blade covered in blood with more splattered on his cloak.

“Clear the door and get out here! That was their raiding party, but they would have left others around the village. We have to break out of this noose.”

Byn picked up Jair. “Go on. I’ve got our sleeper.”

They rushed out into darkness as more howls sounded. Taven’s Hamlet was not particularly big, and Kara knew the howls would be on them soon. When she saw the furry, wolf-faced bodies Trell had brought down, she sucked in her breath.

“Gnarls. They’ve not been seen outside the Unsettled Lands for decades, have they?”

“Well, they’re here now.” Aryn nudged one with his boot. “Seems inevitable, the way they breed.”

The sky above Metla Tassau crackled with spectral storms made by Torn, High Protector, after he sealed the gates at Terras. Those storms brought instant death to any human that entered the province, but gnarls were not human. They were far worse.

Gnarls had spread quickly across Metla Tassau, a mix of wolf and man, and legend said one of the first mages to discover the secrets of glyph magic made them millennia ago. They had tribes and societies and villages. They also raided the Five Provinces.

“Head to the south side of town,” Byn said, grunting with Jair’s weight. “The horses will meet us there.”

“Dyn star on Trell,”
Kara thought.

Reacting to the training they had all undergone at Solyr, she, Sera, Byn, and Aryn formed a five-sided star with Trell at their head. Kara chose her steps cautiously, avoiding bodies still strewn in the street. It was easier to think of them as bodies, as obstacles, than the people they had once been. Dead.

Under normal circumstances, Kara would have led the star, but Byn was carrying Jair and Trell was the only one who had actually been in battle before. He had also just killed six gnarls. By himself.

“I sent instructions to the horses before we left,” Byn said, as they picked their way through corpses and crows. “I wasn’t going to leave them to be slaughtered.”

“I love you, Byn,” Sera said.

“Love you too, honey.” An axe flew from the darkness and took Byn in the shoulder. He fell with a grunt and dropped Jair.

“No!” Sera cried.

Gnarls surrounded them on all sides, obvious in the dream world, and Kara knew they couldn’t win this without Trell’s help. He had no dream world. He couldn’t see the beastmen surrounding them, so she would make sure he could.

Kara drew a glyph of Flaryen on her wrist pad and attached it to Trell’s dream form. Then, she broadcast mindspeak to her dyn. “
Our attackers are gnarls, not human. I know you’ve never killed before, but they’ll kill us if we don’t kill them. I’m scribing Flaryen.”

The protests of her dyn had only just reached her when she ignited her glyph. The corruption of carrow root slammed into her full force, dropping her to all fours.

As she gagged and collapsed, she prayed it would be enough.

TRELL DID NOT QUESTION the floating white light that burst into being at his side, drifting like a flower petal in the air. It was magic like all the other magic he had seen. It allowed him to see their attackers, and he would use it like any other tool.

The floating light revealed the gnarl who had thrown the axe in the shadow of a building just to their right. Three more were creeping toward them in a line with serrated hand axes raised. The beastmen stared at the new light with big black eyes.

“Kill the one in the alley!” Trell charged those ahead.

The strange floating light moved with him, bobbing as if leashed to his body. The gnarls spread, but Trell moved too fast for them to flank him. He sidestepped the leader’s swing and sliced its leg off at the knee.

Trell knew how to fight with a sword. He lived and breathed it. Though his memories were shadows, his training was all instinct. It guided his blade, guided his feet and his muscles as he parried, struck, killed. His attackers seemed slow, clumsy. Amateur.

When the short fight ended three gnarls were dead and his arm stung. He had been careless — or perhaps he wasn’t as good as he thought. The light Kara had made for him wobbled at his side, flickering like a dying candle flame. He checked on the others.

The gnarl in the alley was down, its snout bleeding. It was not dead and neither was anyone else. Aryn stood over it, quarterstaff stained with blood. His chest was heaving and his eyes were wide.

“Finish it,” Trell ordered.

Aryn bared his teeth and crushed the Gnarl’s head with his staff.

Byn was sitting up, but Sera would not let him stand. She wrapped his arm with rapid, quiet efficiency, using gauze she must have carried in her pack. Jair and Kara were both on the ground and neither moved, but it seemed everyone was alive. For the moment.

Trell rushed to Kara’s side. He recognized the same signs he had seen when the carrow root had first taken her: pale skin, a brow mottled with sweat, and shallow breaths.

Jair’s eyes popped open and he sat up. “Shifters.”

Byn groaned. “Where have you been?”

“What did you say?” Aryn hurried to Jair and helped him up. “You saw Shifters?” He seemed to be handling his first murder well.

“What are Shifters?” Trell asked, biting back frustration. There was simply too much he still didn’t know.

“Spirits,” Kara rasped. Her eyes were open now as well. “They change the way things look. Some call them tricksters, others wisps. They have no masters and love deceiving people.”

“Can their illusions hurt you?”

“No.” Aryn wiped his staff with a dirty cloth and slung it over his shoulder. “But walking into a ravine you can’t see will.”

As Aryn spoke, the dark night vanished. Lights rose all around them, green and glimmering, like a hundred tiny candles trapped in emerald jars. The false green light made Trell’s head hurt. The light Kara had made wobbled and vanished.

The odd green light made the play of the Shifters visible. The sky above their heads filled with glittering stars, all cloud cover obscured or swept away. White masks depicting laughing, screaming, and crying faces floated along both sides of the street.

“I discovered them as soon as I projected,” Jair said quietly. “They were everywhere, and there were so many. They surrounded me. I managed to disperse some of them and lead the rest on a chase, but eventually they grew bored with me, and then it took me some time to find my body.” He breathed. “We’re not outside town?”

“Not anymore.” Trell frowned at the large brick wall that had just appeared across the street. It was a taunt. “Kara, can you walk yet? I know nothing about these Shifters.”

Kara struggled to her feet. Trell supported her until she could support herself, imagining more gnarls closing in on all sides. They could not move until they could see.

“Byn,” Kara rasped. “Can you move?”

“It was just my arm,” Byn said. “And Sera’s amazing.”

Byn seemed unaffected by his attempted murder, and Trell was grateful that none of them had panicked. Solyr training had served them well. “Will these visions confuse the gnarls?”

“Some of them, maybe.” Kara huffed. “If they’re not working together. Byn, you said a dozen came up on you?”

“Yeah. This makes ten. That leaves two.”

“We all know what a dozen are,” Aryn snapped. “Shall we go?”

Byn had no sooner clenched his fist before Kara shushed Aryn with a raised hand and grabbed Byn’s arm, forcing him to look at her. “Take the dream world. Can you lead us to the horses?”

Byn straightened and nodded. “Of course I can.”

“Then you lead.” Kara’s face was still pale. “Link hands. Follow Byn. If we must fight, form a star and don’t leave it. The Shifters can look like anyone we know or any of us, but they can’t make a hand warm. Stay close and keep your eyes closed.”

Trell appreciated Kara’s level head. He knew he had fought in many battles before, even with most of his memories missing, but he had fought swords and steel. Not magic. Not Shifters. He knew nothing about battles like this.

Following Kara’s orders, they formed a chain and allowed Byn to lead them. Howls sounded all around as they walked, and when Trell opened his eyes, he immediately regretted it. A giant spider had just dropped into their path, as big as a horse and covered in fur and fangs. As Byn walked through it, it burst into clinging mist.

A sharp cry made Trell jump. He looked down a nearby alley to see Byn writhing in the grip of some sort of blackish ivy. It wound around his limbs like a dozen snakes.

“Help me!” Byn cried. “It’s got me!”

“It’s a trick,” the real Byn grunted. “They’re all tricks. Don’t trust your eyes. Trust me.”

Trell dared not close his eyes. He couldn’t afford to trip or stumble over a body, not without taking the line down with him. The sky turned purple and bubbles floated across it. Each time one popped, it left a sparkling star. Had the Shifters not been trying to kill them, Trell would have been impressed with the artistry of it all.

The first gnarl attacked out of a fake building wall. Trell was too far away to stop it, too slow, but the gnarl ran right into the butt of Byn’s quarterstaff. It snout spurted red as it stumbled backward. It righted itself and roared, raising a gleaming axe.

Kara swept her staff in low, knocking the gnarl’s feet out from under it. By then Trell had reached it and he finished the beastman with a blade through its throat. It gurgled and clawed the blade as Trell kicked, dropping it to the earth. It died there, choking on its own blood, and its wide, desperate eyes seemed almost human.

“Trell!” Kara shouted. “There’s another gnarl twenty paces ahead, crouched behind a wagon. It has a hand axe.”

Trell turned but found nothing but waist-high grass. “I can’t see it! How can you?”

“Dream world.”

“Any others?”

“I think it’s the last of them. It’s coming at us right now.”

“Tell me if it charges.” Trell memorized the location of all nearby bodies and then closed his eyes. He heard the crunch of booted feet on dirt, the distinctive shuffle of torasel robes. He turned what he heard into what he
saw
.

The gnarl sounded different. Its bare feet padded against the ground like a dog or wolf. It breathed loud and had a smell to it, wet fur slick with grease. Trell stepped into its path.

“It’s coming for you!” Kara shouted.

“Tell me when it swings!”

“Now!”

Trell knew how a hand axe worked, and he had already seen several gnarls fight with one. He swung his blade to where it should go, if his eyes were open. The pommel of his sword shook in his hand as metal met metal with a reassuring clang. He kicked as hard as he could and his boot found gut. The gnarl’s breath rushed out.

Trell stepped forward and drove his sword into the warm mass ahead. The gasp turned to a muted snarl. Trell kicked again and pulled his sword free. He opened his eyes as a heavy, furred body tumbled to the earth. The gnarl gasped and sputtered as it died.

Trell looked up. Elders Halde, Ine, and Gell all stood before him. As one, they clapped politely.

“The horses!” Byn shouted. “They’re alive!”

Green light faded to night. The lamps of the wagon were visible now, casting just enough illumination for Trell to make out the low wall that surrounded Taven’s Hamlet. Their horses were snorting and pawing the ground.

Trell had never been so grateful for simple night. He knew now he had killed the last gnarl in the raiding party — this was no fun for the Shifters without the gnarls as a threat. He could finally see enough ground to avoid tripping over his own feet.

They hurried ahead as a group. As they reached the wagon, a storm of dirt and sand erupted all around it. Someone in the chain of hands screamed and Trell dared not swing his sword, blind to all but the dirt. He squinted his eyes and marched through the storm. It had to be a small one. He had to walk out of it.

Kara screamed again, as did Byn, and Trell tried not to scream back as goosebumps rose on his flesh. They could be out there, dying. He couldn’t help them. Then, almost the moment Trell stepped from the storm, its dirt and sand fell.

“Sera!” someone shouted. Byn.

Trell found him at last, caught in the wagon’s light. Byn tore off his veil and charged up the nearby rise.

“Sera!” Byn screamed again. “Where are you?” His shout was raw, hoarse, terrified.

Trell’s heart pounded in his ears. Sera was missing, perhaps murdered. What about Kara? Where in the Six Seas was Kara?

He stumbled over a warm body and cried out, but it was a horse body, not human. It was Spirit. Someone had sliced open the gelding’s stomach, and its entrails littered the bloodstained ground. Why kill the horse? What purpose could that possibly serve?

“Trell!” Kara shouted.

He lowered his sword and sagged in relief as Kara rushed from the night, eyes wide. She gripped his arms and he felt his stomach turn. She looked as pale as if her mother had just died.

“They’re gone,” Kara whispered. “And I can’t find Sera or Aryn.”

KARA WORKED WITH BYN to scribe Rannos as Trell circled the wagon, eyes on their surroundings. Searching for threats. Finally, they managed to ignite the glyph on Byn’s skin. Byn kept retching as Kara helped him up, but he wasn’t stopping. He would fight the carrow root because gnarls had taken the woman they both loved.

“You all right?” Kara steadied him. It was like the night she had her triptych duel with Aryn, only reversed, and this time the people they cared about could die.

“Yeah.” Byn coughed. “I’ve got him.”

“What’s happened?” Trell walked over, open cloak billowing in the cold wind. The moon had returned, little more than a sliver, but it cast enough light to let them see again.

“We managed to scribe Rannos.” Kara thumped Byn on the back and glanced at Trell. “Byn can track those gnarls.”

“Won’t the carrow root make him sick?”

“Not sick enough,” Byn growled. “Time to go.”

He shook his head as if fighting off flies and stumbled forward. Kara tried not to think about Sera or Aryn, dead. Bloated corpses now food for crows.

Jair joined them, face calm. He was handling this better than anyone. “Are we riding or hauling the wagon?” He didn’t ask if they were chasing their attackers.

“We’re taking the wagon,” Kara said. “Someone might be injured. Trell and I will tie the horses to the rail and walk.” She glanced at Byn, already many paces distant. “I don’t think he’s waiting for us.”

They got the horses hitched and the wagon moving in short order. Kara and Trell walked in front of it, with Jair driving and Byn ranging ahead. Kara felt like her boots were waterlogged. Sera could be dead or dying right now, and it was all her fault.

“Listen.” Trell’s eyes constantly swept the path ahead and around them, hand resting on the grip of his sheathed sword. “You cannot blame yourself for what happened.”

Kara frowned and stared at the tall grass. “I’m not.”

“Of course you are. Your friends came on this journey to protect you, and now they’re in danger. They might even be dead, just like all those people back there.”

“This is making me feel better?”

“Nothing will make you feel better. It always feels like this. It twists your gut in knots, sickens you.”

“Then why are we talking?”

“Because you need to know what you are feeling is normal. There’s nothing wrong with you or the decisions you’ve made. You’re leading us, and you’re doing it well.”

Kara kicked a clump of dirt. “I’m just trying not to get anyone killed.” Each word sounded bitter.

“You would do anything to protect your friends. They would do anything to protect you.”

“I’ll try and remember that if they all end up dead.”

Trell took her shoulder, forcing her to stop. She turned and stared at him. He had a grip.

“Don’t think like that.” Trell’s blue eyes held hers. “You can’t ever think like that.”