King Of Souls (Book 2) (36 page)

Ronan nodded. “We’ll return you to your cabin before we leave for Ayralen.”

The bear cub stood and waddled off Rika’s lap. He stretched his short stubby legs and wandered over beside Ronan. He sat at his side pressing his body against Ronan’s boot.

“I think he’s making clear his intention,” Rika said.

Ronan knelt and scratched behind the cub’s ear. What did he know about naming an ice bear?

Near Elan’s Gap

Hot rage washed over Danielle’s vision as she whirled inside her makeshift prison searching for a weak point.

Vines of electricity crackled and snapped. They writhed around Danielle in an ever-changing, interlocking grid of death. The walls surrounding both Danielle and Ferris hummed with a sinister foreign energy.

Ferris locked his arms around Danielle’s thigh trembling. “Please don’t let the mean children hurt me. Please Miss Danielle.” With wide-eyes, he scanned the Obsith sorcerers’ sneering faces circling the cage.

“Danielle, I would strongly urge you against destroying the electrical field. It could kill both you and the boy,” Arber said. “Believe it or not, I don’t want to see you hurt, and you don’t have all the facts. At least hear me out.”

Danielle didn’t doubt for a second the energy in her prison walls could kill her. But, she wouldn’t let Arber Stroman and this gang of unruly children detain her inside her own forest. She’d break through these walls and make them wish they’d never seen the Heartwood. Afterward, she’d escape to Meranthia and find Ronan. She reached inside and channeled a sea of nature’s energy powering a bramble of living armor that sprang from her flesh.

Thorny vines oozing rivulets of deadly poison shot outward. They coated Danielle’s body in an impenetrable cocoon of natural armor. Two-foot shafts of shining black wood jutted outward ending with sharp gleaming tips. The ebony spikes raced outward until their tips came within a hair’s breadth of the electric wall.

Danielle opened her belt pouch and grabbed her heartwood staff. As she channeled magic through the living wood, her heart lurched.

The staff’s normally red core appeared sluggish and brown. It seemed unresponsive to Danielle’s commands. The silver and gold veins crisscrossing its surface had turned a dull shade of gray. Like the forest, the staff’s life dimmed, inexorably linked to the first tree.

Arber’s eyes flickered to the staff before settling on Danielle’s face. “I don’t like seeing this happen to the forest either Danielle. I want it to stop too, but we can’t stop them if you won’t listen.”

Hot tears glistened at the corners of Danielle’s eyes, and she flashed a look of pure hatred toward her former mentor. “Look around you Arber. Look at what you’ve done. You’ve murdered the heartwood trees. How could you?” Rage boiled in her blood, and she pushed the black tips of her armor outward smashing the electrical bars.

Smoke curled from the thorn’s glistening tips, and the electrical field snapped and buzzed.

She would make them pay for their crimes. Danielle screamed unleashing a torrent of magic. She sent a dozen fresh barbs outward forming a living pincushion with her body.

Flame rose from the poison streaking her armor. The electrical field fizzled and shattered beneath the Earth Mother’s unbridled fury.

Danielle held open her palm and pulled on the vegetation surrounding Arber, Aren, and the sorcerers.

Grass already five-feet tall, swirled and thickened locking down the sorcerers’ legs and hips. The thin smirks of superiority evaporated, replaced by fear and uncertainty.

“Danielle stop!” Arber’s eyes widened as he pointed over her shoulder. “They’ll kill Keely if you don’t stop!”

Danielle’s breath caught, and she whirled. Her heart pounded so hard she thought it might burst through her chest, and her gaze dropped to the forest floor.

Keely’s face stared back, but her eyes had lost focus. A shaman stood at her feet dragging her unresponsive body across the matted forest carpet. Keely never moved.

Beside her, a second shaman dragged Jeremy bound hand and foot. His condition appeared identical to Keely’s as he lay numb and unresponsive. A strange blue sheen covered their exposed flesh.

“They’re not dead Danielle. I swear to God they’re not,” Arber said. “But they’ll kill them if you try to fight.”

Danielle whirled on the disgraced guardian with murder in her thoughts. “They look dead already Arber, and now I’m going to slaughter every last one of you. I’m tired of your lies.”

Arber’s jaw fell open. He raised his palms and shook his head. “No Danielle. I promise they’re still alive.” His head snapped toward Aren who’d kept his gaze locked on Danielle during the entire exchange. “You have to show her Aren. She’ll kill us otherwise.”

Aren appeared in no hurry to oblige as the smirk never left his face. “Why should I? I care not a whit for her life or her friends.” The childlike sorcerer stiffened stretching to his full height.

“Would the emperor?” Arber said.

Doubt flickered in Aren’s eyes before his mask of smug indifference returned. “Fine.” Aren directed his index finger toward Keely while his ring glowed a soft blue.

Danielle spun, her gaze locked on her fallen friend.

Color returned to Keely’s face, and her eyes regained focus. Keely’s expression showed no fear, and her lips moved. In a hoarse breathless whisper she spoke. “Don’t give in Danielle. Kill them and run.”

“That’s enough,” Aren said. He directed his finger toward Keely freezing her features in place.

“She’s not dead Danielle, and neither is Jeremy,” Arber said. “You have to stop before more people die.”

Danielle couldn’t believe his nerve. His actions had led to thousands of deaths, and he dared speak to her about restraint? But she’d seen enough death to last her a lifetime. Around her, the forest died with her friends, and her father wouldn’t survive another day defending the first tree. How could he? She couldn’t watch her friends die. She didn’t have the strength. “If I comply, you’re to let my friends go, and Ferris.” She squeezed Ferris’s shoulder.

“I don’t think —,” Aren said.

“Yes,” Arber said cutting off Brees’s older brother. “We’ll let them go, but you have to come with us.”

Ronan could find her couldn’t he? He could track Lora’s Sphere through their bond. He’d find her and save her. He’d have to. Danielle nodded.

“Make yourself useful Arber, and take her pack,” Aren said.

Arber stepped forward and reached toward Danielle as if touching a venomous snake. “Danielle?”

“You do realize what you’ve done?” Danielle slipped the leather pack from her shoulder and handed it to Arber.

“I told you, I don’t like doing this,” Arber said.

Laughter, short and bitter, rolled from Danielle’s throat. “No, you idiot. I followed you into Obsith. Keely and I both did. You traveled to Zen with somebody named Martell didn’t you?”

Arber’s eyes widened. “How did you know?”

Danielle ignored his question. “You’re carrying the plague Arber. Did you know that?”

“That’s not true,” Arber said but his eyes betrayed doubt.

“Plague? What plague?” Aren said.

“Three hundred years ago, a man named Dimrey brought a plague among our people. It almost wiped out our civilization,” Danielle said. “Arber carried it to your people.”

Arber squeezed his lips shut remaining silent as the color drained from his face.

“Arber doesn’t look sick,” Aren said.

“He’s not sick. He’s had the antidote, but he’s still a carrier.”

“I don’t believe you,” Aren said.

Danielle shrugged. “Suit yourself, but that doesn’t make it any less true. I bet at least one or two of you surrounding me right now is already showing the first signs. Check the base of your neck or your wrists. Look for a red rash. A few of you may have already seen it and blamed it on the weather change.”

The haughty look in Aren’s eyes evaporated replaced by an inkling of fear.

Arber took Danielle’s pack and stepped back the color in his face gone.

A sharp squeal sounded from a female sorcerer standing behind Danielle. She raised her wrist skyward revealing a long red rash extending from her wrist to the crook of her elbow.

A male sorcerer behind Aren cried out. He pulled away his burlap collar revealing red bumps descending beneath his clothing.

“Soon enough, you’ll develop the fever, and by then it’ll be too late,” Danielle said. “Martell’s dead isn’t he Arber? Let me guess, he fell ill. Am I right?”

“Shut up Danielle,” Arber said as anger swelled in his eyes.

“Arber, we need the cure before this spreads any further,” Aren said.

Danielle smiled. “I’d venture to say that if I go with you, in a week you’ll all be dead then I’ll simply walk away.”

Arber glared daggers through Danielle ignoring Aren’s plea.

“Arber the cure! Now!” Aren said.

Arber whirled on the tiny sorcerer towering over him like an angry giant.

Aren stepped back as fear washed over his face.

“You’re killing the cure!” Arber pointed toward the gnarled shriveling heartwood tree behind Danielle. “It’s in the fruit these trees produce, but they’re all dying!”

Worthless dead fruit littered the forest carpet mocking the sorcerers surrounding Danielle.

“And to think, I returned to the Heartwood so I could deliver a cure to your people.” Danielle shook her head in disgust. “If you harm any Ayralen, most of all my friends or family, the cure dies with me. Do we understand each other?” Danielle spit out the words while her molten gaze bored a hole through Aren’s ashen face.

A whoosh of air rustled the grass surrounding the standoff. A juvenile rust-colored dragon appeared descending beneath the darkened tree line.

“You’re coming with us,” Aren said.

The young dragon settled in a narrow clearing several feet away. Half the size of the creatures attacking the first tree, the dragon kept a wary eye trained on the fleeing refugees.

Arber stepped into a crystal foothold set in the dragon’s double saddle and slipped into the rear seat. He offered his hand to Danielle. “Come on Danielle, you’re coming with us.”

Danielle’s face buzzed while her gaze locked on Ferris.

Ferris clung to Danielle’s leg like a lifeline, his face a mask of shock. He repeated the same phrase in a low mumbling tone.

Danielle knelt and held his cheeks in her palms.

“Don’t leave me Miss Danielle,” Ferris said in an almost catatonic state.

“Ferris, stay with Miss Keely and Jeremy. They’ll take care of you.” Tears streamed down Danielle’s cheeks.

Aren climbed behind a second sorcerer seated in the dragon’s front saddle and glared at Danielle from his perch. “Climb on! Now!”

Ferris clung to Danielle’s leg and screamed as if beaten.

Hard knots tightened in Danielle’s stomach, and she pried his hands from her leg. “I’m sorry Ferris. Stay with Miss Keely.” She stood and moved toward Arber’s extended hand unable to look the boy in his eye.

Ferris fell forward tumbling into the grass near Keely and Jeremy’s frozen bodies screaming.

Danielle took Arber’s hand, and he pulled her behind him on the saddle.

“Go!” Aren pulled a glowing crystal whip from the saddle under him and lashed the dragon’s side.

Danielle gaze locked on the scene playing out below as she rose skyward seated atop the dragon’s back.

“I see them over here!” A deep voice bellowed inside a hedgerow lying between the group and Elan’s Gap.

Beside Keely and Jeremy, a sorcerer’s expression froze in shock a moment before he dropped to his knees. His hands reached for his chest. He stared horror stricken at a heavy barbed arrowhead protruding from his breastbone. The sorcerer's chest heaved for a few seconds before he fell forward landing face first in the matted grass.

Sorcerers scattered into the thicket. Spirit shields sprang to life around Keely, Jeremy, and Ferris.

Danielle watched from fifty feet above as Keely stirred and Ferris crawled next to her curling at her side. Before she disappeared above the withered forest canopy, Danielle turned away.

Goodbye Old Friend

In her eagle form, Rika glided high over a cliff’s edge skimming a rocky outcropping before pitching down and left. Ronan and Rika had made good time since leaving Moira at her cabin in the valley beneath Dragon’s Peak. They’d raced westward aided by a strong steady tailwind and a desperate sense of urgency. Connal Deveaux needed to know about a looming desert attack.

Ronan craned his neck over a nearby peak. He searched for the Queen’s Road that led past Elan’s Gap and through the mountains into greater Meranthia. The memories of his time spent in Ayralen last autumn had haunted him throughout their westward journey. He recalled the strange flashing lights over the Chukchi Desert. His father had insisted that a high-altitude desert storm had passed near the Heartwood. Connal had claimed the storm provided a brilliant light show but nothing more sinister. Last autumn, Ronan’s intuition had nudged him of potential danger. Now it screamed at him insisting a much greater threat.