Leaves of Flame (41 page)

Behind Corim, in the doorway to the back bedroom, he could see a leg clad in a workboot sitting in a wide pool of blood.

“Corim,” he said, but his voice cracked, barely above a whisper. “Corim, come here. You can’t help them now.”

Corim didn’t respond. From behind, he heard two of the Legionnaires—­Curtis and Ricks—­pounding up the path, halting beside him. They looked in over his shoulder and Curtis sucked in a breath of horror. Ricks stumbled to one side and vomited into the small herb garden beneath the cottage’s window.

Corim’s wail had died down to a hitching moan. Gathering himself, Jayson stepped into the cottage and to Corim’s side. He reached down to grip Corim’s shoulder, the boy rocking back and forth where he knelt. He didn’t react to Jayson’s touch, so Jayson barked, “Corim!”

The boy flinched and looked up at him, his expression lost. “They’re dead,” he whispered.

“I know.” He squeezed Corim’s shoulder. “We can’t do anything for them now. We need to leave.” And he needed to find Lianne, although he wasn’t certain he wanted to find her now. Grief pressed hard against him, nearly swallowed him.

He sucked in a steadying breath and choked on the stench that permeated the house. “Come on. Let’s go.”

Corim didn’t move, so he reached down and hauled him to his feet, the boy’s mother’s body sliding to the floor. Mercifully, she landed facedown. After seeing what had been
done to her hands, Jayson could only imagine what had been done to her face.

As soon as he’d regained his feet, Corim latched onto Jayson, arms encircling his chest and drawing him in close. Curtis appeared in the doorway to the bedroom, caught his gaze and shook his head, although Jayson had already known Corim’s father was dead as well.

He half-­carried, half-­led Corim outside into the fading sunlight.

“We should head back to the village center,” Curtis said. Ricks had recovered, stepping up to them from one side as he wiped his mouth with one hand. He still shook and his face was pale.

“No,” Jayson said. “Not yet. I need to find Lianne.”

Ricks nodded and Jayson realized that the Legionnaire had been offering him a way out. But he couldn’t leave without knowing for certain.

Pushing Corim away gently but forcefully, he handed the youth off to Curtis and then headed down the path to the road.

His own cottage and lands were not far. He walked to them without speaking, the others trailing behind. He saw the cottage through the last of the trees, then passed through the small gate and garden to the front door. There he hesitated, thinking of the blood and stench in Corim’s home.

But he had to know.

He opened the door.

An invisible hand closed around his throat, choked off his breath, his voice. All of the strength drained from his legs and he slid down into a crouch. He held one hand out before him, as if he could ward off what he saw within, as if he could block it out.

Lianne sat slumped over the small table near the hearth, her head on its side, her blank hazel eyes staring toward the
door, as if she’d been watching for him. One hand lay on the table beside her head in a pool of spilled stew, the bowl upside down by her fingertips. The other lay in her lap. The rancid smell of broth and potatoes and onion filled the room, the stew pot still hanging over the long-­dead fire.

Corim’s hand fell onto his shoulder and Jayson dragged in a wheezing breath, his throat too tight and raw. He brought his hand down, then heaved himself upright and staggered to the table, knocking against it hard enough it scraped across the wooden floor, the bowls and utensils jouncing. Lianne’s hand slid through the congealed stew, the weight of her arm dragging it off the table. It swung, gelled chunks dropping from the fingers.

A noise he’d never heard himself make escaped him and he reached forward to brush Lianne’s hair, to touch her cheek. Her skin felt unnaturally cold and soft, as pale and lifeless as that of the dwarren’s body in the village center. Unlike Corim’s parents, there wasn’t a mark on her. No blood had been splattered through the house. It was as if she’d died while sitting down to eat.

He knelt down beside her, rested his head against her side and reached his arm around her shoulder. The constriction in his throat shifted down to his chest, so tight it felt as if he’d torn something deep inside his lungs, but he held it in, swallowed it down, his eyes squeezed shut with the effort. His body hitched as he sucked in a deep breath, trying to control himself—­

“Lianne,” he murmured.

“She’s—­” Corim began, but cut himself off.

Dead,
Jayson finished for him.
Lianne’s dead
.

The constriction that bound his chest tightened, but he found himself getting up, releasing her as he rocked back and stood.

“Let’s go,” he said. His voice was unnaturally hard. “There’s nothing we can do here anymore.”

“W
E’LL REACH THE CONFLUENCE today,” Colin said.

Both Eraeth and Siobhaen looked up from where they sat around the fire, Eraeth holding a pan over the flames, the scent of frying eggs drifting up to mingle with the smoke and smells of the hundred fires already burning as the dwarren roused themselves from sleep. With a casual gesture, he flipped the eggs.

“And what will happen once we get there?” Siobhaen asked. Exasperation tinged her voice.

Colin shrugged. “There will be a Gathering.”

“And what does that mean?” Siobhaen snarled. “I’m tired of traveling without knowing what’s going on. We came to the dwarren to find out what they know, but they haven’t told us anything. You’ve dragged us along with this war party without any explanation of why, gone wandering off on your own to visit the sarenavriell, and brought us these weapons that you claim are a gift from the heart of the forest, and yet you haven’t told us anything about what you found out or what they’re to be used for!”

Colin stared at her a long moment, at a loss for words. He glanced toward Eraeth, the Protector meeting his gaze with a shrug.

“She’s right,” he agreed. “It’s frustrating.”

“It’s frustrating for me as well,” Colin said, letting anger touch his voice. “I know as much as you.”

“No,” Siobhaen said, cutting him off. “You know more than you’ve told us. You’ve met with the shamans on more than one occasion since we left the Thousand Springs cavern. I refuse to believe that they’ve told you nothing, and I refuse to believe you haven’t kept something from us.”

Colin considered her intense gaze for a long moment, then said stiffly, “I haven’t told you everything—­”

“Ha!”

“—­but that does not mean that telling you will make anything clearer.”

“It might help,” Eraeth murmured, removing the eggs from the fire and separating them onto three plates. “We’ve been on edge for the entire underground excursion, not knowing whether we can trust the dwarren, not knowing where we are headed or what we will find when we get there.” He caught Colin’s gaze and lifted an eyebrow in rebuke. “It’s difficult to protect you when I don’t know what I’m to protect you from.”

Colin shifted uncomfortably as he accepted the plate of eggs. He was willing to brush off Siobhaen’s complaints as an effort to gain information for the Order of Aielan, but if Eraeth also felt compromised.…

He sighed. “If I knew for certain, I would have informed you. This is all I know:

“Perhaps eight months ago, something—­I assume Walter and the Wraiths—­awakened a Well to the east. This Well has a reservoir of Lifeblood greater than any of the Wells we know of, so vast that the Faelehgre believe that it is the source of all of the Lifeblood across the continent.”

“Why?” Siobhaen asked. “Why would they awaken this Well?”

“It will expand the territory that the Shadows can hunt extensively, perhaps as far south as Yhnar, or further.”

“But that doesn’t make sense. There aren’t many humans down that far, and no one has traveled or settled in the Flats or the Thalloran Wasteland. There must be another reason to awaken the Well.”

“Such as?” Colin wondered if Siobhaen would answer, wondered if she knew something she’d learned from Lotaern or the Order, perhaps unwittingly.

“I don’t know. I don’t know what the Wraiths and the sukrael want.”

Both Colin and Eraeth shared a glance. She’d answered too quickly to be lying. “The Shadows want freedom,” Colin said, rubbing his eyes. He’d just rested, but he already felt tired. “They were trapped near the Well and Terra’nor for so long their only goal is to escape it so they can feed. You saw their hunger in the years after the Wells were awakened.”

“No, I didn’t,” Siobhaen said. “I was not born until after the Winter Tree was planted. But that is what the sukrael want. What of the Wraiths? What of this Walter who leads them?”

Colin frowned.
Walter wants to kill me,
he nearly said, but stopped himself. It had to be more than that. But what did Walter want? He knew what the bully who had beat him in Portstown had wanted: the attentions of his father, Sartori, as well as his respect. That boy had gone on the expedition that had ultimately claimed the lives of everyone Colin cared about, so that Walter could prove himself to his father.

But Walter’s father was dead. He would never find the acceptance he’d craved as a boy, would never be the Proprietor of Portstown, the predecessor of what was now a GreatLord. Was that what Walter strove for now? Power? Did he want to rule as his father had?

Or did Walter’s wishes no longer matter? Had he been
tainted by the Lifeblood to such an extent that the Shadows and their goals were all that mattered now?

Colin shuddered at the thought and unconsciously clutched at his own arm and the marked skin beneath his shirt, an empty pit opening in his stomach.

“The Seasonal Trees,” Eraeth said suddenly, dragging Colin away from his thoughts. The Protector glanced between both of them. “You asked what the sukrael and the Wraiths want. You say they want freedom to roam the land and feed. The only things stopping them now are the Seasonal Trees. They want to eliminate them.”

“Can they do that with a new Well?” Siobhaen asked.

Colin bowed his head, staring into the fire, brow creased in thought. “I’m not certain. The Lifeblood and the Trees have never appeared to interact with one another in any way.” Except that was a lie. In order to create the Trees, he had used the Lifeblood to give their seeds strength, in order to augment their powers so that it would spread across the lands of the three races to protect them, and to make certain the Trees would last for hundreds of years. The Lifeblood was an inherent part of the Trees’ power.

He looked up. “But it’s possible. The Trees appeared unaffected when I checked with the Winter Tree in Caercaern, but I will look again once we reach the Confluence.”

“How?” Siobhaen asked.

“I’ll use the Summer Tree.”

At the front of the dwarren encampment, drums sounded and the dwarren began to stir, tents collapsing as they began packing, fires doused with water from the river cutting down the center of the round cavern they’d chosen as a rest area. Colin glanced down at his eggs. He hadn’t had a chance to eat. Both Siobhaen and Eraeth were nearly done.

Siobhaen caught his arm. “What else? What did you learn from the shamans?”

“The Faelehgre told me to find the Well and do whatever
was necessary to find balance again. None of the head shamans know anything of the Source. They only know the Wraiths and the rest of the creatures of the Turning have been gathering in the Thalloran Wasteland, creating an army, one to rival all of the races—­dwarren, Alvritshai, and human—­combined. They think that the awakening of the Well is a sign that their armies are ready to begin seizing control of all of Wrath Suvane. But it’s all speculation.”

“What do you think?”

Colin paused, then said quietly, “I think the dwarren are correct. They have prepared for the Turning their entire lives.”

All around them, the dwarren were smoothly and efficiently breaking camp. None of the fires remained, all of the tents were down, and the gaezels were already being spread throughout the group.

“Eat,” Eraeth said, nudging Colin’s plate of eggs. “We’ll get the horses and pack our tents.”

Without waiting for a response, he poured a bucket of water onto the fire, smoke and steam rushing upward. Colin began shoveling the eggs into his mouth as Siobhaen headed for the horses. They’d learned from experience that when the dwarren were ready to depart, they wouldn’t stop to wait for the human or the Alvritshai to catch up.

The two Alvritshai had their gear ready by the time Colin finished his breakfast; Eraeth washed the plate clean in the river and stuffed it into one of the saddlebags. The pounding rhythm that signaled the dwarren to move out came a moment before Colin swung himself up into the saddle.

Then they were riding, the dwarren leading them through one of three possible branches from the room, none of them markedly different from the others. As soon as they entered the tunnel, Colin turned his attention to what Eraeth had suggested, that the Wraiths were using this
new Well to affect the Seasonal Trees. He had sensed nothing when he checked the Winter Tree in Caercaern, but he didn’t think the Well had been awakened long before that. And from what he had discovered using the Well in the White Wastes, the newly awakened Well in the east was still drawing Lifeblood from the reservoir beneath it. It was still gaining in power and strength. The Wraiths may not have attempted to use it to affect the Trees yet.