Sora's Quest (21 page)

Sora gazed into the depths of Fennbog. She wondered what other surprises—what other horrors—awaited.

* * *

Volcrian looked up at the sound of bodies crashing through the underbrush. Bold and confident footsteps, perhaps a party of three, careless about whether they were being overheard.

But why should they care? They were deep in the forest and evening was closing in. The woods were damp and slick with rain, glittering in the fragile twilight. In a sense, it was exactly what he had been waiting for.

The spell using Dorian's blood was almost a complete failure, but at least he knew that the three travelers had entered the swamp. And that following them would have been a waste of time. His power over the Wolfy was dismally weak. He had been able to slip into Dorian's thoughts during a moment of distraction and panic, but he couldn't keep his hold and had caused only a slight hesitation in Dorian's actions, nothing more.

He would need a new plan. Something stronger. Some sort of magic that could resist the Cat's Eye. Perhaps something that wasn't entirely magic at all.

There was only one spell like that he could think of. But it was a dark spell, black-blooded. Forbidden magic, or so his great-grandfather's journal said. But what other choice did he have? He faced an entire journey across the mountains, a year before he could catch his prey on the other side, if they didn't make it to the coast before he did. No, he would need something to track and catch them—something more powerful than fox-corpses or sleight-of-hand.

Which is why the footsteps in the underbrush attracted his attention.

Next, he heard people speaking.

“Twelve men, gone. Swept up by the river when the bridge broke. It's a shame. Too many rookies; they should've been better trained.”

“They needed a Captain,” a deeper voice grunted. “They had no one to give them orders. It was a mistake.”

“Is that what the King's army has come to? Mindless imbeciles waiting for orders?” the first voice demanded.

“Well, that's how we train them.”

There was a pause. The voices sounded familiar. Volcrian remembered the brief conversation in the guardhouse between Lord Seabourne and his commanding officers.

“What are we going to say in our report? That we abandoned our men to the swamp?” the first voice asked.

There was a brief, derisive snort. “Well, Lord Seabourne recommended that a few men die in the chase. He must be expecting this.”

“Perhaps. But still it's our jobs on the line.”

Volcrian slipped behind the three men, leaving his horse tethered to the bushes. It was easy to approach them, since they were making enough noise to drown out the crickets and evening owls. He followed the three captains a short distance until they came to a halt, bickering in the woods.

“Since you're the senior officer, you should file the report,” one was saying.

“We should all file separate reports, as regulations dictate,” the older one growled.

“Then we need to decide on a story!”

“Honesty, lads,” the third man broke in. “Honesty is always best when dealing with the Crown.”

“Says the Captain with the lowest salary,” the first muttered.

Volcrian slid through the underbrush like an eel. He was now close enough to see their boots, their red tunics through the underbrush. He watched them closely.

“Damn,” the older man said. “It's starting to rain.”

The third one sighed. “Lads, let's set up camp and eat a hot meal. The answer will come to us.”

“Right,” the first one said.

They rummaged about in a small area between the trees, clearing the ground of sticks and rocks. Volcrian waited. He was good at waiting. He didn't move until the camp was set up, a fire struck, and rations passed around the circle.

The night deepened. Rain drenched his clothes. A low mist rose from the ground, but Volcrian didn't mind. Rarely did such an excellent opportunity present itself.

He waited until the soldiers had constructed three tiny tents and stretched out their bedrolls, relatively sheltered from the rain. A half-hour later, he heard deep breaths rise and fall, soft grunts and snores. One of the officers was on watch, but he wasn't watching very closely. He stretched out on the ground with a book, reading close to the firelight.

Volcrian whipped out a knife. He ran his tongue along it, senses heightened, eager for the taste of blood. His eyes dilated in excitement.

Then he launched himself onto the watchman. Plunged the knife into his back, through the kidneys. With a loud, piercing wail, the man rolled on the ground, screaming in pain.

Volcrian was prepared for the next man. Another officer jumped from his bedroll, entangled in his sleeping tents. The Wolfy leapt on the man, plunging his dagger straight through his heart. Or at least, that was his intention. He missed a few times before he struck it exactly.

Then he scooped up a pool of blood into his hands, whispered a word of power, and threw it onto the last officer. The blood struck the old man in the face, burning and hissing like potent acid. His screams lit up the night, filtering through the darkness like music. The man died in pain. Horrible, blistering pain.

The mage stood still for a moment, panting, staring at the bodies. He had his sacrifices. There was no time to lose. Now he would work his spell.

Volcrian was up for hours afterward. He removed his clothes so as not to get them dirty, preparing the bodies by the light of the fire. He ran his knife smoothly under each man's skin, stripping it piece by piece, then spread the blood across his arms and chest, letting it dribble over his tight stomach. It was warm. Thick.

He pressed his hands against their quivering organs, the bloated mounds of stomach and intestines, down to the various muscles weeping fat. One by one, he cut out their hearts, still slippery, jittery in his grasp, a mimicry of life.

It was a three-day ritual, one for each of the wraiths, one for each of the spirits he would tie to his will. Using ceremonial herbs, the bodies would be burned, each at a different hour of the day; the skin would be sewn into cloaks and new suits, ready for the use of magic. There were countless spells he would have to chant, ensuring that the soul did not remember its previous identity, or its own autonomy.

It would take a large toll on him, but in the end, he would create minions that were all but invincible. Then he would send them after the assassin and his companions. He doubted the Cat's Eye would be able to affect them, not with the amount of blood and physical matter that they were comprised of. Spirits rode in the magical shells, ghosts were made flesh, solid and real—and they were at his complete command.

Volcrian began building a bonfire, his crippled hand clamped tight against the cold.

Chapter 9

“Don’t listen to your head, sweetness! Listen to your gut!”

Swoosh!

Clack!

Goddess! I think I’m going to die!

“Yes, like that, good...don’t wipe your eyes; it leaves you open.”

“I can’t see!”

“You don’t have to see.”

Dorian was a strange instructor. At times, she couldn't tell if he was teaching her or just teasing. She ducked as he took a swing at her head, the staff hurtling through the air, connecting solidly with the tree behind her.
Crack!

She gasped, desperate for air, too tired to appreciate the small victory.

They had been traveling for a week through the swamp, following wherever the Cat's Eye directed them, which was seldom in a straight line. She tried to stay as focused as possible on their direction, but it was a challenge. Most days were given to hacking and slashing at the underbrush, clearing a pathway for the horses. Fennbog was a mysterious place, veiled in thin mist, bitterly cold and wet. Everything smelled of damp earth and mold. There was a definite sense of being enclosed, lost in the wilderness. At times it seemed like they weren't even walking on land, but on shallow lakes of grass, full of exotic fungi and large, white mushrooms. They had passed through fields and fields of well-disguised sinkholes, smothered with giant lily-pads as wide as she was tall.

Now they had entered the thick of the forest. Giant, moss-covered trees exploded from the ground, so tall that Sora lost sight of the canopy overhead. Their roots were so vast and wide, it wasn't clear where one tree ended and another began. Vines sprawled across every surface, falling like curtains from the sky. Vibrant flowers speckled the landscape, some larger than her head, blooming bright purples and yellows. She had seen more species of frogs than she could count, and almost as many birds.

She trained a few hours with her new weapons each morning, when it was easiest to see.

“Good, sweetness,” Dorian murmured. Then he started speeding up his attacks, mock-jabbing at her ribs, her face, her legs. Sora practiced blocking, using the top and bottom of the staff, trying to think three-dimensionally. It was very different from how she imagined a sword. She had two ends to work with, not just one.

“Excellent; now jump!” Dorian instructed, and went low for her legs. Sora gave a tired, halfhearted leap in the air. The staff passed under her—barely.

She stumbled when she landed, staggering to one side. She clumsily dodged another blow and caught herself on a tree, her shoulders aching and her hands numb; her feet had been rubbed raw by her leather boots. Her arms were covered in bruises and her nails chipped down to the pink.

"Give me a moment," she panted, taking deep breaths, trying to suppress the stitch in her side. With a dirty sleeve, she wiped the sweat from her eyes. This was, without a doubt, the most physically challenging activity she had ever experienced: dancing across the tree-roots, trying not to slip on the damp wood. Yet despite her bruises, her staff remained in pristine condition. It was neither chipped nor dented. Dorian had gone through several different poles by this point, carving a new one each night.

Sora gazed at her staff in admiration. Apparently the salesman in Mayville hadn't been exaggerating. Witch wood—it made a difference. She wondered if it could even be chipped by a sword.

Sora groaned; she could feel the pulled muscles only too well in her calves and arms. Quick as lightning, she brought up her staff and heard a sharp
crack!
She smiled in grim satisfaction. Dorian's blow was deflected.

“And she shows potential!” the thief cried, grinning at her fiercely. Sora flushed, trying not to look too pleased with herself. She could hear Burn applauding in the background. The two other members of their camp were lingering near the horses, tending to the beast's hooves. Crash didn't spare her a glance.

Then Dorian swooped down. He picked up her daggers and tossed them to her. “Let's finish with a bit of knife-fighting, shall we?” He dropped his makeshift staff and pulled out his knives, his weapon of choice. Sora sighed and picked up her daggers reluctantly. She liked the staff because it had a longer range. Knife-fighting was a bit riskier.

“Can we find more even ground?” she asked, wiping sweat from her eyes. Daggers required more concentration and she didn't want to watch her feet.

Dorian nodded and pointed off to their left, through the trees. “There's a circle of grass that way. Let's move over there. We'll be back in a few minutes,” he called over his shoulder. Burn waved a distracted hand, busy repacking his saddlebags.

Sora followed her instructor through a brief stretch of ferns, pushing through the hanging vines. When she reached the small circle of grass, she found that the ground was soft and spongy, definitely not what she had hoped for. She sighed, then leveled her daggers in front of her, readying herself for the fight.

Dorian lashed out unexpectedly. She barely dodged his blow, leaping out of range. She gasped. “What are you trying to do? Stab me?” she laughed, taking a few steps back and shaking out her arms.

Dorian remained quiet. His eyes glinted in the pale morning light.

The smile faded from her lips and she looked at him uneasily. He had the same empty, solemn expression he had back at the river, when he had watched her almost drown. Sora frowned. She hadn't thought about the incident for a week or more; they had been too busy struggling against the difficult terrain of the swamp.

Dorian lunged forward again, swiping at her with both knives in a butterfly pattern. She jumped back nimbly, deflecting one blade out of pure instinct. He backed her around the clearing.

“Dorian?” she asked quietly. “What are you doing?” The change had come over him so suddenly, she couldn't tell if he was testing her or if he had somehow become another person. It felt like he was trying to push her deeper into the woods. She wanted to head back to camp, suddenly unnerved, but she couldn't tell from which direction they had come.

He lunged at her again, using moves that he hadn't taught her, combining dagger swipes with kicks and punches. Sora dodged desperately, her knives forgotten. She threw herself to one side, tumbling across the wet ground, then tried to roll back to her feet. She slipped in the grass and went down. Dorian was directly behind her, and he plunged the dagger into the ground, an inch from her arm. She rolled again, scrambling to her feet. When she looked into Dorian's face, he stared back at her blankly, stoically, like a sleepwalker.

He lifted his knives again. Sora screamed.

She kept screaming as she deflected two more blows with the flat of her blade. His knife caught her shoulder, ripping through her shirt with ease, puncturing flesh, although she had no idea how deep. Her adrenaline pounded and she couldn't feel the wound.

Instinct took over. Sora threw herself on the Wolfy, trying to dislodge his knives. She clawed at his face, kicking him in the ribs. He grabbed her easily and threw her off, picking up his knives from the ground. Sora scuttled backwards on her hands and legs, like a crab.

“Dorian!” she screamed. “Dorian, it's me! What's gotten into you?” But her companion did not reply.

She finally regained her footing at the edge of the clearing. She paused, watching Dorian come at her. He charged across the muddy ground, his boots sucking and slipping.

At that moment, a black shadow shot across the grass, fast as a wildcat. Crash threw himself on the Wolfy, slamming Dorian face-first into the ground. The thief howled, an inhuman sound, and turned on Crash, the daggers forgotten. The two men wrestled, rolling back and forth. Sora tried to avoid the chaos, but they tumbled directly into her legs. She leapt backwards, out of the way, into the forest...except suddenly, there was no more ground. She put her foot down—on air.

“Aaah!” With a short, sharp yelp, Sora pitched backwards, falling down a steep slope. The two men spilled after her, carried by the momentum of their fight. She grabbed at a bush, but uprooted it. Grass whipped her face, thorns tore at her clothes. When she landed at the base of the steep slope, she found herself staring up at the overcast sky, dazed, the trees and foliage slowly spinning around her. She imagined that the clouds were so low, she could reach up and touch them.

Crash and Dorian landed a second later. The assassin, on top, smashed the air from the Wolfy's lungs. Then he grabbed the thief, heaving him effortlessly off the ground, and slammed him into a tree. The assassin's knife was out, the blade shoved against Dorian's stomach, his other hand tight on his throat.

“You fool!” Crash yelled. “You fool of a thief!”

Dorian blinked, his eyes slowly refocusing. Sora sat up and watched, her lips dry and parted. Speechless.

“W-what?” Dorian started.

Crash shoved him back against the tree again. “You idiot. You could have killed her!”

“Wait!” another voice broke through the panic. Burn skidded down the steep slope, far more balanced and controlled than when Sora fell. He reached them a moment later, sinking into the soft earth. “Hold your blade, Crash! Dorian didn't know! He wasn't in control!”

“And what about next time?” Crash snapped. “We might as well be traveling with Volcrian in our midst. Dorian's a danger to all of us. I say kill him and be done with it.”

“You are quick to use a blade,” Burn said steadily. Then he nodded to Dorian. “Let the man speak.”

Sora didn't know what was going on. She watched as Crash let go of Dorian. The Wolfy slid back to the ground, shaking. When he looked at her, his eyes were full of fear.

“I-I don't know what happened,” he said. “I blacked out. I can't remember anything.”

“Dorian,” Burn said slowly, steadily. “Did you bleed a lot from that cut on your hip? Could Volcrian have gotten hold of it?”

“I think it's obvious that he has,” Crash grunted.

Wordlessly, Dorian raised his shirt, inspecting the thin strip of pink flesh. It was almost completely healed. When he looked up again, there was more than just fear in his eyes. There was despair. “What do we do?” he asked quietly.

“Wait,” Sora said, holding up her hand. “What happened? What does Volcrian have to do with this?”

Crash turned to her, surprise registering on his face, if only for a moment. Then he let out a short breath. “I forget that you don't know these things,” he muttered.

Burn cut in. “Volcrian has somehow gotten his hands on Dorian's blood,” he explained. “He's worked a spell with it. He's...uh...influencing Dorian's behavior, you could say.” Burn frowned. “Not sure of all the details, I'm not a mage myself. But my guess is that he didn't have enough of Dorian's blood to work the full spell. It looks like his influence is only minor.”

Sora nodded slowly. It was the first she had ever heard of this—and more than a little worrisome. She looked at Dorian, catching his eye, but the Wolfy thief glanced away quickly. She wondered if he was ashamed of what he had done.

“We've been trying to avoid this from happening again,” Crash murmured.

“Again?” Sora asked, surprised.

None of the men would meet her gaze this time. Burn finally said, “We had a fourth companion very briefly, about a year ago. Volcrian got hold of his blood. Needless to say, he didn't last long.”

“We had to kill him,” Dorian said.

Sora shuddered. It hadn't occurred to her that more people might have been involved with Crash's party. She wondered what kind of men would fall into league with him. Cutthroats and kidnappers, she was certain.

“Twice this has happened around me,” Sora said slowly. “Do you think that Volcrian is...targeting me? Through Dorian?” She hated to ask, and the words almost caught in her throat. The men looked at her, and she read the truth in their eyes. “It's the Cat's Eye, isn't it? He knows about it.”

“If he didn't before, he does now,” Dorian confirmed. “Using this spell, who knows what he has seen through my eyes?”

Sora paled. “So he is following us into the swamp?”

“The only way he can,” Crash confirmed. “By invading Dorian's thoughts.”

A brief silence fell. Sora winced, touching her sore shoulder, pulling back her bloody hand. It was disturbing to think about. Dorian hadn't just been playing rough—he had been earnestly trying to kill her. She had escaped by pure luck. If she had been just a little clumsier, he could have stabbed her through the heart, or pierced a lung, or cut the artery under her arm. She would have bled to death....

She looked back at Dorian, unable to hide her distrust.

He watched her with large, regretful eyes. “Sorry, sweetness,” he murmured.

“My Cat's Eye,” Sora said suddenly, realization dawning. “Maybe it can counteract the spell somehow. Like that monster in the forest, remember?”

“You're not going anywhere near him.” Crash glared at the thief. “It's too dangerous. He's out of control.”

“Careful, Crash,” Dorian sneered. “You almost sound concerned.”

The assassin stepped up to the thief, intimidating him with his presence, pushing him back. “I have reason to be,” he said darkly.

Sora saw the fear in Dorian's face. The smaller man backed away.