Sovereign Stone (50 page)

Far in the distance they heard the shriek of something dying. Chloe spun into a ball of light. Alexander tried to reassure her. She was so tiny and fragile and the wilds of the Reishi Isle were filled with deadly creatures looking for prey.

“It’ll be all right, Little One.”

“I don’t like this place, My Love.”

“Me neither,” he thought, “but we have to get the Stone, no matter the cost.” A lump grew in his throat at that thought. He had already paid such a price that he wasn’t sure his soul could bear it, yet he had to press on.

“Have faith, My Love. Isabel is strong. She will return to you,” Chloe offered silently in his mind.

They pushed on until dark without encountering any more of the beasts that prowled the wilds. Camp was made quietly and without any light. Lieutenant Wyatt set a four-man guard rotation and they lay down for an uneasy night’s sleep. The sounds of the forest were strange even to the Rangers who’d spent most of their lives in the vast tracts of the Great Forest of Ruatha.

This place was different. The trees grew differently, as if they were tortured by some unseen force of dark magic. The flora was different and strange. Even the colors of the life all around had a taint to them that put Alexander on edge, especially after dark when the light of the living colors emanating from the trees all around shone more brightly.

He slept fitfully, dreaming of Isabel and Abigail. He saw them taken from him over and over and felt the hopelessness of being helpless to save them. He woke several times and listened to the sounds of the alien forest, expecting to hear the growl or snarl of some predator stalking them. Late in the night, sometime near dawn as he lay awake looking up at the thick canopy, he heard Chloe in his mind.

“Darkness comes,” she thought to him.

“Don’t get near it, Little One,” he thought to her as he rolled out of his bedroll. Just as he came to his feet, a howl shattered the night—it was like the sound of metal scraping on metal mixed with the squeal of a dying pig. It was a sound he’d heard before, and it was close.

The camp erupted into a flurry of activity as the Rangers rolled to their feet. Alexander removed his vial of night-wisp dust from its bone tube, and light flooded into the forest sending shadows in all directions. A moment later Jack held his vial high, and a pack of nether wolves responded with a howl that sent shivers of fear racing through all who heard the unnatural keening of the dark beasts. Alexander quickly scanned the woods and picked out the blackness of their dead auras.

“Five nether wolves,” he called out. “Use blades to take their heads off. Stabbing them does nothing.” He heard the ring of steel as the Rangers drew swords as one. But the nether wolves didn’t come. For a long moment they stood in a loose circle facing the enemy in the forest all around before Lucky started chuckling.

“The night-wisp dust stores the light of the sun,” he said with a sense of wonder. “Nether wolves don’t much like sunlight, if I remember correctly.”

Alexander made his decision quickly. He sheathed his sword and ordered everyone to break camp and make ready to move. He and Jack kept their light held high, and they started moving through the night. In the shadows beyond the light, they heard growling, snarling, and snapping as they moved carefully through the forest. It was slow going but they managed to cover some distance even while maintaining vigilance against the creatures in the shadows. Every once in a while, they caught a glimpse of hateful yellow eyes peering at them from the dark.

They pressed on for the next two hours through the black of the forest. It was tense and terrifying. They took great pains to keep everyone well within the confines of the light. Alexander didn’t want to risk a wolf darting in and killing someone before the light could drive it off. When dawn started to show through the gaps in the forest, Alexander felt a great sense of relief. A moment before the sun broke over the horizon, the nether wolves howled in fury and frustration and then turned to inky black smoke as they fled the light of day.

When they stopped to eat a quick breakfast, Alexander and Anatoly tried to diffuse the fear and anxiety of the Rangers by telling the story of their first encounter with the nether wolves. Hearing how Alexander had killed two of the beasts in battle helped boost the Rangers’ confidence.

“Do you think Phane summoned these nether wolves to hunt you?” Lieutenant Wyatt asked.

Alexander shook his head. “No, I think these nether wolves live here. I think they’ve been here on this island for a very long time.”

“I would venture that they’ve been here since the Reishi War,” Lucky said.

“How could they live for so long?” asked one of the Rangers.

“They’re not alive,” Lucky answered. “Nether wolves are creatures from the netherworld. They have no life and therefore cannot be killed in the way we think of it. Their physical forms can be destroyed but that merely sends their essence back to the darkness.”

“How did they get here?” asked another Ranger.

Alexander sighed before answering. “I think they came through the Nether Gate, an ancient constructed magical gate created by Malachi Reishi that has the power to open a portal to the netherworld. I suspect the Nether Gate is somewhere on this island, and I’m hoping it’s closed.”

“Why would anyone want a gate to the netherworld?” asked another Ranger.

Alexander shrugged, “I have no idea, but I suspect Malachi Reishi thought he could use it to his advantage somehow.”

“What if it’s open?” asked a Ranger.

“I doubt that it is,” Alexander answered. “Otherwise this island would be overrun with creatures from the netherworld. More than anything else, the beings that inhabit the netherworld want to return to the world of the living. They can only manifest in physical form here and they crave the power of action that we take for granted.”

“I mean no disrespect, Lord Alexander,” said another Ranger, “but how could you know that?”

Alexander stared off into the distance for a moment, remembering the limitless darkness of the netherworld before answering.

“Because I’ve been there,” he whispered.

The camp fell silent. All eyes were on him with a mixture of fear and awe.

“There is no time or substance there, only darkness and unrealized potential. The beings that inhabit the netherworld can only wish and imagine what they want but they can never actually experience anything because there’s no form or substance there. The pent-up frustration and anguish of being denied their desires for all time leaves them broken and twisted, but mostly it fills them with unmitigated hatred for those who live in the world of time and substance—we can have everything they can only imagine but are forever denied.”

When they started moving again, there were quiet murmurings among the Rangers. They looked at Alexander with more deference and even a tinge of fear. He didn’t want them to fear him, but he wasn’t about to lie to them either. They deserved the truth, even if it was hard to hear.

Chapter 43

By midmorning they came to an open prairie of rolling hills covered with tall grass and sage brush. It stretched on for as far as they could see. They pushed on into the grass, traveling due west toward the center of the Reishi Isle and the Keep.

In some ways, Alexander was grateful for the open range; it made for easier and faster travel. But it also left them exposed. There was nowhere to hide. He suspected the wyvern riders hadn’t given up and he worried about an attack from the sky.

A few hours into the rangeland, they crested a rise and saw a herd of giant buffalo. The animals stood eight feet tall at the shoulder and easily weighed two thousand pounds each. Alexander stopped for a moment to marvel at the size of the creatures. He remembered herding cattle back on Valentine ranch and imagined what his father could do with a herd of creatures like these.

The buffalo were a good distance off and didn’t seem to be aggressive, although the males did have horns. It looked like they behaved very much like cattle. Alexander knew they could easily avoid any trouble with the herd if they gave them a wide berth and didn’t do anything to provoke a stampede.

They adjusted their course and stayed in low places in the rolling range to keep from being seen, on the off chance that these creatures behaved differently than every other type of herd animal Alexander knew of. Once they were well past the herd, they found a place of relative high ground and took a look behind them.

That’s when Alexander saw the gorledons. There were three of the unnatural creatures stalking around the edge of the herd. The buffalo were facing the giant predators and stamping and huffing at the threat. As much as Alexander wanted to watch the standoff to see if the buffalo could defend themselves against the gorledons, he also wanted to avoid being seen by them. Chances were good that the terrifying cross between a giant lizard and a gorilla would choose to hunt a small group of people rather than face an angry herd of buffalo.

They slipped away down the hill and Alexander quickly briefed his men about the gorledons. He told them about their soft underbellies and their bone-hard armor carapaces. He wanted them to know where to strike to do the most damage if they did have to fight the creatures.

They moved on, staying low to avoid being seen by anything that might want to eat them. The Reishi Isle was proving to be quite a bit more wild and dangerous than Alexander had imagined. He was wondering what else might be waiting, when a Ranger called out and pointed to the sky. Two wyverns flew over. His blood started to boil. The riders had taken his wife and sister. If they wanted a fight, he would be happy to oblige. He just hoped he could bring one of the riders down alive so he could get information about Isabel and Abigail.

The wyverns banked and lined up for an attack run.

“Fan out,” Alexander commanded. “Attack the first one in line with everything you’ve got.”

The Rangers nocked arrows. No one was within ten feet of another when the first wyvern made its pass. It didn’t attack with claws or tail but instead flew just twenty feet overhead. The rider picked Alexander out of the crowd and pointed her hand at him as she spoke a few words. A beam of bright, white-hot light struck him directly in the middle of the chest, scorching a hole through his tunic. The force of the blast knocked him over on his back, but his armor protected him from the heat of the spell.

The Rangers fired at just the right moment and the wyvern screamed in pain as nearly a dozen arrows tore into its chest and wings.

The next wyvern rider launched a javelin at Alexander as he lay stunned and dazzled on the ground.

His all around sight saved him. He could see the attack coming even though his eyes were blinded. He rolled to the side a moment before the javelin buried deep into the ground next to him. His armor probably would have saved his life, but the javelin would have broken his ribs again and that was the last thing he wanted to endure at the moment.

The wyverns didn’t make a second pass. It looked like the first one was struggling to gain altitude with a wing torn through by several arrows. Instead they moved off toward the southwest, no doubt to report Alexander’s position and send reinforcements for another attack.

Anatoly offered Alexander his hand to help him up. He got to his feet and shook his head to clear away the stunned feeling. After a few moments of steadying himself by holding onto Anatoly’s shoulder, he started to get his vision and his balance back.

“I’m starting to get really tired of those things,” Anatoly growled.

Alexander nodded agreement. “I think maybe we need to pay them a visit. I’d like to see how well those riders would do on their own two feet against my sword.”

“Might take some thought to figure out how to get to that island fortress without being seen,” Anatoly mused.

“I think we should go take a look once we have the Stone,” Alexander said. “Isabel doesn’t have much time and I can’t stand the idea of leaving her and Abigail to the whim of those wyvern riders.”

Anatoly nodded, “Maybe a longboat at night could get us into that fortress. Getting out in one piece might be harder.”

“Not if they’re all dead by the time we leave,” Alexander said with an undercurrent of menace in his voice as he watched the two wyverns recede into the distance. He turned to the Rangers and said, “We have to pick up the pace. I don’t want to be caught out in the open when they come back in force.”

The rest of the day, they ran to the west as quickly as they could. It was exhausting but they covered a great distance. The range was far from empty of danger but most of the creatures were either herd animals or natural predators that wanted little to do with the group of men moving through their territory. A pride of lions trailed them for a while until Lieutenant Wyatt put an arrow into one that got too close. They even came across a herd of wild horses—beautiful animals but far too untamed to be of any use.

Toward late afternoon Alexander was relieved to see a wood line off in the distance. Once they were several hundred feet inside the cover of the thick brush and trees, Alexander ordered a halt. Everyone was tired and hurting. Lucky had lost a little weight over the past month and gained stamina, but he certainly wasn’t up to such a grueling pace. Everyone needed rest and food. It was early evening when they made camp. Dinner was served cold, but no one complained. They were all hungry and ate quickly. Once they’d eaten their fill, Alexander asked Chloe to stand guard and wake him if any threat came their way. They all went to sleep even though the sky was still light.