Stone Rising (12 page)

             
Everything has a spirit, even you and I. Your bon-frères are right in at least that regard. Even as we can commune with those spirits around us, so we can commune with each other. But the spirit of a person is so much more complex, so layered and deep compared to that of the primitive spirits of air, earth, water or fire. To open oneself up entirely to another like this, voluntarily, is intimacy of the highest kind. Both of you sharing your thoughts and feelings like no two mortal lovers ever can.

             
I feel as though I should be scared. You could know everything about me in an instant if you wished and I couldn’t stop it.

             
And you I.

             
The young woman’s fingers tightened about hers and Gwenna responded in kind.

             
I trust you,
came Virginie’s thoughts, the words carrying with them a torrent of mixed feelings, heady, potent, that washed over the shaman. Gwenna was not surprised to find the feelings echoed within herself. And she knew that the girl would be able to feel that too.

             
And I trust you.

             
The two, the pale, flame-haired shaman and the tanned, petite French woman drew closer, eager now to extend their intimacy in the only way that now seemed right and natural.

***

Pol burst out of the door, stalking out into the cool night, not noticing the whispering touch of the breeze on his skin as he wrung his hands in frustration and fury. He tried to still his beating heart, leaning against the stone wall of the outside of the inn, reciting mantras taught him by Wrynn in times past to try to calm himself, but to no avail. The muted sounds of merriment from the troupe within only served to highlight his despair.

             
Denied.

             
It had been with determination in his heart and hope in his breast that he had made his way up the stairs and along the corridor of the inn in search of Gwenna. But even before he had reached the door, he had stopped, halted in his tracks by a feeling that had bombarded his shaman-senses.  Perhaps none of the others would have felt it, none save Gwenna herself, but he had. The mighty yet subtle binding of two souls as one, radiating from behind the door like the warming blaze of a fire into the coldness of a dark and cosy room. A level of intimacy, of oneness that he had dreamed of for years. Of he and Gwenna, his childhood sweetheart.

             
Yet this intimacy was not with him, no. It was with the girl, that French woman, their guide. Oh, how the blood had drained from his face at the thought. So strong, so stern, so manly he had thought himself. Perhaps if I prove myself, he had used to think. Protecting her throughout the battles of the Beacon, throughout the journey through this vast land. Perhaps then… But no. No matter what he had done, it had never been enough. His leader, his love, had been ever wary, ever inscrutable. Ever unapproachable. And now, to find himself usurped, beaten to the punch by a naïve and unknowing young woman who had no
right
, who knew nothing of Gwenna, nothing of her past, her troubles, her land and people.

             
And yet he knew now that that would not be true. She had now attained a level of intimacy with the one he loved that he never would, leastwise whilst the girl still lived.

             
He fumed, head sent into a spin by the mixture of his damaged pride and that potent English ale. He turned, leaning against the wall with his forehead, before his stomach convulsed, liquid erupting from his mouth in painful, fitful gasps, as though his body sought to expel his pain along with the alcohol. At last, the tremors subsided and the physical pain began to recede.

             
Only the mental pain remained to keep him company in the dark of the night.

             
“Looks like you’ve enjoyed yourself a little too much,” came a voice in the dark behind him. “Moderation, my friend. That’s the key.”

             
With an effort, Pol turned his aching head to stare into the gloom. Through misty eyes he could just make out a figure, dark, robed, standing beside a tall horse, black as midnight. With a frown, he fought to bring the figure into focus.

             
“You?” Recognition now. “What do you want?”

             
The robed figure took a step forward, lowering his cowl so that the silvery light of the moon revealed his face, soft of features yet hard in purpose.

             
“I’m here to take the girl,” came Francois’ even, measured voice. “The Malleus are on their way, even now. Try to stop me and you will die.”

             
Pol snorted in mirth. Stop him? Part of him was tempted simply to step aside and wave the man by. That would sort out his problems in one fell swoop. A part of him thought that. But then the rest of him, a loyalty bred into him through years of companionship, fought back.

             
Angry he may be; but traitor to his people, he was not.

             
“No.” He turned his entire body, now, facing the Frenchman, fighting to keep his balance against the dizzying effects of the ale. “I cannot allow that. Leave and take your idle threats elsewhere.” He smiled, groggily, though within he was a cauldron of simmering rage. “Though many thanks for your warning about the approach of your friends. Much appreciated.”

             
“Fool,” hissed the clergyman. “Have it your way…”

He stalked forwards.

Yes, thought Pol, with a dark humour that began to give way to incandescent fury. Have it my way indeed.

As his foe approached, Pol reached out with his mind, summoning upon his shamanic powers; rusty and unused paths of power beginning to surge as he exerted his will. The spirits of the land sought to evade his grasp, attempting to flee and twist away from his touch, but his rage was not to be denied. He bound them with his will, shackling them with chains of anger and hatred, contrary to all the teachings of his master. The spirits cried out in pain, tearing chunks from his soul in desperation to evade him, but his will was the greater and, with a roar of triumph, power flooded his being like it had not since before they had entered the portal that fateful night.

A flash, a whoosh, and mighty balls of fire erupted to cover his hands; gloves of incandescent flame that mirrored the anguish he felt within, ready to be thrown at his startled opponent.

“Sorcery!” The word spat from Francois’ lips, hatred and fear warring in his eyes to the amusement of the shaman.

“Aye. Of the most foul and dark kind, my friend. I would have let you live, had you left. But unfortunately, you caught me on a particularly bad –“

Pol’s words were cut off by a resounding twang that echoed through the night, followed by a meaty, wet thud. A puzzled frown and the shaman looked down to his chest. The fire faded from his
fingers, dissipating in the breeze as he reached to touch the sleek, black shaft that stuck out some inches from his sternum. Comprehension dawned as he looked up, to see the bon-frère pacing calmly forwards, the spent crossbow held expertly in the nook of his arm.

Pol collapsed to the ground, the strength fleeing his limbs as fast as the spirit power leeched away, now his grip on his unwilling companions had been disturbed. As he lay there, bleeding on the ground, face growing cold from lack of blood, the dark robed form of his killer loomed over him.

“Such will be the fate of all witches.”

The figure strode away and into the door. With a gasp, the shaman’s head fell back into the grass. Pol opened his mouth, trying to call out, to shout out a warning to his friends. No sound came out, merely a trickle of blood that flowed from the corner of his mouth and down, down into the thirsty earth.

Chapter Six:

The orange glow lit up the bottom of the sky, the hellish hue reflecting in the ocean to lend it the appearance of a lake of fire.

Appropriate, thought the Plainsman. Given the times.

The wind blasted the salty spray into his olive-skinned face and he squinted his keen, brown eyes against the sting as he stared from the prow of the speeding boat, towards the distant shore. The buildings rose up, dizzyingly, reaching out to scrape the sky like so many of the buildings they’d seen these last hellish weeks. Now, silhouetted against the burning sky of encroaching dawn, they had all the look of mountains, looming in the distance, ominous and forbidding.

They knew what dwelt there. Same as what dwelt everywhere in this forsaken land. There was no hope for the people of this city, bereft as it was of true life, the claws of Those Beyond the Veil already sunk deep into this land. No, this city would be the same as the one before and the one before that; moaning hordes of flesh-puppets, poor souls trapped within their own bodies, doomed to be nought but witnesses to the desecration and carnage they inflicted in the name of their new masters. To inflict pain until there was no more pain to inflict. And then, when they had no purpose, to do nothing, save to roam, save to rot. Doomed to wander till even their cruelly and unnaturally animated bodies would fall and lay, lifeless and still in the dust.

Only then would they know peace.

“Steady yourselves.”

The firm voice of the Farmer from behind him warned the Plainsman of impending waves. He grabbed onto the rail, maintaining his balance as the speeding craft bounced over turbulent waters. Long-since adapted to riding this strange beast, his train of thought was barely interrupted.

Whatever apocalypse had occurred here had long passed; the streets of all the towns they’d visited, thronged with wandering once-men, vacant, empty, wandering like wayward livestock, like sheep with no shepherd.

But something had changed of late. Something had stirred them up, set them to move. Slowly, at first, trickles, pockets of once-men. But then joining up, forming great streams, rivers of the damned, charging forward, all in the one direction, drawn as though filings to a magnet, as though geese migrating for the winter or salmon forcing their way upstream to spawn.

Something was calling to them.

And the three needed to know what it was. Just in case.

Because there was always the chance…

“Can you hear them?” came a voice. The Plainsman turned, looking behind him down into the boat where sat the Servant, eyes closed in his swarthy face. He opened them and looked up, slowly, to the Plainsman, meeting his gaze. “Listen.”

The Plainsman did as he was asked, ears straining to filter sounds through the splashing of the parting waves, through the roar of the straining engines. Yes. Yes, he could hear them.

Screaming. Wailing. Shrieking. Harsh, unnatural sounds that had no business coming from human throats. His ears picked out the noise of the massed throng of once-men and women as they clamoured in their rush to reach their objective. He looked out; they were half a mile from the shore, small low-level buildings still, suburbs of the greater city before them. How could he hear them so well? Perhaps it was yet another of the mysterious gifts with which they appeared to have been blessed.

Or perhaps, and the thought left him cold, perhaps there were simply that
many
.

Regardless, he feared no minions of the hellfire, and he could see from the grim, set  expressions of the other two with him that they shared his conviction. Since that fateful night within the Great Hall of the Barbarian City, they had found themselves possessed of gifts beyond those of normal men. Gifts, without which, they would never have been able to survive these past weeks.

The Plainsman shivered once again at the memory of some of the sights they had seen. This, this is the future which they had come here to forestall, to prevent. A people raped, plundered and taken, mind, body and soul. A land, despoiled. He dared not think of home, his former land beyond the portal, lest the thoughts and visions drive him mad, instead, letting the images he had seen feed his rage and anger to help him in the now. One hand reached down, to the wooden staff, or
Hruti
, that was strapped to his back, gripping the wood and squeezing tight.

They would find it, whatever the creatures were heading for in that city before them. If it proved to be friendly, they would rescue it. And if it proved not…

Then it would feel the furious vengeance of the Woodsman’s Three.

The boat sped on.

***

             
“Move! Move! Move!”

             
Noises. Flashes of golden light and the cry of the wounded. Staccato flurries of images, corridors, helping hands grasping to drag his half-conscious form. The shrieks and roars of inhuman voices.

             
“Marlyn!” A face began to resolve itself blurrily in front of him. Clear eyes, a slim aristocratic nose. “Marlyn, can you hear me?”