The Bonds of Blood (40 page)

It wasn’t long after they had passed
that branch that they had the strange feeling they were being
followed. Angelica hazarded a guess that it had been two days ago
since they first glimpsed the corpse-like beings that now followed
them, hunted them.

Angelica shivered at the thought of
them. When first she had seen the creatures—if one could call them
that—she thought they were part of the rock wall. Their stomachs
were so concaved that their ribs protruded in an unnatural way.
They looked human enough, but their exposed spines and eerie
green-grey skin gave them the air of a dalua from the deepest
reaches of the Otherworld.

“No, Jovian,” Grace said quietly. “I no
longer hear them. I no longer see them. That does not mean,
however, that they are not right there, just outside of the
light.”

“Why do they not come closer?” Angelica
asked, her hand planted firmly on her mace as it had been since the
sighting.

“They do not like the light,” Grace
said. “They are creatures of the deep; they will not come closer to
the light of our torches … for now.”

“What does that mean?” Joya
croaked.

“It means that they cannot be kept away
much longer, light or no light. They can only be tempted so long,
and then they will attack for what they want. If I had only
realized before now what they were.” A note of panic could be heard
skirting her voice, like a quiver. “They will be nearly impossible
to defeat now.”

“But what are they?” Angelica
asked.

“Torzul,” Grace said.

Joya turned back to her vigil of the
path behind them and all memories of better times vanished from her
mind. “Shouldn’t we just keep going?”

“It would do no good.” Grace shook her
head. “By now the bloodlust is in their veins; if we go much
further they will be all but unbeatable.”

“Plus the way is blocked ahead,” Maeven
informed them turning back to them from his studying of the
upcoming path’s hindrance.

“That would figure.” Angelica sighed.
“Madalain told us to keep going straight, right? We didn’t take
that tunnel back there because it was advised not to, and now we
come to a barricade?”

“Madalain informed me that there may be
blockages that should not be here because of lack of use; we will
have to work around it.” Grace said.

“So do we just stand here waiting?”
Joya asked.

“No, I would suggest you start trying
to commune with that book of yours so that we have more defense
against these things.” Grace said dangerously low. Joya thought it
a good idea as she started rummaging around in her saddlebag
one-handedly searching for her book. In jubilation she tore the
book from the bag and watched as it began to glow an eerie
bluish-silver light in response to her touch.

“It’s awake!” she exclaimed, showing
all of them the wyrded book that pulsed with light.

“Good, this means we have a fighting
chance in the battle ahead. Now commune with it; see what it can do
for us.”

Her words sobered Joya
instantly.

Calm yourself,
the voice of wyrd spoke into her mind.
This will not work as well if you are trembling
with fright.

That is easy for you to
say,
Joya rebutted.
They don’t feed on parchment.

The Torzul are gathering
close, prepare yourself for battle
! As if
merely mentioning their name conjured them Joya’s flesh prickled as
she heard the strange whispering in the air that meant they were
near at hand. The creatures made no sound as they moved, but when
they were gathering close the air would whisper, as if hundreds of
people were standing in the shadows, just out of sight, whispering
dark secrets.

I will not be able to tell
you what will happen, you will have to relax and let me work as I
will. I am sorry Joya, in this you will not have any say, I have to
take control of you for this to work, your concern will only
forestall what needs to be done.

But –
Joya made to protest, but she was cute short as the power
gathering around the lemniscate flared with an intensity she had
never felt before, she opened her mouth to scream, but no sound
came out; the pain would not allow it.

From the back of her neck the power
poured. The lemniscate glowed, and it sent rivers of illuminated
power rippling over her skin, tracing its way over her body like a
shimmering spider web gently working its way out of the back of
Joya’s neck. She gasped as wyrd thundered through her.

Finally, after what seemed like ages
the new power of the book infused the very center of her being. In
that moment Joya felt unstoppable in every aspect.

Joya was becoming one with wyrd, and it
was becoming her.

Joya glowed brighter than any fire any
of them had ever seen, and as the light flooded the area, the
Torzul came into view.

It is too much!
Joya cried out in her mind.
I can’t take anymore; it is too much.

It isn’t too much, not for
you, Joya Neferis. You are special; you are more than you think,
more than you know. You can take all this wyrd and much more; you
just don’t realize it yet.

What? What do you
mean?

Be still. The enemy
approaches.

Beside her Joya was distantly aware of
Angelica shifting her weight, twirling the torches
slightly.

“Grace, you might want to get back
here,” Maeven said. “You are in no position to fight, and I can’t
help if I am tethered to the horses!”

Grace nodded and slowly backed through
the group to where Maeven stood.

The Torzul whispered again and drew
closer.

“Where are all of them coming from?”
Jovian said, his mind trying to comprehend the mass of bodies
emerging from the dark before them.

“My guess would be the shaft Madalain
warned us not to take,” Maeven said dryly coming up to the other
man and drawing his bow. “I hate waiting for an attack; they are
feeling us out right now, seeing what we are about. I am sure that
Joya’s light show is scaring them; why not give them something else
to be afraid of?” Maeven smiled and before Jovian could respond he
loosed an arrow that flew true right into the throat of one of the
closest Torzul.

The dalua fell dead, and the whispering
on the air halted as the others gathered around their fallen
member.

Joya’s eyes burned with dryness. She
tried to rub them, but her hands were clenched at her side as if
paralyzed. Finally she closed her eyes with a whimper, blocking out
the sights before them, but that did not help. Instead an intense
heat accompanied the dryness, and she cried out opening her eyes
quickly.

The burning would not stop. She felt it
pulsing with the energy coursing through her, and she wanted
nothing more than to be rid of it. Joya cast her eyes around
frantically, and then suddenly she lost all control of herself, as
the voice had told her she would.

Her eyes flared with an intense pain as
if they had been pierced, and the dead Torzul’s body was suddenly
engulfed with towering flames. Most of the Torzul were fast enough
to move out of the way, but still many were not and shrieked as the
flames caught their tattered, dirty clothes, and they began seizing
trying to get the flames to stop.

Before long the rest of the companions
joined the melee. Jovian cutting a swath through the Torzul with
ease, his mother’s sword moving expertly through flesh and
bone.

Maeven was moving further away from the
clump and more into the fray.

Angelica was fighting with mace and
torch.

Joya’s body ached with the power as it
crackled around her, and she embraced the torrent of lightning that
the voice of wyrd encircled her. She screamed as her arms jerked up
and she saw great balls of lightning around each hand. Her fingers
suddenly unclenched and a bolt of lightning was tossed from each
hand taking out yet more dalua.

But the numbers continued to
swell.

Joya’s last attack had driven the
Torzul back momentarily, but she could tell by the froth coming to
their lips that they would not stay that way for long. In moments
Maeven was lost to them in a sea of Torzul.

Angelica didn’t wait for Jovian to
move; Maeven needed their help. She leaped forward and swung her
mace down with a strength she never knew she possessed caving in
its skull. She pivoted as another Torzul lanced its claws toward
her face, and she brought the mace up crushing its chest with a
force that left her smeared with splatters of its blood.

Jovian was there beside her, and she
had no idea when he had joined her, but he was stabbing and cutting
just as Maeven was. At least they were back together, but Maeven
seemed to be weakening, and Angelica could not tell if the blood
she saw on his face was his own or if it was from one of the
Torzul.

“Where are they coming from?” Angelica
asked.

“It seems as though there are far more
than before,” Jovian grunted, jerking his sword out of a fallen
body just in time to parry an attack leaving another Torzul armless
and then headless with one powerful swing.

Something connected with Angelica and
she was stunned for a moment, though her fear quickly brought her
back, smashing her mace into the face of another Torzul before it
had time to bite her.

The ground shuddered again, as if
something large and heavy were falling around them. Jovian was
afraid that the ceiling might be caving in around them.

There is another wyrd
taking place,
the voice said to
Joya.

Where is it coming
from?

The earth, but it is being
controlled by some other force I do not recognize.

The numbers of them swelled through the
gap, and they charged for the glowing beacon in the center of the
gathering.

Joya saw them coming, and she knew that
they charged to their deaths. Instantly she engaged them, and her
body felt liquid. She grabbed two Torzul by the throats and they
were filled with the same light that possessed her, but instead of
giving them power their eyes glowed with such intensity that they
began to melt in their sockets. They shrieked and convulsed in her
hands, and the two Torzul began to melt from the overload of power
she was unleashing.

She sliced through the throng coming at
her like the lightning she had previously conjured, weaving in and
out of the melee possessed of a speed that only the wyrd could have
given her.

Joya fought needing no weapons, finding
that her hands were lethal enough. She stabbed out with her
fingers, grabbed bare flesh, tore at necks; wherever her hands
landed she caused pain and death.

In what seemed like moments, for indeed
it had only taken her moments to slaughter plenty of the Torzul,
Joya was bathed in a sheen of blood.

Angelica was tiring. She didn’t know
how much longer she would be able to keep fighting. Just then there
was a loud thundering, much like the fireworks at their birthday,
and the earth heaved violently.

A squelching sound accompanied the
thundering that continued on, deafening them all, and making
standing near impossible. At the sound all the Torzul stopped
suddenly.

Then as suddenly as they had come, the
Torzul retreated. Most of them went to all fours and ran like dogs
back the way they had come, while still others climbed the walls
and scurried over the ceiling like giant spiders after their
comrades.

“What?” Angelica said, bending at the
waist and gasping for air as her heart began to resume a normal
beat. “What’s that noise?”

The ground was still shaking, though
the thundering had dulled down to a rumble.

“I think we need to get out of here,
and fast. I am not sure what is coming, but it cannot be good if it
made all of them flee like that!” Grace informed them. “Jovian, get
Maeven onto his horse; I will tend him as we travel.”

“It is a golem,” a wicked voice said
from Joya. Angelica and Jovian had heard that voice before. It was
the same creaking rusty hinged voice they had heard come from Baba
Yaga.

“What?” Grace said. The light and the
power were fading from Joya fast.

“The creature making the earth
shudder,” the voice said as it slowly started to revert back to
their sister’s voice. “It is a golem.”

“But golems are artificial life-forms,”
Grace said. “It takes powerful religious virtues to create life let
alone create life into an animated vessel.”

“I know,” Joya said with no traces of
the voice any longer with her, and the glowing completely gone. She
slumped and tiredly made her way to Daisy on shaking knees. She
placed the book lovingly back in the saddlebag and wondered where
it had gone when she started working the wyrd, but she was too
tired to dwell on it.

No sooner had she said that, Joya
Neferis fell to the ground unconscious.

“Angelica, get her mounted, will you?”
Grace said, her eyebrows creasing in contemplation. “I do not like
the sounds of a golem, so we must make as much haste as
possible.”