The Waking Dreamer (10 page)

CHAPTER 9

Emmett looked out the window at the passing lights along the dark highway. He sat mutely stricken in the backseat, barely following the rapidly changing situation. Amala had been driving them back to Silvan Dea for nearly thirty minutes at speeds that teetered between dangerous and prosecutable, with Emmett managing to understand only half of what Amala and Keiran discussed.

Finding him apparently dreaming on the bench, Amala had drawn close to him and whispered into his ear: “Say nothing of this to anyone. Tell no one.” He’d had no time to question her when Keiran had returned from
Hiraeth
, and it was a measure of Keiran’s effortless calm that he had not questioned her when she’d told him that an attack against Silvan Dea was imminent and they must immediately return to their Grove.

They did not know Emmett, had no reason to care about or for him, and yet they faced danger beyond anything Emmett could conceptualize. Something in the dream with the red eyes and Amala’s knowing he had been having a waking dream confirmed this. They faced this danger with a methodical, calculated preparation to protect him. He knew they would endanger their own lives to protect him. They had already done so in Florida, and Emmett sensed they would soon again.

Risking their lives to protect me
. Words failed to affect Emmett more than that.

“Protecting Emmett until the Archivist makes contact is all that matters. If we do not reach her soon, he will die.”

“I can go to warn the Grove while you take him away,” Keiran offered as he continued to check the mirrors for what Emmett assumed was someone following them. “I can meet you both somewhere safe. Derrick’s?”

“No, we cannot separate. Not yet. I have my reasons.”

Keiran did not question this. Emmett wanted to interrupt, to somehow offer assistance in the face of danger. But he found only a litany of film clichés available to him and, feeling inadequate in the moment, retreated into silence.

“We have the river should retreat be necessary, Keiran. You understand what needs to be done if that occurs.”

“Of course.”

“And don’t ever leave him again,” Amala whispered, to which Keiran only looked down at his hands in his lap.

As the highway led toward the darkening curtain of rock from the mountains towering over them, Emmett began to feel his pulse quickening with anticipation. Amala began looking back and forth through all of the car’s windows—her wide, searching eyes penetrating the darkness for any sign of movement. Keiran rolled his window down and allowed his head to lean slightly out into the cold, rushing wind. So far from the city, the car’s lone headlights penetrated the night’s blackness with great effort, and only the sound of the car’s tires broke the forest’s silence.

The paved asphalt of the highway soon gave way to gravel that spat out underneath their speeding tires as they turned off onto a series of winding roads. Every so often, the outline of a fleeing image would register in Emmett’s peripheral vision. Always he would startle, his foot reflexively going down as if to tap the gas pedal harder to speed forward, and always he would look in vain for signs of the vanished something. The night seemed determined to torture him with hints of pursuit.

The enveloping silence of the dark night was maddening. Amala slowed to negotiate the narrow turns of the ascending path up and through the ravine to the Grove. Emmett’s senses were exaggerated beyond comfort by the intensity of the drive. Plunged into total darkness and with only the span of the car’s headlights to see, Amala seemed to jerk back and forth between the pressure to race back to the Grove and the care to not drive off of a cliff.

During the ascent, Keiran and Amala rapidly discussed details. Emmett’s concentration was absorbed watching for unseen attackers, and thus he still could not follow what they were saying. Their planning was filled with names, places, and descriptions that he did not recognize. In fact, the only thing that he was certain of was that his safety was their top priority.

The road banked sharply to the right, and through the canopy of snow-tipped fir trees along the mountainside, the compound of living stone came suddenly into view. Both fell silent, searching in the darkness for signs of danger.

“No lights,” Keiran said. “The great rooms’ hearths always burn through the night, Emmett,” he added.

“As with the moon, we are the light in the darkness,” Amala said. She leaned forward over the steering wheel, indicating a point up ahead with an outstretched arm. “We’ll stop right up there. We’re going in the rest of the way on foot.”

The car idled to a stop, and the three of them got out.

“Do we want to leave the car here?” Emmett wondered aloud, wanting to somehow contribute but feeling like the weak link in the proverbial chain.

Amala nodded, walking slowly past him as she scanned the road ahead. “I have a plan to escape if it comes to that, and it doesn’t necessarily require the car,” she whispered, turning to Emmett and holding a finger to her lips. “Keep him close to you.” She nodded from Keiran to Emmett.

They wound up through the ravine toward the compound. Even with Keiran less than two paces behind him, Emmett suppressed a shudder from the feeling that he was being stalked. Trees and thick underbrush on either side of the road drew dark curtains around them, with the cold air swallowing any sound. The darkness, it seemed, jealously guarded its own secrets.

Amala veered off the path into the tree line. Emmett winced at the twigs snapping and snow crunching underfoot.

“Too much noise,” he whispered. “Can’t you walk
over
the snow?”

“Those are elves,” Keiran responded equally quietly.

The moon’s pale sliver overhead was a ribbon of gossamer in the sky. Flowing through the trees with a dusting of fine snow, the cold Northern winds howled as if the forest itself were weeping from some tragedy yet to be revealed.

Pausing next to a large copse of firs, Amala held up one hand. She craned her neck, and Emmett saw a dark shape slithering down through the trees and across her shoulders. A pair of long black serpents coiled around her neck, one sliding into her hand while the other turned its darkly glowing eyes to watch behind her.

With a gesture to follow, Amala began lightly stepping forward again toward the compound. Several more silent moments passed, and they soon were no more than twenty yards away from one of the meandering walkways circling back toward the Grove’s rear.

Emmett felt it suddenly and without warning: a deep, tearing nausea that wrenched through his insides. He slumped against a tree, and as his insides heaved with protest, he vomited on the ground. He managed to gasp once for air before falling forward. Keiran’s strong forearm swung around his waist and caught him, keeping him from falling into his own sick steaming in the snow.

Keiran carefully eased Emmett backward against a tree while cradling his head. He raised one hand to his lips and pled for silence. Emmett watched him crane his neck and lift his ear. He pointed up ahead on the path and mouthed words that set Amala’s face rigid.

Emmett’s face felt swollen and hot, spittle running down his chin. Keiran pulled close to him, whispering into his ear: “There are at least twenty Revenants ahead of us. The proximity of dark magiks will affect you because of the Rot.”

Keiran’s hold on him grew tighter, and he drew him so close to his body that he could feel his breathing on his neck. Keiran reached his other arm around him to encircle him, holding his neck in both of his hands. He made a deep, rolling sound in his throat that vibrated down Emmett’s spine, a vibration that felt like cleansing water pouring over him. Within moments, his head felt light as his stomach settled.

A hawk with glowing eyes soared soundlessly down through the trees to land on Amala’s shoulder. It made no noises except for the soft rush of fluttering wings in the darkness. Amala took a pebble from the hawk’s mouth before it returned to the air.

Kneeling down to Emmett with Keiran behind her, she whispered into his ear. “Listen very carefully, Emmett. We need to reach the opposite side of the Grove. No matter what happens, do not allow yourself to be separated from Keiran.”

Emmett nodded as Amala looked deeply into his eyes. Just like the first time he had seen her attack the Underdweller, Emmett could see her concern for him.

“We’re going to make it,” she whispered.

“I can run,” Emmett responded, looking between Amala and Keiran.

She held an arm out for him. He accepted and tried to stand, Keiran placing a leg behind him and catching him when he stumbled back. His head was still light and stomach mildly queasy, but he gave a nod of confidence after several steadying moments.

Amala whispered to Keiran. “Rhiannon has already engaged some south of us.”

A preternatural scream penetrated the night, followed by the sounds of charging through the forest undergrowth. A dark figure appeared in the trees, leaping through the air toward Amala. She backflipped twice, bringing one leg up in a swift kick to the figure’s head, the sound of bone crunching just as she danced back and brought her other leg around low in a swift undercut to its legs.

Another figure rushed from the trees with blades in both hands, a hood barely covering his pockmarked face. He raised a tapered blade in his hand and brought it down in a wide arch. Amala allowed the momentum of her low kick to fully twist her body around to avoid his swing. The Revenant turned as he missed her and brought his forearm around in a backward slash with his other blade, a serrated knife nearly as long as his forearm. Amala spun her arms with dizzying speed, her serpents whistling through the air and tearing deep gashes across his face and chest. Their fangs slashed across from one ear to the other with a brilliant spray of red on the snowy ground. He dropped his blades and crumbled in writhing agony, clutching futilely at his bleeding eye sockets.

Feeling the nausea welling up again, Emmett stumbled to sit upright. Amala stood rigidly over the two Revenants, now both dying or otherwise incapacitated. The hawk returned, crying into the night as it swept up higher overhead as if circling Amala, Keiran, and Emmett protectively. Through teary eyes, Emmett saw Amala taking a step toward him, chancing eye contact only for a moment to confirm he was unharmed.

“Focus through the discomfort,” she whispered. Emmett nodded, clutching his stomach as he attempted again to stand.

Keiran came up behind them and put a hand behind Emmett’s shoulders. He made a deep, purring sound at the base of his neck, the vibration from his lips brushing against his skin and traveling down Emmett’s spine. Once again, Emmett felt the nausea wash away. He shook his light head, willing himself to concentrate.

“Thanks again.”

Amala and Keiran had only a moment to look up as four more Revenants crashed loudly through the underbrush. Three of them raced for Amala, with the fourth swinging a large blade at Keiran’s head just before Keiran pushed Emmett aside and rolled away from the blade’s swing.

Amala was pirouetting in and out of her three attackers’ swings as she wove her serpents through the air. Amala’s spinning kicks would open holes in the Revenants’ attacks, causing them to aim high or wide to parry her blows. Each time, a swing of one of her serpents would respond with bared fangs, tearing or gashing at exposed skin.

Keiran was back on his feet just as his attacker swung the serrated blade again at his head. The female Revenant was spitting words at him, incoherent, nonsensical words that seemed to scratch at the very air. From her incantation an undulating, inky darkness coalesced before Emmett. As she did so, Emmett saw her face stretch as her human features seemingly melted away.

With his hands held aloft toward Emmett, Keiran bellowed a low note that caused the air before him to shimmer like a thick pane of glass, swelling into a sphere that seemed to contain the darkness before shrinking and collapsing the darkness into nothingness.

The female Revenant growled and swung her blade at Keiran’s head. He easily dodged it, bringing his foot up in a high roundhouse kick toward her head. She turned in time and took a glancing blow to her shoulder before retreating two steps and returning with a direct thrust. As it whistled past his face just feet away, Emmett saw that the blade was covered in dripping runes and sigils along its length, and the very air surrounding it seemed to reek with decay.

Keiran ducked again, rolling on the ground once more away from Emmett and drawing the Revenant’s attention toward him. He stood up quickly and raised an outstretched hand toward her, taking a breath and screaming out with a discordant, angry note whose concussive force clipped the side of her face, causing her to drop her blade and fall to the ground, grabbing both of her bleeding ears.

The two other Revenants continued to swing at Amala, their bloody, sigil-covered blades whistling in the cold air. Her movements were like water falling in sheets on rounded stones, flowing effortlessly with barely visible ripples. One of the Revenants seemed to stumble on an awkward swing, and Amala followed with a downward kick, her foot crunching the back of his neck. He fell under his own momentum, causing the other Revenant to stumble.

Amala drew back just as the hawk overhead rounded in the air and dove past her, its twin claws extending as they bit deeply into the soft, fleshy place underneath the Revenant’s right ear. The eldritch words all but sizzling as they died on his quivering lips, the Revenant’s face returned to normal as he limply fell to the ground.

“Come on,” Amala called. They ran together, collecting Keiran up the road and closing the distance to the Grove. Crossing the long shelf, another figure came running from a hidden place behind a thicket of trees and underbrush. Amala sprinted ahead, easily dodging the clumsy swing of his blade and snapping his neck sideways with a backhand swing.

Several figures crashed through the underbrush and out onto the path, a mess of flailing limbs. A large bald man swung a meaty fist at a little girl he had pinned to the ground. She took a pair of punches directly to her small face before she raised an arm in Emmett’s direction, as if pleading for help. Emmett began to run to her aid, but Keiran tackled him from his left side, sending him to the ground.