Well of the Damned (26 page)

What
do you smell?

Nothing
but the sweet scent of wildflowers.

What
do you hear?

Only
the usual sounds of buzzing insects and chirping birds in the nearby
trees.

The
horse didn’t appear to be wary or distressed, only tired and
hungry. It tore mouthfuls of grass and weeds and yellow wild flowers
as it made its way to the edge of a pool of gray-brown mud from which
nothing sprouted. Not a single blade of grass took root in that
strange expanse of mud. Was that the so-called Well of the
Enlightened? Time had not been kind to it.

The
horse bent its head, put its lips to the mud and slurped it up.
Around its mouth, small rings formed on the surface of the mud pit as
though it was merely water.

She
watched the animal expectantly, waiting to see what would happen. It
lifted its head and looked at her with fathomless black eyes. Once it
drank its fill, it ambled away to eat. Nothing happened. Not only was
the horse not in distress, but it appeared to be refreshed from the
drink.

Cirang
dropped the knapsack and her rain cloak to the ground and took
another step towards it, ignoring her pounding heart.

Don’t
do this. It will kill you.

A
whimper rose in her throat. Fear, disgusting fear, squeezed her
chest. She shook her head.
No.
Fear cannot command me.
She
was within a dozen feet of the mud’s edge. Determined to reach
it, unwilling to let weakness control her, she took one more step.

No,
no, no!

What
kind of death awaited her here? Would something awful rise from the
pit to grab her and pull her under? The memory of her last death —
the claws, the pain, the awful snap of her spine — brought her
to her senses.

Her
logical mind scoffed at her concerns. It was just muddy water. The
horse drank it and nothing happened to him. She inched towards the
water’s edge, squatted, and scooped a cupped hand into the mud.
It was cool and wet, and even felt like water.

The
reflection of her own hand broke the surface, reached up, and grasped
her by the wrist, but now it was the black claw of a demon. She
jerked back reflexively but too late. It pulled her arm down.
No,
no, no!
Panic rose like a flag up her spine. Unbalanced, she fell
to her knees in the mud. She reached with her free arm towards the
horse. “Horse, come. Come!” she shouted, desperate. It
looked at her with disinterest while it munched grass.

She fought against the force with
all her strength, though it had her dominant arm. The mud was almost
up to her shoulder now. She fell onto her right hip, and with her
left hand, she fumbled for the dagger in the sheath strapped to her
right calf. Her fingers found the hilt, curled around it and whipped
it free. She chopped at the mud, only dimly aware of the pain in her
hand. The knife’s blade broke the mud-claw’s grip on her
wrist. She pulled herself free and crawled backwards like a crab away
from the pit.

Her
heart pounded as she sat in the grass and weeds, staring in horrified
disbelief at the mud pit. Warmth trickled between her fingers, and
she looked down to see several deep cuts in her wrist and hand.
Oddly, her arm had come out completely clean, with no trace of mud on
her sleeve or in the wounds. How could that be? Unless she’d
imagined the whole thing, the mud should at least have soaked into
her sleeve.

With
the danger gone, the pain arrived at full intensity. The fact that
she’d done this to herself was almost humorous. She pulled her
tunic off and used the knife to cut the sleeves off, though her hand,
weakened by the stab wounds, made the task more difficult than it
should have been.

Ordinarily
she’d worry whether something toxic in the mud would seep into
her blood and kill her, but there was no evidence she’d ever
touched the mud. Her imprints in the grass were clear, but they were
a good four feet from the mud’s edge. An illusion was the only
explanation. She’d never dipped her hand into it at all —
unless
this
was the illusion. If she had been at the mud’s
edge and her hand was, indeed, covered with mud, some kind of magic
was making her think it was clean. Instinct warned her to wash the
wound anyway, which she did using the last of her drinking water. She
wrapped one torn sleeve around her hand as tightly as she could. The
other she saved for later, when the blood stopped flowing.

Ripples
formed in the center of the mud pit, and then bubbles rose to the
surface. Her instinct told her to run, and she was no fool. If the
demon Ritol were to come out of the mud, she would be only seconds
away from her final death.

She
pulled the now-sleeveless tunic back on, snatched up her cloak and
knapsack and mounted. Forget the damned wellspring, if it even
existed. Crigoth Sevae must have been mad to think this mud pit would
benefit anyone. It was nothing more than a legend born from a rumor
or fairy tale.

Relief
replaced anxiety the more distance she put between herself and the
mud, although she let the gelding step carefully down the trail at
its own pace.

She
felt embarrassingly silly as much for chasing after such a ludicrous
story as stabbing herself in the hand to escape a killer mud pit. So
the journal and the ravings of its author had turned out to be
useless.

But
Kinshield didn’t know that. He still wanted the book.

Because
Cirang had killed Vandra for it and attacked the king, she would pay
dearly if Kinshield ever caught up with her. He’d likely slay
her on the spot and to hell with ceremony or making a public example
of her. Perhaps if she made quickly for Lavene, she could secure
passage on a ship before he or his guards found her. In fact, if she
hid the journal in Ambryce and left him a message directing him to
its location, he might pause his pursuit long enough to get the book.
Daia would go with him, leaving only Brawna to search for Cirang, and
Brawna would be no trouble for a battler as skilled as she was. Yes,
she decided. It was a good plan. Perhaps she’d return to
Nilmaria for a time. With an understanding of its people and terrain,
she would do just fine, even as an unwarded foreign woman.

When
she arrived at the fork in the trail, she tugged the rein and
continued on towards the river, contemplating what she might write in
the note and where she would leave it so that when Kinshield entered
the city, he would be directed to it. Perhaps she would simply hand
it to one of the lordover’s men-at-arms. They wouldn’t
know her and would have no reason to apprehend her. The only
outstanding question was: where to hide the journal so no one would
happen upon it before Kinshield found it.

The
horse slipped. She lurched forward. Caught by surprise, she grappled
for a fistful of mane to stay in the saddle. The animal went to its
knees and scrabbled for purchase. She flipped over its head and onto
the rocky slope. Pain shot through her back, and she cried out.
Beneath her, the rocks shifted, and she began to slide down the
steepest part of the slope. Above her, the horse screamed. Cirang
grasped at everything she could reach as she slid downhill on her
belly. Rocks and debris scraped her skin, but the only thought in her
mind was hope the horse wouldn’t land on her. An ominous crack
split the air, followed by a deep rumble she felt down to her bones.
Before she realized what was happening, dirt and rocks began to fall
towards her. The ground beneath her dropped. She fell faster.
Although the rocks and sticks beat against her body and face, there
was no pain. She quit trying to grapple for a handhold and instead
crossed her forearms over her chest and rolled sideways, hoping she
would eventually roll clear of the mountain coming down on top of
her.

And then the world went black.

Chapter 29

Something
heavy pressed on her, crushing her chest so tightly she could hardly
take a breath. In the darkness, she saw small knife-points of light.
Rocks and dirt ground her down from above as if they could make her
one of them. She tried to move her hand, but it was trapped too. She
found she could tilt her face just enough to put her mouth closer to
the slit of daylight and suck in air. Everything hurt. Even if the
horse was still alive, which was doubtful, she didn’t think
she’d be able to get into the saddle.

The
fingers on her left hand were free, and she wiggled them and pushed
against the rocks above her hand. Soon she found she could turn her
hand palm up, and she strained against the weight keeping her arm
immobile. She heard the rocks shift and tumble away, and then her arm
was free. The first thing she did was grope for the rocks over her
head and face to push them away. The weight rolled off and the light
and air and rain came flooding into her face and mouth, though her
chest was being held so tightly she couldn’t take the breath
she needed.

Crushing
her torso was a huge rock, much too big to grasp and fling aside. It
was smooth, without hand holds to grab. Her only chance to get it off
was to use its own weight to do the work. She reached underneath her
left side to grab smaller rocks and push them away. Little by little,
the weight of the boulder on top of her began to shift towards her
left side, the downhill side. Its movement hurt like hell as it
shifted across her tender rib cage. And then it rolled over her free
arm and went bouncing down the hill.

Air
rushed into her lungs, filling her body with pain like she’d
never felt before. She groaned, afraid to take in more air but
desperate to fill her lungs. She breathed in short bursts like a dog
panting until the pain subsided enough to move. It became easier to
push the rest of the rocks off her body, and after a few minutes, she
could sit up and assess the damage.

She
ached all over, and she was utterly soaked, but no bones seemed to be
broken. A sharp pain in her side was the worst. Her clothes were
bloodied in spots where she’d suffered scrapes and cuts, and on
her right side, a larger patch of blood darkened her tunic to mark
the area of the most intense pain. She lifted the hem.

A
shard of rock had sliced through the fabric of her shirt and corset
and embedded itself into her skin between two ribs. No doubt some of
her ribs were cracked, but this shard explained why breathing hurt so
much. She touched it gingerly and winced from the pain. Removing it
was going to hurt like mad. Better get some water to wash the wound.

With
great effort and gritting of teeth, she managed to stand on shaking
legs. One of her boots, her cloak, and her pack were missing. She
wasn’t sure how she could find them in the pile of rubble, but
at the very least, she needed that pack. Without the journal, she had
no chance of distracting Kinshield away from his pursuit of her. She
swept her gaze across the mess the landslide had made. A hoofed brown
foot jutted up from beneath the rocks and dirt. Stupid horse. This
was all its fault. She was glad it was dead, but its death was also
terribly inconvenient. She’d have to walk the rest of the way
to Ambryce, despite her injuries.

After
taking a few tender steps on the shifting rocks, she pushed aside the
rocks nearest the area where her feet had been when she first
regained consciousness. Maybe the boot had come off not long before
she’d stopped her fall. Something brown showed through, and she
reached down and tugged it. It came free, pushing rocks aside. The
knapsack — what luck. She checked inside and found the empty
waterskin and Crigoth Sevae’s journal, damp but intact.
Excellent.

She
looked for her boot but gave up after a while, though she did find
her cloak, and shook it as hard as she could manage to fling away the
water from the underside. She ripped what was left of Vandra’s
spare tunic, noting the make-shift bandages were gone, and wrapped up
her foot, padding the bottom with leaves she stripped from a tree
that had been uprooted in the landslide. The cuts on her hand had
bled a little but not enough to trouble her.

With
a hand cupping the shard in her side to keep it from shifting, she
returned to the knapsack and dug out the waterskin. She didn’t
know where the other was, but there wasn’t much of a chance to
find it now. She uncorked its top and shook the last two drops of
water into her open mouth. Perhaps she ought not try to remove the
shard until she could get to the river to rinse the wound and quench
her thirst. She studied the cork in one hand and the skin in the
other, realizing the shard was a cork for her blood. She’d
better wait and let a healer do it.

Then
she noticed the sound of trickling water. A quick look around
confirmed there was no stream nearby. The stones on the mountainside
were dark where water was streaming down from above. She traced its
origin up to the top — to where the eagle-shaped boulder
overlooked the valley below.