Blackveil (66 page)

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Authors: Kristen Britain

Tags: #General, #Fiction, #fantasy, #Epic

BOOK: Blackveil
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Spiney fell to his knees and loosed a keening wail that rocked Karigan backward. The other Eletians bowed their heads. Everything in the woods stilled.
“What is it?” Grant demanded.
“Telavalieth had a small grove for its Sleepers,” Lhean answered. “We are standing in it.”
“Sleepers? What do you mean Sleepers? And what grove? What happened to it?”
“When our folk tire of the waking world, they leave it for the long sleep and become the hearts of great trees until they are ready for the world again.”
Karigan remembered the Eletian prince Jametari explaining it to her. If she lived an endless life like the Eletians, she imagined she’d want a respite as well.
“Your people turn into trees?” Grant was incredulous.
“No,” Lhean said with an edge of annoyance to his voice.
By now Spiney lay prone on the ground. He did not shake with tears. He made no sound.
“Lhean,” Karigan said quietly, and pointed. “Is he all right?”
“Ealdaen is of Argenthyne. It may be he knew one who dwelled here.”
Ealdaen.
So Spiney had a name, and if he was of Argenthyne, then he must have fled before Mornhavon’s invasion a millennium ago ...
“What happened to this grove?” Ard asked.
Spiney—Ealdaen—rose to his feet and turned his searing gaze upon Ard.
“Mornhavon seak mortes.”
Then he strode off.
Ard scratched his head. “What did he say?”
“ Mornhavon killed it,’ ” Karigan replied, surprised to hear the words coming from her own mouth.
Everyone looked sharply at her.
“I didn’t know you spoke Eletian,” Grant accused.
“I ... I don’t. His tone said it. And the evidence is beneath our feet.”
“She is correct,” Graelalea said, pointing at fused stone. “Mornhavon destroyed the grove with his power, and enough so that it would never again take root.”
“That is not all he did,” Lynx said quietly, gazing at the ruins in the forest.
They took their midday rest in the clearing, a few of them peering into nearby ruins. It was not easy to discern the original appearance of the structures for it was as if they’d become part of the trees themselves, absorbed by sinuous, snaking roots. Architectural details of stonework and sculpture remained, though most of it was badly damaged.
Karigan wandered toward the ruins as well, but paused to gaze back at Yates, who sat alone in the center of the clearing, staring at his knees. He’d become oddly quiet. Something was eating at him. If it kept up, she’d shake it out of him later.
A glint through the window of a nearby building caught her eye. She peered inside, but it was all shadow and stank of mildew. Curious as to what lay in the shadows, she drew out her moonstone. Instantly light filled the interior and she caught her breath, for on the opposite wall a mosaic flickered with life, a scene of a young maiden with a garland of flowers in her hair and her lover reaching for her. The backdrop was of a summer forest in all its shades of green with the azure sky above. Karigan’s eyes feasted on the colors after the dullness of Blackveil.
The artist had captured a story in motion, a moment in time, the light of Karigan’s moonstone rippling over the shining pieces of the mosaic making birds in emerald green and sapphire blue seem to fly; a deer in the distance looked back at her as if pausing just before bounding off into the forest. Would the maiden rebuff her lover, or would she fall into his arms for a kiss? Was their love destined or forbidden ? Karigan wondered if the mosaic depicted a scene from some tale of Argenthyne, or if it portrayed the inhabitants of this . . .
Yes, a house,
Karigan thought. Whatever furnishings had once existed in the room had rotted away long ago, but beneath the dirt and dust on the floor was intricate tile work. She could not discern the designs, but they seemed to weave together in a way that made her think of music.
She closed her eyes and could almost hear the music. It flowed like water, sounds of laughter, and Eletian voices. When she opened her eyes, the moonstone still illuminated the room and she thought she saw filmy figures swirling in motes of dust in some lost dance.
But no, it was just the play of light on shadows in a place long abandoned and the whining of biters in her ears. What had happened to the occupants of this house? Had they been destroyed by Mornhavon’s forces?
There was a cry and Karigan tore herself away from the window to see what was the matter. The others ran to Hana who was looking through a doorway into another building. She did not appear to be in any danger, but Karigan ran anyway, and when she peered over Ard’s shoulder to see what everyone else was looking at, she reeled away rubbing her eyes.
Skulls. Skulls piled high to the ceiling.
She dared look in again. They filled the room from corner to corner, the bones matted with moss and darkened by ... soot? Striations scarred them, the gnawing of rodents. Gaping black eye sockets, empty, soulless. The people of Telavalieth.
There was no tale left for the beautiful maiden and her lover. Not here. None would know their story. They were all dead.
The Eletians huddled together and Solan sang, his voice pure, the sound of rain. The sorrow wrenched Karigan inside.
A tentative touch on her arm. She turned. It was Yates.
“What—” he began. “What is wrong here?”
“Look inside,” she replied, “and you’ll understand.”
Yates shifted his stance, his expression uncharacteristically fearful, his gaze fixed somewhere past her shoulder.
Now alarmed, she asked, “Yates? Are you all right?”
“I can’t look inside,” he said, passing his hand over his eyes. “I can hardly see.” He squinted. “It’s gone now. My sight. I’m blind.”
ROOTS
K
arigan waved her hand in front of Yates’ face, but he didn’t even blink. She placed her hands on his cheeks and turned his head so she could look directly into his eyes, searching for any sign of injury, but she saw nothing.
“Do your eyes hurt?” she asked.
“No,” he replied.
“Then how has this happened?”
“I—” He swept his hand through his hair. “I don’t know. Started last night. Got worse today and now . . .” He gave a shuddering exhalation. “Karigan,” he whispered, “I’m scared.”
So was she. Yates stumbling blind in Blackveil decreased his chances of survival immensely, and would slow down the company.
She grabbed his hands and squeezed. “We’ll figure this out, Yates. Maybe the Eletians know what—”
A clattering came from inside the building with the skulls. Karigan gazed in—they all did. A huge snakelike tentacle serpentined among the skulls, pausing here and there as if to finger the air.
“Oh, gods,” Grant murmured.
It reared, sending several skulls clacking down the pile, then lunged through the doorway at them. They leaped back, Karigan tugging Yates after her.
“What is it?” he asked.
“A creature or . . .” It looked, insanely, like one of the tree roots.
Hissing grew around them, rumbling through the ruins, tree branches quivering. More and more of the tendrils rippled to life—they
were
tree roots. They roiled out of the shadows and slithered toward them like thousands of snakes.
“We must go,” Graelalea said. “Now!”
Even as they turned to flee, a root lashed out and wound around Hana. She screamed. The Eletians leaped to with swords to hack at the root, but it snatched her through the air and into the woods and out of sight in the blink of an eye. Her screams trailed behind her until they abruptly stopped.
“Hana!” Lhean cried. He surged after her, but Ealdaen and Telagioth caught him and spoke rapidly to him in Eletian.
Then to the rest, Graelalea shouted, “Follow me! Run!”
“What’s going on?” Yates demanded.
Karigan grabbed his arm and hauled him out of the way as a root whipped out at them. Everyone broke into a run for the center of the clearing.
Roots swarmed the ruins, crushing walls and remnants of roofs. They exploded from the building of the skulls, the skulls pouring out through broken walls. They smashed through the house with the mosaic and Karigan thought of the maiden and her lover shattered into millions of tiny, sparkling pieces.
The roots surged across the clearing after the company, hissing against bare rock.
The companions grabbed their packs at a run, Karigan still pulling the stumbling Yates behind her, following at the end of the line as Graelalea plunged into the forest on the opposite side of the clearing. One glance back revealed writhing roots rippling across the clearing after them. The ruins, which had abided the centuries in quiescence, had been pulverized in mere moments.
“My pack,” Yates said. “We need to go back for my pack.”
“No,” Karigan replied, sickened by the image of those roiling, fingering roots and the loss of Hana. “We can’t go back.”
She struggled to keep Lynx in sight, but Yates constantly tripped and fell. He could not move fast enough. Dragging him behind her and trying to keep him on his feet exhausted her. When he fell, more often than not he wrenched her down with him, and desperate to keep up with the others, she’d lunge back to her feet and help Yates to rise, and then urge him on.
The others were almost lost to her ahead.
“Lynx!” she cried. She was met with only the silence of the forest and the fading footsteps of her companions.
“Lynx!”
Then there was nothing but her own harsh breathing and the drizzle folding down on them.
Karigan yanked Yates after her and hastened through underbrush and branches in the direction she’d last seen the company, her heart pounding.
“Slow down, I—”
“We can’t!” she snapped. “We’re losing them.” She did not say aloud that she thought they were already lost.
Yates bravely tried to keep up, but there were too many roots and rocks tripping him and he was again a force holding her back. She halted, her ragged breaths steaming the air. As she stood there and gazed at the sameness of the trees, she did not see or hear any sign of the company, and she had no idea which way they’d gone.
“Why are we stopping?” Yates asked.
She heard the fear in his voice.
“Because,” she replied, turning to face him, “we are—” Something snagged her right leg, and when she looked down, she saw she’d stepped into a tangle of thorny brambles. The thorns, which were hooked and as long as her thumb, had slashed through her trousers and raked her flesh like claws. It felt like a swarm of bees stinging her leg.
“Damn,” she muttered, pain pitching her voice high. She fought the urge to thrash out of the brambles knowing it would only entangle her further.
“What?” Yates demanded. “What in all the hells is going on?”
“Don’t take another step,” she told him. He’d stopped short, she saw with relief, of walking into the brambles. “I’m stuck in a thorn bush.”
Carefully she pried away the grasping brambles from her leg, but they seemed determined to cling to her. Finally she drew her long knife and cut them away. The canes oozed a yellow ichor she hoped was not poisonous.
It seemed to take forever to free her leg, sweat streaming down her face, the pain of the stabbing thorns sending chills through her body. Finally when she was able to step clear of the bush, her leg buckled and she fell to her knee with a grunt.
“Karigan?” Yates asked. “You all right?”
“Help me up.”
He extended his hand and she leveraged herself back to a standing position. The stinging pain spread through her leg again, but it held her weight. She removed the bonewood from her pack and leaned on it.
“I think we need to set up camp here,” she said.
“What about the others?”
“They’re gone. We got left behind and I don’t know if I can locate their trail again. It’s best if we stay where we are so they can come find us.” She wondered if they’d even try, recalling how they had not gone after Hana. She closed her eyes and shuddered.

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