Bloodstone (19 page)

Mirianna forced a swallow. The Shadow Man stood so close she could smell boot leather and wool, could see black-encased thigh and calf muscles that looked as solid as the rock on which she sat.
Looked
solid, because underneath the black hood, gloves and all-concealing clothing had to be nothing at all but darkness.

“I—I remember you told us the way to Ar-Deneth.” Resisting the inclination of her gaze to rise, she turned away, making a show of reaching for the tea and sipping it.
Don’t look at him!
Instead, she scanned the clearing for signs of her father.
Be safe, Papa. Please be safe!

“Did you make it to Ar-Deneth?” The boy leaned forward with hands on knees. “I served at the inn until a few days ago. Did you stay there?”

“Yes.” Mirianna managed a wan smile until she remembered he couldn’t see it. She touched the back of his hand instead. “It was a very nice place.”

“Gareth,” the Shadow Man said, “check the pack mare. See if her leg is fit.”

A look of disappointment crossed the boy’s features, but he stood without hesitation. Staff in hand, he felt his way down the hillside toward four horses tethered below. Her own gelding, Mirianna noticed, was one of them.

She sipped the tea, swilled it, and sipped again, forcing herself to linger over the cooling liquid. The Shadow Man’s brusque order to the boy told her he stood so close, she could almost feel the imprint of his lower legs cradling her spine. She wished he would speak or leave before the brackish tea made her vomit or her strung-tight nerves made her bolt.

“Why didn’t you stay in Ar-Deneth?” he demanded. “Why did you have to come back?”

His voice, though low, ripped at the shreds of her control. Not because it accused. She’d expected that. Just as she’d expected anger. And menace. What set her nerve endings vibrating was something that underlay all the rest, something she should have expected because she’d heard it before, only she hadn’t recognized it then. Nor could she quite name it now, except it bore elements of frustration. And anguish.

She set the bowl aside. “Please understand, I wouldn’t have come, but we—my father—needed more bloodstone. Ulerroth said—the innkeeper said you were the only one who—”

“There were three men with you. Where are they?”

His tone brought Mirianna’s chin up, but she held her gaze fixed on the empty tea bowl. She was not going to cry. Her father was safe…somewhere. He’d been ahead of her when they escaped the ambush. “I—the clearing was full of Krad. We got separated.”

“Krad!” The Shadow Man strode to the lip of the hillside and planted one boot on a rock.

He stood half turned away and far enough the jangling of her nerves faded to a hum. Emboldened, Mirianna let her gaze rise. The morning sun shone full on his back, showing her the sheen of wear on the black hood, tunic and breeches that concealed every inch of his flesh but hid none of the contours. On his raised thigh she detected a tear that had been carefully mended. His gloves and boots bore the creases and scuffs of long use. Even his belt showed faintly green where the dye had faded. A sword, the broken blade extending no more than two hands’ span from the hilt, stuck out from his belt like a common thief’s dagger.

Was this the being who’d invaded her dreams and turned them so disturbingly sensual? Was this the wraith who two nights ago had spirited the blind boy from their sight? Was this the possessor of a voice that had shaken her to the core? In the full day’s sun, he looked no more than a man, taller than some, leaner and more fit than most. Chagrinned by her fears, Mirianna rocked to her knees and made ready to rise.

He turned at the rustle of her movement. Her gaze went automatically to his face. But there was no face to be seen. Only a shapeless drape of black cloth filled his hood where eyes and nose and mouth should be.

Mirianna sat as if turned to stone. Horror cooled her blood, and the hair rose on every part of her body.
It’s his look. One look from him—at him—and men go mad. Or die. By the Dragon, let me not die!

Somehow, she summoned the power to close her eyes. She knew she’d succeeded only when she opened them again and the Shadow Man no longer filled her vision. Every nerve, however, thrummed with his presence, and she knew he stood not more than three paces behind her and to the left. She knew, too, he faced the forest’s edge, his right hand gripping the scrolled hilt of the weapon in his belt. She knew all this, and more, because—somehow—he’d let her know it so she might never again forget who and what he was.
Don’t worry. I won’t forget again.

She turned slowly, like one waking from a dream, and saw what had captured his attention—three riders emerging from the trees.

“Papa!” she choked, and stumbled to her feet to meet him.

Tolbert slid out of the saddle and wrapped his arms around his daughter. “Mirianna, lamb, I thought I’d lost you.”

Mirianna pressed her face into his neck. She clung for a moment, then leaned back and let him look at her. “I’m fine, Papa. Honestly, I am. But you—” She plucked a cedar twig from his hair. Creases etched his cheeks, and a distinct grayness underlay his usual color. He looked every one of his years, and more. “You need to eat.”

Tolbert chuckled, but the sound broke into a cough. When he recovered breath, he hugged her again and kissed her gently on the cheek. “So, lamb, do you. So do we all, now.”

“Perhaps we can share your fire.”

In the joy of finding her father, Mirianna had forgotten Rees and Pumble, the two men the Master of Nolar had given her father as escort. And even that dark
being
which stood somewhere behind her and drew Rees’s stony glare. The Master of Nolar’s man still sat his horse, and his hand hovered near his bow. Beside him, Pumble stood, sweating, his fingers twitching over the hilt of his sword. She turned slowly in her father’s arms.

“I said,” Rees repeated, “perhaps we can share your fire,
this
time...Shadow.”

The Shadow Man stood at the rock ledge, his body as motionless as a bat captured by the sun. His hand rested on the hilt of the sword in his belt, and between his gloved fingers something glinted red. His hood revealed only a drape of cloth where his face should be, yet she knew underneath every inch of that which passed for face was turned on Rees, and the air between them stretched to a brittle thinness.

“Do with it as you please,” he said at last. “The boy and I were just about to leave.”

“Wait!” Tolbert put Mirianna aside. “I need—”

“Bloodstone?” The black hood swiveled. Her father stiffened under the weight of the invisible regard. “There is no more bloodstone, old man. Go home, while you still can.”

Tolbert shook his head violently. “But Ulerroth—”

“Ulerroth is a fool,” said the voice that vibrated along Mirianna’s nerves. “And so are you, if you stay another day in the Wehrland.”

A stallion’s shrill scream punctuated his words.

The Shadow Man spun. Below the rock ledge, the tethered horses milled, huffing. The blind boy clung to the pack mare’s halter, his face a pasty white. “Sir, I think I smell—”

“Krad!” Rees coughed, recoiling from a wave of stench that stole Mirianna’s breath.

“They must have followed us!” Pumble wheezed.

“Fools!” The Shadow Man’s faceless gaze raked from Rees to Mirianna. “I should damn you all to Beggeth, but the Krad will see to that soon enough.” He turned. “Gareth, free the horses!”

“Wait!” Tolbert said as an unearthly, high-pitched clamor erupted from the woods below. “What about us? What do we do?”

Only the hood rotated, cocking with exaggerated deliberation. “Why, you die, old man.”

Her father blanched. His grip on Mirianna’s arms faltered.

She saw the Shadow Man turn, saw the muscles of his thighs bunch as he prepared to leap down the hillside, saw, in the corner of her eye, shapes gathering along the tree line below, horrible shapes she’d seen only hours before rushing at her from a darkened clearing. With a shudder, she broke from her father’s grasp.

“Please!” She reached out to the black sleeve. “Help us!”

He recoiled at her touch like one snake-bitten. The sudden, sharp focus of his regard staggered her, but she backed no more than a step. No matter how he terrified her, he’d helped her once. She’d been led to him again, and not, her instincts told her, without reason.

“Please,” she repeated. “Help us. I—we’ll do anything.”

“Anything?”

His voice was a whisper that caressed flesh. Mirianna’s stomach quivered. Her breasts tingled. Her mouth grew even drier. Without thinking, she slid her tongue along her lips. Vaguely, she wondered what she’d done. And why time seemed suspended, as if everyone but she and the Shadow Man had been cast in stone and all sound arrested. All sound except the taut, guttural repeat of his question.

“
Anything?
”

If she were sane, she would seize the opportunity to clarify, to explain, to negotiate her reply. But even as she watched herself stand on the rock ledge and confront a shadow, she knew the question spoke not to her head but to her heart, and her heart answered in the only way it could, plainly and without hesitation. “Yes,” she breathed, “anything.”

Time returned with a mind-numbing rush of sound and motion.

Leaping from the rock ledge, the Shadow Man seized her arm. She flinched, but he held her fast. “If you would save yourselves, then feed the fire, woman. Make flame, lots of it.” His shove propelled her toward the smoldering ring of stones. To Tolbert, he said, “Get the boy. Bring him to the fire.”

“What are you doing?” Rees’s horse reared, but he pulled it into a tight circle.

“Have you fought Krad?” the Shadow Man retorted.

Mirianna dumped an armload of kindling on the fire. Beyond the sudden whoosh of flame, she saw Rees’s features redden.

“Then hold your tongue and do as I say.” At the Shadow Man’s whistle, the gray stallion clambered up the hill, nostrils flared. Seizing a handful of mane, he swung onto the horse’s bare back and wheeled it around.

“Those dung-beasts aren’t doing anything,” Pumble whimpered, sweat running in rivulets from under his hat. “Why do they keep screaming like that? Why don’t they charge?”

“Because they’re trying to scare you, mutton-head!” Rees snapped, his foaming horse whirling in another circle. “You’ve got a plan, Shadow. What is it and how much time do we have?”

“Not much.” He turned to Pumble. “Krad are afraid of fire. Pile brush into a fire ring. Keep the others within it.” Nodding to Rees’s bow, he said, “Bring down the leaders.”

“And you?” Rees fit an arrow to string. “What will you do, Shadow?”

The hood faced Rees’s sneer, then turned slightly. Mirianna risked a glance at the black shroud and found her attention magnetically drawn to the upper half. A chill rippled down her spine as she realized he’d summoned her gaze, and that his words, though ostensibly directed at Rees, flayed at her nerves.

“Why worry about me?” The Shadow Man’s stallion back-stepped. “I’m only a phantom, mage spawn of Beggeth. What can my kind possibly do to one of their own?” With a touch of his heels, the stallion sprang away.

“That ‘one of their own’ part is exactly what I’m worried about,” Rees muttered.

Me, too.
Mirianna dumped another armful of kindling on the fire.
Me, too.

****

What he needed, Durren thought, was a torch and a spear.

And a new head! What in Beggeth are you doing confronting Krad? You haven’t fought a battle since—since the mage took Drakkonwehr! What in the name of Koronolan do you think you’re going to accomplish with a broken sword and a knife? And for what? A woman sent by magic and—

Be still!
Now was the time for action, not doubts. Or fantasies. Durren shook his head to dislodge an image of the woman’s parted lips. She’d said
anything,
hadn’t she? That was enough for now. Later, he could sort the ramifications of her promise.

Kneeing Ghost to a halt, he dismounted, seized a small aspen tree and hacked it off near the ground. An eye on the figures gyrating at the tree line, he stripped the branches, chopped off the top, split the tip, and jammed in the hilt of his knife, fastening it with his belt. That done, he hacked off another, smaller sapling and remounted, carrying both.

The clamor at the forest’s edge rose in pitch. The sound shrilled in Durren’s ears and set his teeth on edge, but he didn’t waste a look. His instincts, roused from years of non-use, told him he had only seconds before the terrifying roar of a Krad charge. Holding the two saplings aloft, he galloped back to the campsite.

The fat man, the woman, and the old man rushed like ants to complete a ragged circle of brush around the rock ledge. Near one side, Gareth stood with a flaming brand in hand, ready to light the ring. Skidding to a halt near the boy, Durren stretched over the brush pile and touched the unstripped sapling to the torch. Its leaves caught with a whoosh.

Holding the sapling torch in his right hand, he leveled the makeshift spear like a lance with his left and braced it against his hip. Legs wrapped tight around the stallion’s girth, he heeled Ghost toward the onrush of beast-men.

The ragged line of attack broke before the swish of his torch and the thrust of his lance. He wheeled Ghost, pursuing, jabbing, burning fur. Krad stench assaulted Durren’s nostrils. Their howls tore at his eardrums, making him grit his teeth against the pain, but he knew he was safe as long as he stayed out of thrusting reach of their spears and knives. If these were men or other mage-driven creatures of Beggeth, his lack of armor would doom him. But Krad never threw their weapons.

The scattering beast-men did, however, fling up a shower of stones, sticks and clods of dirt. Durren grunted as a rock bounced off his rib cage. Another ricocheted off his shoulder. Ghost pivoted, avoiding all but a pelting of his hindquarters.