Destiny's Rift (Broken Well Trilogy) (17 page)

‘You wanted to kill that possum, didn’t you?’ said the mage.

‘I forgot we had dinner already caught,’ he replied darkly.

The day grew long and they soon came to a stop. As the others went about setting up for the night, Bel wandered away to the edge of the ridge. Below, the treetops were eerily orange as the diminishing light of sunset reached them.

‘Beautiful, isn’t it?’

Gellan again, arriving soundlessly by his side.

‘I suppose so,’ said Bel, irritated by the mage’s continual presence. ‘They’re just trees.’

Gellan nodded. ‘Trees, yes. But look at the way the light makes all the tops shine in shifting bands, like waves.’

‘What of it?’ Bel could not see the point of these observations. ‘I’ve never been to the damn sea.’

‘I just mean there is a life behind things, sometimes. Even I . . .’ he glanced sideways at Bel, ‘who have seen many in my travels . . . am impressed by a sunset such as this.’

The blankness that nudged at Bel was quickly overtaken by anger. Gellan seemed to be pushing on him, as if trying to expose a seam in his character, a limitation of his broken soul . . . but no, that was just the weaver Iassia’s lies still eating at him. These thoughts were not worthy of consideration. There was nothing wrong with him, and Gellan was just blamelessly making conversation; Bel wished he wouldn’t.

‘I see only trees,’ he said, trying to sound jovial, ‘and a sunset like the one that will happen tomorrow, and yesterday, and the day after that. So no, this does not astound me especially. But I am only a simple warrior, not a great poet like you, Gellan.’ In those last words an edge of harshness crept into his voice. He let it hang there, trying to make up his mind whether to try to dispel it or not, then turned and stalked away.

Gellan thoughtfully watched him go.

•

Losara moved up the mountainside in shadowform, knowing he took a risk in slipping away. He’d instructed Fazel to maintain an illusion of Gellan sleeping peacefully while he was gone . . . but if someone tried to touch the mage, or wake him, they would find no substance to him. He could always claim it was a mage trick, he supposed – making himself insubstantial while he slept, for his own protection. Would they believe such wild and unbelievable lies? Bel seemed to trust him so far, even when he’d risked saying things that, to his mind, should have given him away immediately. But Bel wasn’t like Losara, which was in fact the whole point. His
other
had a kind of tunnel vision to him, always focused on the mission.

He cleared the lower vegetated regions and discovered a path of red–orange rock that would have been treacherous to traverse in physical form. It led up to a plateau, where he discovered what he sought. Littered around cave mouths were bones, of birds and mountain goats and who knew what else. A rock fireplace still smouldered, around which lay the silhouettes of spiny trolls. They were simple creatures, hostile to all, but rarely a problem because they lived up so high. Humanoid in stature, they had protruding jaws with upward-curving tusks, knobbed brown skin and dank red hair. Their torsos were small in comparison with their heads, their backs rife with mean-looking spines, and their limbs long and lithe. They wore a semblance of clothing – loincloths, loosely sewn furs and cloth remnants that had no doubt begun their lives as something else. Did he really intend to incite these creatures to their deaths?

I must learn more
, Losara told himself, and stepped out onto the plateau.

Quickly he wove around himself an illusion of Bel, then stooped to pick up a spear from the ground. There was a grunting by the fire as his presence was noticed, and trolls began to rise. Giving a shout of what he hoped sounded like anger, he threw the spear at one of them. It flew wide and went clattering to the ground – certainly he did not share his
other
’s excellent aim, Losara reflected wryly.

The trolls growled and advanced, some crawling on all fours. There was a scraping as other spears were lifted from the ground. Losara raised his hand to point away down at the land far beneath, where the tiny light of their campfire could be seen.

‘We come for you,’ he told the trolls. ‘To kill you and steal from you.’ He then made it appear as if Bel went sprinting back down the mountain, as he simultaneously melted back into shadow. The trolls sprang to the edge to find Bel gone, but now they saw the light, and they whispered to each other. They began to spring down the mountain, toad-like as they pounced from tree to rock. Losara was impressed with their speed.

He overtook them back down the mountain and reached the camp, where he slipped back inside the illusion of Gellan. As he took it over from Fazel, he made it fit the contours of his real body and opened his eyes with a gasp.

‘What is it?’ said Bel, sitting up on his bedroll.

‘Something approaches.’

‘What do you mean?’ demanded Bel. ‘What have you sensed?’

Before Gellan could answer there was a crashing in the bushes, and Hiza, who had been on watch, burst into view.

‘Trolls!’ he called.

‘Get down!’ shouted Bel, and Hiza dropped to his knees as a spear flew over his head. Trolls sprang from the darkness and landed amongst them.

Without thinking, Bel stepped into the pattern of the fight. He moved forward, slashing a second hurled spear from the air with his sword, then whirled low to slice out the thrower’s legs. Another troll came at him, spear held like a lance. Bel stepped smoothly sideways, hooked the troll under the arm as it rushed past, swung it around and hurled it yowling off the ridge. For a moment it seemed as if time stood still, as the hapless troll hung suspended over the sheer drop, its face a mix of rage and terror. Bel’s blood soared to boiling point.

He heard Jaya shout and twisted to see her fending off two of the creatures. They were taking turns to swipe at her with spears, while they bounced backwards out of reach of her sword. He tried to go to her but his feet did not want to obey, as the dance with death tried to lead him towards trolls closer to him. Although he greatly desired to charge them down, a part of him was able to resist, and he forced his way out of the flow to stagger towards her. Immediately a troll crashed against him, and he landed hard on his back. The next moment the creature was atop him, gnashing at his face with its tusks. He brought his hand up with enough strength to break the tusks back into its mouth, and rolled it off him to spring to his feet. Again the pattern pulled him away from Jaya and again he ignored it to go towards her.

Just before he reached her, M’Meska landed close by and plugged an arrow into one of the trolls’ backs. The second one gasped as Jaya managed to land her sword in its belly.

‘Stay in my wake,’ he told her, pulling her roughly to him. It was difficult to form words through the fug of frenzy. ‘I can protect you better when you’re close.’

‘I don’t need your protection,’ she muttered back. ‘Though I will guard
your
back if that’s what you mean.’

Then he moved onwards, his sword ready to meet any blow, or cut and rend, or stab and slice. Sometimes the pattern offered up different paths, and he chose the way that best protected his friends, though his awareness of that choice grew dim as ecstasy filled him. How good it felt, his senses awash with screams and the taste of fear, the smell of sweat, and above it all the pounding of his own heart.

And then, as suddenly as it had started, it was over. Though he cast his gaze back and forth, eager to find another enemy to skewer, all the trolls lay dead. Hiza whooped, giving Bel a clap on the shoulder. Bel was annoyed with him for interrupting this moment, knocking him prematurely back to himself. The bloodlust, not yet truly sated, sought another way out . . . and he opened his mouth to roar triumph.

•

Losara watched Bel with great curiosity. For his own part, he had not done much throughout the fight, mainly kept an eye on everyone to make sure they were safe. He’d nudged a spear off course once or twice, and tripped several trolls in his ethereal grip when they had looked like landing blows, but apart from that, he’d held back from getting involved. His desire had been to watch Bel in action, and it would not have been served by blasting all opponents instantly to smithereens. He’d also had to be careful about what spells he’d used, avoiding anything that would obviously appear as shadow magic to the naked eye.

Now he considered Bel, standing over the bodies of the fallen, his feverish eyes rolling in search of more death.

He is not happy the fight is over.

Losara remembered the dreams in which he had experienced fights in Drel Forest through Bel’s eyes. Although the feelings they had evoked were gone, intellectually he remembered the
need
for blood, the
joy
of the dance, the way it had filled him with a sense of perfect belonging and purpose.

It must be hard to return from such a place
, he thought.

The look on Bel’s face did not contradict him.

•

Sleep was evasive for the rest of the night. Gellan and Fazel levitated the bodies away, off the ridge into the forest, but the camp still stank of death. Bel lay with open eyes, experiencing the same melancholy that had come on him after Drel. Back then he had told himself that what he felt was guilt over failing to protect the other members of his troop. That was why he’d gone back to the keepers . . . it wasn’t because he lacked the courage to face the fact that he
enjoyed
killing so much. No, not at all.

He tried to remember the words of his father after he had returned to Kadass. Corlas had spoken of fighting Battu at the Shining Mines, of how the bloodlust could be a good thing, how it could help a man survive and win – not quite the same as Bel’s growing desire for any excuse to unleash violence.

Also Bel did not think Corlas experienced it in the same way he did, for his father had never mentioned any patterns or paths tugging at him.

Tonight he had managed to keep a part of himself anchored, and had had the presence of mind to protect Jaya – which he would continue to do whether it annoyed her or not. But the frenzy had taken him over so fast, he didn’t trust himself to be able to exert control every time.

He hugged her tightly, and she grunted.

‘Promise me something,’ he said.

‘What?’

‘Whenever we get into a fight, you come and stay close to me. The way I get, I don’t know if I’ll always think to protect you.’

He did not know if she fully appreciated what happened to him in a fight. He had tried to explain it to her one night at The Wayward Dog, but had gained the impression she thought he was exaggerating. He had let it go at the time as he’d been unsure himself, having only experienced the phenomenon a couple of times. After tonight, however, he was growing more certain that this special ability of his was here to stay.

‘I can look after myself,’ she retorted. ‘I survived long before you came along. I do not need any man to be my chaperone through life.’

‘But Jaya,’ he said, irritated himself now, ‘I am
the
fighter. In the moments I spend treading the pattern of a fight, nothing can touch me. And if you’re behind me, I’m hoping nothing will reach you either.’

‘Like I said,’ she answered, ‘I’m happy to watch your back.’

‘If that’s the way you want to put it. It matters little to me as long as you do it.’

‘Don’t make it sound like an order, or I won’t.’

‘Arkus, Jaya, I’m only concerned for your safety because I love you. Why are you being like this?’

‘Never mind. Just go to sleep, Bel.’ And she rolled away.

Even as the camp grew quiet, Bel could not sleep. He had flown so high that the return to earth was difficult. Not only that, but some sense of the pattern seemed to remain, faintly, an unspooled thread leading off the ridge and down into the forest. It was not insistent, for there was no immediate danger, and it was fading. Soon he would not be able to follow it.

Let it go
, he thought, but his yearning was strong. Carefully he rose, and stole over to the edge of the ridge. It was not far down to the forest from here, some ten paces or so, and the slope was gradual enough to climb. He glanced back to make sure no one was watching. Fazel would be out there somewhere, but Bel did not care right now what Fazel thought. He lowered himself over the edge and clambered down to the forest.

At the bottom he found the ground splattered with trolls, where Gellan and Fazel had dumped the carcasses. He made his way into the trees, past a staring corpse wearing a twisted snarl. His path was clearer now that he trod it, and some way through the trees ahead he caught a glimpse of movement. As he drew closer he saw it was a troll still alive –
must be that one I hurled off the cliff
– and limping slowly away from the camp, bruised and broken.

The troll heard him, looked around, and yelped in fear. It tried to run, grunting as it put pressure on a bad leg, its gangly arms flailing as it grasped at branches to steady itself. The result was pathetic and uncoordinated, and it did not take Bel long to catch up with the creature. It turned to see him right upon it and its legs gave way in fear. It fell and didn’t get up, lying before him, cringing.

‘Please,’ it said in a thick voice. ‘I go away. Not come back.’

‘That’s right,’ said Bel, and stabbed it through the eye.

The pattern’s last remnant fell away.

The moment was not enough to return him to his prior state; it was more like a crumb of sweetness when he wanted a whole cake. Feeling the emptiness all the more, Bel trudged back to camp.

A watching shadow slipped along after him.

•

Some distance to the south-east, six strange figures bounded across the moon. They moved almost in their natural shape, though they were thinner and had no tendrils. Much of their muddy selves had been diverted into lengthening their legs, giving them wide, distance-crunching strides.

Eldew was pleased with how fast they had travelled. It had been, in fact, a pleasant journey. Settlements in Dennali, though numerous, were mainly small and easy to avoid. The land had proved moist, full of streams and lakes and fields of wet grass after rain. By night they moved in this form, by day they slithered along like snakes, low to the ground and harder to spot. When they’d happened to stumble across people, Eldew had allowed his companions to have a little fun, and sometimes they had even slipped a little
out
of their way to do so . . . but never had they tarried long.