Remnants: Season of Fire (38 page)

Hope swelled within me. I would not give in to thoughts of the worst. A tracker had slipped by our shield; that didn’t mean they were all dead. I shook away the vision of Ronan alone, bleeding in that awful muck.
No.
Instead I directed my mind to my last view of him, standing tall, sword drawn, ready for whatever came his way. With Vidar and Bellona beside him. No, this lousy tracker had simply managed to slip by them as the battle raged on.

Maker, make me courageous. Give me faith!

“Let’s go, get as far as we can before we take him on,” I said, looking to Cyrus, but his eyes were wide and scanning the walls, even as the heavy footfalls grew louder.

“I don’t see the white star,” he muttered, running to the far end. “Do any of you see the star? There was once a star here, on one of these walls!” He turned one way, and then the other.

“Just choose, man!” Dad barked, voicing my own thoughts. “Dig down! Which way does your gut tell you is right?”

As if sensing our rising panic, our adversary let out a screech, sending shivers down my back. “C’mon,” I said, grabbing Mom’s hand. “C’mon!” I cried again, already running, choosing for Cyrus if he could not. We had to get out.

We were running, splashing down the center of the tunnel, trying to keep our feet, when we saw Vidar and Bellona enter ahead of us from the side, via another path.

“Vidar!” I cried. The two turned and slowly awaited us, leaning down, hands on knees, gasping for breath.

“Where’s Ronan?” I said, my heart in my throat. I moved toward the tunnel they’d just left, but Bellona snagged my arm and forced me back.

“He’ll be along shortly,” she said, lying to me. “He’s with Niero.”

“
Niero?”

“Niero,” she repeated, drawing an arrow and shooting it into the dark mass of wraiths swirling toward us. “I don’t know why I tried that,” she said with an empty laugh. “But it sure made me feel a little better.”

“You listen to me, Andriana,” Vidar said fiercely, holding my face with both of his hands. I saw then the blood spattered across his skin and shirt, further evidence of their battle. “If you can’t block the tracker, the wraiths, you concentrate on me, okay? Focus on me, and take on my feelings. Not what they try and hook you with. Got it?”

When I hesitated, he shook me a little. “Got it?”

“Yes,” I whispered, agitated when he didn’t believe me. “
Yes
.”

He let go of my face, took up my hand, and we ran again. Mom and Dad were right behind us, and after a while, at perhaps our fourth or fifth turn, we stopped to catch our breath.

Judging from the silence, we dared to hope that even though we were undoubtedly lost, the tracker might be as well. We were on a path that made no sense. Perhaps he had seen the marks Cyrus sought and figured it out, gone the way we were supposed to. That’s what a good tracker would do, right?

But just as our hearts began to thud at a more normal pace, Mom reached out and grabbed my free hand, not out of comfort, I knew immediately, but out of terror. “Andriana, look.” she whispered, nodding toward a grate ten steps away.

I turned toward it. Tendrils of dark smoke were sliding through the holes and then along the ground, curving upward at the walls. And as they met the ceiling, they arced into forms, then spun and danced toward each of us. As the first rose to my level, I let out a sound of awe. She was lovely, this spirit, perfect in form, with high cheekbones and a bow for lips and round, welcoming eyes. I didn’t remember faces in those we’d seen before, only the dark, swirling smoke-like shape. But as soon as I laughed, caught up in wonder, in spite of myself, she morphed, her lips melting into teeth and then a gaping hole within the skeletal remains of a face. As she melted into her true form, she seemed to be pulling at my heart, slowing its beat, sucking out my very life.

My mother entered my line of vision, oddly coming through the wraith, until all I could see was her. “Andriana, look at me,” she said. “Look at me. Remember who you are. Remember what you were born for. Remember your Call. You are stronger than these leeches! In the Maker, you are invincible!”

I watched her face, trying to digest her words as if I heard them from a distance. But as I did so, I dug into her words as anchors.
Who I was. What I was born for. My Call. My strength. In the Maker.

Wraiths on either side of me and my mother recoiled, as if sensing my thoughts like a foul stench. But then the tracker arrived, stopping suddenly when he found us at last, his long,
red cape swaying behind him like a clock pendulum coming to a stop.

Vidar was shouting, convulsing, battling both tracker and wraith. “Go to him,” I said to my mother, straightening and striding toward the tracker. My father was by my side. It was he who had spent as many hours with me a day as my trainer; in the woods, along the river, climbing, digging, foraging. He and I had spent many hours sparring. I was confident that he could hold his own. At least for a time.

“Away, old man,” breathed the tracker, not even looking at him. “I’ve come for the empath and the knower alone.”

“You will fail in your mission,” I said, taking a ready stance, raising my sword. I did as Vidar had asked me earlier, concentrating on him — my friend, my brother, the
knower
— rather than give this tracker any room to infiltrate my heart and mind.

“I agree,” Dad said.

“I will kill you,” the tracker seethed toward my father.

“You’ll have to, if you want to get to them.”

“As you wish,” said the tracker, turning with his sword so swiftly, I didn’t have time to react.

But Dad met his strike, staring up into his eyes. “Be gone, demon. You have no place here.”

“On the contrary,” the tracker said, striking again and again, driving my father backward, eyes only on him. “We own this land and all in it.”

“Not
all
,” I said, ramming my sword into his side, tip first. Then upward, through what I hoped was his heart.

He screamed and wrenched with the pain, and I faltered. He backhanded me and I whirled away, sprawling to the ground with such force I skidded several paces. When I caught
my breath and turned to look at him again, he was upon me, leaning down to grip my neck and lift me up, so high that my toes left the ground. “They said I could not kill you,” he whispered, coming close, the nearness of his skin like ice on a Hoarfrosted river, “but they didn’t say I couldn’t bring you to death’s door.”

He grinned, and over his shoulder three wraiths danced and smiled and then gaped with their horrible yawning mouths that seemed to suck in the very air around us. Even Vidar’s torch flame curved toward them.

Vidar
. Could he help me? My eyes shifted hard to the right, where I’d seen him fall. Mom was with him, rising, and he was pushing himself up to his elbows, blinking slowly, as if just figuring out where he was. Mom was swinging her sling in a circle to her right and over her head, her eyes never leaving the tracker. Meanwhile, I knew I was about to lose consciousness. I clawed at the tracker’s long fingers that were digging into my throat, cutting off my air, my blood flow. I kicked against his long legs, but he didn’t appear to feel it. I wasn’t even entirely certain I was making contact.

I felt the rock fall against my forearm, and only vaguely understood it had bounced off the tracker’s head. A big, bright spot of red dripped from his temple and his eyes shifted slowly left, slowly right, then backward, leaving only an eerie white in the sockets before me. The wraiths hissed and recoiled. The tracker’s hands dropped from my neck and I fell heavily to the floor, gasping for breath as he teetered on his feet and then fell straight backward. My father staggered forward and raised his sword, praying in a whisper with fast moving lips, then brought his blade down across his neck.

I watched his blood spread, thinking it’d make much more sense if these horrific beings bled peacock blue or vermillion
orange instead of the same dark red we all bled. He’d been a man once, this tracker. Just as Sethos had once been a man. And even full of the dark, they died as men.

Vidar staggered over to me and offered me a hand. I clasped it and rose, and he hooked a hand across my far shoulder, pulling me close, looking over at my parents. “So, uh, Dri, I know the elders never wanted us to be with our parents again after the Call,” he said, panting. “For their safety and all. But if they want, I vote that yours can stay.”

CHAPTER
34

RONAN

W
hen I came to, Dri was binding my wound with a long, clean cloth. “Wh-what are you doing back here?” I managed. She roughly rolled me over, stealing my breath, then the other way, before I finally gathered enough air to cry out.

“I’m so sorry. I’m almost done,” she said, looking miserable about causing me pain. She caught my expression. “Look, I’m sorry! You were bleeding out. I had to stop it. What would you have me do?”

I felt beads of sweat run down my scalp and fought to hold onto consciousness. And yet I was incomparably relieved that she was here, safe for the moment, even if I couldn’t rise and protect her. “Where’s Niero?” I asked.

“He went after the other tracker,” she said sourly. “Alone. We ran and got lost — ended up back here, with you, which oddly seems safe for now. We think the Pacificans
and Sheolites think they’ve already searched this area and moved on.” She took the end of the bandage between her teeth and started a tear, then removed the rest using her fingers. “Mom, Dad, Vidar, and Cyrus are trying to find the way out again.”

“Dri,” I said, turning to try and rise.

“Uh, no,” she said, easily shoving me back down. “You’ll lie there and pray the Maker will stop your bleeding while we figure out our next steps.”

“We’re under the core of Pacifica,” I said with a groan, lifting a hand to push the loose hair clinging to my sweating face. It wasn’t hot down here in the tunnel. I supposed the wound or the pain itself was sending me into a fever. “I’m thinking our next step is to find our way out.”

“That’s helpful.” Dri said, as she pretended to glower down at me. “We’re down to two options. Vidar and Bellona went one direction, Mom, Dad, and Cyrus the other. So you rest, and that includes your tongue too. You’ll need your strength when we decide which way to go.”

I heaved a sigh and laid my head back on the concrete. “So we are here, alone,” I said.

“Yes. Let’s hope it stays that way.”

“Dri,” I said a moment later, reaching for her hand. She gave it to me, and I held it on my chest with both of my own, closing my eyes, preserving every bit of energy I could.

“Yes?”

“I’m sorry it took me so long to come to you.”

“Hey,” she said softly. “I wasn’t exactly easy to reach. I know you would’ve come earlier if you could.” She paused a second. “Right?”

“Niero . . . Well Niero thought you had to do this step alone, for the most part. Sort some things out.”

She stared at me a second and seemed to stop breathing. Then she looked down the dark tunnel for a long time, across all the dead bodies of those we’d defeated, and then back to me. “Maybe I did.”

In that moment, I didn’t think she’d ever sounded more defenseless. Open. Pure.

“Come here,” I said, gesturing her closer.

She knelt, cautiously, beside me. Ignoring the pain, I lifted my hands slowly to her head and brought it down to my lips, kissing her on the forehead, where her dark hair parted in pell-mell fashion. Then I looked into her green-blue eyes. “I had to let you go,” I said solemnly, “But I never want to again.”

“I don’t want you to either, Ronan. Try not to, okay?”

“Okay,” I said, fading.

“Ronan,” she said, shaking me a little. “Stay with me.”

The others arrived then, in two groups, with Niero coming in last. “Found the way,” Vidar crowed.

But Dri’s mother looked from my bloody bandages to my eyes, leaning down to take my pulse. “How bad is it, Ronan?” she asked.

“Bad,” I admitted.

She clamped her lips shut. It was the fear of any belly wound. If the intestines were caught, most died from infection within a day, even if they could survive the blood loss. If there’d been other internal organ damage . . .

“We need to get him to a doctor,” she said to Dri.

“Right,” Dri said, agitated, “Only one problem. We’re still in the middle of Pacifica.”

“I know one,” Cyrus said, from across the tunnel. “Her home is close to where we’ll emerge.”

“She’s trustworthy?” Bellona asked.

“As far as I know. And looking at Ronan, I’m thinking we don’t have the option to tarry on a decision.”

“Good,” Niero said decisively. “We’ll go to her first.”

Bellona was already shouldering her pack, as were Vidar and Niero.

Cyrus broke out a compass — apparently obtained from a fallen enemy — and watched as the needle settled.

“We’ll need two on either side of Ronan,” Niero said.

He and Bellona approached and I winced, inwardly chafing that I was a burden to them all. Andriana’s mother and father wordlessly took their packs from them and pulled the bags across their emaciated shoulders. With gentle strength, Niero and Bellona eased me to a sitting position and then to my feet. I bit down as hard as I could, trying not to cry out. Instinctively, I knew this wound was bad.

Andriana studied me, her beautiful eyes filling with the reflection of my own fear. I forced myself to concentrate on the Maker, on his promises, on the fact that he had brought us this far, and hope began to overtake the fear. As Dri sensed that in me, her expression eased. “Let’s get on with it,” I said, panting.

I could hope. But the physical pain was intense. With each of the steps we took I felt as if my gut was wrenching entirely open, that my intestines, if not sliced, would surely spill out of me. They were right. If I was to survive this, I needed to be stitched up, and fast.

ANDRIANA

Ronan lasted a fair distance — back to where we’d first
encountered our enemies and took a wrong turn as we fled — when his mouth opened in a silent gasp.

“Ronan!” I cried.

His face turned ashen and he sank down like a deadweight, nearly pulling Bellona and Niero with him. As gently as they could, they laid him out. Niero put a hand on his chest and bent down to listen to him breathe.