The Book of Deacon: Book 02 - The Great Convergence (19 page)

"The plan was for me to create a distraction
long enough for him to slip over the wall and inside. I was
weighing possibilities when that mayhem started, which we both
agreed was a bit more distraction than we had hoped for. He had to
wait until the guards went off high alert, then slipped over the
back wall. Presumably he is still inside. Why?" he asked.

"They've been trying to get into my head.
They know he is Chosen. They will try to capture him, or kill him,
I'm not sure. That
has
to be why they didn't pay the full
price. They knew he would come back to get me! We need to find
him!" she said.

"Relax, Myranda, relax. Lain and I have been
at this for a very long time. I am not so naive as to assume that
this was a regrettable accounting error. We are prepared for every
contingency. Now, I have some food here. I think you should eat
something," Desmeres said, concern in his voice as he removed the
bag from his back and began rummaging though it. Outside, the wind
began to gust.

"Not now! I will not be responsible for
another person being locked away in this place! We will find him
and we will escape!" Myranda said.

A shadow darkened the doorway, drawing her
attention. It was Lain, holding the bag Myranda had been carrying
when she arrived.

"The sword isn't here," Lain said, similarly
dressed. He tossed the bag to her feet.

"Lain! You have to leave this place! Run!"
she said.

"That is the plan," Desmeres agreed. "But
first, Myranda, open your hand."

"I am not hungry!" Myranda said, lying
through her teeth for the sake of a quicker escape.

"But you
are
bleeding. Open up," he
said, removing a thin glass vial from the bag.

She held the nasty looking injury out.
Desmeres snapped the vial. Instantly Myranda felt as though he had
poured boiling lead into her palm. She gasped and pulled it
back.

"I am afraid that is supposed to happen. I am
not particularly skilled at healing potions," Desmeres
apologized.

When the pain subsided, Myranda opened her
hand to see that the injury was closed, though the dried remnants
of it still stained her palm. A moment later the trio stepped
tentatively into the fading light of the courtyard. All was still.
They approached the doors, still open from the mob's escape. Lain
held out an arm signaling the others to stop. He took a long, slow
deliberate whiff of the air. A hint of concern came to his
face.

"Not satisfied?" Desmeres asked.

"This wind. It is circling around us. It
isn't bringing me anything useful," he said, scanning the horizon
with his eyes.

"Perhaps there is nothing to smell," Desmeres
offered.

In response Lain locked his eyes on a spot in
the distance, his hands moving to the hilt of his sword. Whatever
it was, it was approaching from the air, and very quickly. Between
the fort and the nearest cover was a field of snow and ice. Lain
alone might have succeeded in reaching it before the form in the
sky was upon them.

#

Deacon ran to the small hut at the edge of
the village where they housed their prophet. A pair of apprentices,
one an older man and the other a young woman, were sitting inside.
They were both clearly desperate for a distraction from their
painfully dull assignment. The winded young wizard who burst
through the door was thus a welcome sight to them.

"Master Deacon, is there something wrong?"
the woman asked.

"No, no. I have come to relieve you Mera, and
you Karr," he said, slowly regaining his breath.

"Oh!" Mera, the woman proclaimed excitedly,
but drooped as a thought occurred to her. "But I've six more hours
in my shift. And Karr has three."

"I believe I have the seniority necessary to
give you your freedom a few hours early," he said.

The pair was quite happy to have the
afternoon returned. Neither was so foolish as to ask why one of the
usually self interested Masters would take such a fruitless job.
Nor did they stop to mention the policy that at least two witnesses
be present when monitoring the prophet. When they had left, Deacon
positioned a chair before Hollow and sat. The old, frail figure
showed no signs of life. His head hung limply down, his hands and
arms clearly posed into some semblance of comfort. He gazed with
the faded, cloudy eyes of a corpse. Despite all of this, Deacon
could not help but offer a few moments of reverent silence.
Finally, after a deep breath, he spoke.

"Hollow. Your connection to the spirits is
unparalleled. I know that you only speak when the spirits direct
it, but there is a matter of great concern at hand," he said.

The fragile figure sat motionless.

"I have been using my own limited skills to
monitor a woman you spoke to directly during your last recitation.
She appears to be in danger. I do not have the capacity to see for
certain what is in store for her. I beseech you, oh great prophet,
to speak on her behalf. Tell of her place on the path. Tell what
the fates have planned for her," he said.

Silence.

"If I have read your predictions correctly,
she could have a vital role in bringing the Chosen together. If she
is in danger, the very prophesy may be in danger," he offered.

Silence.

"Listen to me . . . Tober," he spoke quietly,
invoking the name that Hollow had once been called. "If there is
anything left of you, you must believe me. I must know about
her."

Silence.

"Damn it, old man! Listen!" Deacon cried,
leaping up and hoisting Hollow from the chair by his tunic. It was
like lifting a scarecrow. "I need to know! I need to know if she
will be all right! I need to know that she will come back to us!
That she will come back to
me
! This world cannot survive
without her!
I
cannot survive without her! Speak!
SPEAK!"

Withered fingers suddenly wrapped around his
neck and he was wrenched into the air. Deacon grasped the old man's
wrist and gasped for breath.

#

The forms in the sky grew nearer.

"Myranda, I think you and I had best slip
inside until the threat passes," Desmeres suggested.

"I am not going back in there," Myranda said,
pulling her staff and dagger from her bag.

The moment she touched the staff, a clarity
she forgotten she could achieve seeped slowly into her mind. She
was still weak, but she at least could think.

"Give me Myn," she demanded.

"Now is not the best time for a reunion.
There is something on the way, and the only reason anything would
be headed to this godforsaken place so quickly would be to kill one
or more of us," Desmeres pointed out as he reluctantly lowered the
bag to the ground.

"If there is fighting to be done, I don't
want her to be helpless," Myranda said, cutting the bonds.

Myn instantly was on top of her, lavishing
weeks of affection all at once. Myranda toppled to the ground.

"Yes. A helpless dragon would have been quite
distracting," Desmeres jabbed sternly.

"Dragoyles. Two of them," Lain announced
quietly, backing to the wall.

"No. Lain, I didn't bring my bow. The only
time I have ever seen one of these killed was with a
very
well placed arrow," Desmeres said, the beginnings of panic in his
voice. It was the least composed she had seen him since they had
met.

"What is a dragoyle?" Myranda asked, leaning
heavily on her staff to climb to her feet.

Lain leveled a finger at the sky.

The creatures were quite near, and dropping
down for a landing. Each was gray as charcoal, nearly black. The
hide had a crude, rocky appearance. In form they were like a
malformed, bulky parody of a dragon, as though a sculptor who had
never seen one had fashioned the dragoyles from vague descriptions.
The limbs, tail and neck all had a segmented look to them, like
pieces that were joined together rather than grown. On their heads,
a crown of cruel looking jagged horns stuck out at random and
unnatural angles. Hollow sockets were where their eyes should have
been. In place of teeth was a serrated edge lining the jaws of the
creatures, forming a lipless beak. Overall, the creature's head
more closely resembled the skull of a dragon than the head of one.
Only the bat-like wings seemed to be well shaped, though as they
grew closer Myranda could see that even
they
were more
coarse and angular than they should have been. These were
undoubtedly the same type of creature she'd seen dead in the snow
when she found the sword. Aside from a slight size difference and
the placement of the occasional battle scar, they were identical.
One was easily the size of an elephant, the other slightly smaller.
On the larger creature's back was a rider, a woman Myranda didn't
recognize, in a standard Northern cloak. In her hand was a
halberd.

"Epidime had a halberd just like the one she
is holding," Myranda warned.

Myn adopted a defensive stance. Desmeres
pressed himself to the courtyard wall just beside the doors. Lain
took a place on the opposite side of the door. Myranda and Myn
joined him. The dragoyles landed with an earth shaking impact and
the rider dismounted. Footsteps crunching in the snow could be
heard advancing toward them for a few moments, then nothing but the
whistling of the wind.

"You may as well show yourself, Lain. I know
that you have come," the woman called out.

Lain cast a sharp look in Myranda's
direction.

"I must say, releasing all of the prisoners
didn't seem to me like the sort of thing you might do. And most of
the soldiers are gone as well. You have been busy. No matter, I
have reinforcements ready to deploy if I need them. Whether or not
I do is entirely up to you, Lain. My orders are quite simple.
Recruit you if I can, capture you if I can't, kill you if I must,"
she said. There was a quality to her tone of voice that chilled
Myranda.

As she spoke, Lain was slowly sidestepping to
the inwardly opened door. Desmeres did the same, both ready to push
them shut. Myranda put her eye to the crack between the door and
the wall. The woman was tapping her halberd on the ground and
looking thoughtful. The wind was steadily growing more intense. It
was whistling in their ears now. The woman had to shout to be heard
when she finally found the words she was searching for.

"Lain does not know a single spell, does he?"
she said. "It is just as well that the soldiers are gone. The
cloaks will make a far better match."

The woman turned and began to approach the
creature she’d been riding. At the sound of the retreating
footsteps, Lain streaked out from the doorway. He timed his
bounding steps with hers. Myranda turned away at the ring of his
blade. A horrifying slicing sound was followed by the sound of a
body dropping to the ground. Myranda cringed, but even her weary
mind realized that something was missing. There was no scream.
Myranda turned and looked through the crack. The woman was fairly
intact, save the horrid gash that ran from her right shoulder to
her left hip. She was hunched against the halberd, which was driven
into the ground. The dragoyles were, mysteriously, motionless. Lain
kept a watchful eye on the beasts while he kicked the body to the
ground and drove his blade through her heart. He then warily made
his way back to the fort.

"Why aren't the monsters attacking?" Myranda
asked.

"I have heard of this. They are either very
well trained or mystically linked. Whichever it may be, they don't
act without a rider giving orders. Lain once again proves why he is
the field man of our duo," he says, a mixture of pride and relief
peppering his voice.

"We need to move. Now," Lain ordered.

The others had no objection and moved as
quickly as they could, which was frustratingly slow in Myranda's
case. She felt like she had been awake for days, and quite likely
had been. Her legs constantly threatened to give out on her. Myn
slowed to keep pace. Lain was far ahead, with Desmeres midway
between them. He turned when Myranda was too far back for her
staggering footsteps to be heard. The captor-turned-rescuer called
something out to her, but the wind had grown stronger still, and
was screaming in her ears. He turned to repeat himself.

"If you do not hurry, I am going to have to
carry you! And . . . Lain!" he cried. His eyes widened in
disbelief.

Myranda and Lain turned in unison. The "dead"
woman had reached up to the still standing halberd and was hoisting
herself to her feet. If there had been any doubt that the sword had
missed its mark, a dark blood stain, visible even at this distance,
confirmed the killing blow. Myranda knew that Lain was fast, but
the speed he showed now was beyond belief. He closed the gap
between himself and his foe in the time it had taken for the woman
to get to her feet and pull the halberd from the ground. He raised
his weapon, but the woman blocked his blow with hers. A heartbeat
later, a flash in the blade's gem threw Lain backward, sliding him
across the ground a fair distance and separating him from his
sword.

"I wish you hadn't stabbed the heart. I shall
have to make this fight a swift one," she said, her face white as
death, but managing to convey a smug look of annoyance.

As Lain rushed to his sword, the woman
twirled the halberd for speed and struck the larger dragoyle's back
with the blade. It clanged as though it had struck stone, severing
the rope securing a pair of bundles to the beast's back. The
creature, despite the blow that would have cost a man his life,
remained motionless. A gust of wind caught the contents of the
bundles and cloaks, dozens of them, were scattered to the ground
around the creature. A second flash of the gem caused the lifeless
things to rise. The wind fluttered the garments, empty yet clinging
to outlines of unseen occupants. A second pair of bundles received
the same treatment a moment later.