The D'Karon Apprentice (32 page)

One man was lucky, dropping straight to the
ground. The other was sent sliding toward the edge. Ivy streaked
toward him, her long, bounding strides carrying her like a blur
across the strip of an island. She slid to a stop and dug the claws
of one hand into the icy stone while she reached out with the other
to catch the wrist of the slipping guard. His momentum, and the
weight of his armor, dragged the pair of them off the side, but Ivy
just barely managed to keep a grip on the edge. They dangled
against the blunt face of the sloughed-off wall of slate. She
scrambled with her feet until she found firm footholds, then
grunted with effort to lift the ailing man. The other two Tresson
guards appeared at the edge. They dropped to their bellies,
reaching for their countryman. They didn’t so much as look at Ivy,
far more concerned for their squadmate than her. That was just as
well. She could take care of herself, that much she knew. It was
the man who needed help. He might be hurt.

When they had hauled him to safety, she
pulled herself up and assessed the situation. The carriage was a
third of the way along the lengthy strip of land, with a great
distance to cover before it even reached the next bridge. The wolf
was clear of any of the guards, but the accumulated injuries had
slowed it enough that it was struggling to keep pace with the
carriage. Behind them, the next wave of the resurrected
monstrosities was seconds away from reaching them.

“All of you, do
not
stand and fight!
Get to the carriage and stay close, defend it!” she barked. “Just
move! We’ll worry about these things later!”

The soldiers mounted up, some with help, and
rode out just as some spindly-legged creatures Demont must have
based on elk began to clatter across toward them. Ivy ran. Her
breath was heaving, her heart was pounding in her ears, and the
blood was like fire in her veins. The intensity of the moment had
set her mind alight, driving her forward faster than even the
guards’ horses. In just a few seconds she was closing in on the
wolf. Despite its ailing gait, it had nearly closed the gap between
it and the carriage. It took only a few moments to realize that
this was due to the carriage itself beginning to slow. Ivy set her
eyes on the wolf ahead and poured all of her strength into getting
closer. When she’d matched its speed and was just a stride or two
behind, she finally put what little mind she could spare to the
puzzle of somehow striking it down. She had no weapon but her claws
and teeth, neither if which would make so much as a scratch in the
thing’s hide.

A single idea, not wise by any means,
asserted itself. For lack of other options, she put the plan into
effect. She lengthened her stride, bounding from foot to foot,
before finally extending it into a leap. Her intended target had
been the monster’s head, but she fell short, driving both heels
square into the prickly nest of quills between the thing’s shoulder
blades. One or two of the needlelike barbs slashed through her
boots, but the blow did its job. The wolf faltered, stumbling and
slipping. Ivy tumbled forward, rolling a bit before recovering.
Distantly her mind complained of stabbing pain in the soles of her
feet, but she brushed the information aside, focusing instead on
the carriage ahead of her. Her legs were beginning to give out, but
she pushed herself and just barely managed to catch the flapping
door of the carriage and pull herself inside.

Once within, she was met by the point of
Celeste’s sword. He held it just a whisper from her throat. Ivy
kept still and looked about. Both Krettis and her aide were unhurt
but recoiled in fear. It was not unjustified. Without the rush of
battle to continue to seize her mind, realization began to dawn
about how she must look. Her lips were peeled back, teeth gleaming.
The quills of the wolves had met their mark more than once, tearing
her clothes and staining cloth and fur with blood in more than one
place. She was far closer to a change than she’d allowed herself to
realize.

Ivy licked her lips and swallowed hard,
gently pushing the blade aside. “I’m fine… I’m fine… Why are we
slowing?” she said, collapsing into the seat beside Krettis.

The ambassador seemed as though she was on
the verge of diving out the opposite door rather than share a space
with the malthrope.

Celeste sheathed his sword. “Carriages and
horses like this aren’t meant for speed at the best of times, and
we’ve pushed them hard to get here as quickly as we did. They
haven’t got the stamina to keep even this pace.”

Ivy twisted aside and pushed the door open
again to peer behind them. The half-dozen guards had caught up and
were keeping pace, but easily a hundred twisted forms had belched
out of the fort’s demolished entrance, and if this fort was
anything like Demont’s others, then there would be hundreds more
before the flow stopped.

“We’ve got to get to safety, and we’ve got to
do something to slow or stop those things,” Ivy said. She shut her
eyes and took a steadying breath. “I… I might be able to help us
pick up the pace. You’ve got to figure out something to do about
the D’Karon creatures.”

“What could you possibly do to help us
maintain speed?” Krettis said, finally finding her tongue. “Do you
intend to get out and push?”

“Where is my case?” Ivy asked, ignoring the
ambassador. “Ah, here!”

She pulled open a sturdy wooden case and
revealed an elegantly crafted violin. Her hands were still shaking
as she applied rosin to the bow.

“A violin? What good will that do?”

“Plenty, if I do it right.” She put the
violin to her chin. “Can either of you keep a beat? That’ll help.
If you can sing, that’ll help more.”

“I… I can try,” remarked Marraata.

“Good,” Ivy said. She thumped her boot on the
floor, tapping out a fast rhythm until the aid matched it. “Fine,
that’s fine. Mr. Celeste, make sure the guards stay close. It’ll be
easier if they’re close. And if we need to go faster, tell her to
speed up the rhythm. Let’s begin.”

Ivy put the bow to the strings, drawing out a
fast and lively tune. At first it was shaky and sloppy, but as her
mind soothed and the music gripped her, the tune became sharp,
precise, and spirited. Her fingers danced across the strings, and
the anxiety and fatigue drained from her expression. Then came the
glow. A deep, golden aura that spread from her like the rising sun.
Streamers of it looped and twisted in the air, weaving around the
passengers and swirling out of the carriage. Ivy grinned as she
felt the scrapes and gouges begin to ease away. Music never failed
to stir a joy within her, and joy never failed to ease the pain and
revitalize the bodies of the people around her.

#

Celeste watched the aura spread from Ivy and
leaned aside to see thin wisps of it begin to coil toward the
horses ahead and behind. Her song became louder, stronger, and the
strength of the aura grew. There was no questioning the effect. The
horses ran harder, both those ahead and those behind. Fatigue
melted away and spirits lifted. They soon matched their earlier
speed, and not long after began to move even more quickly. It was a
mercy that the island was so straight, because at their present
speed, navigating a turn with such a thick crust of ice would mean
a sure skid into the sea.

He gazed back at the charge of beasts. Some
of the smaller ones were keeping up, and if the carriage flagged
again, the things would be upon them, but that didn’t concern him.
They could easily be dispatched with a few sharp swipes of a blade.
What concerned him was a lumbering behemoth that had just pulled
itself from the doorway. It was easily the size of the carriage
itself. If he were to venture a description of the thing, he would
have compared it to a crab crafted from the slag and debris from a
blacksmith’s forge. It was rust-brown and mottled, here and there
gleaming in the light. Four stout legs, each armored with a thick
jagged carapace, scuttled along at a width that might
just
fit the bridge ahead. Its motions were slow and lumbering,
suggesting it was massively heavy, but the length of its legs and
their sweep meant that it still covered a great deal of ground with
each stride. The body, larger than that of a pair of horses, hung
low to the ground. Getting past the armored legs to attack the
thing would be difficult. Black orbs atop stalks must have been its
eyes, but in place of a mouth it had only a group of slits that
vented all-too-familiar black plumes of burning miasma. They had
six guards, himself, and Ivy. They might be able to defeat the
beast when it reached them, but not without losses… and if any of
those losses were Tresson, that would be ruinous for the already
ill-fated diplomatic tour. It would need to be stopped before that
could happen.

“We need to go a bit faster,” Celeste
said.

Marraata nodded and thumped her boot a bit
more quickly. Ivy grinned, lost in the music, and sped her tempo to
match. The thrill of the challenge and the spirit of the music
intensified, and with it grew the strength of the aura. Their speed
increased. It wasn’t much—the horses were probably running as hard
as they could—but it was enough to be sure they wouldn’t be reached
by the forward edge of the creeping mob before they hit the
mainland. He looked ahead and saw the edge of the strip island and
its narrow bridge rapidly approaching. An idea came to mind. One of
the pointless luxuries that had been included in the carriage to
make the journey more comfortable for the delegation was a pair of
oil lanterns to light the interior. A small cask of lamp oil was
strapped to the roof to store enough to refill them each morning.
He hung himself out the door and grasped the edge of the roof. The
oil cask was just beyond the edge of the roof, tied down with heavy
twine. He tugged out the knot and pulled both the cask and the
twine inside, thumping them down on the floor of the carriage.

“What do you intend to do?” Krettis
asked.

“I intend to destroy the bridge,” he
said.

He pulled the nearest lamp from its mounting
in the carriage and, using the twine, lashed it to the cask. Once
the still burning lamp was securely fastened, Celeste leaned out
the door to address the others.

“Driver. Ease up slightly and let the guards
pass before the bridge! Guards, stay ahead and do not slow until
the mainland!”

Their driver tugged hard on the reins.
Invigorated as they were by Ivy’s influence, it was no simple task
to coax the horses into slowing. The open doors of the carriage
flapped roughly, doing little to muffle the thundering din of the
charging horses on either side. A peculiar look of manic
exhilaration was painted across Marraata’s face. There was the
sense that she wanted badly to cover her ears, shut her eyes, and
huddle in terror, but Ivy’s contagious joy and her own task to keep
its beat molded the fear into something akin to excitement. She
faithfully pounded her boot, fueling the upbeat tune that in turn
fueled their escape.

The last of the guards squeezed by the
carriage with barely moments to spare. No sooner had the final
horse slipped into the lead than the hollow thump of hooves on wood
replaced the crackle of hooves on icy stone. Celeste held tight to
the door frame of the carriage and lifted the cask of oil. The
upright struts supporting one end of the bridge whipped by, one
catching the door opposite Celeste and shattering it. He shoved his
own door open and lobbed the oil cask into the air. It struck the
bridge behind them, tumbling and spilling its contents. The lit
lamp ignited the splashing oil, bathing the planks of the bridge in
flame.

His job done, he ducked back inside and held
his door shut, lest it be struck by the second set of struts. A
horrid chorus of unnatural cries split the air behind them as the
leading edge of the wave of D’Karon creatures attempted to cross
the pools of flame.

“Will the fire be enough to stop them?”
Krettis asked.

Her eyes were wide with panic and she’d dug
her fingers into the seat for fear of falling. Most people found it
very difficult to resist the uplifting effects of Ivy’s aura, but
as Ether and the D’Karon had frequently illustrated, if one was
stubborn or unwilling they could shrug off both the positive and
negative influence.

“I very much doubt it,” he stated simply.

A few more seconds at their present speed
were all it took for the carriage to cross the remaining island and
bridge. Once firmly upon the mainland, Celeste again opened the
door and leaned out.

“Here! Form up at the bridge and hold your
ground!” he ordered. He then turned to Ivy and placed a hand on her
shoulder. “That’s enough, Ambassador.”

She nodded and brought the tune to a stirring
crescendo. When she was through, she beamed a broad smile at
Marraata.

“You did
wonderful!
” Ivy said
breathlessly, clutching Marraata’s arm. “Ambassador, you didn’t
tell me your aide was so musical!”

“What possible difference would something
like that make in a proper diplomatic exchange? And how can you
think of such a thing at a time like this? There are
creatures
heading in this direction. We should retreat to a
fortress or at least a city!”

Ivy brushed away some flecks of blood and
pulled at her torn shawl. Though her joyful influence had all but
healed her various scrapes and gouges, the stains remained.

“No. We’ve got to take care of this. I might
be an ambassador now, but I was Chosen first, and this is my duty,”
Ivy said simply.

She stowed her violin with care and stepped
through the splintered remains of the broken door. All six guards,
the three Alliance on the left and the three Tresson on the right,
stood at the mouth of the bridge, weapons ready. Just as Ivy’s joy
had allowed her to heal, so did it mend the worst of the injuries
of those hurt prior to their retreat. The red-clad Tressons each
had a bow drawn, but none had fired. Ivy quickly reasoned why.