Nightborn, page 26
Since the day of his birth Tarrant had been gifted with the ability to see the fae directly, without need for any spell or amulet to aid him. But even he had never seen anything like this. Even the color of the earth-fae seemed different here, streaked with violet, as if streamers of dark fae had gotten caught up in it. Was that even possible? Could the two powers mingle like that? He longed to summon enough of it to craft a proper Knowing, to determine the answer to that question. But the moment he made contact with the wild currents here they would have direct access to his soul, and the power to remake him. Given how the Forest had tried to tempt him while he was feeding, that was something only a madman would risk.
This region had been normal once, he knew. Its currents of power had been unusually strong, but they’d been neutral in tenor, no more dark or dangerous than in any other place. The fae was a natural force, after all, and had no more personality of its own than air or water. But unlike air and water, the fae reflected people’s fears and desires back at them, and apparently the currents here had accumulated enough human nightmares to manifest this deadly whirlpool, which in turn was now drawing even darker powers to the region.
Including himself.
Many sorcerers had come here in recent years, he knew, hoping to tap into that power, but none had ever returned. Tarrant’s abilities might exceed theirs by a hundredfold, but he was also uniquely vulnerable. Mortals had living instincts to help them resist such a terrible darkness; he had no such protection.
In the distance the trees of the Forest loomed high and black, the mountain peaks of its northern border rising up like jagged islands in the distance. Wisps of earth-power played about the treetops like rippling veils, reminding him of auroras he had once seen in the far north. It was a strangely beautiful display, despite all its ominous overtones. He wondered what the place would look like when true night fell, when neither moon nor stars would be present to hold the dark fae at bay. The volatile energy would be able to rise above the treetops then, to add its eerie purple substance to the glowing display. What a glorious sight that must be!
Be careful, he warned himself. The Forest will seduce you by any means it can. Visions of beauty can be as tempting to an adept as fresh blood is to a beast.
He tried to urge his horse into motion again, but it whinnied anxiously and pawed at the ground in protest, struggling against his Workings. Even its dull equine brain could sense the true nature of what was in front of them now, and a simple Soothing was not going to be enough to reassure it. Tarrant’s first instinct was to increase the power of his Compelling, but such an act would require him to tap into the local currents, or use a portion of the fae he had Bound to his sword. That resource was limited and not to be expended lightly. Better to walk, and save that for later.
He dismounted in a fluid gesture, the ends of his surcote rippling down over the flanks of the horse like a silken waterfall. Then, stepping back from the animal, he dispelled the Workings that had bound it to his service. Last to go was the Soothing itself, and as the shackles of unnatural calm fell away from the horse’s brain it reared up in terror, its hooves flailing as if striking out at some unseen assailant. Then it hit the ground running, and began to gallop west as fast as its legs would carry it. The scent of fear lingered on the breeze in its wake, sharp and pleasing.
Tarrant watched after it for a few moments, his nostrils flaring as he savored the sweet perfume of its terror, and then he turned his attention to the Forest once more and began to walk toward the heart of the whirlpool.
She managed to find a stream bed at last, though it was currently empty of water. But she could tell from the pattern of detritus it had left behind which way it had once flowed, and that was good enough. All of the running water in the Forest emptied into the Serpent Straits sooner or later, so even if this path didn’t lead her directly to the river, it might still guide her by some other route to the Forest’s border.
Or so she told herself as she picked her way along the narrow strip of mud and rocks, wary of the slimy black algae that seemed to be everywhere. In the dim light it sometimes seemed to her that a patch of algae shifted its position as she approached, or that a mushroom-like growth by the side of the stream twitched when she passed by. She just shuddered and kept on going. Until the point when something actually reached out and grabbed her, she was not going to stop.
She had jury-rigged a small torch, binding suitable brush with a strip of fabric torn from her tabard, and as the shadows about her began to darken, she set fire to it. It gave off a foul smell as it burned, and it would not last very long, but at least for now it enabled her to see where she was going. The gloom surrounding her thickened little by little as the place began its slow descent into night, a dense soup of darkness that filled her lungs as she breathed it in, making it feel as if she were suffocating. Without the torchlight, it might well have overcome her.
As darkness came, so did the faeborn. Whispers of fear flitted in the shadows on all sides of her, shards of human emotion that had survived the deaths of their human creators long ago and taken refuge in this place. Her torch held most of them at bay, but the torch would not last all night. She would not last all night.
Don’t think like that. Just walk.
The pain in her side was searing now, but there was nothing she could do about it save grit her teeth and keep on going. She hadn’t started coughing up blood yet, which was a good sign, but she didn’t have any illusion about just how bad her condition was. She could feel bone grating on bone whenever she moved too quickly, and she knew she was lucky that her lung had not been pierced. Thus far she had managed to rise above the worst of the pain, but she knew that if her mental focus wavered for so much as an instant, it would all crash down on her at once, and she might never get up again.
She’d had worse injuries than this, she told herself stubbornly. She’d survived them.
But never in a place like this.
Soon the stream bed began to widen out, and a gap appeared in the canopy overhead, a tenuous sign of hope. Now she could see the stars for the first time, and the leading edge of a full moon that cast blessed natural light down onto the stream bed. The sight of it made her heart skip a beat, and a whispered prayer crossed her lips without conscious volition. She knew in her heart that merely seeing a glimpse of the open sky didn’t mean she was going to get out of the Forest alive, but the slender beams of moonlight were as refreshing to her spirit as a spring rain upon parched earth, and she turned her head upward to let them wash over her, drawing strength from them.
Suddenly a twig snapped behind her. She whipped around, seeking the source of the sound. But it had come from deep within the woods, and neither the thin stream of moonlight nor her makeshift torch had enough power to part those shadows. For a moment she held herself still as a statue, straining her sense of hearing to the utmost. But whatever had been out there was silent now. Waiting. Even the normal chitterings and rustlings of the Forest had gone silent, a deathly silence taking their place. Then she heard another twig snap, this time directly behind her. She turned to face the unseen threat, raising up her sword to the ready. But though she searched the shadows beyond the stream bed for any sign of movement, there was nothing to see. Whatever was making these noises was hidden in the inky depths of the Forest, and she was damned if she was going to plunge back into the depths of that foul brush to find it.
Maybe that’s what it wants, she thought suddenly. Maybe it’s trying to tempt me to leave the moonlight behind. The thought chilled her blood. Only a creature of the dark fae would care about something as inconsequential as moonlight. She stepped directly into a beam of light, wishing she could somehow absorb it into her flesh, so that it would become part of her.
But whatever was in the woods was clearly not going to reveal itself, so she started walking again. There was no option. She flinched as she heard a rustling on one side of the path, and then on the other, sure signs that more than one creature was now flanking her. But there was nothing she could do about it without leaving the relative safety of the stream bed, and she was determined not to do that. So she kept on moving, one hand gripping her torch so tightly that she could feel the blood pound in her knuckles, the other tight about the grip of her sword.
Then something flashed in the darkness directly ahead of her, reflecting her torchlight back at her in twin crimson sparks.
Eyes.
She could see the bulk of some large four-footed creature standing in front of her, and she thought she could hear it panting: a rasping, tortured sound. Its malevolence engulfed her like a foul wind, making the hairs on the back of her neck stand on end. Only her faith and sheer stubbornness enabled her to stand her ground, with all the primitive instincts in her brain screaming out for her to flee. Or maybe it was simply the knowledge that there was nowhere to flee to.
Suddenly there was another noise behind her. She twisted around, not wanting to turn her back on the first creature entirely—but pain shot through her torso at the motion, with such force that it left her gasping for breath. For a moment she could not see anything but black sparks swirling about her. Waving the torch to fend off attack from all directions, she moved toward the only cover visible, a cluster of close-set trunks with a wall of tangled brush between them. At least with her back to that, she’d have a bit of protection. The creatures that had revealed themselves moved closer as she took up position there, but they did not attack. She could make out their general shapes now, even pick out a few details. They looked somewhat like wolves, though with chests more massive than any wolf God had ever created, and a wrongness about the proportion of their limbs that made her skin crawl. She could have defended herself from both of them at once if she’d been in sound shape, but in her current condition she wasn’t all that confident. Still, there were only two of them, and if they were afraid of fire, as most animals were—or afraid of the faith that was bound to her sword—she should be able to handle them.
But then another such creature moved out into the stream bed, beside the first, and her heart sank.
Another followed.
Despair welled up inside her as she watched more and more of the strange beasts come out of the forest, taking up positions in the stream bed surrounding her. Soon there were nearly two dozen of them, standing in a semi-circle just beyond the reach of her sword. Their eyes reflected the torchlight back at her in blood-red sparks, and when one of them walked into a beam of moonlight she could see just how unnatural its limbs were. The muscles in the stocky legs appeared more human than bestial, and where paws should be there were hands instead—or perhaps things that had once been hands, before the fae had deformed them.
Were the creatures fleshborn or faeborn? If they were merely animals that the fae had distorted over time, they would be relatively easy to kill. But if they were true faeborn creatures, birthed by this planet’s innate power, there was no telling what it would take to dispatch them. Some faeborn manifestations took on physical forms so real that they became dependent on their flesh, and they would die like true living creatures if their bodies were destroyed. Others flitted about the night in dreamlike wisps, the nightmare energies of their creation providing the illusion of flesh without its substance. Against the latter species there was little defense but faith.
They all fed on humans. That was the one terrible constant of Erna: all the creatures that drew their life from the consciousness of man had to feed on him in order to survive. But exactly what manner of sustenance a particular manifestation required was anyone’s guess. Faith had seen some gruesome things in her life, in the aftermath of faeborn feeding, but she also knew that there were creatures who sipped from the emotional exudates of a man’s sleeping mind as delicately as a socialite sipped fine wine, their only spoor a shimmer of darkness at the border of his dreams.
Gazing into the crimson eyes of these beasts, she suspected they were not the delicate sort.
If they all rushed her at once, the sheer weight of their bodies would bring her down; there was no way she could defend herself against so many. A cold sweat trickled down her neck as she prepared herself for the onslaught. At least I will go down fighting, she thought, her hand tightening about her sword. And I will take as many of these creatures down with me as God allows.
Then a new one stepped forth from the shadows. It was taller than the others, but also thinner, and its proportions were disturbingly human. Its coat was not a mottled gray, but white—sickly white, crusted yellow about the edges—and its fur was stained with mud and worse. Its paws splayed out upon the ground like human hands, stunted and twisted but with recognizable fingers and even fingernails. And as she looked into the creature’s eyes she saw madness in their depths. Not simple bestial madness, not the rabid insanity of an animal brain pushed to the breaking point by this terrible environment. This was something darker. More frightening.
More human.
Was it their pack leader, or a different sort of animal altogether? The beasts nearest Faith were beginning to edge closer now, and she swung her sword widely, trying to frighten them back. And indeed there was a spark of fear in their eyes as they backed off a bit, suddenly uncertain. But not in the eyes of the white one. The madness in its eyes was a burning ember that did not waver even when the blessed steel swept right by its face. Could it not see the blessings that clung to her blade? Or did it just not care about such things? The latter suggested that it was a fleshborn creature, despite its ghastly form. Which meant that it would be vulnerable to a simple physical assault.
If she wanted to attempt it, she would have to move quickly, before the rest of the pack managed to close in on her. With sudden determination she rushed into their ranks, sweeping her torch about her in wide, aggressive arcs, driving the nearer ones back from her, while her other hand tightened its grip about the blessed sword, preparing for a single blow. She knew that one was all she would get before the pack found its courage again and attacked her. She had to make it count.
A dark mass hurtled toward her from one side. She thrust her torch into the face of the wolf just before it hit her; it howled in pain as its jaws snapped shut about the burning brand instead of her flesh. But its body slammed into her with stunning force, driving her down to one knee; her ribs exploded in red-hot pain. As she struggled to her feet again, the powerful jaws of another wolf closed about her left calf. She thrust the torch down in its direction, heedless of the flames that flared up around her own body as she did so. But this beast was not to be frightened away so easily. It locked its teeth tightly about her leg, and although it could not bite through the polished steel of her greave, its dead weight meant she could no longer maneuver freely.
Suddenly they were all rushing toward her, and if the ones in the front ranks had second thoughts about facing either her fire or her blade, the ones in the back ranks were not allowing them to hesitate. For an instant she was overcome by the memory of the peasant mob that had engulfed her in much the same way. And she remembered the blow that had skewed her aim just as she had moved to strike at the demon; whatever happened to her in this battle, she could not allow herself to fail like that again.
Muttering a prayer to the One God under her breath, she thrust toward the white wolf with all her strength. The wolf clinging to her leg was dragged forward by the move, while the jaws of several others snapped shut on empty air where she had stood only a moment before. Startled, the white wolf began to back away from her, but the other members of the pack were crowded too closely behind it, and it was forced to stand its ground. As Faith’s blade pierced its flank it was clear she had failed to strike the killing blow she’d hoped for, but the wound she made was deep, and crimson blood sprayed out of it. She put all her weight behind her sword, pushing it yet deeper, desperate to reach some vital organ. But the effort skewed her balance, and even as the white wolf struggled to free itself from her blade, she could feel herself falling. She dropped the torch and reached out to save herself, but it was too late. Powerful bodies buffeted her from both sides, and the fangs of one beast slid beneath her left bracer, piercing the cloth and flesh beneath it. The ground rushed up to meet her even as the white wolf whipped its head from side to side, trying to jerk itself free from her blade—
And then there was impact.
And blinding pain.
The sound of a wolf howling.
And darkness.
If the region surrounding the Forest had seemed wild to Gerald Tarrant, its interior was chaos incarnate. Currents of creative and destructive fae collided at random intervals, setting the whole of the Forest alight with sprays of ice-blue power. Waves of raw emotional energy surged across the landscape like angry surf. No living species could possibly establish a stable presence in such a realm, Tarrant thought, but that hardly mattered. Evolution would be driven forward at such a pace here that as soon as any one life-form failed, a dozen new ones would take its place.
To his eyes it was all beautiful.
The currents of power that surged about his feet might now be chaotic in their manifestation, but they had the potential to become something else—something greater—and he could not help but wonder what kind of effort it would take to tame them, to force them to adopt a more ordered form. The creatures that hissed and howled in the darkness surrounding him might be warped and damaged in form, but a strong enough sorcerer could redesign the faeborn ones, and even fleshborn constructs could be urged toward a more reasonable evolution. Even the trees overhead, with their madly tangled branches, could be forced to serve an ordered purpose. Twist the branches even more, divide them many times over to create a fine webwork of filaments, and the canopy would trap autumn’s leaves as they fell, creating a shield of vegetative detritus thick enough to cast the Forest into perpetual twilight. Would the constructs of the dark fae mature more quickly if they were thus freed from the threat of sunlight? To Tarrant it was a fascinating question, and he longed to experiment, to test various answers.
