Foresight, page 7
part #4 of Beginning's End Series
A gentle hush fell over the clearing, broken only by the soft fluttering and occasional crackle of the fire. The fae had a way of doing things like that. Seeing past the framework of such things, to the sweet intention beneath. It may have been unique to all his people, or perhaps just to himself.
The day’s tasks were already finished, their bellies were sated, and the instruments they’d used had been properly stored and cleaned. There were little else to do but lose oneself in the hypnotic blaze of the fire. It was a long time before one of them finally broke the silence to speak.
“Where is he?” Eden muttered under his breath, glancing for the hundredth time around the shadowy woods. “I was expecting him back long ago.”
Jesse followed his gaze, straightening a little upon the rock. “I believe he was hunting.”
Eden nodded silently, but he did not look convinced.
If someone had asked before, Kiera might have believed there wasn’t much in the forest that could do harm to a vampire. But the world wasn’t the same placed it used to be. And seeing the worry on Eden’s face, she suddenly wasn’t sure.
“Would you like us to look for him?” Jesse asked softly.
It was a kind offer, one that might have embarrassed the fae if he’d been paying any attention. But he nodded faintly, gathering the arrows and pushing to his feet.
“Perhaps we should—”
There was a crackle in the trees behind them.
“There,” Kiera interjected soothingly, “he is coming now.”
She should have known it was wrong the moment she said it.
Why was she the one to have heard him? Why didn’t one of the others hear it first? And why was she able to hear him? The vampire was perfectly silent, they could never hear him coming.
The ferns parted and a group of men stepped suddenly through the trees.
They had approached with almost as much stealth, though she didn’t see how that was possible. They were the biggest, meanest, most heavily-armored men she had ever seen.
Not a vampire in sight.
CARPATHIANS.
Kiera didn’t know the word until someone told her later. Never in her life had she seen a band of such brutes. Not even in the tavern, which was sometimes quite rough.
They seemed to swell the very air around them—too big for their clothing, too big for their swords. Most of them seemed mere playthings, though some had been forged to size. There was one battle-axe in particular that couldn’t fail to catch the eye, sharpened wickedly on both sides.
And what of the others, she thought suddenly. Such things weren’t made for them, surely. But taken from others, people they’ve slain.
There were nine of them, standing not in a group, but a loose line. As if they needed to take up more space. They had cut through the woods at a sudden angle, excited to see the smoke, but upon seeing the collection of people in front of them, it was impossible to hide their surprise.
“Good evening,” the one in the middle spoke first, pairing the harsh grate of his voice with a gleaming smile. “I hope we did not interrupt your party.”
Kiera stared blankly for a moment, then her eyes drifted over to where the picnic blanket was still stretched upon the ground. The dishes had been cleaned, but the food they’d decided to leave for the animals. When her eyes rested upon the honeyed flowers, she felt suddenly faint.
Eden had a singular focus, made even more pressing by the appearance of the men. “We are travelling with a vampire. Have you seen him?”
At first, she was surprised he’d asked so plainly. Then she was not. It was a dangerous thing, to risk angering a fae. And while these men might not be aware, it was also impossible to lie.
But the vampire was clearly a surprise.
“Are you really?” the Carpathian asked just as openly. “You?” He looked the fae slowly up and down. “That seems a rather unique arrangement. You must enlighten me.”
As he spoke, more Carpathians poured through the trees, like the silent overturning of a glass. They strained the edges of the camp until it was no longer possible to see the forest behind them. She could feel the heat coming off their bodies. Dirt and blood, mixed with sweat.
“Another time,” Eden said curtly. Outnumbered or not, the man’s pride would allow him to speak no different. That being said, he wasn’t foolish. He had been counting. And he did not like where things had ended up. “Where are you heading?”
“To the river countries,” the man answered immediately, prompting a chortle of laughter from those behind them. “We’re going to have a little fun...” He paused indulgently until it was quiet before continuing curiously. “What of yourselves? You are a long ways from anything.”
The fae ignored the question, staring intently across the fire. “You would travel in this forest?”
It wasn’t until he’d said it that Kiera realized it must be a particularly beloved wood. The fae gravitated towards places of serene, natural beauty and she had never been anywhere lovelier.
The man’s lips twisted into a smirk.
“The fair folk do not patrol it as they once did. They are in their settlements now, preparing for a brighter future. We are concerned with the present, finding simple pleasures where we can.”
His eyes strayed between them, lingering a moment on each one.
Jesse was completely unarmed, without even the small knife he carried as a precaution. Eden was holding a fist of arrows, but his bow was leaning against the side of the tent. If he had not been so foolishly distracted, worrying after the vampire, he might have grabbed it in time. And Kiera...?
The man wanted a closer look.
“Girl, bring us a drink.” He planted his fists upon his hips, leaning backward slightly as the men laughed behind him. “Is this any way for a hostess to treat her guests?”
Strangely enough, it wasn’t terribly different from commands she’d been given her entire life. Men liked giving commands, it was something she’d learned early on. And those commands were always loudest when they had an audience. But this man wanted something far more than a drink.
“Do not speak to her,” Jesse answered through gritted teeth. His hand drifted towards his side, though nothing was there. “If you and your men are thirsty, I suggest you go elsewhere.”
The Carpathian smiled and stepped forward as if he’d been hoping the shifter would say that exact thing. “Ah, but my men and I are tired as well. Long have we already travelled, and there is much farther still to go.” His eyes glinted in the firelight. “What we really need, is a bed—”
At that point, several things happened.
Kiera reeled back as the man lunged forward. Jesse appeared in between. Weapon or not, he rammed into the Carpathian, forcing him back. He was caught himself in the process. Two men seized his arms before passing him back to their leader. A knife appeared, lodged beneath his throat.
Just seconds had passed. But they had changed everything.
“No.”
Kiera gasped in horror, pulling against the grip that held her. The only reason she hadn’t thrown herself straight back into the fray was that Eden had caught hold of her wrist.
He pulled her slowly behind him, never breaking the Carpathian’s gaze.
“Let the boy go,” he said softly, easing forward. “I am asking you.”
Jesse strained against the fingers holding him. The dagger lifted his chin.
“Take her and leave,” he hissed, unable to open his jaw. “You are faster than they are.”
“That won’t be necessary,” Eden murmured, staking a step closer. His eyes alighted not on the dagger, but the man. “That is a mistake. He moved in defense of the girl. It was not to quarrel.”
There was an edge of warning to his voice, but it was diplomatic all the same. This was not a fight he wanted. Though a fight seemed to be coming.
“I’m not sure if that matters,” the man said lightly, digging around the tip of the blade with a grin. A few drops of blood peeked through the skin, spilling down his neck. “The boy attacked me.”
Eden stopped at the blood, but raised his eyebrow with the hint of a smile.
“Do you wish to quarrel?”
There was an uneasy stirring amongst the Carpathians—all twenty of them, though they were facing only one man. But the smile was a front, Kiera had seen it before. Eden was stalling.
But stalling for what?
The man considered him for a long time, long enough that if her blood hadn’t been spiked with fear, Kiera would have seen it as a compliment. Twice, his eyes drifted down to those long fingers. An archer’s fingers. His people had felt their wrath many times before.
But the fae’s bow was paces behind him. The boy would be dead by then.
“You are a long ways from anything,” he murmured again, almost to himself. “You are burdened with mortals, in these woods alone.” His own words seemed to convince him, he nodded their approval. “In light of present circumstances, I think we’ll be taking that drink—”
“It appears we’ve forgotten our manners.”
The vampire appeared out of nowhere, like a bolt from the sky. There were leaves in his dark hair, still fluttering skyward from the speed, but the rest of him was strangely motionless. He looked first, as always, to Eden. Then he turned those piercing eyes to the host of men before them.
Kiera sucked in a quick breath, half-thinking to see the ground scorched beneath his feet.
“You were not deceiving...” The rest of the Carpathians stopped their smiling. Even the man holding the dagger had the good sense to look afraid. “You are travelling with a vampire.”
But Eden was no longer listening. He was staring at the back of Evander’s head with a feeling of such overwhelming relief, for a moment, he could not breathe.
He recovered himself quickly, offering a tense greeting.
“We have visitors. Friends from Carpathia.”
Evander nodded slowly, his eyes finding each one.
“I love Carpathians,” he said softly, cocking his head with the ghost of a smile. “I love the sound they make when they fall.”
There was not a breath in the clearing. Even the nighttime birds had the good sense not to speak. The man tightened his grip upon the blade, making Jesse arch backward into him.
“Careful, vampire,” he warned, weighing his options at the same time. “Or I will split your friend from his head to his boots. I promise you, he will not look so pretty then.”
Evander’s voice was smooth and cold as a winter stream. “Touch a hair on his head, and they will find you in pieces.”
It was perhaps the most frightening thing about vampires. A race so utterly devoid of natural predators, they were not build with the concept of a bluff. The Carpathian clearly knew this, his men were angling for the trees. But those eternal eyes had already found each one of them.
And vampires were also not built to forgive.
Eden took a step freely into the open, not towards the tent with all his weapons, but towards their visitors instead. They had brought enough weapons. Several of them were just his size.
“Jesse...I wish you were not wearing shoes.”
The two men locked eyes for a split second. The calm before the storm.
Then that storm was upon them.
There was a sound like a blacksmith’s wheel, as flesh ripped from flesh, and the cries that followed lost themselves in the night air. They were an emblem, the final burst of life. Like the smoke an extinguished candle leaves behind. It would be remembered just briefly, then forgotten.
Almost before anything else, Jesse had disappeared from the fight altogether—making the transformation mid-air, as his body flipped backward, landing behind the Carpathian line. Whether it was what he’d intended or merely the only angle he could jump without losing his neck, the others would never know. But Kiera suspected the former. The boy, as the others so been so distractedly referring to him, might have been a mere twenty years old, but he carried the pride of a wolf.
And he was more than capable of fighting back.
There was a sweet sting of metal, as he disarmed the first man standing in front of him, and ran the second through with his blade. The third gave him little more challenge, lunging foolishly for a feigned parry and impaling himself in the process. And by the time the fourth had turned around, Jesse had already slipped right through that clanking armor, blood dripping from his blade.
The others were engaging in an equally direct approach.
Eden had never gone back for the bow, but he was still using the arrows. Like an animal that had sprouted sudden claws, he leapt upon anyone who tried to stop him—finding the weak points in their armor, and silencing the first flickers of resistance with deadly, lightning-fast jabs. Whenever someone began to crowd him or venture too near, he kicked them back again—imperious as ever, even when dealing those lethal blows. They would be patient. They would wait their turn.
Evander was fighting beside him—never too close, but never too far. There was something just as compelling, but harder to trace. The vampire was simply there, and then he wasn’t. No blurring spirals of motion, no shimmering arcs of light. He was death, working with light fingers.
It was the moments he slowed down that were the most troubling. When he took his time.
“Please!”
There came a wailing cry as a man inched along the ground—staring up with a look of sheer terror, as he retreated in slow motion from the vampire. While there was no way of him knowing, it was the first time a Carpathian had ever said the word. His palms slipped on the slick grass, shaking with such visceral fear, the others could smell the stench.
“No—please!”
There was something strange about saying please to a vampire. Like shouting at the clouds to stop the rain. Still the man tried, wracked with dry, choking sobs that brought no air.
Evander stared down without expression. A cold god amongst the trees.
Instead of snapping the man’s neck, as he’d done with so many others, instead of simply crushing his skull as he walked by, the vampire knelt down instead, reaching towards him.
There was a soft intake of breath as he kept reaching. And kept reaching still further after that. His fingers vanished, then came up bright red. An unnatural color, different from all the rest.
He leaned forward with a whisper, lips touching the man’s ear. “Pick better friends.”
So many there had been when the friends had started, and so few there were just a few moments in. There had been a few injuries, sacrifices of their own blood. But considering the size and admitted skill that battled against them, there was no shame in any one.
Jesse got a fist to the jaw that sent him stumbling into the shadows, seeing stars. Eden got a slice across the back of the shoulder, a warm sting and the air was scented with blood.
There had been retribution then, but not by the fae’s own hand.
No sooner had the vampire’s head snapped up across the clearing, than the man in question was lying in four separate pieces—each one pointing with odd symmetry in a different direction, like a gruesome compass that couldn’t make up its mind.
Not one of them had made it to Kiera. Not a single one.
She had dutifully done what she always did, what they always told her to do. She had run a safe distance, and proceeded to hide. How she hated herself in those moments when her mortality stung worse than an adder’s bite, and she had to watch from a distance as the ones she loved battled to stay alive. Sometimes she found herself wanting to call out and warn them. On countless different occasions, she’d sprung to her feet to join them, desperate to throw herself into the fight.
But almost as if by uncanny intuition, one of them would always glance her way. Her cheeks would flush and she would sink back into the shadows, remembering her place the way a child was taught to remember its name.
I am a mortal. I have no special powers. I am unskilled with a blade.
The adrenaline would fade, the shame would set in, and the inevitable reality would tighten her chest. She would not be a help, but a hindrance. The greatest thing she could do was hide—
“There you are!”
She whipped around with a gasp, staring at the gruesome man who’d demanded she bring him a drink just a few minutes before. His shoulder was bleeding and he was missing a large chuck of hair, but aside from that, he seemed to have deserted the fight a great deal sooner than his men.
Brave man, hiding behind his friends. Her chest tightened. Brave like you.
She threw a quick glance over her shoulder, but the others were engaged in fights of their own and not a single of them looked her way. She had chosen her spot well, deep in the ravine that ran alongside the camp. Her body was tilted almost straight vertical, allowing her a glimpse of what was happening, while having the option to scramble away in case she was seen.
At least, that had been the idea.
“There is time for you to run,” she whispered. “They might not find you.”
It was the only leverage she had and he probably should have taken it. Their distraction would not last forever; they would be coming for her before long.
But Carpathians were not built for such mercies. They were built to make people scream.
“I will leave,” he conceded, bleeding freely down the face. “But I’m taking you with me.”
She cried out when he grabbed for her, flipping onto her stomach and falling against the slope. Her fingers scrambled in the bramble for anything she might use to help, but came away twisted in vines and smeared with blood. There was a great pressure behind her, pushing her so deep into the mountain, it felt as though she couldn’t breathe. Her lungs ached for air, heaving in silence, while his fingers twisted against her scalp, coming up with a fist of hair.
There was a sharp tug and the ground vanished beneath her. Her hands clawed desperately at the open air, grabbing hold of anything they could find.
