Kevlin slipped between a pair of small trees, careful to avoid their long thorns. His thick, boiled-leather armor protected his torso, but his left hand still stung from having run into one of those cursed little trees earlier. Thankfully most of the heavily-forested part of Hallvarr was covered in less painful species, like oak and purple netwood.
Warblers and other birds he could not hope to identify chirped in the branches above in a final defiant chorus as twilight descended over the world. The forest felt alive, and for once he did not feel uncomfortable under the towering trees.
He glanced back the way he'd come, but could see no trace of the hidden clearing where Dathan and his half-dozen thugs were setting up camp. Barely a quarter mile from the highway, it was well concealed from passing travelers. Kevlin had only managed to find it by applying one of the few bits of woods lore he knew and following a small stream back into the forest.
Dathan had railed at the delay, but the risk paid off. Had the attempt to find a good hiding spot failed, the delay could easily have turned fatal. Piran's mercenaries were not far behind and they had proven to be determined pursuers.
The lucky break carried its own debt, though. Kevlin did not like owing anything to Akillik. He'd be sure to leave some coins with the next Karakol Stalwarts to square his account.
Even so, he wanted to be sure all trace of their passing was eradicated before Piran's men passed by. He and his party had barely avoided the mercenaries in Ingolf, just hours north of where he now crouched. That lucky escape was another credit owed to Akillik. The more the fickle god's Wheel spun in one's favor, the more likely it would spin against them when they really needed it.
"Four more days," Kevlin whispered to himself as he slipped between thick oaks.
They just had to elude the mercenaries long enough to reach Tamera. In the imperial capital, Dathan could seek injunction from the Salawin Stalwarts. He might even gain enough respite to barter a truce with Piran. Either way, Dathan's fate would no longer rest in Kevlin's hands, and he could move on and find a better job.
In the next heartbeat, just as Kevlin skirted a huge bush dripping with poisonous riffle berries, the forest fell silent. The warblers quieted and the myriad other little noises of the forest ceased. Kevlin was not much of a woodsman, but even he could not miss the signs.
Danger walked the woods with him.
He slipped a hand to the hilt of his sword and listened. In the heavy forest he trusted his ears more than his eyes. Nothing moved and even the creaking of trees seemed to still. His breathing sounded loud in the hush. Kevlin inched forward, seeking a better vantage, and cringed at every rustling leaf and snapping twig.
After pushing through a screen of heavy brush, he finally gained an unobstructed view of the imperial highway. It cut through the thick forest, straight as the path from Dathan to his strongbox, and wider than three logging wagons abreast. The hard-packed gravel surface lay empty, their tracks from earlier invisible. No one could tell they had turned off the road. Their secret campsite would remain hidden.
Kevlin glanced westward, then blurted out, “Sherah’s Teeth!”
The sun hung low above the trees, and crimson clouds stained the horizon. Unlike those evenings when a beautifully painted sky soothed the eye, tonight the clouds hung scarred and bleeding. Long, jagged sections, like shards of broken glass, ripped free and drifted down in tortuous, twisted patterns before shredding into what looked like bloody rain that fell beyond the western hills.
A Bloodset. A big one.
He avoided staring at those dying shards that flowed from one shape into another every few seconds, often resembling agonized faces. Seeing one's own face bleeding in the heavens was a very bad omen.
The profound silence made sense. No birds flitted among the trees, no squirrels darted through the drifts of autumn leaves. The forest huddled under the crimson sky as if bracing for disaster.
Kevlin had only seen two bloodsets in the quarter century of his life. Both had occurred in the past five years, but neither had stretched so far across the horizon. In each previous occasion, he had faced those times of conflict sanctioned by Savas, god of war, with battle-hardened legions at his command. Kevlin had welcomed the conflicts and led his troops to victory.
No longer. Kevlin now fled across Hallvarr, leading Dathan and the half-trained bullies who guarded him in a wild dash toward the promised safety of Tamera. If it came to a real fight, they'd be slaughtered.
'By the Lady’s fickle winds, I don’t need this,' he thought.
How could there be a bloodset? He doubted there were sufficient people in the sparsely-populated region to bleed enough to satisfy such an omen.
We should have taken our chances in Diodor. Better to have faced Piran’s mercenaries than walk into a conflict sanctioned by Savas.
He’d offer a prayer to the Lady if he thought it might do any good, but he hadn’t paid the goddess of the sea more than lip service for years. Trying it might just anger her, since her favor was as contrary as the seas she ruled. Not as fickle as Akillik and his infamous Wheel, but Kevlin refused to trust his fate to luck again so soon.
Kevlin crouched behind some scraggly pine and made a point of not looking west again as he watched for pursuit. The shadows lengthened into early evening, but every second seemed to last forever. He fought to keep his breath even and ignore the itch between his shoulder blades.
Ten minutes later the sun slipped beneath the horizon, finally ending the bloodset. Kevlin stood and blew out a breath. Maybe they could escape before the bloodletting started.
A brilliant flash of light blossomed up the road to his right. It dwarfed the trees and drove the darkness back like the sudden return of the sun. Thunder shattered the air, and a blast of hot wind howled past as it fled the light, flattening nearby grass and bending trees so far over that a couple snapped with ear-splitting cracks.
The forest groaned under the abuse. Leaves whipped into the air, forming a whirling, multicolored blanket, heavy with the scent of decay. Kevlin dropped to one knee and raised an arm to shield his face.
As the echoes from the thunder faded, people started to scream.
Above him?
Kevlin looked up through the fluttering leaves and gasped. Four figures tumbled through the air, high above the trees, starkly backlit by the brilliant white light.
He surged to his feet, one hand half-raised in an instinctive attempt to help. But he could do nothing but watch in open-mouthed dismay as those screaming people reached the height of their arc and plummeted back toward the ground, arms and legs flailing in a vain attempt to stave off the inevitable. They tumbled into the trees not far from where he crouched.
Images of splintered bones and burst organs flashed through his mind. He’d witnessed the results of falling from great heights, and his stomach knotted in horror as he imagined what happened to those unfortunates.
The screaming stopped.
Kevlin winced and ran a hand across his face.
The screaming started again.
No longer the panic-driven screams of mortal terror, the shouting seemed more angry than fearful.
By the bearded foam of the Lady’s wrath, what’s going on? How could anyone survive that fall?
The brilliant light faded and shadows eagerly reclaimed the surrounding area. The wind died to a low moan and the leaves settled to the ground. It had to be sentinels. Only they could light the night like ten thousand tempest lanterns and shake the entire forest.
Another blast of light shattered the dimness. Unlike the pure-white brilliance of the first flash, this one stained the night burgundy, and illuminated everything in a way that made Kevlin’s eyes water.
The crimson light came from across the highway immediately to the north, only a few hundred yards away. Again, thunder ripped the air and he ducked. Another blast of air fled past, although not as powerful as the first.
He muttered a curse. Bloodsets and sentinels. Bad things were piling up like rogue waves in the Gohban Straits.
The voices presented a new risk and he needed to know what was going on. He was responsible for Dathan's safety, no matter how he felt about the fat merchant.
Staying ignorant might prove fatal, so Kevlin drew his sword and jogged toward the voices. His eyes darted to every shadow, searching for any threat, half afraid he might find one.
Within seconds, another blast of white light eclipsed the fading red glow and lit up the forest. He would rather have stumbled through the darkness than walk through that unnatural light. The nearby shouting settled into a heated argument between a man and a woman, punctuated every few seconds by a second woman's panic-filled wail.
Rounding a heavyset oak, Kevlin paused at the edge of a small clearing just as another flash of red light pushed the shadows back. The light illuminated the unmoving forms of three people lying a few feet apart, each facing a different direction. They argued with a lot more strength than they should have after falling so far.
Stolen novel; please report.
Kevlin crouched beside the old oak and studied the scene as the light faded again. He spotted only three people, but there had been four in the air a moment ago. Where was the last one?
“I told you I can’t move,” the man was saying.
“What good is it having you along then, Strength?” said one woman. “The first time we need you, you’re helpless.”
“It’s not my fault! I can’t compete with magic.”
“Why’d he do it?”
“I don’t know. Answering questions like that is your responsibility, Cunning.”
“Why give us cryptic titles just to throw us away like an unused dress?”
“I’m not a dress,” the man growled. “And we can't live up to that prophecy he’s always muttering about if we’re not around to help.”
“Maybe it was Bajaran,” the woman said. “All I know is after he stabbed Antigonus, something threw us over the trees.”
Kevlin leaned forward. Much of the conversation made no sense, but he recognized the name Antigonus, as would anyone in the Six Kingdoms.
“I didn’t even get a hand to my sword," the man muttered.
The second woman, who lay closest to where Kevlin crouched, shrieked wordlessly, then shouted, “Mistress! Mistress, save us! Oh, please!”
Could they really be talking about The Antigonus? Awe-inspiring legends told how the mighty sentinel had battled shadeleeches and their Grakonian armies in several wars over the past century.
Unable to hold his tongue, Kevlin called from the shadow of the oak, “What’s going on?”
“Who’s there?” demanded the man. In the fading light, Kevlin could see little of him. He lay farther away than the other two.
The woman lying closest to him cried out shrilly, “Help. Oh, help, please!”
Kevlin rose and took a slow step forward. Even without sentinels tearing up the night, the situation seemed wrong. Why did they not move, and where was the fourth person? He studied the bloody shadows that were fading to black, but saw nothing threatening. He closed his eyes and listened for several heartbeats.
Nothing moved. No sounds betrayed a concealed enemy.
“Are you still there?” the closest woman called. “Please don’t leave us. Please oh please oh please. . .” Her voice trailed off into a soft, pleading litany.
The helplessness of that woman’s voice finally convinced him to risk approaching. He advanced, every sense alert for danger, and knelt beside her.
“Are you hurt? Did you break any bones?”
She laughed hysterically. Maybe she had knocked her head against one of the trees as she fell?
“Leave her alone,” snapped the other woman. “Who are you?”
Still no one moved. Kevlin stepped past the first woman and dropped to one knee beside the second, nerves tensed for any tricks.
The white light flashed again, dimmer than before and filtered by the trees, but bright enough to briefly see. The woman looked young, with a slender frame and pretty, heart-shaped face framed by dark hair. She wore a dark vest over a white blouse that glowed in the strange light, a skirt split for riding, and tall leather riding boots. Surprisingly, she wore a sword belted to her hip. Her hand lay only inches from the hilt, but made no move to grasp it.
She did not look injured. Again the light dimmed, replaced by that disturbing red glow.
“Are you hurt?” Kevlin asked.
“No.”
“Then why are you lying there?”
“Because I can’t get up,” she said slowly, as if the answer were obvious.
“So you are hurt.”
“No. I'm stuck.”
“Like stuck to the ground?” Kevlin asked.
"Just like that," she snapped. "Can't you see?"
The man lying a few feet away interrupted in a voice ringing with authority. “We don’t have time for this. You, sir, what is your name?”
“Kevlin.”
“I’m Terach, and the lady is Ceren.” He spoke with the formal accent of Tamera, the imperial seat and capital of Tamarr.
“Are you stuck too?"
"Aye."
"How is that the worst thing that happened to any of you after falling so far?"
“Magic, obviously,” Ceren interjected.
“Listen,” Terach said, “we are bound by some spell, so you must find out what’s going on.”
“I don’t think so.” Kevlin picked up his sword and took a step back. “In case you hadn’t noticed, some sentinels are going crazy not far from here.”
“There are only two of them,” Terach said. “We were members of their party until Bajaran stabbed Antigonus.”
“Do you mean the Antigonus?”
“Yes.”
“He’s been fighting shadeleeches for generations," Kevlin said. "He doesn’t need help.”
“He shouldn’t,” Terach agreed, "but something’s wrong. The fight’s taking too long. You’ve got to go see what’s happening.”
“No. Look what they did to you, and you know them.”
“Listen,” Ceren interrupted sharply. “If anything happens to Antigonus. . .”
She did not need to finish. Antigonus was the bearer of Tia Khoa, the key to the empire’s magical defenses against the shadeleeches, so if anything happened to him. . .Kevlin’s mind shied away from the thought.
There was nothing he could do. Anyone stupid enough to get caught in the middle of a sentinel duel would be annihilated.
“If you’re so sure he needs help, you go help him,” Kevlin suggested.
“What do you think I want to do?” Ceren snapped. “Did you forget already that I can’t move?”
That problem, maybe he could deal with. Stand her up, and let her run off and get killed. He placed his sword on the ground, grasped her narrow waist and pulled, trying to lift her to her feet. With her slender build, he should have been able to lift her easily.
She did not budge. Grunting with the effort, he slid his hands a little lower down her hips to get a better hold, and tried again. She remained stationary, as if glued to the forest floor.
The soft cotton of her blouse felt warm against his hands, and the tight muscles of her stomach hardened as she strained to move.
“Get your hands off me!" she snarled. "What do you think you're doing?”
“You want to go help him. I’m trying to get you up.”
"Keep your hands off."
Another flash of the sentinels' white light allowed him to see her face. Her green eyes blazed like emeralds, but her expression was suspicious.
Sherah’s Teeth. He snatched his hands from her waist and stifled a groan. With the world turned upside down by crazy sentinels and omens of doom, he should have realized she'd misinterpret his intentions.
Then again, she didn't know him from a canavar.
"Don't worry, miss. I'm the least of your problems right now."
Terach spoke before Ceren could. “Listen, Kevlin. We can’t do it, so you have to. I need to know why Bajaran would betray Antigonus.”
Kevlin stood and ran a hand through his hair. It caught on a tangle and he bit back a curse. He hadn’t had a bath in the past few days and the constant itching brought back memories of campaigns from a time when he’d been a leader of men. Those memories made him feel responsible, and Terach had used the one word that resonated through his soul and tugged at him to intervene.
Betrayed.
Kevlin took a deep breath to steady his thoughts. Drawing closer to the sentinels would be suicide.
“Kevlin,” Terach tried again. “We’re not asking you to join the fight. That would be madness. We just need you to go look, and then bring us word.”
“Besides,” said Ceren, “Rhea will be able to help Antigonus.”
“Who’s Rhea?”
“Antigonus’ mistress,” Ceren said flatly. “She’s a sentinel too. She was caught in the spell like the rest of us, but was able to get up. She left just before you arrived.”
That explained the missing fourth person.
“Why didn’t she free you?”
“I don’t know.”
“Sounds like Rhea knows that anyone who isn't a sentinel should stay away. I think she’s right.”
“I can’t believe this,” Ceren spat. “We’re stuck like flies in a spiderweb, and the only person who can help is a coward.”
“There’s nothing brave about committing suicide.” Kevlin knew she was goading him, but the insult still burned.
“Listen,” Terach began, but his voice trailed off into a muttered curse.
The white light had faded, replaced again by that disturbing reddish glow. This time the crimson light took on a sickly green tinge. It brightened and congealed into pale mist.
Kevlin spun and found the mist forming all around the clearing. It swirled and thickened into long, twisting fingers of glowing fog that crawled through the air toward them. The sight made him shiver with dread. He wanted to run, but the mist already encircled them in an unbroken wall.
“What is it?” he whispered, his voice dry.
“Shush,” Ceren whispered back, voice tight with fear.
Terach remained silent, and even the hysterical woman quieted. A fearful silence descended over the clearing as tendrils of glowing mist clawed at the air and drew ever closer.
As it neared, its movements became surer. Then a thick tendril lashed forward and curled around Ceren’s legs. She shrieked with fear, but could not move as the mist rolled up her legs.
The sound of her cry seemed to encourage the glowing, emerald fog. It pulsated as other tendrils reached Terach and the hysterical woman. Terach muttered a curse and the woman shrieked.
Kevlin's every muscle quivered with the need to flee as the jade colored mist encircled them with its greedy fingers. A tendril separated from the rest and reached for him.
“By the seven gods, leave me alone,” he snarled and slashed at it with his sword.
The blade passed through, but came away with tendrils clinging to it. The mist continued up the blade and flowed from there onto his hand. He shook his arm in a vain attempt to dislodge it and tried to retreat.
The mist closed in.
It ran up his arm and curled around his legs and torso. Fear pounded through him and he had to bite his tongue to keep from shrieking like the hysterical woman had. His flesh burned with cold. Starting with his arms, then everywhere else the mist made contact, a deep chill settled into his flesh and stabbed inward.
He writhed in its hold, trying to break free. Although the mist looked ethereal like vapor, its strength grew every second. With grasping fingers, it dug into his limbs and clawed its way toward his face.
On the ground, Ceren screamed as the mist crawled over her cheeks and dug into her eyes. The air became heavy and difficult to breathe. It smelled like a cesspit had opened nearby. Kevlin would have gagged on the stench if he were not so nearly panicked.
Just as one curling finger of vapor caressed his face with its icy touch, a fresh explosion of white light erupted through the forest. The mist recoiled as if burned by its brilliance, and a high-pitched wail echoed through the clearing.
Then it disappeared.
The white light subsided within seconds, but it had dispelled the killing mist, at least for a moment. Kevlin shook from that icy touch.
Dark memories of bondage bubbled to the surface of his mind, but he ruthlessly pushed them back down. On the ground Ceren wept, while the other woman wailed the urgent, continuous cry of someone pushed to the brink of madness. Terach lay silent, his face covered in a sheen of sweat.
Kevlin spun, searching for any remaining sign of the mist, but saw nothing. “What was that?” he whispered. He wanted to run, but his legs shook so bad he could barely stay upright.
“A curse,” Ceren said through sobbing breaths. “A forbidden spell.”
Kevlin had never heard of forbidden spells, and the concept terrified him.
“It’s known as the Sentinel Fog,” Ceren explained, recovering her composure.
“If it’s forbidden, how was it cast?” Terach asked.
“Obviously Bajaran is beyond fear of censorship. He has already betrayed the fundamental sentinel oaths.”
“What does Sentinel Fog do?” Kevlin asked, even though he already suspected the truth.
“It's a killing spell. It was used to ferret out hidden enemies.”
“Bajaran must be trying to shatter the prophecy,” Terach said.
“Murdering us would be one more step toward victory,” Ceren agreed.
“What are you talking about?” Kevlin cried, his terror turning to anger. “I don’t have anything to do with any prophecy and it tried to kill me too.”
“Do you think he cares?” Terach asked.
“Then it’s time for me to go." Kevlin turned to leave. "I’m sorry I can’t help you.”
“You cannot outrun the spell,” Ceren said. “You’ve been marked. If Bajaran wins this contest, he’ll complete the spell and you’ll die along with us, wherever you try to hide.”
The crimson light blossomed again, throwing everything into bloody shadow. Kevlin cringed, his fear returning, but the green mist did not materialize again.
“We three are powerless,” Ceren said softly. “Only you can act.”
“It sounds like I’m dead either way,” Kevlin growled.
“At least you can choose how you’ll die.”
“The only chance you have now is to find Rhea and help Antigonus,” Terach said.
“Time to spin the Wheel,” Ceren declared.
Kevlin grunted. The last thing he wanted to do was rely on Akillik's luck again tonight, but Ceren was right. He had no other choice.
The next words nearly stuck in his throat and came out as little more than a hoarse rasp.
“I’ll go.”