Ghostwalker

Chapter 17

30 Tarsakh

As the clouds obscuring the morning sun grew darker and denser, a single rider galloped hard along the road to Silverymoon. Keeping a hood pulled low, the rider urged the steed on in the secret tongue of the druids. A forest green cloak whipped in the wind like the wings of a griffon flying low to the ground. Lightning cracked and flashed, but the rider paid it no mind, driving the horse on and on.

Camouflaged and invisible in one of his hiding places-he did not claim the Moonwood as his home ground for nothing-Meris hid a mocking smile inside his black cowl as he drew a bead with his light crossbow.

This courier would be the last victim of the "Ghost Murderer."

When the druid galloped within range, Meris almost lazily let the crossbow bolt fly.

The bolt took the druid in the face, blooming from the right eye socket. A hand clutching at the shaft, the druid went limp. The steed whinnied and bucked, and after a few steps the rider slumped off. Seeing its rider lying unmoving on the ground, the horse panicked and bolted down the trail toward Silverymoon.

Meris sighed. How disappointing. His aim had been too good. He had really been hoping for the chance to inflict some good old-fashioned terror and pain.

Well, he might as well go down and make sure the courier was dead.

He slid down the shadowtop trunk and landed deftly on both feet. Hooking his crossbow back on his belt, he drew his trusty hand axe. He had lost his old long sword in the forest, but he had Walker's shatterspike to replace it. He kept the fabulous weapon-spoils of war, he figured-sheathed at his belt. He would not need both weapons to handle a weak and helpless druid who was probably already dead.

The druid lay like a discarded doll, legs grotesquely bent. The quarrel, standing out from the druid's face, pointed straight up at the sky. Sighing at his own perfect aim, Meris raised his axe high and bent low to pull the hood aside.

When he did, he found Amra Clearwater's very alive eyes staring at him. She had been holding the quarrel up to her face, but now moved it aside and smiled at him.

"Well met, Meris Wayfarer," she said with a wink.

''Bane's blood!" Meris shouted.

He swung the hand axe down at that smile, but Amra caught it. The blade made not the slightest nick in her palm and Meris felt as though he had swung at solid rock. What was more, reddish magic flowed from Amra's palm and traced its way along the axe blade. Meris watched, horror-stricken, as the fine steel rusted over, corroded, and fell apart in his hand.

Suddenly unarmed, he leaped back and reached for the shatterspike. He was too slow, for Amra extended her hand toward him and a lightning bolt shot from the sky to strike at his feet, throwing him to the ground. Shivering with electricity, Meris tried to scream but found he did not have the breath. His legs, however, still worked, and he took full advantage of them to remove himself from the druid's presence.

As he ran, Amra rose up into the air, borne aloft by roiling lightning and wind. "You will pay for slaying Peletara, bastard!" she shouted.

"Everyone calls me that," muttered Meris as he hurled a dagger at the floating druid.

The tiny blade, flashing through the air, seemed inconsequential compared to the fury of nature's power coursing through his opponent. Sure enough, the dagger skipped off her shoulder.

Stifling a curse, Meris beat a hasty retreat to the cover of the trees and yanked the light crossbow free of his belt. Hands still twitching, he fought to load a quarrel into the weapon.

"You cannot run!" Amra shouted. "You cannot escape!" Words of power flowed from her mouth like a torrent of rain as she cast another spell.

At first, nothing happened. Then the trees behind which Meris hid twisted and curled, reaching gnarled branches toward him. Cursing, the wild scout struggled and squirmed free before they could grasp him.

"Beastlord's breath!" he growled as he fumbled at his belt pouch, staggering away.

He possessed a valuable-and expensive-item for just such an occasion: a last stand against a spell hurler. Normally, he never would have considered wasting such power for Greyt's sake-he would have preferred to run and leave the task incomplete. How, though, could he escape a woman at whose command the trees bowed and the very weather served? The choice was between much wealth and his life, and Meris was a survivor.

Even as Amra glided through the swaying, animate trees, lightning sparking from her eyes, Meris pulled the cloudy gray stone out of his pouch. It was plain and without ornament-it could have been any river-smoothed cat's eye, seemingly worthless. Within it, however, pulsed the spark of antimagic-a power he needed desperately.

As Meris leaped aside, narrowly dodging a bolt of lightning, he crushed the stone in two and hurled the pieces back. Not watching where he ran, he tripped over a slithering tree root and fell away from Amra. Even as he went down, he turned in the direction of his enemy, watching the stone's pieces fly toward her.

An aura of golden energy, pulsing with red sparks, burst from the broken stone in the air and struck Amra like a shock-wave. She started and collapsed to her knees as Silvanus's divine power abruptly left her and her magical protections dropped for an instant. She looked up at Meris in shock and incomprehension…

Right down the length of a loaded crossbow.

Even as he fell backward, Meris fired and the druid threw herself aside. The bolt grazed the side of Amra's head, sending a small splash of blood on to her light tunic. With a gasp, she collapsed, moaning, to the ground. At the same instant, Meris slammed into the turf with numbing force, and shivers of pain ran through his right leg.

After a long, agony-filled moment, the scout drew himself up. His leg was not broken, but it certainly did not appreciate being moved. Biting his lip against the pain, he dragged himself over to where Amra lay. The antimagic field had faded by now-the stone only dispelled all magic for a short breath-but the damage had been done. Amra lay squirming and gasping, clutching at the side of her face where the crossbow bolt had struck her.

Perhaps she was still protected by her accursed skin of stone, but Meris wondered if her magic would stop Walker's shatterspike sword. If it did, there was always smothering.

"Now, you little half-breed strumpet," spat Meris. The shatterspike came out of its scabbard and Meris admired the gleam along the mithral blade. "You've given me enough trouble, and it's time to-"

Too late, he caught sight of her eyes. Where they were usually soft blue, now they were stormy, and he thought he caught sight of tiny flickers of lightning.

Too late, he understood their significance. Too late, he heard the thunder overhead.

Too late, he realized that his antimagic stone had only suppressed, not dispelled, her connection with the lightning storm.

Amra shouted a word in Elvish and pointed. In reply to her call, a crack of lightning struck Meris full in the chest.

The cry blown from his lungs, the dusky youth tumbled, limp and senseless, back through the air to land, spread-eagled, with a bone-crunching smack against a wide shadowtop. He slid limply to the ground. Lightning coursed through his body, causing his limbs to spasm, then he lay still, thin vapors of smoke rising from his inert body. His eyes were wide and staring but saw nothing. The shatterspike fell from his nerveless hand.

The world existed in a cacophony of ringing agony for a long moment before blissful darkness surrounded him.

Panting, it was a while before Amra could stand. The bolt's impact-grazing her temple-had thrown her from her feet. Her shocked body refused to obey her commands. Nothing had hurt so badly in all her life. If the shot's angle had been just a few degrees steeper… Well, Amra thanked Silvanus, Mielikki, Tymora, and whatever other gods may have been responsible that it had not been.

Finally, she mustered the courage and energy to rise to her knees with a hand on the hilt of her belt dagger. It was dangerous, for she could not manage the concentration for a spell, and if Meris had been ready with his crossbow, she would have been done for. Fortunately, no lancing death came from any side. Scanning around quickly, Amra decided she was in no immediate danger.

Meris still lay where she had blasted him against a tree, unmoving. At first, his open eyes startled her and she drew her dagger, uttering a prayer to Silvanus. Meris did not move, so Amra felt it was safe to kneel beside him. Using techniques perfected by many years as Quaervarr's chief doctor and midwife, she inspected the young man. His breathing was shallow and his heartbeat faint. Even with the burn on his chest and back, he was not dead. He was, however, far from conscious.

Amra contemplated pulling her dagger across his throat. She had never killed anyone in cold blood, but the scout certainly deserved it for the murder of Peletara and the other couriers. Amra suspected that the arrogant and violent Meris was also guilty of plenty of other crimes she could hardly imagine. Few would miss him, and those who might-Lord Singer Dharan Greyt, just as conceited and foul a man as his son-did not warrant Amra's mercy.

All these things passed through the druid's head-and, more to the point, her heart-and she knew she could not pass that kind of judgment. If she let her personal distaste for Meris prompt her knife, that made her no better than him.

Instead, assuring herself that he slumbered soundly, she chanted the words to a simple spell. Vines sprouted from the undergrowth surrounding Meris's limp form and wrapped themselves around his body. Since he was not awake to struggle, they found a perfect grip that did not constrict or cause harm. Thus entangled, he would not be able to move if he woke. She even cast a spell of healing to stabilize his body until she could return to claim him. It would stave off death, but he would probably never walk again, not with the way his spine had cracked against the tree.

Amra considered that fitting justice for the atrocities he had committed.

She stood up and almost fell. The blow to her head left her dizzy and sick to her stomach. Struggling not to gag or deposit her breakfast in the helmthorn, the druid steadied herself against a nearby tree trunk. The forest spun crazily and the colors blurred.

Amra felt at her satchel for the scroll written in her own hand-under Unddreth's dictation-signed and sealed by the captain of the guard, which she would deliver into the hands of Geth Stonar or, failing that, those of Lady Alustriel herself. She called weakly for her horse. The noble animal neighed in reply from the path where it waited.

The message bore urgent news: Unddreth and his soldiers could not overwhelm Lord Greyt's forces and they needed aid. The Captain of the watch was probably dead or in Greyt's dungeons even now, and Amra said a prayer that her apprentices at the Oak House had escaped Greyt's long arm as well. The druids could defend themselves, she hoped, until she could return.

As Amra put her hand on her horse's neck, she became aware of another sensation, one that did not have its source in her muddy head.

Even as she shivered with a nameless fear, she felt everything around her grow cold and empty. It was as though the very life she held sacred bled slowly out of the forest. Ferns seemed to shrivel and die as trees rotted and petrified from the inside. A quick, bewildered look confirmed that none of the surrounding plants had changed-her connection with the life around her was what was under attack. Silvanus's power faded and died, as though nature itself had choked to death in the space of a few breaths.

"Oakfather help me." Amra stammered. The plea came out in a wisp of mist. Her steed whinnied and threw its head in terror, eyes rolling.

Pretender, a ghostly whisper accused in her mind. Weakling. Disgrace.

Amra whirled, but she couldn't see anyone there. She staggered back from the horse which, unattended, bolted in panic. With the horse gone, Amra could see a gray mist flow up from where it had stood. In that mist, gold and crimson mingled in a pair of burning eyes that bored into Amra's soul.

"Wh-who are you?" the half-elf druid asked. She tried to draw her dagger, but her hand shook too violently.

One who knows the power you spend your meager life seeking, the mist said to her without speaking. One who knows you for the destroying scourge you are, you and your human blood. One who knows your heart and the deception there, lies told to the very nature you pretend to serve.

"Stay away from me," Amra stammered. She tripped and crawled away, keeping her eyes fixed on those burning points.

I am your power and your purification, your doom and your redemption, your darkness and your spirit. The mist swept closer. Tiny winds snapped at Amra's hair and pulled her toward the burning eyes. I am your enemy and your only hope.

Then recognition dawned upon her. "Gods," Amra stammered. "But the Order-they turned you away a century ago! They destroyed you!"

The ghostly whisper became a horrible laugh that left Amra screaming soundlessly and clutching at her ears in vain. Her mind felt as though it were bleeding.

I am a force of nature, Gylther'yel said in Amra's mind. I cannot be destroyed. Not until I rid the world of every last one of your wretched human kin.

Amra felt cool earth swallowing her, but it was unlike any druidic spell she had ever felt-rather, this was the power of the ghostly itself, as much the power of unlife as her power was of life. She could not muster the power to fight against it except to cry out vainly to her god, Silvanus the Oakfather.

Then darkness took her, cutting off her scream.

Gylther'yel stretched, causing a ripple through the Ethereal. The shadowy trees bowed in her presence and spirits ran from her, terrified. A warm, yellow-orange life beat before her, that of the half-breed she had just defeated and imprisoned.

The ghost druid's eyes narrowed. She hated nothing more than humans except two things: their crimes against nature and those humans who pretended to worship the natural order. Amra Clearwater, with her elf heritage and her faith, was both. Even so, the ghost druid hesitated to kill her. She did not wish to wet her hands with the blood of the true people, even when it came from a half-breed-a half-human-such as Amra Clearwater.

Gylther'yel decided to keep the druid alive for the time being. Perhaps she would find a more suitable use for her in the future.

Then she became aware of a second, fainter life beating beneath a shadowy tree a ways from where she stood.

Gylther'yel stepped fully into the Material. Colors became more vibrant and the shadows disappeared. The glare made her squint, but only for a moment. Smells and the sounds of birdsong returned, but Gylther'yel paid them no mind. Instead, she crossed over the soft forest turf toward the faint pulse of life.

"Ah, my poor little Wayfarer. You've wandered too far." She smiled.

Meris, wrapped in vines, made for a helpless target. His body did not move, but the Ghostly Lady could tell that he yet lived. She wondered if either of those observations would change if she drew on more of her ghostly power and lit those vines with shadowy flame.

She reached one lithe, deceptively delicate hand down to pour her power into the vines that entangled Meris's chest…

Even as she was about to do it, the ghost druid thought better of burning the boy alive. Instead, she drew herself up and craned a pointed ear. Something caught her and she turned away from Meris, threw her gray cloak wide around her thin gold body, and shifted into a ghostly raven. The bird leaped into the air and took wing into the gathering storm.

If Meris had been awake, he might have heard a lonely wolf's howl.