Unbroken Chain

CHAPTER FOURTEEN

Six days later, Ashok, Vedoran, Skagi, Cree, and Chanoch sat with their backs to a cluster of stunted kindling trees, which he’d learned were called Dark Needles by Ikemmu’s shadar-kai. Similarly, they had found no good use for the spiny trees but the fire.

The Dark Needles were covered in a fine film of white dust. When Ashok had passed through the portal outside the city gates and tasted the open air of the Shadowfell for the first time in a month, he’d thought it deliciously sweet. But for four days now, a dust storm had been ravaging the plain. When Chanoch had first sighted the roiling clouds bearing down on them from the west, they had tried to outrun the storm. When it had overtaken them at last, it had been an exhilarating moment for all. Ashok had reveled in the dust searing his skin, feeling alone in the sudden darkness, yet a part of the storm.

They had pressed on, traveling until they could see no landmarks and risked becoming hopelessly lost in the painful fog. The shelter they’d found under the kindling trees was paltry at best. White dust covered Ashok’s entire body. He could feel the grit in his mouth, his ears, and buried in the roots of his hair. Their food was soaked in dust, as well as their clothing and bed things. No fire could withstand the fierce wind, so their fingers were numb with cold, and their minds were slowly following.

For the fourth time that day Ashok drew his dagger from its sheath and laid it against his bare flesh. He wanted so badly to press down, to feel something other than the dust scratching his skin.

Vedoran had forbid them to cut themselves. They were weak enough, he said, from having to ration gritty water and eat stale biscuits instead of the fresh meat they’d planned on hunting. But Vedoran couldn’t see his companions in the dust storm. The only impressions they had of each other were the occasional bits of conversation shouted over the wind. At all other times, they were silent, waiting and praying for the storm to pass.

Ashok laid the dagger against his arm and contemplated the pain. Sometimes, it was enough just to imagine the sensation rather than to actually experience it. His imagination could make up a lot of ground, if he willed it.

But in the end, the whicker and snort from over his left shoulder stopped him. The nightmare, his reins tied to the kindling tree, was no more able to move around in the storm than they. The dust had dulled his mane to a faint blue glow, and his red eyes were the only thing clearly visible in the unnatural darkness.

Ashok would not cut himself. He would not make himself any weaker than he already was while he held the nightmare’s lead. Neimal had placed a compulsion on the beast to calm him, but Ashok knew such magic would only have a superficial effect on the nightmare’s nature.

The only reason he had not tried to win his freedom was a feeling Ashok had. He couldn’t explain it, but they were connected somehow, the nightmare and he, ever since the night the beast had first sent him dreams. The nightmare read his intentions, if not Ashok’s thoughts. The journey was important. The beast knew he would finally have the chance to kill and feast.

He felt one of the others nudge his arm and tensed. Cree was suddenly at his ear, shouting.

“We need to speak!” Cree yelled.

Cree pulled him forward, and Ashok saw the silhouettes of the others converging. Cree threw a blanket over their heads to block out some of the dust and wind. He heard the scrape of a sunrod against the ground, and bright light filled the confined space. Vedoran cupped and dimmed the glow with his palm.

They were five ghosts in the muted light. They’d improvised masks to cover their mouths and noses, but it hardly helped.

“We have to move on,” Skagi said. Ashok could see how the light carved deep hollows into the brothers’ faces. They fidgeted and plucked at the flapping edges of the blanket to hold it in place.

“We can’t risk moving now,” Vedoran said. “We stay here until the storm passes.”

“How long will that be?” Cree demanded. “We’ll lose a tenday if this keeps up.”

“Then we lose a tenday,” Vedoran said.

“That’s fine with us,” Skagi said. “And you can explain it to Uwan when we bring back the corpses of his missing people.”

“If we blunder off course in the storm we lose just as much time,” Ashok said.

“This isn’t a discussion,” Vedoran said, a warning in his black eyes. “We stay here and wait out the storm. Anyone who disagrees can keep his thoughts to himself.”

Beneath the dust, Skagi’s face reddened, but Cree laid a restraining hand on his arm before he could retort. The tension in the small space threatened to explode.

Behind them, the nightmare snorted and neighed. Distracted, Skagi looked at Ashok. “What’s wrong with the beast?” he said.

“It’s choking on dust,” Cree joked. But Ashok was listening. He held up a hand.

“Do you hear that?” he said.

“Hear what?” Vedoran said. “There’s nothing but the damn wind.”

Ashok waited, and eventually the sound came again: a deep rumble underlying the piercing wind. “It’s thunder,” he said. “The nightmare smells the rain. This storm’s about to be swallowed.”

Vedoran raised his mask and pulled out from their makeshift tent. He returned a breath later. “Ashok’s right,” he said. “I can smell it too. Put this blanket away,” he told Cree. “Be ready to move out.”

The thunder grew louder. They huddled under the shelter of the kindling trees, Ashok holding the nightmare’s reins. Lightning flashed, and for the first time in days, they had a view across the plain.

“Did you see that?” Chanoch cried.

“What was it?” Skagi shouted.

At that instant, a jagged bolt split the sky and poured into the trunk of the kindling tree. The electric charge threw all five of them to the ground, and the nightmare reared and fell on his side, screaming.

The rain came then, a driving torrent that turned the dust on their bodies to a pasty white mud. When Ashok could see past the lightning blindness and muck, the dust had cleared, revealing a path before them, and in the distance, a rising black mass. Shadows writhed at its edges, and the lightning seemed to spear from its heart.

“There,” Chanoch cried. “What is that?”

Ashok dipped his head back and caught the rain in his mouth. The water burned his throat. He spat on the ground.

“It’s the witch,” he said, wiping his mouth in disgust. “These storms are hers. She must have seen us coming.”

Lightning savaged the tree again, and the warriors scattered. Ashok grabbed the nightmare’s reins and heaved himself onto the beast’s back. He leaned forward so he could whisper in his ear.

“We need your flame,” he said. “Show the witch you aren’t afraid.”

The nightmare screamed into the darkness and fire raced up his mane. Ashok sat back from the heat. The nightmare whipped his tail and shot sparks into the air. The fire burned off the dust and the wet, sending steam clouds toward the sky. The beast paced forward and screamed again as if in challenge.

Vedoran and the others gathered close to the nightmare’s flanks. Lightning continued to play across the open plain before them, but the beast strained against the reins, eager to run into the storm.

“Let it go,” Vedoran instructed Ashok. “We march,” he told the others. “Stay close to the beast.”

Ashok eased his grip on the reins, and the nightmare obligingly sprang forward, his long strides forcing the other shadar-kai to run to keep pace. They moved toward the shadow mass.

“Come! Come and give us a kiss, witch!” Skagi cried out and raised his falchion to the sky.

“Tempus!” Chanoch yelled, his arms thrown wide.

Ashok could hear the others shrieking in wild abandon as they ran alongside the flames. Vedoran held his hand out to graze the fire and tilted his head back to let the burning rain kiss his cheeks. Laughter rumbled from his chest, and the skin stretched taut across his face like a mask.

They passed a cluster of boulders and the remnants of a streambed. A lightning bolt struck the rocks, exploding stone. Ashok felt the stings as the tiny shards embedded in his flesh. He felt the nightmare’s body quiver, but the beast didn’t break stride.

Ashok’s eyes burned from the heat and the pain. He kept his legs tight around the nightmare’s flanks, half-expecting to be blown off by the lightning. He tried to see ahead of them in the rain, but instead of growing closer, the shadows appeared to be moving away.

Ashok wrapped the iron-shod reins around his knuckles and pulled. The nightmare screeched a protest and bucked his hindquarters in the air. Thrown forward, Ashok found his hands suddenly in the middle of a fire.

Cursing, he pulled back and almost lost his balance. Cree reached up to steady him. Ashok nodded his thanks and yanked on the reins.

The nightmare reared again, but he slowed, and the rest of the shadar-kai realized something was amiss.

“What is it?” Vedoran demanded.

“It’s a trick,” Ashok said. “She wants us to think the shadows are her bog. Likely she’ll lead us off a cliff before she’ll show us the way into her domain. In this storm, we wouldn’t know any better until it was too late.”

Vedoran squinted into the darkness at the roiling shadows and the lightning all around. His jaw tightened. “You’re right,” he said. “Turn around.”

Ashok wheeled the nightmare and dug in with his thighs. The beast broke into a halting run, and the shadar-kai hurried to follow.

A deafening roar of thunder rolled across the plain. The nightmare screamed in answer, and so the shadar-kai screamed too and brandished their weapons as they charged away from the black storm. The rain pelted them, burned their skin, and slowed their steps in the mud.

The witch doesn’t realize what she’s done, Ashok thought as he listened to his pounding heart. She should never have stopped the dust storm. After their long journey, his soul was awake at last. The stone shards in his leg and the blisters on his hands were proof that he was still alive. They would come through the storm.

“Fly!” Ashok cried, and reached out to grasp the flames. “Fly and let us all burn!”

They emerged from the storm breathless and bleeding, on the verge of a vast swamp. The rain had stopped, and the air had a dense, saturated feeling. The bog itself seemed a quiet haven in the middle of the open plain, a paradise after the violent storms. There were only the faint sounds of bird and animal life penetrating the thick canopy of leaves, moss, and undergrowth.

Ashok slid off the nightmare’s back and took a breath to steady himself on his feet. The others were taking stock of their surroundings. Skagi rubbed the bark of one of the trees. It came off wet in his hand, and the smell of decay filled the air. “Looks pretty on top, but underneath everything’s dying,” he said. “We’ll find nothing to eat in there.”

“Assume everything is an illusion,” Vedoran said. He crouched to examine Ashok’s leg. “This needs to be seen to,” he said.

Ashok looked down at his leg and for the first time was able to see all the cuts, the half-melted shards embedded in his flesh. He bled from dozens of these small wounds, and where he didn’t the skin was blackened from burns. His hands were raw and throbbing from where the nightmare had thrown him into the fire.

The beast stood quietly beside him, his attention fixed on the bog like an enemy he wanted nothing more than to devour. The nightmare’s foul breath steamed the air, and he pawed the wet ground.

“Take this,” Vedoran said, pressing a small vial into Ashok’s hand. “We get two of these draughts apiece, no more.”

Vedoran handed the rest of the vials out to those that needed them. Chanoch bled from a gash above his eye, and Skagi’s green tattoos bore patches of black, but none of them were seriously wounded. Indeed all of them looked alive through the eyes in a way they hadn’t during the dust storm. The tension that had built up over their long journey had vanished.

Skagi and Vedoran compared burns and jested at their size. Vedoran laughed easily and accepted Skagi’s slap on the back when the shadar-kai accused him of running like a slug.

“Why did the storm stop?” Chanoch asked abruptly, stealing the good humor. “If she’d kept it up, she might have hacked us to pieces.”

“No, she wouldn’t have,” Ashok said.

“Once we saw through her ploy, she knew we’d get here,” Vedoran agreed. “She’s prepared her next offensive. She’s waiting for us now.”

“Where does she get all this power?” Cree asked. He stood on a raised hillock a few feet away. “I can’t see where the bog ends. It runs straight to the horizon.”

“It’s an illusion,” Ashok said. “Just like the shadows we were chasing. The bog exists in her mind.”

“Storms felt real enough,” Skagi complained. “I’ve got dust all down my throat and my godsdamn ears are ringing from that thunder.”

“Those storms were real,” Vedoran said. “I think … the witch just heightened our perceptions of them, made us think they were more dangerous and lasted longer than they actually did.” He looked at Ashok, who nodded agreement.

“So we have no idea how much true time has passed since we started our journey,” Cree said.

“It doesn’t matter,” Vedoran said. “We’ve reached the bog, and our mission lies ahead of us. But we can’t let the witch worm inside our minds again.”

“I can lead with the nightmare,” Ashok offered. “The creature clearly isn’t afraid of the hag’s magic.”

Vedoran nodded. “Do it, but make sure you keep the beast from bolting,” he said. If we get separated, the hag will be that much stronger taking us on one at a time. The rest of you, weapons out and on the march.”

Cree jumped down from the hill, and the rest readied their blades. Ashok mounted the nightmare, whose mane once again shone a dull, heatless blue. He let the reins hang slack in his lap and unhooked his chain from his belt. Using his legs, he guided the nightmare into the bog.

The ground immediately turned spongy and slick. Mosquitoes and biting flies circled fetid pools of stagnant water. The air was so heavy that after a time Ashok’s hair was plastered to his skull.

The nightmare’s steps became sluggish and uneven, hampered by the sinking ground and the cloying heat. The beast flicked his tail often to combat the flies, and each time he did Ashok got slapped in the back with the stinging horsehair.

“Keep an eye out for predators,” Vedoran said. “Don’t fill your waterskins from any of the pools.”

“Not if I was dying of thirst,” Chanoch said, wrinkling his nose at the stench rising from the water. “Smells like corpse brine.”

As the day wore on, they found drier ground, but apart from the occasional bird cry or rustle in the undergrowth, they encountered no other living things save the insects. Grass, which before had been sparse and water-logged, grew in abundance in that part of the bog, and soon the nightmare waded in it. The green and brown tendrils came up to Ashok’s knees and the other warriors’ chests.

Vedoran halted them. “Skagi, take point,” he said, “and Chanoch with him. Cut us a path. I want to be able to see my feet. I’ll watch our backs. Cree, stay close to Ashok.”

They changed positions fluidly, without conversation, and soon the silence was filled with the sound of Skagi’s falchion and Chanoch’s greatsword scything the grass. Each time they sliced through the blades, the smell of rot grew worse, until Ashok put his mask up over his nose again.

Two hundred feet or so into the brush, the nightmare stopped dead. Ashok dug in with his knees, but the beast wouldn’t move. His ears pressed flat against his head, and he snorted a breath. Ashok felt the tension all down the nightmare’s body. Orange flame hovered at the roots of his mane.

“What’s wrong?” Vedoran asked.

“I don’t know,” Ashok said. “He senses something.”

“I hear it too,” Cree said. “That’s not your blade, brother?”

Skagi bobbed his weapon in the air to show it was not him who’d made the noise. Ashok heard it then too, and the rest of them tensed.

A scrape in the underbrush, moving fast and very low to the ground. Vedoran drew his sword and put his back to the nightmare. “Form up, make a circle now!” he cried.

They closed ranks around the nightmare. From his high vantage, Ashok tried to see what was swimming in the grass, but the disturbance moved too fast for him to track whether it was beast or man or hag.

Suddenly, there came an explosion of movement and cries ahead of them. The nightmare reared and screamed. A flock of ravens burst out of the underbrush-at least fifty of them-and swarmed the circle of shadar-kai.

“Stand fast!” Vedoran cried. He swung his blade overhand and took two of the birds out of the air.

Ashok grabbed the nightmare’s reins, as much to steady himself as to calm the beast. He swung the chain in a protective arc and tangled one of the large ravens. He dragged the chain in and grabbed the struggling bird. It snapped at his fingers with its black beak.

The bird’s feathers were like slippery wax. Ashok started to cast the vicious creature away, when suddenly its wings and body collapsed into a mass of feathers and bones. The body parts turned to writhing maggots in his hands.

Ashok cursed and hurled the vermin away. Skagi and Chanoch cut three more out of the air and got showered by the maggots. The rest of the birds flew away, until the raven cries were a distant echo.

“Everyone still got their eyes?” Skagi said.

“My eyes are safe, but not my appetite,” Chanoch said as he brushed the maggots off his armor and stomped on them. “Filth! Everything smells like death.”

“Calm down,” Vedoran said sharply. “Work your blades up front. We’re not stopping for a distraction. Ashok, move on.”

“I’m trying,” Ashok said. The nightmare still wouldn’t move. With his head down, the beast stamped the ground with his fetlocks burning. The few strands of green grass around his feet curled up into black husks.

The rustling sound came again, that time from behind them. Vedoran sliced the grass with his blade. Ashok twisted to look, but there was nothing there. Vedoran took two steps forward, then two more and sliced again.

“Vedoran,” Ashok said, “Don’t stray too far-”

Then it came. A dark shape burst from the grass to Vedoran’s right and completely enveloped the shadar-kai. Vedoran fell into the high grass and disappeared from view. A breath later, the grass crumpled in a line moving away from them, as if something were eating a path through it.

“Form a line behind me!” Ashok called out. He jerked the nightmare around by the reins and showed the beast his target. With an enemy in sight, the nightmare charged, burning up the ground with Skagi and the others running behind them.

The nightmare got close enough for Ashok to see Vedoran being dragged through the grass by a small humanoid figure. Green-skinned, with ragged strands of black hair plastered to her back, the hag blended with the undergrowth and moved with preternatural speed. She dragged Vedoran by his left lower leg, her talons encasing his boot and twisting until Vedoran cried out.

When she heard the nightmare’s hoofbeats approaching, the hag spun and hissed up at Ashok, exposing her black teeth. Her eyes were a deep, burnt orange and full of hate.

Ashok released the nightmare and fell upon the hag with his chain outstretched.

The hag dropped Vedoran and reached up, grabbing Ashok’s spiked weapon even as her body absorbed the impact of his. They rolled into the underbrush, Negala hissing, biting, and spitting black ichor in his face.

Ashok pushed back, and his chain dug into the hag’s flesh. He wrapped it around her body once and tightened his grip. Her skin was like stone, but she still felt the pain. She shrieked in a voice that rang shrilly in Ashok’s ears. The cry cut off abruptly, and Ashok felt a blaze of heat against his back.

He saw the hag’s eyes widen. Quickly, Ashok rolled to the side as the nightmare reared up, his flaming hooves poised to come down and cave in the hag’s skull.

The trees and the grass warped around them and turned white. Ashok heard briefly the howl of the Shadowfell wind and saw the open plain spread before him in all its colorless magnitude. Then the scene disappeared, the bog heat swelled around him, and the hag was no longer wrapped in his chain.

The spikes dripped blood, but Negala had disappeared. Ashok looked around frantically. She couldn’t have escaped behind him; the others were closing the gap. In front of him Vedoran had his blade out, but he looked disoriented. He stood up and wavered on his feet.

“Did you see that?” Vedoran said.

Ashok nodded. “The illusion broke for a moment, when I cut her, and the nightmare had her cornered,” he said.

“Was it a fatal wound?” Vedoran asked.

“I don’t think so,” Ashok said. “But it and the nightmare were enough to make her run.”

“We need to get out of this grass,” Vedoran said. The nightmare paced back and forth between them, snorting. The beast nudged Ashok’s shoulder as if in accusation.

“Sorry,” Ashok said, and reached up absently to touch the beast’s forehead. “Next time, we’ll have her.”

He noticed Vedoran watching him. “Are you all right?” Ashok asked.

“Fine,” Vedoran said. “My thanks.”

Before Ashok could reply, the others ran up. Skagi looked furious.

“If you killed the godsdamned thing without us, I’ll take your head right now,” he said.

“She got away,” Vedoran said. “Ashok and his beast nearly had her.”

“We should keep moving,” Ashok said. “Take advantage of the time while she nurses her wounds.”

“Agreed,” Vedoran said. “Same formation as before.”

They fell into line, and Ashok mounted the nightmare. As they pressed on, the tall grass thinned, and the air gradually turned colder. Ashok’s breath fogged, and he found himself holding his hands closer to the nightmare’s warm body.

“She’s trying to freeze us out now,” Skagi said. “Ugly bitch,” he added, pitching his voice louder.

“I don’t think it’s for us,” Ashok said. “I think it’s the nightmare she’s attacking.” He noticed the beast’s stiff-legged movements. The cold dimmed the nightmare’s fire and made his red eyes dull. The beast snorted and pranced, forcing the blood down his legs for warmth.

“The nightmare almost crushed her,” Vedoran said. “Makes sense she’d want to return the favor.”

“Sounds like she’s not threatened by us at all,” Skagi said, laughing. “She only fears the pony.”

Ashok and Vedoran exchanged a glance. “I don’t know whether to be comforted by that or not,” Vedoran remarked.

“They are similar creatures,” Ashok said. “They manipulate the mind.”

Snow began to fall. The swampy pools iced over, and the sounds of the animals were gone. There was no pretense that it was a bog anymore. Soon they were all covered in a thick coating of freezing wet snow.

“I complained about the dust, but this is intolerable,” Cree said, shaking out his wet hair.

The nightmare slowed his steps until he was barely keeping pace with the group. Breath wheezed in and out of the beast’s chest.

Ashok leaned forward to whisper in his ear.

“You’re not going to be felled by this,” he scoffed. “By a small, ugly creature that howls and shrieks. You are fire. You will burn a path through this false wilderness and take us out the other side.” He heard the echo of Uwan’s words in his own. “Her flesh awaits you. Don’t disappoint me now.”

The nightmare snorted-a sound of amusement, Ashok imagined. The beast didn’t need his encouragement.

The wind blew cold into Ashok’s face, but suddenly his legs were burning, his skin slick with sweat. He looked down and saw the snow melting, running in rivers off the Nightmare’s flanks.

Ashok didn’t need further warning. He slid off the nightmare and backed the others a safe distance away.

“What’s he doing?” Skagi asked.

“Sending a message,” Ashok said, and before he’d finished speaking, the nightmare burst into flames.

The beast’s mane, fetlocks, and tail were all ablaze, but the flames didn’t stop there. They spread to consume the rest of the nightmare’s body until the beast had transformed into a walking fireball. At his feet the snow melted and turned back to swampy water. The nightmare reared up and snorted gouts of flame into the frozen air.

“Godsdamn, will you look at that?” Chanoch said. “Did you know he could do that?”

Ashok shook his head. “I’ve never seen anything like it before.”

“Hard to be cold with that striding beside you,” Skagi said.

Negala must have thought so as well, for the snow stopped falling, and abruptly the white scene faded, the swamp disappeared, and the group found themselves standing on an open expanse of the Shadowfell. The wind plucked at their clothing and hair, carrying away the smells of rot.

Skagi looked around. “That’s it, then?” he said, sounding disappointed. “She’s giving up?”

“Don’t question it,” Vedoran said. “Let’s move along while the beast is still aflame.”

Ashok walked beside the nightmare. In the wake of the beast’s footsteps, fire surged ten feet or more into the air. Heat from the flames beat against his face, but Ashok didn’t care. He was fascinated by the orange and deep blue glows that played in waves across the nightmare’s flesh.

“Your fire burns as your soul burns,” Ashok said. “But right now, in this place, you are our light.”

What would Tempus think of such a guide? Ashok wondered.