Paths of the Chosen
Book 1 of The Godswar
Kenneth McDonald
km4101@netzero.net
Second Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2010 Kenneth McDonald
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Prologue
An old man sat beside a brook, fishing. His bare feet poked out from the edges of a worn, familiar robe, spread out under him atop long strands of grass that swayed slightly in the faint hints of afternoon breeze. To either side of him were trees that leaned out over the water, their branches dipping low toward the rippled surface, as if they were trying to reach down into the gently flowing stream. Behind him more trees stood in clusters, deepening into a forest farther back from the meandering edges of the brook. But little could be seen of the forest, for a dense gray fog rose up to shroud the ancient trunks, forming a wall that obscured from view anything that might have been hidden within.
The fisherman appeared unremarkable enough. Tired lines of age creased his brow, and tired strands of wispy white hair flanked his rugged but otherwise common features. He seemed entirely concentrated on his activity, gently coaxing his line as if that would will the fish to bite the lure at its end.
After a time, a light appeared from somewhere within the depths of the forest, within the uncanny bank of fog. It flickered briefly on and then off again, as though it came from a moving source periodically obscured by the thick trunks of the forest trees. After an interval it grew stronger, though, and it was clear that the light was drawing nearer to the small clearing at the edge of the stream where the fisherman waited. He paid it no heed, continuing his intent focus upon the waters before him.
Finally the source of the light emerged from the fog, taking on distinction as it entered the clearing. At first glance it appeared to be a lantern or torch, except for the fact that no person bore it forward, but rather it floated through the air, seemingly of its own volition. It drifted nearer to the man, an intangible wisp of soft light, with no clear definition of form or substance. It was no larger than the flame from a torch would have been. As it came closer, its light shone out in a bright nimbus around it, a glowing halo of energy. Where that light touched the forms of trees and grass they grew momentarily indistinct, like ripples disturbing an image reflected in a pool of water. Then it passed on, and the environment returned to solidity once again.
The light paused in its course a few steps from the fisherman. The soft glow it cast played upon the back of his robe, yet there was no shimmering there, no loss of clarity in his form. Rather, it seemed to caress him, and in turn the light grew slightly brighter in intensity, like a lamp freshly filled with oil.
Finally the old man looked up. His eyes shone brightly, suffused with a deeper glow that made the illumination coming from the floating light seem pale by contrast. When he spoke, his words were weighed, powerful, somehow louder in the quiet peacefulness of the surroundings.
“What have you learned?”
The light flickered, briefly, then steadied. The fisherman nodded, his brow furrowing, and for an instant, he truly did look old.
“Hmmm,” he said. “It is as I suspected—and feared—then.” To himself, in a manner that would have been absent-minded coming from anyone else, he said under his breath, “It was inevitable, I suppose—but that it had come later! Ah, the strange conundrums of fate. We see so much, and at the same time so much remains hidden to us.”
Looking up again, he said to the light, “Summon the Nine to a conclave.”
The light flickered momentarily as if in response, and then vanished.
A few moments later, so did the stream, the grass, and the forest. The old man lingered a moment longer, a single form in a vague nothingness now that the illusion of reality had faded. His features were creased with hard lines of concentration, and he ran a hand over the craggy lines of his face as he pondered what course of events this news would set into motion.
* * * * *
Chapter 1
Izandra Colton walked swiftly home along a narrow, winding path. It was mid-afternoon, getting over into evening, and her strides grew longer as the remnants of the day slipped past. It was overcast, the clouds an unbroken bank of gray from horizon to horizon, and a crisp wind blew, moist with the promise of a coming storm.
The girl’s steps were sure, the dried mud of the path cracking under her boots as she walked. She knew the route well, although the trail showed few signs of recent passage. The old Quarry Road had fallen quite into disuse since the pits at its end had closed. Ethander said that once Sindelar had been quite a busy town, flush with the activity of the quarry and the payroll of the hundred or so miners who had worked there. That had all died down long before she had arrived at Sindelar, and now the place was little more than a hamlet, with a few dozen families eking out a modest living there. Now Sindelar could not even be found on most maps, just another isolated village on the rugged frontiers of Limbrock. It wasn’t much, but it was the place that she and her brother called home.
The thoughts of home caused her to hasten her pace still further, although her steps were slowed by the heavy burden she carried in the bulky leather satchel across her back. She had spent most of the day collecting the ore for her master, and her muscles protested from the hard activity even as her thoughts turned ahead to her warm bed and the bowl of hot soup that she knew Martha Colton would have waiting for her. That is, if Ethander didn’t already have plans for her tonight, she mused, regretting the thought even as she accepted the possibility. She spent as many nights sleeping on the pallet in his workroom as in her bed at home, at least of late, and despite the disapproving comments of Martha and Loehm Colton. Not that they would ever say such things to Ethander’s face, of course. No one did, as far as she knew, in Sindelar, although she also knew that there were many who whispered unpleasant things about her master in private.
The wind kicked up a little bit, causing the girl to try to tug her cloak tighter around her. It was a futile gesture, with the rough straps of the pack holding the garment hard in place, but she didn’t want to stop to remove her burdens and adjust her clothing. It was at least another mile to the outskirts of the village, and she knew that if she stopped for a rest now she wouldn’t want to start again. She called up one of Ethander’s equations and started working through the mathematics in her mind, to take her mind off of the cold. Her feet knew the road, and she didn’t fear stumbling or losing her way in the growing dark. She and her brother had taken this road dozens if not hundreds of times in the past, and they knew every track and trail in the surrounding area as well as they knew the muddy streets of their own village. They’d always been more curious and wandersome than most of the other villagers, who seemed content to live out their lives in quiet content, uncaring about what happened in the larger world outside of their little home. Maybe they were different since they’d come from outside, Izandra thought, a line of thinking that she’d explored as often as these little-used trails around the village.
She was tall for her years, and her lean frame belied the not inconsiderable strength she possessed. She’d often wondered if that was why Ezran had been so frail, when the two of them were growing up. It was as if she’d been given an extra dose of vitality, while her brother had been left short.
She stopped and looked around her. She’d gotten carried away in her thoughts, and lost touch with her surroundings. That happened often, especially when she was engaged in menial work or another activity that failed to engage her mind. Martha had often called her a dreamer, with her mind always wandering off to some faraway place. She always smiled when she said it, but Izandra knew that the unspoken message was that people were better off staying in the present, and attending to one’s tasks.
The road ahead was passing through a copse of widely scattered trees, connected by dense clusters of brush that crowded in close along the trail. She knew exactly where she was, but as she looked around, she realized that something was wrong. There was something alien in this place, otherwise so familiar, even in the murky light of a gray afternoon.
Then a man appeared out of the brush and stepped into the road in front of her.
She started but quickly regained her composure, although her body tensed involuntarily as she watched the newcomer. He hadn’t exactly been hiding in the bushes, for they were easily tall enough to hide an upright man in many places, but he hadn’t exactly been walking straight up the road, either. She noticed immediately that he was armed, with a short, slightly curved sword slung against his right hip. He was dressed in an unremarkable leather coat over dark breeches and a mismatched yellow tunic, all stained with dirt and indeterminate grime.
The stranger met her gaze squarely, his arms crossed before his chest, obviously not as surprised to see her as she was to see him.
Izandra stared at his face, trying to make him out clearly despite the poor light. He was not a villager, that she’d known instantly. But there was something else about him, something... wrong... with his features, his expression. She couldn’t name what it was, until he smiled at her, revealing a broad mouth full of uneven, jagged teeth. Then she knew.
He wasn’t a man at all.
She took a reflexive step back as the brush to either side of the road stirred again, and several more of them appeared, all ahead of her, blocking the road to Sindelar. She counted six in all, all dressed in similar fashion as the first, all armed. Two carried heavy boar-spears in addition to their swords, and one held a wicked-looking flail, its lumpy iron balls jangling against his side as he moved.
Kobalos... here! her thoughts whispered, a chill forming that ran down her spine like an icy breeze.
The six of them spread out facing her, forming a crescent around the first, who still stood watching her, his smile belied by the look in his eyes. It was now obvious, now that there were six examples facing her. The dusky red tinge to their skin might simply be bad sunburn, although that was unlikely given the recent weather. Their large ears and pudgy, splayed noses might just be an unlucky inheritance from ugly parents. But that feral smile, and the look in those eyes, belonged to no human.
Kobalos... the word meant “rogue” in the old speech. To most humans, it was a name that fit, a proper title for a degenerate, uncivilized race. She had never met one, had never wanted to meet one, and now there were six facing her, their appearance and attitude confirming all of the grim tales spoken by men of their kind.
“What do you want?” she said to them. Her voice did not tremble, but there was a clear tremor of fear underlying it. As if they sensed it, the six strangers leaned forward, a bestial hunger shining in their eyes. They reminded her of a pack of wolves, eagerly surrounding their trapped prey.
The one who had first stepped out onto the road seemed to be the leader. “Take her,” he said. Two of the kobalos stepped around him and came toward her, their swords still in their scabbards but no less menacing for that.
“Leave me be,” she said, walking backward away from them. They followed after her, in no apparent hurry, confident in their ability to catch her. She slipped the pack off of her back and dropped it into the dirt of the roadway as she retreated, not taking her eyes off of the two kobalos as they approached. She saw the others were moving as well, one fanning out into the brush to each side of the road to keep her from running past while the others followed after the two in front of her, clearly taking their time, fearing no danger from a solitary human girl. There was only one place to go, and that was back up the road, further away from Sindelar. She considered calling for help, but she realized that she was still too far away from the village for anyone to possibly hear her.
“This is your final warning,” she said. Clearly it would have no effect upon her attackers, but she knew that Ethander would have wanted her to make the effort. As she expected, the two coming at her only smiled.
“Give it up, girl, and we’ll take it easy on you,” one of them said, the words hard and guttural coming from that twisted mouth.
She stopped retreating, fixing her position solidly in the center of the road and facing the two kobalos. They paused and exchanged a glance, as if surprised that she had complied with their order. Then they came forward, arms outstretched to grasp her, eyes eager.
Suddenly her arms came up, a palm outstretched toward each of the two onrushing kobalos. A rush of sound, like a hard blast of focused wind, filled the space between them, and in an eyeblink the two of them were flying roughly backward, knocked from their feet as if struck by a battering ram. The two landed hard on their backs in the packed earth of the road several feet away, stunned, small clouds of dust flying up around them before settling back to earth.
The other four kobalos started in surprise, but she was already running, her long strides carrying her back down the road toward the quarry.
Within moments, they were racing after her.
Izandra’s heart pounded in her chest. Her earlier weariness was gone, flooded in the rush of adrenaline, but she knew that her renewed energy was but a phantasm, and that the exhaustion of a hard day’s work would catch up to her swiftly. She’d hoped that her display might give the kobalos pause, but it seemed to have only encouraged them. She did not have to look back to see that the four of them—and perhaps all six, if she’d not injured the two others enough—were behind her. She could hear the sound of their boots on the packed earth of the trail and the jingle of metal on metal as they moved, even over the rush of air and the hard sound of her own hurried breathing. They did not cry out for her to stop, or issue more challenges, but the other sounds were enough to drive her on faster. Momentarily she considered leaving the path, drawing them into the trackless routes she knew well, but quickly discarded the thought. Here, at least, the tangled brush that flanked the road, dry with the delayed anticipation of the autumn rains promised by the forbidding sky above, would slow her more than them, with their bulky forms and leather garments protecting them from thorns and briars.
Suddenly she stumbled, her boot catching on a small runnel in the road that had been hidden by the deepening gloom. She nearly went down, staggering forward a few steps before catching herself. Even as she nearly fell, however, something sliced close past her, and when she had recovered she saw a spear stuck into the road ahead, its long shaft quivering.
She heard a cry behind her. It was the leader, his voice stuck in her mind. “We’re not supposed to kill her, you fools!” He sounded close, perhaps close enough to reach out and grasp her, and it was only with difficulty that she resisted the urge to look back over her shoulder. She ran on, her pursuers chasing after her.
She recognized a familiar bend in the road ahead, and her mind raced as she tried to calculate her best chances for escape. Already her legs were beginning to throb with the extra effort she was demanding of them, and her breath rattled in her throat as she fought on. She knew she would never make it back to the quarry, and doubted what gain would come of that in any case. No, she needed to get around her pursuers, and somehow circle back to the safety of Sindelar. Already the afternoon was fading into evening, and soon the pale light of the overcast day would give way to the darkness of night.
As she rounded the bend she turned without hesitation and dove into the brush that rose in a curtain to her left. A narrow break there opened onto a faint animal track that ran into the line of trees that began a stone’s throw from the road; not quite a forest, but enough perhaps to aid her in eluding the kobalos. She heard them crashing through the brush along the track just seconds behind her; apparently her diversion had not been fast enough to escape their notice.
Then she was in among the trees, and the evening gloom deepened into shadow. Still she knew the trail enough to maintain her course, although she had to slow her headlong flight lest she stumble on the maze of roots and scattered growth that protruded here and there beneath her feet. Luckily the kobalos faced the same difficulty, as she heard the sounds of someone stumbling and a muffled curse from behind her. The sound did not seem as near as it had on the road, but she dared not stop to rest. From what she had learned in her studies kobalos had excellent senses of hearing and scent, and so perhaps the gathering night would not hinder them as much as she hoped.
She was feeling a little bit light-headed, and she knew it was not just from the exertion. She bit back her own curse—another habit Martha frowned upon, and she’d tasted enough soap in her day to confirm it—and shook her head to try to clear it. It sometimes happened when she used her talent, although the display back on the road should not have affected her so. Perhaps it was the fact that she was so tired, she said to herself. She would not admit, even in the privacy of her own thoughts, that she was terrified, and the fear of running for her life might have affected the orderly progression of her thoughts. Fear of losing control, of her discipline failing her, was a greater terror for her than the creatures following, although she would not have been able to put that fear into words, or consciously recognize it for what it was.
She slowed slightly as the trail wound around a large boulder that blocked the way. Here the trail gained some ground as the terrain beyond rose some, the path around the edge of the boulder climbing like a spiral staircase. Using the boulder to steady herself, she scampered up the rise, and paused at the top, leaning out over the upper edge of the rock, looking back over the way she had come to catch sight of her pursuers.
She saw them immediately, working their way quickly toward her position. Apparently they were having no difficulty following her trail, even though she had gained some ground on them. They moved silently and efficiently, and the fact that their dark garments helped them blend in better with the shadows of the forest made them seem even more menacing. There were only the four of them that she could see; apparently she’d managed to hurt the other two enough to make them desist from their pursuit. The thought gave her a moment of guilt, despite the circumstances—it went against everything she’d been taught—but there was no time to ponder ethics and what Ethander called “the moral consequences of our choices.” She was young, but she’d lived long enough and seen enough of the world to have few illusions about what the kobalos would do with her if they caught her. If she’d had doubts, the thrown spear and the leader’s words to take her alive had cleared them from her mind. There was something else that nagged at the edge of her thoughts, something about what he’d said, but right now she did not have the luxury to sort out the puzzle in her mind.
Trying to remain as quiet as possible, she pulled back from the rock and starting running again along the trail. The ground grew more rocky and uneven, and she found herself slowing again out of reflexive caution. Suddenly, she slowed and came to a stop. Peering ahead into the shadowy depths of the forest, she cast around, looking for a familiar sign. She remembered the big boulder, and the spiral-staircase rise around it, but... Where was the trail? She felt a numbing tremor of persistent fear thrill along the length of her spine despite herself.
Come on, Izandra! You’ve walked this route dozens of times—you know where you’re going!
Only now, she wasn’t sure. It was too dark to mark the trail, and each of the winding routes through the trees and rocks ahead looked identical to her.
The renewed sounds of steps approaching from behind finally decided her. The kobalos were coming. Picking a route at random, she pressed on ahead. She tried to judge the direction based on the ground she’d covered since leaving the quarry road, but it was difficult to be sure which way she was facing after the twists and turns in the forest. The setting sun was masked by the maze of trees rising up around her, and the light that filtered to the forest floor was a dull blanket, leaving details hazed and shadowed. Soon, she knew, even that would fade, leaving everything cloaked in blackness. She’d been in the forest after dark, and knew its ways, but it was not the forest or its denizens that she was worried about this night.
She stumbled on a jutting root and this time fell hard, knocking the air out of her lungs in a whoosh. The pain that flashed through her arm as she landed on it seemed to reawaken the protests of her tired body, and she was slow getting up as she forced her muscles to obey her commands through a sheer force of will. Biting her lip to keep from crying out, she pressed on.
A distance later—how far, exactly, she could not even guess—she was forced to stop again. A broad ravine, too wide to leap, appeared in front of her. It ran directly perpendicular to her path, as if mocking her intent to escape her pursuers. The bottom of the trench was deep in shadow, but it looked like it was at least twenty feet down to the uneven floor below. Rather than risk climbing down, she followed the edge of the ravine to her right, careful to stay far enough back from the crumbling rim.
The forest grew quiet again, silent save for the soft crunch of her boots on the undergrowth and the sound of her own labored breathing, thunderous to her own ears. The gaping opening of the ravine ultimately narrowed and then closed, and she continued on her originally chosen direction. She really had no clear idea of where she was actually going, but she hoped earnestly that her instincts were leading her well. She knew that the main road that connected Sindelar and Limbrock was somewhere to the south, and if she could keep moving in that direction she would be bound to reach it on the far side of the forest. The rational side of her mind could not help but remind her that it was also possible that she could lose her direction and wander aimlessly in the woods for the entire night, not even realizing that she was treading the same paths again and again.
She came to a clearing, and spared a glance at the sky up above. It was now deep twilight, the overcast sky promising not even the aid of the moon and stars in finding her way home. It would be a dark night indeed. She imagined Martha lighting the lamps in the house with a tinder from the fire, and Loehm walking out to the covered porch, looking out into the evening and wondering why she was late for supper. Neither would likely worry at her absence, she realized—she had been late so often that there was adequate precedent, and there had even been numerous times when she’d been caught up in a task for Ethander or some other lonely activity or her own, and forgotten to return home at all until the following morning. She’d been scolded by Martha on those occasions, although Izandra had recognized the memory of fear in her eyes that belied the anger in her tone. Now that she was older, and working almost full-time for Master Ethander, she was given more latitude—or perhaps the Coltons had recognized the impossibility of fixing her to a set of structured rules. While she relished that newfound freedom, tonight it would mean that no one would likely worry at her absence, if they even remarked upon it at all. Darker thoughts popped into her mind for a moment, thoughts about what the kobalos would do to her if they caught her, but she ruthlessly squelched those with that same force of will that had carried her on this desperate flight.
She saw a steep rise up ahead, with dark knobs silhouetted against the darkening evening sky, and let out an audible sigh of relief. Keepers’ Ridge was a familiar landmark, a dense collection of huge boulders and broad juts of stone that lay just north of the main road. She and Ezran had played there often as children, their curiosity overcoming the warnings of their elders about the dangers that resided in the nearby forest. To Izandra the rocky towers of the ridge reminded her of mighty castles, where powerful kings and princes lived, and its dozens of caves called to mind mysterious lairs, where evil monsters protected fabulous treasures long hidden from the eyes of men. Narrow trails ran in and around the rocks, tight corridors carved by wind and water over the centuries, leaving hundreds of crevices and hideaways that winnowed through the ridge. Izandra knew them all.
The trees began to thin out as she approached the ridge, but as she ran past an ancient oak someone leaped out and grabbed her.
Reflex took over and she struggled madly to break free, but the grip that held her was hard, like a band of iron around her middle. Her captor spun around as he absorbed her momentum, but held her weight easily despite her efforts. She slammed her head back as hard as she could, grunting as she hit something and heard a sharp groan of pain. The arms around her loosened, and she wrenched free, her legs already moving as she stumbled to the ground.
“By the gods, Izandra! What are you doing?”
The words, and the voice, so familiar, struck her like a cup of cold water in the face. She rose and turned, eyes widening in surprise.
“Criminy!” the voice continued. “I think you broke my nose!”
“Dannil?” she ventured.
“None other,” he ventured, sheepish despite the wry look on his face as he felt at his battered nose.
Even in the poor light, there was no mistaking Dannil Leyden.
He was tall and broad-shouldered, but those features alone did not mark him, so common they were among the men of the rough frontier. An unruly shock of brown hair topped his head, matched by a typical several day’s growth of beard. Dannil seemed to breed a casual disregard for his personal appearance, but Izandra knew that this impression was belied by a not-inconsiderable self-confidence that sometimes crossed over into arrogance. She had not seen him for months, and his sudden appearance now, given the circumstance, bordered on providential, and she found herself offering an inward prayer of thanks to Elisandra before she could catch herself.
“Hey, I’m sorry I started you,” he said, running one hand through his hair. The gesture added to the impression of a boy caught in the act, being scolded for something he shouldn’t have done. He regarded her with a quizzical look in his eyes, as if finally recognizing that something was wrong. “What’s the matter, Izandra?”
She didn’t answer him directly, coming a step closer and scanning him with her intent gaze. “Where’s your bow?” she asked. “You weren’t fool enough to lose it in another card game, were you?”
“It’s right over here,” he said, his tongue clucking in exasperation as he led her back toward the tree where he had been hiding. “Are you going to tell me what’s going on, or am I going to have to play one of your guessing games?”
Despite the reassuring presence of her friend, she was all too aware of the danger that still threatened. She had gained some ground on the kobalos in her rush through the forest, but she did not believe for an instant that she had eluded them completely. As Dannil recovered his bow, a massive yew shaft nearly as tall as he was, she grasped his arm tightly, to try to convey some of her intensity to him.
“A group of kobalos attacked me, on the Quarry Road,” she told him. “There were six—I knocked down two, but I don’t think they were seriously hurt. They followed me into the forest, and may follow my track here at any moment.”
“Kobalos?” he said. “That’s unusual.” His look was somewhat dubious, but he didn’t question her as he quickly strung his bow and tugged out a long-shafted arrow from the leather case at his hip. He crouched a little and turned toward the forest, starting down the track from which Izandra had appeared.
“Shouldn’t we take cover among the rocks?” she said, gesturing back toward the ridge. “They wouldn’t be able to surround us, and they’d have a harder time getting to us.”
Dannil looked back at her, intensity warring with another expression in his eyes. She knew that he didn’t take her entirely seriously, and she knew enough to respect his skills with the bow and the long dirk, almost a sword, that he wore opposite the quiver. But she’d encountered the kobalos, not he, and she respected the threat posed by them as well.
For a moment, she thought he was going to say something, to put her in her place. But then he nodded, and directed her toward the rise.
The ground rose quickly, and soon massive boulders that dwarfed them both appeared ahead. They both knew their way, though, and even in the afterimage of the day they found their way quickly up into the higher reaches of the ridge.
For several minutes they climbed in quiet, then she asked him, “What are you doing here, Dannil?”
“I was passing through the region, and thought I’d visit you and Ezran in Sindelar,” he said. She wasn’t that surprised to see him; Dannil was always “passing through” one area or another, and he didn’t stay long in any one place. At least as long as she’d known him, which was—how many years now? It was hard to place a date, although she remembered that he’d been little more than a boy when they’d met, and he was already living on his own, then, as free—and alone—as anyone she’d ever encountered.
“I decided to walk along the ridge,” he continued. “Remember, all the times you and Ezran and I came here?” He waited for her nod before he went on, “Anyway, I heard something coming from out of the woods—you never paid attention when I taught you how to move stealthily through the forest—and came to investigate. I saw it was you, and then—well, you know.”
“I was more intent on speed than silence,” she said, her tone sharpening at his rebuke. He was having his usual effect on her; her earlier fear was fading, replaced by a mixture of amusement and annoyance at his cavalier attitude toward her situation.
She noticed that he’d stopped, and she turned to see that he’d taken up a position atop a boulder overlooking the point where she’d emerged from the forest. Their brief climb had already taken them some distance, and they were now at least a full bow-shot away from the nearest trees, if not more.
He looked up as she joined him, then turned back to the open expanse below. “Doesn’t look like anybody’s following you,” he said.
“They might not have found my track yet,” she replied.
“It’s going to be pitch black within an hour,” he said, looking up at the sky. “We’d better get on our way to Sind-”
“Look!” she hissed, interrupting him with a hard tug on his arm. She crouched lower against the flat surface of the rock, and pointed with her other hand at the dark shadows of the line of trees.
Dannil peered intently into the gloom.
“There,” she said, whispering into his ear.
“I see it,” he replied.
They were faint shadows, flickers of movement that moved in and out of the firmer outlines of the surrounding trees. They came cautiously, slowly, as if sensing somehow that the nature of the chase had changed. It was impossible to make them out distinctly, but Izandra knew that they were her pursuers.
When they reached the final edge of the forest, they became a little more distinct. Izandra saw that all six of them were there, spread out in a broad line. The foremost, apparently the leader, gestured to the others, and their formation broke, the six spreading out to form a large curve that seemed to sweep slowly onto the ridge, centered firmly on their position. She did not know how they could track her so effectively in the twilight.
“Kobalos have good senses, and a gift for the hunt,” Dannil said. Izandra wasn’t aware that she’d spoken her thoughts aloud—or perhaps Dannil had sensed what she was thinking. The latter would have been difficult, given the tumult dancing around in her brain at the moment. Her earlier fears had returned swiftly once she had seen the kobalos again, and it was with difficulty that she swallowed and pushed the fear back under the blanket of self-discipline and control that sustained her.
“What do we do?” Izandra asked.
But Dannil was already fitting his arrow to his bow, making the motion slowly so as to not draw the eyes of the hunters to his action. “Stay low, and head up along the trail to the crest,” he told her between clenched teeth. “Don’t let them see you, if you can help it.”
She hesitated, but when he turned to look at her, she caught sight of the earnest seriousness in his eyes and expression. The look caught her by surprise—it was so the opposite of what she was used to seeing in Dannil’s face. But she supposed that having spent so long relying on his own wits and skills for survival, that look had to have been there, somewhere, if buried under a demeanor of jocular frivolity.
She crawled back from the edge of the boulder and bent low, scurrying quickly yet carefully along the route higher up the ridge. She used her hands to steady her as the way grew steep, and her boots grabbed for purchase on the weather-beaten stone. The path they’d chosen ran up a cleft that would leave them hidden from the ground below, for the most part, but she kept Dannil’s warning to remain unseen close to mind. Her pursuers would know where they were anyway, in a moment, she thought.
As she neared the top of the cleft she secured herself in a niche in the rock and looked back. She could see the boulder where she and Dannil had seen the kobalos, but he was nowhere to be seen. She was too deep in the cleft to see the open ground south of the ridge, where the kobalos would be approaching. As she watched, though, she saw a shadow detach itself from the rocks and rise up atop the boulder. It was Dannil, his bow bending in one smooth motion until the feathered end of the arrow was flush against his cheek. Even as he completed his motion the bow twanged and the arrow sped into the dark. She heard a cry an instant later, a hard, painful sound that ended quickly and suddenly. She could not see where the arrow had gone, but in the instant she looked away and back Dannil had vanished again from view.
She did not hesitate further, turning and continuing her way up the ridge. As she reached the top of the cleft she emerged onto open rock, with the whole great spectrum of the forest and surrounding lands visible far below. Mindful of Dannil’s orders she darted quickly into the shelter of a leaning rock face, following a worn pathway that ran along the length of the crest of the ridge. She knew that a path down the far side lay just a few yards ahead, a path that would ultimately lead down to the main road to Sindelar.
Her head turned as she heard another cry from down below. This one was not a cry of surprised pain, but had the tone of a command, shouted just loud enough to carry to waiting ears nearby. The words were hard, guttural, unfamiliar; she supposed it was the speech of the kobalos, about which she knew nothing. They sounded like they came from directly below, where she had just left Dannil. Despite his commands, she found herself torn, with the instinct to flight balanced by her concern for her friend. She took a hesitant step back toward the opening of the cleft, crouching low to avoid forming a silhouette against the night sky to those below.
He appeared so suddenly that she almost shouted in fright; then he was beside her, pulling her back toward the relative shelter of the leaning rock face.
“What...” she began, but he forestalled her.
“They’re coming,” he said. The change in him was now more than just strange; it was alarming. He seemed almost a stranger, not the youth whom she and Ezran had spent so many days with in their youth, whittling away the hours in exploration and games. He reached down and pulled out two more arrows, leaning one against the rock at his feet and fitting the other to his bow.
“Go on,” he told her. “Make your way down the trail on the far side of the ridge. Wait for me at the outcropping that overlooks the main road. Stay hidden.”
She hesitated, but he fixed her with his eyes, and she nodded. He turned back toward the cleft, but she stopped him short with a hand on his shoulder.
“Be careful,” she told him. Then, before he could respond, she turned and ran along the side of the rock face.
After a short distance the stone wall to her right dropped away and she was running along the flat summit of the ridge, vast space opening out before her to each flank. In past days she had run along this very surface with wild abandon, heedless of the deadly plunge to each side, leaping across gaps as wide as she was tall, her steps sure on the wind-smoothed stone. Now she was slow, cautious, trying to remain as small and invisible as possible, aware however that she was broadcasting her position to anyone below looking up. Every second thought was a command to look back, to see what was happening behind her, but she forced herself to ignore those whispered suggestions. She had wanted to stay, to help Dannil face the kobalos, but she admitted to herself that there was little she could do. She had her talent, but it was not a weapon, not something she could wield like Dannil’s bow. It had not even helped her get away, remembering that the two she had knocked down had quickly rejoined the chase after her. Perhaps even now one of them was clambering up the bluff, naked steel in his hand, seeking Dannil’s life with his weapon. The thought sent a strange tremor of feeling through her, and she almost faltered, halting for a moment and looking back behind her. She could see the rock face that rose up near the cleft they had used to reach the summit, but all she could see in and around it was shadow. Reluctantly, she turned back and continued on her course.
She saw the path she was looking for up ahead. Carefully she clambered down the steep slope to the narrow gap that wound its way down the far face of the ridge. Below, although she could not see it clearly in the darkness, lay the road that stretched between Sindelar and the other towns and villages of Limbrock. Sindelar was the end of the line, the border between civilization and the wilds beyond.
The night was silent behind her, the absence of sound more foreboding than the clash of battle would have been. Again she felt a tremor of fear for Dannil, and again she considered turning back, to lend whatever aid she could. Logic told her that she was as likely to place him into danger as provide help by her presence, however. If she was safely away, he could focus on defending himself from the kobalos. She remembered his skill with the bow, and his lessons to Ezran on the use of the blade. Her brother had been a poor student, but Dannil had never mocked or derided him. She also remembered that look he had shown her moments ago, the hard look she had never before seen in his eyes.
Dannil was a survivor.
But there were six kobalos, and their eyes had been equally hard—and dangerous.
She stumbled some as the path descended into a hollow between two walls of sheer rock, and she had to steady herself with her hands as she climbed down into darkness. She felt as though she’d fallen into a pit, and that irrational tremor of fear crawled at the edges of her consciousness again, threatening. She bit her lip and concentrated on making her way through the tunnel formed between the walls of rock. When she emerged on the far side, even the faint light of the deepening evening seemed bright to her eyes, and she could clearly make out the jutting promontory of the outcropping ahead, a great fist of stone that broke out from the ridge into the open terrain beyond. She knew that the road ran directly around the base of the outcropping, and that an easy descent led down its far side to its flat surface below. She could be down there in minutes, and home after a half-hour’s jog along the open road. The thought gave her a sudden surge of energy, but the temptation came and went in the same instant. She would not desert Dannil.
But what if he didn’t come?
The thought did not bear contemplation.
She made it to the edge of the outcropping, and hesitated. The surface of the stone promontory was flat and smooth, rising gently until its end, when it rose up like the crest of a wave about to break over the flat terrain below. She had never been afraid of heights—Ezran had always called her “crazy brave”—but now suddenly the forty-foot drop to either side spooked her.
Something struck her on the face, and she started in surprise, almost losing her balance. She realized that it was a raindrop, a fat speckle of water that was joined by another, then another. It was just a light drizzle, but it promised more ahead, the storm that the sky had hinted at all afternoon. Had all things been equal, she would be at home now, warming herself in front of the fire, stretching her tired muscles as she drank a mug of hot chocolate.
Well, no sense pondering the what ifs, as Ethander put it. Pulling up the hood of her cloak to shelter her head from the plodding raindrops, she started forward.
She almost didn’t sense it, but her instincts whispered a warning at the last instant. She spun and folded into a wary crouch, her hands outstretched in a warding gesture before her.
The kobalos halted just a few strides away, his beady eyes fixed on her. She didn’t know how he’d managed to cross the ridge so swiftly, but he must have seen her atop the crest and hurried to catch her here, where the trail emerged above the outcropping. His short sword was still in its scabbard, but he looked wary—understandable, given her earlier display of power. In fact, he might have been one of the ones she had struck down. It was impossible to be sure; with the exception of the leader, the others all merged together in her memory. She had been trained to spot details, and pay attention to nuance, but such things were often forgotten in the rush of danger and the moment.
The kobalos reached down with one hand and touched the hilt of his sword; then, as if reconsidering, he let his hand drop and instead reached out toward her, his arms wide as he sank into a threatening stance.
“Don’t make it hard, girl,” he said, the words thick and accented coming off of his tongue.
“Stay away from me,” she said, her own voice filled with deadly earnest. She doubted he would be able to hear the undercurrent of fear beneath it—perhaps she could even convince herself that it wasn’t there. She backed up slowly toward the outcropping, and the rock fell away to either side of her, leaving a corridor some ten feet wide along which she retreated.
The kobalos followed. He, too, spared a quick glance for the drop, but if he was afraid, it did not show. Instead, his eyes showed only a keen hunger, and in fact he licked his lips as he came toward her, as if savoring some delicious morsel he was about to sample. She saw it and it disgusted her, but it only confirmed her fears of the kobalos’s intent.
She considered calling out for Dannil, but did not. It was likely that he was in dire straits himself, and a distraction now might be deadly. So she gave ground, the kobalos following her step by step. The rain continued to fall, making the rock slick with its moisture. Perhaps that was why the kobalos did not rush her, and risk a scuffle that could lead to a fall. Or maybe it was wariness at her power, already demonstrated on the road. Izandra preferred to think it was the latter, although in her current exhaustion, she doubted that she had the concentration to even move a pebble at the moment. Ethander would have berated her for her lack of focus—gods, what she wouldn’t have given to have him here right now! she thought.
She felt hard stone behind her, and came to a stop. She had reached the end of the outcropping, and the rocky jut rose up behind her, hedging her in. She had allowed herself to be backed into a corner. She could see the narrow cleft that gave way to the climb down to the road—but now the kobalos stood between her and it, between her and safety. His mouth twisted into a savage grin as he regarded her.
“Come along quiet, and I’ll take it easy on you,” he said. “Otherwise...” he added, letting the thought hang in the air.
Then, before she could respond, he launched himself at her.
Instinct kicked in before conscious thought, and she ducked low under his sweeping arms. She only had a vague idea of getting to the cliff path, but before she could even take her second step something hard crashed into the side of her head, and she fell roughly sideways. She felt pain twist through her side as she landed hard on the wet stone. Suddenly aware that she was sliding, falling toward that deadly edge, with a much greater fall beyond...
Scrambling desperately for a purchase, her probing fingers found a crack and held on. A roaring filled her ears that could have been either the rushing wind of the coming storm or her heart pounding in her chest. She looked up, knowing that danger still lurked nearby.
And promptly lost her grip, and fell over the edge.
A new pain joined the medley that filled her as she landed hard on her back, slamming the breath from her lungs. Belatedly she realized that she was not dead, that she’d only fallen a few feet. The edge of the cliff hung just a few feet above her—she must have fallen onto the pathway she’d just been seeking, she realized. Hard rocks poked into her back, but she didn’t feel as if anything was broken. She’d suffered enough broken bones in her life to know, she thought grimly.
Then a shadow appeared atop the edge of the cliff, looming above her.
It was the kobalos, staring down at her. He looked angry, and grimly wiped a line of water mixed with sweat from his brow as he regarded her.
“Couldn’t make it easy,” he said to her. Even over the rain and the wind, she could hear him clearly. “All right then, girl. The Seer wants you in one piece, but I’m sure he won’t mind if the merchandise is a little the worse for wear.”
Her thoughts jumbled by the battering her body had taken, she could not make sense of his words, although the overall meaning was crystal clear. She tried to move, but found that her muscles refused to obey her commands. She was beyond fear, now, stark terror pounding through her veins like the blood rushing to her head.
The kobalos looked her over for a second longer, a hunger sparking in his eyes as they greedily drank in her supine frame, defined by the damp clothes stuck to her body. Then he jumped off the edge, poised to land right next to her on the narrow trail.
Only he never reached it.
Instinct and fear broke through her exhaustion, and brought clarity to Izandra’s mind. Even as the kobalos began to fall toward her, her hand came up, and she felt the power flowing through her. It wasn’t much—perhaps not much more than the energy required to move the pebble she’d thought of earlier—but it was enough to alter the falling kobalos’s course. He landed awkwardly on the edge of the rocks, just a few feet from where he’d aimed, but in this case a few feet was the same as miles from his target. For a moment she thought he’d recover, regain his balance, but then, as a terror to echo hers filled his eyes in realization, he tumbled back and fell off the trail into the darkness. He didn’t scream, and the sound he made striking the hard ground far below was muffled in the wind.
Sobbing, and still fighting for her breath, Izandra pulled herself upward into a semi-standing position, leaning hard against the comfort of the rocks. The rain was picking up slightly, and she could feel the cold wind probing at her, as if seeking a weakness that it could exploit to steal the heat of her body away. As control over her body slowly returned, but still not quite knowing what she was doing, she pulled herself back up to the top of the outcropping, and crawled over to the relative shelter offered by the natural obelisk that rose up out of the flat surface at its end.
“Zan!”
She looked up, confused. Where was she? Was someone calling her name?
“Izandra!”
She looked up again, and when she saw Dannil, it all came crashing back, her awareness sharpening with almost painful speed. Her head spun as she pulled herself up, but she ordered her legs to remain steady. She couldn’t quite walk away from the support of the stone, however.
“Dannil!” she cried as loud as she could. The sound seemed to carry away on the wind in an instant, but a few moments later his form emerged out of the darkness.
“Izandra, are you all right?” he said, rushing to her side. She noticed that his eyes still darted about, wary, like a wolf suspecting a trap.
“I—” she began, but her voice faltered. What could she say? For a moment she just hovered there, shivering. She wanted Dannil to hold her, to tell her that everything was all right, and with that realization came shame, at her own weakness. Then she noticed that his bow, still clutched tightly in his left hand, was broken, the long shaft shivered and bent half-way down its length, the string dangling along behind.
His gaze followed hers, and he almost seemed surprised to notice that he was still carrying the weapon. As he shifted, she could see his other hand, pressed close against his side. His long knife was bare in his fist, and even in the rain and dark she could see the cold wet touch of fresh blood along its length.
“What happened?” she asked him.
“They were good, but they didn’t know the terrain like I did,” he offered. “I killed three of them, at least—perhaps four, I couldn’t see whether I hit the last.” He wasn’t boasting, not like he usually did. The words were simply statements of fact, delivered in a calm, even voice. She shuddered at their sound.
“A few of them tried to circle around, to flank us,” he continued, still looking around in a smooth arc, eyes like beacon lanterns cutting through a fog. “They may still be out there.”
“One attacked me,” Izandra said, and she was surprised to find that her voice was like his, in control. “It fell off the bluff, and landed below.”
She gestured with her hand, and he carefully approached the edge of the bluff, looking down below. Slowly, she joined him.
“I can’t see anything,” he admitted, “but if he fell from here, there’s likely nothing down there but a corpse.”
The last word somehow seemed to fracture her self-control, and she let out a stifled sob. He noticed, and concern replaced feral wariness in his eyes. At that moment she was glad that he didn’t hold her, for if he did, she would have lost all control. Instead, he slipped off his outer coat, and wrapped it close around her shoulders.
“You’re soaking wet,” he told her, as if she could not grasp the obvious. Her own cloak had suffered from the rough treatment she’d had, though it still hung—barely—from the simple bronze clasp at her throat. “We’ve got to get you back to Sindelar, before you catch your death.”
“There’s still one more out there,” she said. Given what she’d seen, she thought she’d give him the benefit of the doubt on the one he’d attacked but possibly missed.
“I know,” he said. “But I doubt he’ll follow us into the village.”
He took the lead and directed her toward the path, both of them careful not to slip on the rough rocks. Izandra pulled Dannil’s coat close around her shoulders, trying to ignore the continuing patter of the drizzle. She thought that will alone kept her exhausted body moving, but she buoyed herself with the thought of returning to the shelter of the village, and safety. But another thought troubled her, and she raised it to Dannil as they worked their way cautiously down the steep but navigable climb down the outcropping to the road.
“Dannil, what do you think those kobalos were doing here?”
A long pause ensued, and at first she thought that he hadn’t heard her. “I don’t know,” he finally said. “They are probably stragglers from a bandit raid, or somesuch—kobalos live in the Wistere range, and there are a number of bands in the hill country north of the lake.”
“That’s far away from here,” she prodded him.
“Yes,” he admitted. “But they are not unheard of in these parts. It is not long past that kobalos raided Limbrock itself.”
“In the aftermath of the wars, you mean,” she said. It was actually longer than Dannil intimated—the last major conflict in the region, the Hunger Wars, had ended almost fifty years ago. And even that had only been a minor conflagration in comparison to the Dark War, but that epic struggle was in the far past, beyond the lifetime of anyone living. Perhaps the Ilfann remembered it, she thought. She reflected on all of the lessons, the histories that Ethander had provided for her studies. The words had caught her up, but she’d never fully understood the emotions, the urgency of great battles and epic causes. Perhaps, after today, she would understand better.
“Yes,” Dannil was saying. “Some have noticed that things have been stirring, of late. Signs of trouble on the horizon. Kobalos appearing within the borders of Limbrock—that may be part of that.”
His words raised questions, questions that would have ordinarily provoked her interest, but her mind was distracted with questions of her own. Like some of the things that the kobalos had said to her. Rather than say anything to Dannil, she decided to keep these thoughts to herself, until she’d had more time to ponder what they might signify. One of the things that Ethander had taught her was to never launch into any course of action precipitously. Perhaps her master could help her restore some order to the confusion spiraling around in her mind.
They reached the bottom of the trail without incident, and saw the road just before them. They also found the body of the kobalos, lying dead, face down in the mud. Izandra just stood there for a long moment, looking at him. She had never killed anyone, not even a deer or a rabbit for food. Her brow furrowed in thought. She figured she was supposed to feel something, regret, or sympathy, or even just a sadness at the loss of a life. Even a lingering anger, at what the kobalos had tried to do to her, or what he had made her do in self-defense. She only felt a numbness, an empty feeling like she’d lost something. Maybe it was just the cold, or the exhaustion that seeped into her bones and threatened to drag her under.
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