The Restless Shore (5 page)

“I only meant—” Brindani began, but stopped short as Uthalion slammed him against a tree.

“Oh, I know what you meant! You’d like to blame me for the old blood on your hands, is that it?” He shook the half-elf hard, trembling with rage. Brindani’s heart pounded beneath Uthalion’s fist. “We both took the job, volunteered… Don’t expect anything from me just because you followed orders you didn’t like!”

“Your orders!” Brindani yelled back.

Uthalion pulled him from the tree and shoved him to the ground. He resisted the urge to draw his blade, but just barely. He turned away and found Ghaelya, her hand on her sword and a threatening glint in her eye.

“Leave him be,” she said.

“Take him and be on your way,” he said and pointed south into the woods. “You’re not welcome here.”

“Fine,” she said, shrugging. She pushed past him roughly and added, “Useless bastard.”

Her insult struck him like a hammer. He stared after her, stunned, as the pair left the grove and struck into the southern Spur, The same words echoed from his past, chasing him through the old front door of a cottage he’d once shared with Maryna. It was her voice screaming in rage as he’d left her for the second time—the last time he’d heard her voice… and his young daughter’s cries through the open window.

“You can’t let them go,” Vaasurri said, approaching stealthily from the dark, his emerald eyes boring into Uthalion’s. “You know better.”

Not startled by the killoren’s appearance, Uthalion nodded in a daze, his former rage drained away by the haze of sudden

memory. Shaking free of the past, he stared after Ghaelya and Brindani, realizing what he’d truly done. He sprinted into the forest after them. The land sloped downward in the deep Spur, just beyond the foothills of the Akanapeaks. Though the moon was nearly down, he caught their path quickly and focused on the genasi’s louder footfalls to guide him.

She spun around angrily in the dark, seeing the glinting glow of the grove’s campfire just beyond their line of sight, but flashing dimly on the leaves. Brindani didn’t turn at all, but merely stopped and waited.

“Did you come to hurry us on?” she asked angrily, and he felt shamed in her gaze.

“No, I just—” he began, but waa cut short by the sound of a thunderous roar. The ground shook as they all looked southward. Leaves shivered overhead as the roar grew ever louder, a plaintive, hungry sound echoing from deep in the southern forest. A sound like splitting trees reached them, wood cracking like lightning and crashing like the rolling front of a distant storm. Uthalion caught his breath, relieved that it was far away, but still alarmed and eager to get back to the grove. Ghaelya turned to him wide-eyed as the roar slowly faded.

“Morning,” he said quickly. He gestured back the way they’d come. “You should wait until morning.”

Nodding in shock, they turned back up the slope and into the waiting glow of the grove.

Uthalion stood a moment longer, staring into the dark maw of the Spur and reflecting on what he’d nearly allowed to happen. His heart pounded, and he breathed deeply, listening for the roar again, but it never came.

“Useless bastard,” he repeated to himself, suddenly hating the man he’d let himself become—selfish, cowardly… alone.

He walked back to the grove, his thoughts heavy and far away from the Spur. Vaasurri, not particularly shy

and rarely at a loss for words, had introduced himself to their guests and was already warming stew over the campfire. Their words were lost on Uthalion as he knelt and lifted the makeshift door to his hidden cavern beneath the grove. He had no hunger for stew, nor longing for conversation, polite or—more likely—otherwise.

He lit a candle, its light flickering on the rough ceiling of the small chamber, a sanctuary of rock and dirt within the greater fold of the surrounding forest. It held him close, being barely long enough for him to stretch his arms over his head and touch the opposite wall with his boots, and just tall enough for him to kneel in prayer—back when he had a mind to do so. He leaned back against the wall, his arms resting on his knees, and stared at the silver ring on his finger. He was tired despite its enchantment.

Almost without thinking, he reached down to his side, to his unused bedroll and an old cloak, and produced a tiny pouch. As he slipped the knot on the drawstring, a gold ring fell into his palm. He held it up, contrasting it to the silver one he’d been wearing for over five years. Misshapen, more an oval than a circle, the gold ring had saved him from losing a finger by an ore’s axe while he was doing mercenary work. That was when he had laid down his blade, returned home, and promised Maryna he’d never leave again. A year later the Keepers had come, and despite his oath, his family had needed the coin.

**********

Time slipped away from him as he reminisced. The candle had burned a quarter of its length before Vaasurri entered the cave and drew him away from his thoughts of years past. Uthalion met the killoren’s deep green eyes for a moment before closing his own, already expecting what was to come.

“I’m going with them,” Vaasurri said simply, and Uthalion nodded, sighing.

“I thought as much,” he answered. “Do you believe them? About her dreams?”

Vaasurri lowered his head, considering the question before shrugging slightly. “It doesn’t really matter what I believe,” he replied. “Were I to let them go, aimless across the Akana… Well, it wouldn’t be right, so long as I’m able to help.”

Uthalion sat forward, staring at the dirt floor, clutching the silver ring against one palm and the gold against the other. He clenched his teeth and looked up at the fey, shaking his head and forcing the words from his mouth.

“I would have let them die,” he said. “If you hadn’t shown up…”

“No, you wouldn’t have,” Vaasurri said, smiling slightly. “You might have let them get a bit farther had I not shown up, but you would have stopped them.”

“Should I try to stop them now? Going all that way for just a pile of ruins… If they even make it that far.” Uthalion stared into the dancing shadows at the end of the cave.

“I’ve spoken to the woman, and I don’t think you could stop her.”

Uthalion didn’t answer. Vaasurri might have a point, but that didn’t mean he had to listen to it. He wasn’t responsible for the genasi woman. Or Brindani. He wasn’t responsible for anyone any longer.

“The better effort,” Vaasurri continued, “Might be in getting yourself out of this hole in the ground, out of this forest.”

Uthalion leaned back, shaking his head at the idea. The idea of leaving was not an unfamiliar one—he thought of it every day, always putting it off until the next and the next after that. He’d considered it a thousand times, but wasn’t

sure how to go about reclaiming a life that felt like a candle burned to nothing at both ends.

“Is that her ring?” Vaasurri asked suddenly. “Your wedding band?”

Uthalion held it up, nodding, and turned it over in the flickering light of the candle. Vaasurri smiled, studying the imperfect band.

“I like it better than the silver. You shouldn’t keep it buried down here.” The killoren half turned to leave, then added, “Though I suspect the man who used to wear that ring might be buried as well, somewhere south of here. Could be worth the effort to go and dig him up.”

The candle blew out as the makeshift door closed behind Vaasurri, leaving Uthalion alone in the dark with the two rings. He turned to his cloak and bedroll, placing the silver-ringed hand upon them gingerly. Absently he turned the gold ring in his free hand over and over.

Uthalion’s thoughts on the killoren’s words were interrupted by a faint sound, like music, emanating from the rock. He strained to hear, catching brief snippets of a breath-stopping melody that shook him to his core. Crawling to the southern end of the little cave, he pressed against the rock, somehow recognizing the song, but unable to place the tune.

The voice wavered in and out of hearing, the singing echoing hollowly as if somewhere nearby yet deep underground. At its loudest, barely a whisper, it brought tears to his eyes and a quickening to his heart. A soft ringing sound caused him to blink and pull back. He’d dropped the gold ring as he pressed his hands against the rock as though he might push through the wall to reach the singing.

As the voice faded away, he stared into the dark, confused and wondering where the song had come from. Despite his curiosity and sense of paranoia, he found himself less curious about where it had come from and more frightened by the sudden and powerful desire to hear it again.

******

Ghaelya lay back on the soft ground of the grove, turning away from the dying flames of the campfire. Unable to sleep, she could only focus on the coming dawn, escaping the Spur, and pushing on to the south, closer to Tessaeril and the dreams of her sister’s voice. Vaasurri claimed to know some of the southern land he called the Akana, and though he’d never been to Tohrepur, he had agreed to guide them as best he could. Unlike his human friend, the killoren was pleasant—if a bit mysterious—and made her feel welcome.

She stared into the forest and listened as Vaasurri peppered Brindani with questions. The killoren’s curiosity seemed unending and insatiable. Brindani’s voice grew quiet and distant as he described the western borders of Aglarond, as if he were straining to recall the details of his life there, though by his account he’d left his homeland only months ago.

“We stood, hired swords, upon the Watchwall, shivering at night and staring out into the dark of the Umber Marshes.” He paused, and she turned to face him, raising up on one elbow as he squinted and tilted his head. “By ones and twos they came at first, staggering through the marshes, wandering from the highlands of Thay. We could hear them long before they came into view, moaning and crashing through the wetlands: an endless parade of the dead finding only our swords and spears to greet them on the edge of Aglarond.”

Ghaelya had never ventured far beyond the walls of Airspur. Much to the dismay of her wealthy parents, she had found adventure enough within the city to keep her occupied and well-stocked in bruises and cheap ale. The places beyond Akanul were worlds away, spots on old maps, the Spur a smudge of green. Mere parchment had been unable

to convey the vast depths of trees and shadows in which she found herself.

“No alarm was raisedI Brindani continued. “Nor was there ever any need of one. The undead did not hurry, had no strategy of attack, and had no minds with which to formulate one. They just made their slow way, gathering by the dozens, to be casually cut down, over and over again.”

He wrung his white-knuckled hands together and stared at the ground.

Before he could continue, Vaasurri sat up swiftly, pulling his legs gracefully beneath him in an animalistic crouch. In an instant he had become something wild, a predator sensing movement in the dark. He stared northward into the woods and prowled forward quietly. Ghaelya froze, watching him closely. She slowly drew her sword, trying not to break the killoren’s fierce concentration. A heartbeat later, her blade barely a handspan from its sheath, she heard a faint, raspy whine. It pressed on her mind painfully, throbbing like the insistent pain of an aching tooth.

Rolling to one knee and facing the shadows, she caught the slightest glint of an dreamer’s glassy eye before it leaped into the light, its teeth bared and its claws outstretched. Surprised, she threw herself back, slipping and landing awkwardly on her elbows. Vaasurri tumbled out of its path, drawing his bone sword as the beast landed and loosed a skull-splitting roar. Brindani was thrown backward by the powerful sound, its waves rippling through the air. He crashed a hair’s breadth from the smoldering campfire.

Ghaelya managed to hold her blade up, scrambling to collect her legs beneath her as the dreamer turned with a feral snarl. Meeting its dead gaze, her eyes lingered on the teeth that would soon have her in a painful grip. Prepared to repay the coming wound with steel, she gasped as the beast turned away and charged instead at the battle-ready Vaasurri.

“It had me,” she muttered as she regained her footing and steadied her sword. “Why did it turn away?”

The killoren sidestepped the dreamer’s charge, though the beast’s claws raked his leg, drawing jagged lines of red across his upper thigh. Accepting the wound with a grunt, he slashed downward, cutting deep into the beast’s shoulder. The stench of its blood filled the grove as Ghaelya stepped , in from behind, stabbing into its unprotected side. Howling in pain the dreamer whirled, tearing the sword from her hand and sending Vaasurri rolling to the side.

The beast ignored the blade in its side and leaped at Ghaelya as she fell back, pressing her down and pushing the breath from her lungs with its weight. Its glassy eyes hovered over her, and she struggled as its hot breath brought tears to her own. Straining to reach the weapon still lodged in the dreamer’s side, she paused as its mind-rending growls softened to a rhythmic, singsong quality that stole her will to fight. As she gasped for air beneath the tusklike fangs, she could not find strength to resist the soothing purr that washed over her in waves that were both nightmarish and familiar. Tiny sparks of panic were left unheeded in the back of her mind as the dreamer’s claws dug into her arms.

The idea of a scream died swiftly in the back of her throat as her eyelids grew heavy. Sliding into unconsciousness, she did not realize at first what had happened when long-shafted arrows slammed hard into the dreamer’s left eye and neck. A rattling gurgle escaped its gaping maw as it released her and fell to the side, thrashing on the ground as Vaasurri and Brindani descended upon it with their blades.

Ghaelya coughed and spat as she rolled to her side and regained her breath. Groaning slightly, as if she’d awoken from a long sleep, she realized where she was and pushed away from the stilled body of the beast, reaching for her

missing sword. Finding her bearings again, she turned to find Uthalion standing behind them, his longbow in hand, and a light pack slung over his shoulder.

She stood quickly and angrily retrieved her sword from the dreamer’s body, holding her breath to keep from gagging in her close proximity to the creature. Its dead black eyes haunted her as she fell back imagining the beast holding her down and its eerie voice singing in her mind. A strange and unwanted sense of pity filled her at the thought of its death, and she closed her eyes, shaking the thought from her head. She spat again, the smell of the beast’s blood pungent and nauseating.