Prophecy's Daughter Read online

  By noon, the Great Forest gave way to the expanse of broad valley that led into Areana’s Gorge. As he rode across the lush grassland, he soon saw a familiar trio of riders making their way toward him.

  He pulled the bay to a halt as Ty’s stallion slid to a stop nearby. John and Kim loped up beside Arn, the Endarian leaning gracefully across her horse’s neck to hug him.

  He shook hands with John and Ty in turn.

  “The rangers said you were on your way in,” John said. “So we thought we’d ride out to give you a proper welcome. We were a bit worried when Ax showed up a couple of weeks ago without you.”

  Despite the reunion, Ty’s eyes held little mirth. Arn surveyed their faces, all tense. Kim’s features were particularly etched with concern.

  “All right, out with it. What is wrong?”

  “I’ll let the two chatterboxes tell you while we ride,” said Ty. “We’re glad to see you back, though.”

  Kim spoke next. “It’s Carol. I’m so concerned about her, I don’t know quite what to say.”

  “Just tell me,” said Arn, his throat tightening.

  “It began shortly after you left. Carol isolated herself in study. We all thought she was preparing for the upcoming battles with the protectors, and she may have been. Our father left strict instructions that Carol was to be left alone so she could concentrate and make whatever magical preparations she felt were needed. So we busied ourselves, helping in our own way to facilitate the plans he had laid out.

  “But as the weeks went by, very strange things started happening. First, we began hearing about animals acting oddly when Carol was around. I saw it myself. One day I was down at the stables when she came in to see her mare. The horses went mad.

  “I feared that Carol’s mare would hurt itself kicking the stall. I tried repeatedly to convince my sister to let me help, but she refused to discuss her problems with me.”

  “And it wasn’t just the horses, either,” said John. “People started gathering around and whispering about how the birds would all go quiet whenever she was around. One would talk about pigs getting scared or how hens had quit laying eggs for two days after she happened by. I thought it was just gossip. You know how folks like to get on a subject and beat it to death in a mean sort of way.

  “Then the dreams started, frightening, nonsensical dreams. And Carol was in all of them. I had different dreams every night. In those dreams, she often floated in a chaotic black sea, and each wave that crested over her revealed vivid sights and sounds from around the vale. In those dreams, I took the form of one animal after another, experiencing the hunger of the predator and the fear of its prey, along with smells so intense that they almost hurt my nose. Madness.”

  “That was not the worst,” said Kim, wiping tears from her eyes. “Everybody began having the same nightmares. And as they discussed their dreams, the more terrified people became.”

  John raised his eyebrows in acknowledgment of the statement. “You can guess what kind of effect it started to have on morale,” he said. “Gaar practically had to whip his guards to keep them on their toes instead of gathering around talking to each other like a bunch of old biddies. The other day I heard heated voices coming from a room where he and Rafel were in discussion. That was a new one to me. I had never heard the boss lose his temper before. I wasn’t close enough to hear what they were arguing about, and I didn’t have any inclination to get closer, let me tell you. But I can imagine.”

  “Then the priests started stirring the pot,” said Kim. “Jason and his bishops put out the word that all of this was what they had been warning against when it came to wielders and elemental magic. Church attendance shot up like the end of the world was at hand. John and I attended one gathering, and that young firebrand, Bishop Forston, worked the people into a frenzy with his talk about the dangers of consorting with elementals and how the best of us could easily fall under the seductive influence of the primordials.”

  “To his credit,” said John, “Forston did stomp down hard when some fool started shouting that they should all head up the valley, tie the witch to a stake, and burn out the elementals before they destroyed everyone. But he was stirring the pot, keeping it just below the boiling point. And Jason started meeting with Rafel. The speculation is that he was pressing him to talk Carol into putting herself under the watchful graces of his glorious eminence. That continued until last week.”

  “And there’s more. I believe Carol lost her temper with some locals who were harassing her,” Kim said. “She called forth a thunderstorm that dropped them to their knees. That was just too much for our father. He confronted Carol with Jason in tow and convinced her that she needed help. The kind of help that only the priesthood could provide. Since that day, she has been living in the monastery. She is being treated with a plant extract that soothes the mind.” A soft sob escaped Kim’s lips. “I managed to get in to see her yesterday. She didn’t recognize me.”

  Arn said nothing, but he felt Slaken’s heat radiate through him, stoking the flames of his rage.

  The riders made their way up through Areana’s Gorge, passing through the open gates of the two smaller forts and finally into the main fortress itself. They dismounted inside the gates and tossed their reins to a pair of waiting grooms who led the horses off toward the stables. As his companions started to follow him toward Rafel’s meeting hall, Arn turned to them.

  “My friends, I want to thank you for coming out to meet me and for being there when I learned this foul news. But what I have to say now is for Rafel’s ears alone. I am sorry.”

  He turned on his heel, picking up a pace that carried him rapidly away from them and into Rafel’s audience chamber.

  When the warlord saw Arn, he came forward and threw his arms around the younger man’s shoulders. The experience was like hugging a block of black ice.

  Stunned, Rafel staggered backward, sudden realization dawning. The look he now saw in the younger man’s face made him think of the hundreds of others who must have seen that gaze as the life’s blood drained from their bodies.

  “How could you turn her over to those religious fools?” Arn stared hard at Rafel, struggling to contain himself. “Leaving her to be drugged and indoctrinated? How could you?”

  “Arn . . .” High Lord Rafel’s strength of spirit returned to him. “You weren’t here. Gods help me, I tried to let Carol deal with whatever she had gotten herself into. I even put up with all the muttering and moaning of the frightened people, the damage to discipline, and the weird happenings.

  “But, Arn, she was dying. She quit eating, quit bathing, quit sleeping. I had to do something. Only Jason and the priesthood offered any hope. Even Carol came to recognize it. She went willingly in the end.”

  “Mark my words, I won’t leave her to the drugs and the mindwashing that those so-called priests will give her.”

  Rafel’s voice rang out in full command. “You will do what I determine is best for her. You will do as you are ordered!”

  Arn’s brown eyes took on the sheen of molten metal, and once again the warlord felt as though he heard the distant cry of a slorg, a summoned abomination of primal hunger. “Believe me when I tell you that you don’t want me here in this valley. Now hear me and hear me well. I am going to go for Carol and take her out of the vale, and no one had better try to stop me.

  “I know you love her as much as I do, but your judgment in this matter is dead wrong. If she doesn’t die under the careful ministries of those priests, she will linger on worse than dead, addicted to plant extracts and broken in spirit.

  “Listen to your heart and you will know that what I am saying is the truth. Your daughter has a beauty of spirit that is worth dying to save. To save that soul, I will kill everyone who gets in my way, and that includes you, the man I love as my father, if that is what it takes.”

  For the first time in his adult life, Rafel felt his knees buckle, and he dropped onto a chair, taking his head in his hands.

  “I
am going to go for Carol. I will take her into the high mountains where I can care for her, giving her all the support I can until she finds a way of controlling the forces with which she finds herself contending. For your part, you will say that you have ordered me to take her away from the vale so that she can bring no harm to anyone living here.”

  “But you can’t help her,” Rafel said, his desperation putting a tremor in his hands. “She will destroy you in her madness.”

  “You forget . . .” Arn tapped Slaken at his side. “Her magic will not harm me.”

  A sudden look of hope spread across Rafel’s features. Arn’s hand rested on the hilt of the black knife that he had named Slaken. The runes that covered that haft bound powerful elementals within it. Together, they protected the one with whom this blade had made its blood-bond from all elemental and psychic forms of magic. And only Arn could wield it. “I had forgotten. Gods. I’ve been so heartsick I can’t think straight.”

  The high lord rose once again and placed a hand on Arn’s shoulder. “You’ll look after her? You’ll help her get better?”

  “I will, or we will die together out in those mountains. I can’t guarantee you she will get better, but I know her. She has a strength of will that I believe has not been seen on this world for thousands of years. She just needs a chance and someone to lean on who won’t be hurt by her powers.

  “What I can guarantee is that no living soul will survive any attempt to hurt her. If you see us again, you will know that she has made it through this victorious. She will get her chance to heal, to fight. And if she wins, as I believe she will, I can guarantee that I will bring her back to you.”

  Rafel staggered forward to throw his arms once more around Arn. This time the embrace was returned.

  32

  Areana’s Vale

  YOR 414, Early Autumn

  Jason awoke in the semidarkness of his room to find the sharp edge of a cold blade pressing against his throat. A strong hand clamped his mouth shut.

  “Good evening, Priest.”

  The voice was one that sent chills of recognition up his spine.

  “We are going to have a conversation, you and I. Actually, I’m going to do all the talking, and you’re simply going to nod your head when I ask you a question. Do we understand each other?”

  Jason nodded, still struggling to clear the sleep from his head, but felt Blade lift his hand from his mouth. The touch of the runed knife on his throat filled the high priest with horror. It felt like an abomination in the hand of a deep spawn. This was not the young man whom Jason had come to know within Rafel’s Keep. This was the assassin who had earned the name Blade.

  “Good. I want to speak a little of my dilemma. I arrived back in Areana’s Vale this very day. And upon arriving I discovered that the one love of my life has been taken by your priesthood, drugged, and indoctrinated.”

  Unable to contain himself, Jason’s lips moved before he could stifle the impulse to speak. “But she is possessed. She bears the mark of the elemental. I have seen it!”

  It was just a flicker at the corner of the priest’s eye. He would have almost thought that he had imagined Blade’s movement had it not been for the sight of his ring, the one bearing the holy signet of the church, rolling slowly across the floor, his finger still encircled by the golden band. That and the accompanying explosion of pain and blood from his left hand.

  The scream that bubbled to Jason’s lips was cut short before it began by the increasing pressure of the black blade against his throat.

  “As I said, I will be the only one to speak here. Do you understand?”

  Jason nodded.

  “Good. Now, you are probably thinking that you would like to tell me how it was for the protection of the people, including, no doubt, Carol herself. Well, believe me when I tell you that you have placed your beloved flock in more danger than you can imagine.”

  Blade leaned forward until Jason could feel his breath on his face. There was just enough light in the room that the high priest could see the dark glitter of the killer’s eyes.

  “You are going to call your bishops from their sleeping chambers. You are going to tell them that you have had a revelation and that you have asked High Lord Rafel to exile Carol from Areana’s Vale and that he has sent me to take her away. Thus you will maintain your precious priestly authority, High Lord Rafel will maintain his authority, and I don’t have to get unpleasant.

  “But if you try anything even slightly different from what I just described, by the time I am done with you, you will be praying to every god you know to let you die. Then I will take Carol away from here anyway.”

  Jason’s eyes shifted to the hellish black knife that the assassin gripped. For a moment, it seemed to him that the veins in Blade’s right hand pulsed with a rhythm that crept through the runes carved into the knife’s haft.

  “You know me,” Blade continued, his voice pulling Jason’s gaze back to his. “There should be no doubt in your mind that I will do as I say.”

  Blade paused, his glance traveling to where the finger still twitched with involuntary spasms on the floor. The unnatural motion amplified Jason’s revulsion for the enchanted knife at his throat.

  “Consider that a sign from your gods of what will happen to all you hold dear should you disappoint me,” said Blade. “Do I make myself understood?”

  Jason nodded vigorously as Blade’s eyes locked with his own. Although he was certain that Rafel’s daughter was indeed possessed, he was even more convinced that he now gazed directly into the icy orbs of the primordial itself.

  “Good. Get dressed and go gather the bishops. You have some talking to do. I’ll bring two horses into the courtyard and be waiting.”

  Jason fell from the bed as Blade released the iron grip that had held him. By the time he managed to struggle back to his knees, the assassin was gone.

  Wrapping a cloth around his injured hand, Jason rushed from his room.

  The bishops, alarmed by the bloody cloth, initially objected to his instructions, but he was adamant. The gods had revealed to him that Carol should be sent into exile from Areana’s Vale this very night. He had already arranged for Rafel to send Blade to accompany her and ensure that she did not return.

  So it was that they delivered the vacant-eyed woman, in her newly acquired white robes of purity, to the waiting killer on the ugly black horse. Having packed all her belongings, including her spell books, the priests secured them to the other horse.

  Thus, in the predawn darkness, Blade found himself riding slowly out of the majestic valley. Rafel awaited them at the upper fort’s drawbridge. Blade gently handed the unconscious Carol down to him and waited while the warlord rocked his daughter in his arms, smoothing her hair and kissing her on the cheeks and forehead as tears cascaded down his battle-scarred face.

  Eventually Rafel carried her back up to Blade, who was quietly crying as well. “Thank you.”

  That was all Rafel could say. He turned and yelled for the guards to lower the bridge. Two riders trotted out, one with two fully laden packhorses in tow.

  Blade paused while he secured the lead rope to the pack swivel of the other horse. The escort riders then trotted through the gate, giving instructions at the middle and lower forts to let them pass.

  And pass they did, out into the Great Forest, before turning in a wide southern loop up into the high Glacier Mountains to the east.

  PART III

  From across the great sea, he has come to end me.

  —From the Scroll of Landrel

  33

  Misty Hollow

  YOR 414, Early Autumn

  As Arn worked his way steadily higher, the pine forest thickened, and a spongy mat of pine needles deadened the sound of the horses’ hooves. By midmorning the first flakes of snow began to drift down through the still air, one landing on Carol’s nose as she slept. Her eyelids fluttered open as he watched, but she was still groggy from the drugs and had difficulty focusing, jerking in hi
s arms as she tried to orient herself.

  “I’ve got you, sweetheart,” Arn said, holding her gently but firmly. “You’re safe.”

  As she looked up at him, her eyes cleared. “Arn? But how? Where am I?”

  He smiled down at her. “I’m taking you where you won’t have to worry about hurting anybody, because only you and I will be there. I’ll tell you all the details, but for now you need to eat something while we take a lunch break. Can you stand if I set you down?”

  Carol paused. “I think so.”

  “I’ll hang on to your hand until you’re sure.”

  Arn lifted her gently from his lap in the saddle and leaned over to let Carol slide down Ax’s side until her feet touched the ground. For a moment he thought her legs would buckle, but she righted herself. He slipped out of the saddle to stand beside her. “If you feel strong enough to stand, I’ll tie up the horses and break out lunch for us.”

  “I can manage. I am starving. I can’t even remember the last time I ate, or much else for that matter. And if I don’t go find a bush to pee in immediately, you’ll have to start unpacking some clothes, too.”

  “Well, get to it then.”

  Arn found that Rafel had been his usual hyperefficient self in arranging for the supplies on the packhorses. There was tentage and bedding materials, warm clothes, lots of dried jerky, beans, flour, fishing lines, pots and pans, waterskins, and grain for the horses.

  And those were just the obvious things Arn saw as he examined the packs. He tied the animals to a tree, grabbed some dried jerky, a couple of biscuits, and a water jug, and went to meet Carol, who was making her way back from the privy of convenience.

  They sat together cross-legged on the ground and ate. Carol’s face clouded with worry.

  “Out with it,” Arn said. “What’s bothering you?”