Laren was both impressed and jealous—Bluebird had never answered to her whistle.
As they worked on Dale, the rest of her Riders, along with the soldiers, hemmed in the wraith. The wraith seemed unconcerned, but continued to stand there, neither engaging in a fight or acquiescing. Waiting.
Waiting for what?
Laren glanced where she had last seen the Eletian, but he was gone. She wondered where he went, why he didn’t provide them counsel regarding the wraith. Why would he shoot an arrow at Karigan, then shoot down the avian to save the rest of them?
All was silence, except for Dale’s weak moaning. Yates was working as swiftly as he could on her wounds, but she had lost a good deal of blood.
The silence was then shattered by cries issued from the other side of the breach. Not human cries, not quite animal, but ululating cries that stopped Laren’s heart.
Groundmites.
They leaped through the breach like a pack of feral dogs, snarling and howling. They bore thick branches as clubs, and wore no armor. They were more primitive, more feral, than the others she’d seen. Some wore hide coverings, but many wore nothing at all, except for their shaggy, mud-colored fur.
As they poured through the breach and swarmed past the wraith, Laren did the only reasonable thing she could do when faced with overwhelming odds: she called, “Retreat!”
Karigan clambered over the rubble in the breach and ran. She ran as she never had before, knowing she needed to reach the forest before Mornhavon overcame her entirely, and before he learned her true intent.
“Coward!” she cried at Mornhavon. She could feel the heat of his anger burning within her, then nothing. He left as though distracted. Distracted by other things he must attend to.
“Damnation,” she muttered. This wasn’t going exactly as she planned.
Her brooch stirred, so she knew at least Lil was still with her. The wild magic twisted violently in her arm, as if roused by its return to Blackveil.
Paying no attention to the spindly trees above or the muck underfoot, she continued to run, intent only on what she needed to accomplish.
Down! Lil commanded.
Karigan fell to the moist earth. An arrow sang overhead, and when she looked up, it had embedded itself into a tree trunk. White against black, it absorbed all the light in this gloomy place, and it glowed. Tree bark peeled off around it as though it had struck a mortal wound.
It was an Eletian arrow, from an Eletian who wanted her dead.
Seems to me the Eletians have gotten a bit wrong-headed of late, Lil said.
Karigan couldn’t agree more. “I think maybe it’s time for you to go. You’ll be listening for me?”
Truly, Lil said, and she left.
Karigan lay there, suddenly feeling very alone in the threatening environs of the forest.
And now there was something new to worry about.
Shapes emerged in the mist, and feet pounded the ground. Great hulking shapes that howled and screamed. Karigan threw her arms over her head and lay as flat as she could, hoping the groundmites would overlook her.
They’re going for the breach, she thought in dismay. They’re going to attack the Riders.
And quite suddenly, he was there again, in her mind. Yes, they’re going to annihilate your Riders.
“Lil!” Karigan cried, and she clasped her hand around her brooch, and there was nothing but the overwhelming blackness that was him, amid the squalling snow.
Distantly she heard the notes of the Rider call, and she felt herself carried away.
Lil didn’t think the gods would be pleased with her for bending the rules this way, but she had never been one to follow rules anyway. If she had, Mornhavon the Black and his forces would have overcome the League long ago.
And her reward? she thought with grim humor. This. Tangling with Mornhavon again. Mornhavon who should have been shattered and altogether dead, crawling tormented through all five hells for all eternity, or at least through the equivalent wrought by his empire’s own religion.
Instead, he had somehow survived through time, defying the gods. His body was gone, yes, but his conscious mind remained. He was as dangerous and warped as ever.
Lil walked through Blackveil, but in some distant time in the future. She had no way of telling how far she had come, really, but she hoped it would be far enough to win Sacoridia and its neighboring countries time to prepare to bring an end to Mornhavon the Black, once and for all.
The forest was still, the mist much lighter. In fact, she could discern healthy green growth poking through the black wilt and decay. It seemed that with time, the forest had begun to heal, and this gave her hope that what Karigan planned would actually succeed. Or had succeeded. Or . . . Time was too confusing.
Even as a spirit, Lil was not permitted to see beyond the veil of time, to know what the future would bring, unless like now, she defied the gods and visited.
Here she was, but still there was the unknowing. What would become of Karigan? Even if the plan was a success, there was a good chance the young woman’s life would be forfeited.
An acceptable risk. Lil had taken many risks herself, many for which she would have gladly laid down her life if it meant success. Yet, she had grown fond of the young woman, and knew what risks she had taken on her own behalf.
Defying the gods brought about a different kind of risk. Should she arouse Aeryc’s wrath, she might find herself dwelling in the hells as punishment. The dead just weren’t supposed to dally in the lives of the living. At least, not to this extent.
So she waited, fingering her brooch, waiting for an indication from Karigan to pull her through time. It was an audacious plan: Karigan would become the vessel that would carry Mornhavon to the future, and leave him there. That was how the Sacoridians would gain the time to prepare to deal with the menace. It was an imperfect plan. It might not work at all. She might be a hundred years in the future, or one, which would be of no use at all.