Dockalfar (63 page)

The spriggan stared at the human, at the Ciagenii, and wished desperately he were elsewhere. He wished desperately he had never set foot in Azeral’s lands half a millennia ago and become enslaved to that harsh master. Rather the boring life of a home under the roots of a tree with a nagging wife and a clutch of nagging, bawling kits to plague him.

“Do you want to wait for them to find us?” the human reminded him. Bashru cursed fate under his breath and gingerly put hands on the assassin.

Dusk moved suddenly, as the spriggan’s rough hands closed over his shoulders. The Ciagenii jerked as though suddenly and rudely awakened, rolling away from the grasping fingers. Bashru stepped back, having no desire to find himself the recipient of a startled Ciagenii reflex. The assassin stared at him with dark, dazed eyes, propped on one shaky elbow. Bashru held up his hands, palms out, to demonstrate his harmlessness. The human was none so careful. He cursed from his mounted position, swung down suddenly and crouched before Dusk. He put hands roughly on the ragged folds of cloak at the assassin’s throat, pulling him up eye to eye.

“Can you stay on a horse?” Alex asked. Dusk stared at him in incomprehension. Frustrated, the human shook the dark sidhe. Bashru sucked air through his sharp, yellowed teeth, but the assassin did nothing more than look more addled, head lolling forward as he lost strength to hold it upright. The spriggan had heard rumors… very nasty rumors.

Alex cast Bashru a glare, got an arm under Dusk’s shoulders and hefted him up.

“Help me. He can’t ride.”

Bashru hesitated, then helped the human maneuver the unresisting sidhe onto the nighthorse.

~~~

The rain started as a fine mist. It came down through the sheltering foliage and gently covered skin and clothes with a thin layer of water. The first crack of thunder in the far distance prophesied that it was destined to become much worse.

Alex’s back hurt like hell and the damp clothing was not making the situation any more bearable. They rode through dense forest growth on a path Alex’s internal sense of direction insisted was not due east. Bashru asked him irritably if he wanted the hunt to find them when he inquired. He went over his options on what he might do to make the spriggan’s ride as uncomfortable as possible when there was no further explanation. Bashru might have sensed the malevolence being directed towards him for he finally conceded that he was taking them further north than an easy path dictated in hopes of avoiding any search, or worse yet the progression of the ogre troops towards the vale. Alex accepted that.

It was fully dark when Dusk came to his senses. One moment, Alex was riding with the full weight against him and the next he had an elbow in his gut and nothing but air before him. He let out a cry to warn the spriggan and risked the small magic of fey lights. But there was nothing.

Nothing but vine covered ground and bramble infested trees. He cursed, wiping wet hair out of his eyes and turned his mount around in desperation. Damned chameleon.

“God damn it, Dusk!” he shouted to the woods in general. “Don’t make me come after you.” That was bravado speaking, for he knew if Dusk was good enough to vanish like that, he was probably good enough to practice a few of his more mundane assassination skills.

“Where is he at?” he called to the spriggan.

“How in Annwn am I supposed to know?” Bashru cried back in alarm.

Alex flung out an arm of magic, regardless of who might be looking for just such a sign. He caught scent of the mind he wanted easily. Too easily. Dusk had no defenses against magic, not the first one. The spriggan was a fortress of mental power compared to the assassin.

Confusion, fear, pain. Alex picked it all up in an instant and with an ungentle slash, cut off all the mind’s impulses in regards to physical action. It worked. He knew it worked. He felt the utter frustration. He swung down off the horse and stalked into the wood. Bashru followed uncertainly, his dagger drawn.

Alex ignored him. Alex was fighting off the rage. Forcing it down to mere anger.

The fey lights followed him.

He found Dusk. Unerringly found Dusk who stood immobile and trembling with his back to Alex. Alex caught him by the shoulder and spun him around. Unable to catch himself, the assassin lost balance and hit ground. Alex stepped back from him, glaring, trembling himself. He released the hold and whispered.

“Get up.”

The assassin tentatively moved his limbs, then with wariness in his every move climbed to his feet. He was unsteady. Abominably so, considering what a creature of grace he had been. He wavered, looking between Alex and Bashru with suspicion. He clutched his cloak about himself as if it were his only defense.

“Don’t fuck with me,” Alex whispered. “I am most definitely not in a frame of mind for it and you’re in no position to do it.”

Dusk just stared at him. His left eye had already lost its swelling and the cuts were healing fast. Sidhe metabolism made quick work of minor injuries. Alex wanted to hit him. Wanted to beat that look of speculation out of his eyes. Wanted to kill the pride that would not allow the assassin to buckle under the pain or the degradation he had been through.

“You thinking of taking me out? Think you still can? Probably,” he answered himself in a purr. “You’re probably still damned good. Probably take out both of us even in the shape you’re in.”

He heard Bashru shift nervously behind him. Ignored that. Walked up to Dusk without the benefit of incapacitating magic and draped an arm around his shoulder. The cloak was soaked through and the assassin was trembling. The chin went up though, and the eyes, golden in the fey light, glittered at the indignity.

Alex moved his other hand and dug for the pendant, pulled it over his head and let it hang, suspended before Dusk’s eyes. Its dark, rune covered surface cast off a odd glow from the fey lights. The assassin’s eyes were cemented to it. The whole of him went rigid.

“That’s right,” Alex said softly, for Dusk’s ears alone. “You know what this is. It’s not Azeral’s any more. It’s mine. Do you understand?” He clenched his arm about Dusk and the assassin winced, looking up past the pendant to meet his eyes. No more speculation, just plain shock.

Carefully he lowered the barriers he had set up between himself and that alien entity. That foreign soul. He wrapped his mental fingers about it and squeezed.

“I understand,” Dusk said, quickly, quietly. Alex closed the barriers again, shuddering. No matter what he picked up from Dusk’s physical mind, the soul mind always projected the same thing. Misery.

Disembodied and lost.

“Good.” Alex released him. He whirled and started back towards his mount. The spriggan stayed rooted to the spot he had stood during the entire exchange, jaw somewhat slack, eyes wide in disbelief. The assassin was quicker to follow. Alex cast a glare back to him and asked irritably, “Are you coming?”

The spriggan’s wide eyed look turned to one of a fouler disposition. He shambled through the underbrush after the assassin who was picking his way with more care. Alex stood waiting between the horses, staring levelly at Dusk.

“If you can pull a stunt like that you can damn sure ride.”

The assassin merely nodded, went to the animal Alex indicated and paused at its side, as though gathering the strength to mount. Alex honestly didn’t think he could do it. There was pain there, under the surface and a weakness that Dusk hid well. Desperation and adrenaline had carried him this far.

“Help him,” he told Bashru. The spriggan glowered but went over to give the assassin a hand nonetheless. Dusk was not so obedient. He cast a glare over his shoulder at the spriggan when the little man made to lay hands on him. Bashru backed off, muttering under his breath.

With an effort of will the assassin pulled himself up onto the saddle and afterwards bent over the pommel, face lost in a fall of wet hair.

For the next several hours, Alex’s concentration was pushed to the maximum.

He kept as much of a shield as he dared around them in hopes of warding off casual surveillance and at the same time establishing a light hold on Dusk, in no wise trusting the assassin’s loyalty to the bearer of his soul. But Dusk showed no signs of further flight. Dusk did little more than ride with his head lowered and his cloak pulled about him in the useless effort to keep out the hard falling rain.

Alex had given up the fight hours ago. He was going to be soaked and that was that.

Exhaustion finally forced him to loose the hold on Dusk. It was the lesser of two evils. The shield had to be maintained.

Bashru, after a while, urged his horse close to Alex’s. The spriggan leaned towards him conspiratorially and whispered.

“What was that?”

“What was what?”

“What you have around your neck that had the assassin all but cowering?”

Alex arched a brow. “Was he?”

Bashru hissed in irritation. “Damn near. What is it?”

“None of your business.”

~~~

They were forced by sheer exhaustion to make camp. The closest thing to shelter they could find was the hollowed trunk of a great tree. Fire was an impossibility, even with power. The wood was so soaked that no spark, even a magic one, would do more than quickly fizzle out.

The most they could do was huddle in the spongy shallow depression while the horses shivered and tolerated the weather outside it, heavy equine bodies somewhat of a shield against the driving force of the wind.

Bashru miserly passed out sticks of jerky he had packed in his provisioning and crouched as far away from the other two as he could. Dusk was furthest back in the cubby, curled against the rotting bark in misery. Alex thought about just putting him out for the remainder of the night, suspicious of a sidhe with Dusk’s skill not to just spirit himself away once Alex drifted to sleep. Even crowded and blocked in as he was. Reason told him not to squander his resources. Even battered and tired as he was, Dusk likely had a better sense for trouble than either the spriggan or him. And he wanted to be back in the Unseelies’ clutches less than Alex did.

He stared out into the darkness, letting stray drops of rain spatter his face.

With a sullen thoughtfulness he posed the question. “How does it feel not to have the power to destroy souls?”

He felt rather than saw the spriggan perk up. From Dusk there was nothing. He knew the assassin was awake. “What was it you could do? Know every living creature’s one deadly weakness? I’ve seen you fight… kill… you did it reflexively. Do you even notice it’s gone? Did you feel it go… or were you too busy feeling her?”

Nothing from Dusk. Alex bit his lip in frustration and tasted blood. Was supremely glad of the night and the rain because he thought tears were leaking from his eyes. Damn them for bringing him to this. Damn Azeral and his siren daughter. Damn the pitiful creature huddling behind him. Damn Victoria for making him hurt so much for something that was not his fault. Damn it, it was not his fault!

He slept. God only knew how, with his emotions as riled as they were and the rain an unrelenting torment. Daylight woke him. He moved and mud made a suckling sound around him. Mud made of leaves and rotting wood that smelled of mold and fungus and clung repulsively to his clothing. The horses stood close, shifting uncomfortably, misery showing in their not so equine eyes. He reached out and patted a wet muscular leg in sympathy.

The animal snorted softly at the touch and lowered its great head to stare at him accusingly.

The spriggan was gone. It took a moment for that to sink in and for him to collect his wits enough to swing his gaze around towards the assassin. Dusk at least was still in place, curled fetally under his cloak with nothing more than a tangle of half dried hair visible. Alex dismissed him for the moment and looked out under horse bellies at the forest beyond. Three sets of legs sliced his view. Bashru, where ever he had gone, had not ridden.

Using the knobby trunk for leverage, Alex pushed himself up. Joints and muscles screamed in complaint. After a day’s ride in wet weather and a night spent crammed into a tree hollow he was in no shape to be doing anything in a hurry. His awkward movements stirred the assassin.

“Bashru’s gone,” he remarked in disgust, not expecting a response.

Surprisingly enough he got one.

“No. He’s not.” No more than a whisper. He swung around to stare at Dusk, then back towards the forest at the snap of a wet branch. The spriggan was picking his way towards the tree, several rodent like shapes strung over his shoulder. He had a rather pleased expression on his craggy, misshapen face.

“Supper,” the spriggan announced in almost good cheer. “Rain flooded their burrows, forced ‘em to the open.”

“It’s good for something then,” Alex grumbled. “How’re we gonna cook them?”

“Raw’s best,” Bashru assured him.

Alex declined to comment. He cast a sour look at the dripping leafy canvas. “When’s it gonna stop?” Another rhetorical question. No one answered this one.

Dusk was crawling out of the cubby, knees deep in muck. He made an effort to gain his feet, stopped halfway, one arm clutching his middle, a small grunt of pain escaping him. Alex put a hand under his elbow and helped him up and got a surprised look for the effort. Was a little surprised himself, because for a moment there, he had felt concern. It was hard as hell to wish pain on something so closely linked with his own soul. Damn hard.

“What?” he asked. “The lashing?” He figured if it was mere discomfort they could live with it, if it was something worse, then it might very well impede hard travel. The assassin shook his head, murmuring that it was nothing. Alex gauged him for a moment, then casually elbowed the side he was clutching as he moved past him towards the horses. The assassin gasped in pain and his knees buckled. Alex caught him before he hit the ground, backed him up against the tree and gave him a narrow glare. “Nothing?”

He pushed aside the cloak and pried Dusk’s hand from his side. The worst of the lashing and the burns were beginning to heal, some of them fading already. What was new, was a violent black and red bruise twice the width of Alex’s splayed hand covering the ribs of Dusk’s left side.