Pilgrimage of the Sacred and the Profane (13 page)

“At any rate, let’s go,” Clay said, raking the fingers of one hand through his hair.
Grains of sand rained noisily to the ground. “This trip’s just about bored the hell
out of me. I need me a bit of stimulation, I think.”

No one had any objections, and there was little else they could do. Tae began walking
again. With nothing to stop them, the party followed along after her into the vast
forest. As they entered the shade, cool air swept over every inch of them. They suddenly
stopped sweating. Granny shivered.

Tae continued between the boles and their endless verdant riot, her steps free from
trepidation. It was obvious she was under someone else’s control. The only sound the
party heard was that of grass and dirt under hooves—absent were the songs of the birds
and the chirping of the insects. Apparently, nothing lived in this forest save the
trees.

“Hey, sodbuster,” Clay called out. “This is a hell of a place we find ourselves. You
happen to know what kind of trees these are?”

“Pretty much.”

“Well, I feel so much better then,” the warrior said, his explosion of laughter coursing
out between the trees and then disappearing. But Clay soon clammed up.

“This is a psi attack, right?” Granny asked.

“No,” D replied, never taking his eyes off Tae. “This is the real thing. But it’s
definitely under the desert’s control.”

“What in the blue blazes does it want with us anyway?” Granny said irritably, and
then she quickly looked up.

Lance, who’d been straining his ears, had clapped his hands together. “That sounds
like . . . water!” he exclaimed.

“Seems this confounded desert might be good for something after all,” said the old
woman.

“Only because it has to keep us alive,” D remarked.

“With that kind of thinking, you’re not cut out for anything but Hunting.”

D looked up. The colossal branches overlapped above them, forming a dense canopy.
The reason it remained bright despite the fact that sunlight couldn’t get through
was because bioluminescent fungi clung to the bark of the trees.

“There’s something out there,” Clay muttered.

“You’re right,” Granny said. “I can feel it. There are a lot of them, too. I just
can’t tell where they’re coming from.”

“I’m sure we’ll know soon enough,” Clay said, putting his right hand on his harp.

After they’d gone on for five minutes, the sound of water was even more obvious to
their ears. Another ten minutes passed, and suddenly a waterfall and pool appeared
before them. The silvery ribbon of water dropped straight down from a height of thirty
or forty feet.

“This is nice! I’m gonna have me a swim.”

But just as Clay made that carefree remark, Tae thudded to her knees ahead of them.
Strength draining from her body, she collapsed on her side.

Leaping down from her vehicle, Granny raced over to the girl.

“Is she okay?” Lance asked as he jumped to the ground, too.

D and Clay alone gazed at the dark blue waters that reflected the greenery.

“Doesn’t seem to be anything here,” Clay said after a while.

Without a word, D rode his horse over to the edge of the lagoon. He didn’t so much
as glance at Tae or the other two with her. His left index finger went to his mouth.
When it quickly came away again, a bright red bead welled from the tip of it. Turning
his finger toward the ground, he pressed his thumb against it right next to the bloody
bead. A drop of scarlet fell between the waves lapping at the shore, and then vanished
in the blink of an eye. Watching the placid surface for a while, D then said, “Looks
like you can swim here.”

Choosing a flat spot near the water, the group set up camp. By the time Lance finished
taking care of the water tank, it was evening. But that only applied to the world
outside the forest—D and his companions were still surrounded by the glow of the luminescent
fungi.

“That looks like the end of our water woes,” Granny said with a satisfied nod when
she returned to the driver’s seat from an inspection of the tank.

Sitting by the campfire gobbling down the contents of a can of food, Clay remarked,
“Sure, but the long and short of it is, we ain’t getting out of here till we put this
desert down once and for all. We gotta do something fast. Where’s the thing’s heart,
anyway?”

“If we knew that, we wouldn’t be busting our humps,” Granny replied in a bitter tone
as she glanced out of the corner of her eye at D, who reclined against a rock some
ten or so feet away.

“What’d you do with Tae?” Clay asked as he looked all around.

“She’s in the wagon with Lance.”

“Again? You’re playing with fire there.”

“You needn’t trouble yourself about it. I’m sure he won’t let his guard down this
time.”

“I’ll take the next shift from him,” said the warrior.

“Let the wolf watch the sheep? Don’t make me laugh.”

“A wolf, am I? That guy’s a hundred times more dangerous than me,” Clay shot back,
his eyes creeping over to D in the shade of a rock.

“That one’s had a different upbringing from you. Got a better character, too.”

“He’s a dhampir. He’s bound to get thirsty for blood sooner or later.”

“If he does, I suppose I’ll just have to chalk it up to bad luck,” Granny replied.

“Have it your way then,” the warrior said. Clay then hit the outer wall of the wagon
with his ridiculously large fist. “Hey! Come out here a minute. I gotta have a word
with you.”

Both Lance and Tae stuck their heads out.

“My business is with the man of the wagon,” Clay said. “I thought we could take a
little stroll and chew the fat.”

“What, with me?” Lance asked, his eyes wide.

“You got a problem with that?”

“No.”

“Then leave the dhampir to watch the women and come with me.”

“Don’t you hurt him,” Tae cried. “He was only looking after me.”

“Relax, missy. I might not look it, but in warrior circles, I’m known as something
of a gentleman,” Clay said with a smirk as he tossed his jaw in Lance’s direction.

“D! Granny! Stop him!”

“Let ’em be,” Granny said with a wink. “When men get to quarreling, this is the only
way to put an end to it. Now you stop for a minute and think about what it means if
a couple of boys are ready to throw down over you. And once you’re done doing that,
get back to your sewing.”

“D,” Tae called out, her last hope bound to his name. But then she realized that her
expectation wouldn’t be met. There was no sign of the gorgeous youth in black anywhere.

“He’s probably off checking out the area,” remarked the old woman.

Now down on the ground, Tae could be heard to say, “I . . . I’ll go look for him!”

“Now, just hold on!” Granny cried at the slender back of the girl dashing off toward
the rocks. The crone reached for the jar on her hip, but stopped in mid-motion. “Ah,
to blazes with it!” she said to herself. “She’s at that age, after all.” And then
she turned to the two men with great dissatisfaction and said, “Unless the two of
you are trying to see who can be the world’s biggest idiot, you’ll knock this off
right now.”

.

Going to the side of the rock, Tae looked toward the forest. Between the green leaves,
a figure in black could be seen in the distance.

“Wait!” she cried out, and just as she did, the black shape melted into the forest.
Before she could even think about turning back, her body was moving forward. As she
ran, she called out, “D!”

Stopping where D had disappeared, she looked all around. Twenty or thirty feet off
to her left there was a section of open ground, and D stood in the center of the nearly
circular clearing.

“D!” the girl cried out. She was about to dash over to him when a low command sharp
as a blade stopped her.

“Hide.”

Frantically, the girl ducked behind a tree. D had become a statue. Though she strained
her eyes, Tae could see nothing around them; perhaps only D knew what it was. At just
that moment, something black bobbed up over D’s head. Looking at it from a logical
standpoint, the object dropping from above with incredible speed had probably slowed
its descent at the end to lessen the shock of impact, but to Tae it seemed to just
pop up instead. The slight glint the girl saw was like a blow to her heart.

“D!”

The flash of silver that flew up from the ground forced the girl’s cry back down her
throat. Cut in half around its middle, the dark figure thudded to the ground at D’s
feet. It was a stark-naked human. However, the hands that grasped something metallic
and the legs were abnormally long, reminiscent of a spider. As similar forms dropped
from above one after another, Tae gasped.

D’s longsword flashed out, and those it touched fell to the ground dead. A trio of
figures that’d landed out of reach of the blade took to the air. They had incredible
leaping power, but that was all they had a chance to show. Without time to use the
weapons they had in their hands, they were split in half by the arc of the longsword.
D moved lightly. A bloody mist billowed toward him, skimming by his body before it
hit the ground.

At some point, enough spider people had descended that their milling shapes blotted
out the darkness. If they came at D en masse, even he wouldn’t be able to stop all
of them at the same time. Perhaps realizing as much, the figures creeping across the
ground crouched as one. Before they could advance, they stopped suddenly. A horrifying
aura had paralyzed them all—an aura which emanated from D.

“Heading back?” Tae heard the Hunter ask in the same steely tone as always.

The spiders scurried into action. They seemed relieved. For some reason, Tae felt
relieved, too.