The Northern Approach (41 page)

Across the village, the massive group of undead Estin had seen earlier was just returning from the woods—something he would have to thank Dalania for later, given that many appeared to be covered with fresh blood from the animals she had sent. From what he could see, Raeln still hung at the edge of the woods, though Estin could not be certain if he was alive. The others would not be visible until he came around the stable. His biggest immediate concern was not knowing where the Turessian was hiding.

Feanne led the way toward the undead, leaping as she neared them, coming down with both feet and hands on the first zombie that turned. She tore into the creature with her claws, diving from one corpse to the next in a frenzy of violence that terrified Estin to watch. There was no finesse, no forethought, not even the simplest use of magic. Feanne was an animal, striking at other creatures she considered her enemies without consideration of her own safety. He had seen her reckless and wild, but this was something else entirely. She had no idea how to fight other than what her instincts told her to do.

It took Estin a few extra seconds to reach the zombies, but he led with one of his swords, taking off part of the first corpse’s head. Reacting to movement in his peripheral vision, he turned and slashed across the neck of another with his other sword, nearly cleaving its head from its shoulders. He continued to dodge and strike, moving farther into the mass of rotting corpses. As his momentum slowed, his attacks became less effective, his muscles already too tired to put enough force behind the blades.

So close to the mass of zombies, Estin managed to get a clearer glimpse of Raeln, who was still struggling against the rope. He appeared not to have had the noose pulled any tighter since Estin had last seen him, but his eyes were rolled back and he was barely moving. Had Estin taken much longer, the man would have been dead for sure. Again, something he would blame himself for later, if he survived that long. Any losses they suffered would be on him.

Evading the zombies as they attempted to grab at him, Estin dove and ran, trying to get a clear path to Raeln. That seemingly simple task became more difficult with each of the undead that turned, groaning and stumbling toward him to block his path. At last a gap opened between Estin and Raeln. Dropping one of his swords, Estin pointed at the rope, summoned a small shred of magic, and wrapped tendrils of invisible energy around the rope. With a dismissive sweep of his hand, he snapped the energy taught and severed the rope, though in doing so, Estin pushed himself well past his limits after the earlier use of magic. Dizziness and nausea overtook him as the spell completed, and he only barely noticed Raeln fall to the ground as he himself collapsed, vomiting despite his empty stomach.

Estin had barely hit the ground before the undead were on him, rotted hands grabbing at his clothing and fur, dragging him to the ground. Half a dozen bodies piled atop him as jagged teeth tore into his shoulder and leg. Within seconds his remaining weapon was pulled away, and he could not get his feet under him as agonizing wounds were torn into his flesh by the undead. Still the urge to keep vomiting made it difficult to even try to fight back.

“Stop,” said a woman, and the undead mauling Estin stopped trying to kill him and instead held him in place as though frozen. He could not move and he could feel blood flowing from dozens of deep bites. One particular zombie still had its teeth deep in his shoulder, but he could not free himself.

Booted feet came up in front of Estin, though he could not look up from where he lay, thanks to a corpse’s filthy hand planted on his head. A second later, the speaker sat down in front of him, bending over so she could look him in the face. Her deep hood cast a shadow over Estin, and he could easily see her tattoos and recognized her as the same Turessian woman from Pholithia.

“You arrived before I had even begun to work,” she told him, slowly lying down so her face was even with his. Smiling childishly, she added, “Your wolf is going to die, but I had hoped to have his screams call you back. I believe I can make him linger for a full day yet. Won’t that be fun?”

“Just kill us and call it a day,” Estin growled at her, trying to shift enough to see Feanne or Dalania. He could hear Feanne still fighting somewhere nearby, but the fae-kin woman was nowhere he could see.

“Kill you? I suppose that will come in time. For now you will suffer and beg for mercy that I will not give you. Do you know why?”

“Because you enjoy hearing yourself talk?”

The zombies holding Estin tightened their grip until he could barely breathe under their weight.

The woman smiled prettily. “No, that is something that comes with centuries talking to oneself. Your death was requested by my master, Dorralt, though he meant it for any of your kind. He truly despises your people…especially those with black and white fur. It’s irrational, I know, but what he wishes will happen, and I have a certain fondness for obeying in this.

“As for why I will torture you,” she went on, her teeth gleaming in the setting sunlight. “You killed some friends of mine, out in that valley your people squatted in. Good fellows, really, plus the girl-child. My understanding is that they fell into one of those glowing clouds. Awful way to go, if you ask me. The least I can do is ensure you suffer more than they did. You are the only living mortal I know of to survive the mists, so I wish to disembowel you to ensure this does not become an easy way for others to escape our rule.”

The Turessian made a curt gesture and the zombies yanked Estin upright, maintaining their vicelike grip on him to keep him from running. From that position, he could see Yoska and On’esquin, both tied to the stable’s beams with a net. From what Estin could see, the net had been knotted and padlocked behind them. Yoska appeared to be unconscious, but On’esquin watched him nervously.

“You are getting quite the reputation,” the woman said. “You and the fox over there, who seems enthralled by tearing apart one of my creations. I recognize her from the memories of another member of my clan. How the two of you could have caused so much trouble locally, I will never understand, given how incompetent you have proved yourself to be and how uncontrolled she is.

“But, before you start feeling special, I’ll have you know there are others all over the lands of Eldvar trying to do the same thing…though you are the first to have the traitor leading you. We have no choice but to hunt all of you down and kill you. Anyone exceptional is put down…wildlings and orcs first, for personal reasons, of course.”

“Why chase us down if we’re so insignificant?” Estin asked, straining against the zombies but managing to move only slightly. “Go rule over your conquests.”

The Turessian laughed again, shaking her head. “Dorralt gives us each lands to conquer and rule over, if we are able. He lets us do whatever we want with the people there, shaping the lands in our image. We could kill them all or spare every life. That is our choice.

“I was not assigned a land, wildling. My duty is to cross all of those nations, hunting down your kind for my master. Each time I do, he reveals more to me that the others will never know. I will be the general of his armies into this next age because I do what he desires, rather than only what serves my own interests. The others fail because they only needed to know enough to rule over their chosen lands, but I was given access to enough of the whole family’s strength to fight as a champion of our master.”

Becoming frantic, knowing his life could end at any second, Estin hooked his tail onto the legs of one of the zombies holding him. With a yank, he knocked that undead down, loosening the grip of several others that it fell onto. Before they could recover, Estin threw himself forward into a roll, breaking free of the rest, but as he tried to come up onto his feet, the Turessian’s boot connected with his side, knocked the air from his lungs, and hurled him into the side of the stable.

With his ribs aching and making it difficult to breathe properly, Estin rolled onto his stomach and used the wall of the stable to pull himself upright. He had barely gotten onto his feet when the woman reached him, grabbed the scruff of his neck, and used that leverage to slam him face-first into the wall of the stable.

Bursts of light swam in Estin’s vision, though he could tell he was moving, even if it was not under his own power. He struggled to right himself, trying to find where Feanne was and whether she had been able to flee to safety. It took him a few seconds to be able to see anything but the spinning of the world around him, but then he realized he was being dragged into the stable.

Estin pulled at the hand holding him, trying to make the woman release him, but she would not budge. He kept struggling right up until she brought him to the stable wall opposite Yoska and On’esquin and raised her palm toward him. An invisible force slammed into Estin’s chest and pinned him to the wall as effectively as any rope ever could, as an endless stream of wind pressed against him. He could gasp for breath but do little else, so long as the Turessian kept her spell active.

Yoska was still unconscious—or pretending to be, Estin reminded himself—and On’esquin gave Estin a look that said, “Sorry to see you here too,” but kept his mouth shut. Estin knew that mindset…the orc intended to watch him die to deny the Turessian even the smallest bit of information. In his place Estin hoped he could have done the same.

From where he stood, Estin had a decent view of the open space between the stable and the woods where the bodies of his parents were. He and Feanne had done some serious damage, with nearly twenty zombies torn apart badly enough that they could no longer stand. For her part Feanne continued to fight, heedless of Estin having been caught. He occasionally saw her fur in the mass of zombies, trying to keep out of their reach while gleefully tearing at them.

Farther up the rise into the woods, Raeln lay on the ground, struggling to stand with his hands still shackled behind his back. The man had been hurt worse than Estin had expected and would be no help in escaping. From what Estin could see, Raeln could not even manage to sit up, let alone run or fight. Taking aim at the noose had been a waste of Estin’s meager strength.

“This is all you could muster for your army, traitor?” asked the Turessian, motioning toward Feanne and laughing. “One rabid fox, a large but frail wolf, whatever this one is, and an old gypsy? I truly am disappointed. Dorralt spoke of you like you were going to be trouble. I expected legions of soldiers, trained and ready to stand in our way. Even the cities put up more of a fight than you and yours. I have waited for generations to fight you and it all ends in less than a day?”

A shadow passed overhead, making the Turessian woman pause and look around. A second later an enormous bird—larger than most cows Estin had ever seen—swooped low and snatched eight zombies from near Feanne before rising back into the sky. Once it was over the woods, it dropped the flailing undead far from the village.

“That was…odd,” the woman said, blinking as she watched the bird flying fast toward the mountains. “I cannot say that has happened to me before.”

The woman walked toward Feanne but did not make it to her before a large group of deer came stampeding out of the woods, racing straight through the group of undead. Dozens were trampled as they tried to grab at the fast-moving animals, with many more gored badly by the antlered males that led the group. Like the bird, they raced through and kept going on the far side, leaving many undead too broken to stand.

Half-crouched and covering her face, the Turessian slowly stood again as the deer departed. She hesitated a long time, looking around for what might come next.

Estin knew exactly what was happening and smiled grimly. He had seen Dalania use her magic during the attack on their camp and this had all the markings of her particular style, especially from what Dalania had said she was doing to stall earlier. The woman was afraid of direct confrontation and preferred to attack from afar, often calling woodland creatures to strike. Like Feanne, Dalania’s powers came from the woods and often took the form of something from there. Wherever the woman was, she was helping far more than Estin had initially thought. All was not quite lost, though he had his doubts about how much Dalania might be able to do to swing the tide.

Straining against the magical winds that held him to the wall of the stable, Estin found he could move his head, arms, and legs, but any attempt to slide sideways or otherwise move his body met more resistance from the winds. If he had not exhausted himself mentally, he was certain he could have unraveled the spell in time, but each time he tried to reach out with his magic to fight it, he felt nauseous and could not pull anything together into usable magic.

The Turessian surveyed her remaining undead—only about thirty were still standing, with another ten trying to get up. She shook her head and then moved toward Raeln, avoiding Feanne entirely. As focused as Feanne was on ripping apart the two zombies she was fighting, she never so much as looked at the Turessian.