Marked for Death

Chapter 21

Kandler and Burch rode hard through the black waters of the ford. The tar-colored liquid seemed to pull at their horses’ legs, but they spurred the beasts on and won their way through. Once across the river, they turned north and headed up the valley.

The two friends galloped along in silence, giving the horses their head. As their mounts began to tire, they slowed to a trot.

“Still got the trail, Burch?” Kandler asked.

The shifter nodded. “Like following a herd of hammertails.”

Kandler looked sidelong at his friend. “What do you know about the big lizards?”

Burch paid no attention to Kandler’s surprise. The justicar knew the shifter enjoyed these rare moments but would never admit it to him. “Scouted the Talenta Plains five years back. Rode with the little people.”

“The halflings? On those clawfeet?”

“Clawfoots. Good mounts. Not fast as these, but bigger teeth.”

The two trotted on for a moment. “You always manage to amaze me,” Kandler said.

Burch said nothing for a while, and they put a good two miles behind them. Finally, Burch spoke. “I’m thinking, right?”

Kandler glanced at him, then back at the trail. “What’s on your mind?” he said as evenly as he could. He recognized Burch’s tone. He took it when he wanted to bring up something Kandler wouldn’t like.

Burch wrinkled his broad, tanned forehead. “Those knights. We could use their swords.”

Kandler nodded. He knew what the shifter wanted to say, but he didn’t agree. “We could use the swords, but they could be hours digging a grave and praying. Hours.. And every minute Esprл is farther away. We’ll do all right without them. Did you see how those warforged mangled them? They’d just get in our way.”

“That old knight saved your skin.”

“You’d have done the same for me.”

Burch looked up at Kandler on his taller horse and nodded. “True enough. Then we’d be even up.”

“I thought I had two on you these days.”

“Forget about that siren?”

Kandler laughed. “She wasn’t going to kill me.”

“She’d have had you first, then killed you.” Burch smiled. “Like a spider.”

“There are worse ways to go.” Kandler said. They both laughed at that, and for a moment the Mournland didn’t seem like such an awful place.

The sensation didn’t last. As the two rode, the sky grew a darker shade of gray. The lightning in the distance grew closer.

“That a real storm?” Kandler asked.

Burch shaded his eyes and squinted at it. “Looks like it’s on the ground.”

“Think it’s a living spell?”

“Chain lightning like that isn’t natural. Got to be a spell. Might be hunting.”

“What does a spell eat?” Kandler tossed it out as a rhetorical question. He should have known that Burch would tackle it. The shifter seemed to have an answer for everything. He didn’t talk much, but that’s because he was always thinking. When he did speak, you knew he meant it, that he’d given the matter due consideration. Kandler liked that.

“It doesn’t eat. It… zaps.”

“What?”

“Everything has a reason to live. A living spell like that lives to be cast, over and over. A living lightning spell zaps.”

Kandler thought about that for a moment. A notion sprang into his head that he could not get rid of. “Think it might zap Esprл?” he said.

Burch cracked his neck. “It’ll zap the changeling first.”

Kandler frowned. “Let’s hope so.” He spurred his steed on faster, and Burch pushed his mount to match his stride for stride.

Darkness closed in on the two hunters. Soon after, Burch reined his horse to a halt. “Can’t see the trail,” he said as Kandler’s horse stopped beside his. “Don’t want to lose it.”

“We can break out an everbright lantern,” Kandler said. He steered his horse around Burch’s pony and kept riding.

Burch urged his horse to trot after him. “Not good enough,” he said. “I can’t see the trail from my saddle.”

Kandler wasn’t ready to stop. “Then we can walk.”

Burch kept at the justicar. “The torch’ll show the way. But the light’ll make a good target. Those vampires can see us, and we can’t see them. I don’t like it.”

Kandler spat on the ground. “Esprл’s still out there,” he said. “We can’t leave her with them for another night.”

Burch rode alongside Kandler for minutes in silence. The land grew darker by the moment. Soon, all the two could see was a sky that was just a shade less black than the valley floor. The living lightning wandered off behind a bend in the distance and robbed them of even that occasional flash to break the monotony.

“All right,” Kandler said. He felt sick that they hadn’t caught up to Esprл yet, but he knew they wouldn’t do her any good dead. “You’re right. Let’s make camp.”

The two dismounted. Kandler pulled out a capped ever-bright lantern from his saddlebag and removed the top. The heatless flames trapped inside leaped to life once again. “Let’s be quick about it,” he said. “Anyone within a mile can probably see this thing.”

Burch found them a flat patch of ground within a minute, and the two unpacked their sleeping rolls with the ease from long hours working together. Once they were settled, Kandler capped the torch again and set it down beside his bedroll.

“Your turn to get dinner?” Kandler said.

“Can you see past your nose?” Burch asked with a laugh.

“No.”

“Then it must be my turn.”

Kandler heard Burch rummaging around in his saddlebags for a moment, then the shifter handed the justicar some cheese and cured meat. The two munched on their cold meal in silence and sipped from their waterskins.

“Think the knights know not to drink the water here?” Kandler asked. He was starting to regret leaving the others behind. It had been a rash act, a gamble that they might be able to catch up with Esprл before dark, and it had not paid off.

“Think I care?” Burch laughed. A moment later, the shifter added, “They’re not that dumb.”

“I hope so,” Kandler said. As the words left him, he found he really did.

The two finished their meal. Burch cleaned up and packed away the scraps.

“Do you have to do that?” Kandler asked.

“Don’t want to attract animals.” Burch kept scuffling around in the dark.

“Are there any out here? I haven’t seen any.”

“Never know,” said Burch. “Better safe than sorry. Besides, it could be worse.”

“Worse than what?”

“Animals.”

Kandler thought about that for a moment. “Good point. Good night.”

“Night.”

Burch took the first watch as he always did. The shifter liked to claim he was nocturnal, and that usually suited Kandler fine. Burch’s eyes worked much better in the dark, and at the end of the day Kandler was often too tired to argue.

Kandler tried to sleep but couldn’t. The air was so still and the sky so black that he could almost convince himself he was sleeping back in his house in Mardakine. The ground was only a bit harder than his bed.

He wanted to get out of his bed and check on Esprл. He hadn’t done that much since the end of the War. For the first two years after Esprina died, Kandler had checked on Esprл almost every night. He tiptoed into her room and stood there watching her until he was sure he could hear her breathing. One night Esprл had woken and screamed. Kandler stopped coming in so often after that, and he hadn’t done it once in the past year.

As he lay on the hard ground of the Mournland, he held his breath and listened for that noise, but the only sound he heard was that of Burch breathing. He closed his eyes and let that steady rhythm lull him to sleep.

In his dream, Kandler walked through the Mournland. It was day, and bodies covered the ground from one side of the misty borders of the place to the other. They were all face down, and Kandler stopped to turn them over one by one, looking for Esprina. He couldn’t find her anywhere, no matter how many bodies he disturbed. Row upon row he went, turning dozens, then thousands.

When he turned over the last body, Esprл’s face looked back up at him with empty eyes. It was then that he realized that everybody he’d looked at had borne Esprл’s face. He stood and looked around the valley to see that the bodies all faced the sky now. Each of them looked like Esprл.

The Esprлs stood up and began walking toward him. They were zombies like the Karrnathi ones Kandler had killed the night before, but they had his daughter’s features and her long, blond hair. His held his sword before him, but he could not bear to strike the creatures, any of them. Instead, he ran.

The Esprл-zombies stampeded after Kandler, their feet tearing at the earth and raising a cloud of dust in their wake. He ran until his sides ached and his breath came in like a jagged knife. Every time he looked back, they were just behind him, no matter how hard he ran.

The wall of mist that defined the border of the Mournland rose up before him. He knew if he could reach it he would be safe. The creatures would not follow him in there. As he sprinted for the mist, though, it never seemed to get any nearer. The footsteps pounding behind him drew closer and closer with every second. He reached for the mist, but as he did a thousand undead hands grabbed him by the back.

Kandler woke with a start.

The pounding footsteps still sounded in his head. He sat up and called out for Burch.

“Right here,” the shifter said. He stood next to his own bedroll, the uncapped torch stabbing out of his right hand and parting the night.

“What are you doing?” the justicar asked. He shook his head, hoping to make the pounding go away, but it just got louder. “You want to bring every creature in the valley down on our heads?”

“Too late.” Burch pointed into the distance. “We got company.”