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She was halfway across the wastelands by her estimate. The earlier dark premonition from the edge of the wasteland had not lingered. In fact, she thought, if everything went well, and her good fortune persisted, she would reach the black road leading through the badlands with at least two hours of daylight left. No woman, with or without power, willingly traveled the road through the badlands in darkness.
As she rode, her eyelids dropped. She shook herself awake. Knowing she needed sleep, she called Yar back, and pushed a thought to him, showing herself sleeping in the saddle. Watch!
Then, as she had in times of battle, she set herself on the saddle, the reins wrapped around her wrists so if there was an issue, the tug on the reins would wake her. Yar would do the same the instant he sensed or saw danger.
An hour and a half after Ailish fell asleep, she woke and looked around. Yar was a half-dozen yards away. She stopped the kraal, dismounted, and switched the saddle to the freshest kraal. She’d been pushing the kraals hard and had changed mounts twice already. This would be the third time. She ate some dried rabt, drank some water, and made sure each of the kraals had water.
She shared the last of the water skein with Yar; there were two more in her bags, which would be more than enough to get them to the Island. She bent and rubbed her cheek against Yar’s head, relishing the warm soft fur of his coat. “It’s time.”
She caught the kraal’s reins in her right hand, and slipped her left foot into the stirrup. As she lifted herself into the saddle, a whiplash of pure hatred struck hard—the force of the whirling malignant vileness knocked her out of the stirrup.
Falling, she hit the ground, rolled, and gained her feet. At the same instant, Yar released an ear-shattering scream. Above, clouds formed in a cloudless sky. Dark and greyish black, the churning clouds quickly blanketed the sky. Day became night: the warm air chilled to ice.
The unsaddled kraal next to her cried out, then stood trembling with fear. The kraal next to it rose up on its hind legs, and then kicked upward at some invisible threat. An instant later, the mass of churning clouds came together. Seconds later, the clouds began spinning in a circle, and then turned into a dark grey and misty funnel moving earthward.
Watching the darkness grow above her, Ailish saw a massive bird-like creature materialize from within the swirling funnel, its feathers as black as a moonless night. The creature’s huge claws glinted like curved knives extending from all four leg-like appendages. A tail, like a spike-tipped spear the length of a man, whipped back and forth, sending droplets of the mist funnel everywhere.
Wraith! The single word and its knowledge exploded in her mind, warning her of the grave danger she faced. She had never seen one before, but knew well the stories of her parents. Wraiths were far more than just dangerous creatures of myths and legends; they were the monsters created within the darkest nether regions of black magic. Soulless creatures, conjured from plant and herb and parts of animals, and used by the Dark Masters and their black witches to kill anything their creators ordered. Wraiths were wholly commanded by the Master or witch who created them—no other sorceress could or would do so.
Grasping the pommel of the saddle in her left hand, her eyes locked on the rapidly descending wraith, Ailish leaped onto her kraal. She did not run from the wraith; rather, she pulled her bow from its saddle hook, and drew three arrows from the quiver.
The burning red coals of its eyes glared down at her, trying to penetrate Ailish’s mind and make her its prisoner. The wraith spread its wings, giving voice to a bone-chilling and terrifying screech. Beneath her, the kraal pranced nervously. The only thing stopping it from bolting was Ailish’s control of its mind.
Her mental connection to the kraal was severed suddenly as the darkness controlling the wraith took command of her hapless mount. The animal pranced and jumped madly; behind her the other kraals cried in terror.
Ailish fought back, setting a block around the kraals, then struck at the wraith with a blast of her own powers. The wraith and its dark controller were thrown from the kraal’s mind, the wraith screaming in fury when the full force of Ailish’s powers struck it.
Circling within the mist funnels, the wraith’s eyes focused angrily upon her while its creator’s mind attacked Ailish. The instant it struck, she deflected the stream of power and, fighting the dark spellcasting, she gripped her weapons tighter. She had to be on the ground, she realized as she blocked and then ended the attack. She needed to be sure-footed and steady to fight this hybrid necromancer of a creature. She pulled one foot free of the stirrup and rolled out of the saddle in a swift movement.
Landing on her feet as the wraith shifted, Ailish locked her eyes on it. She knelt slowly, notching the first of the three arrows before her knee hit the ground. She drew back the bowstring as far as it would go, then focused her mind on the creature’s descent. Everything around her disappeared. The world held only she and the wraith.
Absolutely still, her muscles strained from the effort while she centered the metal tipped shaft on the wraith. Her breathing turned shallow. She timed her breaths to the steady beating of her heart, while she waited at the ready for the winged death to come within range.
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The black visage of the wraith plummeted earthward, its wings only half tucked to its body, leaving just enough outstretched to catch the air. Its eyes glowed a fierce red, and through them, the black sorceress stared at the woman she hated more than anyone in Nevaeh.
Now! Irret commanded the wraith, who tucked its wings against its body and increased the speed of its descent.
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Now! Exhaling at the exact instant between the beats of her heart, she released the arrow. The shaft struck the wraith in the chest, but not until Ailish had the second arrow notched and released.
The demon bird’s scream was ear-shattering when the arrow struck. Unfolding its wings and spreading them wide, it swerved upward avoiding the second arrow. Then it circled, and as it did, Ailish watched it rip the arrow from its decaying flesh. It banked, folded its wings against its body, and started down again.
Ailish dropped the bow, fell to her knees, and sucked in a hard deep breath. Turning her hands into fists, she called up all her powers. Then she reached deep into that special place of her womanhood, from where she drew all her powers, and formed her deadliest weapon.
The heat exploded through her lower abdomen—a violent and explosive reaction drawing up unimaginable powers. At the same time, Yar and she became fully joined. She saw the wraith through his eyes just as he did: a black shape speeding earthward, guided by two burning red eyes, and arrowing directly at her. Its speed was frightening, yet Ailish waited with eyes closed, and her hands encased in a green-blue haze of madly dancing light-filled energy.
Yar growled. Ailish opened her eyes, locked them on the oncoming wraith, and sent the flaming blue-green power at the beast. A thunderous blast of light and sound came together. The sky danced with madly bounding spurts of orange and red flames. The wraith screamed in fury, its feathers afire, its wings shedding burning feathers as it fought to rise back into the sky.
Ailish watched the giant incarnation of perverted evil rise upward, trailing smoke and burning feathers until finally disappearing into the clouds.
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“Noooo!” The single word echoed from the walls and ceiling of the cavern, its sound both shrill and coarse. Surrounding her like a blanket of flames, the sensation of Ailish’s weapon burning through the wraith brought her terrible pain. She fell to her knees, her fingers curling into claws as she fought the fire destroying her creature.
Closing her eyes and turning her clawed hands to fists, Irret sent a dark healing power to the wraith, sealing off the arrow’s penetrating wound, rebuilding its feathers, and clearing the rotting flesh of the stinging burns while whispering unintelligible words of encouragement.
Angry at herself for being over-confident, and as she should have the first time, she built a shield around her creature to protect it from Ailish’s powers.
She pushed her senses to the ground, searching, seeking. There! Gathering her powers, she pushed a massive command downward until it caught the creature below the wasteland’s surface.
Moments later, with a low rumbling laugh, she sent her beast back, stronger than before, faster, and better protected.
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Ailish stood, one hand grasping Yar’s fur, the other balled in a fist, while the green-blue light of her weapon’s powers continued its dance along her skin from wrists to fingertips. She disregarded the lingering evidence of evil hanging in the air.
Then, from above, came a soul scorching darkness raining downward from the angry grey clouds, within which the wraith hid itself from her powers. Behind the clouded veil of evil she sensed something else. There had been a touch of something ... no, of someone familiar, but she couldn’t grasp its full essence. Strangely, the ground vibrated beneath her. Yar growled low in his throat.
The clouds split: the wraith hurtled earthward; its feathers solid again, and its red glaring eyes locked on Ailish. Her skin went cold. The hand holding Yar tightened. Yar growled at the oncoming creature but did not move.
Ailish rebuilt her powers to their fullest, drawing them upward in a swift sharp flash. She raised her left arm, opened her fist, and sent a bolt of light at the beast. Again, light and sound cavorted in the sky, but when the light receded, the beast was unharmed and still coming straight at her.
“Shielded!” she screamed, and as the winged creature continued its mad descent at her, it grew larger and larger, the huge rotting bird of prey was half again the size of a kraal.
Releasing Yar, she shouted, “Move!”
The wraith was almost upon them; the cat leapt forward, Ailish dove sideways and, at the very last instant, the wraith pulled out of its dive, gave vent to an ear-deafening screech, and reversed direction.
Passing within a foot of Ailish, its claws stretching to grasp her, the wraith went vertical, its wings blurring as they lifted it upward. In its wake, a gagging stench of decay and death washed over them. The wraith rolled in the air, again reversing its direction, and sped toward the kraals. Before Ailish could react, the black creature caught one of the unsaddled kraals in its razor-sharp claws and wrapped its wings around it.
The kraal’s scream was horrible, tearing into Ailish’s mind as it died. After an instant that seemed an hour, the wraith released the kraal and shot upward, leaving behind the kraal’s bloody mutilated body.
Before the kraal’s final scream faded, Ailish rolled once more and gained her feet. Grabbing her bow, she pulled an arrow, notched it, and readied herself for the next attack.
The ground exploded before her. A huge snuck, ten feet long and the width of a tree limb, emerged from out of the ground. Its large head pivoted toward her, twin fangs dripping acidic poison. It arched back, ready to strike.
With one hand grasping the bow, the other on the drawn gut, Ailish had but one choice.
Before she could release the arrow, and at the exact second the snuck struck, Yar leapt from the ground. The giant rantor caught it in his mouth, and as the snuck tried to coil around the cat’s body, Yar bit down once. The severed head flew past Ailish while the headless snuck’s body unraveled from around the rantor to lay spasming on the ground.
Ailish spun toward the wraith, her arrow still notched and ready to attack. Although the wraith was protected from her psychic powers, the shield offered no protection against her arrows. Thank you, she pushed to Yar, then called Yar to her, her eyes never leaving the blurred shadow of the wraith, which was now a thousand feet in the sky.
The wraith held back, circling in ever widening arcs. For long dragging seconds, the wraith flew above her head. “Come to me,” Ailish whispered, knowing time was running out, and she must pass through the badlands while there was still daylight.
She built a mind picture of her killing the wraith, and then pushed it at the evil creature in open challenge. “Come!” she screamed. Next to her, Yar roared.
The wraith did not respond. It remained high above them, out of range of her arrows. It circled, watching like a danglore waiting for its victim to die and give it a feast.
Keeping her eyes on the reluctant wraith, Ailish held her anger in check long enough to let reason take over. No one, other than her own family knew where she was going. Why is the wraith after me? It makes no sense. I never told my family why, only that Nevaeh was in great danger from the Masters.
She shook her head. This is wrong! All she knew was she must get to the Island, if Nevaeh was to survive.
But why? In the next moment, she knew she’d asked the wrong question. The real question wasn’t why she was being attacked; it was who was controlling the wraith? Who ...
She sat on the ground, trying to work out the problem while she charged Yar with watching the wraith. The big cat pressed his head to her, and she joined with him. Aided by his warmth and cat-like power, she sought the wraith with her mind.
She flinched when she penetrated the evil creature’s shield. Its aura was like touching something so foul its stink would never leave your skin. Nor, mixed so well within it, could the black depths of its creator’s aura ever be mistaken for another.
Irret the betrayer! Irret the thief! Irret, who she’d taken in and raised as one of her own. Irret, who stole not only her family’s treasures, but who she intuitively knew was responsible for her husband’s death.
Irret, seduced by one of the black sorceresses under the control of the Dark Masters. Irret, who left Morvene for the badlands. Irret, the second most powerful Woman of Power in Nevaeh, was the black witch who had been trying to kill her.
Twenty minutes later, the wraith still loomed above. Ailish studied it, knowing Irret would choose the time when Ailish was most vulnerable. It would wait for as long as it took for her to expose a weakness. She closed her eyes and forced herself to work out a way. Then reality hit.
Time! Irret is stalling me!
Opening her eyes, she knelt next to Yar. She put her hand on his head. Go, she pushed to her aoutem, run ahead, go until I call you to return, then ...
She stood, looked up at the wraith, studying it carefully as it repeatedly circled to the right. She pictured the previous attack and realized it followed the same pattern. Ailish called the saddled kraal to her. The unsaddled kraal followed reluctantly behind. She mounted quickly, adjusted her bow in her left hand, and the arrow in her right hand.
Settling herself on the kraal’s back, she gave the animal a mental push to move.
The moment the kraal started forward, the wraith stopped circling and followed from above. She did not look at it; rather she waited, pushing her senses outward until she touched the leading edge of the shield guarding the flying obscenity.
It descended slowly, wary of Ailish. Ailish’s senses and powers hummed beneath the surface of her mind. When the wraith dropped to within a few hundred yards, she sent out a push, then told the kraal to slow.
A short few moments later, her senses quivered in warning as the wraith came closer. In that very instant, time froze. Ailish lifted in the stirrups, simultaneously twisting, and notching an arrow as she drew back the bowstring. A split second later, she released the wood shaft.
The arrow rocketed toward the wraith. The huge malignancy spun to avoid the arrow, drawing in its wings against its body as it sped earthward. For just an instant, it seemed the arrow might find its mark. The instant passed when the arrow skimmed off a quickly tucked wing. Black feathers sprayed outward from the shafts scrapping against feather and bone before the arrow was deflected away.
The wraith’s scream of rage was deafening. It spun again, stretched out its wings a bare ten feet above the ground, and spun toward Ailish. The Queen Mother of Morvene stood in the stirrups, another feathered shaft notched and waiting for the wraith. She drew her right arm back as far as she could against the strength of the bow.
So close came the wraith, she saw its eyes glowing red with swirling pieces of black rippling within the distorted orbs. She sensed Irret’s glare through the wraith’s shield as it sped inexorably toward her. When there was but a few yards separating them, she released the arrow—not at the wraith, but off to its right.
Just as she knew it would, the wraith veered right. The instant it did, the arrow struck. A howl of rage and anger tore through the wastelands. From the camouflaged position where Ailish had sent him, Yar leapt straight into the air the instant the wraith was above him. The rantor’s hundred pounds of fur-covered muscles powered the huge cat upward from the grainy yellow sand and beige dirt of the wastelands, its coat matching the very earth itself.
The arrow struck the wraith’s chest a heartbeat before Yar’s front legs and razor-sharp claws grasped the wraith and tore its wings to shreds, even while the huge cat’s back claws dug into the wraith’s abdomen and ripped it open.
Within her mind, she heard Irret’s scream of rage-filled pain explode from the wraith as it fell dead at her feet, Yar’s large fangs buried in its neck. At the instant of the creature’s death, Yar jumped back, and the body dissolved into a mist rising upward until it dissipated into the clean air.
And then it was quiet, both in Ailish’s mind, and in the wasteland. She knelt when Yar came to her, pulled him close, and stared into his amber eyes. Both aloud and with thought, she said, Thank you ... again.
Then she looked skyward. They had lost at least two hours. She looked at Yar, then at the trailing kraal, and wondered if she could make the badlands before dark.
I have to!
