Wilderness, Approaching Ka’Ana’Tyat
Sinari Land
He eyed Corenna as she and the fair-skins secured their horses. He and Ilek’Inari had opted not to use the animals to speed their journey, a matter of pride for the guardians, and of practicality. Trained beasts were too precious to risk, if it came to fighting, and it would all but certainly come to fighting, before his journey was at an end. A single mount between him and Corenna would serve. Provided he couldn’t convince her to stay behind.
She caught him looking as she swung into the saddle, and gave him a knowing smile, a spark in her eyes that promised more, when next they were alone. He’d already failed to leave her with the tribes as they settled onto the fair-skins’ lands. Incredible how quickly she’d healed. Strong enough to plant her feet and talk him down at the mere suggestion that she might remain behind. The sight of her with a blade in her chest had cut him to the ground, but he hadn’t found the words to convince her. There might be one more chance, after Ka’Ana’Tyat, and he held out hope for that, rehearsing different arguments in his head as they kicked dirt over their fire, and pressed on into the woods.
“Are you well, apprentice?” he asked, pulling even with Ilek’Inari, just ahead of the rest. “Sarine didn’t trouble your sleep overmuch?”
“No, honored guardian,” Ilek’Inari said, a shade too quickly.
Arak’Jur grinned. He might have expected to find his apprentice nervous, uncertain as to whether the spirits would accept him as Ka, in spite of every tradition that should have made him Arak rather than shaman. Instead Ilek’Inari stole a glance behind them, toward where Sarine sat atop her horse.
“A fine-looking woman,” Arak’Jur said. “Even for a fair-skin. Though I would be cautious of the power she carries, tied to that serpent.”
Ilek’Inari flushed. “I didn’t … I don’t …” He fell quiet, and Arak’Jur held his grin. “Spirits, but is it so obvious?”
“You have to have been smitten to see it in another. But I meant what I said. I speak from some experience on matters of the gift Llanara carried, and Reyne d’Agarre.”
“They say Sarine used that gift to fight against them both, during the battle.”
“That she did. She saved our warriors’ lives, and I will praise her again if her claim holds true today. But I need not remind you of your importance to our people. Have a care with her, should she prove receptive to your advance.”
“I will, honored guardian, of course.” They walked a few more paces before Ilek’Inari stole another look over his shoulder. “She hasn’t said anything …?”
He laughed, clapping his apprentice on the back as he walked past.
A simple thing, to find such interests blossoming even here, in the midst of chaos and uncertainty. It brought a smile, thinking of attraction and wooing instead of violence, and proved a welcome distraction, remembering the steps he’d taken as a youth to catch Rhealla’s eye. He’d made himself look more than half a fool, trying to lift a ritual pole alone and almost lodging it in Ka’Vos’s backside while the shaman told a story to the rest of the hunters. Rhealla had blushed on his behalf, rushing to quell the laughter that erupted at his expense. It had always been her way, to protect the ones she saw as hers. It was why he’d loved her; she’d been fearless and iron-spined, unflinching against the slightest threat to what she knew was right.
No small part of what he had with Corenna, now. It was good to be reminded of the simple things, on their way to something else. From the look of it Sarine wouldn’t be easily interested, no matter how delicate Ilek’Inari’s approach. Her crystalline serpent raised every warning instinct in him as a guardian, but she seemed engrossed by the thing, and by its apparent sickness. It would be just as well if their paths diverged, after they made their pilgrimages to Ka’Ana’Tyat.
The forest turned from dense foliage to too-thickly spaced trees, one trunk almost atop the next. A subtle sign as they walked and rode, easy to miss. But soon the trees would intertwine, blending into the walls of growth that marked the path to Ka’Ana’Tyat.
“Keep alert,” he said to the rest of them. “There will be a great beast here, guarding the way.”
They fanned out, as much as they could manage through the dense wood. He kept his senses sharp, listening for rustles in the leaves, looking for sign, trusting instinct to warn him if anything at all was out of place. His mind receded into a thoughtless hum. His muscles stayed loose, relaxed, but ready to tense at the first sign of danger.
The wood grew darker in spite of the midday sun beating down overhead. The seasons had turned, while the tribe collected its belongings and set down on fair-skin land. Heat rose, and with it, insects buzzed past his ears, birds chirped their greetings, lizards and rodents scurried for a place to hide and wait out his passing. All of it faded into a tableau of normalcy. There would be more. A wisp of smoke, trailing from a lizard’s eyes. A bellowing roar, when they crossed a threshold of a great bear’s claim. A flickering shimmer, to reveal an illusory piece of bark on a tree. A pack of feathered birds, walking upright with scything claws. Something.
Instead they reached the opening, where looming blackness swallowed the sky, the branches of the trees grown together to suggest a passage into darkness.
“This is it,” Sarine said, her voice touched with awe.
Their horses skittered back, and Sarine dismounted, passing the reins to Acherre.
“We’ve reached the entrance,” Arak’Jur said. “But stay alert. There have been great beasts guarding our sacred places for six turnings of the seasons. I have no cause to believe it would have changed.”
Ilek’Inari unslung his pack, kneeling in reverence as he withdrew the pouch of implements he’d prepared almost a full year before.
“I saw nothing on the way in,” Corenna said, joining Sarine in dismounting, though Acherre stayed on her horse. “And I see the way unblocked, now, where before it was walled over by the trees. Perhaps …?”
“It’s still blocked,” Sarine said. She stepped toward the opening with a hand outstretched. “It was like this in the sewer, but bricked over instead of blocked by wood. It isn’t real. Ad-Shi can only use the blue sparks to weave a barrier against those not chosen by the spirits to enter. There are limits to what can be done, even for me.”
Sarine’s voice seemed to echo with a surety he’d never heard from her before. Almost as though someone else spoke with her voice. Before he could dwell on it, a rush of energy sucked through the air around them, a snapping sound as blue light flashed, draining from the air around Ka’Ana’Tyat’s opening to absorb itself into Sarine’s fingertips.
“Spirits’ blessings,” Ilek’Inari said, staring into the darkness. “She’s done it. The way is clear.”
To Arak’Jur’s eyes nothing had changed; it had been a passage into darkness the first time he’d escorted Ilek’Inari and Corenna here, and it remained so now. But Ilek’Inari rose to his feet, his eyes wide with awe, and walked toward it slowly, one step at a time.
Sarine waited for him to approach before she strode forward at his side.
They reached the edge of the darkness, and Ilek’Inari vanished, swallowed into the spirits’ presence. Sarine remained behind.
It took a moment to realize she hadn’t intended to stay back.
“Why?” Sarine demanded, directing her question into the opening. “Why not me?”
The wind shifted, and his instincts sharpened. Something was wrong.
“No,” Sarine was saying. “You have to let me in. I have to find Axerian. Zi is dying!”
A chittering noise. Approaching from the south. Distant, but drawing nearer too quickly to be rustling, or the wind.
“Caution,” Arak’Jur shouted. “Something approaches.”
It was all he needed to say for Corenna to be on alert. The soldier, Acherre, responded as well, to his tone even if she wouldn’t understand the words.
The noise grew louder, and he saw a black figure in the distance, vanishing as it moved between the trees.
“I know this beast,” Corenna said. “Sre’ghaus.”
Two more black shapes appeared, swirling masses, almost-man-shaped, crashing through the trees toward the clearing around the passage into Ka’Ana’Tyat.
Not one beast. Not two, or three. Thousands. A roiling mass of insects, beetles swarming toward them, clouds of fluttering wings and gnashing jaws.
Corenna struck the first blow with a gale of wind, scattering the creatures into the upper boughs of the trees as she smashed apart one of the man-shaped figures. Acherre split into three copies of herself and her horse, each one drawing its saber as they charged. Arak’Jur stayed back, hovering near the entrance to Ka’Ana’Tyat. Corenna had told tales of facing sre’ghaus: long hours of fighting, with an uncertain end. The spirits’ gifts would have to be conserved as long as possible.
“Please,” Sarine said behind him. “I was promised you could show me visions of where Axerian is, of how I could make Zi well. Please don’t let him die.”
A fist-sized cluster of beetles descended from the trees, flying with chittering wings as they formed into a bird shape. He struck, and a stinging pain bit his forearm. The beetles came apart, dashed against the forest floor, but they raked with their teeth where they touched him. Foam rose from the tiny crosshatched wounds, and hissing, leaving a burning sensation on his skin. Acid.
Trails of beetles flew between the trees, and he lost sight of Corenna and Acherre. The creatures seemed to take their time swarming, forming shapes and masses before they struck. Buzzing drowned out all other sound as they arrived in full. His instinct was to retreat, to flee and return prepared for what they faced. Without the shamans’ counsel he couldn’t know the beast’s weakness. But Ilek’Inari was already inside. If they left, the apprentice would emerge alone against the chittering mass.
He called on ipek’a, and leapt.
A cloud of beetles flew together overhead, gathering like a beehive on the edge of a branch. He grappled the tree with one hand, cutting through the center of the insects with the other, dispersing them like stinging smoke. He leapt again, passing through a formless stream of the creatures as he fell back to the earth. He braced himself for more stinging wounds, but none came. Instead the mass broke apart, flowing around him before re-forming into smaller shapes, each going a different direction than before.
Black specks decorated the ground, some skittering together, more smashed and leaking green ichor over the boughs and grass.
“Strike before they form,” he shouted into the buzzing horde. Corenna had to be close; spirits send she was close enough to hear. “They attack only when they join together.”
A stabbing pain took his shoulder from behind, and he whirled to smash a cat-shaped mass, ipek’a’s scything claws fending them off as they tried to bite. He leapt again, toward another cloud hovering at waist height behind a tree. Fluttering wings enveloped him as they burst apart, and he shielded his face. They seemed to multiply, engulfing the clearing in a deafening roar.
Acherre rode through a cloud, cutting with her saber as she wove to dodge the trees. Then another copy of her dashed past going the opposite way, parting the beetles like ribbons dropped to the forest floor. Both were swallowed by the beetles as soon as they rode through, more clouds forming as quick as they could be dispersed. He leapt into one, cutting with ipek’a’s gift, feeling the creatures’ blood spatter as their bodies fell. Still they came.
Worry rose with every shape he cut, until he found Corenna. She held her ground, hurling ice, needlepoint barrages casting whole swarms into the grass. Mareh’et came when ipek’a faded, and for a time he fought at Corenna’s side, until a man-shaped cloud danced between them, forcing them apart.
His limbs ached with exhaustion and pain as he fought. Mareh’et gave way to lakiri’in, and then kirighra, and the war-magic of fire. It seemed sre’ghaus fought with attrition, losing thousands of their number to score a single blow on their enemies, and he’d taken a score of their cuts, acid-drenched teeth marks ripping lines across his skin. He tried to shout directions to the women, in the tribes’ tongue and the fair-skins’, but his words were swallowed by the buzzing and clattering as the beetles flowed between the trees. He lost sight of the entrance to Ka’Ana’Tyat, and worried what would come when Ilek’Inari emerged, if they lasted long enough to wait through the rituals. Of Sarine there was no sign; he reasoned she’d been granted her plea, and must have vanished into the depths of Ka’Ana’Tyat’s shadows.
But it was her voice he heard, when the chittering dimmed.
“Stop,” Sarine shouted. “Stop fighting them. Let them leave.”
He struck through a horde, splitting what was on the cusp of forming an elk shape, earning another searing cut slashed across his arm.
It took the beetles falling to the ground like the patter of rain on snow before he registered that he’d heard her voice.
“Stop,” she said again. “Show them they can trust us.”
This time he paused, only a moment of lowering his guard, and the beetles receded at once, backing away as though they were cautious of him. They withdrew through the trees, a cloud of black withdrawn to reveal Corenna, and Acherre. Both women stood, on their feet but haggard. Corenna’s wraps were torn, hanging open to reveal skin cut and bleeding. Acherre was reduced to one copy, her military uniform in tatters, her saber scored black and green. Her horse was dead, a half-eaten corpse with rib bones protruding through flesh burned by acid, fifty feet from where Acherre stood. The captain ran to the beast as soon as the swarm retreated enough for it to be visible. He ran to Corenna.
She saw him at the same moment, and met him with strength in her arms. A tight grip, full of life, thank the spirits.
“How did you do this?” Corenna called to Sarine when finally he let her go, though she kept an arm around him for support, and he did the same.
Sarine walked toward them, stepping gingerly around the blanket of slain beetles draped across the ground.
“Sre’ghaus didn’t want to be here,” Sarine said. “They were compelled by Ad-Shi.”
Sarine turned to Acherre, and he and Corenna turned to look along with her.
“Are you well, Captain?” Sarine asked.
Acherre made a reply in the fair-skin tongue, too fast for him to understand, though her voice was hoarse and ragged. Tears soaked her cheeks, and she clutched her fallen horse’s body, though whatever she’d said must have satisfied Sarine as to her well-being.
“Honored … Sarine,” Corenna said. “Would you …?”
She motioned to her belly, but left the question unasked. He tensed as Sarine laid a hand on Corenna’s skin.
“The baby is fine,” Sarine said, and once again the world lifted from his shoulders. “Better than you, from the look of it.”
Corenna wiped a tear from her eyes, thanking Sarine as she tightened her grip around his lower back.
“Spirits curse my soul,” Ilek’Inari said from behind. “What happened here?”
Arak’Jur turned to see his onetime apprentice hobbling over the corpse-strewn ground, picking his steps gingerly as he regarded them with awe.
“A great beast,” he said, at the same moment Sarine said, “They wouldn’t let me in. I didn’t get the answers I needed.”
“I know,” Ilek’Inari said. “It was never your place, to speak with the spirits of visions.”
Sarine swore, taking a challenging step toward the dark opening. “Ilek’Inari, I need your help. Convince them to permit me. I need to—”
“I am Ilek no longer,” he interrupted, and for a moment a chill wind seemed to blow around him, a haze that blurred the edges of his form against the shadows behind. “The bond is complete. I am Ka’Inari, and I have sworn an oath to aid you on behalf of the spirits of things-to-come.”