The Chosen of Anthros Read online

  “How do I do that?” Rorick wondered. He shivered in the cold night. Stars stood above them in a dazzling array. No clouds. He feared it would get colder before it got warmer.

  “Just think loudly,” Rowan told him.

  Before he could respond to her, the harbinger was pulling him down to the ground. They crept for some distance before she stopped. Rorick followed her lead.

  At first he didn’t see anything but a field of endless snow before them, but then, one by one, shadows plummeted out of the sky like billows of ink dropping into clear water. They settled on the ground and took shape. They stood in the forms of humans, some short, some tall, some heavy, some thin.

  They gathered together in a tight circle. If they were saying anything, Rorick couldn’t hear them, but then again, they weren’t close enough for him to hear them unless they were speaking very loudly.

  Harbingers of darkness, he thought. It has to be them. Camilla is right.

  He looked over at Rowan, but her face was veiled with some emotion he couldn’t read.

  The harbingers before them were gesturing, motioning around them. Once and a while he could hear a bark of laughter that shivered in the frozen air and then vanished to nothing.

  Then, like a flicker of moonlight upon the snow, a silver incandescence came toward the gathering. It was cold and hollow. A presence that he couldn’t sense any kind of life from. Just the sight of it made Rorick shiver down to his soul.

  The gathering of shadowy figures parted for the illumination. The light pulled up short in the center of the gathering, and just like the shadows had done, the silver presence shifted into the shape of a woman.

  She was tall with long blue hair and frozen skin that Rorick could see even from where he crouched. Atop her head rose what looked like horns, but made of wood. Icicles hung from the horns to frame her head.

  I know her, Rorick thought to Rowan.

  The harbinger didn’t seem to hear him.

  I KNOW HER! He yelled at Rowan in his mind.

  The harbinger listed to the side, her eyes closing in what appeared to be pain. When she opened them again it was to glare at the younger man.

  And then she gripped his hand hard. He turned to where the harbingers had gathered, but the group was now in a panic.

  “Who was it?” he heard over the snow.

  “I don’t know, it sounded like a man!” a male voice called.

  “Quickly, retreat. If they know who we are…”

  And as quickly as the shadows came, they retreated. They melted into shadows, and spiraled up into the sky, and were gone.

  Daniken turned toward where they hid and took a tentative step forward. Then she stopped. Rorick knew without really knowing how he knew that the dark elf could see them.

  Rowan rose to her full height and stared the elf down.

  Daniken didn’t retreat from the look. Instead she seemed to smile and then was gone.

  “You said Camilla mentioned harbingers of darkness to you?” Rowan asked him. She looked to where Rorick still lay on the ground.

  “Yes,” he said.

  “Then you need to bring her to me. You come too. First thing in the morning. Only a few know about this, and I would like to keep it that way. We need to rat these darklings out.”

  “You do understand that I work late?” Camilla asked.

  The group was small, only the raven twins, Rorick, Camilla, Rowan, and Gil.

  “I understand that I was up as late as you last night, you can handle it.” Rowan didn’t even look at Camilla when she said it. They were crowded in the yurt where Rowan taught Abagail.

  “Alright, we don’t have long, but I have news.”

  Everyone stopped fidgeting and turned their attention to Rowan.

  “Huginn and Muninn came to me yesterday with some rather disturbing news. Apparently we have a new harbinger with the ability to see into the future. On this person’s first run she was able to tell that there’s a rising darkness coming to claim Haven.” Rowan eyeballed each of them in turn. “You’re all here because I trust you enough to let you in on this secret.

  “Last night Rorick and I traveled to the base of the mountain to investigate reports of shadows gathering there. What we found was a group of harbingers meeting with a rather strange looking dark elf that Rorick seems to know.”

  Camilla cut a glance toward Rorick, but he pretended not to notice.

  “They weren’t there long, and I wasn’t able to catch much of what they said. I also couldn’t tell who many of them were, but I do know a few. I don’t want to rat them out yet because I don’t know who I can trust outside of the room with the information we gathered. Some of the people I recognized there last night are key members of the council.”

  Huginn shifted uncomfortably.

  “If there are key members of the council with the darklings, there’s no telling where more harbingers of darkness could be,” Muninn said. She nodded. “You’re right in keeping this quiet for a while Rowan.”

  “What can we do?” Camilla asked, finally taking her eyes off Rorick.

  “If there are people you know you can trust. I mean know without a doubt that you can trust, we need to gather them so we can start hunting these fiends down,” Rowan said.

  “And then what?” Gil wondered. “Put them in the stockades like we did with Fortarian? We don’t have enough anti-wyrding collars for that.”

  “We kill them,” Rowan said simply.

  Silence hung in the air around them.

  “But how will we know if they are harbingers of darkness for sure?” Muninn asked.

  “There are enough of us here with mental powers to be able to tell,” Rowan said. “We must be sure before we kill them. We don’t want to go on a murder spree. But I must remind you that this is what harbingers of light do. We seek out darklings and we exterminate them.”

  “I have no issue killing them,” Camilla said. “Who’s first?”

  “Patience,” Rowan told her. She wore a smile for the swordswoman. “I want to get as much information as I can before we start killing them, and we have to come up with a plan on how we are going to do it without getting caught.”

  “I will watch them,” Camilla said. “Give me names and I will watch them and wait until they are alone.”

  “It shouldn’t just be you that does that,” Huginn said.

  “Huginn, I want you and Muninn out of the danger of it. We need our seers to be able to scout as much information as they can. I know you haven’t been able to find much of yet, but now that we know for sure that we are looking at our own brethren do you think you can narrow the search?”

  “Yes,” Muninn said. “We can delve into specific pasts and presents and find out what we can.”

  “Alright,” Rowan said. “I will provide you with names. Gil, Camilla, and Rorick, you’re the…dispatchers here.”

  “What about Leona and Abagail. I know they would want to help,” Rorick said.

  “Leona will be helping, and I will talk to Abagail tonight after dinner. Gil will have to take over training her this morning, because I have to do a little leg work now. Alright, gather who you think you can trust, but keep that trust close. We need to act on this fast, but it wouldn’t do to have the darklings know what we are up to.”

  “Did you come to learn the truth of who you are?” Fortarian’s voice came to Leona from the darkness of his cell. “Do people know you keep coming here alone?”

  “Abagail will be here soon,” Leona said, casting her gaze to the end of the hall and the closed door that led to freedom and sunlight. The stockades was damp and there were patters of rodent feet in the far away reaches of the prison. It made her shiver.

  “You didn’t answer my question,” Fortarian said, coming from the shadows. He situated the jacket over his frame as if it were the finest fabric instead of tattered rags. His hair, though slick with grease and unwashed, was combed back and styled. His eye wasn’t as bruised as it had been.

  Ho
wever, the most startling thing about Fortarian was the shadow plague. When Leona had been there before the plague had been fading, as if the wyrd was leaving his body now that the collar was in place. It was vibrant once more. The longer Leona stared at the plague, the darker it seemed until she was certain it was moving.

  Is it moving? And how is it stronger even with that collar? Did the collar stop the wyrd from entering the body? Did it slowly drive it from the body? She couldn’t be sure, but Leona suspected that wasn’t the case because if it were they would simply use the collars to drive the shadow plague from everyone.

  “Leona?” Fortarian said in a singsong voice. She hadn’t seen him draw near to the bars.

  She jumped and backed up a little. “What?” she asked.

  “Why are you here?” Fortarian smiled at her showing an even line of yellowed teeth that were more terrifying than she could have imagined.

  “You had a darkling god within you for the All Father knows how long,” Leona squared her shoulders. “You will tell me about that.”

  Fortarian snickered at her and cast his eyes to the floor. “You’re funny,” he said.

  Was there something different about him this time? Something that wasn’t like the last? He seemed more confident, more predatory. She stood her ground and waited for him to answer her.

  Finally Fortarian rolled his hand as if waiting for her to continue.

  “What do you know about the God Slayer? What do you know about Hilda’s plans? What do you know about Hafaress and the All Father having left the Ever After?”

  Fortarian stared at her for several minutes where Leona became painfully aware of dripping water somewhere out of the reach of the torches.

  “Wouldn’t you rather know about Olik? Or maybe why Rowan is no longer Mattelyn? Or maybe the true reason I became a harbinger of darkness? Maybe you’d like to know why your father stole you away in the night along with the hammer all three of us were protecting? Why your father took you both away from your mother?”

  “My mother’s dead,” Leona said drawing closer to Fortarian. “My mother’s dead and my father had to take the hammer from Agaranth, so the darkling gods wouldn’t find it.”

  “We can go with that story,” Fortarian said. “Or we can be aware that your father is Olik. This you know. You’ve heard him called it too many times by too many people to refuse that simple truth. And if you accept that your father is Olik, then you are aware that Olik has always been a trickster. Trickster gods aren’t always fun and laughter; trickster gods are dangerous and deceiving.”

  “No!” Leona said. She refused to believe him. She took an angry step forward. “You’re lying.”

  “Maybe I am.” Fortarian shrugged. “But you should ask your sister why she no longer calls him father. You should ask your sister why she only calls him by his first name. Maybe he’s deceiving you.”

  “He wouldn’t!” Leona stomped her foot and leaned toward the bars. “He isn’t like that any longer.”

  “Trickster gods are conniving and always tend to get their way, Leona,” Fortarian smiled at her. “I should know. I have one inside of me.”

  Fortarian’s hand shot out like a snake. Before she could move back the harbinger of darkness had his hand locked around her wrist in an iron grip.

  Even in the darkness of the stockades, Leona could see the tendril of shadow slither from his hand and over her wrist.

  “Say hello to the shadow plague, dear niece.”

  “You have the afternoon off, don’t you?” Gil asked Abagail. He tossed the collar she’d been wearing into a chest at the back of the yurt.

  Abagail stretched her neck as if she could still feel the cold iron of the collar around her throat. It felt so good to be rid of it.

  “I do,” she said.

  “Would you like to go get some lunch?” he asked her, closing the lid of the trunk and locking it.

  “Sure. I have to meet Leo real fast, and when I’m done she and I can go to lunch with you,” Abagail said.

  “I kinda thought maybe it could just be you and me,” Gil said.

  “Oh,” Abagail said. She itched the back of her neck feeling awkward as a silence stretched between them.

  “Or you can bring Leo if she’s hungry,” Gil said. He smiled at her, but the statement sounded like what it was, a diversion from an awkward question left unanswered. He suddenly found something rather interesting with the hem of his blue shirt and started studying it with furrowed brows.

  “Yea, she’s always hungry it seems,” Abagail said. She smiled at him when he looked back up. “But it would be nice to get away from her for a little while. She may be my sister, but that doesn’t mean I can’t have other friends, right?” What are you doing? Don’t lead him on!

  “True,” Gil said. “You’ve done a great job controlling your anger,” he told her.

  Abagail tugged the work glove over her infected hand. She was proud to see in the last couple weeks of being in Haven that the shadow plague hard retreated to her palm.

  “Maybe one day I can stop wearing this,” she joked.

  “That’s possible. Along with learning to control it also comes controlling the spread of the plague from you to others,” he told her.

  “You can control who you infect?” Abagail asked.

  “Sure,” he nodded. “Darklings not so much, but harbingers definitely can. That’s why you don’t see many of us wearing protective gear over our plagues.”

  She grunted. “It doesn’t really matter. I’m just happy I got a reign on my emotions. For a moment I didn’t think I was going to be able to.”

  Gil laughed at her. “Come on, Rowan’s a fire-etin. If she can control her anger, you certainly can.”

  That brought Abagail up short. Her blank stare greeted Gil.

  “Rowan’s what?”

  “A fire-etin,” Gil said, crossing his arms over his chest. He frowned at Abagail. “I thought you knew. I thought everyone knew.”

  “Not me,” Abagail said. She blinked a couple times. “Wow. She’s really from Muspelheim?”

  “A dwarf of Muspelheim to be exact. Most fire-etins are giants.”

  “So she’s a dwarf giant?” Abagail furrowed her brows.

  Gil nodded once.

  “So you mean she’s a human?”

  Gil laughed at her. “Human sized, but different than a human.”

  “Wow, that’s really interesting. People aren’t afraid of her?” Abagail asked. She remembered what Surt had said to the All Father in her last dream. She didn’t think the fire-etin were precisely evil, but it seemed a lot of people did…even Leona.

  “Nah,” Gil waved away her question. “Well, I mean yes, but not because she’s from Muspelheim. Maybe they are too afraid of her attitude to bring up her lineage?”

  Abagail laughed at that. “She is rather blunt.”

  “That’s putting it lightly.”

  “Well, I should go get Leona. Sisterly duty and all. I will meet you back here shortly?”

  “Sounds perfect.” Gil smiled at Abagail. She recognized the smile because it was the same type of smile she used to give Rorick. The same smile she felt ghost across her face whenever she was around Skye.

  She waved at Gil and rushed out of the yurt into the cloudy day. It was one of the warmer days Haven had seen since Abagail arrived, but the wind did a great job at reminding her that it was still winter.

  The stockades were several yards from her class, situated to the right and slightly behind the barracks. There wasn’t a guard on duty outside of the prison, something Abagail thought was strange until she pushed into the main entrance to see a small lobby with a wooden table and two guards situated behind it.

  The lobby was well lit with candles and lanterns. The guards were playing a game of dice behind the table, but looked up when she came in.

  “My sister Leona is here,” Abagail said.

  “Yea, visiting that darklings bastard,” the dark-haired guard said. “She just went in not to
o long ago.”

  “I’m supposed to join her,” Abagail told them, tucking her hands behind her back.

  The guard grunted and motioned to the door behind him. He jingled a keyring in his hand and followed Abagail to the door.

  The hallway stretched out before her into the darkness. It was wide enough for three people to walk abreast, but Abagail figured that was just so the inmates couldn’t reach a guard walking down the hall.

  The door closed behind her, and Abagail jumped.

  “Leo?” she called into the darkness, not seeing her sister. She also didn’t see any prisoners.

  “Why did you do that?” she heard her sister ask from somewhere ahead, through the darkness.

  A cold lump settled in Abagail’s stomach. Dread flooded through her. There was something about the sound of her sister’s voice.

  Around her the torches and lamps flickered and danced. As she raced down the hallway, more of the stockade came into view.

  “Because you have the hammer and it’s apparent no one else can use it. Now our hope is you will come to our side,” the voice said sweetly.

  Abagail pulled to a stop when she saw the figure crouching on the floor to the right. It was Leona, bundled in her wool jacket. She was sitting with her back against a stone column. A torch danced above her sister’s head.

  Leona was clasping her left wrist in her right hand. Abagail didn’t want to look at her sister’s hand, but that didn’t matter. She saw the shadow spreading across Leona’s palm all the same.

  “Ah, big sister,” Fortarian said. He leaned against the iron bars, his arms handing out of the cell in a relaxed way, as if he’d meant to be in the cell. “Come to join the party?”

  “What have you done?” Abagail asked. She stepped between Leona and Fortarian and faced the darkling. “What did you do to her?”

  “I just touched her,” Fortarian said with a shrug. “How was I to know that my plague would spread?” A coy smile split his face.

  A flush of anger colored Abagail’s cheeks. “You knew what you were doing,” she told him. All around hem flames of the torches flared, raging higher as she took a step closer to him. The darkling’s eyes trained on the torch closets to him, perhaps waiting to see if it would calm down. “You have control over your plague, and you can spread it just as easily as you can control your wyrd.”