washing away the ache.
The healer smiled and pulled his hands away. “I think you’re ready to be moved.” He looked up and signaled to the other halflings, still avoiding Senya’s eyes. The others brought a stretcher over and gently rolled Senya onto it, then carried her over to the wagon. When they had loaded her in and carefully strapped her down, they clambered aboard, and the wagon started rolling.
Senya watched the clouds drift across the sky and wondered where Gaven was. She knew that the chance he lingered in Vathirond’s House of Healing was next to none.
Gaven crouched on the horse’s back, thrilling to the feel of its muscles as it galloped along the road. He hadn’t ridden in more years than he could remember, and it had taken a while to get his body into the rhythm of the horse’s stride. Once he did that, though, he felt like he was running, his muscles moving in perfect synchronization with his mount’s. The wind blew his hair back from his face and cooled the sweat from his skin. Best of all, his mind was completely submerged in the pounding hooves and flexing muscles, the rush of speed and wind. Any time his thoughts began to stray toward Rienne or Senya, he forced them back to the horse and the run.
Hours and miles sped by under the mare’s stride. Vathirond-along with Rienne and Senya-fell farther and farther behind him, and he thought as little as he could about what lay ahead. He lost himself so completely in his flight that he nearly fell from the saddle when his mount abruptly slowed.
They had reached the Mournland. A wall of gray mist hung in the air like a funeral shroud, swallowing the road ahead, and the horse would not get any closer.
“It’s all right, lady,” he murmured as he dismounted. “You’ve done well. You see if you can find your way back to the barn I stole you from, huh?”
He lifted a bag from the mare’s saddle and slung it over his shoulder. It held the scant supplies that would sustain him in the Mournland-journeybread that would keep him nourished and full, and a magic waterskin that would never run dry. He regretted the theft, but there would be enough threats to his life in the Mournland without adding the worries of starvation or thirst.
He patted the mare’s flank and let her go. She loped away from the wall of mist without a backward glance. He watched her until she was out of sight, then turned back to face the mist. He had the fleeting sense of a presence in there, something watching him. Waiting for him-impatient, hungry.
A chill ran down his back, and he drew his sword. He was suddenly struck by a feeling of awesome solitude. No one was here to cover his back, no one to share his anxiety-or to make him feel brave, like Rienne used to. No one at all, except perhaps the creatures lurking in the mist.
He checked the sky for the hundredth time, looking in vain for any sign of Vaskar. He took a step closer to the wall of mist, then extended his sword until the point sank into it. The blade met no resistance-in fact, for just a moment, Gaven felt as though something were gently pulling the sword into the mist. He stepped forward, sinking the sword all the way into the fog, bringing his face to within a hand’s breadth of the vaporous pall. His movement didn’t stir it; even his breath made no eddies in the mist.
He looked around as if taking a final survey of the living world before crossing into the land of the dead, then stepped in. The mist was cold on his skin. He stepped forward again before he dared to take a breath, letting the clammy mist into his lungs. There was an odor to it, not putrid exactly, but definitely a smell of death. The mist closed in around him, and he hurried forward, eager to push through to the other side.
Tendrils of mist coiled around his limbs as he moved, tugging at him. With every step, he felt a weight of exhaustion settling on him. He stopped, shook his head to clear it, and pressed ahead, but he began to wonder why he bothered. He could see no end to the mist ahead, and when he looked over his shoulder it seemed to stretch forever behind him. He dropped to his knees, his heart heavy, his muscles too tired to move.
An old dream filled his senses. Staggering across a blasted landscape where nothing lived. Falling to the ground, seeing his hands sink into earth that was half dirt, half ash. The taste of the air, bitter like bile.
“Have I been here before?” he asked the mist. “Or did I dream of this moment?”
He lifted one knee out of the dust and planted a foot on the shifting ground.
“It doesn’t matter,” he said. “Either way, I’m here now.” He shifted his weight forward and pulled himself up until he stood with his chin on his chest. “And I have work to do.”
The mist began to swirl around him. He smiled as he felt the air stir-the breath of wind restored his strength. Great gusts cleared the air around him, showing him the ground at his feet and a path ahead. He walked between receding walls of billowing fog, and soon the dead-gray mist was gone.
The land around him was a desolation. He had crossed into another world-the verdant landscape of Breland was lost in the mist, far away, unreal. Beneath his feet, the ground was a layer of fine sand or ash on top of smooth rock. He saw nothing alive on this side of the mist. No trees, no birds overhead, not even weeds. The sun hung low in the east, its feeble light drowning in a distant fog. Above him, the sky was the gray of a corpse. Even the wind around him died.
Gaven stepped forward, visions from his dreams crowding his mind. Another step, and the sand around him stirred, jolting him back to his senses. Something formed itself from the ground beside him, taking on a vaguely human form, gaunt arms and a gaping mouth and eyes of sickly green fire. The sight of it sent a wave of unreasoning terror through his body, and he stepped back-right into the grasping claws of a second ghoulish creature.
“Thunder!” He wrenched himself free of the creature’s grasp and hefted his sword in his trembling hands.
A third monster surged up from the sand, and Gaven swallowed his fear. He swung his sword in a full circle around himself, biting into each one, sending three sprays of ash into the still air. The creatures didn’t flinch-they were upon him, their claws tearing his skin and pulling him in three different directions.
With a single arcane word, Gaven pulled a cloak of fire around his body, its warmth dispelling the lingering chill of the awful mists. The creatures drew back in obvious pain, giving him an opening to slip through, to put all three in front of him. As they tried to circle him, he sent a crackle of arcane lightning into his sword, then lunged to his right to intercept the creature moving around that side. The blade bit deep, and the thing’s form lost some definition, but it didn’t slow its advance. It slammed into Gaven’s shoulder, one claw cutting a gash down his chest. The wound flared with green fire, and Gaven shouted in pain. The creature clung to him, even as Gaven’s fiery armor engulfed it. It brought its face right up against his, its eyes staring into his. In an instant, Gaven thought he saw a distillation of all the pain and misery that filled the Mournland.
Desolation spreads over that land like a wildfire, he thought-like a plague. In the creature’s eyes, he saw a roiling gray mist spreading across the verdant land, leaving nothing alive in its wake. More, he felt the despair of every living thing that was swallowed in that mist, every spirit that lingered in this graveyard, every person who had lost a relative or friend to the Mourning. He fell to his knees, the creature still staring into his eyes.
Then he brought his sword around, cutting right through the thing’s waist, making it dissolve back into the sand.
The other two creatures came at him from opposite sides, stalking in cautiously. Gaven stood and stepped backward, a little unsteady on his feet. A soft breath of wind blew up his back, chilling his sweat, and he filled his lungs as though to draw strength from the moving air.
The creatures pounced, and Gaven exhaled. The breeze at his back swelled, and he became the wind. He stretched out his hands, and the wind blasted forth to tear at the creatures’ sandy forms. They staggered backward as the wind continued to drive at them, ash streaming out behind them. He was the fury of nature, all wrath and destruction. He smiled grimly as the power of the storm coursed through him.
A crack of thunder rent the air, and Gaven became the lightning, joining blasted earth to gray sky. His feet lifted off the ground, and the lightning shot out of his hands with the wind. The instant of the lightning strike stretched into an eternity in his mind-he was storm, and he was everywhere at once. This was power like he had never tasted before, and he exulted in the destruction he wreaked.
The instant ended. He came down hard on his back, a few paces from where he’d been standing, staring up at the clear, dead sky. He lifted his head with a tremendous effort, just long enough to make sure that the creatures were gone. Two patches of sand were blackened and smoking, but there was no other sign of the monsters. He let his head fall back on the ground.
The magical flames around his body had gone out, but his body still burned with pain where the creature had raked his chest. His dragonmark also stung, as though lightning still coursed along its intricate tracings. He groaned,
