The prone man nodded, licked his lips and said, “Yes. I went to find him after I rested a bit. I thought it would be interesting to compare notes with him.”
“On what?” Shireen asked.
“You.” He laughed softly, then coughed. Orlando got a cup of water and held it to his lips. He drank a few sips, then continued. “Well, you and Lady Jocasta. Nothing serious, just to introduce myself, maybe commiserate. I don’t know, I thought maybe we could help our Houses bond if we did. Silly, maybe.”
“No,” Shireen said. “It was a good idea.”
“It was exactly like you said. Out there…watching birds of all things. Heh. I have to admit, when he talked about that, with such passion, I kind of got it. I sat there with him, watching them…then….”
He closed his eyes and shuddered. Shireen waited patiently, knowing what he was going to say, but wanting to hear it anyway.
“The thing came from deeper in the forest, when it started to get dark. I was starting to say to Samuel that maybe we should go back, when we heard it. This cold, disturbing kind of laughing sound. And it started to get cold around us suddenly, like… like….”
“We know,” Orlando said. “We’ve felt it.”
“Then you’ve felt the fear, too. I didn’t know what it was. My heart was hammering and I couldn’t move, although everything in me was screaming to run. Poor Samuel seemed frozen to the spot.
“Then we saw it, or at least I think we did. Like a blacker piece of the darkness, with two glowing spots like eyes. Before I knew what was happening, it was on us.”
He shuddered again and Orlando gave him more water.
“It came for Samuel first, but I pushed him aside. Then it turned toward me and suddenly I was on the ground and my chest hurt. I could hardly breathe and felt like I couldn’t move. I heard him then. Samuel. He screamed. I tried to get up, but I couldn’t….”
He trailed off and shut his eyes. When he opened them, tears flowed out and down the sides of his temples.
“It dragged him away, making that horrible noise. Samuel was making sounds too, different ones. Like he was trying to scream but couldn’t. The temperature started to rise again, and then there was silence. I’m afraid I passed out. I don’t know why I woke up. I think I should be dead. When I came to, I was able to climb to my feet and work my way back here. I’m sorry it took so long…I had to keep stopping.”
“You did good,” Shireen said. “I’ve known many who wouldn’t have made it back at all.”
She patted Darius gently on the shoulder and motioned for Orlando to follow her. They left the room as the healer moved back to tend to his charge.
“I want you to put together a bigger party,” she told Orlando. “Scouts and soldiers both. Make sure everyone has torches and swords. Go back to that clearing and spread out from there but stay within earshot of each other. Look for signs of either Samuel or that Soul Gaunt. If you find it, kill it if you can, come back for help if you can’t. If you can get Samuel away from it, do that first.”
“You think he’s still alive?”
“Maybe. Remember that human, Luke? How long did one keep him?”
“Good point. All right, and what will you be doing?”
“The same thing. Only my party isn’t going into the woods. We’re going to Glittering Birch.”
Chapter 26
The healer concerned him. He had been warned about her by Malachi. Willow was the greatest healer in the Greenweald, comparable in her field to Solomon in everything else. If anyone was going to see through the ruse, it was going to be her.
Which was why the wound needed to be real and duplicate an actual Soul Gaunt injury as well as it could. A short time ago, that would have been easy. Subtle Hemlock had their very own Soul Gaunt, one who hid when Solomon rampaged through the Rustling Elm tree. Who would have thought one of them smart enough to do that?
Then Thaddeus, turned to the House by Darius’s old tutor, had burned it to ash. Darius was impressed with that in spite of himself. Soul Gaunts weren’t easy to kill, and for someone to have done it like that…well, they were someone to watch for.
Instead, Malachi himself had done the deed, after praising Darius for bringing the Towering Oaks aide in.
“Well, well,” Malachi said, “this is unexpected.”
Samuel was still out, a fact that made dragging him there more difficult. Portals weren’t always easy to use, not for Darius anyway, and trying to hold one open while dragging an unconscious man tested his ability.
It was worth it when he saw the expression on Malachi’s face when he told who it was and how he took him.
“And you?” Malachi asked. “What are they expecting from you?”
Darius laughed. “The fools think I’m going to have dinner with them.”
“And when you don’t show up?”
“Who cares?” He shrugged and walked to a side table. He poured himself a glass of wine and raised the bottle to Malachi.
“No, thank you,” the Head of House Subtle Hemlock said. “And I do.”
“Do what?” Darius drank his wine and gazed out at the stunning view from the windows. Now that he had performed such a service to the House, he was sure to get access here more often, perhaps even quarters.
“I care.” Malachi’s voice took on an edge that was hard to miss.
Darius swallowed and turned to him. “I’m sorry. I don’t follow.”
“I care what those ‘fools,’ as you call them, think.”
“Oh. Well, I just meant that it doesn’t matter if they—"
