Unraveling - Book One - Chapter One

Chapter One1

Corbidaenira Rofellus' heart raced as she sprinted through the dense undergrowth of the Undabi Jungle. Her legs screamed in protest and her breath escaped her in ragged bursts, but resting was not an option.2

She was being followed.3

Her feet would barely touch the leaf littered forest floor before lifting again. No human could run with this speed. Her flowing ebony hair, her pride and joy in social situations, was matted with sweat and thick with leaves and broken twigs that had been torn off by her passage. Her skin, already a dark shade of charcoal due to her Yane heritage, was further darkened by mud and the blood that had wept down from a wound in her scalp.4

Her flight did not go unnoticed. Birds stirred from their sleepy perches and took to the wing as she burst into clearings – nocturnal mammals screeched their protest and sought refuge in the thick undergrowth that made the jungle a perilous place to move at such speeds. But her dark skin was not the only gift of her Yane heritage, and she was able to react to obstacles far quicker than if she had been of a less exotic bloodline. She vaulted fallen trees with ease and skipped calmly over ankle-snapping root protrusions as if she approached them at a walk.5

Over her breathing and the sounds of a jungle awakened, she could hear the heavier footfalls of her pursuers. Like her, they were not hindered by the darkness or the treacherous footing of the jungle floor. Unlike her, however, they would not tire. The dead needed no air and felt none of the aches that plagued her exhausted muscles.6

There were five of them. They did not move quite as fast as her, but she was on the brink of collapse. They had been running like this for two hours. You could not lose the Fallen, nor could you hope to hide from them. Once they had been given a target, they would pursue it until the target was captured or they had been completely and utterly destroyed. They were some of Arkan's finest creations, and the fact there were five of them behind her left her under no illusions as to how important her cargo was to him.7

The box hung heavy at her side, slapping at her hips painfully with each step she took. It had been light when she had plucked it from the cold, dead hands of its previous owner – but it longed to be with its own kind, and was doing its best to weigh her down. It sought out protruding branches to snag itself on and she had already been yanked from her feet once in the chase. When possible, she kept a hand on the straps that supported the box to ensure they didn't repeat the trick.8

The night air was thick and heavy with the moisture of a coming storm. The mingled blood and sweat that dripped into her eyes blurred her vision and made it doubly hard to navigate the darkened jungle. Her pursuers had eyes, but they were for there for the benefit of those wanting to witness the chase. The Fallen needed no such luxuries as scent or sight. They tracked with the unerring accuracy that only magic could afford.9

She came to a particular large fallen tree and leaped nimbly to its top, allowing herself a quick glance back over her shoulder. The five Fallen burst into the clearing a second later, their naked forms raw with cuts and scratches picked up from the chase. One of them was missing an eye – a nasty wound stretched from the socket to the ear, leaving a bloody mess in its wake. They saw her and sneered.10

She was lucky. These were not true Fallen. True Fallen took months to prepare. Their bodies were fitted with hard fitting steel plates and their hands were often replaced with axe-heads or wicked blades. They would be tattooed and ritualistically scarred so as to maximise the terror they could sew in the enemies of Arkan.11

No, these were rushed jobs, doubtless created in the village in which she had spent the night prior. She wondered whether they had simply raided the graveyard or gone to the trouble of murdering innocents. A Fallen forged in the terror of murder was a far more powerful tool than one patched together from rotting flesh and brittle bones.12

How far to the circle? She could not say. She did not have time to guess her bearings from the stars or consult the compass she had purchased in Freelance. She would have to rely on her instincts and hope they would guide her out of the forest and to the relative safety of her camp.13

The Fallen were almost upon her now, but she hesitated. They jumped the six feet from the forest floor to her precarious perch with ease – their hands reaching for her as she performed a graceful back-flip, halting her fall by wrapping a hand around the thickness of a trailing vine. She kicked her legs out in front of her and pushed off the chest of one startled Fallen. It fell backwards from the log with a dull thud, but did not cry out. One of them managed to snag her boot, yanking it from her foot and tossing it away. She cursed silently. The chase would be far more difficult without her sturdy leather boots to protect her feet from the roots and stones that littered the forest floor.14

“Foolish,” she chided herself, reaching for another vine and leaving the other to slap uselessly back against her confused pursuers. The Fallen were implacable foes, but these were newly created – it would take their puppet master some time to teach them such intricacies as climbing.15

And climb she did. Her legs welcomed the relative ease as she instead used her powerful arms to pull her up the vine's length and towards the lowest branches of the bunju tree from which it hang. Below her, the Fallen circled in confusion, knowing their quarry was above them but not knowing how to reach her. One of them seized upon the idea of throwing her boot at her. She snagged it with her right hand, letting her left bear her weight.16

“My thanks,” she called back down to her would be capturers and tipped them a mock salute. One of them, a woman in the last of her child bearing years, cocked her head as if hearing some distant voice. After a second it nodded in recognition and scrambled back up to the top of the log – launching itself at a hanging vine and gripping it with its dead hands. The puppet master, whoever it was, was good. Arkan had spared no expense in commissioning her capture. She had not expected him too.17

Four days prior she'd managed to dispatch the last of his three Fallen. They had been more formidable foes than these – built specifically for her capture. They had had their hands replaced with hooks and blades seeped in a sleeping poison. Arkan wanted her alive, and that was worse than Arkan wanting her dead. It meant he had uses for her beyond the box she wore at her side. She'd lead the three into an abandoned mine – her team had sealed them inside behind several tonnes of stone. They would be preoccupied with digging their way out for a number of weeks, at least.18

Three others had begun to ascend towards her upon various vines now, and her exhaustion was starting to tell. The nearest was only five feet below her and a dozen feet away. It could, perhaps, jump across to her if it so desired. But the Fallen needed her alive – and the fifty something feet that separated them from the unforgiving earth would surely kill her. They would bide their time. They were in no hurry. Time had no significance to the dead, and Arkan was notorious for his patience. It had taken him two centuries to usurp control of the northern kingdoms.19

“Corbidaenira!” the voice was deep and intimidating. It did not belong to any of the Fallen. They could not speak themselves. This was, she surmised, the voice of the puppet master that lay some miles behind them – probably in the relative comfort of a quiet inn or by a crackling camp fire. She cursed herself for not leaving a scout behind in Gravesend to deal with occurrences such as this. Puppet masters were easily dispatched, if one knew where to find them.20

She ignored the voice for now. She was at the lowermost branch. With great effort she threw her right arm up and over the thick branch. Her forearm was damp with sweat and she slipped a little, her weighty burden threatening to drag her down as if she were in the ocean rather than the air. For a terrifying moment she thought she would fall. But her daemonic blood had reserves for situations such as this. The Yane were notoriously hard to kill, and not for the first time in her life, she was glad for her heritage. A surge of strength carried her up and onto the branch. The nearest was four feet below her now, but the tree's impossibly wide trunk separated her from it.21

“Corbidaenira!” the voice shouted again. It came from the woman who had first figured out how to climb after her. He must have taken a liking to this one. She found herself wondering if the puppet master had used her before killing her. Arkan's servants were not known for their possession of human virtues. An angry red slash across the speaker's throat attested to her end.22

She was in no mood for conversation. Coolly, she pulled a dagger from inside her remaining boot and stooped to cut away the vines upon which her pursuers clung. Three of them plummeted to the earth without so much as a cry. Bones would be broken, with any luck, and broken bones would take time for the Fallen to heal.23

A fourth managed to leap from one vine to another as it fell. The fifth, the speaker, was safe from her dagger. She could have risked throwing it, but that would deprive her of a valuable weapon. Best to let this one finish its climb while she put some distance between herself and her pursuers.24

“Corbidaenira!”25

This one more urgent than its predecessors. The puppet master wished to negotiate. She did not.26

She quickly tugged on her boot and ran along the length of the branch, careful not to look down at the fall that waited her if she misstepped. The Yane seldom misstepped. With a grunt of effort, she soared from one branch to another, covering the six or seven feet with ease granted to her not by her daemon blood – but by that of her mother. Like the Yane, the Elves were a race gifted with a great many advantages over the common man.27

Humanity, she often quipped, were blessed with only two feats of note – a refusal to admit defeat that she found alternately admirable and frustrating, and the ability to propagate at an astounding rate. Both of these traits had equipped them well for the task of populating the world.28

She heard the voice, gruff and male, call out one more time before it faded into the darkness. She had bought herself some time back at the tree, and could afford to slow down. She did not. Up ahead, throw the tangle of branches and vines, she could make out the orange glow of a camp fire. Her instincts had served her well, and her companions waited ahead.29

She had sent them on without her as soon as she had sensed the Fallen in the forest. They would have tired and fallen hours ago, and she could not afford to lose any of them with her task so close to completion. A few hundred feet separated her from something resembling safety.30

She allowed herself a grim, long suffering smile. It gave her dark face a light that it seldom possessed. She was not disposed to cheerfulness, as a rule. Neither of her bloodlines encouraged such short lived emotions.31

She saw it in time to react, but it still caught her by surprise. Her ruby red eyes widened in surprise as the shadows coalesced ahead of her and solidified into a shadowy being of roughly humanoid proportions. Two pin-pricks of light acted as eyes. They regarded her with cold intelligence.32

She skidded to a halt and drew her sword, holding it between her and the shade. It chuckled, a sound like a gravestone being dragged across gravel. It sent a cold shiver up her spine.33

“It ends here,” it informed her. A blade of blackest night formed in what might have been a hand if the shade were truly alive. It attacked silently and with speed that only a shadow mirroring its owner could possess. She was barely able to parry the thrust to her right, teetering for a second with the force of it before regaining her balance.34

“Give me the box,” the shade gurgled now, like a strangled man might in his final moments, “Give me the box and I will be merciful”.35

'Mercy' to a shade meant that she would not be violated or tortured before she died. It did not ensure a quick or painless death. She would take her chances with it.36

“Begone, shade,” she spoke calmly, years of experience with such beings had instilled her with a confidence in how they were best approached, “Your master has erred in sending you after me”.37

The blackness below the thing's eyes broke for a second, the relative light forming a cruel smile that quickly faded back into the darkness that swirled around it. It would not be so easily turned away. She had not expected it to. Its smile had given her a chance to gather her thoughts and observe the arena in which they would do battle.38

“I think I will take you, all the same,” it purred this time, like a tiger or lion full with dead flesh, “For my amusement”.39

It disappeared into the night. It would appear behind her and strike, she knew that. The second the pin pricks that had been its eyes drifted off as the fireflies they truly were, she dived to her left and gripped a vine. The shade's blade cut into the air she had previously occupied as she spun in a lazy arc that took her to a branch on a neighbouring tree. The shade hissed in frustration and crossed the gap between her instantly – its shape drawn out like a shadow in the late afternoon. It formed again just ahead of her with its blade at the ready.40

“Last chance,” she taunted her opponent, “I don't have all night”.41

“No, you don't,” it agreed, “My friends are here”.42

She looked down and saw two Fallen standing at the base of the tree. They looked up at her hopefully, like children beneath a festival firework display.43

“Mine too,” she forced a grin onto her face to add force to her lie. The shade bought it for a split second, turning to check for ambushers. There were none. Her men would not come into the dark after her. She had ordered them to hold their position until she arrived or until dawn. The sky in the east was beginning to lighten. If she didn't join her soon, they would use the circle and seal it behind them. She would be trapped here, miles from civilisation.44

“I wonder,” she spoke easily, “Can shadows catch?”45

She unhooked the box from her arm and tossed it to the shade. It gawked almost comically as it struggled to make itself concrete enough to catch the burden. As it had been, only its blade would have been capable of such a task. She followed the box's spiraling descent with a charge of her own – her blade meeting the shade's torso as it materialised and caught the box. It screamed terribly as the cold steel sunk into it and out the other side. When she withdrew her blade, light came through the wound.46

It dropped the box. It teetered and fell. As she spun to deliver a second blow to its head, she used her trailing foot as both balance and as a means to snag the strap that she had used to carry the box these past weeks. Her blade cut away the shade's head and her foot brought the tumbling box back to a rest at her feet.47

The shade, twice wounded and now caught in the light of a dawning day, hissed in frustration and dissipated. It would not be back until the following night. In the meantime, it would lick its wounds in some dark hole.48

Her heart raced and her mouth was dry. The sun had peaked over the horizon and that meant she had precious few minutes to reach her companions.49

She covered the distance quickly enough, using the canopy of the forest to keep herself away from the Fallen that lurked somewhere below. As she neared the edge of the great jungle, she saw the stone circle and the camp her companions had established. Cain was in the process of tipping sand over the fire. Maerlyn stood nearby with the tent rolled up and packed onto his back. Gavyn watched the jungle warily – no doubt looking for some sign of her approach.50

They were good men all – hand picked by her to handle the many dangers they had encountered in their travels. And now, with the box and its contents in her possession, they were almost done with their treacherous journey. With Arkan's ankh in their possession, they could begin to decipher a way to defeat the undying warlock.51

“Ho!' she shouted ahead. Gavyn's eyes found her in the trees almost immediately. “We have company!”52

Gavyn's heavy, two-handed blade seemed to materialise in his hands as his gaze shifted from her to the ground. The two Fallen burst from the undergrowth, paused a moment in surprise, and then charged. The numbers were on her side, she knew, but that meant precious little. The Fallen could not be killed – only disabled or freed. And freeing them meant finding the tattoo that bound them and destroying it.53

Gavyn met the female one's charge with a double handed overhead swing that caught the woman at the shoulder and cleaved her arm from her body. With her remaining arm, she caught the warrior in the side of the head with a brutal blow. Her strength doubled and redoubled by the enchantment that kept her alive, the woman sent Gavyn tumbling across the camp and into a motionless heap.54

Maerlyn and Cain faired better. Cain drew his axe and scimitar from their sheaths at his side and took a defensive stance in front of Maerlyn. The latter, a warrior only in his sleeping fantasies, muttered underneath his breath as he called forth magic. The second Fallen, a teenage boy by Corbidaenira's guess, reached for Maerlyn and had once of its handed liberated from it by Cain's axe. The female one, done with Gavyn, charged at the pair as Maerlyn unleashed a bolt of fire and sent it into her midsection. The conflagration momentarily consumed her. The air was heavy with the stink of burnt hair and barbecued flesh.55

Seeing no way to join the battle from her lofty perch, Corbidaenira instead unslung her bow and knocked an arrow. The first shot caught the teenage boy in the shoulder – the second pushed its remaining eye from the front of its head. A grim fisherman's kebab.56

The female one, still ablaze, staggered towards Maerlyn and Cain. The flames would eventually consume its skin and destroy the tattoo that animated it – but time was not a luxury any of them had. The Fallen were masters of wearing down opposition, irregardless of how skilled or determined they might prove to be.57

Corbidaenira had unleashed her fifth arrow into the teenage boy when she heard shrubbery being trampled beneath her. A glance below confirmed her worst suspicions – the other three Fallen had arrived.58

“Little help?” Maerlyn called up to her as he used his bladed staff to cut lazy, intimidating arcs in front of himself. If the flaming one stepped inside the arc, however, Maerlyn was a dead man. The teenage one, its body now bristling with spent arrows, showed no signs of being worn down by the beating it had taken. Even with no eyes and two stumps where hands should have been, it sought to bear Cain down and rend his flesh with its teeth.59

The remaining three, hobbling on badly broken legs, would turn the tide and doom them all. With no vines nearby for her to swing from, she had no safe way of getting down to the forest floor. Instead, she slung her bow back over her shoulder and dived from her perch, catching first one branch, and then swinging across to or dropping onto another. It was painful work and her shoulders would scream their complaint for days after the fact, but it was effective. She landed behind the Fallen reinforcements just as they broke cover and began a ragged, staggering charge towards her companions.60

Maerlyn's flames had consumed the flesh from the female one, she saw, and it lay in a broken heap at his feet. With both men able to focus their attentions on the second one, they had managed to force it back down the rise towards its companions. If either of them saw the three approaching, they gave no sign. All they could do was focus on this one and hope to take it down before the others arrived.61

Corbidaenira was determined to buy them that time.62

She approached the reinforcements at a run, a dagger in each hand. As she reached them, she ducked low and cut away their Achilles tendons. It was a crippling injury to any mortal, and a potent way to slow the dead. Both Fallen swayed a moment, placed weight back on their ruined ankles, and tumbled backwards like trees felled in a forest.63

The third, sensing its quarry's presence, spun around to confront her. At the same moment, Cain ducked underneath the teenage one's clumsy blow and barreled forward into its midsection, bearing it down the hill and into the back of its ally. With the weight of a full grown man and its companion at its back, Corbidaenira's opponent fall forward atop its fellows.64

“Maerlyn!” she barked. He nodded and uttered a few quiet words. The roots of the forest broke from the earth and began to entangle and bind the Fallen where they lay. Thick, mud encrusted roots pinioned legs to the ground whilst barbed vines burrowed into eye sockets and mouths. The latter would do little to injure or deter the Fallen. It was just Maerlyn's way of paying them back for Gavyn.65

“To the circle,” she was already running to Gavyn's side, “We leave now!”.66

Gavyn was alive, amazingly. The side of his head was sticky with his blood and one eye had been sealed shut by the swelling. His nose was surely broken and she suspected that one of his arms was too. For a moment she contemplated slitting his throat, sprinkling salt over him, and leaving him behind. The salt would ensure he wouldn't come back to haunt them as one of the Fallen, and she had her doubts that he would be able to pull through. But he was Cain's brother, and she owed it to both men to at least try.67

With great effort she managed to get herself underneath Gavyn's good arm and haul the wounded, barely conscious man to his feet. Cain approached to help but she shooed him away. Maerlyn would need his help to open the circle and bind it behind them. She could support the weight of one man for a few more minutes, but she would sleep like the dead once they reached safety.68

“Is he alive?” Cain asked breathlessly. He skin shone with the signs of his exertion, the dawn light forming a radiant golden scar across his bald head.69

“For now,” she responded coldly, “But not for long, I think”.70

His eyes showed he ached to help his brother, but he was a good soldier. He nodded curtly and went to assist Maerlyn. The wizard had already begun to chant the words needed to open the circle – and he clutched a radiant red stone to his chest as he did so. These keys were a rare treasure, indeed, and she had had to kill three men to find this one. It would be good for one trip more. Perhaps two if they were lucky.71

If they were lucky, though, they wouldn't need any after this one.72

She half dragged Gavyn into the stone circle. The towering monoliths still held the cool of the night, and she allowed herself to sag against one of them and let it cool her flesh. She blew a loose strand of hair from her face and glanced nervously back at the seething mass of roots, vines, and dead flesh. Without Maerlyn's concentration to sustain it the spell would bind the Fallen for a few minutes more at best.73

“Corbidaenira...” Gavyn's voice was barely a whisper.74

“Yes?”75

“Did you get it? Did you get the ankh?” His voice was feverish. He wasn't long for this world.76

“I did,” she assured him, “I got it”.77

She forced a smile onto her face. Her white teeth were in stark contrast to the grey-black of her skin. They were predatory in her attractive, exotic face.78

“Can I...” he stopped to cough. Corbidaenira was not surprised to see droplets of blood on her hand after the fact. The tumble he had taken had doubtless turned his insides to a messy pulp. She knew what he wanted. He wanted to see the ankh – to see the proof that his imminent death was not a death in vain. She could grant him at least that solace.79

Lowing her so that he sat with his back against another monolith, she kneeled at his side and prised open the lid of the small, cedar box.80

It was empty.81

Gavyn's eyes rolled back into his head. Corbidaenira almost fainted. She swayed on the spot a moment as her mind tried to process the scene before her. The ankh, the key to defeating Arkan and ending a century of oppression, was gone. She had lost it. When? She had to go back!82

Maerlyn was finishing his invocation.83

“Wait!” she warned.84

He turned to her and regarded her with his cool, green eyes full of curiosity.85

“Gavyn!” Cain bellowed, rushing across to where his brother lay alive, but unconscious.86

The sky brightened to a point that none of them could keep their eyes open if they wanted to retain their sight. It enveloped them and held them in warm, radiant hands. The world spun. The grass around the stone circle wilted for two dozen feet and an unlucky raven fell from the sky.87

“Gone,” Corbidaenira thought numbly to herself as she felt her very soul being plucked from the solidity of the mortal world and into the swirling world of magical energy that existed beneath all things, “Gone”.88

Then she thought nothing.