The Rancher's Daughter Read online

  With desperate effort, Lainie dragged herself a little further back into her body. The dark beings resisted, but as her hold on her life increased, she grew that much stronger. She pushed into the midst of the darkness that filled her. Now she could see the deep rose glow of her power, that had been surrounded and muted by the nameless beings. It was almost within her reach; she stretched towards it with everything she had and touched it. At her touch, her power flared to life and began to flow through her.

  She felt her heart begin to beat.

  She had made it this far, but even now that she had access to her power again, the dark beings made every scrap of progress a nearly-impossible struggle. If she was going to shift the balance and drive them out, she needed help. And Silas in turn needed her help, if he’d really been shot as many times as it sounded like. He couldn’t afford to wait while she fought a drawn-out battle to reclaim her life.

  Though it was taking everything she had to stand her ground against the dark beings’ relentless push, she sent a single thin thread of her power down through the altar and into the earth, past amber power and brown, deep into the cold, lightless realm of the Sh’kimech. Wake up! she cried. I need your help! It was dangerous to summon them and invite them in, but that danger seemed remote compared to the fight she was in right now. Once the dark beings were gone and she had regained full command of her body and her power, then she could deal with the Sh’kimech.

  The Sh’kimech stirred. Sister, they greeted her. What do you want? Are you ready to join us?

  No! She couldn’t believe she was doing this again; she had barely managed to control them last time, this was a mistake –

  The dark, nameless beings took advantage of her hesitation to drive her back a little. She braced herself against them and strengthened her resolve. Help me! she commanded the Sh’kimech.

  At her invitation, the Sh’kimech started flowing up along the strand of power that connected her to them. Compared to the nameless beings she was fighting, the Sh’kimech’s icy, malicious touch felt almost comfortingly familiar. How strange it was that these creatures, her enemy, who wanted to take her to live with them in the dark and use her to do their work of destruction, could almost seem like friends.

  The Sh’kimech reached her and began to enter her, then they stopped. Who is the fool who has awakened the Old Ones? They sounded almost frightened.

  The Old Ones?

  When the light came and we fled beneath the surface of the world, they were already there. We could not pass beyond them to go deeper; they would have consumed us, for that is what they do.

  Lainie’s will faltered again. If even the Sh’kimech were afraid of these dark beings, these Old Ones, then what hope did she have? But if she gave up, the Old Ones would use her body to consume everything else that lived. She had to find hope somewhere.

  You and me together, we’re stronger than anything else, right? she asked.

  Stronger than any of the infestation, yes. But not stronger than the Old Ones. The Sh’kimech started to retreat.

  Wait! Stop! They’re trying to push me out of my body and take it for themselves!

  Then your mindsoul can come dwell with us.

  No! Listen to me. She tried to remember how she had controlled them before. If the man who summoned the Old Ones is still alive, I’ll let you destroy him.

  That stirred their interest. Their fear receded, and they crept back towards her.

  Again the Old Ones had taken advantage of her brief lapse to regain a little more of the ground she had taken back. She dug in and pushed back. See? I can already hold them off by myself, she told the Sh’kimech even as she fought with everything she had to hang on. With your strength added to mine, it won’t be so hard to drive them out.

  Very well, Sister. Your strength and ours together will drive out the Old Ones, and we will destroy the one who summoned them.

  The Sh’kimech flooded into her and came up against the Old Ones with a crash that shook Lainie to the depths of her spirit. The collision jolted the Old Ones loose from their foothold inside her and they fell back a good amount. But the battle wasn’t over that easily; the Old Ones fought back, sinking their cold presence more deeply into her. Lainie returned her full power to the struggle and bore down with the Sh’kimech against them. Under the weight of the combined advance, the dark beings’ hold loosened and they slipped even further back.

  She could move now. The ropes binding her wrists and ankles to the altar were an inconvenience; with the strength of the massive amounts of power inside her, she pulled the ropes free of where they were tied to the altar.

  She stood up. Around her, voices cried out in terror. Through the dark mist that veiled her vision, she saw hundreds of Ta’ayatan clansfolk staring up at her, eyes and mouths frozen wide in fear and astonishment. Then a man shouted something in the A’ayimat language. Through the living power inside of Lainie and her contact with the stone altar, built on and of the earth, the sense of his words formed in her mind. The weapon!

  Others seemed to recover from their shock. The weapon! they cried. It is as we were promised!

  Lainie trembled with power and rage. She still didn’t understand why they had offered her to the Old Ones, but she would see them punished for it, starting with the wiseman. But he was nowhere to be seen. Silas had destroyed him, then. Still, there were the others, who had stood by and done nothing, or cheered him on…

  Let us destroy them all! the Sh’kimech cried eagerly.

  The Old Ones took advantage of the Sh’kimech’s distraction to make a push forward. Lainie scrambled to maintain her hold on her body. Not now! she ordered the Sh’kimech. Not till the Old Ones are gone.

  The Sh’kimech turned back to their battle against the Old Ones. Lainie joined them, and together they forced the Old Ones back to their previous position. Keep holding them off; I have to see if my husband is okay, she told the Sh’kimech. She left them and her own power to hold back the Old Ones, and turned her physical senses outward again, looking for Silas.

  He lay in the muddy snow at the foot of the altar, twisting around to look up at her. His face was smeared with dirt, blood, and tears. On his back sat a man holding a gun loosely in his hand as though he had forgotten about it, staring at her in astonishment.

  She stared back at him, equally stunned. The bookkeeper? What was he doing here, and why had he shot Silas? Lainie diverted a single thin strand of her power from the fight against the Old Ones and reached out with it towards Oferdon.

  He had power, no small amount, though not as strong as hers or Silas’s. It had a jittery, sickly feel to it. Was he renegade or a hunter?

  Either way, he had shot Silas, and for that she would destroy him before he could do any more harm. But she couldn’t spare enough power from the battle against the Old Ones. The answer came easily to her mind; the Old Ones would serve her in this one thing. Without a thought for the danger of what she was doing, she said to the Old Ones and the Sh’kimech, If you want to destroy something, I’ll let you have him.

  In answer, they flowed into her hands. She added her own power to it and began forming the power she held into a giant mass of dark magic. “Let him go,” she said to Oferdon. Her voice reverberated darkly with the powers inside her.

  The shock on Oferdon’s face turned to raw, wide-eyed terror. He scrambled away from Silas into the crowd of Ta’ayatan. “He killed your priest!” he shouted. “Aren’t you going to do anything about it?”

  Words of consternation and anger arose from the clansfolk around him, then a handful of men wielding swords and knives broke out of the crowd and ran towards Silas.

  Lainie finished shaping her attack. Oferdon had evaded her for now, but these men could not. Stop them! She heaved the mass of power at the oncoming Ta’ayatan.

  Men cried out as the wall of darkness mowed them down and rolled on towards the gathered crowd. Shields appeared, too late and too weak. Lainie’s attack crashed through, and screaming men, women, and child
ren dove out of its way as it tumbled past. Finally, it smashed into the huts at the edge of the village and disappeared. A dozen or more bodies lay in the path it had carved, some moving, some still.

  More! the Sh’kimech and the Old Ones demanded. In their mutual hunger for destruction, they seemed to have forgotten their battle. We’ll cleanse our world of the infestation!

  No! Using all her power and will, Lainie fought to get control of them again. If she let the two powers remain united, if the Sh’kimech gave up on the battle against the Old Ones, she would be lost, and both the Sh’kimech and the Old Ones would have their weapon of destruction. She set herself against the Old Ones again. Sh’kimech! Help me get rid of them. They’re your enemy, too, and they’ll destroy you if you let them!

  Yes, Sister, they said. We cannot let them consume us.

  Though she could sense their reluctance to turn away from the destruction they so desired, the Sh’kimech renewed their attack on the Old Ones. Some of their strength, and Lainie’s as well, had been depleted by the attack against the Ta’ayatan, but so had a good part of the Old Ones’ power, and Lainie felt the balance of the battle shift inside her. Now it was the ancient beings who were steadily losing ground. Cramping pain wracked her body as they fought her every finger-width of the way, but she didn’t waver. She had almost won.

  She dropped to her hands and knees on the altar and, with one great, final effort, pushed the Old Ones the rest of the way out of her body and farther back still, driving them through the stone of the altar down into the earth, deeper and deeper, beyond the Sh’kimech’s realm to a place even more utterly cold and dark. Stay there and go back to sleep, she ordered them. She put every grain of will and authority she had in her into the words. Even then, she couldn’t command the Old Ones – no one could – but unsummoned and uninvited into the world above, they were helpless to do anything but return to their slumber.

  A woman’s voice raised in angry challenge snapped Lainie’s awareness back to the outside world. Through eyes still veiled with the Sh’kimech’s presence, she saw a whip of deep orange power fly towards Silas, who had managed to sit halfway up. A wavering blue shield appeared in front of him, but the whip cut through it and wrapped around itself around him, jerking him back down to the ground. Blood and wisps of smoke began to spread from where the whip had sliced through his clothing. He fumbled with his right hand for his gun, then an arrow sank into his right bicep.

  More of the Ta’ayatan readied their weapons and began shaping magical attacks. Lainie didn’t have enough power left to protect Silas and control the Sh’kimech at the same time, and she didn’t dare risk losing control of the Sh’kimech again by turning them loose with another attack. But there was another source of power close to hand. If she could push another mage’s power into him, why couldn’t she also pull it into herself and use it, as she did with the Sh’kimech’s power?

  Lainie reached out with a few strands of her mage senses and grabbed onto the power of a handful of the Ta’ayatan. It was slippery, difficult to grasp; this might be easier with physical contact, but there was no time for that. She grappled with the power and seized it, and pulled it in as though taking in a deep breath of air.

  Startled cries met her theft. She ignored them; three men holding swords were running towards Silas. She flung out a lash of many-colored power and struck them to the ground. Two of the men had noticeable amounts of power; she grabbed it and pulled it from them, then reached into the crowd, found more power, and took it as well.

  More cries of outrage and alarm arose. Spears and arrows flew towards Lainie. She threw a defensive shield with some of the power she had taken in, and formed the rest into a giant ball of swirling, colorful light. The arrows and spears hit the shield; it slowed them, and they fell harmlessly to the ground. When Lainie’s attack was ready, she let the shield drop and threw the ball of power at the Ta’ayatan. The mass of brilliant colors rolled forward in an expanding wave of magic that felled dozens of people and scattered most of the others until it struck the village, splintering half a dozen huts, and dissipated.

  The gathering of clansfolk dissolved into a commotion of fear and chaos. Lainie stood drained and shaking, trying to catch her breath. The Sh’kimech agitated to be unleashed again; it was taking every scrap that was left of her own power and the A’ayimat power she had taken in to keep them under control. She didn’t know what she would do if the Ta’ayatan attacked again. It took power to take power from another person; the more people she took power from, the more of her own power it required. She didn’t think she had enough of her own magic left to take enough power to do any good against another attack, assuming the Ta’ayatan even had enough power left for her to take.

  Movement caught her eye. Oferdon emerged from the scattered and broken crowd on his hands and knees, and aimed his gun at Silas.

  Oferdon. She had forgotten about him – and his power. Surely she had enough left to take the power from just one man, and if she took his power she would disable him and have enough to finish dealing with the Sh’kimech. She unfurled a thin thread of her own power and grabbed onto Oferdon’s magic. The dull yellow power felt rotten, corrupted somehow, and she recoiled from it, but this was no time to be squeamish. She forced herself to take it all in.

  Oferdon’s eyes widened, then surprise turned to horror. “What did you do?” he demanded.

  A heady feeling of strength flooded through Lainie. No one could beat her; nothing could hurt her; she could do anything she wanted and nothing would stop her. She called Oferdon’s power and a good amount of the Sh’kimech mindsoul into her hands and shaped it into a darkly glowing ball.

  “Damn you to all eight hells, woman, answer me!” Oferdon shrieked. “What did you do to me?” He aimed his gun at her.

  Get him! she ordered the Sh’kimech, and sent the ball of power hurtling towards Oferdon.

  He slipped back among the injured and scattered Ta’ayatan. A wavering shield of half a dozen colors appeared in the path of the attack. The ball of magic collided with the shield in a loud crash and a wild tumble of colored light. When the explosion cleared, Lainie caught a brief glimpse of Oferdon’s back as he fled into the forest beyond the village.

  “No!” she screamed, the Sh’kimech’s frustration echoing in her voice. “You coward, get back here and fight me like a man!”

  Go after him! the Sh’kimech urged her. You can catch him, we can still destroy him!

  Their eagerness and that sense of invincibility filled Lainie with a burst of strength, and she jumped down from the altar to go after Oferdon. But even the Sh’kimech’s demands and her vastly increased confidence weren’t enough to overcome her body’s exhaustion. Her legs gave out from under her and she collapsed to her knees on the cold, muddy ground. I can’t, she told the Sh’kimech, nearly weeping in defeat. She set her hands flat against the ground. Go home. If I find him again, I’ll let you have him.

  You are weary, Sister. The Sh’kimech tugged at her. Come with us and rest. We will even let you bring the man with you. You will still have your body and walk upon the surface of the world, you can experience the pleasures of mortal life and share them with us, and in turn our power will be yours, and you will never grow tired or die.

  No. More than anything else right then, she longed for rest and safety, for herself and for Silas, but not at the cost of an eternity bound to the Sh’kimech in their home far from the light, not if it meant being their weapon of ruin on the surface of the world. Putting all her will and the last remaining shreds of the power she held into her refusal, she said, I don’t want what you’re offering me. You did what I asked; now go.

  Her rejection gave them no other choice. As you wish, Sister. Perhaps next time. They flowed out of her into the ground, taking with them the last of the cold, heavy darkness from inside her.

  Chapter 12

  LAINIE SAT BACK on her heels, catching her breath and picking out the knots in the ropes around her wrists and ankles. She fel
t weightless and utterly drained, and the strange sense of invincibility had fled. She looked at Silas where he lay nearby in the mud and trampled snow. The sight of his dirty, tear-streaked, pain-lined face brought tears to her own eyes. She shook loose the ropes, then leaned over him and brushed his hair away from his face. “Oh, baby.” Her voice caught in her throat. “What’d they do to you?”

  He raised his right hand and gently touched her face, then dropped his hand again. “I thought you were dead, darlin’.” His voice was so weak she could barely hear it. “Gonna put a keeper charm on you, make sure no one else can take you from me.”

  In spite of everything, that brought a smile to her face. She set about surveying the damage. The magical whip had disappeared, leaving his clothes singed and torn into bloodied strips. There was the arrow sticking out of his right bicep, and patches of blood marked gunshot wounds on his left thigh, shoulder, and upper arm. From the swollen, distorted shape of that arm, Lainie guessed it was broken. “That’s three times he shot you?” she asked. The exact number of shots had been lost in the haze of her battle with the Old Ones.

  “Back, too,” Silas answered. “Right shoulder and leg, I think. And he hit me on the back of my head with his gun.”

  Careful of his arm, Lainie turned him just enough that she could see his other injuries. Silas’s hair was matted with blood; Lainie probed carefully with her fingers at the lump on the back of his head. He had taught her some magical healing, but not enough to deal with so many different kinds of serious injuries, and anyhow she had no power left, not one scrap. And he couldn’t help; it actually required more power for a mage to heal himself than someone else, and he looked as drained as she was.

  It was strange; though an empty sensation nagged at her in the place where her power had been, she didn’t feel any of the usual urges brought on by magical hunger. She supposed she must be used enough to the hunger by now to ignore it when there were more important matters to hand. “Gods-damned coward, that Oferdon, shooting a man in the back.” She sighed. “Well, I better see what I can do about all this.”