Lyra Fernbrook's Arc

Chapter 6 of 18

They came down the ridge together and reached her cottage without speaking. Lyra unlocked the door and lit two lamps. Dorian went to work at once. He drove the long nail into the threshold with three clean strikes. He set the flat plate under the hearthstone. He wedged the hooked bar across the window frame. Last, he fitted the ringed bolt into the door and turned it until the runes bit. The drake watched from the table, wings half open. When the last ward seated, the crystal windows brightened a shade, as if the house had drawn a breath. Lyra laid the lyre on the bench and set her satchel beside it. She poured water for Dorian. He drank half the cup and set it down. Then the drake hissed. Its head snapped toward the door. Outside, something heavy cracked a branch. Then a second crack answered it, farther left. Lyra opened the door a hand's width. Two shapes broke from the tree line. They were taller than the roof. Bark plated their shoulders. Vines wrapped their arms. Their eyes burned orange in sockets carved from wood. Small red flowers grew along their spines. One raised a fist the size of a barrel and drove it into the earth. The ground shook under her feet. "Back," Dorian said. He shoved her behind him and stepped onto the porch with the hammer up. The first spirit swung. Dorian took the blow on his shoulder and went down on one knee. He came up under its guard and struck the joint of its arm. The iron rang. A crack ran along the bark. The second spirit reached past him for Lyra. She grabbed the lyre and played the two warded strings her grandmother had taught her for calm. The notes rolled out flat and clean and did not turn against her. The reaching hand slowed. The drake shot from the doorway and blew pollen into its eyes. It staggered back, blind, and Dorian buried the hammer in its knee. The wood split. The spirit fell against its brother. Both of them broke apart in a slow collapse of moss and splinter, until only two heaps of steaming wood lay on her path. Dorian sat down hard on the step. Blood ran from a gash above his ear and another along his ribs where a splinter had gone through his shirt. His breath came in short pulls. Lyra knelt in front of him and opened the satchel. She packed yarrow into the rib wound and tied it with linen. She pressed a bruised leaf against his temple and held it there. She hummed low over his skin until the bleeding slowed and his shoulders eased. He watched her the whole time and did not speak. "The wards held," she said. "They did not cross the threshold." Dorian nodded once. "But the grove sent them," he said. "And it will send worse."