Roran Vottier's Arc

Chapter 10 of 10

Roran stepped into the gray morning with the sword in his hand. Kaia followed, one palm braced on the doorframe. The wolf slipped ahead, then stopped short. Its ears flattened. Roran looked past it toward the trees where the path bent east to the shrine. The way was gone. Overnight the blight had crawled up from the soil and knotted the trunks into a black wall. Something moved inside it. "The rot pulled something out of the ground," Kaia said. Her voice was thin but steady. "It feeds where the doorway bled deepest." A shape uncurled from the dark trees. It was long and low, made of root and shadow, dragging itself over the withered brush. It had no face, only a wet seam that opened toward them. The wolf's silver eyes fixed on it. The animal growled, hackles up, and put its body between Kaia and the thing. "The sword still cuts rot," Roran said. "Outside the barrow it holds power." He remembered his knife dissolving at the doorway. He remembered the blade failing against the wraith below. But this was neither. This was blight given a body, above the ground. "Then don't let it touch you," Kaia said. "The rot eats steel. It will eat you." Roran moved first. The creature lunged, faster than its bulk promised. He swung low and the golden edge bit through a root-limb. It parted with a hiss and black sap spat across the leaves. The thing recoiled, then struck again. Roran ducked. A tendril raked his sleeve and the cloth smoked where it passed. The wolf darted in and snapped at the seam, drawing the creature's weight sideways. Roran took the opening. He drove the blade into the wet core. The sword flared bright. The creature shuddered, folded inward, and collapsed into a heap of steaming rot. The black wall behind it sagged and crumbled to ash. The path east lay open again. Roran stood over the ruin, breathing hard. Kaia came to his side and looked at the cleared way. "We have our road back," she said. Then light caught her eye. Not from the path. From behind the cottage. A soft blue glow pulsed in the pale morning. Roran turned. Beyond the vine-wrapped walls, where his garden had been, a field of flowers had opened overnight. Their petals spread in points like small stars, and each held a shine at its heart, cold and clean as winter light. Kaia walked toward them, slow, her hand at her chest. She knelt and touched one glowing bloom. Her breath caught. "These grew from the same soil the blight poisoned," she said. She looked up at Roran, and for the first time her weakness left her face. "They only bloom where the ground fights back. Roran—we don't have to carry the fire into the barrow. The cure is already here."