Tentatively, for he knew the pain that this could bring, he stooped low and picked it up between gloved fingers. It was a ragged piece, torn from the hauberk of a suit of hunting leathers. Slowly, gently, Walker drew his black leather glove off, revealing a pale, long-fingered hand.
Hesitantly, he rested his fingers on the leather in his other hand and closed his eyes. Images flowed into him then, along with an emotional swell that blew the breath from his body. The psychic resonance of the piece carried whisperings of memories and visions, hopes and fears. He hated this power, which would manifest whenever his bare fingers touched something not his own, but it was necessary at times.
A round-faced woman, cheeks rosy from the morning chill… two little boys, playing at rangers and orcs with wooden swords…
Sweat dripped down Walker's forehead and his body burned with phantom pain, but he gritted his teeth and held on. The resonance was not strong, but it could overwhelm him if he lost control.
A soldier, not heroic but strong of heart…
The visions faded as Walker dropped the leather to the ground.
He dived into shadows, racing his mistress. Leaping along in the Shadow Fringe, Walker ran faster than any mere mortal could. Ghosts flitted past his peripheral vision and reached out imploring arms to slow him, but Walker was firm in his cause. He gripped the hilt of his shatterspike and prayed he would not need it.
The distance was not great, covered in almost no time through the shadows, but it was only by luck that he found the hunters. Under a darkening sky, with clouds rolling across the sun, the shadows were dissipating, but he could make it. Walker leaped to a shadow near a giant of a man he had fought before. Then he dispelled his shadowalk and stepped out within a sword's length of the captain.
"Leave these woods now," Walker warned.
" 'Ware!" Unddreth shouted. A mighty warhammer came around at Walker. "He's here!"
The ghostwalker ducked the swing and stepped inside Unddreth's reach. He grasped the hammer arm in both hands and stared into the genasi's eyes with the full weight of his gaze. "Fools," he said. "You must leave now."
Unddreth strained against the grip but could not break it. He puffed himself up as large as he could, refusing to be intimidated. Walker swore inwardly.
"Let the captain go!" came a shout from behind him.
A dozen guards were all around Walker, swords drawn and crossbows trained on his face.
Walker ignored the threat. "Leave now," he reiterated. "You do not understand."
Unddreth grimaced, his arms straining. "You are under arrest, by order of Lord Singer Dharan Greyt, by the power vested in me by the Silver Marches Confederation-" he rumbled.
"You must leave, or you will surely die," Walker replied. Clouds were gathering overhead and thunder rolled. "The Ghostly Lady is coming."
"A legend," Unddreth said. "In the name of High Lady Alustriel and the Silver Marches, I place you under arrest-"
Walker interrupted him again. "I see you are a good and honorable man. If you are concerned for the lives of your men, you will leave." Suddenly, the ground beneath Walker's feet became porous and soft, losing its consistency until it was as thin as quicksand.
"No," he rasped as he sank down. "Gylther'yel! No!"
One of the crossbowmen started and shot a bolt at him, which Walker instinctively batted aside with his steel bracer. "Men of Quaervarr, run-"
Before he could croak out more of the warning, the earth swallowed up his face and he could see and speak no more.
Then the heavens rained fire.
Trapped in a womb of dirt, Walker could barely move his limbs. He could only imagine what was transpiring above him. More than that, he could feel, rather than see, death. He would have taken on ghostly form and leaped up through the earth, but Gylther'yel had woven an ethereal net over him. She knew his powers only too well.
Thus, his options exhausted, Walker took a gulp of trapped air and began wriggling, then digging upward, hoping against hope he would arrive in time.
Finally, his reaching fingers struck air and he hauled himself out of the hole in the ground.
The scene that greeted him was one of fury and devastation. Mist mingled with smoke in the glade, blurring his vision. The grasses and trees were singed as by an inferno, and the few standing guards were limping and pulling at icy shards embedded in their flesh. Several of the men were struggling against the limbs of trees, which had reached out to ensnare them. Ghosts of the dead and groans of the dying surrounded him.
Walker counted six living guardsmen, and the captain. Unddreth swiped his hammer at a pack of ghostly wolves that had encircled him, their eyes gleaming with malevolence. The rest of the men had been reduced to cinders or frozen into blackened statues. All killed… destroyed by nature's wrath.
As Walker watched, a bolt of lightning streaked out of the clouds and struck Unddreth directly, throwing him down. The genasi, dazed, struggled to beat off the wolves as they swarmed him. Even as he punched one aside, another wolf leaped atop him and grabbed his arm in its jaws.
Walker leaped to his defense, his sword slashing back and forth, cutting through ghost wolf after ghost wolf. Because of its enchantments, Walker's shatterspike existed in both the Material and Ethereal worlds, so its ghostly touch slew the shadowy creatures as though they were flesh. The wolves fell back, snarling. Shimmering shatterspike in hand, Walker stood over the fallen captain and threatened any wolf that came too close.
Gylther'yel appeared out of the mist, her gray robe making her golden skin appear luminous in the half-light. "This is foolish, Walker," she said with a mirthless smile. "Step aside and let my children do their work."
"Impossible," the ghostwalker said. Just then, the remaining soldiers stopped moaning, as though the pain of their wounds had vanished under the icy press of his will.
"Do not presume to test your powers on me," Gylther'yel warned. Her voice was soft but there was righteous fury in her eyes.
If Walker's resolute aura made him intimidating, Gylther'yel's presence could have slain ordinary men with its terror and majesty. Even Walker felt weak, but relief and encouragement flooded through him, assuring him that his was the right course. Not even pondering the source of such feelings, he stood firm against the ghost druid, his teacher.
"This is what I must do," Walker said. He slid his sword back into its scabbard. "These men have done nothing against you, or against your woods."
"They are humans. That is enough," Gylther'yel said. Her words were calm and her face was composed, but her eyes were seething. "They come into the forest that I love, they murder the animals that are my brothers and they rape the trees that are my sisters. They bring axes. They bring lances. They bring fire." The bright flame burning in her palm diminished, as though she had just realized she'd held it. Gylther'yel turned back to Walker. "They carry death with them, child. Never will I accept them. They are a disease, a blight, a hungry flame."
"Not all-" Walker started.
"All!" Gylther'yel hissed, and her soft voice held the fury of thunder. "I am pleased when you kill them, for you purify them. Death is the only purity they can hope for, the only purity any of them can know-it is far more than they deserve."
Walker was about to protest, but then a soldier rose up behind the druid, sword raised high as he advanced on the petite elf. Walker held up his hands to ward off the man, hoping the gesture came off as peaceful to Gylther'yel.
The sun elf held up a delicate hand of her own, as though in reply, and Walker felt a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach.
Sure enough, vines snaked out of the ground and wrapped themselves around the soldier's legs and body. The man gawked as the vines completely entangled him and twisted the sword out of his hand. The small sun elf turned toward him with a smile on her face.