Dark Harvest (eBook)

Prologue

Snow.

Snow and black rock and freezing wind.

The storm roared through the desolate mountain pass, each chill gust stirring up a fresh hail of frozen snow pellets. Strong enough to throw unwary travelers off balance, falling to their doom among the sharp crags and tangled boulders below.

High above, the towering mountain peaks disappeared into the gray, leaden clouds that swirled angrily all around.

Through this bleak, hostile environment, a lone figure struggled defiantly up the slope. Hunched over against the gathering storm, face turned away from the wind that blasted exposed skin raw, a young girl trudged doggedly through the deepening snow. Each breath came as a shallow, gasping sigh, the warmth and moisture of each exhalation instantly torn away by the howling wind as if the mountain itself was trying to suck the life right out of her.

She carried no pack or shelter, no equipment or weapons, not even a stock of food to sustain her wearying journey. There had been no time to gather anything in the panicked chaos of her departure, fleeing from the reassuring security of her village, her home, her people.

Or whatever her people had become.

The girl shuddered from something far deeper than the chilling wind as her mind vividly recalled the horrors she had witnessed just a day earlier. The scenes of death and terrifying violence committed by people who had shown only love and loyalty toward one another. An entire village wiped out, an entire community destroyed. Everyone she had ever known and cared about in her fifteen years of life lost forever.

And all of it because of the object she carried with her, an object that weighed heavy in the small leather satchel slung over one shoulder, bumping painfully against her side with each step.

The spirit stone. A big shard of infinitely black rock, unlike any they had ever seen before, its multifaceted surfaces perfectly flat, its edges straight as an arrow, its bizarre crystalline depths drawing the eye and the mind in. The only imperfection in its strange form was the rough fault line along the base where it had been broken away from its place of rest.

The girl vividly remembered the excitement of its discovery a few days ago, when the hunting party she’d accompanied had chanced upon a hitherto unknown cave high in the mountains. Three of the strongest and bravest hunters had ventured inside, the flickering glow of their torches disappearing into the darkness.

When at length they emerged from the shadowy cavern, they brought with them an outlandish tale of fabulous caverns filled with stars, like stepping into a different world. And as proof of their discovery, they had brought with them the spirit stone, hewn from the wall of this strange subterranean world.

Failing daylight and poor weather had curtailed further expeditions underground, forcing them to return to their village with their curious prize. Still, they had been hailed as heroes and brave explorers, and soon there was talk of returning to the cave to seek more treasures.

Then the sickness started. It began with the young men of the hunting party, but all too quickly it spread to others until it became like a wildfire raging unchecked through their village. Even the village’s best healers could do nothing to halt its progress.

The girl couldn’t explain it, but on some deep level she sensed it: that this object that had been hailed as a gift from the spirit world, a talisman of power, was the source of their downfall.

Evil dwelt within it, and the dark malevolence that lived inside had leaked out somehow, infecting everyone and everything around it. Turning good people into murderous fiends.

Only she had been spared. She alone retained her sanity while the others descended into madness.

She was alive, and she knew what she had to do.

The spirit stone had to be returned to the cavern from which it had been taken. Only then would the spirits be appeased and the evil curse lifted.

She knew this as surely as she drew breath.

And yet everything now seemed to be conspiring to thwart her mission. Even as she threaded a path through the heavily forested foothills and ascended the mountain’s lower slopes, ominous gray clouds had rolled in from the north, the skies had darkened, and a cold wind had begun to rise. Winter had come early this year.

It was a bad time even for experienced travelers to venture far, never mind a skinny, frightened girl of barely fifteen years. She was no adventurer who craved danger and excitement. Her short, sheltered life had been centered around family and belonging.

She might have been an unworthy guardian, but there was no one else. She was all that stood between the evil spirits and the unprepared world beyond.

So onward she went, rallying her flagging strength and resolve, each trudging step carrying her further up the slope, fractionally closer to her final goal. She would follow the route taken by the hunting party until she located the cave, and then she would rid herself of this hateful burden.

She was caught by a sudden violent gust that knocked her right off her feet. Stumbling, she clutched at the ground scoured clean by the biting winds, the sharp stones cutting into her hands.

Eyes streaming in the freezing wind, she looked up at the great peak visible only briefly through gaps in the cloud cover. The mountain towered over her, impossibly high and unassailable, glowing angry red in the dying light. Darkness would fall soon. The bone-numbing cold was deepening as the day retreated.

Her time was running out.

Forcing herself up, the girl stumbled onward, staying to the lee side of the ridge where the rock walls offered some protection from the bitter wind. By the time the ridge flattened out to rejoin the main slope, she was shaking and gasping for breath, each lungful of frigid air searing her throat.

Her feet and hands were numb, her body aching with fatigue. Her foot caught on a rock hidden beneath the snow, and she fell to her knees, letting out an exhausted and defeated sob. Tears tracked across her cheeks and froze to the skin. She had been foolish to come here, naive to think she could summit this mountain in the middle of a winter storm, ignorant not to have foreseen the fate that awaited her.

And then, in one of those curious changes of fortune that come at the most unexpected of moments, the clouds broke for a few seconds, affording her a wider view of the mountain around her. She saw the ridge she had struggled up with such effort, saw the darkened forests and lakes dizzyingly far below, saw the steep hillside sweeping off to the right, leading to . . .

She let out a gasp as she spotted an abrupt break in the windswept monotony, a narrow ravine that looked as if some great blade had hacked into the side of the mountain, leaving behind a deep, raw gash in the slope.

It was just as she remembered. She was almost there!

Renewed strength flooding her body, the girl scrambled to her feet and hurried toward it even as the clouds closed in again and the storm renewed its onslaught. Her body was weary, but her spirit had been reinvigorated. She pushed on, clutching her heavy burden and finally stumbling into the head of the ravine.

The change was profound and immediate, and she almost sighed in relief to be out of the searing wind.

There was no vegetation. No bushes or grass, not even moss or lichen seemed able to grow here. The mountain was as barren and dead as any place she’d seen.

Steep walls of rock rose high on both sides, obscuring what remained of the daylight so that the narrow, twisting pass was bathed in shadow, forcing her to slow her pace and proceed more cautiously.

Hugging one side of the canyon and using her hands as much as her eyes to move, she stopped suddenly when the rock wall abruptly fell away to her right. Frowning, she looked over at this inexplicable void and let out a startled cry.

A dark, narrow fissure in the rock opened before her, partly hidden by fallen rocks and shadow. She could easily have walked by without even noticing it. But noticed it she had.

Against the odds, against even her own expectations, she had found the cave! Now there was only one last task to complete.

Taking one last look around, she advanced into the darkness and left the world behind.

The violent howl of the wind receded to a distant, haunting moan as she crept forward. Her hands stretched out, one feeling the rough stone by her side and the other reaching ahead.

She had brought no flint and tinder, no torch to light her way. There hadn’t been time. And she was in uncharted territory now. She had not accompanied the hunters when they ventured in here, and so knew little of the cave’s layout.

With her vision diminished, her other senses soon sharpened to compensate. She inhaled, tasting the air. It was cold and very dry and smelled faintly of dust and great age but little else. No smell of animal dung or rotting flesh; caves were natural dens for predators, and children in her village learned from a young age never to venture into them alone.

The floor was scattered with loose pieces of stone that had fallen from the roof over the millennia, and sloped gently downward into the side of the mountain. She advanced, carefully feeling her way, the sound of her breathing echoing off the walls, until she had covered a good twenty paces.

More than deep enough.

Reaching down, she gripped the satchel at her side, feeling the heavy weight within. Soon she...