Bloodfire Quest

7

With Tesla Dart leading the way, the little company set off south in search of Crace Coram and Oriantha. They kept an eye out for the missing Pleysia, as well, thinking they might at least cross her trail. But they lacked a true Tracker to read whatever sign had been left, and while they searched diligently they found no trace of her passing. The country remained barren and wasted, a combination of hardpan and scrub interspersed with groves of withered trees and patches of swamp. At times, they skirted fissures in the ground that disappeared into darkness and stretches of broken rock that looked to have been pushed up through the earth in cataclysmic upheavals. There were no signs of life save for things distant and indistinct that the Ulk Bog mostly ignored.

That changed when, several hours into their march, he brought them to a hurried halt and ordered them all to crouch down and remain perfectly still. Redden peered out from the cover of the broken rise behind which they all hid and watched a swarm of creatures with cat faces and sleek, supple bodies lope across the plains west, dozens moving together in an undulating mass. Separately, they seemed small and vulnerable. But as a pack they had a dangerous look to them.

When the boy asked Tesla Dart afterward what they were, he smiled his toothy smile and said, “Furies.”

They spied many other creatures after that: ogres, Goblins, Wights, Harpies, and things that Redden had never even heard mentioned before. Everything seemed to be hunting, and none of them seemed too particular about what they found. Some scoured the land alone and some did so in packs. Now and then, the company came upon hunters absorbed in eating prey they had caught. Twice, they watched killings take place. Much of their traveling time was spent hiding in plain sight, crouching down and not moving until the danger was past. All of it was vaguely surreal, backdropped by a setting in which everything already seemed half dead and flattened by a sky that was hazy and dark and pressed down upon the earth like an anvil. The stench of death was everywhere, animal and vegetable alike—the world a giant cairn in which everything born into it was already on its way to dying.

As he walked through this grim wilderness, Redden found himself repeating the same words over and over.

I just want to get out of here. I just want to go home.

“They are called the Jarka Ruus, but the meaning for them is not the same as it is for us,” Khyber offered at one point while they were walking together. Tesla Dart had scurried on ahead and was out of hearing. “Jarka Ruus for them means ‘the free peoples.’ For us, as recorded in the Druid Histories, it means ‘the banished peoples.’ They have never accepted that they are anything but creatures tragically wronged by us, put here in this prison of magic for no reason other than being different. Grianne told me of this when she returned. She said no one would ever be able to persuade them otherwise.”

“How did she manage to survive this place?” he asked her.

She shook her head. “She wouldn’t talk of it.”

“I wouldn’t, either, I guess.”

“She was aided by Weka Dart after she was taken prisoner by the Straken Lord. He helped her get free and find a way back to where she had come into the Forbidding. He probably saved her life by doing so. I seem to remember that he wanted her to do something for him in return, but I don’t know what it was. In the end, she left him behind and returned with your grandfather, then took Paranor back from Shadea a’Ru and the rebel Druids who had aided her in seizing control.”

“And then she disappeared,” he finished.

“She entrusted the Druid order to me and those who had survived the war with me. She abdicated her position as Ard Rhys and went away with Penderrin, and no one ever saw her again.” Khyber Elessedil glanced over. “Did your grandfather ever tell you what became of her?”

Redden shook his head. “Only that she went somewhere far away to live out the rest of her life. Too many still saw her as the Ilse Witch, and she could never escape what that meant. She’d had enough of Druids—and magic, as well. She didn’t want to be part of that anymore. My father told me this when I was little. Railing and I. But he never said anything about where she had gone or what she had done afterward.”

He paused. “I remember asking my grandmother once. I always thought she knew something that she didn’t want to talk about. But I asked her anyway. I was young, persistent, and didn’t know anything about boundaries when it came to asking personal questions. I pushed her for an answer. She broke down in tears and wouldn’t talk to me afterward for almost two weeks.” He smiled sadly. “I never asked about it again.”

“It was a long time ago,” the Ard Rhys said. “A lifetime ago. It doesn’t matter anymore.”

Redden nodded. “I still think about it. I still wonder where she went. I wonder if she was happy then.”

“She was solitary and aloof when she was alive, always conscious of how she was seen by others. I don’t know that she was ever happy.”

She moved away from him, leaving him with his thoughts.

Midday passed; the air thickened and the heat grew intense. Water was running dangerously low, and food was being rationed. They had never had much of either to begin with, carrying only enough for personal use when they’d passed through the waterfall. Soon, they would have to begin foraging. Tesla Dart seemed uninterested in the problem, leaving them to their midday meal as he danced off into the distance, looking this way and that, always active and eager, always moving. Redden watched him in fascination. How could anyone have so much energy?

When they set out again after eating, the Ulk Bog beckoned for Redden to walk ahead with him, making a series of quick, demanding gestures that the boy felt compelled to obey. Reluctantly, he moved up to where the other was waiting.

“You are family to the Ard Rhys, Grianne?” Tesla Dart asked as they walked together.

“She was my great-grandfather’s sister. But I never knew her.”

“She died?”

He hesitated. “She went away before I was born. I guess she must have died.”

The sharp eyes watched him. “She is friends with my uncle, Weka Dart. He helps her.”

“The Ard Rhys.” Redden indicated Khyber Elessedil. “She told me this. She said he helped save Grianne when she was trapped here.”

“A prisoner of Tael Riverine. Very bad. The Straken Lord wanted her to mate with him. He wanted her child for his own. But she escapes with Weka.”

Redden looked over at him. “I didn’t know that. About her child and the Straken Lord. I only knew she was trapped here and your uncle helped her get out again.”

Tesla Dart laughed. “Think of it! A child with the Straken Lord! Who would want that? I would not want that. My child will be Ulk Bog–sired.”

The boy stared for a moment, realizing suddenly he had made a big mistake about Tesla Dart. She was a woman. Or maybe just a girl. But female, not male.

“You would like a child someday?” he asked, trying to be certain of what he was thinking.

“I will have many children. My family will be large. Ulk Bogs, like me and Weka. But I will need a mate, and he is not yet come to me.”

“Um,” Redden mumbled, not sure what to say.

“We can be friends, you and me. Families are the same. Weka helped Straken Queen, and now I will help you! It is for us as for it was for them. Friends!”

“Friends,” he repeated.

Then, from out of nowhere, came that dark look she had given him earlier, the one he couldn’t understand. “But better friends than Weka and the Straken Queen. Real friends, who don’t fail to help when needed. Keep promises we make, stand by our word. Is this right, that we can promise this?”

She seemed so desperate for him to say yes that he did so, nodding for emphasis. There was no reason not to. There were no promises to be kept, were there?

“We can promise,” he said.

“This is good!” Tesla Dart announced with a yelp.

Then she darted away, quick and wild, skittering ahead on all fours like an animal, laughing as she went, leaving Redden still trying to come to terms with the idea that such an odd, wild creature was female. He trudged along in her wake, wishing he had her stamina, thinking he could feel his strength ebbing even now. How much farther would they have to go, he wondered, before they found some sign of their missing companions?

It was late in the afternoon when they reached a stretch of deep ravines and high, broken ridges worming their way across miles of stark, empty terrain. A flock of huge scavenger birds circled the skies perhaps two miles farther on.

Khyber Elessedil called a halt and stood staring at what lay ahead. “Tesla Dart!” she shouted to draw the other back from where she was scampering about.

The Ulk Bog girl rushed back. “Yes, Straken Queen?”

“Don’t call me that.” She gestured forward. “You intend for us to go in there?”

Tesla Dart looked at her questioningly. “You wish to find your missing friends? The ones the Dracha took?”

“I do. But why would they be in there?”

“Why? Because that is where the Dracha has its nest. It would go there without thinking about it. It would want to shed parasites it carries. So it would go there.”

“You know of this particular Dracha?”

The Ulk Bog shrugged. “This one, yes. Do you want to go on or not?”

The Ard Rhys considered. “How far ahead is this nest?”

“Not far. Maybe two miles.”

Right where the birds were circling, Redden thought. And then he wondered suddenly how Tesla Dart knew which dragon it was that had taken Oriantha and Crace Coram. Her Chzyks had been watching the company when it entered the Forbidding, not her. Had she learned which dragon it was from speaking to them?

“What has become of Lada?” Khyber asked suddenly, as if reading Redden’s thoughts. “Shouldn’t he have returned by now?”

“If he finds something, he returns. Come! We waste time. Let us hurry before the night arrives.”

But Khyber Elessedil shook her head. “I don’t think so. We aren’t going in there without knowing if our friends are alive. Why don’t you to go in for us, Tesla? Find the nest, see if our friends are there, then come back and tell us.”

“That is a bad idea. To leave you is bad.”

“I think it is necessary. You must go.”

The Ulk Bog stamped her foot petulantly. “I will not go! You cannot tell me what to do. I am free to do what I want. I will leave you!”

“But I thought you wanted to help us. like your uncle Weka helped Grianne Ohmsford. Don’t you? Are you afraid?”

Suddenly Tesla Dart was incensed. She screamed something unintelligible at the Ard Rhys and stomped away a short distance, then whirled around and screamed some more. Then she sat down and refused to look at them.

The Ard Rhys glanced at Redden and motioned for him to come away. With the three Trolls trailing after them, they moved to an open stretch of ground and sat down together, taking out food and blankets and making camp. The minutes slipped away. Tesla Dart stayed where she was, staring off into the weather-riven wilderness. Those with the Ard Rhys let the Ulk Bog be.

“We are not following her any farther until we know something more,” Khyber whispered to Redden at one point.

The boy didn’t care if they ever took another step. He was ready to turn back, to retrace his path to where he had found his way in and hope he could find his way out again. He was sorry about Oriantha and Crace Coram, but he had lost all hope of finding them alive. It had been too long. There were too many bad things that could have happened. He didn’t feel much hope for Pleysia, either. There should have been some sign of her by now. They should have caught up to her, or she should have come back to them.

It made him feel cowardly to think this way, but he was beyond caring. He was sick at heart and filled with despair, and he wanted to put all this behind him and get back to his brother.

He was picking at the scant pieces of his meal when Tesla Dart gave out a fresh scream, leapt to her feet, and began jumping up and down. At first Redden thought she had been attacked, but then he realized she was holding Lada, who had reappeared out of the twilight.

Redden and Khyber climbed to their feet as the Ulk Bog charged over, Lada now riding on her shoulder. Tesla Dart was singing and chanting as if it were a day of celebration.

“I will go now!” she exclaimed. “I will do what you asked me! Lada comes back, so all is well. Your friends are not far. I will go to them and bring them here!”

Khyber Elessedil rose. “We can come with you.”

“No, no, you can’t! It isn’t safe. Night is too close. Too many hunters, all bigger and stronger than you. Dangerous to use magic, too. The Straken Lord senses this if you do. Better you stay. Wait here for me.”

Without waiting for a further response, she took off running into the darkness, Lada atop her shoulder, holding on with his claws to her leather vest, hunched down so close that they seemed a part of each other.

Redden and his companions stared after her until she was gone and all they could hear was the sound of her voice, singing in the darkness.

Tesla Dart did not return that night. When morning came, she was still missing. Khyber Elessedil stood looking off into the wilderness where the Ulk Bog girl had disappeared, waiting. Redden sat watching her, growing increasingly anxious. She had been up all night, staring into the darkness. Redden had seen her every time he had come awake, which was often. She was clearly trying to make up her mind about what to do, and he was afraid she was going to come up with the wrong answer. Not for her, necessarily, or maybe even those she sought to rescue. Just for him. But he knew he couldn’t interfere, even though the urge to do so was so strong he could barely contain himself. She was leader of this expedition, and she was experienced and capable in ways he was not. He would only cause trouble by trying to guide her actions.

So he kept silent and willed the time to pass and the answer to come.

When it did, it was a surprise.

“We’re not waiting any longer,” the Ard Rhys announced suddenly, wheeling back to where Redden sat with the Trolls. “We’re going back. If Oriantha and Crace Coram could be found, Pleysia would have found them. Or will, if she is still looking. I’ve used magic to search for signs of the Ulk Bog, but found nothing. Enough is enough. I won’t risk any more lives. We’re wasting our time sitting about. We need to find a way out of the Forbidding and back to the Four Lands.”

Everyone climbed hurriedly to their feet, gathered their gear, and in minutes were walking north again, retracing their footsteps. This day was a mirror image of all the others, the sky iron gray and hard, the air thick with dust and the smell of decay, the land empty and barren everywhere.

“If we find a way out, we will think about coming back to see if the others managed to survive,” Khyber said to the boy. “But we need better preparations and a stronger company to attempt it.”

Redden nodded in agreement. Going on was too dangerous. They had already lost half their number, and there was nothing to say they wouldn’t lose the other half before any of them got free of this place. Only five left, he thought in disbelief. All of the Druids save the Ard Rhys, all of the experts they had recruited to aid them, and most of the Trolls—dead or missing. All in less than four days’ time.

He felt a tightening in his chest just thinking of it.

Nothing could be worse than this.

The trek went on through the rest of the morning, and neither Pleysia nor Tesla Dart reappeared. They moved cautiously, but steadily, keeping a sharp eye out. Khyber used a small scrim of magic to sweep the land just ahead of them, searching out predators and hidden dangers. When she found them—less than half a dozen times altogether—she steered the company clear. When at one point they crossed paths unexpectedly with a huge four-legged beast that was armored and horned, she had them stand still and wait for it to pass. It did so without more than a disinterested glance, lumbering off into the distance.

When they stopped for a brief rest, Redden caught sight of a brilliant green flash that appeared suddenly and was gone again. It reappeared later, after they had set out again, and this time Khyber Elessedil saw it as well. It stood out in sharp relief against the gray of the landscape, and every time it appeared after that—which was often—it caught their attention. But they were never able to get too close, and it didn’t seem to have any particular source.

“What do you think it is?” Redden asked the Ard Rhys after they had seen it appear and disappear repeatedly.

But she only shook her head and kept walking.

Finally, they came to a stretch of heavy woods, the trees barren and skeletal, the grasses gray and dusty and dead. When they began to skirt the woods, the green flash reappeared and settled on a tree branch not fifty yards away, just inside the barren grove. Redden turned and walked toward it, hypnotized by its brightness and mystery, wanting to have a closer look. He heard the Ard Rhys tell him to come back, then heard her coming after him. But he kept going anyway, just wanting to see it a little more clearly, thinking it might be a sort of bird.

He was within twenty feet of his goal when the ground opened up and his feet yanked from under him as a heavy rope net closed about. He had just enough time to thrash in response and to witness the Ard Rhys releasing Druid magic in all directions before attackers bore her to the ground and thick, suffocating fumes filled his nostrils.

He woke again to the creaking of leather traces and the rumble of wooden wheels rolling across uneven terrain. He could smell the heated bodies of two huge beasts pulling the wooden cart in which he rode before he could see them, so thick was the dust. He was imprisoned in a cage constructed of iron bars embedded in huge beams, his arms and legs chained to rings set into the floor of the cart. He was sitting upright, his body and limbs pinned in place so that he could barely move.

The Ard Rhys was chained across from him, her head sunk against her breast. She was still unconscious. A blur of memory recalled itself, and he saw her fighting back against the things that had come out of the earth, fire bursting from her fingertips, engulfing those closest. He saw the Trolls rush to her aid, falling one by one to a barrage of arrows and spears.

He closed his eyes again, fighting back against the stabs of pain that lanced through his head. He still felt disoriented and weak, and it was all he could do to keep from passing out again. He forced his eyes open, made himself look outside the cage to find the heaving, straining bodies of the massive horned creatures pulling it. He caught sight of movement next to where he rode and found a wolfish creature pacing the cage, its huge, lean body covered in thick gray fur. When it saw him looking, it opened its jaws wide and revealed rows of blackened teeth.

Redden slumped against the bars of his cage and tried to calm himself. They’d been lured into a trap, snared and rendered unconscious, then imprisoned. He had no idea who was responsible, but his first thought was of Tesla Dart.

He tried to reason it through, but everything fell apart when he looked through the bars at the back of the cage and saw Pleysia’s head impaled on the butt of a spear embedded in the cart’s wooden bed.