Elven Star

19

Roland squirmed, trying to ease his cramped muscles by moving into another position. The maneuver worked for a few moments, then his arms and buttocks began aching again, only in different places. Grimacing, he tried surreptitiously to twist his wrists out of the vines that bound him. Pain forced him to quit. The vines were tough as leather; he’d rubbed his skin raw.

“Don’t waste your strength,” came a voice.

Roland looked around, twisting his head to see.

“Where are you?”

“The other side of this tree. They’re using pythavine. You can’t break it. The more you try, the tighter the pytha’ll squeeze you.” Keeping one eye on his captors, Roland managed to worm his way around the large tree trunk. He discovered, on the other side, a dark-skinned human male clad in bright-colored robes. A gold ring dangled from his left ear lobe. He was securely tied, vines wrapped around his chest, arms, and wrists.

“Andor,” he said, grinning. One side of his mouth was swollen, dried blood caked half his face.

“Roland Redleaf. You a SeaKing?” he added, with a glance at the earring.

, “Yeah. And you’re from Thillia. What are you people doing in Thurn territory?”

“Thurn? We’re nowhere near Thurn. We’re on our way to the Fartherness.”

“Don’t play dumb with me, Thillian. You know where you are. So you’re trading with the dwarves …” Andor paused, and licked his lips. “I could sure use a drink about now.”

“I’m an explorer,” said Roland, casting a wary glance at their captors to see if they were being observed.

“We can talk. They don’t give a damn. There’s no need to lie, you know. We’re not going to live long enough for it to matter.”

“What? What do you mean?”

“They kill everyone and everything they come across … twenty people in my caravan. All dead, the animals, too. Why the animals? They hadn’t done anything. It doesn’t make any sense, does it?”

Dead? Twenty people dead? Roland stared hard at the man, thinking perhaps he was lying, trying to scare the Thillian away from SeaKing trade routes. Andor leaned back against the tree trunk, his eyes closed. Roland saw sweat trickle down the man’s forehead, the dark circles beneath the sunken eyes, the ashen lips. No, he wasn’t lying. Fear constricted Roland’s heart. He remembered hearing Rega’s frantic scream, crying his name. He swallowed a bitter taste in his mouth.

“And … you?” he managed.

Andor stirred, opened his eyes, and grinned again. It was lopsided, because of his damaged mouth, and seemed ghastly to Roland.

“I was away from camp, answering nature’s call. I heard the fighting … I heard the screams. That darktime … God of the Waters, I’m thirsty!” He moistened his lips with his tongue again. “I stayed put. Hell, what could I do? That darktime, I circled back. I found them—my business partners, my uncle …” He shook his head. “I ran. Kept going. But they caught me, brought me here right before they brought you in. Ifs weird, the way they can see you without eyes.”

“Who … what the hell are they?” Roland demanded.

“You don’t know? They’re tytans.”

Roland snorted. “Kids’ stories—”

“Yeah! Kids.” Andor began to laugh. “My little nephew was seven. I found his body. His head had been split wide open, like someone had stomped on it.” His laughter shrilled and broke; he coughed painfully.

“Take it easy,” Roland whispered.

Andor drew a shuddering breath. “They’re tytans, all right; the ones who destroyed the Kasnar Empire. Wiped it out. Not a building left standing, a person left alive except those who managed to flee ahead of them. And now they^re moving south, coming down through the dwarven kingdoms.”

“But the dwarves’ll stop them, surely …”

Andor sighed, grimaced, and twisted his body. “Word is that the dwarves are in league with ’em, that they worship these bastards. The dwarves plan to let the tytans march right through and destroy us, then the dwarves’ll take over our lands.”

Roland recalled vaguely Blackbeard saying something about his people and the tytans, but it was too long ago, swimming in ale.

Movement glimpsed from a corner of his eye caused him to turn. More of the giants appeared, gliding into the large open space where the two humans lay bound, moving more silently than the wind, never fluttering a single leaf. Roland eyed these new creatures warily, saw that they carried bundles in their arms. He recognized a fall of dark hair… .

“Rega!” He sat up, struggling wildly against his bonds. Andor smiled, his mouth twisting. “More of you, huh? And an elf with you! God of the Waters, if we had caught you …”

The tytans carried their captives to the base of Roland’s tree .and laid them down. His heart rose when he saw that they were gentle with their prisoners, taking care to ease them to the ground. Both Paithan and Rega were unconscious, their clothes covered with what looked like pieces of broken fungus. But neither appeared to be injured. Roland could see no blood, no signs of braising or broken bones. The tytans bound their captives skillfully and efficiently, stared down at them a moment, as if studying them, then left them. Gathering in the center of the clearing, the tytans formed a circle and their heads turned toward the others.

“Spooky bunch,” Roland decided. Edging his body as near Rega’s as possible, he laid his head down on her chest. Her heart beat was strong and regular. He nudged her with an elbow.

Her eyelids fluttered. She opened them, saw Roland and blinked, startled and confused. Remembered terror flooded her eyes. She tried to move, discovered she was bound, and caught her breath in a fearful gasp.

“Rega! Hush! Lie still. No, don’t try! These damn vines tighten if you struggle.”

“Roland! What happened? Who are these—” Rega looked at the tytans and shuddered.

“The tyros must have caught wind of these things and bolted. I was chasing after them when the jungle came alive all around me. I had time to scream and that was it. They caught me, knocked me out.”

“Paithan and I were standing on the … the ledge. They came up and put their hands on it and began to sh—shake it …”

“Shhh, there. It’s over now. Quin all right?”

“I—I think so.” Rega glanced down at her spore-covered clothes. “The fungus must have broken our fall.” Leaning near the elf, she spoke softly. “Paithan! Paithan, can you hear me?”

“Ayyyy!” Paithan woke with a cry. “Shut him up!” growled Andor. The tytans had ceased observing each other and transferred their sightless gaze to their captives. One by one, moving slowly, gliding gracefully over the jungle floor, the tytans came toward them.

“This is it!” said Andor grimly. “See you in hell, Thillian.” Someone made a whimpering sound. Whether it was Rega or the elf, Roland couldn’t tell. He couldn’t take his eyes from the giants long enough to find out. He felt Rega’s shivering body press against his. Movement in the undergrowth indicated that Paithan, bound like the rest of them, was attempting lt> wriggle his way over near Rega.

Keeping his eyes on the tytans, Roland saw no reason to be afraid. They were big, but they didn’t act particularly menacing or threatening.

“Look, Sis,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “if they’d wanted to kill us, they would’ve done it before this. Just keep calm. They don’t look too bright. We can bluff our way outta this.”

Andor laughed, a horrible, bone-chilling sound. The tytans—ten of them—had gathered around their captives, forming a semicircle. The eyeless heads faced them. A very soft, very quiet, very gentle voice spoke.

Where is the citadel?

Roland gazed up at them, puzzled. “Did you say something?” He could have sworn that their mouths never moved.

“Yes, I heard them!” Rega answered in awe.

Where is the citadel?

The question was repeated, still spoken quietly, the words whispering through Roland’s mind.

Andor laughed again, manically. “I don’t know!” he shrieked suddenly, tossing his head back and forth. “I don’t know where the goddamn citadel is!” Where is the citadel? What must we do?

The words were urgent now, no longer a whisper but a cry mat was like a scream trapped in the skull.

Where is the citadel? What must we do? Tell us! Command us!

At first annoying, the screaming inside Roland’s head became rapidly more painful. He wracked his burning brain, trying desperately to think, but he’d never heard of any “citadel,” at least not in Thillia.

“Ask … the … elf!” he managed, forcing the words out between teeth clenched against the agony.

A terrifying scream behind him indicated that the tytans had taken his advice. Paithan lurched over, rolling on the ground, writhing in pain, shouting something in elven.

“Stop it! Stop it!” Rega begged, and suddenly the voices ceased. It was quiet inside his head. Roland sagged weakly against his bonds. Paithan lay, sobbing, on the moss. Rega, arms tightly bound, crouched near him. The tytans gazed at their captives and then one of them, without the slightest warning, lifted a tree branch and slammed it into Andor’s bound and helpless body.

The SeaKing couldn’t cry out; the blow crushed his rib cage, punctured his lungs. The tytan raised the branch and struck again. The blow split the man’s skull.

Warm blood splashed on Roland. Andor’s eyes stared fixedly at his murderer; the SeaKing had died with that ghastly grin on his face, as if laughing at some terrible joke. The body twitched tai its death throes.

- The tytan struck again and again, wielding the gore-covered branch, bearing the corpse to a bloody pulp. When the body had been mangled beyond recognition, the tytan turned to Roland. Numb, horrified, Roland summoned adrenaline-fed strength and plunged backward, knocking Rega to the ground. Wriggling around, he hunched over her, shielding her body with his own. She lay quietly, too quietly, and he wondered if she had fainted. He hoped she had. It would be easier … much easier. Paithan lay nearby, staring wide-eyed at what was left of Andor. The elf’s face was ashen. He seemed to have quit breathing.

Roland braced himself for the blow, praying that the first killed him swiftly. He heard the scrabbling sound in the moss below him, felt the hand grab onto the buckle of his belt, but the hand wasn’t real to him, not as real as the death that loomed above him. The sudden jerk and the plunge down through the moss brought him sharply to his senses. He gasped and spluttered and floundered, as a sleepwalker who stumbles into an icy lake.

His fall ended abruptly and painfully. He opened his eyes. He wasn’t in water, but in a dark tunnel that seemed to have been hollowed out of the thick moss. A strong hand shoved him, a sharp blade sliced through his bonds.

“Go! Go! They are thick witted, but they will follow!”

“Rega,” Roland mumbled and tried to get back.

“I have her and the elf! Now go!”

Rega fell against him, propelled from behind. Her cheekbone struck his shoulder, and her head snapped up.

“Go!” shouted the voice.

Roland caught hold of his sister, dragged her alongside him. Ahead of them stretched a tunnel, leading deeper into the moss. Rega began to craw! down it. Roland followed, fear dictating to his body what it must do to escape because his brain seemed to have shut down.

Dazed, groping through the gray-green darkness, he crawled and lurched and sprawled clumsily headlong in his mad dash. Rega, her body more compact, moved through the runnel with ease. She paused occasionally, to look back, her gaze going past Roland to the elf behind him.

Paithan’s face glimmered an eerie white, he looked more like a ghost than a living man, but he was moving, slithering through the tunnel on hands and knees and belly like a snake. Behind him was the voice, urging them on.

“Go! Go!”

Before long, the strain told on Roland. His muscles ached, his knees were scraped raw, his breath burned in his lungs. We’re safe now, he told himself. This place is too narrow for those fiends - - .

A rending and tearing sound, as if the ground were being ripped apart by gigantic hands, impelled Roland forward. Like a mongoose hunting a snake, the tytans were digging for them, widening the tunnel, intending to ferret them out.

Down and down the captives traveled, sometimes falling or rolling where the tunnel turned steep and they couldn’t see their way in the darkness. The fear of pursuit and the gruff “Go! Col” drove them on past the limit of endurance. And then a whoosh of exhaled breath and a crash coming from behind him told Roland that the elf’s strength had given out.

“Rega!” Roland called, and his sister halted, turning slowly, peering at him wearily. “Quin’s had it. Come help me!”

She nodded, having no breath left to speak, and crawled back. Roland reached out a hand, caught hold of her arm, felt her trembling with fatigue.

“Why have you stopped?” demanded the voice.

“Take a look … elf!” Roland gasped for breath. “He’s … finished … All of us…. Rest. Must… rest.”

Rega sagged against him, her muscles twitching, her chest heaving. Blood roared in Roland’s ears, he couldn’t tell if they were still being pursued. Not, he thought, that it mattered.

“We rest a little,” said the gruff voice. “But not long. Deep. We must go deep.”

Roland gazed around him, blinking back fiery spots that were bursting before his eyes, obscuring his vision. He couldn’t see much anyway. The darkness was thick, intense.

“Surely … they won’t come … this far.”

“You don’t know them. They are terrible.”

The voice—now that he could hear it more clearly—sounded familiar.

“Blackboard? That you?”

“I told you before. My name is Drugar. Who is the elf?”

“Paithan,” said Paithan, easing himself to a crouched position, bracing himself against the sides of the tunnel. “Paithan Quindiniar. I am honored to meet you, sir, and I want to thank you for—”

“Not now!” growled Drugar. “Deep! We must go deep!” Roland flexed his hands. The palms were torn and bleeding where he’d scraped them against the moss tunnel’s rough sides.

“Rega?” he said, concerned.

“Yeah. I can make it.” He heard her sigh. Then she left him, and began to crawl again.

Roland drew a breath, wiped the sweat from his eyes, and followed, plunging down into the darkness.