Wards of Faerie

26

Khyber Elessedil did not speak to any of them again that day save for Farshaun. She knew she had become obsessed with finding the missing Elfstones and had reached a point where almost nothing else mattered. She hated seeing anyone die, but she had already accepted it as inevitable, given the nature of the dangers they faced. What she hated most was not being sufficiently prepared for the bad things they would encounter, so she had made up her mind that they would be ready on the morrow for anything.

How she would accomplish this was not entirely clear, but she knew to begin by speaking at length with Farshaun about making the Speakman look harder for what might be lying in wait.

Farshaun was obliging, but he insisted the Speakman was already doing all he could, and it was obvious something was happening in the Fangs that was as new to him as it was to the rest of them. If he had never encountered these dangers before—didn’t even know they were there—Farshaun didn’t think there was much the Speakman could do about searching them out now. Perhaps she would do well to put Skint and Seersha at the forefront to help him. Their tracking and wilderness skills were probably the equal of his own, and even if they didn’t know the country they could use their instincts and experience to intuit dangers as well as he could.

Khyber agreed, although none of this gave her reason to feel confident about the Speakman. She was using him out of necessity, not because she thought he was up to what was being asked of him. He was clearly fragile emotionally, and his reclusive life did not suggest he would function well in this larger community, no matter the importance of his presence.

But she had no choice in the matter. She needed a guide, and he was the best she had.

She put aside her ponderings over the fitness of the Speakman long enough to wonder if she should ask the Ohmsford twins to use the magic of their wishsong to help to provide protection for the company, as well. But she was loath to put them at further risk. She was mindful of her promise to herself, as much as to Sarys, to do her best to protect the twins, and she intended to keep it.

Besides, after today, anyone on the expedition with magic skills would be using them without her having to tell them.

She had taken the search party all the way back to the Walker Boh, unwilling to risk having them spend the night in the open after today’s encounter. Better to start fresh in the morning, even if it meant covering some of the same ground twice. She went to bed early, more tired than she had realized.

As she lay rolled up in her blanket on the decks of the airship, listening to the singing of the wind as it blew through the radian draws, an unpleasant feeling that something was very wrong began to creep over her. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was, only that it was there and seemed uncomfortably familiar. She pondered it until she fell asleep—a long, slow process—but was not able to pinpoint its source.

By morning, she had forgotten the matter, and with the same members of the expedition she had chosen for yesterday’s search party—plus another of Garroneck’s Trolls to replace the one they had lost—she set out again. She had decided they would choose a new starting point and find a different route in, hopefully avoiding the Procks and flying insects by doing so. To accomplish this, she had Farshaun fly the Walker Boh south for several miles to a place the Speakman claimed he knew well enough to anticipate any dangers—if, he was quick to add, nothing had changed. He relayed all this through Farshaun, no longer willing to speak to her directly. He was still traumatized by Khyber’s reaction of the previous day and frightened that he might disappoint her again, Farshaun told her in confidence. He warned her again that the Speakman’s emotional state was uncertain. If she wanted his help she would have to be gentle with him.

She didn’t like Farshaun speaking to her in such a way, and now she was worried that the Speakman wasn’t stable enough to be relied on. But she had few options in the matter, so she had to try to find a balance between caution and insistence.

When they left the airship this time, they found themselves in hill country. The Fangs still formed a deep wall in front of them, but now they were confronted with rolling terrain riven by deep gullies that looked to have once been riverbeds. This day, like the previous, was misty and clouded over, the sun and sky completely hidden, the air thick with brume. She kept the members of the company close together as they entered the Fangs, with the Druids interspersed throughout the line of march. She led the way with Farshaun and the Speakman and had Seersha and Crace Coram provide a rearguard.

Everyone was told to keep close watch.

Redden and Railing, once again placed in the middle, gave each other a knowing glance. The wishsong, while versatile, wasn’t much good at detecting danger, and their experience with this sort of thing was pretty limited.

“Hope she’s not counting on us,” Redden murmured to his brother, who simply nodded in reply.

This day’s trek through the Fangs was very similar to that of the day before, but more draining physically. Going up and down hills as they wound through the maze of stone formations required more effort, and even though they could see no sources of moisture, the air was oddly thick. The farther in they went, the heavier it got. No one was saying much, and when they did it was whispered and short. Even Redden and Railing, normally comfortable with sharing their thoughts and making wry comments, remained silent, concentrating on putting one foot in front of the other.

Twice in the next four hours Khyber allowed the company to take short rests. Each time she spoke to the Speakman through Farshaun, reassuring herself that everything was all right and nothing unusual was in evidence. The Speakman indicated through nods and gestures to Farshaun that this was so.

Nevertheless, she was uneasy. She had discovered about two hours into the Fangs that her compass had quit working. She believed they could find their way out if they needed to even without the Speakman’s help, but she could not be certain in which direction they were going. There were few markers in this wilderness by which to track their forward progress and none to make their way back save those they made themselves. The perpetually haze-clouded sky would not let her read clearly the position of the sun during the day or the stars at night. Everything looked exactly the same. Even after hours of walking she couldn’t be certain which was forward and which was back. She couldn’t even be certain they weren’t going in a circle.

The Speakman had reassured Farshaun they were maintaining a straight line and approaching the edges of the marshland she was seeking. But her confidence in the recluse’s abilities, already badly eroded, had not improved. His disturbing behavior alone was sufficient to cause her doubts. He had begun to mutter to himself, nodding and shaking his head, gesturing with his hands and addressing the ground in front of him as he walked. He shambled as if his balance was off, and he hugged himself. Sometimes he cried. When she looked at Farshaun for an explanation, the Rover just shrugged. This was the way the Speakman was, he seemed to be saying.

Worse still was the hermit’s insistence on saying things that suggested it didn’t matter what they did because they were all doomed. He said them only to Farshaun, but she was frequently present when he did. It was unnerving at best. She didn’t believe it, didn’t think for a moment that he knew what was going to happen from one minute to the next. But the constant repetition of the prophecy was wearing on her, and she asked him to stop saying it.

But he couldn’t seem to help himself, even after Farshaun spoke to him, so she let it go.

The slog through the Fangs wore on. By now they had been walking for the better part of six hours, and while nothing had attacked and no obvious dangers had threatened, time was slipping away and they still hadn’t found the marshland they were searching for.

Then suddenly the smell and texture of the air changed; there was a fresh dampness to it and a fetid scent. She glanced down and saw that the hard rocky earth had muddied in places; hints of what had recently been standing water were visible. She caught up to Farshaun and touched his shoulder.

He turned, saw the questioning look on her face, and nodded. “We’re close now, Mistress. The marshland should be just ahead.”

They continued through a fresh cluster of rock formations, finding swamp grasses and trees strung with moss more gray than green filling the gaps between. The way forward became clogged with vegetation and required more effort to pass through. The edges of the marshland appeared in stagnant ponds and long fingers of weedy swamp that angled about like snakes. There were still no signs of life except for the steady hum and click of insects that only showed themselves in momentary bursts.

Everyone was on edge now. Before, they had seen nothing but blasted rock and rutted earth. Now there were plants and trees with hints of color in the foliage and grasses and dampness, and the tedium of their earlier trek gave way to heightened wariness. The improvement in the look of the terrain should have had a heartening effect, but the abruptness of the shift was unnerving.

Khyber called a halt and walked away from the others a few paces, again going into a deep trance to recall accurately the images skived from Aphenglow’s mind. She settled herself, her breathing slowed, her magic surfaced in an enfolding haze that wrapped her close, and the vision replayed itself in slow motion behind her eyes.

There should be mountains, she remembered.

She opened her eyes, rose, and glanced all around. But the rock formations and heavy undergrowth blocked her view. She was down too low to see anything. She needed to get to a higher place. She needed to climb something.

She shook her head at the idea; she was older now, and had limitations.

“Skint!” she called to the Gnome Tracker, and the others in the search party drifted over, as well. “Can you climb one of these rock formations? Or maybe one of these trees?”

“Not the trees,” the Speakman blurted out at once. He cringed at the sound of his own voice, looking for Farshaun, moving over next to him. “No one should climb the trees,” he whispered.

Skint was studying the nearby rock formations. “I don’t know. There’s not much in the way of handholds.”

“I can do it.” Railing Ohmsford stepped forward eagerly. “Redden and I both, if you want.”

Redden appeared beside him, giving him a look. “You brought grippers?”

Railing nodded. “Do you want us to try?” he asked the Ard Rhys.

Khyber Elessedil managed to keep from grinning at his obvious eagerness. “One of you will do.”

“Then I’ll go. It was my idea.” He dropped his backpack and began rummaging through it. “There’s nothing to it, really. Redden and I do it at home all the time with tougher climbs than this one.”

Moments later he produced a strange pair of gloves and boots that had the appearance of animal paws. He sat down and slipped them over his bare hands and feet, then flexed his fingers and toes and walked over to the closest formation.

“See you at the top,” he declared, and began climbing the tower as if he were a squirrel going up a tree. His gloves gripped the rock face effortlessly, finding purchase even on the most vertical of surfaces. Using his booted feet for leverage and balance, he shimmied his way to the top—something close to a hundred feet—in a matter of minutes.

“Now what?” he called down to Khyber.

She shook her head in amusement. “Do you see any mountains?”

He took a moment to look around. “I don’t see much of anything but clouds and mist and the tips of these rock pillars. There’s a big body of water to our right—I can see bits and pieces of that.”

He stopped talking, continuing to look. The other members of the expedition waited expectantly. Khyber was already thinking of which direction they should take if no mountains appeared.

“Wait!” Railing called out suddenly. “I see them. A cluster of big, narrow peaks, off to our left. The mist was hiding them. A few miles off, over there.” He pointed.

The Ard Rhys took note. “Good work. You can come down now.”

Railing engaged in a controlled slide that brought him back to the ground. He took off the boots and gloves and started to stuff them back into his pack, then noticed the way Skint was eyeing them and handed them over. “Here. You take them. Redden and I have another pair.”

Skint accepted the grippers, nodded his thanks, and immediately began to examine them.

They set out again on a course for the mountains. Their march took them west and north along the fringes of the marsh over terrain sufficiently level that climbing hills was no longer required but dodging quicksand and sinkholes was. The mix of rock formations and heavy brush and trees continued to plague their progress, and Khyber was aware that the members of the expedition were again spreading out to find passage, getting farther away from one another. She called them in twice, but the problem persisted.

She was just about to call them in a third time when the party was attacked.

At first, Redden didn’t see their attackers but only heard them. Growls and snarls and something that approached screaming shattered the quiet, and then the creatures were charging the expedition from everywhere at once. The Druids, positioned on the four sides of the company, struck back, fire lancing from fingers and staffs and slamming into the attackers. They moved like dancers as they shifted their attacks from one creature to the next, never staying in one place for more than a few seconds. The fire was resilient and sharp-edged, and it both cut and shredded when it struck its targets. But the creatures attacking were too many, and the Druids could stop only a few. The rest got past them and went for those at the center of the group.

Redden, standing back-to-back with his brother once more, summoned the wishsong, singing the magic to life, modulating his voice to shape it, creating out of particles in the air hundreds of sharpened bits of metal that whizzed about like tiny hornets and cut at the attackers as they launched themselves at the pair, either stopping them altogether or causing them to veer away. Redden caught only brief glimpses of what they were up against—small, hunched over versions of Spider Gnomes covered in bristling hair. Hideous to look at, faces twisted and misshapen, they darted in and away again with terrifying ferocity, little more than swift and agile blurs possessed of teeth and claws.

Brief images of the struggle flashed through his mind as he fought to protect himself. He saw one of the Trolls stagger and fall, the creatures all over him, teeth buried in his thick hide. At the forefront of the advance, Khyber Elessedil and Garroneck fought to protect themselves, as well as Farshaun and the Speakman. Carrick went down, the little monsters tearing and ripping at his body. But blue fire exploded from the pile in a massive burst that threw the attackers off, and abruptly the Druid was on his feet again.

Then Redden caught sight of the girl Pleysia had brought with her, the one no one knew anything about. There was only just enough of her left to recognize: she had transformed into something else entirely. Grown suddenly larger and leaner, she ripped through the creatures that came at her like a huge moor cat, tearing them apart as they sought to bring her down. She flung them away with fingers suddenly become wicked claws, and her snarls were more dreadful than those of her attackers. The boy got only a quick look before he was back to fighting for his own life, but it was enough to tell him there was a great deal more to this girl than what had appeared on the surface.

Finally the creatures fell back, disappearing into the undergrowth as swiftly as they had come. The members of the company pulled themselves together, ripped and bloodied and exhausted. But everyone was still standing and ready to fight again, something that Redden was certain was going to be necessary.

The Ard Rhys pointed ahead. “There’s an escarpment at the lower end of those peaks!” She was breathing hard, gasping out her words. “If we make it that far and find a way up, they won’t be able to get at us so easily! Now run!”

The members of the company charged forward in a tangled knot, ignoring wounds and weariness, eyes fixed on their goal. It became visible in moments, a broad shelf stretching for several hundred yards. They saw, as well, a trail leading up. All they needed was five minutes.

They didn’t get it. The creatures came at them again, hordes of them, intent on trying to drag down their quarry from behind. Trailing as rearguard and closest to the pursuit, Seersha wheeled back and used her magic to throw up a wall of fire between themselves and their pursuers, igniting everything from stone to water to bare earth with crackling flames. But the creatures shifted their angle of attack and began coming at them from the flanks. A running battle ensued, terrible and vicious. Another of the Trolls went down and disappeared, then another. Javelins and clubs flew into their midst as the attackers tried to cripple the defenders. Screams and howls rose from all around, omnipresent and pervasive. So quick and elusive were their assailants that Redden found himself experiencing the strange sensation of fighting against things that could appear and disappear at will.

They had almost reached the base of the escarpment and the narrow trail that wound to its top when a club thrown from the left caught Railing just below the knee and sent him sprawling with a scream of pain. Redden was next to him at once, standing over him protectively, using the wishsong to whisk stones from the rocky ground in a whirlwind that sent the deadly missiles flying out in all directions to ward off the claws and teeth that would tear both his brother and himself apart. His attackers kept coming at them anyway, but he would not leave Railing. No matter what, he would not leave his brother.

Panicked and overwhelmed by superior numbers, he could not manage to stop them all. He fought back with everything he could muster, but his strength was beginning to fail him. Abruptly the creatures were on him, knocking him backward, flattening him against the earth.

It would have been the end of him if not for Crace Coram. The burly Dwarf Chieftain appeared out of nowhere, flinging the creatures aside, swings of his huge mace breaking heads and shattering bones in a furious counterattack. The voracious creatures scattered in the face of such fury, and for a second the entire assault collapsed. Without pausing, Coram scooped up Railing, threw him over his shoulder as if he weighed nothing, and charged after the others, with Redden close on his heels.

The members of the company scrambled up the winding pathway, hunching their shoulders as darts, javelins, and clubs flew all around them. Some of their attackers gave pursuit, daring to follow them up the pathway, heedless of the withering Druid Fire launched by Khyber Elessedil and Carrick from the escarpment. But when the last members of the company were safely off the trail and onto the heights, the creatures quickly turned back, skittering down the slope and disappearing into the brush and grasses.

Crace Coram lowered Railing to the ground, knelt next to him, and began to examine his leg. The boy was grimacing in pain, doing his best not to cry out as the Dwarf’s fingers moved carefully over his injury.

“Leg’s fractured,” the Dwarf declared after a moment. “Bone has to be reset.” He looked over at Redden, who was kneeling across from him. “Hold his shoulders. Skint, grab his other leg.”

Both did as they were asked. Redden, knowing what was coming, closed his eyes and gritted his teeth in anticipation. Coram placed his hands carefully on the boy’s damaged leg and gave a quick, hard pull. Railing screamed once and fainted.

The Dwarf nodded to Redden and Skint to let go, and then he climbed to his feet. “He needs to have splints strapped to keep the bones in place. Find some lengths of wood.”

Skint went off across the escarpment toward the cliffs and a scattering of trees backed up against the foothills. Redden felt his brother’s forehead, and glanced up at Crace Coram. “Thanks.”

The Dwarf nodded. “Keep him still until that leg is splinted and bound good and tight. Shouldn’t be hard. He won’t wake for a while.”

Khyber Elessedil came over to make certain the Ohmsford twins were being attended to, giving Redden a wan smile and a touch of her hand on his shoulder. Redden glanced around at the company, all of whom were either on watch at the edge of the escarpment or binding one another’s wounds. He counted heads and found two of the Druid Guard missing. Everyone else seemed to have made it clear.

Then he caught sight of the Speakman, who was hunched over, rocking back and forth and moaning softly. Farshaun knelt close, trying to soothe him and at the same time shield him from the others. He wasn’t having much luck with either.

“There’s no backbone in that one,” the boy heard Pleysia mutter as she walked past him, stone-faced. Oriantha followed in her wake, head lowered. The girl had returned to normal, the lethal fury and bestial savagery gone. She caught Redden looking at her, and he turned away quickly.

The boy was still sitting beside his brother when Farshaun came over and knelt next to them. “How is he?”

“His leg’s broken. Crace Coram rescued us both.”

“The Dwarf’s a warrior. We could use a few more like him.” Farshaun glanced over at the Speakman, who was still whimpering, balled up in a knot to hide his face. “I think we’ve lost our guide. He’s become completely unhinged by this.”

“Can you help him?”

“Not if I keep him here, I can’t. I have to take him back.” He glanced down at Railing. “Your brother, too, I expect. He can’t go any farther.”

He got up and returned to the Speakman before Redden could ask him how they could possibly expect anyone to transport Railing back through such dangerous country. He would have to be carried out, and given what they had already experienced, that seemed impossible.

Skint had been gone a long time, long enough that Khyber Elessedil began to inquire after him, having not seen him since he departed in search of splints for Railing’s leg. Gathering those should have taken no more than ten or fifteen minutes, and it was well past that when he reappeared, approaching at a fast trot. Coming over to Redden, he handed him the splints, breathing hard.

“Can you do this without me? The splints go here, here, and here.” He pointed out each place and handed the boy some strips of cloth that he had stuffed in his carry bag. “Use these to bind him up.”

Then he turned to Khyber, who had walked over to join them. “I’ve found something,” he announced, eyes bright and eager. “Right back there, between those cliffs. I don’t know what it is exactly, but I think you should see it for yourself.”

The Ard Rhys frowned. “You don’t know what it is? What does it look like?”

“A waterfall.”