by Terry Brooks
Drisker noticed it only when what he had thought to be the collection of rope-bound cloth began to move, unfurling until it was twice the height of the Druid and much wider. It heaved and grunted with a deep, dissatisfied bellow that shook the very stones of the fortress. Squaring up to where Drisker was standing, it started toward him. Drisker braced himself, his magic already summoned in a protective shield.
But Grianne simply stepped between them, her voice ringing out above the grunting emanating from what Drisker knew by now must be the clawrake.
“Hold, ca’shi’taw insit’an! Would you run us all down with your lurching? Stand where you are!”
The movement of the cloths and ropes ceased, and a low moaning sounded from within.
“Such a baby,” the Straken Queen muttered, shaking her head. “Show yourself, ish’taw.”
Ancient Elfish, Drisker recognized, but the clawrake seemed to understand it. Without hesitating, it ceased moving forward and threw off its coverings. “Caiton’osh’dei, Majes’tin.”
A huge, bowlegged mass of hair—with arms the size of a large man’s torso—got down on one knee and lowered its massive head. Gimlet eyes glanced up, then quickly looked away. Its arms stretched toward her and its great hands opened in an acknowledgment of fealty, and the Druid could see now how the clawrake had gotten its name. All six digits on either hand ended in claws big enough to tear down fortress walls.
But not here. Not in this place. Here the Straken Queen ruled, and clearly all the demons she had gathered had long since accepted her dominion. Coming here as an outsider all those years ago, she nonetheless had found a way to rule them, and they had no wish to challenge her. The shape-shifter had materialized, as well, and all three of them bowed their heads and stood awaiting her pleasure.
Drisker was beyond impressed. He walked over to stand beside her. “How long did it take you to accomplish this?” he asked softly.
She did not look at him. “Years. It was a slow process. They were reluctant to accept me, as you might imagine. Even though I had cast down their king, they did not fear me sufficiently. And fear is what rules in the Forbidding. A few sought to test me, to see if I could be made to disappear. When it was they who disappeared, others started to come around. Then circumstances beyond my control forced me to crush an uprising of Crustlings in the Pashanon and make an example of their leaders, and things changed for good. The strongest within the Forbidding are violent, predatory creatures that only know one way of life. Reason, common sense, peaceful coexistence? Such things hold no sway over them. But they respect strength and power, and I was able to demonstrate I had both—as well as magic beyond anything they had ever encountered. As I said, it took time and patience and more than a few object lessons, but you see the results.”
“So now you rule unopposed?”
She snorted. “Hardly. There are always those who will challenge the status quo. There are always potential new rulers waiting in the wings, eager for their turn.”
She turned to look at him now. “Someday—maybe sooner than I would like—one of them will find a way to dispose of me and take my place. Vendra Trax is foremost among them—a good reason for you to protect me on our quest to find the darkwand. You would not like what would happen to you if Trax became the new Straken King.”
Drisker imagined not. “It wouldn’t be so good for you and your followers, either, I’d guess. Tell me how you plan to get us all inside the Chule’s fortress.”
She shrugged. “Weka Dart has already advised you on my intentions, hasn’t he? We are a company with talents and strengths sufficient to overcome whatever obstacles we might encounter. We share a common purpose, and now we have you to help us see it realized. We have a way to get inside if the moench speaks the truth, and he would not dare do otherwise.”
She glanced over at the red-eyed demon, which was now allowing its gaze to fix on Drisker. “I find him somewhat unpredictable, but only when he has not been provided with directions to hold him fast to his task.” She brushed back her thick gray hair and sighed. “He has his uses.”
She made a gesture of dismissal and the moench, clawrake, and slint all broke away and disappeared through the entry door. Weka Dart remained, crouching off to one side, keeping his distance.
“But how do we know the darkwand is hidden inside the Iron Crèche?” he pressed her. “It wasn’t there when you searched for it before.”
“It may have been, Drisker. I simply couldn’t find it then. But this time I will.”
“This feels wrong,” he replied with a frown. “Too much of it seems left to chance.”
“We face formidable obstacles; I won’t deny it.” She had lowered her voice and seemed to be taking him into her confidence, but he resolved to remain wary. “Brockenthrog Weir is composed of swamp and quicksand, with intermittent islands of cut-blade grasses and willowy boughs. Poisonous creatures of all sorts lie in wait. Predators live out their lives hunting anything that moves. There will be fifty ways to die for every mile we walk—and walk we must. My carriage will help us with the first part of our approach, but it cannot navigate the swamps. So we must proceed on foot, and we will be at our most vulnerable then.”
“You cannot expect a group of this size to remain undetected,” he pointed out. “Perhaps we would do better going alone, just the two of us.”
She gave him a look. “What did I tell you earlier? Which of us leads this expedition, Drisker? Are we unclear about that?”
“You lead,” he acknowledged. “I was just asking.”
She shook her head. “It did not sound that way. But believe me, the Chule would not hesitate to kill us all, if they found us. As savages go, they are at the top of the food chain.”
“You have made preparations to prevent this from happening?”
“Those I chose to accompany us possess skills and capabilities that will enable us to repel whatever comes against us. And I include you in this assessment, Drisker Arc. The dreams say you must be there; the dreams show you handing me the darkwand. And the dreams do not lie.”
Drisker wondered. He had less faith in dreams than she did, and he was surprised to see her so wedded to prophecy when she seemed so practical otherwise. Why should his presence make any difference in how things turned out? He had not tested his magic fully since his imprisonment inside the Forbidding, and he was not sure how effective it might be against the myriad creatures that dwelled here. There would be different challenges than had been present in the Four Lands. But if Grianne Ohmsford was convinced he had something to offer, he would be foolish not to agree.
“I will do the best I can,” he promised.
“That would be a wise decision. Your life will probably depend on it at some point or other.” She paused. “As for the rest of your questions, answers will be provided after we are on our way.”
I hope so, he thought. He was troubled by the lack of details on how the recovery of the darkwand was going to be accomplished, and he did not like being kept in the dark like this. Especially when their lives were at stake.
He looked around the chilly, gray overcast of the room, taking in its size and scope one final time. “How long do I have before we leave?”
Her laughter was hard and quick. “Such a foolish question, Drisker Arc. We leave immediately.”
TWENTY-TWO
The Behemoth was only a day or two away from Skaarsland when its crew and passengers first noticed the change in temperature.
They had been tracking steadily north off the coast of Afrique, traveling a thousand feet above the calm waters of the Tiderace, their flying assisted by southerly winds that helped them recover from the weeks lost after being blown so far off course. But on the day the temperature started to drop, the skies grew overcast and a lower cloud ceiling required them to drop considerably in order to stay in sight of the ocean and the islands off the Skaarsland coast
. The cold deepened steadily, and they donned the heavy-weather cloaks and fur-lined hoods they had packed to protect themselves. Even so, the cold penetrated, and any warmth was quickly a distant memory.
Seelah, who had been more in evidence of late—appearing on deck regularly to climb the masts and maneuver her way through the rigging, perhaps to shame the rest of them for their lack of athletic ability—had returned to lurking below.
On the following day, the winds quickened with a biting chill, and their continuous bursts were strong enough to cause the transport to lurch and buck. Everything had to be tied down, from barrels to sheeting to the crew and passengers themselves. It was not a regular storm they had encountered; that would have passed. After eight hours, they knew it for a weather front that likely spanned the waters and reached beyond the shoreline for as much as several hundred miles.
“Skaarsland,” Ajin said suddenly to Rocan Arneas and Dar Leah, with whom she was standing.
She pointed to a distant shoreline, where a mass of rugged cliffs formed a barrier against the surging ocean. Froth capped the waves, and spray filled the air with a glistening sheen. The booming of the waters as they hammered against the rocks was unmistakable.
“No wonder the Skaar want to leave this place,” Rocan muttered at one point, causing Dar—who was beside him watching the landmass off the starboard bow pass in and out of heavy shore mists—to smile with undisguised amusement.
“You didn’t think we had a good reason?” Ajin asked.
The Rover shook his head. “I know what you said, but I didn’t expect it to be this bad.”
Ajin did not respond. Typical of late, Dar thought. She had become increasingly withdrawn the farther they had journeyed from the Nambizi islands. She had been counting the days, observing the land they passed, and most certainly calculating the time remaining. At night, when they were alone together, he asked her about it, offering her a chance to voice her concerns. But Ajin d’Amphere was nothing if not strong-willed, and it soon became apparent that she had no intention of speaking about anything that might be troubling her until they had reached their destination.
And maybe not even then, given her habit of locking everything she was feeling away—save for her endless declarations on how she felt about him, that was, because her insistence that they had a future together had not changed. She stroked him and held him and told him she loved him and would continue to love him as long as she lived. To his way of thinking, he hadn’t done a thing to deserve her devotion, but he knew by now that nothing he said would change her mind. He also knew that, in spite of his private resolve not to let her persistence affect him, he was slowly beginning to come around. He was spending every night with her already, finding that he enjoyed being with her, and was increasingly wondering if maybe she wasn’t right.
There was so much about her that drew him, and even the enmity of their peoples and differences in their lives were not enough to outweigh that. They shared a dry sense of humor and a strong moral code. They saw each other as equals. And she made him feel so good when he was with her—a feeling he had not experienced since his time with Zia Amarodian, and maybe not even then. It was hard to remember Zia anymore. She was long dead in the Charnal Mountains, killed by Ajin and her soldiers. That Ajin had caused her death did trouble him, but he had come to accept that it was not personal but simply a consequence of a reckless confrontation. It had taken him time to come to terms with Ajin’s direct involvement, but eventually he had.
Still, other barriers remained, and he kept thinking he should pay heed to them. But why bother? Everything in his life had changed. The Druids at Paranor had been annihilated. The Four Lands had been ravaged by war; thousands had died, and the future for those who still lived looked bleak. The fates of Drisker Arc and Tavo and Tarsha Kaynin were unknown. It was almost a relief to have a distraction that helped him put all that aside. It had become a burden to be stored away for when it mattered again: one so big and so unmanageable he had no answers for its many questions and no solutions for its many problems. Had he not found a way to slip past it and look ahead, the weight of it might already have crushed him.
Yet Ajin offered love, companionship, and healing. She was there for him, and she wanted him. She did not attempt to explain anything or persuade him that the obstacles they both faced could be overcome. She simply told him she loved him, and that was enough.
Standing next to Rocan Arneas, who was signaling his lookouts to come down from their crow’s nests, Dar felt oddly hopeful. They were almost at the end of their journey. In the days to come they would determine if Annabelle was capable of overcoming the winter that was threatening to drive the Skaar from their homeland. And if so, they might find a way to forestall the war that was threatening to rip the Four Lands apart. It did no one any good to dwell on how difficult this might be. Difficulties were best overcome by not letting them overwhelm you—and by persistence.
“We have to light the stoves and watch for ice,” the Rover was saying. “It’s close to freezing. Moisture will build on the surfaces of whatever it touches. And rain, at this point, would be disastrous.”
“I’ll take care of it,” Dar offered, and walked back to light the dozen or so metal stoves that dotted the decking.
Ajin had warned them. The cold was bitter, ice was everywhere, and fire was the only weapon anyone had to fight back. So Rocan had equipped their transport with sufficient stoves that he could create a somewhat warmer atmosphere on deck, which would ascend into the rigging and help protect the airship. Already, Dar could see a sheen of ice glistening on the higher spars and yardarms, so he mobilized the crew members to get the fires lit and start feeding them with wood for fuel.
While he worked, he glanced at the forbidding shoreline, distressed by what he saw. What a grim place! The rock walls of the cliffs, the massive gray splash of the crashing waves, and the mists clinging in streamers to the heights of the cliffs, were all oppressive.
He was walking back to rejoin Rocan and Ajin when Shea Ohmsford caught up with him. “Hold up a minute!” the boy shouted above the howl of the wind.
Dar stopped and turned. “Where’s your coat?”
To his shock, the boy was not wearing it. “Too bulky,” Shea replied. “I can barely move around in it. Besides, I don’t need a big coat. I’m warm enough in my regular cloak. And I have gloves on.”
Dar seized him by his arm and force-marched him back to the partial shelter offered by the forward wall of the pilot box. There he sat him down and faced him, his anger apparent. “I know you think you are invulnerable and can survive anything; most boys your age do. But on an airship, you obey the orders of your captain, whether you agree with them or not. Did you not hear him order you to put on your winter coat early this morning, when we were all gathered?”
Shea nodded. “But I told you…”
“Where is it?”
“In my locker.”
“Go put it on. And when you have it on, come back.”
“But I…”
Then, seeing the look in Dar’s eyes, he stopped and quickly left.
Still, “Doesn’t mean I need it!” he shouted defiantly over his shoulder as he disappeared down the hatchway to their sleeping quarters.
Dar shook his head. Stubborn men and stubborn boys. What was to be done? Stubborn women, too, he amended, thinking of Ajin. Even though she had not shared her plans for what she intended once they reached the capital city, he knew well enough what she would do. She would first go to her mother. Then, at some point, she would go after the pretender and likely kill her. He had tried to persuade her that there was nothing to be gained from this, but Ajin had simply dismissed him. This was her way of handling things she felt were her personal business—things she did not care to see him involved with, or which she believed he would never understand. And perhaps she was right, but he did not like being shut out. It wa
s the one area of disagreement they could not seem to resolve.
When Shea returned, he was wearing his coat, which was every bit as confining and bulky as the boy had indicated. Dar paid no attention.
“You can freeze to death in weather like this in a matter of minutes. It can burn your lungs from the inside out, just from breathing the air. You need to preserve your body heat, Shea. So you will wear the coat the rest of the time we are here. Now, what was it you wanted?”
“Tindall,” said the boy. “I can’t find him. I’ve searched everywhere.”
The Blade nodded. “Very well. Let’s you and I have another look.”
He sent Shea belowdecks to search the storage areas to see if the old man might be checking on his chemicals and fuels, all of which were secured in one of the centermost chambers where they could be protected from most types of damage. He stayed topside and began a sweeping search of the decking from bow to stern, pausing to look carefully in every nook and cranny while questioning crew and passengers as he went.
Brecon Elessedil caught up with him as he was nearing the platform on which Annabelle rested, heavily wrapped in canvas and insulated batting to protect her against the weather.
“What are you looking for?” The Elven prince had to shout to be heard above the wind. It was getting worse, Dar noted, increasing in force and bitterness. Flakes of snow had appeared, whipping wildly about them in a whirlwind of whiteness.
“Tindall has disappeared!” he shouted back.
Brecon shook his head. “No, he hasn’t. He’s back there!”
He grabbed Dar, pulling him along until they had reached Annabelle. Then the Elf released him and led the way to the rear of the machine, where Dar noted a gap in the wrappings. “In there?” he asked.
“Said he wanted to be sure she was all right.” Brecon shrugged. “I told him he should be belowdecks in this weather, but he ignored me.”
Dar nodded his thanks and slipped through the gap. Wedged between a pair of Annabelle’s iron struts and against a narrow plating lay Tindall, curled up sound asleep.
