Venom and Song

by Wayne Thomas Batson

  She heard Tommy’s warning in her head, but it hadn’t even been close to ten minutes. Two; three at best. . . . Autumn zipped out from behind the boulder and ran to a short hedgerow about fifty yards up. She needed a closer look. And that’s exactly what she got. As she crawled on her hands and knees to the end of the brush, she peered around the corner hoping to see farther into the fortress’s main entrance; but just twelve inches in front of her was the corpse of a flet soldier, extremities blackened by fire, face marred.

  She screamed, scrambling backward.

  A dozen Gwar heard the noise and spun around, instantly engaged.

  Autumn looked up, heard shouting.

  “Time to go.”

  And when the group of investigating Gwar got to where the noise had come from, Autumn was long gone.

  “It’s bad.” Autumn pulled her windswept hair back into a ponytail.

  The others stood. “How bad?” asked Tommy.

  “Whitehall has been invaded.”

  “I knew it!” shouted Johnny. “Manaelkin is evil!”

  Autumn shook her head. “It wasn’t Manaelkin.” The others looked on. “Not unless he has a new fascination with Warspiders.”

  Tommy was stunned. “The Spider King?”

  “What?” they gasped.

  “But how?” asked Kat.

  “I don’t know. B-but I did see”—she shuddered—“bodies. Elven bodies. Everywhere. I think the elders arrived, just as Alwynn said. But they were surprised. In any case, the place is crawling with Gwar and Warspiders. They’ve let anything that could burn, and are now destroying whatever they can with their hands.”

  “I can’t believe it’s all gone,” said Kiri Lee. “Just like that.”

  “It was a good home for us,” Tommy nodded. “But it is not why we’re here.”

  “Agreed,” said Jett. “We have a job to do.”

  Tommy looked to Autumn. “Any sign of—” But her solemn look and a gentle shake of her head cut him short. No one said anything for a whole minute, each pondering the fate of their teachers. A heavy weight fell on their shoulders, the air becoming hard to breathe. Surely Grimwarden and Goldarrow had escaped. They would have found a way. Wouldn’t they? But if the attack truly had been a surprise, perhaps there was no way.

  Kiri Lee looked to their leader. “So what do we do, Tommy?”

  Tommy looked to Jett. “Jett’s right. We have a job to do, and we’ve got to find that Keystone. If Grimwarden were here, he’d want us to find it. Without it, we are not equipped. And that’s what he is”—he corrected himself—“was all about.”

  “Yeah, but where do we even start?” Johnny asked. “I mean, it could be anywhere.” The others nodded in agreement. The task did seem overwhelming at best.

  Tommy thought for a moment. “Grimwarden didn’t send us three days north for nothing. He must have known there was something up here. Something that might help us. So”—he looked north along the river—“I say that whatever that is, we look for it.”

  “A wild-goose chase, then,” said Autumn.

  “Except we know our goose is a Keystone,” corrected Tommy. “So that’s at least something.”

  “I’m still not too sure about this,” said Kiri Lee. Johnny also nodded. “I mean, what if Grimwarden is on his way here now? He said to wait for him after following the Spine-thingy for three days. Shouldn’t we give him time?”

  Tommy shook his head. “That plan was made under the assumption it would only be Manaelkin and some flet soldiers. I fear that everything has changed now. Most likely, Grimwarden is—”

  Kat reached up and put a hand on his mouth. “Don’t say it.” She suddenly realized how forward the gesture was and pulled her hand away, blushing slightly. “Sorry.”

  Tommy continued. “I was just saying that every moment we waste thinking about what-ifs is a moment we waste going after the Keystone. And if anyone would know how to find us in the Thousand-League Forest, it’s Grimwarden and Goldarrow.”

  Tommy walked around in a circle, collecting his thoughts. They all waited, knowing he was working on something. A gentle breeze rustled the leaves overhead, and a few birds called out from their roosts. When Tommy finally addressed the other lords again, he had a marked air about him . . . a new boldness in his speech. Something was changing in him. In them all.

  “We move on. We have been trained for this, and now is our time to step into the light. We were born for greatness, and have miraculously been brought here, to another world, to do one thing: save its people. Our people. We are no longer followers. We’re the leaders now. And what happens next rests on our shoulders. Ours. I don’t like that feeling any more than you do, but it’s just the way it is. And for whatever reason, I have to believe Ellos’s hand is in this. He will not give us anything we can’t handle. He’s with us. Always.”

  While no one had ever heard Tommy talk quite like this, they all believed him. Believed he was right. That he knew what he was talking about. And while his clarity of conclusion did seem a bit lofty, they would have been lying if they said they didn’t feel the same thing. They were born for this. And they had a choice to make. Here. Now.

  “Are you with me?” Tommy asked, putting his hand out, palm down.

  The others looked to each other, knowing they were about to take matters into their own hands . . . matters of Berinfell . . . of tens of thousands of their Elven kindred, as well as the human slaves in the catacombs of Vesper Crag . . . of the fate of their very existence . . . of living and dying.

  “I’m in,” said Jimmy, placing his hand on top of Tommy’s.

  “As am I,” said Jett, stepping forward.

  “Me, too,” Kat smiled.

  “Me five,” said Autumn with a wink.

  “Moi, aussi.” Kiri Lee placed her hand on top of the growing pile. She got a few funny looks. “It’s French. Me, too. What?”

  The last hand was Johnny’s. “Count me in.”

  “Endurance and Victory!” Tommy proclaimed.

  “ENDURANCE AND VICTORY!” the others shouted, pumping their hands as one and then throwing them in the air.

  “We go north,” said Tommy. “Then northeast along the Spine.”

  “Until?” asked Kat.

  “Until we find something.”

  “Or get found,” said Jimmy. And they all turned and looked at him.

  Elle’s emotions swung between fits of weeping and surges of aggression. One moment she was mourning for Grimwarden, whom she was quite certain had not survived—nor had Alwynn—the next she was bent on finding the Seven and storming the Spider King’s lair personally. She had run by torchlight through the underground tunnel leading from Whitehall, only to emerge into broad daylight, eyes bloodshot, gasping for air. The reality was that she was more exhausted from anguish and desperation than she was from sprinting.

  Yet as much as she knew she loved Grimwarden, it was the mission that mattered more. Should the Seven fail, all hope of life beyond these next few days and weeks seemed pointless. The Spider King would regroup and assault Nightwish again. She knew it was only a matter of time. And without the Seven, without this Rainsong, there was no hope. Her secret love would remain so forever, locked in her heart, bound in her grave.

  No, she must find the Seven. And search she did. For days. Until she found the rendezvous point near the overgrown ruins and found no sign of the Seven. Ever the optimist, she refused the conclusions of loss or capture. Rather, her thoughts turned to the seven young teenagers she had helped become warriors. Each of them a force to be reckoned with; each of them vibrant and hopeful.

  “I am too late. They have gone on,” she muttered to herself, feeling a cool breeze waft across her face. She turned her head and looked about the forest, realizing she was not meant to find them. That they had indeed stepped into their destiny and were safely on their own now. At least, that’s what she told herself.

  23

  Fighting with Fire

  “NORTHEAST,” SAID Tommy,
out of breath but refusing to slow their pace. They’d left the Spine just hours before and sprinted through a dense forest toward a very uncertain destination, dusk now descending around them. “That’s all I know.”

  “It’d be nice if the book had a map in it,” said Johnny, puffing along just behind Tommy.

  “Or maybe Grimwarden could have given us some more specific directions,” said Jimmy.

  “Even Grimwarden didn’t know,” said Kat. “I saw his thoughts before he sent us away. Northeast of the Spine was all he could interpret from the prophecies.”

  On and on they went, ducking low branches and leaping fallen trees. They went at full speed heedless of exhaustion and heedless of the possibility that the enemy could lurk nearby. Each of them drew strength—and courage—from their months of training under Guard-master Grimwarden. When before they would have fallen on their faces and begged for rest, now they gritted their teeth and charged forward. When before they would have quailed at the sight of a scouting party of Gwar, now they felt confident that working together they could strike down most any foe but, perhaps, the Spider King himself.

  The Thousand-League Forest had lived up to its name and then some. From Nightwish Caverns, northwest to Whitehall, and now northeast . . . the deep forest seemed to have no end. Even Tommy and Kat, who had seen the end of the forest from the air, found themselves wondering if the woods would ever end. The forest floor had become uneven, too, making the run even more treacherous. Rising to steep hills, opening suddenly to reveal a swift-flowing stream, or falling away into little dells or hollows, the trail kept the Seven focused.

  The afternoon turned to evening and the evening to night, but under the canopy it was much the same: greenish-blue twilight.

  Tommy saw that a few of the Seven were lagging well behind, so he made the decision to stop and rest at the bottom of a dell—where by sheer chance, several trees had fallen forming a kind of ring of benches.

  Eventually they all joined him, and with the exceptions of Jett, whose strength and healing abilities made exhaustion nearly impossible, and Autumn, who felt as though she were walking at any pace less than lightning-fast, the lords sat staring at each other and did nothing else at all but breathe. Jett and Autumn spent the time gathering logs for a cooking fire.

  Jett threw an armful down in the center of their ring of fallen trees and said, “There you go, Johnny. Do your thing.”

  “I don’t think we should,” Johnny muttered.

  “Why not?” asked Jett. “We gotta eat.”

  “For one thing,” said Johnny, “a fire will show the enemy right where we are.”

  “He’s right,” said Kat. “You remember what Grimwarden told us. The Gwar have keen eyesight, especially at night. Remember on the Dark Veil?”

  Tommy shivered. “That was close to the end for us. Still . . . I was looking forward to mixing up some of the stew ingredients Mumthers gave us. I thought I saw a stream back there.”

  “Oh, stop,” said Kiri Lee. “You’re making my stomach growl. I’m starving . . . just not enough to want us to risk a fire. It’s not just the Gwar, you know. Who knows what kinds of creatures there might be this deep in the woods.”

  “Creatures?” Jett laughed so hard he snorted. “Shoot, there’s nothing out here but squirrels and owls.” As if on cue, an owl hooted loudly somewhere outside of their little hollow. “See?” said Jett.

  “I don’t know,” said Tommy. “We’ve already seen spiders a bit bigger than we’re used to. Gwar, Drefids, Wisps, and Cragons, too. For all we know there could be patches of those awful trees right near here.”

  At that, Jett fell silent. He’d had more intimate experience with Cragons than any of the Seven. Even with his great strength, something about those immense trees sent a chill down his spine. They were all silent for a time, nervously glancing up at the trees around them, just black silhouettes against the deep forest and the night sky.

  “Okay,” said Jimmy. “Let’s stop all this monsters-in-the-woods nonsense, right? Let’s use our heads, not our imaginations.”

  “What do you mean?” asked Tommy.

  Jimmy grinned and tapped his temple with a finger. “Elementary, my dear Bowman. Yu can have yur stew without lighting a fire—or at least without lighting a fire that would bring enemies or beasties. Johnny’s gotten quite controlled with his fire. What’s say he just holds the pan in the palm of his hand and lets out just a bit of flame? Could yu do that now, Johnny, without it burnin’ yu?”

  “Yeah, sure . . . I guess,” he replied. “Why didn’t I think of that?”

  “Because,” said Jimmy, “I’m the brains of this operation.”

  An awkward silence lingered. Then everyone but Jimmy burst out in hard laughter.

  “Well, it’s true,” Jimmy contended, but that only intensified the situation.

  Johnny fell backward off his log and rolled in the dead leaves.

  “That’s enough,” said Tommy, wiping away a tear. “It’s a great idea. Jett, you have the pans in your pack. Let me have a couple. I’m going to get some water.”

  “I’ll go with you,” said Kiri Lee.

  Those same words were right on the tip of Kat’s tongue, but she managed to be a few seconds too slow.

  Tommy was grateful to have Kiri Lee’s company. The stream was quite a bit farther back than he’d remembered and, powers or not, he didn’t feel too comfortable being in the dark woods so far from his powerful friends. Shooting a bow with ridiculous accuracy was great for a battle, but not when you couldn’t see.

  “It’s just a little farther,” he said.

  “That’s what you said five minutes ago,” said Kiri Lee.

  “This time I’m sure,” he said with a chuckle.

  Fortunately for Tommy, they found a dark ribbon of stream a few moments later. Tommy took one of the pans and knelt on the edge of the bank. He stretched every which way but couldn’t reach all the way down to the water level. “Shoot!” he grumbled. “I’m gonna have to go down there.”

  “No, I’ll do it,” said Kiri Lee. She picked up the second pan and took the first one out of Tommy’s hands. She stepped off the edge of the bank, trotted along the air until she was just above the water. She dipped and filled both pans and then walked on invisible steps back to Tommy’s side.

  “I wish I could do that,” Tommy said, shaking his head. “Looks like so much fun.”

  “It is,” Kiri Lee replied. “But you have a gift.”

  “Yeah, but archery, well . . . it’s just not as cool.”

  “Cool,” said Kiri Lee. “What a silly concept. Here we are in the middle of a thousand leagues of forest in a mysterious world, and you’re worried about being cool.”

  “Well, when you put it that way.”

  “Ah, it was that way on Earth, too. We all worried so much about being cool, but no one really knew what cool was there, either. It’s all made up, in people’s heads. Like I said, silly.”

  Tommy chewed on that for a moment, listening to the gurgle of the stream and the chorus of night frogs. Then Kiri Lee spoke again. “When I said you had a gift, I wasn’t talking about your skill with the bow.”

  “Okay,” said Tommy, “now I’m lost. Where’s Jimmy and his brains when I need him?”

  “You’re a leader, Tommy. A natural. People look to you for decisions . . . advice. That’s kind of why I wanted to come with you to get the water.”

  The hair on the back of Tommy’s neck prickled. “You wanted to come with me because I’m a leader?”

  “No,” said Kiri Lee. “I need some advice. See, I really like one of the members of our team, but I’m not sure how to tell him.”

  “You mean LIKE like?”

  Kiri Lee nodded.

  “Oh,” said Tommy, feeling suddenly very warm. He thought that perhaps he could boil the water with the palms of his hands. “I, um . . . I don’t know much about romance.”

  “He’s that way, too,” said Kiri Lee.

  Could she be
more obvious? Tommy wondered. What do I tell her? He decided on the direct approach. “I figure the only thing that can mess you up is if you keep quiet about it. If he’s got any interest in you, then you telling him would be a good thing, right? And if not, you still need to know, right?”

  “Thanks, Tommy,” she said. “I knew I could count on—what was that?”

  Tommy’s heart raced as he strained to listen. He’d heard something tramping around in the leaves. “Probably just a squirrel,” he said.

  “What you are doing in our woods?” came a high, squeaky voice from the darkness.

  “That’s no squirrel,” said Kiri Lee, drawing twin daggers.

  Tommy’s sword flashed out with a loud ring. “Who are you?” he demanded. “Show yourself!”

  “Aiieeeeeee! ” squealed the same voice, followed by diminishing footfalls in the leaves.

  “Should I go after it?” Tommy asked.

  “I think you scared it away,” said Kiri Lee. “Besides, it didn’t sound all that threatening. We need to get back to the others.”

  “So what do you think it was?” asked Johnny, a pot of stew simmering in each of his hands.

  Tommy and Kiri Lee shrugged. “No idea,” said Tommy. “But it said we’re in its woods.”

  “That doesn’t make much sense,” said Jett.

  “Could it have been a Gwar?” asked Autumn. “Like a spy?”

  “I’ve never heard a Gwar speak like that,” said Kiri Lee.

  “And a Gwar spy wouldn’t give away its position,” said Tommy.

  “Probably wouldn’t run away, either,” said Jett. “Ah, I wouldn’t worry about it, man, you did the right thing.”

  “Thanks, Jett,” Tommy replied. “But I wonder.”

  “Hey, how long on the stew?” Jett turned to Johnny.

  “I think it’s done,” Johnny replied, shaking his head. “You know, with my gift, I thought I could get a cool superhero nickname. Maybe the Man of Fire or Flame Man. Now”—he glanced at the simmering pots—“now, they’re going to call me the Elf Stove.”