“It wasn’t a minute ago,” Shah said. “We woke the dragon as soon as we saw!”
Garr dropped from the sky, thumping down beside Myn. Grustim, astride the dragon and armed with his lance, called down.
“No tracks, no scent. Not even the stirring of wings. If this is magic, it is the most effective I’ve ever seen.”
“Why wouldn’t she call for us?” Myranda said, shutting her eyes to focus more intently.
The world dropped away, replaced by a shadowy counterpart in her mind’s eye. The souls of her friends burned brightly around her. Outward into the trees and plains she could sense the galaxy of lesser spirits, the souls of woodland creatures and the wandering spirits clinging to the land. But as she spread her mind and looked to its very limits, flickering glimmers of the elves to the south asserted themselves without even a glimpse of the fiery, lively spirit of her friend.
“It’s no good.” Myranda climbed onto Myn’s back. “The attacks moved south, so if these things have a camp, it must be to the north. Grustim, Garr, head to the northeast. Myn and I will head to the northwest. Deacon, you stay here and focus on tracking her mystically.”
“If they are this skilled at hiding themselves, we must search differently,” Grustim said. “We search for places that can hide large groups.”
“Agreed,” Myranda said.
Myn didn’t wait to be told what to do. She took to the air with a few mighty flaps of her wings and caught the breeze, skimming low to the ground, eyes sweeping the thinning woods below for any sign of motion. Myranda split her attentions between attempting to detect D’Karon magic and attempting to wring any new information she could get out of the only witnesses.
“Listen to me, Shah, Freet. I need you to tell me anything you saw. Anything at all. I don’t care how useless or unimportant it might seem.”
“We already said,” Freet said. “There were three or four of them. They were dressed in pale yellow.”
“And there was some violet. Some violet light,” Shah added.
Myranda’s expression intensified. “That color often accompanies D’Karon magic. Did they have weapons? Staffs? Swords?”
“I didn’t see any. But it was so hard to see,” Freet said.
“We weren’t trained for this, Ms. Myranda,” said Shah. “I’m a messenger. I’m supposed to avoid everyone. I belong in my box.”
“If it wasn’t for the two of you, we might not have known what had happened until morning. You’ve done well. But anything else, anything at all. Did Ivy try to fight them?”
“She was struggling for a moment, once they grabbed her,” Shah said.
“I think she might have just been staring before that,” Freet said.
“Just staring?” Myranda said.
“I don’t know for sure. I’d only just woken up. But that’s how it seemed. Maybe she was entranced. Some say the Aluall are vengeful spirits who lead travelers to their doom.”
“She isn’t dead, is she?” Shah asked, hugging Myn’s horn tightly, eyes twinkling with tears. “I’ve always wanted to meet a malthrope. I’ve dreamed they were lovely, and she was lovely and I don’t want her to be dead.”
“She must be dead. Why would they take her? The Aluall wouldn’t take her, they would only kill her,” Freet said bluntly.
Myranda set her gaze firmly on the ground below. “You do not know Ivy as I do. If you did, you would know that she would not go down without a fight.”
“What if she did try to fight?” Shah asked. “What if they were too powerful for her and she succumbed despite her fight?”
A wry smile came to Myranda’s face. “If Ivy had truly fought, there would be no doubt in your mind. There’s something more to this we don’t understand, but I assure you, Ivy is alive. And she…”
Myranda trailed off as Deacon’s voice insinuated itself into her mind.
Myranda. Move east. I can’t be sure, but I may have felt a flare of magic through the thickest of the woods.
“East, Myn, and lower. Skim the trees. They may be uncanny at hiding themselves, but if they were hiding a dragon, I would feel it. They are on the ground, moving by foot, and carrying Ivy with them. They can’t be far.”
#
Grustim brought Garr down among the trees. The dragon dropped his head low and sampled the ground with snout and tongue. The Dragon Rider removed his helmet and crouched low. He was no expert in the dark magics the Aluall might have at their disposal, but in his last battle beside Myranda and the others, he had learned that D’Karon magic was not without its cost. If he were a creature making use of such enchantments, he would do his best to use it as little as possible. That meant keeping to those places with the most cover, places where footprints wouldn’t show. If they’d seen Myn and Garr, they would also seek shelter where a dragon could not go with ease. That meant the thickest, thorniest sections of forest. He waded through waist-high bushes, trained eyes searching for any sign of something left by their fleeing targets. A part of his mind doubted he would find anything. Creatures on foot, as they were forced to assume their targets were traveling, were no match for the speed of a dragon in flight. But there were worse things than getting ahead of them. If he and the others were lucky, it would force their targets into the open, or the unseen foes would foolishly run right into the dragon and Dragon Rider.
He saw a glimmer of something out of the corner of his eye and rumbled a simple command. Garr raised his head and sent jets of flame coiling from his nostrils. In the brief splash of brilliant yellow light, Grustim saw a cluster of bruised branches, gleaming with fresh sap. If this had been a deer or other wild creature, there would have been more such branches. This was the result of someone moving with care. He touched the sap and tested its tackiness. The plants of this land were not familiar to him, but the damage to the branch was likely several hours old at least. Too old to have been the fleeing creatures, but something about this place spoke to his intuition.
Garr rumbled under his throat and pawed at the ground, and Grustim made his way back to the dragon. The beast’s claws had turned up bones. They were picked clean. Even the marrow was gone. They were too fresh and too deep in the ground to have found their way there on their own. He ground the toe of his boot into the soil and unearthed more bones, older but equally stripped of every morsel of nourishment.
“Concealed remains. And I hear water nearby. They made camp here… but no fire. And still no footprints but ours. Such dedication to stealth…”
Leaves rustled. A buzzing approached. Grustim snatched his dagger and turned, but the form darting through the trees was Shah.
“Mr. Dragon Rider!” she squealed, flitting about before him. “Ms. Myranda and the dragon found something. This way, this way!”
Grustim mounted Garr, and the two launched into the sky. Shah led the way, but she needn’t have. Myranda and Myn were not difficult to find. They’d set down some distance to the north, where the trees had thinned out entirely to the plains. Garr swept swiftly toward them and alighted on the ground beside Myn. They were in the center of a short stretch of sandy soil between the fringe of the forest and the dry grass of the plains that stretched into the distance. Myn was shifting anxiously from foot to foot as Myranda held her staff over the ground. Its gem illuminated a smooth patch of soil.
“What is it?” Grustim asked, crouching beside her.
Myranda held out her hand. “Ivy’s stylus. Perhaps it was shaken loose.”
“Or perhaps they were wily enough to know its enchantment might have given us a chance of tracking her,” Grustim said.
“Unlikely. If they had sensed that, they would have sensed that the book has a similar enchantment. And more to the point, we only just detected it. Whatever is hiding them is powerful enough to shield this from us as well.” Indicating a spot of earth, she said, “It was in the center of this patch of smooth soil, the same unnaturally smooth soil we found in Dusand.”
Grustim turned to the south. “So they do move by l
and, but so quickly. Horses couldn’t have navigated the forest as they have.”
“They have powerful magic at hand. At least this tells us they aren’t using the D’Karon portals. But look. There is little cover between us and the desert, and no sign of them. We shall not find them through simple tracking. Deacon and I shall need to find some mystic weakness in their veil. Did you find anything?”
“Only their camp, or what passes for it. They live lightly, and off the land. No fire, and care taken to hide all else. They are natives of this place, familiar with its bounty and how best to make use of it.”
Myranda shut her eyes and lowered her head. “That won’t make things any easier. But we have one thing working in our favor. They have Ivy, and there are few creatures less controllable and more visible than Ivy when she is unleashed.”
“We should contact Ether,” Deacon said.
“No,” Myranda said. “They have Ivy. Ether is too reckless. She might be better equipped to find them, but she also might compel them to threaten or kill Ivy. And the same goes for the king’s people. They will want swift, sweeping action, and I don’t trust them to act with Ivy’s interests in mind. Leave Ether to her own investigation for now. This is up to us. And up to Ivy. She’s still alive. I can feel it in my bones. And if she’s alive, then she is working just as hard as we are to free herself. Now let’s go.”
Chapter 6
Consciousness came slowly to Ivy. For some time she had been vaguely aware that she was being carried, but some foreign influence was pressing upon her mind, keeping her in the twilight between sleep and wakefulness. That pressure was gone, or at least diminished. Her vision cleared, and she tried to move. Her arms, her legs, and particularly her head felt terribly heavy. Her stomach grumbled and her lips smacked. She felt as though she’d not eaten in days. Though it was impossible for her to know it, it had indeed been three days since she’d been taken.
With some effort, she eased herself upright and took in her surroundings. She was in a warm, dry, dark place. The floor had wooden planks, rough-hewn but walked smooth over years of use. The walls looked to be packed earth. The air was cool, and what little light there was filtered through short windows near the tops of the walls. She’d been lying upon a very simple bed, rough cloth stuffed with hay.
There were no chains, no locks. If she was a prisoner, they were quite certain she would either not awaken or not attempt to escape.
She tried to stand, but her legs wouldn’t support her weight and she crumbled to the ground. The sound caused a stir outside the door. Ivy tried to shake the cobwebs from her mind and climb to her feet. She’d made little progress when gentle fingers closed about her arm to help her.
“No. No…” Ivy slurred, red weakly flickering around her. “Stay away… Stay…” She raised her head to look her captor in the eyes, and instantly her last foggy memory before being forced to sleep came rushing back. “It’s not possible…” she murmured, blinking the sleep from her eyes.
The creature before her was no human. It was no elf or dwarf. Staring at her were soft silvery-yellow eyes. A sleek fiery-orange muzzle offered a reassuring smile, and a bushy tail swished in slow sweeps.
“You’re… you’re a malthrope…” Ivy uttered, almost afraid to form the words.
She was a female, dressed in the same simple sand-colored clothes as those who had kidnapped her. She murmured something softly, though the language was not familiar.
Ivy tried to stand, reaching out to her. “How can this be? Who are you? What’s going on?”
The malthrope raised her voice slightly and eased Ivy back down, then stood, speaking in soft and pleasant tones all the while. She stepped out of the room and called out. A second malthrope heeded the call. This one was somewhat more grandly dressed, a robe topping her rags and a vine circlet resting upon her brow. The two malthropes spoke to each other briefly, then the first was sent away. The newcomer stepped inside. Ivy stared at her, transfixed.
As unprepared as she was to see another malthrope, something about this one seized Ivy’s mind almost as rigidly as the night she had been taken. It was something in the way she moved, in the way she smelled. It was in her voice, and more than anything else, it was in her eyes. Ivy simply stared, feeling strangely as though she were seeing a ghost.
“Notta tells me you speak the Varden tongue,” said the new malthrope, her voice clear and her diction crisp.
“Y-yes,” Ivy said, slow to rise from the depths of her thoughts.
“Ah… It is lovely to hear a new voice speak it. There are few who keep that language alive, but meeting you shows that it was wise to do so. No wisdom should be discarded. My name is Nehri. What is your name?”
“Ivy,” she replied.
There was something so calm, so pleasant and kind about Nehri’s voice, Ivy found any trace of fear or anger melted away.
“I am sorry for how you were treated, Ivy. Those who fetched you were not expecting to find another malthrope. They tried to help you, but you panicked and they had to put their gems to use, lest your former keepers be alerted. It took far more of the gem’s strength to keep you asleep than we had expected, far more than may have been wise. For a time we were not certain you would ever awake. You have our profound apologies.”
The first malthrope, Notta, knocked at the door. She had a joint of what smelled like raw venison, and a drinking skin bulging with water.
“Ah! Thank you, Notta,” Nehri said, accepting the meal and turning to Ivy. “I am sure you must be—”
Ivy snatched the water and guzzled half the skin in a single go, then grabbed the meat and tore into it.
“Yes, you poor thing. Starving.” Nehri sat beside Ivy on the bed. “At least your former keepers had been keeping you properly fed. Some of us may not have survived so long without food. They gave you proper clothes as well. You were very lucky indeed… How did you come to be in their clutches?”
“I… I’m not sure what…” Ivy began, her head too awash with questions of her own—not to mention the profound relief of getting a meal—to begin to consider forming any answers.
Nehri smiled warmly and placed a hand on Ivy’s shoulder. “Of course. As you are not familiar to us, we must not be familiar to you. And you have had a very trying time. If there is anything I can do to put you more at ease, simply ask.”
“Where are we?” Ivy asked.
Nehri’s smile widened. “We call this place Den. When you have your strength back, I shall show you. But for now, you need only to know that you are home.”
“Home? But I’ve never been here.”
“No. But it is where you were meant to be. Can’t you smell it? Can’t you see it? We are family.”
Ivy shut her eyes and drew in a breath. Nehri’s scent was quite like her own.
“But I don’t have a family. Not in the way you mean…”
“You do, Ivy. We are kin. The scent does not lie. In time we shall learn your story and you shall learn ours, but for now let us simply rejoice in having you where you belong.”
“How many of you… how many of us are there?” Ivy asked, her voice wavering a bit.
“In all, there are nearly four hundred of us in Den and the surrounding countryside, and eighty of us are of the Sorrel line, and thus kin.”
Ivy remained silent. The words slowly sank into her mind. Then, in a flurry of motion, she leaped from the bed.
“Ivy, be careful! Get your strength back first.”
The warning fell on deaf ears. Ivy teetered toward the open doorway, carried by the raw will to see for herself what Nehri claimed. She steadied herself on the doorway and gazed outside, blinking in the bright light. When her eyes adjusted, what she saw took her breath away. Malthropes. Males and females. Young and old. Their colors ran the gamut from deep red to tawny brown. Simple homes like the one she’d awoken in were scattered about, each little more than a roof erected over a burrow sunk into the ground. A large communal stew pot simmered not far from her door. In
the distance, a river flowed.
Ivy couldn’t believe her tear-filled eyes. Dozens of creatures, just like her. Living, breathing malthropes. She turned and grasped Nehri by the shoulders.
“Where is the one who captured me?” she insisted. “Where is the malthrope who came for me that night?”
“I believe there were four. I am not certain which—”
“He was my height, with fur like yours, and I’ve only ever seen eyes as soulful and fierce as his once before. Please, you must bring me to him.”
Nehri nodded. “That will be my brother Reyce.”
She called out to a smaller malthrope stirring the stew pot. Ivy couldn’t tell if he was a child or simply a diminutive adult, but his fur matched his tan clothes and his ears were almost comically large. He nodded and trotted away. Nehri tugged Ivy back toward the bed.
“He shall be here shortly, but please, do not exert yourself. Sit.”
Ivy stumbled back and flopped down.
“Do you think you can answer some questions for me?” Nehri asked.
Ivy nodded numbly, eyes trained on the door.
“I have never seen a malthrope with coloring like yours. Where do you come from?”
“I’m from… I was created in.” Ivy shook her head. “Kenvard. I’m from Kenvard, in the Northern Alliance.”
“Kenvard…” Nehri tested the sound of the word. “There were three kingdoms. Ulvard, Vulcrest, and Kenvard. Yes, yes, of course you are from one of the three kingdoms. That is where Sorrel came from. That is how we are related but have never met. You must have come from Sorrel’s line as well, before she arrived.”
“I’m sorry, I don’t know the name Sorrel.”
“Do not worry. I am sure it was before your time. Sorrel came to North Crescent generations ago. Tell me, are there other malthropes like you where you came from?”
“I didn’t think there were any other malthropes anywhere.”
“Ah… So it is as I feared,” Nehri said. “You are the first new malthrope we have seen since the joining of the desert and woodland tribes. We had little reason to believe life elsewhere was any easier for us than here, but we at least had hope. Fortunate that we were able to free you from your keepers.”
The Crescents Page 13
