“Mother Wolf, what has he done?” Haroun wailed.
Serafina’s face twisted with strain. “I cannot close the spell again. He said it was his design. He must have done something that prevents me from recasting it.”
“Find something else,” the captain begged her. “Save my ship.”
“He said he would create a diversion,” Halcot said grimly. “And it looks like he has. See there!”
He pointed upward, as scores upon scores of thin-winged monsters began to appear out of black scars in the cold blue sky. In a single moment, all the werewolves changed shape to their lycanthropic forms. The children who had been playing on deck ran toward the ships’ ladders to hide belowdecks. All others drew weapons and braced themselves. “To horse, my brother!”
“To horse,” Soliandur echoed. “And you ask why I do not trust wizards?”
Chapter Thirty-two
ubilant, Knemet watched the last thraik circle the ceiling and vanish. All around him, runes lit up the gloomy confines of his chamber like fireflies, lending the room such beauty as he had not seen in centuries. The book was near, so near he could almost feel its silken pages under his fingers. He could see it in his mind’s eye. How much stronger it seemed than he remembered. It had been so long since he had had it in his grasp. He tried to fix his thoughts upon it and see its surroundings. Did the strange smallfolk girl still have it in her care? He did not see her.
How curious that the wizards had removed the spell shielding it from his sight. The book would soon be in his hands.
He called for the liches. The stocky, gray-green figures stalked into his chamber and massed silently, awaiting his command.
“Fetch me the last two subjects,” he said. “I want them here.”
The faceless heads nodded on the thick, spongelike necks and stumped away.
He closed his eyes and watched the flashes of activity that were close to the unshielded scroll. The lord thraik was wise to the weapons the invaders carried. He kept most of the flight high above the futile arrows that flashed in the feeble winter sun and fell, having missed their target. A pass, by one of the quick youngsters that Knemet had altered for the greatest speed, upset the werewolf crew, who bounded toward it. It swooped, claws out, down toward the book, then let out a shriek of protest. It clapped its wings hard and ascended again. The gray-pelted lycanthropes sprang up to grab at it. They fell to the deck, unsuccessful.
Knemet was puzzled. The thraik had come so close to taking the book from the midst of its defenders. Why had it not taken it? He wished he could see more than shadows. He could make his way out of his labyrinth and guide his thraiks in person to their goal. The bearers were so close.
No! Knemet smashed a hand against the wall. The thraiks would get it for him. It would be brought to him. He did not need to set foot outside in the world that had rejected him.
“Get it, my children,” he hissed. “Do not fail me.”
Tildi tiptoed as lightly as she could through the dank corridors holding the book tightly in her arms behind the hunched figure of Sergeant Morag.
You did not have to come, she reminded herself. But I did, she thought more firmly. Rin and Lakanta had never hesitated to come to her aid even when danger threatened. Lakanta had literally crawled through fire for her, and she would never forget that.
The tall humans around her were uncomfortable having to walk crouched over. The guards carried knives or maces in their hands, for there was no room to wield a sword, should they come face-to-face with danger. Even Olen carried his staff under his arm. The sole exception was Calester, who had donned a spell like a garment that made him as small as she was. Olen found the technique fascinating, yet chose not to have it applied to him or the others.
“I will want to know everything about this as well, my friend,” he had said to Calester when they first entered the caves, “but like all my questions about your talents, my thirst for knowledge will have to wait until we are all safely away from this place.”
“The floor slopes down ahead,” Morag whispered back to the other guards. Within a few steps, Tildi found herself stumping along a slope. Water flowed in thin streams on either side of her boots. Her feet were getting damp inside them. She feared she could lose her footing on the slick stone.
“Will those flying monsters come through here?” murmured Lar Pedros, his blue eyes wide and wary.
“Thraiks don’t need an open path,” Olen reminded him in a low tone that did not carry beyond their ears. “These quarters are too constricted for them. That is not to say that there will not be other defenders. Knemet has defied discovery for a long time. That cannot be by accident.”
“Aye,” Calester said, his voice squeezed to higher registers by the confines of his spell. “Unless the thraiks farm the land and fish for Knemet’s supper, then someone or something else fetches and carries for him. I almost dread to see what it is.”
The passageways wound through the native rock like woodworm in chestnut timbers, with plenty of dips and bends that Tildi had to be careful not to walk into.
She was glad to have Olen nearby. How dearly she had missed him over the last many months. He had such a way of lessening terrors by finding the good in them, as he did then.
“Good heavens, Tildi,” he said. “And you have had this incredible opportunity these last months to see runes independently of their objects? What a chance to increase your vocabulary of ancient signs, and to study linguistic structure. The subtleties between similar examples of runes is absolutely fascinating. See that spider just above your left shoulder? That is a common forest spider grown to immense proportions in this underground environment.” Tildi glanced up and nearly jumped out of her skin at the shimmering rune. Just before it landed upon her she shifted hastily to the right, and it fell on Calester instead. He paid it no attention.
“Let me see our progress,” the Maker said, tapping the book in her arms. A soft blue light arose above her, lighting the translucent parchment. She let the book unroll, knowing it would open to the correct page. No map existed of the caves; that the werewolves had discovered on making inquiries in Tillerton. The closest to a chart they had was the ever-changing image.
“We are deep into the hillside now,” Olen said, letting his flicker of red light play upon the exposed leaf. “Knemet seems to be very close, but he could be several hundred feet above or below us. Where are our friends? Ah.” He twirled the tip of his forefinger in a small circle, and the light went to play upon the pair of runes, not very far away from them or Knemet. Tildi was relieved to see that they appeared much as they had when she had last looked for them. Neither of her friends had been injured or killed.
“How can we reach them?” Sergeant Morag asked.
“Easily, my practical-minded friend,” Calester replied. “This passageway will take us up and around like a spiral staircase. It should deliver us to where they are waiting.”
“It doesn’t look like it to me,” Tildi said, peering over the edge of the page.
“Well, it will,” Calester said, deliberately closing the scroll before she could see for certain. He tucked it under his own arm. “Don’t argue. There can be only one leader, and I am he. Do you agree, or not?”
Olen’s eyebrows rose when she glanced at him. “I agree,” she said. She wanted to say more, but Olen shook his head. Why was he allowing Calester to behave so imperiously? Olen was a more natural leader for the party, with the respect of all the parties involved. Calester was a newcomer, one prone to alienating others with his peremptory attitude. “But . . . ?”
“But, what? Do not delay us further. It will be neither easy nor safe to reach your friends. Do you wish to endanger us by beginning a discussion that will end the same way as it began?”
A distant sound interrupted him.
“Master, what is that?” Lar Vreia asked.
They all stopped to listen. Tildi heard roaring and the hollow bang of stone upon stone.
“I fancy it is one of
Knemet’s other creations,” Olen said. “Hope that it does not come this way.”
Calester beckoned to them with the blue light radiating from his hand, and pointed to a passageway that opened off to the left from their path. “Hurry,” he said. “Something is happening here. I hope it distracts Knemet enough for our purposes.”
“What do you mean?” Tildi asked, hurrying to catch up with him. “We want to avoid him.”
The Maker glanced down at her, his eye sockets rendered hollow by his witchlight. “Of course we do. But if we must face him, I cannot wait to show that ruffian that I have the book once again, and all hopes of him obtaining it are dashed. We were rivals of old.”
“But he is as strong as you, isn’t he?” Tildi asked.
Calester was dismissive of the question. “He is as experienced as I, yes, but he is alone, and I am not. I have all of you. Your skills will help to tip the balance against him. It would be sweet revenge, if we should face him.”
Morag led the way into the new corridor.
Tildi dropped back so she was beside Olen, who made the best speed he could walking with his shoulders bent. “Master, all we came to do was to bring back Lakanta and Rin. Did he tell you what he is planning? He can’t march us into Knemet’s study.”
Olen hesitated for a moment. “Tildi, what will happen will happen. I promise you that my first interest is in your welfare, come what may. Will you trust me?”
“I trust you,” Tildi said as she slipped into the new passage ahead of him, “but I don’t believe that I trust him.”
“Something is different here,” Morag said. “I feel a current in the air.”
“Of course it is different,” Calester said, holding up his beacon. It began to glow brightly until the walls and everything between them were all bathed in ghostly blue. A whisper of wings and a faint shriek came from the bats disturbed by their voices and the intrusion of light. “The ceiling is higher here.”
Tildi glanced behind her. The low doorway through which they had just come seemed like a mouse hole compared with where she now stood. This passage, a mere slit between two immense walls of rock, reminded her of a narrow mountain pass. The guards cautiously levered themselves upright and massaged their back muscles.
Olen straightened up and placed the foot of his staff on the floor between his feet. “We have reached the edge of his realm.”
Calester’s thin mouth stretched in a humorless smile. The rune wrapped about his body melted away, and he grew to twice Tildi’s height. “Yes. We are not far away now. Let us hurry while we can move upright.”
Lakanta held a burning wisp of straw against the head-deep gash that the six of them had already broken into the wall behind the hinge of their cell door. She marked the stone with a big X that seemed to waver in the greenish firelight.
“There. That bit’ll fracture if you heat it up, then strike it above and below.”
Teldo produced a fresh handful of fire and launched it at the spot she indicated. The wall glowed red where it touched. The other three Summerbee brothers hammered upon it with chunks of stone, heedless of the leaping smithereens that burned holes in their beards, hair, and clothing.
“Let me,” Rin said. The brothers backed away to make room for her. She turned and kicked out with her hind feet again and again. With every blow, chips rained to the floor.
“No more from that vein, Princess,” Gosto said, risking his nose by peering past her hooves. “Let’s go again. You’re a gift from the Father, mistress. We’ve done in an afternoon what it took the four of us a month to accomplish.”
Lakanta shouldered past them and began to feel at the wall again. How odd after all the years she had been on the road to be using the skills she had learned at the knee of her father, a master stonecutter. “I guess that what they say about early learning is true: it stays in your mind no matter what else you pile upon it,” she said. “Here and here, Teldo. Then, just move down a bit. This part’s formed around an old stalagmite. It’s so rotten that I could kick through it myself, without Rin’s help.”
Teldo cupped a new gout of fire in his hands. Lakanta could tell he was tiring. Magic seemed to use up a lot more strength than manual labor. It had never been an issue with Tildi or Serafina, for however bad the food was they had while on the road, there was always enough of it. She resolved that when the moss-men “ugly ones” dropped off their sorry rations she would give Teldo half of hers.
“There,” he said, flinging the green flame at the wall.
Marco let out a gasp. “Teldo, what did you do to us?”
“To you?” Teldo asked. “Nothing at all. Just to the wall.” He turned to his younger brother and let out a gasp of wonder. Lakanta saw what he saw and let out a jubilant yelp. Runes blossomed like glorious golden lilies all over the place, including on the chest of each Summerbee brother, and on her and Rin as well. The centaur met her eyes with a broad smile.
“What in the name of Mother Nature is that?” Gosto asked.
“It’s rescue,” Lakanta said, unable to keep herself from grinning like an idiot. “Keep working. That means they’ve come for us. They’re out there somewhere.”
The snuffling and warbling grew louder, as if the appearance of the runes troubled the charnives as well.
“Tildi?” Teldo asked, his gaunt face taking on more life than she’d ever seen in it.
“Without a doubt,” Rin said, greatly relieved. “We knew they would not forget about us.”
“But that’s terrible,” Pierin exclaimed. “Didn’t you tell us that the wizard wants that book of hers? You’re the goods he means to trade for them, aren’t you?”
“Aye,” Rin said, her eyes showing white around the green irises. “I can’t face him again. I would rather face the beasts.”
“Well, now,” Lakanta said firmly, “then we won’t be here for him to trade. Come along, then. We’ve got more to do.”
A sound attracted her attention. Gosto flattened himself on the filthy floor and listened at the crack at the bottom of the door.
“The charnives are stirring. That means the ugly ones are coming. Why now? We were only fed a while ago.”
“He’s noticed the runes,” Lakanta said, and she didn’t have to explain who he was. “How could he not? Unless it’s too late and he’s taken some of our friends prisoner. He could be sending them down here.”
“Tildi!” the brothers exclaimed.
“We must get out of here at once,” Rin said. “If they are in trouble, we will help them.”
“We’re not even close to breaking through,” Gosto said.
Lakanta felt an idea tug at her ear.
“So we’ll have to get them to open the door for us,” she said.
“How?”
“Make them think we’re already gone.”
Marco looked puzzled. “How do we do that? Shout out that we have escaped?”
“No, lad,” Lakanta said. “But we will give them a reason to open this door and find us gone.”
She murmured her idea to them. Rin let out a whinny of a laugh, and the lads grinned at her in approval. They hurried to gather all the straw from the floors of the now connected cells and laid it in a heap by the door.
“Now, be ready to move swiftly,” Lakanta said. “If hiding in the shadows doesn’t fool them, then we’ll charge over them and walk on the ceilings if need be. Now, give your best shout. We want to make sure they hear us, if they have any ears in those moss heads of theirs.”
“Fire!” the brothers bellowed in unison.
Teldo Summerbee obliged.
It did Lakanta’s light-starved eyes good to see the shooting star of green flame arc overhand into the pile of fetid straw. It flared up, shooting fire in all directions, including out the break in the wall. She heard frantic movement. The hunters yelped. They must have fled, for their voices receded swiftly. Lakanta hurried to flatten herself against the inner wall of the adjoining cell and close her eyes.
After what seem
ed an eon, the heavy door opened, its hinges creaking ponderously. She could not hear the ugly ones’ footsteps over the crackling fire. She did not dare look. If the ugly ones used any initiative at all, they would come through the opening in the wall and find them. Would the flames drive back men made of moss? She waited, listening. Was that the sound of her own breathing, or the fire, or the ugly ones coming to take her back to that terrible Maker?
A hand tapped her on the arm. She jumped in alarm and her eyes flew open.
“Come,” Teldo whispered, a dancing green flame balanced on his palm. “I think they’ve left the door unlatched.”
Rin was the first to wriggle through the wall. She raced to the enormous stone portal and leaned all her weight against it. It shifted, rasping on the stone floor. Rin’s hooves scrabbled as she lost footing, and the others ran to help her. Lakanta reflected on how strong the ugly ones must be to maneuver the doors so effortlessly.
“They are gone!” she exclaimed, peering out into the corridor. “Come, let’s find a way out of this terrible place. Make haste!”
The four Summerbee brothers picked up armfuls of rocks and followed her. Lakanta, the last to leave, took a wary look around as the light from Teldo’s fire receded. She had never before been afraid to be underground in all her life, but she was afraid of this place, and she did not like it.
“Fretting never got anything useful done,” she said, and resolutely marched out behind the others.
Chapter Thirty-three
rive the devils back!” Captain Teryn shouted, signing to her company to divide into two groups. The first flew to port of the Corona’s mainmast, the second to starboard, pursuing the pack of eight or so thraiks away from the belly of the Corona. One of the winged monsters lay dying on the deck, its wings sliced into pieces by the last clash with the Rabantavian guard, its dark blood steaming in the cold air. Little human or horse blood had been drawn yet, but more was inevitable. Magpie had never known there were so many thraiks, and they all seemed to be here at once, wheeling and gliding high above them. Their shrieks curdled his blood. Only the blue fire of the Scholardom kept the greatest number from descending en masse and attacking.
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