“Perhaps you could do me a favor,” she said brightly. “I’d like to see this green fire of yours firsthand.”
Tiny hairs exploded along Zed’s arms. Oh, Nox’s shadowy butt. Cast the fire? In front of the queen?
“Your Majesty, I . . .” Zed faltered. “It’s very dangerous, you see.”
“Frond has put so much faith in you,” Me’Shala said pointedly. “I’m sure you’re up to the task.” She held out her gloved hand, into which Thorn immediately placed a gray lump of metal. “Aim at this, if you’d be so kind.” The queen tossed the lump a few yards away, where it landed heavily on the frozen earth.
Zed pivoted, his knees nearly buckling beneath him. He took a deep breath and turned his mind inward, reaching until it found what he was looking for.
His mana. He took a small sip, extending his palms.
The fire started slowly, like the first morning pumps from a well. But soon an emerald torrent flowed, bathing the camp in green. Zed aimed for the metal knot, concentrating with all his effort. Then, just as a bead of sweat fell from his nose, he snuffed out the mana, and the fire went with it.
Threya stomped to the spot where the queen had thrown the ore. She touched her fingers to the ground. Only a dark scorch mark remained.
“That’s . . . astounding,” Selby breathed. “That was dwarven orichalcum, the most magically resistant material in Terryn!”
“Astounding indeed.” Me’Shala’s eyes were practically glowing with excitement. She stepped toward Zed and gently pressed his ear tip between her gloved fingers. The material was softer than anything he’d ever felt. “Fate has cast you among the humans,” she murmured. “But perhaps you’d always hoped for a chance to make your own decision, hmm? A real choice.” She smiled warmly. “That choice could come soon. If you so decide, you’d be welcomed among my people, Zed.” The queen hesitated, looking almost bashful. “Our people.”
“I’m so sorry to interrupt,” Selby interjected. “But I believe our human comrades may wish for their apprentice back.” Indeed, on the other side of camp, Frond was actually tapping her foot with impatience. Her expression was dour.
The queen retreated a step, glancing from Zed to Callum. “This one is precious, High Ranger. Please watch him carefully. Though I know you will.”
Callum nodded slowly, the edges of his mouth tilting into a frown. “Of course, Your Majesty.”
Zed’s thoughts were muddled as he joined the other adventurers to bed down for the night.
Frond had packed a large linen tent for all five of them to sleep beneath when it snowed, though most nights the party just pulled their bedrolls close to the fire. She and Hexam took turns keeping watch with the rangers, so there were always multiple eyes on the forest.
Tonight, Frond’s watch was first. Hexam was already curled up in his bedroll, while Micah’s wheezing foretold of another long, loud evening. Jayna lay on her stomach, reading by the firelight.
Frond grunted as Zed approached, now sitting on a log she’d dragged to the fire pit. She polished the blade of her sword with an oily rag, running the cloth along the steel in long, languid motions.
“Have a nice chat with the queen?” she asked suspiciously. “I thought I told you to save your mana.”
“Sorry,” Zed whispered. “She asked me to demonstrate, and . . .” He trailed off, still basking in the high of Me’Shala’s approval. Had the queen of the elves just truly called him astounding? “She’s very nice, isn’t she?”
Frond smirked. The firelight intensified her scars, making the expression look gruesome. “She’s very good at getting people to think so.”
Zed swallowed. What did that mean?
“How long have you known her?” he asked. He hovered over his own bedroll, not quite ready to crawl inside. His bladder was achingly full.
“I knew her when she was still Princess Me’Shala,” Frond said, glancing back down at her blade. “She was less nice then, but more kind, I think. I was a young adventurer and she was beginning her mandatory tour with the rangers. We grew close.” Frond cleared her throat. “Quite close.”
Zed felt a sudden warmth burning in his cheeks that had little to do with the fire. Frond and the queen were . . . close?
The guildmistress smirked at his scandalized expression. “Yes, romantically. Back then Me’Shala had a wild streak,” she continued, “which has since been ironed out by the burdens of rulership.” Frond scrubbed at a spot of rust, clicking her tongue. “Still just as pretty, though. Not like me. I’ve only become more beautiful over the years.”
Frond’s gaze flicked up, an almost playful gleam in her eyes. Then her face was hard again as she set back to her work. “Me’Shala’s charming, Zed,” she grunted, “but she’s cunning, too. Just be careful around her. And remember who your people are.”
Zed bristled. As if anyone had given him a choice in his people.
“Sleep now,” she said. “Both of you.” She flicked her chin toward Jayna without looking. By the way the girl hurriedly closed her book, it was clear she’d been listening. Jayna dug into her bedroll.
“I need to make water,” Zed said.
Frond nodded. “Don’t go far.”
The fire’s warmth faded quickly as Zed crunched through the snow. Beyond their little encampment, the darkness was a wall every bit as thick and foreboding as Freestone’s.
Zed tried not to think what might be just beyond, watching him from within that murk. He didn’t dare stray more than a few timid yards from the fire, though modesty drove him to take cover behind a tree.
Zed glanced across the pale snow. With the fire far behind him, his shadow stretched out into inhuman lengths, craning deep into the trees. Its neck was swallowed by the darkness, giving the shadow a headless appearance. Zed thought of the executions that took place in the market square, and he shivered.
He did his business quickly and trudged back toward the fire.
For the first few steps, everything was fine.
Then, on his fourth, Zed’s throat began to feel dry. He coughed softly, trying to clear it. A few steps more and his airway contracted. Zed wheezed, pausing midstep. He cleared his throat once, twice, but couldn’t seem to draw enough breath in.
“Something . . .” Zed sucked in a gulp of air. “I think something’s wro—”
He couldn’t finish. Zed’s throat had closed completely. His eyes bulged with panic, darting up toward the campfire, where Frond was squinting in concentration and scrubbing the blunt edge of her sword.
She hadn’t heard him.
Zed stumbled forward, reaching toward Frond. A painful pressure was now squeezing his neck, but when he reached for it his fingers found nothing but his own throat.
Help! Zed thought wildly. But when he opened his mouth, no sound came out.
“Oh, Fie, Zed! What is that?” Jayna’s voice pierced the quiet. The girl was sitting up in her bedroll, her wide eyes staring at something behind him.
Frond shot up just as Zed spun around to face whatever horror loomed there. His head was spinning and the edges of his vision were going strangely white, and all Zed could see was . . .
“Your—your shadow!” Jayna stammered.
Zed’s shadow floated among the trees. Its misshapen limbs were impossibly long. That’s not right, he thought deliriously. Get back on the ground.
Somehow the shade had unanchored itself. It curled upward from the forest floor like a roll of parchment billowing in the wind. One of those spindly arms was stretching toward Zed. Its fingers grasped his face, crawling across it like the legs of a scuttling insect, until they found his mouth.
Then they pushed inside.
Zed’s throat filled with a cold, tingling rush. His legs gave out just as Frond bellowed, “Stalking shadow!”
There was an odd lurching sensation when, instead of crumpling to the ground, Zed felt himself being yanked into the air. The whiteness at the edges of his vision expanded.
Many voices began shouting the
n, though Zed couldn’t understand everything they said. He thought he heard Hexam’s voice yell, “No, don’t touch him! Only a blood relative can remove it safely!”
“But we’ll never get back to his mother in time!” Jayna cried.
Mother, Zed thought. He hoped she was warm. It was getting so cold.
Darkness filled his vision and the world tilted. Distantly, Zed felt himself being pulled downward.
“Tell me what to do.” Callum’s urgent voice pressed against his thoughts. The elf was so loud, and all Zed wanted was to sleep. He was very, very tired.
“Didn’t you hear me?” Hexam snapped. “Only someone of his blood can—”
“Then just tell me what to do!” Callum barked.
There was a moment of silence that Zed swam in. The world was getting very quiet. The stars were growing very large. Very white.
“His full name. Three times.”
“Zerend Kagari.” At the sound of his own name, something changed. A great rushing noise filled Zed’s ears, like the wind howling against Freestone’s walls during a storm.
“Zerend Kagari.” Now the pressure in his throat loosened. Sensation began flooding back into his limbs.
“Zerend Kagari.” And all at once, Zed sucked in a gulp of air. His body began to seize violently, but someone was holding him tight, softening the convulsions.
Zed opened his eyes to witness a cloud of oily black spume pouring upward from his own mouth. The strange howling-wind noise now filled the encampment, baying out from the cloud.
It billowed through the air, its shapeless limbs thrashing like tentacles. One moment it seemed to try to escape, surging straight up toward the treetops. But the shadow had been weakened somehow. Or wounded. It wobbled heavily, then crashed to the ground as a torrent of ichor. There it bubbled against the snow, its smoky edges coagulating into thick sludge.
Frond slashed her sword through the mass, cleaving it in half. Both pieces dissolved into hissing puddles, and the howling went silent.
Everything was quiet as Zed caught his breath and his shaking slowly abated. The figures of humans and elves swam into focus: many eyes pointed at him. He discovered it was Callum who’d been holding him while he convulsed, who was still holding him now. Callum who’d spoken his name and—
Zed glanced up. The world tilted again. “You . . .” he croaked.
The High Ranger’s face was grave.
“Are you my father?” Zed wheezed. A hot tear burned its way across his cheek.
Callum shook his head, his eyes wide with . . . shame?
“No, Zed,” he said. “I’m the man who killed him. I’m your uncle.”
“It’s not possible,” Brock said. “People? Living out here? We’d have encountered them before.”
“Would we?” Jett asked, scanning their surroundings as he kept his palm on the handle of his maul. “I’d never seen a proper tree until six weeks ago.”
“You know what I mean.” Brock had his eyes on the space between the trees, too. “Lotte would have encountered them before. Or someone would. Adventurers have been scouting this forest for two hundred years!”
“And stumbling over new surprises every day, believe me,” said Lotte. She clucked her tongue. “This doesn’t change the mission, though. We keep moving. What is that smell?”
Lotte didn’t wait for an answer. She hoisted her pack higher on her shoulders and trudged on, veering off the path they’d been following. Brock, however, froze in place, patting himself up and down. What was that smell . . . ?
His pants were wet, and not just with snow. The pitmunk toxin had spilled all over him when he’d been caught in the trap.
“Oh, man, those ropes stink,” he said quickly, kicking snow onto the net, which Lotte had left behind on the ground. “I hope they didn’t ruin my pants.” He waved his hand across his nose.
Liza gave him a skeptical look, but she fell into step behind Lotte. Brock let the others go ahead of him, determined to stay downwind until his clothing had aired out a bit. But if the scent was keeping the Dangers away, then they’d certainly be safe for a while.
From Dangers, anyway.
“Are we very far off track?” Liza asked.
Lotte was consulting a compass as they walked. “We can’t have strayed too far in a day. I think we’re just a little north of the path Frond was taking. Fie, did they have to take all our mages with them?”
Brock saw Jett and Liza exchange a look. He wanted to ask what they were thinking, but he didn’t have the breath. He realized Lotte had increased their pace considerably.
Lotte was worried.
“Do you really think there are people out here?” Brock huffed.
“Anything could be out here,” Lotte answered. “But in the early days of the guild, we sent search parties to every city, town, and roadside inn within two hundred miles. We found Llethanyl still standing.” She shook her head. “Nothing else.”
“Is it possible . . .” Liza began. “Freestone does send its citizens out here sometimes. You know, the banished . . .”
Brock shuddered. Capital crimes in Freestone were punishable by execution . . . or by exile beyond the wall, which was really just a slower form of execution. By far, most condemned criminals preferred the certainty and swiftness of the executioner’s ax.
“It’s hard to imagine humans surviving out here for any length of time,” Fel said.
“I’d love to take offense at that,” Brock said. “But I agree.”
“I’ll bet a Danger made that trap,” Jett said. “Kobolds wear clothing. Surely they could make a net.”
Lotte shook her head again. “Some Dangers do use tools, but most are of the sharp-and-pointy variety. Traps are a little subtle for them.”
“The thing Zed met in the old elven shrine was pretty subtle,” Brock reminded her.
“Oh, no,” Liza said. “You don’t think . . . the people Mother Brenner infected . . .”
“What about them?” Jett asked.
“Remember?” Liza continued. “Once they were infected, she cast them out. That way they couldn’t give her away before she was ready—and they’d be ready to return when the wards fell. Some of them must still be out here.”
“They’re not people anymore,” Lotte answered. Her voice was sad but certain. “They wouldn’t make nets or leave bootprints in the snow. The infection spreads too fast.”
Silence descended on them then, and Brock thought back to the horrors of the previous season, when the town’s most respected and trusted figure had been infected by a monstrous spore—and had infected others in turn. Under the influence of the penanggalan, Mother Brenner had targeted Freestone’s most vulnerable, preying upon the guildless and the sick, and then casting them out of the city before their transformations took hold. In that way, she’d covered her tracks and made the Danger-infested wilderness that much deadlier than before.
Brock was brooding on such unwelcome thoughts when he caught a flash of movement from the corner of his eye.
“What was that?” he said, whirling around. The trees were empty.
“Over there,” Liza said, pointing in another direction. “Did you see it?”
Whatever it was, it had vanished before Brock had caught a glimpse.
“Pitmunks,” Fel whispered, pointing. “There’s a bold one.”
This time, Brock saw it. The creature stood upon a branch, craning its head back and bobbing its snout as if sniffing the air. It reminded him somewhat of the squirrel he’d seen during his first official mission. But this animal was hairless, with wrinkled red skin, and its flaring bushy tail was composed of sharp black quills; the same quills that ran in a single row down its back and swayed slightly in the wind.
As the adventurers paused to watch it, the diminutive Danger was joined by a second pitmunk, and a third.
“That’s weird,” Fel said. “They normally aren’t social outside of mating season.”
“Mating season?” Brock asked, suddenly nervous.
Fel nodded enthusiastically. “They give off a pungent scent that attracts mates. But they’re very competitive about it. You don’t want to be caught anywhere near one of those frenzies.” She shrugged. “The colors are pretty from a distance though. All that red . . .”
The wind shifted, so that it was at Brock’s back.
The nearest pitmunk’s spines quivered; its tail fluffed up.
“Oh, Fie, Fie, Fie . . .” he said.
Another pitmunk appeared on a nearby branch, while two more poked their heads from the hollow of a fallen tree. Twelve, twenty, thirty gleaming black eyes turned toward the party.
They were all focusing on Brock.
“We have to run!” he shouted. “Everybody run!”
He didn’t wait to see if they listened. Brock turned and bolted as the trees ahead burst to life, the entire canopy shifting and creaking under the weight of dozens of tiny Dangers leaping into motion as one.
They were swarming Brock in seconds, climbing up his arms and across his back, quills cutting right through his leather tunic as if it were cloth. The chittering was almost deafening, and while each animal alone weighed almost nothing, their combined weight was quickly stacking up. Brock stumbled.
Something struck him from behind, and then he was down in the snow again. Liza had tackled him, sending his tiny passengers flying.
“Why are they after you?” she cried, covering him with her body. “OW!”
“Something on my clothes,” he said. “My pants . . .”
“Fix it!” she said, leaping up and battering the swarm with her shield. Lotte and Fel and Jett were there, too, and the four of them formed a box around Brock, slashing and swiping and knocking the leaping Dangers right out of the sky. But there were too many to keep them all back.
“I can’t believe this is happening,” Brock muttered, pulling at the drawstring on his pants.
“If you have a plan, hurry!” Liza shouted, looking back at him.
“Don’t look!” he shrilled. “Eyes on the murderous swarm, please!”
Brock disrobed quickly, cutting off his pants with a knife and hurling them as far as he could manage over Jett’s head. The leathers fell into a heap at the base of a tree, and the entire swarm of pitmunks wheeled away from the adventurers to descend upon the pile in a chittering mass.
Twilight of the Elves Page 14
