“Which means?”
“Tree Readers are rare, Mr McCord, but every so often those with a talent for the Wiles are born. And for a while, those kings and queens that came after Karathus tried to nurture their talents, with much talk of bringing back the priesthood. But few could really communicate with the Tree with any great purpose like the priests of old. So, there have never been more than half a dozen Tree Readers at any given time. Indeed, when Zerian came to the throne, there were just three Elder Wizards who served the crown. Until two mysteriously disappeared. Since then, whenever word reaches the World Tree with even slightest suggestion that an elf has a talent for the Wiles, Zerian makes sure they pose no threat to him. Ever.”
“Well, your High King sounds like a real treat.”
“Treat?”
“It doesn’t matter. It’s just that history is full of people like your Karathus and Zerian. Although usually it’s them who are the weeds as they cling to power. And no matter what you do, there’s always another to take their place.”
Nyara said nothing. Blake gestured to the door. “You want to go in?”
“I’m not sure. Do you believe in ghosts, Mr McCord?”
Blake felt a faint tingle in the pit of his stomach at that. He’d always wondered if elves had the ability to read minds. He thought of Kaylen again and the Narinill Plains on Genek IV. “Maybe.”
“Well, there is a saying on Terevell that nothing truly dies but is reborn from the earth. And that sometimes it is inevitable that one’s soul brings them back to the place where they were most at rest.”
“You mean, some of those priests might be in there, huh? That’s what you’re worried about?”
“In one form or another. The forest always protects its own. It might act vengefully.”
“Yeah. But you didn’t kill those priests, did you?”
“No. Even so, Zerian is right about one thing—this world thrives when it’s at balance. Maybe there are too many of one sort of elf.”
“Like your sort, is that it?”
Nyara remained silent. Then, below them, Uldo’s cry could be heard:
“You going to be any longer up there? It’s starting to get dark!”
Nyara took a small step back from the door. “He’s right. We should go. Find a place to make camp.”
“If you say so.”
“Thank you for letting me come up here.”
“It’s a free country.”
“If only that were true.” Nyara turned and started back down the hill.
Blake didn’t follow immediately, however. He stood for a moment, staring at the doors, before approaching and pushing one open a little, peering into the gloom beyond, thick with trailing vines.
“Hello?” he said, when Nyara was certain to be out of earshot.
There was no answer. Even so, Blake shivered, as if a cold hand had touched the back of his neck. He thought of Kaylen again. But it was not an altogether pleasant thought, and he was soon heading back down to the others.
5
Even though they camped under the shelter of a bluff and away from the forest, Blake told them that they couldn’t light a fire.
“We’re too close to the dragon’s territory now,” he said as he slung his pack down with the others. “Soon we’ll be heading down into the Gimrill Basin, and then it’s a few hours march to the Ariad Pass. That’s right, isn’t it?” Blake looked to Nyara.
“All being well,” the elf replied. “We should reach the pass by late afternoon tomorrow if we wake early and trek hard.”
“From there we enter the top of the canyon,” Blake continued. “And somewhere close by is the lair. Although, that should be pretty obvious once we move into the area.”
“Why’s that?” Uldo asked.
“They’ll be bones,” Blake replied, settling down against a rock.
Nobody said anything for a while. They were all now huddled under the small outcropping, the cold of the early evening already settling in. Uldo looked particularly uncomfortable. While he made no complaint, his clothes were probably still damp from his experience in the river. Instead, he hunkered against an old, withered tree and began to chew on a sliver of dried meat.
Then Maddox asked, “So, what’s the plan when we find it?” He looked the most apprehensive of the party now, his arms folded tightly against his body. “The lair, I mean.”
“We kill the dragon of course,” said Uldo, flippantly.
“I mean, how do we kill it?” said Maddox, ignoring the dwarf. “I expect you have a strategy, Blake?”
Blake didn’t answer immediately. He thought of all the times he had encountered dragons over the years, and how often he had been unprepared in the early days. That had been partly due to his eagerness to welcome death; to have his grief and pain expunged by dragon breath. Then, over time, it had become less about a reckless yearning to put his mortality on the line, and more about vanquishing the kind of power that had taken so much from him. At least, that was how he had seen it for pretty much all his life. Now that he was back on Terevell, closing in on the lair, he wondered if Nyara had been right after all. That it had all been about finding the one monster that had remained elusive over the years. Perhaps, subconsciously, all those other kills had simply been a rehearsal for this moment.
“Well…” He lifted his eyes. “From the Sat Imaging back at the RV, the Undul Canyon is kind of like a bottleneck.” Blake looked around and found a stick. As the light was dying quickly, he propped one of the lume torches he had retrieved from his pack against a rock to bathe the earth in a phosphorescent glow. He then began scoring out a basic map in the earth, digging two lines that represented the canyon. “It’s no coincidence. The lair is probably somewhere at the narrowest point, making it more easily defendable. So, we need to draw the dragon out as far as we can into the wider terrain and pin it down. Then I can use the lance.”
“Easy as that, eh?” said Uldo.
“Hardly. The main difficulty will be keeping it on the ground. Drawing it out of the bottle neck will obviously give it space. If she launches above us, then we’ll be sitting ducks. Burned alive.”
“So how does one prevent it from flying?” asked Nyara.
“Well, that’s where this comes in.” Blake dragged his pack over and pulled free the high velocity net launcher, folding out the cartridges. “This contains razor wire with a large enough surface area to cover most of the dragon. If it’s fired from a high enough vantage point, it’ll tangle its body and wings so we can pin it down and kill it. But we have to be close enough. And we need to make sure the dragon doesn’t guess our intentions when it leaves its lair. So as soon as it’s exposed, we’ll have to lay down a barrage of fire. If we concentrate on its head, at best we’ll be able to blind it, at worst distract it long enough for the net to be launched.”
“Okay,” said Maddox, “So, what’s everyone’s role?”
Blake shrugged. “I think Cid will be best placed to use the net launcher. He’s taller than everyone else, and probably has the best aim anyway. You and Uldo can keep the dragon distracted, and I’ll obviously move in with the lance.”
“And what about me?” said Nyara.
“What about you?” said Blake.
“What’s my role in all this?”
“Simple. You’re going to stay behind at the base camp.”
Nyara blinked. “Excuse me?”
“We need someone to look after the belongings and guide us back when, all being well, we return from the hunt. Like we said before, we’ll probably have to travel through the dark to reach the RV in time, and there’s no way any of us will be able to do that without your help.”
“But I want to go with you.”
“That’s not going to happen. You stay at the camp.”
“But Mr McCord, you know how much use I can be in combat. You saw how accurate my aim is with the wyverns.”
“I daresay that’s irrelevant. You’re too important as our guide. And I can’t spar
e either Uldo or Cid. They’re the only ones with enough experience.”
“He has a point,” Uldo shrugged.
“As for Maddox…well, you know the deal: he’s the one financing this enterprise. This is what he came for. Although, God only knows why. So that just leaves you to hang back.”
“Except I think it’s my right to be there when the dragon meets its end. I have lost many dear friends because of it.”
“Look,” said Blake, “I appreciate your frustration, I do. But you shouldn’t make this personal. Believe me.”
“And you’re not?” Nyara said defiantly.
There was a silence. Blake looked at the elf flatly. “This isn’t complicated, Nyara. You wanted the dragon dead, and with a great deal of luck on our side, that’s what will happen. Getting yourself burned alive will prove nothing to nobody.”
“And yet it was I who arranged the hunt in the beginning. You wouldn’t be here if it wasn’t for me.”
“You make it sound like I should be grateful.”
“Aren’t you? Killing Rygorath will give you your life back, Mr McCord.”
And now Blake’s eyes flashed. “Nothing can do that,” he growled. “I learnt that a long time ago.”
But Nyara returned his glare with a glower of her own. Blake knew that she had expected to follow the hunt to end. Perhaps there was part of him that denied this to her because of his enmity toward her kind. Maybe he was making excuses in leaving her back at the camp. It didn’t matter. Slaying the dragon was going to be almost impossible, he knew that in his heart. He doubted that any who went into the canyon would come out alive anyway. It just didn’t seem much sense to him that all of them should burn. There had to be at least one person left to tell the tale.
TWENTY-THREE
1
Despite being weary and still in pain from her wound, Gemini hadn’t slowed her progress. For the last few hours, the confusion of her encounter with the dark elf had distracted her from the difficulties of the trail.
“I’m a messenger,” the dark elf had said. “You should’ve stayed away from this place like you were warned.”
Warned? Gemini turned the word over in her mind. Who had warned her? Certainly no one other than Hanaway. Which suggested the dark elf couldn’t have been sent by Zerian, even if the High King had become aware of trespassers in his land. Besides, even if the Elf King had sent an enforcer (after being informed by the EOC), there was no way the dark elf could have reached the southern reaches of the Deep Forest in time. Not without a flying mount, which would be dangerous with the dragon so close. And the dark elf had admitted that he was nothing to do with the hunting party. At least, not directly.
“Now quickly.” The dark elf had said. “I have places to be.”
Places to be? What places?
Gemini pressed her lips together. It felt like she had managed to gather lots of the pieces of the puzzle, but the picture was still scrambled.
“I’m a messenger. You should’ve stayed away from this place like you were warned.”
Gemini came to a halt and brushed away the sweat on her brow. She was tired with turning over the mystery in her mind, and the sun was already low. She needed to rest, and she could now hear the river was near at hand. At least she was making progress in one area, even if she wasn’t closer to the truth. And when all was said and done, whoever had been responsible for sending an assassin after her would have to wait. Right now, she had more pressing problems.
2
Gemini cleared the treeline just as twilight fell over the Deep Forest. She found herself on a sloping, sandy bank, with the red moon already visible beyond the high ridges that hemmed in the wide expanse of the river. Here Gemini paused, using her torch to pick up the hunting party’s tracks, which she followed until she arrived at narrowing of the river where the water was more becalmed. This was doubtless where the hunting party would have forded. It would’ve been a treacherous crossing too, Gemini thought, the currents were deceptively strong and the riverbed slippery. From there, it looked as though they had set out southwest, climbing up and onto the steep southern ridge. And, according to her map, this would eventually lead them to the Gimrill Basin beyond which lay a series of canyons and caves nestled in the shadow of the Lekeyer Mountains. The perfect territory for a dragon to make its lair.
Bending down with a wince, Gemini examined the prints a little more closely. By their freshness, she was still gaining on the party. They were less than a day’s hike ahead of her, she estimated. She could close that to only a few hours if she woke early and pushed herself hard. Not that she relished catching up with the party particularly. At least, not with so little in the way of arms to bring them to book. Despite looking for her pulse pistol after her encounter with the dark elf, it had been lost to the undergrowth. And as to her would-be assassin's sniper rifle, she had discovered it locked by some encrypted code, so had been next to useless. Even her knife was now at the bottom of a bog. Which meant she now only had to rely on her pulse rifle if she finally caught up with the hunting party. Not great odds. Ready to take on a dragon, they would doubtless be armed to the teeth. And if they already knew she was coming, all elements of surprise—her only advantage against greater numbers—would be lost.
Gemini sighed, considering her options. If the party were a day’s trek ahead of her, they would most likely reach canyon country the following afternoon. That didn't leave her much time to close the gap. Unless she really hurried, the hunt could well be over before she managed to intercept them. Even so, Gemini also knew that any temptation she had to push on through the night would be foolish. For one, she was exhausted after her encounter with the dark elf, and she needed to attend to her wound properly, which was now stinging like crazy. For another there was the river to cross and the Gimrill Basin to negotiate, neither of which would be easy in the dark. Thus, her only chance would be to take some rest, rise at first light, and try and catch up as quickly as possible. She only hoped that because the hunting party would be forced to move with more deliberation there was a decent chance she could intercept them.
Thus, Gemini decided to make camp while she had the chance, with the advantage of doing so on the shore, where the dangers of the forest would not be as prevalent. Not that she built her campfire too close to the water’s edge, either: there were hidden dangers in the river, too. So, after gingerly washing her wound at the water’s edge, and cinching it closed with a resin from her pack, she set up her bivouac and cooked her rations along the treeline. By the time she had eaten, she was already beginning to feel better. The miraculous Terrevellian water was healing her wound. And as darkness deepened around her, Gemini was able to set a laser perimeter with the intention of tracking movement beyond the edge of her campfire and climbed into her hammock.
Not that she succumbed easily to sleep. Despite feeling exhausted and bruised and lulled by the sound of running water close by, her mind was still alive with innumerable questions, from her encounter with the dark elf, to what challenges the following day might bring her. Therefore, as was so often her habit to sooth her nerves, Gemini pulled out one of her most prized possessions from a hidden breast pocket.
It was a compass. Gemini’s father had given it to her just before she graduated from the Academy.
“This was my father’s and his before him,” he’d told her as they sat quietly together in a corner of the presentation hall. He turned the compass over in his strong, lean fingers. “It might even go back a few generations before that. I’ve used it in the field once or twice. Take care of it, Gem. Nav readers and trackers are all very well, but you never know when it might come in handy.”
Gemini had learnt how to use the more primitive means of navigation at the Academy. During her final scout exam, she’d even had to find her way back to camp with little more than a flask of water and a dart pistol. That had been in Yrin, to the far west, beyond the White River Mountains. Not quite such wild country as Ilmaris, but with its fair share of dange
rs. She’d used ancient techniques to find her way then: a magnetised thread from her survival suit and a leaf with a reservoir of water was one. And when that hadn’t worked, the stars. In all probability she could have found her way across most any open country on Ilmaris if she had to, using Viliad as the guiding light, the brightest star in the galaxy, rising in the east at this time of year. And now that she was out from under the stifling canopy of the forest, she lifted her eyes and stared out into the gathering blue-blackness. The constellations were already as brilliant as a mine of jewels glinting in the deep. That was just one of the many reasons why Terevell was so special. There was no light pollution here. The planet’s unspoiled beauty was still intact for now, unsullied by the sicknesses so many other worlds had endured. Nothing in the System, and perhaps in the galaxy, compared to it. A treasure in the icy expanses of space.
“Earth was said to be like Terevell once,” Gemini remembered her father saying. “A long time ago now. Long before humans even passed through the Thresholds. An Eden, they called it. Until they choked the life out of it. In the end, there were only a few habitable places to the very far north. Mostly, though, it’s a wasteland. A grey desert.” The sadness in her father’s already sad eyes had struck Gemini at the time, even back then. “You know, they often thought humans would destroy themselves eventually. A plague. A war. There were fears, too, that the planet would simply fall victim to an imbalance that couldn’t be rectified. The mistakes of the past, haunting the future. In the end, neither was true. There were some peaceful times, and efforts to recalibrate. But in the end, it was all too little too late, and the Earth…Well, it ended up like a sick old woman, wasting away. They say most of what made it wonderful has all gone. And maybe one day it will revive itself, though I doubt they’ll be humans who’ll live to see it. Most left long ago, as ignorant now as they were then. And bringing that ignorance with them.”
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