Darl kept the procession moving while speaking soothing words to the rammas. It was clear that what he was saying was as much for his own sake as it was for the animals.
After the animals had somewhat calmed, Darl tied the lead line from Gallarael’s mount to his saddle and pulled his bow from over his shoulder to string it up.
“If trouble breaks out,” said Darl. “Don’t you catch me afire, mage.”
“What?” Xavian asked nervously.
“Don’t… Bah! Nevermind.”
Gallarael spotted the two creatures padding along the slope just as soon as her eyes shifted. One was dark of fur and slightly larger than the other, nearly invisible, white-furred creature. Both of them were of a size comparable to the timber wolves Gallarael had seen roaming the forests of her youth. These were nothing like the wolf monster Kegger had described to them.
The wind was coming up the grade so it was unlikely that they would be able to smell her or the others; nor could she catch the beast’s scent, and she was certain that her sense of smell was just as keen as theirs. She could use this to her advantage, but she would have to stay above them.
Gallarael clawed and loped like some feral quadrupedal creature, right up the mountainside. She ducked limbs and darted over the tricky terrain as if she had lived there forever. After a bit she paused and watched. It was hard to say, for the fluttering snow made the visibility bad, but it appeared that she had made a clean break away from the others. Neither of the wolfen seemed to be paying any attention to anything other than Darl and Xavian moving slowly along a few hundred feet below their position.
Gallarael gauged Darl’s intended path, which was fairly obvious because of the limited possibilities available, and she saw what Darl had seen earlier.
The wolfen beasts were moving to block the group from taking a quicker, more direct route, one that would take them up a steep but manageable ravine. Darl would be forced to either try to fight the creatures on the treacherous mountainside or switch back and come up through a longer, gentler series of rocky flats. But why force them onto the easier of the trails, Gallarael wondered, unless something was waiting for them along that route?
She decided that it would be far better to let Darl and Xavian start onto the flatter steps of rock before she made any sort of aggressive move. She would have to do it before they went too far, though, and then warn them of the trap that lay that way.
The idea was to take out the two creatures that were herding them and for all of them to make haste up the steeper path, thus avoiding altogether, whatever surprise was waiting.
She wished that she knew the horn signals the rim riders used, for she would have loved to be able to convey her plan to Darl and Xavian, or at least warn them. The last thing she wanted was for them to go racing up the stepped slabs into the trap when she attacked. She decided that if wishes were that easy to come by she would have married Trevin and taken her mother’s place as the Duchess of Highlake. As it was, Trevin was dead by her own feral claws, and she would have to settle for calling out a warning just as she set upon the wolves.
Luckily Darl was perceptive enough to avoid going into the trap, but it was Xavian, or more correctly the ramma underneath him, that caused her plan to go awry.
The white-furred wolfen sniffed and paused for a heartbeat while eyeing the party from across the slope. Its pack mate bristled its fur and stepped out from the trees with a low, menacing growl. This was supposed to scare the group back up and away from the wind-worn cut for which they were headed.
The wolfen beast did startle the two men and the rammas, but not in the way it intended to.
In simultaneous precision, an arrow thrummed from Darl’s bow and a hot, crimson beam shot across the span between men and wolf. Xavian’s magic hissed and popped as it evaporated the snowflakes that touched it and it hit its mark true.
There was a yelp and a great gout of steam and flames. Ice was liquefied and the creature was partially scorched. The air filled with an acrid stench, and the nearly furless wolf keened out in pain and terror as it leapt to roll in a drift of cool snow. Then it was fleeing, each of its ground-eating strides grinding Darl’s arrow through its vitals that much more.
The white wolf charged out to attack them then, but Gallarael came streaking down out of nowhere, half tumbling, half charging, and tore into the surprised beast.
Xavian’s burst of magical energy caused his ramma to bolt up the stepped slabs of rock away from the scene. It was all he could do to hang on and keep from being tumbled or thrown backward off the creature. Darl, with a loud command, and a firm yank on his lead line, kept his mount in check, but the riderless ramma tethered to his saddle tried to yank and twist itself free.
“Don’t…!” Gallarael screamed over the savage snarling of the beast with which she was tangled. “Don’t go that way–” Slavery jaws were in her face then, and her words were cut off.
Darl understood. He’d already figured the ambush lay in the way the wolves tried to force them to go, but now he was torn between helping Gallarael or chasing down Xavian and his frightened mount.
Gallarael was capable and the mage was heading into an ambush, so he made his decision. He cut loose the riderless ramma and charged his mount up the stepped slope after Xavian. The other ramma, not realizing it was cut loose, ran tight beside them. He didn’t have to go far. No sooner had he gotten himself moving in the right direction did the impossible happen before his eyes.
A tree, a gnarled, leafless, oakish-looking thing, darted out of the forest, right into Xavian’s path. It had a trunk as big around as the belly of a drinking man and limbs that writhed and reached twenty feet up into the air.
Instantly, appendages with grasping branch fingers enveloped the screaming young mage. Xavian was yanked off of his ramma. The ramma was wrapped and crumpled into a bloody pulp of mangled bone and gore.
A knothole maw, a few feet above the ground, roared in defiant rage. The sound nearly loosened Darl’s bowels.
Darl didn’t have to rein in his mount. It was already trying to turn back the other way, but he worked to keep the riderless ramma close. Before he was completely turned away from the tree-beast and the shrieking wizard, he saw it rush back among the snow-laden firs and pines, on long trunk legs with root-clawed feet. There was an explosion of snow from a jarred pine tree’s limbs and the fading, choking sound of Xavian’s terror, and then Darl was being carried away at a breakneck pace.
He felt a wave of cowardice come over him, but he knew in his heart that there wasn’t anything he could have done for the mage. It all happened too fast. Sure, he could have loosed an arrow or two, but he knew it wouldn’t have harmed such a monstrosity.
He had never been as terrified, and he doubted he would ever sleep again for visions of that dark, knothole mouth, with its jagged, almond-colored teeth. And that gut-shaking roar was something he would never be able to forget.
He saw Gallarael. She stood like an obsidian statue, amidst a gruesome mess of bloody fur and entrails. Dangling in her left hand was the wolfen creature’s head, and her right arm was slick and dripping crimson gore up to the elbow.
Her eyes were fixed beyond where Darl was now trying to get the two ramma under control. She was staring at the distant stain that had once been Xavian’s mount. She had seen the tree that took her friend, and though she had every intention of avenging his death, she didn’t want Darl, or herself, to be the next victim of whatever else waited up that stepped stone path.
She didn’t bother to change back to her natural self, nor did she mount the ramma Darl offered.
“Let’s move,” she hissed, and loped past the gargan, up into the steeper cut, not bothering to see if he was following or not.
Chapter
Eleven
The evil horde was many,
the heroes left were hurt.
Then the king drew Ornspike
and put the demon in the dirt.
– The Ballad of Ornspike
“She’s gone up there to defend your realm and you would deny her freedom from this place?” Vanx’s question was asked with more than a little vehemence dripping from his tongue and an even more aggressive expression on his face. From his side, Poops growled and the fur stood up on his back. The seven elder elves and pixies of the council known as Troika Sven cowered back from him.
It was Thorn who bravely moved between the towering half Zythian and the others.
“Vanx, they are not saying they won’t release Chelda from her entrapment here. They are saying that they can’t.” Thorn held out a hand toward his big friend and motioned him to back away. “The battle berries have your blood up. The Troika Sven is not your enemy. None of us here are.”
Vanx realized the truth if it. He was scaring the fairy folk and he immediately stepped back. He had been aggravated ever since Chelda was escorted up to the Shadowmane. He wasn’t sure why. Maybe it was because she was fighting now and he wasn’t. Maybe it was because he had a strong feeling he would never see her alive again.
One of the seven councilors, a stooped and matronly old elven woman, who Vanx guessed to be at least a thousand years old, stepped to Thorn’s side. “I am Elva Toyon, the eldest of the Troika, and it’s true. Never have I heard of any but a queen being able to release a mortal from the Underland. It is something that has rarely happened. The last time was so long ago that I was but a silly girl and Queen Corydalis wouldn’t take the throne for another two hundred years. I doubt she even knew how to release your brave friend from the enchantment.” Elva Toyon bowed apologetically and several of the other members of the council bowed as well.
The idea that he might never see Chelda again, would never see Gallarael again, came to him. “Chelda Flar, a mere mortal gargan, is the golden-hearted champion the pixie queen called out for. I am but a bringer of death. I go to rid the world of the vile Hoar Witch and it is for vengeance that I do this.”
He realized his teeth were gnashed together and that the battle berries were indeed fueling his emotion. Then his attention was diverted by a flare of light out in the crowd. Vanx saw a hobbling old pixie man who had to use both a cane and his frayed old wings to keep himself upright. The tip of his beard drug along the floor. When he approached the nexus, a young elf hurried from the crowd to help the feeble old man up into it.
The fairy folk still crowded beyond the radius of the seven root pillars were looking on anxiously, with fidgety and nervous expressions. Vanx could only imagine what they were thinking. He couldn’t hear them, and Thorn assured him they couldn’t hear what was being said on the dais unless the speaker had his palm on the interpreting orb, and then everyone in the Underland would hear.
Thorn stepped up beside Vanx’s thigh and followed his gaze. “The oracle,” the elf exclaimed, “Elden Grank.”
“Yes, it is I,” the ancient pixie rasped as he came fully into the nexus’s field with them. “Without the power of the queen’s blood among you, your bickering found its way to my ears.”
Vanx saw that the oracle’s eyes were milky white.
“Nux Vomica Toyon, you may be the oldest member of the Troika, but you are a child compared to some.”
He shooed away the boy that had helped him up into the heart of the nexus, and then confidently turned to face Vanx.
“These youngsters speak in haste,” he rasped. “There will be another queen, or maybe a king born, if the Heart Tree survives. There is hope for your friend.”
The old pixie gave a disapproving nod toward the seven members of the council. “Mighty Chelda will not age while she is among us. When the new monarch of the Lurr matures, Chelda Flar can be granted her freedom from the Underland.” The old pixie’s milky-eyed gaze fell on Thorn then.
“There is another way as well, but it is unclear to me at this time. My gift of seeing is a gift from the Heart Tree, but without a queen the tree is struggling and all is dim.”
The oracle looked at Vanx then, with empty white eyes.
“Once you reap the vengeance you desire, Emerald Eyes, there is no doubt the tree will regain its strength. But you must not only succeed, you must come away from the deed clean and untainted.”
“What do you mean I must come away clean?”
The oracle’s smile wasn’t a pleasant one.
“You are a bridge of sorts, Vanx of Malic. You are god-touched, an impossible mixture of bloodlines. You are a singularity in this world. You share the blood of the Zyth and fae, the blood of man and witch, the blood of Draca, and even the cold, blue blood of the sea runs in your veins. There is another aspect to your life’s flow. I can see you teetering on the cusp of light and dark, a place where the slightest of nudges can send you falling in either direction. The dark one works in many ways to draw a powerful soul to his side. Some paths that lead his way are obvious, but some are subtle and hard to detect. To kill Aserica Rime could be one such path, but it must be done. You will have to use her evil to end all of this, for only you share the witch blood and have the heart to oppose her. How easy it would be for you to fall the wrong way in that time.”
The oracle coughed, shuddered and nearly fell to the dais floor. Only Thorn’s quick reflexes kept the pixie upright.
“You should rest, old one,” Elva Toyon advised. “You are spending too much of yourself just being up and about.”
“Bah,” the oracle waved her off, but accepted Thorn’s support.
“There is no time to rest.” Focusing his empty gaze back on Vanx, he continued. “How easy it would be to fall the wrong way while killing your own? While killing for vengeance?” The oracle smiled then, and it was a genuine and hopeful effort.
“I have hope, and all of you should, too. It’s clear this bringer of death is not out to take over the Hoar Witch’s domain and continue poisoning us. I’d wager he hasn’t thought much about himself at all in this. His only concerns have been to free another from an unfair binding, and to avenge the death of those he held dear. Those are virtuous designs in the eyes of Babd. If he follows his heart and the Rotted Root Way, we might just stand a chance.”
Thorn glanced at Vanx, and the look on his little face showed as much fear as concern. Elden Grank hovered away from him on far steadier wingbeats than those with which he had arrived.
“The Rotted Root Way is forbidden,” Elva Toyon said with a horrified glance up at Vanx. He couldn’t help but feel like a giant among these people.
“There is evil most foul in those caves and tunnels,” she finished.
“The creatures there see in the dark and drink the blood of those they kill,” said another of the Troika Sven.
“We sealed those ways off centuries ago. You will unseal them for the emerald-eyed bringer of death and General Posy-Thorn,” the oracle snapped sharply.
“Then you will seal them back. Those caveways lead into Rimehold’s lowest depths. The Hoar Witch has many spies in the forest, but what need has she to snoop her own dungeons? General Posy-Thorn will take the Glaive of Gladiolus as his weapon, for this is the time of our greatest need.”
“But we were going to let Captain Moonseed lift the glaive against the horde above. It is more a blade of healing than of murder, and our wounded fighters need its power,” argued Elva Toyon. A few of the other members of Troika nodded and agreed with her.
Another of them added, “Moonsy was the one the queen gifted with her death wish.”
“Not a bad choice,” the oracle said as he nodded.
“The queen did save our brave Moonsy from certain death with her last burst of power, but the command to never give up was given to us all.”
Elden Grank stepped forward and clasped a hand on Thorn’s shoulder.
“It was General Posy-Thorn whom our queen sent after Falriggin’s shard. It was also Thorn who brought both mighty Chelda Flar and the death bringer safely to our aid. It is he I see, using the enchanted glaive to get Vanx through to Rimehold, so that he can do what he came to do.”
“So it will be
done,” Elva Toyon said.
She nodded as she spoke. “Is there more that you see that may aid them before we unseal the forbidden passages?”
“Nay,” the oracle said, with a final bow.
“The oracle has spoken,” Elva Toyon said.
“General Posy-Thorn, how would you have us command those who have gathered here?”
She gestured to the crowds of fairy folk surrounding the dais.
“You are still the commander of our defenses.”
There were thousands of them gathered out there, from fingerling sprites, to waist-tall, furry-legged Satyrs. All of them looked nervous, yet eager to be doing something, other than waiting.
Thorn looked first to the oracle, then to Vanx. Then of all places, his eyes rested on Sir Poopsalot. The dog turned his head curiously and let his tongue loll out the side of his panting mouth.
“Put all of our troops under the command of First Captain Gloryvine Moonseed. Moonsy won’t falter.”
“And your orders for her, General?”
“Defend the Heart Tree by any means necessary, including mounting direct attacks to divert as many of the Hoar Witch’s beasts from the Shadowmane. And so they may have the chance to win back their honor, the members of the queen’s Royal Guard will fight in the Shadowmane, with mighty Chelda Flar.”
The Troika Sven seemed pleased with Thorn’s orders and after they conferred amongst themselves, they broke off into pairs to set things into motion. Alone, Elva Toyon stood before Vanx, Thorn and the oracle.
“Moonsy is being called down from above, General. Pixen Ruderal and Mar Boxthane are retrieving the Glaive of Gladiolus for you from the vault in Haven Hall.”
She smiled at Thorn, then up at Vanx; her grin faltered when she brought it back down to meet Poops’ lazy eyes and she took an involuntary step back.
“It will take all of us to open the forbidden way,” she finally said.
“If you would, General, show our guests to the Garden of Miora. There, all of you can rest and refresh yourselves before your dark journey. Attendants will come with food and necessities and I will send Sar Oxalas to see about any equipage you think you may need.”
That Frigid Fargin Witch (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 4) Page 7
