by Mel Odom
“No,” Yurial answered. “He’s not with us this time. Do you know Wick?”
“I do. He’s been to our sprawl before. Is this one a taleteller, too?”
Juhg cleared his throat. “I know stories.”
“Good ones?” The young elf’s voice sounded eager.
“I think so.”
“I’ve never met anyone who knew as many stories as Wick. Or as good.” The young elf glanced at Yurial. “Except, perhaps, the Minstrel Ordal.”
“Thank you for that,” Yurial said. “But I’ve never met anyone who could tell as many stories as Wick.” She smiled a little. “Minstrel Ordal doesn’t just tell stories, though. Minstrel Ordal carries news to all the people along the Steadfast River and the Never-Know Road.”
The elf looked at Juhg. “Who are you?”
“Juhg.”
“You know Wick?”
“He’s my teacher,” Juhg answered.
“The Crocodile’s Throat is a dangerous place.”
“That’s why we brought so many men.”
“Will you harm me?”
“No,” Juhg answered. “But there are men who seek to harm us. It might prove dangerous to you to come among us.”
The young elf smiled. “No one can catch me in this forest if I choose not to be caught.” He took two steps out along the tree branch, then vaulted from limb to limb in a dazzling display of acrobatics.
It seemed he barely touched any branch before he was gone again, flipping and twisting and arcing through the air. Then, with a flourish, he vaulted once more and plummeted twenty feet to land effortlessly in front of Juhg.
“I’m Kimaru,” the young elf announced. “I can take you to the Crocodile’s Throat. It isn’t far from here, but the way is dangerous.”
“Mayhap ye should just give us directions an’ let us find our own way there,” Raisho suggested.
“You wouldn’t find it,” Kimaru told him. “The way is known only to elves.” He smiled. “And to Wick, once.” He turned abruptly on his heel and brushed through Raisho’s pirates. All of them looked twice as big as the young elf, but there was something about Kimaru that spoke of nobility and hinted at danger.
“’E’s too young to be so arrogant,” Raisho commented quietly.
“Kimaru is probably three or four times older than you,” Juhg replied. He fell in behind the young elf.
“Still,” Raisho grumbled, “such an attitude doesn’t wear well.”
By the time it started getting dark, Juhg wondered if Kimaru knew anything at all about distances. They’d trekked for hours, walking deep into the Forest of Fangs and Shadows and leaving Moonsdreamer and the rest of the crew far behind. They also left behind the thought of safety offered by the ship’s greater size.
Juhg felt the increasing anxiety among his companions as the woods turned darker and more inhospitable. They seldom spoke, all of them intent on listening to the myriad noises around them. Movement filled the forest as well. Monkeys chattered and threatened in their wake, and flying squirrels sailed through the treetops, mixing with brightly colored birds.
Near dusk, Kimaru stopped. “We’ll camp here.”
Raisho looked around the tightly packed forest. “There’s no place for a camp.”
“Not on the ground.” Kimaru pointed up. “We’ll stay in the trees. There’s an old sprawl in these trees.”
“In the trees, is it?” Raisho didn’t look happy.
Juhg had stayed with elves before and the idea of hanging suspended high above the ground didn’t bother him. “It’s not much different than sleeping in a hammock aboard Moonsdreamer,” he told Raisho.
“Only about thirty or forty feet,” Raisho growled.
“I’ve never been on a ship,” Kimaru said. “I can’t imagine getting a night’s sleep above that much water. Here, the fall might kill you, but at least you won’t drown along the way.”
He has a point, Juhg thought.
“Gather firewood,” the young elf told them.
“Ye’re gonna start a fire in the treetops?” Raisho asked.
“A fire will help stave off the night’s chill,” Kimaru said as patiently as though he were speaking to a child.
Raisho scowled. “I know that. But what I’m gettin’ at is, won’t ye set them trees ablaze?”
“Not if we’re careful. I intend to be careful. Don’t you?”
Raisho gave the order to his men. Juhg helped, gathering small limbs and branches, breaking them so they were no more than a foot and a half in length. When he had a sizeable group of them, he used a leather strap from his backpack to tie them together. Then he looped them over one shoulder.
Similarly burdened by firewood, Kimaru leaped up into the trees, going through them as easily as one of the pirates might scamper aloft rigging. Thankfully, that same training with the ropes allowed the pirates to climb more readily and they followed.
The abandoned sprawl hung scattered in the trees, most of the components no longer connected by rope ladders. Two of the trees supporting structures were dead, withered and gray. That was a sure sign there was no elven habitation. Elves would never allow a tree to die if it was in their power to save it, or continue to live in a dead tree if it couldn’t be saved.
They gathered in one of the large houses in the center of the sprawl. Kimaru reached the front porch and kicked down a rope ladder that unrolled as it came. Raisho caught the ladder and tied it to the tree trunk, but it still spun and shifted as the pirates climbed along it.
Standing on the plank floor of the house, Juhg was reminded of standing on a ship’s deck. Just as the ship rolled and shifted subtly underfoot at all times, the tree house rolled and shifted on the breeze. A hint of the fragrances from the mineral oils used to keep the wood walls supple and replenish the health of the tree tickled his nose. All elven homes smelled of flowers and herbs. Many of them created unique fragrances.
A porcelain bowl occupied the center of the living chamber. Black and gray-white ash from previous fires occupied the bottom of the container. A flue above it ran through the two-story house and out the roof. All the furniture had been taken by the previous occupants when they departed.
Kimaru tended the fire and got a cheery blaze going in short order. By that time full dark had descended and the Forest of Fangs and Shadows had begun its nocturnal life. Screams of hunter and prey sounded in the distance.
“Why are you seeking the Crocodile’s Throat?” Kimaru asked.
Raisho and the pirates brought out their food bags and passed out bread and dried meat. The wineskins made the rounds, too.
“I’m looking for something Grandmagister Lamplighter left behind,” Juhg answered.
“What?”
Juhg hesitated for a moment. “A book.”
“He was always very careful about his books,” Kimaru said. “I don’t think he would leave one behind by accident.”
“It wasn’t by accident. It was by design.”
“What book is it?”
“A narrative of his travels. He came to the Forest of Fangs and Shadows seeking Sokadir and Deathwhisper.”
Kimaru frowned, then bit into a chunk of fresh bread. “Why would he do that?”
“Have you heard of the Battle of Fell’s Keep?”
The young elf nodded.
“Sokadir was one of those who survived and still yet lives.”
“There is another,” Kimaru said.
“Who?”
“Larrosh, Prince of the Laceleaves sprawl.”
“I don’t know of him.”
Kimaru pointed. “He lives to the north, near the Darkling Swamp. He is Sokadir’s cousin.”
“Have you seen Sokadir?”
Shaking his head, Kimaru said, “Very few people have seen him since Lord Kharrion’s defeat by the Unity, and he never talks to anyone. He went off to himself and remains hidden.”
“Why?”
“His two sons were at the Battle of Fell’s Keep. Qardak and Palagan. They were twins.” Kimaru
said that with a tone of reverence. “After they were lost to him, when the dwarf Oskarr betrayed the defenders at the Battle of Fell’s Keep, it’s said that Sokadir was never the same. He never made peace with his loss. He had lost his wife in battle only a year before that.”
No one wrote that up, Juhg realized, and wondered how much history of the Cataclysm had been lost during the confusion of the time and immediately following.
“A thousand years of grief?” Raisho asked. “That’s a long time.”
“Sokadir loved his family,” Kimaru said. “With them gone, he was … hollow. Rootless.”
Juhg understood that. Elves, partially because of their long lives, developed deep relationships. But Sokadir must have been hurting badly to walk away from his community. Especially since they would have supported him during his pain till he accepted his losses.
“Sokadir isn’t entirely rootless,” Juhg pointed out, “if he’s still in the area. He’d have been gone from here.”
“An elf is often tied to the land that birthed him,” Kimaru said. “Sokadir couldn’t stay away from this forest for the rest of his life.” He crunched into a firepear that he’d taken from one of the trees below. Juice ran down his chin and gleamed in the firelight.
“If he’s still here,” Juhg asked, “do you think you can find him?”
“Not if he doesn’t want to be found,” Kimaru replied. “And I wouldn’t intrude on his solitude.” His aqua eyes rested on Juhg. “Likely, he’ll kill anyone who does.”
One of the guards Raisho had posted alerted them shortly before the goblinkin attacked. They came early, after the moons were gone and the sun was just beginning to swell in the eastern sky.
Raisho shook Juhg awake, holding a hand over his mouth. Over the years of their relationship, Rashio had waked him like that before. Juhg opened his eyes.
Putting a finger to his lips, Raisho removed his hand from Juhg’s face. “Goblinkin,” he mouthed, so quiet the word barely stirred the air.
Juhg nodded, then got quietly to his feet and woke Yurial in a similar manner. In the space of a breath, they were all awake in the elven tree house.
“Out the back,” Kimaru whispered. “We’ll have to go quickly. Stay close to the trunk. Perhaps they won’t see us.”
Juhg knew the chances of that were slim. His heart thudded inside his chest.
“Archers,” Raisho said to the four crewmen who had bows, “ye’ll stay up ’ere till the last. After them goblinkin attack, feather ’em. We’ll split their attention as best we can.”
The men nodded tensely but stood their ground next to the windows.
“Juhg,” Kimaru whispered at the door, “stay with Minstrel Ordal. She knows this forest better than anyone.”
“Where are you going to be?” Juhg asked.
The young elf grinned. “Wherever I can do the most good.” He curled a finger over the arrow nocked to his bowstring. “I’ve killed a few goblinkin before. They don’t normally come this far into the forest.” He nodded to the door. “Now go.”
Yurial went first, sliding down the rope ladder effortlessly while staying in the shadows of the trunk. She drew fire from the goblinkin archers at once.
Raisho ordered the pirate archers to loose their shafts. Their arrows flew into the pack of goblinkin and struck targets readily.
Juhg grabbed the rope next and began his descent. He plunged down, scraping against the rough bark and taking hide from his hands and his jaw. He ignored the stinging pain and dropped to the ground beside Yurial. She already had her batons in her hands.
Three more ropes spilled from the tree house. Raisho and his men slid down the ropes like they were bailing after furling the sails during a savage storm. They hit the ground in ungainly heaps and quickly sprang to their feet. Goblinkin arrows struck among them.
Juhg took cover behind a nearby tree, following Yurial.
A strange, savage cry ululated from the upper tiers of the trees. Drawn by the sound, Juhg spotted Kimaru leaping from branch to branch. The young elven warrior had an arrow nocked to his bowstring every time he came to a stop on a branch. He drew and released smoothly, and every arrow hit a target with unerring accuracy. Raisho’s archers accounted for others, but all they did was succeed in dispersing the group. Then he yelled again, and the sound was even more attention-getting.
Most of the goblinkin advanced in a wave, running toward the pirates now grouped around the tree. A few goblinkin archers lit fire arrows and launched them in high arcs. Several of the flaming shafts landed on the tree house’s thatched roof. A blaze sprang up immediately.
As dry as the untended tree house was, fire quickly engulfed the structure, grabbing purchase like a great snarling beast. In seconds, the tree house was a roaring bonfire that greedily lashed up into the tree, setting it ablaze as well.
“Archers!” Raisho roared.
The archers sprang into position, dropping to one knee to fire into the advancing ranks of the goblinkin.
“Release!”
Arrows flew from bows. Several of the lead goblinkin tumbled to the ground. Those following closely behind tripped over them and went sprawling. Kimaru rained down more death from above, piercing the misshapen triangular heads of the goblinkin.
The brutes were close enough now that Juhg could see them clearly by the light of the tree house inferno. Black woolly hair clung to the inverted triangles that were their heads. The chin was the narrowest point, but the eyes were close-set around a piggy nose. Their skin (by daylight) was a sickly gray-green color that looked mottled by the hand of Death. Huge ears stuck out from their heads, many of them wrinkled and folded and flapping as they ran. Yellow fangs glinted in their cruel mouths. They wore the bones of enemies—humans, elves, and dwarves—in their clothing, hair, and puny beards. They wore little in the way of clothing, sometimes breeches and a shirt, and sometimes merely a twisted loincloth or animal skin.
When Lord Kharrion had gone among the goblinkin, he’d had to fight his way through the hordes to make them listen to him. Legend had it that he’d killed several of them so that the others would fear him. And they did fear him, but they also came to love him because he guided them to undreamed victories over the hated humans, elves, and dwarves.
Even since Lord Kharrion’s death, the goblinkin had changed. Juhg had seen that when he’d gone among them. They had started creating a culture of their own, and they hadn’t returned to preying on each other as quickly as they had before. They had developed a racial consciousness that they’d never before exhibited. Even in defeat, they’d learned, and they continued repopulating their ranks at an alarming rate.
“Back!” Raisho bellowed. “Back, lads! We’re gonna take the ’igh ground!”
Trust Raisho to know where the high ground is, Juhg thought, feeling proud of his friend. Raisho had proven himself every inch the warrior time and time again.
“On me, lads!” Raisho called. “Just stay focused on me!”
Kimaru continued loosing shafts into the goblinkin as he sprang again and again through the trees. Every couple heartbeats (even the rapid, frantic ones that hammered Juhg’s ears) a goblinkin dropped stone dead in his tracks. The foul creatures left a trail of their dead behind them. But they continued coming.
Juhg ran, keeping up with the pirates and Yurial only because he was fast enough to take two and three strides to every one of theirs. He dodged trees and slid through brush. He tripped several times on the treacherous terrain but managed to push himself back to his feet each time.
Then he saw the hill, the high ground that Raisho intended for them. They ran up it, only a few feet ahead of the goblinkin.
“’Ere!” Raisho yelled. “We ’old ’ere!” He turned, a dark, fierce shape in the pale dawn, and met the closest goblinkin head-on. Raisho blocked the goblinkin’s sword blow by batting his opponent’s arm aside. He brought his cutlass down in a blistering arc, aiming for the goblinkin’s head. But the goblinkin blocked the cutlass with a metal brac
er.
The goblinkin grinned and growled, leaning forward to snap at Raisho’s neck with his curved yellow fangs. Raisho twisted and turned in a cunning move that cause the larger goblinkin to sail over his head and land hard on the ground, the wind knocked from his lungs. Before the goblinkin could recover, Raisho slit his throat with the cutlass. Taking a hand-and-a-half hold on the cutlass, Raisho whirled to engage the next foe.
Beside Juhg, Yurial fought with her twin batons. She used them together to block an overhead hammer strike by a goblinkin, then swiveled and diverted her opponent’s size and strength, hurling him to one side. He tried to raise the hammer in both hands, but before he could she broke his wrist with one of the weighted batons and crushed his jaw with the other. Unconscious or dead, the goblinkin fell back among his fellows.
Fierce roaring filled the hilltop. Juhg lost sight of his companions as a goblinkin bore down on him with a spear. Moving quickly, Juhg dodged away but grabbed the spear hilt and yanked it toward the ground. The spear broke nearly in half, leaving a piece a little over three feet in length imbedded in the ground.
The goblinkin roared ferociously, throwing the broken spear away and reaching for the hatchet at his side. As he ripped the weapon free, Juhg seized the broken spear from the ground and gripped it like a staff. He’d studied staff work for a time, learning the skill from a book so that he could train one of the young dwarves that guarded the Vault of All Known Knowledge.
When the goblinkin lunged at him with the hatchet, Juhg held the staff, right hand over and left hand under, then blocked the hatchet away and quickly flipped the staff’s other end around to slam against the goblinkin’s face. Surprised, the great brute yelled in pain and took a step back. Juhg gave him no quarter, though, flipping the staff once more and driving the end into his throat. The goblinkin stumbled away, getting in the way of the one behind him.
Juhg fought the next, holding the goblinkin back with a dazzling display of staff strikes. In the end, though, he knew their efforts weren’t going to be enough to save them. There were too many goblinkin. Two crewmen were already down and the rest were beleaguered.
