But now it had a dual task, for was it not still engaged in the attacking of the stranger now trapped in the cave? Yet these were intruders below, as well, and didn’t their numbers make them the greater threat? But the prey in the trap was an intruder close at hand and as is the way of stupid beasts, to the peryton, the thing close at hand was the important thing.
So the monster kept its watch upon the tiny marmot, for sooner or later, the creature would need to emerge and eat. And all the while, the four intruders, with their horses and dog, grew smaller and smaller in the north.
Robyn’s senses had a new aspect now. She was no longer crippled with fear. Her wounds, over the past three days of enforced rest, had healed. She was hungry, and eager to proceed with her mission. Now the fear of the monster that had driven her into the tiny cave was gone, replaced by an angry flame that slowly grew into a crackling rage.
She reached a decision easily. Once she had decided to escape, she was satisfied. All that she needed now was a plan.
She would attack the thing and drive it from her doorstep! First, though, she would need a new body. She considered the limitations of her cave, with an entrance less than a foot high and little wider. She would have to emerge with a small body but one that was powerful and tough, equipped with weapons that could slay the hideous creature that lay in wait.
She thought of the body of a great wolf, but she immediately discarded it as too large for the cave entrance. Then she considered that of a scaly serpent, but she realized that the cold weather would make her slow and lethargic.
And then she thought of the creature she would become, and as quickly as she thought, she shifted. Her body crouched in the rodent’s posture but grew longer and broader. Her back widened, but did not rise much higher than the marmot’s. Her tiny claws, however, stretched and grew hooked until they rested on the rocky floor several inches ahead of her four paws. Her muzzle grew until wicked fangs protruded from her curling lip.
Her heartbeat slowed as that muscle grew to accommodate the larger body, and her black eyes took on a reddish cast. The growl that rumbled unconsciously from her chest could never have been uttered by a marmot.
But the marmot had become a wolverine. Robyn flexed her powerful rear legs and slipped through the cave entrance with a single fluid motion. The monster leaped backward, flapping its great wings in surprise. Its ghastly mouth gaped in rage, and it hissed a challenge.
The wolverine’s forepaws reached out and clutched the thing’s body in a steely embrace. Robyn’s teeth sought its throat, and only the monster’s desperate twisting prevented her from administering a fatal bite. The creature tumbled backward as the wolverine clung tightly to its breast. Her rear legs flexed and kicked as Robyn used those sharp claws in an effort to disembowel her opponent, all the while ignoring the pounding of its wings against her head.
All of a sudden, the creature’s twisting evasion took them over the ledge. Robyn felt them both falling, bouncing against the rocky cliff. But now her animal instincts—instincts among the most savage in the natural world—compelled her to cling to her victim tenaciously. This tenacity saved her life as they suddenly crashed into the ground, and she felt the creature’s body break beneath her.
The frenzy of the wolverine’s attack did not abate, however. Robyn slashed and bit and growled until the remains of the unnatural monster had been torn into shreds. Feathers covered a circle ten feet wide, and bits of cracked bone lay scattered over a similar distance. In the center of the circle, only the staglike head, lying flat on the ground with its antlers spreading treelike above, remained as mute evidence of the beast’s nature.
Finally her rage faded, though Robyn, still cloaked in the body of the wolverine, paced restlessly around the remains of her foe for some time. Every so often, she paused and glared at the sky, as if challenging another of the creatures to attack.
Eventually she sat up on her haunches and tried to concentrate, to call up an image of her own human body. For several minutes, her mind whirled with a confused blur of pictures, none of them familiar. She found her attention wandering to thoughts of food.
Instinctively she growled, and the sound shocked her back to awareness. I must think! I must shift … now! A deep fear began to grow within her. Perhaps she had waited too long … perhaps her powers had waned too much for her to change back!
With a desperate strain, she pictured herself, and called upon all the spiritual power gathered in her tiny, muscular form. The world spun around her, and she gasped for air, feeling her windpipe contract. A sickening sense of nausea rose in her stomach, and then she lost consciousness.
Robyn awakened some time later. Dehydration swelled her tongue, and her lips cracked painfully as she struggled to open her mouth. But it was a human mouth, and a human tongue! Still, a great sense of lethargy lay upon her, as if the effort of the shape-changing had drained more of her strength than she had to give.
She sat weakly on the rocky ground as her world spun madly. “Mother, what is happening to me? Where are you?” But as before, when she had tried to pray, there was no answer to her question. It took her several minutes to regain her strength.
She noticed a gnawing ache in her stomach and realized with chagrin that she had neglected to bring any food with her. Nor had she brought a bedroll, or a waterskin, or any of the other equipment that was necessary to this mission in her human body. Somehow she had felt that she could reach the well and work her magic in the form of the wind, with no mortal accoutrements.
Softly she cursed her lack of foresight. Then she took up her staff and scrolls, which had made the shift with her, and looked around. She had tumbled nearly to the foot of the mountain during the course of the fight. The path before her, to the north, now curved gently along a sloping ridge. She started walking, and the movement swiftly drove the stiffness from her muscles.
In an hour, she had entered the low country, following the vestiges of a trail that had once been pastoral. Now it twisted toward the blackened trunks of dead, rotting trees. A fetid odor of decay arose from the land itself, and Robyn pulled her apron across her face. Even this could not dampen the pervasive stink.
She paused at the edge of the forest, but she knew that this was the path through Myrloch Vale, to the grove of the Great Druid. She took several deep breaths, as if sensing she breathed the cleanest air she would taste for many days.
Then, shouldering her staff, she spoke a quiet prayer to her goddess. Like the others, the prayer went unanswered. Nevertheless, she stepped forward resolutely and entered the dead forest.
A padded foot, as broad as a bear’s, fell softly on a pile of dried, dead moss, yet no sound emerged. Another paw, identical to the first, reached forward to pull the sleek body along. The rear feet, when they moved in turn, fell exactly in the soundless prints of the forefeet.
Above, all was blackness, except for the yellow slits in the creature’s eyes. Should any moonlight have broken through the midnight clouds, an observer could have seen the long, curving teeth exposed by the widespread jaws. One could have marveled at the liquid muscle rippling below the sleek black hide, or shuddered at the ghastly tentacles protruding from the creature’s shoulders.
Shantu, the displacer beast, moved to the hunt.
Shantu did not hunt from hunger—at least, not from the desire to fill its belly. Shantu’s hunger was of another kind. It was the lust for fresh blood to cool its tongue, for the soothing death-cry of a victim to ring musically in its ears. It was spiritual, for Shantu longed for the feel of a warm body growing cold in its mouth, to drive the breath of life from a living creature.
Shantu was not hungry for food but for death. And now, patiently, with complete silence and stealth, the displacer beast moved through the deadness of Myrloch Vale. It sought anything alive, anything that held that spark that would give the beast sustenance in its extinguishing.
And so the displacer beast crept through the night, looking for something to kill.
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��We’ll stop at the first good camping place,” Tristan announced. The party had drawn together as darkness closed in, and now Tavish and Pawldo stood beside him as they rested. Daryth stood, almost invisible in the dusk, a few feet away, ostensibly observing the trail behind them.
“I wish you guys could see in the dark! I’m not tired yet!” Newt declared his disappointment loudly.
“Be quiet!” hissed the High King, looking into the dead woods around them. They had left the rocky highlands behind, but this forest of rotted trunks seemed even more barren. “Start looking for a place to camp. And another thing—there’ll be no fire tonight!”
“This is still high country!” argued Pawldo. “We’ll freeze without a fire!” The halfling huddled on his pony, a picture of discomfort and misery.
Tristan ignored him, turning back to the trail. He was riding Avalon now—they had all remounted beyond the high valleys—but he realized the futility of blundering on in the utter darkness that would soon descend.
“There’s a grove of sorts,” announced Tavish, pointing to a stand of dead pines as her gelding skittered nervously to the side. The towering skeletal trees offered better shelter, and softer bedding, than the rocky ground, so they entered the grove and prepared to make camp.
Unsaddling Avalon and watching the darkness close upon their camp, Tristan felt a sense of aloneness around him. The nearest community, he knew, lay beyond the rocky highlands, two days hence.
Where are you, Robyn? His mind voiced the question that possessed him. His throat tightened and he shook his head angrily, but though he struggled to overlook his own role in the druid’s flight, guilt soon rode roughshod over his feelings. And following the guilt came self-pity, and then the anger he directed at his companions.
“Damn!” he cursed at the darkness. He tried unsuccessfully to shake off his mood as he joined his companions over their cold bread and cheese.
“We’ll have to stand watches. I’ll take the midwatch.” Tristan grabbed a large chunk of dark bread and chewed angrily.
“Have some wine,” offered the bard, and the king gratefully took the wineskin.
“I’ll take the first watch,” Daryth said as he finally entered the camp.
“And the morning watch for me! We’ll let the halfling sleep in,” piped the bard, chuckling.
“I can stand watch, too! How come I never get a turn?” Newt was indignant. “I can see in the dark better than any of you!”
“Take the morning watch with me. I could use the extra pair of eyes!” Tavish tried to humor the dragon, and Newt, satisfied, curled up to sleep.
“I can’t b-believe this is Myrloch Vale—Vale!” Yazilliclick looked around nervously. Dark clouds pressed ominously overhead, and the lifeless forest stretched to the horizon on all sides. “It—it’s all so dead—so dead! Wait till Genna sees this—till Genna sees!”
Tristan took another swig from the wineskin, then turned to Daryth. “Let’s check the horses before it’s too dark to see.”
The Calishite shrugged and followed him to the little clearing in which they had staked their mounts. The king tugged on the line that held Avalon, while Daryth checked the other horses. Tristan stared at his companion all the while, but Daryth would not meet his gaze.
“Look at me, Daryth! Why won’t you look at me?”
Daryth turned to stare at the king, but the look was more painful than his avoidance. Tristan saw great depths of accusation in the Calishite’s black eyes. Then, wordlessly, Daryth went back to his task.
“Why this silent invective?”
“You drove Robyn away,” whispered Daryth, in a voice that thundered in Tristan’s mind. “She could be dead!”
“And she could be alive! We’ll find her, I swear it—and it’ll be easier if we work together! When we do find her, she will accept my apology and forgive me. She knows I made a mistake!” The king spat his answers, one after the other, before taking another pull of the wine. The liquid cooled the heat of his throat and seemed to calm his pounding heart. “By the gods, she will forgive me!”
“You ask too much of her,” replied the Calishite in a voice of silken quiet.
“Too much? It’s asking too much to forgive a simple mistake?”
“You have the love of the finest woman I have ever met. What cause do you have for throwing it away?”
“Stop it! I command you, as your king! You took the oath to serve me, as binding as upon any lord of the Ffolk!”
“And serve you I shall … sire. But you cannot command the feelings inside a man. Until now, I would not have thought you fool enough to try.”
Tristan’s hand went instinctively to his sword, but the bitter edge of truth in Daryth’s words held him back. Instead of drawing his weapon, he stared in anger and pain at his friend.
“I chose to follow you, remember?” Daryth continued, his words spilling forth in heat. “You spared my life, true, when I would have stolen your purse. Since then, we have fought great enemies side by side, and I have watched your power grow. I have always felt that you were a man with a great destiny before him, and I was pleased to help you reach that destiny. But now to see you throw that away for a trivial encounter with a maid—”
“I did not throw anything away! I will make it up to Robyn! How does that mean I have renounced my destiny?”
“You have proven yourself unworthy of her love!”
Tristan stepped back as if he had been struck, but then he stopped and stared at his companion. He studied Daryth carefully and came to a startling realization.
“You love her, too, don’t you?” Daryth flushed and turned away while the king took another drink. “I don’t know whether to cry out in rage or in laughter!”
“Laughter? She could be dead right now, or in the gravest peril, and all because you drove her away! And now you talk of laughter!”
“Get out of here!” shouted the king. “Leave me alone! I don’t want your help or your presence! If this is the loyalty you offer—” He stopped, jealous heat choking off any further words.
Daryth spun on his heel and stalked into the night, away from the camp. After two steps, he disappeared from sight, and Tristan realized that the twilight had passed.
“Wait!” The king cried out once, softly, though he knew Daryth would not stop. In truth, Tristan realized that he was relieved the confrontation was over. Daryth had awakened too much guilt within him, and each of the Calishite’s words had seemed to drive another wicked dagger home.
The darkness grew thick, a blanket of night that fell in an almost physical cloak around them. The clouds above, and the gaunt trees around them had all vanished into the utter darkness. Tristan stumbled back to his companions, stifling an angry curse as he tripped over a root. He sat against a tree trunk, some distance away from Pawldo, Tavish, and the two faeries.
The king noticed that his hands shook. Tension boiled within him, and he wanted to lash out against something. But he forced himself to remain still, and eventually heard the deep breathing of his companions. Canthus came to him and with a soft whine, curled up at his feet.
He lifted the half-empty wineskin, but suddenly the wine tasted bitter, nearly gagging him. Spitting it out, he leaned back in disgust. So Daryth loved Robyn … How could his friend have kept a secret like that? How painful had it been for him to see Tristan and Robyn together?
As he reflected, he began to remember a look he had seen on the Calishite’s face occasionally at unguarded moments. He thought of the attentive way Daryth listened to Robyn speak, the way he laughed when she laughed. I could have noticed it any time I wanted! I just never paid attention.
And then Canthus growled, very softly, and every fiber of Tristan’s being was jolted back to the present. He stood quickly, soundlessly, and listened, trying to project his senses into the surrounding night.
Something was out there!
Tristan heard a soft scuffling sound, and he felt Canthus grow tense beside him. The noise came again, from the direct
ion of the trail behind them. For a moment, he wondered if it was Daryth returning, but he remembered that the Calishite had gone to the north, in the opposite direction. Even Daryth could not have circled the camp that quickly and soundlessly.
Tristan let the Sword of Cymrych Hugh rest in its scabbard, safe at his side. The brilliant blade would illuminate their camp if he drew it, but that would only serve to help whatever was out there to spot them.
He felt Canthus drop into a fighting crouch and slink forward. Tristan stepped carefully beside the great moorhound, trying to move silently and cursing the rasping of each footstep against the dry ground. The feeling that something approached them grew stronger.
Once again he froze at full attention, desperately seeking any clue from the still, dark night. He thought of waking his companions, but for what? He still couldn’t be certain there was anything out there. Only his keyed nerves, and the suspicious Canthus, led him to suspect a threat.
But then he heard a clear sound, a footfall, and he knew that something approached their camp. The sword, almost of its own will, leaped into his palm, and the clearing stood stark, washed in the magical light of the enchanted blade. With a low bark, Canthus sprang forward.
Pawldo sat up in his bedroll as Newt darted into the air, buzzing anxiously toward the king. Even Yazilliclick popped his head out of the saddlebag he had chosen for a bed. “Wh-what is it—is it?”
Tristan saw the shape emerge from the darkness. He watched Canthus stop in shock, then bound ahead with a yelp of greeting. The great moorhound nearly knocked Robyn off her feet as the druid embraced the dog.
“Robyn!” The king coughed out the word, his voice choking. She was here, and she was safe! The clearing seemed suddenly a warm and cheery place, and in his relief and joy, he stumbled forward to greet her, forgetting the thing that had driven her away.
But there was no forgetting in the druid’s eyes as she looked coolly at him, and then at his companions. She stepped past him into the camp, and the night again grew forbidding and chilled.
Darkwell Page 9
