by Kate Novak
The smell made breathing difficult, but Joel kept singing, as if he were oblivious to the beast creeping up on him. The bard fervently hoped Jas’s timing would not be off.
Something on the other side of the hedgerow growled.
Joel sprang to his feet and spun around with his sword raised.
A great black beast sprang over the hedgerow, lunging for the bard’s throat. In that moment, Jas, still holding Holly, dropped on the creature, delivering it a resounding kick in the head with plenty of weight behind it. The beast shook its head as if stunned, but it didn’t fall. The winged woman and the paladin separated the moment they came to the ground. Holly rolled to her feet in an instant and launched a crossbow bolt into the beast’s chest.
The creature turned to face the paladin. Holly gasped. Jas slashed at the beast’s arm and managed to draw blood. Joel finished intoning his spell song and pointed at the creature. The hedgerow behind the beast grew and began to snake outward. In five heartbeats, it had entangled the beast’s feet, legs, waist, and finally its hairy chest and arms. It was an exceptionally thick hedgerow, and the beast’s furious struggles were in vain.
“Bear?” Holly whispered.
“No, it’s not a bear,” Jas said. “It looks almost human, except for that snout … a really hairy human. It’s got fingers but no tail. Maybe it’s some sort of half-ogre.”
Joel drew closer, despite the stench of skunk that covered the creature. “Bear!” the bard gasped, just barely able to recognize the huge man’s features, despite the distortion of his face into a wolflike snout.
“Why is it wearing a steel eye patch?” Jas asked.
“Because it was once a man with one eye,” Holly said. “It is you, isn’t it, Bear?” the paladin asked.
The creature snarled at the paladin. Then, in a gravelly voice, it’s mouth twisting horribly, it replied, “You will … die, paladin. This is all your … f-fault, bitch.” The words came out slowly and not very clearly, as if Bear was having trouble pronouncing them.
“What?” Holly asked, confused by the accusation. “How did you get this way, Bear?”
“I offered you and the … priest of Finder … to Iyachtu Xvim. If you are not both sacri-f-f—sacrificed with the new moon, my life is … forfeit,” the beast-man said. “The priest I serve gave me the power to track you down so that I might live.”
“Can they change you back?” Holly asked.
“Who cares?” Jas asked. “Just slay him and let’s get going.”
“The spell that transformed me took away the light of my humanity … f-forever,” Bear growled. “I am all darkness now. Pure. F-F-Favored of Iyachtu Xvim.”
“You see now why I avoid gods,” Jas muttered to Joel.
Bear’s one good eye gleamed with madness. “You will all … die in pain and humiliation. I can taste your souls and … feel your power wherever your f-feet have touched the earth,” the enchanted man boasted. “I might have lost your trail when you flew across the river … but for the power of the fourth one. I can sense the fourth one … from miles away.”
“The fourth one?” Jas asked. “Who’s he talking about?”
Holly’s eyes scanned the meadow carefully.
“Do you mean Walinda of Bane?” Joel asked, wondering if the priestess were following them to exact some sort of revenge.
Bear gave a braying laugh. “No. The fourth one who travels beside you … is more powerful than any godless priestess. The fourth one’s power … is far greater even than our high priest, the Ruinlord. When I bring the fourth one to sacrifice … my god will elevate me above even the Ruinlord.”
Jas shifted nervously. “He’s crazy. There is no fourth one,” she declared. “Is there?”
Bear writhed in the enchanted hedgerow, struggling to free himself. When he found he could not, he gave an ear-piercing howl.
“Stop that!” Jas ordered, leveling the point of her sword at Bear’s throat.
From far off came the sound of a hunting horn.
Bear howled again, louder and longer.
“Shut up!” Jas shouted.
Bear’s howls became frantic.
Jas shoved her sword into the beast-man’s neck and sliced his windpipe. The howling stopped. Bear’s shoulders slumped forward. Only the hedgerow held him up.
Joel looked at Jas, horrified at how quickly she had taken the beast-man’s life.
“You didn’t have to do that!” Holly objected, whirling angrily on the winged woman.
“Don’t be a fool,” Jas snapped. “His only reason for being was to bring us to our death. Now we can all sleep at night.”
The hunting horn sounded again.
“Come on, Holly,” Joel said softly, laying his hand on the paladin’s back. “We have to get going.”
“Damned right,” Jas said. She strode off back down the path they’d come.
Joel and Holly followed behind her.
“Joel, suppose Bear wasn’t crazy? Suppose there is a fourth one? Who could it be?” the girl asked.
“Holly, I haven’t a clue,” the bard admitted. “Let’s keep moving.”
By nightfall. they’d reached the foothills of the Desertsmouth Mountains. They were considering where they should make camp for the night when they spotted something glowing softly somewhere to the south. The light was an unnatural violet color.
“It’s Giant’s Craw,” Holly said excitedly.
“Is that good or bad?” Jas asked.
“It’s a rock,” the paladin explained, “with faerie fire cast on it. It marks the entrance to a valley. Giants used to live there, waylaying caravans, until Lord Randal drove them out. It’s supposed to be a lovely valley, teeming with game.”
“Sounds like a good place to find breakfast,” Joel said.
They made their way deeper into the foothills until they’d reached the magical stone. It was a great hexagonal pillar of ebony basalt, as tall as a giant, polished to a smooth finish.
Holly put her back against the west side of the rock and slid down to the ground with a blissful smile. “This is where I’m sleeping,” she said.
Jas eyed the stone warily. She settled down a few yards away.
Joel took first watch. He sat with his back against the east side of the stone and watched the waning moon rise in the east. It was like a dying ember, and Selune’s Tears, the tiny lights that trailed after it, were like sparks. Tomorrow, or perhaps the next night, would mark the new moon, when the Xvimists would have sacrificed Holly, Jas, and him. He wondered if Bear’s death would be enough to placate the bloodthirsty god of the priest of Xvim and his Zhent followers, and if they would abandon the hunt now. Joel doubted it, but with their hound dead, the Xvimists and Zhents could be outwitted. At least Joel hoped so.
The bard’s thoughts returned uneasily to Bear’s claim that he sensed a fourth person traveling with them. Joel puzzled over who it could be. Someone with power. Absolutely no one came to mind. Joel shook his head. Perhaps Jas was right. Bear had been maddened by his transformation and sensed someone who wasn’t there.
After turning the watch over to Jas, Joel slept soundly. Holly woke him in the morning by pressing a raspberry to his lips. She and Jas had found a berry patch. The berries were big, sweet, juicy, and full of flavor. In no time at all, the three of them were covered with briar scratches, their fingers and lips stained purple.
“That’s what the stone marker means,” Holly joked. “Purple berries here.”
“It must mark something,” Joel said. “It’s not like any other rock near here, and its magic is permanent. We could go exploring,” he suggested.
“It’s not on our agenda,” Jas said tersely. “You’re supposed to be making a pilgrimage to the Lost Vale, aren’t you?”
“We have to hunt anyway,” Joel pointed out. “It might as well be here.”
“I suppose a tiny side trip couldn’t hurt,” Jas said with a sigh.
They looked down into the valley. Even by the light of day, it had a
n eerie look to it. Deposits of loose shale covered much of the mountain slopes on either side. Scrub pines grew out of the shale, but many of them were naked of needles and covered with morning glory vines. Where the shale didn’t cover the slopes, wildflowers bloomed, carpeting the hills with gold.
They made their way downward, walking among the flowers, sliding on the shale. Birds chirped everywhere, and Holly spotted deer droppings. Jas took to the air to scout for game. Joel followed the paladin as she crept along the valley floor, alert for every sound. A mile into the valley, she shot two large pheasants and scavenged their nest for the eggs. She began to teach Joel how to pluck feathers. Soon the bard was covered with them and Holly was laughing at him.
Somewhere off in the distance, something howled. Quickly a horn answered.
“Beshaba’s filthy luck!” Joel cursed. An icy hand seemed to grip his heart.
“Where’s Jas?” Holly asked with alarm.
Joel looked up at the sky. The winged woman was making her way toward them at top speed. She landed just in front of them, her face pale with anger. “Did you hear that?” she demanded.
Joel nodded.
“They’re at the stone,” the winged woman reported. “You’re trapped in this valley.”
“What’s at the other end of the valley?” Joel asked.
“That,” Jas said, pointing to a high-peaked mountain. “Its lower slopes are either cliff faces or covered with loose shale.”
“They won’t be able to charge their horses up the shale slope,” Joel noted.
Jas nodded. “There’s a ledge on the upper slope, blocked by a rock with a narrow opening, like a needle,” she said. “Unless they can fly, too, they can only come at you one at a time through the rock.
“Get Holly up there first,” Joel ordered. “I’ll see if I can find a way to hold them off.”
“I’ll be back,” Jas promised as she took off with the paladin.
Joel considered carefully what spells he should call on Finder for. When he was finished praying, he dragged a deadfall branch along the valley floor until it lay between two boulders. Unless they were prepared to go up a steep shale slope, the Xvimists would have to ride their horses between the boulders over the branch. Quietly Joel began singing a spell over the branch. Jas arrived before he finished. She paced impatiently until he finished.
“Trip spell?” she asked, pointing to the branch.
Joel nodded as he wrapped his arms around her neck.
Jas took off, flying low, until she reached the end of the valley. She struggled to gain altitude until a thermal of air caught her and practically dumped her and her passenger on the mountain slope.
The needle was an excellent defensive position. It was a thin cleft in a wall of rock situated on a smaller peak just in front of the major peak. Except for a stretch of steeply sloped shale, the other sides of the lesser peak were cliffs. The base of the major peak and the saddle that led to it were all cliff faces. The valley below was a gorge, and the only way up out of the gorge was through the needle on the minor peak.
Holly stood just behind the rock needle, her crossbow loaded, her sword drawn.
Joel looked at the ground just behind the needle. It was worn smooth and flat, like a trail cut into the rock. It went down along the saddle to the major peak before it disappeared beneath another shale slide.
“This led somewhere once,” Holly said. “Did you see any sign of a cave from the air? My people used to use them as crypts.”
Jas shook her head. She began gathering up large rocks in her cloak. “You don’t have to stay, you know,” Joel pointed out.
Jas stood up and looked at Joel. “Like that old joke about two guys running from a bear.”
Joel grinned.
“What joke?” Holly asked.
“Two guys are running from a bear,” Joel explained. “One says to the other, ‘We’ll never outrun this bear.’ The other guy says, ‘I don’t have to outrun the bear’—”
“ ‘I only have to outrun you,’ ” Jas finished.
“That’s terrible,” Holly said.
“That’s life,” Jas said. She looked at Joel with a grim expression. “I’ll stay until I have no reason to stay,” she said.
Joel nodded. She expected to be the last standing, or flying. When he and Holly had fallen, she would be free to fly away.
It seemed to take forever for the Xvimists to reach the base of the mountain. Joel squinted into the sun. Leading the hunt was the loping figure of a man-beast. If it wasn’t Bear, it was his twin brother.
“How did he survive?” Holly wondered aloud.
“Maybe he wasn’t quite dead and the priest of Xvim healed him when they found him,” Joel suggested. “Or maybe there was some sort of regeneration spell woven into his transformation,”
“I’ve got to remember to start cremating the things I kill,” Jas muttered.
Below them, Bear howled, even though his master, the priest of Xvim, rode right behind him.
“He’s doing that just to annoy me,” Jas snarled.
They counted fourteen others behind Bear and the priest. One wore robes like a mage, but the rest were dressed as Zhentilar. Nine of the soldiers were on foot. The trip trap Joel had left behind must have injured their mounts.
The horses balked at the shale slope. The riders dismounted and eyed the slope warily.
Holly turned to Jas and whispered, “If you find Anathar’s Dell, tell Lord Randal everything that happened. Tell him I thank him for the trust he had in me. Tell him I died fighting the Zhentilar and the servants of Xvim in Lathander’s name.”
“I’ll never remember all that,” Jas said, giving the girl a gentle squeeze on the shoulder. “You’ll have to live through this and tell him yourself.”
Listening to the paladin’s pious words, Joel thought again of his own god. Nothing personal, Joel thought, but I’m not really fighting this one for you. He intended to sing a blessing for strength just before the soldiers reached the needle, but in the interim, he wondered if there was anything else he should try praying for. Finder had helped him escape once, but there really wasn’t a lot of time for a fresh vision of Jedidiah. He could pray for a quick death so Bear didn’t have the opportunity to gloat over Joel’s torture. He could pray for courage. His stomach was feeling queasy, and the sword in his hand felt heavy and strange.
Mostly he felt regret that he’d never become comfortable in the role of a priest, never lived up to what he thought Jedidiah or Finder needed from him. “Sorry if I was a disappointment, Finder,” he whispered.
It wasn’t a battle cry, but the words left his spirit feeling a little lighter.
The priest of Xvim finally goaded the soldiers into moving up the shale slope. For all their faintheartedness, the soldiers looked grim and strong, and their weapons sharp and deadly.
At the base of the shale, Bear howled and capered back and forth before the priest of Xvim. Joel could hear him panting. The beastlike sound made Joel’s flesh crawl. Bear disgusted him. He didn’t want to be near the man-beast again. Suddenly he was gripped by the desire to keep the beast away from Holly. That, at least, could be accomplished.
“Jas,” he whispered, “take Holly and get away from here. If you catch one of those thermals, you should be able to get over the first line of peaks. Bear will never be able to follow you over them. He said he can only sense where your feet have touched the earth. He can’t track you as long as you’re flying.”
“No,” Holly whispered. “I’m not leaving you.”
Jas exchanged a look with Joel, but before the two adults could come to an agreement, there was a sudden flash of light to Joel’s left, followed quickly by the boom of thunder. Joel looked up in the sky. There wasn’t a cloud in sight. As if of one mind, the remaining horses of the foe neighed in panic and galloped off back down the valley.
From the major peak came a great roar. Joel squinted, fully expecting to see a dragon. The roar increased until it sounded like a hun
dred dragons. Suddenly Joel felt as if he were bouncing on a galloping horse. The very ground beneath his feet was shaking. The shale on the major peak began sliding down the cliff like a great black waterfall. The loose rock parted around the minor peak where they stood, like a stream about a rock. Then the shale continued to spill down the side of the cliff until it nearly filled the gorge below, burying the Zhentilar and the priest of Xvim and the capering Bear.
It was over in less than a minute, although it took much longer for the dust to settle. The noise had so startled all the wildlife that the valley had become deadly silent.
Then Joel heard what sounded like applause. It came from the direction of the high peak on the opposite side of the saddle. Joel peered through the settling dust. A figure stepped out from behind a boulder and began crossing the saddle toward them. It was a man with white hair and a white beard. He wasn’t actually applauding, Joel realized, but clapping the dust off his black trousers and red tunic. He smiled up at Joel, and his face crinkled in wrinkles.
“I don’t believe it!” Joel muttered, recognizing the man at once.
Holly and Jas half raised their weapons, but they were too astonished to actually attack. With a wave of his hand, Joel indicated that they could relax. He stepped out onto the saddle, spat some dust from his throat, and called out, “Jedidiah! Well met!”
The elder priest of Finder raised his brass glaur over his head in a little victory salute. Jedidiah had once claimed that the valved horn had magical properties that could “bring down the house.” Joel realized that he had just witnessed a demonstration of the instrument’s power.
“Well met, Rebel Bard,” Jedidiah answered his pupil. “You’ve come a long way.”
Eight
JEDIDIAH
“I had a vision that you were in terrible danger,” Jedidiah explained, “so I headed toward Daggerdale.”
“But how did you find me?” Joel asked.
“A little bird told me where you were,” the older priest said with a wink.
Joel looked down into the valley where Holly and Jas were busy rounding up the Zhents’ horses. At Joel’s request, they’d left the two men alone to confer. “I don’t know that I deserve all this special attention,” the bard said, “but I do appreciate it,” he added, turning around to thank his old mentor.
