by Terry Brooks
She ignored the sinking feeling in her stomach and followed him to the trees he called wincies. They were tall, spidery hardwoods with long, thin, whiplike branches that interlaced and, at some points, knotted together. With Weka Dart leading, they slipped into their midst, ducking more than once to get through, wending their way into the center of the grove. The Ulk Bog made a quick check of their surroundings and determined them safe.
“Now you should sleep while I keep watch,” he told her. “We must set out early, and you will need your strength. Go ahead. Sleep.”
Too tired to argue, she lay down obediently. She closed her eyes, thinking to do little more than nap. Her mind was awash in doubts and fears, in worries of what they would have to do to stay alive another day. Images of her imprisonment and of the creatures that had threatened her paraded like specters. She felt the magic of the conjure collar even as she slept, ripping her apart, draining her strength, and filling her with pain.
She would never sleep again, she thought, and was asleep in seconds.
Her waking thoughts followed her into her sleep and became her dreams, dark and menacing. The Straken Lord tracked her down shadowy corridors, close behind but just out of sight. He carried in one hand the conjure collar with which he would bind her to him, its fastenings glittering like teeth. Other creatures from the Forbidding appeared in front of her, creatures of all sizes and shapes, their features not entirely distinct, but their intentions clear. Winged monsters clung to the ceiling overhead, with claws that gripped like iron, threatening to drop on top of her if she dared to slow. She ran from all of them, blindly and helplessly, with no destination in mind and no end in sight.
She came awake to the sound of howling wolves, and a terrified gasp escaped her lips.
“Hssstt!” Weka Dart whispered in her ear. He was crouched next to her in the darkness, a vague shape barely distinguishable from the night. “Demonwolves! They’ve found us!”
She tried to scramble to her feet, but he forced her down again, hissing, “No, no, don’t move! Stay still! They don’t know exactly where we are and we don’t want to tell them. Let them come to us!”
She panicked. “But they’ll—”
“They’ll go the way I want them to go, Straken Queen. They’ll go the way of dead things!”
She forced herself to remain calm while trying to sort through what he was talking about. He didn’t seem panicked. He didn’t even seem particularly worried. He stared past her east, toward Kraal Reach and the sound of the howling as it drew steadily louder, drawing nearer.
She realized suddenly that she was cold. She glanced down and saw that she was missing her cloak.
Weka Dart glanced over quickly. “They have your scent well and good. But they won’t have you, Grianne of the wincie woods!”
The howls were very close, coming fast, and there were other sounds as well, shouts and cries of other creatures as they urged the demonwolves on. The pursuit was heated, a sense of expectancy reverberating in the wildness of its sounds.
Then suddenly, with a swiftness that turned her stomach to ice, everything changed. The howls turned to screams and growls filled with rage. The shouts and cries turned to shrieks filled with terror. The pitch rose and the rawness sharpened, and the night was alive with a cacophony that transcended anything Grianne Ohmsford had ever heard. Her pursuers were under attack themselves and fighting for their lives.
At her side, Weka Dart laughed aloud. “They’ve found what they were searching for, but not what they expected, Straken Queen! Listen to them! Too bad they weren’t paying better attention to what they were doing! I think maybe they’ve encountered something with teeth sharper than their own!”
She stared at him, and then she remembered. The Asphinx!
Her pursuers had stumbled right into the center of the colony, and the snakes were striking at them. She listened anew to the sounds of the struggle, and the sounds told her everything. “You put my cloak out there in the middle of the snakes!” she exclaimed. “You knew!”
His grin was frightening. “I suspected. They came more quickly than I had thought they would. Your cloak was a lure to draw them away from us. The night is dark and visibility poor. Too bad for them.”
The sounds were dying out, the growls and screams and shrieks turned to whimpers and moans, to gasps that carried even to where she crouched in the trees next to the Ulk Bog. She tried not to listen, but could not help herself. It was destruction of a sort with which she was familiar and from which she could not turn away.
Then everything went still, save for a single lengthy, ragged sob. And then even that was gone.
Weka Dart bent close. “Isn’t the silence beautiful?” he whispered.
When it was light enough to do so, the dawn a faint tinge of pale gray brightness set low against the horizon to the east, they walked back to where the Asphinx colony waited. What Grianne Ohmsford saw left her stunned. Statues filled the flats, sculpted creatures posed in desperate positions of battle and flight. There were demonwolves and Goblins, dozens of each, their bodies and necks twisted, their limbs lifted and crooked, and their mouths open in soundless cries.
In their midst stood Hobstull, his lean body rigid, his narrow face taut, hands closed into fists in recognition of what was happening to him.
All had been turned to stone. Not a one had escaped.
“It happens so quickly when you are bitten repeatedly,” Weka Dart ventured. “No waiting around for the inevitable. No false hope that you might somehow find a cure. You haven’t got more than a minute before it’s over. Better that way.”
He walked to the edge of the field, picked up one end of a thin line, and reeled in Grianne’s cloak, which had been tossed into the center of the killing field. Shaking it out carefully to make certain no snakes had hidden in its folds, he detached the line and handed the cloak back to her. “There, good as ever.”
She took the cloak and stared at him, seeing him in an entirely new light, one that gave her pause.
“I prefer Hobstull as a statue,” he declared, his smile wicked and challenging. “Don’t you?” He dusted off his hands and looked east. “Time to be on our way. The light is good enough for travel. If others are coming, we don’t want to be here to greet them.”
He walked away, and Grianne followed. As she did so, she glanced back a final time, reminded suddenly of her past. The Ilse Witch had used snakes to dispose of her enemies. That had been a long time ago, and she was no longer that person. Or didn’t want to be. But she had felt herself reverting in her battles with the Straken Lord and the Furies. She had felt the magic turning her dark and hard again. It wasn’t so difficult to imagine that, whether she wished it or not, she might be changing into something she had thought safely left behind.
She mulled the possibility as they walked, wondering what she could do to prevent it. It was like trying to hold water in your fingers; you could capture the wetness, but the water itself slipped away. She was that water, and she was running swiftly through the cracks in her determination.
They walked several miles, far enough that she could no longer see the statues and the flats, far enough that she had begun to turn her thoughts again to their destination. She could already see the dark rise of the Dragon Line ahead of them.
Then Weka Dart slowed. “Someone is coming,” he said.
She peered into the distance. At first, she didn’t see anything. The haze and the gloom obscured everything, blending the features of the landscape together. But finally she saw movement. A solitary figure was coming toward them, cloaked and spectral against the still-dark horizon. She tried to make out its features and failed. She could tell only one thing about it.
It was carrying a staff that glowed like fire.
TWENTY-THREE
Surrounded by the dark, menacing forms of his black-clad guards, Sen Dunsidan stalked onto the airfield and crossed to where the Zolomach was anchored at the center of the cordoned-off flats south. Chains ringed the big a
irship, and dozens of Federation soldiers stood at watch. He had no reason to believe that the Free-born would even know of her yet, let alone think to mount an attack, but since the loss of the Dechtera and other recent events he wasn’t taking any chances.
He stopped when still some distance off to admire the warship. The Zolomach was sleek and smooth, strong enough to withstand an attack by multiple enemy craft if she chose to fight and fast enough to outrun them if she chose not to. She was an improvement over the Dechtera, not so cumbersome and unresponsive, better suited to making the maneuvers necessary to bring her weapons into line, more able to adjust to the unexpected. She had not yet been put into service on the Prekkendorran though she had been tested and was ready to fly north.
Which she would do, he promised himself, as soon as Etan Orek confirmed that the casing for the fire launcher was complete and the weapon ready to be installed on the Zolomach’s foredeck. All that would happen by “sunrise tomorrow,” the little engineer had promised him, and Sen Dunsidan intended to take him at his word.
He moved ahead again, reaching the airship and climbing aboard to view the swivel base on which the fire launcher would be mounted. It was a simple metal platform that rotated on a bed of gears and bearings activated by a pair of release levers, the whole of the assembly able to swivel forty-five degrees to either side from dead forward. Its mobility was an improvement over the mechanism employed on the Dechtera, as well. There would be no mishaps when he sent her out. The Zolomach would finish the job the Dechtera had started.
“Prime Minister.”
He turned to find the Captain of the airship saluting him, eager to make his report. “Captain. Is she ready?”
“Yes, my lord. She awaits only the emplacement of the weapon, and she is on her way.”
“You’ve shielded the rudders and underside controls so that we won’t have a repeat of the Dechtera’s collapse?”
The Captain nodded. “It will take a good deal more than a rail sling to damage her steering this time.”
Sen Dunsidan didn’t miss a beat. “What would it take, exactly?”
The Captain hesitated. “Another airship would have to ram her from below. That would be very difficult.”
The Prime Minister looked away a moment, considering. There was no preventing every possibility, of course. Still, the Captain’s words made him uneasy. “Stores and weapons are all accounted for?”
“Loaded and tied down. We are ready, Prime Minister.”
Sen Dunsidan looked back at him. “I want you to post men at the rails during battle to watch for the possibility of an underside attack on the steering. I want you to devise a method of alerting the pilot box of the danger of such an attack so that evasive action can be taken in time to prevent any damage. Use the remainder of the day to train a team of men to do that. Take the Zolomach aloft and practice.” He paused. “There are to be no mistakes, Captain. Is that understood?”
A shade paler than before, seeing in Sen Dunsidan’s eyes his fate should he fail to comply, the other man nodded wordlessly.
“Good. I will get back to you with departure orders this evening.” He waved the other off. “Get on with it.”
His guard following close on his heels, he climbed back down the ladder, walked to the Zolomach’s stern to check the shielding, found it satisfactory, and strolled back out onto the airfield. Turning, he watched the airship’s Captain summon his crew to quarters, his Lieutenants shouting out instructions, his men rushing to man their positions for lifting off. Within moments, the anchor ropes were released and the big warship was sailing off into the afternoon sky.
This time, he thought as he watched her fly into the depthless blue void, I’ll use the fire launcher on the Free-born until I can’t see anything moving.
His determination to crush the Free-born was fueled by an unpleasant turn of events. First, those ragtag Elves had crushed his pursuit force in the hills north of the Prekkendorran. Then there had been the midnight raid that resulted in the destruction of the Dechtera and her weapon. Less than two days ago, a counterstrike by Free-born forces under the command of Vaden Wick had smashed his siege lines and driven his Federation soldiers all the way back to their original defenses, putting them right where they had been weeks earlier before the successes against Kellen Elessedil and the Elves. Except that now, after collapsing the right flank of the Federation army during the counterattack, Wick had gained a foothold in the hills east, threatening an assault that would roll up the entire Federation line and drive the army back into the middle Southland.
That last reversal had determined for him his present course of action. Whatever else happened, he did not intend to suffer a defeat of the sort that would result if his defensive line collapsed and was overrun. The members of the Coalition Council were afraid of him, but only so long as he did not show himself to be vulnerable. If he demonstrated any noticeable weakness, they would move quickly to eliminate him. A defeat on the Prekkendorran would give them all the encouragement they needed. No one would support him if the army was thrown back, not after all his promises of imminent victory.
So, in spite of Iridia Eleri’s insistence on attacking the Elves and Arborlon, he had decided to use the fire launcher on the Free-born lines first, breaking down their defenses and driving them off the Prekkendorran for good. There would be plenty of time after that to test Iridia’s theories about the erosion of Elven morale.
Suddenly uneasy, he glanced around. Even the thought of Iridia’s name made him nervous. In spite of the presence of his guards, he found himself looking over his shoulder constantly. He had never been comfortable with her, but after their confrontation three nights earlier, he was much less so. It was something about her eyes or her voice, something in the way she held herself whenever she saw him. Whatever it was, it left him wondering how wise it was to continue to keep her around. He might be better off to get rid of her and go back to the way things were before. He didn’t trust Shadea, but at least with her, what you saw was what you got. With Iridia, he wasn’t sure.
He started back across the airfield toward his carriage. Iridia had traveled back with him to Arishaig, but he had not seen much of her since. He should have been grateful. Instead he found himself wondering where she was.
Perhaps he should find out.
He reached his carriage and climbed inside, half expecting to find her waiting. But the carriage was empty. He sat motionless, thinking about what he should do next. He was impatient for the departure north, back to the Prekkendorran. He was anxious to watch the destruction of the Free-born, to know that his weapon would put an end to them once and for all. He would not feel comfortable until then, no matter how hard he tried to reassure himself that matters were progressing as well as could be expected.
He glanced out the carriage window. He was aware of the driver sitting atop his seat, waiting for instructions. Let him wait. He began thinking about Iridia again. If his instincts were telling him the truth—and they usually were—he should get rid of her as soon as he could find a way to do so without placing himself in danger.
But what would be the best way?
Then, all at once, he knew. He would give her back to Shadea. He would drug her, bind her, and transport her back to Paranor. Shadea would know what to do with her and would welcome the opportunity. There was no longer any question of allowing Iridia back into the Druid order. There was no chance that Shadea would attempt to repair their shattered friendship. Shadea would eliminate Iridia in the blink of an eye, and that would be that.
Satisfied with his plan, he signaled for the driver to take him over to the engineering buildings and Etan Orek.
He rode slouched down in his seat, pondering his plan. He would have to be very careful how he carried it out. Iridia was no fool. She could smell a trap in the way most Druids could; her magic gave her a sixth sense about treachery. She already knew he didn’t trust her; he would have to find a way to seduce her into thinking that he did. Perhaps if he agre
ed to her plan to fly the Zolomach to Arborlon, she would let down her guard. It couldn’t hurt to try, to tell her he had decided to do as she advised. He could even pretend he was taking her there; propose a toast after they were on board the airship and let the drug do the rest. She wouldn’t know what was happening until it was too late. Then he could fly her to Paranor and leave her in the hands of the Druids, and he would never have to worry about her again.
Calmed, reassured that his plan would work, he relaxed for the rest of the ride and looked out at the buildings of the city, their walls golden with the deepening of the approaching sunset.
When the carriage reached the engineering compound, he climbed down, his guards clustered about him, and waited for Etan Orek to respond to his summons. He did not have to wait long. The little engineer appeared within moments and hurried forward to meet his benefactor, eyes bright with excitement, hands clasped, head lowering deferentially as he scurried up.
“My lord,” he said as he bowed so low that Sen Dunsidan thought he might topple over.
“Good day to you, Engineer Orek,” he replied. He held himself straight, using his size and the strength of his voice to dominate the other. “How do matters progress with the weapon?”
The deferential gaze lifted marginally. “It is finished, Prime Minister! The casing was completed last night, and this morning I installed the weapon’s components. Everything is in order. I tested it and it worked perfectly.”
Sen Dunsidan felt a surge of satisfaction. Things were coming together nicely. “The range and power of this weapon are similar to those of the other?”
“Oh, much better! The faceting and alignment of the crystals have enhanced the gathering and expulsion of the fire. Where the first weapon would have burned a hole through metal or wood or set sails afire, the second actually incinerates them. It will bring down an airship or explode a defensive wall with virtually no effort at all.”
