“Come on, then,” Bryan prompted.
When the talon was only a few feet away, Bryan jerked his leg. The talon hunched immediately, throwing its arms into a cross over its chest.
But the chair never came. Bryan stopped his leg jerk as quickly as he had started it, instead leaping out over the chair toward the talon and driving his sword in a swiftly descending arc. The talon, its hands down at its chest in anticipation of the flying chair, caught the sword squarely on the top of its ugly head.
“They never know when I’m kidding,” Bryan remarked, stepping over the thing to finish off the other, still squirming on the floor with the dagger buried in its eye.
For all his outward calm, Bryan knew that the time had come for him to leave. This last fight, particularly the groans of the one-eyed talon on the floor, had caused enough ruckus to stir the rest of the compound. Bryan slipped to the door and peeked out, but then, hearing a scrape behind him, he whirled back, dagger poised to throw.
Instead of another talon, however, the young warrior’s eyes met those of a frightened woman, peeking out from the trapdoor of a root cellar, cleverly concealed under a bench along the side wall of the pantry.
“I told ye, Ma,” came a young boy’s voice from below her.
Bryan looked back at the compound, where talons were now running about.
“Get back down!” he whispered to the woman. “I will be back for you. I promise.”
The woman hesitated, not wanting to retreat again into the dark and dirty hole. “Me and the boy and me daughter been in there the better part of a week-” she began to explain, but Bryan gave her no choice in the matter. He rushed over and gently pushed down the trapdoor, promising again that he would soon return to get her and her children to safety. And when the door was closed tightly, he then slid a heavy box over it to further disguise it from talon eyes.
The woman hid her disappointment well from her anxious son. “Sit quiet,” she instructed him. “That one will come back for us, I know.”
Bryan slipped his bow off his shoulder as he went up the ladder.
“On the wall!” cried one of the talons, spotting him. “The ghost fighter!” A whole group of the monsters rushed across the compound toward the marauding half-elf, but they quickly changed their minds, and their direction, when the first of Bryan’s arrows whistled in.
Bryan got another few good shots off, killing two other talons before the lines of defense and retaliation began to organize around him. As the first spear came out from behind a barricade, he hopped over the wall, dropping lightly to the ground, and rushed off for the protection of the rocky outcropping.
The wooden gates burst open and a score of talons charged out, one of them dropping with an arrow in its throat. Bryan sprinted off into the open, but never too far ahead to dissuade his pursuers. Normally he would have taken that last shot offered and slipped away along the cover of the mountainside, but the appearance of a woman and her children had changed the purpose of this encounter.
Bryan sprinted across the open ground ahead of the talons, sending an arrow whizzing off wildly over his shoulder every so often. One of the talons got out ahead of its comrades, gaining on the half-elf.
“Too close,” Bryan noted, measuring the distance to the trees. He notched another arrow to his bowstring and let the talon come on a bit more.
Just as the thing heaved its spear, Bryan spun about and fired.
Bryan’s aim proved the better. The talon dropped to the ground.
But on sudden impulse the young warrior flinched to the side, putting himself dangerously in line with the flying spear, one hand reaching for a dagger on his belt. With perfect timing he spun just as the spear connected, feigning a solid hit while taking only a glancing blow.
Bryan stumbled backward and started off again for the trees, purposely leaning to the side, lurching and stumbling, and, secretly, cutting a small line into his forearm.
“Gurgrol’s got ’im!” he heard one of the pursuing talons cry in glee, apparently unconcerned that Gurgrol had paid for the effort dearly.
Then Bryan disappeared into the thick copse, heading straight for his trap tree and taking care to leave a noticeable, splotchy blood trail. When he reached the massive elm, he smeared a red stain on its trunk, then wrapped his cloak around his superficial wound and rushed off farther into the mass of tangled underbrush.
Spurred by the apparent hit, the talons crashed into the copse soon after Bryan, tearing apart the shrubs as they went. The blood trail showed clearly, and it led them straight to the elm.
“There ’e is!” shouted one of the talons, spotting the cloaked body straddling the high branches. Spears and arrows went up into the tree, coming closer to their throwers in their descent than they ever got to the high figure. Then one talon got a small rock and whipped it up, bouncing it off a branch right next to the figure.
“Bah, ’e’s prob’ly dead already,” the talon spat, noting that the figure didn’t move.
“If only you knew,” Bryan whispered under his breath from a vantage point a short distance away.
The talon leaped into the lowest branches, a knife in its teeth, and began making its way up. Bryan waited anxiously as it stepped on one particular branch-chosen because any talon climbing the tree would have to step on that particular branch to get up any higher.
The branch bent under the talon’s weight, pulling tight a hidden string. The beast heard a click off to the side, but didn’t discern it as the release of a crossbow.
To the amazement of the talons on the ground, their comrade slumped to the side and came crashing down, quite dead.
“Ghost fighter,” one of them muttered, and they all backed away a cautious step.
“Burn ’im!” another cried, and immediately a chorus of assenting cheers rose up. Several of the talons scrambled around in search of kindling.
Bryan knew it was time to leave, but he paused when he was a safe distance from the copse to watch the flames leap high into the air and to listen to the victorious hoots of the talons.
“They never know when I’m kidding,” Bryan remarked again, and he went off to find some rest. He would be busy that night.
Again, a lone guard on the compound wall found a dagger in its chest.
The night was more than half through, but the talon party continued undaunted. They danced and sang their guttural songs all around the cluster of houses, paying little heed to the cloaked figure on the wall.
Bryan managed to get back into the house by the ladder, and he found, to his relief, the pantry empty of talons. He heard some shuffling in the next room, but couldn’t wait to find out if the talons meant to come out or not. Moving to the trapdoor, he lifted it gently, calling to the woman in a quiet whisper to calm any startled outbursts.
“Come quickly,” Bryan prompted, pulling the young boy out of the hole and then taking the infant girl from her mother.
“Did-” the boy blurted before Bryan could stop him. Bryan verily tossed the baby back to her mother, drawing his sword and throwing himself beside the door to the next room. But the talons were engaged in their own games and apparently took no note of the noise.
When he was certain that all was clear, Bryan led the family out of the house and up to the wall, pulling the ladder up behind them and dropping it over the other side. He could kill a score of talons this night, he knew, so engrossed were they in their celebration over the death of the “ghost fighter.” But one look at the mother and her two children flushed any such thoughts out of the young warrior’s mind. He had only one purpose this night.
“We have to get to the river.”
They were in a boat-one of Bryan’s hidden and growing stash-a couple of hours later, Bryan rowing the three across to the safety of the eastern bank.
“Why were they at such a party?” the mother asked, the first words she had spoken to Bryan since they left the compound.
“They thought they had killed me.”
“You mus
t be mighty indeed to inspire such joy,” the woman remarked.
“They make me more than I am,” Bryan replied humbly. “And I only use their fear to my advantage.”
“You have been doing this a long time?” the young boy asked.
“It seems like years,” Bryan replied, and the woman noticed for the first time how weary the young hero appeared.
“And is it over now?” she asked. “They think you are dead; why not let it be so?”
Bryan had to take a long moment to find an answer.
How much longer could he hope to evade the talons?
Why not continue on with this family and join up with the Calvan army in the north at the Four Bridges? Certainly he could use the rest and the company of humans.
But how many more families now crouched in dark holes, waiting without hope?
“I must go back,” he said at length.
The woman did not question him further. She had seen too much death and suffering in the past few days to be concerned with the antics of one young warrior.
“Is there anything I can do to repay you?” she offered.
“I have some friends on the other side,” Bryan replied. “Somewhere near Rivertown, I would guess. A young girl named Siana, and two boys my own age, Jolsen Smithyson and Lennard-” The name caught in his throat as he wondered suddenly if Lennard had survived his wicked wound.
“Of Corning,” he continued when he got past the dark thought. “Find them for me. Tell them that Bryan hopes they fare as well as he.”
The woman nodded. “And when, should I tell them, will Bryan return?”
The flash of Bryan’s smile caught her off guard. She knew beyond doubt the grim truth behind Bryan’s optimistic facade, and she could guess from that resigned smile that Bryan knew it, too.
“Soon.”
Then the half-elf was alone in the boat again, rowing off silently toward the western bank, toward the army of evil talons.
So very alone.
Chapter 17
In the Dead of Night
THE MOON CAME up in the cloudless eastern sky, stealing the twinkle from the stars in its glowing path. So serene and peaceful seemed that nighttime canopy, so unlike the events on the land below.
The wraith of Hollis Mitchell spurred the hellish stallion around the western perimeter of Avalon. Mitchell had passed through this wood in his former life, an encounter that still brought a scowl to the evil spirit. And now, even more hateful of places of beauty and life, the wraith looked upon Brielle’s forest with open hatred.
Mitchell turned his mount in and rushed up to one of the bordering trees. “For you, stupid witch!” he growled, and he slammed his bone mace at the tree. The weapon crashed in, its evil magic scorching and tearing the trunk.
But Avalon fought back.
Blue sparks encompassed the mace and its undead wielder. Mitchell resisted their power for a few moments, but was then thrown from the back of his mount. He pulled himself up from the ground, stunned.
And then Brielle stood in the shadows of her trees.
“Horrid thing!” she cried at him.
“And you, witch,” Mitchell sneered back.
“Be gone from me wood,” Brielle went on, rising suddenly tall and terrible. The Mistress of the First Magic, above anyone else in Aielle, recognized the true nature of the wraith, understood its very existence as a crime against the order of nature. “Ye have no place here, no place in all the world!”
“Oh, but I do!” Mitchell shot back. “A place that will only grow larger and stronger. A place that will one day include your trees.”
Seething fires burned in Brielle’s green eyes; the emerald on her forehead, her wizard’s mark, glowered at the sight of the perversion that was the wraith of Hollis Mitchell. But for all of the strength and determination of her anger, an involuntary shudder shivered through the fair witch’s spine; Thalasi’s power must be great indeed for him to take a spirit from the netherworld!
“Be gone!” she commanded again, and even as Mitchell’s face began to twist into a mocking smile, a light as bright as the noontime sun filled the air around him.
“Damned witch!” Mitchell cried, flashing pain burning him.
“It is yerself who is damned,” Brielle replied. “Horrid thing, undead thing. By what right do ye walk the world?” She wanted to strike out fully at the wraith, test its strength there and then, and if possible send it back to the realm wherein it belonged. But Brielle had not yet recovered from her most recent encounter with the Black Warlock, and from her subsequent efforts to ward her wood against any further attacks.
Mitchell swung back into his saddle, having no difficulty in directing his stallion away.
“I will be back, witch,” he cried over his shoulder as he sped off toward the south. “And next time you will find it harder to get rid of me!”
Brielle shut down the glowing sphere of her enchanted light and watched the wraith depart. She feared that his words might hold more than a little of the truth.
“By me eyes, she’s a beautiful night,” Andovar remarked, looking out from the low glow of the campfire to the silvery sparkle of the great river.
“Too true,” Belexus replied. “Not a night to be thinking o’ war.”
Andovar turned a wry smile on him. “But I was not,” he assured his friend.
“Rhiannon, then,” Belexus laughed. He spent a moment recalling the image of the raven-haired woman, and the exciting contrast of her shining blue eyes. “Ayuh,” he agreed. “ ’Tis a fitting night to be thinking o’ that one. And me guess’s that ye’ve been doing yer share of thinking o’ that one.”
“More than me share,” Andovar replied wryly.
“She has ye,” Belexus warned, but Andovar did not fear the truth of his friend’s words.
“That she does,” he admitted openly. “And when the business o’ the talons is finished, she’ll have me more, if her heart wants me more.”
“Might be a time in coming, then,” Belexus said. “The talons-and their boss-aren’t for leaving so soon. Mighten be that ye should see yer way to the girl without a worry for the war.”
“Too much fighting to be done,” reasoned Andovar. “I know me duty, and I’ll hold to it. I’m not for courtin’ the lass just to leave her with a dead husband.”
“Better that she had one in the first place,” Belexus argued. “Her thoughts be lookin’ to Andovar as clearly as Andovar’s heart’s seeing her. Ye cannot be living in thoughts o’ dying, me friend. If ye’re for each other, then get to each other, and let the war do what it will.”
Andovar nodded his agreement and let his gaze slide toward the north. They would arrive in Avalon soon after noon of the next day. “What do ye think-” he started, but Belexus had already guessed his friend’s next concern.
“The witch’ll not go against ye,” he cut in with another laugh. “Suren she’ll be glad for her daughter’s joy, and glad, too, to have such a man as Andovar coming a’courting for Rhiannon.”
“While such a man as Andovar’s truest friend comes a’courting for Brielle herself?” Andovar had to ask, now holding a sly look in his own eye.
Belexus lay his head back on the folded blanket that served as his pillow. “I’ve seen her but a few times,” he said, his tone suddenly serious. “But suren I’ve known her all me life.” Belexus wasn’t certain of his place or his duty concerning his feelings for the witch, or how she would react to those feelings. Was it the fair witch herself or her wondrous workings in Avalon that had steadily stolen his heart away over the past decades?
Whatever the cause, Belexus could not deny the emotions that filled him whenever he walked through the enchanted forest, and even more so on those rare occasions when he caught sight of Brielle dancing in a distant field or rushing among the paths of her domain.
Andovar recognized that he had sparked a bout of contemplation in his friend, and he let the conversation drop at that. He turned back to the shimmer of the lazily moving
water, turned back to his thoughts of the last few days, and of the years that might yet come, beside Rhiannon.
“Fate is kind,” the wraith hissed when he spotted the camp-fire across the way and heard the voices, those most hated voices, that came back across the years in a rush of unpleasant memories.
“Belexus and Andovar,” he mused, remembering the times that the two rangers had rushed to the defense of Jeff Del-Giudice, spouting threats against him. How much bite could those threats hold against him now?
The wraith turned the vile steed toward the river and started across.
He dreamed of home, of starry nights in Avalon and sunbathed hillocks of clover and wildflowers. But the urgency of his friend’s call cut into the meandering visions, awakened the alertness that marked Belexus as a prince of the Rangers of Avalon.
“Belexus!” Andovar whispered harshly again. He was still standing by the great river, a few dozen feet from his dozing friend, and staring out across the flowing water at a globe of blackness that had floated out from the opposite bank.
Belexus propped himself up on his elbows, separating the reality of the moment from the haunting memories of the dream. “What do ye see?” he asked, checking that his weapon was comfortably by his side.
“Darker than the night,” Andovar replied. “Come, ye must take heed o’ this.” Even before Belexus could respond, the blackness crossed the midpoint of the river, and its true image came clear to Andovar in the moonlight.
“By the Colonnae!” the ranger gasped.
Belexus scrambled to his feet at the urgency-the sheer fear-in his friend’s tone. But swifter still was the flight of Mitchell’s black steed, and the wraith rushed across the remaining expanse of the river and fell over the startled ranger.
“What foulness is this?” Andovar cried, hacking futilely at the undead thing with his sword.
Mitchell took the blows without so much as a wince of pain and then brought his deadly mace down at Andovar. The ranger got his shield up to block, but the wicked weapon shattered the thing and the arm that held it, and drove Andovar to the ground. Mitchell dropped from his seat, straddling the man and raising his mace up for a killing blow.
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