Almost ready to dismiss her concern, he did slow by half a step, noticing a small group of darting birds with flashy, metallic feathers. They settled on the ground, hopping and searching the short grass for food, though he noted he had seen none of the birds near the trees. The more he watched them, the more it seemed they avoided the bone-trees altogether. Uncertain as to whether that was call for an alarm, he sensed a sudden hush.
The familiar quiet crawled up his spine, awakening his battle-hardened instincts such that they fairly screamed at him to watch for some kind of ambush. He flinched at the loud screech of a nearby bird, drawing a handspan of blade from his sheath as the flock took to the air, their sparkling wings carrying them farther away from the intruders to their land.
It dawned on him as he waited for the Lash’s surprise to appear that he had been so focused on the nearness of Tohrepur, he hadn’t considered the consequences of such a proximity.
“What is it?” Ghaelya whispered. “What do you see?”
His gaze darted from the ground to the sky to the ominous trees, searching for the source of his paranoia.
“So close to reaching Tohrepur,” he answered thoughtfully. “We haven’t considered that Tohrepur might reach out for us.”
Vaasurri kept an eye on Brindani even as the killoren edged closer to Uthalion. The half-elf’s strange fidgeting had subsided suddenly, and Vaasurri wasn’t sure if that made him relieved or even more alarmed. He’d witnessed the stages of silkroot withdrawal before and had expected Brindani to be in some pain to be sure, but his mind should have been clear, and his eyes should have lost the distant glaze of a drug-induced state.
Brindani exhibited none of this and seemed on the edge of becoming an even greater liability than he might have been while on the drug.
“No time for that now,” he mumbled, sighing angrily and turning his attention to their surroundings.
The Lash was a study in contrasts, or so it seemed by the howling winds and static, unyielding trees. But Vaasurri noticed growing changes that would have been easier to catch had he been standing still. He stared intently at the bone-trees. Their bare limbs, crooked and branching, bore no buds upon which leaves could grow, nor did the ground show evidence of the past autumn which might have left at least a handful of such growth. Many of the trees’ roots seemed superficial, clawed into the ground by their narrow ends, but held above the pale grass-an apparent weakness that the forceful wind should have long since exploited, yet barely a handful seemed bowed or bore any deadfall at all.
“The trees,” he said, startling Uthalion. “I don’t believe they are standing as still as they should be.”
“I suppose any movement beyond rooted-to-the-spot is likely bad news,” the human replied coldly. “If there’s some kind of an ambush here we should keep moving, lure it out, and use the surprise against it.”
Vaasurri cast a cursory glance across the flat plain, shaking his head.
“We cannot defend this,” he muttered just above the wind.
“All the more reason to take what advantage we can,” Uthalion said. His voice had taken on a commanding, edgy tone, more like the cold soldier he’d been when Vaasurri had found him wandering the Spur. “Any estimate on numbers?”
“Perhaps two, at least,” Vaasurri said as he squinted, trying to make out the trees that didn’t quite fit the natural order of the others. “Though I don’t suspect the numbers mean much until we know what we’re up against.”
Uthalion increased his speed again, forcing Vaasurri and Ghaelya to catch up. Brindani had fallen behind several strides, seemingly oblivious to their conversation. The wind picked up, its howl becoming a rising and falling moan as the Lash’s constant storm whirled faster.
“You don’t remember any of this your first time through here?” Ghaelya fairly yelled as she leaned into the wind, her cloak whipping around her shoulders.
“It was dark,” Uthalion answered, barely loud enough to be heard. “I lost a few men, and didn’t have time to stop and investigate.”
Vaasurri noticed a few trees seemed to have changed their positions, though he couldn’t be as sure as he wanted to be. The wind obscured his line of sight, and the smallest blink was confusing as he readjusted and tried to focus.
“How close are we to the ruins?” he asked.
Uthalion’s reply was cut off as a strange clicking sound joined the moaning wind. Random at first, it quickly grew rhythmic and strong, something more than mere chance. Vaasurri had an image of bugs on the march, tiny voices chanting a cadence in a singsong melody.
“Too close,” Uthalion answered at length and tapped the blade of his sword, a reflexive, if unnecessary, signal to be ready as they searched for the direction of the new sound. “Is Brin with us?”
Vaasurri glanced back swiftly, his hood fluttering across his face as he eyed the trudging stride of the half-elf and shook his head. Something about Brindani made him nervous, and he wondered if the half-elf’s stride was actually moving in time to the clicking tempo on the wind.
“He’ll catch up,” he said, uncertain if his words should be construed as hopeful or a looming threat.
The insectlike clicks became a buzz, whirring with the gale and forming new sounds. They organized themselves yet again into more intelligent, sentient patterns that drew Vaasurri’s attention away from Brindani and back to the path ahead. As he strained to listen, to make sense of the murmuring wind, he heard the slow coalescing of syllables gathering to form a word.
Ghaelya …
“What?” she blurted out, stopping and drawing her sword.
Her heart hammered in her chest as she turned in a circle, listening carefully and hoping it had been merely a trick of the wind. The buzzing devolved into rapid clicking and back again, each little sound floating around her like puzzle pieces falling inexorably into place. They sounded like the myriad ravings of a mad mind, making sense only occasionally, and then only to minds just as mad.
Uthalion and Vaasurri had stopped as well, listening and watching, before turning to her questioningly.
“You heard that?” she asked, flooded with a relief almost as powerful as the anxiety that had kept her sword raised, waiting for an inevitable attack.
Uthalion raised an eyebrow, tilted his head, and appeared about to speak, but Vaasurri answered first with words that turned her blood to ice.
“There,” he said simply, nodding as he gestured to the path behind them.
Ghaelya turned swiftly, staring in shock as she froze into a guarded position. She caught the hiss of drawn blades as Vaasurri and Uthalion turned alongside her.
Brindani stood perfectly still, his hood thrown back and his head lowered, but his eyes fixed on her, glinting with a strange and alien light. Ghaelya had seen men affected by sorcery in Airspur, their wills taken away either willingly for amusing street-shows or forcefully by wizards hired to collect unpaid debts from clients of the Lower District’s more unscrupulous business owners. Brindani had the look of a man who had taken leave of himself, one who had been mastered by something beyond his control.
In a rough half circle close behind him stood three bone-trees that effectively blocked the path, rooted loosely in ground they had walked upon just moments before. Over twice as tall as the seemingly enthralled half-elf, the trees and their bare branches shivered unnaturally in the wind, like puppets on taut invisible strings, playacting for the benefit of an audience. Their bark was smooth and shiny, showing no grain or knots, no natural trait of any kind.
Ghaelya barely repressed a shudder, sensing in the trees an ominous, hungry presence that was far more aware of her than she was comfortable with.
“Brin,” Uthalion said, taking a cautious step forward. He raised a steadying hand as he stared down the half-elf. “Very slowly Brin, just come toward-”
“Hush,” Brindani said in a whisper that rushed over Ghaelya like rolling thunder, a sibilant hiss drawn out until it merged with the wind and the buzzing clicks. “Can’t
you hear them?”
Ghaelya took a step back, glancing nervously at Uthalion as the human took yet another step forward. Uthalion remained cool and stern, his stony gaze unwavering.
“Hear what Brin?” Uthalion asked, drawing closer. “What do you hear?”
Several crooked branches twitched in opposite directions to the driving wind, their sharp tips dipping like the flexing claws of a predator about to pounce on its prey.
“They sing, Uthalion,” Brindani answered and swayed slightly, his eyelids fluttering wistfully as the buzzing undulated in languid waves of sound. He shook his head, wincing as if in pain, and added in a strained voice, “They ask me why I am still here, why I have not yet delivered the twin …”
Ghaelya …
Brindani cried out in sudden pain, clutching the side of his head as he reached for his sword. Ghaelya’s breath caught in her throat at the sound of her name again, the word rising out of the dark rhythm with a longing that seemed to reach for her with grasping hands. White branches creaked, snapping as they bent to the ground in awkward segments.
“Step away from the trees, Brin,” Uthalion said, a little louder now, more commanding. He repeated the half-elf’s name each time he spoke as if to draw Brindani out of his strange trance, to remind him of who he was. “Don’t listen to them!”
Bright blue flashes caught Ghaelya’s eye, popping in the distance and dotting the ground in small clumps. The blue flowers, barely buds when they’d begun crossing the Lash, were blossoming with ghostly blue light, tiny arcs of energy darting through their thick petals as thunder rumbled overhead.
“They are calling for her,” Brindani said suddenly through clenched teeth, drawing his sword and eyeing Ghaelya threateningly. “Singing for her …”
“He’s gone,” Vaasurri yelled over the wind and edged closer to Uthalion. “Leave him!”
“No!” Uthalion replied angrily and stepped closer still, refusing to give up on the half-elf.
“Not one of you!” Brindani growled as the trees shifted, shaking from their roots to the tips of their branches. Their white, unnatural bark wavered, rippling like a mirage as deep cracks appeared in their trunks, growing and splitting as thunder roared through the sky. Brindani’s voice joined the cacophony, “I am not one of you!”
The deep cracks spread through the trees in long curving lines. The rippling bark smoothed out, revealing large, bulbous knots that squirmed against one another. Long branches fell into well-ordered groups, gathering beneath the bulges and falling away from one another in a scampering tangle of limbs and skittering bodies. Shining blue eyes sprouted like gems above screeching sets of long mandibles and circular mouths set with rows of triangular teeth. Tiny, handlike claws pawed at the ground beneath the large, white spiders as they separated into groups, abandoning their treelike illusions.
For a moment, Ghaelya hesitated, feeling the slow buildup of an inevitable inertia pushing her to the edge of a long drop. She raised her blade to defend herself, heightened her senses, and bent her knees into a fighting stance. The white spiders rose on their back legs, waving their forelegs in a threatening display as they edged forward in quick, scurrying steps. Remnants and distortions of her name emanated from the beasts, a constant hum of clicking chanting from their horrid maws. Brindani turned, his sword drawn high over his shoulder. Uthalion started forward, waving his free hand and yelling, but Brindani’s blade fell and struck true, cleaving the small head of a spider in a spray of viscous yellow fluid.
Ghaelya felt her stomach turn as the brief moment of impending threat descended sharply into the chaos of battle. She rolled and slashed as a pouncing spider hurtled over her, slicking her blade with yellow blood. Her loosed cloak flew out with the wind, blinding the seeking eyes of one beast as she sliced at the legs of another. Tiny segmented claws reached for her from all directions as she bent her will to the water in her spirit.
Twisting and turning in a crowd of clamoring spiders, she danced wildly out of their reach, leaping cautiously over the blue flowers which continued to brighten and crackle. Thunder and wind hid the voices of her companions; white claws and bobbing abdomens dominated her field of vision. A popping shower of sparks exploded from the ground, sending one spider rolling and thrashing, several of its legs charred by a patch of glowing flowers. Another creature quickly took its place, careful to avoid the blooms as it joined the droning chant of the others.
Ghaelya … Ghaelya …
She leaped at the newcomer, dodging its nimble forelegs to vault over its back. As she turned through the air, she glanced outward, catching sight of the flashing plains and the growing number of white trees. Her stomach turned again, and she hit the ground in a panic.
“Too many,” she whispered, swinging her broad sword in a wide arc for breathing room. “Nowhere to run.”
Uthalion and Vaasurri held their ground, fighting back to back as Brindani tore through the spiders like a man possessed, his blade no more than a steely blue blur. She managed a single step toward them before feeling a strong tug on her arm. Spun by the force, she struggled against a long strand of sticky gray filaments roping around her wrist. She hacked at the webbing even as the tiny arms of a spider pulled her closer. The heavy broadsword managed to sever the line, but another web snapped out from her right, snatching the weapon away.
Lightning struck nearby, close enough to leave bright forked lines through everything she saw. The resulting thunder deafened her as her legs were pulled out from under her. The world spun, and she struggled to hold on, lashing out at anything that came near. The spiders surrounded her, cooing softly in their alien voices, their legs reverently grasping her ankles. She screamed and kicked furiously, the energy lines on her skin burning where the creatures touched, sending shocks of heat through her body and threatening to ignite the flames of her family’s heritage.
Clouds flew overhead, swirling faster and faster across the gray plains. Tiny arcs of lightning, so high they were barely more than threads of jagged light, lit the highest parts of the spinning storm. A mandible crunched beneath her heel, and she tore out a set of blue eyes. Yet still the spiders held her, singing her name as she was slowly dragged across the ground. Thick webbing muffled her angry cries, and in the midst of it all she briefly imagined being strung up among the white trees. She recalled Uthalion’s words, coming back to replace one fear with another.
“Tohrepur reaching out for us,” she whispered to herself.
As another strand of webbing covered her eyes she heard the shivering crack of more trees falling apart, the scamper of eager legs across the dry grass. In the dark she imagined Tessaeril’s fiery eyes waiting for her, blooming and weeping red nectar, and she renewed her struggle against the webs and groping claws.
Suddenly the spiders stopped and pulled away. A faint high-pitched whistle carried through the wind and thunder and buzzing song of her captors. The constant chant quickly changed, becoming painful shrieks and screeching. Heavy bodies fell to the ground, rolling over and around her. Sharp claws scratched her exposed skin as the spiders writhed, screaming in unison, and she felt as though her ears might bleed from the noise.
She screamed along with them, barely able to make out the familiar whoosh of missiles darting solidly into tough, white carapaces. The loss of several voices did little for the cacophonous chorus pressing against the sides of her skull, though with each silenced scream she could better hear the swift retreat of skittering legs through the grass.
Dazed and in pain, splashed by the spiders’ warm fluids, she struggled to free herself of the tight webbing.
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
11 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One
(1479 DR)
The Lash, Akanul
Uthalion winced as he ducked low and pulled his sword free of a twitching spider. An arrow grazed his ear, the fletching sending a shock down his spine as it passed. He cursed at the near miss, flinching and holding up the edge of his cloak as a makeshift shield. Though it
couldn’t have stopped the speeding missiles, it gave him a little peace of mind. The white spiders scampered awkwardly away as fast as they could. The lightning strikes intensified, reaching down from the clouds to make contact with the patches of glowing blue flowers and vibrating the air with thunderous crashes. Distant trees fell apart into more of the beasts, also fleeing the high-pitched whine that reminded him of an animal trainer’s whistle.
Grateful for the reprieve from what would have been certain defeat, Uthalion kept up his guard, fearful of having traded one dangerous threat for another. Vaasurri crouched nearby in the cover of a dead spider’s abdomen; Uthalion could just see the killoren’s drawn bone-blade held out straight and low over the short grass.
“Can you see them?” Uthalion called out, adjusting his cloak so that he could see the killoren.
Vaasurri shook his head slowly, not bothering to look up as he inspected an arrow from the spider’s body. The head was finely worked bone, and the shaft seemed cut from the bone-trees of the Lash. The fletching shined and sparkled as the killoren turned the arrow over, the feathers bearing a silver, metallic sheen like the birds they had seen earlier.
“Local,” Vaasurri said at length, shrugging. He turned to peer over the spider’s body as the flight of arrows ceased and the eerie whistling faded. Squinting over his arm, Uthalion saw a line of figures in mouse-brown robes with tall longbows at their sides. Deep cowls hid their features, and there seemed to be an awkwardness in their stance, something less than comfortable yet more than inhuman. Cautiously, Vaasurri stood, gesturing behind him as he prowled closer to the bound figure of Ghaelya. “Perhaps they can do something for Brindani,” the killoren said.
Uthalion glanced at the prone half-elf, taking in the many wounds scattered across Brindani’s body, a few of which were certainly bites and undoubtedly poisoned. He stirred and moaned softly, the sound little more than a whisper in the increasingly howling winds. Uthalion shivered in the icy chill and limped over to the half-elf, careful to mind his own wounds until they could manage some kind of shelter.
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