Of Truth and Beasts

by Barb Hendee

  If the Fay had come for Wynn—if that elven woman had done this, then the tree of her worship was the last place they should flee.

  Only two things kept Chane from picking Wynn up and running away.

  He could not navigate under the forest’s influence, and only Ore-Locks’s effort to clear a path behind Shade gave Chane any sense of direction. And second, the pack might catch them, in part or whole, before Shade reached the place she sought.

  The beast within Chane lunged to the limits of its bonds. It shrieked and howled, wanting him to turn . . . to kill whatever hunted them . . . to hunt it instead.

  “Faster!” he urged Wynn as they ran.

  Anything that tried to touch her would die—anything at all.

  Wynn burst into the open behind Ore-Locks. Shade wheeled and began barking at her, as the dwarf turned and set himself facing the forest. One stolen memory-word kept echoing in Wynn’s head.

  —Sanctuary . . . Sanctuary . . . Sanctuary—

  And there it was, merely a stone’s throw away. The whole clearing was filled with the low shimmer of Chârmun’s barkless form, as its glowing wood spread light like the moon.

  Why did Shade believe this place was safer than anywhere else? The Fay could invade anything growing in the forest. That tree, by its pervasive nature, was more akin to them than any other.

  Ore-Locks glanced at her—then just beyond her. He suddenly dropped her staff to the ground and leveled his long iron one in both hands. He swung the thick bar back and up over his head.

  “Get away from the trees!” he shouted.

  Wynn was about to bolt when a rasping snarl rose behind her. Someone grabbed her, nearly throwing her out beyond Ore-Locks’s swing. When she regained her footing and turned, Chane stood between her and the trees with his back to her. Branches of an elm beyond him twisted in the air, reaching toward where she’d stood.

  Chane raised his sword, but never got to swing, as Ore-Locks’s staff ripped downward.

  Leaves exploded in its passing. Twisting branches broke into splinters. But a dark form shot out of the forest over the top of Ore-Locks’s downed staff. The mottled brown majay-hì went straight at Chane as Shade charged two more of the pack rushing from the underbrush.

  Wynn grew frantic in trying to think of a way to end this before blood was spilled. At any moment, Vreuvillä would catch up, and she was the one who’d started all this chaos. Wynn whirled around, looking to the great tree glimmering in the clearing.

  Why had Shade wanted them to come here?

  Wynn looked back and spotted her staff lying behind Ore-Locks, who now whipped his long iron bar back and forth, warding off three majay-hì. She ducked in below his backswing and snatched the butt end of her staff.

  One quick burst from the sun crystal might stun everyone without harming Chane too much. This was all she could think to do as she raised up the staff and backpedaled. But she stumbled as something lashed around her calf and jerked her leg straight.

  A thick root sprouting from the moss-covered ground coiled around her knee.

  Wynn reached behind her back for Magiere’s old dagger.

  “Pull back!” Ore-Locks shouted.

  The moss-covered earth split again at Wynn’s feet. A second earth-stained root shot upward over her chest.

  “No!” was all Wynn got out as she toppled.

  Sau’ilahk saw light ahead as the tâshgâlh raced through the forest’s heights. The farther the animal had gotten from the aspen clearing, the more the wind had subsided and was left behind. Yet the nearer his familiar closed upon the light, the more the surrounding trees wavered and shuddered under some other influence. Sau’ilahk could not make sense of this.

  A slight break in the trees ahead gave him a filtered view. He thought he saw Wynn standing in the clearing. Chane and Shade and the dwarf stood before her. The rest was a wink as the first of the pack broke into the clearing.

  Ore-Locks went at them, as did Shade. Chane rushed forward to the tree line, and Sau’ilahk lost sight of him, his familiar too high above. Then the earth broke at Wynn’s feet.

  Something dark writhed up to coil around her leg.

  The tâshgâlh leaped to a tree on the clearing’s edge—and the world went black.

  The last thing Sau’ilahk saw was something glimmering, tawny, and pale in that space—a massive, ancient tree, bare of bark but still growing in the earth. In the darkness that swallowed everything from his senses, Sau’ilahk again heard a sound like splintering wood.

  That crackling cascaded through him, as if he had flesh and bone—as if he were that green wood being ripped apart. All of his awareness went as blank as his sight through his familiar. But he did not fall into dormancy like the last time.

  The plain beyond the forest slowly returned to his sight.

  Sau’ilahk stood there, shuddering in the aftermath.

  Another familiar had been severed from him by the one place he could not follow Wynn. Again, so close—again, so lost—but this time it brought panic instead of outrage. Something assaulted the sage—something in the forest itself. Had that barbaric woman summoned an influence he could not identify?

  If Wynn died in there, what became of his hope to follow her to his one desire?

  What became of Sau’ilahk’s dream of flesh?

  Chane chopped downward with his sword as the mottled brown majay-hì tried to bite into his calf. The animal lunged away, and his blade gouged up moss and earth.

  “Pull back!” Ore-Locks shouted.

  Chane glanced over—and then a leafy branch slapped into his face. He lost sight of everything, and on instinct pulled the sword upward, trying to slash and clear his view.

  A tan hand gripped that branch. Chane quickly tipped the blade down.

  A sharp clang sent a slight shiver up his sword. He sidestepped as he thought he saw a long, white blade strike for his abdomen. Hunger flushed through him as his gaze snapped upward.

  Chane stared into angry amber eyes among the tree’s leaves. He groped for the elven woman’s hand or blade, and leveled his sword to slam its edge into her head.

  “No!”

  Wynn’s cry made Chane falter. He twisted away with a wild slash to fend off the priestess and heard his cloak tear. A sharp pain filled the left side of his chest. Hunger ate away the agony as fear cleared his thoughts, and then he saw . . .

  Wynn was on the ground, and something dark coiled around her throat.

  He ran straight toward her, as she gripped the dark tendril with one hand and slashed through it with her dagger. Another one coiled around her left calf and knee, squirming up her thigh.

  Earth-stained roots were somehow moving on their own.

  Chane slashed through the second root’s base as Wynn ripped away the piece she had severed from her throat. She groped for her staff as he reached down for her, but at the same time, he glanced over his shoulder.

  Ore-Locks backed toward them, farther into the clearing, whipping his iron staff in a wide arc as he tried to keep the pack at bay. Shade darted around his circumference, harrying anything attempting to go around. But more of the pack poured from the forest as Vreuvillä stepped into the clear. The priestess held a long, curved white dagger in her hand.

  “To the tree—now!” Wynn shouted.

  Chane balked as he pulled her up. The crawling on his skin had grown worse since entering this place.

  Another root erupted at Wynn’s feet. She lunged away, pulling from Chane’s grip. The root writhed and twisted toward her, growing thicker at its base as it extended.

  Chane hacked down. The instant the root severed, another tore up through the moss and lashed at his face. He stumbled away, and it swerved toward Wynn.

  How could it know where she was? Even though it moved, it could not so precisely target her. Either something directed it or its sense of its target was not natural.

  The smallest notion broke through Chane’s faltering reason.

  So long ago, he had crouched i
n hiding with Welstiel, as they were hunted by Magiere. That night, neither Magiere nor Chap had sensed or tracked Chane’s presence—not while Welstiel had a grip on him. And Welstiel had been wearing the ring.

  Chane spun and rushed at Wynn. Twisting behind her, keeping everything in his sight, he wrapped his left arm across her front. Grabbing her far shoulder, he closed his left hand hard upon it, until the brass ring bit into his finger.

  Chane dragged Wynn backward, hoping this would work, as rage-fed hunger washed over him again.

  Wynn struggled to keep her feet as Chane dragged her. She kicked at the root, trying to fend it off as it reached for her ankle, but Chane’s grip crushed her shoulder so hard, she gasped.

  “Still,” he snarled in her ear. “Quiet.”

  Wynn did as she was told and watched the root.

  It rolled and lashed the earth and whipped to the left. Mulch and moss tore at its base as it coiled and snaked about. Suddenly, it rolled over and lashed her way.

  Wynn cringed, flattening her body up against Chane’s.

  The root flipped and twisted to the right, snaking beneath old, decayed leaves.

  Wynn swallowed hard, trying to breathe as quietly as possible. The root had lost track of her, though she stood only a staff’s length away. How was that possible?

  More roots erupted all around the clearing’s edge. Majay-hì scampered away from those twisting tendrils. Vreuvillä quickly stepped clear, and then froze, staring at them.

  Each thick, earth-darkened tendril felt about the ground, searching for something—for Wynn.

  With their adversaries distracted, Ore-Locks and Shade retreated to a position just shy of those roots. Not one root sprouted farther in than the clearing’s edge. None emerged within reach of them, as if . . .

  Wynn struggled to twist her head around and look to Chârmun.

  “Back up,” she whispered.

  Chane didn’t move, until Wynn nudged him with her elbow. He retreated, hauling her along, but Wynn felt him shuddering harder and harder, his sternum pressed between her shoulder blades.

  Skulker . . . do you think you can hide from us forever?

  Vreuvillä stiffened, and Wynn cringed at the scratching leaf-wing chorus of the Fay in her head.

  Hide? How could she hide in plain sight?

  Her shoulder throbbed, and she glanced at it. The brass ring on Chane’s left hand was biting into her shoulder through cloak and robe. She tapped his hand with her dagger’s butt, and he slackened his grip.

  Every tree around the clearing began to crackle as wind grew among them. Branches shook and writhed, joining the search of the roots. Even the trunks began to creak and waver.

  Vreuvillä watched the trees, horror twisting her face, smothering any other emotions.

  “Cräjh-bana-ahâr!” she cried out, and Wynn barely caught the meaning of the rest. “You have told me what to do. Why . . . why do you violate your own child to reach your enemy?”

  Even a part of my child may be sacrificed . . . to save it from the decimation that abomination will bring upon it!

  Wynn couldn’t fathom what any of that meant, let alone Vreuvillä’s connection to the Fay. Tears rolled from the elven woman’s eyes, which were so filled with shock that the whites showed around her large amber irises. A breaking point had been reached, though Wynn wasn’t certain of what.

  Some of the majay-hì eyed the humans and the dwarf as they spread around the clearing’s circumference. Only the silver-gray and mottled brown kept watching the forest, staying close to Vreuvillä. But the longer Vreuvillä was stalled by what she saw, the more her doubts might grow. That meant keeping the pack at bay as long as possible.

  Wynn wasn’t about to give them another instant to recover. She dropped the dagger and grabbed Chane’s ring hand.

  “Cover up!” she whispered to him.

  Wynn twisted out of his arms but kept her own fingers on his and the ring. There was no time to wait for him or to dig out her glasses. She thrust the staff upward, its crystal held in her mind’s eye as she ducked her head. She envisioned the patterned shapes around the crystal, hoping she could ignite it without holding it in her sight line. This was something she’d never tried before.

  Only the last line of il’Sänke’s instructed recitation raced through her thoughts, with no time to cross her lips.

  Mênajil il’Núr’u mên’Hkâ’ä— “for the Light of Life.”

  Nothing happened. Not one bit of sudden brightness filled the clearing.

  Vreuvillä pivoted suddenly, as if something had caught her eye. She didn’t look at Wynn, but rather up. Wynn quickly followed that gaze.

  Above her, the long sun crystal burned within, fully aglow. It was almost too painful to look upon. But not a single ray of light spread along Chârmun’s tawny branches above. The crystal had answered her intention, growing bright within, but its light of the sun hadn’t spread.

  Cold astonishment knotted in Wynn’s throat, and her focus broke. The crystal’s imprisoned glare winked out. She was at a loss, and panic set in. When she lowered her head again, Vreuvillä had set herself, her strange white blade held at ready. The full pack of more than a dozen large majay-hì circled in from all sides.

  Then Wynn spotted Shade.

  Shade stood her ground, snapping and snarling just beyond Ore-Locks with his iron staff raised for a strike. Vreuvillä’s two guardians, the silver-gray female and the mottled brown male faced them. Strangely, though the male bared his teeth in weaving paces back and forth, the female remained poised in silence.

  She was watching Shade and took one soft step forward.

  “Look at her!” Wynn called to Vreuvillä, though she pointed at Shade and not the silver-gray majay-hì. “Think about her!”

  Vreuvillä held her ground, only briefly turning her eyes upon Shade.

  “Why would she defend me . . . turn on her own kind?” Wynn demanded. “Why . . . if what your ‘Pain Mother’ says is true?”

  Vreuvillä scowled with disdain at that translated title.

  Wynn wasn’t certain what it meant, but it gave the priestess further pause. She needed to stall a little longer for what she thought might happen.

  The silver-gray female inched another step. Shade lunged partway and snapped at her, and then froze as the mottled brown male wheeled in, returning Shade’s threat.

  “Shade, no!” Wynn called.

  The silver-gray dog shouldered the mottled brown aside and took another step.

  Do not listen to this spy! Truth and lies—she will use both to delude you!

  Wynn tried not to shudder under the Fay’s denouncement. At least she’d turned their focus onto their own emissary, and this confirmed Wynn’s suspicion.

  The Fay couldn’t enter First Glade. They were afraid now, and Wynn knew it was the truth they feared more than any lie.

  “Look at them,” she told Vreuvillä, pointing to the silver-gray female, as even the brown male stood in tense watchfulness. “They want to know.... Don’t you?”

  “Know what?”

  “Ask them,” Wynn answered.

  The female came nose to nose with Shade. Even as Shade snarled, the female thrust her head forward. Shade’s spittle spread across silver-gray fur as they slid muzzle against muzzle.

  Shade instantly quieted.

  Her hackles began to settle, though the mottled brown male stood a half length behind the female, ready to lunge. These two of the pack, or at least the female, wanted to know why one of their own, foreign and strange as Shade was, had turned against them for a human.

  Shade would tell them, and Wynn could only imagine the flurry of memory-speak.

  Whether it was her own remembrance or that of Shade’s mother, Lily, Shade among all majay-hì was more gifted at passing on the memories of others. The silver-gray female would see that one dark night, halfway across the world.

  In a clearing within the an’Cróan’s forest, Chap had gone to commune with his kin and learn why they’d
left Leesil’s mother to suffer in isolation. He learned something more, as well. When he’d chosen to be born into flesh as a majay-hì pup, he was fully aware of the task that lay ahead in his life. But he was not aware of everything he should’ve been.

  His kin had stolen most of his memories from his time among them.

  There were secrets the Fay kept from him in his newly taken form, his new life. Even now, like Chap, Wynn wondered what he was missing. When he had denounced them for this, they had caught Wynn unintentionally listening in.

  If not for Chap, or more especially Lily, a true majay-hì, Wynn would’ve died that night.

  Lily’s faith in Chap made her dive in to defend a human, and her pack had followed. But the Fay hadn’t relented. They turned upon the majay-hì who tried to help. The Fay invaded through a large downed tree, making its roots and branches lash at Lily’s pack.

  They killed a majay-hì that night—without hesitation—in their attempt to kill Wynn.

  All of this must’ve passed from Shade to the silver-gray female in less than three blinks. The female wheeled, rushing back around Vreuvillä’s legs. The mottled brown male joined them as Vreuvillä crouched down and lowered her head.

  As both of the priestess’s companions nuzzled her face, Wynn heard the torrent in the trees whip to a frenzy. It was so suddenly violent that it pulled her attention from the trio.

  “What is happening?” Ore-Locks called out, turning every which way.

  Shade backed up until her rump hit Wynn’s legs. She was trembling as she looked about. As the wind shook the trees, Wynn thought she saw something move among them.

  It was only a glimpse . . . a large form that walked just beyond the closest thrashing trees at the clearing’s edge. Or, rather, Wynn thought she saw branches bend and spring back in something’s passing. What it was, she couldn’t tell, for it was little more than a darker shadow. Something made of whirling wind, swirling leaves, and mulch torn from the earth stalked through the forest.