Anitha took the map and gave Moonsy a side look as she moved to another place and sat down cross legged with the map in front of her.
Vanx watched as she made a few gestures, and then spoke a word. The map glowed and Anitha’s eyes closed for a moment, then the spell was done.
Vanx stood as the spell caster fluttered her eyelids and shook her head. “There is magic in the structure, deep below it anyway. But those paths are of concern.”
Anitha got to her feet and brought Papri’s map back to her commander. “As you said, General, I’ll need to go to the ridge to get a better feel for what that is all about, but I’m sure they are significant, for they each extend all the way to the sea.”
Vanx dropped to his knees and looked at the map again. He looked for the hole he and Zeezle had went down and found the “X” he’d just made. “They divide the island into three parts, and we’ve only ever been in this section, he showed them. Find out what they are, Anitha, but be careful. Let Chelda lead you to the ridge, and do what she says.” Vanx was stern. “She is good at this.” He gestured at the wilderness around them.
“I appreciate your concern Master Vanx,” Anitha gave Moonsy a look. “But I’ve been alive for almost two hundred years. I’m pretty good at this, too.”
Vanx stretched his mouth wide and nodded. “She’s still going with you, but not Castovanti. Chelda might smash his head flat if he says the wrong thing.”
No one could argue that.
Chapter
Six
The king saw the wizard,
and the wizard had a grin.
Your kingdom is collapsing, said the mage.
Your reign has found its end.
–The Weary Wizard
Anitha followed Chelda up the grade, but it was Sir Poopsalot who was really in the lead. Chelda had to restrain her gait so Anitha could keep up. She was used to it, for she and Moosy took walks in the forest when they could. Chelda looked back at the elf and decided that, though Anitha was dark haired, dark complected, and beautiful, she felt no attraction, or maybe she did, only her attraction to Moonsy was so powerful it smothered anything else. That was it, Chelda decided. That had to be it.
Another thing that lingered in her mind was the way Vanx had glanced at her breasts the previous morning. It didn’t bother her that he’d looked. In fact, she’d felt flattered for his bright green eyes and bardish roguery drew all sorts of beautiful women to him. The fact he’d bothered to pause, and stare, for even a slight a moment, made her feel attractive. The problem was, him looking had made something new tingle deep inside her. There was no doubt she loved Moonsy and hated most men, but Vanx was anything but most men.
Soon, they topped the rise, and Chelda relished the feel of the fresh wind they found. The cool air made its way to her sweaty body through her torn up blouse and dried her skin quickly. It also blew her ponderings away and seemed to clear some of the sleepiness from her mind. It wasn’t the breeze that struck her most, though. She’d half-expected to see more ocean before them, but they were on nearly the opposite side of the lake from where they’d arrived, and another valley spread out below. This one still had the sun almost fully upon it, but the far ridge of this depression was in shadow, and who knew what lay beyond.
The treetops were a lush carpet of every shade of green imaginable, and the forest was littered with bright, red-leaved trees, that seemed to command some space between themselves and the rest of the jungly vegetation. There was what looked like a road hewn through the dense growth, though, and Chelda saw that, in the farthest reaches of her vision, the road led to what might have been a large, low built castle.
“I hope we aren’t going there,” she said out loud. It would be a hell of a trek to get this group through all of that green shit, she thought. When she heard no response, she turned to see that Anitha was deep in her spell casting.
The elf was focused in concentration and moving her hands around crazily, as spell casters sometimes do. Chelda didn’t like magic, but she wasn’t afraid of it. She just didn’t understand it.
“Poops,” Chelda called to keep the dog from roaming too far down into the thicket. “Come on, Poops. Come see your Chelly Chel.”
Poops returned and Chelda squatted down to give him some attention while she waited. It wasn’t until Poops stiffened and started growling that she saw what had him agitated.
There was a bird, one of the great hawks, winging its way over from the opposite ridge. It was hard to see against the shadow thrown from the setting sun, but she followed it as it grew nearer. She assumed it was the great hawk that fled. Poops clearly didn’t think so, and Chelda suddenly remembered the winged creature that snatched that big coonish thing from a tree when they were here the first time.
“Anitha,” Chelda said, seeing now that it wasn’t their friendly hawk, but a larger predator, maybe a roc. “Anitha, enough!” Chelda spoke sharply. Poops added a warning bark of his own, and when Anitha still didn’t pull herself out of her spell, the dog left Chelda, went over and nudged her with his head.
“What?” she grumbled. “I’m sensing something.”
Chelda looked back and was suddenly nervous. The creature was gone.
“There is something out there flying around.” Chelda made sure her voice conveyed her concern. “It ain’t one of the hawks either.”
“I believe you.” Anitha sucked in an audible breath of air and faced Chelda as she let it out slowly. “I have to tell Vanx. That is no river bed, or road over there. It is an area scorched of life by magic. That structure is—”
Poops exploded into a fit of barking, and an ear-piercing screech cut through the evening. A winged creature covered in purple-black feathers dropped out of nowhere. Anitha’s whole head fit into one of its claws, and Chelda imagined the poor elf’s neck snapping when the child sized elf was yanked violently from the ridge. The giant roc, or raven, or whatever it was, was leaving with Anitha dangling helplessly from its claw.
Chelda grabbed her war hammer by the handle, took a long stride to add momentum to her throw, and hurled it as hard as she could.
Poops made all sorts of noise. Chelda felt just like the dog sounded, and when her hammer impacted the bird, the creature faltered, but not enough to bring it down.
Chelda’s heart sank. Not only did they lose another member of their group, Anitha had just discovered something…something she’d needed to tell Vanx.
Chelda watched where her hammer landed, but before she could start after it, another shriek filled her ears, this one was from one of the great hawks, for she recognized the sound immediately.
Instinctively, she dropped to her knees. She watched raptly as the great hawk shot across the treetops and got a hold of the black bird’s head and neck. The raven was half again bigger than the hawk was, and it didn’t look like this was going to help Anitha, no matter what the birds did.
Size didn’t seem to matter, for the hawk was fierce. It used its claws to twist the other’s neck until it snapped. The big black raven dropped the elf and fell right out of the sky. Chelda stood and visored her eyes so she could see where Anitha landed. Once she marked where the elf should have ended up, she went after the war hammer while Poops went after the elf.
Chapter
Seven
A battle they did fight,
across the land and in the sky.
Against dragons and dark demon,
by the thousands they did die.
-The Ballad of Ornspike
By the time Chelda reached Anitha, she could hear some of the others trudging toward them. No doubt Poops had conveyed what was happening to Vanx, or maybe Vanx had been watching the whole thing through the dog’s eyes? Either Vanx or Moonsy had the Glaive of Gladiolus, though, and Anitha desperately needed its healing power for she had a puncture wound in her neck that was spurting indigo colored blood in thick pulses.
“Draw the glaive,” Chelda yelled as loud as she could. “And hurry.”
Vanx ar
rived a second before Moonsy did. He fell beside Anitha and ran the edge of the ancient healing sword across her forearm. Moonsy fell beside her fellow elf and sobbed.
“She has lost too much,” Moonsy sobbed. “Look at all the blood.”
There was a puddle of liquid life, its hue more purple than red, and darkening the longer it sat. Chelda watched, trying to detach herself from what was happening. It didn’t look good, for even though Anitha had been affected by the glaive, she still looked gray and as limp as a fresh corpse.
“No.” Vanx’s tone was soothing. “She will survive.”
Anitha moaned then. “Vanx, there is—”
“No don’t try to talk just yet,” Moonsy poured water from a canteen on Anitha and cleansed some of the blood from her neck. The critical wound was already scabbing over and on its way to forming into scar tissue.
When Gallarael stepped out of the forest, still in the process of changing from thing to person, Chelda almost smashed her with the war hammer. Her people hated changelings. If she hadn’t grown so close to Gallarael as a person, she wouldn’t keep company with her, but they shared a love of Poops and Vanx and had gone through too much for Chelda to allow her childhood fears to control their friendship. Even still, Gallarael had almost gotten her pretty gourd flattened, for surprising them like that.
Chelda didn’t miss the look of disgust when it flashed across Vanx’s face as he saw her, and she suddenly understood something about their relationship.
“There is something inside that structure,” Anitha said after taking a sip of water. “There are things that might be gah-guah-guarding it, too.”
“And those roads are where magic shunned the forest back,” Chelda added, happy that Anitha was coming around.
Vanx looked at Chelda, and then back at Anitha.
Chelda followed his eyes, and saw that their friend was getting some color back in her flesh.
“She’s correct.” Anitha took the canteen from Moonsy and drank deeply twice, before elaborating. “The island seems to be divided into three areas by a magical field that is still active.”
“What sort of magic?” Moonsy asked.
“Ancient human magic, or the like,” Anitha said, as if this was the worst sort of magic there was. “But I couldn’t say for certain. I only know it isn’t elven magic.”
“Anything else?” Moonsy asked. This time the concern in her voice had dissipated. She sounded like a general again. A general asking for a report from a subordinate.
“At least two creatures emitting a detectable signature were near the structure. One in each section, only the area we are in now seems void of such a thing.
“Well that’s good,” Gallarael said, easing down beside the fallen elf to help Moonsy clean her up.
“I wonder why there is no creature in this section?” Vanx said. “I mean, there were those crabs, the spiders, and that thing that almost snatched Zeezle away in the boreholes. What could there be in those other areas that is worse?”
“Don’t forget that four-legged frog-skinned thing down by the lake.” Gallarael said. “It might not have been so pleased about us being here had the Heart Tree not put it to sleep.”
“Believe me, Vanx,” Anitha said. “Take it from someone who was almost killed by a hungry bird.”
Don’t fuck with the birds, Poops voiced to Vanx. It was something they’d decided when they were stranded in Harthgar, and Vanx had to fight back a laugh. Anitha was still talking, though, so he contained himself.
“—are things on this island we do not want to come across.” She looked to be almost back to herself, now. “After a night’s rest, I can teleport us from the ridge to very near the structure, but I won’t try to teleport through one of those barriers.”
“The birds have flown over them,” Vanx said. “Remember, brave Papri mapped details from the other sides of the magical fields. They are passable, in the air, at least.”
“Maybe so.” Moonsy looked at Vanx. “Whoever created them could have allowed for nature though. Until we get a closer look, we won’t be going through them.”
“No, I agree.” He took Anitha’s hand and helped her to her feet. “But on the morrow, I want us to do as you suggested and teleport there.”
“Yah.” Chelda nodded. She hadn’t wanted to go to the building because she’d thought they’d have to trudge through all that jungle to get there. Teleporting was creepy, and caused a feeling like thousands of ants crawling on her skin but, even so, to get there in an instant was another thing altogether. Now she was eager.
Chelda was relieved that Anitha was on her feet, but the whole way back down to their camp she had the feeling of something about to grab her from above. Even the thick canopy of trees between her and the open sky didn’t alleviate the concern.
Only when Moonsy eased to her side, and hugged her thigh, did she stop feeling like prey.
When they came near the laid out bodies of Papri and his great hawk, sadness started to get a hold of Chelda, but then she noticed that the mouthy sea mage was nowhere to be seen. Since she knew he wasn’t capable of surviving long on his own, she grew concerned.
“Where is Castovanti.” Anitha stole the question from her tongue. “I don’t see him anywhere.”
Sorrow over Papri’s loss evaporated in an instant, as all of them started calling his name. Right before their eyes, Gallarael shifted into her feline form and darted away.
Vanx made a sour face but said something to Poops, who ran off the other direction.
It was Chelda who spotted the fresh blood trail. It led about twenty paces out of the camp and was bright and frothy, as if the sea mage had been running. The splashes of scarlet, and his bootprints, ended abruptly. A look up told Chelda that no bird could have gotten him, but the sight of a score or more man-sized, coon-tailed creatures up in the trees, and the tattered bloody clothes dangling from a few different limbs told Chelda all she needed to know.
They’d eaten him, Chelda understood. They probably tore him apart while he was alive, to do so.
Anitha, having looked up and seen the gore that remained, dangling like pieces of crimson stained rope, fell to her knees sobbing.
“He is here,” Chelda told the others. “Was here, I mean.”
“Why didn’t they go after Papri or the great hawk?” Anitha asked Vanx and Moonsy when they came jogging up.
“Probably because they like fresh meat,” Chelda answered for them.
Chapter
Eight
All ends will have beginnings,
and each one will be new.
Where you go, when you reach the end,
is only up to you.
- A tavern song
Vanx was angry at himself for leaving the unseasoned sea mage alone with two carcasses that had surely been drawing in carrion. Moonsy blasted up at the tree-coons with powerful spells. It was overkill, for the little elven general set the whole tree top off with sticky elven wizard fire. Anitha gathered herself and picked off the ring-tailed creatures that were fleeing as best as she could.
“Well, everything on the island knows where we are now,” Vanx sighed.
“If there is anyone paying attention,” Gallarael would have startled him, but Poops’s keen sense of smell warned him of her approach before her voice was in his ear, “they’d have to know we were here since we unleashed the Heart Tree.”
“True.” Vanx turned and saw that she looked like her beautiful self, minus the long golden hair he’d liked so much. The depth of her eyes made him forget how unsettling it was to see her shifting, or shifted. The only two forms of her he felt comfortable with were her natural appearance, and her fully formed panther-like form. The in between was instinctively repulsive.
“We have a pillar of smoke rising out of our camp though.” He pointed to where Moonsy had opened the canopy up. It wasn’t full dark yet, but almost. Around all the smoldering greenery, he could see bright stars.
Oddly, he found himself wondering if R
onzon had caught any fish. Then he wondered if there were any fish in the lake they’d rooted the Heart Tree near. When they were finished with their business here, maybe he would wet his line.
He helped Chelda rig some intrusion bells and argued with Anitha about her setting up protective wards. She needed rest. She’d nearly died, and Vanx had no desire to be teleported into a tree trunk, on the morrow, by a spell weary caster.
The four remaining members of their party set up watches. Vanx had the last, which was fine with him, for he rose early most days anyway. He didn’t get to sleep through until his turn though, for Moonsy and Poops both went off in the middle of the night.
Everyone exploded into readiness, and only after the returned great hawk let out a screech of protest, did they belay their weapons and spells.
Vanx tried, but couldn’t fall back into slumber. He relieved Moonsy, when the time came, and spent most of the pre-dawn scratching Sir Poopsalot behind the ears while contemplating why the old wizard who had helped him in Harthgar hadn’t explained more about this place. He wished he still had the wizard’s map, but he’d dropped it when he was defending Zeezle in the bore-worm hole. At least that is where he thought he’d dropped it.
Vanx, sighed. They could have explored all of this when they were here the first time.
Vanx decided that Anitha and Moonsy were better equipped for this kind of task. Where he and Zeezle used their physical agility and natural Zythian instinct to achieve their end, the elves used powerful magic. On an island like this, one was definitely safer than the other. They’d already lost two of their small group, and the rest had barely arrived. Zeezle had almost died when they were here last time, and if it weren’t for the Glaive of Gladiolus, Zeezle, nor Anitha would have made it.
The Tome of Arbor (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 9) Page 3
