Chalice 2 - Dream Stone (41 page)

From Dripshank he could take a path directly
into the
pryf
nest and from there work his way down to the
crystal-cliffed headland of the weir tunnels on the shores of Mor
Sarff, or he could continue on through Dripshank to the Magia Wall
and backtrack a quarterlan to the headland cliffs. Much of the
choice would be based on the
pryf.
On the last journey up,
despite his own distress, he’d noted their frantic, continuous
movement and erratic bursts of speed, and he’d wondered if they
were trying to make a wormhole in the nest itself. The gods protect
him if that was true.

Too much strife was about, and too many
enemies. He had Sha-shakrieg and skraelings to worry him, and rot
and wolves, and men turning from their own kind. If the
pryf
, too, went berserk, he feared ’twould do naught but
hasten his end.

Traversing a short squeeze of a switchback,
Mychael came out on a windswept ledge high on Dripshank’s west
wall. The smell of salt was in the air. The aboveground entrance to
the cavern was set in a cliff face on Riverwood’s eastern edge and
ever caught the prevailing ocean breezes. Trig had put a permanent
guard on the hole and specifically banned him and Llynya from going
anywhere near it. Thus when Mychael saw flickers of light in the
darkness below, he quickly sheathed his dreamstone and hoped he’d
not been seen. He would not be stopped at this point. Nearly as
quickly, he realized that the lights bobbing through the forest of
pillars and arches were yellow and red, completely lacking the
lucent blueness of dreamstone—except for one, and that one was
shining toward the green side of blue with violet at its core.

Llynya was in Dripshank Well—and with a
larger troop than he’d thought left in all of Carn Merioneth, what
with Wei being in Tryfan and all the messengers Rhuddlan had sent,
and Rhuddlan himself in the deep dark with forty Liosalfar. Those
in Dripshank could only be the Kings Wood elves Rhuddlan had hoped
would come.

The sound of running water masked much of the
marching of feet, yet he heard the clattering of weapons. Strange,
that. He’d never heard
tylwyth teg
clatter, no matter how
well armed, and a fully armed Liosalfar warrior carried no less
than three blades, a bow, and a full quiver. Of late, Trig had also
issued everyone iron stars, and still they didn’t clatter when they
moved.

The group below sounded like a tinkers’
rendezvous. The Kings Wood elves were going to need shaping up
before they would be of much use.

Curious, and concerned that Llynya would be
the one chosen to lead such a rustic band, he strode along the high
ledge, following them in hopes of getting a better view. The troop
veered north in a short curve before heading south, and Mychael
swore softly to himself. They were at the largest sinkhole. Once on
its other side, ’twas a straight shot into the deep dark.

Sticks, he swore again, speeding up his
steps. Trig knew better than to let Llynya anywhere near the deep
dark.

He redrew his crystal knife to better light
his way and kept on after the troop, or at least the main part of
it. The Kings Wood line was ragged, ill-formed by even the laxest
standards. Stragglers abounded, small spots of jingling brightness
wandering off from the group.

The tunnel they were heading for connected
Dripshank to the Wall and widened into a small cavern about halfway
along its length. At a fork in the trail, he took the lower road
and broke into a steady running gait, deciding ’twas best if he
caught up and saw what they were about. Trig hadn’t mentioned a
sortie into the dark, but if Rhuddlan had called for Liosalfar
beyond the Wall, Mychael figured he was more likely to be welcomed
than reprimanded. He would offer to take Llynya’s place, and she
could be sent back to scout in Riverwood where she belonged. If he
met with any resistance, he wasn’t above revealing her intention to
follow Morgan into the wormhole.

The closer he got to the cavern floor,
though, the less sure he was that Rhuddlan or Trig had anything to
do with the raucous, lumbering group he was following. The less
sure he became, the faster he ran, until he was racing along the
narrow slabs staircasing Dripshank’s south wall. When he cleared
the last riser, descending to where the salt tang of the ocean
breezes did not reach, sure and sudden dread replaced any
uncertainty. He landed on the cave floor and knew immediately it
wasn’t Liosalfar he was chasing.

The smell of black rot hung like a pall in
the lower levels of the cavern, weighing down the air and teasing a
fine strand of terror to life in his veins. Skraelings.

The pack was a full halflan ahead of him, the
front of their line almost to the tunnel. He tried to do a quick
count, but he scarce could think, so full of fear was he for the
worst.

They had her dreamstone dagger, and for that
there must have been battle in Riverwood. Llynya would not have
relinquished her blade without a fight.

Christe
. How many had it taken to
bring the Light-elf down?

An awful sound rose in his throat, and he
clamped his teeth shut against it.

The odds were against him. Mayhaps fifty to
one. Mayhaps more.

Ahead of him, another trail snaked off the
cavern floor, leading up to a natural arch that spanned a long,
open section of the cavern. He resheathed his dagger, hiding its
light, and headed for the higher trail at a dead run. He lost
ground by changing direction, but gained a better view. What he saw
from the top of the arch stopped him cold.

Pikes and halberds cut into the air in a
thick, bristling line of more than a hundred soldiers, all of them
heavy jawed and fanged. Men no more, but once men, as Tabor had
explained, the worst of the race sought out and turned by a fell
mage’s hand into servants of destruction.

His gaze swept the monstrous army, searching
for the one who held the blue light. Mychael found him toward the
front of the line, turning to give an order at the tunnel entrance.
Tall and blond and more finely formed than the bulk of the troops,
he appeared at first to be Liosalfar. Then Mychael saw that the
captain’s nose was naught but a silver triangle in the middle of
his face, and the hand he had wrapped around Llynya’s dagger was
clawed like a bear’s. No Light-elf, this, but one of a darker
breed—Dockalfar.

Mychael’s instinct was to kill him where he
stood, but even as he jerked an iron star from his arm guard, his
gaze slipped farther back in the horde, to the one receiving the
orders. ’Twas then he saw her, a slight form slung over another
Dockalfar’s shoulder. Light from a yellow dreamstone cast a pale
shimmer across the meadowsweet and rose petals woven into her
tunic.

Fear washed through him, cold and fast,
clearing his mind of all thoughts but one—
Does she live?

His heart was tight in his chest, his breath
near impossible to catch. The skraelings pooled at the entrance to
the tunnel, shoving and jostling to get in and sometimes taking her
from his view. He only stood and waited and watched, his eyes
focused solely on the bit of shimmer in the dark sea of rough
weapons.

The soldier carrying Llynya looked back, and
Mychael saw his face. As fair as any Quicken-tree he was, except
for the empty, sunken eye socket on the left side of his face. The
Dark-elf shifted her weight on his shoulder before following the
queue into the tunnel. Just before he disappeared from sight,
Mychael saw her body move again, aided by her bound hands, not by
the Dockalfar who held her.

His relief was as sharp-edged as his fear. He
quickly scanned the milling crowd before taking off at an easy
lope. There were no other Quicken-tree, only Llynya, and only him
to save her.

O
n the east side of
the Dangoes, rounding the last turn of the Kasr-al Loop trail, Nia
and Varga heard the clash of battle and the cries of
“
Khardeen!
” ahead of them in the dark.

“
Har maukte! Har!
” The skraeling roar
went up again and again in response, accompanied by a terrible
howling. “
Har! Har! Har!
”

Varga swore, a low hiss under his breath. For
herself, Nia blanched. She’d ne’er heard
uffern
beasts
afore. ’Twas bloodcurdling, but she kept to Varga’s side, racing
onward and drawing steel.

Hoarfrost limned the portal onto the causeway
they’d crossed days earlier. The air grew suddenly cold and within
three paces they cleared the tunnel and came out onto a scene of
chaos.

Streaming across the causeway to the field of
battle at the mouth of the Dangoes, fiery torches sent yellow
flames and trails of greasy smoke into the air. To the west of the
great ice cavern’s mouth, dreamstones flared, shining with icy
brightness before an onslaught of shifting shadows. And here and
there, golden crystals with incarnadine hearts streaked across the
darkness, giving off a light unseen in Merioneth for five hundred
years.

“Dockalfar.” Varga spoke the word of a truth
Nia could scarce conceive: Dockalfar back in the deep dark where
they had reigned, where the riches of the earth had been their
stock in trade—the known metals and
thullein
, and crystal of
every color. The yellow dreamstones had never been traded, and
those with red at their core had been only for the Dark-elf King
and his guard. “
Yuell,
” ’twas called, the dreamstone crystal
of the Tuans. A half-dozen or more such crystals shone out on the
causeway, well into the thick of the fight.

The Quicken-tree were far outnumbered, yet
Rhuddlan was holding a line on the trail, forcing the skraelings to
remain on the open ground between the frigid sea crashing into the
cliffs below them and the glistening maw of the great cavern. Foot
by foot the Light-elves were being forced to give way, their losses
revealed by the silver and green clothed bodies scattered along the
ice-encrusted track.

Nia watched in disbelief as the Quicken-tree
were flanked yet again and another Liosalfar was cut down. Had
Rhuddlan gone mad?

She started forward, a cry on her lips, but
Varga grabbed her arm and held her back.

“No, child. Look,” he said, pointing down
into the mouth of the Dangoes.

Long, twisting cords of vapor-borne ice
crystals had risen out from between the huge dripshanks at the
cavern’s entrance and were gnarling themselves into bony fingers,
reaching across the frozen field of battle and onto the
causeway.

Nia felt the dread chill of their intent and
stumbled back toward the Kasr-al.
Shadana
. Had she really
thought to put herself willingly into the ice cave’s clutches?

“Hold,” Varga commanded, his grip remaining
firm on her arm. “We’ll not retreat while a fight is yet to be had.
The Dangoes bones are not yet for us. ’Tis the skraelings they come
for, the ones with no light or heat to save them.”

Even as he spoke, his words were proved out,
with the first vaporous phalanxes reaching out to snag one beastly
warrior after another. They chose their victims with care, picking
those with no dread heat about them, the torchless ones. Struggling
was to no avail for those doomed souls, since flame seemed the only
blade sharp enough to sever Dangoes bones. One by one, the hapless
skraelings were hooked ’round their legs or arms and necks and
dragged over the edge of the causeway, their screams naught but
thin echoes against the louder sounds of the battle.

“We’ll fight from there,” Varga said,
pointing to a cairn of rocks fallen from the Kasr-al Loop portal.
“Rhuddlan knows he can’t outrun their wolfpack, so he holds them on
the causeway for the vapors to devour. We’ll do the same from this
side and keep them from their retreat.”

Nia, who only moments before had been ready
to rush forward on nothing more than instinct and valor, found
herself hesitating. There were a hundred skraelings, and wolves
everywhere. If they all decided to turn and run, there was naught
she and Varga could do to stop them.

She turned to tell him, but he’d already
drawn his longsword and was running toward the fray.

“Sticks!” She took off after him.

Awareness of the ice cave’s danger spread
quickly among the skraelings, and with awareness came panic. Their
lines broke before the oncoming vapors, and Nia scrambled onto the
cairn with Varga, prepared to hold the rocks or meet her end.

A Dockalfar stabbed his pike into the first
skraeling who ran, and the others instantly reformed their line,
but it needed more Dark-elves than were there to keep the
skraelings’ courage stiff. By ones and twos they made their
retreats, skirting the ocean-side cliffs and trying to sneak back
across the causeway to make a run to Rastaban from whence they’d
come. In the melee, with most of the dark host surging forward and
a few trying to escape the battle, some were lost, either killed by
the Dangoes bones or their more stalwart companions, or daring too
close to the icy edges of the cliffs and slipping into Mor
Sarff.

Those few that made it through the lines and
across the causeway had to deal with Varga and Nia on the cairn.
The Sha-shakrieg man fought like a whirlwind, gray cloak flying,
his sword singing a song of steel and death. The blade’s cutting
edge flashed with silver light borne of
thullein
. “Edge of
Sorrow,” she’d heard it called, razor sharp and like the threads
Varga carried, steeped in poison. The last skraeling to feel its
bite writhed in pain at the foot of the cairn. The first three who
had thought to fight their way back to the Kasr-al Loop had been
killed on the spot.

Elfin speed was Nia’s defense, and her
greatest offense, until the wolves, too, began to break and run.
Aided by the Dangoes bones, Rhuddlan’s line was no longer in
retreat and was slowly but surely forcing the skraelpack back onto
the causeway and toward the Loop—much to her and Varga’s
disadvantage. They could not hold against so many. ’Twould be
minutes only, she knew, before the whole tide turned and they were
overwhelmed.