Elves: Rise of the TaiGethen (19 page)

‘You cannot stop what is happening,’ said Onelle. ‘Why can’t you see that?’

‘No, I can’t stop it. But our enemies can. Right now we have no magic, and so we need to fight in the way we always have.’ Auum walked on a few paces. ‘I need to know that he is not going to cause any more problems. The Ynissul are safe and hidden, which is something. But Takaar has taken what little magical force we do have and run off with it. What exactly was this genius raving about? And why didn’t you go with him?’

Onelle managed a brief smile. ‘You know very well that my travelling days are long done. I will never leave this temple.’

She stopped and Auum could see she was nervous, uncertain about what to say next.

‘You began by describing a lunatic to me but you’ve just been painting a picture of some sort of tortured genius. I understand your loyalty, but it seems to me you’re confused about whether you want to follow him or warn people away from him. So tell me what he said.’

Onelle wiped her hands on her leggings. Her beautiful oval eyes sparkled with moisture and she had to clear her throat twice before she spoke. ‘I love Takaar. I love what he has brought us, though I have often struggled with his methods. When he ran in, he had no time for anything but taking our Il-Aryn adepts with him. He called them all teachers and said their role was not to be that of pioneers. He said we’d been sailing the wrong rivers and that others would provide what we lacked. He said Ix had been laughing at him, but that he had the answers now.

‘After that, he began to mumble. I heard something about a gift, how time would wait for the just and something else that, I admit, was really strange.’

‘Which was?’

‘He was talking to his other self. I know because he was looking to his right and not at us. And he was getting angry. He said that they were after him but he wouldn’t let them get him. Then he laughed at something and said that not even Shorth was fast enough.’

‘Who do you think he was talking about?’

Onelle shrugged. ‘I thought it was you, the TaiGethen.’

‘He flatters himself.’ Auum didn’t feel the need to go any further. ‘But why on earth did the adepts go with him? I’d have been running in the opposite direction.’

Onelle frowned as if the answer should have been obvious.

‘Because he asked them to.’

‘Could they really not see through him? Where’s he taken them and what does he think they’re going to do? There is at least one human army in this forest, after all.’

‘He’s looking for other threads than the Ynissul with active Il-Aryn potential. Presumably the Ixii are high on his agenda, though not one of them has shown the slightest potential so far. He didn’t say where he was going, but there’s really only one possibility, isn’t there? He has to be going to Katura.’

As soon as Onelle began to speak, Auum felt a hollow fear open up inside him. And the moment she mentioned the home of the free elves, the true scale of the unfolding disaster was made plain to him.

‘No wonder they didn’t strike here,’ he whispered. ‘They didn’t need to.’

‘Auum?’

‘He’s been betrayed,’ said Auum. ‘He’s going to lead them straight to Katura. We’ve got to stop him or he’ll bring about the death of us all.’

Takaar should have been easy to track. Or rather, the tracks of those in his charge should have shouted louder than a troop of howler monkeys seeking mates.

Fifteen cells were engaged in the search, yet after two days they had found no trace whatever. Not a fading water-filled boot print; not a broken vine or scratched tree trunk. Not a dead campfire, nor a scrap of cloth or evidence of elven defecation. Takaar had to be leading them south, but even if he had taken them across to the Ix or towards the other great rivers Orra and Shorth, the Tais should have seen some evidence of it on the ground.

It was as if Takaar and the adepts had disappeared into thin air.

Auum knew that it smacked of desperation but his climb above the canopy was made with a last lingering hope of spotting stray smoke. The land rolled away north back towards Aryndeneth and Ysundeneth and smoke smudged the landscape. The greatest concentration of it was away towards the Ix where the human army was moving along the course of the river, presumably tracking the elf that he could not.

Up in the sky, human mages could be seen as specks among the great eagles and soaring birds that graced the domain of Gyal. Clouds were gathering from the east where more smoke was evident, signifying more enemies moving deep into the forest. Corsaar would put a number on their strength when he reported.

Yet to the south, where the hand of Yniss had plucked at the earth to forge valley, mountain, ridge and rise, there was nothing. Its beauty was wholly undisturbed.

‘Where are you, Takaar?’

Auum’s ears pricked and opened fully, sampling the familiar sound behind and to his left. He listened as it approached, not turning his head. Instead, Auum stood, his feet locked to the very highest bough, his body straight and in perfect balance while the wind picked at his clothes. He stretched his arms out to either side and breathed deep.

The whispering became the ghost of the sound of flapping wings, accelerating as it approached. Auum dropped to his haunches and a mage’s legs whistled by just above his head. He saw the man on his wings of shade bank up and left and come to hover twenty yards distant from him.

‘Too late for you to learn to fly, Sharp ears,’ the mage said with that flat-toned accent men always gave the elvish language. ‘This is freedom and I bet you would give anything to try it.’

‘I prefer the glory of the forest floor,’ said Auum, standing once more, his arms loose by his sides. ‘You are trespassing where only Gyal may tread.’

‘Well, when I see Gyal I will be sure to make reparation.’

Auum smiled. ‘Only the dead may see a god.’

‘Then he will have to wait a while.’

‘She,’ corrected Auum. ‘And I will send you to her.’

Auum swept a jaqrui from his pouch and threw. The crescent mourned away, chopping into the mage’s gut just above the groin. The mage coughed, clutched at the wound and doubled over as his wings guttered and blew apart like mist on a gale. He screamed as he fell, colliding with branch and leaf all the way down.

Auum descended quickly, calling to Ulysan to search for the body. He dropped the last thirty feet from the banyan’s lowest branch and ran to his Tai, who was signalling his position with a pitohui trill. The mage was broken and bloodied but he still clung to life.

‘It is better to keep your feet on the ground,’ said Auum. ‘Not so far to fall.’

The mage coughed blood. Auum could see his chest was smashed through the rips in his clothes. His hands still covered the jaqrui. Eventually, the fit subsided.

‘I’ll keep that in mind,’ he said, voice choked with fluid and gore.

‘What are you searching for?’ asked Auum. ‘Speak and I’ll hasten your passing so you can make your reparations to Gyal, should Shorth give you that dignity.’

The mage lay in a heap, surrounded by TaiGethen who did nothing to make him more comfortable. Ulysan stood with Elyss. Faleen and her Tai had also come to see Auum’s victim. The man’s eyes were dimming and he was struggling for breath.

‘My passing is coming soon enough. I will tell you nothing, but I will offer some advice.’

Auum waited while the mage suffered another violent coughing fit. When he was done, it was plain it would be his last.

‘Your forest is unendingly beautiful. I commend you for your choice of home. But it belongs to us now. Take your people and leave or Ystormun will see you exterminated. Nothing can stop him.’

Auum knelt by the mage.

‘We know you seek Takaar and we know where you think he will lead you.’ Auum saw the mage’s eyes widen. ‘But we will find him first, and your armies will walk in circles until we have the time to kill each and every one of them. You will never find Katura, not while one elf walks the forest.

‘Take that to your gods, if you have any. May Shorth offer you small mercy. Now, I need my jaqrui back. It seems to have a particularly fine edge.’

They took two daggers from the mage’s body and his lightweight cloak from his back. Nothing else was worth saving and the body was left to be reclaimed. Auum took his Tais to a waterfall and plunge pool where they bathed, ate and prayed while Gyal’s tears fell.

Auum waited until all were with him before he spoke.

‘Auum?’

‘I cannot believe he has disappeared. Thirty or so Ynissul should have slowed him to a crawl and he was only two days ahead of us when we set out. He must be using magic to obscure his position and his tracks . . . and that will only make him easier to track by our enemies. I need a solution.’

‘Do you think he knows?’ asked Ulysan.

Auum scratched his forehead. ‘No. He is many things but he is not a traitor. But nor will he believe us, which makes our job all the harder. Do you still speak to Sikaant?’

Ulysan shook his head. ‘He’s been running with Serrin for many years now and his transition is just as deep and binding.’

‘We need them,’ said Auum. ‘How can we find them?’

‘Go to the Ix. Get close to the enemy and perhaps they’ll find us.’

‘That’s a step back, Ulysan. Takaar is not travelling north.’

‘There’s another reason. We need a contingency if we don’t find Takaar.’

Auum shook his head. ‘The day I have to consider the defence of Katura is the day we are perilously close to the end.’

Ulysan paused and reconsidered what he’d been about to say.

‘In all our years I have never heard you utter the words of an end to hope.’

Auum swallowed and realised he had spoken his darkest fear.

‘Sometimes it is hard to have faith when our enemies close around us and those we consider our friends work against us. If Yniss is testing us, then this is the sternest of tests. How can we prevail, Ulysan? We are fifty-one against thousands, and their weapons are powerful. If Lysael is right then there is no Al-Arynaar any more. Takaar has fled, taking any magical ability we had, and drawing our foe to Katura like a beacon. And the ClawBound are no longer fighting for the cause of the elves but for the forest and Tual.

‘I do have hope, Ulysan, but it is so hard to hold on to it. Every day it leaks away like water through rotted stitching. I try to catch it again, but it always escapes my grasp.

‘I’m sorry.’

Ulysan put his hands on Auum’s shoulders.

‘Why?’ said Ulysan quietly. ‘It is because we care so much that we cannot bear the thought of a life without everything we love. It just makes you one of us, Auum. And that makes me happy, because you will fight all the harder to save us. It is why we all love you . . . and why you must let us all share the burden.

‘We are TaiGethen. We are one under Yniss.’

The TaiGethen murmured their assent.

Auum smiled. ‘I was wrong to despair. Forgive me.’

‘There is nothing to forgive,’ said Ulysan. ‘And there is always hope. We must invoke Beeth, Tual and Appos and use all the gifts they provide. Use the forest. Ignore nothing.’

Auum stared at Ulysan and cursed himself blind.

‘And we must trust no one but the TaiGethen,’ he said, not quite believing what was staring him clear in the face. ‘I know where he is.’

Chapter 15

‘Where is he hiding?’ Auum demanded.

He, Elyss and Ulysan had run without rest, food or prayer. The remaining TaiGethen had split up, looking for the ClawBound moving towards the two enemy forces.

They had confronted Onelle inside the temple dome, where she was kneeling before the great statue of Yniss. Priests were in attendance, preparing for a service of light. Auum gestured Elyss and Ulysan to block any attempt to stop him disturbing her prayers.

Onelle jolted visibly when she heard Auum’s voice close behind her, but she remained on one knee, with one hand placed on the stone floor and the other open to the roof of the dome. She completed her intonation then stood, dusting off her dress. She turned to him and Auum could see she was shaken.

‘What are you doing here, Auum? There’s a war out there, so you tell me.’

‘Where is he?’

‘Who?’

‘Don’t insult me further by pretending ignorance. You’ve already lied to me enough. I trusted you, Onelle. You have no reason to lie about this: where is Lysael?’

‘She returned to Loshaaren yesterday. Her flock is growing there. The ClawBound took seventy freed slaves there two days ago, not long after you left to seek Takaar.’

‘Then at least some of our supposed allies are still fighting for us,’ said Auum. ‘Unlike you, who has let us waste two days seeking an elf who never left Aryndeneth. Because he didn’t, did he? We cannot find his tracks because there are no tracks to find.’