EPIC: Fourteen Books of Fantasy (411 page)

She gaped. “You are the most uncivilized—this is just—I haven’t even the words to say how wrong it is. We cannot run around stealing younglings from their homes and families.”

“That’s why it’s lucky you chose this one,” Orrick said. “He hasn’t got any family. He’s of no use to anyone but us.”

He was already tramping away through the underbrush, and she hastened after him, protesting all the way. “I didn’t choose him, my vision did. Anyway, I never said we should force him to join our quest.”

“You said he was a vital piece in the game,” Orrick pointed out. “That we couldn’t succeed without him. I don’t know about you, but I don’t make it a habit to set out on quests and fail for neglecting the little details.”

He paused to peer through the gloom. The last light of evening was leaving the skies, and the overhead canopy of leaves and branches blotted out the glow of the moon. “Which way did he say would take us to the near road? North?”

“Yes, but—”

He strode away, leaving her to protest vainly and then scramble to catch up. Behind them, the shadows of Treeveil faded in the distance.

“We’re lucky Geveral thought to slip a map in with all these supplies,” Eydis said. “Now we have something more to go on than your vague sense of direction.” She spread the crudely drawn map on the ground and examined it under the glow of the camp fire.

Orrick poked a stick into the flames, sending a shower of sparks flying. “I didn’t hear you complaining when I got us off the Isle of Bones—”

“Actually my boat did that.”

“—and brought us down the Elder road, to the forest, and into Treeveil. I doubt you’d do as well, traveling in a country not your own.”

She ignored that. He was fast learning it was her habit to ignore inconvenient facts.

“Should we even have stopped here?” she asked, changing the subject. “We’re only a few hours from Treeveil, and if the villagers get up a rescue party to come looking for Geveral, they may see our fire.”

“What if they do?” he grumbled. “I can handle an army of those spineless tree-swingers.”

She lifted a brow. “That’s not what you were saying when they held us prisoner.”

Before Orrick could reply, there came a faint moaning sound, followed by a rustling noise from the cart nearby.

“Sounds like our party’s newest and most reluctant recruit is waking up,” Orrick observed. He went around to the back of the cart and drew back the sheet of canvas covering a struggling form.

The dark-haired youth lying in the bed of the cart looked the worse for wear after traveling the last few miles jouncing around, unconscious, in the wagon. He blinked in the firelight and asked, dazedly, “Where am I, and why does my jaw feel like it was hit with a blacksmith’s hammer?”

“Flattering of you to say so,” Orrick answered, “but it was only my fist. We’re a few miles outside Treeveil, camped alongside the near road. Are you thirsty?”

“I can’t move my hands,” the youth complained, struggling against the cord holding his hands bound behind him.

Orrick shrugged. “Doesn’t mean you can’t drink,” he said, hauling the boy upright and sitting him on the edge of the cart. “We’ve got a water-skin around here somewhere. Strange to think you’re the one who packed it for us, along with the rest of these provisions. To say nothing of supplying the cart for your own abduction.”

“Is that what this is?” Geveral asked. “Are you really dragging me away from my home against my will, after all I’ve done for the two of you?” His bewildered gaze took in Eydis in the background. “I trusted you—both of you.”

“Ironic, isn’t it?” Orrick said. “One moment we’re prisoners, the next it’s you.”

“But I rescued you from that holding cell and spirited you away to freedom,” Geveral argued. “And now I’m sitting in the back of your cart, trussed up like a chicken?”

“That pretty well sums it up,” Orrick agreed.

“Orrick, don’t tease him,” said Eydis, coming to join them. “We’re all on the same side here. Untie him.”

“Not until I know he won’t run off into the trees,” Orrick said, indicating the surrounding forest. “He knows these woods better than we do, and if he takes to his heels, he just might lose us. And you’re the one who said we cannot complete this quest without him.”

She rubbed her forehead. “This is not the way it looked in my vision. I thought he was supposed to
want
to help us.”

“Are you mad?” Geveral asked, disbelievingly. “I keep telling you, I’m not whatever you think I am. Do you even know what it means to be a Drycaenian mage? First one has to have inherited powers from our dryad ancestors. It’s rare those powers are strong enough to merit training from the village mentor. And out of the handful of younglings chosen for that training, a very small number are sufficiently gifted to be sent to one of the academies for formal testing and advanced training. Only when that training is complete is one fully acknowledged a mage and returned to his village to manage its weather and crops and to tutor other younglings with the gift. So you see, even were I strong enough, it would be years before I could master my powers enough to be of use to anyone.”

“Yet you were of help tonight, when you used your magic to break us out of that cell,” Eydis pointed out.

The youth hesitated. “That was different. What I did broke all the rules. A dryad mage doesn’t use his magic against his own people or to flout authority.”

“I foresee,” said Eydis, “you’ll be the first to change many things. Not all of it to the good. But always you will do what is necessary for the protection of Earth Realm and your own race within it.”

He looked troubled. “Is the world really in need of saving?”

“Yes,” she said. “It is.”

He appeared to think that over. But all he said was, “My wrists are sore. Would you two consider untying me if I give my word not to run off until this discussion is settled?”

Eydis looked at Orrick. “I see no reason not to trust him.”

Orrick scowled. His instincts told him the boy would go running back to his village the first chance he got. But he also suspected Eydis would give him no peace until he complied with the request. Clearly she was foolish enough to believe people kept their promises.

So he cut the Drycaenian boy’s bonds. He was just straightening afterward when he heard it. A distant howl carried on the wind. This belonged to no domesticated dog; neither was it the bay of a wolf. It held an unearthly quality, like the cry of a ghostly hound caught between mortal and immortal realms. He could think of only one place where he had ever encountered such a creature. The Lostlands.

Chapter XII

G
EVERAL

T
HE
BARBARIAN
STIFFENED
,
ASKING
, “Do you hear that?”

Geveral exchanged a glance with Eydis, who shrugged. “Hear what?” she asked.

“A cry on the wind,” said Orrick. “A baying sound like that of a hound from beyond the grave.”

Geveral smiled weakly. “You’re joking.” He looked to Eydis. “He is joking, right?”

“I do not know,” she answered uneasily. “He’s never had any sense of humor before.”

They fell silent, each straining to hear whatever the barbarian heard. But all Geveral’s ears picked up was the breeze whispering softly through the surrounding trees and the muted popping and hissing sounds coming from the camp fire. A whicker came from Snowflake, who was tethered to a nearby tree. Other than that, the night seemed peaceful.

Orrick broke in on the silence with, “I hear two of them, maybe three.”

“Two or three whats?” Geveral asked, bewildered.

“Hunger hounds. Foul beasts of the Lostlands, where they are known for their speed and agility. The few that have strayed over the border and fallen into the hands of my people are used to hunt spies and criminals. Their sense of smell is not to be matched, and driven by fire and eternal hunger, they can outrun any man or beast alive.”

“But not horses surely,” Eydis cut in. “Anyway, what would such creatures be doing in the heart of Lythnia and the rangelands? We’re far from the border.”

But the barbarian wasn’t listening. He had his nose to the wind. “They’re a mile off, maybe less. And there’s another creature with them. Something that smells of rotting human flesh. Perhaps it drives them.”

“Kroadians have elevated senses,” Eydis softly explained to Geveral. “If Orrick hears and smells them, they’re coming.”

As if to punctuate the statement, Snowflake, nearby, began snorting and stamping. The horse’s ears were back, the way she held them when something made her nervous.

“Are you sure it isn’t just wolves you and Snowflake are sensing?” asked Geveral.

Kicking out the campfire, Orrick ignored his question. “We must move quickly. They’ll be upon us in a matter of minutes. Our only hope is to reach the lake on that map you were looking at, Eydis. Hunger hounds fear water, so if we can get that far before they run us down, we’ll stand half a chance.”

Geveral didn’t like the sound of those odds. But Eydis was already stuffing the map into her belt and gathering the provisions around the campfire, so he saw no choice but to follow suit. Treeveil was too far to flee back to, even if he hadn’t already given his word that he wouldn’t.

He moved to soothe Snowflake, planning to hitch her to the cart. But at that very moment his ears finally picked up a baying sound in the distance. The horse heard it too and reared back on her hind legs, shrilling and pawing at the air.

“Easy, girl,” Geveral murmured, sidling up beside her. But Snowflake wouldn’t be calmed. She jerked hard on the rope, breaking it free of the tree trunk. Geveral ran at her, but Snowflake easily dodged past him and galloped away, disappearing into the trees.

“I suppose that leaves us stranded,” said Eydis.

“We’ll move faster without the cart anyway,” Orrick said. “Grab what you absolutely cannot do without, and let us be away from this place.”

Geveral joined the others in transferring provisions from the cart to his back. But he hadn’t got far when there came another series of howls, this time much closer than before. The hunger hounds were covering ground fast.

“Abandon the rest of it,” the barbarian ordered.

Eydis tried to argue, but Orrick grabbed her and hurried her away from the roadside.

Geveral had no choice but to reluctantly follow the two into the trees. Stumbling in the gloom, he tripped over thick tree roots and was whipped in the face by sharp branches. Only occasional patches of moonlight filtered through the leafy overhead canopy, leaving him to travel by sound as much as sight. He followed the noise made by Orrick and Eydis as they crashed through the dense underbrush. But always in the distance, he heard the baying of the hounds getting closer. The pursuers were clearly onto their scent.

Heart pounding and lungs burning, Geveral stopped for a second, resting with his hands on his knees to catch his breath. When he was ready to run again he realized he could no longer hear the sounds of Orrick and Eydis. He had fallen too far behind, and now he was separated from the others. What now? Should he keep running blindly, hoping to catch up to them? Panic rising, he strained to see through the darkness and struggled to quiet his panting breath so he could listen for some distant sound to guide him.

Nearby a stick cracked sharply. He wasn’t alone. Freezing, Geveral waited to hear the snarl of a hound or to feel the weight of one tackling him. Instead, it was a hand that came from nowhere to rest on his shoulder. “Geveral,” the attached shadow whispered.

He jumped before realizing the warm breath in his ear was that of Eydis. “When I realized we’d lost you, I doubled back,” she said.

“What about Orrick? Did he come with you?”

Her hesitation was answer enough. Obviously the Kroadian was more concerned with his skin than theirs.

“What now?” he asked. “Are the hunger hounds still gaining on us?”

As if in answer, a frantic series of barks echoed through the wood—the sound of hunting hounds closing in on their quarry.

“They’re almost upon us,” Eydis said. “Outrunning them is hopeless. If you believe in the First Couple, now’s the time for entreating them.”

Before he could tell her dryads revered nature, not the First Couple, something tickled at the back of Geveral’s memory. A vague idea from a half-remembered story. It seemed impossible, but with no other avenue of escape, he was prepared to try. Laying his palm on the trunk of the closest tree, he summoned a stream of magic and concentrated. He became truly aware of the tree, felt the rough bark of its outside and the softer wood at its core. The forest behemoth was old. Scarred and embittered. It was difficult to communicate his wishes to it, but there was no time to look for a young sapling that might be more susceptible to his will. He fed his magic and his emotions into the old tree.

But it was a struggle to shut out the close baying and the heavy crashing sounds coming through the underbrush.

“Geveral, they’re here.” Eydis tugged at him, breaking his contact with the tree. He had no idea whether he had gotten through to it. His legs were weak and trembling, drained by the effort of the connection.