That Frigid Fargin Witch (The Legend of Vanx Malic) (14 page)

“Or you just might get it in spades.”

“We say clovers because they grow in patches of a zillion.”

“Yup,” Vanx let out a long, breathy sigh. “Let’s rest. Keeping this light has worn me a bit. I fear those calls are but some sort of lure to a trap.”

“Wet your whistle and I’ll dig out the bread and stuffed mushrooms.”

Vanx found a dry place along the hard curvature of the shaft and settled heavily. Poops sat beside him and the dog eagerly lapped water from Vanx’s cupped hand when it was offered.

“I hope you have some more of the berries,” said Vanx, after a long pull on his water skin. “By the Goddess I’m going to need them.”

Thorn nodded affirmatively, then cocked his head as the haunting voice echoed to them again.

“Please end this. Please just kill me.”

Chapter
Sixteen
Chapter
Sixteen

From a tower way up high,

we can watch the world pass by.

Sweet dreams of kings and queens,

can you tell me what it means?

– A Zythian ballad

G
allarael was glad for the rest she’d taken back at a gurgling brook. Not only had she been able to drink deeply there, and rest her eyes and fatigued muscles for a good long while, but Streak, had led her to a tree ripe with purple fruit. The offerings tasted like strawberries and cream and she ate quite a few of them. She was still in her changeling form, and would have preferred a healthy chunk of rich, bloody meat, but she didn’t complain.

A short nap followed and now, by tree-filtered moonlight, she continued her loping gallop behind her slightly sparkling little guide.

There was something following them, but it was having a hard time keeping pace. Gallarael heard it crashing and tromping as it labored to keep up. She could tell that it was big, but exactly what it was, she had no idea. Her mind whirled at the horrible possibilities.

She hoped it wasn’t another of those wicked trees. She would fight with claw and teeth against any creature of flesh that set upon her, but she felt that she would be helpless against one of the tree-beasts. Only a lucky shove of Darl’s sword had kept him out of the mouth of the last one. She’d been no help to him at all.

Under other circumstances, the marvel of the elves, brownies, fairies and sprites would have been all she could think about. Her control over the feral, instinctual tendencies of her changeling self had strengthened enough that she could think clearly in this state, but with something dogging her heels, she chose to let the primal part of her take over.

She wasn’t sure she understood what Sergeant Smilax had said about the Underland and Vanx, but she understood the part about Chelda being hemmed in at the Heart Tree. After that first attempt at intimacy back at the Iceberg Inn, Chelda hadn’t so much as hinted at taking their friendship down that path. Gallarael was relieved, for her heart was still aching over the loss of Trevin, and even if she had wanted to seek physical comfort, she didn’t think she would seek it with another woman. Chelda had proven to be a wonderfully loyal friend and confidant, though. That was why Gallarael had chosen to come to Chelda’s aid. If Vanx could be helped, Chelda would be the one most likely to know how to go about it, and beyond that, Chelda was in a fix and needed her.

A darting flash of brownish gray fur caught her eyes as something low to the ground passed a shaft of moonlight that had somehow pierced the high canopy. It wasn’t the thing she’d heard chasing her, for it was far too small. This was coyote-sized, a startled fox, or an oversized leaper. But even as she told herself those things, she knew it wasn’t true.

Another heavy crush of deadfall let her know her pursuer was still behind her. She turned back to look over her shoulder and caught a not-so-distant flash of ember eyes, high off the ground. A piercing howl erupted from somewhere close and it was soon echoed by some other haunting lupine voices. When she turned back, she found that the sparkly turquoise glow she had been following was gone.

A moment of wild panic flooded her as another wolfish creature, this one darker and the size of a larger timber wolf, cut across her field of vision. The creature showed no fear whatsoever and moved with the ferocious grace of a predator hunting with a pack.

Another of the wolfen cut across her path. This one came close enough to force her to angle off to the right. This part of the forest was fairly level and the lowest tree branches were well overhead. Only the huge, exposed trunk roots and the occasional patch of shrub or deadfall provided an obstacle. As she made the decision to find a place to turn and fight, she half wished there were low branches so she might squirrel up a tree.

Her heart hammered in her chest now, for she had seen at least four separate wolves besides the larger one that was behind her. She was certain she’d heard a few more than that out among the blackened shadows. She couldn’t possibly hope to survive, but she found a steely resolve and decided to spin and meet the biggest of them head-on. She was just about to do it when she saw a distant swath of blue light flare up ahead and to her left.

A cacophony of snarls and cackling and a deep, throaty reptilian roar came from that direction as well. The blue light flared again, and it was enough to illuminate a rock as it came hurling down over her head. She saw movement in the trees, and more oddly, the whole forest floor before her seemed to roil and shift under the crazily shifting blue glow.

She saw an elven form then, but it was partially devoured and seemingly being pulled under the churning ground. Another hurled object flew past her face and splattered against a tree beside her as she darted past.

A wolf hit her then, hard and from the side, with enough force to send her long stepping and sprawling into the writhing gray mass of the forest floor. Something wet splattered across her back and a deep, savage growl drowned out the rest of the noise.

A huge set of jaws clamped down on her lower leg. She pulled her face out of the leafy earth and tried to rise, but couldn’t. It was only then that she realized she and her attacker both were being swarmed by thousands upon thousands of beady-eyed rats.

That it could even speak was amazing in itself. That it was alive at all was beyond belief. The tormented pleas for death had finally gotten to Vanx. There was no way that he could ignore such a horrid request. He tried to resist the urge to seek out its source, but he knew that the voice would haunt him for hundreds of years if he didn’t at least try to oblige.

If it had been human once, it was no longer so. Bloated like a long-submerged corpse, the cocooned body seeped and oozed an awful-smelling yellow-green pus from several places. The pale, pumpkin-sized head dangled limply; its facial features were stretched and distorted by the massive swelling and the skin was pale, almost translucent. Green and purple veins pulsed erratically beneath the thing’s cheeks and forehead.

Suspended just a few feet above the muck-stained cavern floor, the cocoon was incorporated into the anchor strands of a vast, upward-expanding web. When a slight, lipless seam opened in the head, and a loud, desperate voice resumed its call, Vanx knew that this was the origin of the howling plea.

Poops barked and backed a few paces at the creature’s sudden yell, and “Please kill me,” choked into a frantic, “Who’s there? If you can hear me, kill me. Hurry, please.”

Poops’ fearful growling and barking reflected Vanx’s emotions perfectly.

What might have once been an eye split open, revealing a milky orb and a teardrop trickle of yellow-green pus.

“Hurry, before it returns. Please,” the thing begged.

“The Glaive?” Vanx asked Thorn.

Thorn shook his head no.

“Do it and let’s be gone,” Thorn said as he scanned the huge, web-filled cavern above them.

Vanx’s orb of light only penetrated the lacy gloom so far. There was no telling what was hiding up there in the shadows, and Thorn clearly didn’t want to find out.

“To heal that could only bring it more pain.”

“Please,” the voice started, but the ring of Vanx’s steel as it flew from its scabbard cut it off. With a swing, and a drop to his knee, Vanx sheered the upside down head from the rest of the cocoon. The sweet, cloying stench of infected meat filled the area as a river of lumpy gray gore poured from the stump. Then suddenly the whole structure of the web lurched, and lurched again.

“By Babd, it’s coming,” Thorn warned.

The Glaive of Gladiolus came out of its shoulder sheath, but Thorn pointed it toward one of the several tunnels leading away.

A harsh, clicking sound came from above them and the webbing shook and vibrated again as the huge scorpion-tailed spider beast scurried down into view. The thing appeared to be horribly angry over what they had done to its sustenance— angry enough to brave Vanx’s magical light to attack them.

Vanx, who’d eaten a fresh handful of battle berries when they’d rested, gave an uncertain grunt of dissatisfaction at the elf’s choice to flee, but he followed Poops, who was right on the elf’s striding heels.

Vanx was nearing the opening when Poops exploded into a red hot state of excited fury that lit Vanx’s battle lust into a raging inferno. He was forced to stop his headlong rush because the dog was now backing noisily out of the passage, while over his shoulder Vanx saw that the strange arachnoidal beast was still closing on them.

Vanx held his sword in his right hand, and in his left was the orb of magical light. He barely managed to redirect the nasty finger-long stinger with his blade as it came down at him. The defensive move forced him to dive and roll. He had just enough time to see a hulking, fully armed minotaur, as it backed Thorn completely out of the caveway with two swiftly whirling blades.

Vanx was suddenly engaged again with the darting stinger, and that took all the concentration he could muster to avoid.

Poops glanced once at the massive Insectoid, then back at the bovine foe that was bearing down on Thorn. The dog made a decision and darted into the cavern as Clytun the minotaur stepped out from the opening.

Thorn, who had already sunk the Glaive of Gladiolus’s tip deeply into a gap in the minotaur’s lower leg plating, was disheartened. The magical blade hadn’t discharged its healing power to rend apart the cow-man like it was supposed to, and now the crazy dog had fled down the tunnel. Thorn didn’t give up, though; he rolled and spun, and even though he took a nasty glancing blow that rendered his left arm limp and bleeding freely, he continued to fight the giant, armored monster.

Vanx wasn’t faring any better. He had managed to slice into the scorpion tail behind the stinger, but not deeply. Then, as he stepped to dodge its viper attack, he found one of his feet being wrapped, by what?

He looked down to see that what originally appeared to be spider legs, were more like the tentacles of an octerror, with tiny gripping cups. One of these had wrapped his leg completely now. He was falling backward, his legs pulled from under him. His breath left his lungs when his body slapped into the wall, and as he gasped to get precious air back into them, he saw the stinger coming down at his chest. He had dropped his sword when he impacted, and he knew he couldn’t throw up his arms in defense against that vile, venom-dripping spike. In a final effort to save himself, he called out to Sir Poopsalot through their link, but to his great shock and surprise, his familiar had shut him out, or worse.

Chapter
Seventeen
Chapter
Seventeen

Her kiss was like a candle flame,

and it burned him when she touched him.

When two days passed and it still burned,

he knew she’d gave him something.

– A sailor’s song

C
helda watched a little blue-green sprite as it landed on Captain Moonseed’s shoulder and spoke urgently into her ear.

The new surge of fairy troops from below had helped drive the troublesome rats from the Shadowmane, but the huge, thick-skinned beast the fae called Skryker was still there trying to tear the tree apart.

Skryker absolutely hated the touch of Chelda’s blue blade and was just agile enough to avoid it most of the time. The two of them were circling around the Heart Tree now, keeping it between them, while they gathered their breath for another clash. Under the blue light, the once lush, green sward was now a thick, muddy expanse of blackened gore. Scores of rats and dozens of fairy folk had been killed or trampled.

The fae had forced the fight back out into the forest, but a few had remained in the Shadowmane and were working in teams in concert with Chelda and Skryker’s slow revolutions, to drag those wounded out of the way and back into the Underland.

Those who were beyond help were quickly and mercifully dispatched. First Captain Moonseed was performing this duty herself, which spoke volumes of her sense of duty. Most commanders would have passed such a gruesome task onto a subordinate.

She let Lieutenant Barflower, the wounded leader of a sprite troop called the Glittering Hornets, take care of the tinier beings, but only because her blade was too big to dispatch them cleanly.