The Dragons of Bone and Dust (Tales from the New Earth Book 7) (7 page)

He looked over at Ethmira and mouthed
the word, “Kravon?”

She shook her head decisively and his
eyes widened.

My God, he thought. What the hell is
it?

A movement from the elven maiden
caught his eye and he saw that she was pointing upward.

Yeah, better up than down, weird
chemicals or not.

He nodded and she gestured for him to
go first.

Climbing as quietly as he could,
Simon began moving upwards. He had definitely become more deft and
his technique had improved immensely and he rose through the branches
with barely a whisper of sound. He remembered ruefully just how
clumsy he would have been, doing this just a few months previously.

Well, at least I've learned something
while I've been here, he admitted to himself.

He still missed magic though.

Ethmira crept up behind him, moving
like a shadow and, as the morning light strengthened, kept an eye on
the ground below as she came. But there was nothing to see; whatever
had spooked her was either hidden or gone.

They settled on to the same thick
branch about fifty feet up and assessed their situation.

“
Any idea
what that was?” Simon asked, swinging his legs over the side of
the branch and staring downwards.

“
Not a clue.
There are worse things that stalk the undergrowth in the deep woods
than kravon; we could take our pick when it came to guessing which
one it was. The point is, it doesn't matter. Whatever beast was down
there could still be there now. Unfortunately we have about...”
She peered up through the thick branches at the distant sky. “...six
hours before we miss the portal. Monster or not, we have to move.”

She stood up sure-footed on the wide
branch and turned to point over Simon's shoulder.

“
Dellis
Varna is that way. We won't be able to see it through the trees until
we are almost on top of it, but I can lead us there, I assure you.
Now, if we stay at this height, considering how close we are, I don't
think that the collista will affect you too badly. It is denser the
higher we climb, as it rises invisibly like steam through the
forest.”

“
I feel fine
right now,” Simon assured her. “I feel great, actually. I
did just sleep uninterrupted all night, after all.”

He gave the elf a heavy look and she
simply seemed amused.

“
Simon, we
elves don't need as much sleep as your people do. Besides, you are
the one who most needed the rest. Your system has cleansed itself of
the collista, you are alert of mind and body and we will both need to
be sharp if we are going to make it in time. Now, let us have a quick
bite to eat and get moving.”

After a hurried breakfast, Ethmira
led the way through the trees. The forest was so tightly packed here,
and the trees so immense, that it would have been almost impossible
for Simon to fall. He basically just jumped from branch to branch,
carefully watching his footing as he went.

I'm barely winded, he marveled to
himself a few hours later. They'd been running and jumping through
the forest almost without stopping and, while he was breathing
heavily and sweating, he wasn't gasping for breath or dizzy the way
he would have been just a few short months before.

He was fit and healthy and had even
put on a few pounds of muscle. And he would have traded it all for a
decent fireball spell.

They could have used one at the
moment.

The pair had reached the edge of the
great forest and ahead of them, across some rocky ground covered in
thin scrub brush, was Dellis Varna.

The fort should have been called a
citadel. It was huge and could put Nottinghill Castle to shame.
Constructed of black lava rock, it looked incredibly ancient. There
were no sharp corners anywhere; all of the fort had been weathered
and worn down over the years and had an air of disuse about it. It
soared up almost a hundred feet above the ground and would have
seemed even more daunting had not the mountains loomed up behind it,
rising into the sky in the distance.

Simon would probably have been
awestruck except for the fact that their path was blocked by
something. And that's where the fireball would have come in handy.

No, scratch the fireball, he thought
with frustration. I think we need a tank.

A creature that he hadn't seen
before, and hadn't missed, was stalking around the wide clear area
between the edge of the forest and the entrance to Dellis Varna,
moaning to itself. It was the same sound that they had heard earlier
that morning.

“
What the
hell is it?” Simon asked Ethmira as they stood side by side
twenty feet up and tried not to make any sudden moves.

She hissed with frustration and
glared at the roaming beast.

“
That, my
friend, is a kallorian. One of the most vicious hunters in our
forests. None have been seen in decades and I had thought them
extinct. They are extremely rare and very deadly.”

“
Great. And
one just happened to cross our path today? Ethmira, I don't buy it.
It can't be mere coincidence that this thing is right here, right
now, ready to stop us from reaching that fort.”

She looked at him and tilted her head
slightly as she studied him.

“
What else
can it be? There are no dark gods in this universe, Simon. There are
malevolent forces, yes. There are ethereal beings that can be
mischievous or even harmful. But I doubt that you have attracted
their attention. I think it is simply a case of bad timing.”

Simon watched the kallorian as it
seemed to mindlessly wander back and forth across the open area. It
was at least thirty feet in length, dark green and covered in spines.
It reminded him a little bit of a porcupine, if a porcupine had the
fanged head of a huge snake. Its four feet were clawed and, maybe it
was just his imagination, but Simon thought that it looked really
pissed off.

“
Do they
always look so...irritated?” he asked the elf quietly.

She laughed silently.

“
I have no
idea. I haven't made a study of the kallorian. But they are
blood-thirsty and fast and hunt each other as eagerly as they hunt
any other creature. That is why I thought that they might have become
extinct. They are known to kill each other even while mating. It is a
cold-hearted animal.”

“
Huh. Just
sounds like it's crazy to me. Anyway, that doesn't really matter. The
question is, how do we get past it? Can we flank it, travel sideways
through the forest until the way is clear and then cross the open
ground?”

“
What would
be the point?”

Ethmira pointed to the left and right
of the fort. Dellis Varna sat on the lowest slopes of the mountains.
The forest literally stopped a hundred yards from where the slopes
began to rise, as if some force had dictated that the trees could not
grow beyond that point. As far as Simon could see in both directions,
there was no cover except for low brush anywhere.

“
We must
cross no matter what. And whether we cross here, or two miles away,
we must still follow the base of the mountain range back to the fort.
And if we do that, the kallorian will see us. Their eyesight is
legendary. Besides,” she added as she quickly looked up at the
open sky, “we have no time. The portal will be opened no more
than an hour from now. We must be across and inside Dellis Varna
before that happens.”

“
Damn it,
damn it,” Simon muttered in frustration.

He thought frantically for a moment.

“
Can we kill
it?” he asked abruptly as he watched the patrolling monster.

“
Kill it?”

“
Yes, kill
it. Does it have a weakness? Will our arrows penetrate that spiky
hide? Maybe we can blind it? Those eyes look vulnerable.”

Ethmira shook her head as he spoke.

“
You dream,
my friend. You dream. The kallorian's hide is too thick for our
missiles. Yes, I might be able to hit an eye. Once. But twice?
Impossible. And even blind, the beast could track us by scent. No,
that's not even...”

Her voice trailed off as she stared
at the creature through narrowed eyes.

“
But you
might be on to something. We don't need to kill it, just distract it
long enough for you to get across the open area and into the fort.
Once inside, you can make your way to the main hall and wait. The
portal will appear there.”

Simon looked at her, alarmed by what
she was saying.

“
Whoa, whoa,
hang on a second. What's all this 'I can do this' and 'I can do that'
stuff? Dellis Varna is huge. I have no idea where the main hall is.
You'll have to guide me. Um, you do know where it is, right?”

The elf chuckled, her eyes still on
the monster.

“
Yes, Simon,
I know where it is. But it isn't hard to find. You simply enter
through the main doors and go straight toward the center of the
building. The hall itself takes up most of the space inside. You
can't miss it.”

He squinted in the bright sunshine
and looked at the entrance into the fort. There must have been a pair
of doors that opened there, once upon a time, but they were long
gone. Now just a gaping dark hole led inside. It almost looked like a
mouth and he looked away with a nervous shiver.

“
And what
are you going to be doing while I'm stumbling around in there alone?”
he asked irritably.

“
Leading the
kallorian away, of course,” Ethmira replied with a shrug. “What
else? It's the only logical solution.”

“
Lead it
away? That's crazy. That thing looks completely nuts. And you're
going to what? Piss it off even more?”

“
Something
like that.”

She smiled at him fondly, leaned over
and put a hand on his shoulder.

“
I'll be
find, Simon. Really. You've seen how fast I can move through the
trees when I need to. But if we want to get you back home, this is
your one chance and you must take it. Are you with me?”

He looked from the elf to the monster
and back again. Her willingness to put herself in harm's way for him
was touching and stopped his arguments in his throat. Who was he to
cheapen her wish to play bait to give him his chance to go home?

He nodded and then cleared his throat
as he tried to speak.

“
Ethmira, I
can't begin to tell you what your friendship and aid have meant to
me. Not just these past few days, but ever since you and your people
first gave me sanctuary here, in your world. I'm going to miss you
almost as much as I miss Daniel. And that's a lot.”

The elven maiden smiled again and
moved her hand up to stroke his cheek once.

“
That is the
greatest compliment you could have given me, my friend. I shall miss
you too, down through the ages to come. But it will lighten my heart
knowing that you returned home and took up the fight again against
the Darkness.”

She looked fierce suddenly, as only
an elf can.

“
And this
time, Simon, fight to win. The lords of Chaos will show you and yours
no mercy; show them none in return.”

“
I won't. I
promise.”

“
Good.”

She slipped her bow off of her
shoulder, set an arrow into it and drew back her arm.

“
Now, get
ready. And take care, my friend. I wish you luck.”

“
Thanks. You
too. And I'm ready whenever you are.”

“
Now.”

Ethmira sighted down the arrow and
let the missile fly with typical elven grace. It shot out of the
trees toward the stalking kallorian with laser-like accuracy and
slammed into the right eye of the monster with a wet popping sound
that they could hear from fifty feet away.

Simon gagged a bit as the creature
shrieked in agony. He looked at Ethmira and gaped as he saw her drop
swiftly from branch to branch and then to the ground twenty feet
beneath them.

“
What are
you doing?” he called down to her, panicking a bit.

“
Getting its
attention, of course. How else will it know who to chase?”

Oh crap. He hadn't thought of that.

“
Here!”
Ethmira shouted. “Over here!”

She waved at the kallorian. It was
spinning around, looking for its foe, red ichor dripping from its
wounded right eye. The arrow still protruded from the collapsed orb,
vibrating horribly.

It caught sight of her almost at once
with its remaining eye and roared in fury. As it began to charge at
her with horrific speed, Ethmira glanced up at Simon one last time.