The Gates of Night: The Dreaming Dark - Book 3 (15 page)

“And it’s been so peaceful so far,” Daine said. But his smile was forced. Traces of pain lingered in his memory, and he could still feel the spark burning at the base of his spine, a reminder of the mystery etched across his back. This is no time for fear, he thought. Accomplish the mission. Keep moving forward. “Lead on,” he told Lei.

Khorvaire had its share of vast forests and jungles, and this wasn’t Daine’s first journey through deep woodlands. Yet there was something disturbing about it, something that lent credence to Xu’sasar’s tales of spirits and ghosts.
None of the trees stood straight. They were gnarled and bent, their outspread limbs suggesting giants contorted in pain. Daine would swear that he could see faces in the wood, distorting the bark—but when he turned to look, trunks and boughs were unblemished.

Trees or no, eyes were all around them. Rodents rustled in the low shrubs, creating just enough motion to keep Daine’s nerves on edge. He caught sight of an owl the size of his head, a beautiful bird with black plumage and golden eyes. The creature sat in a high branch, watching the travelers below with proud indifference. Daine considered having Pierce shoot the bird, but it seemed pointless; he felt as if the entire forest was arrayed against them, and it was hard to imagine the death of one owl doing anything more than annoying whatever spirits might be present in the trees and the beasts. Besides, Pierce only had one arrow, and it seemed unlikely that a bird would be the greatest threat the forest had to offer.

Lei forged a path, pushing aside vines and shrubs with her whispering staff. She had enchanted one of her gloves, and pale white light illuminated the area around her. She pressed at a nest of vines—and jerked back as the web of interwoven boughs came to life.

“Balinor’s bow!” She jerked backward, nearly dropping her staff.

Daine pressed past her, his sword gleaming in the eldritch light. He saw three writhing tendrils disappear into the shadows, oily black and glittering silver. He poked at the underbrush and caught a glimpse of a pair of pale eyes, before it disappeared into the undergrowth.

Lei seized his arm. Daine flinched, waiting for the excruciating pain that had accompanied their last
moment of contact, but all he felt was the pressure of her hand.

“I’m sorry,” she said, breathing deeply. “I just … I wasn’t expecting that.”

“Only a few snakes,” Daine said. “It’s nothing to worry about. Let me take the lead. You just tell me which way to go.”

Lei nodded and Daine pushed forward. A few more serpents slid away into the shadows as Lei’s light fell upon them. Lei shuddered whenever she saw sinuous motion. Daine was certain there was something behind this strange fear. She’d seen far worse in the Mournland and the sewers of Sharn, and never reacted in this way. But he knew to leave it alone if she didn’t want to talk about it. They could survive a few snakes.

Then he looked up.

The trees were covered with serpents.

Black and silver scales were almost invisible against nightshadowed bark and the light of the moon, but now he saw the motion in the branches, the heavy coils hanging from the boughs. The viper that darted away from the light was barely as thick as his thumb; looking up, Daine found himself gazing into the eyes of a scaled beast whose head was larger than his own. Dozens of cold eyes were watching them, and looking at the silhouette against the moonlight, it seemed as if the trees themselves were moving.

Daine said nothing, glancing at Pierce. The warforged had his eyes on the canopy, his last arrow nocked to his bow. Should a serpent strike, Daine was certain it would fall with that arrow through its skull. Xu’sasar was nowhere to be seen, but Daine was beginning to expect that.

“I’m sorry, Daine,” Lei said, right behind him. “I
know this is stupid, especially with everything you’ve gone through. It’s just … when I saw those snakes moving, I remembered that
thing
below Sharn. The mind flayer.”

She was talking about a horror they’d fought when they’d first arrived in Sharn, the squid-faced monstrosity that had murdered Jode and almost killed Lei. Daine could only imagine the trauma of seeing such a creature looming over him, tentacles reaching down to grip his skull … he could certainly understand her fear.

The ground was uneven, and a maze of treacherous roots hid beneath the carpet of moss. In the gloom of night, vines and roots were all too easily mistaken for snakes, the shadows creating monsters at every turn. But it was a different sort of serpent that brought their progress to a halt. Pressing forward, Daine saw a glittering, sinuous shape stretched across their path. It was no snake, nor even a living creature.

It was a river.

The river formed a canyon through the dense forest, a rift in the dense canopy of foliage. Looking up, Daine could see the sky. As on the moor, there was only one moon in the sky, but this moon was larger than the last had been, and silvery-white. The stars formed unfamiliar patterns, and Daine was comforted by how faint they seemed to be. The water of the river was eerily silent, and to his eyes it seemed perfectly still … as if it were frozen.

Daine knelt on the shore. He wasn’t much of a swimmer, but with water this calm, perhaps they could make it across. He could just see the far side of the river, another wall of trees rising in the darkness. As Daine
knelt by the water, a sibilant whisper filled the air—the eerie song of Lei’s staff.

“Stop!”
Lei’s voice was low and urgent. Her hand gripped his cloak, pulling with surprising strength; Daine stumbled, his left hand sinking into the moist earth as he flailed to keep from falling.

“What?”

“Don’t touch the water. I don’t exactly understand what she’s saying, but there’s great danger there.”

“Ah.” Daine looked out at the river. “So … this
isn’t
the way we want to go?”

Lei ran a hand along the staff, which moaned softly. “We need to cross the river,” she said, “but … we can’t touch the water.”

“What then? Do you have the energy to teleport us?”

Lei shook her head. “It took all I had left just to create the light. Perhaps we should rest here.”

Daine glanced over Lei’s shoulder and saw a twenty-foot snake slip up into the canopy. “I don’t think this is the best place to set up camp.”

“There is a bridge,” Xu’sasar said. The shadows seemed reluctant to release the drow woman as she stepped out from the forest and into the moonlight. “I can show you the way. It has a fearsome aspect, but it can provide the passage you seek.”

“Fearsome aspect?” Daine said.

“Yes,” Xu’sasar said. “The bridge is alive.”

P
ierce had said little over the course of the last day. Even as he had grown closer to his friends, he had never developed a knack for idle chatter. He preferred not to speculate. If he was uncertain about a subject, he held his peace unless he was ordered to give his opinion. And so he had been silent for much of this journey, doing his best to watch Lei and to make sense of the things around him. So far he’d had little luck. The memory of Indigo lying on the floor of the Monolith lingered in the back of his mind, and his thoughts kept drifting back to that battle. The conflict with the Huntsman and the boar had been welcome distractions, but he seemed to be losing something with every battle. Indigo had shattered his flail, a weapon that had served him well for many years. And now he had but one arrow left for his bow. Pierce was far from helpless. His fists and feet were made of steel, and he could crush bone if he landed a solid blow. But he had minimal training in unarmed combat, and he felt curiously impotent, as if he were a sword that had lost its edge.

The mark on Daine’s back was another threat he could not battle. He could sense Lei’s distress, but he had no power to help either of his companions.

The mark resembles an archaic form of the Draconic language but matches no known character
, Shira told him.
This unusual coloration and atypical design indicates that this is an aberrant dragonmark. Such things appeared tens of thousands of years after my imprisonment, and all that I know, I know from your mind
.

Pierce could feel her ghostly touch sifting through his memories. Traces of thought rose to the surface—

A history of House Cannith he’d read while studying the origins of the warforged.

His battle with an aberrant half-orc who fought with a blade of fire.

And Lei, expressing her fears at finding these aberrants in Sharn. When Daine expressed ignorance about the mark, it was Shira who suggested its possible origin, the blending of Daine’s Deneith blood and the concentrated dragonmark he had consumed. But she could provide no insights into its power or what threat it might pose to Daine himself.

The magic in this place is too strong
, she thought.
It is painful for me even to look through your eyes
.

We are blunted blades
, Pierce replied.
I have lost my weapons, and you have lost your eyes
.

You are my eyes, even when I cannot share your vision. We are one
.

Even as he found some faint comfort in this thought, Pierce was frustrated by the mark. Daine was angry, Lei was afraid, and Pierce found himself stepping between them. For all that he respected Daine, he had to protect Lei from any threat. Pierce was relieved when they began moving again, but the tension remained. Pierce did his best to set it aside, to focus
on his surroundings and on moving with silence and grace. He kept his last arrow nocked, listened to the sounds of the night, and tried not to think of Indigo.

“That’s your idea of a bridge?” Daine said.

“You seek a path across the water, and the spirits provide,” Xu’sasar replied.

“Not very well,” Daine said. “How is that a path, exactly?”

Following the dark elf along the shore, the companions came to a slight rise. Peering over, they could see the path she spoke of.

It was a snake.

A pillar of dark stone stood on the shore, and a serpent was wrapped around it. It was the largest reptile Pierce had ever seen, with jaws that could swallow a wolf—or a man. Its coils were deep black banded with uneven crimson stripes, and the sight reminded Pierce of the disturbing mark on Daine’s back. It took only a moment to evaluate its potential as a threat. Lei had pushed herself to her limits. Pierce had only one arrow. To fight such a monster in their current condition was an invitation for disaster.

“You still do not understand the ways of this world,” Xu’sasar said to Daine. The wind caught her silver-white hair, and she seemed to be shrouded in a cloak of moonlight. “Just as the great boar provided passage to this place, surely this serpent is the key to our next challenge.”

The drow warrior was still a mystery to Pierce. Her talents were impressive and somewhat disturbing. Pierce placed great faith in his senses, and it was troubling to deal with someone who could so easily
elude him. And while Pierce might have fists of steel, Xu’sasar’s skills at unarmed combat clearly exceeded his own.

She is no longer unarmed
.