Chalice 2 - Dream Stone (18 page)

He looked behind him to where two of the
company spun a death web for the Lady Queen’s youngest brother.
Senseless loss. His soldiers were already talking of revenge, a
sure course of destruction he would not allow any to take. There
was but one enemy for them to fight.

On the far side of the shaft was the warrior
they’d captured, a woman. Silver threads wrapped her from head to
foot, except for the opening across her eyes and nose. Thus she
watched, but could not cry out. She hid her fear well for one so
young, too young to have known the Wars of Enchantment and thus too
young to know much of Sha-shakrieg or skraelings.

Taken unaware by the Liosalfar stumbling into
their mining operation, Varga had seized the woman more out of
reflex than deliberation, but he’d quickly seen the opportunity she
represented. Her capture would bring the Light-elves down on
Deseillign in full force, and leading them into battle would be
Rhuddlan, the Elf King. He would come to free the woman from the
ancient enemy of the
tylwyth teg
.

Such a path was not without its dangers. The
Lady Queen had not sanctioned the taking of hostages, and for
certes not any Quicken-tree Liosalfar. She did not take kindly to
those who would usurp her rule, and there was no one she hated more
than Rhuddlan, the Scourge of the Wasteland, who had once sought to
destroy her. Her hate went no deeper than Varga’s own, but he did
see reason, and he saw Deseillign’s doom if they fought on alone.
They needed the Elf King. For now was a time of need, when ancient
bonds must be renewed, dreamstone crystal and
thullein
reforged, and the Magia Blade resurrected from the ashes of
war.

Now was a time for dragons.

T
he ragged band of
Liosalfar came up out of the deep dark onto the sands of Mor Sarff,
the subterranean sea, with no more than a day and a half having
passed since the battle with the Sha-shakrieg. Black waves of the
rising tide rolled up onto the shore and washed at their boots,
dampening feet grown sore with the relentless march. They’d eaten
little and rested less, pressing forward, knowing Nia’s only chance
lay with their quick return.

Mychael was the last to leave the tunnel. By
all rights, ’twas Trig’s place, but both Trig and Math had
succumbed to the thread poison embedded in their skin within hours
of leaving the damson shaft. The
rasca
they’d used to treat
the wounds had worked but little against the wounds inflicted by
the Sha-shakrieg poison.

Mychael had seen the captain’s first stumble
and had not waited for a second before dropping to the rear to
guard their retreat and urge the others onward. Thus far, no one
had questioned the pace he’d set. Neither Shay nor Llynya had dared
in his present mood, and Math and Trig had no strength for dissent.
Only blind stubbornness kept the two of them going.

“Shay,” Mychael growled, gesturing toward the
damson cliffs. The boy nodded and veered off from the group,
holding his blueknife high to light the crystalline rock face. The
cliffs began to glow a deep violet-blue, and soon they could see
the pearlescent bore holes ringing the headland, eight in all, the
tunnels to the gate of time, the entrances to the great
wormhole.

The Liosalfar had stopped there on their
descent six days past, checking the gossamer seals of ether
Rhuddlan had put on the tunnels to keep the
pryf
from
getting back into the weir. Except for the clew of golden worms
that never left the swirling depths of the abyss, the
pryf
were needed in their nest, not in the Weir Gate. No dragon would
come to an abandoned nest—so Rhuddlan had said—but five months of
freed
prifarym
had brought them nothing but wildness.

Wildness everywhere and not a dragon in
sight.

Mychael slogged through the wet sand,
gritting his teeth against exhaustion and the flame of heat licking
at him from beneath his skin. The damn stuff had come upon him in
his sleep when they’d made a brief camp after the previous
evening’s meal, slipping into his consciousness on the fleet, fiery
wings of a dream—and on the breath of war.

Sha-shakrieg. Spider people. He feared he’d
found his enemies, the source of his river of blood.

He ran his hand back through his hair, then
wiped at the sweat beading on his upper lip. He’d had the
elf-maid’s kiss in the dream, before it had turned into a
nightmare, a kiss and much more, but the sweetness had been
short-lived, ending in the flames that had found purchase in his
veins.

She should not have been a part of it, that
remnant of the fiery vision that had first come upon him in Strata
Florida. Down to his bones, he knew no good could come to her from
him, but since their closeness in Crai Force when she’d tended him,
he hadn’t been able to shake free of her. The feel of her soft skin
lingered on his fingertips like Nemeton’s magic. The scent of
lavender met him at every turn, whether she was near or far. For
certes she’d marked him somehow, no doubt with her elfin magic in
hopes of bending him to her will.

Christe
. As if he would have any will
left when the fire finally took him and the shadows rose into
legions. Against that day, her will stood no chance a’tall—and
neither did he without Ddrei Glas and Ddrei Goch to fight by his
side. And he was doomed to fight. The surety of that truth
tightened around him with each passing breath. He would fight.
There would be blood. He’d taken the bait of the dragon lure, and
the price would be paid.

A thin curl of pain raced down his arm, one
of many threatening to undo him. He stopped it with a swift clench
of his fist, swearing beneath his breath. The blood-churning
madness had never before come upon him in the caves. That it had
now was no good sign, and worse yet that Llynya had slipped into
the heart of it. He had to get to the surface. The Quicken-tree
thought him immune to the heaviness of the dark. They were wrong.
He felt it, and with the fire running through his blood, ’twas near
unbearable. He needed sky above him, before he was crushed by the
flames and the dark and the sheer weight of the earth surrounding
him.

Aye, the madness was upon him, and delirium
as well. Specters had hounded him out of the deep dark as surely as
any spider people. He’d felt eyes upon him, seen fleeting shadows
disappear behind him on every turn of the trail, heard scuffling
where no one was to be found. And the smell. They’d brought the
rotting smell of the black smoke up from the deep dark with them.
It haunted his steps.

He looked to the front of the group. Llynya
and Trig were carrying Bedwyr’s body with the maid in the lead.
Math plodded along beside them, his head hanging low, one arm limp
at his side. With the light coming off the cliff face, Mychael saw
the purple festering of Math’s wounds and the unnatural stiffness
on the right side of the man’s body. The spider people possessed
baleful weapons, poisoned threads and razor-sharp bolts of
thullein
. He knew not what Rhuddlan would come up with to
fight them. Llynya spoke of elf shot, while Shay wondered if enough
of it still existed in the world. The mines beneath Tryfan were
said to have long since been played out.

Mychael had thought the mines only legend,
the stuff of his mother’s stories. She’d been a master tale-teller,
weaving words together with her voice and a delicate power that had
forever engraved them upon his heart, stories of the iron-spined,
dragon-backed ranges in the north and the mountain halls of the
Douvan kings, of dragons and caverns filled with treasure, and of
an age of elves and men. Since his return to Merioneth, too many of
those tales had proven true for him to doubt the others. With war
upon them, mayhaps he would yet see the wonders of Tryfan.

“Wonders,” he muttered to himself. ’Twas hell
seeking him out, not wonders.

Up ahead, Math staggered, falling behind, and
Mychael swore again. God’s blood, but he would not lose more
Liosalfar, and they could not carry another. He lengthened his
stride, then broke into a run when Math’s knees buckled.

“Llynya! Hold!”

The maid looked back and, upon seeing Math,
loosed her grip on Bedwyr and came running. Mychael reached the man
first, with Shay close behind.

“Sticks,” the boy whispered, sinking down on
his knees next to his fallen comrade.

Mychael thought worse, but said naught. Math
was pale, his muscles tight with pain, his eyes squeezed shut.
Strange words poured out of his mouth.

Delirium, Mychael thought, the beginning of
the end for them all. “What’s he saying?”

“ ’Tis a prayer for the dying,” Llynya
answered, dropping down next to Math and pressing her hand to the
young man’s forehead.

“He’s dying?”

“No.” She smoothed Math’s lank dark hair back
off his brow. “But he thinks he is. ’Tis an old tongue of the
sídhe
speaking. He’ll feel better when we’re out of the
caves.”

He wasn’t the only one.

The maid ran her hand down the side of Math’s
face, tenderness guiding her touch as she bent over him and cooed
soft words of solicitude—and all Mychael could think was that if
Math wasn’t dying right then and there, he might want to consider
it for the kind of attention he was getting.

“Give him your lavender simple,” he ordered
gruffly, “and get him to his feet. If he wants to pray, he can do
it in Merioneth.”

A quick glance passed between Llynya and
Shay, as if each thought the other should speak up on the side of
reason. He quelled Shay with a look the boy knew well enough not to
misinterpret. The maid, damn her, defied him.

“Math needs rest, not just simples,” she
said, her chin lifting with determination. “We all do.”

Wrong, he could have told here. He didn’t
need rest. He needed to get out of the swivin’ caves before they
ate him alive.

“If the Sha-shakrieg had been following us,”
she went on, as if he didn’t already know the truth of it, “they
would have attacked before we reached Mor Sarff. We’re safe
here.”

The hell they were.

“Get him to his feet,” he growled, repeating
his order to Shay, who knew better than to disobey, “or give him to
the mother ocean. We’re moving out of here, and we’re moving out
fast.”

~ ~ ~

Left alone with Bedwyr, Trig stumbled to a
halt. He tried to steady his breathing to clear his mind and think.
Pain scoured a deep line across his face where he’d been wrapped by
a Sha-shakrieg fighting thread. The eye it had crossed was near
blind.
Rasca
was no balm against the spider people’s poison.
The wound burned like fire on his skin, but the threads had not
been steeped to a killing strength, or both he and Math would have
died in Crai Force.

Aye, dead they should be. Curious, that. He’d
never known the Sha-shakrieg to take half measures.

He looked up, instinctively turning his face
toward the light, and realized they’d reached the damson cliffs and
Mor Sarff. He should have known; the smell of salt was strong.
’Twas not far now. He lowered the rest of Bedwyr’s body to the
beach, then watched as water lapped at the shroud they’d made of
their cloaks. Behind him, he heard voices.

“Ah, and come on now. Open up, Math.” The
sprite was bent over the warrior, putting something in his mouth.
When Math ate it, she closed her pouch and shoved her shoulder
under his. Along with Shay, she got the fallen Liosalfar to his
feet.

“Llynya!” Mychael ab Arawn roared from up the
beach, and Trig saw her stiffen. “Llynya!” he yelled again.

With obvious reluctance, the sprite left Shay
to struggle on alone with Math. She did not look well. Her face was
drawn, her strides unsteady as she climbed the beach toward the
headland. Mychael had pushed them hard, mayhaps too hard, but
Rhuddlan would be pleased to know he had done what was needed.

Trig’s gaze drifted back to Shay and Math.
The threads had slashed open Math’s tunic and burned a line up his
arm and around his neck, marking him with the purple poison from
the
bia
tree, wicked sap of the wasteland.

“You won’t,” he heard the sprite say a moment
later, her voice edged with an angry tremor. He looked up the
beach. She was faced off with Mychael, her feet planted in the
sand, her arms akimbo. “Nobody’s questioned you so far, but you’ll
not get away with that.”

Mychael’s back was to him, and Trig couldn’t
hear his muttered reply, but he saw Llynya blanch, and he thought
he had better rein the boy in. They had nothing left to give him,
either in speed or strength. Mychael had gotten them to Mor Sarff
in record time. No more could be asked.

Before Trig could move, Llynya stalked off,
coming back to the water’s edge. An angry flush colored her
cheeks.

“Help me get Bedwyr farther up the beach,”
she said upon reaching him.

Aye, Trig thought, she was right. His second
should not be left in the surf. ’Twas well past time for rest and
food. Mayhaps someone still had seedcake to share, and catkins’
dew.

Nay, he remembered. There would be no
catkins. They’d drunk the last of it when they’d made their rough
camp. He would send Shay on ahead for more... and for
reinforcements. Aye, for reinforcements. That was the important
thing. Another damson shaft had broken, fell tidings, and the day’s
trek had taken an odd turn, even withstanding Mychael’s foul mood.
He’d liked not the feel of the tunnels on that last stretch up to
the sea. Eyes had been watching, and even through the dense scent
of the
bia
sap, he’d detected the stench of skraelings. That
they dared to come this far south was proof of more than trouble
brewing.

Aye, he’d send Shay on ahead to Merioneth.
The boy had strength to spare, and Trig trusted he would stay out
of trouble, given the seriousness of their circumstances.