Return of the Sorceress (11 page)

“We have more to worry about than Maddoc’s two-legged servants,” Davyn said. He, Catriona, and Sindri followed behind the elf and the centaur. “The land around Cairngorn Keep is protected by savage attack hounds.”

“Like the lizard-boar back in Ravenscar?” Sindri asked eagerly.

“These animals are far larger and more vicious than normal hounds. Still, they’re only dogs,” Davyn said.

“Aw,” Sindri said, clearly disappointed.

“I’d forgotten about them,” Ayanti admitted.

“During the time I spent with my father’s people, I came to know the ways of the forest and the animals that dwelled there,” Elidor said. “I am completely comfortable with what humans think of as ‘wild’ animals. They act only according to their natures. But attack dogs are trained by humans to act unnaturally—to hunt and kill not out of hunger but simply because their master commands them to. Beasts such as these are far more dangerous than their forest brethren.”

Elidor turned to look at Davyn. “Please tell us that since you grew up in the keep, the hounds will recognize you and wag their tails, happy to see an old friend come home.”

“I wish I could,” Davyn said. “But the hounds are trained to attack anyone who trespasses on Maddoc’s land. Only one of his guards can call them off.”

“I can vouch for that,” Ayanti said as she carefully detoured around a patch of poison ivy. “Whenever I would deliver supplies to the keep or pick up a new beast Maddoc had created for the Pit, one of the guards would have to ride out and escort me into the keep so the hounds wouldn’t come after me.”

“So how do we defend ourselves against these animals?” Catriona asked.

“There aren’t really that many of them,” Davyn said. “About four or so. Just their presence is usually enough to deter most trespassers. They’re most dangerous when they’re given specific orders. So as long as we aren’t spotted by any guards, we should be all right.”

Should.
Elidor knew from hard experience that there was a world of difference between that word and
will.

There was something else on the elf’s mind, though, something that, in its own way, disturbed him as much as the prospect of being attacked by Maddoc’s dogs. Back at the so-called Bottomless Lake, he hadn’t really been trying to catch anything. He’d been engaged in a Kagonesti ritual he learned from his father called Mind Cleansing. When an elf was troubled, he or she would carve a fishing spear and wade into the nearest body of water. The elf would then imagine the worries and fears were fish swimming just beneath the surface of the water and then spear them one by one. When the ritual was completed, the elf would feel calmer and could then deal more effectively with the problems that had prompted the ritual in the first place.

Elidor had thought Mind Cleansing was nothing more than an exercise in lunacy the first time his father had convinced him to try it, but he’d been surprised by how well it worked. He continued to use the ritual ever since, whenever he needed it, like today.

But this time, the ritual hadn’t left him feeling cleansed. Instead, he was more confused and disturbed than when he’d started. For the “Bottomless Lake” wasn’t even a pond, more like a depression in the ground that trapped rainwater. And he was certain of one thing, before Sindri worked his magic, there were no fish in the water.

Elidor glanced back at the kender. Sindri kept turning his head this way and that, as if he were determined to take in every sight, sound, and smell that the forest had to offer. The kender presented himself as a wizard, but Elidor knew that in truth his friend had no magical powers. Elidor wasn’t exactly sure why Davyn had decided to aid Sindri in his pretense of being a wizard. For that matter, he wasn’t sure why any of them did unless of course, it was simply out of affection for their small friend.

But now it appeared that perhaps Sindri Suncatcher had somehow developed the ability to work true magic, and as much as Elidor cared for him, the idea of the childlike and impulsive kender possessing—and using—real magical power scared him. When he got the chance, he’d have to tell Davyn of his suspicions and—

“Oh, by the gods’ all-seeing eyes!” Ayanti swore. Before them lay the partially rotted remains of a fallen oak tree. Jagged, broken limbs jutted out all around, preventing the centaur from simply jumping over the downed tree.

“Wait,” Catriona said. She moved past Sindri and Davyn and drew her sword. “Let me cut away some of the branches, then you should be able to get over without much difficulty.”

But as Catriona stepped forward to begin her work, Elidor had a sudden feeling that something was wrong.

“Hold a moment, Catriona,” the elf said.

Catriona frowned, but she did as he asked.

Elidor swept his gaze over the fallen tree and the ground around it. Something was out of place. If he could just … ah! There it was! Hanging in the branches of a nearby elm was an oak branch. In and of itself, this wasn’t suspicious. When the oak had fallen, any number of branches would’ve snapped off and flown through the air to land in various places, including the limbs of other trees. But there was something too neat, too deliberate about this branch. It was perfectly straight, as if any smaller offshoots had been cut off. And it sat precisely balanced in the Y where two of the elm’s limbs branched out. It would take only a mild gust of wind to knock the oak branch off. And then there was the way it was angled to point directly at the half-rotted oak, as if it were a marker of some …

Then it hit him. The oak branch
was
a marker. It was a marker indicating where a trap had been set.

“What’s wrong?” Davyn asked.

“There’s a trap here,” Elidor replied. “Set up by Bolthor’s bodyguards.” He gave his companions a small smile. “It appears as if they hold a grudge against us. While Kagonesti prefer to hunt their prey, matching skill against skill and strength against strength, they aren’t above laying traps when necessary.” Elidor pointed. “That balanced oak branch is a Kagonesti signal that says, ‘Watch out, trap ahead.’ And since it is a Kagonesti signal, it could mean two things. There are new Wilder Elves in the forest and the signal is meant to keep others of their kind from blundering into their trap. Or Kuruk and Shiriki somehow guessed where we’re going, got here before us, and set this trap along the most likely route we’d take to Cairngorn Keep. To cover all their bets, the two might well have set traps along other potential routes as well.”

“But if Kuruk and Shiriki are responsible, why would they leave a signal?” Catriona asked.

“To taunt me,” Elidor said, a bitter edge to his voice. “To see if the half-breed has enough wits about him to recognize such an obvious sign.”

Elidor stepped cautiously toward the fallen log, carefully testing the ground with each foot before putting his full weight down. He looked for telltale signs of trip wires, branches that had been lashed together with tiny strips of leather, a smear of partially dried mud that had been applied to conceal the bodyguards’ handiwork. But he saw nothing.

He looked closer at the tree and examined its corrugated gray bark. Just when he thought there was nothing to see, he detected a thin seam where a section of the tree roughly the length of broom handle and a hand-span wide had been cut away and then put back. It was held loosely in place with—he sniffed—pine resin. If anyone in their party stepped on that section of the tree, and
the odds were good that at least one of them would, that section of the tree would collapse inward. As for exactly what the trap was designed to do …

It took Elidor a few more moments, but now that he knew what he was looking for, it wasn’t that hard to find. He straightened and stepped away from the tree.

“Once the wood falls inward, the trap is tripped.” He nodded to the right of the tree and then to the left. “Branches of some of the smaller bushes have been bent back and tied down with bits of vine. When the trap is activated, the vines are torn and the branches released, flinging dozens of poison-coated thorns at those attempting to cross the tree.” Elidor smiled grimly. “Namely, us.”

“It sounds complicated,” Sindri said. “But I don’t see any bent branches or poison thorns.” The kender started forward, obviously intent on seeing for himself. “Are you sure—”

Elidor gripped his friend by the shoulder and stopped him. “So sure that I’m not even going to make a joke about it.”

Sindri looked impressed. “That sure, huh?” When Elidor removed his hand, the kender didn’t try to move closer to the tree, though he did continue examining it from where he stood.

“So what do we do about it?” Ayanti said. She looked upset, and Elidor had a good notion why. As the largest and heaviest member of their group—not to mention the least graceful in the woods—she most likely would’ve been the one to set off the trap.

“We have three options,” Elidor said. “We can turn back and find another way through the forest to Cairngorn Keep—through there’s no guarantee that any other route we choose won’t be booby-trapped as well.”

“Or that Kuruk and Shiriki themselves won’t be lying in wait to ambush us,” Catriona added.

Elidor nodded. “We could purposely set off the trap before attempting to cross—”

“Which would still be dangerous,” Davyn said.

“Or we can simply go around,” the elf finished. “Personally, while I’d love to set off the trap just to see how it works, detouring around the tree would be the smarter move.” Elidor waited to see what Davyn would say.

After a moment’s thought, Davyn said, “All right, let’s go around. It’ll only take a bit of time, and we can hardly help Nearra if we get pierced by poison thorns, can we?”

Elidor smiled. “You’re the boss.”

Davyn gave a long-suffering sigh.

“Which way?” Elidor asked. “Right or left?”

Davyn shrugged. “Right.”

So, with Elidor in the lead, followed by Ayanti, and then the others, they began their detour around the fallen oak. They walked toward the base of the tree and soon reached the spot where it had once been rooted to the ground. The earth was a mass of loose black soil, and the roots rose into the air, looking more like the tentacles of some strange water creature than part of a tree.

As they walked around the roots, Elidor caught a whiff of musky animal scent, and out of the corner of his eye, he noticed that one of the smaller roots had been tied into a knot. A knot, he instantly knew, that Kuruk and Shiriki had wanted him to see.

A cold pit of fear opened in his stomach as he realized he’d been tricked. The first trap, while real enough, had been meant as a decoy to distract him from detecting this second trap in time.

He opened his mouth to warn his friends, but before Elidor could speak, he detected movement above their heads, and he looked up to see a dozen objects tied with vine ropes swing from the trees. He understood then where the musky animal scent had
come from, for each of the objects was a different small forest creature—a rabbit, a squirrel, a fox, a weasel, a stoat. They were all dead, their bodies criss-crossed with dagger slashes. The dead animals swung toward one another, collided, and a rain of blood spattered down onto the companions. There wasn’t enough to soak them thoroughly, but their clothes and hair were dotted with liberal amounts of gore.

For a moment, they all stood there, stunned and disbelieving.

“What sort of disgusting trap is this?” Catriona said. She removed her metal helmet and ran her fingers through the back of her red hair, trying to get the blood out of it. “Is this some kind of sick Kagonesti joke?”

“I’m afraid not,” Elidor said. He wiped a smear of blood from his face and flicked the warm liquid off his fingers. “It seems that Kuruk and Shiriki are more angry with us than I thought. They don’t want to merely kill us: they want to make us suffer.”

“How?” Ayanti said. She shook the equine portion of her body, trying to fling the blood off her brown coat. “By making us need baths?”

Davyn’s eyes suddenly widened in fear, and Elidor knew his friend understood.

“Maddoc’s dogs are trained to kill whenever they smell blood,” Davyn said.

An instant later, from somewhere not so far off in the distance, they heard the baying of hounds.

    T
he companions quickly came up with a plan to deal with the hounds, and then plunged out of the forest at a run. Sindri struggled to keep up, but his legs were shorter than the others and he began to lose ground. Ayanti reached down, grabbed the kender, and swung him onto her back.

Dusk was drawing near, and dim light filtered through the trees, casting long shadows on the ground. Still, Davyn had no trouble making out the ominous shape of Cairngorn Keep looming less than a half-mile away. Almost exactly at the halfway point between them and the keep lay a large slab of rock the size of a small hut. Maddoc had used his magic to transport a hunk of stone and placed it over the tunnel entrance to seal it up after he learned of Davyn and Ayanti’s excavation of the tunnels. Maddoc had probably never considered that in doing so he’d created the perfect marker that his adopted son would one day use in an attempt to break into the keep.