The Grand Crusade (40 page)

Resolute raised a hand to stop the others behind him. He slowly crouched on the woodland trail and peered through the woods. The Grey Misters who had joined him might well have been quiet enough to sneak around Yslin, but in the forests of Loquellyn they made as much noise as a herd of cattle— complete, in some cases, with lowing complaints about thirst or blisters. A few even sported wounds from the engagement with Aurolani troops several nights back, but those Vorquelves tended toward stoicism and remained quieter than their brethren.

Resolute turned his head slightly to the left and saw Qwc perched on his shoulder, his spear at the ready. The argent-eyed warrior pointed off north-northeast, then nodded, and the Spritha took flight. He darted between trees with the angular precision of a dragonfly in flight.

He returned quickly and flashed enough fingers to communicate the fact that nearly a score of individuals waited in the brush. Resolute nodded his understanding, but the Spritha did not stop. With his spear held in his lower two hands, the upper pair pantomimed settling a crown on his head. Resolute raised an eyebrow, Qwc nodded enthusiastically, and the Vorquelf actually managed a smile.

He stood and cupped his hands around his mouth. “Trawyn, Princess of Loquellyn, you need hide no more. Those who were hunting you are dead.”

His call got no response, but he’d not expected one. “We have met, Highness, when you welcomed a Gyrkyme into the palace at Rellaence, not yet a year past.” Resolute tried to use his best Elvish to speak to her, but among the Vorquelves eloquence had eroded. He dimly recalled a time when he liked weaving words into patterns and formal sequences, but much blood had run between that time and this.

Resolute started down through the trees in the direction Qwc had flown. “I am coming to you. You will see me before I see you, and you may decide what to do then.”

As he moved down the needle-and-leaf-strewn slope, he sought signs of the elves’ passage. He thought he would see wet leaves showing from beneath a layer of dry, or a plant stem crushed underfoot. He even watched for threads caught on thorns, but until she stepped from the brush before him, and two archers with nocked and drawn arrows flanked him, he’d seen nothing.

“You’re Resolute, but you could be one ofhercreatures.”

Trawyn was not as he remembered her. Her auburn hair had been long and flowing free, but now it was hacked off to less than a finger length. Her left eye was still a pure blue, but a bloody rag hid the other socket. In Rellaence she had worn gowns, but here her clothes were more the castoffs peasants would give to beggars. Dirt and blood smudged her cheeks and hands, and her one eye had a dark circle beneath it.

Resolute instantly dropped to a knee. “I am Resolute, and I would never in life become one of her creatures.”

Trawyn raised a hand, then lowered it, and the archers relaxed their pull on the arrows but did not take their hands from the bowstrings. “You said the things chasing us are dead?”

“Oversize gibberers and some lizard-dogs?” Resolute shifted to Mantongue as Qwc lighted on his shoulder. “They ambushed us several nights ago. They got more than they bargained for.”

The elven princess shook her head. “Are you arrogant, Vorquelf, or do you seek to scourge me with the fact that you, a child, have fared better than we have?”

The pain in her voice, along with the wearied accusation, indicated how close to the breaking point she was. Another time he might have risen to the bait, but he refrained. “I referred to Kerrigan, not myself. Bring your group, join with us, and tell me what has happened. We’ve been sent here to Loquellyn to see if you will help oppose Chytrine. I’ll assume you’ll decline, and I would like to know why.”

Trawyn’s party numbered seventeen. All of them were wounded, and two very seriously. In their flight from the capital, they had trekked up the Assariennia River. Pursuit was relentless, and intensified when they got into the mountains. Her people had been days without anything beyond winterberries picked in haste and water drunk by the handful, whether fresh or stagnant.

Resolute led the group back to the Grey Mist camp, where the healers, including Kerrigan, set about doing what they could. The human mage took a look at Trawyn’s right eye and cast some spells, but could do nothing more than

shake his head. “I would heal it if I could, Princess, but there is nothing there to heal.”

She nodded. “One of theturekadinegouged it out, and I was obliged to slice the eye off the stalk because its hanging on my cheek distracted me.”

Resolute authorized the building of fires, which the surviving Grey Misters took to gladly. Water was hauled and set to boiling, first for*ea, then to turn roots, berries, and dried meat in a soup the refugees could consume without gagging. The Vorquelf set out pickets in pairs, and the Grey Misters took that duty very seriously. Those who did not have immediate watch spoke with the princess’ party and learned all they could about the events in Loquellyn.

Trawyn huddled beneath a blanket as night began to fall. The fire crackling before her danced shadows over her face. She cupped a bowl of broth in her hands, but stared past it into the flames. “They came without warning, Resolute. It wasn’t the way they’d come for Vorquellyn. They didn’t have that number of ships, and our fleet stood ready to oppose them. No, they came stealthily, and were among us before we really had any chance of opposing them.”

A shiver ran down Resolute’s spine as she spoke. Part of it was from the returning memories of when his home was overrun by the Aurolani. Snatches of mayhem backlit by fires, bloody faces, pieces of limbs, screams that ended abruptly—all of those came to him. They tried to overwhelm him, but could not, because for every Vorquelven scream, he had torn dozens from the throats of gibberers. For every hacked limb, he had harvested legions. What the Aurolani had done to Vorquelves in a handful of nights, he had avenged over a century.

What truly wormed its way into him was the despair in her voice. She was far older than he, and bound to a homeland, but she sounded so lost and distant. He’d heard such tones in the voices of men, but never in one of his elders. He’d come to think such hopelessness was the province of the short-lived. Hearing it in her voice unsettled him, disrupting what he had thought was a fundamental truth. That an immortal could despair made him question whether or not he would prevail in his quest to free his homeland.

Trawyn’s eye half shut and her shoulders hunched forward. “They took our ships first. I did not see it, but one of our number had been a sailor. He survived the destruction of his ship only to die on the run. He said a great hole in the ocean opened up, and his ship was drawn into a maw studded with teeth. The beast crushed the ship, and he would have been swallowed but somehow he was expelled through the gill slits and made it to the surface.

“Those same beasts, or some just like them, then came into harbors throughout Loquellyn. They beached themselves, smashing quays and ships. They opened their mouths and from them rushednyressanü—in Mantongue you’d likely call them demon-frogs or fright-toads. They had slick, leathery flesh, mostly black but decorated with stripes of brilliant red, green, and yellow. The

slime on them burned if you touched, them. Their webbed hands and feet had claws, and they were capable of prodigious leaps. For all that, though, they were able to move quietly and quickly into the cities, slaying guards.“

She slowly shook her head. “After that came torpid old ships—creaky barges, nothing more, loaded withturekadineand their little hunting beasts, theslur-riki. They brought the slaughter you saw on Vorquellyn. You’ve fought them; you know they are bigger and stronger than gibberers. We fought back as valiantly as we could, but thenyressanühad slain many warriors.”

Kerrigan sank to his knees near the fire and held his hands out toward it to warm them. “So Loquellyn has fallen as Vorquellyn did?”

“No.” Trawyn blinked and looked at the human mage. “I remember the adults from Vorquellyn and the pain they were in when their nation was conquered. We did all we could for them, even giving them tinctures of dreamwing, but it did nothing. The Aurolani did not come to conquer Loquellyn. Their troops have already withdrawn in some cases—into Muroso by the coast roads.”

Resolute nodded. “They came for the DragonCrown fragment we left with you. Did they get it?”

Trawyn shook her head. “No.”

“Where is it?”

“I don’t know.”

“I don’t believe you. Highness.”

She snorted. “Good of you to add my title. It softens the fact that you say I am lying.”

“Tell me what you know. It is still in Loquellyn?”

Trawyn shrugged—which clearly had taken much effort. “We had stored the sapphire fragment in the palace vaults. It was as secure a place as we could find.”

Resolute arched an eyebrow. “The Rellaencecorüesciwould have kept all away from it.”

“All but those bound to Loquellyn.” She bared her teeth in a feral manner. “We could not have been certain that someone might not have been compelled or induced to enter thecorüesci. Aside from that, having a fragment stored there would have been disruptive. Thecorüesciis a place for peaceful reflection and isolation from the outside world. Ensconcing the fragment there would have destroyed the peace, so we put it in the palace vault.”

The princess’ voice softened. “They had captured my mother and my sister. I watched the Aurolani begin to torture them. I listened to their screams and I could stand it no longer. I led the Aurolani to the vaults and opened them. I saw the fragment was no longer there. This is when they began to assault me, out of fury and anger. I passed out, and when I recovered, I was alone, with deadturekadinesurrounding me. I made my way from the palace, found others and fled, only to find ourselves hunted.”

Kerrigan frowned. “So the fragment is still out there?”

“I do not know.”

The Vilwanese mage looked at Resolute. “If the Aurolani are hunting it, we need to get it first.”

Resolute shook his head. “No, we don’t. Our mission is clear. We’re heading north, to the coast, and from there we ship to Vorquellyn.”

“But we can’t let Chytrine get another fragment of the crown.”

“The Norrington Prophecy says nothing about the Crown, Kerrigan. We have to get Will, go north, and kill the Nor’witch.”

Kerrigan glanced back toward another fire. “Um, might you want to consult Oracle on this?”

“No.”

“No?”

Resolute sighed. “You know that if this is something we need to address, she will tell us. We needn’t ask her.”

“At least let me cast my search spell for it.” Kerrigan began to smile, which was something Resolute had not seen since the night their camp had been attacked. “I have worked on the spell. It’s faster, more subtle, and can’t be detected without a lot of work. At least we’ll know where it is. If they’re hunting it, we might want to skirt that area.”

Kerrigan’s logic was inescapable, but clearly the youth realized that Resolute didn’t want Chytrine to get another fragment.If I know where it is, we will have to rescue it. He wanted to refuse Kerrigan’s request, but he also didn’t want to be stumbling into a knot ofturekadineeither. A little voice inside his head even asked if perhaps the fragment would be a key to freeing Will. While he tried to dismiss that idea, the possibility started another shiver down his spine.

“Yes, Kerrigan, cast your spell, but be careful. You don’t want Chytrine’s creations tracking us here because of it.”

Kerrigan’s smile shrank. “Iamcareful, you know. I wouldn’t let that happen.”

“I know that, Kerrigan. I beg your pardon. Please, employ your spell.” Resolute looked at Trawyn as Kerrigan began his casting. “You’d best eat, Highness. In the morning I’ll detach some of my people to take your party south to Saporicia. You can tell Princess Alexia what happened here. She’ll need to know this flank is not secure, and that more Aurolani troops—different troops—will be joining the battles.”

Trawyn set the soup bowl down. “Some of my people will carry that message, but I’m not going back. I will be going with you.”

“You can’t. You’re wounded.”

She fixed him with a single blue-eyed stare that he could almost feel lance through him. “What if someone did manage to hide the fragment in thecorüesci?‘You’ll need me, if not for that, to lead you north.”

Resolute sighed. He’d hoped to be paring his numbers down, easing the burden of finding food, for quick movement, and just for the sake of cutting down on chaos. As with Kerrigan’s point, however, her arguments could not be dismissed.

He scrubbed a hand over his face. “Your noncombatants go.”

“Along with your worst wounded?” She gave him a half smile. “If there are more than fifty of us, it will be difficult to pass unnoticed.”

Resolute smiled, as her thoughts clearly paralleled his own. The Aurolani had killed and wounded a third of his Grey Misters. He could easily send almost half his group back, including both his and Trawyn’s worst wounded, and get down to half a legion. Those who remained would be the ones who were best suited to the sort of dangers they would face.

“Fifty is good. Send away seven of yours.”

“It shall be done.”

“Got it!” Kerrigan smiled broadly. “That worked better than I imagined.” He started to point northwest, roughly in Rellaence’s direction. “Wait, that’s odd.”

Resolute frowned. “What is, Kerrigan?”

Confusion clouded the young man’s face. “What do you know about a DragonCrown fragment that has a diamond in it?”

Oracle laid a hand on Resolute’s shoulder and knelt by the fire. “That is the fragment we had in Vorquellyn. I saw it long ago, before the conquest.”

“That is interesting.” Kerrigan shook his head. “You know the one we took from Vionna? The one that came from Lakaslin?”

“I remember it very well, Kerrigan.”

“Good. It’s off in that direction, the one I pointed to.”

“What does the Vorquellyn fragment have to do with it?”

“Well, that’s the thing.” Kerrigan shrugged. “The two of them, they’re traveling together. Whoever took the Lakaslin fragment from the palace already had the Vorquellyn one. If Chytrine finds one, she finds them both. They’re not exactly on our line of march, Resolute, but