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Authors: Mel Odom

The Quest for the Trilogy: Boneslicer; Seaspray; Deathwhisper (48 page)

BOOK: The Quest for the Trilogy: Boneslicer; Seaspray; Deathwhisper

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“A narrative of his travels. He came to the Forest of Fangs and Shadows seeking Sokadir and Deathwhisper.”

Kimaru frowned, then bit into a chunk of fresh bread. “Why would he do that?”

“Have you heard of the Battle of Fell's Keep?”

The young elf nodded.

“Sokadir was one of those who survived and still yet lives.”

“There is another,” Kimaru said.

“Who?”

“Larrosh, Prince of the Laceleaves sprawl.”

“I don't know of him.”

Kimaru pointed. “He lives to the north, near the Darkling Swamp. He is Sokadir's cousin.”

“Have you seen Sokadir?”

Shaking his head, Kimaru said, “Very few people have seen him since Lord Kharrion's defeat by the Unity, and he never talks to anyone. He went off to himself and remains hidden.”

“Why?”

“His two sons were at the Battle of Fell's Keep. Qardak and Palagan. They were twins.” Kimaru said that with a tone of reverence. “After they were lost to him, when the dwarf Oskarr betrayed the defenders at the Battle of Fell's Keep, it's said that Sokadir was never the same. He never made peace with his loss. He had lost his wife in battle only a year before that.”

No one wrote that up
, Juhg realized, and wondered how much history of the Cataclysm had been lost during the confusion of the time and immediately following.

“A thousand years of grief?” Raisho asked. “That's a long time.”

“Sokadir loved his family,” Kimaru said. “With them gone, he was â¦ hollow. Rootless.”

Juhg understood that. Elves, partially because of their long lives, developed deep relationships. But Sokadir must have been hurting badly to walk away from his community. Especially since they would have supported him during his pain till he accepted his losses.

“Sokadir isn't entirely rootless,” Juhg pointed out, “if he's still in the area. He'd have been gone from here.”

“An elf is often tied to the land that birthed him,” Kimaru said. “Sokadir couldn't stay away from this forest for the rest of his life.” He crunched into a firepear that he'd taken from one of the trees below. Juice ran down his chin and gleamed in the firelight.

“If he's still here,” Juhg asked, “do you think you can find him?”

“Not if he doesn't want to be found,” Kimaru replied. “And I wouldn't intrude on his solitude.” His aqua eyes rested on Juhg. “Likely, he'll kill anyone who does.”

One of the guards Raisho had posted alerted them shortly before the goblinkin attacked. They came early, after the moons were gone and the sun was just beginning to swell in the eastern sky.

Raisho shook Juhg awake, holding a hand over his mouth. Over the years of their relationship, Rashio had waked him like that before. Juhg opened his eyes.

Putting a finger to his lips, Raisho removed his hand from Juhg's face. “Goblinkin,” he mouthed, so quiet the word barely stirred the air.

Juhg nodded, then got quietly to his feet and woke Yurial in a similar manner. In the space of a breath, they were all awake in the elven tree house.

“Out the back,” Kimaru whispered. “We'll have to go quickly. Stay close to the trunk. Perhaps they won't see us.”

Juhg knew the chances of that were slim. His heart thudded inside his chest.

“Archers,” Raisho said to the four crewmen who had bows, “ye'll stay up 'ere till the last. After them goblinkin attack, feather 'em. We'll split their attention as best we can.”

The men nodded tensely but stood their ground next to the windows.

“Juhg,” Kimaru whispered at the door, “stay with Minstrel Ordal. She knows this forest better than anyone.”

“Where are you going to be?” Juhg asked.

The young elf grinned. “Wherever I can do the most good.” He curled a finger over the arrow nocked to his bowstring. “I've killed a few goblinkin before. They don't normally come this far into the forest.” He nodded to the door. “Now go.”

Yurial went first, sliding down the rope ladder effortlessly while staying in the shadows of the trunk. She drew fire from the goblinkin archers at once.

Raisho ordered the pirate archers to loose their shafts. Their arrows flew into the pack of goblinkin and struck targets readily.

Juhg grabbed the rope next and began his descent. He plunged down, scraping against the rough bark and taking hide from his hands and his jaw. He ignored the stinging pain and dropped to the ground beside Yurial. She already had her batons in her hands.

Three more ropes spilled from the tree house. Raisho and his men slid down the ropes like they were bailing after furling the sails during a savage storm. They hit the ground in ungainly heaps and quickly sprang to their feet. Goblinkin arrows struck among them.

Juhg took cover behind a nearby tree, following Yurial.

A strange, savage cry ululated from the upper tiers of the trees. Drawn by the sound, Juhg spotted Kimaru leaping from branch to branch. The young elven warrior had an arrow nocked to his bowstring every time he came to a stop on a branch. He drew and released smoothly, and every arrow hit a target with unerring accuracy. Raisho's archers accounted for others, but all they did was succeed in dispersing the group. Then he yelled again, and the sound was even more attention-getting.

Most of the goblinkin advanced in a wave, running toward the pirates now grouped around the tree. A few goblinkin archers lit fire arrows and launched them in high arcs. Several of the flaming shafts landed on the tree house's thatched roof. A blaze sprang up immediately.

As dry as the untended tree house was, fire quickly engulfed the structure, grabbing purchase like a great snarling beast. In seconds, the tree house was a roaring bonfire that greedily lashed up into the tree, setting it ablaze as well.

“Archers!” Raisho roared.

The archers sprang into position, dropping to one knee to fire into the advancing ranks of the goblinkin.

“Release!”

Arrows flew from bows. Several of the lead goblinkin tumbled to the ground. Those following closely behind tripped over them and went sprawling. Kimaru rained down more death from above, piercing the misshapen triangular heads of the goblinkin.

The brutes were close enough now that Juhg could see them clearly by the light of the tree house inferno. Black woolly hair clung to the inverted triangles
that were their heads. The chin was the narrowest point, but the eyes were close-set around a piggy nose. Their skin (by daylight) was a sickly gray-green color that looked mottled by the hand of Death. Huge ears stuck out from their heads, many of them wrinkled and folded and flapping as they ran. Yellow fangs glinted in their cruel mouths. They wore the bones of enemiesâhumans, elves, and dwarvesâin their clothing, hair, and puny beards. They wore little in the way of clothing, sometimes breeches and a shirt, and sometimes merely a twisted loincloth or animal skin.

When Lord Kharrion had gone among the goblinkin, he'd had to fight his way through the hordes to make them listen to him. Legend had it that he'd killed several of them so that the others would fear him. And they did fear him, but they also came to love him because he guided them to undreamed victories over the hated humans, elves, and dwarves.

Even since Lord Kharrion's death, the goblinkin had changed. Juhg had seen that when he'd gone among them. They had started creating a culture of their own, and they hadn't returned to preying on each other as quickly as they had before. They had developed a racial consciousness that they'd never before exhibited. Even in defeat, they'd learned, and they continued repopulating their ranks at an alarming rate.

“Back!” Raisho bellowed. “Back, lads! We're gonna take the 'igh ground!”

Trust Raisho to know where the high ground is
, Juhg thought, feeling proud of his friend. Raisho had proven himself every inch the warrior time and time again.

“On me, lads!” Raisho called. “Just stay focused on me!”

Kimaru continued loosing shafts into the goblinkin as he sprang again and again through the trees. Every couple heartbeats (even the rapid, frantic ones that hammered Juhg's ears) a goblinkin dropped stone dead in his tracks. The foul creatures left a trail of their dead behind them. But they continued coming.

Juhg ran, keeping up with the pirates and Yurial only because he was fast enough to take two and three strides to every one of theirs. He dodged trees and slid through brush. He tripped several times on the treacherous terrain but managed to push himself back to his feet each time.

Then he saw the hill, the high ground that Raisho intended for them. They ran up it, only a few feet ahead of the goblinkin.

“'Ere!” Raisho yelled. “We 'old 'ere!” He turned, a dark, fierce shape in the pale dawn, and met the closest goblinkin head-on. Raisho blocked the goblinkin's sword blow by batting his opponent's arm aside. He brought his cutlass down in a blistering arc, aiming for the goblinkin's head. But the goblinkin blocked the cutlass with a metal bracer.

The goblinkin grinned and growled, leaning forward to snap at Raisho's neck with his curved yellow fangs. Raisho twisted and turned in a cunning move that cause the larger goblinkin to sail over his head and land hard on the ground, the wind knocked from his lungs. Before the goblinkin could recover, Raisho slit his throat with the cutlass. Taking a hand-and-a-half hold on the cutlass, Raisho whirled to engage the next foe.

Beside Juhg, Yurial fought with her twin batons. She used them together to block an overhead hammer strike by a goblinkin, then swiveled and diverted her opponent's size and strength, hurling him to one side. He tried to raise the hammer in both hands, but before he could she broke his wrist with one of the weighted batons and crushed his jaw with the other. Unconscious or dead, the goblinkin fell back among his fellows.

Fierce roaring filled the hilltop. Juhg lost sight of his companions as a goblinkin bore down on him with a spear. Moving quickly, Juhg dodged away but grabbed the spear hilt and yanked it toward the ground. The spear broke nearly in half, leaving a piece a little over three feet in length imbedded in the ground.

The goblinkin roared ferociously, throwing the broken spear away and reaching for the hatchet at his side. As he ripped the weapon free, Juhg seized the broken spear from the ground and gripped it like a staff. He'd studied staff work for a time, learning the skill from a book so that he could train one of the young dwarves that guarded the Vault of All Known Knowledge.

When the goblinkin lunged at him with the hatchet, Juhg held the staff, right hand over and left hand under, then blocked the hatchet away and quickly flipped the staff's other end around to slam against the goblinkin's face. Surprised, the great brute yelled in pain and took a step back. Juhg gave him no quarter, though, flipping the staff once more and driving the end into his throat. The goblinkin stumbled away, getting in the way of the one behind him.

Juhg fought the next, holding the goblinkin back with a dazzling display of staff strikes. In the end, though, he knew their efforts weren't going to be enough to save them. There were too many goblinkin. Two crewmen were already down and the rest were beleaguered.

A great shadow suddenly appeared, swooping out of the forest. Juhg heard the crack as its wings spread and caught the air. He recognized the large bird as an owl just before it clawed out the goblinkin's eyes with its sharp talons.

His face a ruin, the goblinkin squalled out in fear and pain and stumbled away. Blood seeped between his hands.

The owl took to the air again, never making a sound. Its huge yellow eyes locked on Juhg for just a moment. For an instant, Juhg felt like it recognized him.

Then another ululating wail, this one different than Kimaru's, echoed over the battle, freezing the approaching combatants. The ones engaged kept to their tasks.

From the corner of his eye, Juhg saw another elf leaping effortlessly through the trees, flitting and changing direction like a dragonfly, as if gravity held no laws for him. Then he was suddenly fifty feet away, kneeling on a branch as he drew back a great golden bow with the face of a snarling mountain lion embossed on it.

The elf was slender, of indeterminate years as were all of their kind in their middle years. A supple chain mail shirt of black rings covered his upper body over a green and brown shirt that faded him into the trees behind him. Breeches of the same material covered his legs and were tucked into thin snakeskin boots. He wore his silver hair tied up in a topknot and it looked long and hacked off rather
than properly cared for. Light purple eyes gleamed like a cat's. A smile of anticipation split his lips.

Juhg knew in an instant who he must be. Kimaru confirmed it. “Sokadir,” the young elf breathed.

The goblinkin knew the new arrival, too. His name ran through their ranks. “Sokadir,” they called. “It's Sokadir.”

BOOK: The Quest for the Trilogy: Boneslicer; Seaspray; Deathwhisper

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