The Restless Shore (16 page)

They held her sword down, and she swore at them, screaming a challenge and struggling to free herself.

“Stop it!” Brindani shouted as he shook her once more. She complied, pulling the sticky shadow from her eyes and trying to adjust her vision. A stone wall pressed against her back, smooth and cold, sending a shiver through her legs. A white flash illuminated the opalescent interior of the crevice, and brief rainbows of color swirled on the wall before the dark returned. Uthalion stood at the opening,

slashing at anything that drew near, with Vaasurri close at his shoulder.

“Shaedlings,” the killoren said. “Though I’ve never seen them in such numbers.”

“No use counting them,” Uthalion muttered, straining as he beat back yet another of the shrieking creatures.

Thunder rumbled through the valley again. Buzzing wings drifted away, claws scratched at rocks high above the crevice as the shaedlings continued their whispering conversations, their language unknown and their intentions only guessed at. Uthalion glanced over his shoulder, keeping his sword forward. “Out of the stew pot and into the fire,” he said. “Any suggestions?”

“Bring back the sun,” Brindani said, his dark attempt at humor overshadowed by the haggard tone of his voice.

“Unless the gods owe you a favor, I don’t think it likely that they’ll be delivering another sunny day anytime soon,” Uthalion replied, brushing shadows like fine black dust from his blade that never reached the ground.

“How close are we to the southern end of the Wash?” Ghaelya asked, eager to escape the cramped crevice. A rushing sense of bloodlust still pumped through her body.

“Close enough to see it given enough light,” Uthalion answered. “But far enough to make getting there a steep gamble against mounting odds.”

“We should stack the odds in our favor then,” Brindani muttered from the back of the crevice. His gleaming eyes fixed on Uthalion as the man nodded slowly and sheathed his sword, kneeling in the dirt.

“How?” Ghaelya asked eyeing the human. “Prayer?”

“If it makes you feel better, by all means,” Uthalion replied, rummaging through his pack.

“We’re splitting up,” Brindani explained as he squeezed past her and Vaasurri to stand near the entrance by Uthalion. “Two of us south and two west.”

“Why? So we can die in different places?” she pressed angrily, taking breath to argue more against what seemed a foolish plan. But Vaasurri laid a hand on her arm.

“It’s another fool’s fire,” he explained calmly as Uthalion and Brindani whispered and pointed. “Only this time we may have to burn a couple of fools.”

** *******

Uthalion crept across the valley floor, following close behind the surefooted half-elf. He made a show of pausing and looking around every few strides, careful not to glance up too high, lest the shaedlings think his stealthy approach was anything more than an act. Their cruel fey nature demanded the illusion, drew them along like cats inspecting an injured mouse, watching and waiting until their prey was sure of escape. Brindani would stop at each flash of lightning, rush forward in the following thunder, and hold his hand out, palm up to signal a halt as he pretended to scan the path ahead.

Uthalion hid his grin at the half-elfs exaggerated show, musing that any field captain worth his command would have had them both shot down immediately—and would have made the archers aim carefully, so as not to waste more than two arrows on such buffoons.

Despite all, it seemed that Brindani was doing well, not yet showing the more extreme signs of a silkroot addiction. But Uthalion knew it couldn’t last long. He wondered when Brindani’s other illusion, the one of health, would begin to crack and fall apart. Silkroot was not kind; he’d seen men try to tear out their own innards when the drug became too much for their meager purses to afford. It had seemed to him the worst kind of ignoble death for, what he considered, the least amount of reward.

Passing into the western valley, Brindani paused again, bringing Uthalion up short as he angled their path through

the center of the deep brush on either side. Low trees and bushes waved in the wind, likely hiding dozens of bone-moth swarms waiting patiently for one lucky stroke of lightning to start the fires they thrived on each spring.

In one burst of lightning, Uthalion spied a spot of color just ahead, but darkness claimed the valley before he could identify what it had been. He kept a watch for it to appear again as he patted Brindani on the shoulder, signaling that they could abandon their show and appear comfortable, as if they’d slipped by the watch of the predators on their trail. They ignored the telltale scratch of claw on stone and buzzing whispers as they made their way further from the crevice where Ghaelya and Vaasurri waited.

As lightning arced across the sky again, Uthalion searched curiously for what he’d noticed earlier and caught sight of it—just a step away from Brindani’s boot. Cursing, he threw his shoulder into Brindani’s side, tackling the surprised half-elf to the ground in a cloud of dust. Patting Brindani’s shoulder, Uthalion sat up and crouched over a small clump of yellow flowers with wide, thick petals and stout stems. He hovered just out of reach of the blooms and held the half-elf back, shaking his head and breathing a sigh of relief.

“Wyrmwind,” he whispered, answering the quiet question in Brindani’s eye. “This time of year, it sheds pollen at the slightest contact, a deadly poison to anything that breathes it.”

Adding credence to his observation, he gestured to several thin twigs scattered around the base of the plant and the valley floor where they stood. Bleached a yellow white, the bones of dozens of animals littered the ground, an occasional skull here and there grinning in the flickering light of the storm.

“Don’t disturb the trees, don’t’look at the shaedlings, and now,” Brindani whispered back, “Don’t step on the yellow

flowers. Is there anything here that can’t kill us one way or another?”

“Well,” Uthalion sighed as they stood and circled around the wyrmwinds, keeping an eye out for more of the deadly plants, “If you happen to see a chilled flask of fine wine don’t take any chances… let me deal with it first.”

“Don’t be a hero,” Brindani muttered.

Though Uthalion tried to press farther into the valley, hoping to put as much distance between themselves and the others as possible, he could no longer deny the growing mass of shadowed forms trailing behind them. He’d glanced casually a few times, appearing not to notice the white eyes and long claws in the brief flashes of lightning, prowling closer and ready to pounce. Eyeing the edge of the long valley, he cleared his throat. Brindani caught the signal quickly and kneeled to prepare for the next step.

Uthalion knelt as well, drawing a handful of long sticks from the top of his boot and a bundle of thick, sweet smelling grass from his belt. Large wings fluttered closer, landing lightly atop the curving valley walls. Claws scrabbled nearer over the rocks, scraping at insectlike hides as the dark fey fought for position. As Uthalion quickly wove grass and sticks together, Brindani carefully strung the longbow he’d used as a walking stick and swung a quiver of arrows around from beneath his cloak.

“When this starts, if you see a chance to escape,” Brindani said quietly, “Take it. Leave me.”

“Now who’s being a hero?” Uthalion said as he carefully bent his green wooded sticks together, overlapping them to create a roughly spherical shape.

“I’m serious.”

“And I am ignoring you until we both get out of here,” Uthalion replied as thunder cracked loudly overhead, causing a chorus of buzzing whispers that drew closer with each step. His fingertips tingled slightly with a burning sensation

as sap and damp grass mingled in his hands. “Do you see a good spot?”

After a moment of hesitation, Brindani exhaled in frustration and scanned the area slowly, looking up to the narrowed opening at the valley’s edge. He nodded and drew a single arrow. Uthalion had gathered a handful of the small bones along the valley floor, and he placed them carefully inside the crude basket-lantern of grass and sticks. He nodded back to the half-elf with a held breath.

“Ready your bow,” he said.

Brindani stood, took aim, and loosed the shaft all in one fluid motion. As the arrow thunked solidly into the low hanging branch of a tree bent over the edge of the valley, Uthalion was briefly grateful for the influence of the silkroot still in Brindani’s system, though he knew he’d regret the feeling in a few hours. A long, thin length of twine, soaked in water, hung from the arrow, and he swiftly tied the end to the basket as the shaedlings rose into the air, sensing the end of their game.

Uthalion drew his sword and backed away, his eyes widening at the multitude of shadowy figures rising against the stormy backdrop of the sky. Lightning crashed, and thunder growled through the valleys, shaking the ground as the wind howled and whistled through the Wash. Brindani drew another arrow and sparked his flint to the cloth-wrapped end of its shaft.

Buzzing shadows droned toward them, shrieking what sounded like a feigned dismay at finding their prey unsurprised.

“Don’t look,” Uthalion warned as Brindani strung the arrow and aimed.

Shaedlings dived from the sky, spears of shadow coalescing into their hands as their white eyes glinted with the thrill of the hunt’s end. Brindani’s arrow streaked toward the lantern, and Uthalion shielded his eyes, lowering his

sword and turning as the fire met the basket and flared into a brilliant, blinding white light. Pained shrieks tore at his ears as the dark fey recoiled from the radiance, their lost spears clattering to the ground and disappearing in smoky puffs.

Uthalion smiled at the pained sound of the blinded shaedlings, and clapped Brindani on the shoulder as they made for the darkness at the valley’s edge.

The lantern, a fey weapon that Vaasurri called a sugar-star, would burn for several breaths, and time was short. As Uthalion strode forward, gingerly opening his eyes, he turned toward the southern branch of valley. He stopped short for a heartbeat, his eyes widening as Brindani ran past him. His stride faltered, and he stumbled into the shadow beyond the already dying light of the blazing basket as he surveyed the horror that had lain hidden in the darkness behind them.

The floor of the north end of the valley, illuminated by the lantern, shivered and swayed. A rippling mass of yellow flowers shook ominously in the strengthening wind of the storm.

“Mystra’s bones,” he swore and turned to run. The first drops of a long-held rain splashed on his cheek and roughly disturbed the deadly yellow petals of the wyrmwinds.

9 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

The Akana, the Wash, Akanul

Heavy drops of rain splashed over Ghaelya’s skin, each one tingling as they ran along the glowing maze of patterns across her body. They were a soothing balm to her spirit, but only fed the tempest of rage in her heart. She pulled herself over the edge of a wide island of green, and saw the jagged valleys of the Wash, the stilled and silent tide, laid out at her feet. Whiplike trees stood as sentinels to the darkness beyond the Wash, their sharp thorns twisting and swaying at the end of long tentacle branches.

Lightning rippled through the sky, spreading far to the south. It was a storm beyond any she’d ever witnessed in Airspur, dark waters drifting like an airborne ocean through the night.- Water and lightning mingled, calling to the element in

her spirit and summoning her to join them in the unstoppable flood of nature’s wrath.

Vaasurri knelt nearby, stringing his bow as Ghaelya paced along the border of the cliff, staring daggers into the dark depths they’d crawled from in silence.

“I do not enjoy being sheltered like this,” she said through clenched teeth.

“You would risk your life needlessly?” the killoren asked.

“It’s what I’m best at… Well, according to my family at least,” she replied.

“And what of your sister?” Vaasurri pressed, standing. A touch of anger in his voice gave her pause. “I was led to believe that she was the reason for this little journey. How will she fare if you are dead, I wonder?”

“I—I didn’t…” she stammered, taken aback by the killoren’s sudden anger.

“You didn’t think,” he said simply, though his black eyes seemed to say much more as they bored into her. “Yes, I understand lack of thought. It seems to be a common curse of late.”

His eyes shifted to the skies over the Wash as he adjusted the quiver on his shoulder, nodding as dark shapes rose against the backdrop of the storm and the buzz of their dragonfly wings drew closer. A flash of brilliant light, a brief and dying sunrise, flared to life in the distance, scattering dozens of the dark fey across the valleys, their shrieks echoing through the wind and the thunder.

“Now perhaps you’ll get the fight you desire,” Vaasurri said, his words stabbing at her even as her bloodlust returned to a quick boil. “I would say fight for your life, but perhaps you should concentrate more on your sister’s life.”

” “Tess,” she whispered, the name escaping her lips on a held breath as the shaedlings drew near. A shaft of pure shadow, long and sharp, streaked toward her, silhouetted

against the flash of yellow-white cloud lightning. She -loosened her legs, letting the fluid motion roll through her body, bending like grass in the wind as she rolled out of the spear’s path But it was not the inexorable crawl of the tide that gave motion to her instincts. Deep waters did not surge to draw the dagger from her boot or take aim on the black figure diving toward her.

Something older took her spirit in its warm embrace.

Her sister’s soft red eyes rose to the forefront of her mind’s eye, heating her soul with a flickering tongue of flame. Her arm hurled the blade burning through the air to blaze into the shaedling’s chest. Its shriek of pain and shock fueled a hot spark within her that she hadn’t felt since childhood, bringing a phantom scent of smoke that seemed to steam beneath her skin.

The spark cooled slightly as the rain grew heavy, as the twitching body of the dark fey plummeted back into the Wash, but the familiar flame warmed her hands. It throbbed as a living thing in her heart, her element twin waiting and ready to direct her, an unsheathed sword to cut down the descending black wings and reduce her foes to ash.