Authors: Bruce R. Cordell
Marrec toweled the girl’s hair dry with the hem of his cloak. The child briefly fixed him with her dull gaze. “Ash,” she commented.
Elowen walked back to join him, as did Gunggari. Ususi on her horse was already close. They had an impromptu conference beneath the weepy canopy.
The elf hunter said, “I’ve brought us in just to the south of a human settlement on the forest edge. I think we’re far enough from their loggers,” she sniffed. “Likewise, all the wood elves who inhabit Lethyr are clustered further to the west and south of here, so we’ll likely avoid having to explain our presence to them. Really, it’s a straight shot through the treess”
“How far?” repeated Ususi, a somewhat testy tone to her voice.
“With a clear route and no trouble, it’d be no more than a day’s travel, but of course wending through the trees will slow us. I estimate we’ll reach the Mucklestones tomorrow evening.”
Ususi shook her head and said, “Not soon enough for me. Even one more-night of ‘camping’ is more than I can handle.”
Gunggari grinned at the mage’s words but said nothing. Marrec forbade comment, too, realizing that for the city woman, stone-like skin or not, their trip must have been hard to endure.
“What?” Gunggari snapped, stepping back and looking intently up into the leafy foliage ahead and above them. The Oslander had pulled out his dizheri just as quickly.
The others all reacted with alarm, peering ahead and grabbing up their weapons.
“What’s going on?” demanded Ususi.
Marrec strained his eyes but saw nothing unusual amidst the dripping leaves. It was midmorning, but the light, already filtered by lowering clouds, was further reduced under the trees.
“Gunny, what is it? I don’t see anything.”
“It’s gone now, Marrec,” responded the tattooed warrior, still looking forward intently, “but something was watching ussome sort of ape.”
“There are no apes in Lethyr,” pronounced Elowen.
“It wasn’t exactly an ape,” continued Gunggari. “At first I thought a man’s face was staring at me, but then I saw that gray-white hair covered its twisted limbs, and it had more than just two eyesmany more than I could count in the heartbeat it appeared to me.”
Elowen. frowned.
“Uthraki?” she murmured, almost under her breath.
“What’s an uthraki?” wondered Marrec.
“A nasty beast native to Rashemen. I have never heard of one so far west. They are confined to Rashemen and further eastor they were.”
“Anything we should know about these uthraki?” asked Marrec.
“Yes. They can assume forms other than their own.”
Gunggari narrowed his eyes, and gripped his war club all the tighter.
ŚŠŚŚŠŚ<§>Ś
All variety of trees were contained within Lethyr, Marrec realized: maples, firs, aspens, pines, holly, oaks, tulip-trees, crabapples, and many more that the cleric could not name, despite his familiarity with forests to the west. Of wildlife, they heard and saw many birds, a fox chasing a rabbit, more squirrels than could be numbered, a sleepy owl, and once, far off, the yip of a wolf.
A full day of travel under the dark boughs saw light
give way to nearly complete twilight. The white trunks of the aspen grove through which they currently wended glowed all the paler for the growing dimness of the surrounding pines. The green leaves glimmered and shook in a sudden breeze of colder air. Night was coming on, and the sounds of the forest began to change, as some creatures sought their lairs, and others, stretching, began their nightly rounds. At the urging of the wind, the rustling forest leaves sounded their nightly chorus.
Elowen walked at the head of the group, leading her mount. The elf finally paused and smiled, saying, “Ah ha. I knew there was a waycache around here. Come on, follow me.”
The elf hunter dropped the reigns of her horse, moved along the side of a massive boulder that was butted up against a cliff, then dipped around behind it out of sight.
Marrec shrugged and dismounted. Before hobbling his own horse for the night, he helped down Ususi. Ususi plucked Ash from her pony then moved to follow Elowen, leaving Marrec with the job of grooming, feeding, and hobbling the horses.
“They know the silent art of delegation,” noted Gunggari, as the Oslander helped Marrec take care of all their mounts’ needs.
Marrec grinned but added, “You have to admit, there is something about the mage…”
“My people ask if beauty at a steep price is still beauty, Marrec.”
The unicorn warrior laughed, saying, “Don’t worry, Gunny. I’ve got enough on my plate with just the two women in my life, Lurue and Ash. I don’t want to add a third to the mix.”
Despite his pronouncement, he knew himself well enough to realize the damage had already been done. He found Ususi exotic. Damn.
“What about you, though?” Marrec quizzed his friend. “I notice you have been treating Elowen to far more
stories of your land’ than I’ve heard from your mouth in a year. Something tells me you’re showing off.”
Gunggari cocked his head without responding and finished grooming Henri.
When the two men finished, they passed through the cleft formed by boulder and cliff and found a small hollow cunningly cut into the cliff wall. The space was far larger than Marrec would have supposed from the outside. He guessed he might be able to get the mounts into the space, though that might be pushing it. Elowen had hung her lamp on an overhanging branch, washing everything in dim radiance.
Several cavities, like inset shelves, were cut into the rock of the surrounding boulders. Elowen went through these shelves as Marrec watched, pulling out small leaf wrapped packets. Ususi sat on a small moss-lined boulder, her nose in one of the books she had brought. Ash sat nearby, looking nowhere in particular. On the far side of the waycache, water from a spring spilled into a carved basin, then drained again from one side into a small ravine that slipped back under the earth. Marrec used and even maintained similar caches for travelers in the woods of Cormanthor and even in the High Forest, but he had to admit that the hidden spring was a nice touch.
“I don’t understand,” said Elowen, still going through the contents of the shelves. “This waycache hasn’t been restocked in at least a year by the looks of these.” She gestured to the few leaf-wrapped parcels she had drawn out. The leaves were dried and brown, which Marrec knew spoke volumes about the freshness of whatever was contained within.
Ash stood without prodding, which was unusual, walked over and nudged one of the wrappers. The girl’s nose wrinkled, as if in disgust.
“What is it?” said Marrec, rushing up to his charge.
Losing interest, Ash lapsed back into her normal uncaring stare.
“She must sense the spoilage,” responded Elowen. “We’re stuck with our own rations for a few more nights, it seems. I can’t understand why this cache hasn’t been restocked. Briartan never allows this portion of the wood to go untended.”
Gunggari asked, “How close are we to the Mucklestones from here?”
“Just a few miles,” answered Elowen. “I thought this would be a good place to rest up before plunging ahead. I want us to be rested when we meet the great druid.”
Ususi looked up . She said, “Briartan has the Mucklestones in his charge. The Mucklestones are blocked. I doubt Briartan would have allowed that if he could have stopped it Since he couldn’t stop it, he’s probably…”
Elowen stared at her friend with dawning alarm in her eyes, and Ususi didn’t finish her thread of logic. Marrec was gratified to see that Ususi had empathy enough to spare her friend’s feelings. It gave him hope.
The group bedded down for the night after establishing a watch schedule. Marrec went to his rest, thankful to have avoided first watch, but sleep was too brief. He woke to the relentless black of middle-night at Gunggari’s prodding, whose turn it was to cast off into dreamland. He held back an irritated comment with a real show of will. Where lack of sleep was involved, the cleric knew he was sometimes bitter.
Marrec was on the middle-watch, when by rights all earthly creatures should be snug in their densexcept for the worst sort of creature, which, after all, was why he was awake to guard against them. His eyes roamed the wayeache, picking out each of his fellow travelers wrapped snuggly in their blankets. They’d had a small fire earlier, but Gunggari had let it die down to mere embers. Marrec lit the lamp. Elowen had found a store of lamp oil in one of the storage shelves, more than enough to last through several days of continuous burning should they need it.
The sound of a child crying dimly reached his ears. He stiffened, his eyes immediately shifting to Ash, but the girl slept soundly, her eyes and mouth closed. He could still hear the crying, unmistakably that of small child. Was it his curse to find orphans around every corner? Better check it out, he chided himself.
Before he exited, he shook the tattooed warrior, “Gunny, you awake?”
The Oslander opened one eye and used it to fix him with a baleful stare.
Marrec whispered, “I’m going out to check something. I heard some kid crying out in the. woods, just outside the waycache. Stay alert, I’ll be back in a minute if it’s nothing.”
Gunggari craned his head, listening, but the crying had stopped.
Marrec held the lamp up in one hand, held his spear Justlance in the other, and exited the cozy waycache into the darkness of the forest.
Pausing some feet beyond the large boulder, he scanned to the extent he was able, listening with all his attention. He heard a quiet sob off to the right.
He moved toward the sound, cautious and ready for a trap. What he found was an elven boy of not more than thirteen years, cringing from Marrec’s lamplight, hiding behind a great tree. He was dirty and his clothing was ripped. The boy’s eyes were wide with fear.
“What in Lurue’s great wilderness are you doing here?” asked Marrec.
The boy looked at him, then said something in a language Marrec didn’t know. Elvish, but strangely accented.
Looking around, the cleric couldn’t find any other evidence to explain how an elven boy could be hiding and crying outside the waycache.
“All right, let’s get you back to the others. Elowen will know where you come from, I wager.”
Sheathing his spear, he then held out a hand for the
boy to take. “Come on, I’m not going to hurt you.”
The boy took Marrec’s hand and allowed himself to be lad into the waycache.
The waifs eyes were wide as he took in the group, most still sleeping, except for Gunggari and Elowen. Gunggari must have woken Elowen while Marrec was outside the hollow, he thought. Good, then he didn’t have to be the one…
“What are you doing?” yelled Elowen at Marrec.
As she yelled, she struggled for her weapon, which was snagged in her sleeping furs.
Taken off guard, Marrec stared dumbly. That’s when the elven boy gave voice to a horrible roar and leaped through the air toward Ash.
In a timeless instant, Marrec saw the boy bloat and elongate, his boy-shape melting away to reveal a gray-white hairy apelike thing. Its twisted limbs scrabbled through the air as they unfolded, and a dozen completely black eyes set all the way around its head glared in all directions.
Gunggari, closer to Ash than anyone else, managed to throw himself into the path of the creature, but the creature that smashed into the Oslander was at least four times the mass of a man. It bowled Gunggari over, sending man and dizheri flying.
Gunggari had offered enough distraction for Marrec to react, but he was too far from the beast. Marrec had sheathed his spear, and his goddess-granted spells seemed as distant as ever. He felt an unwelcome heat behind his eyes, as if in answer to his frustration.
Elowen, bringing up her sword, hissed, “An uthraki!”
The uthraki, its path clear, focused its attention on the just-waking Ash. Its eight foot height towered over the child. Marrec’s eyes began to burn. He felt the ache form a searing circuit from the back of his head to his eyes, and…
As if reaching up to pluck a fruit from a tree, Ash
touched the advancing creature. A dim flash … and where once stood the uthraki, there was nothing, save perhaps motes of dust glittering in Marrec’s lamplight.
Silence descended on the hollow, as all eyes fell on little Ash. The girl seemed oblivious to the attention. She settled back into her furs.
Marrec released his pent-up breath, and with it the pain in his head dispersed, just as quickly. His oath remained intact. He gave silent thanks to Lurue, but the girl… what powers did she yet hide? No wonder she was so important to the goddess.
“She has more than just the hands of a healer,” commented Gunggari, saying aloud what all must were thinking.
Ususi, who had woken late but in time to note Ash’s spectacular destruction of the threatening beast, said nothing, but she watched the young girl closely.
Elowen said, “It is odd that the uthraki was so intent on Ash. Usually, they attack those they’ve duped, after they’ve led their intended victim into a secluded spot.”
Marrec realized that Elowen meant that it should have been Marrec who was attacked, while he was outside the hollow. Perhaps she was even rebuking him for falling victim to such a dupe. He felt the urge to defend his choice to investigate the sound of a crying childbut instead, he quietly accepted the blame.
-
The figure stepped forward, entering the stone circle while darkness yet reigned. One of his spies had perished. The spell that linked him to the shapechanger was severed. He cared not for the welfare of the uthrakiit was little more than a beast. It had served its purpose merely in giving warning through its death. Someone approached.
Gameliel woke his thralls. There were preparations
to make, rot to culture, and spells to unsheathe. He wouldn’t allow the newest, most important outpost of the Rotting Man’s empire to fall back into the idle hands of idiot druids. He glanced at the dark shape that still hung impaled on one of the great stones, smirking.
The blightlord felt the weight of the Keystone’s cord around his neck. With it, Gameliel possessed the power of the Mucklestones. There was no place the Rotting Man and his most powerful servants could not penetrate at whim.