by JL Bryan
Chapter Twenty-Three
Aoide, Rhodia, Neus, and Skezg stumbled through a steep, rough, rocky patch in the dark forest. Aoide and Rhodia hopped the boulders, but they had to stay low to avoid tangling their wings in unseen branches and vines overhead.
“You guys,” Skezg whispered. “What is that?”
“Where?” Aoide asked.
“Look up,” the ogre said.
Aoide looked up. A glowing pale mist floated through the thick, thorny foliage above. For a moment, Aoide thought she could see a face looking down at her from inside the mist, and then it vanished.
“Did you see that?” Rhodia whispered. “Was it a ghost?”
“They call it the Hauntlands for a reason,” Neus said.
“I don't like it here,” Skezg said.
“Oh, like you're the only one,” Rhodia said.
“It's cold!” Skezg said. “Did you feel that? Like a cold wind on the back of your neck?”
“Stop it!” Rhodia said.
“Skezg...it's right behind you,” Neus whispered.
“That's not funny,” Skezg whispered back.
“No, he's right.” Aoide pointed to the glowing mist behind Skezg.
“I don't want to see it!” Skezg squeezed his eyes shut. The mist drifted closer and touched the back of his hairy orange head.
Skezg shrieked and ran forward, past all three of them, down the stony trail ahead.
“Wait!” Aoide said. “We don't know what's down there—”
They heard the sound of crashing and tumbling, and then Skezg howling.
“Come on!” Aoide said. Rhodia and Neus followed her as she moved as quickly as she dared downhill along the trail. She tried to restrain herself from running. Something had hurt Skezg, and she didn’t want the same something to hurt her.
Her foot reached out into empty space, and she pinwheeled her arms, trying to keep her balance.
“Stop!” Aoide said. “There's a drop-off—”
Neus collided with her, pushing her over the edge. They fell together out into moonlit emptiness. Aoide spread her wings and tried to fly, but with the weight of the faun on top of her, it was no use.
She crashed into a weedy, rocky cliffside and rolled downhill. Neus grabbed her around the waist and lifted her up, and she opened her eyes. In the moonlight, she could see that they were on a steep slope, with a long way to go. Neus had managed to grab onto the cliff with his hoof-lined feet, and now stood in place, holding her.
“Thanks,” Aoide said.
“This is nothing.” He set her down beside him. “You should see my family's cliff back in the mountains. It’s almost a flat face, very hard to climb. That’s why we call it Mount Flatface.”
“Why are you two goofing off?” Rhodia asked as she flew past them.
“Skezg!” Aoide called down the slope.
“Umph,” Skezg answered from somewhere in the shadowy rocks below.
“Race you,” Neus said, and he took off down the rocky slope. Aoide flew the rest of the way down.
They found Skezg lying among broken rocks and brambles. He was staring at a cracked rock column in front of him.
“Are you all right?” Aoide asked as she and Neus helped him sit up.
“Those are weird pictures.” Skezg pointed to hieroglyphs carved into the column.
Aoide studied them. “Shoot. Does anyone know Really Old Elvish?”
“This is bad luck,” Rhodia said. She studied the inscriptions on a tablet mounted in a pillar of stone. “It says this burial ground is cursed, and anyone who disturbs the dead will waken the spirits and have a generally terrible evening.”
“Burial ground?” Skezg jumped to his feet. “These are tombstones?”
“You can read Really Old Elvish?” Aoide asked Rhodia.
“I took a class in school,” Rhodia said. “Mainly because this guy I liked was taking it. We had a couple of dates.”
“How did that work out?” Aoide asked.
“It didn't,” Rhodia said. “He said I wasn't serious enough about Really Old Elvish. I mean, he was really into it.”
“Does anyone else think we should leave this old graveyard?” Neus asked. “Like now?”
“I'm sure the tablet isn't serious,” Aoide said. “If Rhodia even translated it right.”
“I did!” Rhodia snapped.
A low, menacing growl sounded from the shadows of an old crypt. A pair of glowing silver eyes appeared in the open doorway.
There was a matching growl from shadows on the opposite side of them. A third growl, and another pair of silver eyes, appeared in a deep cave in the slope behind them.
“What do we do now?” Skezg whispered.
“Um...let's run!” Rhodia suggested.
They took off through the graveyard, winding their way down overgrown paths around more large stone grave markers and columns.
The snarls and growls pursued them.
Ahead, a large beast jumped directly in their path—a great wolf, white in the moonlight, glaring at them with silver eyes, its lips curled back from its long ivory fangs.
Another wolf leapt at them from the side. Aoide and Rhodia jumped into the air, fluttering their wings. Skezg squealed and ran the opposite way, where a third white wolf cut off his path. He jumped into the branches of a tree with fruit that looked like skulls.
Neus chased after him, with a wolf snapping at his heels. Skezg grabbed the faun's reaching arm and hauled him up into the tree beside him, while the wolf bit the air just below Neus's feet.
Four wolves surrounded the tree, howling and snarling. Skezg shivered, hugging Neus close.
Aoide and Rhodia landed in the upper branches of the skullfruit tree. They could fly away, but Skezg and Neus were trapped.
Rhodia looked down at the four silver-eyed wolves snarling at the base of the tree.
“What a lucky day for you, Aoide,” Rhodia said. “You wanted to find banshee wolves, right?”
“Are you banshee wolves?” Aoide asked the wolves below. They only growled in return.
“Yep, I think they're going to help us,” Rhodia said.
“I read that you can talk,” Aoide said. “Isn't that true? Can any of you talk?”
The white wolves snarled louder.
“You know what?” Rhodia said. “I think I might quit the band. Being a musician is much too dangerous.”
They watched the four growling monsters claw at the tree trunk, trying to reach them. One of the wolves backed up, threw back its head, and let out a long, wailing howl. One by one, the other three wolves joined in the howl.
“Why's it doing that?” Skezg asked.
“Maybe they’re calling their friends,” Neus whispered.
They heard answering howls in the distance.