by GARY DARBY
“That,” Alonya nods, “and several others, such as the Colosseun Barrier Way are an easier, quicker path.”
She takes in a breath, and there is a tinge of bitterness in her voice. “Or, use the sea route across Dronopolis before turning northward.”
Frowning, she goes on. “No, our strongholds are set deep against mountains too high for dragons to pass over from here. The only other passes that they would have to take to reach them are much, much farther north.”
No one speaks for several moments, each remembering the devastation of Dronopolis under the Wilder horde’s onslaught.
Cara breaks the silence by asking, “So, it’s possible those are the ones alerted to our presence here and they think we’ve headed north?”
She swings her head to where Phigby kneels next to me. “Do we dare go on? There may be others following them.”
“That there are others, we can be sure of,” Phigby replies. “The question is whether from this point on, dare we travel by day, or would it be best to journey by night?”
The Wilders disappear from our view and we all stand. Alonya gestures down the trail to where it curves around a hill’s jutting shoulder. “This is where the vale turns southward and leads us to the Woesome Woods.”
“Woesome Woods,” I mutter. “Sounds too much like the forest around Logath’s Cave.”
Alonya nods in response. “The woods are a northern arm of those same tree stands.”
Raising a hand to gesture at where the Wilder flight disappeared, she says, “If there is anything good to say about it, it is that the woodland trees are thick enough that it will be hard for anyone to see us from above.”
She pauses and her voice turns grim. “But it is not a place that I would care to be at night. I have traveled there only once, and that was in full daylight. Even then, I moved as fast as my legs could carry me.”
“Forgive my impudence,” Amil asks with a puzzled frown, “but what did you see that would cause a Golian Amazos to be so fearful?”
Alonya shakes her head in answer. “It wasn’t so much seeing as feeling. Shadows where shadows shouldn’t be, without shape—without form. The rustling of tree leaves when there wasn’t any wind. Voices when there wasn’t anyone to speak.”
“More Jallhugr?” Cara questions Phigby with a catch in her voice.
“No,” Phigby states. “Alonya said she crossed it during the day. Remember those foul things can’t stand the daylight and stay in the mountains. No, I’m afraid that Alonya’s whispers were made by something else. But what, is the question.”
We glance at each other, and I’m glad to see that I’m not the only one who doesn’t like the sound of Woesome Woods.
“Can we cross it in one day?” Helmar asks.
Alonya nods and settles her scabbard tighter around her waist. “If our pace is swift, nothing impedes our progress and we do not stop, then yes, we should be able to do so.”
Amil bounces the shaft of his ax in his hands. “From the sounds of it, I’ll make sure that nothing impedes us. On top of that, I’ll make sure no one gets in our way, either.”
Everyone stares at Amil with furrowed brows before Helmar, with a puzzled shake of his head, asks, “And once past the woods?”
“We strike the Wolven Floden,” Alonya answers, “and follow it downstream.”
“To where it joins the River Lorell,” Phigby states.
Amil gestures down the valley. “Is there anything farther on that might shelter us and keep us hidden from those above?”
“Nothing that I remember from my one journey through here,” Alonya responds.
“So . . .” Cara lets out in a long breath, “we have the choice to go on and risk being seen by Wilders or we stop here and wait for nightfall before continuing.”
“Whatever we do,” Amil rumbles in his deep bass voice, “my vote is that we pass through those woods during daylight. I prefer being able to see what my ax chops down than swinging at shadows in the night.”
I glance over at the golden. Her ears are up as if she’s listening, but her eyes are closed. A clear signal that this is our choice to make.
Phigby glances over at me with a questioning expression. I dig my toe into the thin soil, unable to bring to my mind a clear decision.
I sense in the golden an urgency that we continue our journey as fast as possible, but at the same time, we shouldn’t be hasty in our judgement.
Digging my toe a little deeper, I urge in a quiet voice, “I think that we need to move as swiftly as possible but—”
Before I can finish, Alonya cries out, “Get down, everyone!”
I dive next to the golden and lift my head just off the ground. “What is it?”
“Another flight of Wilders,” Alonya answers.
“Well, Master Hooper,” Amil growls, “you may want us to hurry along, but it would seem that the Wilders have a different schedule for us to keep.”
Raising my head, I catch a glint of crimson as several more Wilder reds wing over the lower mountains headed in the same direction as the first flight.
“I would say,” Phigby observes, “that this latest sighting makes our decision for us. They think we’ve headed north and are searching the other valleys for us. It won’t be long before they discover we haven’t and turn their eyes southward.”
He glances around before asking, “Alonya, is there anything nearby that’s better suited for concealment while we wait for nightfall? Especially to hide the dragons?”
Alonya waits a few moments to make sure the Wilders have passed on before standing and surveying the immediate area. She points behind and to the left, closer to the little mountain’s flank. “We can use that small jumble of rocks. Set the dragons among them, make it look like a bigger pile of boulders.”
“All right, everyone,” Phigby orders, “head for the rocks and get comfortable. We have a bit to wait until sunset and nightfall.”
We hurry back up the trail a short distance to where numerous blocklike boulders lie tumbled about at the mount’s base. We place the golden in the darkest spot, and behind the biggest rock we can find.
Cara and Helmar settle the two sapphires among the remaining rocks. To me, none of the dragons even comes close to resembling a boulder—after all, even oversized stones don’t have horns, wings, or long tails.
The hope, of course, is that from a distance, the Wilders will mistake them for big, spiked rocks.
Each of us takes just a small bite of our remaining Golian trail ration, being cautious in using what little food we have, realizing that we do not know when we’ll have the chance to replenish our supplies.
I share my much-less-than-a mouthful with Scamper, but, of course, it’s not enough to satisfy his never-ending appetite, and he’s off to scavenge the countryside.
The sprogs screep in protest that they’re not allowed to accompany him, but I’m not about to let them roam, especially if we must leave in a hurry. I leave the sprites alone as they seem content enough on Golden Wind’s back.
The dusk deepens until the shadows blend together, and the valley turns dark. Soon, Night’s Curtain is pulled overhead, and the first stars start to twinkle.
Glancing across the dale, and not seeing any Wilders, I turn to ask Phigby if it’s time to go, only to find him staring at where there’s a soft glow from the rising moons.
His stare is so intense, so rapt, that I mumble, “Phigby? You’re staring as if you’ve never seen the moons before.”
He motions toward where the orbs are topping the nearby ridgeline. “Not like that, I haven’t.”
I gaze upward at where he’s pointing, and my jaw drops.
The moons are just over the ridge’s crest, and Phigby and I aren’t the only ones staring. Even Golden Wind has her head turned and her eyes locked on the four moons.
With good reason.
Vay’s moon, once dark from rim to rim, now has a tiny silver halo around its edge. While its center is still dark and forbidding, the o
rb’s border shines ever so slightly.
The three bright moons, Osa, Eskar, and Nadia, now have ebony circles around their edges that dim their luster.
“What—” I begin, but then Phigby intones low,
From the night, a silvery light
Three to darken, one to bright
To all the world that they shall see
All the world comes on bended knee
Some will run, some will haste
None can flee, for this is fate
For from the night, light will glow
For all the world, for them to know
Now swings open, so wide the gate
Spews forth her power, her might, her hate
Each to bow, each to obey
Each to live under the hand of Vay
Cara, listening to Phigby, says with a swallow, “That bodes evil, Phigby.”
She gestures up to the moons. “Those rings, one bright around Vay, a dark one around the other moons. What does it mean?”
Phigby hangs his head down for a moment before answering, “It means, that Vay’s power is growing day by day, and our task becomes even harder than before.”
He glances upward again, and his sigh is long and grim. “And more perilous than anyone can imagine.”
17
Cara and I exchange quick, sober glances before Cara flicks her eyes toward Phigby. “Thank you, Phigby, that was certainly reassuring.” Her voice sounds less than comforted, however, and matches how I feel.
“Yes, well,” Phigby returns, “No one ever said it was going to be easy, did they?”
Laying a hand on my shoulder, he gives it a gentle squeeze. “But isn’t that why all of us are here? To do, no matter how hard it is? And if we don’t do, then why are we here?”
He gives my shoulder a little pat and proposes to everyone, “I suggest that we wait a bit longer, just to be on the safe side, and rest while we can.”
“A good idea,” Amil mumbles.
Each of us settles into whatever comfortable spot we can find while Alonya takes up a watchful eye.
With the evil omen riding high overhead, and Phigby’s foreboding chant, I find it a little comforting to be resting beside a golden dragon and watched over by a brave, giant Amazos warrior.
I don’t remember falling into a fitful sleep, but a short time later, Phigby is shaking me awake. “We’re leaving, Hooper, time to get up.”
Pushing myself up from my bed of thin grass, I peer around. The valley is blanketed in moonlight, though there are splotches of darkness here and there marking dense foliage.
The stars are in full, dazzling array, as if a thick swarm of fireflies spread themselves across the sky, while the four moons sail high above the horizon. The night is quiet except for the rustling of clothing and armaments as we get ready for the march. The dragons, sensing that we are leaving, rise to their feet.
Golden Wind scrapes against a nearby rock, her scales making a raspy sound that breaks the stillness. Scamper comes bouncing out of a clump of thin bushes and darts up Golden Wind’s leg to her carapace.
As he does, the sprogs jump and jostle in their saddlebags and greet him with a chorus of screeps, like chicks in a nest demanding to be fed by a mother bird. Scamper ignores them and begins to groom his front paws.
Alonya approaches out of the gloom. “It’s been a good while since the last Wilder troop flew past. I believe we can resume our march though we must remain vigilant.”
“How many have gone past?” I query.
“Two troops, that I saw,” she answers, “each with three or four dragons.”
“And two while I watched as Alonya slept,” Helmar adds, “with the same number and all headed north.”
“With that many,” Alonya contends, “it won’t take them more than a day or so to search the nearby valleys as they must know we couldn’t have gone that far.”
“Aye,” Amil rumbles, “and it’s the proverbial good news, bad news. Good that they’re going the opposite way that we are, bad in that it won’t take them too long to turn around and search in our direction.”
“True,” Phigby adds, “and don’t forget that pack of trolls and ogres. They may still lurk behind us.”
“If they do,” Alonya answers while pointing to the knob of a nearby hill, “I could not see them from up there, and it was an easy line to see a good distance up the valley.”
“Do you think we’ve lost them?” I ask in a hopeful voice.
Alonya shakes her head. “I think not, but why they haven’t closed the distance is a strange thing in my mind.”
“Empty bellies do not make for fast feet,” Phigby notes.
Alonya nods. “Yes, it could be that they’ve turned aside to hunt before pursuing us, though if they have, they will find lean pickings here. It could take them days before they find enough to fill their bloated pig bellies.”
“Then their misfortune is our good fortune,” Phigby smiles, as he holds up the last of his trail ration. “Look at what we have to sup on and not worry about foraging in these barren lands.”
With that, he turns away to gather up his bag, a sign to us that the time for talking is done and the time for marching has come.
A short time later, Alonya leads us down the trail. It’s not long before we follow the hills’ rounding and turn southward.
For some reason, turning south causes my spirits to rise, even though I know we are still in great danger. I lean over and whisper to Golden Wind, “Do you know why those Wilders headed north? Are they searching for us?”
She doesn’t answer right away but then murmurs, “There are a few things that are given for me to see, Hooper, and many that aren’t. This is one of those.”
After a pause, she adds, “Be grateful that they head one way and we the other.”
“Don’t worry,” I reply, “my gratitude floweth over more than you know.”
No Wilders appear during our trek through the widening valley, and the moons are well past their high point when the ground finally begins to grow level, and it’s obvious that we are coming out of the Denalian Mountain’s foothills.
Thin, white-trunked trees, like the ones we passed through on our climb to South Pass appear in small groves along with fields of knee-high meadow grass.
Cara slows Wind Song’s plodding so that she and Phigby come abreast of Golden Wind and me. I motion to the birchen-like trees as I peer over at Cara and Phigby. “It’s good to see something familiar, for a change.”
“Yes,” Cara answers low, “but if I were to see something familiar, it would be the birchen and spruce trees surrounding Draconton.”
Phigby and I exchange a glance, both of us noting the sad tone in Cara’s response. I miss little of Draconstead or Draconton, but for Cara, it was home, and life and all of it’s now gone.
I’ve been an orphan for most of my days, she but a few days, and I can’t help but feel that her loneliness must penetrate deep into her heart.
“Someday, dear Cara,” Phigby answers, “you shall return and see the home that you love.”
“I would like that, Phigby,” Cara sighs, the yearning in her voice apparent. “I truly would. I want to go back and rebuild all of it, just the way father—”
Her voice chokes up, and she can’t continue. Phigby’s reassuring touch on her shoulder is gentle. “I know child, I know,” he says, “and someday, you shall.”
My eyebrows furrow together. Phigby stated that only Cara would return. What about the rest of us?
I can’t help but think that the golden seems to be able to see things that we can’t, and Alonya has Queen Sight. Does Phigby have some power that lets him see the future, or, at least a glimpse of what it may portend?
We crest a small, grassy knoll and Alonya calls a halt. She gestures ahead to a dark line that stretches out in front of us. “Woesome Woods. There’s no water or shelter until we get into the forest. We can either camp near the hills and wait for morning, or go on until we reach the creek.”
No one speaks until Helmar observes, “The dragons thirst, that tiny stream in the mountains barely gave them enough to get by. How far into the woods do we have to go to find water?”
Alonya leans on her bow and peers at the murky woods ahead. “Half a league, perhaps a bit less.”
Phigby glances over his shoulder at the last line of low knolls, barely taller than the birthing barn and smooth with only a few shrubs and grass as covering. “We cannot have the dragons pretend they’re boulders against those, it’s much too exposed.”
“Yes,” Cara agrees, “if a flight of Wilders even passes close, they’ll spot us for sure.”
“But we haven’t seen any for a good while,” Amil observes.
“That doesn’t mean we’ve seen the last,” Helmar declares, “and I agree with Phigby and Cara. We’d be caught out in the open, here.”
He doesn’t describe what would come next if we were as we all know the answer. I scrunch my forehead up as I peer at the ebony swath that marks the tree line.
What if we meet up with Alonya’s shadows who aren’t shadows and who move through the trees making the leaves rustle with their passing?
And if we must flee? Run for our lives from the unseen terror that may lurk in those sinister woodlands?
It would take me all morning to walk a half league, whereas a dragon can do that in the time it would take me to pace off a hundred steps.
Helmar may have had the same thought for he muses, “A half-league, that is not so far.”
“For a dragon,” I mutter under my breath.
“Helmar is right,” Cara affirms. “I can feel Wind Song lagging, and it’s because she thirsts. I think we should chance it for their sakes. Besides, daylight exposes us to the Wilders, especially here where there’s no cover whatsoever. There, at least, we have the trees overhead.”
“If we hadn’t seen those Wilders,” Phigby says, “and based on what Alonya experienced, I would caution against our entering the woods at night and instead wait for daylight. However, with the Wilders so close, I have to agree, this is too precarious a spot to wait for first light.”