by Martha Carr
“Yes.” Mattie interlaced her fingers again. “Sounds like people are forced to do a lot of things they couldn’t have imagined beforehand. That’s where your trials come into play in all this.”
Cheyenne stared at her former mentor and forced herself not to bombard the woman with every question racing through her mind. Finally we’re getting somewhere. “It’s only been about a week, but it feels like I’ve been waiting forever for someone to spell it out for me.”
“Well, today must be your lucky day, kid.” Mattie dipped her head in wry acknowledgment. “At least in that regard. Clearly, you know about the prophecies surrounding L’zar Verdys.”
“Yeah. All his dead kids.” And my dreams that made me think he killed them.
“You know, I love that you’re just as much a fan of euphemisms as I am.” The Nightstalker snorted. “That drow has spent an ungodly amount of time trying to find a loophole through those prophecies, Cheyenne. Honestly, those of us who knew him were ready to toss him across the Border just to get him to shut up about it. Drove us nuts. And he caused more than his fair share of trouble in Ambar’ogúl during his mad search.”
“His other kids…” The halfling didn’t quite know how to phrase this next part without making it sound like she wanted to be his special prophetic-loophole child. “Were they like me?”
“You mean, were they halflings?” Mattie shrugged. “Some of them had to be, no doubt. Most of them were not. That’s the nature of prophecies, isn’t it? They rarely tell you everything you need to know and almost always leave out the most important bits. L’zar Verdys left a trail of mini L’zar’s on both sides of the Border. If he thinks you’re the one to take up his mantle, kid, I’m damn inclined to agree with him.”
“That’s why the Crown wants to find me, isn’t it? Why they cut down all the Nimlothar trees and only kept the one. So the Crown has to oversee all the drow trials if anyone wants to complete them. Because she’s looking for L’zar’s kid.”
Mattie’s eyes blazed in their intensity as she stared at Cheyenne, all traces of her humor gone. “Only one Nimlothar?”
“That’s what Corian told me.”
“Ha! And Corian crosses back and forth to check in on the status of things, does he?”
“I don’t think so.” Cheyenne shook her head. “He said something about getting messages from the other side. However that works.”
“I see.” The Nightstalker woman’s gaze darted about the inside of the car. “Well, yes. I’d say the soulless hag wearing the Crown has ordered all that just to find you.”
“Because L’zar wants me to take up his mantle.”
“I see the wheels turning again, kid.” Mattie’s soft, knowing smile returned. “Keep going.”
“With what? I don’t even know the guy. As far as I’m concerned, he’s a nutjob who broke out of prison to knock up my mom before turning himself in again to serve the rest of his meaningless sentence playing mind games.”
Mattie barked out a sharp laugh. “That’s an excellent assessment.”
“Well, thanks, but I still don’t know why the Crown gives a shit about one crazy drow’s kid.”
“Oh, I think you do. Just give it a shot, huh?”
The halfling stared at her former professor with a deadpan expression.
“Come on, Cheyenne. L’zar’s best friends are a Nightstalker expat doing who knows what beyond guiding you through the trials, and a discolored troll who built a system to track magical activity on this side as he shoves a foot-long sub in his mouth. And somehow, the way this crazy world works, they all know me.”
Cheyenne squinted at the former General Maleshi Hi’et and knew she would have felt the heat rising at the base of her spine if she weren’t wearing the damn pendant. “L’zar’s part of the rebellion.”
A Nightstalker’s slow, predatory grin bloomed across Mattie’s face, her green eyes flashing with pride and excitement and a terrible power even through her illusion charm. “That’s one way of putting it.”
Chapter Seventy-Eight
“Well, it’s either that, or he’s leading it.” Cheyenne folded her arms. “Or L’zar Verdys did something irreversibly stupid just to piss off the Crown, and now she’s coming for his first kid who doesn’t drop dead the moment he meets them.”
“Hmm.” Mattie tapped a finger on her lips. “The fourth option is that it’s all three of those put together. I’d go with that one.”
“This crazy drow running the entire magical world is hunting me down because she hates L’zar and wants to make this personal.” The halfling snorted. “That sounds like a lot to squeeze into one explanation.”
“Well, drow are notorious for their ability to complicate things. And it’s always personal when someone’s trying to overthrow the monarchy, isn’t it? At least for the monarch.”
“This is insane.”
“Yes. This is the world you were born into, Cheyenne. Not logistically, of course, but L’zar’s Verdys’ blood runs through your veins, and there’s no way to get it out. You said it yourself. He’s a nutjob.”
“I’m not.”
“Oh, come on.” Mattie’s teasing had picked back up again to its usual degree of barely tolerable. “There’s a little crazy in you. I’ll be the first to admit I’m not immune to a bout of insanity from time to time. We are who we are, kid. And you are L’zar’s kid, who defied some Oracle’s omniscient prophecy. Honestly, that might have more to do with you than anything your father’s done so far.”
Cheyenne clenched her fists at her sides and glared at the Nightstalker woman. Cool it, Cheyenne. She’s telling you the truth. That’s what you wanted. “He hasn’t done anything.”
“That’s precisely the point.” Mattie laughed and shook her head, her long, wavy black hair rustling between her shirt and the back of the seat. “Once you complete the drow trials, which I have no doubt you will, a whole new world will open up in front of you.”
“I’ve heard that one before too. This is what Corian couldn’t tell me, isn’t it? That L’zar’s leading a rebellion against the Crown, and I’m supposed to be the one who helps him take over.”
“I can’t say what Corian hasn’t told you.” Mattie shrugged. “But it seems you’ve already got that figured out. Though I do have to ask, why wouldn’t that walking furball tell you any of this? It’s not exactly a secret, on either side of the Border.”
“Yeah, I gathered that much.” Cheyenne shook her head with a wry chuckle. “He told me he’d made a promise not to tell me who L’zar was—or is, I guess—in Ambar’ogúl before I completed the trials. And a promise not to go into politics or talk about the Crown, either.”
Mattie squinted. “Are those two promises, or just one?”
“Does it matter?”
They smirked at each other. “Not in the slightest.”
“It drove me nuts at first.” The halfling ran a hand through her black hair and shrugged. “But I know about making promises and what it means to keep them. Or break them. I’ve been putting together the pieces on my own.”
“And let me say, you’re doing a damn fine job of it so far.”
“Well, I’ll be doing a lot better when I pass the trials and figure out how to keep those idiot bull’s-head loyalists from popping out at me everywhere I go and blowing up my stuff.”
The Nightstalker woman cleared her throat. “I heard ‘blowing up your stuff.’ Not another euphemism?”
“Nope. That’s how I got the Panamera.”
Mattie threw her head back for one of her belly laughs. “I’d love a sit-down with your insurance agent.”
“My insurance didn’t get me a Porsche after my Ford was bombed by an O’gúl loyalist, so…”
“Right. And you have other ways of grabbing yourself a brand new Porsche.”
“Sounds about right.” Cheyenne playfully rolled her eyes and glanced out the window.
“Look at that.” Mattie nodded at Persh’al, Corian, and the goblins—all of the
m with human illusion charms but unmistakable just the same—stepping out of the convenience store with plastic bags in hand. “Just in time, I guess. I have one more question for you, Cheyenne.”
The halfling turned and met her friend’s gaze. “Yeah.”
“How did Corian react when you told him you knew me?”
Cheyenne couldn’t hold back a laugh of surprise. “I asked him if he’d heard the name Maleshi. That’s all I had. And he, uh… Well, he might’ve lost it a little. Told me not to throw that name around, and it had nothing to do with him training me or whatever.”
“Fair enough.”
“We dropped it until I showed him your spellbook.”
Mattie coughed and shot a wary glance out the windshield as the rest of their group approached the SUV. “You showed him?”
The halfling grinned. “Believe it or not, Mattie, I found one Nightstalker who was more than happy to tell me about the drow legacy box, train me with it, and teach me how to cast new spells. Admittedly, you’re a lot easier to get along with.”
“Ha. I’m also a lot harder to punch in the face.”
“I’m starting to pick up on that.”
Mattie shrugged and opened the door so they could get out for the other magicals joining them. “Maybe I got a little sloppy just handing out the spellbook without any warnings. Never occurred to me who else might see it. Just out of practice.”
Cheyenne hopped out after Mattie and leaned against the side of the car as Persh’al opened the driver’s side door.
The Nightstalker woman leaned toward the drow halfling and muttered, “Wait ‘til you see me in action.” With a wink, she opened the front passenger side door and slipped into it before Corian rounded the front of the car.
He glanced through the passenger window, then raised an eyebrow at Cheyenne. “You two have a nice chat?”
“Yeah. I think we’re all caught up now.” She pulled the lever to bend the middle seat forward and stepped aside for the goblins. He won’t ask. As long as he’s not the one telling me, he’s not breaking his promise.
“You guys gonna stand there all day while a portal explodes, or you gonna get in the car?” Byrd thumped back against the back seat and chuckled. “Next time I get out of this car, I’m not getting back in.”
“Oh, so you’re gonna walk back, then?” Lumil snorted and strapped on her seatbelt. “’Cause no one’s opening a portal for you to jump on home when we’re done.”
“Shit.”
Cheyenne lifted the back of the seat again and slid all the way over to sit behind Persh’al. Watching her with narrowed eyes, Corian got in last and closed the door. “Let’s go.”
* * *
When they pulled off at the same section of dirt road of Green Ridge State Forest in Maryland, Persh’al grunted and peered into the woods on the other side. “Here’s to not having a repeat battle, huh?”
“Even if we did, it’s a first for me.” Mattie opened her door and swiftly got out of the passenger seat. As soon as the others had filed out of the SUV, Corian nodded across the road, and they took off in renewed silence for their half-mile hike through the thick woods.
After about five minutes, Cheyenne paused. “Wait.”
The entire party stopped where they were and turned to her, waiting for her to explain the command. At least I don’t have to fight for their attention. The halfling pushed down a little squirm of discomfort under so many gazes and focused on what had made her stop. “Something’s different.”
Corian raised his eyebrows and gazed around the forest. “Like what?”
Cheyenne closed her eyes and forced her breath into a calm, slow rhythm. Heart of Midnight has nothing on drow hearing. “Voices,” she muttered. “Maybe a dozen? Hard to tell from here, but we’re not alone.”
“Man, I love watching drow do their thing.” Byrd smirked and eyed the halfling. “Miss having one around, too.”
“Go dark,” Corian muttered. “If a dozen people are out there making that much noise, they’re not watching as closely as they should be.”
A round of spells circled the group until only Cheyenne and Mattie were still visible. Cheyenne glanced at the Nightstalker woman, who smirked and gestured with her own invisibility spell. “Maybe we’ll work on this one later, huh?”
“I’m down.” The minute the words left the halfling’s lips, she and the former general disappeared from view.
“Let’s move,” Corian said directly in front of her. “For now, we’re here to watch.”
“I’ll make that call when we get there, vae shra’ni.” Mattie’s low voice carried a hint of her former command. The group took off again through the trees toward the clearing and the new Border portal.
Cheyenne listened intently as she stepped through the thick undergrowth without a sound. Looking down and not being able to see herself made her dizzy, so she kept her gaze focused as far ahead of her as she could. She heard light footsteps on her left and her right, though it only sounded like three pairs. At least half of us know how to be silent.
The closer they got to the clearing, the louder the dozen or so voices became—shouted commands, grunting quips, a lot of shuffling and sliding and heavy objects clinking together. Every minute or two, a soft pop rose above the growing voices. Definitely more than a dozen now.
Then the halfling and her O’gúleesh friends were at the tree line. A faint glimmer of silver light flashed in the air behind the closest tree—a disembodied silver fist lifting, signaling the invisible party to stop.
Cheyenne moved to the right and stopped behind another tree at the edge of the clearing to take a closer look. Most of the black, glinting carapaces from the swarm of beetle-things had been cleared aside, though some parts still lay scattered here and there. A thin tentacle remained where Corian had severed it at the edge of the portal ridge and the jutting fists of black stone. The spires Cheyenne had pulled down still lay over the widest crevasse within the portal ridge, but it seemed the focus of the portal had moved farther down, to where the destruction hadn’t touched. The high wall of dark, shimmering light was still there too.
“Little more than a dozen, huh?” Mattie whispered.
“I can’t hear everything,” the halfling whispered back.
At least three dozen magicals milled around the clearing, handling huge crates of black metal. Most of the crates had been arranged into stacks of three or four, differentiated only by the color of their handles—red, white, or silver. All of them had the bull’s-head shape stamped on the side in white paint.
Another soft pop filled the clearing, and a huge, roaring ogre staggered out from between the black stone pillars. He waved his arms in front of him, batting at something around his face that wasn’t there.
“Got another one,” someone shouted.
“Hey, that’s Kilresh!”
A hulking magical wearing a black military jacket with a silver bull’s head on the back pointed at the disoriented ogre and barked, “Someone better get that ogre in line before he smashes any more supplies.”
Cheyenne’s eyes grew wide when she saw the gray hand streaked with red extending from the sleeve of the military jacket. The pointed finger ended in a long red claw. Great. They have a raug giving orders.
She caught the almost inaudible crunch of dry leaves beside her just before Corian stopped between Mattie and the halfling without bumping into either of them. “Maybe we didn’t need you after all, general.”
Mattie let out a soft hiss. “The only thing this proves is that someone’s taking advantage of the situation.”
“Obviously. And the Crown’s behind this one.”
“Behind the supply shipments and the new legion of peons, yeah. I came here to find out who’s behind the new portal.”
“Maleshi, wait!”
There was a short scuffle and kicked up leaves before one of the Nightstalkers hissed.
“Get your hand off me,” Mattie whispered fiercely. Then she stepped out into the clearing
. The air wavered around her figure, and then Maleshi Hi’et the Nightstalker stormed across the open grass toward the unsuspecting magicals sent across the Border by the Crown.
Corian appeared right beside Cheyenne, his fingers working quickly to drop her invisibility charm as Persh’al and the goblins did the same with theirs.
Byrd leaned forward to catch the Nightstalker man’s gaze. “What the hell’s she doing?”
“Whatever she wants, apparently.” Corian grimaced, his feline nose twitching. “Like she always does.”
“Aren’t you gonna stop her?”
“I’m partial to keeping my head on my shoulders, thanks.”
Maleshi’s long black hair fluttered in the breeze, the pointed tips of her tufted feline ears the only giveaway that she moved toward the group of O’gúleesh without her human illusion. Cheyenne leaned toward Corian. “Why aren’t we going out there with her?”
“Because she wants to do this on her own.”
“So, we’re just here if she needs backup, huh?”
“She won’t.”
Chapter Seventy-Nine
“You know,” Maleshi called to the scattered magicals in black uniforms, “I’m a little insulted that no one invited me to the party.”
A troll with a huge gap where his front teeth should have been looked up from the stack of crates on this side of the clearing. “By the fucking Crown,” he muttered, his eyes wide when he saw the black-haired Nightstalker headed for him.
“Yeah, I figured she’s to blame for this.”
“Hey. Hey!” The troll nearly fell on his face scrambling away from the stacked crates and the ex-general. “Gu’urs!”
The raug in the black jacket looked over his shoulder and snarled at the scampering troll. “I’m having a fell-damn conversation, soldier. Who told you to take a break?”
“To be fair, that’s probably my fault.” Maleshi spread her arms and cocked her head. “I’m just trying to talk to the magical in charge here.”
The troll stumbled again, unable to look away from the Nightstalker even as he fumbled for the raug’s jacket sleeve. “It’s her. It’s fucking Maleshi—”