Windwalker

by Elaine Cunningham

  All this Liriel took in with a glance. She sprang to one side and rolled away. The ghost lunged and seized her ankle.

  The drow kicked out with her free foot, lashing out repeatedly at the surprisingly solid spirit. The dead warrior woman headed for the pool, dragging the drow with her.

  Liriel seized a rock. It came loose in her hand, and she let it go. The fingers of one hand dug furrows in the ground as she flailed about with the other, seeking something to halt her deadly progress. All she needed was a moment or two, long enough to cast a spell.

  She remembered suddenly that she knew no wizard spells that would protect her against the determined rusalka. Learning them had seemed foolish, when a simple clerical spell worked just as well.

  And clerical magic was dependent upon the favor of the goddess.

  Even as the thought formed, Liriel’s hand closed around something slender and strong. She seized it and looked up into a pair of multi-faceted black eyes. With a shriek, she released her hold on the giant spider’s leg.

  Ask, suggested a silent voice, one Liriel had hoped never to hear again. Lolth’s power had followed her even into this alien place, tempting her, haunting her.

  The rusalka dragged her inexorably toward the pool. Liriel twisted onto her back, trying to break the dead warrior’s grip. That failing, she lashed out repeatedly with her free foot, connecting with the solid form again and again. None of her efforts had any effect.

  Mist rose from the pool and surrounded the dead warrior. Before the drow’s frantic eyes, it took the shape of an enormous dragon’s head. The misty jaw gaped wide and lunged for the ghost. The rusalka let go of her prize and reached for her empty scabbard. A startled expression crossed the ghostly face. Liriel got the distinct impression that this was not the first time this warrior had been surprised by the lack of this weapon. Frozen once again in its moment of death, the rusalka offered no resistance to the dragon. It was swallowed by the spring’s guardian and, strangely enough, disappeared into the less substantial form.

  The dragon sank back into the stream, leaving Liriel on the bank. For just a moment, the drow caught a glimpse of her jeweled knife below the bubbling surface and understood that the impulsive tribute had saved her life.

  Perhaps more than her life. The giant spider, the minion of Lolth, had also disappeared.

  Liriel rose and dressed herself. She tied the mask back to her belt. Changing her appearance back to that of the human Sylune did not make her feel much better. Lolth had found her, and the stubborn goddess would be less easily fooled than the villagers of Dernovia.

  Zofia had been right, she thought grimly. This was indeed a haunted land, and if it truly was her destiny to see the spirits to their rightful homes, where in the nine bloody hells was she supposed to start?

  Gorlist glanced up sharply as the sound of scuffling feet approached the cave’s opening. His mercenaries had finally captured something of value, or at least, of interest! By the Masked Lord, it was a feat long overdue!

  One of his mercenaries broke free of the small battle and saluted his commander. “We have captured an elf. A female.”

  Well, that was something. “Bring her in,” Gorlist ordered.

  Three of his soldiers dragged in a tall faerie elf. Even bound and gagged, form half shrouded with the remnants of a canvas sack, she put up an impressive struggle.

  Gorlist strode forward and seized a handful of her disheveled black hair. He jerked her head back and noted the distinctive light streak that framed one side of her face. With a start of dark pleasure, Gorlist recognized this elf. It was she whom he had fought on the deck of his lost ship!

  With his free hand he fingered the silver braid. “Clever, that little shapeshifting trick. What would this braid become if I ripped the entire thing from your scalp?”

  The elf spat a mouthful of blood at his boots. “Try it and see,” she invited.

  “Another time,” the drow said coldly. “At present, I am more interested to learn why I see you in Skullport when fighting Liriel Baenre there and find you in Rashemen near the village of her pet human.”

  She sneered and started to work up another wad of spittle. Gorlist backhanded her hard, sending her head snapping to one side.

  “Bring the irons,” he commanded.

  The elf spat out a jagged shard of tooth and laughed in his face. “I counted almost a hundred dark elves in and about these warrens, and I am one alone. Am I not bound tightly enough for you?” she snarled, holding out her bound wrists.

  Gorlist nodded to Chiss. The young drow bared his teeth in a fierce smile and set to work. He snapped iron manacles on the faerie elf’s wrists. Deftly climbing the stone wall, he threaded the attached chain through hoops embedded high overhead.

  Gorlist nodded to his cohorts.

  Two drow pulled swords and slashed away the ropes binding their captive. As she lunged at them, Chiss yanked the chains back, pulling her arms out wide and stopping her charge.

  Gorlist strode around her, eyeing the marks that drow swords had left in leather and flesh. The female’s toes barely touched the ground, and the angle of her arms suggested that they had been pulled from the shoulder sockets, yet her green-gold gaze remained steady and implacable.

  “Cut off her armor and garments,” he told the two drow. “Don’t be too dainty about it.”

  His soldiers went about their work with obvious pleasure. Gorlist picked up a length of severed rope and knotted it. He handed this to one of the drow and a vial of salt to the other.

  “Enjoy,” he said as he settled down to watch. He smirked at the elf woman. “I certainly intend to.”

  The torture went on longer than Gorlist would have thought possible. In time, pleasure became tedium, but nothing they inflicted upon the faerie elf induced her to speak.

  “Get Brindlor,” he said at last.

  One of the drow—a young female who had been born to Nisstyre’s first mercenaries—went in search of the deathsinger. They returned shortly. Brindlor sent a quick look of distaste at the faerie elf that had nothing to do with her condition and little to do with the color of her skin.

  “Merdrith is not here. You know more magic than any of us. Strip her secrets from her mind,” Gorlist demanded.

  The deathsinger sniffed. “Small wonder she did not talk. Didn’t you know that iron draws the life force from some faerie creatures as a rag soaks blood from a wound? Perhaps this elf is one such creature. Cut her down.”

  Reluctantly Chiss lowered the chains and snapped off the manacles. What happened next took them all by surprise.

  There was no spellcasting, no slow metamorphosis, no warning at all. One moment a battered elf woman lay at their feet, the next, a large black wolf regarded them with gold-green eyes. Her lip curled back in a snarl, her hind feet tamped down, and she leaped.

  Chiss went down under her before he could draw a weapon. The wolf’s teeth sank into his shoulder, and the massive head gave a savage shake. Then she was up, dodging this way and that as she evaded the swords of her tormenters. She darted out into the cavern with preternatural speed and was gone.

  “Find her,” snapped Gorlist, but he already knew that the effort would prove futile. He kicked in frustration at the fallen soldier.

  “Drag him out under the sky and watch him until the moon rises,” he commanded. “Perhaps adding a drow werewolf to our band will inspire the rest of you to act like hunters!”

  They did as Gorlist commanded. Under the night sky they drew swords and waited, some with fascination and others with almost-concealed trepidation, for the transformation to come and their former comrade to rise.

  Hours slipped by, marked only by the steady dripping of water in some nearby tunnel.

  “The moon has long since risen,” Brindlor said at last. “Bury or burn him or leave him to rot. It matters not.”

  “Not a werewolf, then,” Gorlist mused. “What was she, to change like that? A druid? A sorceress?”

  “Worse,” the deaths
inger said grimly. “The wench is a lythari.”

  The sky was thick with stars before Liriel finally made her way to her little hut. Fyodor was already there and was busy stirring herbs into a stew.

  “You’re cooking,” she observed. “The domovoi isn’t going to like this.”

  He looked up sharply. “You’ve spoken with one?”

  “We came to an understanding.” She shut the door and untied the mask from her belt, sighing with relief as she slipped back into her own form. Even more pleasant was the way Fyodor’s eyes filled with the sight of her.

  “Songs and stories claim that the Seven Sisters are the fairest among women,” he said quietly. “Have the bards all gone mad, or are they merely blind?”

  She ran into his arms. For a long moment they clung together, then she led him to the rumpled bed. They settled down side by side, her head nestled against his broad shoulder.

  “Rashemen is an interesting place. I was undressed by a domovoi, inspected by a coven of witches, and attacked by a dragon-shaped water spirit and a muscle-bound Rusalka. How was your day?”

  “Much the same.”

  “Hmmm.”

  She lifted her face to his, and for quite some time there was no need for other words. The stewpot scalded, the domovoi sighed, and neither warrior nor Windwalker cared in the slightest.

  Much later, Fyodor took her into the courtyard and pointed to the stars. “Do you see that small cluster there, shaped like a crossroads? We call it the Guardians after the spirits who watch the four corners of the year. The bright star there is Mokosh, named for the spirit of the harvest. A similar star pattern marks each turning of the year. Soon we will celebrate the Autumn Sunset, the time when night and day stand in balance and the wheel of the year turns toward winter.”

  The drow pulled her cloak closer. “I have heard of this winter. Does it get colder than this?”

  “Much, but there is a chill wind tonight. We should go inside.”

  She turned wistful eyes toward the forest. Fyodor caught her look and shook his head. “That is not wise. This is a haunted land, and the nights are filled with ghosts. More so in these days than in times past.”

  “Zofia said that I should get to know the land’s spirits,” Liriel argued. “What better way?”

  He relented with a sigh. “We will break fast with Vastish and her children. Perhaps we could bring a rabbit or two for her pot.”

  “Or an uthraki,” she said with a grin, referring to their recent misadventure.

  Fyodor’s eyes twinkled. “Why not? Everything Vastish cooks ends up tasting much the same.”

  They set a brisk pace down the rutted dirt road that wound through the fields. Liriel heard a faint rustle to her left. From the corner of her eye she noted a squat, malformed dwarf scuttling through the ripened grain, keeping pace with them. Strings of green hair sprouted from its head like tall meadow grass, and a thick green mustache bristled under a vast beak of a nose. Its large eyes were deeply set and shadowed by beetling green brows, but even at a glance Liriel could see that one was a light green shade and one a brilliant orange.

  “A polevik,” Fyodor said in a troubled tone.

  “Dangerous?”

  “Only if you fall asleep in the field or follow it into the grain. What troubles me is the hour. Usually the polevik only wander about at highsun.”

  “Maybe it had a cup of Zofia’s tea and can’t sleep.”

  He chuckled briefly. The troubled look returned to his face. “You know I have a bit of Sight. Before I left Rashemen, I started to see things that should not be there. Ghosts, spirits, even heroes from tales my father’s father heard from his grandsire. They wander about like drunken men locked out of their huts by angry wives, uncertain of where they are or where they should go. It has been so since the Time of Troubles. The magic of Rashemen lies in the land itself and in the spirits of the land. It is not like wizards’ spells, which once cast and forgotten can be learned again. No witch will say so, but I suspect that this magic did not heal as it should have.”

  She considered his words, wondering if this was part of the confusing destiny Zofia foresaw.

  Before she could give voice to this thought, a bitter wind ripped through the trees with a shrill, almost metallic shriek. Branches rustled sharply. The singing insects went silent, and a small bird fell from its perch. Liriel stooped and picked it up, marveling at how light the little thing was. How cold.

  Fyodor seized her arm and pulled her to her feet. “Hurry,” he urged. “We need to be within walls before the bheur song strikes again.”

  The urgency in this voice convinced Liriel to run now and ask questions later.

  They raced through the forest, retracing their steps. They were almost free of the forest when they saw the old woman. She stood on the path ahead, leaning on a tall wooden staff. Her long, wild hair was as white as a drow’s and her wrinkled skin nearly blue from cold. Barefoot and clad only in rags, she looked as if she would fall if not for the staff in her gnarled hands.

  The Rashemi skidded to a stop and put Liriel behind him. “Lightning magic,” he said tersely. “The most powerful you know, and quickly!”

  She dug into her coin bag and took out an emerald—the last gem from her share of the deepdragon’s hoard. With one hand she tossed this toward the hag, with the other, she gripped the Windwalker and called forth the spell she had stored within.

  The gem disappeared. In its place stood a half-elf female, taller by half than the wizard who had summoned it. Her sharply sculptured body was translucent as glass and green as fine emeralds, and in her hands was a jagged bolt of white fire. The golem drew back her arm and threw the lightning as a warrior might hurl a spear.

  A shriek like the clash of elven swords tore from the hag. She lifted her staff and sent a spray of icy crystals flying to meet the oncoming lightning. The bheur’s blast spread into a lethal cone, which flared into brilliant life as the bolt passed through. It hit the hag and sent her hurtling backward. She hit the base of a pine, hard, and sank to the forest floor.

  With astonishing agility the hag was up and running, fleeing back toward the mountains.

  Liriel started toward the staff.

  “Don’t bother,” her friend told her. “It only is magical in a bheur’s hands. Even if you could use it, some magic is best left alone.”

  She caught the grim note in his tone. “I did something wrong?”

  “The spell was wisely chosen,” he said carefully, “but you must not summon a golem in Rashemen. Many such creatures were brought against us by Thay’s Red Wizards. Any who see you cast such a spell will wonder where you learned it.”

  She shrugged. “There was a book of Mulhorandi magic in the Green Room. I had a lot of gems left over from the deepdragon’s hoard, and this seemed a good use to make of them.”

  “Even so, such magic can be deadly in Rashemen. No outlander wizards of any kind are permitted here. Because Sylune was a friend to Rashemen and trained in some of the witches’ minor arts, and because Zofia has taken you under her wing, my people accept you. If they saw you cast such a spell, neither of us would live to see the next dawn.”

  Liriel received this news in silence. “No such spells,” she repeated, as if saying that words aloud would make them sound more sensible.

  “Only to save your own life. Promise me this.”

  The words came quickly to the drow’s tongue, but she found she could not speak them. She shook her head, unwilling to make a promise she doubted she could keep. To her astonishment, Fyodor looked oddly gratified by this.

  “The day dawns,” he said softly. “Vastish will expect us soon.”

  He took her hand, and they walked to the cottage where his sister’s family lived. Already smoke rose from the chimney, and a kettle of boiled grains mixed with what appeared to be dried berries bubbled on stove.

  Two small boys hurled themselves at Fyodor and attached themselves to his legs. A taller girl, one close enough to maidenhood to be
mindful of her dignity, hung back, eyeing her brothers with disdain.

  Vastish shook her wooden spoon and gave one of the urchins a light swat on the rump with it. “Do your manners fail you, or just your eyes? Can’t you see that there’s a wychlaran present?”

  The children fell back, abashed, and dipped into jerky little bows. “You bring grace to this household,” the trio chanted.

  Liriel smiled uncertainly. Drow children the size of these males were still being word-weaned and were seldom seen except by the one or two people who oversaw this training. She had never had anything to do with anyone so small.

  She gave her name and received the children’s names in turn. Lacking other ideas, she suggested, “Perhaps a story before we eat?”

  The boys greeted this with great and loud enthusiasm, Vastish with a grateful nod. Fyodor settled down and pulled a nephew onto each knee.

  “Long years ago, a hero known as Yvengi walked the land. Times were troubled, and many brave men fell in battle. Yvengi’s father was a great warrior, a berserker equal to any man alive, but one day he faced a foe that had neither blood nor breath.”

  “The demon Eltab!” the younger boy put in excitedly.

  “None other,” Fyodor agreed. “Yvengi knew that his strength and his sword would be powerless against the demon’s armored hide, so he prayed to all the spirits of the land and was granted a magical sword. Not even a demon could stand before Hadryllis. Eltab fled to Thay—”

  “To walk among mortal demons!” the child chimed in.

  “You know the tale,” observed his uncle with a smile. “Then you know that in each turn of the family wheel—from father to son, mother to maiden—another great sword will be raised for Rashemen.”

  “Like yours,” the boy said in worshipful tones.

  A deep silence fell over the room. Judging from the stricken expression on the females’ faces and the red flush staining the older boy’s cheeks, Liriel surmised that some important taboo had been broken.