At last Tanis spoke.
“Are you all right?” he asked quietly. “I mean, are you really all right now? For good?”
Jael took a deep breath and slowly felt her shaking subside.
“I’m all right,” she said. Below the forest floor she could feel the bones of the earth, good strong stone, and the feeling comforted her. She knew there were myriad animal minds all around her, some of them killing or being killed at this very moment, but she could shut them out effortlessly. “I’m really all right, at last.”
“How’s that possible? Because of this?” Tanis touched the pendant hanging around Jael’s neck.
As Tanis touched the metal of the pendant, Jael gasped as a sort of shock ran through her—not precisely a physical shock, but a profound sense that Tanis had somehow touched Jael, touched her very essence.
Tanis had snatched his hand away as soon as Jael gasped, and now he raised himself up on one elbow, squinting at her worriedly through the darkness.
“Are you certain you’re all right?” he asked. “Did I do something—”
Jael shuddered pleasurably, then moved closer to Tanis.
“Uh-huh,” she breathed. “I think so.”
She rolled over so that Tanis was under her; before he could speak, however, she covered his lips with hers, her fingers tearing at the lacing of his tunic so fiercely that the fabric ripped. Tanis was frozen with surprise for a moment; then he helped her, pulling her tunic and shirt over her head. His hands slid eagerly over her skin, but he hesitated.
“Are you sure you’re all right?” he murmured. “This isn’t like you.”
“I’m all right,” Jael assured him, bending over to brush her lips over his. “Let me show you just how all right I am.”
VIII
“It’s up to you,” Tanis said, his hands gently kneading the muscles of her shoulders. “I mean, if you want to go on—”
“I don’t see why we should.” Jael stretched lazily under Tanis’s hands. “I’m curious, sure, about Farryn and his people, but there’s no need to go hunting legends just to satisfy my curiosity. I’m well now, so there’s no reason to go any farther into unmapped territory. Besides, we’re almost straight west of Willow Bend, so we can just go back straight east out of the Singing Forest, and we’ve got enough supplies to make it to the larger cities. Don’t you agree?”
“There’s nothing short of Baaros’s halls of gold that I want more than to get back to Allanmere with both of us alive and safe,” Tanis said ruefully. “But we’ve come this far.”
“I know. It does feel a little like quitting,” Jael admitted. It felt, in fact, a great deal like quitting. There was an almost unbearable longing in her to continue onward, maybe forever, to find the remote, lonely places where she was certain her people—Farryn’s people—lived. But that’s selfish, she told herself again and again. Every day, every hour in this unmapped wilderness was a greater risk of her life and Tanis’s. There was the book, too, that she had to return to Blade before it somehow got damaged or destroyed. Lastly, Jael felt a certain amount of eagerness to show her family and friends her new wholeness and skills, begin the delightful process of learning just who and what this new Jaellyn really was, preferably with Tanis’s help. After more than two decades, she’d earned that pleasure.
“No, we’d best start back,” Jael said firmly. “Maybe someday we’ll come back and look—with a whole caravan of our own, though, I think!”
“Now, that’s a thought,” Tanis laughed. “We’ll bring our own cots and cushions—”
“And wine for you,” Jael grinned. “In leakproof casks with aging spells!”
“And soupstones,” Tanis said blissfully. “Tents with rain-shedding spells.”
“And wards to keep out highwaymen and beasts,” Jael said firmly. “But in the meantime, it’s a long road back to Allanmere.”
Tanis sighed, but nodded. He gave Jael’s shoulders a last rub, then bent to kiss the back of her neck.
“I almost don’t want to leave,” he admitted.
Jael rolled over, her eyes twinkling mischievously.
“No matter,” she said. “It’s a good many nights before we reach Allanmere.”
“If they’re all like last night,” Tanis smiled, “I may not make it back to Allanmere alive.”
“Complain, complain,” Jael sighed. “First he moans day and night that he can’t have me, and then when he can, he complains about that.”
“Oh, I’m not complaining,” Tanis said quickly, his grin widening. “Although if you want to be picky about it, there’s some question in my mind about who had whom last night.”
Jael felt her cheeks warm. Tanis had been right last night; the way she’d acted hadn’t been much like her. It was almost embarrassing, how—well, how hungry and demanding she’d been.
“Well, people do tend to gorge a bit, their first meal after a long fast,” Jael said sheepishly. “And even with the couple of times with the Bluebright, that was really the first time I was all there, all myself, so to speak. So for me it was a rather long fast.”
“Too bad.” Tanis gave Jael a hand up from the ground. “I hope that doesn’t mean that you have to go without for another twenty-two years before you tear my clothes again.”
Jael flushed again.
“If you don’t stop talking about it, I’m going to do it now,” she said defiantly, “and then it’ll just be that much longer before we get back to Allanmere. Come on, help me load the ponies.”
Tanis chuckled and made a point of hesitating thoughtfully but he helped Jael bundle the bedrolls together and tie them onto the ponies. They were both ravenously hungry—they’d had nothing to eat since their midday dinner on the docks at Zaravelle the day before—but both agreed it would be safer to eat some of their preserved supplies in the saddle than linger in the Singing Forest for the time it would take to hunt or cook something for breakfast. Besides, Tanis speculated, it could well be the act of hunting or killing, or perhaps the lighting of the fire, that caused the trappers to disappear there.
They headed confidently east, toward the morning sun—of what morning sun they could see through the dense foliage. The forest was drowsy and quiet, its scents and sounds familiar and comforting. Because of the dense canopy of the trees, the under growth was thinner than in the Heartwood, and the ponies tripped along easily.
They stopped at midday at a pleasant streamside clearing. They dined on journey food, and Jael and Tanis eagerly took ad vantage of the clear stream to rinse their clothes and wash from their skin the mud and sweat of the previous night’s adventure but Tanis hesitated to refill their water bottle from the stream.
“We should be long out of the Singing Forest by now,” he said slowly. “I mean, we were near the eastern edge of it, and we’ve been traveling east for hours. But I haven’t seen any change in the plants or anything.”
“I know.” Jael shook her head. “Maybe there was only such a visible difference there near the hills where the dragons lived be cause the dragons poisoned the soil. But surely we’re far from the Singing Forest by now. Still, it’s not as if we’re short of wa ter. Why don’t you wait and we’ll refill the bottle tonight, and just to be certain, we’ll angle a little to the north. Remember Rhadaman said the Singing Forest extended west and south.”
“I’m glad you don’t think I’m acting like an idiot,” Tanis con fessed, putting the empty water bottle away as they mounted
their ponies. “It’s just—I don’t know. I just don’t feel quite at ease. I don’t know why. The country here feels odd.”
“The country here is odd,” Jael agreed. “Dragons nest here, and Karina and Rhadaman both said that magic gets twisted around here, and more so the farther west you go. All kinds of strange legends come out of the west. It’s one reason why settlement west hasn’t progressed any faster than it has—it’s just too dangerous. So I don’t think taking a few simple precautions is ‘acting like an idiot.’ “
Th
ey turned the ponies in a more northerly direction and rode onward. Gentle breezes ruffled the leaves and carried the scent of flowers and warm earth. Birds fluttered past occasionally, and Jael saw the occasional squirrel watching them from the branches. Once or twice they saw deer watching them unafraid from the thickets, but Tanis made no move to draw his bow. They had dried meat aplenty, and it would be foolish to shoot a deer only to waste most of the fresh meat. Besides, it seemed almost sacrilegious to spoil the peace of the forest with death.
They rode on as if in a dream, not speaking. There was no need to speak; it was far more pleasant to listen to the birdsong and smell the sweet scent of flowers and fresh green growing things. The gentle sound of buzzing bees and the warm breeze were almost hypnotic.
Toward sunset, however, Jael’s uneasiness increased. Something was wrong. Something was definitely wrong. But what was it?
Finally Tanis reined his pony to a stop.
“Jaellyn,” he said slowly, “doesn’t that jumble of rocks look familiar?”
Jael frowned darkly at the rocks. They did look familiar. Had they passed a jumble like that just before they stopped at midday?
“We can’t be riding in a circle,” Jael protested. “We’ve both been watching the sun, and we haven’t crossed our own trail.”
“I think we should stop here,” Tanis said. “We should make camp. Then I can take a bearing from the stars to check our direction.”
“This must just look like rocks we passed earlier,” Jael argued. “I think we should press a little farther while we still have some sunlight. It gets dark awfully fast in these thick woods.”
Tanis shrugged and reluctantly agreed. They rode only a short distance, however, belore he reined in again, and the two stared, dismayed, at the small stream where they’d stopped for lunch. The clump of flowering rushes and the mossy boulder where Jael had laid her clothes were unmistakable.
Jael slowly slid from her pony and walked to the streamside. The sand of the bank was utterly unmarked by their tracks, although Jael knew she’d crossed that patch of sand at least four or five times, and Tanis as often. The bed of moss where Jael had pried up a handful of the rich green to scrub herself with was unmarred.
“It’s the same place,” Tanis said quietly, joining her at the streamside. “I’d wager every copper I’ve ever owned or ever will.”
“But there’s no sign anybody’s ever been here,” Jael said, just as quietly. “How could that be? I can’t feel any magic, none at all. It couldn’t be an illusion spell. And nobody can move the sun.”
“Well, now we have to stop,” Tanis said practically. “We’re losing the light.”
“I don’t like it,” Jael said worriedly. “Whatever’s got us all turned around like this, if that’s what’s happened—it could be dangerous to stay here, don’t you think?”
“If we’re wandering in circles in daylight, what’s going to happen in the dark?” Tanis said sensibly. “Still, we’d probably be wise to take watches tonight. And just in case it is some kind of magic, maybe some kind you can’t feel, we’d be wiser not to eat or drink anything but what we brought with us. It’d be safer, too, if we leave most of our supplies on the ponies.”
Jael agreed, but when they made their camp beside the stream, she pointed out practically that they’d have to build a fire, or Tanis would have no light on his watch. Accordingly, they carefully dug a firepit and lined it with rocks from the stream. Jael picked up deadfall, laid a small fire, and lit it with a certain joyful defiance. Let whatever covered their tracks and led them around in a circle bring those branches back if it could!
Jael volunteered for the first watch; since Tanis was already disadvantaged by his poor night vision, he should not have to contend with his fatigue as well.
Now Jael was certain that something was indeed wrong; the previously friendly forest seemed alien, quietly menacing instead of peaceful. She questioned each seemingly familiar sound. Was that indeed the cheeping of the tree frogs and crickets, or merely some deception designed to lull the visitors into lassitude? Were the small, flickering lights she saw indeed merely fireflies, or were they something far more sinister, merely aping a familiar form?
Gods, had the dragons indeed ceased their pursuit not because they lost interest in their quarry, but because they feared that in the Singing Forest, they themselves might become the prey?
Jael shivered and huddled close to the fire despite the unusual warmth of the night. She drew her sword and laid it ready by her side, and drew her dagger, too, reassured by the glint of the blade in the firelight. She knew Tanis would have his sword handy, too, even while he slept.
Jael shivered again, but this time not with fear, thinking of Tanis in the tent, his sword beside him. How would he react if a hand slid under his shirt in the darkness while he slept, surprising him awake? Would he seize his sword and attack, or would he sense the identity of the one touching him and seize her instead? Either possibility seemed equally exciting.
Jael slid her hands up her arms, touching the bruise on her shoulder where Tanis had sunk his teeth into her skin the night before. His nails had dug into her hips, too, leaving crescent-shaped cuts. Jael sucked her breath in sharply, pleasurably, gooseflesh stippling her skin at the memory. Maybe Tanis wouldn’t mind if she woke him. Maybe she didn’t care if he did mind. Maybe—
Jael froze at some faint sound, something out of place— perhaps the cracking of a stick under too much weight, perhaps a rustling that seemed a little too furtive. She picked up her sword, her ears straining, her eyes striving to pierce the darkness. Here, however, the fire was her enemy; its brighter light dwarfed the faint moonlight so that her eyes could not adjust, and the darkness outside the firelit circle was nearly impenetrable.
The ponies stirred uneasily, and suddenly Jael felt their fear, their instinctive sense that something was wrong. Tentatively she reached out through the darkness, clumsily, searching for other animal minds, perhaps eyes that could see for her in the darkness.
What she sensed brought Jael instantly to her feet, backing slowly toward the tent where Tanis lay sleeping. It was simply this: nothing. There were no animal minds that she could feel in any direction—no bats or owls or drowsy squirrels, no deer in the bushes, no rabbits in their dens. There was only an emptiness that fairly shouted its menace, and a faint sense of something she could not quite grasp, a mind too complex or alien or elusive for her untrained beast-speaking ability.
The ponies were pulling at their ropes now, dancing nervously. Jael did not turn her eyes from the darkness outside the circle of fire, but she kicked blindly at Tanis’s foot.
“Tanis!” she murmured. “There’s something—”
“I know.” Tanis was almost immediately beside her, wide awake and with his sword in his hand. “Something woke me— the ponies, I think. What’s out there?”
“I don’t know.” Jael moved slightly to the side so that her back was to Tanis’s. “Stay near the fire so you can see. Can you hold a torch and your sword, too?”
“What do you think?” Tanis asked, already reaching for the end of one of the burning branches in the fire. He raised the burning end high, sweeping it in a semicircle.
The wind shifted subtly, and suddenly a scent flooded Jael’s nostrils, rank and musky, a scent that Jael found horribly familiar. There was no time for Jael to shout a warning before the first skinshifter attacked, but from the sudden tensing of Tanis’s muscles against her back, she knew he recognized the scent as well.
There was no sense of transition. One moment the carefully cleared earth around the fire was empty but for Jael and Tanis; in the next moment it was filled with creatures that attacked silently and with demonic swiftness.
After the encounters with Durgan and Cesanne, Jael had thought herself prepared for the disgusting, unformed appearance of skinshifters, but in this she was mistaken. Compared to these nightmare beings, Durgan and Cesanne at their most horrible had been a delight to look upon. T
hese creatures had wandered so far from their humanity that Jael wondered uneasily if they had retained any memory of their prior lives. Although they wore only tattered, filthy shreds of clothing, it was impossible to distinguish male from female, or to even speculate whether any of them had been human, elven, or perhaps even Kresh. There was now a sort of obscene uniformity about them in the melting and re-forming limbs or features, in the misshapen eyes or fanged mouths that might erupt anywhere on the ever-shifting surface of their bodies, in the grayish, claylike skin that rippled with fur or scales or feathers in turn.
But there was no opportunity to ponder these monstrosities, for they were attacking, still as horribly soundless as before; somehow the very silence was more terrible than any cry they might make out of those malformed mouths. Clawed hands formed, only to dissolve into hooked tentacles that nonetheless reached eagerly toward their prey.
There was no time for fear, either. Jael lunged to meet the attack, Tanis forgotten, a glorious strength welling up from some hidden place in her soul. She screamed, a glad, fierce battle cry, and her sword flashed eagerly forward, shearing through amorphous flesh. Foul-smelling ichor spouted, and one of the shifters roared with pain and fury, but Jael was already moving, flowing like water, like molten stone through the veins of the earth, unconsciously dodging a clawing talon, then pivoting to slash at her attacker. This time the cry was choked off abruptly, and Jael saw a head roll into the fire.
Instinctively Jael leaped to the side, turning to slash again as a shifter landed where she had just been. The shifter’s hand—if it could be called such—closed around Jael’s arm, but fell away as Jael’s sword bit deep into its midsection, cleaving it nearly in two. To her surprise, she found her dagger in her other hand, and realized amazedly that she’d made that strike with her sword one-handed. Eyes sparkled in the moonlight; she slashed at the eyes with her dagger and saw them disappear behind spurting ichor. Shifters howled as Jael’s sword sliced effortlessly through melting flesh, clearing a comfortable space around her.
Dagger's Point (Shadow series) Page 23