by Terry Brooks
Then they were into the trees, pushing through damp grasses and vines, feeling the wet slap of the foliage against their faces and arms. Just give us a few minutes more, Wren was thinking when a colled body dropped out of the trees, wrapped about Garth, and lifted him away. She wheeled back, her sword drawn, and caught a final glimpse of the big man as he was pulled from view, half carried, half dragged, thrashing powerfully to break free.
“Garth!” she cried out.
She started after him instantly, but had only taken a dozen steps before Stresa slammed into her from behind, sweeping her legs from beneath her, knocking her to the ground, crying, “Down, girl! Ssstt. Stay!”
She heard a hissing sound like dozens of snakes, then a ripping as the foliage overhead was sliced apart. Stresa pushed forward until he was next to her.
“That was foolish!” he spit roughly. “Look. Phffttt! See what almost got you?”
Wren looked. There was an odd-shaped bush that was as quilled as the Splinterscat, needles pointing in every direction. As she stared in disbelief, leaves folded about the needles to hide them, and the bush took on a harmless look once more.
“Hsssst! That’s a Darter!” Stresa breathed. “Poisonous! Touch it, disturb it in any way, and it flings its needles! Death, if they prick you!”
The Splinterscat fixed her with his bright eyes. Wren could no longer see or hear Garth. Anger and frustration filled her, their bitter heat churning in her stomach. Where was he? What had been done to him? She had to find him! She had to . . .
Then Stresa was up and moving again, and she was moving with him. They pushed through the heavy foliage, searching the haze, listening. And suddenly she could hear struggling sounds again, and ahead there was a flash of movement. Stresa lumbered forward, bristling; Wren was a step behind. There was a grunt of pain and a thrashing. Garth rose up momentarily and then disappeared from view.
“Garth!” Wren shouted, and rushed forward heedlessly.
The big Rover was sprawled on the earth when she reached him, scratched and bruised, but otherwise unhurt. Whatever it was that had latched onto him had apparently tired of the struggle. Garth permitted the girl a momentary hug, then gently disentangled himself and stumbled back to his feet.
Stresa got them moving again at once, back through the trees, through the heavy undergrowth and out onto the lava rock. A cluster of shadows passed overhead and disappeared, silent, formless. The sounds of pursuit continued to build around them, rough and anxious. They scurried along a flat to a ridge that dropped into a pit of swirling mist. Stresa took them quickly past, down a slide to the streambed that had gone almost dry.
A new horror lumbered out of the mist, a being vaguely manlike, but with multiple limbs and a face that seemed all jaws and teeth. Stresa curled into a ball, quills jutting out in every direction, and the monster lurched past without slowing. Wren swung her sword defensively and jumped aside, barely avoiding a clutch of anxious fingers. Garth stood his ground and let the thing come to him, then cut at it so fast Wren could barely follow the movement of his blade. Blood flew from the beast, but it barely slowed. Grunting, it reached for Garth. The giant Rover leapt back and aside, then came at it again. Wren attacked from the rear, but one monstrous arm swung about and sent her flying. She kept her grip on the sword, rose, and saw the thing almost on top of her. Garth swept under it in a rush, caught her up and yanked her away. They were running again, flying along the glistening black rock, the crunch of it sharp beneath their boots. Garth slowed without stopping and swung her down. Her feet struck and instantly she was running with him. She saw Stresa ahead, somehow back in the lead. She heard the growling and huffing of the creature behind.
Then something exploded out of the shadows on her left and struck at her. Pain rushed along her arm, and she saw blood stain her sleeve. There was a tearing of teeth and claws. She screamed and pushed at whatever was clinging to her. It was too close for her to use her sword. Garth materialized out of nowhere, grasping her attacker with his bare hands and tearing it free. She saw its ugly, twisted face’ and gnarled body as it dropped. With a howl, she swung at it with her sword, and it flew apart.
“Grrrlll!” Stresa was next to them. “We have to hide! Sssttt! They are too many!”
Behind, too close to consider, the monster tracking them gave a triumphant roar. They fled from it again, back into the mist, through the tangle of shadows and half-light, stumbling and clawing their way across the rock. Wren was bleeding heavily. She could see blood on Garth as well, but wasn’t sure if it was his or her own. Her mouth was dry and her chest burned as she gulped in air. Her strength was beginning to fail.
They topped a rise and suddenly Stresa, still leading, tumbled abruptly from view. Hurrying to where he had fallen, they found him sprawled awkwardly at the bottom of a short drop.
“Here! A hiding place!” he called out suddenly, spitting and hissing as he regained his feet.
They scrambled down the open side of the drop—the other was a mass of boulders—and saw where he was looking. Beneath an overhang was a split in the rock leading back into darkness.
“Sssstttppp! Inside, quickly. Go, it’s safe enough!” the Splinterscat urged. When they failed to respond, he rushed at them threateningly. “Hide! I’ll lead the thing away and come back for you! Hrrgggll! Go! Now!”
He whirled about and disappeared. Garth hesitated only a moment, then plunged into the cleft. Wren was a step behind. They brought up their hands awkwardly as the darkness closed about, groping to find their way. The split opened back into the lava for some distance, burrowing down into the earth. When they were inside far enough that they could barely see the light from without, they crouched down to wait.
Seconds later they heard the sounds of their pursuer. The monster approached without slowing and lumbered past. The sounds faded.
Wren reached for Garth and squeezed his arm. Her eyes were beginning to adjust, and she could just barely make him out in the dark. She sheathed her short sword, removed her leather jacket, and tore away the sleeve of her tunic. She could see the dark streaks of the claw marks down her arm. She medicated the wounds with a healing salve and bound them with the last clean scarf she carried. The stinging disappeared after a time, turning to a dull, throbbing ache. She sat back wearily, listening to the sound of her own breathing mesh with Garth’s in the silence.
Time slipped away. Stresa did not return. Wren allowed her eyes to close and her thoughts to drift. How far were they from the river now? she wondered. The Rowen lay between themselves and Arborlon, and once they had crossed it they would reach the Elves. She considered momentarily what that meant. She had barely allowed herself time to think about the fact that the Elves even existed, that they were not simply rumor or legend, but real and alive, and that against all odds, she had found them. Or almost found them, at least. Another day, two at the most . . .
She let her eyes open again and that was when she saw the creature.
At first she thought she must be mistaken, that the shadows were playing tricks on her. But there was sufficient light for her to trust what she was seeing. It crouched motionless on a shelf of rock several feet behind Garth. It was small, barely a dozen inches high, she guessed, although it was hard to be certain when it was hunched down that way. It had large, round eyes that stared fixedly and huge ears pointing off a tiny head with a fox face. It had a spindly body and looked vaguely spiderlike at first glance—so much so that Wren had to fight down a moment’s revulsion as she recalled the encounter with the Wisteron. But it was small and helpless looking, and it had tiny hands and feet like a human. It stared at her, and she stared back. She knew instinctively that the odd creature had chosen this cleft as a hiding place just as they had. It had frozen in place to avoid being seen, but now it was discovered and was trying to decide what to do.
Wren smiled and kept still. The creature watched, eyes searching. Casually Wren caught Garth’s attention, brought her hands up slowly, and told him what was going
on. She asked him to ease over next to her. He did so, and they sat together studying the creature. After a while, Wren reached into her pack and extracted a few scraps of food. She took a bite of some cheese and passed what remained to Garth. The big man finished it. The creature’s tongue licked out.
“Hello, little one,” Wren said softly. “Are you hungry?”
The tongue reappeared.
“Can you talk?”
No response. Wren leaned forward with a bit of cheese. The creature did not move. She eased a little closer. The creature stayed motionless. She hesitated, not certain what to do next. When the creature still did not move, she stretched out her hand cautiously and gently tossed the cheese toward the ledge.
Faster than the eye could follow, the creature’s hand shot out and caught the cheese in midair. After hauling in its catch, the creature sniffed it, then gobbled it down.
“Hungry indeed, aren’t you?” Wren whispered.
There was a shuffling at the entrance to their hiding place. The creature on the rock vanished instantly into the shadows. Wren and Garth turned, swords drawn.
“Hhrrrrgghh,” Stresa muttered as he eased slowly into view, puffing and grunting. “Demon wouldn’t give up the hunt. Ffphtt. Took much longer than I thought to lose it.” He shook his quills until they rattled.
“Are you all right?” Wren asked.
The Splinterscat bristled. “Of course I’m all right. Do you see anything wrong with me? Ssstttt! I’m winded, that’s all.”
Wren glanced furtively at the ledge. The strange creature was back again, watching.
“Can you tell me what that is?” she asked, nodding in the direction of the creature.
Stresa peered into the gloom and then snorted. “Ssspptt. That’s just a Tree Squeak! Completely harmless.”
“It looks frightened.”
The Splinterscat blinked. “Tree Squeaks are frightened of everything. That’s what keeps them alive. That and their quickness. Fastest things on Morrowindl. Smart, too. Smart enough not to let themselves get trapped. You can be certain there is another way out of this crevice or this one wouldn’t even be here. Rrrwwlll. Look at it stare. Seems to have taken an interest in you.”
Wren kept her eyes on the little creature. “Did the Elves make the Tree Squeaks, too?”
Stresa settled himself comfortably in place, paws tucked in. “The Tree Squeaks were always here. But the magic has changed them like everything else. See the hands and feet? Used to be paws. They communicate, too. Watch.”
He made a small chirping sound. The Tree Squeak cocked its head. Stresa tried again. This time the Tree Squeak responded, a soft, low squeaking.
Stresa shrugged. “It’s hungry.” The Splinterscat lost interest, his blunt head lowering onto its forepaws. “We’ll rest until midday, then go on. The demons sleep when its hottest. Best time for us to be about.”
His eyes closed, and his breathing deepened. Garth glanced purposefully at Wren and settled back as well, finding a smooth spot amid the rough edges of the lava rock. Wren was not ready to sleep. She waited a bit, then reached into her pack for another chunk of cheese. She nibbled at it while the Tree Squeak watched, then gently eased across the floor of the crevice until she had closed the distance between them. When she was no more than an arm’s length away, she broke off a bit of the cheese and held it out to the Tree Squeak. The little creature took it gingerly and ate it.
A short time later the Tree Squeak was curled up in her lap. It was still there when she finally fell asleep.
Garth’s hand on her shoulder, firm and reassuring, brought her awake again. She blinked and glanced about. The Tree Squeak was back on its ledge, watching. Garth signed that it was time to go. She rose cautiously in the cleft’s narrow confines and pulled on her pack. Stresa waited by the entrance, quills spread, sniffing the air. It was hot within their shelter, the air still and close.
She looked around briefly to where the Tree Squeak crouched. “Good-bye, little one,” she called softly.
Then they moved out of the darkness and into the misty light. Midday had come and gone while they slept. The vog that shrouded the valley seemed denser than before, its smell sulfuric and rank, and its taste gritty with ash and silt. Heat from Killeshan’s core rose through the porous rock and hung stubborn and unmoving in the air, trapped within the valley’s windless expanse as if captured in a kettle. The mist reflected whitely the diffused sunlight, causing Wren to squint against its glare. Shadowy stands of acacia rose against the haze, and ribbons of black lava rock disappeared into other worlds.
Stresa took them forward, making his way cautiously through the vog’s murk, angling from one point to the next, sniffing as he went. The day had gone uncomfortably silent. Wren listened suspiciously, remembering that Stresa had said the demons would sleep now, mistrusting the information all the same. They worked their way deeper into the valley’s bowl, past islands of jungle grown thick with vines and grasses, down ridges and drops carpeted with scrub, and along the endless strips of barren, crusted lava rock that unraveled like black bands through the mist.
The afternoon wore quickly on. In the haze about them, nothing moved. There were things out there, Wren knew—she could feel their presence. There were creatures like the one that had almost caught them that morning and others even worse. But Stresa seemed aware of where they were and made certain to avoid them, leading his charges on, confident in his choice of paths as he picked his way through the treacherous maze. Everything shifted and changed as they went, and there was a sense of nothing being permanent, of the whole of Morrowindl being in continual flux. The island seemed to break apart and reform about them, a surreal landscape that could be anything it wished and was not bound by the laws of nature that normally governed. Wren grew increasingly uneasy, used to the dependable terrain of plains and mountains and forests, to the sweep of country not hemmed about by water and settled upon a furnace that could open on a whim and consume everything that lived on it. Killeshan’s breath steamed through fissures in the lava rock, small eruptions that stank of burning rock and gases and left shards of debris to drift upon the air. Incongruous amid the lava rock and weeds, isolated clusters of flowering bushes grew, fighting to survive against the heat and ash. Once, Wren thought to herself, this island must have been very beautiful, but it was difficult to imagine it so now.
It was late in the day when they finally reached the Rowen, the light gone gray and faint. The creatures within the haze had begun to stir again, their rumblings and growls-causing the three companions to grow increasingly more watchful. They came upon the river at a point where its far shore was hidden by a screen of mist and its near fell sharply away to a rush of waters that were murky and rough, choked with silt and debris, clouded so thick that nothing of what lay beneath the surface showed.
Stresa stopped at the shore’s edge, casting left and right uncertainly, sniffing the heavy air.
Wren knelt next to the Splinterscat. “How do we get across?” she asked.
“At the Narrows,” the other answered with a grunt. “Ssspptt. The trouble is, I’m not sure where they are. I haven’t been this way in a long time.”
Wren glanced back at Garth, who watched impassively. The light was failing rapidly now, and the sound of the demons rising from their sleep was growing louder. The air remained still and thick as the heat of midday cooled to a damp swelter.
“Rrrwwll. Downstream, I think,” Stresa ventured, sounding none too sure.
Then Wren saw something move in the mist behind them and started. Garth had his short sword out instantly. A small figure inched into view, and Wren came to her feet in surprise. It was the Tree Squeak. It circled away from Garth and came up to her, taking hold of her arm tentatively.
“What are you doing here, little one?” she murmured, and stroked its furry head.
The Tree Squeak pulled itself up on her shoulder and chittered softly at Stresa.
The Splinterscat grunted. “It says the crrrwwwll
crossing is upstream, just a short distance from here. Phffttt. It says it will show us the way.”
Wren frowned doubtfully. “It knows what we’re looking for?”
“Ssssttt. Seems to.” Stresa hunched his quills anxiously. “I don’t like standing about in the open like this. Let’s take a chance and do what it says. Maybe it knows something.”
Wren nodded. With Stresa still leading, they started upstream, following the ragged curve of the Rowen’s bank. Wren carried the Tree Squeak, who clung to her possessively. It must have followed them all the way from that cleft in the lava rock, she realized. Apparently it hadn’t wanted to be left behind. Perhaps the small kindnesses she had shown had won it over. She stroked the wiry body absently and wondered how much kindness anything encountered on Morrowindl.
Moments later Stresa stopped abruptly and drew them back into the concealment of a cluster of rocks. Something huge and misshapen passed before them on its way to the river, a silent shadow in the haze. Patiently they waited. The volume of coughs and grunts continued to grow as the dusk deepened. When they went forward again, even their breathing had slowed to a whisper.
Then the shoreline moved away from where they walked, sloping downward into the river’s swift waters, turning the swirling surface to broken rapids. The haze lifted sufficiently to reveal a narrow bridge of rocks. Quickly they crossed, crouched low against the water, darting for the cover of the mist beyond. When they were safely gathered on the far shore, the Tree Squeak again chittered to Stresa.
“Go left, it says,” the Splinterscat translated, the words a low growl in its throat.
They did as the Tree Squeak advised, moving into the vog. The last of the daylight faded away and darkness closed about. The only light came from far ahead, an odd white glow that shimmered faintly through the haze. They were forced to slow, to grope ahead in the darter pockets, to pause and listen and then judge where it was safe to venture. The demons seemed to be ahead of them—massed, Wren was willing to bet, between themselves and their destination.