by Barb Hendee
Chap padded back up the tunnel and plopped down. Clearly outvoted, Leesil sighed and lowered the chest off his back.
Wynn dropped too quickly in exhaustion and got a sharp pain for it in the seat of her pants. She let Leesil's pack slide off her shoulder in a heap as
Magiere dug out what remained of their rations. The last of the bisselberries were nearly gone, and they had discovered no more such gifts along the way. Magiere held a few crumbling biscuits and a handful of venison jerky strips.
"That cannot be all of it," Wynn said.
Magiere uncorked a water flask and dropped down beside her. "We'll find more once we're out of this mountain."
Wynn divided the biscuits and tossed a jerky strip to Chap. He caught it with a clack of his jaws. Leesil muttered to himself as he inspected the chest's rigging. Wynn turned her eyes from the grisly vessel.
"What was that Elvish you just said?" Magiere whispered.
"It was… nothing," Wynn whispered back. "I was tired and irritated."
"Yes, I got that." Magiere rolled her eyes and bit into half of a dry biscuit, still waiting for a better answer.
Wynn dropped her head, voice hushed even more. "It means something like… 'thoughts of stone.' "
Magiere coughed up crumbs and covered her mouth. "Rock-head? You called him a rock-head?"
A flush of shame heated Wynn's cheeks, but the look on Magiere's face cooled it with surprise. She knew Magiere well enough to gauge her dark moods and acidic nature. The tall woman was often caustic even at her friendliest. But this expression was almost something new.
Was Magiere trying not to grin?
"I'll remember that one," Magiere whispered back.
"I heard that," Leesil growled.
He sat on the chest with his back turned to them, like some monstrous guardian statue perched the wrong way upon a castle parapet.
Wynn quietly ate her half biscuit and two berries. She pulled a tin cup out of Magiere's pack and poured some water for Chap. When she set the water flask down, it teetered on the tunnel's uneven surface, and she made a grab for it. She tried to settle it more firmly, but something grated beneath its bottom.
She felt the tunnel floor beneath the flask, and something soft shifted beneath her fingertips. When she took hold with a pinch, it felt light as a feather. She lifted it up into the light…
It was a feather.
Mottled gray, it was longer than her outstretched hand, with downy frills at its base. It seemed familiar, and that was unsettling, for she could not think why.
Where had she seen it before?
Chap's rumble startled her. He glared intently at the feather and then lifted his muzzle high to gaze about overhead. Wynn cast her own gaze upward and saw nothing but the uneven tunnel roof.
"There's a quill in the making," Magiere said, and reclined on the cold stone. "All you need now are ink and paper. Get some rest while you can."
She rolled onto her side, eyes open, watching Leesil perched upon the chest.
Wynn lay back as well with Leesil's pack as a pillow. She rolled over to face away from him and Magiere. Chap lay with his head on his paws, but he was not trying to sleep either. He studied the feather in her hand, but without the talking hide, she could not ask him why.
Cuirin'nên'a… Nein'a… Mother…
Memories flickered through Leesil's thoughts as he followed the others down the passage. He hadn't slept during their last pause, even after the crystal waned and went out. How long did he sit in the dark before waking the others to move on? It had been hard to meet Magiere's eyes when he finally shook her by the shoulder.
She might see him for what he really was. It hadn't been long since he'd realized it himself.
Guilt for long ago abandoning his parents didn't drive him anymore. Nor was it just sorrow in returning the remains of his father to his mother. Longing was still part of it, remembering a mother's gentle touch and firm lilting voice, and how these made his first life bearable for a while. But it had taken the memories that Chap stole from Brot'an in Darmouth's family crypt to make Leesil face much of the truth.
Darmouth had used him. And Brot'an had wielded him like the bone knife Leesil gouged deep into Darmouth's throat. If that moment had been the end of it, he might have put those bloody events behind him. He'd done it before.
But he began to see the pattern of his life, to understand the reason for his existence.
His life had been engraved by the scheme of a grandmother he never knew—Eillean. Even his own father must have had a hand in it, for Gavril had gone along with Nein'as insistence. Leesil couldn't escape what he was—what his mother had made him.
A weapon.
He wanted to look her in the eyes and know the reasons for all she'd done to him, everything she'd trained him to be.
Wynn stumbled along in front of him. Beyond her, Magiere now led the way with the renewed crystal in hand. Somewhere farther on, Chap tried to sniff their way out, for the trail of berries had ended far behind them. Too far to turn back with no food left. Leesil hoped they had made the right decision following Chap.
The tunnel forked again.
Chap shifted anxiously between the mouths of the two passages. He sniffed the stone floor, staring down each in turn. The dog stood silent for so long that Leesil came out of his own dark thoughts, and then Chap trotted off down the right fork without looking back.
"I hope he knows what he's doing," Magiere muttered.
They moved on, and time dragged in this place without day or night. Leesil's shoulders ached from the chest's ropes biting into them. He'd sunk into himself once more when Chap suddenly stopped.
"What now?" Leesil asked, and peered around a too-silent Wynn.
Magiere felt cold inside standing behind Chap in tense silence. But it wasn't from the tunnel's chill. She resisted looking back at Leesil. He'd driven them hard with his desperation, but he drove himself even harder.
Their food was gone, and they'd been on half rations for longer than she could reckon. Their situation was dire, and they all knew it.
Chap lowered his head with a growl.
Magiere dropped her pack to the tunnel floor. She reached over her right shoulder and gripped the falchion's hilt where she'd strapped it to her back.
"What is it?" Leesil demanded in a hushed voice.
Chap let out a whine, then snorted as if some scent in the air had clogged his nose.
"Chap?" she whispered.
His ears pricked up, and he whined again, but it sounded more disgruntled than alarmed.
A light scratching carried up the tunnel from below.
"We are not alone," Wynn whispered.
Magiere drew her falchion, holding the crystal out with her other hand.
Beyond the light's reach, a pair of shimmers appeared in the dark. They bobbed up and down as the soft sound of claws on stone came nearer. The paired shimmers rose slightly from the floor. The dark shape of a small creature formed around them.
No larger than a house cat, its body was elongated like a weasel or ferret. A stubby tail, darker than its bark-colored fur, twitched erratically as it sat up on its hindquarters.
Around its eyes and down its pug muzzle spread a black mask of fur. Wide ears perked up with small tufts of white hairs on their points. Its strangest features were its tiny forepaws. Less like paws and more like small hands, they ended in stubby little fingers with short claws.
"Oh no!" Wynn breathed out.
Magiere had to look back. The astonishment on Wynn's features melted to loathing.
Chap shifted to the tunnel's side opposite the little beast.
"What is that?" Magiere asked.
"Tâshgâlh!", Wynn said. "And Leesil can swear at it all he wants!"
"Is it poisonous or something?" Magiere asked.
Wynn wrinkled her nose. "No, it's not—"
Chap growled, but he didn't close on the creature. He snapped his jaws threateningly and it dashed straight up the tunnel's si
de wall to the ceiling.
Magiere shoved Wynn back and held out her blade at the animal.
It clung there as if standing upside down on the tunnel's craggy roof. With one quick hiss at Chap, it turned its attention back toward Magiere. It began to coo at her, like a dove, and swayed slightly as its head bobbed with excitement.
Magiere carefully aimed the cold lamp crystal for a better look, and its black, glassy eyes followed the movement.
"Oh no, not on your mangy little life!" Wynn yelled, and ducked around Magiere to snatch the crystal. Then she scooped up a loose stone and threw it at the creature. "That is mine!"
Chap scurried back as the stone went wide, bouncing from one tunnel wall to the other.
The tâshgâlh hopped sideways across the ceiling, trying to regain sight of the crystal. Wynn pulled the glowing stone behind her back with a groan.
"We will never get rid of the little beast."
"What is it?" Magiere demanded.
"Its name means 'finder of lost things,' " Wynn answered. "A rather polite wording. They are nothing but incorrigible little thieves. It will follow us and dig through our belongings the moment we are asleep… now that it has seen something pretty that it fancies."
Chap jumped at the tâshgMh, his barks filling the tunnel with echoes.
"You see?" Wynn shouted over the noise. "Chap knows the trouble they make."
"Quiet down, Chap," Leesil yelled.
The tâshgâlh darted back and forth across the ceiling, trying to stay out of reach but maintain sight of its coveted item. Chap kept barking as he lunged up one wall or the other. The little creature screeched at him, then raced along an arc down the tunnel wall and back the way it had come.
"How many of these things could be in the tunnels?" Leesil demanded. "And how do you know this animal? Magiere, will you shut that dog up!"
Magiere shot him an angry glance. When she turned to do as he'd asked, all she saw of Chap was his swishing tail as he took off after the fleeing animal.
"They do not live in caves," Wynn said. "They live in…"
Wynn spun about, staring wide-eyed down the tunnel. Before Magiere could demand a better answer, Wynn took off in a headlong rush after Chap.
"Wait! What are you doing?" Magiere called.
"They do not live in caves," Wynn shouted back. "They live in forests."
Magiere grabbed up her pack and slung it over one shoulder, preparing to run Wynn down before the sage added to her injuries in some stumbling fall.
"Forests?" Leesil repeated.
Magiere stared down the tunnel. The bobbing light of Wynn's crystal grew smaller as her voice echoed back up the passage.
"elven forests!"
Chap raced after the tâshgâlh. The dark tunnel made it almost impossible to see his quarry, and he followed mostly by sound. The instant he had seen the little creature, he knew what its presence meant, but he had no way to tell the others. All he could do was terrify it enough to flee for its life.
The tâshgâlh went silent, and Chap skidded to a stop, listening. Then he heard its paws scraping on stone ahead.
He had seen its like twice when he was a pup in the elven lands. Majay-hì did not hunt tâshgâlh, for the little pests were a clever breed and easier prey was available. He could smell its fear of him, knew it wondered why he came after it, but this pursuit could not be helped. He knew it would run for the familiar safety of the forest.
Another scent filled his nose over the animals musky fear and the passage's stale odor.
Pine… and wet earth… and warm, humid air.
Somewhere behind him, clumsy feet kicked rocks down the passage in haste. The tâshgâlh raced away ahead of him. Chap chased onward, and the scent of the forest grew stronger.
He could see the animal's stiff tail and pumping rear legs. And then light beyond it. An opening appeared, curtained by branches, but not enough to blot out the light of the sun.
The tâshgâlh jumped as it reached the passage's end, grabbing a tree limb. As the branch recoiled upward under the creature's weight, it swung out of sight.
Chap slowed to a halt just shy of the exit and stared at wet green pine needles glistening in sunlight.
It was still winter, but in the elven Territories, the snow touched only the higher ranges.
He waited there, almost not believing that he had found his way through. For a moment he could not bring himself to step out into the world.
Chap breathed deep and filled his head with all the subtle scents of his days as a pup among his siblings. He was home once again, or at least the place where he had chosen to be born in flesh.
Wynn came scrambling up behind him. Her round eyes and olive-skinned face filled with relief at the sight of branches overhanging the opening.
"Oh, Chap," she said.
He stepped out with the young sage close upon his tail. Somewhere above in the trees, the tâshgâlh squawked derisively.
Morning had broken, with the sun just cresting the eastern horizon. But the trees still obscured the view down the mountainside. Chap pushed his way through the foliage dotting the small plateau onto which they emerged. When the last branch dragged across his back, he stood upon a rocky slope still partway up the mountain.
"We're on the eastern side of the Broken Range," Leesil whispered.
He and Magiere had finally caught up, but Chap did not turn his eyes from the vision spread out before him.
Down the sparsely forested ridge and stretching as far as he could see lay a vast forestland. Not as in Belaskia or Stravina, with spots of open plains and fields, nor the dank and dull green of Droevinka's moss-strewn fir and spruce trees.
It was vivid glowing green of multiple hues, even though winter was upon it and it lay nearly at the northernmost end of the continent. Multiple rivers flowed away from the range through the heart of a vast land, each a shimmering blue ribbon across a verdant fabric that rolled here and there with the hills beneath its surface.
The forest stretched as far as Chap could see. Somewhere beyond it to the northeast were the eastern ocean and the gulf bay no foreign ship had ever berthed in. He did not remember how large the elven Territories truly were. But then he had not seen much of them as a pup before he was taken away.
"It seems to go on forever," Wynn said.
At the mountain's base, stepped slopes dropped gradually, and the sparse growth of the plateau built quickly to warm, bright foliage that reached for uncountable leagues.
Magiere stepped up beside Chap, but of them all, she appeared the least touched by the sight.
"Yes, so large it looks closer than it is," she said. "We're out of food, and we still have to make it down this mountain."
Chap looked up at her pale features marred by exhaustion. Where Wynn's showed relief and overwhelmed awe, in Magiere's face he saw some hint of fallen resignation. Then he glanced at Leesil, whose amber eyes sparked in the sunlight but were chill with determination.
A human, a dhampir, and a half-blood. He had brought them into a place where the word "unwelcome" was but a polite term for what awaited them.
Wynn's lips had parted to speak when a high-pitched chirp sounded above them. Chap looked up, but the sky was empty except for dark billowing clouds trapped upon the mountain peaks. The sound trailed into a string of slurred notes, erratic but strangely lyrical, and then it faded in the light breeze.
Wynn fished in her coat pocket. She pulled out the feather she had found. In the sunlight, it was mottled white.
"Where did you get that?" Leesil asked, as he had not seen the feather until now.
"I found it at our last stop in the tunnels."
Leesil took his pack off her shoulder and dug through it until he pulled out the small arrow. The trimmed feathers on its notched end matched the one in Wynn's hand.
Magiere only glanced at the feathers and then down the slope. "We need to get moving."
Chap turned along the plateau to find them a path. He barked for the others to fo
llow him. For a moment, Wynn looked up into the empty sky then back toward the mountain's passage, hidden behind the trees. The feather was still in her hand.
Chapter Three
D escending the rocky mountainside took most of the day. As the sun passed to the west above the Broken Range, the forest surrounded Chap and his companions. He returned to the land of his birth.
Whenever a break appeared in the green canopy of needles and leaves, Wynn's gaze wandered to the mountain behind them. She insisted that the tâshgâlh might still follow them. Chap neither heard nor smelled it, but she was likely right. Those little bandits were persistent.
Chap nudged Wynn aside before she stumbled into a tangle of poison ivy clinging to an oak. She slowed, wavering on her feet, and Chap paused when he noticed that Leesil had halted as well.
Leesil glanced about as if searching for his bearings. With a shrug, he took a deep breath, prepared to move on, but Chap saw Wynn swallow hard with panic on her smudged face.
"You all right?" Magiere asked.
The question startled Wynn. "No… yes, I am fine, just… it is nothing."
Wynn shook her head and continued onward, but Chap watched her with concern. Now and then she stared through the forest, her wonder mixed with worry.
Chap stayed close as they moved deeper into the trees. He expected Wynn's normally incessant babbling to begin over all the subtle strange differences the forest held compared to those of the human lands. Her sage's curiosity was the main reason she had forced her own inclusion in this journey long moons ago back in Bela. But she remained silent and watchful, and more than once started at the sight of even the most mundane foliage or tree.
Chap had been just a pup when Eillean had carried him away from this place. Lush, oversized leaves and enormous red and yellow hyacinths hung from the vines in one grove. They all stopped briefly to replenish their water at a crystal-clear brook winding through scattered azalea bushes. A small flight of bees thrummed between the flowers until a hawk-wasp chased them off.
"It is almost warm here," Wynn said. "How is that possible?"
For once, Chap was relieved that the talking hide was lost. He did not wish for conversation now. He simply wanted to breathe the air and to feel the forest's life. Just for one more moment to forget the danger that lay ahead.