The Sapphire Manticore (The Lost Ancients Book 4)

by Marie Andreas

  “What the hell happened?” Flarinen might have been back in command, but his voice indicated he was going back into the confused state.

  Alric didn’t answer but slammed the lid back on the chest and cast his own sealing spell on it. Finally he helped me to my feet and we faced Flarinen.

  “I couldn’t see much, but it looked like a stash of weapons and spell books.” He kept looking at me and the chest, the groove between his brows thick and deep.

  “Then why shut the chest? We can use more weapons.”

  “They were from the Dark. I recognized the book and one of the ritual knives.” Alric kicked the chest toward the knights. “Look at the mark.”

  Flarinen started swearing, and even the other knights pulled back. “How can that be?”

  “We have a traitor or traitors within the enclave. Someone wanted this to go to the members of the Dark. Judging by the wood Taryn took off that was hiding it, this has only been here a few weeks—maybe a month.”

  “Maybe right after you left the enclave?” I was starting to feel almost normal and the spell glue was fading on its own. Which was good since it was in places I really didn’t want to try to get clean while trapped in a smithy with a bunch of knights.

  Flarinen immediately looked defensive, but he dropped it before he spoke. “It could be. They would have known we were coming out, and we really didn’t spend much time here.” He kept staring at the high lord mark on the wooden chest. “I don’t recognize the family on that one though.”

  That answered one question for me as to how Jovan had known what Alric’s lineage had been. The marks were based on specific family lines.

  Alric shook his head. “Me either, but it is clearly one of ours.” His tone was one I’d never heard before. I knew Alric had never wanted to be an elven high lord. He’d told me how hard he fought not to be one of the aristocracy in his troubled and misspent youth. But the bottom line was these were his people, and a traitor was among them.

  CHAPTER NINE

  Flarinen stayed silent as Alric found a tarp and wrapped the box in it. We were making a collection of dangerous items wrapped in fabric. Not a healthy collection was my thought.

  “Great, so we know the Dark, or a fan of theirs, is probably behind the spell that’s outside, we have no way out, and even if we could get out we have no way to get into your enclave until morning.” I wasn’t asking a question, more like relaying the ‘we are doomed’ facts.

  “Very succinctly put.” Flarinen took everything at face value, and trying to explain what I’d meant would just slow him down. He’d done one final lap around the smithy and loft, and then came back. “I finished the spell of sealing.” He kept his voice low, as if he was embarrassed about stooping to using magic. It did answer a few questions: he was a magic user of some sort, and apparently using it when one was a high-ranking knight was very tacky.

  “Thank you.” Alric also kept his voice low. “We should probably set up for the night and hope we can make it through the portal at daybreak.” He raised his voice a bit. “But we must be prepared to destroy all access to the enclave if we are compromised while trying to get in.”

  The knights looked nervous, but Flarinen nodded. “Agreed. We cannot let the Dark get—”

  His words were cut off by a loud popping sound. The wall next to us gave birth to a small bulge, which burst, and then suddenly my three faeries were in front of us.

  “What do to wall?” Garbage flew right into my face and shook her finger. “Almost no work!”

  Alric went over to where the bulge had been and ran his hand over the area a few times. There were no marks to show where a trio of four-inch-high faeries had blasted their way through. “The sealing spell is still in place.” There was surprise and more than a little concern on his face as he looked at the faeries.

  “Course. We not break.” Leaf flew around his head a few times, and then landed on his shoulder.

  “We help!” Crusty tried doing the same to me but smacked me in the side of the head instead.

  “Now taste gluey.” She reached around to my face and waved one tiny hand. It didn’t look gluey but I kind of knew what she meant.

  “So they came through the wall, and the sealing spell let them go through, but it’s still in place?” Flarinen said. “I think I should have taken them instead of you.” He didn’t smile when he looked at me, but there was no malice there either.

  “We don’t know a lot of what they can do.” I held up one hand, as Garbage looked ready to chastise me. “Neither do they.”

  Garbage’s scowl grew deeper and she folded her arms.

  “Well? Has something changed in the last week and a half? Do you remember what all you can do?” I directed the question to all three of the tiny hooligans. Garbage was their de-facto leader, but sometimes one of the others was more observant. Just today they’d pulled off two very advanced tricks that I knew they couldn’t do a week ago.

  “They things we used do,” Garbage said with a pout.

  “Do you recall others? How did you know you could do these things?”

  Her eyes narrowed to mere slits. I wasn’t supposed to ask that. I was supposed to simply be impressed.

  “No,” Garbage finally said.

  “Just happen. Go boom.” Crusty chimed in from my shoulder. Of course when she said boom, she had to act it out so she tumbled in the air for a few moments, then smacked back into my head.

  “They come to us, we powerful,” Garbage said with a glare at all of the knights.

  I wasn’t going to try to get more details right now. Like their other newfound tricks, they had no control over these new ones, nor could they predict what would come next. Judging by the way Garbage was now glaring down Flarinen and his men, I’d say she wasn’t going to be helpful with them around anyway.

  “So, why are you here?” I asked.

  “Why didn’t the red mist go after them?” Flarinen had been watching the faeries with a growing frown.

  “We here tell you wait. No go in hidey place yet,” Garbage said.

  “Garbage tell it leave us alone,” Leaf added from Alric’s shoulder.

  “I did.” Garbage puffed out her tiny chest, straining her overalls.

  I didn’t know what the spell was that had sucked the life out of that knight, but I doubted the spellcaster was going to obey a faery. Either whoever it was had taken off—most likely to get reinforcements—or they weren’t concerned with a few faeries.

  “Where are the others?” I should have noticed the rest of the dreadful dozen weren’t around, but I was pretty sure I saw all of them during the great syclarion caper earlier this afternoon. That was another thing I needed to try to talk to the girls about, and again, not something I could do at the moment.

  “They wait with rest. All come get you.” Leaf patted the side of Alric’s head. She’d always favored good-looking men and rarely landed on me if Alric was around.

  “This is taking too long.” Flarinen stepped forward and tried to grab Leaf. She skipped right out of his hand and hovered in the air above them. When he tried again, Alric grabbed his arm.

  “I wouldn’t. They are far more dangerous than our tales told us. It’s best to keep them on our side.” Alric held out his hand, and Leaf landed on it. However, not before she stuck out her tongue at Flarinen. Good looking or not, he was clearly not going to be a favorite with the girls.

  “Others coming, have little traveling houses. Tell us to make wait. Uncle Harlan know of bad spell out there,” Garbage said finally. Which was good because even though Flarinen had stood down at Alric’s words—the elven myths of the faeries must be terrifying—he still looked like he was at the end of his patience.

  “I need you to go back and give Harlan a message.” I started to look around for anything I could use to write a note.

  “Message! You forgot.” Crusty shouted in my ear and then flew over to Garbage.

  Garbage whirled in a circle to keep her scowl aimed at Crusty, but
Crusty didn’t seem to care.

  “Um, ladies? You have a message?” I asked before they could get caught up in a fight.

  Garbage shot one more scowl toward Crusty, including Leaf Grub for good measure, then flew over to me, and landed on my outstretched hand.

  “Needed make sure,” she glared over her shoulder at the knights, “bad people not around. But here.” She reached into her tiny pocket on the front of her overalls and pulled out one of the faery bags. The bag expanded as she shook it, but it still wasn’t big enough for the paper inside to have fit without magic. One of these days I was going to see if I could get one of them to work for me. Very handy to have a tiny bag that could hold just about anything.

  I nodded my thanks and took the folded paper out. I recognized Harlan’s scribbling as soon as I saw it. I really wished Covey had sent the note. Harlan could write perfectly fine when he wanted to. It looked like a bunch of pigeons had started dancing in ink when he didn’t.

  This was one of those times.

  I squinted at the marks for a few seconds, as my brain tried to sort them out. A cough from Flarinen was my warning to figure faster. “Hold on, my friend’s writing is very unique. Harlan says Orenda has figured out there is only one magic user using the spell to pin us down. They were behind us, and she felt the attack on the knight. She knows the spell, but can’t counter it for any length of time, but it does need line of sight and,” I squinted as his writing took on a whole new level of badness, “she thinks the spellcaster is injured. Whoever is out there hasn’t moved.”

  Flarinen started to ask the same question I was thinking: we’d only been in here for an hour or so, how could Orenda know so much? I held my hand up to stop him and finished reading. “They had an idea where we were going and were planning on joining us. Orenda made a guess that your shield spell would act like the one her people have.”

  “Orenda is the half-elf you had with you? How could her people know elven ways?” Flarinen’s annoying superiority had been fading, but now it was back up to full power.

  I started to answer but Alric jumped in first.

  “She is a full elf. Her enclave was formed by youths and children after the Breaking. That monster that attacked us was once a full elf. I have no idea how many more of his people are to the south, but they came from the Dark survivors.” He stood nose to nose with Flarinen, far more pissed off than I’d seen him in a while. “I told the council there had to be other survivors. Other elves. You all mocked me.”

  “The odds against any other survivors of the Breaking were too great. There can’t be other—”

  “Stop quoting my father,” Alric was practically snarling now. Clearly this was a long-standing and very prickly argument. “He is wrong. They are all wrong. We hid for a thousand years, sure the Dark were gone, that it was the other races we had to worry about.” He stabbed a finger into Flarinen’s chest. “They aren’t the danger, the Dark are. And we’ve had potential allies all these years but never bothered to find out. Our great people left a bunch of children to fend for themselves.”

  Orenda had spoken of her clan’s history with pride, but Alric had seen it for what it was. His people had left children behind in the wilds of the world after the Breaking. His clan had sealed themselves in, away from those they were responsible for.

  Flarinen’s face contorted into a combination of anger, fear, and embarrassment. I could practically see the wheels turning to hit the same conclusion Alric had when he gathered bits and pieces of Orenda’s story over the past few months.

  “Okay, so, this is interesting.” I stepped forward and pushed apart the two manly chests. “But it is not going to help us at all. Orenda’s ancestors must have had enough knowledge with them that they created a similar shield to what you have. She has a plan, she has a wagon.” I looked at the faeries—I assumed that was what they meant. Garbage nodded. The other two were still watching Alric and Flarinen very carefully. “I say we settle in for a few hours of sleep, and then be ready before day break for whatever the plan is.”

  Garbage had been watching the two elven lords closely. Knowing her, she was hoping they’d fight. At least that Flarinen would strike Alric and give her a reason to go after him.

  When there was no call for mayhem, she shrugged. “Fine. We go.” She started for the wall they’d come through but then spun around to point at all of the knights. “No do bad things. We help you.”

  Before Flarinen could recover, all three faeries took deep breaths and forced their way through the door.

  It was more than a little disturbing to watch. It was as if the door was very slowly swallowing them, then popped back to normal.

  Flarinen looked ready to ask a question about the faeries, then shook his head and went back to his knights. “We’ll set standard guard blocks. Regardless of what our allies believe, we have no way of knowing what the enemy is doing, nor their condition.” He looked briefly to Alric and I. “You may set up sleeping quarters wherever you’d like, but I recommend you stick nearby.”

  Alric nodded and pulled his collection of fabric-covered dangerous relics to a corner.

  “This looks good,” he said as he dropped his voice. “I think we should keep our own guard. Flarinen is fine, but some of his men are starting to look spooked. They were almost more disturbed by the faeries than they were by whatever Glorinal became before he exploded.”

  I hadn’t noticed, but I’d gotten good at ignoring the knights during our time together. I casually looked over my shoulder at them, but all looked far more frazzled and worn than they had when we started this trip. If a few were a bit whiter around the eyes than the others, I wasn’t sure.

  “Do you think they’ll do something stupid? They are trained knights after all.” I hadn’t liked being a prisoner of the cheerless bunch, but I had felt fairly safe that they would behave honorably. I was questioning that now.

  Alric watched all of them before turning back to me. The lines on his face told me his answer before his words did. “I honestly don’t know. This was the first time they went beyond this fake village. In the last ten days they have faced rakasa, Glorinal, you, the faeries, a killing mist, and the knowledge that there are other elves in the world. Including the Dark.” He shook his head. “All the training in the world is useless if you’ve been as sheltered as they have been.”

  As he spoke he had automatically set up both of our sleeping areas. “You take first sleep. I’ll wake you in a few hours.” He sat on top of his blankets, his packs folded behind him to keep him in a seating position.

  Now that he pointed out the knights’ ill ease, I couldn’t help but notice it. There had been fifteen knights when they burst into that clearing to fight back the rakasa. There were now eight plus Flarinen. And those eight looked tired, bloody, and scared.

  Of course I could be projecting the last part, as their faces still looked fairly stoic. However, they had faced far more than I’m sure they ever expected. Being this close to home might make them break.

  As they had out on the road, Flarinen and the remaining knights formed a circle, and began their singing. They maintained a lower volume than normal, and I wasn’t sure if it was out of respect for their dead, or something else.

  “Why do they sing every night?” I asked Alric, and then dropped my voice to a whisper, “And why is it so bad?”

  “The singing is traditional for the knights, and within the enclave it has a purpose. Out here, I think it’s just to scare wild animals away.” His comment didn’t slow them down, but Flarinen did spare a nasty glare his way.

  Alric smiled back. “The shield for our enclave has a harmonic component. All of our knights are trained to sing songs that have a frequency which feeds the shield. I’m sure the rest of the knights inside the enclave are singing now. It sounds bad out here because of the lack of a shield.” He shrugged. “Their songs aren’t cheery, but they sound much better in the enclave.”

  I felt better that they weren’t all tone deaf, but it
wasn’t going to make it easier to listen to. But I was certain there was no way I was going to get any sleep tonight anyway. I kept running too many bad scenarios in my mind.

  Waking to screams and the smell of smoke convinced me I had slept.

  CHAPTER TEN

  The smithy was on fire, and judging from the light, it had started in the loft. Two of the knights were up there, but fighting something other than the flames.

  Something I sure as hell couldn’t see.

  “Get down here!” Flarinen yelled at them, but the one closest to the edge tumbled while fighting his unseen foe and fell. I didn’t even see Alric move until he was past me, but he got under the knight and threw a spell on him to slow his crash. It worked. The knight landed with a thump but was still in one piece.

  The second knight in the loft suddenly stopped. He looked around, yelled, and started to try to put out the flames. It wasn’t going to work. However they had started, they were spreading fast.

  “We have to get outside!” The flames were licking the walls. It wouldn’t be long before they tore down the side.

  “The mist is still out there. It’s not yet dawn,” one of the knights yelled as he looked for something to put out the flames.

  Flarinen ran forward, but Alric grabbed his arm. “We can put this out. But Taryn doesn’t know what to do. I need you to assist.”

  Flarinen looked around at his men. Was he seriously weighing using his magic in front of them versus our being burnt to a crisp or attacked by a flesh-sucking mist spell?

  Finally, he gave a terse nod. “Agreed.”

  Most of the spells that Alric had taught me had a few simple words attached, and I said them in my head, not out loud. The spells I’d seen Alric himself use were pretty much the same. During my lessons, Alric had mentioned bigger spells; heavier ones that required more than just a few words and a lot of focus.

  Both Alric and Flarinen started chanting and I had a feeling this was no natural fire we were facing.

  “You probably should get down from there,” I yelled to the knight who remained on the loft. It was great he wasn’t seeing the invisible foe that almost killed his friend, but those flames looked too smart. It was as if they were now looking for something.