“Just call me Vanx, and call him Poops,” Vanx told him. Then out of curiosity, Vanx chanced a look over at the tree where he thought Darl had last been seen. Nothing seemed any different than it had the night before. “You weren’t up on the roof for the battle with the wolf beasts, were you?” he asked hopefully.
“I was hiding in the forest when they fled,” said Thorn. “I saw that sneak, so I snuck up there and killed it. I just hope there are no other witchy eyes about, or Queen Corydalis might suffer for our collusion.”
“If my vision of her last night was true,” Vanx sighed sadly, “which I’m certain now that it was. I’m sorry to say, your queen is most likely beyond suffering.”
“No!” Thorn said. “We would feel it.” He heaved a sigh of his own. “You can never underestimate the Hoar Witch’s ability to make one suffer. She has spent several centuries perfecting the art on us.”
Thorn spat out his distaste for the evil witch as they found the cabin door. “Just so you’ll have an idea of what you are up against,” Thorn added, “you should know that death is no relief from her tortures.”
Vanx couldn’t help but shiver when he heard the words.
Chapter Two
“I understand yon giant is your friend, but there is a witch to capture and a queen to rescue,” Thorn said as he gingerly paced the floor.
Xavian had cleansed the claw wound on the little elf’s thigh but hadn’t had the strength to help its healing along with spells. By the look in Thorn’s eyes, it was clear the slice was tender. Ever since they had cleaned and tied it closed, he’d been pacing in an attempt to keep it from getting stiff. Vanx didn’t envy him and wished that he would sit still, for the squeaking and creaking of tiny boots and wood floor was maddening.
After the wide-eyed novelty of Thorn’s size wore off, Chelda had unabashedly stripped down to nothing but a long shirt and curled up by the fire. Xavian sat in a half-lidded daze and watched over Kegger’s unconscious form. He was only half listening, if he was at all.
“I understand your urgency, Thorn,” Vanx said, “but Chelda and Xavian need rest before either can continue. And we still haven’t figured out what to do with Kegger when we go. He won’t be able to walk.” Vanx threw up his arms in exasperation. “What do you want us to do? Just leave him to fend for himself?”
“Nay, Vanx. I want the two of us, and the girl, to go save Queen Corydalis.” He spun on his injured leg and nearly crumpled to the floor from the sudden jolt of pain.
“You’re in need of rest, Thorn. You spent the whole of last night injured and huddled in the cold.”
“Bah.” Thorn looked about the room in agitation. His luminous yellow eyes lingered on Chelda’s ample, and lightly-covered, bosom for a few moments too long. Then he went and sat down next to her. He lay back, let his head sink into her breasts and sighed. “If you knew all that I went through.” He was whispering now in an attempt to keep from waking his living pillows. “If you’d seen the sacrifices my companions and I made just to get the crystal Queen Corydalis required to send out her beckoning to you, then you’d know that this scratch means very little to me. My own life,” Thorn stifled a yawn and wiggled himself deeper into Chelda’s cleavage, “means very little to me. It’s the tree that must…” He yawned again. “The tree that must be kept.”
To Vanx’s great surprise, Chelda giggled in her sleep and gently laid her huge arm across Thorn’s tiny body. Both of them were fast asleep, and the elf looked like a favorite doll a big girl was clutching to her chest.
For a while, Vanx stayed lost in the overwhelming wonder of it all. He’d been responding to Queen Corydalis’s beckoning all this time, not some blood calling. He could feel a connection, though, not only to the taint of the nearby forest, but to the desperate fae. When Thorn had referred to his emerald eyes, and then later called him their champion, his heart had stopped. Those were the words his goddess often used when they spoke. He was her emerald-eyed champion. She told him that she’d quickened the improbable seed of his life so that he might only follow his heart, but that isn’t what champions did. Vanx was sure that she had a hand in all of this. Hadn’t she warned him about the Hoar Witch’s evil before he left Orendyn?
He felt the leafy charm at his neck tingle, then. The feeling reassured him, but only until he thought about Gallarael.
He couldn’t believe Gallarael was dead. How was he going to explain all of this to King Oakarm and Prince Russet, or worse, Duchess Gallarain? Vanx had faced down a dragon and at least a dozen ogres to save Gallarael from the fang-flower venom that had once infected her. Now she lay dead at the bottom of a frozen gulch. The horn-snouted serpent that slung her there would meet its end before this was done, too, Vanx told himself, but why Gallarael?
It should have been him.
The Hoar Witch should have been trying to kill him. No, she’d said she had other plans for him. He tried but couldn’t remember her threats. The image of the violated pixie queen trying to cover her pubis kept coming to him, and thoughts of deep regret over letting Gallarael come along assailed his consciousness. He would have to go retrieve her body before they went on. Beyond avenging her death, it was the least he could do.
Those thoughts inspired Vanx into action. It was midmorning, and everyone save for him was sound asleep. Poops was dozing, but Vanx knew the dog would be glad to have something to do for a while.
“Come on, boy,” Vanx said. “I need you to stand guard for me while I do a bit of climbing.”
Before Vanx was even standing, the dog was at the cabin door, his entire hind end wagging with excitement. The sight of the dog’s simple joy made Vanx envious. How nice it would be not to have to worry about evil witches and dead friends.
Poops stilled his glee and gave Vanx a look that caused him to pause. Poops missed Gallarael, too. This, Vanx gathered from that fleeting glance, as if it had been spoken in well-articulated words. He was picking up on the subtle signals the dog was sending, or maybe the thoughts were forming through the familial bond-link they shared.
“Come on, then,” he told the dog. “Let’s get this grim work over with.”
They went to the tree where the rope was tied and saw that it still trailed over the cliff’s edge. Leaning out as far as he dared, Vanx peered down into the depths of the chasm but couldn’t see anything of note.
“Go scout the edge of the forest, Poops,” said Vanx. “Make sure there is nothing lurking about, while I figure out what it is we need to do down there.”
A short while later, Vanx was carefully climbing down the rope, while Poops kept vigilant guard above. Vanx wasn’t in a descending rig, but he had the thick harness belt that he’d worn the day before when they traversed the cliff face. He cleverly looped the rope through a set of rings into a binding that allowed him to pause his descent and just hang from the line. This only worked as long as he kept a firm hold of the trailing end of his rope. If he fell suddenly, he wouldn’t likely be able to slow himself, so he took his time and didn’t risk the urge he had to push himself and swing out with his legs so he could see what was below him.
At one point, a burst of flapping wings and squawking beaks sent his heart hammering through his chest. A short while later, a huge shadow eclipsed the sun as it glided over him. Twisting like a maniac to see what new beast was behind him, he was relieved to find that it was just a silver-winged moth observing him curiously.
After a time, Vanx came to a ledge that was surprisingly wide, and as he stood there resting his arms, he saw something that filled him with hope. Boot prints.
He pulled up plenty of slack and then tied himself fast to the line, so that if he fell from here, he would only go a dozen feet or so before the rope stopped him. He carefully followed the prints along the rough, irregular ledge. The rock here was ice-slicked, but recent snow had piled over the glassy stuff enough to afford some traction. Vanx used the rope to keep himself upright as he inched along. He grew more hopeful with each successive step. What he event
ually found poked a huge hole in his bucket of hope, though, and he couldn’t do anything other than stare at the bloody mess before him as it all leaked away.
The crimson stain was fairly large, but Vanx didn’t think it was a lot of blood from a major wound, but more likely a little blood from a lot of smaller injuries. The vague shape of a sprawled body had been stamped, and then stomped, into the barely recognizable mess. Vanx guessed that this is where Gallarael had fallen, because there was part of one of her boots lying there, still half-tied into one of the spiked cleats they had been wearing. The tracks leading along the edge hadn’t been cleated, and the portion of missing boot had been sheered away, not ripped or torn.
From all of this, Vanx only grew more confused. The boot prints had to be Darl’s, for they were definitely gargan-sized prints, but there was a good four feet of unmarked snow between the trampled blood stain and the edge of the ledge. The strangest thing was, there were no tracks leading to the edge of the stain. It was as if somebody had come as far as Vanx had and observed the mess, but then what?
There were no tracks leading back. Did some winged beast snatch Darl from the wall and carry him away? Something had taken the body that had made the stain. Vanx was suddenly worried that the giant serpent had come out of another hole and gotten them. He eased over onto the wider ledge and squatted down, contemplating the situation.
If Darl was alive, and there was a good possibility he was, they couldn’t just leave him.
“Darlen!” Vanx called out with his hands cupped to his mouth.
“Darlen— Darlen— Darlen—” his words came echoing back to him.
Again he called out but was only rewarded with his own desperate-sounding voice.
Vanx stood and looked out over the nothingness beyond his position. Off to the right, the frozen falls tumbled majestically. Off to his left, the little ledge faded back into the sheer cliff, which angled out of view only a few yards farther on. The bottom of the gorge was still a long way below them. This precipice wasn’t even halfway down.
The translucent blue-green falls sparked like so much melted jade in the afternoon sun. All about the huge pillar of water, scarlet birds kited and wheeled. They swooped between the falls and the cliff through the eerie blue glow that refracted there. Not so far above them, a single giant moth: its massive, metallic-sheened wings alternating lavender, then turquoise, then lavender again as it opened and closed them in the sun. Vanx guessed those wings to be the size of ship sails, and he wished he could take the time to study the wonder of the creatures. He was beginning to feel a deep, brewing madness in the cauldron of his gut. It was a concoction of anger, sorrow, hate and regret, of guilt and love, and more than a little fear. What qualities the nasty brew would have when it all boiled over, he couldn’t say, but he knew one thing for certain: there would be havoc and destruction in his wake when it happened. Whether he survived the wrath of the emotional storm that was coming wasn’t that important anymore. The only thing that mattered was that the Hoar Witch didn’t.
There was a sudden eruption of birds again, this time from farther below him. Their cawing, shrieking cacophony was accompanied by an angry huffing sound that no small creature could make. It was too far down to be a threat to him, but Vanx knew that whatever it was might be what had taken Gallarael’s body.
The simple fact that he was powerless at the moment pushed his anger to its limits. He was suddenly of a mind with the elf, Thorn. It was time to start this witch hunt, for a hunt is all it really was now. All he had to do was stop being the prey.
Vanx stood and used his dagger to scratch an upward-pointing arrow on the cliff face. He pulled up several dozen yards of the rope’s trailing slack, and after wedging his old dirk in a crack in the rock, he tied the line to it, so if anyone set foot on the ledge, they couldn’t help but see it. He doubted it would matter. After hearing that creature and estimating its size, he was pretty sure Gal and Darl were dead.
Vanx forced it out of his mind and started thinking ahead. They could leave Xavian behind to tend Kegger. That way he, Chelda, Poops and the elf could make some time. The mage wasn’t suited for the Lurr. Besides that, the jarring trauma Xavian had taken when his unconscious body had slapped into the cliff face the day before would hinder him from being able to keep up.
Chapter Three
It was sheer luck that Vanx spotted the gray-furred thing watching him from a low-lying tree limb. It was the creature’s long, sinuous tail that caught his keen eyes. When he followed that pink, snaking curl up to the leathery-winged possum that was watching him, he knew that it was one of the Hoar Witch’s spies. He didn’t point it out to Poops, and he did his best not to pay any attention to it. He headed straight back to the cabin, slump-shouldered, looking sad and defeated. The moment he and the dog were behind the closed door, he rushed over to wake Xavian.
“What? What is it?” the mage sputtered. Then his eyes came open and the color drained from his face. “By the Six Wards of Marxulia, I ache in places I never knew I had.”
“Hush,” Vanx hissed through a devilish grin. “What sort of spells can you cast? Can you make false voices? Or make it sound like there are several people in a room when you are really by yourself? Can you make it sound like me, Chelda and the elf are talking at the same time?”
“I can, yes.” Xavian nodded. “But not until I have spelled my own aching arse. I’ll have to just be able to concentrate enough to cast a specific false crowd.” He tilted his head curiously and looked at the elf snuggled deeply into Chelda’s cleavage. Both of them had pleasant smiles on their sleeping faces.
“Why, Vanx?” Xavian shook his head and finally asked.
“I have a plan forming in my mind.” Vanx paused and looked at Xavian seriously. “You won’t mind staying here in the cabin and watching over Kegger while the rest of us trek on, will you?”
The look Xavian gave him was as full of disappointment as it was relief. “I’ll stay. At least, if you don’t come back, I’ll have a guide to get me out of here.”
“Yup.” Vanx grinned at him. “But you’ll have another sort of journey to take. You’ll have to go to Parydon and deliver a grave message to King Oakarm or his son. At least you have your letter of introduction for the Royal Order. You’ll do well.”
“Is she dead?” Xavian asked. “I had held out hope. I am sorry, Vanx.”
“There’s not much to hope for. Both her and Darl have disappeared, most likely into the belly of some beast.” Vanx sighed. He leaned closer and whispered. “We have another spy out in the trees. I’m going to go hunt you up some meat for when we’re gone and keep an eye on the thing. Tell the others to act normal when they wake. Tell them not to say anything that gives away that we know it’s there.”
“Come on, Poops,” Vanx nearly shouted, then. “Let’s go hunt something to eat. It’s a long hike back down to Great Vale.”
*
Later that night, just after the sun slipped from the sky, Aserica Rime was roused from her bed by Clytun. The minotaur was excited and persistent. The Hoar Witch had been watching the warlock, off and on, without sleep since long before his group passed the frozen falls. She had just lain down, after spending most the afternoon torturing information out of the pixie queen. Clytun’s orders had been to disturb her only if something was happening with the warlock. She knew Clytun wouldn’t bother her otherwise, so the moment her ancient brain registered the minotaur’s insistence, she was up and moving.
“Tell me what you saw,” she asked Clytun as they spiraled down a dank, torchlit stairway past landings closed off with heavy doors. Some of them were banded wood, some barred, like cages, with horrible moans or aggressive snarls coming from deep within. Then a thin plea for death echoed up the stairwell from farther below.
“It was like a fountain of bright blue sparks. It nearly blinded Flitch.” The minotaur spoke quickly, ignoring the harrowing sounds around him. “The whole group, save for the big gargan ranger, came outside. They huddled a
round their wizard, and he cast a spell, but I think something went wrong.”
The minotaur opened a huge iron door for the Hoar Witch. The stairs continued farther down, and from somewhere far below, that thin plea for death trailed up again.
She snatched a drawstring bag full of some foul-smelling, bright yellow dust, and after sprinkling a generous amount across the still water of the raised pool in the center of the room, she dabbed a bit of the stuff on her tongue and swallowed it down. She passed the bag to Clytun. The minotaur had already been dosed with the horrid-tasting concoction so he could already hear what Flitch was hearing and saying.
Leaning over the pool, the Hoar Witch saw that they were all outside of the cabin in the harsh, wavering light of a pitch torch one of them was holding. She was just in time to hear the leading edge of a spirited argument.
*
“It worked the last time I tried it!” the mage growled. “I must have wasted too much of my power trying to save that stupid gargan.”
“Hey.” The barbarian shoved him. The flaming brand she was holding flared and sputtered with her movements. “Gargans aren’t stupid.”
At her feet, the dog barked and danced around crazily, adding to the din.
“It doesn’t matter!” the thin voice of the elf yelled out. “You’re all a bunch of shameful yellow-bloods. Curse y’all to the bottom of hell for slinking away.”
“Now wait a minute, you,” the warlock said. “If you’re so fargin brave, why do you need us to save your wretched little queen?”
“ARP! Woof, woof,” sounded the dog.
“I don’t. We don’t.” The elf spat. “It’s all beyond saving now, anyway. The witch took the queen, so we fae will just rot away. You’ll all come to regret it, if that blasted witch finally gains the full power of the Heart Tree.”
“Woof, woof, woof.”
Saint Elm's Deep (The Legend of Vanx Malic) Page 21