Fortune smiled upon the explorers in that it did not rain that night, a rarity to be noted. The party packed up their gear, donned their armor, and set back out moving steadily in a southwesterly direction. It took the better part of the morning, but they managed to work the majority of the kinks out of their muscles caused from battling the ferocious reptiles. Maude and the rest of her party kept a wary eye out for any signs of another ambush, but so far they had seen nothing more threatening than small apes swinging wildly through the branches overhead.
Kar’Rok brought the party to a halt. “What is it?” Maude asked as she walked up and stood next to the elven guide.
“We must find another way. There is quicksand here,” he answered.
Maude shook her head. “I don’t see a thing. The ground looks the same to me.”
Kar’Rok looked around and found a long slender branch. Maude saw the ground turn spongy under his careful steps as he took a few steps forward then pushed the stick down into the seemingly solid ground. The soft ground swallowed over four feet of the branch before finding solid ground once more.
“If it had rained last night the hazard would have been much more obvious, but the top has dried and made it much harder to recognize,” Kar’Rok explained. “We will have to circle around it.”
The area of quicksand was the size of a small lake and it took them nearly two hours to circle around and resume their normal heading. Maude was grateful they had sprung for a guide, particularly one of Kar’Rok’s obvious skills. The fact that they paid him with King Jarvin’s gold made his fee even more palatable. She had just finished that thought when Kar’Rok signaled to stop in place yet again. The elf cocked an ear, knelt down, and pressed the side of his head against the ground.
The guide looked around for a moment before calling back to them. “Quickly, stand behind those trees there,” he ordered as he pointed out several broad tree trunks. “Press yourselves against the largest ones and do not move.”
Tarth heard the sound that concerned Kar’Rok a few moments before Maude and the others detected the noise as they hid behind the massive tree trunks. A low, rumbling, staccato came from somewhere up ahead and was quickly growing louder.
Within moments of hearing the sound, they could feel the pounding vibration in the soles of their feet. Birds flew through the tree branches, flapping loudly and emitting boisterous squawks. The small primates shrieked at the intruders and climbed higher into their sheltering treetop homes, vigilantly looking for the source of the disturbance.
The earthly pounding increased beneath their feet as they dug their fingernails and gauntleted hands into the rough bark of the trees. Movement flashed between the trees and through the dense undergrowth up ahead as the source of the ground-pounding tremors came nearer. Scores of enormous, two-legged reptiles burst through the jungle heading almost straight for them. Maude was terrified when she thought that they were more fleshreavers, but she realized as they passed that these creatures were two or three feet taller and had a face more like a cow than a crocodile.
Her concern turned away from them and focused onto what could be causing them to stampede. An ear-piercing trumpeting rang out from somewhere behind the seemingly endless herd of herbivorous reptiles. Just as the last of the herd flashed by, a massive creature looking much more like a fleshreaver pounded by, blaring a deafening bugle call right next to Maude and her cowering party. The huge predator stood at least eighteen feet tall and bore down on the defenseless herd it was chasing. As the stampeding flock and the colossal creature chasing them passed by, Maude let out the breath she had been holding.
“It will herd them into the quicksand and devour the ones that get trapped at its leisure,” Kar’Rok was explaining. “Come, anything with any sense has moved far away from here by now.”
The party had barely gone a mile when Kar’Rok brought them to a halt once more.
“What is it now, more fleshreavers?” Maude asked.
The elf shook his head. “No, worse,” he said as several tattooed elves seemed to materialize right in front of them.
There were four men and two women, both sexes looking equally lethal with powerful, recurve composite bows in their hands and a variety of deadly weapons strapped to their backs or worn on their hips. Maude could not understand what they were saying, but they were talking directly to Kar’Rok and completely ignoring the interlopers. From Kar’Rok’s facial expressions, whatever the elves were saying to him did not seem to please him at all.
The elven guide finally turned to his employers. “We will have to go with them. They have established their tribe only a couple of miles from here. Damn it!” he cursed. “They were far to the north last year. Just my luck.”
The new arrivals circled the small party and led them to the southwest. Maude was not sure what to make of their current situation. They were not given the option of doing anything other than to accompany the elves, but on the other hand, there had been no signs of aggression, and they had been allowed to keep their weapons. The new elves seemed to find Tarth interesting and looked at him frequently, but Tarth often drew stares from people.
“We’re here,” Kar’Rok announced about a half hour later.
Maude and her party looked around, but they saw absolutely no difference from where they were now than any other part of the jungle they had already passed through. There was no sign of a village or anyone else other than those that had just arrived.
“They live in the treetops,” Kar’Rok said, answering her unasked question. “Unlike our cousins, we are truly creatures of the forest. We build no towers, cities, or permanent structures.”
The jungle elves that escorted them unwound a length of rope of woven vine from around their waists. The cord was actually two separate pieces, one long and one short with loops at each end. The elves put their feet through each of the loops so that it looked almost like their feet were tied together with about three feet of rope.
They gripped the long cord at one end, whipped the other around the thick trunk of the tree, and caught it with their other hand. With the ends of the rope gripped in each hand, they leaned back and hopped up onto the side of the tree. The elves then swung the long rope up about a foot or so and hopped up with their legs once more, using the small rope attached to their feet to hold themselves up.
The adventurers watched the elves with fascination as they quickly ascended the tall tree. Kar’Rok removed a similar tree climbing set from his pack and made to climb the tree in the same fashion.
“Kar’Rok, what are we supposed to do? We can’t climb a tree like that. Do we have to press on by ourselves now?” Maude asked, not caring for the prospect.
Her answer came from above as a platform made of stout bamboo poles was lowered down from the canopy above by a thick, woven cable of vines attached to more vines tied to the lift’s four corners. The lift quickly reached the forest floor and waited for its passengers to board.
“Should we all get on, or do they want to lift us up separately,” Maude called up to their guide who was already over fifty feet above their heads.
Kar’Rok hesitated and looked up before answering. “All of you go ahead and get on. They can lift it.”
Maude’s Marauders cautiously climbed onto the bamboo platform and sat down. They had barely found their seats before the flimsy-looking lift began its ascent into the treetops. A growing sense of unease soon came over the group as they continued to rise above the jungle floor.
Within minutes, they were closer to the arboreal sky than they were the verdant sea of the ground below. As the platform continued to ascend into the treetops, dense foliage surrounded the party. Looking up, they saw that the stout woven vine ran through a wooden pulley and was being hoisted up by several elves another thirty feet above them.
More platforms and walkways had been created by bamboo or limbs bound together by supple vines. Jungle elves clad in leathers occupied some of the landings and walked amongst the branches and trees by wa
y of the aerial walkways. Some of the elves forwent the use of the constructed paths in favor of shinnying along the branches much like the smaller primates that also made the treetops their home. Nearly every elf bore an assortment of weapons, and many wore armor similar in make and design as Kar’Rok’s bone breastplate.
The lift continued to rise past the first platform before coming to a stop at the second level a little over ten feet further up. Two elves wearing bone and bronze armor and wielding bows and spears appeared to be awaiting their arrival. The two escorts beckoned the adventurers to follow them down one of the constructed paths. Maude and her group hastened after the two elves that turned and walked away, not looking back to see of the strange, racially mixed group was following or not.
The paths were little more than rope bridges and swayed unnervingly under their feet. The fact that there were no handrails did not help the party feel more at ease, although the lack of such safety devices did not seem to bother the elves in the least. They gingerly crossed several of the bridges before their escorts motioned them to stay on a large platform four trees over from the lift and left them alone.
“You can add tree houses to my list of things that I hate,” Borik grumbled.
Maude ignored the dwarf’s griping. “What do you think they want with us, and where did they take Kar’Rok?”
“I don’t know on either count,” Malek replied shaking his head, “but it sure looked like they were pleased to see Kar’Rok. Although not in a good way. I know he did not appear at all glad to see them.”
“Great, we hired a criminal wanted by his people as our guide, and now we’re guilty by association,” Borik moaned.
“We don’t know that, Borik, so just keep calm. If they were very concerned about us, they would have taken our weapons. So far, they have been rather polite,” Maude told the sour dwarf.
“Like it would be hard to just toss us off the edge of one of these platforms. We’re like a fish out of water up here,” Borik pointed out. “Look, here comes a couple of the dwarf throwers now. Probably going to place bets on which one of us bounces the highest. My money is on the rubber headed elf,” he said, jerking a thumb in Tarth’s direction.
Three elves were approaching bearing several green leaf-wrapped packages and a couple of gourds. The elves set the items down in the middle of the group then disappeared back along a walkway and into the foliage. Maude reached for one of the leaf-wrapped parcels and was surprised to feel that it was warm. She exposed the contents of the package and a pleasantly spiced aroma of thinly sliced meat and vegetables wafted up from the opened bundle.
Borik grabbed one of the gourds and felt the contents slosh about as he picked it up. A broad smile crossed his bearded face as soon as he pulled the stopper and smelled the contents. He lifted the gourd to his lips and drank deep from the contents.
“Now that’s what I call hospitality!” Borik exclaimed as he wiped away a trickle of wine that ran down his beard.
“I thought they were trying to kill us?” Malek asked as he picked up another of the food parcels.
“If this is the way they’re going to go about it, then I greatly approve of their methods,” he said as he raised the gourd back to his mouth.
Malek looked quizzically at the contents of the package in his hands. “What are these things?”
Maude leaned over and took a closer look at what the cleric held pinched between his fingers. “Looks like a big grub.”
Malek screwed up his face in disgust, set them back down, and found another bundle that contained more of the spiced strips of meat. Tarth sipped wine from the second gourd and passed it to Maude. Maude tried to engage the wizard in conversation, but the elf proved to be unusually withdrawn. It was obvious that Tarth held some sort of enmity towards the jungle elves. She did not know whether it was a racial issue commonly shared between the two different types of elves, or if he had a more personal problem with them.
Borik leaned over towards Malek. “You gonna eat your grubs?” he asked, his eyes already showing an inebriated glaze.
Malek slid the parcel of roasted larva over to him. “Help yourself.”
Borik rubbed his hands together and plopped one of the morsels into his mouth. “Hey, these are good!” he exclaimed with a smile. “Crunchy on the outside, chewy on the inside.”
Borik was plopping roasted grubs in his mouth while the others were eating meat, roasted vegetables, and drinking the rather potent wine when two elves approached and took a seat on the platform the outsiders were currently occupying. One was an older male who was strong and regal in appearance despite the bone armor and leather loincloth. His hair was long and black with a thin streak of grey running the full length of his waist-long locks. Several feathers and beads of polished stone adorned his hair while wide gold bracelets or bracers covered both wrists. Like nearly all the elves here, tattoos covered most of the exposed skin on his muscular body.
The female elf was equally imposing in bearing and stature. Maude always considered herself strong, even compared to many men, but she knew without a doubt that this woman in front of her was capable of stripping the armor right off her body with her bare hands and beating her black and blue if she was of the inclination to do so.
These jungle elves, or wildlings as Tarth referred to them, were far different from the elves that had spawned Tarth and what anyone even vaguely familiar with elves expected from the race. They were powerful and direct, not like the lithe, haughty, and often oblique elves of legend.
The female elf stood as tall as her companion and also bore a heavy covering of tattoos on her body, although not quite as all-covering as his were. She wore thin, gold bracelets on her wrists, a gold choker set with a large piece of amber that rested in the hollow of her throat, and a gold snake wrapped above her upper left arm set with small emeralds for its eyes that nearly matched her own in color and brilliance.
“I hope you have been enjoying our hospitality,” the male wood elf said in a surprisingly high and clear voice.
“We are, thank you,” Maude replied. “Once the wine made Borik realize that you were not going to throw us out of the branches, even he began to enjoy himself.”
The elf threw back his head and laughed with a rich melodious tone. “We are not as savage as many may think we are.” He looked pointedly in Tarth’s direction as he made the statement. “Although we will defend ourselves and our territory with brutal swiftness and efficiency if we feel threatened. Fortunately, we did not find you or your companions sufficiently threatening. I am Terr’Ma’Nok and this is Tar’A’Lon.”
Maude made quick introductions, but from the facial responses she received from the two elves, she figured that Kar’Rok had already told them much of what he knew.
“What happened to Kar’Rok?” Maude asked the pair. “I gathered that he was in some kind of trouble.”
“That is a personal matter between him and one of the families of our tribe. It is a matter of a personal contract to be fulfilled, but more than that is not my place to say.”
“What will happen to us now?”
Maude was taken by surprise once more at the deep and husky voice that Tar’A’Lon answered her question with. “That depends on exactly what your purpose in our jungle is. Though we do not find you dangerous in and of yourselves, we still do not care for outsiders tramping through our lands.”
Maude thought about how much she should reveal of their mission. She was unsure how much Kar’Rok told them, and whether or not the elves would take offense at their plan to invade what may be a sacred tomb or monument. She decided withholding information or lying would only sew contempt and more resistance between them, so she answered the question truthfully.
“We hired Kar’Rok to guide us to an ancient ruin. Our king sent us on a quest in search of an ancient lost artifact of our people, and he believed that part of it might be found there.”
The wood elves nodded in unison as they listened to the human’s explanation although
it was Terr’Ma’Nok that answered her.
“I am afraid you will have to make the rest of your journey on your own. Kar’Rok is beholden to other commitments at this time,” the elf informed them.
“Then you do not oppose our quest in your land, or of our entering the temple?”
“We know of the temple of which you speak, but such stone relics hold no importance to us. If you wish to enter and risk your lives in such cold and lifeless constructs we will not stop you,” Tar’A’Lon told the human woman dispassionately.
The party breathed a sigh of relief, fearing that they were going to be kept from completing their mission. Although the odds of a successful completion of that mission was now even more stacked against them without their guide.
Maude pleaded with the wood elves. “Is it possible for Kar’Rok to finish his service to us first then fulfill whatever obligations he has with your people? If not that, then can someone else take us to the ruins?”
The elves shook their heads. “No to both requests. While we will not oppose your mission, neither do we have any interest in your completing it. However, the ruins you are searching for lie only a day from here. If you have been paying attention to what Kar’Rok has shown you then you should be able to make it there, and if you are extremely careful and very lucky you may even make it back to the human town.”
The elves considered the conversation concluded and left the adventurers to sit and ponder their fate. Maude did not like the idea of traveling through this dangerous jungle without a skilled guide, but she was not a fatalist and was determined to make the attempt.
“I want to be on the ground by first light,” she told her crew in a tone that implied there would be no arguing the decision.
The Sorcerer's Torment (The Sorcerer's Path) Page 37