Walker for once said nothing, looking straight up as they passed through the danger zone. The scene of the struggle was finally behind them, and Ikawa felt he could breathe easier again when the white nests were no longer in sight.
"I'm going to swing out to the back of the party just to keep an eye on things," Ikawa whispered. "Imada, come along with me."
Imada started to protest, looking over at Vena, who rode quietly by his side, but the look in his commander's eyes told him that it was an order.
Leti and Mark nodded as the two pulled over to let the others pass.
"Imada, you're fairly good with things of nature," Ikawa asked softly. "Tell me what you're feeling."
"We're being watched, Captain. Those grey birds, for one thing; and have you noticed the pleasant chatter of the forest has died away?"
Ikawa paused, realizing that Imada was right. The wonderful singsong cries and woodland sounds had dropped away into an oppressive silence.
"Even those clouds of moths," Imada continued. "It feels like they're part of something as well."
The party continued past, and as each rider drew abreast, Ikawa whispered a warning.
"I think we'll walk for a stretch," Ikawa announced, swinging down from his Tal, who looked at him curiously.
"Legs hurt," Ikawa said, looking into the creature's eyes, knowing that the Tal would undoubtedly announce what was being done to his comrades, and to Deidre as well.
Kochanski, the last in line, drew abreast of the two and swung down off his mount to join them.
"I hope you don't mind, Kochanski," Ikawa said quietly, "if Imada and I speak in our old tongue."
Kochanski, understanding immediately, said nothing.
"That's better, I feel we can talk freely now," Ikawa said in Japanese. "I don't trust the Tals, or anything else around us at the moment."
"It feels strange to hear our language again," Imada replied with a smile.
"Your lady--is she well?"
Imada slowed his pace. "Why should you ask?"
"Oh, just that Leti has been concerned for her. She senses some sort of distance on Vena's part, a drawing away."
"There's nothing wrong," Imada said, a bit too forcefully.
"There is something wrong, my young friend, otherwise I would not be hearing such defense in your voice. Would you care to talk about it?"
"Just a lovers' spat," Imada said, and Ikawa could sense the lie.
"I think it's more than that. Leti feels there is something not quite right about Vena, but she can't seem to place a finger on it."
"It's none of her business," Imada replied sharply, and then, embarrassed at his outburst, he looked away.
So something is wrong, Ikawa realized. Imada had always been the most gentle-spoken of all his soldiers. Granted, he had grown since their arrival here, but he was still more of an innocent child than a man.
Ikawa could te!I as well that this was no lovers' spat. The Vena that Imada had described so enthusiastically was not the woman riding up front, not even the woman he had met so briefly upon their return from the raid. He felt somehow that Vena was made of glass, and one sharp blow would shatter her to reveal something underneath. It was Leti who had first voiced the thought, and he found now that it was even taking hold in him as well. He knew that Imada was hiding something, a deeply troubled feeling that there was something wrong with the girl he loved so passionately.
"There--do you hear that?" Imada hissed, stopping and looking off to his left.
"I didn't hear anything," Ikawa said, suddenly alert, but seeing nothing in the gloom.
The druid smiled as the head of the party drew past. How blind they were! Not fifty feet away, and all of them so totally unaware.
His granddaughter flashed a bright smile. The little fool. Her arrogance will be the undoing of her yet, but he could not help but shake his head affectionately. She truly had the spirit of an imp, almost flaunting a warning to the others and laughing that they were not even aware that since crossing under the Doiga the group had been surrounded by his sorcerers.
The girl was right, though. There was a demigod with them, one of Jartan's brood to be sure, and he felt a bitter wave of disappointment. Killing them would have been such interesting sport. Perhaps he would have thrown several to the Doiga; his pets must be hungry again. Of course it would be amusing as well to take others to the border and tie them between a trunk of his beloved Uldrasill and watch as his own tree and the next tree, Bughala, wrestled over the tidbits. Or even better, he could train a root to enter his victim through the soles of his feet, gradually growing inside the man's body, tracing its way up through the veins, slowly eating him alive until the root finally tangled the beating of his heart.
Haven had given him so many amusing ways of dispatching his foes. Now they had found him out, and Caesar had finally sent his assassins to finish the battle started two thousand years ago.
The Druid chuckled softly at how innocently they were walking into the trap, following his granddaughter like little lambs to the slaughter.
He felt the demigod's gaze sweep past him, probing into the gloom, pause but for a second, and then continue on.
No, he couldn't tangle with an angry Jartan, damn him. If he killed this woman--and it would be so easy to do--Jartan would come storming over here and tear Uldrasill apart. He patted the hollow trunk he was standing in with affection.
"No, my beauty, we can't let him hurt you." It would be like Jartan to rouse the druid's rivals--the accursed Vir, master of Bughala, and Wormteeth, master of Wilvika--to join him, to press Uldrasill back and destroy the kingdom he had built. Those two ungrateful bastards! Turning on their own father and moving away, like his other sons with the Essence, each to a separate tree.
So he'd have to take them alive for now and find out who the real assassins in the party were. Maybe then this demigod would realize the nature of the company she kept and get the hell out of where she didn't belong.
Smiling, he softly whistled.
Kochanski stopped.
"I just heard something."
"It was a voice," Imada announced, "No, not a voice, more like a bird call, but a voice as well."
"Don't move," Ikawa whispered.
A fluttering of wings snapped overhead and a blizzard of white engulfed Ikawa, blinding him. The moths that had been following them flooded the trail and then swept past them.
A loud shout echoed from the front of the column.
"Into the trees," Ikawa hissed, and he leaped straight upward, soaring for the high canopy of the forest, Imada and Kochanski following him.
It seemed that in that instant the forest, which had been brooding in silence, exploded into life.
Part of the canopy overhead, adorned with the mirrorlike leaves, shifted, sending a blinding column of light into the middle of the party. The group was shouting, covering their eyes for protection. The vast column of moths circled in upon the group, joined by birds which added to the confusion. Other birds swooped in, holding sections of flowering vines and dropping them into the confused mass.
It happened with such stunning quickness that Ikawa could barely believe that the struggle was over. His comrades tumbled from their Tals, convulsing from the effects of the paralytic vines and then lying still.
Gaining the high branches, he motioned for the other two to join him.
Only one rider remained upon her mount: Deidre, who sat at the head of the column looking back at the fallen group and laughing softly.
From out of the shadowy forest several dozen forms stepped into the light, led by an old man leaning on a staff.
Ikawa felt himself trembling with rage, though he was still not quite sure what had happened. Never had he been so surprised by an attack, and never so completely overwhelmed by it before he even had time to properly react. He could see Leti lying by her Tal, and in rage he raised his hand, pointing it at the druid.
"Tie them up carefully. I want no accidents," the druid said.<
br />
Ikawa hesitated. So they were still alive.
"Vena!" Imada hissed.
"Shut up," Kochanski whispered, putting his hand over Imada's mouth.
"It was too easy, Grandfather," Deidre said, jumping off her Tal and coming up to hug the old man.
"They must have suspected," he said curiously. "Either that or they're incredibly dumb."
"They kept wandering about the town, harassing everyone about wanting to see you. One of them was overheard saying they'd come from your old world."
"There, that's it," the druid shouted. "I told you about Caesar. He finally found me, poor old me all the way out here. That bastard never could forget a grudge."
"They really don't seem all that bad," Deidre replied.
"They'll condemn themselves to the wicker death with their own words, you'll see," the druid shouted. "And besides, an old friend is here to help me prove it!"
Ikawa looked curiously at Kochanski, who still had his hand over Imada's mouth.
"Wicker death?" Ikawa whispered.
"You don't want to know," Kochanski sighed.
The druid turned away from Deidre and started to walk down the path, looking at the prostrate forms which his assistants were already picking up and carrying down the trail. The druid hesitated.
"Three are missing!" he roared.
The forest seemed to explode with activity. Shafts of light swung around like searchlights, and flocks of birds exploded outward. A beam of light snapped through the high canopy and the druid, with staff raised, looked straight up.
"Come down here!" he roared.
"Time to leave!" Ikawa shouted, bursting straight up through the branches. Imada struggled to return, waving his hand down as if to strike the druid.
"You'll hit our own," Kochanski cried, and the boy relented, following Ikawa.
"Come back here!"
Breaking clear of the forest, Ikawa paused for a moment, and, pulling his trouser away from his leg with his left hand, he cut a long length of fabric away with his right. He looped the light blue material around a branch and then continued to fly straight up toward the clouds, Imada and Kochanski following him.
Upward they climbed through the cool afternoon air, the canopy below like an endless sea of green. To his left he could see the high mountains marking the shoreline that they had passed through the day before. But in the other three directions as far as he could see was the high plateau of the forest which appeared to go on to the end of the world.
Gaining the protection of the clouds, he turned to look straight back down. His two comrades swung up beside him.
"We're in our element up here," Ikawa said. "They won't follow."
"And they're in theirs down there," Kochanski said bitterly.
"And they've got Vena," Imada cried.
"Don't forget the rest of our friends," Kochanski said, his voice cold, "and Leti as well."
Embarrassed, Imada lowered his head.
"I don't see anything," Ikawa said, scanning the forest thousands of feet below.
"So what are we going to do now?" Kochanski asked glumly.
"Wait till it settles down and then go back in," Ikawa told him.
"Back there," Kochanski said, "we're likes babes in the woods."
"Any better suggestions?"
Imada and Kochanski could only shake their heads.
"Then we better get comfortable, and stay up here over this one spot."
Wiping the sweat from his brow, Allic collapsed wearily to the ground.
"You look played out," Storm said, her voice edged with exhaustion, as she came to sit by her brother's side.
"Won't this ever end?" Allic's voice was distant and shaky. "We've hit five worlds in six days, each one a jump through into battle. I don't even know where the hell we are any more."
"A good choice of words," Storm said, looking about at the shattered landscape. Each step into Gorgon's territory was like a journey into the heart of desolation.
She leaned back to look at the twin red suns hovering malevolently overhead, their heat blasting the shriveled land. The air was dry and dust swirled about them in dark clouds, hiding the ruins of the fortress they'd just stormed.
Snaps of lightning arced overhead, but as Storm watched the discharges they gave her no pleasure. To her, lightning could be a weapon, but it was also a thing of beauty, snapping out of dark clouds, pregnant with life: giving rain. The lightning above crackled from dust cloud to dust cloud as they swirled and eddied over the planet's cratered surface. The scent of sulphur hung heavy in the air, billowing up out of ugly fissures. Numbly she took the mask away from her face, wiping the buildup of dirt out of the inside, rubbing her eyes, which instantly started to tear as the stinking clouds seemed to assault her.
"Why in the name of all the gods would Gorgon ever want a place like this?" Storm sighed.
"It fits his personality," Allic said dejectedly.
Storm leaned against a mud-caked boulder and looked around. The ground was carpeted with corpses which were already starting to bloat in the heat. In an hour or two there'd be another stench in the air, and she forced the thought away to keep her stomach from rebelling.
Many of them were Gorgon's demons, their blackened faces contorted in the agony of sudden death. Some had been hit on the ground, so brutally swift was the surprise of the attack; others had been caught in the air, their burned bodies breaking on the boulder-strewn land.
She looked at them with disgust. They were not human or demon, to be sure, but they were not animal either. Her flesh crawled with the thought that somehow Gorgon might have found a way to blend the two together, creating horrifying caricatures of mankind. She felt no remorse for the killing she had done here, as she gazed upon bodies with extra limbs, grotesque faces covered in scales, bodies with normal human faces but with four legs and no arms that were obviously used as beasts of burden, torsoes with two heads, and others, male, female, with horrifying exaggerations of sexual organs.
"It's like he's created a nightmare and we're trapped in it," Storm whispered.
"I just wish we could corner the bastard, have it out and then go home."
"So do I."
Allic looked up at the column of light that suddenly appeared before him.
"The few prisoners that talked said he pulled out just as we jumped in," Jartan said coldly. "We know which way he went, so we follow."
"Damn it, Father, we're running into a web," Allic replied. "This world has half a dozen jump points to other worlds; so did every other place. There's no logic to it. We can't chase them all down. We seem merely to be following him where he wants us to go."
"Sooner or later we'll hit a nerve, a place he values too much to let go without a fight. When we do, we'll close in for the kill."
"At the time and place he chooses," Allic replied.
"Minar and Chosen agree with me in this. We will press in for the kill. We're going to finish this war, and when we pull out we'll smash everything behind us. I intend to wipe these places clean of portals, fortresses, everything. Even if he survives it'll take him eons to work his way back to us."
"We've only got a single line back to home," Allic pointed out. "He could always cut in behind us. And cutting that line would slow us up for days if we needed to retreat."
"I've already thought of that," Jartan said, "and that's why you're staying behind here."
"Now wait a minute," Allic protested, wearily coming to his feet.
"You're finished, son. You've lost your edge. I saw you in this fight--you let a demon lord hit you from behind. He might have killed you if your sister hadn't been there to protect your back. I'm leaving you here with a garrison of forty sorcerers, to maintain a strong point to our rear. If he tries to cut us off with a raid, it'll be your job to keep it open."
"Listen to him, Allic, you can't keep it up anymore."
"Damn all of you. No." Allic snarled.
"Allic, shoot first!"
As he started t
o turn, Storm snapped off a weak bolt, knocking him in the side and slamming him to the ground before he could even react and bring his shield up.
Angrily he rolled over, raising his hand.
An impenetrable barrier formed between him and Storm as Jartan came between them.
Allic looked coldly at his sister, who cautiously came forward once Jartan floated back, and knelt by his side.
"Are you all right?"
"Side hurts like hell," Allic said, struggling to breathe.
"When we were children and played that game you could beat me every time," Storm said gently, laying her hand against his chest.
His ragged breath came easier and he forced a smile.
"Except I at least aimed for your backside."
She hugged him affectionately. "Brother, if it had been a demon lord I'd be singing your death song now. To tell you the truth, I've been protecting you for the last three battles. You need a rest, you've lost your edge. Sooner or later, and I fear it will be sooner, we're going to get hit hard at a jump and they'll tear you apart."
"I'm not sending you home, at least," Jartan said. "I need all my strength out here, this is where the threat is. Now listen to your sister and me and agree to run this garrison for awhile."
Trying to force a smile, Allic shook his head ruefully. He started to cough hoarsely as he pulled his mask aside for a moment to clean it out.
"Don't leave me here for long," he told them. "This place could drive even a sober man to drink."
Storm looked worriedly to her father but said nothing. Then she glanced back at the grotesque corpses around her. All she wanted was to get this over with and go back home to a world that was still sane, a place that Gorgon would never lay his hands upon and destroy as he had this desolate land.
Chapter 12
Something cold splashed against his face.
Startled, Mark Phillips opened his eyes. They were riding, weren't they? He must have fallen asleep, and he tried to sit up.
He couldn't move. Yet he already was up, on his feet.
Gradually he started to focus, and noticed the sound of laughter echoing in the air.
Shaking his head, he tried to reach up to wipe his eyes, but he couldn't move his hands.
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