The awakened trees passed the nightrunners between them, gently propelling them toward the southeast. Over the course of several hours, the silent nightrunners thus journeyed well to the east of Rivadis, unknown by any except the sleepy trees, all of whom favored the dryads.
There, in an enclosed glade deep within the forest, the maples of Sinash let the nightrunners rest for a time. The Fae in the company took their meals and rested as well as they could. At Aislynn’s insistence, Dwynwyn arranged for Deython to accompany the princess on a walk in the glade, her delicate feet brushing through the carpet of fallen leaves. Even with this distraction, it was obvious to Dwynwyn that Aislynn was already weary of the road. The princess and her Seeker took their meals in silence.
As afternoon lengthened, the dryads spoke once more to the trees of their need to move. The nightrunners were again loaded and pushed into the tree line. Once again, the maples spread their leaves and gently brushed the globes along the treetops. Aislynn occupied her time gazing at the lush forests drifting beneath and about them. She had never before been so far from the halls of her Sanctuary home and was heartsick for her lost comforts.
As the evening softened, the trees responded to the dryads and allowed the nightrunners to drift to a halt. They had reached the southmost reaches of the Sinash Forest. In a deep ravine below them, the River Kush ran in frothing whitewater rapids westward toward Estarin Bay. To the south, they could clearly see the lights of Mordan nearly seven miles away, twinkling through the silvery leaves of Suthwood.
“Do we make for Mordan?” Aislynn asked in a hushed voice.
“No, Your Highness,” Dwynwyn answered. “Our truth is our own and not for the good subjects of Mordan, nor are the faeries our only concern.”
“No?” Aislynn looked at Dwynwyn with surprise.
“No, but the trees also.” Dwynwyn sighed. “The maples tell our dryads that Suthwood is mostly comprised of, well, elms. The maples say that they are not to be trusted.”
Aislynn sighed. “I would have granted a large boon for a decent bed.”
“Another night, Your Highness.” Dwynwyn spoke quietly. “Another night.”
They crossed the River Kush well to the east. The great dark mass of the Cendral Hills rose on their left as they skirted around the range’s foothills. The guards traded their positions more often now, their haste to pass Suthwood evident in their straining wings and taut muscles. The nightrunners rushed silently over the tall grasses, their gondolas barely making a whisper in the night.
Aislynn’s gaze remained on their wake across the landscape. For a moment, as they rushed through the night, the Kush gorge cut a break between Suthwood and Sinash Forest. There, across an expanse of Estarin Bay, glimmered the lights of Qestardis more than twenty miles distant. To Aislynn, the enormous and beautiful city had shrunk to her thumbnail, and she wept quietly into the night.
The night was long under the stars. The clear sky cooled quickly. Dwynwyn covered Aislynn with her cloak, the young princess having finally cried herself into a fitful sleep. Dwynwyn moved gently forward in the gondola searching the landscape under the bright stars.
The rolling foothills unwound in their path. Dwynwyn could smell the spicy scent of fading foliage and wild mint from the edge of Suthwood on their right. The tall grasses beneath them barely rustled at their passage. There was a beautiful serenity over the landscape.
Dwynwyn flitted off the deck of the gondola and flew quietly forward of the caravan. Glancing about in the night, she saw the captain of the guards on a nearby hilltop. She changed her course and was soon drifting next to the sentry as he floated in the shadow of a great oak tree near the crest of the hill.
She could see that Mordan Township was now well behind them. Qestardis was but an earthbound star on the northwestern horizon. She could easily see the nightrunners drifting quickly past them at the base of the hill below.
“Good evening, Deython,” Dwynwyn said in a hushed voice.
“It is, Seeker,” the captain replied.
“You may address me as Dwynwyn.”
“My thanks to you—both for the compliment of your name and for suggesting me for this posting.”
“I accept gratefully—although the princess’s preferences were an influence in your appointment.”
“That is glad tidings, Dwynwyn,” the captain confided. “The princess often keeps silence with me.”
“She holds her counsel well.” Dwynwyn smiled.
“Indeed . . . it is one of many things that I admire greatly in her.”
Far ahead of them, Suthwood gave way to a larger, darker mass of forest. It must be Oakan, Dwynwyn thought as she surveyed it. Its nether cliffs, far beyond her sight, fell directly into the Qe’Dunadin Sea. It was Qestardis’s southernmost boundary. Their objective was still a full day beyond its borders, but Oakan offered safety and rest. Kien Werren awaited them off the southern tip of the Cendral Hills on an outcropping of rock that overlooked the Qe’Dunadin Sea. It gazed out across the Shezron Plain to the northeast. It was the farthest tower of the Qestardan realm and the most defensible.
Dwynwyn also knew that it could very well be the last place where the light of her nation might be extinguished.
“Will we make it to the Werren?” she asked the captain.
Deython either would not reply or did not know.
“Why do you play these games, Dwynwyn?”
The Seeker looked up from the game board, her thoughts drawn from the patterns that moments before had so absorbed her. “Pardon me, Your Highness, I was distracted. What did you say?”
Aislynn repeated her question with slight annoyance. She never liked repeating herself. “I asked you why you play these games.”
Dwynwyn smiled as much to herself as to her charge. “My deepest apologies, Your Highness. I play them because it is my duty to do so, Your Highness. The games are part of my gift and my calling.”
Aislynn lay back on her cushions, the gondola swaying slightly with her motion. The towering trunks of the oak trees drifted past them in their passage. The oak foliage drifted down around them in a vivid display, made all the more vibrant by the red-streaked sunset overhead. The soft creakings of the stay lines were the only sounds intruding on her thoughts.
“I think,” Aislynn said at last, her gaze fixed on nothing in particular in the deep woods, “that you bring your books and scrolls and games and toys with you simply because it amuses you to do so. I believe you do it to annoy the stewards who are forced to pack your things whenever you travel.”
Dwynwyn smiled once more to herself as she moved her pieces down several lines of conflict and retreat. Aislynn was restless. “And you believe this to be a complete truth?”
“No,” Aislynn answered absently. “I suppose not. It is just that it is what I would do if I were you.”
“I shall remember that when next we travel anywhere else, Your Highness. It may seem strange to you that such a thing could—” Dwynwyn sat up, suddenly alert and concerned.
Those guards who were not on watch suddenly fluttered from their gondolas, rushing quietly outward among the trees.
“We’ve stopped?” Aislynn said. “Are we there?”
“No, Your Highness, we are not.” Dwynwyn stood up, moving quickly to the front of the gondola. “Ashi! Emli!”
The dryads appeared quite suddenly from behind two of the trees.
“Why have we stopped?”
Ashi responded first. “The trees, Seeker . . .”
“. . . They sleep . . .” Emli rejoined.
“. . . And they will not awaken!” they both finished as one.
“How odd,” Aislynn said.
At that moment, Deython flew with driving purpose between the trees. “We must get out of these woods at once.”
“But how, Captain?” Dwynwyn asked quickly.
“We are not far from the forest edge, and Kien Werren is just beyond. We should be able to fly the distance.”
“No, Captain!
I have to have my things.”
“With all my respect, Seeker,” Deython said harshly, “but lives are more important than a few comforts that you—”
“Deython, a great deal depends on these mere ‘comforts.’ A great deal more than you know! We’ve got to find a way to—”
The leaves crackled.
Instantly, the faery guards appeared from the trees, encircling the nightrunners. The long, thin blades of their swords slid from their sheaths.
“Are you wearing your pearls?” Dwynwyn asked quickly.
“I don’t know why you insist on my wearing them,” Aislynn responded through a pout. “They’re dreadfully large things and not all that pretty against my skin—”
“Are you wearing them?” Dwynwyn snapped angrily.
Aislynn blinked, her already large brown eyes wider still. “Well, yes . . . of course! Why?”
The leaves on the ground suddenly exploded upward. A screeching chorus shattered the silence of the wood.
“Satyrs!” Deython cried out.
The powerful hindquarters of the satyrs propelled them in a sudden rush toward the nightrunner, their cloven hooves digging into the soft earth of the forest floor. Hair completely covered their legs and backs, their exposed skin a clay red color. They measured only three or four feet in height, but their passionate ferocity was feared by creatures many times larger. Their large hands could tear a creature limb from limb. The black eyes of the creatures shined beneath their heavy brows crested by a pair of short, spiraled horns.
The satyrs rushed the nightrunners from all sides, but the faery guards were fast and had the advantage of their swords. The shining arcs of their blades cut into the charging line of satyrs with terrible effectiveness. Even so, momentum alone had carried several of the satyrs all the way into the circle of guards. Several of them were grappling with the terrible strength of the satyrs, who had managed to drag them to the ground.
The circle of the guards, however, still held.
The satyrs, their initial charge having thus been repelled, fell back slightly, shifting about the circle of the guards, screaming at them with now bloodied faces. Again and again, they suddenly launched attacks against the guards at one point or another in the circle. The guards would collapse backward at each assault, fall on the charging satyrs, and then push them back. So quick were the satyrs, however, that the guards could not disengage from the battle. They were locked in combat and neither side appeared able or willing to withdraw.
“What do we do?!” Aislynn squealed.
Dwynwyn shook her head frantically. She was a Seeker!
What could she do? What should she do?
A new sound ripped through the air, closer and more frightening.
Dwynwyn fell backward away from the sound.
A long, narrow shaft suddenly ripped across the gondola inches from her face, slamming with terrific force into the trunk of a tree.
Suddenly the air was filled with sound. The deadly bolts battered against the hull of the gondola like heavy rain. They crossed over the sides in a blur of deadly motion.
Lying in the bottom of the gondola, Dwynwyn pulled Aislynn down beside her.
“Dwynwyn . . . please!” Aislynn cried. “You’re hurting me!”
The arrow impacts rattled the sides of the gondola. Dwynwyn could hear the cries of the wounded and the continuous clang of metal beyond the hull. She longed to know what was going on but dared not lift her head to see.
Suddenly, a bloodied figure vaulted over the gunwales, landing heavily next to them.
Aislynn screamed.
It was Deython. Thickening ichor coated his face, and his bloodied sword was clasped in his hand. He yelled, his voice barely carrying over the din of battle beyond the hull. “Centaur bowmen! They’re using the satyrs to keep us occupied while they pick us off at a distance!” Another volley tore through the air over the gunwales of the gondola. Deython flattened himself against the floor planks, then urgently continued. “We must fly, ladies! The guards are ready. At my word, we will take flight together, the guards surrounding you as we gain height. That should protect you long enough for us to get out of range!”
“But my books! My things! What of them?” Dwynwyn shouted.
Deython was adamant. “On the ground, we die! Fly and we have a chance at life! We’ll return for your things later if we can!”
“No!” Dwynwyn shouted savagely. In a single motion, she took the sword from the surprised captain’s hand and stood.
The arrows flashed past her. She was vaguely aware of the dark, thundering shapes moving through the woods just beyond her vision. The satyrs, seeing her, screamed once more, the sight of a faery female stirring a mindless lust and desire within them that they could neither understand nor control. Several of the faery guards lay motionless on the ground, but her attention was fixed elsewhere.
The weights of the gondola hung suspended by cords on either side of the hull. Desperate and afraid, Dwynwyn swung the sword with both her hands. Her fear gave her strength. Her blows did not land where she had intended, but close enough.
“Lady Seeker,” Deython cried from the bottom of the nightrunner. “What are you doing?!”
Aislynn gazed on in frozen astonishment.
The cords snapped under her blows. One by one the weights holding the nightrunner to the earth dropped heavily to the ground. The gondola rocked unsteadily for a moment, listing heavily down toward the final suspended ballast weight. Dwynwyn barely took notice. She drew back the sword once more and swung it with all her might.
The gondola jerked suddenly, knocking Dwynwyn completely off her feet. Her wings fluttered frantically to right her. In the next moment she was aware of her feet once more pressing against the deck planks of the nightrunner.
The cloudship was vaulting skyward. Free of its restraining weights, it rose past the sleeping branches of Oakan Forest, each moment gaining momentum and speed as it rose majestically into the failing light of the sky.
The sky was haven. The Famadorians below were entirely earthbound. The sky was safety—but now the nightrunner rose freely into that same sky, faster and faster.
Dwynwyn was suddenly very aware that she might have cut too many of the ballast weights. She watched in amazement as the roof of the forest fell away from under the nightrunner. The brighter stars appeared in the deepening twilight. To the south stretched the vastness of the Qe’Dunadin Sea. Turning around, she saw the dark mass of the Cendral Hills to the northwest. The blackening Shezron Plain stretched beyond the edge of the forest far to the northeast.
She turned and looked down along the coastline. In moments she saw it, the great tower of Kien Werren less than a mile away, now silhouetted against the shining sea under the twilight sky.
“We were so close!” Dwynwyn muttered in amazement.
“The guards,” said Deython as he gazed down over the side. The guards below had been caught by surprise when the nightrunner launched into the sky but were nevertheless grateful that they were now released from the deadly ground. Those who could rose quickly to protect their princess as was their sworn duty.
Only then did Dwynwyn notice the shredded membranes of the captain’s wings. He could not have flown up with them on his signal, nor could he fly now. Blood pulsed from the wound, a dark stain growing under where he lay. Dwynwyn wondered for a moment if Deython knew how badly he was hurt but then realized that he most probably did.
A sudden gust of the evening breeze pressed the nightrunner sideways. Dwynwyn gripped the side as though to steady the ship. They were being carried quickly eastward by the breeze, out past the edge of Oakan Forest. The guards, such as remained, were still in pursuit, trying desperately to reach their captain and the princess.
On the ground below them, Dwynwyn was aware of motion. The centaurs were galloping under them, their bows still in hand. They know we will come down, Dwynwyn thought. They are stalking us. Faeries can only fly so far.
“We’ve stopped risin
g,” the captain said heavily, his breathing labored. “We’re going back down.”
“Why?” Dwynwyn questioned, glancing about the nightrunner. Then she saw it. The foremost crystal globe was cracked. An arrow must have fractured it.
The centaurs continued to gallop under them, waiting for them. Dwynwyn took a shuddering breath. She and Aislynn would have to fly for the tower after all.
“Aislynn,” Dwynwyn said calmly. “Do you think you can fly as far as the tower?”
“I . . . I don’t know,” the princess replied. “I suppose if I must . . .”
“You must.” Dwynwyn then turned and looked sadly down on the injured guard lying at her feet. “Captain, I . . .”
“You must fly, ladies!” Deython said simply. Then he smiled. “My men will come for me, then I’ll take care of you.”
“Dwynwyn! Wait!” Aislynn called out. “Look! Look to the tower!”
Dwynwyn turned and was astonished.
The tower was erupting with flight. Figures rushing into the air from the courtyard below streamed toward them.
“The tower guard!” The captain sighed with relief as he looked over the side of the nightrunner. “They’ve seen us! Mother of the Glade be praised!”
Aislynn cried out loudly from the gondola, waving her arms frantically. “Here! We are here! Oh, Dwynwyn, perhaps I should fly out to thank them! They are so wonderful, so valiant!”
Deython’s face suddenly altered. There was astonishment and fear in his eyes. He tried to struggle to his feet but fell weakly back, unable even to grip his sword. “It cannot be!”
“Their wings! They’re all wrong!” Dwynwyn’s breath was coming in quick gulps. “It is a new truth . . . a new and terrible truth!”
The remnants of the nightrunner guards encircled the ship. Their swords were drawn. Tired as they were, they were willing to fight one last battle. Each of them knew, however, that it was a futile gesture.
Aislynn cowered behind Dwynwyn. There was no place else to hide.
Ten phalanxes of flying warriors surrounded the nightrunner in a sphere. Their narrow halberds shone in the failing light of the day. They beat the air with their noisy wings, the sound of it rumbling like the thunder of doom in Dwynwyn’s ears.
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