by Martha Carr
Foltr grunted and thwacked his staff against a tree trunk. “It’s all in the past, hinya.”
“Sure, until the past looked me right in the eyes five minutes ago and had no idea who I am.” Maleshi shook her head. “That troll was one of the few who fought back. Very few did, and she was one of even fewer I didn’t cut down for standing up to the Crown to protect what was theirs.”
Cheyenne swallowed. “Shit.”
A bitter laugh escaped the general. “Yeah. That tribe is all the way out here because of me. Who knows, maybe they’ve been here the whole time, but probably not. If this blight is moving as quickly as we think, I’m sure they’ve relocated more than once.”
“Ambar’ogúl will heal itself,” Corian muttered. “We’ll make sure of it.”
“After how many lives are taken, vae shra’ni? Huh?” Maleshi hissed. “I should’ve stopped her when I realized what she was doing. I could’ve taken her back then before she started stealing more magic than even she can handle.”
At the head of the line, L’zar stopped short and spun to face them, propping one foot on a boulder set into the hillside. “Then you would have started this war way before its time. Maleshi Hi’et would have fallen from her high horse as our greatest warlord, the factions would have turned against each other and you, and nothing would have changed. What would have happened then, hmm? I would’ve had to stand up and take a throne I never wanted, and I’m not even sure L’zar Verdys as the Crown of Ambar’ogúl would have been any better than Ba’rael the Spider. Feeling sorry for yourself doesn’t suit you, General. Keep moving.”
Without waiting for a reply, he spun back and trudged farther up the hillside.
Maleshi stared after him for a long moment before shaking her head and moving on.
“I hate to say it,” Cheyenne muttered, “but he might be right.”
The general laughed bitterly. “Don’t let him hear you say that.”
“I’ve heard enough to know that when you left, it gave everyone here the hope they needed. That it was possible to escape from all this. That at the very least, you weren’t dead, and in the best-case scenario, you might come back.”
“Best-case scenario. Ha. That turned out to be me branding myself as a traitor to the Crown and taking up arms against her at his side.” Maleshi nodded toward L’zar. “And it took this ragtag group shoving their way through my front door to get me moving again.”
Foltr grunted. “Don’t include me in the band of misfits, Blade of the Unseen Eye.”
“Of course not.” Maleshi glanced at him over her shoulder and smiled thinly.
“Sometimes, we have to live through the worst-case scenario to pull ourselves out of complacency. It’s ugly and effective, isn’t it?” The raug chuckled as he thumped his staff into the leaf-strewn mountainside. “I heard you made a comfortable bed of lies for yourself in our sister world.”
“Yes, thank you.” Shaking her head, Maleshi scoffed. “I was quite comfortable. Maybe someday I’ll return to it.”
Foltr’s sharp laugh echoed through the trees. “But not today.”
“No. Today, I’m following a mad drow into the jaws of the Sorren Gán.”
Ember gulped. “Jaws?”
“A figure of speech. Mostly.”
Chapter Eighteen
“So, I have a question.” Ember swiped her hair out of her eyes, floating easily over the increasingly difficult terrain. The rest of the party was breathing heavily as they finished the last of their climb over a fallen mound of boulders L’zar had refused to take them around.
Cheyenne wiped sweat from her forehead and readjusted the straps of her backpack. “Might as well go for it, Em.”
“I’m thinking. It was, what, mid-morning when we left the city? We had that ridiculously long train ride or whatever it was, and now it feels like we’ve been hiking through these mountains for just as long.”
Maleshi let out a winded laugh. “None of those are questions.”
“No, I know. But it makes me wonder how long the days are here.”
“Still not a question.”
Cheyenne snorted. “Don’t tell me General Hi’et can’t infer the question anyway.”
“Oh, I can infer plenty. For one, this fae over here has the time and energy to contemplate elongated daylight in Ambar’ogúl while the rest of us are focused on marching with our actual feet on the ground.”
Ember scowled at the back of the nightstalker woman’s head. “Hey, believe me, if I could march with you, I would in a heartbeat.”
“I know.” Maleshi shifted her pack on her shoulders and nodded. “I’m messing with you. The days are longer over here, and that’s the best answer I can give. Not much of an issue coming into this world, but I tell you what. When I went Earthside, it took me months to get used to the days cut short by at least a third.”
“A third?”
“At least. It might even be half.”
“Stop.” L’zar’s order cut sharply through the woods around them, and the group instantly halted. He peered through the sparse trees as they gave way to more rocks and eventually cliffs in the distance.
Cheyenne looked around and waited for the explanation. “Something on your mind, L’zar?”
“You couldn’t handle half of what’s on my mind,” he spat, turning around, not to look at her, but to scan the way they’d come and the mountainside below them.
“Right, because you have such a clear understanding of what I can handle.”
“Shut up.” The drow’s gaze flickered past her as if he didn’t even see his daughter standing in line with the others following him.
Cheyenne frowned. He looks like he’s losing it. If he goes all space-drow on us again, I’ll lose it too.
Lumil glanced at L’zar and tried to follow his gaze. “Anything in particular we’re looking for?”
L’zar hissed and stepped away from the party, peering through the trees. A rustle in the short, scruffy bushes on his right made him turn, and he launched a blazing dart of white light at them.
An angry, frightened squeal erupted from the shrubbery, followed by a creature with mottled dark-brown skin and three horns protruding from an elongated snout. It scrambled across the loose earth, yellow eyes wide before L’zar’s next attack caught it squarely in the side and dropped the creature on the spot. The animal snorted once, sending up a spray of leaves away from its snout, and lay still.
Ember stared at the thing. “Is that a pig?”
Corian raised an eyebrow at the dead creature. “Something like one, yeah.” He looked at L’zar. “And apparently such a threat that L’zar had to deal with it for us.”
L’zar grunted. “It was moving.”
“Not a good excuse,” Cheyenne muttered.
“It’s mutated too.” The drow tossed his hand toward the O’gúl version of a wild boar and kept moving. “Wouldn’t want that thing attacking us and spreading the blight, would we?”
Corian stared after him and slowly shook his head before exchanging concerned glances with Maleshi.
Five minutes later, L’zar spun wildly and sent a wave of blinding white light at the tallest tree they’d seen in half an hour. The branches exploded, and startled gray birds shrieked as they fluttered down the mountainside. The furry dark-purple body that fell from the tree squeaked once and lay still on the ground.
Ember looked from the purple thing to the tree again and blinked. “I don’t even know what that might be.”
“Not a threat, L’zar,” Corian warned.
“You don’t know that,” the drow hissed. “You don’t know anything out here. I do.”
“Jesus, you need to chill out.” Cheyenne walked steadily across the shallow incline and tried to get L’zar to look at her. “Pigs and birds and whatever the hell that purple thing is aren’t our main concern right now.”
L’zar whirled on her, his eyes wide and maddened with the first sign of fear she’d seen in him since he’d projected himself into her h
ead, trying to make sure she wasn’t dead. “You have no idea what we’re about to face, Cheyenne. If I feel like losing my shit, there’s a damn good reason for it. Enjoy your ignorance while it lasts. You’ll understand soon enough.”
Kicking up a spray of leaves, dry twigs, and fallen pine needles, the drow thief stalked toward the destination only he knew. The rest of the party exchanged silent, wary glances.
Corian said, “I think we’re getting close.”
Maleshi scoffed and gestured toward L’zar, who was storming off ahead of them. “Really? How could you tell?”
Cheyenne looked at Ember, who offered a clueless shrug. He better pull himself together before we need him for something dangerous.
Not long after that, L’zar led them down a steep ravine into a valley. Cheyenne noticed how quiet the valley was—no birds, no animal noises, not even the wind rustling through leaves. A cold tingle prickled down her spine. She finished sliding down the last of the loose shale behind Maleshi as the nightstalker offered Foltr a hand. He took it for a moment, then brushed her away from him before moving on with his staff.
The halfling looked at the sprawling valley in front of them and felt dark, grieving anger boiling up inside her. “What the hell?”
The valley was filled with the gnarled, twisted shapes of nearly a hundred trees towering into the sky. She could feel the power that used to be here and knew it had been stripped from the empty husks stretching in front of them. Nimlothar trees. A whole forest, and they’re all dead.
“Keep moving,” L’zar muttered with a grunt, passing the dead trunks as if he didn’t notice them.
Like he’s been here before. Cheyenne clenched her fists as they moved through the dead forest. The Nimlothar trees towered above them, every branch bare of leaves and devoid of life. A trace of the power that had once connected them to the drow race still hung thick in the air.
She stopped and reached out to touch the twisted black bark. A chunk fell away beneath her fingers and crumbled to dust that fluttered away in the low breeze. Her fingers stung with the residual pain in the ruined tree’s memories, and she sucked in a sharp breath. This is what losing an arm feels like. It has to be.
“Cheyenne,” Maleshi said her name softly, but there was a warning in it. “Keep moving.”
Blinking back the tears welling in her eyes, the halfling gritted her teeth and pressed on. The weight of so much dead, stolen power in the forest pressed on her like a physical force. “What happened here?”
Corian looked at the branches with a pained frown. “I’m sure your first guess would be right on the mark.”
“The Crown killed them.” Cheyenne felt the truth in her bones and forced herself to keep her rage under control. Hold it together, at least until we’re out of here. This place doesn’t deserve any more damage or pain. “Just so she could have the last Nimlothar all to herself in the Heart.”
L’zar scowled and kicked up the dry, dead soil like a spoiled child who didn’t get the candy he wanted. “I mourned them too when I first saw this place. I don’t like it any more than you do, but she honestly did our kind a favor when she wiped out this forest.”
“What?” Cheyenne glared at her father. “How could this possibly be a good thing?”
“This place was a living snare, Cheyenne.”
“A snare for what?”
L’zar briefly paused and turned as if to finally look her in the eye. His gaze drifted upward instead, and his lip curled in a sneer. “Drow.”
“That doesn’t even—” Cheyenne started to say when Corian put a hand on her shoulder and slowly shook his head.
“Not here. Later.”
She swallowed thickly and stormed away from him, staring at the ground because she couldn’t bear the sight of so many dead husks stripped of the power they didn’t deserve to lose. This place was sacred, not a snare. L’zar’s still keeping his damn secrets. That’ll end soon, even if I have to make it end.
The dead, still silence was overwhelming as they moved through the Nimlothar forest. When they emerged on the other side, the ground dipped into a bowl-shaped clearing made entirely of stone. Flames flickered across the clearing like light dancing across water. Small plants, sparse bushes, and short trees with narrow trunks dotted the curving stone floor, but everything burned with continuous flames of green, red, and purple. Ash blew across the clearing amid the constant crackle and the occasional burst of sparks from the endlessly burning plants. Even the wind was silent.
Cheyenne studied the strange phenomena with a pit of hesitation in her stomach. “I don’t get it. Stone doesn’t burn.”
L’zar shot her a quick sideways glance like he’d forgotten she was there and scowled. “It does here. Everything burns.” He jumped down into the bowl-shaped clearing and stared at the massive cave on the opposite side. The stone mouth of the cave burned too, mostly with yellow and orange flames of natural fire, but with random bursts of white fire and purple sparks.
Cheyenne studied the cave but couldn’t see anything past the raging fire that shouldn’t have been able to burn without fuel. It’s magic. That’s all the fuel anything needs on this world.
L’zar headed toward the closest burning plant, a withered lily, casting a quick spell before reaching down and plucking the whole thing from the stone. Scowling, he moved to the next plant and the next, harvesting burning stems and leaves and flowers. Foltr grunted and handed his staff to Maleshi before heading into the center of the clearing to help L’zar with his task.
“What are they doing?”
Corian leaned toward Cheyenne and nervously licked his lips. “It’s an old ritual, kid, to call out the Sorren Gán for a little chat, more or less. It guarantees a certain protection for us. Walking into that cave without it would end our journey right here.”
She looked up at him and raised her eyebrows. “Seems a little strange that we’d have to protect ourselves if we’re coming to this thing to ask for help.”
The nightstalker grimaced. “This thing has a fondness for drow.”
L’zar spun toward them, his eyes wild and his arms full of burning plants. “Don’t downplay what we’re facing, Corian. It likes the way we taste, plain and simple.”
Cheyenne blinked and stared at the flaming mouth of the cave. “The Sorren Gán eats drow?”
Corian dipped his head. “When it can.”
Ember swallowed. “Holy shit.”
“We’re here for a bargain,” L’zar spat as he broke a flaming green branch off one of the trees with a sharp snap. “To come to an agreement so it’ll stomp its fiery ass all the way to the capitol. We may be a delicacy for the Sorren Gán, but its main food is magic.”
“Magic.” Cheyenne folded her arms. “It eats drow and magic.”
“I don’t have time to listen to my damn echo, Cheyenne.” L’zar trudged across the clearing, dropping his fiery armful in the very center before moving on to another plant.
“What’s spilling out of Hangivol right now should be a decent feast for the Sorren Gán. One would think that in and of itself would be enough to entice it out, but these things don’t leave their lairs if they can help it.”
“So beyond dangling an exploding magical carrot in front of it, how do we get it to leave?”
“We make the trip worth its time. Placate it however we can, and in return, it should agree to make the journey and take care of the most immediate problem at the capital.”
With a snort, Cheyenne shook her head and watched her father and Foltr gathering flaming tribute to the Sorren Gán. “’Should.’ That means none of you is sure this will work.”
“We don’t have any other options, kid. We’re asking the Sorren Gán for help as a last resort. No way to hide that from the creature either, because we only have this one card to play. It’s always a gamble with them.”
L’zar’s bitter laughter came out as a snarl. “Gamble. We’re just full of fell-damn euphemisms today, aren’t we?”
Corian leane
d closer to Cheyenne and lowered his voice. “This one is best known for a willingness to put its appetite aside and at least listen to offers. Countless drow have tried to make deals with this particular Sorren Gán if they get that far. Very few of them make it out alive to see the deal fulfilled, but L’zar did. Once.”
“Shut the fuck up,” L’zar hissed. “I need to concentrate, and you running your mouth about the past isn’t helping.”
Ignoring his touchy mood, Cheyenne widened her eyes at her father as he bustled around the stone clearing. “You’ve done this before?”
“No. The last time, I didn’t have a bunch of idiots buzzing in my ears while I was trying to focus.”
She turned toward the nightstalker. “Corian, what are we getting ourselves into here? Seriously. I need to know before I go barging in there like a clueless moron.”
He blinked at her above a small, cautious smile. “Sounds like you’re finally coming to understand the importance of being prepared.”
“I blame you for planting that seed.” Cheyenne raised her eyebrows. “Tell me.”
Corian took a deep breath, then turned his back on L’zar and the stone clearing as if that would keep the drow thief from overhearing the conversation. He leaned toward Cheyenne’s ear and whispered, “I’ve only seen your father truly scared on two occasions. The first time was before he walked into that cave thousands of years ago.”
As she studied the cave, Cheyenne muttered, “And the second time?”
“When he came back out. Honestly, Cheyenne, that one was worse. I think that’s when he started to lose his mind.”
When he leaned away from her, Cheyenne looked into his glowing silver eyes. He gave her a reassuring nod, but his concerned frown expressed what he really thought. The nightstalker turned away and jumped down into the stone clearing, standing with his feet spread wide and his arms folded to watch L’zar and Foltr preparing for their Sorren Gán-summoning ritual.