Venom and Song (67 page)

The two Elves passed in and out of the twilight beneath the trees of the darkling wilderness. Their mad pace kept them warm, and eventually their clothes dried out. They followed the stream and hoped for some sign of civilization. They got a sign, but it wasn't quite what they'd hoped for. A sonorous horn echoed in the passes of the mountains ahead.

“Gwar,” muttered Nelly.

“No doubt,” Regis replied. “And given the numbers who have taken this portal, there may be several legions of the enemy already here.”

As if on cue, there came the sound of many marching feet.

“Here,” said Nelly, pointing, “between the fallen trees and this mound. We'd better stay out of sight.”

Regis joined her and they crouched down just as an army of Gwar soldiers marched over the ridge to their south. And not only Gwar, but Warspiders. More Warspiders than either Elf had ever seen gathered at one place. The force passed right by the hidden Elves, a seemingly never-ending parade. Here and there, strands of white hair shone in the moon's light. Drefids . . . dozens of them. “The Spider King has emptied Vesper Crag,” whispered Regis.

“So it seems,” said Nelly. “But given the activity on the Lightning Fields and around his fortress, I think it unlikely that he's brought all his armies to Earth. No, I think we have just underestimated our enemy once more.”

“What do you mean?”

“All those years in hiding,” said Nelly, “we took it for granted that the Spider King was exhausting his resources in the search for surviving Elves and, of course, the Seven. But no. He believes he's beaten us—even if the Seven should return to power. He's spent all this time breeding Warspiders and training up new armies. Allyra is no longer enough to satisfy him.”

A harsh buzzing sound, reverberating overhead, silenced the two Elves, and they felt compelled to duck. They could feel the vibrations, and then a throbbing, hammering sound rattled their teeth and made them cover their ears. In front of the moon several shadows passed.

“What was that?”

“I don't know,” said Nelly.

They waited in their blind until the last of the enemy passed. Then silently they crept out and raced across the open terrain toward the roots of the mountain. “What are we doing?” Regis whispered.

“I want to see where they've gone,” Nelly shot back. “I want to know what they're planning.”

“But the map is our assignment,” said Regis.

“Do you see a train station?” Nelly growled. “Or maybe we can call a cab to drive us to upstate New York. We don't even know where we are.”

“Maybe we should go back to the portal and report what we've seen.”

“We haven't seen enough,” said Nelly.

The enemy army marched over a ridge of stone and disappeared into a wide cave like a wolverine's burrow at the base of the mountain. Nelly raced along a line of shrubs and crouched at the head of the downslope.

“Are you crazy?” asked Regis. “This is not our task. Regardless of wherever this is, we've got to find our way to a road, find out where we are—if it's even Earth at all—and get to New York. We still have enough assets in this world to buy a helicopter, if we need to.”

“Ah, Regis,” said Nelly, shaking her head, “I rue the time that is passing just as you do. But we've stumbled onto something huge here. We need to know what the enemy is doing here. We will spy and leave swiftly. They'll never know we've been here.”

Regis looked doubtful. “You know,” she said, “what you just said ranks pretty high on the list of famous last words.”

Nelly did not respond but lithely slipped through the wall of foliage like a shadow down a ramp. Regis followed. They found the entrance strangely unguarded.

“Great,” muttered Regis. “We get to go underground again.”

As they passed under the roof of stone, they found the way split into six tunnels. There was no telling where any of them led, but they heard voices coming from the tunnels on the left.

“This way,” Nelly urged, and they ran into the fifth opening. They found a torch-lined passage that eventually climbed sharply and curled to the right. Soon they saw arched openings on either side of the tunnel. Creeping as lightly as they could, they explored each. A wide bench, a grindstone, and various pieces of armor—almost identical contents in every room.

“Living quarters,” said Regis. “Glad they're all out.”

“Where are they?” Nelly wondered aloud. “Come on, Regis, we've got to keep moving. If we don't find out what we need to know soon, we'll leave.”

They passed hundreds of the cramped rooms and the passage leveled out. As they moved along, they began to hear the sound of many voices, like a great coordinated shout. It grew louder and louder as they went on. Up ahead, the wall on the left was cut away, leaving a great wide window. The voices ceased at last, and the two Elves crept to the edge of the window and peered out.

“
Dear Ellos
,” said Nelly. The window opened above a chamber the size of an aircraft hangar, and on the vast floor far below thousands of Gwar had gathered. They were assembled in lines of rows in perfect squares and behind them, more motionless than any wild creature should be, were rank upon rank of Warspiders. And some of these were twice the size of any Warspider the Elves had encountered in Allyra. There were Drefids, too, marching between the battalions of Gwar. And one Drefid stood on a raised platform in front of them all.

He raised an axe high in the air and yelled something the Elves couldn't make out. The response from the armies was deafening. The Drefid slammed the axe down, embedding its wide blade in the lectern in front of him. The great hall went silent, and he began to speak once more.

“I wish I could hear what he's saying,” said Nelly.

“Not me,” said Regis. “I don't like his voice. He doesn't sound as maniacal as other Drefids I've heard. His tone is almost pleasant and reasonable. For some reason, that is more frightening.”

“You're right,” said Nelly. “I think we should go.”

They began to turn back the way they had come, but heard movement. “Should have known this wouldn't be so easy,” said Nelly. “Follow me and stay low.”

The two Elves moved swiftly to the far wall and ran as low as they could without losing their balance. Once past the vast window, they broke into an open sprint. Just ahead, the passage split. It curled to the left where torches illuminated three Gwar soldiers milling about. The passage to the right was more narrow, but there weren't any Gwar in sight. They ducked down that tunnel and followed its winding passage until it came to a dead end full of crates and barrels.

“No!” said Nelly. “Quickly, back the way we came.”

“They went this way,” came a deep voice. “The provisions tunnel.”

“We've got them,” replied another voice.

BONUS SCENE
22
Going It Alone

Authors' Notes:
Part of being an author is knowing what the characters are doing, even when they are not on the written page. The following is what happens to Goldarrow while the Seven Lords are on their own adventure. While not essential enough to keep in the final manuscript, this scene lets us see a little deeper into this marvelous Sentinel.

ONLY ONCE before had Elle Goldarrow endured such weariness of body and heart. Eight hundred years earlier, trapped beneath the rubble of the Great Hall, she'd watched as the Drefids, Gwar, and Warspiders murdered the Seven Lords and their spouses and took their child heirs. Being helpless to fight—to do anything against the parade of malice—had nearly drained her life away. But she'd survived. And now, after a day's relentless march through the tunnel from Whitehall and two more days' journey on the surface through the wilderness, Goldarrow felt herself on the verge of collapse.

How dare he order me to go like some . . . some common flet soldier!
It was a thought her mind had echoed again and again. Oh, she was very well aware of their command hierarchy. Guardmaster was the highest rank in the Elven military.
The commander in chief, as the Americans would say.
She was a flet marshall, one of the elite, but still beneath his rank.
“You must go,”
he'd said.
“You must look after the Seven.”

“Well,” she muttered, “I've done it. I've followed orders.” And she knew somehow, the Seven would be all right.
Wouldn't they
? “But Olin . . . who will look after you?” She crashed awkwardly through a net of dense foliage, lost her balance, regained it, and pushed on. It occurred to her in some deep recess of her mind that Grimwarden had sent her away, not because the Seven needed looking after . . . but because he'd wanted to keep her safe.

She shook the thought from her mind, but it was replaced with another: the Spider King's army advancing on Whitehall. Her imagination replayed the scene in vivid detail. Manaelkin striding across the drawbridge. Alwynn shambling forward to meet him. The strange sudden silence as the arc stone fell from the sky, struck the drawbridge just behind Manaelkin, and exploded. She remembered, too, the shock and tired anguish on Grimwarden's face. He'd mastered it quickly, but she'd seen. And even though he'd rushed her away from the forward wall, she'd seen the strength of the invading force: more than a legion of Gwar infantry, supported by archers and a hundred Warspiders. Even in the quick glimpse she'd had, the enemy had begun to cut down Manaelkin's squad like a reaper's scythe through wheat.

Whitehall would not stand against such an onslaught. And Grimwarden would stand and fight until his last breath.
Confound his pride!

What's this?
She stopped running for the first time in hours and examined the trunk of a tall pine that stood proudly atop the back of the Spine. A few chips of bark had been flaked off. Not deer sign, nor that of bear.
Elven. The Seven have been this way.
Her heart quickened.

From that tree she sped off northeast, looking for more signs of passing. It was the first hopeful indication of the Seven's whereabouts she'd seen in a day. A little farther ahead a massive tree lay across her path, strewn with decades of bracken and vine now disturbed. With renewed energy, she hurdled the fallen giant, ducked under a low-hanging bough, and leaped carefully down the bank of a deep hollow. At the bottom, she found a semicircle of stone benches. They'd been recently scraped clean, and there was sign of a fire, but nothing else.

No bodies . . . no sign of a fight, thank goodness. But no one in sight. “Tommy,” she called tentatively. “It's Goldarrow . . . Tommy, Kat?” No answer.

No, they'd stay out of sight as much as possible. Then her eyes caught a patch of darkness beneath the sheltering limbs of a pine tree grove.
The Sanctuary,
she thought. The Seven had stumbled into the ancient gathering place constructed by the Old Ones.
As if I'm surprised their Elven blood would lead them here.
She had been here once before, so long ago she couldn't put a date to it, when she herself had undergone Vexbane training and journeyed into the countryside. It was a secret center of study and worship used for thousands of years but abandoned during the Saer invasion. She took a deep breath.
Could they be?
The entrance to the Sanctuary waited just forty yards from where Goldarrow stood.

Schiiing.
Elle drew her rychesword. If a trap were set, the Sanctuary would be the place for it. She shrugged. The enemy wasn't usually that subtle, not unless Drefids were involved. But that wasn't the only possible concern. Forest dragons, felbrics, taelgrims, and who knew what other kind of beast would likely find the Sanctuary a more than hospitable place to dwell. She kept her sword in front and kindled a dremask torch in her other hand.

She ducked under the pine canopy, and the black-arched doorway yawned open to receive her. Her torch cast a few yards of silvery light ahead.
Thank Ellos for dremask,
she thought. Bright enough to see by, but not glaring enough to ruin her night vision. She stepped under the arch and left the daylight.

“Tommy!” she called. “Kat!” There was no sense alerting the enemy or a creature of her presence, but she didn't want to stab one of the Seven by accident, either. Still no answer.

A few dozen paces in, she felt the air temperature drop and sensed the great openness of the main chamber. “Tommy,” she whispered, holding the dremask up high.
Foolish,
she thought. The Seven wouldn't be sitting in the dark. Still, she needed to look for some sign. She found them aplenty. Spaces had been cleared on the floor near the altar. Seven spaces. Surely the young lords had slept here. She found remnants of hastily eaten meals in other places, a day old, maybe two.

Emerging from the Sanctuary and into the green-gold light of the late afternoon, Goldarrow extinguished her torch and sat on one of the stone benches.
Now what?
she wondered. The Seven had gone, that much was clear. And had they been attacked, the whole dell would be fire-blasted and strewn with bodies of the enemy.
Why would they leave?
They were not apt to disobey a command from Grimwarden . . . unless . . . unless they were certain that we would not be coming.