For a moment Arcturus and the others stared after them, watching as the strange creatures disappeared around the bend. Then, as one, they turned to look at the newborn baby in their midst. It gurgled and glared back at them, jamming its fingers into its tusked mouth.
“Hellfire,” Edmund cursed. “What are we supposed to do now?”
CHAPTER
32
“THIS IS, BY FAR, the stupidest bloody thing I’ve ever done in my life,” Rotter growled, wringing his hands.
They were crouched on a small, shrub-covered hillock, looking downhill into the hollow of a wide valley. Above the canopy of the trees beneath them, they could see a thin stream of smoke, just visible before it dissipated into the clear blue sky. Elaine had sent Valens to spy, and now the group was sitting in a circle around the young noble, peering into the shard of scrying crystal that Alice had lent her.
Within, they could see from the beetle demon’s point of view as he flitted between trees, careful not to be seen by any of the wild animals that populated the jungle. The Mite was still a young demon, so it was no larger than a stag beetle and armed only with a weak, undeveloped stinger on its rear. Even a small bird of prey, or wildcat, would make an easy meal of him with one mouthful.
It had taken over ten minutes for Valens to reach his destination, and now he sat on the underside of a waxy leaf, staring down at the source of the flames. Elaine flipped the scrying crystal so that the view was right side up, and together they leaned in to catch their first glimpse of an orcish settlement.
What was almost immediately clear was that they were looking at no more than a small village, made up of wattle-and-daub huts with thatched roofing. In its center was a pit containing a fire, and surrounding this … were orcs.
Yet, these were not the orcs that Arcturus had seen in the jungle earlier—for there were barely any males in sight. Instead, the few orcs he could see were much older, with white hair and hunched, decrepit statures. The remaining orcs were females, dangling babies on their arms or chastising the toddlers that stumbled about the place.
“We’re in luck,” Alice murmured. “No warriors.”
“Any one of those females could rip your head clean off,” Rotter growled. “Just because the menfolk are out of town, so to speak, doesn’t mean anything about this is safe.”
“I think I know what happened to the men,” Arcturus said, thinking of the young captive orcs he had seen earlier that day. “I don’t think they’re coming back.”
“Well, I’m going down there wherever they are,” Alice said stubbornly, hefting the baby against her chest protectively. “We can’t take it with us and we can’t abandon it either. This is the only way.”
“It’s not going to be you going down there,” Edmund said, crossing his arms. “I’ll do it.”
“You’ll look like more of a threat,” Alice rebutted, taking a step away from Edmund. “It’s better if a woman goes in, holding the baby as if it were her own. There are plenty of mothers down there. They won’t hurt me.”
“Right,” Edmund said, rolling his eyes.
Alice handed the baby to Elaine and took a stick from the ground, then scratched two rough circles into the soil.
“I’ll curve around from our position”—she tapped the smaller circle and drew a curved line around to the larger one—“and enter the camp from the east, where there are fewer orcs. I can leave it on the ground and run into the jungle before they even see me.”
“See, if leaving it on the ground is even an option, why not just leave it on the edge of the camp,” Rotter argued, taking the scrying stone from Elaine and pointing at the forested border of the village. “They’ll find it eventually.”
“Where a wild animal can get to it?” Alice snapped. “It has to be inside the village itself.”
Rotter sighed and rubbed his beard.
“Wait. Who is that?” Arcturus asked.
He was looking into the scrying crystal, where a much larger orc had emerged from one of the huts. He was an adult male, and looked entirely different from all the orcs Arcturus had seen before. His body had been painted pitch black with soot, and the pattern of what appeared to be bones had been smeared over the top of it in a white paste. An outline of a white skull had been drawn starkly against his features, and his head had been shaved completely bald to complement the effect.
Other than his body paint, he wore no more than a loincloth, and carried a gnarled staff in his hand. As he walked among the villagers and crouched to warm his hands by the fire, the others shied away from him. The women of the village sent their children scurrying inside, and some of the younger females slunk fearfully into the forest.
The orc seemed unperturbed by his effect on the tribe, instead taking a hunk of meat from a nearby elder’s hand and gnawing at it as he stared into the flames.
“Damn, what if I run into the ones that are leaving?” Alice muttered, staring down the hill at the smoke, as if she could see the females hiding beneath.
“You’re not going,” Edmund hissed. “Can’t you get that through your head?”
Arcturus could not tear his eyes away from the painted orc, for the beast was doing something strange. Though he could not hear the words, the giant was rocking back and forth, muttering something in what he imagined must be the alien, guttural language of the orcs.
Then he saw it, small though it was in the image upon the crystal. A gremlin had limped out of the same hut the painted orc had emerged from, its bat-wing ears drooping with pain as it scurried toward its master. On its back, Arcturus could see the source of its agony—a bloody mark, carved deep into its very flesh, of a pentacle.
Now the others were looking down at the crystal in Rotter’s hand. Alice gasped in horror at the sight of the maimed creature, and they watched on as it hobbled its way back to its master.
The white orc lifted the gremlin by its head with a large hand, the fingers encompassing its head as easily as a human might grasp an apple. It hung limply in his grip for a moment. Then, as blue light began to glow from the orc’s hand, it wriggled frantically.
Arcturus could almost hear the sizzle of its flesh as the mana burned down the gremlin’s back in a jagged blue line, until it reached the incisions, suffusing the pentacle until it blazed with the same glow.
White light began to swirl from above the carved symbol, knitting together into flesh and bone.
“It’s summoning something … this is a shaman!” Alice uttered.
But this was different from when Arcturus summoned Sacharissa. The white light swirled endlessly, growing larger and larger, building up a giant figure beside the flames of the fire.
“What … what is that?” Edmund gasped.
Slowly, ever so slowly, the demon materialized.
It was enormous. As large as two orcs and twice as wide, it appeared as a giant, bipedal elephant, with great flapping ears, a powerful trunk and serrated tusks as long as a man was tall.
Finished with the gremlin, the orc took one look at the twitching, burned body, then tossed it derisively into the fire’s flames.
“It’s … a Phantaur,” Alice whispered. “I’ve only ever read about those; it’s never been seen in the flesh. This is one of the most powerful demons in existence.”
“Well, you’re definitely not going down there now,” Edmund said. “That thing could step on you and barely notice.”
“Nobody has to go down there,” Arcturus said.
He looked at Sacharissa, who had been sitting patiently in the shade of a shrub, her tongue lolling out as she panted in the heat.
“Sacharissa will take the baby. She’s fast enough to get in and out quickly, and if we’re lucky they’ll think she was some kind of wildcat, maybe a panther.”
Edmund stared at Arcturus, then clapped him on the back.
“That’s the best damned idea I’ve heard all day,” he laughed. “Why didn’t I think of that?”
“It’s a great plan,” Alice said. “With one m
inor difference. Reynard will go. He’s faster and more mature than your Canid—plus he’s larger.”
Arcturus flushed with relief, though he felt a twinge of guilt as he nodded in agreement. Edmund had lost both his demons, with Gelert still hunting for them in the jungle and Athena diligently screeching every few minutes in the hope of rescue.
Alice was taking a big risk with Reynard, and he was grateful that Sacharissa would not need to go down there.
“Elaine, can you fly Valens to the east side of the village?” Rotter asked. “We need to scout Reynard’s path.”
Silence.
Arcturus looked up from the crystal, searching for Elaine.
But Elaine wasn’t there. She was gone … and the baby with her.
CHAPTER
33
ARCTURUS WAS RUNNING BEFORE he had a chance to think, pacing through the undergrowth with Sacharissa racing beside him. He could smell Elaine’s path ahead, meandering through the bushes in the direction of the village.
“Arcturus, wait!” Alice called, and he saw a flash of white light behind him as Reynard was summoned into existence.
He ignored her—every minute counted. Every second. Elaine didn’t know that there was a shaman down there.
This time, Arcturus slowed as he neared the edge of the village, hunkering down at its edge and catching his breath. He took a deep sniff, and could smell the animal scent of the Phantaur thick in the air.
“Where is she, girl?” Arcturus said, tilting his head to listen for any telltale sounds. When he concentrated, he could hear and smell better, though not nearly as well as when he looked into Sacharissa’s eyes.
But now he needed his own eyes for scanning the surroundings, so he relied on Sacharissa as she snuffled her way around to the east side of the village. Arcturus followed, careful to place his feet in the soft soil, away from crackling leaves and brittle twigs. The Phantaur’s ears were enormous, and he did not doubt that it could hear every sound in the jungle.
As he made his way around the edge, he could see the shaman and his demon. The painted orc had been lifted onto the beast’s shoulders, and he was shouting orders to the villagers around him. One handed him up a woven basket of fruit, while another scurried into a hut and emerged with a fly-ridden haunch of meat.
“Elaine, where are you?” Arcturus mouthed, not even allowing himself to whisper.
Then he saw her. Crouched beside the village edge, the white orc infant clutched to her bosom. Her eyes were wide with terror, staring at the Phantaur. She appeared frozen to the spot, and now Arcturus could see Valens buzzing around her face, tugging at her hair with his mandibles in a bid to make her move.
Arcturus crept toward her on his hands and knees, moving as quickly as he dared. Any minute now, an orc would see her. She was crouched in plain view, just within the village border.
He was just a stone’s throw away from her when it happened. It was a toothless orc elder that saw her, and time seemed to slow down as he raised a trembling finger and cried out hoarsely at the sight.
In that moment, Arcturus hurled himself out of the bushes and sprinted toward her. He took her shoulders and pulled her away. For the briefest of seconds he tried to tug the baby from her hands, but she would not let go—it was all he could do to get Elaine to stand up and walk. It was only when an earth-shattering trumpet of noise blasted from behind him that she snapped to attention, but by then it was too late; they were already deep in the trees.
They ran, ripping through the snarled bushes and shrubs in their path, blinded by the beams of sunlight that filtered down through the canopy. There was no time to find their way back to the others. Arcturus could hear the thunder of great footsteps behind him, the noise reverberating through his chest as if the very ground were shaking.
“This way,” Arcturus gasped, gripping her undershirt and pulling her off to the left. They ran on, deeper into the jungle, but the footsteps only seemed to get louder. The shaman was gaining on them.
There was only one chance. A mad idea, drifting across his consciousness as he saw an enormous fallen trunk, its insides hollowed out by years of rot, one half-buried beneath a pile of fallen branches and creeping vines. Its fall had created a clearing of sorts—enough to see its open end.
“In!” he gasped, shoving Elaine after Sacharissa as the demon ran full tilt into the hollow tube of desiccated bark. He followed moments later, crawling for a few panicked moments until he bumped into the young noble, then pressed his knees tight against his chest as he turned himself into a sitting fetal position. He turned his head, and looked down into the circle of green-yellow light at the end, the dark tunnel broken only by hairline cracks in the wood above, leaving filtered shafts of light along its length.
“Quiet,” he said, trying to slow his breaths, a combination of exertion and terror pounding his heart so hard he felt like he could hear its echoes within the log itself.
So they sat there in the cloying darkness, staring at the opening a half-dozen feet from where they hid. All was silent.
Until they heard it. Another thud.
It was slower now, as if the Phantaur had stopped lumbering after them, instead taking its time as it swept the area.
“I’m sorry,” Elaine whispered.
“Shhh,” Arcturus replied, rubbing her shoulder to keep her calm.
Immediately, the footsteps stopped. Arcturus cursed inwardly. Had it heard them?
Still … nothing. Silence, but for the soft rattle of branches in the afternoon breeze.
A shadow, falling across the circle. Then, the crackle of wood. As if a giant had slowly set its foot down on a forest trail.
The world flipped sideways. One moment they were staring in silence, the next they were screaming as the tree trunk was lifted high. Blue green, flashing as the trunk’s end faced the canopy.
Next a stomach-churning drop, and a bone-juddering crash that spun Arcturus on his side. The bark held—but more cracks appeared along its length.
There was no time for planning. Arcturus had barely a moment to draw his dirk before a snake of leathery gray flesh wriggled its way through the opening. The Phantaur’s trunk darted at him, two powerful fingers closing like a snapping mouth, grasping for its prey. The world darkened as the demon placed its face against the opening to push its trunk farther still, and suddenly it was within inches of Arcturus’s face. He stabbed at it, barely making a scratch in the thick skin. The fingers closed on his hair, jerking him a foot toward it before his scalp burned and a tuft of hair ripped free.
He rolled as the trunk slammed down, splitting the wood farther so that he felt wet soil against his bare back. He stabbed again, directly at the trunk’s tip. This time he was rewarded by an earsplitting squeal of pain, and the trunk withdrew a few feet. He stabbed it again, drawing blood. He felt the blast of air as the beast trumpeted in agony. The tip was sensitive.
Mere seconds of respite followed.
“Valens,” Elaine called desperately. “Valens!”
But if the little Mite was attacking the demon, Arcturus could not see it. They were on their own. He could hear Sacharissa whining, desperately trying to push past Elaine’s body to fight, but the space was too tight.
Crash!
Splinters of wood sprayed, throwing sawdust and a spattering of soil into the air. A great pillar of gray flesh and bone had slammed down on the end of their tree trunk, crushing the end, bringing the circle of light ever closer.
Crash!
Again, the Phantaur’s foot slammed down, crushing the end of the trunk.
Crash!
Arcturus closed his eyes, wishing he had had time to learn a spell, any spell that might save them. But all he could do was flash wyrdlight. Useless.
Crash!
The foot was but an arm’s length away now, working its way up the tree trunk. He would be first. One more stomp before it was over. Arcturus brandished his dirk, ready to stab it when it came. He would go down fighting.
He co
uld almost feel the shift of weight as the Phantaur raised its foot. In that moment, Arcturus jammed the hilt of his dirk into the crack in the wood ahead of him, pulling his hand away in the nick of time. The foot slammed down, impaling itself on the slim blade.
For a second there was silence. Then, a scream of agony unlike anything Arcturus had heard before, so loud and high pitched his ears sung with pain at the noise.
“Now,” Arcturus cried out, grasping the leg as it withdrew. “Run!”
He was pulled through the splintered hole, holding on for dear life as the Phantaur lifted its leg in the air, the delicate pad of its elephantine foot pierced deep by his dirk. He felt himself slipping and let go, landing among the fragmented wood as Elaine and Sacharissa rushed past. Above, the foot hovered in the air, a pillar of gray with the hilt at the bottom.
Growling, Arcturus took the handle and twisted it with all his might, and the resultant scream of agony nearly deafened him as he pulled his blade free in a spray of crimson.
Then he was running, sprinting toward a gap in the foliage, where Sacharissa’s tail swished as she flew into the undergrowth. He snatched a glance as he ran, saw the shaman on the demon’s shoulders, hands in the air, sketching a symbol in blinding blue light.
He ran on, leaping for the undergrowth … only to slam into an opaque barrier. He fell, near-stunned. Upside down in his vision, he saw the beast approaching in a limp that shook the ground with every stomp. On its back, the shaman howled murderously, its staff pointed directly at his face.
Arcturus struggled to his feet and clashed his dirk against the barrier, but its tip slipped along the surface as if it were wet ice. He could not penetrate it.
Then Sacharissa was sailing through the air, and the shield dissolved as she passed through it, her demonic essence ripping through the mana like rice paper. But even as she leaped for the Phantaur’s leg, the demon’s trunk whipped out, hurling her body in a tumble of limbs into a nearby tree.
Arcturus fell to his knees, the pain of Sacharissa’s injury flaring like lightning across his brain. He could barely see through the agony, only feel the tremors of the Phantaur’s approaching steps.