The Skaar Invasion

  Dar stared in disbelief. “What do you mean you’ve never used the magic? Not even once? Just to see what it can do? How could you resist? You had access to it anytime you chose.”

  “You haven’t been paying attention. I told you I hadn’t taken them out of their hiding place again since I found them. There’s a reason for that. Using magic triggers a response. It…calls attention to itself. I didn’t want to risk Father finding out what I’d done. So I looked at them that one time and then left them alone.”

  “You are a true disappointment,” Dar declared in frustration. “I’d assumed you must have used them at least once! How could you stand not knowing what it felt like?”

  Brecon laughed. “Not everyone thinks sticking their head in a moor cat’s mouth is a good idea.”

  Dar stared, surprised at the rebuke. “If you say so…”

  Brecon was grinning broadly. “Glad we have an understanding. Now describe Tarsha.”

  Dar did, focusing on her more memorable characteristics—the white-blond hair, the lavender eyes, and the sculpted features. Then he described her dress—although it was hard to be sure what she would be wearing now. He described how she had moved and responded during their conversations, how she used her gestures and facial expressions.

  When he was finished, Brecon shrugged. “I’ll do my best. Maybe the hair and eyes will be enough.”

  He fished the pouch from his pocket and spilled the Elfstones into his open palm. In the bright daylight, they seemed to absorb the sun’s rays, their deep-blue color enhanced until they appeared twice their normal size. Dar stood back as Brecon gathered his thoughts, the Elfstones clutched in his fist. Then the Elven prince closed his eyes and went perfectly still.

  Finally, after long moments, he lifted the hand with the Elfstones until it pointed southwest in the general direction of Backing Fell. Brecon stood like a statue, arm raised and outstretched, eyes closed, face mirroring an intense concentration. Dar watched silently, wondering if anything was going to happen.

  It wasn’t. The Elfstones failed to respond.

  Brecon lowered his arm and looked over, giving a reluctant shrug. “Nothing.”

  “Try again,” Dar urged.

  Brecon resumed his stance, his arm lifting once more. This time he kept his eyes open, looking off into the distance as if willing Tarsha Kaynin to appear. The concentration on his face was total. Dar waited, but the Elfstones remained dark.

  “Picture her in motion,” Dar said quietly, firmly. “As if she’s struggling with something or perhaps trying to defend herself.”

  The Elven prince did not respond, but he remained in place, his arm still stretched out. He inhaled deeply and then exhaled, and his body tensed as his free hand closed about the one that held the Elfstones, both arms now extended out from his body.

  A glimmer of blue broke through the cracks between his fingers.

  “Yes!” Dar hissed excitedly.

  Then shards of indigo exploded from Brecon Elessedil’s clenched fists and shot away into the distance in a ribbon of brightness that carried both watchers with it—down from the rise and across the Sarandanon sharply south and over the Rill Song once again, past forests and hills, gullies and streams, and farther still. The Rock Spur Mountains rose in the distant west, and the light swept past them and angled east toward where the Tirfing bordered the edges of the Matted Brakes, and then curled in on itself until it found a solitary traveler standing next to a small aircraft. It was Tarsha Kaynin, looking north toward Elven country in the direction of Dar and Brecon.

  But it wasn’t at Dar and his companion Tarsha Kaynin was looking; it was at three ragged figures approaching from the north.

  Dar caught his breath. Beneath the shifting shadows of the cloaks the three wore draped over their gnarled forms, he spied the glimmer of unsheathed blades.

  ELEVEN

  Immediately after speaking with Jes Weisen about Tavo, Tarsha Kaynin departed Backing Fell to renew her search. Hearing the old woman tell the tale of what had happened to her parents and brother had left her shaken and unsure of what she was doing, but Tarsha had made up her mind to continue on. No matter what her brother had done, no matter how sick or angry or disturbed he was, she had to try to help him. If she abandoned him now, he was lost. There was no one else who would bother looking for him or to whom he could turn. He would continue on his rampage through the Westland villages and beyond until someone imprisoned or killed him.

  No matter the danger to herself, she could not allow this. She could not live with herself if she let it happen.

  So she flew her small airship east in the direction Tavo had taken, stopping frequently at small villages and outlying camps in an effort to find his trail. There was no other way for her to track him—no other way that made any sense. He was traveling alone and with a purpose that only he could know, so she had little to go on.

  She found the village Jes Weisen had described to her—a tiny hamlet with a scattering of shacks and ramshackle homes and a tavern and smithy’s forge—much later that same day. A rumor of its misfortune had spread to other, larger villages not far away and led her to it. She left her airship concealed in nearby woods and entered near dusk, a solitary presence entering a ghost town. No one was about; only a few lights shone in the windows of the shacks. But a solitary light was visible through a boarded-up window of the tavern, so she entered.

  The barroom was empty, the serving counter deserted. The light emanated from a candle-lit lantern hanging from the back wall. In its feeble glow she could see the remains of smashed tables and chairs and holes in the walls of the building. There were dark stains all across the wooden floor, and in places pieces of the ceiling had been torn away. At first, she thought the building deserted, but then a haggard, empty-eyed serving woman walked out of the kitchen area from behind the bar and stared at her. “We’re closed,” she said.

  Tarsha walked over to her. “I’m looking for the person who did…” She hesitated, then gestured at the room. “All this.”

  The woman frowned. “What’s he to you?”

  Tarsha hesitated. Best not to reveal too much. “We grew up in the same village. I heard what happened here. I thought maybe I could talk to him.”

  The serving woman shook her head. “Last one to try that ended up that stain over there.” She pointed at a particularly large spattering of dried blood. “I carted his body out back with the others. Burned them all to keep any sickness from spreading to those of us who are left.” She gave Tarsha a sharp look. “What makes you think he would listen to you? He isn’t in his right mind, you know. Wouldn’t listen to me or to any of those men he killed. So why would he listen to you?”

  “We were friends when he was younger. Before…any of this. Are you saying talking won’t work anymore?”

  “I’m saying exactly that.” The woman brushed back her lank hair and frowned some more, remembering. “I could tell something was wrong with him the moment he walked in. I tried to help him—even told him he maybe ought to go somewhere else. It’s a rough crowd comes into this place, men who don’t treat strangers well. He wouldn’t listen. Didn’t even seem to want to. Then he got into it with a few of the regulars—bad men, all of them.”

  She paused, locking gazes with Tarsha. “He just exploded, girl. Went all the way crazy. He had some sort of terrible magic in his voice. He sang, he did—an awful sound—and he tore those men and everyone else in the room apart. Made them explode! It was terrible to watch. I was hiding in the kitchen, one eye watching through the door when I could stand it. Tables and chairs flying, bodies tossed about, blood everywhere. I couldn’t do nothing. I didn’t even want to try. Not with him.”

  Images of what had happened flashed through Tarsha’s mind, raw and ugly. Everything she was hearing about her brother suggested that he had passed beyond her reach.

  “Do you know where
he went afterward?” she asked.

  The woman nodded. “Funny about that. There’s an old woman who lives up the road a ways, just at the east edge of this village. She found him and took him in. Crazy thing to do, you know. He’s all covered in blood when he comes up to her door, and she takes him in, anyway. He stays the night with her, leaves in the morning, and the woman’s none the wiser about what he’s done. Calla Lily, she calls herself. For the flower, you know. Lucky she’s still alive, but she is.”

  So perhaps Tavo isn’t beyond helping after all, Tarsha thought, allowing herself a small shred of momentary hope. “Did you speak to her?”

  “Of course I spoke to her. How else would I know all this?”

  “Did she say where the boy went after he left her?”

  “Didn’t say ’cause she didn’t know. He just left. Hardly spoke to her at all. He went east, I think she said. Just walked away.” A pause. “You got to be going now, girl. Like I said—we’re closed. But take some good advice. Turn around and go back to wherever it is you come from. Don’t waste your time on that young man. He’s just marking time until someone does for him.”

  Tarsha went back to her airship and flew on. She thought about visiting Calla Lily, but decided there was little else she would learn from her. She needed to keep moving, to keep trying to find him before he did any further damage. And there was every reason to believe he would. His mental state had deteriorated beyond anything she had ever imagined possible. The danger of him harming anyone who crossed him in even the smallest way was now undeniable.

  Even if it happens to be me.

  But she had made up her mind. She would take her chances.

  She slept that night in fields beyond the forest regions that surrounded Backing Fell and the unfortunate hamlet where Tavo had done so much damage, unwilling to stay anywhere that reminded her of what she had come home to. She curled up in the cockpit of her aircraft and wrapped herself in blankets against the cold of the night air. But there was nothing she could do about the chill that had settled into her bones with this day’s discoveries. She wondered if she would ever rid herself of the horror that was consuming her every time she thought of her brother.

  As a result, she slept hardly at all and woke worn and dismayed.

  From there, she continued eastward, conducting a leapfrogging search of the countryside, following the shores of the Rill Song toward the Tirfing, stopping frequently to ask the same questions, over and over again. There were a few who had seen a young man such as she described, a solitary bedraggled figure passing close by homes and towns but never entering. There were one or two who had talked to him. They remembered him as hollow-eyed and withdrawn, barely able to voice the two questions he asked each of them.

  Do you know a girl named Tarsha?

  Do you know where she might have gone?

  Until finally, toward the end of the day, she found someone who remembered the questions differently.

  Do you know a Druid named Drisker Arc?

  Do you know where he lives?

  She felt a sinking feeling in her stomach when she heard this. Somehow, Tavo had found out where she had gone and was tracking her. Somehow, he must have stumbled on one of the people she had talked to on her way to Emberen while searching for Drisker, and she had been remembered. It wouldn’t have been difficult for them to recall; her physical appearance was distinctive enough. And there would have been no reason for them not to reveal what they knew.

  So now he had a specific destination.

  But what did he intend to do once he reached it?

  She thought of her parents, torn to pieces, bloodied beyond recognition, victims of his fury and his vengeance. Did he plan to do the same to her? Or did he seek her because she was all he had left, and he was desperate to find her so that she could help him?

  “Oh, Tavo, why?” she whispered to herself, saddened by both possibilities.

  She turned northeast to fly back to Emberen. She might as well return there and face him.

  She was reminded of Drisker Arc’s journey to Paranor with the highlander Dar Leah, and she wondered what had happened to them and if they had returned yet. Drisker’s mission to reach the Druids had been so urgent, and there was reason to be afraid for him. She hoped he had settled things by now. But even so, she did not care for the prospect of his returning only to find her brother waiting for him. Even with the Blade to help protect him, he could be facing a serious threat.

  And the thought of Drisker being forced to hurt or kill Tavo because she wasn’t there to intercede was even more troubling.

  So she pressed ahead, flying deep into the night, sleeping poorly once more to rise early and continue on the second day in the same fashion. It was arduous and debilitating, her time spent turning over and over the possibilities of what she might find when she reached Emberen, of what sort of disaster awaited her there. None, she kept telling herself, but she didn’t believe it. She understood how unlikely it was. There was no point in pretending otherwise, and she knew it, even if she couldn’t help herself.

  Then, well into the afternoon of that second day, her airship broke down. She felt it begin to lose power, and she was quick to land on a barren stretch of plains not far from the juncture of the Matted Brakes and Drey Wood. Once on the ground, she began an examination of the vessel’s workings, her knowledge minimal enough to cause her to wonder if she would even recognize the problem once she found it.

  She was in the midst of her investigation when she caught sight of three ragged figures approaching from the north. She stopped what she was doing and moved away from her craft to watch them. They were ragged, soiled creatures—hard men with hungry looks and little kindness in their faces. She was in trouble, although not the sort she couldn’t handle.

  And then—suddenly, unexpectedly—she sensed someone else watching her. No one she could see—just eyes watching from a place far away by a means she could sense but not identify. Magic, she thought at once. But whose?

  A few moments later, the sensation faded. Whoever had been watching her had ceased to do so. She wondered at once if it was Drisker. He would be the one most likely to use magic. He could have returned, found her gone, and decided to come after her.

  “Troubles, little lady?” one of the men approaching asked in a harsh whisper.

  It sounded to her as if his vocal cords had been damaged in some way, as if speaking was difficult for him. His companions said nothing, but she caught a glimpse of a knife beneath one’s tattered clothing, the blade held close to his body.

  She faced them squarely. “Do you know anything of airships?” she asked them pointedly. “You don’t look like you do.”

  “Looks can be deceiving,” another said—the one who was hiding the knife. “Let’s have a peek, see if we can help you out.”

  She didn’t think he was talking about her vessel. She raised her hand. “Stop right there.”

  Her tone of voice brought them up short. There was iron in it, a clear indication that she believed she was able to back up her warning. The men exchanged glances. “Now, that’s no way to be,” said the first.

  “Maybe not, but that’s the way it is. So turn around and walk away.”

  The men had sullen, dangerous looks on their faces. “We’re not leaving until we’re ready,” said the one with the knife. “And we ain’t any sort of ready just yet.”

  “Don’t be foolish,” the first said to her. “We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Makes no difference to us. But you can be sure of this. It’s going to happen.”

  Tarsha shook her head. “No, it isn’t. I’ll say it one more time. Walk away. Don’t make me hurt you. Because if you take one more step, I will.”

  “Aw, missy, that ain’t how you should be talking to us.” The knife man was whining. “You should be careful what you say…”

  His body
uncoiled in a snake-like motion, and the hidden knife flashed through the air. Before she could act, the blade buried itself in her shoulder, knocking her backward and leaving her sprawled on the ground, grimacing with pain.

  The men charged her in a flurry of arms and legs and shouts, trying to overwhelm her. They might have done so easily enough if it had been anyone else. But even injured, Tarsha Kaynin was more than a match for them. She howled in fury, and the wishsong instantly halted their charge as suddenly as if they had run into a stone wall. They crumpled to the ground, gasping in anger and pain. One tried to rise, and she used her magic to pick him up and toss him twenty feet away. The other two watched it happen and then scrambled to their feet. Picking up their companion, they staggered away without uttering another word, looks of disbelief etched on their faces.

  An odd pang of guilt struck Tarsha in that moment. What she had just done had not been so different from what Tavo had done in that tavern. She had used the wishsong as a weapon. Admittedly, to defend herself—but hadn’t that been true of her brother, as well? The wishsong was a heavy burden; it imbued the user with both great power and great responsibility. But there was one difference in the ways she and her brother had used it. Her victims had been allowed to walk away alive. Tavo’s had not.

  Tarsha watched her attackers until they were out of sight and then pulled the blade from her shoulder. She was bleeding freely, and she felt flushed and shaky. She rose and stumbled over to the airship. In the storage bin were bandages and healing ointments, and she quickly tended her wound. The knife was not clean, and she worried about infection. But there was nothing more she could do about it now. What mattered was that she repair the airship so she could fly for help.

  She opened the parse tubes and began to test the diapson crystals for effectiveness. The crystals were charged, so she moved to the radian draws. Halfway through her investigation she found the problem. The left parse tube connector had worked its way loose from its seating. She tightened it anew, and within minutes she was setting out once more.