Around the camp, the remaining d’warves had slowly stirred and began to collect the survivors. Mogweed had had no trouble feigning unconsciousness, his limbs already weak and boneless from fear. Tossed into the enclosed wagon like a sack of oats, Mogweed had kept his wits about him. Through slats in the wagon’s walls, he had watched which way they were being taken: north, the very direction they had sought themselves.
Even now, the flash of bright leaves through the slats was beginning to change to the darker needles of black pines as they entered the northernmost fringes of the Western Reaches. Mogweed estimated them only a day’s journey from the Northwall itself.
Suddenly the wagon struck another rut in the road, jarring Mogweed back around. From out of the wagon’s gloom, he found a pair of eyes staring back, studying him. They seemed almost to glow in the meager light cast through the small opening.
It was the fourth and last member of the camp to survive the attack. Like Mogweed, she had neither fought nor offered resistance. In the filtered sunlight, the honey-colored hair of the slender figure shone brightly. Mogweed whispered her name. “Nee’lahn?”
He expected no answer. Since they had discovered the nyphai woman almost a moon ago at the edge of the Western Reaches, she had not spoken a single word. Questions were ignored, conversations shunned. She hovered at the periphery of the camp, often wandering the forest paths alone, eyes dreamy and lost. The other members of the party tolerated her, but her behavior was much debated—as was her purpose in joining them.
Mogweed, Fardale, and Kral had all witnessed her death in the foothills of the Teeth, victim to an ill’guard monster. In private, they wondered if this silent figure was their dead companion reborn or simply some trick of forest magick. How could it truly be Nee’lahn? It was impossible.
“Fear not, Mogweed. It is I.”
The words were spoken plainly, but Mogweed gasped in shock. After so long, the ghost in their midst had finally spoken. He shoved away from her. “H-how could . . . I saw you . . . The spider creature killed you!”
Nee’lahn interrupted his babble. “Do not be deceived, Mogweed. I am not human, any more than you are. I am nyphai, a creature of root and loam. This body is mere dust and water given life by my bonded koa’kona spirit. Though the shoot might be trampled, as long as the root lives, I cannot die.”
Mogweed struggled for sense. “B-but then why wait so long to be reborn?”
“It is not an easy transition. I needed the strength of this mighty forest. The treesong of the Western Reaches was necessary to revive me. After my old body was destroyed, Elena blessed my grave with an old oak’s seed.”
Mogweed nodded, remembering the black acorn he had given Elena.
“I sent my spirit into this tiny seed, hiding inside it until I could grow strong enough to move. In spirit form, I brought the seed to your brother, hoping you’d eventually return to your homeland, to these great woodlands. Only here was the elemental magick of root and loam strong enough to pull me from the seed and give me substance and form again.”
“Why have you not explained this earlier? Why have you remained so silent?”
“It has taken me until now to draw my spirit fully into this new form. After an entire winter in spirit only, I found it difficult to separate from the treesong all around me. It took all my concentration to withdraw myself from the endless music of the forest. But when the monster appeared and attacked this man—” She pointed to Lord Tyrus. “—it ripped the treesong for leagues around. It jolted my spirit fully back into this body, finally making me whole again.”
Mogweed slumped against the wagon’s wall. “A small blessing there. You’re whole again, just in time to be tortured and killed by our captors.”
“Perhaps. But I have sent out a call—a plea for help. I saw a glimmer of another place: sails and sea. And the elv’in Meric . . . He still retains my lute, protecting the heart of my spirit tree. As long as the lute remains, there is hope.”
“For you, maybe. If I die, I don’t come back.”
Nee’lahn didn’t seem to hear his words. She continued, eyes adrift, “The trees of the forest whisper of the winged black beast that attacked the camp. It lives in a stone gateway somewhere near the Northwall. I even hear whispers of a twin evil far to the south, another black beast near the Southwall. The trees scream from its mere presence.” Nee’lahn’s eyes focused on Mogweed. “These Gates must be destroyed.”
“Why?” Mogweed asked tiredly.
Nee’lahn glanced away. “I-I’m not sure. But they threaten the very Land itself. They have the power to choke the world.”
Mogweed shivered at her words. “What can we hope to do?”
Nee’lahn seemed to withdraw into herself again. “There is only one hope.”
“What is that?”
“The Grim of Dire Fell.”
Mogweed sat up straighter. “The blood wraiths? The shadow spirits of that black, twisted forest? Are you mad? How can those savage creatures be of help?”
“I must convince them.”
“Why? How? They serve the Dark Lord.”
Nee’lahn shook her head. “No. They are wild creatures whose lusts merely aid the Black Heart’s needs. No one controls the Grim wraiths.”
“Then what hope do you have of enlisting them?”
Nee’lahn grew quiet for a long stretch. “They will listen to me,” she finally said, pain clear in her words.
Mogweed was not satisfied with this answer. “Why?”
“Because the Land is a cruel mistress” was all she whispered back. Nee’lahn turned her back on him, ending their discourse, as silent again as when they had first found her.
NEAR MIDDAY, MYCELLE stood beside the three mounds of freshly turned soil. She leaned on the spade with which she had dug the trio of graves. The ruined camp was not a safe place to tarry—already vultures circled overhead, calling all to the feast that lay below. Other predators would soon gather. Mycelle could not leave her three sword-sisters to the ravages of fang and claw. She shared an oath with them.
Mycelle stared as the sun began its decline toward the western horizon. She still had time to be well away from here before night set in. Tossing the shovel away, she sank to one knee before the graves. The odor of fresh loam almost masked the reek of offal and blood from the slaughtered horses around her. She bowed her head. “I’m sorry, Sisters. Be at peace. Go and seek out your lord, King Ry. Tell him I will avenge the death of his son.”
Tears welled in her eyes. She had failed her oaths a second time. First, in not hearing the call when Castle Mryl had been under attack, and now in leading the last prince of the Wall to his death.
She reached into a pocket of her borrowed leathers and slipped free the silver coin. The image of the snow leopard seemed to glare out at her. She clenched the coin firmly. “I will hunt down your killers and burn their corpses so the scent of my revenge will reach you all. This I swear.”
Then a tingle at the back of her mind alerted her to another’s presence. She turned to discover Fardale standing at the forest’s edge. She had sent him to search for signs of the attackers while she had dug the graves. His eyes glowed like molten amber. An image appeared of a forest track only a quarter league away, and a pair of fresh wagon ruts driving northward. Fardale’s imagery focused on the deepness of the wheel’s imprints in the damp soil. The wagon was heavily laden—with prisoners, perhaps.
Had any of the others survived? She allowed herself a glimmer of hope.
A new image ended Fardale’s sending: Two wolves—one snowy, one dark—following the trail.
Mycelle nodded and stood. The attackers had a half day’s lead on them, but the wolves could move more swiftly through the forest than a troop of d’warves. But to travel as a wolf would leave her naked and weaponless. She fingered one of the sword hilts at her shoulder. Without blades, how could she hope to free the others? Still she would not forsake them.
If there is any chance . . .
“We must hurry.” She eyed the coin in her hand and vowed not to fail again. She lifted the silver piece to her lips and kissed the cold surface, planning to leave the Mrylian coin as a grave marker, a token of a promise sworn. But as her lips touched the surface of the coin, the silver grew warm in her hand. The skin of her arm prickled as if from a sudden chill.
The paka’golo stirred from its perch on her forearm, clearly sensing something odd. The tiny snake lifted its head and hissed with a flicker of red tongue.
Mycelle lowered the bit of silver and studied it closer. What was this strangeness?
As if in answer to her thoughts, words formed in her head, not unlike a sending from one shape-shifter to another. But here the words were a whisper in the wind. “I hear you. The sorrow in your heart calls to me through the coin.”
She glanced around the clearing, then down at the coin. “W-who are you?
“I give you my name freely. I am Xin, of the zo’ol. Friend to Tyrus. Share your name so I might forge this link more strongly.”
Mycelle did not understand any of this. She remembered the prince mentioning the black-skinned tribesmen, ex-slaves he had freed. He had hinted at some magick in their leader. In fact, a few days past, after their group’s first skirmish with a d’warf scouting party, Lord Tyrus had sat by the campfire, clutching this same coin. He had claimed he could send word out to the east, to warn of the danger and to spread the rumors of the griffin beast. But afterward, he had pocketed the silver with a frown, unsure if anyone had heard him. “Too far,” he had mumbled, and would speak no more of it.
But apparently someone had heard him. She clenched the coin and spoke her name. “I am Mycelle.”
“I accept your name, Mycelle of the Dro,” the voice responded solemnly. “I know you well from the words of others. We come even now to seek you out. Speak where we might find you. Your link is strong, so you must not be far.”
She frowned. How was that possible? The last time she had seen the zo’ol tribesmen they were leaving with Tol’chuk and Meric to find Elena—out in the distant Archipelago, thousands of leagues from here. “No, I am too far,” she answered. “I am lost deep in the Western Reaches.”
“This we know. We already fly over the great green sea. Tell us where.”
Mycelle stared up at the sun, her mind awhirl with confusion. “H—how?”
“Meric of the elv’in. We fly his ship of the wind.”
She gasped. “Meric?” A sudden memory of the wounded elv’in, scarred from battle with a minion of the Dark Lord, flashed across her vision.
“He is here,” the voice continued. “Tell us how we might find you. I tire quickly and cannot maintain this link much longer.”
These last words were clearly the truth. The whisper from the coin faded rapidly. Mycelle had to lean closer and clutch the silver more tightly. She glanced to the east, to the wall of stone that thrust up into the day’s sky. “The Stone of Tor!” she yelled, fearing she would not be heard as the coin grew colder in her palm. “I will meet you atop the Stone of Tor!”
She waited for a response, some acknowledgment. But the coin remained silent, cold again in her palm, just plain silver. She clamped her fingers around it, trying to will back the magick.
Fardale nosed her fist, startling her. She glanced down to the wolf, and in the silent tongue of the si’lura, she explained the strange contact.
The wolf’s response was skeptical: A mother wolf nosing a dead pup, trying to wish it back to life.
“You may be right,” she answered aloud. “I don’t know.”
She turned to study the straight peak of granite jutting up past the tallest trees. Its distant heights glowed in clear sunlight. Across the spread of forest, the protruding stone would be a clear mooring spot. None could miss it. Still, her face remained grim. Had she been heard? And what was coming? What had she called forth from the coin?
She lifted her fist to her chest. There was only one way to find out. From the camp, a thin trail could be seen winding from the base of the steep peak to its summit, a darker trail against the black stone.
“Let’s go,” she said, leading the way. “Let us discover if a dead man’s coin holds any true magick.”
AS THE SUN neared the western horizon, Meric stood at the prow of the Stormwing. Dressed in a loose linen shirt and billowed leggings, he sensed every current in the air. Normally his silver hair was kept long and loose, free to the winds, connecting the elv’in even more intimately to his skies. But no longer. Meric passed his palm over his ravaged scalp. Though his silver hair had grown long enough to comb, his locks were not long enough to appreciate the breezes, to extend his connection to the winds.
He lowered his hand. He should not complain. His intimate connection with the ship more than compensated for this loss. Though Meric had been gone from her planks for over two winters, the Stormwing already felt like an extension of his own body again. Only an elemental of sufficient strength had the power to fuel these ships of the clouds and keep them aloft. And it was through this elemental contact that ship and captain became one. As he stood at the prow, Meric sensed every screw and nail in the ship, felt the snap of sailcloth as if it were his own shirt. Each creak of the hull reverberated like the aching joints of his own limbs.
Aboard the Stormwing, it was as if he were whole again. The tortures and brutalities in the cellars of Shadowbrook dimmed to a distant memory. He could almost imagine such horrors had happened to someone else. Here, flying among the clouds, Meric felt immune from the evil in this land.
But in his heart, he knew such security was as insubstantial as the thin clouds they scudded through. Not even the skies were safe from the corrupting touch of the Dark Lord. During his journeys, Meric had learned firsthand how the land, the sea, and the sky were all interconnected. The elemental energies of the world were an infinite web, overlapping, woven, twisted and tied together. One element could not be tainted without affecting another.
He had tried to explain this to his mother, Queen Tratal, but he feared such ideas had fallen on infertile soil. Such were the ways of the elv’in. For too long, they had been absent from the lands, thinking themselves free of such bonds. Meric knew better. To defeat this evil would require the unification of all elementals. If left divided, all would fall.
He would not let that happen.
Gripping the rail firmly, Meric scanned the sea of foliage skimming a quarter league below his hull. Earlier the zo’ol shaman, Xin, had brought him word of his link to Mycelle. Though he didn’t understand it fully, clearly a message had been shared. The swordswoman had indicated a location at which to rendezvous: the Stone of Tor. Meric and Xin had pored over maps of the Western Reaches and discovered such a place, a peak at the confluence of two rivers.
Even now they followed a silver thread through the dense greenery. It was a narrow river, named the Willowrush, that delved through the heart of the forest. The place where this flow met the Ice River of the north was their destination.
Meric lifted his gaze to the horizon, instinctively making slight corrections to follow the river’s course. Near the horizon, a shadow appeared, a single black thunder cloud rising above the forest’s edge.
“Is that the place?” a voice said at his shoulder. It was Tok, his eternal shadow. He had forgotten about the lad sitting on a cask of oil nearby.
“I believe so,” Meric said, his tongue thick as he was pulled back from the skies to the planks of the ship. He lifted a hand and signaled the men in the rigging. Sails were adjusted. “We should be there at dusk.”
“Should I tell Master Xin?” Tok hopped from his perch with a scuff of heel on plank.
Meric felt the movement like an itch on his own skin. “Yes, he rests in his cabin with his two tribesmen.” The brief discourse with Mycelle had drained Xin’s energies. When he had brought Meric word, the man had been weaving on his feet, eyes bloodshot and hooded. “If he is able, the shaman must try to reach the others again.”
Tok g
ave a nod and trotted away. Alone, Meric watched the shadow on the horizon slowly grow substantial. Limned by the setting sun, the pinnacle of rock was an upthrust finger, its cliffs sheer and straight. Withdrawing his magick slightly from the spellcast iron keel, he let the ship sink toward the trees as they approached the distant peak.
Meric concentrated on the delicate dance of magick and wind. As he did so, he felt, more than heard, the approach of the three zo’ol and Tok.
“They were already on their way here,” Tok said as introduction. “But I told ’em what you wanted.”
Meric turned and nodded his head in greeting. The small black-skinned shaman returned the acknowledgment. The pale scar on the man’s forehead, a rune of an opening eye, almost glowed. His true eyes were as bright. It seemed his energies had returned. “Were you able to reach Mycelle again?”
Xin shook his head and crossed to the rail. The man’s expression seemed distracted. “No. To speak, she must hold the coin and wish it,” he said dismissively. “All remains silent.”
Meric felt a twinge of misgiving at his words. He turned back to the study of the horizon. The Stone of Tor had grown substantially in just the brief distraction. Meric willed further adjustments before returning to the others. “We will arrive shortly. We’d best be ready.”
“It will be too late.” Xin turned to Meric, his gaze fearful. “I have been a fool. Too weak to hear until now.”
“What do you mean?” Meric’s misgivings flared.
The shaman touched the scar on his forehead. “I sense other eyes out there. Angry, wicked, twisted minds whose desires shudder the heart.”
Meric frowned. “Where?”
“They ignore us. But they too travel toward the tall stone. I sense them swirling toward the peak as quickly as we fly.”
Meric studied the expressionless expanse of forest. He saw nothing but did not doubt the shaman’s ability to pierce the canopy and sense the feelings of what lay below. Xin had proven his abilities in the past. “Will we make it in time?” Meric asked.