Antrax (21 page)

“It’s a long story. Do you want to hear it?”

“Tell me on the way.” She handed the talisman back. “You bear the weight of it while we travel. Just don’t let me find it in your hands again.”

“You can keep it if you want.”

There was a flicker of amusement on her pale face. “I don’t need you to tell me that. I can take it from you whenever I choose. Make sure you remember.”

She started away, not bothering to look back to see if he was following. He hesitated a moment, then started after her. “What about Truls Rohk?”

She cast a quick glance over one shoulder, and the hard determination that had stamped her features so clearly on their first encounter was back in place. “He’ll find you gone when he returns, but I don’t think he will do anything about it.”

She didn’t explain further. Bek knew that even if he asked her to do so, she wouldn’t. With an apprehensive glance back at the deserted clearing, he followed her into the night.

T
ruls Rohk flew through the darkness, a silent shadow twisting past trees and leaping over gullies and ravines. He was driven by fear for the boy and anger at himself. He had been unforgivably careless, and Bek Ohmsford would pay the price for it if he didn’t reach him in time.

All about him, the forest was a silent curtain behind which eyes watched and waited.

He ascended the mountain slope at a dead run, alert for the presence of the witch and her caull, sensing neither yet, but knowing they must be close. He tried to calculate how far ahead of him they might have gotten, but it was impossible to do. At best, he could only hazard a guess. He had lost track of time while watching from his perch, while being deceived by those magic-induced wraiths. He knew he had to assume the worst, that she had reached the boy already, that she had made him her prisoner, and that it would be up to the shape-shifter to set him free again.

When he reached the place within the trees where he had left the boy, the clearing was empty, the boy gone, and the scent of the witch everywhere. Silence layered the open space as he entered it, watchful still, cautious of traps she might have left. It was beginning to rain, the drops falling in a soft patter on the dry moonlit earth, staining it the color of the shadows.

The boy’s long knife lay to one side, discarded. He walked over and knelt to pick it up. As he did so, the caull slid from the forest shadows behind him. Silky smooth and powerful, massive jaws gaping wide, it launched itself at his head.

A
handful of the Rindge took Quentin Leah and his companions from the ruins of Castledown back to their village. Most stayed to finish setting traps for the mysterious wronks, but the one who had spoken with Panax, along with several of his fellows, broke off from the main group to act as escort. Although the Rindge made no mention of it, the bloodied, ragged, and worn condition of their visitors made it obvious they needed food, rest, and medical treatment. Quentin and company, while reluctant to break off their search for the others, realized they were in no condition to continue. If they were to be effective in finding their missing friends, they would first need to eat, dress their wounds properly, and sleep in a safe place. Moreover, the Rindge might prove helpful in telling them how and where to direct their efforts once they resumed looking.

So they made the three-hour trek through the woods to the Rindge village and were there by midday. On their journey, they learned more about the land to which they had traveled. The Rindge who did all the talking was called Obatedequist Parsenon, or something that sounded very like it, according to Panax. Since
the Dwarf was unsure, the cumbersome name was quickly reduced to just Obat. Obat was a subchief in the village hierarchy, the son of a former high chief. It was clear from the deference showed him by the other Rindge that he was a respected member of the community. Obat told them the land of his people was called Parkasia and they had been there two thousand years, since the beginning of time. He did not speak of the Great Wars, but seemed to date everything from then, as if nothing had existed before his people’s appearance in Parkasia. It was difficult to be certain, but it appeared to Panax that Parkasia was a peninsula attached to a much larger body of land north and west in which tribes other than the Rindge made their home.

There were various tribes of Rindge living in Parkasia, Obat explained, some of them hunters, some farmers. They were a self-sufficient people and engaged in little trading. Wars sprang up between them now and then, but their greatest common enemy was the thing that lived in Castledown’s ruins. Antrax, Obat called it, but he could not find a way to explain what it was. He said it was a spirit, but it commanded creepers and fire threads, strange things that seemingly had nothing to do with spirits. Antrax warded Castledown against all intruders and had done so for as far back as anyone could remember. But it also raided the villages of the Rindge now and then and stole away the people. Those taken were never seen again. They were sacrificed to satisfy Antrax’s hunger, their bodies dismembered and their spirits enslaved so that they could never die or be at rest.

It was the same story the company had been told earlier and it made no more sense than it had then; dead was dead, and you didn’t enslave souls once the body was gone. But Obat insisted on it, even though he could offer no explanation as to why Antrax took the Rindge and treated them so, what he needed them for, or why he would bother with humans when he possessed command
over such formidable technology. Every time the name Antrax was spoken, the Rindge showed signs of discomfort, casting glances in all directions, making warding motions, even when they were several hours away from the ruins.

Still mired in his discomfort at leaving Bek, Quentin Leah listened to it all with half an ear. Exhausted and battered from his struggle against the creepers, he knew he was staying upright through sheer force of will. But he was heartsick at abandoning his search for his cousin, and he could not stop thinking about it. They had promised they would look out for each other. Bek would never break that promise, no matter what, unless he was unable to carry it out. It didn’t matter that Quentin had no idea where to look for his cousin other than in the ruins, and that looking for anyone in the ruins was suicide. It didn’t matter how tired he was. All he knew was that he was walking away from Bek at a time when Bek might need him most.

Obat was talking about Antrax again, saying that many of the Rindge tribes believed that Antrax had created humans at the beginning of time and took some back now because he was dissatisfied with their behavior. Antrax was a god and must be worshipped and respected or disaster would result. So they made pilgrimages, bringing gifts to the ruins several times a year. Sometimes, they brought humans as sacrifices to the wronks who were once their kindred. They did not do those things in Obat’s village, but that was because the Rindge there believed in the old stories that said humans were created from the earth and given life long before Antrax discovered them. In Obat’s village, they believed that Antrax was a demon.

Quentin absorbed all that and consoled himself about Bek by deciding that his cousin, with his newly discovered magic, was probably better equipped than he to ward off demons or creepers or anything else. That Bek should have magic of any sort still
astonished him, yet it made sense in light of what they had both decided about Walker’s decision to bring them along. It explained why they had been chosen when there were so many others who might have been taken instead. But it left the Highlander pondering anew his cousin’s origin and the reason it had been kept secret so long. It made him wonder how much Coran and Liria knew and had been keeping from them.

They arrived at the village of the Rindge by midday, newly footsore and barely mobile. The village sprawled through a series of connected clearings in a wooded area backed up against foothills leading west into a spine of mountains and consisted mostly of open-air huts and pavilions constructed of wood and bark with blankets and reed screens used as dividers for rooms. The people came out to look at them, men, women, and children alike, all henna-complexioned and red-haired, the youngest darker than their elders.

No palisade or moat warded the village, and when asked, Obat said there was no point; the wronks and creepers could push right through such defenses in any case. When a raid took place, the Rindge simply fled into the hills until it was safe to return. A good system of outposts kept them safe most of the time. The defenses that made a difference were the traps they set out in the woods, deep camouflaged pits with jagged rocks at their bottoms. The creepers and wronks often fell into them and if damaged or not sufficiently mobile, could not climb out. If the metal predators were found and the pits filled in quickly enough, they could no longer hear the commands of Antrax and so remained there.

Fetishes tied to poles ringed the village, protectors for the Rindge against the things that sought to hunt them. Quentin looked into the eyes of the children who watched him and wondered how many the fetishes would save from raids and other dangers.

The five guests were taken to a screened-off area to bathe in
large tubs of heated water, then visited by healers who dressed their wounds. Afterwards, they were taken to a pavilion, seated on mats, and given food. The Rindge were primitive, but their life seemed well ordered and reasonable. Quentin thought them intelligent, as well, not just from their speech, which had a musical lilt, but from the look in their eyes and the feel of their homes. Everything was simple, but all needs appeared to be met and served.

After an initial period of congregating to look over their visitors, the Rindge went back to work. Everyone seemed to have a task, even the children, although the youngest mostly played and clung to their mothers.
Things aren’t so different here than they are in the Highlands,
Quentin thought.

They slept then, and although Quentin promised himself he would rest for no more than a couple of hours, he did not wake until dawn. Panax was already up by then, engaged in conversation with Obat, and it was their voices, soft and distant from where they conversed outside the sleeping shelter, that roused Quentin. He glanced around and found to his chagrin that the Elves were up and gone, as well. Washing his hands and face in the basin of water provided for that purpose, he strapped the Sword of Leah across his back and walked out to see what was happening.

He found Panax and the Elves with Obat and several more of the Rindge, seated in a circle on mats, talking. As he walked up, he saw that sketches had been drawn in the dirt in front of them. The conversation between Panax and Obat was sufficiently intense that the Dwarf did not even glance at Quentin, but Tamis caught his eye and beckoned him over.

“Nice to see you back among the living,” she offered dryly. Her round, pixie face was freshly scrubbed, the skin ruddy beneath her tan. “You snore like a bull in rut when you sleep.”

He arched an eyebrow in response. “You spend a lot of time with bulls in rut, do you?”

“Some.” She brushed at her short-cropped hair. “What would you say if I told you that Obat knows another way into Castledown?”

Quentin blinked in surprise. “I’d say, when do we leave?”

T
here was no hesitation on anyone’s part about going. Rested and fed, their spirits renewed, the edges of their memories sufficiently blunted that wariness had replaced fear, they were anxious to return. All of them sought answers to what had happened to their friends, and there could be no peace of mind until those answers were found. Each of them, without saying so to the others, believed that there was still something to be accomplished at Castledown.

Their attitude was buttressed in no small way by the fact that the Rindge had agreed to guide them. Creepers and fire threads notwithstanding, if there was another way into the chambers beneath the ruins, they were eager to explore it. Ard Patrinell, Ahren Elessedil, and a handful of other Elves were still missing. Walker was still unaccounted for. Bek had disappeared along with Ryer Ord Star. Some of them, perhaps all, were still alive and in need of help. Quentin and his companions were not going to make them wait for that help.