Darkfire: A Book of Underrealm (16 page)

nineteen

THE MOOD WAS DOUR AS they rode, and the party neither smiled nor spoke. Doom hovered above — some dark fate looming ahead that they could neither turn from nor hope to avoid. As the sun slowly fell behind the mountains, Loren heard a deep
swoosh
and looked up.

She cried out, and they all froze in fear. Albern and Jordel followed Loren’s gaze, and their hands went to their weapons.
 

Great winged beasts dove and swooped through the air. In her first flash of terror, Loren thought they were dragons, for they had great leathery wings like the beasts of legend. Yet she knew that for a foolish thought; these beasts were far too small. A small comfort, for their wings still stretched wider than Loren was tall, and their legs ended in great taloned claws. Their upper bodies looked female, ending in a woman’s head with long flowing hair, though their mouths were filled with inch-long razor-sharp teeth.

“Harpies.” Albern sounded terrified. “Dark creatures who feast on human flesh. I have never seen their kind in the Greatrocks before.”

“But you
have
seen them?” Gem’s voice quivered and broke. “How do you kill them?”

“Same as most things,” said Albern. “An arrow in the eye or the heart is best. A blade will do. They are not elves, impervious to spear or steel.”

“What are they doing?” said Loren. “Why do they not attack?”

“We are armed. Likely they do not want to risk themselves.”

To Loren, Albern sounded unsure.

Gem reached for his shortsword, never moving his eyes from the beasts. Jordel slapped his reins against the charger’s neck. “Let us ride on. They have an evil look, and I do not like the way they circle.”

The harpies followed them into sunset. Albern searched hard for a cave, for none of the party wished to camp in the open where the harpies could see them, or attack if they decided to do so. At last he found it, when the day’s glow had nearly gone from the sky. They spent little time searching to make sure it was empty, and hurried inside after seeing that the entrance was clear.
 

“We should have two on guard tonight,” said Albern.

“I thought the same,” Jordel agreed. “Gem, we will require your help on watch tonight.”

“And mine,” said Annis, folding her arms. “I’m older than he is, anyway.”

Jordel looked at her in surprise. “Forgive me, Annis. I made a mistake, judging you both by your height. You will take the morning, and I will stand with you myself.”

Loren volunteered for the first watch, and stayed Gem awake with her, for she knew the boy would never be roused early if he went to sleep with the others. They spent an anxious and nerve-wracking three hours pacing the cave’s mouth, neither wishing to speak. Finally, as the moons neared the eastern mountaintops and their watch was nearly ended, Gem sat against the cave wall and leaned his head against it, dark hair glowing blue in the moonslight.

“I had thought our jaunt through the mountains would go a touch different than it has,” he said. “This is no great adventure, but a fearful flight into darkness.”

“Most adventures are, or so I have been told. Tis only afterward, when they are put into story and song, that they sound anything like the tales we hear around a fire.”

“Who told you that?” Gem eyed Loren with interest.

“An old man who used to travel through my village, once upon a time. A peddler by trade, but people valued him more for his stories than the wares in his wagon. He called himself Bracken.”

“An odd name.”

“Said the boy named Gem.”

“Gem is a fine name. It glitters.”

They were silent long enough that Loren thought he was done. But then Gem leaned forward, folded his hands and spoke in a softer voice.
 

“I do not want for you to send me away. But I am pledged to you, and swore to do as you wished. I have decided that if you care to secret me away in some noble’s home, I will go. I can use my time to study the sword, read many tomes of learning, and become useful to you again. Then you will not need to hide me away, because it will be better to have me with you.”

Loren looked at Gem in surprise, her heart sinking.
 

“You cannot think that I wish to be rid of you. You are one of the first friends I made after leaving the Birchwood, and one of my only friends in the world besides.”

“But I know that sometimes being a friend is not enough. You and Jordel have many great deeds to do. I am only in the way, as much as I like to pretend otherwise.”

Loren sank to her knees before him. Gem’s hands hung limp, resting on his legs. Gently she took them to clasp between hers. “I do not wish to be rid of you. Nothing would give me greater joy than spending my days with you and Annis by my side, the three of us laughing and making merry. But that coin has two sides. Nothing I can imagine frightens me more than the thought of your harm. If either of you were hurt, or worse, I could not bear it. I nearly went mad with worry when Xain took Annis. I wish only for your safety.”

“What good is that? I was safe enough in Cabrus. Always I could evade the constables, and even if they had caught me, they do not cut the fingers from children. I did not leave the city for safety.”

“And I was wrong to think you did,” said Loren. “You and Annis both. She was well within her rights to chastise me, for your lives are not mine. And if you wish to stay by my side,I will not deny either of you, for in truth nothing would make me happier.”

Gem lunged forward, wrapped his arms around Loren’s chest, and held her tight. She embraced him back, and he trembled against her, silent even as his tears soaked through her shirt sleeve. Then he let go and turned, trying to hide his eyes so she could not see them.

“Come,” he said. “I think our watch has ended. Well will I enjoy my slumber tonight.”

In the morning, Loren found Jordel awake by the cave entrance. Annis sat nearby on the ground, her head nodded against her chest, eyes shut in slumber. Albern drew Jordel aside to discuss the road ahead. Loren drifted closer to overhear them, making a show of fiddling with Midnight’s saddle.

“I have thought much about our course,” said Albern. “I share your concern, for if the satyrs and harpies wish to drive us toward the fortress, I do not wish to go there any more than you. Thus I offer another way: a track that will take us higher into the Greatrocks, riding the peaks on a more perilous path. It will add some days to our journey.”

“Longer and more dangerous at once?” said Jordel. “It hardly seems wise.”

“Yet it seems to me less wise to carry along a course that our pursuers wish us to take,” Albern argued. “Though the road along the peaks may be hard, it seems better to face the dangers we know than whatever mysterious peril may await us in the abandoned fortress.”

“I see what you mean,” said Jordel. “And I admit my heart is greatly relieved, for it has been troubled at the thought of being driven toward some unknown end. But
can
we change our course? The satyrs stopped us once. They may try to head us off again, and now they have help from the skies.”

“Then at least we will know we are being driven.” Albern sighed. “There is still some hope, however vain, that the satyrs are not trying to guide us, and that their display on the bridge was only some show of dominance after our attack on Tiglak. But if we make for the peaks and they stop us again, we will know for certain that danger awaits in the stronghold. And as I said, better a certain danger than something unknown.”

“A grim choice, yet it seems clear,” said Jordel. “Very well. We make for the peaks. Loren, since you have been standing there eavesdropping and know our plan, you had best ready the others for our journey.”

Loren gave a start and turned away. “I was only tending to my saddlebags.”

“Of course you were,” said Jordel, a wry twist in his mouth. “Nevertheless, ready the children, and tell them to dress warmly. Our road will soon grow colder.”

Loren did as she was asked, and it was well that she did, for the air hung cold and damp about them as they rode. Soon the water formed into droplets and began to pelt them, gently at first, then hard, like small stones falling from the sky. The road was narrow and rocky. Albern bade them ride as close to the mountainside as possible.

“Walk your horses slowly, and take care to not slip,” he said. “I need not tell you what would happen if you fell from this height.”

Despite the rain, the harpies swooped in circles above. The creatures seemed to give no mind to the cold, nor to the water that doused their bodies as they flew. Birchwood birds had fled for cover when rain fell — water got into their feathers and turned their flight perilous. But the harpies wide leathery wings suffered no ill effects.

Abruptly, Albern turned them from the path and climbed steeply up the mountain. At first Loren was shocked, for she had not seen a trail. But then her eyes found a stray stone, and then another, flat packed dirt leading at a sharp angle up toward the peaks of the Greatrocks. None of the paths thus far had been so steep, and their mounts struggled in the mud forming under their hooves.

They had not climbed more than a hundred feet when they heard a great screeching above, and the air filled with the
whoosh
of leathery wings. Jordel drew his sword, Albern nocked an arrow, and the harpies descended.
 

The beasts showed their fangs as they screamed, and the sound was terrible, like a pig suffering slaughter. Great taloned legs stretched forth, reaching for the travelers.

Albern loosed two arrows in the space of a second; one of the harpies fell from the sky, plummeting lifeless toward the valley floor. Its companion swerved aside at the final second and the shaft whizzed by without harm. The others scattered before Loren could think to draw her own bow — but at last she did, whipping an arrow from the quiver at her hip. Drawing it like Albern was still too foreign, so she drew the way she had learned from Chet in the Birchwood, holding her fire until she could clear a shot.

The harpies dove again, and this time Albern shot a pair of them down. Loren managed to loose an arrow before they retreated, but missed her mark. She had never been good at felling birds in flight, and despite the harpies’ great size, they were more cunning, and wove a mad pattern that made it hard to aim.

They attacked again and again. Each time Albern would fell another one or two. Loren managed to bring one down, her arrow embedded firmly between wing and shoulder. But more arrived to strengthen the flock, until they looked like a murder of crows, and Loren knew at once they did not have enough arrows to fell them all. Nor did the harpies come close enough for Jordel to reach them with his sword.

“We must turn back!” Albern cried as the harpies retreated. “They will not let us reach the peaks, and if they do we will be all the more exposed.”

Jordel turned his horse and led them back down, Albern and Loren held wary eyes to the sky as they descended back to the main pass. The moment Midnight’s hooves touched the dirt, the harpies ceased their screaming. They swooped up and away into the sky, circling like vultures awaiting carrion.

“Now we know for certain,” said Jordel in a voice that almost sounded doomed. “We are being herded.”

“Mayhap they only attacked because they saw an opportunity. The fortress has been abandoned longer than anyone in the Greatrocks can remember,” Albern said, though he did not sound as though he believed it.

They spent a miserable day riding in the cold and the wet, their tempers short. When Gem asked for more food at the midday meal, Jordel snapped at him. Annis occupied her saddle in stony silence through the day. Though they could not see the sun, eventually the sky grew darker than it had been, and Albern found them another cave to rest in for the night. They were a solemn party as they laid out their bedrolls and Albern stoked a fire, until Annis crossed her arms and huffed.

“This is a journey for madmen. And you are fools for riding it.”

Gem spoke in anger before Loren could answer. “You ride it with us, and deserve the same name.”

“Not by choice. Not with
him.”
She gave Xain a sharp look where he lay on the floor in the cave’s rear.
 

To Loren’s surprise, the wizard did not look back in anger, nor any of the madness that had plagued him of late. A great sadness claimed his face instead. His mouth moved as though he wished to speak, but only a faint mumbling came out around the cloth. He cast his head down, forehead pressed into the dirt, and closed his sunken eyes as if to weep. But no tears came.

Annis turned to Jordel, her eyes angry. “I shall leave the moment these mountains are behind us. I do not care to walk another league by this wizard’s side, nor do I care what he did for the Lord Prince in his youth.”

“Come now, Annis,” said Loren. “We are all tired from the road. Res in the fire’s warmth before you say more you will come to regret.”

“I will never regret them,” said Annis. “You wish to be rid of me? Fine. It cannot happen soon enough.”

Loren opened her mouth, but Jordel spoke, quietly and without rancor. “The choice is yours, Annis of the family Yerrin. If you still wish it when we leave the mountains, I will secure passage wherever you wish.”