The Dreaming Hunt (70 page)

It was worth a try. “Take my hand, Rosie.” He had to turn sideways to pass through the opening without getting scratched to ribbons, but it obediently stayed open for the two of them to pass. Thankfully, no school of man-eating fish awaited them on the far side.

One by one, he walked all the members of the party through the wall. When he and Rynn passed through last, he told the wall to close, and it did so with alacrity. Raina had found a bit of solid ground and was healing the others already. He and Rynn took turns letting her trickle healing into their badly chewed calves.

Apprehensive, he looked around at more trees and more bog on this side of the wall. Enormous cypresses spread their branches wide, creating a dim and mysterious twilight world.

Inside the barrier, the standing water appeared to have given way mostly to mud. Thick and sticky, it looked like paste.

Sha'Li said low, “Movement I spy.”

Will peered ahead and caught a flash of something. A pause. There it was again. Something moving up and down. They crept forward slowly, trying to minimize the sucking sound of their boots pulling free of the muck.

Without warning, Sha'Li grunted in what sounded like pain. She took a step back. Tarryn reached a hand past her and yanked it back as if she'd touched a hot kettle, as well.

“Look at that,” Eben breathed.

Will looked where the jann was pointing off to the right of the two scouts and frowned. “It's a rock. Yes, that's weird in the middle of a swamp.”

“It's
glowing,
” Eben muttered.

Will stared at the upthrusting chunk of some light-colored stone carefully. “No, it isn't. It's just a rock.”

“And there's another one.” Eben pointed off to his left. “And another. They seem to be part of a large circle.”

“Like a ritual circle?” Raina asked. “I do not see one.”

“No,” Rynn replied. “It would be an elemental circle, wouldn't it, Eben?”

“Yes. Exactly,” the jann replied. “This one forms an energy barrier.”

Will asked, “Any idea how we're supposed to cross it?”

Frowning, the jann slogged over to the nearest stone. He touched it and yanked back his hand, as well, grimacing. “Cursed water magic,” Eben mumbled.

Will watched as his friend slogged to the next stone and touched it cautiously. “Ahh. Better. Earth energy imbues this stone.”

“That's great,” Will replied. “But can you get us past it?”

Eben closed his eyes. The jann's caramel-colored skin began to swirl with varying shades of earth tones. It took a while, but Eben eventually lifted his hands away from the stone, his face gray. Literally.

“Try now,” he told Sha'Li.

“Willing to kill me are you, and not the others to risk?” this lizardman girl groused. “See I do, how this goes.” Harrumphing, she took a step forward and encountered no magical resistance.

The party continued onward. Without warning, a dozen figures raced out of the trees toward them as if unimpeded by the thick mud all but gluing him and his friends in place.

“Boglins,” Sha'Li announced in disgust. “Mud-dwelling cousins of goblins.” Her claws slid out to full extension, however, so Will gathered these bog creatures could still be dangerous.

The boglins used crude weapons ranging from rusty short swords to what looked like leg bones of some large animal to attack. They screamed and howled and were incredibly annoying as they darted in and out among the party, seemingly able to run along the surface of the mud without sinking down into it. They didn't pose any great threat as long as the group was vigilant and nobody took a surprise blow from one of them. Will easily caught all the weapon swings of his attackers with his staff, deflecting them effortlessly.

He took the offensive and swung at a few of the creatures with his staff, sending them flying. They were lighter than they looked. Most of the creatures stayed between the party and that up-and-down movement he'd seen earlier. It was almost as if they defended whatever he'd glimpsed.

Rynn said, “Let us discover what they guard. Perhaps it is what Kerryl wished for us to find.”

It was awkward wading forward as a tight little group, all the while fighting off the rather maddening boglins. But step by step, they moved deeper into the mudflat. The cypresses overhead grew so thick that barely any light got through, which might have explained the boglins' large, protruding eyes.

“What on Urth?” Raina exclaimed.

Will looked up from the boglin he'd just sent sailing a dozen feet away to land with a plop in the mud. “Is that a horse?” He'd seen a few of the rare creatures in his life, but not many.

“No,” Rynn breathed in what sounded like amazement. “It is a unicorn.”

“His steed!” Raina exclaimed. “Cerebus!”

He had no idea what she was talking about and no time to ask, for three of the pesky boglins rushed him just then, screeching. He had to move smartly with his staff to block all of them as they swung their motley weapons at him.

Tarryn grunted in between dodging wild blows, “I thought unicorns were white. That one looks made of mud.”

Will finally got another break in the sporadic fighting to glance over at the creature. Its head hung low, and it was mired past its belly in the mud. Now that Rynn mentioned it, a long, spiraling horn grew from the middle of its forehead. Its tip rested in the mud.

They moved a little closer, swatting away boglins, and Will made out a pair of great heavy ropes around the creature's neck and stretching to nearby trees. A pair of trees on either side of the beast behind it bore ropes that disappeared down into the mud. The unicorn's hind legs must have been bound, as well.

As they neared the small area where the creature was captive, it jerked its head up and snorted fiercely, nostrils flaring and eyes wild. It was hard to tell how tall it would stand on dry land, but it looked large and powerful.

“Anyone have experience with crazed unicorns?” Rynn asked dryly.

“I may have something that will calm it,” Raina said. She started to move forward, but another wave of boglins came screaming out of the shadows just then, perhaps as many as two dozen.

One thing Will's father said to him over and over as a lad: quantity would beat quality every time on the field of battle if the numbers were skewed enough. He began to see what Ty had meant. He was hard-pressed to keep the creatures off him and even took a few nicks and bruises in the wave of attacks.

And then, out of nowhere, a blast of magic sent a half dozen of the creatures flying. What the—

“Behind us!” Rosana cried.

Three hooded beings in long cloaks glided
over
the mud toward them, coming fast. All that was visible of the people within were glowing hands. Will recognized the mages from the cave by the Estarran Sea.
Not
good.

“Oh no,” Raina groaned. She began casting magic shields and got one up on Eben, Rynn, and Will before magic spells started flying in toward them. As if fighting boglins hadn't been hard enough in the mud, now they had to dodge magic spells with their feet all but stuck in place. It was a nightmare. Will fired a damaging spell back at the nearest hooded figure, which gave the nearest mage momentary pause. And then all three mages unleashed a barrage of magic at him.

Between his own protection spells and Raina casting frantic shielding spells on him, Will managed to stay alive for the first barrage. But then a second barrage of incoming bolts of magical energy smashed into his crumbling defenses.

The unicorn screamed behind him, and he gathered that a misfired bolt had caught the beast by accident.

“Don't let it die!” Rynn shouted at Raina as he dived in front of Will to take a particularly bright bolt of magic in the chest. The paxan fell to the ground, facedown in the mud, and started to sink into it.

“Raina!” Will shouted over the din. “Life Rynn!”

Eben was swinging his sword furiously at a new wave of boglins, and Sha'Li had worked her way around behind one of the mages and waylaid him or her as he looked on. But then the other mages spotted her and turned to spell her down viciously.

This fight had gone from annoying to deadly in the blink of an eye.

A bestial roar erupted, but Will could not tell from which direction because of the echoes under the trees and the overall din of combat. But then a huge, hairy form bounded through the mud, plowing through it toward the mages. Its shoulder caught Will a glancing blow as it charged past, knocking him down. He scrambled frantically to regain his footing and swore as he realized he'd lost his staff. He plunged his arm down into the mud, searching for it.

A boglin leaped at him, and left-handed, Will leaned over to one side, buried to the shoulder in the cursed mud, and cast a bolt of force damage, miraculously managing to hit the boglin. It sizzled as it fell over, dead.

“Will!” Raina cried in outrage.

Oh, she could get over it. The creature would have beheaded him before he found his cursed staff. He swore as another boglin appeared to take the place of the fallen one. Still no sign of his staff.
Quantity over quality
. He was going to
die
for lack of a stick to block the attacks of these monsters. And who knew if he'd be able to resurrect or not?

But then a bolt of curse magic flew past him, knocking over the boglin who was almost upon him. “Relax, Raina,” Rosana said behind him. “It was a sleep spell.”

He fished around frantically, and his foot hit something hard. He reached down.

There it was. His hand felt hard wood, pole shaped. He grasped the staff firmly and pulled it free of the mud. He wiped it quickly, but it did little good. The weapon was slippery and hard to hang on to, covered in mud.

That had been Kendrick in boar form who knocked him down. Where had
he
come from? Was Kerryl Moonrunner nearby, then? The hooded mages turned as one as Kendrick roared and charged them. Will took the opportunity to throw a substantial bolt of force damage at the back of the one he'd hit before. The mage staggered, went down. And the hood of the dark cloak fell to one side. Long, dark hair spilled out. A woman, then.

“Marikeen!” Eben shouted, lunging forward toward her with a mighty, slapping splash of mud. A brace of boglins jumped on her prone body as Will looked on in horror. He hadn't known it was Eben's sister!

And then another sound came from the trees. Growling. Snapping jaws. Snarling. That sounded like …

Oh, demons below, the Imperial hounds. They'd found Eben.

“Cut me loose!” Tarryn demanded. “I can help you. I can fight!”

“You'll turn,” Rosana argued behind Will while he pummeled yet more boglins. Would these creatures never quit coming?

“Do we have a choice?” Tarryn asked in a terrible voice. “We'll all die if the odds are not evened and soon. Those hounds will kill us all if yon mages do not do the job first.”

She had a point.

And then the kindari spoke again, her voice taking on a harsh quality. “I'm going to turn, anyway. You might as well let me help you. Point me at the hounds, and stay behind me. Away from my mou—”

Those were the last words she uttered.

Will looked around in alarm and leaped out of the way as a gigantic alligator, easily twenty feet long, surged toward him. He lost his balance, but Eben caught him under the armpits and hauled him upright, barely out of the charging were-alligator's path. The beast half ran, half swam through the mire, racing at unbelievable speed toward the Imperial hounds.

One of the hounds went down, yelping and flailing. It disappeared under the mud as Tarryn took it down in a death roll. There were a few flashes of muddy fur and flailing limbs twisted up with dark, leathery scales, and then the hound was no more.

Something rushed out of the trees at Will, and he was horrified to spot a glowing red eye. The other were-rat, Phillipe. Holder of the change water they needed to trade to Goldeneye for Rosana's cure. Grimly, Will turned to face him. The creature was unbelievably fast, leaping in on the attack and retreating before Will could strike him with his staff. Over and over, the rat darted in and out. But Krugar had taught him patience and a few tricks about learning an opponent's patterns and using them against him.

Out of the corner of his eye, Will saw the rest of the hounds dance away from the spot where Tarryn had attacked, sensing the threat. But they, too, stood to their bellies in the muck and were hampered in their movements.

Phillipe darted in again, feinting right and spinning away to the left. Behind him, Will glimpsed Marikeen and her friends facing off against the Imperial hounds. With the mages above the surface chucking magic at the Imperial hounds and Tarryn snapping at them from below, it was a fairly even fight. Mud flew everywhere as Will caught glimpses of a great reptilian tail sweeping the hounds' legs out from under them and the huge, flat head swinging from side to side, flashing long rows of enormous teeth. He could hear the snap of her mighty jaws from where he stood.

Phillipe came at him again, feinting to the right and spinning left again. Will made a point of delaying his response a shade, of making it look as if he'd barely managed to fend off the attack.
Do that one more time, you long-toothed rodent
.

One of the hounds broke off from the others, lifted its head, and seemed to catch Eben's scent, for his enraged stare zeroed in on the jann, and the beast charged. Rynn braced himself, his stance making it clear the hound would have to go through him to get to Eben.

The great beast bowled right through Rynn, lifting the muscular paxan into the air and tossing him aside like Will had been tossing aside boglins. The beast's great jaws swung toward Eben. And then stopped. Turned.

Will glanced in the direction the beast stared. One of the mages had lowered her hood. Marikeen. The hound in front of Eben charged her while the other hounds went into a frenzy.