The Quest for the Trilogy: Boneslicer; Seaspray; Deathwhisper (47 page)

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Authors: Mel Odom

BOOK: The Quest for the Trilogy: Boneslicer; Seaspray; Deathwhisper

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The chatter of the monkeys continued, growing in cadence and volume, till the noise seemed all-consuming.

Raisho cursed the tiny primates. “They're relentless,” he grumbled. “Ain't no way we're gonna sneak up on anybody with them there.” He took the lead, though, walking down the runway leading to the massive city wall gates.

Juhg walked beside Yurial. Only a short distance farther on, they walked through the open doorway. The massive gates were marked by roaring lions, not alligators.

“Lions?” Juhg asked the minstrel.

“Art only,” Yurial said. “No one has ever spotted any lions in the Forest of Fangs and Shadows. But there are occasional tigers.”

Juhg pressed on, pushing his fear to the back of his mind. He kept wondering if Grandmagister Lamplighter's adventures while investigating the Battle of Fell's Keep had ended here or somewhere else. There was no way of knowing.

“Where are we 'eaded?” Raisho asked as they walked through the entrance. The gates were all but destroyed. Creeper and vines were deeply rooted in the mortar between the stones.

Juhg looked at one of the few remaining tall buildings. “High ground. There.”

Turning, Raisho strode through the buckled streets, avoiding jagged ruptures of the cobblestone streets where tree roots and vegetation had torn through. Juhg followed his friend. Their footsteps sounded loud and out of place.

“Wait,” one of the sailors on the right said.

They froze. Juhg waited anxiously.

“What is it?” Raisho demanded.

“I thought I heard something.”

“So did I,” Yurial said. She reached into her tall boots and withdrew two short sticks not quite two feet in length that were capped in iron at both ends. She cocked her head to one side and listened intently. “There.”

Juhg listened as well and thought he heard furtive footsteps. He didn't think the sounds were made by a beast; they were too weighted, too careful. The cadence was all wrong for a truly wild thing.

Raisho waved his men into action, dividing two small three-man groups from their fifteen, nearly halving their strength. Moving quickly, the two groups surged forward and surrounded the portion of a wall they judged the noise to be issuing from.

As they closed in, the noise suddenly erupted into a crescendo of sounds. An elven boy leaped to the top of the wall with acrobatic grace. Slender and graceful, he wore only a modest loincloth, a knife at his belt, and a bow slung over one shoulder. His hair was the color of summer wheat and his skin deeply tan. Bright aquamarine eyes peered at them.

The archers raised their bows.

“'Old yer fire!” Raisho bellowed, throwing up a hand.

The bowmen held their arrows nocked.

From the shadows near the young elf, a pirate darted forward and tried to grab his feet. With a lithe leap, the young elf threw himself into the air and caught a tree branch. With the speed and skill of a monkey, he darted through the branches and was twenty feet up and hidden by the tree trunk.

“What are you doing here?” the boy called down.

Raisho glanced at Juhg, letting him make the choice.

“We don't mean you any harm,” Juhg said, stepping forward and showing his hands.

“Is that why you tried to capture me?” he challenged.

“We've come a long way,” Juhg said, “and we know that we're among enemies.”

“I'm not your enemy,” the young elf replied. “Not yet, anyway. But I can be. The Forest of Fangs and Shadows is my home. You've not been given permission to come here.”

“Juhg,” Yurial whispered. “May I?”

“Of course,” Juhg said.

Yurial stepped forward. “Do you know me, elf?”

High above them, the young elf peered around the tree trunk, allowing only a small part of his body to show. “You look like the Minstrel Ordal.”

“I
am
the Minstrel Ordal,” Yurial shot back.

“No,” the young elf insisted, “you're not. I've met the Minstrel Ordal.”

“That was my father.”

The young elf peered more closely. “Minstrel Ordal did have a little girl with him when he visited our sprawl.”

“I was that little girl,” Yurial said.

Suspicion deepened in the young elf's voice as he looked around. “Where's your father?”

“He â¦ died.”

“Oh.” The young elf seemed uncomfortable.

Death made a lot of elves uneasy, Juhg knew. If they were properly insulated from the rest of the world and there was no violence in the community, death was a seldom-seen and alien thing except in the animal world. They had the longest lives of all the races.

“I'm sorry for your loss,” the young elf said. “He sang very well.”

“Thank you.”

“What are you doing here?”

“We've come seeking the Crocodile's Throat.”

Even at the distance, Juhg saw the perplexed look on the young, beautiful face.

“Why?” the young elf asked.

“We were sent there by a friend.”

“What friend?”

“Edgewick Lamplighter.”

“Wick the taleteller?”

“Yes.”

The young elf looked harder at Juhg, then out at
Moonsdreamer
anchored in the river. “Is Wick aboard the ship?”

“No,” Yurial answered. “He's not with us this time. Do you know Wick?”

“I do. He's been to our sprawl before. Is this one a taleteller, too?”

Juhg cleared his throat. “I know stories.”

“Good ones?” The young elf's voice sounded eager.

“I think so.”

“I've never met anyone who knew as many stories as Wick. Or as good.” The young elf glanced at Yurial. “Except, perhaps, the Minstrel Ordal.”

“Thank you for that,” Yurial said. “But I've never met anyone who could tell as many stories as Wick.” She smiled a little. “Minstrel Ordal doesn't just tell stories, though. Minstrel Ordal carries news to all the people along the Steadfast River and the Never-Know Road.”

The elf looked at Juhg. “Who are you?”

“Juhg.”

“You know Wick?”

“He's my teacher,” Juhg answered.

“The Crocodile's Throat is a dangerous place.”

“That's why we brought so many men.”

“Will you harm me?”

“No,” Juhg answered. “But there are men who seek to harm us. It might prove dangerous to you to come among us.”

The young elf smiled. “No one can catch me in this forest if I choose not to be caught.” He took two steps out along the tree branch, then vaulted from limb to limb in a dazzling display of acrobatics.

It seemed he barely touched any branch before he was gone again, flipping and twisting and arcing through the air. Then, with a flourish, he vaulted once more and plummeted twenty feet to land effortlessly in front of Juhg.

“I'm Kimaru,” the young elf announced. “I can take you to the Crocodile's Throat. It isn't far from here, but the way is dangerous.”

“Mayhap ye should just give us directions an' let us find our own way there,” Raisho suggested.

“You wouldn't find it,” Kimaru told him. “The way is known only to elves.” He smiled. “And to Wick, once.” He turned abruptly on his heel and brushed through Raisho's pirates. All of them looked twice as big as the young elf, but there was something about Kimaru that spoke of nobility and hinted at danger.

“'E's too young to be so arrogant,” Raisho commented quietly.

“Kimaru is probably three or four times older than you,” Juhg replied. He fell in behind the young elf.

“Still,” Raisho grumbled, “such an attitude doesn't wear well.”

By the time it started getting dark, Juhg wondered if Kimaru knew anything at all about distances. They'd trekked for hours, walking deep into the Forest of Fangs and Shadows and leaving
Moonsdreamer
and the rest of the crew far behind. They also left behind the thought of safety offered by the ship's greater size.

Juhg felt the increasing anxiety among his companions as the woods turned darker and more inhospitable. They seldom spoke, all of them intent on listening to the myriad noises around them. Movement filled the forest as well. Monkeys chattered and threatened in their wake, and flying squirrels sailed through the treetops, mixing with brightly colored birds.

Near dusk, Kimaru stopped. “We'll camp here.”

Raisho looked around the tightly packed forest. “There's no place for a camp.”

“Not on the ground.” Kimaru pointed up. “We'll stay in the trees. There's an old sprawl in these trees.”

“In the trees, is it?” Raisho didn't look happy.

Juhg had stayed with elves before and the idea of hanging suspended high above the ground didn't bother him. “It's not much different than sleeping in a hammock aboard
Moonsdreamer
,” he told Raisho.

“Only about thirty or forty feet,” Raisho growled.

“I've never been on a ship,” Kimaru said. “I can't imagine getting a night's sleep above that much water. Here, the fall might kill you, but at least you won't drown along the way.”

He has a point
, Juhg thought.

“Gather firewood,” the young elf told them.

“Ye're gonna start a fire in the treetops?” Raisho asked.

“A fire will help stave off the night's chill,” Kimaru said as patiently as though he were speaking to a child.

Raisho scowled. “I know that. But what I'm gettin' at is, won't ye set them trees ablaze?”

“Not if we're careful. I intend to be careful. Don't you?”

Raisho gave the order to his men. Juhg helped, gathering small limbs and branches, breaking them so they were no more than a foot and a half in length. When he had a sizeable group of them, he used a leather strap from his backpack to tie them together. Then he looped them over one shoulder.

Similarly burdened by firewood, Kimaru leaped up into the trees, going through them as easily as one of the pirates might scamper aloft rigging. Thankfully, that same training with the ropes allowed the pirates to climb more readily and they followed.

The abandoned sprawl hung scattered in the trees, most of the components no longer connected by rope ladders. Two of the trees supporting structures
were dead, withered and gray. That was a sure sign there was no elven habitation. Elves would never allow a tree to die if it was in their power to save it, or continue to live in a dead tree if it couldn't be saved.

They gathered in one of the large houses in the center of the sprawl. Kimaru reached the front porch and kicked down a rope ladder that unrolled as it came. Raisho caught the ladder and tied it to the tree trunk, but it still spun and shifted as the pirates climbed along it.

Standing on the plank floor of the house, Juhg was reminded of standing on a ship's deck. Just as the ship rolled and shifted subtly underfoot at all times, the tree house rolled and shifted on the breeze. A hint of the fragrances from the mineral oils used to keep the wood walls supple and replenish the health of the tree tickled his nose. All elven homes smelled of flowers and herbs. Many of them created unique fragrances.

A porcelain bowl occupied the center of the living chamber. Black and gray-white ash from previous fires occupied the bottom of the container. A flue above it ran through the two-story house and out the roof. All the furniture had been taken by the previous occupants when they departed.

Kimaru tended the fire and got a cheery blaze going in short order. By that time full dark had descended and the Forest of Fangs and Shadows had begun its nocturnal life. Screams of hunter and prey sounded in the distance.

“Why are you seeking the Crocodile's Throat?” Kimaru asked.

Raisho and the pirates brought out their food bags and passed out bread and dried meat. The wineskins made the rounds, too.

“I'm looking for something Grandmagister Lamplighter left behind,” Juhg answered.

“What?”

Juhg hesitated for a moment. “A book.”

“He was always very careful about his books,” Kimaru said. “I don't think he would leave one behind by accident.”

“It wasn't by accident. It was by design.”

“What book is it?”