Chapter 11
Twigs and brambles caught at Kitiara's gathered blouse and scratched the leather of her leggings. The air around her shivered with oaths. She was well aware that out in the darkness, shadowless forms watched and waited, but so far they had done no more than mark her every move. Her saddle pack, slung across her back, hampered her movements, but she slashed undaunted at the clinging tentacles of plants with her sword and dagger.
The darkness had eased a bit, as though Solinari were rising behind the clouds. The moon, even weakened as it was, provided enough light for Kitiara to see a few feet, at least, to each side. Trees bent like
crones before and behind her. The ominous sound of breathing came to her, sighing like the wind.
Caven Mackid would have said she was mad, attempting this alone. Tanis would have advised her to wait until morning. Wode would have grinned in glee at her present discomfiture.
But they were all dead. And Kitiara was journeying through Darken Wood-looking for the way out-at night.
Motionless, she gazed at the rocky ridge close on her left, then toward what she sensed was a valley off to her right. It was too dark to see much detail, but she pushed on, following what looked like a path, even though the trail that had brought her and the other three into Darken Wood had vanished. Branches and vines pressed around her once more. Reflexively, Kitiara brushed the tendril of a vine away from her face.
Another spasm of dizziness left her drenched with sweat. "By the gods," she murmured, "what ailment have I picked up? Or have I been bewitched?" She waited for the moment of weakness to pass. She was covered with scratches; her back itched from sweat and dust. Thorns had pulled threads from her blouse, ripping holes into it. Blood oozed from a long scratch on her right cheek, skirting her eye.
Suddenly something stood in front of her on the path. She nudged it with her sword. It looked like a gigantic tumbleweed. Surely a good push would send it cascading into the valley below. She nudged the tangled ball with one hand, then, when it seemed unaccountably fixed in place, put one shoulder to it and pushed. Instantly she realized her error. Hundreds of tiny hooks fastened onto the front of her shirt. Tendrils twitched at her ankles, at her wrists. One tentative, quivering tendril tickled the base of her throat. She tried to pull back from the brambles. The tendril at her neck nevertheless moved along her jugular vein.
With an oath, Kitiara slashed into the brambles-were they thicker than before?-with her sword, and the vegetation fell back. "Ah," she murmured. "So you can be defeated." She stepped again toward the brambles and smiled to see the tangle move away from her.
Then Kitiara took another step, and the bramble, the path, the ridge, and the valley all vanished. The night, in the same instant, became darker, as though Solinari had been a candle, suddenly snuffed out. She reached her left hand forward and moved her dagger carefully back and forth. The point clinked against something hard, something tall-too smooth for rock. Holding her sword ready, Kitiara sheathed the dagger and reached out again with a bare hand. Her fingers touched something smooth and hard, traced a curve, found a wavy ridge, and followed it-to what was unmistakably a boot.
It was the stone statue that Caven and Maleficent had become.
Kitiara was back in the clearing with her companions.
Undaunted, Kitiara set off again for Haven, on a different path this time. An hour later, the swords-woman encountered the same tangle of burrs and weeds and landed back in the clearing again.
Then Kitiara, her jaw set with anger, sat down, sword across her knees, her back to a tree, to wait for dawn. Within moments, despite her vow of vigilance, she was fast asleep.
Perhaps a sixth sense warned her. Perhaps she awakened because of the intense emotions brought on by her dream, in which her dead mother stood in the middle of a bridge calling to her. At any rate, opening her eyes to slits, Kitiara tried to pierce the darkness around her, but she lacked the half-elf's nightvision. The darkness was opaque to her all-too-human eyes.
Inwardly she cursed her unfounded weakness. Kitiara Uth Matar did not fall asleep on watch. She had no way of knowing how much time had passed. Moving as though she were still asleep and merely finding a more comfortable position, she shifted a bit against the oak, letting her right hand drop to the earth, as near her sword's hilt as she could manage. She studied her surroundings surreptitiously.
Pairs of greenish lights glowed from the underbrush. Lightning bugs, she thought, even as she realized that the beetles didn't travel in pairs. She peered closely at one set of lights. Another wichtlin? The lights blinked. The wichtlin that had killed her companions certainly had not blinked.
Other pairs of eyes joined the first, and then more, until dozens of fiery orbs watched, fixed on her. Hearing no new sound, Kitiara finally rose cautiously to her feet, catching up her sword and shaking her head to clear it of the cloud of exhaustion that had seemed, in the last few days, to descend on her all too often. Was she ill again? Or had the wichtlin poisoned her after all?
Hundreds of lights now peered from the darkness around her. Teardrop-shaped green eyes. Round gold ones, with pupils shaped like diamonds. Horribly, a few single eyes. The shining orbs pressed toward her. Again she heard indistinct breathing. Were the woods themselves inhaling and exhaling? She cast the thought away.
Yet the creatures seemed to come only so close, and no more. Kitiara detected an odor-the sharp scent of sweat, which in anyone else she would have called the scent of fear. Her own fear? But Kitiara never admitted to fear.
Why in the Abyss did the things hold back? Why didn't they attack? They'd lost the element of surprise, but clearly they outnumbered her.
They fear me. With good reason, I might add.
The words came into Kitiara's head unbidden. The magic that had dispelled the wichtlin, the ettin's presence, the ice jewels in her pack-all pointed in one direction. Her voice hissed. "Janusz? If it is you, show yourself, you coward."
There was no answer, merely a muffled gasp-from where, Kitiara couldn't tell. The Valdane's mage, who certainly had more reason than anyone to plot revenge against her, would not have answered thusly. Therefore the presence was someone else.
Kitiara gazed around her at the pinpoints of eyes.
No. Up here, Captain Uth Matar.
Keeping her sword ready, Kitiara pivoted and peered into the branches of the aged oak above her. At first she saw nothing in the darkness. But then two horizontal slits appeared in the murk high above her. They opened, curved, and curved still more until she was gazing at two circular orange shapes the size of saucers. Within each flaming circle floated a smaller orb, as black as the night around her. As she watched, the orange circles narrowed to thin bands, and the black orbs within-the creature's pupils, she realized-dilated. The thing was studying her, by the gods! But what was it?
You'll see me better with your eyes closed, my dear captain. Look into your heart, Kitiara Uth Matar. Its message is plain, even when the eyes play tricks.
"What idiocy is this?" Kitiara cried. "Show yourself, vermin!"
Vermin? I?