Two more riders were between them and the woods. The nearest seemed content to let them pass, concentrating on the graver foe at hand. But the second reined in his mount just under the boughs.
A pale man, dressed all in skins and furs, white hair flowing behind him, leaped from the tree shadows. A long blade, slightly curved near the end, caught the moonlight and flashed in his hand. The elf didn't see him.
"You two!" the elf called. "Stop or-!"
The pale man passed over the rump of the elklike creature, his sword swinging out beside him, and sliced the elf's head from his body. Elf, swordsman, and a great gout of blood hit the snow at the same time. The elf's mount screamed, almost humanlike in its fright, and bounded away.
The pale man stood and faced them, a smile playing over his lips. He was more than pale. His skin was as white as the snow.
"Kadrigul," Hweilan said.
Menduarthis kept his eyes fixed on the newcomer as he said, "Not another uncle, I hope?"
Kadrigul swiped his sword, cutting the air. "Been awhile since I killed one of your kind."
"Really?" Menduarthis smirked, and his fingers began their intricate motions.
Wind shot past Hweilan. Not a gale. Just a good breeze, but she could feel it narrowing and gathering force as it passed.
"Been awhile since I did this trick," said Menduarthis, "and the lady here ruined my last try."
Kadrigul's chest swelled, and his eyes went wide. He dropped his sword, fell to his knees, and clamped his mouth shut.
"Hmph," said Menduarthis, and twirled his fingers faster.
Kadrigul's nostrils flared, the air whistling as it forced its way in.
"You might want to look away, Hweilan. This can sometimes be a bit m-"
Something dark passed over Hweilan's right shoulder, spraying her with warmth and wetness, there was a thunk, and Menduarthis screamed and fell forward — the pale man fell on his hands and expelled a great gout of air — and Hweilan saw what had hit Menduarthis. An arm. By its size, she knew it had to have come from one of the elf riders.
Hweilan turned and saw Soran coming, black sword in one hand. She drew the knife Menduarthis had given her and stepped in front of Menduarthis. She dropped into a defensive crouch, just like Scith had taught her, and brandished the blade.
A gale swept down the hillside, spraying snow and branches and a million pine needles. It swept over Soran in a flood.
Hweilan felt a tug on her arm. "Don't be a fool, girl!" said Menduarthis. "Run!"
They turned and ran.
Kadrigul was back on his feet, sword in hand, fury in his gaze.
A great ram of air-the strength of a winter gale off mountain heights, but concentrated into the force of a giant's fist-tore through the snow beside Hweilan and struck him. He flew through the air in a cloud of snow and broken ice.
The sounds of a savage fight still raging behind them, Hweilan and Menduarthis ran up the embankment and into the woods.
CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT
The woods tangled around them. Hweilan had never seen such trees, had never imagined such trees. Most grew no more than a few dozen feet, but hardly any grew up. Trunks twisted, turned, bent sideways, and smaller ones even wrapped around their larger neighbors. Deep winter as it was, still dark green leaves grew in abundance, so thick that they had blocked out nearly all the snow-and every trace of star- and moonlight.
Hweilan kept a firm grip on Menduarthis's arm and trusted that her feet would find their own way in the dark. She made it no more than twenty steps into the wood before striking a root or low branch and falling, almost pulling Menduarthis on top of her.
Menduarthis let her go, said, "A moment," and Hweilan could hear him searching his pockets.
Light bloomed, blue and cold, no brighter than a small candle, but in the nearly impenetrable gloom of the wood it seemed very bright to Hweilan's eyes. It shone forth from a round crystal, no larger than an owl's egg, that Menduarthis held in one hand.
In the near distance, an elf's voice cried out in a defiant battle cry, then rose into an agonized shriek.
"Move, girl!" Menduarthis pulled her to her feet and they plunged onward.
The land began to climb almost at once. The trees grew larger and even more tangled the farther they went, but Menduarthis always seemed to find a path-ducking under the great arch of a branch, pushing their way through the leaves; finding narrow paths that snaked among the branches; sometimes even running along broad trunks that grew along the ground, like slightly curved roads.
"Careful," said Menduarthis, and Hweilan soon saw why.
They were walking along the wide bole of a tree, but the ground fell away beneath them, the tree forming a natural bridge across a ravine. The sky opened above them, giving enough light for Hweilan to see that the cut in the ground was not that wide, and no more than thirty or forty feet deep. But the trees down there had been choked by vines covered with wicked thorns.
When they reached the other side and stepped off the tree, Menduarthis stopped and turned. Over the sounds of their heavy breathing, they listened for pursuit. Nothing.
Still, that nagging weight, that sense of dread pulsed in Hweilan's mind. It had lessened somewhat in their flight from the frozen river, but now that they'd stopped again…
"We need to keep going," said Hweilan.
"Half a moment," said Menduarthis. He pulled her behind him. "And hang on to something."
He stood away from the tree and threw back his cloak. He began waving his arms and hands in an intricate motion, faster and faster. Wind rushed past them, snapping branches and toppling smaller trees in its path.
It struck the tree-bridge. Roots broke and came up with such force that dirt exploded dozens of feet into the air, and the tree itself shattered in the middle. The wind died, and the broken tree fell into the ravine with a crash that shook the ground.
"That should throw off the pursuit," said Menduarthis.
Hweilan wasn't so sure.
More and more vines-their thorns ranging from small, almost furlike protrusions along the creepers to long thorns thick as nails on the stalks-crawled through the trees as Hweilan and Menduarthis climbed the final slope. But the trees themselves didn't seem to suffer. The foliage, rather than lessening, grew even thicker, and in some places Hweilan felt that their path was walled in by leaves and thorns. Menduarthis's light began to catch bits of white in the air. At first, Hweilan thought that it was snowing again, and some few flakes had managed to find their way through the canopy. But no. They were tiny moths, their wings white as new frost. How they managed to survive the cold, Hweilan had no idea. The close air of the woods was warmer than it had been out on the frozen river, but it was still cold enough for Hweilan's breath to steam before her.
Menduarthis stopped, their path seemingly ending in a great tangle of thorns. One hand grasping the little light stone, he turned and looked at Hweilan.
"This gets tricky here," he said. "Once again, you must trust me."
"Trust you how?" she said.
With the hand holding the light, he pointed at the wall of thorns before them. "This is our way."
The vines looked tough as wire, their thorns sharp as wasps' stingers. Even the leaves looked sharp. "You can't be serious," she said.
"Trust me. You'll be safe as a babe in her cradle as long as you keep moving forward. Don't stop. Don't slow. And whatever you do, do not move backward. As long as you move forward, these creepers are all bark, no bite. Soft as feathers. Stop or try to move backward… well, the only thing that'll get you out then is fire, and I don't think you'd like that much."