“Not sure,” she answered as a handful of the dreamers quickened their loping strides. “Doesn’t matter, not now.”
“Get inside,” Uthalion said from the doorway, breathing heavy and brushing dust from his hands. “We’ll wait for them in the front room.”
As Vaasurri nodded and stepped to the door, Ghaelya caught his arm, scanning the darkness at the side of the house curiously.
“What about Brindani?” she asked.
“He’s … He’ll be fine,” Vaasurri said, avoiding her gaze. “He’s involved in another fight.”
“Another what?” she asked. But Vaasurri slipped into the house without another word.
Though she was worried for the half-elf, the dreamers were getting closer. She could already hear them growling in anticipation. Frowning, she followed the others and found the front room piled with furniture. Every scrap of wood or cloth Uthalion could find had been thrown against the walls. A strong scent of potent spirits hung heavy on the air like the breath of a dwarf drunkard with a story of battle to tell.
Uthalion knelt close to the window, his bow in hand and squinting into the night.
“Going to burn us to the ground, or are we opening a tavern?” she asked, anticipation for the fight to come lightening her mood somewhat.
“Something like that,” he replied dryly.
“They only hunt at night,” Vaasurri added, “Avoiding the day. They do not seem to like the light too much.”
“That seems to be true,” Ghaelya said, eyeing the kindling-to-be nervously while at the same time wishing there were a spot of the spirits left over for quick drink. She turned to face the hallway behind them. “But there’s no back door here …”
“Eyes forward,” Uthalion commanded, putting arrow to bowstring as Vaasurri crouched near the north window. “They’re coming … And they are not alone.”
Brindani stepped outside and inhaled, smelling the night air as it filled it lungs. Exhaling, he shook his arms out and stretched his neck. A feral sense of exhilaration carried him through the tall weeds, a ready bounce in his step as he drew his sword. Bounding down the slope came the first of the horrid beasts, Ghaelya’s dreamers, its glassy eyes flashing, its fangs bared. With a nimble hop, Brindani was on the porch, swaggering across the steps calmly. A cruel grin played on his lips as the dreamer dug its claws deep in the dirt, leaping at him with a vicious growl.
With a twirling flourish, the half-elf slashed his blade lightning-quick across the dreamer’s throat as he sidestepped the beast’s deadly charge. It crashed onto the porch, thrashing and gurgling in a foul-smelling sprawl of claws and teeth scraping on the old wood. Brindani stabbed it again, piercing the barrel chest deep and stilling its frantic heartbeat.
Pulling the blade free he studied the stinking blood on the sword, feeling the tightness in his wrist and arm, the speed and power bundled in every muscle and nerve. Some diminished part of his mind was haunted by Vaasurri’s words about the properties of silkroot, but the concern was fleeting and distant, nothing next to the three dreamers closing in. He turned to the shocked eyes watching him from within the farmhouse.
“Are we doing this or not?” he asked, smiling broadly even as arrows flew past his shoulder and buried themselves in one of the beasts. It tumbled down the slope, yelping and kicking up dust. Brindani laughed and slapped his sword across his chest in a soldier’s salute as he faced the twisted hounds. “Excellent!” he cried.
Rough hands grabbed his shoulders and pulled him backward, still laughing his challenge at the strange pack as he staggered into the shadows of the farmhouse. Vaasurri spun him sideways, shaking him slightly and placing a thin finger to his lips.
“We have no need for wild heroes,” the killoren said, his once fearsome black eyes now lacking the terrifying luster they had held before. Porch slats creaked as heavy paws landed close to the open doorway.
“I beg to differ my green friend,” Brindani replied and set his blade to receive the growling guest as Uthalion cursed and dropped his bow in favor of steel.
“Plenty of time for differences later,” Vaasurri whispered and rolled to the doorway, his bone-sword slashing at the searching paws on the threshold. The dreamer whined and snapped at the fey, but caught only Ghaelya’s blade across its thick skull before it retreated to crouch at the edge of the porch. It howled angrily, a call that was answered again and again from its packmates on the slope and beyond.
As Vaasurri and the others winced, covering their ears at the sound, Brindani felt little but the smallest pressure on his temples, barely enough to give him a headache. Before he could breathe easy however, a mournful wail followed the dreamers’ calls. Beautiful and full of sorrow, the new voice burrowed through the fog in his mind, tearing through the veil of the silkroot like the screaming groan of twisting metal.
He fell back, shaking his head and tasting the bitter drug on his lips, feeling the burn of it in his throat as the pining voice rippled through his skull. The walls shook, and dust fell into his eyes as the muffled curses of the others overtook the trailing edge of the singer’s thunderous tune.
“What in the hells was that?” Uthalion asked, his question lost as another dreamer charged through the doorway. Blades flashed before Brindani’s eyes, and he blinked, struggling to take back whatever the wailing voice had stolen.
Ghaelya hacked at grasping claws through the window as teeth snapped mere inches from her hands. Uthalion fought on the floor, his blade buried in an intruding beast’s side as Vaasurri took up his bow and loosed several arrows into the night. Disoriented, Brindani tried to react, to call back the strength and speed he’d reveled in just moments ago. Ghaelya swore as a claw scraped her forearm.
“No,” Brindani whispered, wincing as yet another beast reached the old porch and the full extent of his unwitting crime lanced through his gut sickeningly. “I brought them here … I led them to us.”
He fell to one knee, shaking and catching his breath even as a soothing tingle spread through his limbs, calming his trembling hands and steadying his balance. His eyes burned with unspent tears, the brief shame fading as his senses returned. He spun at the sound of heavy claws on wood, his eyes darting to the hallway. Smiling as the fog of silkroot and bloodlust returned, he rushed to the northern bedroom, pausing as the hulking form of a dreamer crouched at the end of the hall.
Glassy eyes and bared teeth greeted him with a rumbling growl and huffing breath.
“Can you smell me, dog?” he asked, prowling forward, the bitter scent of silkroot strong on his breath. “It was me that you tracked all this way. And you shall have me … Not her!”
He charged the dreamer, and it leaped through the air, meeting his quick steel with fang and claw.
Uthalion strained under the weight of the dreamer, shoved back a thick paw, and pulled his blade free of the limp corpse. He slashed at gleaming black eyes in the doorway, forcing the next beast back as he regained his footing, yelling furiously and planting his boots to take the next charge. Snapping bone echoed through the room, heralding the pained whine of Ghaelya’s kill at the windowsill as Vaasurri sent two more arrows speeding through the other window.
Growls and curses came from the northern end of the house, the walls shaking as Brindani fought on that unexpected front. Uthalion took all of it in, thrusting his blade at the snapping jaws in the doorway and shoving the dead body at his feet into the opening with a grunt.
“We can’t last here,” Vaasurri said, and Uthalion nodded, the shrieking voice that had accompanied the dreamers still ringing in his skull.
“No need to,” he replied, kicking the corpse with his toe. “Just had to set a proper stage.”
“Well, I’d say the stage is set and ready for whatever comes next,” Ghaelya said as she wrenched her blade free of a twitching dreamer. “Unless you’re just having fun.”