They held her sword down, and she swore at them, screaming a challenge and struggling to free herself.
“Stop it!” Brindani shouted as he shook her once more. She complied, pulling the sticky shadow from her eyes and trying to adjust her vision. A stone wall pressed against her back, smooth and cold, sending a shiver through her legs. A white flash illuminated the opalescent interior of the crevice, and brief rainbows of color swirled on the wall before the dark returned. Uthalion stood at the opening, slashing at anything that drew near, with Vaasurri close at his shoulder.
“Shaedlings,” the killoren said. “Though I’ve never seen them in such numbers.”
“No use counting them,” Uthalion muttered, straining as he beat back yet another of the shrieking creatures.
Thunder rumbled through the valley again. Buzzing wings drifted away, claws scratched at rocks high above the crevice as the shaedlings continued their whispering conversations, their language unknown and their intentions only guessed at. Uthalion glanced over his shoulder, keeping his sword forward. “Out of the stew pot and into the fire,” he said. “Any suggestions?”
“Bring back the sun,” Brindani said, his dark attempt at humor overshadowed by the haggard tone of his voice.
“Unless the gods owe you a favor, I don’t think it likely that they’ll be delivering another sunny day anytime soon,” Uthalion replied, brushing shadows like fine black dust from his blade that never reached the ground.
“How close are we to the southern end of the Wash?” Ghaelya asked, eager to escape the cramped crevice. A rushing sense of bloodlust still pumped through her body.
“Close enough to see it given enough light,” Uthalion answered. “But far enough to make getting there a steep gamble against mounting odds.”
“We should stack the odds in our favor then,” Brindani muttered from the back of the crevice. His gleaming eyes fixed on Uthalion as the man nodded slowly and sheathed his sword, kneeling in the dirt.
“How?” Ghaelya asked eyeing the human. “Prayer?”
“If it makes you feel better, by all means,” Uthalion replied, rummaging through his pack.
“We’re splitting up,” Brindani explained as he squeezed past her and Vaasurri to stand near the entrance by Uthalion. “Two of us south and two west.”
“Why? So we can die in different places?” she pressed angrily, taking breath to argue more against what seemed a foolish plan. But Vaasurri laid a hand on her arm.
“It’s another fool’s fire,” he explained calmly as Uthalion and Brindani whispered and pointed. “Only this time we may have to burn a couple of fools.”
Uthalion crept across the valley floor, following close behind the surefooted half-elf. He made a show of pausing and looking around every few strides, careful not to glance up too high, lest the shaedlings think his stealthy approach was anything more than an act. Their cruel fey nature demanded the illusion, drew them along like cats inspecting an injured mouse, watching and waiting until their prey was sure of escape. Brindani would stop at each flash of lightning, rush forward in the following thunder, and hold his hand out, palm up to signal a halt as he pretended to scan the path ahead.
Uthalion hid his grin at the half-elfs exaggerated show, musing that any field captain worth his command would have had them both shot down immediatelyand would have made the archers aim carefully, so as not to waste more than two arrows on such buffoons.
Despite all, it seemed that Brindani was doing well, not yet showing the more extreme signs of a silkroot addiction. But Uthalion knew it couldn’t last long. He wondered when Brindani’s other illusion, the one of health, would begin to crack and fall apart. Silkroot was not kind; he’d seen men try to tear out their own innards when the drug became too much for their meager purses to afford. It had seemed to him the worst kind of ignoble death for, what he considered, the least amount of reward.
Passing into the western valley, Brindani paused again, bringing Uthalion up short as he angled their path through the center of the deep brush on either side. Low trees and bushes waved in the wind, likely hiding dozens of bone-moth swarms waiting patiently for one lucky stroke of lightning to start the fires they thrived on each spring.
In one burst of lightning, Uthalion spied a spot of color just ahead, but darkness claimed the valley before he could identify what it had been. He kept a watch for it to appear again as he patted Brindani on the shoulder, signaling that they could abandon their show and appear comfortable, as if they’d slipped by the watch of the predators on their trail. They ignored the telltale scratch of claw on stone and buzzing whispers as they made their way further from the crevice where Ghaelya and Vaasurri waited.
As lightning arced across the sky again, Uthalion searched curiously for what he’d noticed earlier and caught sight of itjust a step away from Brindani’s boot. Cursing, he threw his shoulder into Brindani’s side, tackling the surprised half-elf to the ground in a cloud of dust. Patting Brindani’s shoulder, Uthalion sat up and crouched over a small clump of yellow flowers with wide, thick petals and stout stems. He hovered just out of reach of the blooms and held the half-elf back, shaking his head and breathing a sigh of relief.
“Wyrmwind,” he whispered, answering the quiet question in Brindani’s eye. “This time of year, it sheds pollen at the slightest contact, a deadly poison to anything that breathes it.”
Adding credence to his observation, he gestured to several thin twigs scattered around the base of the plant and the valley floor where they stood. Bleached a yellow white, the bones of dozens of animals littered the ground, an occasional skull here and there grinning in the flickering light of the storm.
“Don’t disturb the trees, don’t’look at the shaedlings, and now,” Brindani whispered back, “Don’t step on the yellow flowers. Is there anything here that can’t kill us one way or another?”
“Well,” Uthalion sighed as they stood and circled around the wyrmwinds, keeping an eye out for more of the deadly plants, “If you happen to see a chilled flask of fine wine don’t take any chances… let me deal with it first.”
“Don’t be a hero,” Brindani muttered.
Though Uthalion tried to press farther into the valley, hoping to put as much distance between themselves and the others as possible, he could no longer deny the growing mass of shadowed forms trailing behind them. He’d glanced casually a few times, appearing not to notice the white eyes and long claws in the brief flashes of lightning, prowling closer and ready to pounce. Eyeing the edge of the long valley, he cleared his throat. Brindani caught the signal quickly and kneeled to prepare for the next step.
Uthalion knelt as well, drawing a handful of long sticks from the top of his boot and a bundle of thick, sweet smelling grass from his belt. Large wings fluttered closer, landing lightly atop the curving valley walls. Claws scrabbled nearer over the rocks, scraping at insectlike hides as the dark fey fought for position. As Uthalion quickly wove grass and sticks together, Brindani carefully strung the longbow he’d used as a walking stick and swung a quiver of arrows around from beneath his cloak.
“When this starts, if you see a chance to escape,” Brindani said quietly, “Take it. Leave me.”
“Now who’s being a hero?” Uthalion said as he carefully bent his green wooded sticks together, overlapping them to create a roughly spherical shape.
“I’m serious.”
“And I am ignoring you until we both get out of here,” Uthalion replied as thunder cracked loudly overhead, causing a chorus of buzzing whispers that drew closer with each step. His fingertips tingled slightly with a burning sensation as sap and damp grass mingled in his hands. “Do you see a good spot?”