After a moment of hesitation, Brindani exhaled in frustration and scanned the area slowly, looking up to the narrowed opening at the valley’s edge. He nodded and drew a single arrow. Uthalion had gathered a handful of the small bones along the valley floor, and he placed them carefully inside the crude basket-lantern of grass and sticks. He nodded back to the half-elf with a held breath.
“Ready your bow,” he said.
Brindani stood, took aim, and loosed the shaft all in one fluid motion. As the arrow thunked solidly into the low hanging branch of a tree bent over the edge of the valley, Uthalion was briefly grateful for the influence of the silkroot still in Brindani’s system, though he knew he’d regret the feeling in a few hours. A long, thin length of twine, soaked in water, hung from the arrow, and he swiftly tied the end to the basket as the shaedlings rose into the air, sensing the end of their game.
Uthalion drew his sword and backed away, his eyes widening at the multitude of shadowy figures rising against the stormy backdrop of the sky. Lightning crashed, and thunder growled through the valleys, shaking the ground as the wind howled and whistled through the Wash. Brindani drew another arrow and sparked his flint to the cloth-wrapped end of its shaft.
Buzzing shadows droned toward them, shrieking what sounded like a feigned dismay at finding their prey unsurprised.
“Don’t look,” Uthalion warned as Brindani strung the arrow and aimed.
Shaedlings dived from the sky, spears of shadow coalescing into their hands as their white eyes glinted with the thrill of the hunt’s end. Brindani’s arrow streaked toward the lantern, and Uthalion shielded his eyes, lowering his sword and turning as the fire met the basket and flared into a brilliant, blinding white light. Pained shrieks tore at his ears as the dark fey recoiled from the radiance, their lost spears clattering to the ground and disappearing in smoky puffs.
Uthalion smiled at the pained sound of the blinded shaedlings, and clapped Brindani on the shoulder as they made for the darkness at the valley’s edge.
The lantern, a fey weapon that Vaasurri called a sugar-star, would burn for several breaths, and time was short. As Uthalion strode forward, gingerly opening his eyes, he turned toward the southern branch of valley. He stopped short for a heartbeat, his eyes widening as Brindani ran past him. His stride faltered, and he stumbled into the shadow beyond the already dying light of the blazing basket as he surveyed the horror that had lain hidden in the darkness behind them.
The floor of the north end of the valley, illuminated by the lantern, shivered and swayed. A rippling mass of yellow flowers shook ominously in the strengthening wind of the storm.
“Mystra’s bones,” he swore and turned to run. The first drops of a long-held rain splashed on his cheek and roughly disturbed the deadly yellow petals of the wyrmwinds.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
9 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) The Akana, the Wash, Akanul
Heavy drops of rain splashed over Ghaelya’s skin, each one tingling as they ran along the glowing maze of patterns across her body. They were a soothing balm to her spirit, but only fed the tempest of rage in her heart. She pulled herself over the edge of a wide island of green, and saw the jagged valleys of the Wash, the stilled and silent tide, laid out at her feet. Whiplike trees stood as sentinels to the darkness beyond the Wash, their sharp thorns twisting and swaying at the end of long tentacle branches.
Lightning rippled through the sky, spreading far to the south. It was a storm beyond any she’d ever witnessed in Airspur, dark waters drifting like an airborne ocean through the night.- Water and lightning mingled, calling to the element in her spirit and summoning her to join them in the unstoppable flood of nature’s wrath.
Vaasurri knelt nearby, stringing his bow as Ghaelya paced along the border of the cliff, staring daggers into the dark depths they’d crawled from in silence.
“I do not enjoy being sheltered like this,” she said through clenched teeth.
“You would risk your life needlessly?” the killoren asked.
“It’s what I’m best at… Well, according to my family at least,” she replied.
“And what of your sister?” Vaasurri pressed, standing. A touch of anger in his voice gave her pause. “I was led to believe that she was the reason for this little journey. How will she fare if you are dead, I wonder?”
“II didn’t…” she stammered, taken aback by the killoren’s sudden anger.
“You didn’t think,” he said simply, though his black eyes seemed to say much more as they bored into her. “Yes, I understand lack of thought. It seems to be a common curse of late.”
His eyes shifted to the skies over the Wash as he adjusted the quiver on his shoulder, nodding as dark shapes rose against the backdrop of the storm and the buzz of their dragonfly wings drew closer. A flash of brilliant light, a brief and dying sunrise, flared to life in the distance, scattering dozens of the dark fey across the valleys, their shrieks echoing through the wind and the thunder.
“Now perhaps you’ll get the fight you desire,” Vaasurri said, his words stabbing at her even as her bloodlust returned to a quick boil. “I would say fight for your life, but perhaps you should concentrate more on your sister’s life.”
” “Tess,” she whispered, the name escaping her lips on a held breath as the shaedlings drew near. A shaft of pure shadow, long and sharp, streaked toward her, silhouetted against the flash of yellow-white cloud lightning. She — loosened her legs, letting the fluid motion roll through her body, bending like grass in the wind as she rolled out of the spear’s path But it was not the inexorable crawl of the tide that gave motion to her instincts. Deep waters did not surge to draw the dagger from her boot or take aim on the black figure diving toward her.
Something older took her spirit in its warm embrace.
Her sister’s soft red eyes rose to the forefront of her mind’s eye, heating her soul with a flickering tongue of flame. Her arm hurled the blade burning through the air to blaze into the shaedling’s chest. Its shriek of pain and shock fueled a hot spark within her that she hadn’t felt since childhood, bringing a phantom scent of smoke that seemed to steam beneath her skin.
The spark cooled slightly as the rain grew heavy, as the twitching body of the dark fey plummeted back into the Wash, but the familiar flame warmed her hands. It throbbed as a living thing in her heart, her element twin waiting and ready to direct her, an unsheathed sword to cut down the descending black wings and reduce her foes to ash.
“Tess,” she whispered again, and she assumed. a fighting stance as the shaedlings came for her from the shadows of her singing dreams.
Uthalion’s boots skidded as he ran, loose rocks bouncing loudly down the valley slope. Bushes shook as he passed, and small thorns scratched at his leather armor. His heartbeat pounded in his ears. Rain, pattering through the underbrush, streamed into his eyes, blurring the dark form of Brindani, limping quickly ahead of him. He dared not look back, knowing without a doubt the danger that crept up behind them, slow and swirling on the wind.
Shaedlings buzzed overhead. The bolder ones were still in pursuit, swooping low and spinning their shadowy veils in an attempt to separate the pair. Half-blind already, Uthalion easily weathered the cold darkness the creatures spun, unhindered by them. He was focused on reaching higher ground where he could place steel between himself and deathrather than a brief moment of held breath in the drowning wave of the wyrmwinds’ deadly pollen.
Shadowy spears cracked into the ground around him, shivering in the dirt only a moment before dissolving, filling the valley with a stagnant, sour smell that burned in his throat. With the edge of the Wash in sight, a stone wave crested with green, he drew his sword and cursed the flicker of hope that sprang forth in his thoughts.