“Can’t you feel it?” she asked, glancing over her shoulder. “Something is watching us.”
Distractedly, Uthalion studied the flat landscape closer, noting nothing out of the ordinary besides blooming clumps of bright blue flowersthey were hardy blooms for such a cruel environment, but spring on the Akana was typically a study in the unusual. He saw no movement save for the waving trees, the continuous swirl of the racing clouds, and the slow inexorable crawl of storm-motes drifting like smoking mountains just beneath the cloud cover.
“I see nothing. Woman’s intuition perhaps?” he muttered just loud enough for her to hear. He earned a stern glare from the genasi.
Almost ready to dismiss her concern, he did slow by half a step, noticing a small group of darting birds with flashy, metallic feathers. They settled On the ground, hopping and searching the short grass for food, though he noted he had seen none of the birds near the trees. The more he watched them, the more it seemed they avoided the bone-trees altogether. Uncertain as to whether that was call for an alarm, he sensed a sudden hush.
The familiar quiet crawled up his spine, awakening his battle-hardened instincts such that they fairly screamed at him to watch for some kind of ambush. He flinched at the loud screech of a nearby bird, drawing a handspan of blade from his sheath as the flock took to the air, their sparkling wings carrying them farther away from the intruders to their land. to appear that he had been so focused on the nearness of Tohrepur, he hadn’t considered the consequences of such a proximity.
“What is it?” Ghaelya whispered. “What do you see?”
His gaze darted from the ground to the sky to the ominous trees, searching for the source of his paranoia.
“So close to reaching Tohrepur,” he answered thoughtfully. “We haven’t considered that Tohrepur might reach out for us.”
Vaasurri kept an eye on Brindani even as the killoren edged closer to Uthalion. The half-elf s strange fidgeting had subsided suddenly, and Vaasurri wasn’t sure if that made him relieved or even more alarmed. He’d witnessed the stages of silkroot withdrawal before and had expected Brindani to be in some pain to be sure, but his mind should have been clear, and his eyes should have lost the distant glaze of a drug-induced state.
Brindani exhibited none of this and seemed on the edge of becoming an even greater liability than he might have been while on the drug.
“No time for that now,” he mumbled, sighing angrily and turning his attention to their surroundings.
The Lash was a study in contrasts, or so it seemed by the howling winds and static, unyielding trees. But Vaasurri noticed growing changes that would have been easier to catch had he been standing still. He stared intently at the bone-trees. Their bare limbs, crooked and branching, bore no buds upon which leaves could grow, nor did the ground show evidence of the past autumn which might have left at least a handful of such growth. Many of the trees’ roots seemed superficial, clawed into the ground by their narrow ends, but held above the pale grassan apparent weakness that the forceful wind should have long since exploited, yet barely a handful seemed bowed or bore any deadfall at all.
“The trees,” he said, startling Uthalion. “I don’t believe they are standing as still as they should be.”
“I suppose any movement beyond rooted-to-the-spot is likely bad news,” the human replied coldly. “If there’s some kind of an ambush here we should keep moving, lure it out, and use the surprise against it.”
Vaasurri cast a cursory glance across the fiat plain, shaking his head.
“We cannot defend this,” he muttered just above the wind.
“All the more reason to take what advantage we can,” Uthalion said. His voice had taken on a commanding, edgy tone, more like the cold soldier he’d been when Vaasurri had found him wandering the Spur. “Any estimate on numbers?”
“Perhaps two, at least,” Vaasurri said as he squinted, trying to make out the trees that didn’t quite fit the natural order of the others. “Though I don’t suspect the numbers mean much until we know what we’re up against.”
Uthalion increased his speed again, forcing Vaasurri and Ghaelya to catch up. Brindani had fallen behind several strides, seemingly oblivious to their conversation. The wind picked up, its howl becoming a rising and falling moan as the Lash’s constant storm whirled faster.
“You don’t remember any of this your first time through here?” Ghaelya fairly yelled as she leaned into the wind, her cloak whipping around her shoulders.
“It was dark,” Uthalion answered, barely loud enough to be heard. “I lost a few men, and didn’t have time to stop and investigate.”
Vaasurri noticed a few trees seemed to have changed their positions, though he couldn’t be as sure as he wanted blink was confusing as he readjusted and tried to focus.
“How close are we to the ruins?” he asked.
Uthalion’s reply was cut off as a strange clicking sound joined the moaning wind. Random at first, it quickly grew rhythmic and strong, something more than mere chance. Vaasurri had an image of bugs on the march, tiny voices chanting a cadence in a singsong melody.
“Too close,” Uthalion answered at length and tapped the blade of his sword, a reflexive, if unnecessary, signal to be ready as they searched for the direction of the new sound. “Is Brinwithus?”
Vaasurri glanced back swiftly, his hood fluttering across his face as he eyed the trudging stride of the half-elf and shook his head. Something about Brindani made him nervous, and he wondered if the half-elf’s stride was actually moving in time to the clicking tempo on the wind.
“He’ll catch up,” he said, uncertain if his words should be construed as hopeful or a looming threat.
The insectlike clicks became a buzz, whirring with the gale and forming new sounds. They organized themselves yet again into more intelligent, sentient patterns that drew Vaasurri’s attention away from Brindani and back to the path ahead. As he strained to listen, to make sense of the murmuring wind, he heard the slow coalescing of syllables gathering to form a word.
Ghaelya…
“What?” she blurted out, stopping and drawing her sword.”
Her heart hammered in her chest as she turned in a circle, listening carefully and hoping it had been merely a trick of the wind. The buzzing devolved into rapid clicking and back again, each little sound floating around her like puzzle pieces falling inexorably into place. They sounded like the myriad ravings of a mad mind, making sense only occasionally, and then only to minds just as mad.
Uthalion and Vaasurri had stopped as well, listening and watching, before turning to her questioningly.
“You heard that?” she asked, flooded with a relief almost as powerful as the anxiety that had kept her sword raised, waiting for an inevitable attack.
Uthalion raised an eyebrow, tilted his head, and appeared about to speak, but Vaasurri answered first with words that turned her blood to ice.
“There,” he said simply, nodding as he gestured to the path behind them.
Ghaelya turned swiftly, staring in shock as she froze into a guarded position. She caught the hiss of drawn blades as Vaasurri and Uthalion turned alongside her.
Brindani stood perfectly still, his hood thrown back and his head lowered, but his eyes fixed on her, glinting with a strange and alien light. Ghaelya had seen men affected by sorcery in Airspur, their wills taken away either willingly for amusing street-shows or forcefully by wizards hired to collect unpaid debts from clients of the Lower District’s more unscrupulous business owners. Brindani had the look of a man who had taken leave of himself, one who had been mastered by something beyond his control.
In a rough half circle close behind him stood three bone-trees that effectively blocked the path, rooted loosely in ground they had walked upon just moments before. Over twice as tall as the seemingly enthralled half-elf, the trees and their bare branches shivered unnaturally in the wind, like puppets on taut invisible strings, playacting for the benefit of an audience. Their bark was smooth — and shiny, showing no grain or knots, no natural trait of anvkind.