“I have some friends on the other side,” Bryan replied. “Somewhere near Rivertown, I would guess. A young girl named Siana, and two boys my own age, Jolsen Smithyson and Lennard-” The name caught in his throat as he wondered suddenly if Lennard had survived his wicked wound.
“Of Corning,” he continued when he got past the dark thought. “Find them for me. Tell them that Bryan hopes they fare as well as he.”
The woman nodded. “And when, should I tell them, will Bryan return?”
The flash of Bryan’s smile caught her off guard. She knew beyond doubt the grim truth behind Bryan’s optimistic facade, and she could guess from that resigned smile that Bryan knew it, too.
“Soon.”
Then the half-elf was alone in the boat again, rowing off silently toward the western bank, toward the army of evil talons.
So very alone.
Chapter 17
In the Dead of Night
THE MOON CAME up in the cloudless eastern sky, stealing the twinkle from the stars in its glowing path. So serene and peaceful seemed that nighttime canopy, so unlike the events on the land below.
The wraith of Hollis Mitchell spurred the hellish stallion around the western perimeter of Avalon. Mitchell had passed through this wood in his former life, an encounter that still brought a scowl to the evil spirit. And now, even more hateful of places of beauty and life, the wraith looked upon Brielle’s forest with open hatred.
Mitchell turned his mount in and rushed up to one of the bordering trees. “For you, stupid witch!” he growled, and he slammed his bone mace at the tree. The weapon crashed in, its evil magic scorching and tearing the trunk.
But Avalon fought back.
Blue sparks encompassed the mace and its undead wielder. Mitchell resisted their power for a few moments, but was then thrown from the back of his mount. He pulled himself up from the ground, stunned.
And then Brielle stood in the shadows of her trees.
“Horrid thing!” she cried at him.
“And you, witch,” Mitchell sneered back.
“Be gone from me wood,” Brielle went on, rising suddenly tall and terrible. The Mistress of the First Magic, above anyone else in Aielle, recognized the true nature of the wraith, understood its very existence as a crime against the order of nature. “Ye have no place here, no place in all the world!”
“Oh, but I do!” Mitchell shot back. “A place that will only grow larger and stronger. A place that will one day include your trees.”
Seething fires burned in Brielle’s green eyes; the emerald on her forehead, her wizard’s mark, glowered at the sight of the perversion that was the wraith of Hollis Mitchell. But for all of the strength and determination of her anger, an involuntary shudder shivered through the fair witch’s spine; Thalasi’s power must be great indeed for him to take a spirit from the netherworld!
“Be gone!” she commanded again, and even as Mitchell’s face began to twist into a mocking smile, a light as bright as the noontime sun filled the air around him.
“Damned witch!” Mitchell cried, flashing pain burning him.
“It is yerself who is damned,” Brielle replied. “Horrid thing, undead thing. By what right do ye walk the world?” She wanted to strike out fully at the wraith, test its strength there and then, and if possible send it back to the realm wherein it belonged. But Brielle had not yet recovered from her most recent encounter with the Black Warlock, and from her subsequent efforts to ward her wood against any further attacks.
Mitchell swung back into his saddle, having no difficulty in directing his stallion away.
“I will be back, witch,” he cried over his shoulder as he sped off toward the south. “And next time you will find it harder to get rid of me!”
Brielle shut down the glowing sphere of her enchanted light and watched the wraith depart. She feared that his words might hold more than a little of the truth.
“By me eyes, she’s a beautiful night,” Andovar remarked, looking out from the low glow of the campfire to the silvery sparkle of the great river.
“Too true,” Belexus replied. “Not a night to be thinking o’ war.”
Andovar turned a wry smile on him. “But I was not,” he assured his friend.
“Rhiannon, then,” Belexus laughed. He spent a moment recalling the image of the raven-haired woman, and the exciting contrast of her shining blue eyes. “Ayuh,” he agreed. “ ’Tis a fitting night to be thinking o’ that one. And me guess’s that ye’ve been doing yer share of thinking o’ that one.”
“More than me share,” Andovar replied wryly.
“She has ye,” Belexus warned, but Andovar did not fear the truth of his friend’s words.
“That she does,” he admitted openly. “And when the business o’ the talons is finished, she’ll have me more, if her heart wants me more.”
“Might be a time in coming, then,” Belexus said. “The talons-and their boss-aren’t for leaving so soon. Mighten be that ye should see yer way to the girl without a worry for the war.”
“Too much fighting to be done,” reasoned Andovar. “I know me duty, and I’ll hold to it. I’m not for courtin’ the lass just to leave her with a dead husband.”
“Better that she had one in the first place,” Belexus argued. “Her thoughts be lookin’ to Andovar as clearly as Andovar’s heart’s seeing her. Ye cannot be living in thoughts o’ dying, me friend. If ye’re for each other, then get to each other, and let the war do what it will.”
Andovar nodded his agreement and let his gaze slide toward the north. They would arrive in Avalon soon after noon of the next day. “What do ye think-” he started, but Belexus had already guessed his friend’s next concern.
“The witch’ll not go against ye,” he cut in with another laugh. “Suren she’ll be glad for her daughter’s joy, and glad, too, to have such a man as Andovar coming a’courting for Rhiannon.”
“While such a man as Andovar’s truest friend comes a’courting for Brielle herself?” Andovar had to ask, now holding a sly look in his own eye.
Belexus lay his head back on the folded blanket that served as his pillow. “I’ve seen her but a few times,” he said, his tone suddenly serious. “But suren I’ve known her all me life.” Belexus wasn’t certain of his place or his duty concerning his feelings for the witch, or how she would react to those feelings. Was it the fair witch herself or her wondrous workings in Avalon that had steadily stolen his heart away over the past decades?
Whatever the cause, Belexus could not deny the emotions that filled him whenever he walked through the enchanted forest, and even more so on those rare occasions when he caught sight of Brielle dancing in a distant field or rushing among the paths of her domain.
Andovar recognized that he had sparked a bout of contemplation in his friend, and he let the conversation drop at that. He turned back to the shimmer of the lazily moving water, turned back to his thoughts of the last few days, and of the years that might yet come, beside Rhiannon.
“Fate is kind,” the wraith hissed when he spotted the camp-fire across the way and heard the voices, those most hated voices, that came back across the years in a rush of unpleasant memories.
“Belexus and Andovar,” he mused, remembering the times that the two rangers had rushed to the defense of Jeff Del-Giudice, spouting threats against him. How much bite could those threats hold against him now?
The wraith turned the vile steed toward the river and started across.
He dreamed of home, of starry nights in Avalon and sunbathed hillocks of clover and wildflowers. But the urgency of his friend’s call cut into the meandering visions, awakened the alertness that marked Belexus as a prince of the Rangers of Avalon.
“Belexus!” Andovar whispered harshly again. He was still standing by the great river, a few dozen feet from his dozing friend, and staring out across the flowing water at a globe of blackness that had floated out from the opposite bank.