Dawnsinger (29 page)

“Come, Shae.” With a hand on her shoulder, Kai urged her to enter a cleft in the wall of stone. When she hesitated, he caught her eye. “It’s safer inside.”

She passed through the cleft into a small cave.

Dorann waited within. A tiny flame glowed in the cup he held high as he peered into the cave’s recesses. In such a dark space, even a small light illuminated well. Kai settled beside her.

Dorann completed his inspection of the cave and turned to Shae. “I’ll tend your injuries while we wait.”

She stretched out in the cool darkness, biting her lip against the pain as she moved her leg. She endured in silence as, with deft skill, Dorann applied a fresh poultice and new bandages.

Shae leaned her head against the smooth rock wall behind her, glad for the chance to ease her feet. The new poultice took the edge off the pain.

When he finished bandaging Kai’s side, Dorann extinguished his light. With only a few rays of fading light penetrating from the cleft, the darkness in the cave overwhelmed Shae until her eyes adjusted.

A great flapping and whirring of wings punctuated by screeches and ululating cries broke forth outside. The welkes returned to their roosts on Maeg Waer.

Shae shuddered, for the cries chilled her blood despite the relative safety within the womb of rock. Kai’s hand slid over hers with quick warmth, and she leaned on his shoulder in gratitude. As he cradled her, time slipped away…

Kai’s soft call roused her, and she opened her eyes with reluctance. Daylight had fled, but moonlight outlined the cleft at the mouth of the cave. A shadow shifted back and forth across it.

“Dorann guards the entrance.” Kai’s voice spoke near her ear, and she realized she still sheltered in his arms. “The moon stands at its apex. We should see well enough to climb the step, and we’ll have time to hide again before dawn.”

Shae followed him from the cave and blinked in the moon’s bright light. Clouds brushed with iridescence drifted across its face and unfurled to send quixotic patterns across the lands below. The clouds filtered moonbeams that fell in paths across the stone bench. All lay in stillness save the wind, which sighed in intermittent gusts that set the draetenns below hissing.

Kai scaled the wall with grace despite his injury, but Shae hesitated. “My leg.”

Dorann held out his hand to Shae. “Don’t fear.” He caught her around the waist and lifted her. Kai leaned down to grasp her arms and pulled her to the top of the bench.

Although Kai steadied her, she slipped when he released her. As she fell to her knees, she cried out as her leg jarred and cold, slick stone slammed against her hands.

Kai helped her to her feet as a gust whistled from the east, threatening to topple her again. Turning, he sheltered her from the brunt of the wind.

Shae pressed a hand to her stomach as she looked out across Laesh Ebain, dismayed to find the Lost Plains so barren. Even the softness of moonlight could not disguise an utter wasteland. She’d heard Laesh Ebain described thus, but mere words could not have prepared her for the reality. Without the relief of trees and studded only by the few scraggly bushes that dared brave the poor soil, the ebain offered little sustenance. Great cracks marred the ground, which would make their journey a nightmare.

To the north the broken peak of Maeg Streihcan looked utterly forlorn, but the misty hills of Maegran Syld comforted her with thoughts of home. The rocky coastline of Maer Syldra
bordered Laesh Ebain to the south, wild and impassable. The ebain ended at the bench of rock beneath them and, hazed by distance, fetched against the feet of Maeg Waer
to the east. That monolith cocked its dark head against a moon-washed sky. Wind searched the folds of her clothing as she stumbled and slid across the terrain between Kai and Dorann. Her ragged breathing in the face of the relentless wind mingled with the squelch of mud to disturb an otherwise profound silence. A finger of wind snatched the edge of her cloak. Shae clutched it about her with hands that stung, shivering as water penetrated her clothing and into her skin. Her feet gave little sensation anymore. Her boots, caked in mud, would probably never come clean again…if she survived this journey.

She could not remember ever suffering in this way. She walked with jerky movements, as if her body no longer belonged to her. Her mind drew apart. Did she sleepwalk?

She stepped in a rut and came down hard on her injured leg. Pain tore through her, and she gritted her teeth with hot tears stinging her eyes. A gust wrenched the hood from her head, and wet hair slapped her eyes. She clawed at it as she swayed before the buffeting wind.

Kai caught up with her and put an arm around her. When he urged her forward, Shae took a step and gasped. Kai lowered his head to catch the words she spoke with reluctance. “My foot….I must rest.”

He called to Dorann, who waited ahead. “Find somewhere to shelter.”

Kai bore the brunt of the wind for her.

She leaned into his arms.

Dorann led them into one of the cracks in the ground — a chasm that with any luck would hide them through the day. Her leg throbbed and she doubted she would sleep, but when Shae opened her eyes again morning gleamed on the horizon.

She woke to temperatures that drew clouds of steam from her wet clothing. The heat carried an edge, but at least her skin warmed, and she would not have to chafe in wet clothing all day. Kai leaned against the earthen wall and returned her gaze in silence. Dorann, propped beside him, still slept.

“Water.”
She cast about, searching.

Kai motioned her to silence. “Keep your voice down. Welkes have excellent hearing.” He reached across Dorann and retrieved one of the elkskins. “Drink with care. Too much and you’ll become ill.”

With difficulty, Shae restrained herself from gulping the water. She handed the skin to Kai, who drank in turn. The chasm that sheltered them terrified her less by day than it had in the dead of night. The earthern walls lifted moist and dark about them, although the sun beat down through the crack overhead. A natural streambed of smooth white pebbles lay beneath them, wet now only at its middle.

A screech rent the air to echo across the ebain, making Shae shudder
.

Dorann woke with a cry. Kai motioned him to caution and drew Whyst
.
Dorann’s eyes cleared. He pulled his hunting knife from his boot and went into a crouch. Shae grasped Leisht’s hilt and watched with the others the jagged crack of blue sky overhead. A tense silence stretched, but Dorann’s cry must have gone unheard. Perhaps the welke’s own screech had covered it.

As the day wore on, they grew familiar with the welkes’ cries and even learned to gauge their distance. They could distinguish the various
carruches
and clicks and whistles the creatures made while flying back and forth to Maeg Waer. Shae couldn’t become accustomed to the heart-wrenching cries, however. Whenever they pulsed through the air she cringed.

Their forced inactivity became as much a foe as any welke. As dark shadows passed overhead, Shae ignored the urge to stretch her leg to relieve its cramping and held still until, with muscles screaming, she could stand it no more. She shifted her position with care, fearful any noise she made would draw nearby welkes.

They had no choice but to wait in this wretched crack in the ground, although it heated to unbearable levels. Shae put her head on Kai’s shoulder and sheltered beneath the cloak he raised to shade them both. Even so, her scalp prickled with heat and moisture ran down her neck. Her tongue clung to the roof of her mouth, and when she licked her lips, she found them cracked.

She ate the last of the waybread, which Dorann offered her, and drank a little water. Afterwards, she propped against the earthen wall and closed her eyes in prayer. Perhaps they would get further in their travels tonight since the sun must have baked the ebain dry throughout the day.

Shadows lengthened and the temperature cooled, but when night at last fell, so did renewed rain. Disheartened, they clambered from the chasm, now a streambed, to stagger across the darkened landscape. Progress came more slowly this night, for roiling clouds obscured the moonlight. Despite this, they came within another night’s march of the foothills of Maeg Waer.

Toward dawn, they settled in a chasm that offered a small, overhanging shelter made by the washed-out roots of stunted ederbaer bushes, which leaned, still living, into the chasm. Shae crouched with the others, thankful to find eroded rock underfoot rather than mud. She washed off her boots in the stream that coursed down the center of the chasm and into a deep pool that swelled over a rim. From there, the water snaked away as a new stream. At least they would have water to drink in the day’s heat.

The chasm was wider and shallower than the one they’d hidden in the day before, but it would serve. The screen of ederbaer leaves would provide some shade by day, but didn’t protect well from the rain. Huddled between Kai and Dorann, Shae watched droplets plunk from her hood to the ground in a steady rhythm. She pulled her cloak about her, but the steady drizzle invaded anyway. Made of wool, her garments kept her passably warm even when wet but chafed her skin. She could not sleep in such misery, not until the rain lifted with the sun and her garments dried.

She woke in sweltering heat to find the others waiting with drawn weapons. She pushed to her knees, peering with them at the strip of sky through the ederbaer branches. Kai motioned for quiet. The screen of ederbaer bushes lent a sense of security, but did little to separate them from the creatures which could so easily swoop upon them. Shrieks rent the air. So near….

A black shape blotted out the sky, but the raptor didn’t pause in its flight. Shae fought to still her body’s trembling. If this ordeal of cold and heat and nerves did not end soon, she might go mad.

A guttural croaking warned her. The ederbaer branch just above her dipped low. Showers of dirt cascaded over Shae. A leathery underbelly showed through the leaves.

She held her breath. She didn’t dare move. A welke perched in the bush and plucked the shiny berries.

How had they not considered that the ederbaer bush might draw hungry welkes? Shae watched in a strange sort of fascination as the the dark creature tipped its head back to swallow the berries one by one. She had never seen a welke up close before—or smelled one’s stench either.

The raptor
carruched
and preened, then bent to take another crimson morsel into its sharp beak. Its coat gleamed sleek and dark as ebony. Wicked talons grasped the ederbaer branch. Those claws could shred a person in an instant.

Panic suffocated Shae, and her chest rose as she sucked in a breath. She pressed a hand to her mouth to keep from crying out.

The welke’s head swiveled, and its black gaze locked on her. Its beak opened and a shriek vibrated the air.

The sound went on and on in Shae’s mind. She tried to move, but her shaking limbs would not obey. She opened her mouth in a soundless scream.

The welke flapped its wings and lifted into the air, poised to drop.

****

Kai thrust his blade upward through the bush just as the creature left it. Whyst snagged in the ederbaer branches and would not pull free.

The welke hovered overhead, then dropped into the chasm beside the bush and pecked sideways through the tangled roots.

Kai pushed Shae toward the earthen wall, but she stumbled and fell. And then a blood-curdling cry from the welke claimed his whole attention.

“We will die if it breaks through!” Dorann, sword in one hand and hunting knife in the other, crouched beside him
.

Kai fought to free Whyst, but the welke
pecked at him through the bush. Dorann thrust his knife upward.

A horrendous screech tore from the welke, and it lifted a bloodied talon. Far from giving up, however, the fiendish creature renewed its attack.

Kai’s hands and forearms ran with blood, but he set his teeth and heaved. Whyst gave way all at once, and he fell backward. He rolled and regained his feet, but halted. Chills crawled over him.

Whyst
wavered in Shae’s hands as she stepped from behind the
ederbaer
roots. With a bloodcurdling battle cry similar to the one she’d unleashed on the garn, she charged the welke.

The giant raptor swung to intercept Shae, and Kai’s mouth went dry. Horror kept him frozen in place.

Dorann sprang from cover and arced his sword toward the welke’s exposed side. His sword thrust fell short, but he’d diverted attention from Shae. The raptor gave a series of high-pitched clicks and made a small retreat. Head tilted, it watched both Dorann and Shae out of round, black eyes.

Kai managed to get his legs to move. Coming up behind Shae, he placed his hand beside hers on Whyst’s hilt and spoke near her ear.
“Let go!”

She obeyed, and he shoved her behind him, haste making him less than gentle. He parried a black beak. “Shae,
get back!”

Dorann rushed in, and the welke turned on him.

Kai lunged toward its undefended side, but the bird lifted into the air to hover above him with talons spread. He raised Whyst and braced for its attack.

Answering cries rang across the ebain.

****

Trembling, Shae willed her knees to hold her upright. What insane impulse had caused her to charge the welke? She released Whyst to Kai, but when he pushed her behind him, lost her footing.A cold shock of water closed over her. She came up in the stream, gasping and shaking water from her face, to the shriek of approaching welkes. She caught her breath on a sob. They could not overcome so many. Death would find them here, after all. Letting the water bear her where it would, she wept for herself and for Kai and Dorann. She wept, also, for Elderland—for the devastation that would follow unfulfilled Prophecy.

The current picked up speed, hurrying downstream toward the deep pool and the cataracts beyond. She hadn’t sought escape, but the chance of it came nonetheless. A flicker of hope revived, although turning her back on her companions tore the heart from her. But she had to go on.