DemonWars Saga Volume 1 (125 page)

“Where is the prisoner?” he whispered in its ear.

The goblin squirmed and tried to scream out, but Nightbird grabbed it all the tighter, jerked its head back and forth. Then Juraviel was beside them, the elf holding his bow up beside the goblin’s head, his arrow creasing the creature’s temple. The goblin calmed considerably.

“If you yell out, you die,” the ranger promised, and he eased his hand away.

“It hurts us! It hurts us!” the goblin moaned pitifully, and the two friends could hardly blame it, for it carried one of Juraviel’s arrows in its shoulder, another in its thigh. Still, the ranger pressed his hand over the creature’s mouth once more.

“The prisoner,” he prompted, easing his hand away. “Where is the prisoner?”

“Kos-kosio Begulne have many prisoners,” the goblin countered.

“The new prisoner,” the ranger clarified. “The one Kos-kosio Begulne hates most of all.”

“Nasty arrow from nasty elf!”

“Tell me,” the ranger growled, “or my friend will put another arrow into you!”

“In the ground,” the goblin squeaked. “In a hole in the ground.”

“Buried?” the ranger asked anxiously. “Did Kos-kosio Begulne kill him?”

“Not buried,” the goblin replied. “Not dead yet. In a room in a hole.”

The ranger looked to Juraviel. “To store food,” the ranger explained, figuring out the riddle. “We did as much in Dundalis when I was a boy.”

“A root cellar,” the elf agreed, and both of them turned back to the prisoner.

“Where is this hole?” Nightbird asked, giving the goblin a shake.

The goblin shook its head; the ranger tightened his grip. “You will tell—” Nightbird started to say, but Juraviel, glancing out a small window beside the barn’s front door, the one facing the town proper, interrupted him.

“Time is short,” the elf explained. “The powries are astir.”

“Last chance,” Nightbird said to the goblin. “Where is the hole?”

But the goblin feared Kos-kosio Begulne more than it feared anything these two could do to it. It squirmed and started to cry out, and when the ranger clamped his hand over its mouth, it promptly bit him, struggling wildly to get away. It could not break free of the ranger’s strong hold, though, so it tried to bite again, and started to cry out, however muffled the call might be.

A well-aimed thrust of Juraviel’s dagger-sized sword ended that; the creature slumped to the floor and died.

“And how are we to find Roger Lockless now?” Nightbird asked.

“The goblin would not have told us more, even if it knew more,” the elf replied. “It knew that I would kill it as soon as the information was divulged.”

The ranger looked at his companion curiously. “And if we had promised its life in exchange?” he asked.

“Then we would have been lying,” Juraviel replied evenly. “Speak not to me of mercy where goblins are concerned, Nightbird. I’ll not suffer a goblin to live. Nor should you, who lived through the massacre of Dundalis, and through all the horrors since then.”

Nightbird looked down at the dead goblin. Juraviel was right about the wicked race, of course, though as soon as they had taken the goblin prisoner and demanded information, it somehow seemed to change things. Goblins were horrid things, evil and merciless. They lived to destroy, and would attack humans on sight—any humans, including… especially, children—as long as they believed they could win the fight. The ranger had never felt guilty about killing them, but if he had given this one his word that if it offered the information it would not be killed…

It was a perplexing thought, but one that would have to wait for another time, the ranger realized when he moved over to glance out the window beside the door. Juraviel hadn’t been lying; a large group of powries and other monsters was moving through the town, heading generally north. The ranger got the distinct impression they were searching for someone.

“What are you doing?” he asked the elf when he turned about to see Juraviel scampering about the barn, retrieving torches and their sconces.

Juraviel didn’t bother to answer. Using rope, he secured the sconces to a board, then put the board across a beam in line with the front window, laying the torches in loosely over a thick blanket of hay.

“A diversion for the way out,” the ranger reasoned.

“If indeed we come this way,” the elf added.

Nightbird only nodded and did not press the point, trusting in his friend. In a few moments they set out, going through the same hay window that had brought them into the barn, carefully closing the doors behind them. They crept to the front edge of the building and peered around. Many enemies were about, mostly powries, and most of these were carrying blazing torches.

“Not the most promising of situations,” the ranger offered, but he did see a way to get closer to the town center. Now, using the cat’s-eye, he led the way, moving to the side of another building, then cutting through a narrow alley between it and another. Around the next corner, they came upon a powrie.

Tempest slashed down, angling in from the shoulder, cutting deep into the side of the creature’s neck; Juraviel’s sword stabbed in under the bottom rib, slanting upward to steal the creature’s breath. Still, despite the coordinated and perfect attacks, the dwarf gave a stifled cry as it died.

The two companions exchanged nervous glances at the sound. “Move along, and quickly,” the elf bade his friend.

Stepping fast, the ranger was looking down more than up, searching for some bulkhead that would indicate a root cellar, while Juraviel skittered off to the side, trying to keep track of any nearby monsters. That was why the normally alert Nightbird was surprised indeed when he heard a voice above him.

“Looking for something?” it casually asked.

Up went the ranger’s eyes, up went his sword, but he halted the swing abruptly when he realized that it was no powrie, no goblin or giant talking, but a human, a skinny and short man reclining on the narrow ledge above a back door. The ranger quickly scanned the form, noting the wound on his leg, the scab and bruises on his face and on the one arm that was exposed. And yet, despite his obvious pain and the precarious, at best, perch, the man held himself easily, comfortably, with an air of confidence and ease. There could be only two answers to this riddle, and it seemed unlikely to the ranger that any human was in league with the powries.

“Roger Lockless, I presume,” Nightbird said quietly.

“I see that my reputation has spread wide indeed,” the man replied.

“We must be on the move,” a nervous Juraviel remarked, coming out of the shadows. One look at the elf, and Roger, eyes going wide and mouth dropping open, overbalanced and tumbled from the ledge. He would have hit the ground hard, but the ranger was there below him, catching him and easing him to his feet.

“What is that?” Roger gasped.

“Answers will wait,” the ranger replied sternly.

“We must be quick,” Juraviel explained. “The monsters tighten their perimeter about us. They are searching door-to-door.”

“They would not have caught me,” Roger said with all confidence.

“Many powries,” said the elf, “with torches to light the night as if it were day.”

“They would not have caught me,” Roger said again.

“They have giants to look on rooftops,” Juraviel added.

“They would not have caught me,” the unshakable thief repeated a third time, snapping his fingers in the air.

A baying split the night air.

“And they have dogs,” the ranger remarked.

“Oh, that,” said Roger, deflating fast. “Get me away from this cursed place!”

The three started back down the alley, but it became obvious that Roger could not move quickly, could hardly support himself. Nightbird was right beside him, hooking the man’s arm across his strong shoulder for support.

“Find me a walking stick,” Roger begged.

The ranger shook his head, realizing that a walking stick wouldn’t help much. He ducked low suddenly, pulling Roger’s arm farther across his shoulders and hoisting him across his back.

“Lead on,” the ranger bade Juraviel. “And with all speed.”

The elf skittered to a corner, peered around it, then ran off almost at once, sprinting to the next building, and then the next in line. They heard a shout, the resonating voice of a giant, and though they couldn’t be certain that the monster was even calling out about them, Juraviel, and then the ranger right behind him, broke into a dead run. The elf fitted an arrow to his bowstring as he went, and when they neared the barn, he slowed, took aim, and let fly, the arrow diving through the window beside the door, nocking hard into the loose board Juraviel had put in place and dropping the burning torches into the bed of hay. Before the three had even gone past the front corner of the barn, the light inside increased dramatically. Before they were out the other side, running along the fence of the corral, the flames burst through the front window and were licking through cracks in the roof.

They passed the corral and were soon into the woods, the ranger in front now and running with all speed, despite the man slung over his shoulder. They could hear the wild commotion back in Caer Tinella, powries, goblins, and giants running all about and calling out orders, most screaming for water, others for a chase of the escaping human. And then they heard, more pointedly, the howling of several hounds closing on their trail.

“Run in, straight to the others,” Juraviel instructed. “I will rid us of the troublesome dogs.”

“Not so easy a task,” Roger gasped as he bounced about.

“Not for one who has no wings,” the elf replied with a wink, though Roger’s balance was too precarious for him to notice.

Juraviel doubled back then, and the ranger ran on, disappearing into the forest night. The elf waited a moment, gauging the flight of his friend and the sound of the approaching dogs. He picked a tall and wide oak, the ground around it relatively free of brush. He scampered all about its base, making the scent thick, then used his wings to lift him to the lowest branch, carefully rubbing his smell on the bark all the way up. Then he ascended again to a new perch, and then again higher, and was halfway up when the leading hound reached the tree’s base. It sniffed and whimpered, then stood up with its forepaws on the trunk and howled excitedly.

Juraviel called down to it, taunting it, and then for good measure put an arrow into the ground right beside the hound.

More hounds arrived, sniffing and circling, taking up the call.

Up higher went the elf, to the very top of the tree, to branches that hardly supported even his lithe form. He paused a moment to revel in the view, all the dark treetops spread far and wide before him. And then, secure that these hounds would remain howling at the scented tree, Juraviel let his wings carry him to a tree farther on, a long flight for an elf. Still, as soon as he found his perch, Juraviel knew he couldn’t stop and rest, and so he flew off again to the next tree in line, and so on, until the calls of the hounds were far behind him. He came down then, needing to give his wings a rest, and scampered away on light feet through the forest night.

Later on, from the edges of the human camp, Juraviel saw that Elbryan and Roger had arrived safely. Many others were gathered about the pair, despite the late hour, listening to the tale of the rescue—or of the escape, to hear Roger tell it. Satisfied about a mission well done, Juraviel moved deeper into the forest, to the thick and soft boughs of a pine tree, and settled down for the night.

He was surprised when he awoke, before the dawn, to find that both Elbryan and Pony were already awake and gone from the camp.

The elf gave a smile, thinking that they needed some time alone with each other, a respite for lovers.

He wasn’t far from the truth, for Elbryan and Pony were indeed intimate that morning—but not in the way Juraviel imagined. They were out in a secret clearing, performingbi’nelle dasada.

That morning, and every morning thereafter, and each time they danced, Pony followed Nightbird’s movements a bit longer. It would be years before she could find his level of perfection, if ever, she knew, but she took heart, for each day brought improvement— each day her lunge went a bit faster and a bit farther, her aim a bit more sure.

As the days passed, the ranger noted a change in the dance, subtle but definite. At first he worried that taking Pony under his guidance was perverting this very special gift of the Touel’alfar, but then he realized that the shift, far from undesirable, was a wonderful thing. For each day, he and his companion grew a bit more in tune with each other, each sensing the other’s movements, learning to supplement and compliment every routine with the proper support.

Indeed their dance was beautiful, a sharing of heart and soul and, mostly, of trust.