The Dragonstone (21 page)

“My tiger told me,” answered Aiko.

Arin looked at Aiko closely and wondered if it were true. Was it indeed wild magic that had warned her, or was it merely instead Aiko’s heightened senses? Arin could not say…but in the end, she reflected, did it matter?

On the twentieth day of April they came to the stockaded village of Inge in the land of Aralan, where they spent that day and the next in the Ram’s Horn, resting, relaxing, and replenishing their depleted supplies.

They traded news and songs and were told “Somethin’ be afoot in th’ Mire, what wi’ droves o’ Rutches and such movin’ down from the Grimwall. Either that or somethin’ in th’ mountains be drivin’ them out.” What that something might be—either down in the Khalian Mire below or up in the Grimwall above—none could say. But whatever it was, it had to be bad, or so opined the elders.

The next day Arin and their band rode onward, passing through Stoneford, where the single family of that hamlet helped them across the spring-flooded river…for a small fee, of course.

Westerly they fared, ever westerly, along the southern flank of the Grimwall, following the old tradeway, riding through rain and occasional light flurries of snow as well as through lengthening sunny days as spring drew across the land. They forded rivers and streams, and passed through foothills and mountain spurs, and camped in thickets or in open rolling land. Now and again they stopped in villages or hamlets or towns and took rooms at an inn. At other times they stayed overnight with woodcutters or crofters or hunters. But always the next day or so they took up the trek westerly once more…until on the fourth day of June they came at last to the foot of Kaagor Pass where stood the Silverwood.

E
mbraced on the north and west and south by an enfolding arm of the Grimwall Mountains, and on the east by the trail leading upward into Kaagor Pass, there lies a woodland of silver birch and trembling aspen and splendid high pine. It is modest as Mithgarian forests go, measuring but some forty miles north to south and thirty east to west, yet it sits like a jewel in a cup, a small treasure to be cared for, cherished, loved. It is the Silverwood.

It has existed for unknown millennia, here in this sheltered mountain bowl. And in the year that Arin camped in these woods—1E9253—the Drimm had just begun delving the Drimmenholt called Kachar at the end of a vale of the Silverwood along its northwestern flank.

This fact would not be mentioned at all but for what was to come. For in the year 3E1602, some four thousand one hundred twenty-four years after Arin passed along its eastern flank, in a war between Drimm and humans, this Silverwood, this precious jewel, would be all but destroyed by raging Dragon fire.

H
ist,” cautioned Perin, cocking his head to one side. “What?” Biren stopped filling the canteens and looked at his brother.

“Hush,” admonished Perin. “Listen.”

They stood in the twilight silence of the Silverwood and from the north and west there came a faint tapping, nearly rhythmic, as of a hammer on stone.

“’Tis no bird, my brother,” said Biren after a while.

“Nor an animal,” added Perin.

“Delving?” asked Biren.

Perin frowned and listened as the gloaming deepened. “If so, ’tis far off.”

They finished filling the canteens, then stepped back to the campsite and told the others of the sound, and Arin looked at Aiko and asked, “What says thy tiger?”

Aiko shook her head. “She is silent, my Lady.”

“Come,” said Rissa, “I would hear this tapping.”

They walked away from the sounds of shifting horses and ponies, following the twins back to the nearby snowmelt pool, where they stood quietly and listened, but all they heard was the soft purl of a distant stream.

“Hmm,” mused Perin. “It is gone.”

“Vanished,” added Biren.

“Mayhap it was but sliding rock on the slopes,” said Melor, glancing up at the embracing Grimwall. “The spring melt bringing it down.”

“It seemed too measured,” protested Perin, “purposeful.”

“As of a hand at work,” agreed Biren.

Silverleaf turned to Rissa. “Is there Drimmenholt nigh,
chier
?”

Rissa shrugged. “None that I know, Vanidar, yet it is long since last I was here.”

“It could be
Spaunen
,” growled Ruar. “They teem in the Grimwalls.”

Again all eyes turned to Aiko, but she shrugged and said, “My tiger warns of no peril. If the
Kitanai Kazoku
are in these mountains, they are not at hand.”

“Nevertheless,” said Silverleaf, “I think we should build no fire this night…and our watch should be extra vigilant.”

Melor turned to Aiko. “Does thy tiger sleep?”

Aiko shook her head.

“Good.”

*   *   *

There was no moon in the darktide, not even a hair-thin crescent near dusk, and without a fire only the stars lighted the camp. But then the night turned chill and an overcast from the north drew entirely across the sky and not even starlight shone down. And so, even the Elves with their vaunted eyesight could see little in the resulting dark, and all the warders had to depend on their hearing as they each stood watch…all but Aiko, who on her turn listened to her tiger instead. Yet the night passed uneventfully, and no danger came through the blackness to threaten the camp.

Dawn found the Elves and Aiko breaking fast beneath lowering skies, the dark grey stretching from horizon to horizon. They ate in gloomy silence, none saying aught, but as they took their utensils down to the pool, again came the faint tapping from the distant northwest.

After listening awhile, “I deem it
is
delving,” said Vanidar Silverleaf, “yet whether Drimm or
Rûpt
, I cannot say.”

“Shall we go see?” asked Perin.

“Whatever for?” queried Biren.

Perin shrugged. “Mayhap it is important.”

“And mayhap not,” replied Biren.

Rissa glanced at Silverleaf. “I ween our separate missions are more urgent than discovering some Drimm delver or aught else hacking away at stone. And though I would rather accompany Dara Arin on her mission, to do
so risks failure of all. Hence, I say we have come to the parting of the ways: we to ride south and bear the words of Arin’s vision to Coron and DelfLord and King; she and the cat who fell from grace to ride north—and beyond—to discover the one-eye in dark water and all the others entangled in her words…and to find the Jaded Soul.”

Ruar growled deep in his throat and glanced across to Arin. “Would that I could ride with thee, Dara, yet to do so indeed risks all. I must agree with Dara Rissa—we have come to the parting of the ways.”

Arin looked into the eyes of each of her companions, and one by one they nodded. And so, ignoring the tapping, they washed their utensils and returned to the campsite, where they saddled the horses and tied on their gear. They evenly shared out the remainder of the supplies and laded them on the ponies, two of which were given over to Arin and Aiko.

Rissa turned to Arin. “Thou hast the map, neh?”

Arin patted the breast of her leather jacket. “Aye, Rissa, it is yet here.”

Silverleaf glanced to the north and west whence came the delving sounds. “Take care, Arin, for Ruar is right:
Spaunen
teem in the Grimwall, and thou and Aiko are about to pass through.”

Arin nodded and touched her sword and gestured at the bow tethered behind her saddle, and she waved a hand at Aiko’s weaponry, too. “Fear not, for we are prepared.”

One by one the Elves embraced Arin, and embraced Aiko as well, the Ryodoan’s eyes flying wide at this show of affection, though she embraced them back. Then, as a cold draught blew down from the heights above, all mounted up and with hails of “Fare ye well” and of “Go with Adon” they rode their separate ways—Arin and Aiko into the teeth of the chill wind, up the trail and north, the others south and down, the cold at their backs.

*   *   *

As they entered the pass, Aiko looked up at the steeps to the left and right and at the strait ahead. “I like this not, Lady Arin,” she growled. “It is a place of ambush.”

“What does thy tiger say?”

“Nothing…yet.”

On they rode and upward, beneath the leaden skies, the horses and trailing ponies maintaining a good pace. The pass itself was some twenty-one miles through, half upslope, half down, and they planned to cross in a single day, for even at this time of year the nights were frigid and the days chill and sudden snowstorms could still rage at these heights.

On they fared, up and up, toward the dismal sky. The way was narrow and stone-strewn, the walls sheer and high, with dark crannies looming left and right; Aiko’s gaze ever searched the gloomy depths, her weapons never far from hand. And still they went onward, at times riding, at times walking, at other times resting the steeds, or feeding them some grain, or watering them at pools of melt after breaking through a thin crust of ice. Yet always they stopped but briefly and soon took up the journey again, pressing ahead.

Now they came into an encloaking mist, where the clouds rode low as they drifted across the Grimwall, grey fog enveloping all. Vision was shortened, ten strides at best, and boulders lying in the slot ahead loomed dark and menacing. Steps were muffled on the mist-wet rock; iron-shod hooves seemed deadened though they trod on stone.

And onward pressed the pair.

Another mile they rode, and of a sudden, “Dara Arin,” hissed Aiko, riding behind, “my tiger whispers of danger.”

“Where away?”

“I cannot say,” replied Aiko. “Only that peril draws near.”

Arin stopped her horse—Aiko, too—the Dylvana stringing her bow and nocking an arrow. Then she took a deep breath and concentrated, and looked through the fog in her
special
way…and although the mist yet hampered her sight, she now seemed able to see perhaps twice as far.

Up the slot she looked, as well as behind and down, scanning the walls above as she searched. “I see nought,” she whispered.

Aiko, her swords in hand, remained silent.

Still they stood long moments more.

At last Arin asked, “Does it draw nearer?”

“No, Dara.”

“Then let us proceed…but at a walk.”

Slowly they began moving ahead and up, nearing the crest. Aiko spurred her horse forward to ride alongside Arin.

“The peril grows,” said the Ryodoan.

“Then the danger must lie to the fore,” muttered Arin, concentrating on her sight.

They came to the crest and started down, still trapped between crevice-raddled vertical walls rising fifty feet or more. And grey vapor swirled about.

Now the horses and ponies began to skit and shy, as if they, too, sensed an unseen menace. And a faint stench came through the dampening mist. They rode forward a few tens of yards, and the reek grew stronger, foul to the point of gagging.

“It is at hand,” hissed Aiko, but Arin still could not sight any hazard.

A pony squealed, and from behind there came a loud scrape. Arin whirled her horse ’round in time to see a monstrous form—Ruchlike but hulking and tall—lunge out from a great hole and hammer a massive fist into the neck of one of the small steeds, snapping its spine as if it were but a twig, while the other pony bleated and fled, only to be jerked up short by the rope tied to Arin’s saddle.

“Troll!” shouted Arin, as something spun upward through the mist to strike the huge Ogru in the eye.

“
RRRAAAAWWW!
” roared the Troll in agony, and Arin’s horse shied back and down, almost as if struck by a blow. And just as Aiko hurled another shiruken at the twelve-foot-high monster, her horse whirled and bolted and the bladed star merely clanged off the great Ogru’s stonelike hide. Caught off balance by the sudden move, Aiko was thrown, and she struck the ground hard but managed to roll to her feet, coming up with her swords in hand. And her horse, squealing in panic, tried to escape, but the dead pony roped to the saddle acted as a massive drag and the horse could not run.

Still the Troll howled in anguish, clutching at its pierced eye and trying to pluck the weapon out. Yowling and thrashing, it lurched between Aiko and Arin.

Arin knew that Aiko’s blades, keen as they were, would not cut through the creature’s hide, and without a second thought, the Dylvana leapt from her own skitting horse and moved in below the towering monster and took a fixed aim. And as the Troll bellowed in agony, Arin loosed an arrow upward, the shaft to flash into the brute’s gaping, yowling maw, punching through the soft inner flesh and driving up into the Ogru’s brain.

“
GHAAAA…!
” howled the monster, and then toppled backward to land with a thunderous crash, the nearly invincible creature dead, slain by nought but a five-bladed star and a steel-tipped wooden shaft.

*   *   *

Her heart yet hammering, Arin nocked another arrow and surveyed the surroundings with battle-wide eyes as Aiko cautiously edged a step at a time toward the monster, her swords at the ready, the warrior moving in to make certain the creature was dead. Finally she reached the Ogru’s side. After a moment, her swords yet at the ready, her flared gaze now surveying the field, she hissed, “It is dead.”

“I think there are no more,” declared Arin in a voice tight with tension. Even so, she did not lower her bow.

They listened long, their eyes wide and scanning, their air coming in short gasps. No other peril hove into view and all they heard was the sound of Aiko’s yet frightened horse clattering at the end of the rope tied to the slain pony. Of Arin’s horse and pony there was no sign, both having fled on down the pass, away from the hideous Troll.

“My tiger is silent,” hissed Aiko.

Arin took a deep breath and slowly let it out and then lowered her bow. After a moment Aiko sheathed her swords and stepped to the side and picked up the wicked-bladed throwing star, the one that had bounced off the Ogru’s stony hide. She turned to the Dylvana. “You should have fled, my Lady,” said the yellow warrior. “We both should have fled.” She gestured at the fallen Troll. “Such a
Hitokui-oni
cannot be defeated with ordinary weapons.”