The Final Storm (27 page)
Aidan’s quest to find Antoinette had been reduced to a headache-provoking game of trial and error. There were a dizzying number of twists and turns. He’d already had to double back three or four times to take passages that he’d missed in the unreliable torchlight.
Aidan had passed many cells but found them all empty, and his heart began to despair. But each time, just when he had reached the end of his hope, he heard the voice of his King.
“Seek what was lost.”
And each time, Aidan found a new passage heading up.
He took a deep breath and raced up the stairs. At the top, he ducked under a wooden archway and found himself staring up a long, dark hall. He passed the only torch and immediately had the feeling that he was not alone. But Aidan was not going to turn back. Brandishing Fury, he stalked up the hall. In the shadows at the end of the hall, every one of Aidan’s senses was on alert.
The Paragor Knight crept closer. Antoinette waited until he was practically right in front of her, then she had no choice but to pounce. She brought the Daughter of Light down with great force, aiming for his head. But by some miraculous effort, the enemy blocked her first strike. Undaunted, she unleashed a flurry of strikes, using her kakari-geiko attack to keep the enemy on the defensive.
The warrior backpedaled with measured steps, maintaining his balance and searching for an opening. Antoinette tried to keep up the pressure, but her arms were getting tired. She sensed motion from behind her.
Zabed! What is he doing out of our hiding spot?
Just that brief distraction, and the enemy loosed a savage, heavy blow that forced her sword downward. He tried to keep her sword near the floor, and Antoinette got the feeling that she was being set up. Instantly, she leaped backward, knocking Zabed back a few paces. She hoped he was okay, but at least the Paragor Knight hadn’t run her through!
The enemy grunted and pressed the attack. He had taken his sword in both hands and rained heavy strokes against her wearying defenses. She knew she was beaten. This was a superior foe.
And then it came—a thunderous blow that slammed the Daughter of Light to the ground. Even though she knew the enemy’s attack, his strength was too great and she had no place to leap away again. She could feel him holding her blade to the ground while drawing his sword back for the big thrust. And suddenly, like the shock of a fire alarm going off, a word appeared in her thoughts:
moulinet
.
“Aidan?!” she yelled.
The Paragor Knight thrust forward to kill, but pulled up short. “Antoinette?!”
K
ing’s Forest is very different from the Blackwood,” said Thrivenbard to the team of twelve assembled in Guard’s Keep the next morning. “But it is queer enough in its own right. While we will not contend with illgrets, wolvin, or the other foul things that were drawn by the will of the Seven Sleepers, there are other hazards. So we must be wary.”
“What kinds of hazards?” asked Locke, the youthful-looking Acacian Knight.
“Well, I have not ventured deep into the woods,” Thrivenbard reminded them. “But I have been far enough in to know that things grow very big there.”
“Perhaps you could define
big
,” said Sir Oswyn.
“The trees, for one thing,” Thrivenbard replied. “They do not have the beauty or the toughness of those in Nock’s Blackwood, but they are tall enough to scrape the sky! And once, while climbing one of these giants, I disturbed a moth the size of a kite!”
“Trees and moths do not seem such a threat,” said Sir Rogan. “Is that all there is?”
“Nay. It is what dwells in the trees and feeds upon the moths that I speak of,” Thrivenbard said. “Snakes—as long as serpents—with skin that changes hue and texture to match that of the limbs where they dwell. Big enough to lift a knight right out of his saddle, they are. And there may be other things in the depths of the forest . . . things worse.”
“Aw! It cannot be that bad!” said Boldoak, absently rubbing the scar on his cheek. “After all, Zabediel was just a scribe, and he survived.” This earned Boldoak a smattering of laughs from the other knights assembled there.
“Be that as it may,” Thrivenbard went on, “we must still be on our guard. And we cannot forget that Paragor’s forces could be in the woods as well.”
And at Thrivenbard’s command, the knights filed out of Guard’s Keep and marched swiftly to the dragon pens.
As Splinter spiraled up into the sky, Robby looked out over the city walls and saw a large caravan approaching Alleble from the north. He applied pressure to the dragon’s flank with his right knee. She responded by drifting over closer to Trenna’s white dragon.
“May I help you with something, Sir Knight?!” Trenna asked, smiling playfully.
“Uh, verily, you can!” Robby answered, trying to sound noble and heroic. “Perhaps you could tell me who are all those soldiers.”
“Those are Mallik’s kin!” she replied. “The mighty folk of the Blue Mountains! They come to fortify the walls of Alleble . . . thanks to your magnificent discovery!”
“Why, thank you for thy kind words, m’lady!” Robby said. Feeling awkward in trying to speak more Glimpse-like, Robby decided to stick to his own manner of speech, such as it was. Even so, Robby did not speak again to anyone until they reached King’s Forest. For with Alleble now behind them, the dragon riders made for the gap between the twin peaks of Pennath Ador.
Robby had traveled by plane before. He’d looked out the small windows inside the cabin and been amazed by the way the land below became a patchwork of greens and browns. But nothing could compare to the awesome grandeur of these immense mountains.
Beyond the mountains, Robby saw King’s Forest. It was more vast than he had imagined, and it sat upon a mountain itself. The dragon riders descended to the stony foothills just outside the forest, and Robby realized that the size of the trees had deceived him. They weren’t growing on another mountain—they were just that tall!
Some of their massive trunks were as wide as a house, and all were covered in huge scales of black and gray bark. They had sparse limbs that reached out like arms with bracelets of dangling moss and wide paws of ferny foliage.
After securing the dragons, Thrivenbard insisted that the knights fan out into a wide row. Then he led them into the forest. “This
is
very different from the Blackwood,” said Nock excitedly as he drew near to Robby. “Blackwood trees do not tolerate other vegetation in their midst. But this place is teeming with vegetation! Cedar, oak, fir, and dragonwood—incredible! And look down!”
By their feet were huge feathery ferns and massive patches of some kind of clover with large pink flowers.
“Sorrel,” Nock said. “Beautiful, is it not? Oh, how I would like to lie in it!”
Suddenly, Thrivenbard was beside Nock. “Master Nock,” he said, “we must all keep our focus on the task at hand. Do not allow your mind to wander.” And just like that, Thrivenbard was gone and back to the front line.
Weird, how he does that,
Robby thought.
In spite of Thriven’s warning, Robby spent much of the first hour enjoying the natural surroundings. How could he not? There were squirrels the size of dogs, and once Robby and Trenna climbed up on the trunk of a fallen giant and strolled for more than a hundred yards along its length.
The bright afternoon sun filtered down through the treetops and cast glorious golden light on the forest floor and gilded the broad leaves of many of the trees. But the search had turned up nothing. No sign of a village. No sign that anyone had come through the forest recently.
The demeanor of the group had changed markedly after such a long, uneventful walk through the forest. Jarak and Locke amused themselves by telling stories of their hunting exploits in the forests of Acacia. Robby spotted Nock pointing all over the place to a very bored-looking Boldoak. Sir Rogan spoke with Baldergrim and trailed just behind Robby. Even Thrivenbard, who had been so tense early on, had begun to relax a bit.
They came to a section of the forest where the ground cover was a bed of tan pine needles and dead leaves. “Do you notice anything strange?” Trenna asked.
“No,” Robby replied, yawning.
“A few moments ago, the wood was alive with sounds,” she replied, looking warily up into the treetops. “Now it is utterly silent.”
Robby listened. “Yeah, you’re right,” he said.
Trenna drew her sword.
From up ahead, Jarak suddenly knelt. He reached down into a patch of ferns and held up a strand of gray. “Master Thrivenbard!” he called. “What do you make of—”
He never finished his sentence. Branches snapped. A dark brown blur. And Jarak was gone, pulled into the greenery.
“Hold, servants of the King!” Thrivenbard yelled. “Do not move another step!”
But it was too late. Baldergrim vanished with a sudden grunt. Locke drew a long curved blade and raced in the direction Jarak had been taken.
“Look to the skies!” Trenna yelled.
“Nay, look to the ground!” Thrivenbard called back. He reached carefully down and parted some shrubs to see what was there. “There are strands of . . . of web strewn across this place!”
Robby froze in his tracks. He stared at it: a twisted strand of gray stretched tight beneath the ground cover. “I see it!” he yelled.
“I do not see anything!” Sir Rogan bellowed. He charged up to Robby’s side, but took one step too many. He stepped directly onto the web. Suddenly, from the brush in front of him, a brown night-mare shot forth—but Sir Rogan’s axe was at the ready. He swept the broad blade in front of him. They heard a shrill chirping screech, and black blood spattered Sir Rogan, Robby, and Trenna. There at Sir Rogan’s feet twitched a long, hairy, segmented limb of brown.
“Spiders!” Sir Rogan spat.
“Thrivenbard, what do we do?” Halberad cried out. “They have taken Jarak and Baldergrim!”
“The webs are a type of tripwire,” said Thrivenbard, almost to himself at first. “These spiders live beneath the ground, and they will have taken our knights alive. We must find the burrows without ourselves being caught!”
A bloodcurdling scream came from nearby. Turning, they expected to see another knight being taken away by one of the giant spiders. But to their horror and amazement, they saw a huge emerald-green snake withdrawing up into the treetops with Locke’s legs protruding from its massive diamond-shaped jaws. Serpents began to swing down from above, trying to yank knights violently from the ground.
“Defend yourselves!” Thrivenbard yelled. “There are enemies above and below!” Several snakes fell headless, thanks to Sir Rogan’s mighty axe. Another snake, this one with jagged golden brown scales, seemed to materialize from the trunk of one of the gigantic trees. It opened its jaws behind Valden.
“Look out!” Sir Oswyn cried. But the snake fell limp to the tree trunk—one of Nock’s black-shafted arrows embedded deep in its eye.
Valden waved to the archer and drew in a great draught of air. Then, like a dragon belching forth its fiery breath, he unleashed a deep, guttural yell that rang among the trees and made those nearby clutch their ears.
Valden continued screaming and began to run. A fanged yellow-green snake uncoiled from a tangle of similarly colored vines. It lunged for Valden, but he swung his two axes—one high and one low.
“TRY OUT MY FANGS, BEAST!!!” Valden yelled as his axes connected. The low blade cracked across the creature’s snout. The other gashed deeply behind the snake’s head. The serpent fell to the ground, and Valden pounced upon it—screaming and hacking until the creature was still.
Arbalests and bows sang out as archers fired volley after volley. Knights hacked at the descending snakes. Others ran and tried desperately to fend off the spiders.
Trenna ran toward a giant snake, but a sudden shadow came upon her. In the chaos around them, only Robby saw her whisked away into the forest depths.
Robby started off after her. Someone yelled, “Wait, Sir Robby!”— but Robby did not stop. He ran as fast as he could, ducking the strikes of several snakes, but when he got to where he thought the spider’s burrow should be, he was at a loss. “Where is it?!” he yelled. But it was to no avail. The spider was too clever, too well camouflaged. It and Trenna were seemingly gone without a trace.