The Wizard and the Warlord (The Wardstone Trilogy Book Three) (40 page)

Princess Telgra was clearly nervous. She seemed terrified about getting her memory back. Hyden didn’t worry too much about her. Dostin and Phen stayed close to her, and Corva was doing a good job of soothing her with words. Hyden could sense that the three beings who cared so much for her were all that was keeping her from drowning in anxiety.

Hyden wasn’t comfortable that they might have to kill the Gwag, but by all descriptions the creature was too dangerous to be tricked or trapped. An agile and exceptionally fast wolfish thing, it had survived the centuries. As recently as three years ago some guardians had used the outer part of the cavern for shelter and had seen it. According to Durge, a guardian assigned to aid them in their preparations, the infamous water that flowed warm from the depths of the earth had no effect on the giants. He said the water in the first fountain wasn’t poisonous to them either.

Hyden didn’t really care about the fountain’s power, beyond its ability to save Phen and Talon from the miserable condition in which they’d ended up. He was worried about the Gwag, though. If they killed the thing, the Leif Repline would sit unguarded from exploitation after they left. The powers contained in those waters were so great that, if the rumors were even half true, the place should be eternally protected from those with questionable intent. Hyden had spoken with King Aldar about it, but the king of the giants was still a groggy mess from the granite juice he’d drunk. Cade understood the predicament and promised to explain it to the king as soon as he was coherent. Cade told Hyden that the mountains themselves protected the Leif Repline. Giants could be posted if there was a real need for them. Cade's reasoning was hard to argue with, for he wouldn’t stay still to argue. It was all Cade could do to keep the queen from tossing Oarly in the dungeon under suspicion of poisoning her husband.

King Aldar’s chamberlain spent a whole afternoon teaching Hyden the commands of the teleportation rooms. Hyden would have to control the portal to get them where they were going and back. He hoped he had the inflections of the strange words remembered correctly. Since he’d retrieved the ring from Gerard in the Nethers, things like that were coming naturally to him. Spells he’d never heard of sometimes leapt to the forefront of his mind as if he’d known them forever. If he didn’t remember the words correctly, they would know shortly, and it would be too late to do anything about it.

Lieutenant Welch was flustered and scowling. They were already gathering in the teleportal. His men had a duty to protect the group, but with the heavy packs they were carrying, they could only grunt and groan.

“What if some mad trolls attack?” he pleaded with Hyden. “Or worse, an ice dragon. By the gods, I would have trouble drawing my blade, and my men couldn’t hit a barn with their arrows if they have to hurry and loose. These packs are cumbersome at best.”

“I’ve got my bow at the ready, Lieutenant,” Hyden proudly showed him the elven longbow Vaegon had given him. Corva gasped, seeing it for the first time for what it was. “If it will make you feel better,” Hyden went on, “I’ll have Phen carry that pack and we can have your sword at the ready, as well.”

The lieutenant nodded, unshouldered his pack, and then handed it to Phen. Phen took it, but smirked at Hyden. He didn’t dare complain, though. After all, these people were here to help him. Talon dind’t need them. The hawkling could have flown to the Lief Repline on his own.

“Why don’t you have Talon explore the cavern before we go in?” Phen suggested.

Hyden narrowed his eyebrows and shook his head at the boy. “You’ve been hanging around Oarly too long. You’re supposed to be coming up with creative ideas, not ones I thought of weeks ago.”

“I’m just worried, I guess,” Phen admitted. He said his body had grown used to feeling heavy and hard. He was concerned that when he drank from the fountain he might revert to his previous form and be grievously wounded where his hardened skin had been gouged. He pointed out the place on his shoulder where a chip was missing, as well. Hyden offered no advice, for he didn’t have any. Even though the weather didn’t have much of an effect on Phen, Hyden did make sure his young friend was wearing a heavy furred coat for this part of the quest. Once he was cured, the boy would have to stay warm. Spike had been riding in a big pocket that was sewn into the garment. The lyna despised the cold almost as much as Oarly. His prickly little head only peeked out occasionally.

“Worried or not, Phen, the time has come for us to go.” Hyden raised his voice over the murmur of the group and gave Cade a nod. “Everyone inside the rune circle, all of you now.”

The giant smiled. “The kingdom of Afdeon wishes that the gods grace your quest with naught but good fortune.”

“Thank you. If we are not heard from in ten days, send a search party,” Hyden said. “One or more of us will most likely survive even the worst of possibilities.”

“We pray that won’t be necessary,” Cade said, “but rest assured, it will be done if you don’t return on time.”

Hyden forced a smile. He had a feeling that this wasn’t going to be easy. “Give King Aldar my best, when he has recovered.”

Oarly sensed twenty eyes looking down at him and tried to become smaller than he already felt. A moment later, Hyden spoke a word. The air filled with static, and after a deep “whoomp!” that shook the fabric of reality around them, they were suddenly somewhere else.

A roughly chiseled version of the teleportation symbol was now beneath their booted feet, and unlike the smooth-floored chamber they’d just left, the ground here was gray and uneven. A bitter wind cut through their furs and whistled in the shallow recess in which they found themselves. They were in a scallop on an icy granite cliff, and even the layered clothes under the shagmar coats they wore couldn’t keep the frigid chill from finding them.

“B- b- b- bah!” Oarly blurted, then shrunk back into his furred hood and adjusted his pack.

“Let’s get moving.” Hyden nocked an arrow to his bowstring and took the lead. “Moving’ll keep us warm. Since you’ve got a blade and no pack to haul, Lieutenant, you take the rear.”

Lieutenant Welch nodded and drew his sword. He leaned it against the rock face and buttoned his coat over his scabbard. He put on some gloves he’d gotten from one of the giant page boys and took up an alert position at the rear of the procession.

The rocky ledge was wide enough for a small horse cart, but beyond its lip was a thousand-foot free fall into a jagged gorge. It wasn’t snowing at the moment, but the powerful wind carried granulated ice crystals that scoured the travelers. Ice and snow was piled in all the crevices along the way, making each step a slippery chore.

Around midday they found a shallow recess, similar to the one they’d appeared in. It wasn’t enclosed enough to hold warmth, but it was mostly out of the wind, so they were able to enjoy a meal in relative comfort.

It was harder starting again than it had been the first time. The harsh, bone-chilling climate seemed to sap the life right out of them. No one spoke. They couldn’t have heard each other over the wind anyway. Not one of them heard Lieutenant Welch’s muffled scream behind them. The man was snatched off of the trail by a huge rock troll that was hiding in a crevice. It wasn’t until a few hours later, when Hyden was debating making a camp in a narrow fissure, that they realized he was gone. The sudden alarm that swept over the group clinched the decision to make a camp. The fissure was out of the wind. While the group huddled around a couple of small everburn fires, Hyden, Jicks, and Phen looked for the lieutenant.

They searched into the night, using Phen’s orb spells and Talon’s superior vision, but they found nothing. There was no trace, not even a hint of what had happened. When they were finally forced to settle in and get warm, Jicks was in tears. Princess Telgra and Dostin both cried, as well. Hyden, Phen, and Oarly had lost several people close to them while warring and adventuring in the past. They were a little more hardened to such happenings. It was a sad affair, but it was part of the journey.

Hyden recalled his Uncle Condlin’s words, right after one of his cousins fell from the sacred nesting cliffs during the annual egg harvest. “Every gain has a price, and sometimes loss is the cost of that gain.”

Lieutenant Welch paid the price for Phen, Princess Telgra, and Talon to find healing.
At least Welch made the first payment,
Hyden thought to himself. He could tell by the look on Phen’s stoney face that the boy understood this, too. Talon knew, as well. The persistent hawkling was still out in the night, riding the icy winds in search of their lost companion.

By the look on the wild-eyed faces of both elves it was clear that they understood the magnitude of the loss, as well. Elves, Hyden knew, lived far longer than men and had a peculiar view of death. They cherished life, and the fact that the lieutenant had lost his helping one of them seemed to be weighing heavily. Sleep, for some of the group, was hard to come by.

The afternoon of the next day they came to the Leif Repline cavern. To everyone’s relief, it was no natural formation. The stonework was ancient, the opening worked into a perfect arch just big enough for a giant to walk under without stooping. A few icicles, as long as a man is tall, hung down into the entrance. With a marble-hard arm, Phen knocked them out of the way and ushered the others in out of the bitter wind.

Once inside it was obvious that, though much stone work had been done here, the cavern was indeed naturally formed. Talon cawed from overhead and winged off cautiously into the darkness. A few hundred feet into the gray tunnel the scree-covered cavern bottom became smoother. A semiflat carved floor led deeper into the mountain. Both Hyden and Phen cast their orb lights into existence so that each had a fist-sized glow of magical illumination hovering a few feet overhead.

“You can do that, too, my lady,” Corva told Princess Telgra. “Soon you’ll be yourself again.”

She gave a nervous laugh that was tinged with sadness. “You seem as if you can’t wait to get rid of this me for the other.”

“I hope the other you likes me as much as you do,” Phen said, saving Corva from an awkward response.

“I’m sure I will, Phen,” she chuckled dryly. “But I might not like the other you.” The last was said teasingly.

“Bah!” Oarly barked and shrugged off his pack. “We’re finally out of the fargin cold and safe underground. Do I have to listen to the banter of daft folk thrice my age?” He gave all of them a good, hard stare. “You can change a person’s skin, and you can erase some memories, but you can’t change the nature of who someone is.”

“That was profound, Oarly,” Phen said seriously. “That liquefied lotus bud you’ve been drinking seems to have unclouded your head.”

“Bah!” Oarly barked again. He pulled a little flask from inside his coat and took a long pull. Then he unbuckled his battle axe and started off ahead of Phen, letting the boy’s orb light his path.

“He’s right,” Hyden observed from behind them. He’d had the archers and Jicks put down their gear and ready their weapons. Jicks was moving to the front of the procession near Oarly, as Hyden indicated for him to do.

“It does make sense,” Phen said. “We are who we are.”

“It’s kind of warm in here,” observed Hyden randomly. “Let Jicks and Oarly take the lead. If something attacks, those in the middle drop down so that we can loose our arrows over you. This passage is tall and there might be openings up high, as well as low. Keep an eye out for pitfalls, Oarly.”

Corva let his pack drop to the floor and drew his longsword. He told Dostin to lose his burden and be ready with his staff. The monk nodded, his face a mask of silent fear.

“There will probably be nothing until after the poisoned fountain,” Phen said knowingly. “Up ahead it will open into that chamber. There’s no mention of branching tunnels or halls.”

“Old caverns crack and shift, lad,” Oarly said, using his jeweled axe to point at just such a fracture, which was big enough for a man to squeeze into. “A thin wall might have crumbled through, or such, since then.”

“Aye.” Phen nodded and prepared a spell, up until its final command word.

No more than a thousand feet from where the cavern bottom turned to carven floor, the passage opened into a beautifully detailed room with a ceiling done in a pattern that resembled a woven reed basket. In the center of the floor was a wonderful triple-level fountain. The water flowing through it was burbling and tinkling away. There was a pyramid formed of life-sized stone mermaids spouting crystal clear water from their pursed lips. They looked to be frolicking inside a rippling, knee-high walled pool. An ancient mound of bones sat amid a pile of rotted clothes against the retainer wall. It had been there so long that some of the bones had begun to crumble. Beyond the fountain, the passage continued into the darkness. Out of the shaft, Talon came fluttering in and landed on Hyden’s shoulder excitedly.

“Not this one, Talon,” Hyden said. “Fly ahead and once your eyes adjust, see if you can find another fountain, or anything else.” The hawkling cooed his understanding and took back to the air.

“I doubt it needs to be said, but no one drink the water here. Jicks, you and the boys go fetch our packs while we set up camp. We will explore deeper into the passage after we have gotten out of these heavy clothes.”

Jicks had Phen light a torch with his fire finger then led the two archers back up the tunnel for their gear.

No sooner had they gotten out of earshot than Talon come shrieking back into the chamber. Hyden felt his familiar’s alarm flashing in his brain and saw the reflection of firelight in a distant pair of big, glassy eyes. He was about to warn the others, but it wasn’t necessary. The long, low rumbling of an angry growl filled the chamber.

Oarly started toward the dark opening from where the sound was originating. Corva left Princess Telgra with Phen, and he and Hyden both hurried to the dwarf’s side. Hyden nocked his bow as Talon flew past them and wisely landed on Phen’s shoulder.

Spike jumped from Phen’s pocket when the Gwag growled again. The lyna cat hunched its back and hissed at the sound, then scampered off toward it.