They fell silent, and the sputtering fire reigned once more as each dwelled on private thoughts.
“Bellimar,” Halthak said at last with a stifled yawn, “I must admit two things. First, you are indeed a captivating storyteller. Second, you may have found the way to prevent me from sleeping tonight, despite my fatigue.”
The old man laughed and leaned forward into the ring of light, his face appearing rosy flushed. “No bard could ask for a more rapt audience. Do not let some dusty old fable thwart your sleep, healer, for I suspect tonight we enjoy the calm before the storm.”
Amric nodded agreement, studying Bellimar for a long moment before stretching out on his bedroll. He had a few hours to rest before he would relieve Valkarr to take his turn at watch.
Twice when drifting into slumber did he start awake, banishing the wisps of a striking image: a dark and terrible warrior-sorcerer astride a towering nightmare steed, flaming hooves pounding a battlefield thick with twisted corpses as the rider wove foul, colossal magics against his foes. Each time the black horned helm turned toward him and blazing crimson orbs fix upon him, draining his will and drawing him in…. And then his eyes would flare open to find his companions lying undisturbed in the dank cave, their breathing deep and even, as the fire sank to embers. When sleep claimed him at last, it was with one hand curled about his sword hilt.
CHAPTER 6
Amric and company followed the road into the forest as the morning sun crowned the trees with gold. A dark and verdant world closed about them. Mammoth, ancient trees towered above the thick brush and entwined their branches hundreds of feet overhead. Sunlight spilled through that high canopy, dappling the road before the riders. Taut as a bowstring, Amric rode ahead on his bay gelding. The feeling of being watched had been with him since they left the cave in the pre-dawn hour, like a nagging itch between his shoulder blades. It faded from him now, as the foliage walled off the plains behind them, to be replaced by a pervasive sense of wrongness. To be sure, a myriad of expected noises enveloped them, the buzz of countless insects and the incessant chatter of birds. The warrior saw no signs of land-bound creatures, however; no movement or recent tracks from vermin or game or natural predator, and the voices of the birds echoed down from high overhead. Nothing dares approach the ground, he realized.
Amric cast a backward glance over his shoulder. A short distance behind him rode Halthak and Bellimar, the former appearing to breathe only when he could avoid it no longer, and the latter with a languid air of curiosity. Valkarr brought up the rear of the procession on his blue dun, scanning to either side and behind them. His black eyes met Amric’s, and the Sil’ath’s expression made it plain that he felt something amiss as well. Facing forward once more, Amric opened his senses to his surroundings, letting the forest whisper its secrets to him. This was his element, and even corrupted as it was, he could read the woods like the worn pages of a familiar book. Moving at a guarded pace, they rode on, following the road as it curved deeper into the wilderness.
It was mid-morning when they came upon a fork in the road. One branch headed eastward and became little more than a trail, so much did the undergrowth encroach upon it. The other branch veered more southward and was as broad as the road in had been, with deep ruts from wagon wheels. Amric consulted the maps given them by Morland, and found that the southern fork led to one of his mines, which explained the higher traffic and the furrows from carts heavily laden with minerals. The mine was a short ride from the fork, according to the map, and Amric led them down that path. Their destination was down the other path, but the detour would cost them little time, and this many weeks later there was no way to tell from the marred surface of the road where the Sil’ath party might have explored and become detained. Or, came the thought before Amric could quell it, if they had even made it this far.
The mine road clove into the forest, arcing further southward for a time until the ground grew rockier and the vegetation began to thin. The path crested a rise, wound around a ridge of boulders jutting upward like the massive knuckles of some behemoth, and then fell away into a large basin. Amric drew rein before the apex of the road, dismounted and tied his horse to a low branch. The others did the same, and then followed him as he left the road. A few quick leaps from boulder to boulder carried him high enough to peer down over the ridgeline without exposing more than the top of his head to the other side. Valkarr followed on his heels, his movements just as nimble, and Halthak and Bellimar joined them both moments later. Together, they studied the scene below.
The clearing was a great bowl in the earth, devoid of any vegetation beyond scattered patches of dry scrub grass, declining gradually on this side and rising more abruptly on the far side into the foothills of the mountain range. The trees parted around this cleft in the earth, standing like silent sentinels on its lip in disapproval of the mortal intrusion here. As a result, the basin was bathed in sunlight, which only made the yawning mine entrance blacker by contrast. The entry was set into the hillside and framed by stout timbers, twice the height of a tall man and forty paces across. Four sets of cart tracks ran into the maw and were swallowed by darkness within a few paces. There were no carts in sight, though there were scattered pieces of broken equipment such as picks and helmets strewn about.
“It is shelter at least,” Halthak said. “We could camp here on the return trip.”
“I think not,” Amric replied. “Look into the shadows within the mine entrance.”
Halthak squinted into the distance, and shook his head. “I see nothing.”
“Look at the wall at the edge of the light, just past the second timber brace. Be patient and let your eyes adjust.”
Amric waited while Halthak stared and strained. Dust motes danced and swirled in the shafts of sunlight before the entrance, and, coupled with the deep shadows behind, did much to mask the interior detail. The longer one looked on, however, the more a portion of the movement seemed incongruous with the idle play of the breeze, and the more evident it became that there was motion on the walls inside the mine. Amric looked aside, watching Halthak’s expression, and he knew the moment of recognition because the healer blanched and his eyes bulged.
“What are they?” the Half-Ork whispered.
“Varkhuls. A great many of them,” Amric said, quirking a smile at Bellimar as he echoed the old man’s words from the previous morning.
“Indeed,” said Bellimar. “They are not harmed by sunlight, but they loathe it and become disoriented and half-blind by it. That man-made cave is a perfect abode for them, and there is no way of knowing how many are in that deep network of tunnels, or how fast they are multiplying. Come nightfall, it will be like kicking a nest of hornets; they will issue forth from the mine and carpet the vicinity, seeking prey.”
Amric nodded. “Agreed, and given the scarcity of local quarry, we should put a good distance between ourselves and this location before then. Let us be gone from here.”
Stealing back to the horses, the mounted up in silence and rode back up the mine road.
Outside the forest, a lone rider approached the cave in the foothills where Amric and his companions had camped the night before. Halting at the foot of the trail that led uphill to the cave, the rider gazed in that direction for a long moment, then downward at the tracks on the road, and finally to where the road pierced the forest in the distance and disappeared. Turning back to the cave, the rider reached up and released the veil that exposed only the eyes, and swept back the traveling cloak’s hood. Auburn hair tumbled free to be tugged by the breeze, and the rider drew deep, unhindered breaths as she scented the air. An unadorned silver circlet sat upon her brow and tamed her mane of hair over fierce green eyes. Swinging one leg around, the rider dropped lightly to the ground, using one hand to steady the long quiver bristling with arrows slung across her back. From a sheath tied to the saddle, she slid a recurve bow nearly as tall as she. She braced it against the ground and strung it in one deft motion. With a whispered word to the black mare, she draped the reins over the saddle horn and ascended the trail.