The tressym dived from the sky, howling a challenge. Brilliant wings flashing, it hurled itself straight at the spider closest to Leifander and Larajin-then swerved at the last moment, just out of reach. Legs bunched and the spider leaped, trying for this new prey. The tressym, however, was too swift for it. The spider fell back to the ground, venom dripping from its mouth.
The distraction was only momentary, but it was enough. Larajin’s hand slid down Leifander’s arm, toward his hand.
“Sune and Hanali Celanil, lend me a little of the water of Evergold-add your holy waters to my brother’s storm!” she shouted.
A rush of energy flowed through Leifander and pulsed from his fingertips. His hand again blurred and seemed to fuse with Larajin’s. A spray of rain erupted from their fingers.
The rain, blown horizontally by the wind, shimmered with a golden glow. It struck the closest spider as it was preparing to leap, pitting its hairy flesh like sling stones. Chattering with rage and pain, the spider turned and tried to run but only managed a step or two before collapsing into a tangled heap of broken legs.
With the closest spider down, Leifander was able to direct his magical wind full force at the remaining three. He drove the magical rain at them, and as it struck it created sizzling pits in their flesh. The spiders cowered, trying to protect their heads by lowering them to the ground-then as one they turned and bolted. Blown by the wind at their backs, they skidded down the trail, chattering in terror as they tried to outrun the deadly rain. They made it no more than a few dozen paces, however, before crumpling to the ground like the first. There they seemed to melt, like lumps of dark clay in the rain. Still the shimmering drops, blown by the relentless magic wind, drove into them.
When nothing was left but a few scraps of hair and broken bits of leg, Larajin let go of Leifander’s hand, and the spells ceased. Her eyes closed in relief, and she whispered a prayer of thanks to her goddesses.
Leifander echoed it. “Our spells…” he said slowly, nodding down at the little that remained of the spider that had fallen closest to them. “They shouldn’t have been able to do that.”
Larajin gave him an exhausted smile. “Not on their own, but together …”
He nodded, understanding. “The gods joined forces-through us-just as Hanali Celanil and Sune come together in you to augment your magic.”
He closed his eyes for a moment and offered a contrite word of thanks-not just to the Winged Mother, but to Larajin’s goddesses as well-for this twist of fate. Thanks to Larajin’s stubbornness, they’d come close to being killed, but as a result, he had learned an amazing truth. Their spells, when joined, could be as powerful as those of the mightiest cleric.
It was something worth thinking about.
But first, there was the matter of the man in the tree to deal with. Larajin was already hurrying through the woods toward him, feet slipping on the rotted vegetation underfoot. Leifander jogged after her, and as he drew nearer to the oak tree, he got a better look at the man hanging from it.
The fellow was in his early twenties-fully adult, when measured in terms of the human life span-and had a handsome face. His jaw, framed by a thin line of neatly trimmed beard, hung slack, and his eyes were closed.
Was he a friend that Larajin knew from Selgaunt, perhaps? He was certainly dressed like a Sembian, in a doublet of blue and purple, dark blue hose, and what remained of a lace-collared shirt, its sleeves torn off at the shoulders. One of the sleeves had been tied around his arm in a makeshift bandage that was dark with dried blood.
As he drew closer to the oak, Leifander could see that the fellow was indeed breathing. Eyes roved beneath the closed lids, as if he were dreaming. Not unconscious, then, but the victim of some sort of spell.
Goldheart, having followed Larajin and Leifander, landed on a branch just above the sleeping man. With catlike curiosity, she stalked along the branch, sniffed him, then pawed at his cheek. When he did not respond, she settled back onto her haunches, considered a moment, then began to groom herself, as if she’d lost all interest in the fellow.
Leifander, however, remained curious. The magic that had induced the man’s slumber must have been powerful. Either the person who had left him hanging on the tree-or someone who had come along the trail later, after the blight had revealed the spot where he hung-had stripped the fellow of his valuables without managing to wake him. A scabbed-over crease in his earlobe showed that an earring had been torn from it, and the little finger of his left hand was twisted at an odd angle and swollen to twice its size, as if someone had wrenched a ring from it.
As Larajin reached up to grab the man’s legs and lift him down, Leifander saw clumps of loose earth around the base of the tree, partially hidden by the blighted vegetation. Suddenly he realized the oak’s significance.
“Don’t!” Leifander shouted. He leaped forward and knocked Larajin’s arms down. “You’ll be caught up in the spell.”
Irritation smoldered in Larajin’s eyes. “It’s only a sleep spell,” she said. “It doesn’t rub off on other people.”
“It will if you touch the tree.”
Larajin gestured up at the tressym. “It didn’t affect Goldheart.”
“Of course it didn’t,” Leifander answered, exasperated at Larajin for missing a simple explanation. “She’s a magical creature.”
Leifander pointed up at the trunk of the oak, just above the spot where Dray hung.
“Do you see that?”
Larajin squinted. “Those scratches in the bark?”
“Yes. It’s a warning, in Espruar. This is holy ground. An elf lies buried beneath that oak. This man,” he pointed up at Dray, “must have been trying to loot the grave. He triggered the ward on the tree, and the elves probably hung him on it as an example. If either of us touches the tree, the magic of that ward will send us into a magical slumber. We’ll be as helpless as babes.”
“I thought elves were immune to magical slumber,” Larajin said.
“We’re half-elves,” Leifander reminded her. “We may resist the magic-or we may not. Do you really want to take that gamble?”
Larajin considered for a moment, then shook her head. “I can’t believe that Dray was trying to rob this grave,” she said. “He’s a Foxmantle-a wealthy Sembian merchant who led the caravan that I traveled north with. He has no need to stoop to tomb robbing. In fact, when some sellswords he hired to protect his caravan turned out to be brigands and looted an elven tomb, Dray ordered them to stop. He’s a decent man.”
Leifander glanced down at the disturbed ground, then up at the sleeping man, and asked, “Then what happened here?”
“I don’t know,” Larajin answered, “but Dray might. Let’s wake him up and find out. Will you help me lift him down-carefully, so we don’t touch the tree?”
Leifander nodded, and together they grasped Dray by his legs and eased him off the branch he’d been hanging from. They carried him a short distance through the woods, away from the area blighted by the mist, and laid him on clean ground. After a few moments, he began to stir. His eyes opened, and he stared up at them-then he sat up quickly and looked wildly about, as if expecting something to jump out from behind a tree at any moment.
“What’s happened?” he gasped. “Where’s Klarsh?”
Larajin seemed to recognize the name. “He’s not here,” she told Dray.
She explained how they’d found him hanging in a tree-alone. Leifander added his own observation: the rotted vegetation that surrounded the oak had been devoid of footprints. Whoever had left Dray in the tree had done so before the mist drifted into that part of the forest.
“How long have I been here?” Dray asked. “What day is it, Thazienne?”