Lirra shook her head to clear her mind of the images. Stop that!
A starling perched on a nearby tree branch sang a few notes, and before Lirra could react, the tentacle whip unwrapped from around her wrist and lashed out at the bird. The symbiont’s barbed tip speared the starling through the breast, and the animal was dead long before it hit the ground.
The whip retracted slowly and wrapped itself around her forearm with an insolent laziness. Lirra had to resist the urge to smack it, as if it were a dog that had just misbehaved.
“Target practice?” Ranja asked.
“Something like that,” Lirra muttered.
The two women rode in the front of the Outguard, along with Osten, who had not left her side since Vaddon had appointed him to be her official watchdog. Longstrider and Shatterfist walked behind them, the indefatigable warforged needing no mounts upon which to travel-not that any horse could carry their weight. Vaddon and Ksana came after the constructs, with the rest of the Outguard following behind. Their ranks had expanded considerably in Geirrid, thanks to Rol Amark, who had allowed Vaddon to conscript half of his garrison soldiers. Vaddon had tried to persuade the man to allow him to have the entire garrison, but Rol had refused, saying he needed to keep some soldiers in town in case Elidyr and his monsters attacked Geirrid again.
Lirra didn’t blame him, but it meant that the Outguard had only sixty or so members. A decent-sized force under other circumstances, perhaps, but Lirra feared it wouldn’t be enough, not against Elidyr and the sort of creatures he could create. But it was all they had, so it would have to suffice.
One detriment to having such a large party was that it slowed their progress through the forest. The Nightwood was old, full of large, ancient trees growing close together, and while hunters and explorers had forged paths through the forest over the years, Ranja claimed this was the route that Elidyr, Sinnoch, and Rhedyn had taken, and so the sixty members of the Outguard made their way through the dense forest as best they could. One good thing about traveling with so many people was that it would discourage all but the largest and fiercest of predators, and so far their journey through the Nightwood had been without incident. But that didn’t mean any of them were complacent. Every man and woman kept close watch on the surrounding woods as they passed, alert for the slightest hint of movement. A number of soldiers rode with crossbows resting on their laps, bolts loaded and ready to loose at the first sign of trouble. Others kept one hand on their horses’ reins, the other never far from their swords. They all knew that Elidyr was far from the only monster inhabiting the forest that day.
Osten was one of those holding a crossbow, and he continually swept his gaze back and forth as they rode. Occasionally he’d give Ranja a sidelong glance, frowning slightly. He’d said less than a dozen words to the shifter since they’d left Geirrid, and it was clear to Lirra that he didn’t approve of the woman. Lirra might almost have thought Osten was jealous, that he viewed Ranja as a rival of sorts as it was his assigned task to be Lirra’s nursemaid. The thought was ridiculous, but she couldn’t shake it. For her part, Ranja seemed to delight in talking as often as possible to irritate the young warrior, a result she accomplished all too easily.
Osten glanced at Ranja again, and this time the shifter flashed him a smile that was a touch more feral than usual.
“See something you like, big boy? You know what they say about shifter women …”
Osten’s cheeks turned bright red. “No, I don’t, and I’d prefer you don’t enlighten me!” he snapped.
Ranja laughed and gave him a wink, but she said nothing more. Osten glared at her one more time before turning to Lirra.
“How are you doing?” he asked.
He didn’t need to make the question more specific. Lirra knew what he meant. He’d seen the tentacle whip kill the starling.
“The symbiont is getting a bit restless, but it’s nothing I can’t handle.” She kept her tone light, in hopes of reassuring Osten, but in truth she was starting to become concerned. When the Outguard had first set out for the Nightwood, she’d thought the quiet routine of travel would relax her and help to keep her calm, which in turn would make it easier for her to control the tentacle whip. But instead the opposite had happened. The monotony of sitting in the saddle hour after hour had worn down her nerves to the point where she thought she might scream if something didn’t happen soon. When Vaddon had talked with her at the garrison barracks in Geirrid, he’d wondered aloud how much she’d been changed by hosting a symbiont. It seemed she’d been changed in ways both great and small. It was important she came to understand those changes, for the symbiont would attempt to exploit any weakness to slip past her guard and wrest control from her. And that was something she couldn’t let happen, not even for an instant. For if she did, there was a good chance her mind, her spirit, her very self, would be lost forever.
It hadn’t helped any that her mount, a piebald mare, was skittish about having a rider with a symbiont sitting in the saddle. Elidyr, Sinnoch, and Rhedyn had taken the mounts that had been enchanted to tolerate the presence of aberrations when they’d fled from Geirrid, and Lirra had been forced to make due with one of the horses from the garrison stable. Since Geirrid was surrounded by farms, the town had a number of animal handlers who could lay spells on cattle and horses to make them more tractable, and the garrison stable-master was skilled at such spellcraft. Unfortunately, he’d never had to enchant a horse to carry a rider fused with an aberration before, and while the mare tolerated Lirra’s presence, Lirra had to constantly pay attention to her mount to make sure she didn’t spook. Two days of babying her horse had worn Lirra down even further.
She sat up straight in the saddle and forced herself to take several deep, even breaths to calm herself before turning to Ranja.
“How are we faring?” she asked.
In response, Ranja raised her chin and sniffed the air. “Still on track. The scent’s good and strong, as well it should be considering that the three we’re tracking are all aberrations of one sort or another.” She wrinkled her nose. “They reek. Even if a strong rain came along, I doubt it would be enough to dampen their scent trail. How about you? Sense anything yet?”
Lirra concentrated. She felt a slight tingle at the base of her skull, and a cold flutter deep in her stomach, but neither sensation lasted more than an instant. “I’m not certain. Right now, I’d say your nose is a lot more reliable.”
Behind them, Shatterfist called out. “Speaking of noses, have you heard this one? One gnome walks up to another gnome and says, ‘My dog has no nose.’ The second gnome asks, ‘Then how does he smell?’ And the first gnome answers, ‘Terrible!’ ”
Lirra groaned. She almost wished some unspeakable horror would come shrieking out of the woods and tear her to shreds. At least then she wouldn’t have to listen to any more of Shatter-fist’s awful jokes. She wondered if she could convince her father that the warforged were still too close to Ranja and were interfering with her tracking. Perhaps then he’d move them farther back in the-
Tingling erupted at the base of her skull, and her gut twisted with sudden nausea as intense as when she’d sensed Elidyr’s white-eyes in Geirrid. More so, in fact, and she knew that couldn’t be good.
She raised her hand to call for a sudden halt. Vaddon saw her signal and commanded the Outguard to stop. He rode forward, Ksana riding at his side, until both of their mounts were at the front of the party with Lirra, Ranja, and Osten.