“How did they travel to Lirithriel Wood?” he asked.
“What do you mean?”
He controlled his impatience. “I mean just what I said. Did they travel across this Other land, or did they travel on the other side, on Earth? Why did you host them in the Wood and not here?”
“They traveled here,” Calondir said briefly. “And I had them brought over the crossover passageway to Lirithriel Wood. With your mate’s impending visit, I didn’t want to step out of sync with the time on Earth.”
Just then a fresh gust of wind from the other side of the trees gusted in Dragos’ face. It brought with it the smell of more wood smoke, and Elves.
A lot of Elves.
He sped up until he loped, sensing the gryphons pick up their pace behind them. “What is it?” Calondir demanded.
“Trouble.”
He broke through the other side of the tree line and skidded to a halt at the edge of land. To his left, the path took an abrupt turn to follow the edge of a bluff up to the smoking ruins of what must have once been a long, gracious building at the top of a cliff.
The path along the bluff and the ruined building looked over a wide, snowy valley that would probably be beautiful in the springtime.
At the moment the valley was filled with an army.
Calondir whispered a shaken curse.
Dragos walked to the edge of the bluff and crouched like an enormous cat, gripping the rocks tight with his talons as he stared down at the thousands of Elves. Warriors and non-warriors. Men, women. Children. Some were better dressed than others. Some were barefoot in the snow. All of them looked ill fed. His snout wrinkled as he smelled the rarest of oddities for Elves—disease.
As he had reached the edge, all the Elves in the valley turned to look up at him.
All of them, all at the same time. Every single one of them cocked his or her head at exactly the same angle, in exactly the same way. His sharp raptor’s gaze moved from blank face to blank face.
Wyr came up on either side of him, gryphons and the pegasus and the harpy, then other Wyr along with Elves. They stared down in silence.
The dragon chuckled. The low, bitter sound reverberated in the rock of the bluff on which he stood, and several Elves drew away from him in dismay.
“I think we just found the answer to one of my other questions,” Dragos said. “What happened to all the Elves in Numenlaur?”
FIFTEEN
Every Elf in the valley smiled.
Dragos felt the Power of the God Machine pulse to life.
Shouts and screams came from behind him. Fuck. He whirled and lunged back through the trees, knocking people and horses aside in his rush to find Pia. Both Elves and Wyr dodged to get out of his way, horses plunging headlong off the path, while even more ran toward him from the direction of the passageway. He ignored all of them, looking for Pia and her bodyguards.
He saw a tower of flames through the trees.
Where was she?
In the next moment he saw her running toward him, surrounded by her guards, as she looked back over her shoulder at the blazing fire. He slowed to a stop, breathing hard, and waited for her to notice him.
She was the last of her group to do, looking away finally to discover him blocking the path. She skidded to a halt a few yards away.
Somehow Calondir had managed to avoid being dislodged from his back. Now the Elf Lord leaped to the ground and raced back toward the passageway, along with several others. Dragos twitched his shoulders, glad to have Calondir’s insignificant yet extremely annoying weight off of him.
“You,” he said to Pia. “Forget everything I said about hanging back.” She squeaked with surprise as he plucked her unceremoniously off the ground. He raised her up and held her to his shoulder until he felt her scramble onto him and perch at the base of his neck.
“All right,” she muttered. “But I’m not riding like this if you’re going to fly.”
“Just stay put for now,” he snapped. He looked down at her unit, three in canine form and three in human form, plus apparently Pia had managed to add the Elf girl with the blue hair to her collection. All seven stared up at him. “I don’t know,” he told them, answering their unspoken questions. “Figure out something to do with yourselves for now and get the hell out of my way.”
They scrambled to either side of him, and he strode after Calondir and the others.
This time the trees weren’t burning. The stone itself in the passageway was on fire, fueled by the Power in the God Machine. The flames roared thirty feet tall, and they threw off a ferocious heat. Of course the heat didn’t bother him any more than the cold did, but mindful of Pia riding on his back, he took care to get no closer than Calondir and the others had.
Pia and her group had done just what he had told them to do. They had crossed over in the middle of the warriors.
It was a good thing they had. Those Wyr and the Elves who had been the last to cross over had been carried off to one side and were being triaged. Several suffered from burns. A few of them were severely injured and still screaming.
He sensed Pia’s intention to go help those who were injured as she lifted one leg to sit sideways on him, preparatory to sliding down the outside of his front leg.
“No,” he said to her.
But I can help them, she said. She didn’t try to jump to the ground, although her telepathic voice throbbed with unhappiness.
You said you were prepared for how ugly this could get, he said ruthlessly. Well, the ugliness has started. There will be too many people for you to help. There already are. Not only would you expose yourself but you would spread yourself too thin.
Her breathing hitched, but after a moment she shifted back in place astride him.
Calondir approached. The Elf Lord looked incandescent with fury. He asked, “Can you put this fire out too?”
Dragos lowered his eyelids as he probed the magical blaze curiously. It was more resistant to him than the forest fire had been. “Probably,” he said at last. “But I’m not going to waste time and energy doing it. Gaeleval wants to trap us on this side. Well, so be it. We don’t want to leave. In the meantime, he has an entire army he has to control, and this fire is taking up more of his Power and concentration. There is a limit to what he can do. I say we help him reach it.”
Calondir’s chest moved as he sucked in a deep breath. The Elf glanced at the wounded, his face tight. He said between teeth, “Very well. Just see what you can do to keep something like this from happening again.”
“You are mistaken about the purpose of my presence,” said Dragos. “I am not here to do what you tell me to do, nor am I here to defend you. I’m here to attack him.”
“Dragos,” murmured Pia.
He twisted his head around so that he could scowl at her. She said nothing, just gave him a steady look.
He bared his teeth and growled at the High Lord, “But I’ll see what I can do.”
He had his sufferance rewarded, as she patted and stroked his neck. Calming down, he supposed it hadn’t cost him all that much to promise to do what he could.
The temperature plummeted as the day began to fade.
Pia’s armor had kept her comfortable earlier. After the sun set, she was constantly on the tense side of a shiver, and as a result, her muscles were tired and achy.
Dragos had relaxed enough to let her get down off his back. He set the Wyr to setting up camp around the magical blaze, which continued to burn steadily, the stone of the passageway glowing bright red.
“It’s going to get cold tonight,” he told them. “And Calondir’s home on this side of the passage has been destroyed as well. We should take advantage of the warmth Gaeleval is giving us. Besides, if we’re not going to engage him right away, I’d better stay close so I can keep an eye on this and make sure it doesn’t spread.”