“Like that—whatever it was that held the elf lord?”
He nodded. “That and others. Some are very subtle. Not all evil desires immediate dominion. The foul weaver of webs—I will not name her—” he glanced at Paks. She shuddered and nodded vigorously. She did not want to hear that name aloud. “Her minions have tried our borders again and again. They insinuate themselves—hiding, perhaps, or feigning to be merchants or farm folk. For years they will bide without action, weaving slow coils of evil about them, plotting in many ways. A little gossip, a little rooting of secrets they can sell. No ordinary guard can detect them. But we are to sense, in the taig of forest and field, that slight unease. The fern knows when it has been trodden by a cruel foot; the sly levets—”
“Levets?” Paks had never heard the word.
“Swift running, long but low. Hunters of mice and such. Dark bright eyes, sharp claws and many teeth. Farmers call them bad, for they will take eggs, and the large ones even hens on the nest. But like all such little creatures they are not truly good or bad but only levets. The levets, though, are much prized by the web-worshippers, and their bodies may be used in evil rites. Also they can be spelled, and forced to serve as messengers. This we can detect, by their behavior and that of their prey.”
“I see. But if you have that ability because of your elven blood, how can I help? Except to fight, if that is necessary.”
“You do feel the taig,” said Tamar quickly. “We saw that at once. And you had contact with the elfane taig before.”
“Besides,” said Giron, “the Kuakgan of Brewersbridge sent you. He would not send someone wholly blind to the taig.”
“You didn’t accept—”
“I didn’t accept his judgment of your ability to fight, Paksenarrion. I had listened to rumors, to my shame. But I knew you would be able to sense evil in the taig.”
A few days later, threading along another forest trail between Tamar and Phaer, Paks felt a strange pressure in her head. She stumbled, suddenly dizzy; Phaer caught her arm before she fell. Tamar whirled, alert.
“What happened?” Phaer looked closely at her face. Paks could feel the sweat springing cold on her neck.
“I—don’t know. Something inside—in my head. It all whirled—” She knew she wasn’t making sense. Her stomach roiled. Pressure crushed her chest; she fought for breath. Out of her past came the image of Siniava’s ambush in the forest, the day of the storm. “Danger—” she managed to gasp.
“Where?” Giron, now, stood before her. Paks felt, rather than saw, his concern. She leaned against Phaer, unable to speak, sick and shaking with fear and the unbearable touch of some evil. She heard Giron say “Stay with her, Phaer. The rest of you—”
She was huddled on the ground; beneath her nose the soil had a faint sour tang. At last she managed to draw a full breath, then another. Whatever it was had not disappeared—she could still feel that loathsome pressure—but it seemed to be concentrating elsewhere. Paks pushed herself up on hands and knees. Above her, Phaer’s voice: “Are you better?”
She nodded. She didn’t trust her voice. Slowly, feeling at every moment that she might fall into separate pieces, she sat back on her heels, managed to rise to her feet. Deliberately she took the great bow from her shoulder, and braced her leg to string it. With the bow strung, she pulled an arrow from her quiver, checked the fletching, then took another, to hold as she had been taught. She looked around. The others had disappeared into the trees; only Phaer was visible, standing beside her now, his own bow strung and ready.
“Can you speak? Are you spelled?” She knew instantly that one of his arrows would be for her, if she were.
“No.” Her voice surprised her; clear and low, it held none of the unease she felt. “No, it’s looking elsewhere. It is very close, but I can’t tell where—too close.”
Phaer nodded. “After you fell, we all could feel something wrong. Did it attack you, or—”
Paks shook her head. “I don’t think it did. Somehow I must be sensitive to it—whatever it is—as night creatures are to a flash of light.”
“It is rare for a human to be more sensitive to anything than an elf or part-elf.” Phaer sounded faintly affronted. “Do you have a god, perhaps, enlightening your mind?”
Paks did not want to discuss it. The sense of wrong and danger was as strong as ever, though it didn’t center on her. Now that the sickness was past, she tried to feel her way toward its location. She turned her head from side to side, eyes half shut. A slight tingle, there. She could see nothing openly. Phaer was watching her, still alert.
“I think—that way—” Paks nodded to the uphill side of the trail.
“I still don’t feel any direction.” He looked worried. “Perhaps we should wait until Giron comes.”
“No. If we move, we have a chance of surprising it, whatever it is. If we wait here—” Paks took a cautious step off the trail. The tingle intensified: a sort of mental itch. She shivered, and moved on. She looked at each tree and stone as the rangers had taught her: she knew the names, now, of nearly all the trees and herbs. When she glanced back at Phaer, he was following in her tracks, his bow already drawn.
A fir, another fir, a spruce. A massive stone ledge, high enough to break the forest roof and let in more light, lay just uphill. Paks went forward, one slow step after another. She felt a wave of vileness roll down from above.
“Now I can tell,” murmured Phaer from behind her. “Don’t move, Paks; I’ll call—”
But the ledge itself heaved and shuddered, lifting in stinking coils. Without thought, Paks flipped her first arrow into position, drew, and saw it fly across that short sunlit space to shatter on rock-hard scales. She had the second arrow already nocked to the string.
“Daskdraudigs!” yelled Phaer. This meant nothing to Paks. The menace, too large to conceive, reared above them, tree tall, and yet the ledge still shifted, as if the stone itself were moulting into a serpent. Paks breathed a quick prayer to Gird, and loosed her second arrow at the underside of a lifted coil. It seemed to catch between two scales, but did not penetrate. She hardly noticed. Great waves of hatred and disgust rolled over her mind. She struggled to keep her eyes fixed on the thing, tried to fumble another arrow out of her quiver. Suddenly something slammed into her back and knocked her flat. “Daskdraudigs, I told you!” Phaer growled in her ear. “Stay down, human; this is elf work.” Through the noise in her head she yet managed to hear the other rangers: Giron shouting in elvish; Tamar’s higher voice rising like a stormwind’s howl. She turned her head where she lay and saw Phaer fitting an arrow to his bowstring.
“Why can’t I—”
“Special arrow. You don’t have these.” Paks noticed now that the fletching looked like stone; the arrowhead certainly was a single piece of chipped crystal. Phaer stood, drawing the bow. Above them more and more coils had risen, and the front of the creature was moving downslope to their left. He stepped forward, looking along the monster’s length (she could not tell for what purpose), then shot quickly and threw himself down.
The arrow flew true, and sank into the monster’s scales as if they were cheese. As Paks watched, that coil seemed to stiffen, to return to the stone she had first seen. Already Phaer had pulled out another of the special arrows. This time he aimed for the next coil ahead of his first target. Again his aim was true. But the unbound coils of the monster’s trailing end whipped and writhed, rolling down upon them. Before Paks could leap up to run, the trees they sheltered in were crushed, broken off like straws. Coils as heavy and hard as stone rolled over them.