The tashgalh jumped as it reached the passage's end, grabbing a tree limb. As the branch recoiled upward under the creature's weight, it swung out of sight.
Chap slowed to a halt just shy of the exit and stared at wet green pine needles glistening in sunlight.
It was still winter, but in the elven Territories, the snow touched only the higher ranges.
He waited there, almost not believing that he had found his way through. For a moment he could not bring himself to step out into the world.
Chap breathed deep and filled his head with all the subtle scents of his days as a pup among his siblings. He was home onceagain, or at least the place where he had chosen to be born in flesh.
Wynn came scrambling up behind him. Her round eyes and olive-skinned face filled with relief at the sight of branches overhanging the opening.
"Oh, Chap," she said.
He stepped out with the young sage close upon his tail. Somewhere above in the trees, the tashgalh squawked derisively.
Morning had broken, with the sun just cresting the eastern horizon. But the trees still obscured the view down the mountainside. Chap pushed his way through the foliage dotting the small plateau onto which they emerged. When the last branch dragged across his back, he stood upon a rocky slope still partway up the mountain.
"We're on the eastern side of the Broken Range," Leesil whispered.
He and Magiere had finally caught up, but Chap did not turn his eyes from the vision spread out before him.
Down the sparsely forested ridge and stretching as far as he could see lay a vast forestland. Not as in Belaskia or Stravina, with spots of open plains and fields, nor the dank and dull green of Droevinka's moss-strewn fir and spruce trees.
It was vivid glowing green of multiple hues, even though winter was upon it and it lay nearly at the northernmost end of the continent. Multiple rivers flowed away from the range through the heart of a vast land, each a shimmering blue ribbon across a verdant fabric that rolled here and there with the hills beneath its surface.
The forest stretched as far as Chap could see. Somewhere beyond it to the northeast were the eastern ocean and the gulf bay no foreign ship had ever berthed in. He did not remember how large the elvenTerritories truly were. But then he had not seen much of them as a pup before he was taken away.
"It seems to go on forever," Wynn said.
At the mountain's base, stepped slopes dropped gradually, and the sparse growth of the plateau built quickly to warm, bright foliage that reached for uncountable leagues.
Magiere stepped up beside Chap, but of them all, she appeared the least touched by the sight.
"Yes, so large it looks closer than it is," she said. "We're out of food, and we still have to make it down this mountain."
Chap looked up at her pale features marred by exhaustion. Where Wynn's showed relief and overwhelmed awe, in Magiere's face he saw some hint of fallen resignation. Then he glanced at Leesil, whose amber eyes sparked in the sunlight but were chill with determination.
A human, a dhampir, and a half-blood.He had brought them into a place where the word "unwelcome" was but a polite term for what awaited them.
Wynn's lips had parted to speak when a high-pitched chirp sounded above them. Chap looked up, but the sky was empty except for dark billowing clouds trapped upon the mountain peaks. The sound trailed into a string of slurred notes, erratic but strangely lyrical, and then it faded in the light breeze.
Wynn fished in her coat pocket. She pulled out the feather she had found. In the sunlight, it was mottled white.
"Where did you get that?" Leesil asked, as he had not seen the feather until now.
"I found it at our last stop in the tunnels."
Leesil took his pack off her shoulder and dug through it until he pulled out the small arrow. The trimmed feathers on its notched end matched the one in Wynn's hand.
Magiere only glanced at the feathers and then down the slope. "We need to get moving."
Chap turned along the plateau to find them a path. He barked for the others to follow him. For a moment, Wynn looked up into the empty sky then back toward the mountain's passage, hidden behind the trees. The feather was still in her hand.
Chapter Three
Descending the rocky mountainside took most of the day. As the sun passed to the west above the Broken Range, the forest surrounded Chap and his companions. He returned to the land of his birth.
Whenever a break appeared in the green canopy of needles and leaves, Wynn's gaze wandered to the mountain behind them. She insisted that the tashgalh might still follow them. Chap neither heard nor smelled it, but she was likely right. Those little bandits were persistent.
Chap nudged Wynn aside before she stumbled into a tangle of poison ivy clinging to an oak. She slowed, wavering on her feet, and Chap paused when he noticed that Leesil had halted as well.
Leesil glanced about as if searching for his bearings. With a shrug, he took a deep breath, prepared to move on, but Chap saw Wynn swallow hard with panic on her smudged face.
"You all right?" Magiere asked.
The question startled Wynn. "No… yes, I am fine, just… it is nothing."
Wynn shook her head and continued onward, but Chap watched her with concern. Now and then she stared through the forest, her wonder mixed with worry.
Chap stayed close as they moved deeper into the trees. He expected Wynn's normally incessant babbling to begin over all the subtle strange differences the forest held compared to those of the human lands. Her sage's curiosity was the main reason she had forced her own inclusion in this journey long moons ago back in Bela. But she remained silent and watchful, and more than once started at the sight of even the most mundane foliage or tree.
Chap had been just a pup when Eillean had carried him away from this place. Lush, oversized leaves and enormous red and yellow hyacinths hung from the vines in one grove. They all stopped briefly to replenish their water at a crystal-clear brook winding through scattered azalea bushes. A small flight of bees thrummed between the flowers until a hawk-wasp chased them off.
"It is almost warm here," Wynn said. "How is that possible?"
For once, Chap was relieved that the talking hide was lost. He did not wish for conversation now. He simply wanted to breathe the air and tofeel the forest's life. Just for one more moment to forget the danger that lay ahead.
It was still winter, even here, but far warmer than the Broken Range or its chill labyrinth of caves and tunnels they had traveled. Here, winter would feel like early autumn to outsiders. He did not know why. Perhaps the elves had lived here for so long that the region itself responded to their nurturing presence and returned it in kind.
He hopped another brook. Wynn scurried to catch up and dug her fingers into the fur between his shoulders. She gripped him too tightly until he complained with a whine. She need not worry about losing him.
A wandering line of elms, silver birch, and willows led to a small open slope. On its far side rose an old cedar, its trunk stout and wide as a grain wagon.
"It's enormous," Magiere said. "I've never seen its like, even in the depths of Droevinka."
Chap sniffed the scent of clean loam on the breeze.
"We're here," Leesil half-whispered." We actually found it."
They had all suffered for it. Now Leesil walked a vast foreign territory, with little notion what to do next or where to look for his mother. In truth, Chap was little better off.
He shrugged free of Wynn's grip, though she was reluctant to let go, and drifted back to lick Leesil's hand with a whine. Leesil was only half-elven, but could he feel the life that pulsed around them? If he let its current run through him, perhaps it would cleanse some of his burdens.