With a harsh screech and a mighty flurry of wings, Breek launched himself from the back of the larger displacer beast straight toward the smaller. The creature wheeled to meet the bird’s attack, but at the last moment, Breek’s wings spread wide and he swooped up and out of reach. The beast twisted around again-only to be met with the point of Adolan’s spear as the druid charged. Sharp metal buried itself deep in the creature’s chest. Its tentacles lashed frantically at the air, then fell still as it slumped to the ground. The larger beast screamed in anger. “Chosen! Mate!” Its head snapped around to glare at Geth and it surged toward him.
Geth shifted his weight as the beast’s tentacles swept at him again, swaying back, but not giving ground. The tentacles came close enough for him to hear the hiss as they lashed the air. Guided by sound rather than sight, Geth jabbed out sharply with the woman’s spear-piercing the wide pad of the beast’s tentacle and pinning it to the earth of the valley floor. The beast roared and tried to wrench the pinned tentacle free, simultaneously raking at Geth with the other. The shifter roared just as loudly with the scourging pain of the blows that hammered at his back, but he reached down and wrapped his hand around the tentacle. As the beast roared out again, he pulled hard on it, hauling himself forward. The displacer’s beast’s eyes went wide in sudden panic. Following the taut, struggling tentacle, Geth swung his axe in a powerful overhand blow.
The blade hacked straight into the beast’s narrow skull.
A shudder passed through its body, then it collapsed to the ground and lay still.
Geth let go of the axe and staggered back. “They’re both dead?” he wheezed as Adolan came trotting over.
Adolan glanced at Breek as the bird flapped down from above, settled onto a tentacle, and began to tear at the limp flesh with his hooked beak. “Breek says yes,” he said.
“Good.” Geth sagged to his knees and released his hold on his shifting-granted endurance. As it drained away, the wounds he had suffered seemed ten times as painful. He clenched his teeth as the shifting tugged on the worst of the injuries, but it was still too much. He gasped out loud and almost fell over.
“Easy,” murmured Adolan. Geth felt the druid touch his bloodied back, then heard him murmur a prayer.
Nature’s power swirled around them like a summer breeze. A sweet ache throbbed across Geth’s back as his wounds closed. He groaned with relief and opened his eyes. “Twice tak,” he said.
Adolan smiled briefly, then slapped Geth’s newly healed shoulder. “A pair of displacer beasts between two men and a bird,” said the druid. “We’re lucky the beasts were still young!”
“Young?” Geth forced himself to his feet. “They would have gotten bigger?”
“Not necessarily. But they would have gotten smarter.” Adolan knelt down beside the fallen woman and touched her face lightly with the tips of his fingers. She groaned quietly. Geth pulled her spear out of the ground and shook the beast’s tentacle off of it, then moved over to stand above Adolan.
“How is she?” he asked.
“She’ll be all right,” Adolan replied. His fingers probed the back of the woman’s head underneath her hair. Her face contorted and she stirred uneasily. Adolan’s eyes drifted shut and he spoke a second prayer of healing. Once again, Geth felt nature itself stir to the druid’s call. The dark-haired woman’s face eased. Her breathing drifted and became regular. Adolan lifted his hand away. “I can feel her exhaustion. More than anything, she needs sleep,” he said. “She’ll stay this way until we can get back to Bull Hollow.” He studied her face. “She’s not like anyone I’ve ever seen. And the spell of fire that she cast was strange, too. That strange sound that came with it wasn’t like any priest’s prayer or wizard’s invocation.”
Geth tilted his head and looked closely at the woman. Her bronze-brown face was long and almost too elegant, her skin smooth and flawless, though darkened by long exposure to the sun. A twisted band of polished bronze circled her head and wide, decorative bracers of the same metal wrapped her forearms. A simple cord around her neck supported a woven spiral of thick bronze wires. Caught within the spiral was a cloudy green-yellow crystal the size of two of his fingers held side by side. Her clothes, as well as the sandals on her feet, showed the strain of long travel, though the woman was hardly dressed for it: she wore only a short, light shirt and tapered pants, with a fringe that wrapped around her waist. In spite of the wear on it, the fabric of her clothes was a rich, deep red embroidered with gold-colored thread in strange and exotic patterns. Geth glanced at the spear in his hand. The shaft below the crystalline metal of the head was worked in similar patterns.
“I don’t think she’s a wizard or a priest, Adolan,” he said. “And that was no spell. I’ve seen her kind before.”
Adolan looked up at him. “In the Eldeen?” he asked, his voice low and cautious.
Geth shook his head. “No. It was … before I came to Bull Hollow.” Geth’s jaw tightened. He gestured to the woman’s distinctive clothes and spear, to her fine features. “She’s a kalashtar.”
Only the vaguest kind of recognition flickered in Adolan’s eyes. “Kalashtar come from the east,” Geth explained. “Far to the east-across the Dragonreach and the Sea of Rage, from Sarlona.” He glanced down at the sleeping woman. “I saw some of her kind in Rekkenmark in Karrnath. A wizard told me that they have powers that aren’t like any magic we know.” He touched his forehead. “It’s some kind of mind-magic.”
Adolan’s eyes narrowed and his nose crinkled. “Do they all float like that when they fight?” Geth shook his head. “What do you think she’s doing in the Eldeen Reaches?
“I don’t know,” said Geth. He drew a deep breath. “But I don’t think it’s safe to take her back to Bull Hollow. We should leave her here.”
“Geth!”
“Trouble followed every kalashtar I ever saw, Adolan.” Geth gestured to the carnage around them.
“She stumbled across young displacer beasts looking for prey. We already knew they were dangerous.” Adolan stood up. “And she’s asleep. What trouble can she bring down on us?”
“She’ll wake up sooner or later. There must be some reason she’s stumbling through the hills in exhaustion.”
Adolan crossed his arms and fixed him with a glare. “She’s most likely lost. We can’t just leave her, Geth. The displacer beasts were the most dangerous things in the forest, but they weren’t the only danger. We need to take her with us.” When Geth glowered, he raised his eyebrows. “Are your fleas bothering you again, furball?”
Geth bared his teeth. “I don’t like it,” he said.
“You don’t like much of anything. Think on this: we dealt with the displacer beasts and saved a life today. Be happy with that.”
Geth’s lips pinched back together. “Ring of Siberys in a mud puddle, Ado.”
“With you around, someone has to be the optimist.” Adolan walked over to the area of brush that had been animated by his prayer. A few long vines still squirmed across the ground. The druid grabbed them and began gathering them like some kind of strange, wild rope. “Find me two long, sturdy branches. We need to make a litter.”
CHAPTER 2
Twilight lay purple against the sky by the time the forest opened up and Singe looked down into the shallow valley that held-so a tavernkeeper had told them two days ago-the hamlet of Bull Hollow and the end of the long western road.
Given that the “road” was really more of a vague track, Singe didn’t hold out any great hope for the “hamlet” either.
Toller d’Deneith urged his horse up alongside Singe’s. The young man’s face twisted as he looked down. “That’s it?” he asked.
“I told you not to expect much.” Singe studied the valley. The buildings of Bull Hole were shrouded by trees, but at least a dozen thin plumes of rising smoke were clustered together. A short distance away from the plumes, a broad clearing opened up around what seemed to be stone ruins. Here and there, other clearings broke through the trees where small farms had been cut from the forest. He grunted. Maybe the place had potential after all.