Before she could utter the slightest curse, howls erupted from the forest.
As if answering the roar of their fallen pack mate, the dreamers had picked up the trail and were closing in on the grove.
CHAPTER FOUR
6 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) The Spur Forest, South of Airspur, Akanul
"They’ll be here soon,” Uthalion muttered as he knelt to inspect the beast. He turned it over with a grunt and fingered the broken shafts of two arrows in the right side of its neck. He stood and turned to Ghaelya. “It’s the same one that attacked you earlier. It likely left a blood trail all the way here.”
She nodded, barely hearing his words as she stared at the dreamer’s remaining eye. Her own death seemed to gleam in the glassy eye, and she wondered why she’d been spared. She cursed herself for being complacent for even a moment in the grove. The beast’s strange singing stuck in her mind like a planted seed which she would have to uproot and forget, lest it grow and dominate her will despite the dreamer’s death.
Brindani touched her shoulder, and she jumped, thankful that she’d sheathed her sword. He handed her the light pack she’d carried since Airspur, and she suddenly regretted her shortsighted preparedness and the meager weight of her remaining provisions.
“Well find more food and water on the Akana,” Brindani said as if reading her thoughts.
The half-elf kept his own pack close, clutching the full bundle as though it might grow legs and run away if he left it unattended.
“No time to wait until morning I’m afraid,” Uthalion said and began kicking dirt over the smoldering remains of the campfire. Ghaelya looked from the human to Vaasurri curiously, but the killoren only raised an eyebrow in response.
“You’re coming?” she asked in disbelief.
Uthalion didn’t answer, only stamped the dirt until the smoking ashes were completely snuffed out.
“We’ll be traveling through the deep Spur, in the dark,” Uthalion continued, turning with a grave look in his eyes. “There will b* little time to rest and no incentive to do so… There are worse things in the dark than those dreamers.”
“What things?” Brindani asked. But the human kept moving, checking his pack as Vaasurri prepared a small lantern filled with glowing green moss. The light barely lit the grove but was bright enough to be spotted and, she assumed, followed through the dark. Uthalion approached and handed them short shafts of wood, the tightly bound rags at their ends stinging her nose with an acrid, chemical smell.
“Keep these dry no matter what,” Uthalion said, drawing forth his own torch. “Be ready to stop when I stop or run when I”
“What things?” Ghaelya interrupted, repeating Brindani’s question. She respected the human’s urgency, but did not like being kept in the dark. He paused a moment, long enough to match her stare.
“One thing actually, the one we heard earlier when yon left the grove.” He sighed and turned away as Ghaelya recalled the ground-shaking roar, the memory helping to blot out the sound of the dreamer’s alien singing. She stared into the darkness as Vaasurri approached the grove’s edge, his little lantern swinging in his hand. The heavy blade at her side seemed suddenly very tiny compared to the beast she’d imagined in the aftermath of that roar-Uthalion fell in step behind the killoren and turned sidelong to her, a caution in his voice that would have rooted her feet to the ground if not for the distant howls of the dreamers to the north. “We’ll be descending into its territory, passing through as quick as we can, hopefully before it senses our presence. We call it the kaia.”
They kept a steady pace in the dark. Ghaelya’s eyes fixed on the faint glow of Vaasurri’s lantern, afraid that if she blinked or turned away for a moment it would disappear and she would be left to fend for herself. The land sloped downward, so steeply at times that the trees were all that kept them from tumbling down into a boundless maw of shadows. The night closed in around them like a shroud, their footsteps echoing off the close trees and the canopy overhead as if the killoren led them underground instead of through a forest. Briefly, in the twinkling light of the stars, Ghaelya caught sight of the Akanapeaks to the west, before the trees obscured their slopes once again.
She fought to rein in her sense of claustrophobia, feeling buried in the vast interior of the Spur, lost and dependent on the dim light in Vaasurri’s hand. Focusing on the lantern and keeping her feet moving helped keep her mind from Uthalion’s mention of the kaia, but childhood memories came racing through to fill the gaps in her imagination. Once, when she and Tessaeril were young, their mother had told them tales of the legendary kaia, the Mother of Nightmares.
Shivering at the idea, Ghaelya gripped the foul-smelling torch tighter. She hoped that Tessaeril had been taken this way during the day. Her sister had always been afraid of the dark.
Her mind drew shapes upon the darkness where she expected to see things prowling or lying in wait for hapless passersby. The shapes moved and shifted, seemingly of their own accord, and she ignored them as much as she could. But they always returned: silent silhouettes dancing to some mad tune, the bogeymen of frightened children.
Uthalion slowed ahead of her, and she shook her head, watching the lantern as Vaasurri moved on, scouting the path ahead. Brindani stood close, his back to hers, watching the path behind. Catching her breath, Ghaelya leaned against a nearby tree and whispered an old rhyme.
“Little nightmare let me be; leave my name from off your tree.”
“What was that?” Uthalion whispered, and she felt foolish for being heard playing at a child’s game.
“Nothing, just an old story my mother used to tell us,” she replied, smiling nervously at the memory and eager to purge herself of its childish nature. “She said the kaia was an old beast, from the other plane, once a mere serpent, charged by foul gods to devour the children of the genasi. But a clever child, unafraid of the serpent, had fought back, tricking the kaia into the burning light of day. Frightened, it had retreated into the deep forest to hide. But when the Blue Breath of Change came, the hungry kaia followed us. It hid in the dark and gave birth to nightmares that were sent to spy upon the genasi children.
“Those they could not frighten were left alone, safe in their beds. But those that cried out and hid beneath their blankets until dawn… those children had their names carved into the trees of the kaia’s forest, So that it could read them and know which ones were safe to eat.”
Ghaelya thought back, having never cried out when the nightmares had come to test her. But she had scolded Tessaeril many times for being scared. Ghaelya had been the brave one, fond of teasing her sister about the kaia-trees, but in reality she had only been better at hiding her fear. Though she’d grown out of the tales quickly, she never forgot the Mother of Nightmares. Watching intently for Vaasurri’s return, she whispered to Uthalion again.
“Have you ever seen it?” she asked.
“Gods no, and I thank whatever gods that have pity on me for that,” he answered swiftly, “But I’ve been chased, had a close call or two____________________ ”
Vaasurri rejoined them, holding the swinging lantern close to his face. His return interrupted Ghaelya’s. thoughts of being pursued by the kaia. The howls of the dreamers had ceased quite some time ago, and she’d nearly forgotten the danger that had driven them into the night in the first place.
“There’s a spur up ahead,” the killoren reported. “We can rest there a moment and get our bearings, then we’ll see if we can slip through the thick of it before morning.”
The forest floor sloped up slightly as they made their careful way onward. The rock spurs were the namesake of the forest, massive uprisings of smooth stone, curled into figures like sharp claws that gouged at the sky. Rock, flowing like water, had made the strange formations, twisted from beneath the soil in the foothills of the Akanapeaks and surrounded by floating islands of trees. The spur they approached was small in comparison to the others, standing only twice as high as the tallest trees in the forest.