Uthalion crept closer, his sword drawn as the narrow street opened into a circular intersection of old shops and shattered architecture. The air grew warmer and humid, clinging thickly to Ghaelya’s skin as a heavy scent wafted through the intersection. It smelled of unwashed bodies, death, and other things she did not want to contemplate. Her stomach turned, and bile burned in the back of her throat as she struggled to keep her composure.
At the center of the intersection they stopped, the sudden silence of their footsteps lasting only briefly as Ghaelya heard something else filling the spaces between one heartbeat and the next. A swift and rhythmic huffing sound like a thousand miniature forge bellows emanated from every shadowed doorway, every darkened window. Once heard, Ghaelya swore she could feel it, blowing hot on her cheek like the wind at a summer funeral.
“What is it?” Uthalion whispered. “Just wind through the leaves?”
“Not just leaves,” Vaasurri answered from Ghaelya’s right. The killoren was kneeling, inspecting something on the ground, turning a small object over in the palm of his hand. He held it up in a shaft of red-orange light. “Teeth.”
The shadows deepened, and the huffing grew louder, little breaths in unison all around them. Ghaelya blinked in the the dim light, squinting at what appeared to be pale fingers clasped over windowsills and feet lying close to open doors. They were just far enough away from the entrances to make her doubt her own eyes. As she stepped closer to the other end of the intersection, dreading the reddened light beyond the canopy of vines, she winced at the crunching sound beneath her boot.
Shadows moved along the tops of the buildings, blocking the shafts of light and prowling just out of sight. Occasionally a soft, raspy whimper would echo through an open window, sending chills down her spine.
“I hear it,” Brindani whispered, the words carrying loudly in the enclosed space. The half-elf grew more animated, dropping the edges of his cloak and walking toward the southern edge of the intersection. Silhouetted in red light, he placed his hands on his head as if in pain. “Can you hear it?” he asked in a strained voice.
He stood still a moment before following the street with an easy stride, shielding his eyes when a shaft of light fell on him from an empty alley. Ghaelya watched him go, hesitating for half a breath as the occasional whimpers increased and the ghostly breathing intensified, becoming faster and faster.
“Let’s go,” Uthalion said, his voice breaking through the fear that threatened to leave her frozen in place. Despite the cacophony of crushed teeth and leaves that seemed to thunder beneath them, Ghaelya made out the muffled sound of heavy forms thudding against old wood, of fingernails scratching at stone, and tortured throats groaning as some unseen host was awoken by the dying light of day.
Her step quickened as they climbed higher into the city, keeping Brindani one block ahead. He led them inexorably closer to the glittering forest of crystal spires. Faintly, as shade of purple, she could hear the slightest whisper of a distant singing.
For the last block, deep in the thick shadows of the dark, crystal spires, she ran as fast as she could. Tessaeril was calling for her.
Uthalion followed as quickly as he could, though the half-healed wounds on his leg had begun to ache with the steady climb of the street. He’d been relieved at first when Ghaelya chose to move souththe lair the Keepers had sought six years ago had been hidden beneath the northern edge of the city. But as they drew closer to the spires, and he heard the first murmuring strains of beguiling song, his relief quickly faded.
At the end of the street he stopped short behind Ghaelya. They stood in a large clearing between several buildings. It might have once been an open air marketplace, or perhaps a stable, but it seemed a gateway only to the encroaching bulk of the spire forest. The towering spears of rock and crystal had crumbled the city’s southern wall and pushed forward mounds of dirt and weeds. A passage sloped into the darkness between the spires.
Brindani sat at the center of the clearing, on his knees amid the vines and clutching the sides of his head tightly. He trembled violently, locked in a struggle that Uthalion could not imagine. Ghaelya stepped toward the half-elf, and Uthalion stopped her, shaking his head and placing a finger to his lips. He raised his sword, uncertain if Brindani could fight the song or the infectious influence it had over him, and ready to cut down his old friend if necessary.
Bathed in the crimson light of the dying day, the clearing seemed stained in blood beneath the jagged spires. Veins of onyx ran through the massive crystals, reflecting a thousand setting suns at once like a bizarre timepiece winding down. As the city grew darker, it grew more and more alive with the distant and unnerving huffing, like a thousand breaths merged as one beast, awakening in the dark of a thousand different windows and doors.
The wind picked up as the breaths increased. It whistled through the spires then changed into a whispering melody that rushed through the city streets like an army of keening ghosts. The thousand mirrored suns were halved by the dark silhouettes of their horizons, and Uthalion found himself breathing as hard and as fast as the unseen host in the city below.
“What in all the hells?” he whispered, slowing his breathing, though unable to calm the pounding of his heart. The song slid around him like an old friend, blowing softly in his ear as if it greeted him alone. Bits and pieces of the melody took on the form of the old wedding song it had sung to him in the Spur and in his dreams at the old farmhouse on the edge of the Wash. Alarmed, he looked to Ghaelya and cursed himself, recalling the song’s last words.
Bring her to me.
Bring her to me.
Brindani cried out suddenly, pounding his fists into the ground and inhaling sharply. Control of his faculties seemed to return as he sat still. As he stood, his trembling muscles slowed and his bloody knuckles dripped thick crimson on the dirt and vines. His tortured features calmed, though he stood against the shining columns as if he challenged them, drawing his sword and stretching his neck. He looked sidelong at Uthalion, his eyes reddened and ringed with dark circles.
“It’s coming,” he said. The words chilled Uthalion to the bone.
The reflections of the thousand suns were mere slivers now, thinly sliced by their horizons and broken in places by the piHI’q tnirmroH aVvlino The Vianntina anntr errtxur a+wvntrm* flowing around Uthalion and then wailing past him into the city’s depths. Yet despite the eeriness of the singing, he mourned losing its attention, if only for the moment.
Low growls echoed from among the spires, and Uthalion turned, his sword leveled, as wolflike forms prowled through the crystals, their glassy eyes gleaming red and purple. The muscular dreamers appeared, pawing at the dirt threateningly and baring their tusklike fangs. They formed a wall of pale fur and flexing claws at the edge of the forest. Several snapped at the air, gnashing their teeth menacingly, but beyond their threatening postures, Uthalion could see several staring at him almost curiously. They crowded and nosed through the snarling pack, never leaving the edge of the stone forest, but trying to get a look at the newcomers. Those beasts sprawled on the ground, holding their noses low as they sniffed the air and regarded him with quizzical expressions.
He and Ghaelya backed away, forming a semicircle with Vaasurri. Brindani never moved, staring down the growling beasts from only a few strides away.