Lisa Smedman - Heirs of Prophecy

As she rose to the level of the ledge once more, Goldheart launched herself into the air. The tressym shot past Larajin like an arrow, as if goading her into a chase. Laughing, Larajin obliged. Flying was wonderful, exhilarating-even more amazing than breathing water had been. She chased Gold-heart through the sky, and they tumbled like two kittens, high above the moonlight-dappled surface of the lake. They flew, hard and fast, in a laughing race to the lightning-struck tree at the lake’s edge.

A dark shape shot past them, cawing furiously, then made a sharp turn to the side. Only then did Larajin remember the danger. The elf who had tried to kill her earlier was down there still, somewhere on the shore, and there would probably be others scouring the edges of the lake, looking for her. She doubted they’d recognize her in tressym form, but it was best not to take any chances.

Nodding to show that she understood, she turned in a graceful arc and allowed Leifander to set their course.

Had Leifander been in elf form, he would have wept at what he saw below. The forest looked as if giant slugs had crisscrossed it, leaving meandering trails of slimy destruction in their wake. Wide swaths of the woods lay in blighted ruin, streaked with mud brown and ash gray that stood out clearly against the surrounding green. Inside the blighted areas, sticklike trees leaned at angles or lay broken upon the ground, and what few leaves remained on them were a lifeless, mottled yellow-gray.

Patches of mist drifted here and there, spreading the blight in new directions with each shift of the breeze. It seemed never to dissipate but instead maintained its deadly potency long after the wands had created it.

To the south, thick plumes of smoke rose from the edges of the great forest: the handiwork of Sembia’s soldiers, whose encampments Leifander could see in the distance on the rolling hills of Battledale. They were burning the edges of the wood, trying to either flush the elves out or draw them into battle.

Glancing up at the flat blue sky, he offered a silent prayer to the Leaflord to send rain. The summer sun was hot, the woods below tinder-dry. If the fires spread….

Leifander flew grimly on, every now and then glancing behind him to see how Larajin was faring. To his great surprise she’d mastered skinwalking in a fraction of the time it should have taken-moments, instead of days-and now was indistinguishable from the tressym that seemed to accompany her everywhere.

The speed with which she’d learned it made him jealous. As twins, they were both destined for greatness, but Larajin seemed far more favored by the gods than he. Magic came to her easily, without effort. Even the difficult balance she had chosen-giving equal reverence to two goddesses, one human, one elf-didn’t seem to slow her down. Any spell she turned her mind to, she accomplished, whereas Leifander had learned his magic only through long periods of fasting and solitary prayer, perched high in a sacred oak.

It didn’t seem fair. Why, if they were twins, had the gods apportioned out their blessings in such unequal measure?

Behind him, he heard a plaintive mewing. Glancing back, he saw that one of the tressym-Larajin-had once again dropped behind and was flying in a circle just above the treetops. It was a warning sign that Leifander recognized. Her spell was coming to an end-much sooner than he’d expected. She needed to land.

At least he had one advantage. Unlike Larajin, who could skinwalk for no more than a morning or afternoon at a stretch, he could maintain animal form for days on end, shifting endlessly back and forth between crow and elf. Larajin had to pray anew each time her spell began to falter and hope that one of her goddesses would answer.

Leifander swooped back to where Larajin circled, surveying the forest below for a place to land. They’d come far already. They’d left the crystalline towers two nights before, crossed the River Ashaba, and had come to a place above the Vale of Lost Voices. The slash in the forest below was the trail that linked Essembra and Ashabenford. Rauthauvyr’s Road lay perhaps ten or fifteen miles to the east. If they paused only briefly then flew on through the afternoon and evening, they could reach Moontouch Oak by the next day’s dawn-assuming Larajin’s strength and magic held out.

As he drew nearer to the spot where Larajin and-Goldheart circled, Leifander caught a glimpse of movement in the forest below. Several dark shapes were moving along the trail-two or three, maybe more. He cawed and banked sharply to the left, trying to direct Larajin to a clearing a safe distance from the moving figures, but with catlike perversity she ignored his warning. Instead she dived down and landed on the trail itself, in a spot that would place her directly in the path of whoever-or whatever-was moving along it. Even the tressym had better instincts than that. It circled above the spot where she’d landed, refusing to join her.

Angry, Leifander changed his course, flying toward Larajin. She ought to have more sense than to risk exposing herself to what might turn out to be an elf patrol. He swooped down to treetop level, angling toward the trail.

Leifander gave a strangled caw as he passed over the trail and got a good, close look at the figures moving along it. They were enormous spiders-four of them. Bloated and hairy, as large as dogs, they moved in a tight group like a pack of trained hounds. Even from treetop level, Leifander could smell the foul stench that clung to them like mold to a dead leaf.

What were they doing in this part of the wood? Had they been feeding on the corpses of the human caravan drivers along Rauthauvyr’s Road? Or was there a more sinister reason? Leifander prayed it was not so. This part of the forest was supposedly free from drow.

The spiders glanced up at Leifander as he soared past them. More than one set of legs flailed in the air in his direction, as if the creatures wished they could climb into the sky. Leifander flew on, shuddering. One bite from those venomous creatures would cause a slow numbness to spread through the body until it was paralyzed, and the spiders would feed….

Larajin had landed about a hundred paces up the trail, where the spiders couldn’t see her, but they could see the tressym that fluttered nervously above the spot where she stood. They paused, questing Larajin’s scent. Avile chuckling sound filled the air, and they broke into a skittering run.

Frightened, Leifander flew as quickly as he could to the spot where Larajin had landed. He saw her on the trail below, crouched on the ground with arms outstretched and head bent. She must have just completed shifting back to human form. Unable to do more than caw at her, Leifander was forced to land and shift. As he rose to his feet, the spiders came into sight.

Larajin, however, gave them no more than a quick glance.

“It’s Dray!” she said, pointing into the trees at a spot where the mist had blighted the underbrush, opening up the forest to view. “Something’s happened to him.”

Leifander gave the briefest of glances in the direction she’d indicated and saw a human, either unconscious or dead, who appeared to have been hung by his doublet upon the broken branch of a massive oak tree like a coat upon a hook. The man’s feet dangled a full pace above the ground, just above where drifting mist had discolored the trunk.

Leifander had no time to wonder who the fellow was or how he’d wound up hanging from the tree. The spiders were almost upon them.

“Pray to your goddess!” he shouted at Larajin. “Either skinwalk or do something to help me fight the spiders.”

He heeded his own advice. Touching the feather in his braid, he uttered a quick prayer to the Lady of Air and Wind, beseeching her for just a fraction of her power. At the same time he raised his right hand and fluttered it, as if fanning a breeze.