Lisa Smedman - Heirs of Prophecy

Eyes closed, he could almost convince himself that the forest was as it had always been. Instead of the smells of growing leaves, ripening acorns and sun-warmed moss, though, his nose caught an acrid odor, like that of seared grass. It was not the smoky-sweet smell of ash, but something harsher, closer to the stench of sulfuric mud.

Opening his eyes, he fingered one of the leaves on the branch above. It should have been two handspans wide, with delicately scalloped edges, a rich, dark green. Instead it was yellowed and crumpled, spotted with dark gray patches that tore like wet paper and left a stinging, oily film on Leifander’s fingers.

Wiping his hand clean on his leather breeches, Leifander shifted his attention to the trunk. It too was spotted, its bark shriveled and splitting open. The moss that clung to it was as dry and dead as the whiskers on a corpse. Like so many of the trees in the Vale of Lost Voices, this oak was dying. It seemed strange to see it bathed in morning sunlight, with a clear blue sky above. Surely the Leaflord should have been weeping at the sight.

As recently as two months before-the month of Mirtul-trees and underbrush had crowded Rauthauvyr’s Road on either side. With the month of Flamerule only a few days old, most of the trees had lost their leaves. It was less than three tendays before Midsummer, and the bushes below should have been heavy with berries, but they looked instead like winter-blasted sticks. The ferns that had dotted the road were a shriveled, gray mush beside the wagon ruts.

Leifander shaded his eyes and intently scanned the road. The wagons had yet to come into sight. They were hidden not only by a bend in the road but also by the morning mist, which instead of burning off under the rising sun seemed to be thickening below.

A fluttering of wings announced the arrival of a thrush. Leifander glanced up at it, then ignored it, but the bird seemed intent upon catching his attention. It flew straight at him, beating its wings in his face and plucking at his hair with its feet. Leifander tried to wave it away, but the bird was insistent.

“What?” he asked in exasperation, tearing his eyes away from the road.

As the bird settled on the branch above Leifander, a chorus of excited cheeping revealed the location of a hidden nest. Two downy heads thrust out of a tangle of twigs and grass, beaks open wide. Born and reared in this ruined wood, the nestlings were scrawny, and they chirped with a ravenous insistence.

“Ah,” he said to the mother bird, understanding at last. “Your children are hungry. Perhaps I can help.”

After a moment’s search, he located the spider that had tickled his foot and killed it with a quick squeeze of his fingers. Placing it delicately between his lips, he leaned toward the nest. He let one of the nestlings pluck a portion of the spider from his lips, then repeated the process with the second bird.

The mother thrush seemed unsatisfied, however. She continued to flutter around Leifander’s head a moment more, as if recognizing in him a crow that might rob her nest of its young. With an indignant flick of her tail, she flew away.

Leifander resumed his survey of the road below. The caravan had not yet appeared, but it would not be long now. He needed to …

Leifander felt the scratch of tiny claws against his fingers. Looking down, he saw that the larger of the two nestlings had clambered out of the nest and was climbing onto his hand. It perched there, flapping its wings for balance. It seemed poised to burst into flight at any moment.

“Are you ready to leave the nest, little one?” Leifander asked it in a soft voice as he lifted it to eye level. “What is so important, that you must be about it at once?”

The nestling tilted its head, regarding Leifander with glossy black eyes. Wind rustled through the trees, fluttering what leaves remained. The shifting branches dappled the bird with flashes of sunlight and shadow, causing the nestling’s feathers to change from amber-brown to black-brown and back again in rapid succession. For several heartbeats, Leifander held his breath, convinced that something much greater than the nestling was regarding him through its eyes. Then the breeze stilled and the feathers, pooled in leaf-shade, returned to a solid, dull brown.

Chuckling at his own conceit-surely the Winged Mother had better things to do than look down upon one of her fledgling priests-Leifander bobbed his hand up and down. The nestling responded with a flutter of wings.

“Go on then-try out those wings of yours,” he said, casting the young bird into the air.

He winced as the bird faltered, remembering his own first flight, not so very long ago. Given his youth, he was fortunate to already be an accomplished skinwalker-most elves did not master it until they had reached their first half-century and were well into adolescence. Leifander, however, had matured more quickly than his peers and had been rewarded when Doriantha had chosen him as a scout for this patrol.

Watching the nestling, Leifander smiled as it at last found its wings, flapping its way back up from a plunge that had carried it nearly to the ground. Seeking a clear space in which to fly, the bird winged its way along the road.

Returning to his survey of the road to the south, Leifander saw that the human caravan had drawn into sight. He cawed once to alert those below to its progress, then sought out the nestling again, enjoying its first flight.

The bird swooped low over the ground-too low-and a section of the buried choke creeper lashed out from under the soil. Beating its wings furiously, the nestling rose into the air, barely avoiding the vine’s leafy grip. As the bird fluttered gamely on up the road, toward a thicker patch of morning mist, the choke creeper followed it, uncoiling from the soil like an awakening snake.

Leifander cursed silently. Much of the choke creeper now lay visible on the road, twining sinuously as it quested for its prey.

He glanced in Doriantha’s direction, but it seemed that she had not yet noticed the hole that had suddenly been torn in her plan. Even though the caravan would not arrive for a few moments yet, the elves could not simply rake soil over the vine again-not now that the sun was up. The ambush was ruined-and all because of Leifander. He glared down at the nestling, wishing he had never launched it into flight.

Something was wrong. The young thrush was no longer winging its way steadily through the air-as soon as it had entered the thicker patch of mist, it seemed to forget how to fly. Peeping shrilly, it beat its wings in a frenzy, at the same time spiraling off to the side. Its wings stopped beating, and the nestling fell to the ground like a stone.

Leifander blinked, at first not believing what he had just seen. The thicker patch of mist drifted over the twisting tangle of choke creeper, and every bit of greenery on it wilted. The choke creeper sagged to the ground, like a taut rope suddenly gone limp.

The mist drifted silently on, toward the wood elves’ hiding place.

A frightened caw burst from Leifander’s mouth before he found the words to warn those below. “The mist!” he croaked, rising to a standing position and cupping a hand to his mouth. “Doriantha, beware! That thicker patch ofmist, not more than ten paces to your left-it has the power to kill!”

Although startled, Doriantha reacted quickly, signaling a retreat. As one, the troop of elves scrambled to their feet and began to melt away into the forest.

Leifander, watching from the safety of the trees above, breathed a sigh of relief and thanked the Winged Mother for her warning. The ambush was spoiled. The elves would have to regroup in the forest and fight another day, but-Aerdrie Faenya be praised-Doriantha and her troop had been spared from that mist, whatever it might be.