David Durham - The other lands

"Lvin, Kulish Kra, Shivith, Kern, Anet-all Auldek clans, lend me your voices. Let them know what I say is true."

From one section of the Auldek ranks and then another, shouts rose in affirmation. Each group called its name, testifying, confirming. Senior members turned and nodded, pointing at Devoth to verify that he spoke for them all.

"Now, hear me once more and answer me!" Devoth bellowed above them. "Do you want freedom? If so, you have only to say so and then to fight for it. Answer me!"

It took a moment, but this time the masses did. They cried for their freedom.

"Good. I am glad you do not disappoint. I knew you wouldn't. I know this also: for this battle we take everything with us. For this battle, we fly as we haven't for centuries. We call upon old friends, mounts that have not allowed riders for years now. Mounts that we have promised carnage." He turned and shouted back the way they had approached. "Old friends, come to me!"

Rialus snapped around, not knowing what to expect but ready to be surprised again. He was. He did not hear the flapping of wings, though he would dream that he did for many nights to come. He saw them first as moving forms that were almost ghostly against the light blue of the sky. They rose up. One and then two more and then others. Winged, they flew. They flew fast, taking on size as they grew nearer, slicing in and out among one another, at times dark crescents of motion, in other instances slivers of shapes almost invisible.

At least, that was true until they landed. Some dropped onto columns beside the army. Some fell right among the crowd, which fled, leaving landing areas for them. A few flanked Devoth on the platform. One alit on the steps in front of him, between him and the ranked masses. This one landed on all fours. It stayed like that for a moment, as if adjusting the burden of its own muscular weight, and then it reared up, wings outstretched, massive, larger even than the kwedeirs, built differently. The creature was hairless and slick, its musculature more humanoid than those batlike creatures, more like a being meant to walk upright. Its back and upper wings were a blue so dark it neared black, but its belly, face, and the front half of its legs were a smoky white. Its head was like a hairless ape's, with a protruding jaw full of visible teeth and large eyes that took in the scene with a confident, intelligent malevolence.

Rialus forgot to breathe. When he recognized the burning in his chest for what it was, he tried to inhale and could not remember how.

Devoth turned and glanced at Rialus, blinked. "I mentioned freketes, didn't I? I see you are impressed. Watch this."

With that, he bounded down the stone steps toward the winged creature. The beast turned and followed his progress, eyes dilating, nostrils flaring with an audible inhalation of air. Its jaws opened, and for a moment Rialus was certain the creature was going to devour him. Instead, it tossed its head back and roared, an incredible sound that shredded the air.

Rialus slammed his hands against his ears. The beast half turned away from Devoth. It moved one of its wings and offered him a bulging thigh that Devoth leaped on. With a few deft movements the Auldek had climbed onto its back and slammed his feet into the stirrups of the slight frame wrapped around its body.

He had barely grasped hold of the straps when the creature surged up into the air, Devoth clinging tightly. As it reached the height of its leap, the frekete beat its wings and skimmed away over the awed heads of the throng. People ducked as it passed, flattening themselves on the ground. Then they rose with bellowing and shouting, a cacophony to which the antoks and kwedeirs and the other freketes added. A great noise. An army announcing itself.

Rialus pulled his hands away from his ears and instead placed a finger to his lips. He whispered, with no faith that he would be answered, "Giver protect us."

They had to work fast. They had a day or two to accomplish their objective, Dariel figured. No longer. That was why he pushed the Lothan Aklun vessel to such amazing speeds. It smacked, smacked, smacked against the green swells, sparkling beneath the light of a midmorning sun. The prow cut the waves around the rocky southern tip of Lithram Len and then turned back to race up its ragged eastern shoreline. They might be spotted, yes, but delay was not something they could afford.

It was true that the league had been struck a blow when Calrach rebuffed them. Sire Neen-Dariel could not help but chuckle thinking about him. The memory seemed more manageable now that he was free in the world. Tunnel and several others clinging to the rocking deck nearby looked quizzically at the prince as he laughed. That just made him guffaw all the more. "Rather changed your view of the world didn't it?" he shouted. "Getting your head lopped off, I mean." The others just stared.

The fresh air and the motion of waves beneath him and a ship's wheel in his hands did a great deal for his humor. He felt a vibrant energy at his center that he had not really felt since his days as a brigand captain.

He let the energy feed him from the inside, and he let the urgency pressed on him by the outside world drive him forward. Knowing the league as he did, Dariel knew they would not spend much time mourning Sire Neen. Nor would they be deterred from whatever it was they intended in Ushen Brae. The activity on the west side of Lithram Len proved as much. It could only be a matter of days before they began exploring the other side of the island, where Skylene told him the soul catcher was. She was the only one of the party to have information about it, and that came only from the things Mor had told her. Even this information came largely from a child's memories, but Dariel knew such things could have surprising accuracy.

A little way into their northern turn, Skylene called for him to slow the boat. They would have to study the coastline carefully not to miss entrance to the soul catcher. It was hidden in plain sight, Skylene said.

Trees of a type that Dariel had never seen crowded the shore. Slender trunked, they were as tall as any pine in the high forest of Calfa Ven. The trees exploded near the crown with branches that shot out in every direction. They looked top-heavy, but the branches entwined with their neighbors and those joined the many into a single, linked partnership.

Rocky outcroppings interrupted the trees now and then. It was for a particular one of these that they searched, riding the waves now, nosing along more slowly. Dariel made sure to scan the sea horizon often for any other vessel, but he also watched for submerged rocks and could not help but stare for long moments at the shore.

"On the mainland there are vast forests filled with creatures." Skylene had come up beside him. The breeze off the water stirred the tufts of feathers at her hairline. "They say there are creatures on Ushen Brae-squirrels and flying rats and howling monkeys-that live their entire lives in the tree canopy. Imagine that: having no need of the ground beneath you. The world is odd, isn't it?"

"That's what keeps it interesting," Dariel said.

"Well, yes. And this island is interesting, too. As lush as those trees are, as thick, no animals live here. Listen, you'll hear no calls. Not even birds. They say it has always been that way on Lithram Len."

Indeed, now that she mentioned it, the place did have an eerie stillness. It was hard to imagine the island not crawling with animal life, but he saw no motion save the leaves stirred by the wind. Staring at the trees they did seem almost as if they glared back, like their entwined embrace was not so much an act of mutual support as it was preparation for aggression.

Just after midday, Birke, with his Wrathic hunter's eyes, was the first to see something. His arm shot out, pointing. At first Dariel saw nothing but another bulge of rock that pushed through the trees and overhung the water. He moved the vessel closer, willing it to ride calm on the swells, angling so that he could see into the water more clearly. There were rocks there, rippling and near, under the glassy green tint of the water. It was not until he swung the boat all the way around and backed into the shelter of a natural quay that he realized he had navigated a route that brought him to rest at a pier, a carefully hidden structure just beneath the rock outcropping.