Douglas Niles - The Coral Kingdom

"Then they are gone for now?" The scout studied the diminishing figures until they had disappeared behind the first twist in the narrow passage.

"They'll follow that draw until it comes to a little valley with a marsh and a lake. That's the divide. From there, they descend and expect to find Synnoria. Instead, it puts them in the fenland of Myrloch Vale!"

The two knights made their way carefully back to their horses, where they relaxed, safely out of sight of the valley. For a long time, they rested beside the sun-swept boulder, drifting toward a midday nap in the soothing warmth.

Finally Brigit stirred, stretching easily as she stood. "Let's follow the ridgeline for a while," she suggested.

For more than an hour, the two Llewyrr rode the heights, following the border between Synnoria and Corwell until they reached a craggy stretch too rough for the horses. Enjoying the scenery and the silence, they turned back.

"Let's go look for those humans again, to make sure they haven't come back this way," Brigit said.

Before Colleen could reply, both sisters stiffened. A long, ululating call reached their ears, carried clearly from the valley of Synnoria. Then the sound stopped abruptly, chopped away in midcry.

"The Fey-Alamtine!" cried Colleen.

"Let's go!" barked Brigit. The sound had been a Llewyrr distress cry reserved for the most dire of emergencies. The two white horses pounded forward, streaking over the crest of the ridge, racing back toward the pastoral Synnorian valley the two riders had left scant hours before. They galloped headlong down the steep trail, back toward the valley bottom.

As the valley floor came into sight, the two sisters, even from nearly a thousand feet above, could see that something was horribly changed. A great swath marked the middle of the vale where tall trees had been crushed to either side like blades of grass. The setting was no longer pastoral; indeed, so profound was the transformation that Brigit tried to convince herself that she must be dreaming. Trees of great girth lay sprawled about like matchsticks, pushed outward as if some horrifying, destructive force had forged a path between them.

Colleen gasped in horror. "What happened?" she shouted, clinging to her racing gelding.

Brigit didn't reply. She felt sick to her stomach, grimly determined to discover the source of this abomination.

"Look-the way the trees lie. Whatever did this moved on down the valley," observed Colleen crisply.

"Toward Chrysalis!"

The captain had reached the same conclusion, but to her, it held different significance-not so much where the path was leading, as to where it came from. It originated higher up the valley to their left. .

From the Fey-Alamtine.

They reached the vantage where they had rested on the climb, and Brigit gazed to the west in uncomprehending shock. The once-shiny cliff no longer gleamed in the morning sunlight. In fact, there was no cliff there to gleam! Instead, a wreckage of splintered obsidian lay at the foot of the slope, as if a horrendous landslide or explosion had ripped open the mountain.

Brigit spurred her horse, and the fleet mare seemed to sprout wings, so gracefully did she sweep along the forest trail. Colleen held as close as possible, but the gelding couldn't match the pace of her captain's mare.

They reached a shelf in the descending valley, and the horses pounded down the winding trail with abandon. Near the bottom, Brigit's mare reared back and the sister knight looked down, appalled, at the trail before her.

A white horse lay there, dead for only moments judging by the steam rising from its freshly exposed bowels. Something had scored a gory wound across the horse's midsection, nearly tearing the hapless beast in two. The tattered remnants of the saddle remained, but there was no sign of the rider.

"Inger's horse," said the white-faced Colleen. She held her longbow across her saddle, her fear-widened eyes darting back and forth among the surrounding trees.

A loud splintering sound reached them, and the Llewyrr felt the massive pain of trees, rended by some awful force. Shrieks of horror, undeniably elven, rang from somewhere down the trail.

Immediately the two sister knights spurred their mounts into a gallop, frantic now to intercept the threat that seemed to move like a landslide toward the heart of Synnoria. They ducked under branches, then lay flat along the pitching backs of the racing steeds, thundering several miles in a blur of speed.

Finally they came through a grove of tall pines into the wide meadow of the trout farm, and here the horses reared back, instinctively terrified.

The first thing that came into Brigit's mind was that a gigantic turtle had somehow appeared among the Llewyrr. At a glance, the domed back, covered by a hard carapace, might have belonged to one of that amphibious race.

But as it moved, the resemblance immediately vanished.

Three legs flexed beneath the beast, carrying it with bounding speed toward several fleeing elves. It loomed over them, the size of a small barn, then scampered with shocking speed this way and that after the terrified Llewyrr. Tentacles lashed outward, seizing the slight forms and dragging them to an unseen fate beneath the monster's overhanging shell.

"The trout farm!" cried Colleen, but Brigit had already seen the damage. The beast stalked among the buildings and sheds, smashing troughs of flowing water, reducing wooden buildings to splinters with a single kick of a tree-sized leg. Panic-stricken Llewyrr fled in all directions. The knights saw several of them seized by the monster's tentacles and dragged screaming to their doom.

"Let's go!" urged Brigit, spurring the frightened Talloth toward the rampaging beast. She wished for her lance, though in her heart, she knew that even that steel-tipped shaft could do little more than prick the monster's skin. Despite the hopelessness of their courageous gesture, Colleen raced at her side. Both of the sister knights drew their swords, raising the blades in a wild attempt to distract the monster from its helpless prey.

The beast must have sensed their approach, for it turned from the wreckage of a shed, where it had been burrowing after survivors with its tentacles, and lumbered toward the froth-flecked horses and their determined riders.

"Break!" shouted Brigit, veering to the right. Colleen, anticipating the command, split to the left. The horses swept around the looming beast, out of range of the awful tendrils, and the monster seemed content to let them pass.

As they came around to the other side, Brigit looked back and, for the first time, saw the distended gap that was the thing's mouth. Blood flowed copiously among a grinding nest of tongue protuberances, hard-edged digits that crunched and scraped against each other or against anything else unfortunate enough to be caught between them. The knight gagged at the thought of the elves-her fellow Llewyrr! — who had perished there, ground to pieces by the churning cartilage.

"Turn back!" she shouted to Colleen, veering sharply toward the creature. A tentacle lashed toward her and she chopped, feeling a grim satisfaction when her steel blade bit into the gruesome flesh. Immediately the limb whipped backward, away from the keen sword.

Colleen darted in on the other side, slashing at a different tentacle, and then the two riders galloped away, pausing across the field to see if the thing would pursue them.

Instead, it stood like a small hillock, as if it would never move anywhere again. "Attack again-but be careful!" Brigit commanded.

Again the two Llewyrr thundered forward, blades at the ready, guiding the sleek horses with the pressure of their knees. Still the three-legged monstrosity remained unmoving, awaiting the charge.

"Break!" cried Brigit again, and once more the two riders swept past the monster. The captain looked for the lashing tentacles again, ready to parry, but no attack came. She darted closer, stabbing with her blade toward the immense body.