Terry Brooks - Bloodfire Quest

So he kept silent and willed the time to pass and the answer to come.

When it did, it was a surprise.

“We’re not waiting any longer,” the Ard Rhys announced suddenly, wheeling back to where Redden sat with the Trolls. “We’re going back. If Oriantha and Crace Coram could be found, Pleysia would have found them. Or will, if she is still looking. I’ve used magic to search for signs of the Ulk Bog, but found nothing. Enough is enough. I won’t risk any more lives. We’re wasting our time sitting about. We need to find a way out of the Forbidding and back to the Four Lands.”

Everyone climbed hurriedly to their feet, gathered their gear, and in minutes were walking north again, retracing their footsteps. This day was a mirror image of all the others, the sky iron gray and hard, the air thick with dust and the smell of decay, the land empty and barren everywhere.

“If we find a way out, we will think about coming back to see if the others managed to survive,” Khyber said to the boy. “But we need better preparations and a stronger company to attempt it.”

Redden nodded in agreement. Going on was too dangerous. They had already lost half their number, and there was nothing to say they wouldn’t lose the other half before any of them got free of this place. Only five left, he thought in disbelief. All of the Druids save the Ard Rhys, all of the experts they had recruited to aid them, and most of the Trolls—dead or missing. All in less than four days’ time.

He felt a tightening in his chest just thinking of it.

Nothing could be worse than this.

The trek went on through the rest of the morning, and neither Pleysia nor Tesla Dart reappeared. They moved cautiously, but steadily, keeping a sharp eye out. Khyber used a small scrim of magic to sweep the land just ahead of them, searching out predators and hidden dangers. When she found them—less than half a dozen times altogether—she steered the company clear. When at one point they crossed paths unexpectedly with a huge four-legged beast that was armored and horned, she had them stand still and wait for it to pass. It did so without more than a disinterested glance, lumbering off into the distance.

When they stopped for a brief rest, Redden caught sight of a brilliant green flash that appeared suddenly and was gone again. It reappeared later, after they had set out again, and this time Khyber Elessedil saw it as well. It stood out in sharp relief against the gray of the landscape, and every time it appeared after that—which was often—it caught their attention. But they were never able to get too close, and it didn’t seem to have any particular source.

“What do you think it is?” Redden asked the Ard Rhys after they had seen it appear and disappear repeatedly.

But she only shook her head and kept walking.

Finally, they came to a stretch of heavy woods, the trees barren and skeletal, the grasses gray and dusty and dead. When they began to skirt the woods, the green flash reappeared and settled on a tree branch not fifty yards away, just inside the barren grove. Redden turned and walked toward it, hypnotized by its brightness and mystery, wanting to have a closer look. He heard the Ard Rhys tell him to come back, then heard her coming after him. But he kept going anyway, just wanting to see it a little more clearly, thinking it might be a sort of bird.

He was within twenty feet of his goal when the ground opened up and his feet yanked from under him as a heavy rope net closed about. He had just enough time to thrash in response and to witness the Ard Rhys releasing Druid magic in all directions before attackers bore her to the ground and thick, suffocating fumes filled his nostrils.

He woke again to the creaking of leather traces and the rumble of wooden wheels rolling across uneven terrain. He could smell the heated bodies of two huge beasts pulling the wooden cart in which he rode before he could see them, so thick was the dust. He was imprisoned in a cage constructed of iron bars embedded in huge beams, his arms and legs chained to rings set into the floor of the cart. He was sitting upright, his body and limbs pinned in place so that he could barely move.

The Ard Rhys was chained across from him, her head sunk against her breast. She was still unconscious. A blur of memory recalled itself, and he saw her fighting back against the things that had come out of the earth, fire bursting from her fingertips, engulfing those closest. He saw the Trolls rush to her aid, falling one by one to a barrage of arrows and spears.

He closed his eyes again, fighting back against the stabs of pain that lanced through his head. He still felt disoriented and weak, and it was all he could do to keep from passing out again. He forced his eyes open, made himself look outside the cage to find the heaving, straining bodies of the massive horned creatures pulling it. He caught sight of movement next to where he rode and found a wolfish creature pacing the cage, its huge, lean body covered in thick gray fur. When it saw him looking, it opened its jaws wide and revealed rows of blackened teeth.

Redden slumped against the bars of his cage and tried to calm himself. They’d been lured into a trap, snared and rendered unconscious, then imprisoned. He had no idea who was responsible, but his first thought was of Tesla Dart.

He tried to reason it through, but everything fell apart when he looked through the bars at the back of the cage and saw Pleysia’s head impaled on the butt of a spear embedded in the cart’s wooden bed.

Still trapped on the plateau with the others waiting for Khyber Elessedil, Railing Ohmsford levered himself up on one arm and tried to get to his feet. Seersha had announced that they had to get out of there before nightfall to avoid an impending attack, and he wasn’t about to waste time doing so. Broken leg or not, he wasn’t going to let those sharp-clawed creatures in the deep woods below get to him again.

“Here, here!” The Druid was bearing him back down again, her grip surprisingly strong. Her rough face pressed close, her good eye fixing on him. “I said we had to move to safer ground. I didn’t say you had to walk there.”

He started to make a retort, but then thought better of it and simply nodded. “Don’t forget,” she added, “you have the use of magic. You can protect yourself better than most. Stay calm. I will likely need your help when they come for us.”

She turned away, all business now. He felt better knowing she depended on him, that she expected him to do more than lie there helplessly. For a moment, he had panicked. Redden wouldn’t have allowed that to happen. His brother would have pulled himself together and prepared for a fight. So Railing would do the same.

Nevertheless, he couldn’t try to pretend their situation wasn’t desperate. They were trapped on this ledge somewhere in the middle of the Fangs, too far away from their airship to make a run for it, the surrounding countryside awash with creatures waiting for a chance to tear them apart. There were few enough of them left as it was—Seersha, Skint, Farshaun Req, the Speakman, a handful of Trolls, and himself. Everyone was still recovering from the last attack, and there was every reason to think another would be mounted soon enough—likely right after it got dark. The Ard Rhys and those who had gone with her had left only hours ago, but it seemed like days.

Railing tried not to think about how vulnerable his broken leg would render him when the next attack came.

“Skint!” Seersha called. The Gnome Tracker, who had returned by now, came over at once. “Go back up into those rocks and look around until you find a place where we can make a stand. Make sure those creatures can’t get to us once we’re in place. Don’t rush. There’s plenty of time. They’ll wait until dark to attack.”