Terry Brooks - Wards of Faerie

Other holes began to open all around them, jagged fissures running six to ten feet long. Redden yanked Railing away from one that yawned right next to them just as his brother lost his balance and began to teeter on the edge. The fissures were actually moving like the jaws of an animal, working their ragged mouths back and forth.

Skint surged through the middle of the struggling members of the company, leaping the hungry mouths, yelling as he went.

“Procks!” he screamed. “Get out of here!”

Members of the company were already falling back, moving out of the area of attack as swiftly as they could manage. Pleysia, the girl Oriantha, a couple of the Trolls, and Crace Coram led the way. Khyber Elessedil, still fighting off swarms of giant insects, backed away last. With the insects in pursuit, everyone began a ragged retreat, swatting at their winged attackers while trying to stay clear of the Procks.

Redden and Railing had heard about Procks from the Rovers. Found mostly in the mountains of the Eastland, they surfaced in communities hundreds strong. They were living rock, an impossibility given life through a magic long since lost and forgotten. They swallowed anything that came within reach, catching hold of the unwary and chewing their victims to pieces even as they struggled to free themselves.

The company kept fighting off the snapping mouths, struggling to reach safe ground while avoiding the lethal stings and bites of the insects. It took longer than it should have, and both twins were exhausted by the time they had gone far enough that they could consider themselves safe.

Farshaun plopped down beside them, winded and red-faced. His arms and face were swollen with stings and bites, and there was blood on his hands. “Did you see what happened to that Troll? His leg went down into a Prock’s mouth, and that was it. Skint and I tried to pull him free, but it was no use. Once they’ve got you, there’s no getting away.”

“I didn’t think there were any Procks in the Westland,” Railing said, wiping sweat from his face and finding blood, as well. “I thought they were only in the Ravenshorn.”

Farshaun gave him a look. “There’s everything out here in the Breakline. Everything you don’t want to find.”

The other members of the company had worked their way free of the Prock community by now, and the flying insects had broken off their attack and flown back to wherever they had come from. Close by where the twins were huddled with Farshaun, Khyber Elessedil was confronting the Speakman.

“Why didn’t you warn us?” she demanded of him. “Why didn’t you say something?”

The Speakman, matchstick arms and legs collapsed against his scarecrow body, looked at her as if he had never seen her before. His voice was surprisingly soft. “How could I warn you? I never saw those things before. Any of them. Last time I was here, they weren’t.”

Farshaun came up and crouched beside him. “Speakman. Did you say they were new? But that isn’t possible. Things don’t change out here. You know that.”

“I know. But they have.”

Redden and Railing inched closer to listen in.

“How many did we lose?” Farshaun asked the Ard Rhys.

She shook her head in disgust, her brow furrowing. “Only the one you couldn’t save. We were lucky it wasn’t more. But we can’t have this happen again. We need the Speakman to warn us. He lives out here! He has to sense these things or we’ll be decimated before we find anything!”

She kept her voice low, but the force of her words was unmistakable. Farshaun looked over at the Speakman, who nodded silently. “He’ll do the best he can,” the old man assured her.

“Let’s hope so,” she said, her eyes fixed on his. “Because at dawn tomorrow we’re going to try this again.”

Khyber Elessedil did not speak to any of them again that day save for Farshaun. She knew she had become obsessed with finding the missing Elfstones and had reached a point where almost nothing else mattered. She hated seeing anyone die, but she had already accepted it as inevitable, given the nature of the dangers they faced. What she hated most was not being sufficiently prepared for the bad things they would encounter, so she had made up her mind that they would be ready on the morrow for anything.

How she would accomplish this was not entirely clear, but she knew to begin by speaking at length with Farshaun about making the Speakman look harder for what might be lying in wait.

Farshaun was obliging, but he insisted the Speakman was already doing all he could, and it was obvious something was happening in the Fangs that was as new to him as it was to the rest of them. If he had never encountered these dangers before—didn’t even know they were there—Farshaun didn’t think there was much the Speakman could do about searching them out now. Perhaps she would do well to put Skint and Seersha at the forefront to help him. Their tracking and wilderness skills were probably the equal of his own, and even if they didn’t know the country they could use their instincts and experience to intuit dangers as well as he could.

Khyber agreed, although none of this gave her reason to feel confident about the Speakman. She was using him out of necessity, not because she thought he was up to what was being asked of him. He was clearly fragile emotionally, and his reclusive life did not suggest he would function well in this larger community, no matter the importance of his presence.

But she had no choice in the matter. She needed a guide, and he was the best she had.

She put aside her ponderings over the fitness of the Speakman long enough to wonder if she should ask the Ohmsford twins to use the magic of their wishsong to help to provide protection for the company, as well. But she was loath to put them at further risk. She was mindful of her promise to herself, as much as to Sarys, to do her best to protect the twins, and she intended to keep it.

Besides, after today, anyone on the expedition with magic skills would be using them without her having to tell them.

She had taken the search party all the way back to the Walker Boh , unwilling to risk having them spend the night in the open after today’s encounter. Better to start fresh in the morning, even if it meant covering some of the same ground twice. She went to bed early, more tired than she had realized.

As she lay rolled up in her blanket on the decks of the airship, listening to the singing of the wind as it blew through the radian draws, an unpleasant feeling that something was very wrong began to creep over her. She couldn’t put her finger on exactly what it was, only that it was there and seemed uncomfortably familiar. She pondered it until she fell asleep—a long, slow process—but was not able to pinpoint its source.

By morning, she had forgotten the matter, and with the same members of the expedition she had chosen for yesterday’s search party—plus another of Garroneck’s Trolls to replace the one they had lost—she set out again. She had decided they would choose a new starting point and find a different route in, hopefully avoiding the Procks and flying insects by doing so. To accomplish this, she had Farshaun fly the Walker Boh south for several miles to a place the Speakman claimed he knew well enough to anticipate any dangers—if, he was quick to add, nothing had changed. He relayed all this through Farshaun, no longer willing to speak to her directly. He was still traumatized by Khyber’s reaction of the previous day and frightened that he might disappoint her again, Farshaun told her in confidence. He warned her again that the Speakman’s emotional state was uncertain. If she wanted his help she would have to be gentle with him.