blood after so many days of running. But the dreamer was quicker still. It dodged her attack and caught her leg in a powerful grip, throwing her to the ground like a rag doll. She rolled away, clenching her teeth in anger as the dreamer accepted a close cut from Brindani, only to pounce as the half-elfs blade was drawn back, taking him off guard. His sword bounced from his grip as the pair slammed into the dirt.
Ghaelya charged again as Brindani was taken down under the beast’s weight. She slashed at the exposed back of the creature, drawing a thin line of dark fluid. The smell of the beast’s blood hit her nose. She drew back to slash again, sidestepping as it swiped at her with its claw. Brindani strained to keep the dreamer’s jaws at bay, groaning with the effort and slowly losing. The creature’s clawed fingers scraped against the half-elfs old armor as it whined pitiably with a sickening hunger, its jaws gaping wide to reveal tusklike fangs.
Distant howls rose through the Spur, each answering the last. Desperate, Ghaelya stepped in, thrusting at the black, fishlike eyes as they turned to face her. The sudden roar of the beast struck her like a fist, dazing her as a wave of hazy force knocked away her broadsword. Pressure pushed against her chest, turning the forest into a blur of ethereal greens and murky shadows, and the canopy overhead spun wildly through her wide eyes. In the brief moment she hung between land and sky, the unknown song flashed through her mind. A chorus of angelic voices pressed into the space of a heartbeat before reality took her back to falling.
She crashed into the ground, stunned and gasping for breath. All sound felt sucked away, as if cotton had been stuffed into her ears. The trailing edge of the beast’s roar still rumbled through her body, the force of it having left her skin numb where it had struck. Her ears popped, relieving the all-encompassing sound of her pulse. Groaning, she pushed herself up, amazed that she’d held on to her weapon. Recovering swiftly, she got to her feet, undeterred. The stench of the creature’s blood stung her nostrils as she came at it again, scoring a strike across the back of its thick skull. It whimpered and drew back, more dark fluid dripping down its not-quite-human face. It yelped as Brindani thrust the blade of a dagger into its shoulder.
The half-elf stabbed madly as he fought the injured beast, kicking free and rolling to his dropped sword. Ghaelya kept slashing as the beast backed away, giving Brindani time to regain his footing. The dreamer huffed, an expression of anger spreading across its weirdly mixed features. Before the creature could give voice to its roar again, two arrows sprouted from its throat. It gagged, coughing and spraying blood across the ground. A stench like dead fish filled the air as it drew back and thrashed in the dirt, clawing at the offending shafts. Scrambling to its feet, the beast Sprinted into the forest’s shadows, wheezing and gnashing its teeth.
Ghaelya turned her sword eastward, squinting into the trees for the source of the arrows. Brindani placed a hand on her shoulder that she quickly shrugged off, but she calmed somewhat as he stepped forward, seeing more in the dark than just more enemies. She did not lower her blade as a human, armed with a longbow, approached cautiously. He was tall and lean, with a hard stare that pierced through the forest’s ghostly gloom. An arrow was strung tightly in his bow, and she braced her feet, ready to move at a moment’s notice.
To Ghaelya’s alarm, Brindani lowered his own blade.
“Uthalion?” he asked quietly.
The human stopped, half raising the bow for a heartbeat as if deciding whether or not to kill the half-elf, but the arrow’s point turned away even if the taut string didn’t budge.
“Brin?” the man replied and seemed about to say more when the howls of the approaching pack filled the air. Pain flashed through Ghaelya’s skull, nearly driving her to her knees. Both men winced in pain and dropped their guards completely until the sound passed. Uthalion shook his head and eyed Ghaelya and Brindani shrewdly, his lips drawn in a thin line. He turned to the south with a purposeful stride.
“No time,” he called over his shoulder. “Follow me unless you’re waiting for them.”
“Is that him?” Ghaelya asked, sheathing her blade. “The man you spoke of?”
It seemed Brindani looked right through her for a breath before he blinked and nodded at her question. He motioned to the retreating human, seeming out of sorts as he followed the guide they had sought.
“And he knows the way? He will take us to Tohrepur?” she asked, keeping up. Yet he did not turn to her; he avoided eye contact and appeared lost in some other thread of thought.
“He knows the way.” Brindani muttered at length.
Ghaelya paused at his answer, narrowed her eyes at his back, and shook her head for a moment before continuing, cursing herself quietly. Once upon a time she’d known better than to take a promise at face value; but, she reasoned, she’d taken a chance on the half-elfit fairly followed to allow him his gamble on the human. Whatever occurred, they were moving sputh again, and that would serve her well for the time being.
She could hear the dreamers giving chase in the distance, their growls and whines echoing hauntingly. Uthalion guided them through the forest as if he’d lived there all his life, turning swift corners and avoiding sudden drops or hidden patches of thick thorns. His knowledge of the Spur kept them safely ahead of the monstrous pack, but with the dreamers’ speed Ghaelya doubted their distance would last forever. She followed carefully and quietly, keeping a safe distance from the strange human and a close eye on Brindani. Her attention was so focused on spying any suspicious | action from Uthalion, that she almost drew her blade on ‘ him when he stopped suddenly and turned with an upraised I hand. Brindani approached Uthalion’s position, and both I men looked down the edge of a sheer cliff, its bottom lost — in darkness.
“After me, count to three,” Uthalion said, looking up at! the pair. “Then follow.”
| With that he jumped, falling into the black. Ghaelya I held her breath, waiting for the sound of an impact, though ‘ Hone came. Brindani looked to her and nodded as if it were perfectly normal.
“You cannot be serious!” she whispered. He placed a hand on her shoulder even as howls erupted close by. Placing a finger to his lips, he secured his sword and dagger and jumped into the dark.
Ghaelya had never been afraid of heights. Airspur was a city of towering structures, some of them suspended freely: in the air. Many a thrill-seeking genasi knew how to leap from one district to the next, arresting one’s fall by a window ledge here, a banner-pole there. She had imagined herself as a single drop of rain, flowing and changing, as she had navigated the soaring heights of the city. As graceful and as brave as she might have seemed at home, she always knew where and how to land.
She stepped closer to the cliff s edge, one foot hovering over the bottomless gulf and her neck stretched, finding her center of balance. She closed her eyes and shook her arms out, loosely hanging her fingers like rolling drops of rain collecting on the petal of a flower. The weight of the inevitable fall flooded her senses and rushed chillingly through her arms. Muffled growls drew nearer; claws scratched at bark and dirt.
Somewhere in the dark below her she felt the singing again, though she could not hear it. It tugged at her, pleaded with her, and for a moment she swooned in its power. Bending her knees slightly, she cursed. “I’m coming for you, Tess,” she said.
Brindani hit the dirt hard, rolling over the thick roots of a tree and tucking into a crouch. He turned to stand across from Uthalion, watching for the descending form of Ghaelya. He tried not to look at the human, still dazed by the indistinct memories racing through his mind. He kept his eyes skyward, the moonlit dark little more than thin shadows to the sharp eyes his elf mother had given him. The hands he held at the readyperhaps, he had often mused, the hands of his unknown human fatherbore the scars of too many battles.
Born in the battlefield, Brindani thought. Why bother fighting it? You’ll die there too.
Ghaelya appeared falling gracefully through the darkness, her arms outstretched, the pale swirls of energy on her skin burning. He and Uthalion caught her arms. She broke free of Uthalion’s grasp and they rolled across the ground in a tangle of limbs and curses. The roots he had missed before were lodged in the small of his back, the genasi’s weight on top of him. For the briefest of moments he welcomed the pain, until her eyes flashed in anger, and she stood.
The forestmote they had landed upon floated peacefully between the high cliffs of a deep valley in the Spur, drifting eastward so slowly the movement could barely be seen. Brindani looked to Uthalion, surprised and realizing just how long the human had lived in the forest. The skills Uthalion had gathered would be useful.
“Was that really necessary?” Ghaelya asked, leaning against a tree and rubbing her leg. “I won’t be able to run on this now.”
Uthalion glanced at her, annoyed, before turning back to his perusal of the cliffs above, watching for signs of pursuit. Brindani held up the gore-splattered blade of his dagger, the smell of the dreamer’s blood overpowering.
“Smells like an abandoned fish market at high noon,” he said, turning his nose away. “If we’d gone around the cliffs, we might as well have carried torches and sang tavern songs at the top of our lungs. Uthalion just broke
