A vine brushed against his face, sliding away almost reluctantly, leaving a glistening trail of slime on his skin. He wiped the sticky stuff from his face, grimacing, and glanced upward. A huge mass of similar vines was writhing and twisting directly overhead. Not quite sure what he was looking at, he stared in disbelief, then in fear.
«Ahren,' he whispered.
Too late. The vines dropped down like snakes to encircle them, a cascade of long arms and supple fingers, tentacles of all sizes and shapes, attacking with such ferocity and purpose that they had no time even to think of reaching for their weapons. His arms pinned to his sides, Pen was swept off the raft and into the air. Tagwen flew past him, similarly wrapped about. The boy looked up and saw so many of the vines entwined in the forest canopy that it felt as if he were being drawn into a basket of snakes.
Then he saw something else, something much worse. Within the masses of tentacles were mouths, huge beaked maws that clacked and snapped and pulsed with life. Like squids, he thought, waiting to feed. It had taken only seconds for the vines to immobilize him, only seconds more for them to lift him toward the waiting mouths, all of it so quick he barely had time to comprehend what was happening. Now he fought like a wild man, kicking and screaming, determined to break free. But the vines held him securely, and slowly, inexorably, they drew him toward the waiting mouths.
Then spears of fire thrust into the beaks and tentacles from below, their flames a brilliant azure, burning through the shadows and gloom. The vines shuddered violently, shaking Pen with such force that he lost all sense of which way was up. An instant later, they released him altogether, dropping him stunned and disoriented into the swamp. He struck with an impact that jarred his bones and knocked the breath from his body, and he was underwater almost instantly, fighting to right himself, to reach air again.
He broke the surface with a gasp, thrashing against a clutch of weeds, seeing scythes of blue fire slash through the canopy in broad sweeps, smelling wood and plants burn, hearing the hiss and crackle of their destruction, tasting smoke and ash on the air. Overhead, the canopy was alive with twisting vines, some of them aflame, others batting wildly at burning neighbors. He saw Ahren Elessedil standing on the raft, both hands thrust skyward, his elemental magic the source of the fire, summoned from the ether and released from his fingers in jagged darts.
«Pen!» someone yelled.
Khyber had surfaced next to the raft and was hanging on one end, trying to balance the uneven platform so that her uncle could defend them. The swamp waters had turned choppy and rough, and it was all the Druid could do to keep from being tossed overboard. Pen swam to their aid, seizing the end of the raft opposite the Elven girl, the vines whipping all about him.
An instant later, Tagwen dropped out of the canopy, his bearded face a mask of confusion and terror as he plunged into the murky waters and then surfaced next to Pen.
«Push us out into the bay!» Ahren Elessedil shouted, dropping to one knee as his tiny platform tilted precariously.
Kicking strongly, Pen and Khyber propelled the raft toward open water, fighting to get clear of the deadly trap. Tagwen hung on tenaciously, and Ahren continued to send shards of fire into the clutching vines, which were still trying to get at him but were unable to break past his defenses. Smoke billowed and roiled in heavy clouds, mingling with swamp mist to form an impenetrable curtain. From somewhere distant, the frightened cries of water birds rose.
When at last they were far enough from the vines to pause in their efforts, Pen and Khyber crawled onto the raft beside Ahren Elessedil, pulled Tagwen up after them, and collapsed, gasping for breath. For several long seconds, no one said anything, their eyes fixed on the smoky mass of tree vines now some distance off.
«We were lucky,' Pen said finally.
«Don't be stupid!» Khyber snapped in reply. «Look what we've done! We've given ourselves away!»
Pen stared at her, recognition setting in. She was right. He had forgotten what Ahren Elessedil had said about how using magic would reveal their presence to those who hunted them. Ahren had saved them, but he had betrayed them, as well. Terek Molt would know exactly where they were. The Galaphile would track them to the bay.
«What can we do?» he asked in dismay.
Khyber turned to her uncle. «How much time do we have, Uncle Ahren?»
The Druid shook his head. «Not much. They will come for us quickly.» He climbed to his knees and looked around. Everything was clouded with smoke. «If they are close, we won't even have time to get off this bay.»
«We can hide!» Pen suggested hurriedly, glancing skyward for movement, for any sign of their pursuers. «Perhaps on one of the islands. We can sink the raft …»
Ahren shook his head. «No, Penderrin. We need to go ashore and find a place to make a stand. We need space in which to move and solid ground on which to do it.» He handed the boy one of the two remaining poles. «Try to get us ashore, Pen. Choose a direction. Do the best you can, but do it quickly.»
With Ahren working on the opposite side, Pen began poling toward shore once more, farther down from where the vines still thrashed and burned, farther along in the direction they had been heading. They made good time, borne on the crest of a tide stirred by their battle with the vines, a tide that swept them east. But Pen sensed that however swiftly they moved, it wasn't going to be swift enough.
This is all my fault, he kept thinking. Again.
The haze continued thick and unbroken, layering the surface of the water in a roiling blanket that stank of burning wood and leaves. Slowly, the bay went quiet again, the waters turning slate black and oily once more, a dark reflection of the shadows creeping in from the shoreline. Pen poled furiously, thinking that if they could just reach a safe place to land, they might lose themselves in the trees. It would not be easy to find them in this jungle, this swamp, this morass, not even for Terek Molt. All they needed to do was gain the shore.
They did so, finally. They beached on a mud bank fronting a thick stand of cypress, tangled all about with vines and banked with heavy grasses. They pulled their raft ashore, hauled it back into the trees, and set out walking. The silence of the Slags closed about them, deep and pervasive, an intrusive and brooding companion. Pen could hear the sound of his breathing. He could feel the pumping of his heart.
Still there was no sign of their pursuit.
We're going to escape them after all, he thought in sudden relief.
They walked for several hours, well past midday and deep into the afternoon. The shoreline snaked in and out of the trees, and they stayed at its edge, keeping a sharp eye out for more of the deadly vines and any sign of movement on the bay waters. They did not talk, their efforts concentrated on putting one foot in front of the other, Ahren Elessedil setting a pace that even Pen, who was accustomed to long treks, found difficult to match.
It was late in the afternoon, the shadows of twilight beginning to lengthen out of the west, when they found the eastern end of the lake. It swung south in a broad curve, the ground lifting to a wall of old growth through which dozens of waterways opened. Pen searched the gloom ahead without finding anything reassuring, then took a moment to read his compass, affirming what Ahren, with his Druidic senses, had already determined. They were on course, but not yet clear of the swamp.
Then sudden brightness flared behind them, dispersing the mist and brightening the gloom as if dawn had broken. They wheeled back as one, shielding their eyes. It looked as if the swamp were boiling from a volcanic eruption, its waters churning, steaming with an intense heat. The dark prow of an airship nosed through the fading haze like a great lumbering bear, slowly settling toward the waters of the bay, black nose sniffing the air. Pen fought to keep from shaking with the chill that swept through him.
The Galaphile had found them.
TWENTY–SIX
The huge curved horns of the Galaphile's bow swung slowly about to point like a compass needle toward the four who stood frozen on the muddy shoreline. There was no mistaking that she had found what she was searching for. Through the fading screen of mist and twilight's deepening shadows, the vessel settled onto the reed–choked surface of the bay, not fifty yards away, and slowly began to advance. Her sails were furled and her masts and spars as bare and black as charred bones. She had the stark, blasted look of a specter.
