“Your ears will serve us better here,” Uthalion said. “I’ll take Brindani with me, and we’ll set the fire.”
Brindani paced at the edge of the site, staring west and keeping his head low. Vaasurri reluctantly nodded and rejoined Ghaelya. The human took what supplies he needed and turned to leave, though Ghaelya noticed Brindani took his pack, refusing to let it get more than an arm’s length from his shoulder.
“We’ll be back soon,” Uthalion added. “If anything happens light the last of the flash-torches. We’ll spot it easily in the dark.”
With that, the two set out, quickly disappearing among the hills and the crystals. Ghaelya watched the last of the sunlight slowly drain away as she chewed absently on dried fruit and a strip of salted venison. She tasted neither, her-gaze darting at every sound, and her pulse jumping at every imagined movement. Scarcely a night had passed in several days when she hadn’t been running or hiding from things in the dark. And when she had managed to sleep, the dreams had left her restless and shaken.
Any rest at all, she reckoned, would come uneasily and be spent fitfully. When Vaasurri mentioned taking first watch, she pretended not to hear him, listening only for the haunting howls of the dreamers and the beguiling voices of the Choir.
CHAPTER SIX
7 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One (1479 DR) The Akana, North of the Wash, Akanul
Moonlight stretched dim shadows across the ground as Uthalion eyed the dark edge of the cliff on his left, its sheer drop disappearing into an endless ocean of black. Taking a deep breath, he beat back the imagery of teeth and tentacles swimming through the inky expanse of shadow, tore his eyes away from the limitless fall, and focused on the task at hand. Brindani remained in the lead, his half-elf eyes more suited to the pale light of the rising moon, though his occasional stumbling too close to the cliff made Uthalion more than a little nervous.
The half-elf maintained a strange silence, his heavy lidded gaze wandering lazily from one patch of ground to the next as they searched for bits of deadfall. His skin was pale, and a constant sheen of sweat caused his forehead to glisten, a sure sign of fever. Uthalion said nothing, allowing Brindani his show of strength, a denial of whatever sickness had overcome him. But the farther they journeyed into the dark, the more he wondered if Brindani would make it back under his own power.
Uthalion wondered at the myriad of poisons they might have come in contact with since leaving the grove. None of them matched the symptoms Brindani was displaying. Very few of the Akana’s toxins left a man able to even walk, but walk the half-elf did and purposely, as if he were searching for something in the dark. Slowly, Uthalion increased the distance between them, feeling uneasy and keeping Brindani just within sight.
Low stone walls, overgrown with grass and weeds, rose from the ground on their right. They increased in number as the pair passed into a city fallen long before, victim to either the Spellplague or the war with the aboleths who had once laid siege to Airspur.
Though there were no signs of the nightmarish beasts now, Uthalion still gritted his teeth at the thought of them lying in wait, keeping his sword handy and a careful eye on the seemingly oblivious half-elf.
The remains of the town rose on buckled earth. Cresting its top, Uthalion turned north, studying the height and the slow rise of land leading up to the far distant Spur.
“Stop,” he called to Brindani and laid down his bundle of wood at the top of the hill. “This place will do.”
The half-elf paused, wavering unsteadily on his feet for a moment before turning back to the center of the clearing. He dropped his meager pile of deadfall along with the rest as Uthalion arranged what they’d collected into a suitable stack for burning. Brindani stood watching for a heartbeat, then turned back to his mysterious search of the ground.
“Are you really going back?” Brindani called over his shoulder as he paced the clearing in slow circles, kneeling in places to inspect something before moving on. “Or is this just a show? Some kind of honor… or obligation…”
Uthalion sighed angrily, breaking a long stick over his knee and continuing his preparation of the fire. He ignored the half-elf and cursed the desire to speak at all to one another, preferring to journey all the way to Tohrepur and back with nothing but dead air hanging between them. The very idea calmed him, but Brindani either did not share the sentiment or did not care.
“Perhaps Ghaelya and I are just some noble excuse for you, eh?” the half-elf continued, his pacing becoming more erratic, his search slightly more frantic. “Maybe you’re using us… And not the other way around.”
“What do you care?” Uthalion replied, breaking another stick, the sound of the snap swallowed by the night. “I’m here. This is what you wanted, right?”
“What I wanted…” Brindani’s voice came slurred and weak as he stopped his pacing, stared at the ground, and swayed slightly. “Right…”
“Get over it, Brin,” Uthalion said as he stood and surveyed the packed pile of deadfall in the moonlight. Turning sidelong to the half-elf he added, “Or get it out of your system.”
Brindani was kneeling on the ground and fumbling with his pack, his back to the human. He did not reply directly, but Uthalion heard him mutter distractedly, “Out of my system…”
Uthalion produced a tightly packed bundle of burn-moss and two chips of flint to start the Maze. The burn- moss ignited easily, glowing with a nimbus of flame as he placed it within the deadfall. He stood back as flickers of light illuminated the high ground of the clearing. Nodding in satisfaction, he froze as a familiar clicking growl reached his ears from the tall grasses in the northern end of the ruined town.
With his hand on his sword, Uthalion turned slowly, studying the shadows at the edge of the light. Brindani did not rise or give any indication of alarm, and Uthalion cursed the half-elf, sorely needing Brindani’s eyes to help identify the threat. He cleared his throat loudly, an old signal from their time together as soldiers. There was no reaction.
Indiscernible shadows shifted through the dark, rustling through the grass. Uthalion strode slowly toward his companion, drawing his blade and staring daggers into Brindani’s back as he listened for the unseen predators. The unmistakable sound of tiny claws scratching on stone seemed to surround them, punctuated by the clacking of tiny teeth and more of the little growls.
“That thing we faced in the Spur..’. the kaia,” he said, still trying to get Brindani’s attention away from the dirt. “It eats its own young or runs them from the forest, or so Vaasurri tells me.”
The half-elfs shoulders shook, and his head nodded lazily, but he did not rise or notice the squirming bits of blackness at the edge of the fire’s growing light. Tiny teeth gleamed among the tall blades of grass, little mouths emitting the clicks and growls as the beasts circled and prepared to advance on the unsuspecting Brindani.
“They start out small, he says,” Uthalion said as he turned his sword in a slow circle. “But they’re never pretty.”
Slippery tendrils of darkness separated them from the gloom, crawling and hungrily whining for flesh. For half a breath Uthalion considered letting them have Brindani as their easy meal. Cursing, he charged at the first beast entering the light.
Ghaelya gradually eased into the hushed quiet of the Akana, lying back uneasily under a moonlit sky full of stars.
She anchored her attention upon their faint light, still not comfortable with the dark of the open land. Cursing all the expanse of the Akana within her field of vision, she knew if lack of sleep did not kill her, then the awful quiet surely would. Thin clouds drifted across the moon like veils of silk, drawing smoky shadows over the land. The grasses rippled and undulated in soft breezes, a deep green tide that stirred Ghaelya’s watery soul and made her long for the flashing waves of the Sea of Fallen Stars.
Vaasurri sat on silent watch like a little tree, his coarse, grasslike brown hair whispering in the wind. He had spared her his questions since Uthalion and Brindani had left, leaving her to rest and make an attempt at sleep for which she had no desire. Restless nerves caused her arms and legs to twitch in frustration; she knew she should be on her way, racing across the wild lands to find Tessaeril. She crossed her legs, and folded her arms tight across her belly.
Though she was no stranger to falling asleep on hard ground, it had usually been her bedroom floor after a
