Of Truth and Beasts

If the Fay had come for Wynn—if that elven woman had done this, then the tree of her worship was the last place they should flee.

Only two things kept Chane from picking Wynn up and running away.

He could not navigate under the forest’s influence, and only Ore-Locks’s effort to clear a path behind Shade gave Chane any sense of direction. And second, the pack might catch them, in part or whole, before Shade reached the place she sought.

The beast within Chane lunged to the limits of its bonds. It shrieked and howled, wanting him to turn ... to kill whatever hunted them ... to hunt it instead.

“Faster!” he urged Wynn as they ran.

Anything that tried to touch her would die—anything at all.

Wynn burst into the open behind Ore-Locks. Shade wheeled and began barking at her, as the dwarf turned and set himself facing the forest. One stolen memory-word kept echoing in Wynn’s head.

—Sanctuary ... Sanctuary ... Sanctuary—

And there it was, merely a stone’s throw away. The whole clearing was filled with the low shimmer of Chârmun’s barkless form, as its glowing wood spread light like the moon.

Why did Shade believe this place was safer than anywhere else? The Fay could invade anything growing in the forest. That tree, by its pervasive nature, was more akin to them than any other.

Ore-Locks glanced at her—then just beyond her. He suddenly dropped her staff to the ground and leveled his long iron one in both hands. He swung the thick bar back and up over his head.

“Get away from the trees!” he shouted.

Wynn was about to bolt when a rasping snarl rose behind her. Someone grabbed her, nearly throwing her out beyond Ore-Locks’s swing. When she regained her footing and turned, Chane stood between her and the trees with his back to her. Branches of an elm beyond him twisted in the air, reaching toward where she’d stood.

Chane raised his sword, but never got to swing, as Ore-Locks’s staff ripped downward.

Leaves exploded in its passing. Twisting branches broke into splinters. But a dark form shot out of the forest over the top of Ore-Locks’s downed staff. The mottled brown majay-hì went straight at Chane as Shade charged two more of the pack rushing from the underbrush.

Wynn grew frantic in trying to think of a way to end this before blood was spilled. At any moment, Vreuvillä would catch up, and she was the one who’d started all this chaos. Wynn whirled around, looking to the great tree glimmering in the clearing.

Why had Shade wanted them to come here?

Wynn looked back and spotted her staff lying behind Ore-Locks, who now whipped his long iron bar back and forth, warding off three majay-hì. She ducked in below his backswing and snatched the butt end of her staff.

One quick burst from the sun crystal might stun everyone without harming Chane too much. This was all she could think to do as she raised up the staff and backpedaled. But she stumbled as something lashed around her calf and jerked her leg straight.

A thick root sprouting from the moss-covered ground coiled around her knee.

Wynn reached behind her back for Magiere’s old dagger.

“Pull back!” Ore-Locks shouted.

The moss-covered earth split again at Wynn’s feet. A second earth-stained root shot upward over her chest.

“No!” was all Wynn got out as she toppled.

* * *

Sau’ilahk saw light ahead as the tâshgâlh raced through the forest’s heights. The farther the animal had gotten from the aspen clearing, the more the wind had subsided and was left behind. Yet the nearer his familiar closed upon the light, the more the surrounding trees wavered and shuddered under some other influence. Sau’ilahk could not make sense of this.

A slight break in the trees ahead gave him a filtered view. He thought he saw Wynn standing in the clearing. Chane and Shade and the dwarf stood before her. The rest was a wink as the first of the pack broke into the clearing.

Ore-Locks went at them, as did Shade. Chane rushed forward to the tree line, and Sau’ilahk lost sight of him, his familiar too high above. Then the earth broke at Wynn’s feet.

Something dark writhed up to coil around her leg.

The tâshgâlh leaped to a tree on the clearing’s edge—and the world went black.

The last thing Sau’ilahk saw was something glimmering, tawny, and pale in that space—a massive, ancient tree, bare of bark but still growing in the earth. In the darkness that swallowed everything from his senses, Sau’ilahk again heard a sound like splintering wood.

That crackling cascaded through him, as if he had flesh and bone—as if he were that green wood being ripped apart. All of his awareness went as blank as his sight through his familiar. But he did not fall into dormancy like the last time.

The plain beyond the forest slowly returned to his sight.

Sau’ilahk stood there, shuddering in the aftermath.