The Magehound

But it was not the magic of the silencing spell. This was someone's personal mark, a «feel» that was unique to one individual. Someone in that camp possessed magic, and most likely was not aware of it. But Kiva had known. A magehound knew who possessed magic and who did not. Most likely the elf had brought someone into the swamp as bait for the laraken. Perhaps Matteo. Kiva thought she could do anything without reprisal.

"I don't think so," Tzigone said softly as she scrambled down the tree, more determined than she'd ever been. The memories that flooded her had reminded her how difficult her survival had been. Survival was a rare accomplishment. But it was time to do more than just survive.

She crept deeper into the swamp, prompted by fury and by the determination that Kiva would destroy no more lives.

As she reached up to pull aside a curtain of vines that twisted between two trees, colors spilled onto her hand, a stray bit of rainbow where there should be none. She stopped and spun to her right. Not more than five paces away stood a glassy, ghostly form.

But the spirit did not move, and after a moment Tzigone realized that it wasn't a ghost-at least, not a ghost in any conventional sense.

Beside an ancient swamp oak stood a translucent statue of a beautiful female, far too lovely to be human. The slender hand disappeared into the trunk of a thick tree, and the frozen face was upturned with the hopeful expression of one who expects sanctuary. This, Tzigone realized, had been a dryad. She took a deep breath and plunged on.

As Tzigone walked, she saw other glassy forms of creatures suddenly drained of magic, and therefore of life. There were more dryads, and among the leaves, she saw the tiny fallen bodies of sprites and pixies, many of them nothing but shards. She saw a single faun frozen in midcaper and more elves than she'd seen in all her travels through Halruaa.

She'd seen one of these crystal shadows before and had thought that only elves could suffer this fate. But the lie was all around her. All magical creatures fell to the mystery of the swamp. No wonder wizards seldom emerged from Akhlaur!

A voice in her head sounded, part warning and part taunt. This could be you.

Tzigone blinked away the phantom image of her own glassy shadow and plunged deeper into the swamp.

Chapter Twenty

Matteo and Andris walked side by side, talking softly of all they had done since they'd parted and of the task that lay before them. Try as he might, Matteo hadn't been able to convince Andris to flee the swamp. He couldn't walk away and let his friend fight alone.

But his decision to stay went deeper still. Matteo had been raised with a firm sense of his own destiny. That had been sorely shaken. Lacking a vision of his own, he accepted the one shining in his friend's eyes. He would fight the laraken for Andris, not for Kiva. And when the battle was done, he would find a way to deal with the magehound.

An undulating cry howled through the forest, a terrible sound that was both deep, bone-shaking growl and raptor's shriek. Distant but powerful, it reminded Matteo of the winds that blew off the Bay of Taertal before the onset of a monsoon.

Matteo and Andris unsheathed their daggers instinctively, moving in perfect unison.

"It is still some way off," Andris said softly.

Matteo nodded. As he put away the daggers, an annoying little whine sounded just above his head. Instinctively he swatted at it, then realized his mistake and dropped to the ground, shouting for the other men to do the same.

A dark, whirring cloud swept down on them, moving in deadly formation. The cloud dived sharply, and then at the last moment swerved in a rising arc to keep from crashing into the ground.

"A surge swarm?" muttered Andris. "What next?"

Angry and cheated, the swarm of mosquitolike creatures broke formation and began to whir around in small circles as they selected their prey.

Matteo groped for the thong that bound the four-foot pike to his back. He tugged it free and surged to his feet, thrusting at the stirge that swooped toward him.

The enormous insect slid wetly down the slender blade, its slide aided by the blood it had stolen from some hapless forest dweller. The stirge stopped only when it struck the pike's cross guard. Its long mosquitolike snout still stabbed and probed, even as it twitched in its death throes.

Matteo ducked and thrust and stabbed again and again, until the skewered bodies of giant mosquitoes filled half his pike and slowed his movements. He tossed the weapon aside and pulled his daggers, slashing at any of the creatures that came near.

The men fought furiously, and soon they were joined by unlikely allies-the stirges themselves. Desperate for food, some of the giant insects fell upon their fallen kin and thrust their swordlike snouts into their rounded bellies. Macabre little tunes, the stirge song hummed by the feeding monsters, filled the air as the creatures drank the twice-stolen blood.