Chapter 29

Ke-cha-yat, Neron

Eldako nearly died, in spite of everything. Forlo had never seen a man so badly hurt, who still somehow managed to survive—not in more than two decades in the Imperial Legions, fighting hobgoblins and the Thenolite dead. The shock of the elf's wounds alone would have been enough to kill most soldiers—and then there was his maltreatment by the Maws, and the difficult journey back to the cha'asii tree town. And always, there was the threat of his wounds rotting. Forlo had been in lands like these; you could die of black-blood from a cut while shaving, much less burns over a third of your body. But Eldako lived, through three nights of fever in the Grandmother's hut, while the ancient elf chanted over him, made him drink sour tea, and burned pungent leaves to her ancestors.

Finally, on the third morning, the fever broke. He lay quiet and still, no longer raving about tentacled horrors in the dark… no longer dreaming of being back in his home in the Green, hunting hill-bear with his father. He was here again, now again, his remaining eye no longer glazed with delirium. Shedara sat by his side; she'd barely been away from him since they'd brought him back. She held his good hand as Forlo entered the sick hut and perched on the edge of the merkitsa's spruce-hough bed. Hult arrived soon after. He stayed standing. Yu-shan, the ancient crone, bowed her silver head and departed, leaving them alone.

"I did not think we four would be together again," Eldako said. His voice was slurred and rough, its beauty stolen by the dragon's acid. "Yet here we are, almost at the end."

"Almost," Shedara said, squeezing his hand.

She smiled, but there was a deep sorrow in her eyes. Forlo understood why. He and Essana had looked at each other that way, just before he rode out to face Chovuk's horde. There was love between these two, but it was love without hope. They all knew Eldako's time in the world was precious.

"The cha'asii will help us," she went on. "They've hated the Maws since the eldest days. They'll do what they can to fight them—and their new masters."

Forlo nodded as she spoke. They had spoken to the Grandmother while Eldako hovered at death's brink. They'd learned the history. Once, the akitu-shai had enslaved the elves, forcing them to build a great empire in these woods, until the cha'asii learned how to break the power of the Maws' thoughts. Great wars were fought, and the empire crumbled as both sides nearly wiped each other out. This was many thousands of years before the First Destruction, in the days when Forlo's ancestors had been barbarians, no more civilized than the Uigan. Since then, elf and Maw had lived among the ruins alongside one another, under an uneasy truce broken by skirmishes and murder.

That had changed two summers ago, with the dragon's coming. Gloomwing had not long been in Neron before he started attacking the elves—always small villages and hunting parties, never war bands who could put up a fight. He had killed many cha'asii, but other elves simply went missing.

Finally, a warrior of the elves, one of Yu-shan's sons named Te-kesh-ke, managed to track the wyrm, back through miles of jungle, to a valley where several old temples stood—monuments of the Maws' old empire, crumbling and engulfed by the jungle. From a distance, hidden among the taller tree tops, Te-kesh-ke had watched as Gloomwing brought his prisoners to the sacrificial altar atop the tallest pyramid, an edifice the elves called Akh-tazi.

At this point in the tale, Yu-shan's face grew dark and troubled. "My people…" she said, tears shining in her eyes. "There were men there—not elves, but humans, from what land I do not know. They laid my people on the altar and bled them to death. Strong cha'asii died, screaming, at the hands of men without pity… or faces."

"The Teacher and his brothers," Shedara had said.

"A thousand plagues upon them," the Grandmother replied. "There were six in those days; they are fewer now. But I will say more of that later."

Things had gone on like that, for years, according to Yu-shan. Every few weeks, Gloomwing would return, slaughtering scores of elves each time, then carrying the survivors east to the temple. Te-kesh-ke put together a war band with the intent of assailing the temple and putting an end to the dark rites, but when the elves marched on Akh-tazi, they found that the Maws were in league with the men there. Te-kesh-ke died on the temple steps, along with all but three of his warriors. These returned to Ke-cha-yat to tell of the slaughter. Since then, there had been three other assaults, but none had succeeded. Between the men's magic and the Maws' powers, the cha'asii had been defeated again and again.

Finally, in the autumn, something new happened. Gloomwing vanished for more than a month, and the elves had dared to think he was gone for good… but one night, not long after the three moons rose full together, he had returned from the north, bearing two things.

"A statue," Shedara had murmured.

Forlo had glanced at her, nodding. "And a woman."

This surprised the Grandmother only for a moment. They had already told her their tales, what had brought them here. She went on with hers.

After the dragon's return, his attacks-grew more daring and frequent. Gloomwing kidnapped more and more elves, and the Brethren cut their throats and offered blood to the statue while they forced the woman to watch. The winter rains came, and still this went on, while the woman… Essana… grew larger and larger with the child she carried. Dozens more cha'asii perished on the altar, victims of the Faceless.

Then, one night when the winds blew cold from the north, one of the hooded men came to Ke-cha-yat. He appeared out of nowhere in the middle of the town and demanded to speak with the cha'asii's leader. The tribe's warriors balked, but in the end Yu-shan came down from her hut. He called himself the Keeper and asked their help. He knew they had charms that could block the fell thoughts of the Maws, whom he called yaggol. He had one with him, and asked for another—and for help. He was a spy, and he meant to help the woman escape. If he didn't, the Brethren would take the baby and kill her afterward.

This made the Grandmother angry, for the Keeper had allowed many elves to die. What made the woman's life more important?

"Not her," the Keeper had explained. "The child. They will use it to free a powerful evil from the statue, so it can walk the living world again. I cannot let that happen. They must be stopped."

Hearing all this, Forlo had risen, feeling ill and dizzy, and left to walk alone around Ke-cha-yat. Hult tried to follow, but Shedara warned him not to, so Forlo wandered the town, his eyes turning east toward the temple.

The Keeper's rescue attempt had ended in dismal failure, according to Yu-shan, and he himself had disappeared. Essana remained at Akh-tazi, and the sacrifices continued… until one night, not long before Forlo and the others reached the Neroni coast. There was a terrible storm that night. Forlo, having returned to listen to the Grandmother as she concluded her tale, remembered seeing that storm in the distance, remembered that night well.

The night his son was born.

He was too late. Essana might well be dead by now, their child lost. He rued every lost day since they left Coldhope, especially his captivity in Kristophan. If he could have slain Rekhaz again, he would have done it gladly.

The storm night was the last of the sacrifices, Yu-shan said. The next day, Gloomwing had come to the coast, to investigate the strange boat there, and the cha'asii had had their revenge at last. The dragon's skull hung from the branches before Yu-shan's hut now, glaring down over the town. His death had avenged thousands of elves… but the grief remained… and the loss. It would always be there, as long as the cha'asii lived here.

"So they will aid us?" Eldako murmured. "They will help us against these Crawling Maws?"

"They'll help," Shedara said. "And they've given us these."

She reached to her neck and pulled out a talisman, made of crimson feathers and turquoise, carved with whorls and zigzags. Hult showed his; jade, like Nalaran's amulet, with white feathers. As Forlo produced his own, blood-red jasper and black plumage, Shedara produced a fourth. It was glistening opal, ringed with feathers as yellow as gold. A crack ran through its center. Eldako managed something like a smile as she slid the leather thong over his head.

"Broken," he said. "Like me."

"But still powerful," Shedara said, settling it between his collarbones. "They'll protect us from the Maws, keep their minds out of ours. We wore them when we rescued you."

Eldako looked at the opal, then up at her. "When do we leave?"

Now, Forlo wanted to say. We should have left long ago. My wife, my son… and the statue too—if all isn't lost yet, it will be soon.

He kept his silence, though. He'd already resolved to head east alone if there were any more delays. He caught Eldako watching him. The understanding in the merkitsa's good eye haunted him. The wild elf knew exactly what he was thinking. There was shame on his ravaged face. Rescuing him might have cost them more time than they could afford to lose.

"I am ready now," Eldako said and started pushing himself up.

Shedara blocked him, forcing him back down. "No, you're not," she said. "You still need rest. Besides, it's sunset now. The cha'asii won't leave until tomorrow."

"The morning, then," Eldako said. "First light, we set forth. I will keep pace with you, I promise."

"We know you will," Hult said. He bowed his head, his hair hanging down almost far enough to cover his eyes. There were streaks of gray in it, though he was the youngest of them all; the road had been hard. "And if you have trouble keeping up, I will carry you."

"My thanks," Eldako said. "You are all better friends than I have ever known. I would be dead if not for you."

"Don't be foolish," Shedara said. "You'd be back in the Dreaming Green if it weren't for us. Certainly not down here. You owe us nothing."

She bent down and kissed his forehead, heedless of the puckered scars on his skin. At that gesture, Hult leaned forward and laid a hand on Eldako's shoulder. Forlo followed suit, touching the merkitsa's knee.

Eldako looked at them all, smiling.

Dawn found the tree town already awake, dusty green-gold light lancing through the trees onto platforms and bridges alive with activity. A band of nearly a hundred cha'asii—nearly every able-bodied adult left in Ke-cha-yat—had gathered in the main square, beneath the Grandmother's hut. They were clad in leather breech-clouts and feathered headdresses, silver armbands and disk-shaped earrings, their faces painted to resemble jungle cats and serpents. They wore bows and quivers of long arrows, blowguns and sheaths of poison-tipped darts, spears and clubs edged with obsidian, and shields of woven bamboo.

A phalanx of minotaur warriors, properly kitted and well rested, could have chewed through them in minutes, Forlo thought as he looked out over the war band—but appearances were deceiving. He had fought in the jungle before; warriors there didn't fight face-to-face, or with what the League's soldiers considered a code of honor. And the jungle itself took its toll, through heat and sickness. Steel armor was a liability, not a help. Heavy weapons got snagged in trees and brush. Men fell into sand-water and sank forever or forgot to check their boots and died screaming when scorpions stung them. He'd seen entire divisions fall to enemies they never even glimpsed. That had been in Syldar, a hundred leagues away, but he had no reason to doubt the fierceness of the cha'asii.

Each of them also wore one more protection: a talisman matching the ones Yu-shan had given to him and his friends. These were the last such charms left in Ke-cha-yat; either the elves would defeat the Maws, or they would vanish from Neron altogether.

"It feels strange," said Hult. The Uigan stood by his side, one hand on his sword, the other touching his twin amulets, Nalaran's and Yu-shan's. "To have a horde again."

"Not exactly the riders of the Tamire, though," Forlo said wryly.

The barbarian shrugged. "The horses would have had trouble with this terrain, anyway."

Forlo clapped the young man's shoulder. "At least we're on the same side this time."

"The right side," Hult agreed. "We will pray for victory, each to our own gods. With luck, someone will hear us this time. I look forward to meeting your wife, my friend."

Your people would have killed Essana if they'd caught her, Forlo thought grimly. They'd have thrown her from the walls of Coldhope or chased her on their horses until one speared her on his lance. But he kept that idea to himself.

Instead, he turned at a sound behind him and bowed his head. Eldako was limping down from his sick hut, Shedara holding his arm. The wild elf was in constant pain, his face creased with the effort of moving at all. With his burns, he looked like a wax sculpture, left too close to a fire. The cha'asii fell silent, signing circles in the air to ward against whatever devils might still hang over him.

Forlo shook his head. This was foolish. The merkitsa would only slow them down. He was in no condition to fight. But Shedara would not to leave without him, and the elf refused to be left behind. And Yu-shan insisted that they must be four.

Forlo glanced to the east, out through the treetops. Even from the town's highest vantage, the temple of Akh-tazi was too far away to be seen, beyond the horizon, and two horizons beyond that, according to the elves. That made a hundred leagues of hard travel through the jungle. Even with the cha'asii to guide them, it would be almost a fortnight before they reached their destination.

Please, he thought. Starlight, just stay alive long enough for me to reach you… .

"Your wife still lives, my friend," Eldako said as he hobbled up to them. "I don't know how I know—perhaps I felt her mind through the Crawling Maws, while they held me captive—but I am sure of it. She lives and yearns for you."

Forlo felt tears rush to his eyes and blinked them away. He nodded, making an inarticulate sound in reply.

Above, something stirred. They turned to watch as the Grandmother emerged from her hut, clad in a cloak of shimmering green scales, a plume of snow-white feathers rising high above her head. Her women supported her as she started down the stairs. The cha'asii fell silent, touching their lips in reverence, then parting to let her pass. She approached a dais in the platform's midst. Her attendants helped her step up onto the platform, but did not follow. Alone, as fragile as bird bones, she tottered to the center of the dais. Her people looked on, silent.

"A time of reckoning has come to the Emerald Sea," she spoke, sweeping her hand to encompass all the jungle. "For twenty generations of our people, we have held the truce with our enemies. Even through the Destruction and the Second, we held the peace and did not fight the akitu-shai.

"That time is now ended. The peace was broken with Gloomwing's coming, and again with the Faceless. Now all rests on you, my children. The Maws must be destroyed, and their masters with them, just as you defeated the dragon himself."

All eyes on the platform rose to the giant skull that loomed high above Yu-shan's platform. It leered down at them, glistening white, dull black sockets where red eyes had smoldered. The cha'asii beamed. So did Eldako. He hadn't seen what remained of Gloomwing until now, and his pleasure at seeing the wyrm's remains was as plain as the scars on his face.

"Let my blessing, and your ancestors', be upon you all," Yu-shan spoke. "Their spirits will guide you to victory. The plague of the Maws will be ended, and at last, these forests will be ours… and ours alone."

"Victory!" cried the elves. "Glory to the wood-folk! Death to the mind-killers!"

Spears punched the air. Fists rose. Feet stamped. Somewhere, unseen hands pounded on drums. The cha'asii settled into a hopping dance, shouting victory over and over. All through it, they kept their gaze on Yu-shan, adoring her.

The Grandmother raised her hands. The air trembled, and even Shedara shied back. The power the old crone drew down was tremendous, almost as much as Forlo had felt when the wall of water obliterated Chovuk's horde. It filled the air, making it sluggish, like the damp that ruled the jungle below. And, like the damp, it could not be contained forever. It had to burst forth, had to rain.

The power revealed itself first as a golden flare, high above the Grandmother's head, then blossomed outward, forming a glowing nimbus that spread through all of Ke-cha-yat. It crackled and sizzled, giving off waves of heat. Forlo felt the hairs on his arms and neck stand erect as it flowed above him, and Hult bit the heel of his hand, an automatic gesture to ward against evil.

Finally the wave of power stopped, shifting and shimmering, rumbling like faraway thunder. They all stared up at the glowing sky—and the storm broke.

Golden motes exploded from the aura, pouring down on the cha'asii. The motes flickered as they fell, leaving trails of yellow flame, but they didn't burn when they struck the elves. Instead they burst with a chorus of loud snaps, their glow persisting in the air, leaving blue ghosts behind when Forlo blinked. He felt a few strike him, then many more. He expected a jolt, pain, something—but there was only a moment's warmth and a stranger feeling, a tightening in his muscles that increased with every touch. He shivered, feeling energy flow into him, strength he'd never had before. Glancing over, he saw Hult flex his arm in wonderment, and Shedara nod in approval. Even Eldako looked sturdier, standing tall and proud despite his ghastly wounds.

The last golden raindrops fell. The nimbus disappeared. The cha'asii returned their gaze to Yu-shan.

"You are mighty, my people," she said. "The power of the ancestors lies in your bones. Go, now—to Akh-tazi, and let none stop you!"

The elves cheered, raising their spears again. Invigorated by the Grandmother's spell, Forlo cheered with them, hope overcoming his despair.

Starlight, he thought, I'm coming at last.