Chapter Six

THE FIRE LEAPED, SPARKS FLOATED SKYWARD , our camp painfully still.

We’d prayed at the stricken camp, then set up wards. Well, Beirach set up the wards as Tezen and I watched from the hilltop, our horse’s reins in my hand. Beirach walked slowly around the village, his staff glowing blue, his words whispered. Darters pestered the horses, tiny biting midges that enjoyed nibbling on exposed flesh. I’d rubbed the beasts down with a paste of willow root and ground yellow pumice, and even that foul smelling concoction did little to keep the bloodsuckers away.

The pixie and I waited, patiently, as our archdruid encircled the fallen settlement with a spell that would repel all who walked into it. When he was done, he climbed the hillock to us, his blue eyes void of his usual spark. I suspected we all harbored the same melancholy and worry. My chest was heavy with concern.

“That should keep most of the creatures of the wood away.” Beirach sighed, strapping his staff to his gelding, then resting his brow on the neck of Methril. “Any elves or humans that venture near will feel a darkness settle upon them.”

“We could make signs,” Tezen offered from her seat on my shoulder.

Beirach nodded. “On the morrow before we leave.”

I felt my panic bubble over. “Tomorrow? We need to leave now and ride all night!”

Beirach heaved a sigh, his gaze moving from Tezen to me torpidly. “Riding at night is not advisable, surely you know this. There are too many predators that roam the Verboten when the sun sets.” I began arguing. He merely shook his head to silence me. “Kenton, I feel your distress, truly I do, and I understand your need to get home, but the horses need rest as do we. We shall leave at first light, I promise you, and we will ride as long as our steeds can carry us before we rest.”

I wanted to shout at him, to rail against his stupid calmness, to strike out alone and his sensibility be damned. But the weariness of our steeds seeped into me, and I merely nodded.

“My people could be dying as we speak,” I reminded him, then led my horse down the hilltop, away from my companions and the once robust enclave of wood elves that now sat dead.

My friends followed at a respectful distance, allowing me space to work through my anger. As I sat by the fire that night, watching the crackles of dry wood take flight, I came to realize that I’d not been angry at all, not really, just frightened. Dearly so.

“May I sit beside you?”

I looked up to see Beirach towering over me, his handsome face cast in the firelight. He had stripped off his armor and was now in dark sleeping robes, much like mine, only far plainer. His hair hung free, glinting ruby strands highlighted in the firelight.

“Yes, I would like that,” I replied, pulling my knees into my chest as he lowered himself down to my bedroll. He settled with a weary huff. Tezen snored behind us, her bed atop Methril’s blanketed back.

“For one so small her snores rival that of the tawny bears,” he said, stretching out his long legs to let the fire warm the soles of his soft leather boots.

“Yours rival the sound of a rockslide on the Witherhorn range,” I replied and got a small, soft snort. The first sound of anything other than despair that any of us had made all afternoon and evening. We’d eaten little and spoke even less, our hearts too heavy to make small talk about the weather or the latest court fashions.

“So I have been told,” he said, leaning back on locked arms to study the night sky.

His comment piqued my curiosity. “So you have shared a bed with someone in the past?” He glanced to the side, his gaze catching mine. My face grew hot. “I’m sorry. That was presumptuous of me to ask such a personal thing.”

“An enquiring mind is never something to apologize for.” He gave me a weak smile before looking at the stars and twin moons that hung low in the sky. “I’m a man who has lived a long life, young prince.”

“I am no prince,” I quickly corrected. “Merely a son of a wilder warden and a priestess. The city elves are the ones who put great worth upon such titles.”

“Yes, forgive me. My mouth does have a tendency to speak before my intelligence catches up at times. Young Kenton then.” I did not care for that terminology either, for it made me sound like a child. Perhaps in his eyes I was, but I wished for him to see me as a man grown not a ward like Aelir.

“Simply Kenton please.”

He inclined his head. “There is nothing simple about you, Kenton.” My belly flipped over on itself, the rolled bread with vegetable paste suddenly ticklish as it sat in my stomach. “To reply to your query, yes, I have lain with many people in my time. Many were passing fancies, several were lengthy love affairs, and one was my spouse.”

I swallowed down an unpleasant twinge of jealousy. “Where is your spouse now?”

“She passed many years ago.”

A log cracked and spat in the firepit. “I’m sorry for being so inquisitive and pushy. May Danubia cradle your wife in her loving arms.”

“My thanks, and do not apologize. Being curious is a grand thing for a young man. Asking questions is how we learn and grow.”

“You sound like the tutor of the Stillcloud heir, although he feels only certain kinds of questions are acceptable.” I hugged my legs more closely to my chest, then rested my chin on my knees.

“Then he is a fool, for knowledge of all kinds should be passed along.”

We sat in silence for a moment and Tezen snuffled in her sleep like a hog rustling truffles from the ground. “I know her father,” he said into the comfortable silence. “He is a king that clings tightly to the rules set down by his people before him. Not unkind, nor brutal in any way, but firm in the way that he expects his children to behave. That fact she has left the pixie court is shocking, to say the least, but she seems happy enough.”

“How did you meet her father?” The warmth of the night combined with the heat of the fire was slowly leeching the stiffness from my muscles. Worry had tightened my shoulders as it settled onto them like a boulder.

“We fought together to drive back the trolls.”

My sleepy gaze widened, and my sight flew from the fire to the archdruid. “My father also fought in those battles.”

“Mm, yes, I recall seeing him a few times but never had the honor of meeting him. I was just an ovate then, mind you, and far below the notice of the wilder wardens. I’d been brought into the pixie’s good graces after saving Tezen’s uncle from a troll’s battle axe by casting a spell that turned the troll into a withered tree that the king then set ablaze.”

I stared at him in awe, my respect for him growing more every day. “You have seen so much, done so many daring things, battled with kings and wardens. Why did you recluse yourself at the temple when you are so vibrant and powerful yet?” His gaze slipped from the night sky to mine. “Apologies. That was invasive again.”

“Please, ask what you will of me without fear of retribution.”

“The village elder druid always chided me for speaking out of turn and being far too curious and reckless,” I said, my ears growing warm. “Please, do not reply to that crass question. Why you chose to retire to the temple to tend to it and the gem it holds is an honorable and devout calling for an archdruid.”

He sat there for the longest time, his sight holding mine, the flutter of moths attracted by the fire filling the cooling air.

“I retired when my wife died,” he lifelessly said, his gaze resting on my face. “I was unable to face the world after her passing, and my son was…my son was venturing down a path that I felt was unsettling, so I asked for the temple guardianship when it became available and took my son there with the hopes of guiding him on a holier path but he rebelled even more strongly with the solitude of that life. We fought daily, the battles growing harsher as he pushed from the druidic ways into less favorable magicks.”

I wanted to ask what kind of magicks. Dark magicks? Evil spells? Necromantic? I bit down on the inside of my cheek to keep from asking.

“I’m sorry you fought with your son,” I weakly offered as I had no idea what else to say.

“As am I, Kenton. He left the temple one day, cursing me, the druids, and the goddess.”

I gasped in shock. Insulting Danubia was unheard of among our people. “What became of him?”

“I do not know. That was many years ago. I have heard whisperings…”

He seemed to drift off then. I studied his profile. A son. A wife. Both gone. My heart wept for him. Lost as to what to say to offer him succor, I tentatively laid my hand over his, keeping my left arm wound tightly around my shins. His eyes found mine. I could feel my heart beating in my chest just as the caged birds back at Castle Willowspirit would. He rolled his hand over, slid his long fingers through mine, and continued to regard me.

“Your skin is as soft as lily petals,” he softly said, his thumb moving ever-so-gently over my wrist. “If I had known I would be traveling with a man so alluring, I would have taken time to trim my hair and freshen my wardrobe.”

“You are fine just as you are,” I replied, my words shaky as I floundered in his blue eyes.

“Ah, Kenton, you are a joyous, inquisitive, beautiful male that I fear has found a way into the jagged cracks of sadness that encase my heart.” He sat up, lifted my hand to his lips, and kissed each knuckle as he held my sight. “I think it wise that I return to my bedroll before I push my suit and end up kissing those plush lips of yours.”

“I would not object,” I whispered, hand shaking, pulse thundering. I would welcome him to my thin bedroll wantonly despite having no knowledge of what to do with him once he lay down with me. Surely it could not be too hard to work out the logistics…

“Yes, I know.” He turned my arm over, placed his lips on my palm, and then rose, letting my fingers fall softly to my bedroll. “And it would be glorious indeed, but I cannot act on my attraction to you when you’ve lost family. It would be unscrupulous of me to do so but know that I shall dream of sharing a pillow with you.”

I blinked dully as he made his way around the fire to curl up under his blanket, his wide shoulders turned from me. My body vibrated with desire, which conflicted terribly with the sadness and worry in my breast. How could one soul contain so many vast emotions?

Sleep was not going to come easily, I feared…

“Hey, hey, can we talk?”

My head snapped up to see Tezen flitting about in front of me, her wings beating furiously. I rubbed at my eyes, the mare under me trotting along at a steady pace. We’d been riding them harder the past two days, nothing that would exhaust them, but at a clip that would cover more ground. Reaching my home was a crushing need that weighed more greatly on me with each mile covered.

“Yes, of course,” I replied, coming awake thankfully before I fell off my horse. I’d been correct a few nights ago. Sleep was fleeting now. I warred with myself steadily, guilt gnawing at me like a fiend. What kind of person found themselves yearning for a man when their village, hell flames, the whole of their people, was in dire peril?

“Okay, so for the past two nights I’ve been sacking out with the horses.” The pixie took a seat on my shoulder using my braids as the dwarves used climbing ropes, tying one around her waist, then clinging to it. “Not that I mind because they’re peaceful beasts other than their rancid gassy explosions. Which, after that meal of beans on toast a few nights back, put them in contest with your love interest back there.”

“He is not a love interest,” I hurried to clarify. She hooted so loudly Beirach shouted from behind, asking us if all was well. Since we were in my homelands now, I was the lead. I knew these wooded acres as if they were the lines on my palms or the freckles on my shoulder.

“Right, and that’s the issue, isn’t it?” She shimmied up a braid to speak into my ear. “What the good bloody hellfire are you two waiting for? It’s not that complicated. He puts his sprocket into your socket and pumps. I even strained a gut shoving that flicking tin of grease he rubs into his boots closer to your bedroll and nothing. Nothing! Do you two need me to take your danglers in hand and tie them together?”

“By the goddess,” I hissed, spinning in the saddle as a light rain began to fall. The leaves cupped upward on the praying elms, catching the drops, then allowing the water to dribble down to the earth. The cool shade combined with the fresh rainfall felt good on my overheated skin. “Would you stop saying such things?!”

“Why? I mean, I do not fathom why you two aren’t rutting like mountain goats every night.”

“It is not the time or place to be rutting like goats. Every elf in this forest is in danger, every druid who calls this woodland home has a mark on them, and you want me to…to…to…”

“Yeah, I want you two to to-to.” She grabbed hold of another braid and yanked. So hard it made my eyes water. “Sometimes a little slap-and-giggle is the best thing for taking your mind from your worries. Life’s really short, you know?”

I huffed as I tried to disengage her tiny hands from my hair. It was akin to trying to remove a flea from a wooly wolfhound. Nin cawed from overhead, his form appearing and disappearing as the leaves dumped their raindrops downward. Seeing him above us spiked my worry. He’d been sent off with a missive about my aunt’s village a day ago. That he was back so swiftly meant that Umeris, and perhaps his council, had thought our news warranted a speedy reply and the raven had been sent back out immediately. I prayed that they did not feel an armed strike force would be needed or even contemplated. The vills of Melowynn did not tolerate plagues brought into their borders by “others” as was evidenced by how many humans had been eradicated during the sleeping sickness outbreak several eons ago. Hopefully, given that Verboten was not under the direct rule of the king but governed by our own people, something as rash as riding into the woods with purge clerics would be illegal, or at the very least, heavily litigated and argued in the courts. It was on us three to do what we could to avoid such an outcome at all costs.

Atriel skidded to a halt so suddenly that I had to scramble to keep my seat. Her ears swiveling toward the burial copse ahead and to the left. I patted her tense neck, feeling that she was anxious about something. Many druids believed animals could sense the dead and were frightened of them. Perhaps it was the smell of decay or the scent of the predators that visited the ancient redwoods trying to reach the bodies of those placed in the tree branches.

“Easy now, it’s just the shells of those who have moved into their next lives,” I whispered to the nervous horse. Beirach arrived at my right, his sight darting about the deep woods as he searched for what had our steeds so stressed. His gelding’s muzzle was tight, the nostrils squared, the horse’s cheek muscles taut.

“What besets them?” Beirach asked.

“Our celestial grove lies to the west that way,” I explained, pointing into the thickets of dark trunks and heavy bush. “They must smell the ones who have joined Danubia.”

The rain eased as we took a respite to try to calm the horses. A beam of sun broke through the damp boughs, a gentle wind moved through the woods, and the horses reared in terror as a form shambled through the trees.

“Danubia bless us,” Beirach gasped as an undead man in the tattered and sun-bleached burial robes of my clan darted at us, skeletal hands in claws, rotted flesh picked from his face. He moved with far more speed than a decayed elf should, rushing at us to rake at the horse. Tezen took to the air, bellowing in a bloodlust, and flew into the undead one as I tried to lead my wild horse to the left, away from the ghoul’s reach.

Beirach hit the ground with a grunt, landing on his feet, his gelding dancing madly as another ghoul appeared. I leaped from my horse, letting her race away from the undead, now swarming out of the trees like locusts descending on a wheat field. Five, seven, ten, a dozen. All in various forms of rot and all in the familiar green and white dressings of passing of my people. The only blessing to be found was that most of them had been visited by the birds and so their faces were cleansed of flesh.

I refused to think that the ghoul now bearing down on me might be my grandsire.

“Flank me!” Beirach shouted, his staff bursting into light as he directed a bolt of pure light at one of the undead. It shattered into bits, a cloud of vile green smoke leaving its desiccated form before it fell to the forest floor. “Do not let them open your flesh with teeth or nails. They are imbued with necrotic magicks!”

I moved to the left, dropped to my knee, and slapped my hand to the thick coating of pine needles, dead leaves, and moss. Digging into the loam, I pushed my magicks into the soil. The tree roots responded, slowly but surely, breaking out of the ground to wrap around the legs of two ghouls. Tezen attacked the captured ones, war picks flashing in the bright rays of the sun, as she busted through brittle skulls. The undead flailed, legs tightly bound. They made no sounds other than the clattering of rotted teeth. Beirach swung his staff in a circle, summoning a pale blue spell that dispersed over the ground like a fog. I twisted my hand sharply. The tree roots snapped one of the ghouls they held in half. Tezen soared skyward, cheeks billowed to avoid breathing in the foul magical clouds as the undead began to fall.

“To your left!” Beirach shouted to the pixie. Tezen blew out a breath, inhaled, and then spun in the air, deftly avoiding a leaping ghoul’s outstretched hand. “Keep your distance!”

“That’s not my way of battle!” the pixie princess shouted back but did her best to use her picks as projectiles. Small as they were, they did amazing damage. Surely they were imbued with potent pixie sorcery. I would ask if I survived being attacked by my own kind.

A hand fell on my side, tearing at my shirt. I spun to the right. Its face was right in mine, the hollow eye sockets pulsing with dark magicks. Beirach swung out with his staff, shattering the ghoul’s skull into powder. It dropped. I fell to my ass, horrified yes and angry, so very angry. For this kind of horror could only be wrought by a dark mage. How dare someone sully those who rested in such a ghastly way?!

My ire surged into the ground, causing the grasses to shoot up to entangle the bony feet of the ghouls surging at us. Slowed, they still pressed on. Sweat poured out of me. I focused only on my magicks, putting all into the pulses of power moving through the dirt. Trees groaned, branches swept out, sundering two ghouls in half, vile green clouds floating skyward from the fallen.

“Ugh, my aim sucks a fuzzy troll’s balls!” Tezen bellowed as one of her picks landed in a tree. I felt the mighty elm’s pain in my mind.

“Do not strike the trees!” I shouted at the tiny ball of purple zipping to and fro above us.

“Sorry! Tell it I’m sorry,” she yelled down at me before flying off to wrench her pike from the tree. Sap poured from the hole left behind. I winced at the sight. Beirach directed a spell at a ghoul that was lumbering at us, its leg pulled free as it tried to break away from a thicket of wild rose that had sprung up. “Fucking fuck! This is the worst. Dead people should stay dead!”

I could not argue that at all. Raising the dead was against every druidic principle. Death was not to be feared, for it meant being touched by the goddess. Death was a natural part of life. The dead moved on. Danubia carried them to her garden, where she bathed them in the fountain of purification. Then the dead were transformed into another being that would walk the woods. The dead were not to walk those paths as well.

“We have the advantage now, push harder to drop these poor souls!” Beirach bellowed, his voice deep, ringing through the woodlands like a bugle might if he were in his elk form.

I stayed on my ass with my hands splayed on the ground. Magicks danced from my fingertips. The wild rose responded with vigor, spreading out a thicket of thorns the ghouls had to push through to reach us. Bits of skin and rotted robes clung to the thorns. Each undead that managed to wrest itself from the clump of rose was met with a blast of energy from Beirach’s staff. Bone fragments littered the ground around us. Nin cawed somewhere to the left. Tezen roared in frustration, then heaved her pike at a smaller ghoul. The child’s skull exploded. It collapsed at my feet, the tiny hand coming to rest on the tip of my boot. I jerked my foot away as silence fell over the glen.

No birds, no buzzing flies, no wind. Just the huffing breaths of three exhausted warriors.

“Was that the last one?” Tezen breathlessly asked. We waited, poised to strike, for several moments. My gaze came to rest on the child lying an arm’s length away from me.

“I believe so,” I heard Beirach reply. “Stay on guard though, for there could be stragglers.”

They moved off, slowly, while I sat on the soft ground, soil caked under my fingernails, my sight locked on a tiny skeletal hand. I could not look away. The bones were so thin, so frail…

“Kenton.” Beirach’s voice beside me pulled me from the little one. I looked up. He kneeled down beside me, his eyes dark with sadness, and used his thumb to gather up a tear I had not felt slipping free. “My heart weeps with yours. We shall return them to the boughs where they had been placed, fear not. You rest.”

I slashed at the wetness on my cheeks then rose, pushing what strength I had left in me into standing.

“I’ll do it. They’re my people. It is my task.”

Beirach nodded solemnly. One body at a time, I carried my kin back to the grove where the tallest white birches stood. I placed each person back into the trees. Some required a hand from Beirach to reach the tallest limbs. Tezen picked tiny purple snapdragons and placed them on the chest of those we returned, humming a song that I was unfamiliar with as she zipped from one tree to another. It was hard, hot work and lost us several hours, but once the dead were back in their final resting places, my heart felt less shredded. But only slightly less.

I went to my knees in the center of the clearing to pray. Beirach knelt beside me, his head bowed, his auburn hair loosened from the tidy knot he had tied it into this morn. Our prayers floated upward to the goddess.

Nin flew down as our prayers ended, his black eyes sharp as he hopped to me. I reached out to run my hand over his glossy feathers.

“Can you seek our horses, please, then lead us to them?” I asked, gently removing the small paper bound to his leg. The raven nipped at my fingers with its black beak. I could sense how tired he was. “I know you’re weary. Please, just one more flight and then you can rest and eat.”

He gurgled and sluggishly took to wing. Hands trembling, I gently unrolled the paper that Nin had carried. Beirach and Tezen gathered at my sides, one sitting on my left shoulder, the other with his hand on my right. The forest was alive all around us once more, yet I felt hollow inside as I read the reply.

We cannot allow this plague to leave the Verboten. Clerics will be dispatched in a tenday to cleanse the woods of this illness.

“Do they not understand that this is not a sickness but a dark mage running amok?” Beirach asked, his tone thick with anger, his fingers biting into my collarbone.

“They know that to be the case. I told them it was necrotic magicks in my last missive.” I let the paper fall from my fingers. Tezen caught it before it hit the ground.

“They know and they don’t care,” she snapped, reading over the cold reply after coming to rest on my shoulder.

“I’m sure that is not the case. They are elves, just as you and I are, Kenton,” Beirach weakly argued.

“No, they are not like us,” I reminded the archdruid. “I’m a wood elf.”

He sighed. “And I am only half elf.”

“Well, fuck this shit. We have tendays to find this asshole dark mage and kick his nuts up between his ears!” Tezen barked.

I looked up and over at Beirach. He seemed to be fixated on something deep in the woods. Methril and Atriel pushed through the dense undergrowth, reins dragging, looking as calm as a summer day. The horses stopped before us. Nin flittered down from the sky with a soft whoosh of strong wings, to rest on the pommel of the brown gelding’s saddle. I stared at the animals, opened myself up to their emotions, and felt their resolve.

“A tenday,” I whispered, looking to Tezen on my shoulder before turning my gaze to Beirach at my side. Tall, strong, and handsome. “We haven’t much time then. My village is a half day ride from here. We should go now.”

“Are you able to ride? You expended a great deal of energy. Your skin is more subdued than usual,” Beirach commented, his worry evident.

“My skin has been subdued for years. A shade paler brooks no major worry. I will ride. I must ride.”

His eyes grew a dark blue as he studied me. Then he bent low to place a kiss to my cheek. The feel of his lips on my skin sent fingerlings of a hundred differing emotions racing through me.

“Then we shall ride,” he whispered before drawing back to gently push a braid from my face. “Great things have been accomplished in a tenday. We will find this malevolent being and we shall restore all the lost villages to rights.”

It seemed a mighty task for a threesome, but if Danubia could mold the elves from the rich mulch of the woods in one day, surely, we could save those same elves in ten.

With her blessings, of course. And so we rode hard, fording bubbling streams, slipping through dense woods that opened for us, for the trees knew the import of our journey.