The Restless Shore

CHAPTER TWO

6 Mirtul, the Year of the Ageless One

(1479 DR)

The Spur Forest,

South of Airspur, Akanul

The creature stalked along the top of the ravine, sniffing loudly and whining as if frustrated. Ghaelya knelt low, careful not to shift and draw the creature’s attention. Brindani followed suit and gestured to a curved hollow in the side of the long path, just hidden enough to keep them from sight. Ghaelya cursed the half-elf inwardly. She wanted to face the creature, indeed had hoped to be forced into doing so. She had no desire to hide in a ditch and wait it out.

But she had heard their howls-there were too many for her to dispatch without the half-elf’s help. She ran after him.

Before she crossed even half the distance, she heard the whisper of Brindani drawing his blade, and she smiled grimly. No more running.

Up ahead the ravine turned south, and it was there Ghaelya caught her first sight of the strange hound, pushing through the thick bushes and sending clods of dirt rolling into the ravine. Glittering eyes swiveled lidless in their sockets, shining in the dark. The shape of broad shoulders rose above a thickly muscled neck. It turned toward them and raised its head; moonlight trailed across its pale gray fur. It’s face, illuminated in the light of Selune, looked strangely human, as if someone’s face had been stretched over the creature’s blunt skull.

Ghaelya crouched low, poised to spring as the creature stalked forward, sniffing at the air and emitting a series of soft whimpers.

Brindani’s hand rested softly on hers. He was tense and ready to run or fight at a moment’s notice. She kept her other hand firmly on the hilt of her sword. Steel had been far more protective of her best interests than half-elves with good intentions.

The creature howled, the oddly melodious sound causing her to gasp in pain. She closed her eyes, fearing the pressure in her head might force them from their sockets before the beast’s voice trailed off. It was answered from far away by the rest of its pack. She’d heard the longing and anger that hid behind its black eyes before, but the memory of it was slippery and lost in a haze of pain …

Or was it? In between the sharp spikes of agony, she could almost hear a wonderful singing, weaving in and out of her mind like a forgotten rhyme from childhood. It began to slip away, and she tried to grasp at it, to claim the song as her own-an irrational impulse that stunned her with its power.

The beast turned and loped off, disappearing into the woods.

The fading pain on Brindani’s face was obvious, as was the horrified wonder in his eyes. He turned to her and sheathed his blade.

“What in the Hells was that?” he whispered.

She shook her head, but the slight movement jarred loose the evasive memory, freeing it and the image of her sister to her conscious mind. Its appearance shocked her with its suddenness, and she spoke quickly, lest it slip away from her again.

“They are called the oenath, the Dreamers …”

The words felt alien on her tongue, but she could not deny them. She knew the truth in them as surely as she knew her own name.

Brindani narrowed his eyes in curiosity. “You dreamed this?” he asked solemnly. He knew of her recent nightmares and placed more stock in them then she was yet ready to accept.

Sighing, she nodded, uncomfortable in his gaze and finding the idea of herself as some kind of oracle distasteful. There had been no place in her life for prophetic dreams or voices or even gods, and in the past she’d ridiculed those who claimed to be the sources of such things. Though Brindani had shown her nothing but the utmost respect, she found it hard to accept his assessment of her recent dreams as genuine.

“So we know what to call them! It does us no good now does it?” she said coldly.

“No, I suppose not,” he agreed, joining her on the path, “Let’s get out of this ravine and onto some higher ground so I can get my bearings.”

He took the lead, and she fell into step, grateful not to have his eyes on her back, as if watching her every move and gesture for signs or portents. She would have torn the dreams from her head were it possible, but they had proven honest, placing words and images in her mind of which she had no previous knowledge. Two nights before she’d spoken in her sleep, and Brindani had shaken her awake, agitated and fearful. She had no memory of the dream itself, but knew the word he had recognized. The following morning they had set out to find a guide to a place she’d dreamed but never heard of-a place called Tohrepur.

The Spur grew suddenly quiet as they neared the sloping rise out of the ravine, and moonlight guided them into a small clearing surrounded by tall, twisted trees. Broad leaves, semi-translucent and reflecting light, gave the forest a haunting quality that dazed her eyes momentarily. But the snapping of a single twig set her nerves on edge. Squinting through the half-light of the trees, she raised her blade. At her side, Brindani froze.

The beast, the dreamer, paused as their eyes met, its legs pulled under its barrel chest, ready to pounce. Slivers of moonlight illuminated the beast’s thin gray fur and the white skin beneath. Its face was short-angular and expressive, and utterly unlike a wolf’s. There was an intelligence there that made her reassess the danger the creature represented. A low humming growl churned and rumbled through its thick neck as Ghaelya slowly circled to the left.

A night wind shook the leaves overhead, dappling the ground with disorienting moonlight. The creature’s growl rose and thundered in her head like a living thing, crawling through her thoughts and rooting in her fears. She blinked once, wincing at the pain of the noise, and found the beast already in the air, its teeth bared as it bore down on Brindani.

The half-elf sidestepped and slashed, barely scoring the dreamer’s thick skin before the beast landed and pursued its quick-footed prey. Ghaelya charged its back, slicing downward with her broadsword, eager to draw blood after so many days of running. But the dreamer was quicker still. It dodged her attack and caught her leg in a powerful grip, throwing her to the ground like a rag doll. She rolled away, clenching her teeth in anger as the dreamer accepted a close cut from Brindani, only to pounce as the half-elf’s blade was drawn back, taking him off guard. His sword bounced from his grip as the pair slammed into the dirt.

Ghaelya charged again as Brindani was taken down under the beast’s weight. She slashed at the exposed back of the creature, drawing a thin line of dark fluid. The smell of the beast’s blood hit her nose. She drew back to slash again, sidestepping as it swiped at her with its claw. Brindani strained to keep the dreamer’s jaws at bay, groaning with the effort and slowly losing. The creature’s clawed fingers scraped against the half-elf’s old armor as it whined pitiably with a sickening hunger, its jaws gaping wide to reveal tusklike fangs.

Distant howls rose through the Spur, each answering the last. Desperate, Ghaelya stepped in, thrusting at the black, fishlike eyes as they turned to face her. The sudden roar of the beast struck her like a fist, dazing her as a wave of hazy force knocked away her broadsword. Pressure pushed against her chest, turning the forest into a blur of ethereal greens and murky shadows, and the canopy overhead spun wildly through her wide eyes. In the brief moment she hung between land and sky, the unknown song flashed through her mind. A chorus of angelic voices pressed into the space of a heartbeat before reality took her back to falling.

She crashed into the ground, stunned and gasping for breath. All sound felt sucked away, as if cotton had been stuffed into her ears. The trailing edge of the beast’s roar still rumbled through her body, the force of it having left her skin numb where it had struck. Her ears popped, relieving the all-encompassing sound of her pulse. Groaning, she pushed herself up, amazed that she’d held on to her weapon. Recovering swiftly, she got to her feet, undeterred. The stench of the creature’s blood stung her nostrils as she came at it again, scoring a strike across the back of its thick skull. It whimpered and drew back, more dark fluid dripping down its not-quite-human face. It yelped as Brindani thrust the blade of a dagger into its shoulder.

The half-elf stabbed madly as he fought the injured beast, kicking free and rolling to his dropped sword. Ghaelya kept slashing as the beast backed away, giving Brindani time to regain his footing. The dreamer huffed, an expression of anger spreading across its weirdly mixed features. Before the creature could give voice to its roar again, two arrows sprouted from its throat. It gagged, coughing and spraying blood across the ground. A stench like dead fish filled the air as it drew back and thrashed in the dirt, clawing at the offending shafts. Scrambling to its feet, the beast sprinted into the forest’s shadows, wheezing and gnashing its teeth.

Ghaelya turned her sword eastward, squinting into the trees for the source of the arrows. Brindani placed a hand on her shoulder that she quickly shrugged off, but she calmed somewhat as he stepped forward, seeing more in the dark than just more enemies. She did not lower her blade as a human, armed with a longbow, approached cautiously. He was tall and lean, with a hard stare that pierced through the forest’s ghostly gloom. An arrow was strung tightly in his bow, and she braced her feet, ready to move at a moment’s notice.

To Ghaelya’s alarm, Brindani lowered his own blade.

“Uthalion?” he asked quietly.

The human stopped, half raising the bow for a heartbeat as if deciding whether or not to kill the half-elf, but the arrow’s point turned away even if the taut string didn’t budge.

“Brin-?” the man replied and seemed about to say more when the howls of the approaching pack filled the air. Pain flashed through Ghaelya’s skull, nearly driving her to her knees. Both men winced in pain and dropped their guards completely until the sound passed. Uthalion shook his head and eyed Ghaelya and Brindani shrewdly, his lips drawn in a thin line. He turned to the south with a purposeful stride.

“No time,” he called over his shoulder. “Follow me unless you’re waiting for them.”

“Is that him?” Ghaelya asked, sheathing her blade. “The man you spoke of?”

It seemed Brindani looked right through her for a breath before he blinked and nodded at her question. He motioned to the retreating human, seeming out of sorts as he followed the guide they had sought.

“And he knows the way? He will take us to Tohrepur?” she asked, keeping up. Yet he did not turn to her; he avoided eye contact and appeared lost in some other thread of thought.

“He knows the way.” Brindani muttered at length.

Ghaelya paused at his answer, narrowed her eyes at his back, and shook her head for a moment before continuing, cursing herself quietly. Once upon a time she’d known better than to take a promise at face value; but, she reasoned, she’d taken a chance on the half-elf-it fairly followed to allow him his gamble on the human. Whatever occurred, they were moving south again, and that would serve her well for the time being.

She could hear the dreamers giving chase in the distance, their growls and whines echoing hauntingly. Uthalion guided them through the forest as if he’d lived there all his life, turning swift corners and avoiding sudden drops or hidden patches of thick thorns. His knowledge of the Spur kept them safely ahead of the monstrous pack, but with the dreamers’ speed Ghaelya doubted their distance would last forever. She followed carefully and quietly, keeping a safe distance from the strange human and a close eye on Brindani.

Her attention was so focused on spying any suspicious action from Uthalion, that she almost drew her blade on him when he stopped suddenly and turned with an upraised hand. Brindani approached Uthalion’s position, and both men looked down the edge of a sheer cliff, its bottom lost in darkness.

“After me, count to three,” Uthalion said, looking up at the pair. “Then follow.”

With that he jumped, falling into the black. Ghaelya held her breath, waiting for the sound of an impact, though none came. Brindani looked to her and nodded as if it were perfectly normal.

“You cannot be serious!” she whispered. He placed a hand on her shoulder even as howls erupted close by. Placing a finger to his lips, he secured his sword and dagger and jumped into the dark.

Ghaelya had never been afraid of heights. Airspur was a city of towering structures, some of them suspended freely in the air. Many a thrill-seeking genasi knew how to leap from one district to the next, arresting one’s fall by a window ledge here, a banner-pole there. She had imagined herself as a single drop of rain, flowing and changing, as she had navigated the soaring heights of the city. As graceful and as brave as she might have seemed at home, she always knew where and how to land.

She stepped closer to the cliff’s edge, one foot hovering over the bottomless gulf and her neck stretched, finding her center of balance. She closed her eyes and shook her arms out, loosely hanging her fingers like rolling drops of rain collecting on the petal of a flower. The weight of the inevitable fall flooded her senses and rushed chillingly through her arms. Muffled growls drew nearer; claws scratched at bark and dirt.

Somewhere in the dark below her she felt the singing again, though she could not hear it. It tugged at her, pleaded with her, and for a moment she swooned in its power. Bending her knees slightly, she cursed.

“I’m coming for you, Tess,” she said.

Brindani hit the dirt hard, rolling over the thick roots of a tree and tucking into a crouch. He turned to stand across from Uthalion, watching for the descending form of Ghaelya. He tried not to look at the human, still dazed by the indistinct memories racing through his mind. He kept his eyes skyward, the moonlit dark little more than thin shadows to the sharp eyes his elf mother had given him. The hands he held at the ready-perhaps, he had often mused, the hands of his unknown human father-bore the scars of too many battles.

Born in the battlefield, Brindani thought. Why bother fighting it? You’ll die there too.

Ghaelya appeared falling gracefully through the darkness, her arms outstretched, the pale swirls of energy on her skin burning. He and Uthalion caught her arms. She broke free of Uthalion’s grasp and they rolled across the ground in a tangle of limbs and curses. The roots he had missed before were lodged in the small of his back, the genasi’s weight on top of him. For the briefest of moments he welcomed the pain, until her eyes flashed in anger, and she stood.

The forestmote they had landed upon floated peacefully between the high cliffs of a deep valley in the Spur, drifting eastward so slowly the movement could barely be seen. Brindani looked to Uthalion, surprised and realizing just how long the human had lived in the forest. The skills Uthalion had gathered would be useful.

“Was that really necessary?” Ghaelya asked, leaning against a tree and rubbing her leg. “I won’t be able to run on this now.”

Uthalion glanced at her, annoyed, before turning back to his perusal of the cliffs above, watching for signs of pursuit. Brindani held up the gore-splattered blade of his dagger, the smell of the dreamer’s blood overpowering.

“Smells like an abandoned fish market at high noon,” he said, turning his nose away. “If we’d gone around the cliffs, we might as well have carried torches and sang tavern songs at the top of our lungs. Uthalion just broke the trail.”

Ghaelya raised an eyebrow and nodded in understanding, but was unsatisfied by the answer. “How do we know they won’t follow?”

“We don’t know,” Uthalion answered, turning to face them with his arms crossed. “If they show up again, you can tell them I made a mistake and share a joke at my expense. Until then, I don’t see them making that jump, and the trail is broken.”

“You could have broken my leg,” Ghaelya responded hotly.

“Better than breaking mine,” the human replied as Brindani stood to get between the two. “Besides, people I don’t know break legs every day. Why should I make an exception and care about yours?”

“Uth,” Brindani said, holding up his hands and gesturing to the genasi. “This is Ghaelya. We didn’t come here for a fight, but the last few days we’ve just been … a little on edge. Thank you for helping us.”

“You’re welcome,” Uthalion replied, eyeing the genasi for a moment before facing the half-elf. “Why are you out here Brin? It’s been three years since I told you not to come back.”

Brindani sighed and lowered his hands, having dreaded the moment since entering the deep woods.

“Yes, that you did,” he answered, trying to think of how to continue, how to put into words the insanity he’d been dealing with for the last tenday-not to mention the last three years. A cold sweat had broken out on his forehead, and he quickly brushed it away as a familiar headache returned with a dull throb behind his eyes. Taking a deep breath he forced his trembling hands to his sides, balling them into fists. “I-no, we, came here looking for you. We need your help. There is-”

Howls rang from the forest, increasing in frequency as the dreamers closed the wide circle of their hunt. Uthalion turned back to the edge of the forestmote, and Ghaelya ceased cleaning the blood from her sword to listen. Following the eerie howls was the soft chanting of a powerful voice, its song drifting from sweet and ethereal to the harsh scream of metal scraping on glass. Old pain stabbed at Brindani’s stomach, and his headache grew stronger, but he fought to conceal his discomfort.

“Quick,” Uthalion said, facing him with a look of urgency. “Long story short.”

“We need a guide,” Brindani replied, studying Uthalion’s eyes and ignoring the dim screams trying to escape the recesses of his mind. “A guide … to Tohrepur.”

Uthalion blinked, a flash of something like confusion crossing his stern features, though otherwise he appeared unmoved by the statement.

“Oh,” he said at length, lowering his head as if in thought, then uncrossing his arms and walking to the southern edge of the forestmote.

“No,” Uthalion continued. “Not ever. Let’s keep moving.”

“Uth, wait…” Brindani began. He stopped as Ghaelya stood and flashed him a look of anger.

“Leave it,” she said as Uthalion took hold of a low branch and climbed up to reach a second limb bridging a deep gap between the forestmote and the other side of the valley. “We don’t need him. We’ll rest, reassess, and be on our way.”

She followed after the human, climbing in silence up the edge of the cliff towards the forest above. Brindani wanted to agree with her, but he had traveled the length of Akanul once before, though much of the journey had been a blur. He shook his head at the recollection. Even saying the name of the place had taken effort. At one point in his life, months before, he’d almost forgotten that Tohrepur and the little town of Caidris had existed. But, as he was growing tired of discovering, he could not escape them forever.

He fumbled at his pack as they pressed on into the southern Spur, unable to find the bottle of spirits he’d stowed away or the wine he’d purchased in Airspur. His lips were dry, his throat ached, and the pain in his stomach was escalating with each step.

The forest changed as they pressed deeper into the plague-changed landscape, its leaves turning from a dappled, ethereal green to intermittent waves of dark, glowing orange. Twisting roots came to life as yellow winged beetles crawled out from their lairs to buzz in clouds around the tree trunks, their wings and the light both bright as flames. The brightness of the display hurt Brindani’s eyes, and he squinted, nodding to Ghaelya when she turned with a look of concern on her face. He waved her on, concealing his near blind search through the pack.

The bottle of spirits was empty and the wineskin held only a mouthful that Brindani gratefully swallowed. He left other useless sundries in his wake as he rummaged and quietly cursed-no drink meant he had no choice. His frustration grew, until his hand closed around a soft bundle wrapped in rough cloth at the bottom of the pack. He breathed a sigh of relief. The bittersweet aroma of silkroot reached his nose, and instantly his headache seemed a little less. The gripping pain in his stomach subsided.

Brindani paused, gasping quietly as he clenched the bundle and strained to listen, hearing the faintest whisper of singing from somewhere in the night. There were no words or any melody he could describe, but just the feel of the sound made him want to possess it for his own. It was gone in a breath, leaving him dazed on the winding path and clutching the silkroot in his fist.

Uthalion never turned from the path, and Ghaelya seemed lost in her own thoughts. Brindani forced himself to remain patient, a twinge of shame resting like a brick in his gut until he could be alone with his demons. He could make it. No one would have to know. His hand trembled as he released the silkroot bundle back into his pack, patting it securely several times to remind himself that it was still there.

Uthalion kept his eyes forward and his feet moving, focusing on their path and winding it just enough to hopefully throw off any further pursuit. Several times he studied a well-hidden, shadowed trench or an old tree within easy climbing range of the upper canopy, but he passed them by, shaking his head. As much as he might like to, he would not abandon his visitors to the not-so-tender mercies of the Spur. He would see them to safety and look forward to their departure. He had no wish to relive the past-as he’d told Brindani well enough the last time the half-elf had come calling. He desired even less to cross the length of the wilder Akana to go and visit that past.

He’d had enough of old times and unwanted nightmares for one night.

Though he stifled the sharp edge of paranoia that pressed against in the back of his mind, he kept a ready hand on his sword as he navigated the maze of the Spur. He eyed the trees, searching for Vaasurri among the leaves, though he suspected the killoren was still busy drawing the howling beasts away from the grove. Within sight of the glow of his abandoned campfire, he breathed deeply and narrowed his eyes. He kept the genasi in his peripheral vision, eyeing her movements closely. She seemed sure-footed, though she had the heavy step of a city dweller. The halfelf seemed as stealthy and as unassuming as ever, but though Brindani hadn’t specifically said they’d been chased, Uthalion knew there was plenty of easier game in the forest than a well-armed genasi and her half-elf escort.

“Trouble,” he muttered. “Nothing good can come of this.”

The smell of half-eaten stew, still warming on the fire, filled the grove. Though he’d eaten less than his share earlier, he found he was no longer hungry, already dreading any further mention of Tohrepur.