Whispering Woods

CHAPTER 19

When the lightning struck, Gull felt a shock like a slap on the soles of his feet, a burning as if his clogs had caught fire.

The sensation faded, leaving him tingly, cold, and drenched. He couldn't focus his eyes, and put out a questing hand. A craggy claw grabbed it and dragged him stumbling from the monolith. A crash of thunder almost threw him to his knees.

Someone pushed him down. Wet leaves curled around his ears. Blinking hot tears that mingled with cold raindrops, he gradually made out Greensleeves and Kem and Stiggur, all tucked close to the bramble wall. Morven chivied them deeper into cover.

The sky split again. Jagged spears of white light smashed the storm darkness. Splintered streaks of rain glowed on the monolith. Another crash of thunder rocked them.

"Lance of the Sea!" gasped the sailor. He sounded exhausted. "Look there!"

Gull squinted. Against a gray sky floated a blue cloud, like the smoke of a soggy campfire. The cloud lengthened, took the vague shape of a man with a pointed tail. When it balled two hand-shapes together, light crackled between them. The hands clapped and shook, like a dog shaking off water, and lightning streaked down, too fast to follow.

The bolt struck the clockwork beast with a dull shudder. Gull smelled burned rust and charred wood on the wet air. Dimly, he heard Morven lecturing Stiggur, "… why! Because iron attracts lightning! Iron on a ship will fair burn out'a the wood! If you hadn't come down-" A peal of thunder wiped out his words. "-monolith must have iron in it, 'cause it's sucking up the lightning and keeping us safe! Towser never considered that, the daft bugger!"

"But where is Towser?" Gull interrupted. "He can fly! You never told me that!"

Stiggur answered. Streaming-wet, he was blue-lipped and chatter-toothed. Greensleeves wrapped her dripping shawl around his shoulders. "He d-don't do it much. He can't f-fly like a proper bird, flapping his wings-arms. He j-just soars, like a-a g-gull."

But Gull wasn't listening. "If he can fly, that means…" People waited, and Gull's thoughts tumbled. "It must have been he who flew above our village, not Dacian, that black-haired female wizard. He felled our family, my mother, with that weakness spell that stilled her heart…"

Only hissing rain answered.

Sorrow choked Gull, stung like a knife wound. Along with a raging thirst for revenge, for Towser's blood.

But caution ruled too. And fear, for himself and his companions.

This wizards' duel-between Towser and Greensleeves-had brought things crashing around them, too fast to encompass, so they could only react like bugs in a bottle. Now Towser renewed the attack, distracting them with rain and lightning. The wizard was stubborn, Gull knew, and veteran of several wizard duels.

Though he couldn't see it, Gull sensed a trap about to spring. More than ever, the sense they had to get away washed him like chilly rain.

Fighting panic, Gull made a quick count of their resources.

The elvish archers lingered, still with arrows nocked. Yet their captain shook her head as she warbled at Greensleeves. They'd depart soon, Gull could tell. More felt than seen, Liko and the rock hydra battled beyond the brambles. Thumps and draggings and hard-struck blows sent tremors through the ground. Gull feared the giant would lose another arm, but Liko had been enraged, angrier than Gull had ever seen: maybe his rage would sustain him. He wished Liko well, for that was all he could do. They had but three fighters, an unpracticed wizard girl, a boy, a mechanical animal Lightning made them flinch. It struck the clockwork beast again, sending that scorched stink through the air. Stiggur bleated, "He'll kill my beast!"

"It ain't alive!" said Kem.

"It is! I know it!"

"Greenie," said her brother, "can you conjure somewhat to push that cloud-man away? Arrows won't do! We need to move, get away from this spot! Towser'll drop something right on our heads!"

"We should stay put!" Kem barked. In the semi-darkness, the scarred side of his face glowed like foxfire. "We're safe here, might not be elsewhere!"

"Don't argue! I know what I'm doing!"

"Since when does a woodcutter know about generaling?"

"Since when does an assassin?"

"You'll eat those words!"

"Makes me want to cry," put in Morven, "seeing you boys get along so nice. Warms the cockles of my old withered heart-"

Greensleeves murmured, "I th-think… I have…"

A flare like lightning lit the sky, but this brilliance lingered.

Once again, the nightmare rode the heavens.

The flaming horse billowed upward as from a green-brown cloud. It galloped from over the ocean, prancing on air. Gray body sleek as a seal's, fire trailed from its mane and tail and feet, flickering, guttering, but never quenching.

Gull thought that for such a horror, it was achingly beautiful. But then it made dreams, and dreams could be both beautiful and horrid at once.

"That's a girl!" he shouted. "It beat the djinn last time, smashed it like a rotten pumpkin!"

"That was at night!" Morven countered. "The sun ain't set yet! And this rain might douse its fire!"

"That's magic fire!" Kem argued. "It don't burn like wood! But that horse looks sickly!"

They had to agree. Colorful, the phantom yet looked filmy as a mist or rainbow, whereas the djinn looked solid as a thunderhead.

The nightmare whinnied, a high, piercing shriek like a saw binding in oak that set everyone's teeth on edge. As it closed, the blue-cloud djinn, swelled up, head ballooning, and blew. The blast of air-Gull heard its roar-stalled the nightmare's charge, bowled it across the sky. The horse's flame all but extinguished, and its body grew paler, more ethereal. It coasted a hundred yards before finding its feet. Again it laid flaming hooves against an invisible road, and charged, and again the djinn puffed, sending it asail across the dark sky.

"The horse-demon's licked," muttered Kem.

Gull wiped his axe handle, but couldn't dry it for blood and water. He gestured inland, called above the noise of rain and sky battle. "Let's move while there's no lightning! We need to see who's out there! If it's those blue barbarians, maybe the archers can drive 'em off! We can rush the wagons! They'd make good shelter and Towser won't destroy them-"

"You forget the bodyguards!" Kem cut in. "They're better fighters than you are! I hired 'em!"

"Kem, if you can't help, belt up!" Gull hefted his axe. "We'll see what's what, flee if we must-"

Stiggur's cold hand grabbed Gull's arm. "Look!"

Atop the black, rain-slick monolith, Towser perched like a peacock.

Kneeling on the rounded top, the wizard clung with one hand. Gull could have pitched his axe and hit him.

With that thought, a score of elven black arrows whizzed through the night. Every one hit the wizard dead center-before bouncing off and disappearing into the dark eventide.

Damn that infernal magic shield! thought Gull. Damn all magic! The bastard wasn't even wet!

A white stripe flickered in Towser's hand. A silver wand aimed down at them.

Gull's body spasmed from head onto toe. His bad knee shot out and he crashed on the turf, almost braining Greensleeves with his axe. But she'd pitched backward into briars that held her like a prickly bed. Kem was down, crawling as if from bellyache, as did Morven. Stiggur lay on his side and twitched like a dog with nightmares.

Gull fought the jerky paralysis, but couldn't even clench his teeth without biting his tongue. His fingers hooked into claws, his arms shook, one leg kicked on its own.

The disrupting scepter, Gull agonized, that made a man's body betray him. But why hadn't Towser simply drained their energy? For Gull knew, somehow, it had been Towser who'd flown and stolen the life forces from his village. Yet Towser wanted Greensleeves's magic. Perhaps draining her would waste it? He didn't know-didn't know anything about magic, and cursed himself for his ignorance.

And his helplessness. For this was the snap of the trap. They lay exposed as baby mice in a spilled nest. Growing more vulnerable by the minute. The raging of Liko and the rock hydra had diminished, so one must have lost, and last time the victor had been the hydra. The flaming nightmare had vanished from the roiling sky. From the corner of his eye, Gull saw the elven captain crawl away, dragging her bow. Magic must affect them less, but still they were running.

Gull would have too, but it was too late. He tried to grab his axe, to sit up, but only flailed himself in the face and fell back. Towser could walk over unarmed, seize Gull's sister, stretch her on the altar…

A whispering came to him. Greensleeves's voice, cooing as when she'd been simple. Maybe terror and exhaustion had twisted her mind to its earlier state. In the dimness he saw her white face staring upward, rain speckling her cheeks, blipping her eyes. Her small rough hands pressed flat against the earth as she whispered. Or chanted.

Then, deep under Gull's back, the earth groaned.

With his head against the wet grass, Gull's teeth rattled with the force of the earthquake. His vision danced until he thought his eyeballs would pop. Shock waves made his spine jiggle until he felt he'd break into pieces.

A roaring sounded as the earth shuddered, a strange grumbling and rushing as the dirt and rock of the bluff tore apart. Clickings and clackings and pingings told him rocks flaked from the cliff and bounced onto sea rocks below. Overhead, briars shivered and danced, flinging water droplets he could taste. The roaring increased until it filled his ears, his brain.

Then the black basalt monolith began to dance.

Towser found his perch swaying. Alarmed, he snatched at his grimoire. For his flying spell, Gull knew.

With a sliding grinding rush, a slab of the monolith split from the top, smashed dirt and rocks from the bluff's edge, and cascaded into the sea with a boom. The missing piece almost took Towser with it, but he launched into the air, flapping his arms, ungainly as a chicken.

A thought burned in Gull's brain. My little sister did this? She'd lived through one earthquake, back in White Ridge. But to conjure one…? How much power did she wield?

The woodcutter heaved a shoulder, tried to clutch his axe, touched the haft with clumsy fingers. His whole body shook: he couldn't tell which juttered more, him or the earth. Gritting his teeth, he flipped over. The spasming spell must be wearing off.

Not soon enough.

Slowly, slowly, the huge monolith teetered toward the ocean, the unbalanced side, tilted farther -then the entire bluff collapsed under the shifting weight.

The sound of sliding, smashing, crashing stone striking the foamy, rocky shore was horrendous, ear-shattering. Aftershocks rippled up and down the beach and shorn bluff, spraying soil and grass like a snapped blanket. The ponderous clockwork beast, so heavy it sank into loam, went cartwheeling out to sea like a toy.

Through his hips and breastbone, Gull felt the earth slip farther. The earthquake and toppling monolith were too much. Before his eyes, a chasm split the bluff. The broken edge jumped at him in big bites, as if swallowed by an invisible monster. Grass and dirt disappeared at a hand's reach.

Halfway erect, Kem spit a bitter oath. Morven prayed. Stiggur went white with terror. Greensleeves just looked wide-eyed and amazed at the destruction she'd wrought.

Then, suddenly, as if they sat on a flying carpet, the earth dropped away, and they dropped, screaming.

Gull was unsure how far he fell, or how he survived the fall. He could only suppose their portion of bluff slid whole before bursting apart.

One second he sailed through space on the earthern carpet, actually lifting from the wet grass, the next he plunged below icy salt waves, deep, deep, deep.

Blasts of icy water and panicked thoughts almost overwhelmed the woodcutter, buried in the sea. He had to retain his axe, his only weapon. He had to find Greensleeves. He had to get air.

The axe went immediately, his hand letting go on its own. He clutched water, clawing for the surface, unsure if he rose or sank. His lungs burned, ready to rupture, but then his head broke water. He gasped fresh salt air-and was buried anew in dirty churning waves. Down he went, but by kicking and clawing, found the surface again, was almost sucked under by another wave. The sea had been rough enough with the storm, but tons of plunging cliffside had set the ocean itself heaving.

Another wave batted his face, then his bare feet- his clogs were long gone-bashed against something first soft, then unyielding.

Wildly, the woodcutter grabbed for it. A seaweed-festooned rock. Slime disintegrated in his hands, then another wave mashed him against the rock. Climbing, spluttering, retching water, he got a foot wedged into a cleft-slicing skin on hidden barnacles-and hung on. Wracked, exhausted, he almost toppled into the next wave, but he hurled himself back up, wrapped around the rock.

But where was Greensleeves? He couldn't have protected her, come this far, only to lose her to drowning. And what of the others?

An explosive retching rang nearby. In the dim light, he saw Morven's gray head hang as he vomited water. Half-under him was Stiggur, like a drowned muskrat. That left "Gull, you bastard! Help me!"

Not far off, on a flatter expanse of seaweed, Kem struggled to land himself while towing Greensleeves by her hair. The girl waved her hands, protesting at the pain but, like a machine, the bodyguard hauled her higher up the slippery rock. Kem had lost his helmet, sword, one boot.

Tripping, sliding on sliced feet, Gull reached them, grabbed his sister around the shoulders.

Kem coughed hard enough to split a lung, but couldn't resist a snipe. "Don't-thank me."

Gull hugged his weeping sister. "Thank you, Kem. Thank you."

The ex-bodyguard snorted water out his nose, coughed anew.

Morven and Stiggur collapsed beside them. The boy sobbed, "I've had enough adventuring."

"Me, too, lad," gasped the sailor. "Thirty years afloat, and I come nearest drowning working for a wagon train. Neptune's after my soul-Oh, no…"

The heroes glanced around. The shattered cliff face was a stone's throw away, except now it sported a huge trough down its center, from the grass above to a massive cascade of dirt before them. High up, gazing down the trough, stood Towser. Waving both hands at the sea.

Where Morven gazed, horrified.

Silver shapes slipped in and out of waves. They flickered and flitted, vanishing, appearing, disappearing. A school of fish, Gull thought: that silver sheen was their backs. Yet the patches twisted, came together, formed coils…

A snaky head long as a ship broke from the waves, opened jaws with more teeth, with countless teeth. A crest like a ship's sail decorated the undulating head. The neck stretched on and on.

A fishy eye three feet across fixed on them, dipped through a wave, came out straight as an arrow, jaws agape.

"Sea serpent!" Morven shouted.

To pluck them off this rock like a robin gulping worms.

The serpent's head reared from the waves. The cavernous mouth yawned at half a bowshot. Then it split another wave, and Gull could have thrown a rock and hit it. He stared down the gullet, imagining the stink of long-dead fish. Eaten, he thought. We're to be eaten, after surviving all this.

In his arms, Greensleeves stirred. She lifted a hand, and the world went white.

A fungal glow loomed over them. The dank smell of musty mushrooms banished the salt tang for a moment, and Gull wondered where he'd seen this light before.

Ah, the battle of the burned forest. When the armored wizard seized Greensleeves, and was suddenly confronted by a mushroom beast the size of a barn, a fungusaur. Lily (where was she?) had pointed out that it was conjured by someone else, and of course, that had been Greensleeves. And Gull had been too dense to see her magical prowess.

Now she'd plucked this fungusaur from some deep cavern. Gray-white and glowing, with goggling yellow eyes, its mouth like a cave itself, the beast towered over them like a living wall -and the serpent struck it with mouth open.

Chunks of white, glowing with cold light, exploded through the air. The mushroom beast growled, bit at the serpent, whose long tail thrashed the water to foamy phosphorescence. The serpent snapped its head, tearing at the beast, whose pulpy muck-encrusted feet slipped on the slimy wet rocks. The fungusaur's growl dropped to a low rumble, then a grating squall. Though it was hard to see from below, Gull thought the serpent had torn a hunk from the fungusaur's spine, if it had such. Whatever, that sounded like a death keen from the white monster.

The heroes didn't wait. Grabbing one another, clutching for purchase, they scrambled across the spume-flecked rocks for the dirt cascade.

Within a dozen paces, they mired in soggy mud-loose dirt churned to slurry by seawater. In the lead, Kern sank to his hips in muck. He turned, yelled at the others to get back. But too late for Gull, who'd stumbled into a wallow, too. The others hung back, clinging to rocks, afraid to move for fear of water and mud.

"Where the hell now?" panted Morven as he gazed around. For the first time ever, he sounded old. Ancient. "I thought-the cliff-" He gave up, exhausted.

Sunk, wedged tight, Gull craned about. The sun was gone behind the clouds. It was almost completely black. Foam and flickering fungal light were no help. He felt they drowned in blackness. Even had he been free, he couldn't have picked a direction to go. Off to their left, the fallen monolith lay big as a barn and smothered in dirt. More cascade stretched to their right. Directly ahead was the huge trough, like a slue, that rose in fits and starts and jagged steps, all trickling loose dirt, up to the remains of the bluff.

Light showed up there. The wizard commanded the center. Ranged on either side were shaggy shapes with curved swords and torches. Blue barbarians, dozens of them.

The woodcutter looked seaward. Dimly, he saw the fungusaur had been ripped to pieces that floated away. Amidst the ruin thrashed the sea serpent, unharmed and hungry and hunting them. It steamed back and forth amidst the rocks, seeking a deep-enough channel to close and swallow them. Rain still slashed down, but Gull was so numb he couldn't feel it.

He'd feel nothing soon.

"Can't go, can't stay," muttered Kem. He threw himself flat to try and swim out of his mudhole.

"Stabbed or eaten," gasped Morven. He instructed Stiggur to hold his belt, leaned out across slurry for Gull. "Or time permitting, we drown at high tide."

Gull stretched, and sailor and cook's boy hauled him free to the rocks. Picking around the deeper pockets of mud, together they hauled Kem to safety.

Slapped by waves, by wind and rain, they huddled inches above the sea. Kem muttered, "Hell of a place to die."

"Let's hope we do," panted Morven. "I can use a rest."

Only Greensleeves peered around, sniffing like a dog.

Gull asked, "Anything else, sister?" But he had little hope. Funny, he thought, ever since that first day in White Ridge, he'd been running like a madman to rescue his sister. Now overwhelmed, he could only ask her to rescue them. Strange were the twists in the road of life.

The girl swirled a hand in seawater. "Th-there's… s-omething… s-singing to me… S-something st-stirred by the ear-earthquake…"

The men watched glumly. Far above, Towser gave orders. A score of barbarians hopped into the earth scar, picked their way down sliding dirt toward the captives. Not thirty feet out, the serpent hissed, louder and louder.

Or…?

It wasn't any beast hissing, Gull realized. It was the water, the ocean itself.

The surf pulsed all around, but each surge was weaker. They were no longer slapped by spume.

Curiosity made the men turn. Gull asked, "Greenie, is this your doing?" But the girl only stared oceanward.

Everywhere they looked, the water level dropped. Waves stopped licking at their heels, receded altogether. Rocks that had shown only seaweedy tips stood revealed. The water drained away so quickly flapping fish and clicking crabs were trapped in pools. The sea serpent, incredibly long and silvery, flopped amidst rocks.

Like a dream, the waves rolled away and away, clear to the horizon. The muck green seabed lay revealed, rocks and stranded fish and even a mossy shipwreck a quarter mile out.

"What is it?" breathed Kem.

Morven had gone white. He mumbled under his breath. "Oh, no. Oh, no…"

Gull poked him. "What? What is it?"

"Tsunami," the sailor whispered.

"Su-what?"

"Run!" he shouted, startling them all. "Run! Ashore! Fast! Like you've never run before!"

Morven caught Stiggur, lifted him by main strength, then ran, galloping across rocks, fear making him light as a squirrel. Gull glanced at Kem, who stared back. But the panic was infectious. The woodcutter caught his sister's elbow, the bodyguard caught the other, and, hoisting her, they ran obliquely across rocks and thin mud for the shore.

Morven scrambled up the trough, pushing Stiggur by his backside. The men followed with Greensleeves, though they slid down as much as they climbed up. Panting, the sailor searched the blacker pockets. High up, a confused gurgle came from the backlit barbarians, who wondered why these men ran to their deaths, and what had happened to the ocean.

"What is it, Morven?" Gull hollered. "What's after us?"

"Tsunami!" the man shouted over his shoulder. "But we'll never outrun it, not on this slope, not ever! Look for a cave! It's our only chance!"

"But what the hell's a su-whatever you said?" demanded Kem.

"Here!" The sailor stopped at a cleft, just a blacker slash in the black hillside. He grabbed the boy's hair and mashed him into the cave. Stiggur yowled.

Gull swore. Morven had gone mad.

Yet the ocean was acting damned queer. Though Gull knew little about the sea, Lily had explained tides. But never that the water disappeared completely, rolled right over the horizon.

"Get in, get in, get in!" Morven plucked Greensleeves from the men's grasp, stuffed her in the hole. "In in in!"

"But what…?"

For answer, the sailor pointed seaward.

Far far out, where the sunken sun cast an afterglow, a long low cloud had descended to earth. No, Gull corrected, it must be a mountain range uncovered by the water. Except it grew, higher and higher.

Then he knew what it was.

The ocean, returning in a single wave.

Gull recalled the town where they'd first seen the ocean. His sister had splashed in the surf. Now she stirred it with her hands like a god.

Above them on the slope, barbarians babbled. Towser was gone, fled inland.

"What I tried to tell you!" bleated Morven. "A tidal wave!"

For a second, Gull couldn't move. Then Morven caught his hair and stuffed him into the hole after his sister. In pitch blackness, Gull smacked heads with her. Shifting, he banged Stiggur, made him grunt. "Crowd in, son!"

"I can't! This is all there is!" From the tiny squeak in his ear, Gull knew it was true. This cave was no bigger than a coffin.

Kem crammed in behind him, driving knees into Gull's back. "Move inside, idiot!"

Gull shuffled in the dark, squashing his sister. Kem wriggled against him, so tight the woodcutter felt scar tissue brush his neck. "This is it!"

"It can't be!" Kem grunted as Morven pressed behind.

The sailor wheezed. "Little Missy! Greensleeves! Raise that wall of wood! It's all that'll save you!"

"I-I-" Tearfully, Greensleeves stopped protesting to concentrate.

"No, wait!" From his voice, Gull could tell that Morven was outside the cave. There was no more room. "Morven! You-"

"You," Morven interrupted to Greensleeves, "must conjure one of them walls of wood to block this cave! Tight as a curtain!"

"But-" Gull shouted. He flexed, tried to back out of the hole, but Kem was wedged in the entrance and the sailor leaned on him. "Morven! You have to-"

A rustling stirring chittering answered. Gull smelled the bitter tannin of oak leaves. The blackness got blacker, if that were possible. Kem grunted in pain as bark rasped his spine.

In seconds, Greensleeves's wall of wood sealed them off like a ship's hatch. Cut them off from Morven. Outside.

It was suddenly hard to breathe. And hot. Smells of earth and salt and bodies was strong. "How will we get out?" squeaked Stiggur.

"Will the cliff hold, I want to know," Kem gasped. "That wave might just suck this whole cliff out to sea-"

He shouted the last, for a roar louder than any windstorm was rushing howling pushing driving at them. The temperature plummeted, chilling. Gull supposed a hurricane's worth of fresh air was pushed before that mountainous sea.

Which must strike -the cliff -and Morven -any sec The world dissolved in water.

A wet hell gushed at them, around them, into them.

Gull's lungs were near bursting, but snatching a breath, he sucked water and mud and air in a devil's mix. Water pounded his face, mud filled his ears and eyepits and nose, roots ground at his head and spine. Hands aching, he clung to everyone, felt Greensleeves and Stiggur and Kem struggle as much as he.

Morven would have died right away, he thought. We'll die slowly, gasping like those stranded fish.

Dirt smothered him, water swirled it away, air teased and then vanished. He was shaken like a rat in a barrel, battered on every inch of his body.

How long this went on, he could never recall. But suddenly there was more room. Kern's knees weren't gouging his kidneys. Swirling inside, he thought, the sea was tearing the cliff to flinders, as Kem feared. They'd be snatched into the giant wave in seconds, and drowned.

"Gulllll!!!!" The bodyguard clutched so hard his fingers could have snapped Gull's collarbone. He was being sucked out the entrance.

With more room-too much-Gull reached behind, grabbed leather, hung on. He braced his feet against walls, but they dissolved into mud. Roots under one hand trickled away like sand. Gull reached for Greensleeves to brace her, keep her pinned so she wouldn't be washed out. But he missed her, found a muddy wall disintegrating.

The iron fingers on his collarbone let go.

Rather than pull me out, Gull thought, Kem let himself be sucked away. He's saved us again. I'll never repay that, not if I live a thousand years.

Pounded by new water and mud, Gull reached for Stiggur, jammed the boy's hands against Greensleeves. Maybe the two together Then Gull was toppling. Water gushed down his front, rinsing him clean, drowning him, sucking him into a dragon's maw He grabbed -found nothing -plummeted into a whirling watery waste.