like it, not druidry in general, nor him in particular. For a moment, all the leaves had become open eyes and open mouths with teeth instead of edges.
That moment had passed once he raised his palms and consciously shut himself off from the forest’s burgeoning vitality. Leaves were simply leaves again, but the sense that they were being watched persisted. For most of his life—even in his own grove, which was mostly brush and grass with a few sparse trees—Ruari had either been within walls or looking at a horizon that was at least a day’s walk away. Here in the forest, he could touch the green-leafed horizon, and the forest, which had seemed like paradise before he sat down, had become a place of hidden menace.
He was afraid to cut himself a staff, lest he arouse something more hostile.
“Give it a try, son.” Orekel urged. “What’ve we got to lose?”
“I’m too tired,” Ruari replied, which was true. “Maybe later,” which was a lie—but he didn’t want to alarm the others.
“So, what do we do?” Zvain asked, backsliding into the whiny, selfish tone he used when he was tired, frightened, or both. “Sit here until you’re rested?”
Orekel took Zvain’s arm and gently spun him around. “Best to keep moving, son. Things that stay in one place too long attract an appetite.”
“Move where?” Zvain persisted.
“Does it matter?” Mahtra asked. The climb down hadn’t bothered her any more than the climb up, any more than anything ever seemed to bother her. If the New Races were made from something, someone else, then whatever Mahtra had been, it wasn’t elven, or dwarven, or human. “We don’t have a map anymore. One direction’s as good as another if we don’t know where we’re going.”
She offered her hand to Ruari, who accepted any help getting back on his feet. They hadn’t wandered far when the lurking sense that they were being watched got worse, and not much farther beyond that when he felt the old, fallen leaves that covered the ground shift beneath his feet.
A heartbeat later, they were thrown against one another and hoisted off the ground in a net. Zvain screamed in terror; Orekel cursed, as if this had happened before, and—foolish as it was—Ruari felt better with his weight on the ropes, not his feet.
The sizzle of Mahtra’s thunderclap power passed through Ruari not once, but twice. The sound was loud enough to detach a shower of leaves from their branches and make the net sway like a bead on a string. But it wasn’t enough to send them crashing to the ground, and Mahtra’s third blast was much weaker than the first two. The fourth was no more than a flash without the thunder.
Heartbeats later, they heard movement in the underbrush, and halflings appeared on the trail beneath them. Looking down, Ruari saw a score of halflings. None looked friendly, but the one who raised his spear and prodded the half-elf sharply in the flank had a truly frightening face, with weblike burn scars covering his cheeks and eyes as black and deep as night between the stars. He gave Ruari another poke between the ribs.
“The ugly man—Templar Paddock—where is he?”
Chapter Fourteen
“I’ve heard there’s a hunters’ village about a day’s ride from here. They call it Ject. It’s a way station for beasts on their way to the combat arenas of the cities. It’s full of scoundrels, knaves, and charlatans of every stripe, some of whom’ll lead a party across the mountains and into the halfling forests. It’s a day’s ride to the southeast, but we could hire a guide for an easier passage, if you think we should, Lord Pavek.”
Unlike the ride from Quraite to Urik, there were no bells on the huge kank Lord Pavek rode, no excuse for not hearing Commandant Javed’s statement, no excuse for not answering the implied question.
Still, under the guise of careful consideration, Pavek could take the time to shift his weight, easing strained joints and muscles. He’d been kank-back for the better part of three days, and the only parts of him that didn’t hurt were the ones that had gone numb while the walls of Urik were still visible behind them.
Pavek thought he’d set a hard pace when he’d gotten himself, Mahtra, Ruari, and Zvain from Quraite to Urik in ten days. Since leaving Khelo shortly after his conversation with Lord Hamanu, Pavek had learned new things about the bugs’—and his own—endurance.
Together with Commandant Javed of Urik’s war bureau, a double maniple