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air like a strange round mouth, twelve feet high, carved of basalt and ringed
with stone tendrils. She saw Elrill moving back and forth in front of it,
twisting the sphere as she'd seen him do many times before with no result.
This time, though, she saw a light gathering in the heart of the root system.
The hail turned to mad fireflies in the glow.
Then hurry!' Eldareth gasped. 'Jthery, are you communicating with them?'
Jthery shook his head, his hair whipping in wet skeins. 'I can't stop them.
he said. They're not greenwolves.'
'What?' Tanthe cried. Then what are they?'
'I don't know, but they won't listen to me. Breathing fast, Jthery gathered
his horse's reins. He was white with disbelief. 'I don't know what they are!'
They came crashing through the thin undergrowth, their fur rippling like
pond-weed over their haunches, tiny ears pressed back, jaws gaping to show
thick yellow fangs. Their clawed hands grasped at the air. With a curse
Eldareth let fly his first arrow, missed, shot again and felled the leader.
Tanthe joined in, unleashing three arrows. Only one struck, landing in a
greenwolf's shoulder, but the creature hardly seemed to feel it. It reached
up, wrenched out the arrow and threw it down without breaking stride.
"Time to retreat. said Eldareth, turning Gany on his haunches and trotting
towards the fallen tree.
Catching her breath, she rode after him towards Elrill, turned again, let fly
another useless arrow. She wished she was as good as Rufryd, who could turn in
mid-flight and hit the tiniest moving targets without even appearing to aim
properly. She wished Rufryd was with them.
The portal was glowing strongly now. The root-mouth was lost to sight in a
haze of sparkling lilac and silver light, shot through with green and rainbow
colours. Tanthe glimpsed another world inside the glow, but it wavered like a
theatre set painted on silk. Dread gripped her as she remembered the portal
that had led her to Auriel... Elrill was working frantically, weaving the
anametris in and out of the light as if to pour more energy into the portal.
The glade hummed with energy; the great trees all around lit up with ghostly
blue fire.
'Can we go through?' Eldareth shouted.
'It's ancient. Elrill said. 'Hard to open. I'm trying.'
'If we don't go through now, they'll be coming with us!' cried Tanthe.
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The portal flared, dazzling.
'Come!' Elrill beckoned frantically. 'It's the best I can do! Quickly, before
it begins to close again!'
The greenwolves were less than ten yards away now. For a moment Tanthe was
hypnotised by them, as if she'd slipped into another level of perception. She
saw beyond their clashing fangs and long horny claws to something worse.. .
It was Redbird who saved her, leaping forwards after the others. Eldareth and
Jthery were urging their horses towards the centre of the clearing. Tanthe
heard one of the creatures give a loud bubbling growl, turned to see it nearly
on Redbird's heels and slashing out at her hindquarters.
By reflex she swung the mare in a tight circle and slashed out with her sword.
The keen Aelyr blade cut through the creature's neck and it fell, the head
nearly severed. No blood spurted out, only some kind of ooze. And Tanthe knew.
Something about them ... so nearly perfect in their savage greenwolf form, yet
so barely perceptibly wrong...
'Bhahdradomen. she panted. 'Jthery, you-saw. They're shape-changers, ghelimV
She couldn't tell if the others had heard her. Behind her the monstrous
animals came striding on through the ice-storm, snarling their hunger. Before
her, the disc of light shimmered and the prospect of leaping into it was as
terrifying as throwing herself off a cliff - but there was no choice. She saw
Jthery's horse jump into the light and vanish, Gany following with Eldareth
looking back over his shoulder, shouting at her to hurry.
Elrill was waiting, with one hand outstretched as if to usher her through.
Redbird sprang. Tanthe caught a
huge breath and held it as the world vanished and her stomach thrilled with
the shock of falling. For a few moments she seemed to be out of her body and
still watching the glade, Elrill dragging his horse into the portal, the
shape-changers leaping after them, the light vanishing like an extinguished
flame. The ghelim falling back as if they had hit a closed door.
The tunnel between realms swirled and cast them down into a place where the
landscape and all the colours and scents were different. The horses stumbled
and found their feet; Eldareth and Jthery looked disorientated, but this time
Tanthe - like Elrill - was immediately alert and aware of her surroundings.
She raised her head and took in everything.
The biting ice of hail, the sounds of wind and snarling ghelim were gone. In
place of the petrified forest was a wide curving plain that was silver and
rainbow-coloured like dew. She heard the faint background music of stars and
against it, voices shouting in the distance. Strange and terrible sounds
pierced the air, like the ringing of glass, and figures were running all
around them; Aelyr in spider-silk grey with long shining swords in their
hands. There were cries, the clash of weapons, the shudder of unseen energies
...
They had stepped into the midst of a battle.
Chapter Fourteen. Akarata
Rufryd rode east with Con, Dawn and Mirias, some fifteen hundred miles still
to cover before they reached the Vexat Straits. The countryside here was rough [ Pobierz całość w formacie PDF ]