I took us in a direct line away from the estate. Distance was more important than direction right now. We were in The Ruins, so I could safely assume that anything following us wanted to kill and eat us, and probably not in that order. When I no longer felt anything breathing down my neck, I’d stop and get my bearings. Our pace was even faster than the goblin guards had set bringing us into The Ruins. Survival was a powerful motivator.
After my last trip to The Ruins, I had asked Janek Tawl for a map and committed it to memory. I had sworn I would never get lost here again. With the amount of criminal activity in The Ruins, the city watch had commissioned the best maps money could buy. Hopefully I would live long enough to tell Janek it was a good investment.
The ground sloped upwards, and we followed it. There were only two areas of The Ruins that could be called high ground. We were fortunate to have found one of them. It wasn’t the way out, but it would go a long way toward helping me find one. At the top, there was a low grouping of stones surrounding a rock slab where the ground leveled off. I knew exactly where we were. That slab had seen various uses over the years, none of them good.
Piaras stopped beside me. “Where are we?”
That wasn’t a question I wanted to answer. “It doesn’t have an official name.”
“What’s the unofficial name?”
“The Butcher Block.”
He looked at the slab. “Because of the rock?” he asked uneasily.
“Yeah, because of the rock.”
The spellsinger stepped in for a closer look. I didn’t stop him. There was enough light to see where dark stains had seeped into the stone, becoming a permanent part of it. Piaras didn’t need to be told what those stains were.
He quickly returned to my side.
The lower Ruins spread out below us. In the distance, I could see the lights from the Sorcerers District and the harbor. So close, yet so far. Unseen from the forest floor, the tops of the trees twinkled with light when seen from above. In the canopy, pale lights of blue and white glowed, died, then reappeared farther away, until the forest was alive with fairy light. I had to admit it was possibly the most beautiful, and surprisingly peaceful, sight I had ever seen. And I didn’t let myself believe it for one second.
“How do we get out?” Piaras asked.
“The closest exit is a little over two miles that way.” I indicated the mostly overgrown path to our left, and the lights in the all-too-far distance. “That’ll put us out at the south end of the Sorcerers District.”
“That’s a long two miles.”
Two tiny pinpoints of light appeared through the trees. I thought they were eyes, until they separated. In the next few seconds, more delicate pink lights appeared, singly and in groups of two or three. They darted around us on translucent wings. The illumination seemed to come from the creatures themselves.
Piaras turned slowly, following their flight. “Are they moths?”
I tried to see one clearly as it dove in front of my face and then away. I caught the briefest glimpse of miniature arms, legs, torso and head—all no larger than my thumb, and all without a shred of clothing. There were both males and females.
“They look like some type of sprite or fairy,” I said.
Tonight was full of firsts. Possibly not everything living in The Ruins wanted us for a late supper. If it were true, it would be a welcome change.
One of the fairies darted on hummingbird wings around Piaras’s upheld hand. She was definitely female. She lightly brushed the spellsinger’s hand with her feet. Once. Twice. Piaras remained perfectly still and waited with breathless anticipation. The fairy landed.
More fairies appeared. Their glow was brighter than before, the colors deeper, more of a rosy orange than pink. I noticed a slight cut on Piaras’s wrist where the bindings must have broken the skin. The fairy had noticed, too.
“Piaras,” I warned.
“But they’re beautiful,” he protested, enthralled with the ethereal form perched coyly in the palm of his hand. His face was illuminated by her pale pink glow. She looked rather taken with him, too.
“Yes, they’re very pretty. Now, say goodbye to the nice, naked lady and let’s get out of here.”
The naked lady smiled, and suddenly she wasn’t so nice anymore. Razor-sharp teeth glittered in a tidy row a split second before she hissed and sank them into Piaras’s wrist. With a gasp, Piaras jumped back and swatted at her. Her pink glow flared to red as she and the others dove at us.
I’d seen enough. “Run!”
Piaras didn’t have to be told twice.
Run we could do, but escape was not happening. The forest had upright trees, fallen trees, rocks, brambles, and vines. The blood-sucking fire pixies just darted over or around anything in their path, flames spreading out behind them like the tails of tiny comets. The ground grew soggy, then wet beneath our feet. If memory served me, there was a shallow pond just ahead. Nothing like a little water to dampen fire pixie ardor. At least that was what I was hoping. It was the best I could come up with on no notice.
We burst into the clearing and were instantly knee-deep in pond water.
I quickly waded toward the center, and told myself that being drained dry by fire pixies was a worse death than drowning. I didn’t buy it for a minute, but for Piaras’s sake, I’d at least try not to think about it.
“Get a deep breath and stay under for as long as you can,” I called over my shoulder.
The pixies could just hover above the surface until we were forced to come up for air, but I’d deal with that stumbling block when I came to it. One problem at a time.
The center of the pond was chin deep on me, chest deep on Piaras. I took all the air my lungs would hold and went under. Piaras followed and did the same.
The pixies were on us immediately. They looked like torches waving over the surface. They darted about, searching. I thought my lungs were going to burst, but I didn’t move. Then as suddenly as they had arrived, they were gone. Not trusting luck of any kind tonight, especially the good kind, I waited a few extra moments before sticking my head above the surface. It was hard not to noisily gulp air.
No pixies. No lights.
Piaras’s head popped up beside me. “They’re gone?” he gasped, once he had filled his own lungs. He seemed as doubtful of our good fortune as I was.
I scanned the surrounding trees. No glow. “That’s what it looks like.”
“Why?”
“Tastier offer?” I didn’t really believe it, but it would have to do until something else came along; but in the meantime, I wasn’t going to question it too closely. “Let’s get out of here.”
I felt heavier coming out of the pond than I had going in. I knew I was taking some of the pond with me soaked into my clothes, but I was listing a little too far to the right. Piaras looked at me, his eyes as big as saucers.
“Raine.” His voice was tight.
I stopped and looked down at myself. I didn’t see anything. “What?”
He grimaced and pointed to my right side.
I lifted my right arm to get a good look and bit back a scream. It came out as a squeak.
A black, shiny leech was working hard to attach itself to my ribs. It was easily a foot long. And from the enthusiastic way it was squirming to get through my leathers to my skin, I must have been the best thing to come along in quite a while.
I cleared the water and was on the bank with my knife out in record time. The only thing I wanted worse than to have that leech off was to scream. I couldn’t remember ever wanting to scream and run that badly.
“Soul-stealing rock, razor-fanged pixies, blood-sucking leeches,” I hissed as I struggled to get my knife wedged under the thing’s blindly seeking mouth and pry it off. “When this is over I’m going to treat myself to a screaming fit. I deserve it, and I’m going to have one.”
I sliced the leech from my doublet and checked myself for others. I stopped. Something was very wrong. Even more wrong than foot-long leeches. Piaras coughed twice from swallowing water, and then it hit me. The noise Piaras had just made was the only sound I could hear. It was as if every creature, living or whatever, was holding its collective breath in anticipation of something. The pixies had known what it was, that’s why they had given up so quickly. I suspected we didn’t want to wait around and find out what the pixies knew. Piaras realized it at the same time.
“Which is it?” he whispered.
I assumed he was referring to my litany of this evening’s monsters.
“None of the above. We need to move.” The amulet felt like it was trying to slice its way through my doublet to free itself. “Whatever it is, it’s coming at us fast.”
I doubled back toward the hill with the intention of skirting its base. That would put us back in the direction of the closest way out. The newest threat was coming from the opposite direction, so every step in our present direction took us farther from the whatever-it-was and closer to home. Worked for me.
I stopped suddenly just before the edge of a large clearing. Piaras plowed into me from behind, and we both went down in a tangle of limbs. I looked up and froze.
Prince Chigaru Mal’Salin stepped out of the shadows about fifty yards to our right. He wasn’t alone. I didn’t expect he would be. He had neither seen nor heard us, though I imagined that would change soon enough. He was well armed and armored, which was more than I could say for myself or Piaras. Looked like someone was a little put out by our early departure.
Rahimat, the goblin spellsinger, drifted wraithlike out of the trees to stand beside him. Neither of them had sensed us, and I didn’t know if it was the beacon shielding us, or the presence of whatever was coming up behind us. What I did know was that we were trapped between the goblins and something the amulet and my own instincts were telling me was infinitely worse.
Chapter 12
“Mistress Benares. I know you are here. I promise I will not harm you or your spellsinger, which is more than I can say for the creatures living in this forest. You will not make it out alive without my protection.”