Shayleigh's bow sang out several times, keeping the pack at bay as the dwarves straightened themselves out and hauled dazed Belago up a couple of branches.
"By the gods!" Vicero Belago whispered repeatedly, tears flowing freely when he at last came out of his stupor and recognized his saviors. "By the gods! And Cadderly! Dear Cadderly!" he wailed, standing on the branch to be closer to the young priest. "You have returned too late, I fear!"
Cadderly slipped over on the branch and stepped down to Belago's level, trying to calm the man. "Was Dorigen with you?" Cadderly asked at length, thinking still of the telltale explosion.
Belago didn't seem to recognize the name.
"Danica?" the young priest asked frantically. "What of Danica?"
"She was with you," the wiry alchemist replied, seeming sincerely confused.
"Danica came back to the library," Cadderly answered sharply.
"I have been out of the library for several days," Belago replied, and he quickly told his tale. As it turned out, the four friends knew more about the place than he; all the poor alchemist knew was that he had been put out, and that very dark things, it seemed, had subsequently occurred in the library. Belago had not gone to Carradoon, as Dean Thobicus had instructed. He figured to wait for Cadderly's return, or at least for the warmer weather. He had friends on the mountain and had taken refuge in a small shack with a hunter he knew, a man named Minshk, east of the library.
"Dark things were about," the alchemist remarked, referring to that time in the hunter's lodge. "Minshk and I knew that, and we were going to go to Carradoon tomorrow." He looked to the east, his eyes sad, and mournfully repeated, 'Tomorrow.
"But the wolves came," the alchemist continued, his voice barely a whisper. "And something else. I got away, but Minshk ..." Belago slumped on the branch and went quiet, and the four friends turned their attention back to the pack surrounding the grove. The wolves couldn't get to them, but those continuing howls would likely bring in something, or someone, that could.
"We should be getting outta here," Ivan offered.
For the first time, Vicero Belago's expression brightened. He reached under his heavy cloak and produced a flask, handing it toward Cadderly.
Pikel, meanwhile, had his own idea. He snapped his stubby fingers and grabbed the heavy axe from his brother's back.
Cadderly, concerned with Belago's offering, paid little heed to the dwarves' ensuing argument.
"Oil of Impact," the alchemist said excitedly. "I was going to make you another bandolier of explosive darts, but I hadn't the time before Thobicus ..." He paused, overwhelmed by the painful memory. Then his face brightened again and he pushed the flask out toward Cadderly.
"I had another flask," he explained. "Maybe you saw the blast. I was hoping to do another one, right before Ivan caught me, but I hadn't the time."
Cadderly then understood the fireball that had risen in the east, and he gingerly - so very gingerly! - accepted the gift from the alchemist.
"Hey!" Ivan cried, drawing everyone's attention. Pikel had won this round of their argument, shoving Ivan over so hard that he had to hang on to the branch by his fingertips to prevent himself from falling to the gathered wolf pack. Before the yellow-bearded dwarf could right himself or further protest, Pikel brought the axe down hard on the trunk of the tree, causing a small split. As soon as Ivan regained his balance, Pikel handed the axe back, and Ivan snatched it away, eyeing his brother curiously.
Not as curiously as Cadderly was watching. He, above all the others, even Ivan, understood what Pikel had become, what the dwarfs love of trees and flowers had given him, and the gravity of Pikel's action, the fact that the would-be druid had just brought a weapon against a living tree, did not escape the young priest. Cadderly shifted past Ivan, who was more than willing to slide away from his unpredictable brother, and came to
Pikel*s side, to find the green-bearded dwarf muttering - no, chanting - under his breath, a small knife in hand.
Before Cadderly could ask, for the young priest did not want to interrupt, Pikel slashed his own hand with the knife.
Cadderly grabbed the dwarf's wrist and forced Pikel to look at him directly. Pikel smiled and nodded, pointed to Cadderly, to the wound, and to the wound he had inflicted on the tree.
Cadderly came to understand as a single drop of Pikel's blood fell from his hand to land on the rough bark beside the small cut in the tree. The blood instantly rushed for the crack in the trunk and disappeared.
Pikel was chanting again, and so was Cadderly, trying to find, in Deneir's song, some energy that he could add to the dwarf's attempt.
More blood flowed from Pikel's wound, every drop finding its way unerringly to the tree's crack. A warmth rose up from that crack, the smell of springtime with it.
Cadderly found a stream of thought, of holy notes that fit the scene, and he followed it with all his heart, not knowing what would happen, not knowing what Pikel had begun.
He closed his eyes and sang on, ignoring the continuing snarls and howls of the wolves, ignoring the astonished gasps of his friends.
Cadderly opened his eyes again when the branch heaved under him, as though it had come to life. The tree had blossomed in full, large apples showing on every branch. Ivan had one in hand already, and had taken a huge bite.
The dwarf's look soured, though, and notfor the taste. "Ye think I might be fattening meself up to make a
better wolf meal?" he asked in all seriousness, and he pelted the apple onto the nose of the nearest wolf.
Pikel squealed with delight; Cadderly could hardly believe what he and Pikel had done. What had they done? the young priest wondered, for he hardly saw the gain of prematurely flowering the tree. The apples provided missiles they could throw at the wolves, but certainly nothing that would drive the pack away.
The tree heaved again, and then again, and then, to the amazement of everyone on the branch, except, of course, Pikel, it came alive, not alive as a plant, but as a sentient, moving thing!
Branches rolled up and snapped down, loosing showers of apples with tremendous force, pummeling the wolf pack. Even worse for the wolves, the lowest branches reached down to club them, crunching their legs under them or sending them spinning away. Belago nearly tumbled, fell right over his branch and held on desperately with wrapped arms. Ivan did fall, bouncing from branch to branch all the way to the ground. He came up at once, axe ready, expecting a dozen wolves to leap at his throat.
Shayleigh was beside him in an instant, but the dwarf needed no protection. The wolves were too busy dodging and running. A moment later, Pikel and Cadderly, and finally Belago (who came down only because he fell), were at Ivan's side. Some of the closest wolves made halfhearted attacks at the group, but the four friends were well armed and well trained, and with most of the pack scattering, they easily drove the stragglers away.
It was soon over, several wolves lying dead on the ground, the others gone from sight. The tree was just a tree again.
"Your magic bought us some time and some space," Shayleigh congratulated Cadderly. The young priest nodded, but then looked to Pikel, the green-bearded "doo-dad" smiling ear to ear. Cadderly didn't know how much of this animation had been his doing, and how much Pikel's, but now wasn't the time to explore the mystery.
"If they come back, use the flask," Belago offered, moving to Cadderly's side.
Cadderly considered the wiry man for a moment and realized that Belago was unarmed. He handed back the flask. "You use it," he explained, "but only if we absolutely need it. We've got a darker road still to travel, my friend, and I suspect we shall need every weapon we can muster."
Belago bobbed his head in agreement, though he did not know, could not know, the depth of the darkness of which Cadderly spoke.
As it turned out, they did not need Belago's flask that night, or anything else. Shayleigh put them on the move immediately, back to the west, to a grove of thick pines, and there they spent the rest of the dark hours, the five friends, and Percival, too, keeping a watchful eye from the highest boughs.
Cadderly could only assume they had hurt Rufo badly, for the vampire did not find them. That was a good thing, on the surface, but the young priest could not get it out of his mind that if Kierkan Rufo was not with him, the vampire might be with Danica.
Cadderly did not fall asleep until the night was almost at its end, until exhaustion overwhelmed him.
Lost Soul
Percival's chattering heralded the new dawn and brought poor Cadderly from a fitful sleep filled with nightmares. He remembered little of those horrid dreams when he opened his eyes to the glistening light of a bright new day, for they were surely the stuff of a dark night.
The young priest did know, however, that he had dreamt of Danica, and he was unnerved at that thought. For while he was out here, in the morning light, his dear Danica was in there, in the library, in Rufp's evil hands. The library.
Cadderly could hardly stand to think about the place. It had been his home for most of his young life, but now that time seemed so very long ago. If all the windows and doors of the Edificant Library were thrown wide
now, the structure would remain a place of shadows, a place of nightmares.
Cadderly was shaken from his private thoughts by the sound of Ivan's rough voice, the dwarf taking command while sitting on a thick tangle of branches below the young priest.
"We got the weapons," Ivan was saying. "Belago there's got his bottle."