A Threat of Shadows (17 page)

“I wonder what happens to the elf if you kill the tree?” The borrey flexed its hands, and sharp claws flashed out. With a snarl, it stabbed toward the base of the trunk.

Alaric made no move, but an inch from the trunk, the claws deflected as though they’d hit an invisible wall.

“I’m afraid I can’t let you do that,” Alaric said. “I’m fond of this tree.”

The borrey stepped back, eyeing the Keeper. “Not bad,” it said, moving forward again and breathing the scent of the tree. This time, the claws flicked out, not at Ayda but straight at Alaric’s gut. When they reached his shirt, they twisted to the side again.

“You cannot stop me.” The borrey fixed him with a chilling look. “You cannot hurt me. I will wear you down, destroy you, and then deal with the elf.”

The creature closed its eyes and took a deep breath, drawing itself up. Alaric braced himself for an attack, but the creature’s eyes snapped open.

“Ahhhh,” the borrey sighed, relaxing. “You are protecting more than the elf.” It lifted its head and smelled again. “A human woman… young…. close.”

Alaric tensed, and the borrey’s lips curled into a grin.

“How will you protect the human when you are here?” Light glinted off pointed teeth as the borrey flashed a smile. Then it turned, dropping to all fours, and raced off after Milly.

Chapter 18

Alaric sprinted through the woods after the borrey already out of sight ahead of him. The ground kept rising and his lungs burned. He was never going to catch the creature.

Even if the others had managed to find a safe place to put Milly, what were they going to do against the borrey? Its skin looked human, but was tough as boiled leather. Douglon’s axe
might
hurt it, if he could hit it. But the borrey’s reflexes would outmatch the dwarf.

The other problem was that if they ran the borrey off from Milly, it could still return to Ayda. It didn’t take much imagination to figure out that damaging the tree would damage Ayda.

No, the borrey would have to be chased off for good. When a borrey found itself in life-threatening danger, it transported itself back to the place of its birth, ice caves in the far north.

Unfortunately, there was a good chance that he, Brandson, and Douglon would not be able to produce that level of threat. By the time Alaric reached Bear Stronghold, he was going to be exhausted. Even if he could think of a spell to use, it was going to be hard to find the strength. He couldn’t just trap the creature. They were too close to Kordan’s Blight. The borrey would ultimately get free and just pick a new victim in the village. Somehow, he was going to have to generate a legitimate threat.

Early in Alaric’s years at the Keepers’ Stronghold, they had covered the topic of borreys. Alaric remembered how dissatisfied Keeper Gerone had been.

“Is the transport willful or instinctual?” he had asked. “We do not know. There is too much we do not know! We need to send someone to study them. But borreys never make it high enough on the list of dangers to warrant any attention.

“They are not dangerous to the public at large, but I’m afraid that for the unfortunate woman whom the borrey captures, it is always fatal.

“Borreys are rare and only mate every twelve years, but still… If you find yourself defending such a woman, my only advice for you is fire. Lots of fire.”

First a dragon. Now a borrey. What was it about this group that drew exceptionally dangerous trouble?

If Douglon had managed to get a fire lit and Alaric was close enough, he could make it burn brighter. The flame Ayda had solidified into a necklace hung from his neck and glinted in the sun. This was a bad time for her to be unavailable.

Alaric swore for the hundredth time and pushed farther up the hill. He finally reached the edge of the trees. Above him, stretching out in both directions was a rocky cliff face. Sitting partway up the cliff was a stout wall enclosing two towers. There was a narrow arch cut into the wall, and the borrey crouched in front of it. Douglon stood before the doorway, swinging his axe with Brandson off to the side.

There was no fire anywhere. Alaric ran toward the path that wound up to the Stronghold. He rounded the first turn as an enormous explosion rocked the ground, shaking the Stronghold and knocking him to his knees. Alaric’s palms slammed against the ground, and his blisters burst. He gasped in pain.

An inhuman shriek of rage echoed off the rocks, and Alaric saw the silhouette of the borrey cringing back from an enormous wall of flames. Behind Brandson, a section of the Stronghold wall cracked and crashed down in a cloud of dust and rock. Alaric shoved himself back up and ran closer. The borrey was on a small ledge in front of the entrance. On either side of the ledge, the ground dropped off steeply. Douglon and Brandson had chosen a good place. The borrey howled at the wall of flame in front of him.

“What troubles you?” bellowed Douglon over the fire. “Afraid you’ll burn your pretty hair?”

The borrey snarled and dropped to all fours as it paced.

That fire wouldn’t last long on the rocky ledge. Once the fire powder burned up, there would be no fuel to keep it going. Already, the flames were shrinking. If Alaric could get closer, he could add more energy to the fire, make it bigger.

“Come, pretty boy,” Douglon called, “come meet my axe. Do you fear a little fire? Like a common dog?”

The borrey hissed, its long claws reflecting the firelight. The flames between Douglon and the creature sank lower.

The borrey crept closer.

From the edge of the wall of fire, Brandson started throwing stones. The borrey paused to glare at him, but every stone flew wide of the creature. Douglon shouted at it again, drawing its attention back to him. The flames were shrinking quickly. In a matter of moments, the borrey would leap across them.

Brandson was still throwing rocks. The blacksmith had never looked so incompetent. The stones would not have done the borrey any real harm, but Brandson had thrown a half dozen already, and each had sailed over the creature’s head, landing an arm span behind him.

“Where’s your aim, boy?” Douglon shouted, taking a step back toward the wall.

Brandson swore and scrambled about for another rock.

Alaric reached the ledge behind the borrey. He started to gather some energy to add to the fire. He could see nothing living around him, though, and he himself was exhausted. He was too far from the borrey to steal any of his. He began drawing from his own energy when Brandson threw a rock in a high arc toward the Keeper.

“Alaric! Get back! The powder!” Brandson pointed to Alaric’s feet.

Alaric looked down an instant before the stone landed and saw the sparkle of fire powder. He dove behind the nearest boulder.

There was a deafening explosion when Brandson’s stone hit the fire powder. Alaric lay there stunned, the world strangely muffled and a dizzying pressure in his ears. He shook his head to clear it and scrambled to his knees. Leaning around the boulder, he saw an arc of flames behind the borrey trapping it in a cage of fire. Alaric’s hearing began to return, and he heard the borrey scream in rage as it spun around, finding itself encircled in flame. It stepped forward, hissing and spitting at Brandson.

Tucked in behind the boulder with Alaric was a stand of brown scrub brush. It was alive, barely, but that was something. Alaric drew the
vitalle
from the scrub brush and pushed it toward the fire. His hands seared as though they were in the flames themselves, but Alaric forced himself to focus on the fire, pulling every last bit of energy from the scrub brush. The flames rose higher and brighter. Douglon and Brandson stepped back and shielded their faces.

The next moment, lines of fire powder leading in toward the borrey ignited and streams of flame shot toward it. Alaric poured all the energy he could find into the fire, his outstretched hands clenched as the pain seared through them.

The borrey turned, cringing away from the fire. It raised its head and let out a piercing shriek. One last pile of fire powder ignited right next to the borrey and it screamed again. Looking around frantically, it raised its hands to the sky and let out a howl. The flame flickered brightly for a second, then a thunderous clap reverberated through the air. Alaric felt the boom deep in his chest.

The borrey was gone.

Alaric cut off the flow of energy, and the ring of fire weakened. Through the flames, Brandson peered at him. Alaric lifted his hand slightly in a wave.

Brandson threw his arms into the air and let out a shout. Douglon bellowed something and pounded Brandson on the back.

When the flames died out, Brandson crossed over the blackened lines on the ground to clap Alaric on the shoulder.

“Don’t know where the rotten beast went,” Douglon said with a wicked grin, “but we sure pissed it off.”

Brandson looked around. “Where did it go? Where’s the rest of the powder?”

Alaric shook his head, “No need for that. You two have managed to pull off the only solution to a Borrey attack. You sent it scurrying back home, far, far away.”

Brandson grinned.

“In that case, well done us.” Douglon glanced at the black scorch marks then at Alaric. “Thanks for the help with the flames.”

Alaric nodded. A line of puss and blood ran out from under one of his bandages. “It’s a good thing the flames didn’t need anymore help.”

Douglon looked down the slope, “Where’s the elf?”

“She’s… waiting down in the valley. Where’s Milly?”

Brandson cleared his throat and his eyes flicked toward the tower. “Uh, she wouldn’t stay inside, so…”

“We had to tie her to a post.” Douglon shook his head. “For a little thing, she put up a good fight.”

“She was pretty mad.” Brandson pulled up his sleeve, showing long, red scratches running up to his elbow. “I guess we should go untie her,” he said, not moving.

Douglon grunted and looked through the arch in the wall, not moving, either.

Alaric heaved himself up. “She’ll be fine now that the borrey’s gone.”

Alaric followed the others into the Stronghold. The air inside the wall was thick with dust, and their feet crunched on loose rock spilled across the courtyard from the collapsed wall. A shriek and sounds of a scuffle came from inside the leftmost tower.

“Milly!” Brandson shouted as he rushed inside followed by Douglon.

Alaric dragged his feet forward after the others, trying to hurry.

A loud clang rang out. “Stay back, you… you… you…” Milly yelled.

Alaric made it to the doorway of the tower. The inside was dark and stale. Brandson and Douglon stepped inside and Alaric followed, slumping back against the wall next to the doorway. As his eyes adjusted to the gloom, he saw Milly brandishing a frying pan.

“Milly,” Brandson pleaded, “we had no choice. It was for your own good.”

“Tying me to a rock?” she shrieked. “In a room with a monster?”

“We saved your life,” Douglon pointed out. “Where’d you find a pan?”

“The monster was outside the walls,” Brandson said, his arms spread out in a placating sort of way as he inched closer to Milly. “Put down the pan. Please. It’s okay. We fought it off.” A little bit of pride crept into his voice.

“Outside?” she asked. Her voice rose an octave. “Outside?”

She took a long, shuddering breath, then, as though talking to children, she said, “While you two
heroes
left me tied up in here, this monster”—she waved the frying pan at a lump on the floor—”crept out of the dark and tried to kill me! If you hadn’t tied such pathetic knots, I’d be dead!”

The form on the floor shifted and groaned. A hand rose and grabbed its head. Alaric could make out a beard and deep-set eyes.

There was a creak of leather as Douglon approached, holding his axe. “Get up slowly.”

“Drop your axe, you meathead,” the figure grumbled. “You’re so slow with it, I could sit up, eat a meal, and saunter out of the tower before your blow ever fell.”

Douglon’s eyes narrowed. “On your feet! Now!”

The figure raised its head, wincing. It was a dwarf. With a moan, his head fell back to the floor.

“I’m afraid you’ll have to kill me here, cousin. It seems I’m not quite ready to rise.”

Alaric slid down the wall to sit on the floor. If he weren’t so exhausted, he would laugh.

Douglon gestured to the dwarf on the floor. “Everyone, meet my cousin, Patlon.”

Chapter 19

Alaric sat against the wall of the tower, exhausted. The split blisters on his palms throbbed. The more his eyes grew accustomed to the dim room, the more he could tell that Patlon must have been staying here. There was a large fireplace along the far wall with a scattering of cooking supplies near it. Milly stomped over to it and dropped the pan with a clatter, while Douglon hoisted Patlon up against one of the thick posts supporting the ceiling.

Milly took the rope out of Douglon’s hands. “If you tie him up, he’ll be out in no time. You can’t just tangle ropes together and call it a knot.”

Patlon let out a low chuckle as Milly tugged and tied the rope. “He’s always been terrible at knots.”