TST (54 page)

“Malek, can you do anything about this yourself?” Maude asked in concern.

There was not much they could do if Malek was unable muster the strength to call upon the power of his god to heal the wound. They each carried salves that would aid in the natural healing of wounds but Malek’s injury was severe and bleeding profusely.

Malek closed his eyes and for a moment, Maude feared he had lost consciousness but she soon heard his faintly mumbled prayer to Solarian. The cleric slowly lifted his arm and placed his hand gently over the deep gash in his flesh. His hand radiated an ethereal glow as healing energies radiated from it. When he moved his hand away, Maude could see that the wound had closed enough to stop the bleeding and stitch much of the torn flesh together.

Borik handed her a water skin so she could wash away the rapidly drying blood. Once the wound was clean, it no longer looked life threatening. Malek continued to lie on his back as he regained his strength.

“Are you all right now?” Maude asked.

After a few deep breaths, Malek answered her. “Yeah, I’m fine. I’ll make it.”

“You better,” Maude warned. “Otherwise who is going to close up all the teeth marks that lizard gnawed into my arm.”

Malek cast another spell of healing onto himself, completely knitting the wound closed so only a puckered red scar remained and sat up. Maude removed the vambraces from her arm to expose the multiple punctures that the fleshreaver had inflicted when several of its teeth pierced the armor. The cleric called forth his healing energies once again and closed the half dozen small wounds then over at the blood-covered dwarf.

“Borik are you injured?” Malek asked the dwarf.

Borik looked down at himself for a second then waved the question off. “Naw, don’t think any of this is mine.”

The cleric got to his feet and approached Kar’Rok who was holding his arm across his ribs and breathing shallowly. “You look like you took a hit. Do you need any help?”

The wild elf was loathe to admit that he needed any help, particularly from a city-bred human, but his ribs hurt terribly and knew that he would be ineffective in this condition.

“Beast caught me with his tail. I could move faster if you could relieve some of my discomfort,” Kar’Rok admitted.

Once Malek had tended all their wounds, they quickly got out of the area. Malek had wanted to wait and rest a bit before moving on but Kar’Rok advised that they get clear of the area before the scent of blood drew more and even possibly larger predators. Once they put a couple miles between them and the site of the battle, their guide allowed them to stop and make camp. The sun was probably still well over the horizon but the dense jungle was already dark by the time they called a halt.

The adventurers immediately strung up their rain covers while Kar’Rok started a large fire. He told them that he needed very little sleep and that he would stand watch for the night while they rested. Tarth stayed up a while studying his spell book while the others ate a quick cold ration dinner and went to sleep. Kar’Rok took advantage of the elf wizard’s studying to slip into a restive trance that passed as a substitute for sleep until he heard Tarth going to bed a couple hours later.

Fortune smiled upon the explorers in that it did not rain that night, a rarity to be noted. The party packed up their gear, donned their armor, and set back out moving steadily in a southwesterly direction. It took the better part of the morning, but they managed to work the majority of the kinks out of their muscles caused from battling the ferocious reptiles.  Maude and the rest of her party kept a wary eye out for any signs of another ambush but so far, they had seen nothing more threatening than small apes swinging wildly through the branches overhead.

Kar’Rok brought the party to a halt. “What is it?” Maude asked as she walked up and stood next to the elven guide.

“We must find another way. There is quicksand here,” he answered.

Maude shook her head. “I don’t see a thing. The ground looks the same to me.”

Kar’Rok looked around and found a long slender branch. Maude saw the ground turn spongy under his careful steps as he took a few steps forward then pushed the stick down into the seemingly solid ground. The soft ground swallowed over four feet of the branch before finding solid ground once more.

“If it had rained last night the hazard would have been much more obvious but the top has dried and made it much harder to recognize,” Kar’Rok explained. “We will have to circle around it.”

The area of quicksand was the size of a small lake and it took them nearly two hours to circle around and resume their normal heading. Maude was grateful they had sprung for a guide, particularly one of Kar’Rok’s obvious skills—especially since it was King Jarvin’s gold they were spending. She had just finished that thought when Kar’Rok signaled yet again to stop in place. The elf cocked an ear then knelt down and pressed the side of his head against the ground.

The guide looked around for a moment before calling back to them. “Quickly, stand behind those trees there,” he ordered as he pointed out several broad tree trunks. “Press yourselves against the largest ones and do not move.”

Tarth heard the sound that concerned Kar’Rok a few moments before Maude and the others detected the noise as they hid behind the massive tree trunks. A low rumbling staccato came from somewhere up ahead and was quickly growing louder.

Within moments of hearing the sound, they could feel the pounding vibration in the soles of their feet. Birds flew through the tree branches, flapping loudly and emitting boisterous squawks. The small primates shrieked at the intruders and climbed higher into their sheltering treetop homes vigilantly looking for the source of the disturbance.

The earthly pounding increased beneath their feet as they dug their fingernails and gauntleted hands into the rough bark of the trees. Movement flashed between the trees and through the dense undergrowth up ahead as the source of the ground-pounding tremors came nearer. Scores of enormous two-legged reptiles burst through the jungle heading almost straight for them. Maude was terrified for a brief moment when she thought that they were more fleshreavers but realized as they passed that these creatures were two or three feet taller and had a face more like a cow than a crocodile.

Her concern turned away from them and focused onto what could be causing them to stampede. An ear piercing trumpeting sounded from somewhere behind the seemingly endless herd of herbivorous reptiles. Just as the last of the herd flashed by, a massive creature looking much more like a fleshreaver pounded by, blaring a deafening bugle call right next to Maude and her cowering party. The huge predator stood at least eighteen feet tall and bore down on the defenseless herd it was chasing. As the stampeding flock and the colossal creature chasing them passed by, Maude let out the breath she had been holding.

“It will herd them into the quicksand and devour the ones that get trapped at its leisure,” Kar’Rok was explaining. “Come, anything with any sense has moved far away from here by now.”

The party had barely gone a mile when Kar’Rok brought them to a halt once more.

“What is it now, more fleshreavers?” Maude asked.

The elf shook his head. “No, worse,” he said as several tattooed elves seemed to materialize right in front of them.

There were four men and two women, both sexes looking equally lethal with powerful recurve composite bows in their hands and a variety of deadly weapons strapped to their backs or worn on their hips. Maude could not understand what they were saying but they were talking directly to Kar’Rok and completely ignoring the interlopers. From Kar’Rok’s facial expressions, whatever the elves were saying to him did not seem to please him at all.

The elven guide finally turned to his employers. “We will have to go with them. They have established their tribe only a couple miles from here. Damn it!” he cursed. “They were far to the north last year. Just my luck.”

The new arrivals circled the small party and led them more west than south. Maude was not sure what to make of their current situation. They were not given the option of doing anything other than to accompany the elves, but on the other hand, there had been no signs of aggression and they had been allowed to keep their weapons. The new elves seemed to find Tarth interesting and looked at him frequently, but Tarth often drew stares from people.

“We’re here,” Kar’Rok announced about a half hour later.

Maude and her party looked about but saw absolutely no difference from where they were at now than any other part of the jungle they had already passed through. There was no sign of a village or anyone else other than those that had just arrived.

“They live in the treetops,” Kar’Rok said, answering her unasked question. “Unlike our cousins, we are truly creatures of the forest. We build no towers, cities, or permanent structures.”

The wild elves that escorted them unwound a length of rope or woven vine from around their waists. The cord was actually two separate pieces, one long and one short with loops at each end. The elves put their feet through each of the loops so that it looked almost like their feet were tied together with about three feet of rope.

They gripped the long cord at one end, whipped the other around the thick trunk of the tree, and caught it with their other hand. With the ends of the rope gripped in each hand, they leaned back and hopped up onto the side of the tree. The elves then swung the long rope up about a foot or so then hopped up with their legs once more, using the small rope attached to their feet to hold themselves up.

The adventurers watched the elves in fascination as they quickly ascended the tall tree. Kar’Rok removed a similar tree climbing set from his pack and made to climb the tree in the same fashion.

“Kar’Rok, what are we supposed to do? We can’t climb a tree like that. Do we have to press on by ourselves now?” Maude asked, not caring for the prospect.

Her answer came from above as a platform made of stout bamboo poles was lowered down from the canopy above by a thick woven cable of vines attached to more vines tied to the lift’s four corners. The lift quickly reached the forest floor and waited for its passengers to board.

“Should we all get on or do they want to lift us up separately,” Maude called up to their guide who was already over fifty feet above their heads.

Kar’Rok hesitated and looked up before answering. “All of you go ahead and get on, they can lift it.”

Maude’s Marauders cautiously climbed onto the bamboo platform and sat down. They had barely found their seats before the flimsy looking lift began its ascent into the treetops. A growing sense of unease soon came over the group as they continued to rise above the jungle floor.

Within minutes, they were closer to the arboreal sky than they were the verdant sea of the ground below. The party was soon surrounded by dense foliage. Looking up, they saw that the stout woven vine ran through a wooden pulley and was being hoisted up by several elves another thirty feet above them.

More platforms and walkways had been created by bamboo or limbs bound together by small supple vines. Wood elves clad in leathers occupied some of the landings and walked amongst the branches and trees by way of the aerial walkways. Some of the elves forwent the use of the constructed paths in favor of shimmying along the branches much like the smaller primates that also made the treetops their home. Nearly every elf bore an assortment of weapons and many wore armor similar in make and design as the bone breastplate as Kar’Rok’s.

The lift continued to rise past the first platform before coming to a stop at the second level a little over ten feet further up. Two elves wearing bone and bronze armor and wielding bows and spears appeared to be awaiting their arrival. The two escorts beckoned the adventurers to follow them down one of the constructed paths. Maude and her group had to hasten after the two elves that turned and walked away, not looking back to see of the strange, racially mixed group was following or not.

The paths were little more than rope bridges and swayed unnervingly under their feet. The fact that there were no handrails did not help the party feel more at ease though the lack of such safety devices did not seem to bother the elves in the least. They gingerly crossed several of the bridges before their escorts motioned them to stay on a large platform four trees over from the lift then left them alone.