Woad Children (Challenger's Call Book 3) Page 11

  Breena nodded.

  “I wish I had known,” she said softly. “These trees are all but extinct in the Woadlands. Many of them were destroyed in one of the Tumults. The remaining few are being guarded by Mother Glade and a handful of other Icons. We’re hoping they’ll repopulate one day, but the truth is they reproduce slowly. They make their own seeds rarely, no more than once a century, if that.”

  “That sounds amazing,” I said, watching the dull pulse of the woad-light in the plants. “But do the Woadlands still need them? That place is carpeted with plant life.”

  “Woadfathers help every plant grow,” Breena continued. “In some ways, their roots actually give more nutrients than they take. Every plant I’ve seen on that planet, and probably some on other worlds, benefit from growing near a Woadfather. Even the glow of their sap seems to help nearby life. Stell used to experiment with making potions out of it.” She looked up, trying to see the leaves overhead. But even with my small light source all I could see above our heads was blackness, with branch-like shapes that creaked and swayed ever so slightly above us. “They’re a kind of miracle plant, and many parts of the Woadlands have suffered in their absence.”

  “That’s an incredible story,” I said gently. “But everyone keep looking around while we figure this out.”

  Most of the group just nodded their heads at me and made more of an effort to roam their eyes around. Val ducked her head in embarrassment, and then snapped her head around furiously, trying to make up for her lost concentration.

  Truthfully, I wasn’t much better. The only sight I had really taken in were the trees themselves and the only trouble I had been watching for was anything hiding in the few branches I could have seen. But if I were planning an ambush I probably would have attacked from a different direction while my enemies were looking around at trees, so I did my best to change my focus.

  The rest of the ground didn’t have anything growing in it. Just black, bare soil, with the occasional cobblestone sticking out, suggesting that the trees themselves had once dug their way through the cobblestones to get at the ground below. Why there was any kind of soil at all down here I had no idea. But I could see no other plant or animal life in this half-dead forest.

  “Something’s draining them, isn’t it?” I asked. Breena, who was still hovering over the closest tree, nodded.

  “Yes. They’ve also been poisoned. That’s why they can’t heal, and why their outer bark is petrified.” The little fairy shook her head. “They’re powerful trees. They’ve even been known to survive intense forest fires. But this poison is weakening them enough to allow something else to feed off of their direct essence.”

  “Can you cure the poison?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” the pink-haired fairy said dubiously. “It would take me a very long time and would clean out my mana completely, just for one tree. But even if my cure worked, the poison would come right back. Look here.” The little sprite pointed to a non-petrified patch where the bark had been viciously gouged away. In the center of the patch were two deep puncture marks, side by side. They both were as wide as a number 2 pencil. “My guess is that some kind of creature is poisoning them directly, then draining the sap from the woad-glyphs.”

  “Why bother poisoning it?” I asked. “It’s a tree. It’s not like it needs to be paralyzed or anything.”

  “Some Woadfathers actually can defend themselves,” Breena answered. “In fact, some of them can even move and talk. It depends on their age, and whether or not they’re in hibernation. These must have either been young ones or caught hibernating. Or…” She hesitated. “They were overpowered.”

  “That last one sounds difficult,” I said cautiously, eyes roaming along the ground now. I still saw nothing. Whatever had chittered at us earlier didn’t choose to stick around.

  “A single Woadfather could probably slaughter hundreds of Hordebeasts easily and without tiring. The group of Spawn we battled before wouldn’t be a match for one. And even if the whole grove was in hibernation, there still would have been one or two that would have been on guard. They can even awaken other plant life to assist in the defense.”

  That definitely reminded me of an old book and movie series. But I didn’t say anything.

  “So, we’re talking Dark Icon-level?”

  “Not necessarily.” Breena shook her head. “There are plenty of powerful creatures out there that can actually go toe to toe with some Icons. A few can probably snap up a fledgling Icon like Raw-maw in one bite. In fact—” Breena shuddered—“you’ve… already met a creature that can beat Icons.”

  Right. Cavus. The Umbra.

  Speaking of Umbras, our best guess was that another one was still sealed deep inside Avalon. I hoped we still had a long way to go. Because I knew I still wasn’t a match for a creature like Cavus.

  “Alright,” I said, shifting my thoughts. “We’re not going to assume we’re dealing with an all-powerful monster yet, because if we really were, it wouldn’t be bothering with stealth so much. Not when we can’t escape anyway. The tunnel’s widened, but I want to see if we can circle the forest around the edge before we go in. It’ll be easier to watch anything climbing around on a wall than it will be to watch dozens and dozens of trees all around us. Watch your step for any kind of trap on the floor. On second thought,” I added as I changed my mind, “Eadric, watch for traps on the floor. Weylin, Breena, you two watch over our heads. Val and Karim, watch for anything moving on our level. Virtus, guard our rear, and I’ll keep my eyes forward. Any questions?”

  “There’s a bit more light in here, thanks to the glowing sap,” Eadric grunted. “Do you still want us to have our own light?”

  “They know we’re here anyway, but… wait,” I said suddenly. I dismissed my shield, transferred my spear to my other hand, and summoned Carnwennan, the white-hilted dagger. Breena had already cast magic to soften the sounds we made. And I knew my dagger had concealment properties. After Rising again, I felt a stronger connection to it. A word whispered its way into my mind, and I repeated it out loud.

  “Shroud,” I said softly.

  As before, the shadows cloaked me. But then those same shadows expanded, cloaking the rest of our group. For a moment I saw everyone disappear, then reappear, but with a haze covering us, as if we were in a zone of invisibility.

  Best of all, that same invisibility covered our light sources without removing the light they provided. We were just a dimly lit patch now, in a whole forest full of dimly lit patches.

  I grinned, then whispered to everyone through the mindlink.

  Walk left. And no one talk out loud.

  Val jumped for a minute, then she smiled.

  Can I do it too? she asked. Holy crap, I can! This is so cool!

  I grinned back. Just stick to the plan. Keep watching your assigned areas and use this link to shout any warnings.

  What will we do if we spot any kind of trail? Weylin asked.

  We’re going to assume it’s a trap, mark it in the link and in our mindscreens, and then come back if necessary. By the way, Avalon, can you hear us down here?

  No answer. It figured.

  Move out.

  We circled to the left cautiously. I was surprised at how little noise we were making. But then I remembered that not only were we using stealth magic, we weren’t walking in a real forest. There was no underbrush to stumble through. There weren’t even any leaves or twigs on the ground, because the trees had petrified so much. After a ten-minute walk, we reached the edge of the tunnel and found the wall, about thirty feet away from the closest petrified Woadfather. With that, we traced our way forward, keeping the wall on our left flank and the black-stone forest on our right.

  In the far distance, I heard chittering again. It was at a different pitch than the two times I had heard it before.

  Val’s head snapped toward something far in the distance.

  Wes? she messaged me. I think I can find them.

  How? I messaged back.
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br />   Shadow magic, she replied through the mindlink. One of my signature spells. Shadowcowl.

  How does that work? I asked.

  It helps me see and hear what’s going on in any shadowy places I can already notice. I don’t even have to be in the shadows for it to work. But something just moved down from the trees to the spot we were at before.

  Really? Weylin asked, surprised. Even I couldn’t hear anything.

  It was faint, but I know what I saw, Val insisted. It was just one shape.

  A guard then, I realized. That was good to know. Can you see anything else near us?

  No. I have to concentrate for it to work though. So it’s not perfect. But I think they don’t know where we are anymore.

  That was more good news. The guard hadn’t dared to attack when we were there, and it hadn’t been able to detect us after I activated the shroud.

  Keep moving, I decided, and we returned to our careful journey around the massive forest.

  As we walked, I filed away as much of our trail as I could with my improved memory. Between the shared awareness that the mindlink gave us all, we were able to keep a decent map going in our subconscious. We crept carefully and quietly for another fifteen minutes without seeing anything more than half-dead trees. The tree branches continued to creak faintly over our heads, as if the forest was an old house at night, expanding and contracting in a way that always used to scare me when I was five. Every now and then we heard brief quiet chittering in the distance, but it never came close and it was always gone when Val swung her head in that direction.

  After a few more moments walking, chittering sounded directly ahead of us, and I had to bite back a curse.

  Company, I said needlessly. Stay sharp.

  Whatever had made the noise was gone by the time we had reached its origin. But there was another sight on the walls.

  Two man-sized mounds stuck out, spaced about six feet apart. As I got closer I realized that they were long and narrow, like a recently dug grave. They all had a stony texture, and they seemed stuck to the gray brick wall by a kind of sticky substance on their backs.

  A few moments later I realized that they were not only man-sized, but man-shaped. Shaped like screaming men around my height.

  Stop moving forward, Eadric said next to me.

  I looked down, and saw the same sticky substance gluing the screaming statues to the wall on the floor. Up close, I could tell that it was in strands, or rather, webs. Which cleared up pretty well what kind of creature we were facing down here.

  Val, can you tell where the chittering creature went?

  Wes, Val messaged urgently. But she didn’t elaborate, other than projecting a strong sense of fear that overrode all of the other info I was getting from her.

  What? I asked, looking around. I couldn’t see what was scaring her.

  Wes! she repeated.

  I finally whipped my head to look at her. She was shivering and pointing at the mound I had just started examining. I had just enough time to mentally process that this mound looked different from the other but not enough to realize that folded across its chest were two more pairs of arms and on its face were two more pairs of eyes that just opened.

  I had a split-second to freeze up and stare stupidly into one pair of bulging, blood-shot eyes, one pair of pupil-less, black shiny orbs, and one final pair of fly-like, compound eyes. That gave the creature’s six pairs of arms—one pair containing a five-fingered claw hand, one pair an awkward, three-clawed talon, and the final pair over its shoulders just consisting of a blade-like pincer limb—an opportunity to all stretch out and stab at me. It cleared the five feet of distance too quickly for me to easily use my spear, and I barely had time to leap back and get my arms in the way before the man-spider from hell barreled into me.

  The creature was strong enough to knock me to the ground as it pounced. A shout of surprise escaped my lips as claws, talons, and pincers sliced into the shield spell covering me, stabbed into the leather tabard covering my arm and chest, and, this time, stopped there, thwarted by Icon hide. My forearm caught on the creature’s long throat in time to keep its teeth and snapping mandibles from biting my face off, and I began to slam Carnwennan into the side of its head, shouting repeatedly:

  “Oh-my-god-it’s-a-giant-were-spider-from-hell-get-it-off-get-it-off-and-holy-shit-my-armor-finally-turned-a-blow-for-once!”

  More sharp, angry limbs slashed thin cuts at my face, but by then everyone else had remembered they were my friend, and the black arach-man began jerking from the impact of arrows, axes, and swords. Then I heard Val shriek in rage, and the pincer limb slashing at my face went twisting and bleeding through the air. The creature howled in pain, lifting its head and baring its throat inadvertently. I jammed my white-hilted dagger through chitin and wrinkly flesh, pushing and wiggling the blade as much as I could until the last of the monster’s vital guard gave out and it slumped gurgling onto the floor.

  I shoved the rest of the corpse off of me, and leaped back to my feet, cursing my carelessness earlier.

  Everybody okay? I sent through the mindlink.

  “Yes,” Karim answered, moving to stand over the corpse. “And I am answering you out loud now because it’s too late to be quiet.”

  My eyes had been darting around while we spoke, but I didn’t see anything else rise up to attack us, and through the mindlink I could tell everyone else was the same.

  I also felt a strong sense of shame coming from Val.

  “Sorry,” she said. “I panicked. I’ll try and be better.”

  “It’s okay,” I answered. “That thing was freaking horrifying, sis. I panicked a bit too. And I’ve faced all kinds of scary things so far.”

  “You could have died,” she said, biting her lip. “And this time you wouldn’t have come back.”

  “That kind of danger’s never gonna go away, Val,” I said gently. “Remember what I said earlier? We just keep learning.”

  “This is hard,” she whispered, not looking at me.

  I felt it then, through the mindlink. Frustration at not being strong enough yet, fear that she’d never be strong enough, fear that people would hurt her again, for real this time, and it would be her fault this time because she could have stopped it somehow. Fear that someone else would get hurt because of her.

  It clicked through my brain that in some ways, this was scarier for Val than being a captive was, because of her new ability to fail.

  “Hey Breena,” I said as I knelt over my sister. “You know those hugs you give me when I start freaking out? Val needs one.”

  Already on it, the little fairy sent as she flew a pink trail all around the dark-haired girl. The dust in her wake made Val sneeze, and then Breena grew large enough to hug her chest. Breena glowed brighter, and this time the glow took on a yellow tint, and she began whispering inaudibly to my sister. She held her for a few moments longer, until Val shuddered, relaxed and hugged Breena back.

  “Thanks,” the girl whispered shyly. “I think I’m good now.”

  “No problem,” Breena replied. “Wanna be my sister too?”

  “Sure.” Val grinned. “I’d like that. That’d be great.”

  Ahem, Karim projected to me. The mental cough somehow felt respectful and asinine at the same time.

  Good job on helping her, he added, but we need to talk about the corpse.

  Yeah, sure, I projected, then switched to talking because it was easier for the whole group right now. “Alright. Everybody, thanks for the help. I shouldn’t have let that thing sneak up on me. Any idea what this thing is, and how it caught us by surprise? Since we were supposed to be invisible?”

  Virtus, Eadric, and Weylin had formed a small perimeter and were scanning the darkness for any signs of movement. But Virtus spoke up anyway.

  “It’s one of the Arachmen,” his deep voice rasped out from his helmet and skull. “But they are more commonly called Keepers. Largely because they take forever to consume their prey.”

 
I heard chittering far off in the distance. We probably needed to move again.

  Didn’t your own people take forever to consume their own captives? I tried to ask delicately. That was one of the acts that caused the undead warrior to leave his cohort.

  Our captives were already consumed, he answered, sending to the whole group. What we did was abominable, but we weren’t known for it because it was just draining mana from ghosts. But the Keepers slowly drain all substance from the physical bodies of their prey, leaving them in a state between death and life. They ignored ancient laws condemning that act, and so were banished from many worlds. There was an awkward pause, and then the skeleton resumed talking. My company used to accept contracts to battle them. I wasn’t expecting to see a group of them here. Invading Avalon alongside us.

  His disappointment rolled out through the mindlink in large waves, before he managed to clamp down on it.

  Okay, I said, calmly and firmly. How do they fight? How do we fight them?

  Something chittered again, then stopped abruptly, as if it had been hushed.

  Surprise and swarm tactics, Virtus answered. They can breed and command other arachnid monsters. This one was alone because he was feeding. He must have seen the dim light around us, then hid among his prey. He only attacked you because we had discovered him.

  So, basically my fault. Our dim light wasn’t that noticeable near the glowing stone trees, but next to the wall it stood out. I told myself the same thing I just told Val and moved on.

  Wait, I sent. You said this statue was his prey?

  Look at the neck, Virtus answered without turning around. His head swiveled as he kept scanning the dark underground woods.

  It only took a moment to realize that the necks on the statue had stone-free patches similar to the trees. Diseased-gray skin surrounded two deep puncture marks, and I winced at the sight. Those wounds looked like they went all the way to the bone. A little deeper and the monster’s venom wouldn’t have been needed because the victims would all have broken necks.

  Is he already dead? I asked. And why is the monster feeding off of them instead of the trees themselves?