Roar, page 12
Maybe her mother was able to do that as a result of some of the potions the King had forced her to drink? While he might have twisted her flesh and her mind, he had also granted her a new realm to explore. It could explain why so many of the wizards and witches that the King had imprisoned in his palace had slipped into a world of sleep from which they would not wake. If so then perhaps that was a good thing. Because in her dreams her mother surely wouldn’t be crippled. Nor would she feel pain. Knowing though that there was a way to pass on messages to her mother however filled Camille with hope.
“I ask then that you tell my mother this. That I am safe and beyond the King's reach. Now it only remains for her to win her freedom. I do not care about this war you mentioned. Nor do I care about killing the King. The only thing I want right now is to find a way to set her free so that she may begin to recover from what has been done to her.”
“There are other –.”
“No!” Camille cut the avaryad off abruptly. “I don't care! Your other concerns are your own. My mother has suffered enough. That is my only concern. Tell her that.”
The avaryad paused as he carefully considered her words. It was a few moments before he replied. “We will endeavour to free her, just as we will try to free all the prisoners. But whether you care about it or not, there is a war coming. One that may kill us all. We have to consider that first. And your mother may be the key to ending that war in our favour.”
“And she is my mother first! She has suffered enough!” Camille replied bluntly. She doubted though that he truly considered her words. He had a war to fight. He probably had many mothers to save. And he couldn't save all of them. She tried another tack.
“Besides, just how much of what is spoken of in the Great Dream does she remember in the waking world? I did not know she was a Dreamer. But I do know her mind has been badly affected by the drugs she has been given. She may not be the ally you believe she can be.” And if she wasn't then her mother's value to them would be less.
“Since you have escaped she has been casting spells of clear thought on herself and some of the others when she can,” the avaryad answered her. “She is slowly freeing herself and others of the potions clouding their thoughts. It has allowed us to see a little further into the Palace of the Sun. You underestimate your mother's strength of will.”
“Good. Then she should remember my words! She needs to free herself and escape!” Camille was in no mood to argue about the matter.
The avaryad made some noises of understanding, and then since she had nothing else to tell him, returned to his work. And in time when he and his people were done and had flown away, she was left sitting there wondering what to do. Because the truth was that she knew she was powerless. She could not rescue her mother by herself. She had no magic and she was no soldier. And even if she was able to sneak back into the city and rescue her mother, she could not wheel her mother out of the city and then on for another hundred or more leagues south.
But doing nothing and simply running away with the others did not seem like the thing to do either. It was selfish and cowardly.
Which left her with nothing.
But as she sat there, awake when everyone was asleep, all she could think was that there had to be something she could do. There had to be hope. She just had to find it. But it also occurred to her that if her mother was actually a Dreamer, she could speak to her through the Great Dream if she could just find a dream weaver to help her.
That gave Camille a measure of hope.
Chapter Twelve
Thorm wasn't completely surprised when he saw the avaryad alight on the branch of a tree opposite him. He'd crept in close and heard what Camille had said to them the previous night and had expected them to be looking for him. It was a little surprising that the winged woman had decided to approach him during the middle of the day when the party was barely a hundred paces from them and they like him were trying not to be seen by them. Thorm was trying not to be seen by them because the former prisoners were scared of him and would likely try to kill him should they spy him. With the newly acquired guns he'd got for them! The avaryads were avoiding being spotted by the party for their own obscure reasons, though he suspected it had something to do with this war that had been mentioned. A war he knew nothing about and didn't want to get involved in.
He was somewhat curious about them, having never seen one of the winged dryads up close before. So as she studied him, no doubt surprised by the fact that he was camouflaged against the tree, he studied her in turn.
She was just as slight of build as the other avaryads he’d seen. But despite that she was clearly quite strong. He could see the curves that spoke of muscles in her upper arms and calves. But he also guessed that her whole body was built on the muscular side. He could see the way her light cotton toga moved as she turned to face him, and as her wings flexed, and knew it wasn't right. There were muscles in her chest and thighs that he was sure she shouldn't have. But then she had wings. People weren't supposed to have those either. He guessed the muscles were something to do with them.
Her face showed her kinship with the hamadryads. While she didn't have the same dappled patches on her skin, she still had the same somewhat long but pretty features they did. The slightly slanted eyes. And the hair that fell in feathered waves. Theirs was dark while hers was blonde, but it was the same.
“So a lion. With the colouration of the trees. And one who climbs them too. Fascinating,” the woman mused out loud.
Thorm ignored what she said, glad only that she was speaking trade. She and the others had spoken it before, but then they'd been speaking with Camille, a Plains-woman. On their own he would have expected they would have spoken their own tongue, Petrish according to the tales. And he didn't know it. But instead of answering her, which he couldn't do, he yawned.
“Intimidating.” She didn't sound very worried despite her words. But then she had wings. She probably thought she could simply take to the air if things went bad. “Such big teeth. Trying to scare me kitty? Or just tired?”
Actually she was right with her second guess – he was tired. He'd been up a long time, napping only in short bursts as he kept watch over the party. And he'd only just battled a second party of troll hunters some hours before. It seemed the Eternal King had sent more than one party after the escaped prisoners. The battle had been exhausting and all he wanted to do now was close his eyes. When the party had stopped for lunch it had seemed like an excellent time to take a nap. But he couldn't tell her that. He couldn't tell her anything.
Then again, this woman had nothing to tell him really. And even if she had had something to say he guessed she wouldn't. She had come to find a beast not speak with one. But she also didn't pose any sort of threat to him. Physically she was lightly armed and weak. And her magic didn't feel very strong to him. Much like the hamadryads’ magic. Instinctive. There seemed little point in paying her any attention.
“Or maybe you need to get back to the Eternal King. Tell him what's happened?”
That Thorm heard and it instantly made him angry. He yelled an angry denial at her, forgetting in that instant that he had no speech and what came out was only an angry roar that made her dance back a little and probably woke up everyone in the region. But what was he to do? He could never be part of the King's forces. Never even allow people to think he was. Not for a second. He hated the King! Almost as much as he hated the King's piss pot Enforcer!
Unfortunately she didn't understand what he had tried to say. No one did. Instead he heard startled yells coming from the camp, and the sound of men reaching for weapons. More than that though, he heard the sound of great wings beating against the air, and when he looked up it was to see half a dozen avaryads hovering above him, trying to get a net into position to throw on him. Of course the forest canopy was a problem as the tops of the trees got in the way.
Thorm reacted without thinking when he saw them and called a wind. A strong wind. It wasn't focussed or controlled in any way. Just the instinctive cast of a child with the spark, but for all that it had the chaotic strength of his anger and fear. Moments later the avaryads and their net were being blown away. They fought back, struggling against the sudden gust, but because it was out of control and coming from all directions, it made it difficult. They were blown into the surrounding trees, but most were able to control the force with which they hit the trees. A couple though fell all the way to the ground.
“By Artemis!” The woman cried out even as she saw her companions being tossed around, and started calling her own magic.
But even as she began speaking Thorm had already called on his cutting ray of light and sent it streaming into the tree branch just in front of her feet. The sudden burst of flame stopped her casting before she'd finished and caused her to cry out in shock as she danced back desperately. The distraction gave him all the time he needed to rise to his feet, and then launch himself out of the tree he had been resting in, and into the air between the trees.
Thorm sailed right over the avaryad's head and landed lightly on the trunk of the tree behind her, before spinning around and jumping back to land on the branch she was standing on. Before she could even grasp what had happened he was behind her while she was still looking up to where he had been, reacting to the blur he left. She screamed in terror but before she could turn he had her down and on her back, his paw on her throat. Then he opened up his lungs and roared into her face. From a distance of less than a foot it must have been terrifying.
It was only then that he suddenly realised he didn't know what to do next. He hadn't considered anything beyond getting the woman down and trying to explain to her just how angry he was with them. But he couldn't tell her to leave him alone as he would have had he been a man. In his anger he'd forgotten that he couldn't speak to her. Which left him standing there, the woman at his mercy, and unable to do anything.
Spears flew at him unexpectedly. A couple came close, but the other avaryads simply weren't in positions where they could use their weapons with any accuracy. They stopped trying altogether when Thorm sent another chaotic mass of spinning wind among them. The avaryads might have the gift of flight but their wings made them vulnerable to wind spells as they kept catching whatever breeze was blowing.
Suddenly little lead balls started flying, and they came much closer to hitting him. The hamadryads had arrived with the weapons he had obtained for them. And unexpectedly he was grateful for the attack. It told him what he had to do.
It was time to go.
Thorm took his paw off the woman, pushed her and watched her fall off the branch down to another one a few feet below. Then he jumped down out of the tree and sprinted through the forest. Soon he was running so fast that he was outdistancing the little lead balls. Thorm was glad of that because he didn't want to have to dig any more of them out of his body. That had hurt. They might only be the second rate, shoddy weapons that two copper wrights made for the soldiers, and his flesh might be tough, but they still hurt.
Quickly he found himself safe from the attackers. Far enough away that he knew they couldn't catch him, and he stopped running. Instead he padded over to the stream he could hear trickling not far away, and started lapping up the fresh clean water. It annoyed as always him to have to bend down and drink like a beast, but it was all he could do and he was thirsty.
“Gods help me!”
Thorm looked up when he heard the woman's terrified prayer, and immediately spotted the blonde woman – Elspeth – just a few paces away from him on the other side of the stream. Then he groaned quietly and cursed his rotten luck. Why was she always there with a scream on her lips?! Were the Seven Sisters toying with him?! But he quickly realised what had happened. She was half dressed and had obviously wandered a little way away from the others to bathe.
He shook his head in disbelief, and then returned to his drinking while she crept off like a frightened mouse, obviously trying not to be noticed by him for some reason. As if he somehow hadn't seen her! But at least she didn't scream this time.
Soon she was gone, and he wandered off to take shelter in the highest branches of a nearby oak. Out of sight of any man or creature that might tread the forest floor. No one as far as he could see was flying yet. And if some of them did spot him in time, he somehow doubted they'd try to net him again.
He hadn't hurt the avaryads that badly as far as he knew. Bumps and bruises mostly he thought. And probably some wounded pride. But no doubt they were now having to explain themselves to the hamadryads and explain their presence. Why they'd been helping them. And why they hadn't shown themselves before now.
It was a pity. That was a conversation he would have liked to hear.
Still, he decided as he lay there, panting a little more heavily than he should, he was alive and he rather doubted that the winged dryads would bother him again. Whatever they'd been trying to do. Study him? Speak to him? Trap him? Kill him? Granted, he doubted his actions had engendered any trust in him either. He suspected that from now on they would be watching him closely. Especially now that they knew he had magic. But as long as they kept their distance.
Had it been a mistake revealing that fact he wondered? He didn't know. It revealed so much about him. It also made it more likely that they would find better ways to fight him.
But maybe it would encourage them to talk about him as well. It might even let them work out that he was no lion. That he was in fact a man – a wizard. Finally he might hear something useful.
Maybe it would prove a useful mistake.
Chapter Thirteen
The camp was in an uproar. It had been from the moment the avaryads had suddenly revealed themselves and announced that they'd been fighting a lion. The lion it seemed that really was following them. And a lion with magic! It had since left, but not before managing to cause some light injuries to some of the avaryads and ruining their plan of remaining hidden. Camille of course had already known they were close by. That they were the ones bringing them their supplies. The others had known that someone was helping them of course but not who. Even the hamadryads hadn't guessed the truth.
Seeing the avaryads had come as a shock, but also a wonder to most of the escapees. Most of them had never seen their kind before. But more important than that, at least to her, was how they had ended up arriving in their midst. Why they had been fighting Elspeth's green eyed beast. And how by the looks of things, they had lost. It was just a lion after all!
Except that it clearly wasn't. It was a beast that was stronger and faster than it should be, if it was actually a lion. A beast that also had magic!
That wasn't supposed to be possible. Camille pondered that as she sat on the grass, watching as a number of avaryads had their injuries tended to. Some creatures were innately magical. Unicorns for example with the magic of their horns which they used to heal and to fight with. The bite of a basilisk could petrify a man. Golden hinds could disappear and reappear in the blink of an eye. But that was completely different to what she was hearing about this beast and it’s battle with the avaryads. This lion could cast spells! No creature she had ever heard of could do that.
The others of course agreed with her. It was why the hamadryads and other escapees kept telling the avaryads they had to be wrong. Lions couldn't summon winds or send rays of burning bright light into trees! That was what wizards and fell casters did!
Still, if it did have such magic then it explained how the trolls had come to be set alight, and with most of them also having had their eyes burnt out. What was it – nine trolls now since the second hunting party had been destroyed by the beast – all of them burnt? That was no coincidence.
Of course the avaryads refused to be told they were mistaken. They swore by Artemis that everything they had said was the truth. That the bark coloured lion had used spells. That they had seen it cast them. They would not be silenced on the matter.
Hesitantly Camille added her voice to the mix, reminding them of the burnt trolls. Perhaps though she shouldn't have as the others immediately objected.
“A lion casting spells of wind and fire?” Nerod the leader of the hamadryads, rounded on her. “That just doesn't make sense.”
“Nor does it makes sense that it had a spell of locks and yet it is clear that it must.” The words flowed from Camille's mouth without her thinking about them. But she knew as she spoke them that they were true. That was the other thing that had occurred to her while the others had argued.
“What?” Nerod looked startled.
“We all know that it was magic that opened the doors to our cages. That meant that there had to be a wizard around. But we didn’t see one. Now though it's obvious that we did. We just didn't realise it. Elspeth here saw the beast when she fell into the sewer. A beast we now know also has magic. It doesn't take a sage then to guess who unlocked our cages.”
