Roar, page 8
There had been little to see. It had been midday before he had seen the first patrol of soldiers ride out of the distant city. They were all obviously struggling to control their horses; they were also heading in the wrong direction and had followed the river east as they hunted for a trail. And since they had had no dogs with them, he guessed that even when they found a trail they thought was promising, they would have difficulty following it.
Over the hours that had followed he had been proven right as none of the patrols had headed his way. By the time evening had approached, Thorn had decided he had done enough, and had headed into the forest after the escapees. He had been fairly pleased with himself. In his idle moments he had even liked to think that his actions had been quite heroic – even if no one would ever know what he'd done and he really hadn't taken any sort of risk.
But the rewards of heroism appeared to be few and far between. The escaped prisoners hadn't told him anything useful. They were still all clearly exhausted and many had simply collapsed when they had stopped for the night. And although the hamadryads were said to be one of the magical races, he hadn't seen them cast a single spell. If they had then it hadn’t been in front of him.
Nor had they answered his other question – why had they been in the dungeon at all? They refused to speak of it. Even among themselves. Actually on their own they mostly spoke Doranic – a tongue he scarcely knew more than a few words of. But one thing he had quickly realised; half of them were soldiers.
They were wearing uniforms. Admittedly they were hamadryad uniforms which were basically heavy cotton trousers and tunics and a dark leather girdle to hold everything together. Had he seen one of the soldiers on his own he would never have guessed that it was a uniform. It was only when he saw them together that it became apparent that their clothes were all made of the same forest green and mud brown material and cut in the same manner. It was an odd uniform but he imagined it would help them hide in the trees.
The other half of them though weren't soldiers. They wore a range of clothing in different colours. But most of it was neat and well-tailored, suggesting that these were people of means. A delegation perhaps? Being escorted across the Plains? It was all he could think of.
Whatever they were, it didn't matter. All he knew was that they needed help. For the moment the prisoners were exhausted. They weren't in the mood to talk. A few were doing practical things like drying bundles of rags they'd brought with them from the prison or creating staffs and crutches to help the injured move a little faster. Some were tending to wounds and long term injuries where they could. Others were tending to the fires. The soldiers appeared to be shaping bows and spears from tree branches they'd picked up. The rest however, had simply fallen asleep.
Of those few who were still awake and talking and who might have been saying things he could be interested in hearing, they were mostly sitting beside one another and speaking in hushed tones. Too quietly for him to make out what was said. Not without getting so close that he might be seen even with his spell of chameleon.
As he lay there watching them for hour after hour, Thorm began to wonder if he had done all of this for naught. But what else could he have expected? It would have been highly unlikely that they would simply start casting the spells he dreamed of learning right in front of him on the first night. Even though he was disappointed he knew that. He was playing the long game as the card sharpers and scoundrels would say. He would have to follow and watch them, maybe for weeks or months. That had to be his plan.
And he was going to have to keep them safe for more than a day. Because he knew that even if they couldn’t help him in his own search for a cure, these people still needed his protection. In a whole day of travelling, they'd only got two or three leagues into the forest. Not far enough. The party was travelling at little more than a crawl – which considering their condition was probably better than he could have hoped for. But sooner or later those giving chase would realise that the hamadryads would naturally be heading south, back to their homeland. They didn't need to track them. His bag of magical tricks wouldn't stop that. The King’s soldiers would still find them soon enough and then he would have to stop them. This might prove to be a very short escape if he didn't.
Of course he had freed maybe two hundred prisoners. That was something, so he told himself. Even if they didn't show him their magic. Even if he didn't know how many of those prisoners had been in the dungeon because of actual crimes they'd committed and should probably still be there rather than out in the rest of the realm to cause more trouble. If nothing else in doing so maybe he'd ruined a little of the Eternal King's day. That was definitely something to be pleased about even if it wasn't getting him any closer to finding a way to return to his original form.
Still there was always hope. It was too soon to despair. It would just take time, he told himself as the long hours rolled by and the last of the prisoners fell asleep. And he didn't need much. The name of a wizard or a priest with the knowledge he needed. A few useful words of the ancient magic tongue. The location of a temple or repository of ancient knowledge perhaps. Surely as time went by and the former prisoners grew stronger, something useful would be said?
He just had to make sure they were able to keep wandering south, free from their pursuers. That they had the time to speak those words he needed to hear.
Then, just as he was giving up on the chance of hearing anything useful this night and thinking about retreating to find somewhere he could rest without being seen, the world changed without warning.
At first he didn't notice it. He wasn't aware that anything was happening at all, concentrating as he was on the conversations he could hear. But gradually he became aware of a slight breeze picking up. A breeze with the scent of magic on it. And then when the woman flew down into the midst of the sleeping party Thorm almost stopped breathing. Seeing her great feathered wings, slight build and hair of gold, he knew he was staring at an avaryad. The dryadic people of the skies.
The sight shocked him. He had seen hamadryads before. When he had been younger and travelling with his family across the Plains, they had sometimes encountered a few of them. He had seen neryads too. Once. In Port Cliff, far to the west where the dryadic people of the seas sometimes traded with the plainsmen of the harbour city. But he had never seen an avaryad. Very few had as far as he knew. They were mostly legends and stories of distant sightings in the sky.
Yet suddenly they were real. And one of them was right in front of him! She was exactly as the stories said. Tall, slightly built and wearing a white cotton toga threaded with gold thread. Her hair was a golden colour and hung down to her waist in feathered waves. He imagined that in the sunlight it would be dazzling.
And then there were her wings! Huge feathery creations that towered over her head even when they were folded up, and which looked far too large for her slight frame. No bird had wings like them.
As he stared in shock more and more of them were landing in front of him. They all shared the slight build, golden colouring and huge wings of the woman. And they all alighted in perfect silence. But not for nefarious purposes. Instead the avaryads folded their wings and walked around the camp, dropping off bundles of clothes and food. Even medicinal supplies. This was some sort of mission of mercy. Which raised a whole bunch of questions.
How had they known where the escapees were? Because they obviously had known in order to bring them supplies. And given that they lived in a different realm, how had they arrived so quickly when the prisoners had only escaped a single day before?
Pristia's blessed wisdom quickly told him that they had surely been looking down upon their cousins as they fled, seen their plight, and come to help. But their sudden appearance so soon after the prisoners had escaped suggested they were keeping very close watch over the city. He hadn't known they were doing that. No one had ever suggested the possibility.
Why they would do that, Thorm didn’t know. But he soon realised that it was the sort of thing enemies did. They spied on one another. Yet as far as he knew the avaryads and the Plains folk weren't enemies. For the most part he had always understood they had nothing to do with one another. The avaryads lived in their sky cities – aeries the bards called them – in various distant mountain ranges. Most of their cities it was claimed were in the Crown Hill Ranges to the east, where they shared the peaks with the giants. There weren't a lot of mountain ranges in the Volden Plains as you would expect. But then he didn't know why the hamadryads had been in the dungeon either. It suggested that there was more going on in the world than he knew. Not that that surprised him.
There was another question that began to plague him. Why were they there? To help the escaped prisoners? They were certainly doing that, though it was also clear that they didn’t want the prisoners to know who had come to their aid. Amazingly, even while they walked among the sleeping prisoners not one of them awoke. Not even one of the hamadryads that had been keeping watch. But there had to be more to their presence than just a mission of mercy.
Then his skin started to twitch and he smelled something sharp in his nose as the wind reached him, and he forgot his questions. It was magic! Clear and sharp! Finally! Thorm concentrated and let his wizard's sight take hold. Once it did he could see the spell of sleep that had been cast on the wind. He had felt the breeze when it had arrived, but though he had sensed the magic thought little of it. It was too faint. Now with his eyes finally open he could see the magic in it. The strands of silk and colour that flowed through it. And while he didn't know either the words or the gestures that described it, he understood the magic.
Why hadn't it affected him, he wondered? Certainly he didn't feel in the least sleepy. Could it have something to do with his transformation? After all he wasn't a normal lion. Not only could he reason and cast magic, he had a white mane and green eyes. Perhaps he also had some resistance to magic? Or at least to some spells? Or maybe, the wind simply hadn't reached him until just then. He didn't know.
Still, why he was resistant wasn't unimportant. What was important was that he was awake and able to see a different kind of magic being cast. And the more closely he looked at it, the more he understood it. In time he thought he might even be able to cast it. Cast it not as a wizard, but as a dryad or a child. By instinct rather than with a feel for the words or gestures. In time he might work out what those words and gestures should be. Then he would be able to internalise it as he had with other spells and be able to cast it with precision and strength. Until then he would have to practice casting it by feel. It wouldn’t be as strong or so well directed but at least it would have some effect.
Thorm quickly realised that the spell could be useful. Incredibly useful. Imagine how much easier it would be to steal what he needed if everyone was asleep!
For the moment though he realised he needed to hear what the avaryads said. Because even though the party was asleep and they didn't seem to want to wake any of the hamadryads, they did seem to want to wake one of the other prisoners. A woman with dark hair called Camille. He knew her name because they called her by it several times as they tried to wake her. And they were determined to wake her. One of the avaryads knelt down to hold her head up as she slept and slapped her cheek gently, calling her name as she did so, while another looked on from just in front of her, apparently waiting for her to wake up and see her.
“What? Who?”
Camille opened her eyes, her thoughts obviously still clouded with sleep. And then suddenly seeing the avaryads in front of her she flinched. But she didn't struggle against the one holding her. Instead after a few anxious moments she seemed to accept their presence.
Had she seen them before Thorm wondered? Had she perhaps even been expecting them? He listened very carefully.
“We have word from your mother,” the avaryad standing in front of the prisoner's feet answered her. “She is confused and hurting. The drugs cloud her mind and the spells twist her in both body and thought. But she knows you are free and it brings her strength. She still resists. She wants you to know this.”
Thorm gasped. The woman's mother had to be one of the wizards locked away in the Palace of the Sun, he realised. Maybe one of the unfortunates who they paraded around the rest of the city in chains to enforce the King's will. There were a lot of them. Some claimed that the Eternal King held thousands of wizards and fell witches and warlocks in his prisons in the Palace of the Sun. Thorm wouldn't have believed thousands. Hundreds maybe. But it was still too many. But who was this girl's mother that the avaryads would bring word from her to her daughter the instant she was free? Also, how did the avaryads find a way to speak with her mother? Thorm listened intently, more than a little curious.
“She wants you to know that even when they bend her to their will, she still fights them. And that even what the Eternal King thinks is complete victory is not always as it seems.”
“She still has hope.”
“But the greatest of her hope lies with you. That you remain free. So that she in turn may fight the battle without fear of being threatened by them as they hold your life in their hands.”
“You must go with our cousins into Erisen. You must not be caught. And you must not return. Because it is only now that you are free that she can finally fight as she needs to.”
Fight the Eternal King? Thorm almost couldn't believe what he had heard. No one fought the King! No one could. It wasn't simply that he had a palace, cities and an army to protect him. Or a legion of wizards and another of trolls. A connection to the Night Maiden so he could use Nyx's shades as his own. Or that he was said to be an invincible warrior. Not even that he was said to know every move an enemy might make against him long before it was made.
It was that he had never been beaten. Not in the entire history of the Plains.
Some had tried. Many in fact. Rebellions had been raised against him. They had been crushed. Brutally. Wizards had tried to stand against him. He had destroyed them all and enslaved those who had survived. Enemies had marched across the Plains to meet him in combat. They too had been defeated. None had survived. And though the legends said that the King had been struck down with mortal wounds many times, he'd never died. He could not die. He really was the Eternal King. He had been the King when the Plains had first been created a thousand years before. He had created them by conquering those who had been there before. He would be its King until they were finally destroyed. There would be no other King of the Volden Plains. Everyone knew that.
“She’s alright?” the dark haired woman asked nervously.
“Now that you have escaped she is stronger. Your escape has brought her hope. She can finally wage war as she must.”
“Which brings me to a question: Our Council of War asks – how did you escape? We are blind to what happens in the Eternal City. And when our people were imprisoned we had little hope of freeing them.”
That admission surprised Thorm. Because every story he'd heard about the avaryads held that as they flew around in the skies above looking down upon the world, they saw everything that happened. Similarly it was said that their Goddess Artemis – the one true goddess of all the dryadic peoples –saw everything through them. Then again, how would they have been able to see what happened in a dungeon? Beneath countless tons of stone? Surely even Artemis would be blind there. She was the Goddess of the Wilderness and the Hunt. There was no wilderness in a dungeon. No hunting either.
“A wizard. We do not know who as he did not reveal himself. But he opened all our cells at once so we could overpower the guards. And then he opened the grates to the sewer below.”
“Strange.” The winged woman pursed her lips in puzzlement. “We had not thought any were left free in the Eternal City. Few even in the rest of the realm. The foul King has been hunting them down ruthlessly. Like a starving jackal he grows ever more desperate in his hunt.”
“I know. But some still remain. Some still surprise. Three years ago one was found unexpectedly. One that fought back. He killed one of the King's witch hunters. His Royal Enforcer was maimed. And a city block was destroyed in the battle. The King blamed my mother for her failure, and I was sent to the dungeon as her punishment. Maybe this wizard is another like that one. Hidden and powerful.”
Her mother was blamed? For her failure? Thorm didn't understand that at first. But then the truth hit him straight between the eyes. Her mother was the hag!
He nearly cried out in disbelief. How could that be?! He had seen that crazed creature, and there was no way she could be mother to a Plains-woman. What man would go near her for a start? He still saw the vipers in her hair and the crazed look in her eyes when he remembered that day. He still felt the madness in her magic. That was not a mother! Anything she had given birth to could only be a monster. Certainly not this quite normal looking woman.
Thorm tried to focus on the rest of what was spoken, but his thoughts kept returning to that revelation. The impossibility of it. He did manage to hear some of it. That the avaryad stressed to the woman not to reveal the secret of who her mother was and how she fought to anyone. The winged woman evidently feared that there might be some among the others who would betray her if they were caught. The woman told her again to travel to Erisen with the hamadryads and once there not to return. Ever! If her mother won her battle she would be sent for. If Camille came back before then she would be caught again and once more become the bargaining chip the King used against her mother. And he heard the winged woman tell Camille to watch her fellow prisoners. That some of them could betray her.
