Then he turned and stalked into the forest toward the crystal palace with tears for his friend, Thorn, streaming down his face. They came as if a dam had just broken.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Seven

  From the open sea the black needle grew,

  and pointed toward the sky.

  But nothing else did the Sea Spire do,

  as a million years passed by.

  – A sailors song

  Vanx was happy to learn that Gallarael could change back into human form, for she was the one questioning the Trigon wizard pinned down to the floor beside Aserica Rime.

  Showing him what fate awaited him, what Sissy would turn him into, was the most motivating factor Vanx had ever seen.

  Vanx was ushered away from the Hoar Witch by Moonsy and Poops.

  Moonsy was riding the dog just like Thorn had. She hadn’t met his eyes, save for once, since Thorn had done his deed. She was keeping her emotions bottled up. Vanx almost felt sorry for those who met her on the field in the coming battle. Once they had Vanx away from Aserica Rime, the dog-riding little general went to ready the elven host for war.

  Vanx went to the lookout and brewed some of the nasty concoction needed to most clearly view what was in the Mirror of Portent, and when he looked, he was seeing something farther into the future than the coming battle. This boded well for those he saw in the image; but some he didn’t see, and one of them was Poops. He nearly threw the shard against the wall when the thought of losing his familiar struck him.

  He re-energized the Hoar Witch’s staff and strapped his sword belt on tightly. He then went to the hidden room he’d dedicated to his Goddess and called to her for guidance.

  He thought he saw her reaching for him, but when her hand grazed his cheek, a vision of the Heart Tree covered in shining ice filled his mind, and he began to feel chilled. Was some sort of frigid winter coming to the Deep?

  When he opened his eyes, he could tell by the dim light coming through the arrow slits that dusk was upon them. There were also three fluttering fairy medika gawking and babbling at him.

  “How long since you’ve slept?” one of them asked.

  “How long did you sleep?” asked another.

  “How did you find me in here?” Vanx was confused, and his mouth was so dry, he could barely pull his tongue from his cheek to swallow.

  “The Heart Tree, silly,” one of them answered. One pointed at the ring on his finger. The other was still going on and on.

  “Food is the problem. He clearly hasn’t eaten in days,” she buzzed, and fluttered right before his face.

  This didn’t stop Vanx from sitting up, and she was forced to flutter backward as she continued to give him orders.

  “You must eat, and rest, my emerald-eyed champion.” The voice of the medika shifted to that of his Goddess then, but only in his head. Remember the vision I just gave you, and remember it well.

  He waited patiently as food and drink were brought to him.

  All he remembered from the vision was the Heart Tree iced over in what might have been the deepest of winters, for ice accumulating on the tree while it was rooted in Saint Elm’s Deep would be impossible otherwise.

  Was she showing him what would happen if they lost? Would the Deep lose its perpetual spring-like climate? He tried to close his eyes and see what she’d shown him, but he was so sleepy that all he did was drift off.

  He didn’t realize how hungry he was until he started eating, and he ate quite a bit more than he expected to.

  When he was finished, he hurried, trying to beat the sunset to gather what he needed to fight. Gallarael met him on the path, and he was glad, for they hadn’t had a chance to talk about any of this, and he valued her opinion immensely.

  The hardest topic was Thorn, but they both managed to set aside their grief so that Vanx could learn what the Trigon wizard had told her.

  “The Paragon Dracus was once a man,” Gallarael explained. “When he was young, he was king of a distant land. He rode a dragon and won a great battle against an evil demon and saved them all. He was cast aside by other dragon riders because a madness had taken hold of him.” Gallarael stopped Vanx and made sure he absorbed what she said next.

  “He was left on a deserted island for decades, but he somehow became a king again, in another land. Then he decided to disappear. A few thousand years ago, he created the Trigon, and has been in the shadows ever since. He has always commanded dragons, and he is as mighty as a god. He is afraid of the Heart Tree’s ability to defy his power, though, and wants it destroyed.”

  Vanx didn’t understand. If this shapeshifter, or whatever it was, didn’t want the Deep, but needed it destroyed before he would feel comfortable being here, that meant the Paragon had come for something else. The Trigon wizards were just here to clear the way.

  “What does it want?” Vanx finally asked.

  “That terrible blue force they wield is called Doulixir.” She put her hand on her hip. “The wizard bashed his head into a rock and brained himself before I could find out what it was, but something here can give the Paragon even more power.”

  “My Goddess showed me a vision of the Heart Tree all frozen and sparkling.” Vanx shrugged. “Then she said to remember the vision well.”

  “What does that mean?” Gal asked.

  “Hell if I know.” Vanx answered, just as the sky over one end of Saint Elm’s Deep opened up.

  Through the unnatural hole in time and space came the two remaining members of the mighty Trigon. They were riding large black dragons, and the sky was suddenly full of smaller ones carrying two or three men each. They swooped low, and in most cases, all of the men would slide off of their mount and it would lift away. A few men stayed on the wyrms, though, and from there they began casting fireballs into the forest.

  “Those with the riders, save for the Trigon wizards themselves, are most deadly,” Vanx said quickly. “It was one of those bastards flying the smaller dragons that nearly killed me, and one who ended Thorn. Can you find Moonsy and tell her they should be the priority, second only to the Trigon?”

  “What of all those foot soldiers?” Gallarael asked, easing aside so Volan and two Zythians could loose silver-tipped arrows up at the enemy.

  “The forest is coming alive, Gal.” Vanx shrugged. “The fae are many, and well trained in the sort of tactics these dazed fuckers won’t ever expect. We’ve threescore men and a few dozen Zythians. We also have your brother’s blade, and mine.” Vanx grinned, the need to avenge Thorn filling his blood with a tingling rush. “One strike with a silver-dipped Heart Tree leaf un-dazes the enemy.”

  “You think we have a chance?” she asked. It was clear she was surprised that he was so hopeful.

  “I know some of us survive this.” Vanx met her eyes and bored his plea into her. “Stick with Moonsy, and keep Sir Poopsalot alive.” He put his hand on her shoulder and squeezed. “Swear it.”

  Gallarael looked away, then back, and nodded. Vanx thought he saw a tear forming in her eyes. “I will, then.”

  “And get a piece of the Heart Tree on you that will stay when you shift. It does more than repel that gooey shit.”

  Drawing his sword, he waited until she leapt from human form into that of her feline self and bounded away. Once she was gone, he gave a prayer to his Goddess to watch over them all and raced out with Volan to join King Russet and the few hundred others fighting the Trigon on the ground.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Eight

  If you need to scratch an itch,

  never ask a witch.

  – Crimzon

  They found out quickly that the blue, gel-like spew wasn’t the only weapon the Trigon had. In fact, Vanx determined that they used the stuff only on those they wanted to turn into their fighters. They hadn’t even considered the stand at Flotsam, or as much resistance at Orendyn. They’d expected to turn them all into their dazed fighters and send them here to the Deep.

  To say the Trigon were prepared this time would be an understatement. A good portion of the Deep was already in flames, and as many fae were dying in the fire and thick smoke as there were undersized wyrms dropping from the sky around them. Some of the winged fairies carried those they could, and many went down into the rabbit holes under the forest to find a new way to attack. But a good deal of pixies, elves, and brownies—the wingless fae—were trapped in the limbs, where they’d chosen to await the enemy.

  Watching their tiny arrows streak up out of the smoke, even as they met their end, was enough to take Vanx past the boiling point. He searched the sky for one of the Trigon wizards, and when he saw him, he cast a spell he’d just learned and then followed it with three blasts from the Hoar Witch’s potent staff.

  It made his heart drop when all of the energy he’d just unleashed displaced around an invisible globe of protection that surrounded the bastard and his dragon.

  “Raaaaahhhh!” Vanx yelled in frustration.

  The wizard focused on Vanx, then, and his dragon sent a gout of acidy spew raining down all around him.

  Vanx, too, was warded, and the acid didn’t affect him. But Volan and one of the Zyths close to him were melted partially away. Their wounds were so grievous that the other Zyths ran their blades through the hearts of the injured to end their screaming, garbled suffering.

  Vanx had liked Volan, and it reminded him of something.

  The dragon that had just wiped out the immediate area around Vanx passed over, and Vanx ushered the survivors to come with him. As they went, he grabbed the crystal hanging around his neck and called out to Moonsy.

  “Send the fastest fliers you have toward the gargan lands.” Vanx tried to keep the desperation he was feeling out of his mental voice, but it was no easy thing to do. “Have them take sidipped cuttings so that Chelda’s people have a chance when they get here. We need those gargan blades. Hopefully, Chelda will have them moving this way by now.”

  Vanx was shoved out of the way of a crackling hot yellow blast, like the one Thorn had taken. A whole swath of forest behind him was now ablaze. The smaller dragon, whose rider had made the attack, was shafted now. The two crashed right into the area of forest their own blast had ignited.

  Forced away from where the Trigon wizard had last seen him, Vanx was being half dragged, half pushed, and he didn’t like it.

  “STOP PROTECTING ME!” he yelled at them.

  They didn’t listen. They kept pushing him through the woods until they reached an area blocked by a huge, living tree. The branches reached out and made a space between Vanx and those Zyths and elves who’d been ordered to protect him.

  He turned, with the crystal from his neck clutched in his hand. “Go kill the enemy, like I am about to do. And stay clear of me, for you know nothing if you think I need your protection.”

  “But Chelda?” one of the Zyths said stupidly.

  Vanx had to laugh. Chelda had saved a few of them from death during the battle of Flotsam, and they’d seen her fight. They feared her wrath enough to question the orders of a man being lifted above the forest canopy by a living tree that was half a hundred paces tall.

  After a moment, they had no choice, for Vanx was unreachable, and there were Trigon fighters closing in on foot and in the sky.

  The tree Vanx was now riding in batted one, then another of the smaller wyrms across the air, and then managed to latch hold of one of the two large dragons as it swept by and blasted the tree with flames.

  The tree groaned in agony, but Vanx heard it mumble something about trying to burn green wood as it slammed the dragon overhead into the burning forest, sending the wizard from its back tumbling through the sky. The dragon’s tail came free of the great tree, but Vanx felt the tremor of the ground when it impacted. It was far from dead, and he didn’t think the wizard had met his end, either, but they’d delivered a heavy blow.

  The area of forest that wasn’t burning suddenly erupted with sprites, fairies, and other bird-sized, and even bird-riding, numbers. They were colorful, and full of fierce purpose. They were angry, too, and they all had weapons that undazed the enemy.

  The battle looked to have turned. Vanx felt hope for the very first time since he’d been blasted in the chest by one of the lesser wyrm riders in Flotsam.

  It was suddenly raining malformed dragons the size of oxen, and those fighting on the ground did well if they avoided them as they crashed down.

  Then, all of the newfound hope was scorched from Vanx’s heart. The other Trigon wizard bathed the attacking fairy swarm in terrible green wizard’s fire, and turned most of their number into naught but ashes on the wind.

  Chapter

  Twenty-Nine

  They hunt gray bears and ogres.

  They can kill them with bare hands.

  You’d be better off to spank the queen,

  than to cross a mountain man.

  A Highlake mountain man.

  – Mountain Man

  When the battered dragon rolled to its hind legs and shivered, it was clearly hurt. When it took back to the sky, its rider suddenly appeared back in his saddle. The dragon was wounded, and looked to be favoring a wing, but it was on its way directly to the Heart Tree.

  Vanx had to fight back his panic, for that was where Gallarael, Moonsy, and the cream of the elven guard were waiting with Poops to defend the tree to the end.

  “Look,” said the living tree Vanx was riding.

  In the distance, the Trigon wizard who’d just killed all the flying fae was now banking around. When the black dragon was fully turned, it was apparent that the wizard was directing it right at them.

  Down below, a dozen or more smaller trees, like the one who’d eaten Xavian, were tearing into the Trigon fighters.

  The tree swatted a smaller wyrm Vanx hadn’t even seen, and then it spread its trunk-like legs and gripped the earth with its huge root feet and made a firm stance.

  It took Vanx a minute to realize the tree was doing this because it expected him to cast some spell or do something to the approaching dragon and rider. Vanx racked his brain, and something struck him.

  “Once I do this, drop down or fall over,” he commanded the tree.

  “Wha?” The tree sounded unsure if it could do either. It was easily twice as tall as the trees around it, but Vanx couldn’t concern himself; he was already casting the spell.

  The big black wyrm spewed its acidy breath down over some of Vrooch’s pack and the Trigon men with whom they were engaged. It was horrible to behold, for the wyrm annihilated twice the number of its own force as it did of theirs.

  The rider released his terrible blast of green fire right at Vanx and the tree, just as Vanx spoke the word that would create his invisible barrier.

  “Now!” Vanx shouted, and pounded on the tree to make sure it knew it was time. Then he held onto the branch that was wrapped around his chest as tightly as he could.

  The tree hesitated, which allowed some of the sticky green flames to catch some outer branches afire. It then took two widely spaced side steps, and the brunt of the wizard’s fire missed it completely. The dragon must have sensed the spell wall, but it couldn’t pull up in time, and both it and its rider crumpled into the barrier with the force of all the dragon’s weight behind them.

  It looked like they would fall from the sky, but the wizard did something with a blue-glowing staff that made Vanx’s spell barrier glow and then shatter apart. The dragon and rider spiraled down toward the forest, but the dragon was already using its wide wings to carry them into a glide and start lifting them back up.

  Somehow, one of the lesser trees got hold of the dragon’s hind leg. A flock of small fairy fighters burst up out of the canopy and punctured the dragon’s hide with silver-coated Heart Tree clippings, but nothing happened to the wyrm. Its rider was protected with a shielding similar to that which encompassed the other wizard and his wyrm. Vanx thought that this must be the less powerful of the two.

  Vanx spoke a spell that sailors used to gain wind in a dead calm sea, and extinguished the tree that was holding him. The tree was thankful, but not that wounded in the first place, and it was moving them back toward the battle, away from the devastation being caused by the thrashing of the angry wyrm.

  Vanx realized that the dragons, the big ones, were not dazed like the others. Each wizard had a collar on, and so did the dragon, and he understood from the lessons of his youth that men, for ages, had used similar devices to harness the power of such great beasts.

  The dragon managed to get its head around, and it melted a swath of forest, including the other tree that had grabbed it. What was left was naught but a smoldering pool of acrid gore.

  Vanx felt they were getting nowhere. But then a new hole opened up in the fabric of the world. Through this one came a few thousand Trigon foot soldiers, all of them drawing blue-glowing blades and racing in all directions, out into the forest, to engage anything that would fight against them.

  Vanx thought he understood the vision now. They would lose the Deep, and the Heart Tree would fall to the natural weather after the Trigon killed the baby fairy king and leeched the Nexus of its power. It would be a frozen, but powerless, wonder. It would be just as he’d seen it, silvery and shining, like icicles in the morning sun. He, and the few others he saw in the vision, would leave in search of something else.

  But no. Vanx wasn’t leaving without Poops, Gallarael and Chelda.

  His mind started to add Thorn to that list, and he was suddenly wondering if all of this wasn’t his fault.

 

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