The mist thinned quickly. Allavin jogged, slowing his pace evenly so that Flent could keep up with him. The Drugaen stared ahead into the mist, searching. The mist and the sharp angle of the hill slope concealed sounds very well.
The noise of hooves thudding in the dirt came from directly ahead just moments before a riderless horse cantered out of the mist, its reins dragging in the moor grass. Allavin dropped to one knee and almost brought it down with an arrow, but he saw that the animal wandered aimlessly. A quiver of crossbow shafts hung from the saddle horn along with riding supplies and a blanket. Frowning, Allavin looked at Flent and motioned to follow. What was going on?
Just around the next outcropping of rock, he had his answer.
The Kiran Thall lay dead. The horses had already scattered, but the riders lay in their blood. Flent looked at the mess with stern eyes, gripping the axe haft, ready to fight. It had been over for a while. Allavin spied a cave in the side of the rock. An inlet of some kind. The Kiran Thall were in heaps all around it. He approached one of the fallen horsemen that had an arrow protruding from his ribs. Stepping on the man’s chest, he yanked the arrow out. A broadhead. One of Thealos’. He quickly scanned the number of dead. Eleven in all.
“How in Keasorn’s name…” the tracker stammered and then saw another of the dead. The words caught in his throat.
The air smelled sick with blood and charred flesh. The flies were just finding the spot. By noon, they would be swarming. But what turned the tracker’s stomach wasn’t the blood. Staring down at another fallen horsemen, he saw a man with a smoking black hole in his chest. The man’s face was transfixed with terror. Allavin blinked, vividly remembering the look on Tiryn’s face when he died – the same frozen expression of agony. Seven others were dead, struck by some fiery magic. Judging from the tracks, it looked as though one Kiran Thall had made it away alive. The others were downed by arrows.
Allavin crouched next to the body. In his mind’s eye, he saw the flash of blue lightning as it struck his Shae companions one by one. Such awful, terrible magic. The blue light still burned behind his eyes. Then he remembered something else.
“Justin,” he said in a near whisper.
“Justin did this?” Flent demanded, prodding the dead man with his boot.
Allavin stared into the inlet of stone and felt a coldness in his bones. Maybe Jaerod was wrong about the Warder Shae being an ally.
*
"They’re close!” Thealos hissed in Silvan, struggling to keep up with the Warder Shae. “I can’t tell how many horsemen.”
Justin never slowed. “They mean nothing to us. Quickly now. We are near the entrance.”
“Are you sure?” Thealos asked. His lungs heaved from the run. Justin didn’t even appear winded. He glanced over his shoulder, expecting to see the Kiran Thall come bounding out of the mist. “If we run towards the river, we can lose them again.”
“They are nothing!” Justin snapped. “Here we are. Follow me. We will deal with the humans here.”
Thealos followed around a large outcropping of rock. The hill angled steeply on this side. He couldn’t see the walls of Landmoor – at least not yet. But he felt the shape of the hill rising up like a mountain into the thick whirl of fog. Justin stopped at a small stone inlet at the base of the hill. The Warder Shae rubbed his hand along the smooth rock covered with thick moss. Tangled weeds littered the base of the hill, some nearly as tall as the reeds by the river.
“This is the hidden entrance?” Thealos asked, studying the thick ruff of moss. It was rust-colored and slick. Certainly not Everoot. He put his hand on it, feeling the wetness and tickling texture of the moss.
–Son of Quicksilver–
Thealos jerked his hand away.
“Yes, one of the hidden ones,” Justin explained, looking up at the archway. “It leads to the tunnels beneath the city. That is where you will find your proof. The humans roam the halls, but we will not be seen by them.” He scowled. “This is what is left of my home,” he added with bitterness.
Thealos stared at the wall. He felt a presence, a whispering through the earth that spoke to him. It was like sensing Silvan magic, except the feeling was so strong that it emanated from the rock itself. Like feeling the heat from a flame on his face – he knew it was there, but for some reason he couldn’t touch it. He glanced at Justin, but the Warder seemed oblivious to it.
The stomping of horsemen approached in the thick swirling mists. Thealos brought up his hunting bow and nocked a broadhead. “They usually have crossbows.”