“Quickly!” Tiryn said.
Allavin nearly stumbled through a juniper shrub and managed to keep his footing in the slick mud on the other side. With Tiryn next to him, he plunged into a narrow gully and started up the opposite slope, clutching the cedar roots as handholds and tearing his fingertips on witch-thorn. His hands stung and burned. Allavin hoisted himself and risked another look backwards. One of the Shae scouts was twenty paces back, bounding over rocks and shrubs. Then blue light exploded, blinding Allavin with its startling heat and fire. When the spots cleared from his eyes, the Shae was dead, smoldering with a charred scorchburn through him.
“Shenalle protect us from the Firekin,” Tiryn prayed in a frantic voice, scrambling up the slopes with naked fear blazing in his eyes. “Shenalle protect us and keep us. Shenalle bring peace to the troubled…”
Allavin Devers grabbed Tiryn’s arm and pulled him up the slope. He started for the ring of trees, but he was alone. Tiryn had spun around and raised the trembling bow. “Keasorn guide my arrow. Keasorn give me courage to strike my enemy.”
“Tiryn, run!”
“Vannier grant me luck. Vannier give me cunning.”
“Run!”
Allavin saw the black shadow across the gully. With a look of determination on his face, Tiryn let the steel-tipped shafts loose, one after the other, a trained and deliberate motion from quiver to string. Allavin watched the arrows warp left and right of the shadow and clatter against the wet bark of the twisting vine maple. The shadow raised its arms. Allavin dove clear as the blue light lit the sky like a thousand searing candles. Before he could loose another arrow, Tiryn screamed as the bolt of blue light struck his chest, lifting him with its blazing fury and tossed him against a stand of prickle-vine. The magic seared through his chest, leaving a smoking gap and his face transfixed with terror.
Allavin Devers scrambled through the brush, keeping low to the ground. He dodged around trees and stands of juniper, trying to get clear of the forest. He heard nothing, but he knew he was being followed. The black shadow was hunting him. Wrenching his sword from its sheath, he thrashed at the low-hanging boughs and cut away the vines that tried to snare him. The entire scouting party was dead. A Shae scouting party!
The mud tugged at his ankles, clumping on his boots and slowing his escape. It was lighter ahead, meaning he was close to the edge of the woods. He stumbled through the maze of cedar and sedge. Something black pricked his side vision and he changed directions, trying to outdistance it. Huffing with exhaustion, he risked a look behind. The light gave the shadow a form – the form of a man draped in midnight colors. A Sleepwalker. It must be a Sleepwalker! Allavin’s heart thundered in his chest. He turned back again, too late. A tree sent sparks of light and pain into his eyes. Blood gushed from his broken nose, and the pain rocked his body. Pushing away, he staggered for the sound of a stream somewhere in the thick folds of the Wood. His broken nose throbbed in agony, sickening him.
Crushing a stand of reeds, Allavin stumbled down a deep inlet and splashed into a pond of quicksand hidden there. The gritty waters immersed him, a smothering bath of sand and shallows. He tried to swim free of it, but the sinking pull dragged him slowly down into the sinkhole. Allavin thrashed upwards, trying to get a last mouthful of air, but he swallowed blood and sand. No! his mind shrieked. He could feel his lungs screaming for air. He was going to die. The thought haunted him in a rush.
The black shadow watched him struggle in vain from the lip of the rise. Just beyond the rows of gnarled cedar, the fortress of Landmoor began flickering awake with torchlight as night and mist descended over the moors.
II
It was just before dusk when the Council sentries came to arrest Thealos Quickfellow. Both sentries wore the sharp, green and gold colored uniform of the Council Elder of Vannier. They had swords belted to their waists, but the weapons looked more ceremonial and polished than the clean, practical kind that Shae soldiers carried. They arrived at the Quickfellow manor and sternly demanded that Thealos accompany them to meet with Council Elder Nordain. Sorrel treated the sentries with cool disdain, as was her inclination, but Thealos had been expecting this. Leaving his room, he looked at Sorrel calmly, seeing the disquiet in his mother’s face.
“You’ve done enough to shame us already, Thealos,” she said in a low voice. “You know what you must do now.”