Oriantha was in the lead, as usual, reverted to her lupine shape, her attention riveted on the landscape and the things that lived there. They had gone all morning without a threatening encounter, and there was reason to think they might reach nightfall without having to endure one. This day was darker than those that had preceded it, and a misty rain had been falling since first light.
They had just crested a low rise, climbing through jagged rocks and loose stone, when they first saw Tesla. Neither knew who or even what this new creature was, and they stopped where they were. Tesla was sitting just ahead of them, back resting against a stump, watching them. Crace Coram had the distinct impression that Tesla had been waiting for them, but he could not imagine how that could be. Even so, his hand tightened on the iron mace as he made a quick survey of his surroundings.
The Ulk Bog rose and waved. “Greetings, friends of Straken Queen! Come speak with me.”
“Straken Queen?” the Dwarf muttered.
Oriantha had come loping back to him and was changing to her human self, her feral features fading as she stood upright once more. “Nothing hides here,” she said. “The girl is alone.”
“Girl?” He snorted. “How can you tell what that is?”
Oriantha gave him a look. “Who are you?” she called out to the creature. “Give us your name!”
“I am Tesla Dart! I am Ulk Bog. Like my uncle, Weka Dart? You know of him? Come here! I have searched for you for two days! What are you doing out here?”
The girl and the Dwarf walked over to her, and she rose to greet them—a mass of bristling black hair that seemed to grow in clumps, a gnarled body that was wiry and misshapen, and some very sharp teeth that revealed themselves when she attempted what appeared to be a smile.
“You are in dangerous country,” Tesla Dart advised, looking from one to the other. “You need to come with me.”
“Why were you searching for us?” Oriantha asked her. “How do you know of us at all?”
“The Straken Queen tells me you were lost. We looked for you, she and I and the others. For several days. But then I left them and went ahead to see if you were in a dragon’s lair. But you were not. So I know it is a different dragon that takes you away, even though I think it was this one. You can never be sure about dragons.”
“The Straken Queen?” Oriantha was suddenly animated. “You mean the Ard Rhys? Khyber Elessedil?”
Tesla Dart frowned. “She is the Straken Queen. She says not, but she is. These others, I don’t know of these names. But nothing matters now. They are all gone.”
Crace Coram exchanged a quick glance with Oriantha. “What do you mean?” he asked. “Gone where?”
The Ulk Bog wrung her hands in a peculiarly helpless fashion. “I tell them to wait for me. I tell them not to go anywhere until I come back. But the creatures that serve the Straken Lord come. His Catcher sees something that tells him they are close and is waiting for them. I wish to warn them, but I must hide until it is safe. But they do not wait as I say, and then they turn back. Tarwick is waiting. A trap.”
She clapped her hands together to demonstrate the trap closing, the emphasis clear.
“Are they dead?” Oriantha asked.
Tesla Dart nodded. “Dead. All but the Straken Queen and the boy. They are Tael Riverine’s prisoners now, taken by Tarwick to Kraal Reach. Lost to us.”
“All of the others dead?” the girl pressed. “All of the rest? You are certain of this?”
“Certain.”
Oriantha exhaled sharply. “Mother,” she whispered.
The Dwarf could not believe what he was hearing. The entire Druid expedition was gone? All those who had come with them through the cleft in the rock and the shimmer of light were dead save Khyber Elessedil and Redden Ohmsford? He felt his throat tighten and his stomach clench, and he saw again, clearly and unequivocally, how wrong it had been for any of them to come on this journey.
“Wait!” Oriantha said sharply. “You said it was Tael Riverine? The Straken Lord?” She had a frantic look in her eyes as she wheeled abruptly this way and that. “Where are we? What is this place?”