“I will lead you out,” Tesla Dart told them. “When you are free again, you find the Straken Queen Grianne and bring her. Let her face him. He will free the others, if you do.”
She paused, grinning broadly enough that all her teeth showed. “Then she can kill him and take his place!”
She scampered ahead at every opportunity, all energy and excitement, constantly moving, never still. Oriantha and Crace Coram followed dutifully, but with mixed emotions. Getting out of the Forbidding was a desperate need for both, but leaving Khyber Elessedil and Redden Ohmsford behind felt like a betrayal. Oriantha was grieving for her mother, and the Dwarf could tell she was tremendously shocked and distressed by the loss. He saw her cry only once, late at night, when she must have thought he was sleeping, and did not otherwise give herself away. But her grief was mirrored in her eyes and present in her voice, and though she might appear stoic otherwise she could not hide the truth from him.
Later that day Tesla Dart told them to wait and disappeared toward a cluster of hovels and outbuildings. Within minutes, she was back driving a wagon drawn by a pair of four-legged creatures that might have been horses but for their burly bodies, shaggy coats and tusks. She urged them to climb aboard quickly, glancing back at the buildings from which she had driven away before whipping the creatures hard enough to send them galloping away into the haze.
A day later, after long hours of travel, they reached the place from which the Druid expedition had emerged from the shimmering light nearly a week earlier. The mountains were still hazy and distant, and the gloom from clouds and shadows uniform across the landscape from horizon to horizon. Stiff and sore, Crace Coram and Oriantha climbed down from the wagon and faced Tesla Dart.
“Go quickly,” she said. “When you return, come here. The way will be open again. But for now, once you pass through, it will close behind you. It is the Straken Lord’s magic that makes this protection. Entry allowed, but no exit until later. Do you see?”
She brushed at the scrub of hair bristling from the top of her head, eyes shifting from one to the other. “Find the Straken Queen. Quickly. If you do not, Tael Riverine brings his armies into your land and finds her himself. He plans this already. His armies assemble already. Time is very short for you.”
“Why are you helping us?” Oriantha asked her.
The Ulk Bog looked confused. “Weka Dart is my uncle.”
Oriantha shook her head. “I don’t understand. What does he have to do with you helping us?”
“Weka was Straken Queen Grianne’s friend. He helped her escape. She said she would come back for him.”
“But what if she can’t come back for him?” Crace Coram interjected. “What if we can’t find her?”
Tesla Dart cocked her head, her strange face taking on an entirely new look. “Weka is dead. When the Straken Queen leaves him, he goes to hide in Huka Flats. But Tael Riverine hunts him down and kills him. Weka dies for helping her. Now she must come back and revenge him. This is a debt she owes.”
She pointed toward the shimmer of light. “Tell her my words. Tell her she must pay it.”
“So now we must find a dead woman in order to keep the Straken Lord from invading the Four Lands?” Skint summarized. “Is that what you’re saying?”
“The Ard Rhys is not necessarily dead,” Seersha said quickly.
“She’s not?” Railing asked in surprise. He had always thought she was. Both he and Redding had thought so.
Seersha made a dismissive gesture and shifted her gaze to Crace Coram. “What happened to Oriantha? Why isn’t she with you?”
The Dwarf shook his head. “She wouldn’t come. Right at the last, she said she was staying.”
“Why would she do that?”
“She said she was going back for the Ard Rhys and your brother.” He looked over at Railing and shrugged. “If you spent as much time with her as I have, you might understand the why of it.”