Chapter Fourteen
I shielded my face with an arm as burning fuel rained over us. “Over the side!”
We clasped each other and tumbled over the edge.
How far to the water?
How deep?
Would we—
Ka-wumm
The impact jarred me to the bone. I lost track of Sephi as I tried to regain my bearings.
Which way was up? My world turned to a frigid blue-green haze.
I spun half a turn, grabbed her arm, and swam for the lightest section of water.
Gasping as I breached the surface, I found myself immediately pulled under again.
As I writhed against my armor, a boot brushed the stony lake bed.
We were nearly ashore, but the lake was still deeper than I was tall. If I stripped off my armor, I’d be more vulnerable when we—
An arm encircled my chest, dragging me upward.
As I broached the surface again, gurgling and thrashing, a calm hand brushed through my wet hair. “Please do not struggle, Mister Thistlewood. I have located an elevated stone to stand on, but it is quite slick.”
Coughing up water turned to panting breaths as seconds passed.
Water stilled to a gentle rippling as she patted my head in stroke after comforting stroke.
“I guess it pays to be tall, eh?” I finally spoke.
“At times.” She squeezed the back of my scalp. “It is not far to shore. I believe if we hold our breath and push off the bottom we can make it. I would prefer not to discard my armor or saber.”
“Agreed.” As soon as death by drowning was off the table, our weapons and armor would be key to avoiding death by monster.
We picked our way through ever shallower water to reach a shoreline overgrown with evergreen trees, most with trunks thicker than I was tall. Aside from a rustle of wind through the upper branches, it was eerily quiet. Had the explosion cowed wildlife into silence?
I squeezed her hand as we stood at the shore, water dripping from our bodies, eyes darting tree to tree. “You see the wreck of the balloon?” I spoke at a whisper. “I’d like to get my scythe axe back. There should be a flare gun in the basket as well.”
She motioned to the upper branches of a tree a hundred meters distant, where wisps of smoke trailed off the smoldering remains of the basket.
I tiptoed closer. “Looks like we’ll have a bit of climbing to do.”
Sephi froze in place as she rounded a trunk big around as a cottage. “We may have other obstacles prior to that.” She drew her saber, pointing the tip toward a lindworm, a draconic predator currently munching the carcass of a spine swine.
I drew my dagger, a pathetically small weapon, but better than nothing. “How convenient that it chose this exact spot to feast on its kill.”
“Indeed. Though it does not seem especially concerned with our presence at the moment. Perhaps we could get around it?”
I nodded.
We sidestepped around the creature, treated to the crunching of bone, the tearing of flesh and tendon, and wet gulps as the lindworm feasted. They were semi-intelligent predators who would back off from a confrontation with a sufficiently formidable foe.
Which, at the moment, we were not.
A good sixty meters to the wreck. And I wasn’t sure the tree was even climbable.
It glanced our way, licked a toothy maw.
We froze in place.
Don’t show fear. Predators sense fear.
Neither my heart nor the fist clenching my dagger paid heed to this advice.
Forty meters. It may as well have been four thousand.
I’d seen lindworms before. They were the major threat in my hometown. The sort of thing you could take on with a group of a dozen well-armed and armored adventurers.
Who had life-insurance policies up-to-date.
A sickening crack rang through the trees as the creature shattered some bone of the carcass.
It had no reason to come after us as long as meat remained on the carcass.
So why did it keep staring at us.
I glanced at the immediate terrain for anything that could offer shelter, like the chambers that sometimes formed under certain tree roots.
Roots.
Roots channel magic.
I glanced at my feet, whispering, “I may be able to distract it. But I’ll need you to keep an eye on it while I do.”
“What do you plan on… ohhh.”
Tree limbs above the lindworm began to sparkle in pink and magenta.
“Is it working?” I shut my eyes to fully concentrate on the magical flow. The further we stepped from the tree’s roots, the harder it was to influence the flow.
“The creature appears most captivated by your display.”
“Guide me back, slowly.”
She clasped hands around my hips and pulled.
I stepped back.
Feel the flow. The breathing of a living tree. Guide the flow, change its form just a little.
More steps back.
She’d tell me if it stopped working. Wouldn’t she?
I bumped against a tree, eyes snapping open.
The creature cocked its head, gaze fixed on the branches over it, where the light show faded out.
I glanced up at the balloon wreck, barely visible above us. Even the lowest branches towered twenty meters up.
“You’re the one from a forestry town,” whispered Sephi. “Can we make it?”
“Bark’s solid on this species. Test it before you put your full weight on it.”
It took ten minutes to reach the lowest branch; the climb went quickly after that.
The basket was charred, though more or less intact, and I found my scythe axe only lightly singed. I puffed out a long sigh of relief as I grasped the haft.
“I must admit to being somewhat annoyed by our situation.” Her words returned to their former matter-of-fact tone.
“Don’t like being stuck out in the wilderness with just a rustic human as companion?”
“I don’t like the fact that said rustic human just outdid an elf. With tree-related magic of all things.”
“Inhabitants of forestry towns do more than carry stylish axes and sing songs.”
“I would debate you on the moniker ‘stylish.’ However, your skill is most appreciated.” She clasped a hand on my upper arm, squeezing firmly. “As is your company, Mister Thistlewood.”
I covered her hand with mine. “Not as pleasant as the balloon flight, but the company makes up for it.”
She smiled briefly.
“Also, feel free to decapitate the next creature we encounter, if it will restore your elven dignity.”
She stared back at me, those luscious lips seeming to fight against a smile. Yet her eyes gave it away. She glanced away, resuming inspection of the charred wreck of the basket. “It would appear that the signal flares were ruined.”
“Out of the kettle and into… no. We started in the fire, then—”
“Perhaps it would be more efficient to summarize your pithy proverbs as, ‘we are screwed,’ ” said Sephi.
“That is a very un-elven turn of phrase.”
“Elves do value brevity from time to time.”
I lifted an eyebrow.
She returned the gesture.
“Suggestions, then?”
“The envelope appears intact.” She tapped the ruptured, singed fuel tank. “A pity we have no fuel. We might otherwise fly out of here.”
“Just how much heat would we need?”
“A few improvised torches might be enough to get us airborne, but would not burn long or hot enough to… we had about forty kilometers to go, I believe.”
“What about magic. That’s what we’re here to learn, isn’t it?”
She bit her lip. “I am not especially skilled in fire-based magic, but I might be able to conjure the equivalent of a torch. I do not know for how long.”
“Neither am I. I can light candles and campfires and… what if we cut away the basket? Would that save enough weight that we could…”
“Possibly.”
Night had fallen by the time we’d cut away the basket and crafted torches. I’d known how to build them since I was about five.
“I hope the town of Valyar Bay is illuminated at night,” said Sephi. “It would be bothersome if we missed it and ended up over the sea.”
“Agreed.” I glanced at the refilled balloon. The burner and remains of the fuel tank now served to support our limited supply of torches, and when they were gone, as a focal point for some fire magic.
I cut the mooring line.
We drifted into the night sky.
The torches burned longer than expected, with Sephi taking the first turn supplementing them with magic heat as they began to dim.
“I hope all the energy I have dedicated to theoretical studies has not come at the expense of casting,” she said.
“Same here. I don’t know how much heat we have to generate to keep this thing aloft, but…” I sighed. “Eh, worst case, we come back down again.”
“That is far from the worst case.”
Minutes turned to… hours? I honestly didn’t know how long it had been. The clock was destroyed in the fire.
My hands and forearms ached from gripping the rigging, ropes cut into my thighs. We’d tied little loops into the rigging to wrap arms and legs through, but my contorted posture strained every joint.
Moonlight highlighted only treetops and upper boughs. The forest floor hundreds of meters below was naught but shadows, where monsters lurked. The only bright spot to our plan? It was cold, but with little wind chill: our balloon traveled with the wind.
I looped an elbow through the rigging so that I could rest my other hand. I clenched and relaxed my fist.
“Your worst case may come to pass sooner rather than later.” Her enunciation was clear as always, yet the tone was strained. “I do not know how much longer I can channel this much power.”
“Let me take over.” I focused on the glowing burner, channeling energy into heat. It wasn’t hard to do for a few seconds; to light a candle or a campfire. But hour after hour? My core tingled, my limbs ached, and my head felt like someone had taken a club to it.
She rubbed her temples. “Mister… Theo, if we don’t make it, I—”
“We’ll make it. We’ll set back down and spend the night in a tree if we have to.”
“Please.” She put a hand on my shoulder. “I need to trust someone with this. It has been… gnawing at me.”
I closed my eyes.
As my concentration waned, I could feel the metallic glow fading.
I had questions. This wasn’t how I wanted to find answers. Yet if it would comfort her.
I clapped a hand atop hers and squeezed. “I’m all ears.”
“You are hilarious, Mister Thistlewood.”
I should have felt some sort of anticipation, eagerness to finally have answers. But the situation jumbled my emotions.
She squeezed my shoulder. “I did not know the man we found dead in the hold, I was truthful about that. Yet it was not our first encounter. We spoke a few times during the voyage. And that very day, I discovered that he had given me something.”
“Uh-huh.” My vision swam as I fought to maintain the flow of energy.
“It was a journal. An old one. From the time of the Empire.”
I groaned. The connection faltered.
“Let me take over.”
“Thanks.” I massaged the back of my neck. “A journal of someone famous?”
“No, that was what was so strange. A man was killed over the journal of a civil servant. Owww. A public works inspector.”
“Let me… is that light?” Something glowed ahead of us. “My vision’s kind of fuzzy.”
“It is.” She blew out a long sigh. “I believe we can coast from here.”
“Journal.” I twisted my body, adjusting my grasp on the rigging. “It was in your tool bag that one time when you thought I—”
“Precisely.” She winced. The glow faltered again.
I put a hand on her upper arm. “We can coast.”
“I didn’t suspect you, not really, but after weeks of subtle games, my room and possessions searched by the servants, innuendo, veiled threats, I simply snapped. My studies with you were an oasis of joy in a stark and grating—oww.” She flicked her left leg at the knee.
“You OK?”
“My limbs are going numb.”
“We’re almost there.”
“Yes.” She set her jaw. “So as I read it, I began to—”
We clipped the last of the trees, but the top bough only slapped my shin then slid past.
“You don’t have to continue.” I wanted to rejoice at the approaching town, but barely had the energy to hold onto the rigging. “When we’re out of danger, if you still feel—”
“Theo. I am telling you because… because I need to trust someone, not because we were about to die.”
I looped an arm through the tattered rigging to take her hand. “I’m honored to be that someone.”
“You were always that someone. I simply could not…” Her eyes glistened in the moonlight. “The journal was dry and factual, but it painted certain people in a very different light from how they are historically viewed. And certain incidents were not the product of random—we’re coming in.”
Torches lit the perimeter of a field outside town where a half dozen people gathered. We were a hundred meters out, maybe two, twenty high, and still moving at what would be a solid run.
I squeezed her hand. “Sephi, whatever may come, I’m with you all the way.”
“And Mister Thistlewood, I believe I…” Her gaze was softer than I’d ever seen.
Cheers and shouts began to replace the whistle of wind and low murmurs of the forest.
Forty meters out, ten up.
I pulled the vent flap to bleed off a little altitude. “You believe?”
Her former composed smile returned. She continued in a silky, even tone. “I believe that you, Mister Thistlewood, are about to find out just how far the Barony of Arazniros will go for friends and allies.”
That’s my girl.