“Not enough to stop us, brother,” Atalan replied, giving an edge to the last word that left no doubt about how he viewed the relationship. “We are the stronger force, no matter how few we are.”
There was a hint of anger in Kermadec’s eyes and a muttering among the other Rock Trolls. “You have never been down there,” the Maturen said quietly. “I have. It isn’t just trees and dirt. It isn’t just Urdas, either. It is darkness of a different sort. Too many who thought as you do have disappeared into that darkness. If we are careless, we could end up the same way.”
“Then we won’t be careless, will we?” Atalan declared. His eyes flicked from his brother to Cinnaminson and Pen. “Lucky we have just the little people to help us. A blind girl who sees and a boy who speaks with lichen. What have we to fear?”
He shouldered his way forward and started down off the ledge, not bothering to see who might follow. Kermadec watched him go for a moment, then glanced back at the rest of the company and motioned them ahead.
The descent into the Inkrim was accomplished without incident. The trail down was not steep, though it was narrow and twisting, and at times even Pen, who was among the smallest, was forced to hug the cliff wall. The twilight deepened steadily all the while, and as it did so the valley came alive. Hushed before the change of light to dark, it began to hum and buzz with insect life. Night birds called out, their cries piercing and shrill as they took to the air in shadowy flocks, and Pen could hear grunts from ground animals, some recognizable, some not. He listened carefully as he walked and tried to sort them out. He searched for what sounded familiar amid the cacophony and failed.
At the bottom of the trail, the company made camp in a stand of fir. Even though they had reached the valley floor, they were still several thousand feet above sea level, cradled by the peaks of the Klu, and the air was clear and cold and the sky brilliant with stars and moonlight. As on past nights, Kermadec would not allow a fire. “Tomorrow,” he promised. By then they would be deep enough into the territory of the Urdas that a fire would not draw Druid notice or, if spied, would not seem unusual to anyone searching for them. They would be risking discovery by the Urdas, of course, but that was a risk they were taking just by being there.
“The ruins of Stridegate lie much deeper in this valley, Pen,” he told the boy later, when dinner had been consumed and they were sitting alone at the edge of the encampment. His blocky features were inscrutable, but his eyes were intense. “Two more days at least, and that’s if we press ahead at a steady pace. I’ve been there, the one time I was in this valley before. I remember their look. It isn’t a sight you are likely to forget.”
“And the island?” Pen pressed. “The one that contains the tanequil?”
Overhearing their conversation, Khyber, Cinnaminson, and Tagwen had wandered over to join them. They sat down in a close circle, silent and attentive. Behind them, a pair of sentries had taken up positions just out of sight in the darkened trees. The rest of the Rock Trolls were settling in for the night, bulky forms lumbering through the darkness, the heavy clank and rasp of their weapons audible. Atalan was sitting not far away, hunched and unmoving, his back to his brother, his gaze directed into the forest dark.
“It is not an island of the sort you might imagine. It is surrounded not by water, but by a deep ravine choked with vines and trees. A single bridge spans its width, an ancient stone arch thousands of years old. It offers the only passage to the other side. But no one I know has ever crossed it.”
“Why not?” Khyber asked at once.
Kermadec shook his head. “I am not superstitious in the manner of the Urdas, but I know the nature of the things that live within the Inkrim and I respect the power they wield. A warding stone placed on the near side of the bridge forbids passage. I try to pay attention to such things, when I can.”
He paused. “I was told that others did not. Some attempted to cross anyway. There were rumors of a great treasure. A few used the stone arch. A few went down into the ravine with the intention of climbing out the other side. None were ever seen again.”
“Then how are we to cross?” Khyber sounded suspicious and didn’t bother keeping it from her voice. “Why are we any different than these others who couldn’t?”
Kermadec shrugged. “I don’t know that we are. I only know that we have to find out.” He nodded toward Pen. “It is what is needed if we are to save the Ard Rhys.”
He rose and walked back toward his sleeping Trolls. As he passed Atalan, he reached down and touched his shoulder. His brother glanced up and said something. Kermadec kept walking. A moment later, Atalan rose and followed him.
Khyber glanced at Pen and Tagwen, her brow furrowed. “I don’t remember the Elfstones showing us anything about a bridge. I don’t remember being warned about not being able to cross one.”
“They don’t always show you everything, do they?” Pen asked.
“I just think it odd that we’re hearing about this for the first time now.” She looked angry. “Did the King of the Silver River say anything to you about this?”
Pen shook his head. “Nothing.” He wasn’t any happier than she was about the bridge and its warning. “He told me to find the tanequil and ask it for a limb from which to fashion the darkwand, then to take the darkwand back to Paranor and use it to cross over into the Forbidding.” His lips compressed. “Nothing about a bridge that no one is supposed to cross.”
“What are the Trolls doing?” Cinnaminson asked suddenly, her blind eyes directed toward the encampment.
The other three turned to look. The Trolls were gathered in a circle, all of them, including Kermadec and Atalan. They were down on one knee, their blocky heads lowered, their palms flat against the ground, murmuring what seemed to be a chant. Now and then, one of them lifted a hand momentarily to touch fingertips to his forehead or lips.
“They are speaking to the valley,” Tagwen said, pulling absently at his beard. “They are asking that it protect them against the dark spirits that live within it. It is an old custom among the Trolls, to seek the protection of the land they pass through and might have to fight upon.”
Then, one by one, starting with Kermadec, the Trolls rose and walked around the circle, touching each Troll atop his head before returning to his place and kneeling to be touched in turn.
“Now they are pledging their lives in support of each other, promising that they will stand together as brothers should the spirits bless them with their protection and guidance.” He cleared his throat. “I don’t believe in this nonsense myself, but it seems to make them feel better.”
The ritual continued for several minutes more. Then the Trolls rose and moved off, the sentries to their posts, the rest to their beds. Only Kermadec and Atalan remained where they were, talking quietly.
“Guess they’ve made their peace.” Tagwen stretched and yawned. “I’m going to bed. Good night to all of you.”
He moved off, and seconds later Khyber went, too. Pen sat alone with Cinnaminson in the darkness, their shoulders touching as they listened to the forest sounds.
“This valley is filled with spirits,” the Rover girl said to him suddenly. Her fingers reached up to brush the air. “I can sense them all around, watching.” She paused. “I think they might have been waiting for us. I don’t know why they would do that, but they are very purposeful in their movements, very deliberate.”
“Maybe they are here because they were called just now by the Trolls.” Pen glanced at her. “Maybe they have come in response.”
The girl nodded. “They might be here to offer protection. I don’t sense hostility.” She touched his hand. “I have an idea, Pen. Use your magic to ask them. You can communicate with living things of all sorts. Spirits are alive. See if they will speak to you.”
He looked off into the velvet darkness, into the massed trees toward the black wall of the Inkrim, and wondered how to go about it. It began, in most cases, with whoever or whatever he was trying to communicate with maki
ng a sound or movement that he could interpret. A hawk might reveal its hunger or its desire for a mate through its cries. A rabbit might convey its fear by the way it looked at him. The way a small bird flew could reveal its urgency to reach its young. The brush of tree limbs or tall grasses against his face could tell him if they were in need of water. The movement of the wind told him of storms. He had once been warned of a wolf when a tiny ground squirrel darted through dried leaves.
But there was nothing to hear or see in this situation. Spirits did not always have a voice. They did not always take form. He would have to try something else.
He leaned forward and placed his hands against the earth, trying to read something from the feel of the ground. But after several minutes of patient concentration, there was still no response.
“No, Pen,” Cinnaminson whispered suddenly, taking his hands and lifting them away. “These are spirits of the air. Reach up to them.”
He did as she bid, holding up his hands with his fingers spread, as if to catch the feel of the wind. He held them steady, then moved them slowly about, groping for contact.
A moment later, he had it. Something brushed against his fingers ever so softly, just for a moment before it was gone. Then something else grazed his arm. He read purpose in those touchings; he found life. They were as gossamer as spider webbing and as ephemeral as birdsong, but they were old and therefore strong, too. They had lived a long time and seen a great deal. He could tell all that from a single touching, and it shocked him.
But they were gone as quickly as they had come, and they didn’t return. After he told Cinnaminson what he had felt, he tried to reach for them several times more and could not find them.
“They are not ready for us to know them,” the Rover girl said. “We must be patient. They will reveal themselves when they are ready.”
Later, wrapped in his blanket, Pen thought for a long time before he drifted off to sleep about what form that revelation might take.
They set out at daybreak, moving into the heavy woods while the shadows still layered the earth in dark patches and the sunlight was a dim glow east through the canopy of the trees. The air was chilly and smelled of earth grown rich and fecund over time. The night sounds were gone, replaced by morning birdsong and the soft rustle of the wind through the leaves. The woods remained dark and deep, as impenetrable to sight as a midnight pond, looking exactly the same in all directions, the trees and grasses a wall against the outside world.
They traveled in single file, Kermadec leading, Atalan acting as rear guard, and Pen and his companions placed squarely in the center of the line. The boy walked with Cinnaminson, his eyes sweeping the forest, his senses alert. He searched the shadows and treetops for life, and more often than not, he found it. The Inkrim hummed with activity, its life-forms a surprise at every turn. The birds were often strange, colored and plumed in unfamiliar ways. There were small ground animals that reminded him of squirrels and chipmunks, but were something else. This valley and the creatures that lived within it were old, Kermadec had said, and that suggested that their origins could be found in the world that had existed before the Great Wars. Certainly nothing of the world Pen knew seemed to have a place here.
The day wore on and the sun lifted into the mountain sky, but little of its light penetrated to the forest floor. The night shadows remained thick and unbroken, and the air stayed cool and crisp. There was a twilight feel to the valley, a peculiar absence of real daylight and summer warmth. The woods produced their own climate, peculiarly suitable to this valley.
Now and then they would cross a trail. Narrow and poorly defined, the tracks meandered and ended abruptly, and there was little about them to suggest that they might lead to anything. Kermadec followed them when it was convenient to do so, but more often than not kept to the off-trail breaks in the trees that offered easiest passage and clearest vision of their surroundings. He did not seem particularly concerned about what might be hiding from them and spent no noticeable time searching the deep shadows. Perhaps his training and experience reassured him that he would sense any danger lying in wait. Perhaps it was his acceptance of the fact that in a place like this, ancient and secretive, there was only so much you could do to protect yourself.
Though he searched carefully at every turn, Pen did not see anything that day that seemed threatening. While at times the forest appeared dark and menacing, nothing dangerous ever materialized.
On the second day things changed.
They had enjoyed a fire and hot food the night before, the first of both in a week. They had drunk strong-flavored ale from skins the Trolls carried and slept undisturbed through the night. Rested and refreshed, they had set out again at dawn. This day looked very much like the first; the skies were more cloudy and the light paler, but the forests of the Inkrim seemed unchanged. Nevertheless, Pen felt a difference in things almost at once, a subtle distinction that at first lacked a source. It was only after he had been walking a while that he realized that the forest sounds were quieter, the wind softer, and the air warmer. Even these didn’t seem to him to be the source of the problem, and he was plagued by a nagging certainty that he was missing something.
“Does everything seem all right to you?” he asked Cinnaminson finally.
“You sense them, too, don’t you?” she replied at once. She was walking next to him, keeping close.
He stared at her, then glanced around quickly, scanning the forest shadows, the deep mottled black and green of the trunks and grasses, of the limbs and leaves. “Is someone there?”
“In the trees. Hiding. Watching. More than one.”
He exhaled slowly. “I sensed them, but I didn’t know what they were. How long have they been there?”
“Since we started out. They must have found us during the night.” She brushed back loose strands of her honey-colored hair. “I thought they were the spirits of the air at first, the ones from last night. But these are creatures of flesh and blood.” She paused. “They track us.”
Pen took her hand and squeezed it. His eyes swept the trees. “Wait here. I’ll tell Kermadec.”
But Kermadec already knew. “Urdas,” he advised, bending close to Pen to whisper the word. “Not many of them, but enough to keep us in sight without showing themselves. They’re working in relays, small groups of them, each leapfrogging ahead of the others in turn to pick us up as we come past, bracketing us so that we don’t get away.”
Pen felt his heart quicken. “What do they want?”
The Maturen glanced over. His barklike features made him seem one with the trees. “They want to know what we are doing here. They will stay with us until they are sure.”
Pen dropped back again, falling into step with Cinnaminson. “He says he knows about them. He says they are just watching us.”
The Rover girl smiled. “Someone is watching them, too.” Her blind eyes shifted to find his. “The spirits of the air didn’t leave, after all. They are still out there.”
The morning passed away, and the clouds massed and darkened overhead. A storm was blowing in, and it would bring a heavy rain. Kermadec began to look for shelter, but there were no caves or rocky overhangs to keep them dry. Instead, they crawled beneath the protective boughs of a huge fir, hunkering down when the cloudburst struck, staying put until the rains had slowed to a drizzle, then crawling out again, dampened and chilled, to begin walking once more.
That night, they camped in the lee of a lightning-split hardwood that had once risen hundreds of feet into the air and was now as dead as old cornstalks. Its leaves were gone and its limbs blackened and bare, charred bones on a skeleton. All around its shattered trunk, the ground was burned and denuded as well, and their fire cast its broken giant’s shadow into the enfolding darkness. Kermadec doubled the watch, and Pen hardly slept at all. Overhead, clouds scudded across the stars and bats darted through the night like wraiths.
The third day dawned gray and damp, but the rains did not return. The company set out at d
aybreak, the Urdas tracking it from somewhere in the trees where Pen still could not see them, even if Kermadec could. Pen was tired and irritable from a restless night, and he was unnerved by the constant, unseen presence. His spirits lifted only marginally when Kermadec assured him that they were getting closer to their destination; seeing would be believing.
By midmorning, the look of the Inkrim had undergone a noticeable change. The trees had become massive and twisted, a forest of ancient behemoths that crowded out everything smaller and left the valley floor barren and stark. The gray light filtering through the clouds was diffused further by the canopy of leaves and branches. The forest was shadowy and gray at every turn, and the air had grown thin and stale. Birdsong and insect buzzing disappeared, and the ground animals faded away. There was a hushed quality to the landscape that reminded the boy of places where only dead things were found. He heard the sound of his own breathing as he walked. He could hear the beating of his heart.
“I don’t like this place anymore,” Cinnaminson whispered to him at one point, and took his hand in her own.
Sometime around midday, Pen saw the Urdas for the first time. They appeared all at once, coming out of the shadows, sliding from behind tree trunks, materializing out of nowhere. Even though he had never seen one before, he knew what they were immediately. They had a primitive, dangerous look to them. Physically, they appeared to be a cross between Trolls and Gnomes. Their bodies were small and wiry like those of the latter, but their skin was thick and barklike and their faces blunt and flat like the former. They were covered in a tangle of wiry hair, their Trollish features flat and expressionless. Short, muscular legs and long arms allowed them to move sideways in crab fashion as they shadowed the company on both sides through the ancient trees.