The Long Journey Home (The Legend of Vanx Malic Book 8) Read online

  “Cuck! Cuck! Cuck!” came the sound, deep and guttural and very loud.

  “That was no deer,” Chelda admitted quickly. “That is big.”

  Castavonti started to say, “I told you so,” or something to that effect, but Vanx pushed his palm over the man’s mouth before he could speak.

  They stood there frozen in their tracks. Vanx was fighting Poops’s urge to bark at whatever it was, while trying to get a scent of it, so he could judge its proximity.

  Whatever it was, it was downwind, and it stayed away. After a while, Zeezle just started them back into motion. He still hacked a limb here and a branch there, but no one spoke. Poops was uncannily silent as he sniffed everything he came across.

  When they topped the ridge, it was late in the day. The scene below them was quite breathtaking, and Vanx took a few moments to gather it in.

  There was a bowl-shaped valley down there, with a lake the size of a city collected in its embrace. The trek downhill was going to be easier, for on this side of the ridge, all the way around the crater-like depression, the trees were sparse and the ground was covered in lightly weedy turf.

  “We’ll camp there.” Zeezle pointed to a large collection of tumbled rocks a few dozen yards below the ridge line.

  It was a good place, Vanx decided after a long look. It would be easier to protect the group if they had the boulders at their back.

  For the first time since they’d heard the native creature, Vanx let Poops have his head to go sniff around their prospective camp.

  If there was a snake, or a den of badgers or worse, living in the nooks and crannies, then the pup would find it before it found them.

  Chapter Seven

  If you seek peace and solitude,

  you may or may not find what you’re after.

  But if you seek risk and adventure,

  you’ll always find more than you asked for.

  The night was uneventful, save for a short burst of the “Cuck! Cuck! Cuck!” sound around dawn that had everyone on high alert—especially Poops, who was barking out their presence to the whole island, as if it were his now that he’d pissed on it.

  Vanx was trying to hush the dog, to no avail, but he managed to gather his bedroll and ready himself for the day. Luckily, Chelda knelt down and began petting the agitated pup. This calmed him enough that Vanx could slip out of the dog’s anxiety-ridden perception and do something he’d been wanting to do for some time.

  “I’m going to go piss,” Vanx said. He eased away from the group. Once he was leaning against a tree, he did let loose his britches and urinate, but he was focused on the jagged piece of the Mirror of Portent he’d pulled from his pocket, nothing else.

  To his great surprise, he saw the amber gem the wizard had mentioned when he’d given him the map. It was right there amid the wreckage of a small cargo ship. There was a busted chest full of coins, too. They were coppers and copper clippings, but there was a chest full of them. There were a few other items of interest, but Vanx only caught the glimmer of them. The shadow of something came scrabbling in from an opening that clearly led to daylight, and then Vanx saw himself—running into the cavern alone from a different, darker opening.

  The thing coming round the corner was large and terrible looking. Crab-shaped but covered in pale skin, it had a pair of pinchers, one quite a bit larger than the other. It had an odd, bat-like head that protruded from a flat body, supported by several multi-jointed legs.

  It had a pink nose and a maw full of spiked teeth, but its eyes were on stalks that raised up high and then drooped over. Vanx watched the scene unfold in his palm. The thing was only getting a dragon’s eye view of what was immediately ahead of it.

  It was funny, he thought, as he laced his britches up and put the mirror away. Out of all the portents the magical mirror had shown him, this was one he didn’t want to change.

  He saw himself dash right in, grab the jewel, and then disappear back into the darkened opening he’d arrived in before the terrible monster even noticed him.

  Now all they had to do was find the wizard’s mark, which should lead them down the passage he’d entered the creature’s cavern through in the mirror. The idea that there had been water on the floor in the vision wasn’t lost on him, but he couldn’t know if it was sea water or water from the glassy lake below.

  The latter, he hoped. Otherwise, the tunnel the wizard had marked would be long and at a decline most of the way.

  After stashing the mirror and fixing his pants and belt, he returned, holding the wizard’s map. Zeezle gave it a look, and so did the sea mage. Chelda didn’t care. She was still adoring Poops, who was lavishing the attention.

  Vanx chuckled, for he could have slipped into the dog’s senses and enjoyed all the scratching, too, but he didn’t.

  “I think we go down and around so our track is less graded than the slope,” Zeezle said. “Plus, that gets us to here.” He pointed at the “X” on the map. “This way, we get to avoid anything dwelling along the lakeshore.”

  “I have a feeling we will be getting our feet wet,” Vanx said, not mentioning the mirror. Zeezle, or Chelda had dropped it when the Paragon Dracus caught them. He doubted they knew he’d found it, and he hadn’t said anything. Using it had almost gotten them killed, had gotten Pyra and Kelse killed. It wasn’t to be misused; in fact, he didn’t even trust what he’d just seen—the portents had been changed so many times before.

  And now, he was wondering if he did just get away cleanly, as the mirror depicted.

  “Do we need to know something?” Castavonti asked.

  “Only that I have a feeling we will be getting our feet wet,” Vanx answered, but knew the response didn’t satisfy Zeezle. He turned to his Zythian friend.

  “The route you chose is the best.” Vanx shrugged. “But I think we will find traps and wards and all sorts of pitfalls and end up down by the water.” He shrugged again. “I had to piss in a hole in a rock to raise a stone door so Poops and I could escape the last place the crazy wizard sent me.”

  “Piss in a rock to raise a door?” Castavonti asked as if Vanx had gone mad. “Was there treasure?”

  “There was. There is treasure here, too. I’ve seen it…up here.” He pointed to his head and gave Zeezle a knowing look that said, just trust me. “Now let’s get moving. If we make haste, we can get to the wizard’s mark by nightfall.”

  Just then, the “Chuk! Chuk! Chuk!” sounded again, only this time it was far closer, and before anyone could stop him, Sir Poopsalot, tore off after it.

  “At least he went in the right direction,” Zeezle joked sarcastically as he broke into a full run to try to catch up with the dog.

  Vanx started after him but called back over his shoulder, “Come on! Let’s not get separated.”

  A moment later, Chelda had caught up with Vanx, her long legs eating up twice as much ground as the others’ strides.

  “Lag back and don’t let anything happen to our sea mage,” Vanx told her. “But don’t lose me, either.”

  “Whoa!” they heard Zeezle yell. “Get away from that, Poops. Vanx, come on, man! No Poops! NO!”

  With that, Vanx was running toward Zeezle’s voice as fast as his legs could carry him.

  Chapter Eight

  Sometimes you get the radish stew;

  sometimes you get the pie.

  Sometimes you get your heart’s desire,

  and then someday you’ll die.

  As he ran, Vanx submerged himself in Poops’s senses and found that there was some strange wolfish creature stuck in a tree.

  It wanted down, but Poops was barking up at it. It was what the human hunters of Highlake and the other wild parts of Parydon, who used dogs regularly, called “treed.”

  Vanx tried to ease the dog’s anger but only managed to turn the barking into growling. The thing was growling right back down at Poops, too. By then, Vanx had come up to the scene in person and saw that it had a long, ringed tail helping to hold it in the tree. Its bod
y was thick and coonish but the size of a small bear. Its head had a slightly elongated snout, full of teeth like a wolverine’s or a badger’s. Its fangs bared, it wanted to be away from them as badly as they wanted it to be away.

  Chelda and Sea Mage Castavonti were coming up on the scene, but Vanx called out, “Stay back. Chelda, could you please call the four-legged knight?”

  “Come on, baby,” Chelda said with a couple of loud smooches. “Come to your Chelda, and get some good ear scratching.”

  Poops looked in her direction, then went right back to growling up at the creature.

  Go to her, Poops, Vanx soothed the dog through their familiar bond. She has a treat for you. I’ll take care of this guy. Good boy.

  Poops scoffed at Vanx’s attempt to dissuade him, but still, when Chelda called him a second time, the dog went to her.

  “What is it?” Vanx asked. “I don’t remember anything like this from our lessons.”

  “Nor I,” Zeezle said as he backed away from the tree the thing was in. “But isolated islands have produced unique creatures again and again. There is no telling what sort of things live here.”

  “Is that what was making the chuk chuk chuk sound?” Vanx asked.

  Zeezle stopped cold, his head cocked as if he were listening to something in the distance. Then panic washed the curiousness right off of his face.

  “No.” Zeezle pointed over the trees but turned and dove, tackling Vanx in the landing. “I think that is.”

  There was a deep thumping sound, like heavy wing beats, and the rustling of windblown leaves. Then a shadow swept over them, and with it came a foul, avian scent.

  The forward reaching claws of a huge bird ripped the wolfish tree swinger from the branches as it passed.

  The thing Poops had run up the tree let out a terrible howl, but the sound faded swiftly as the feathered creature carried it to the far side of the lake to devour.

  “By the wrath of both the Letcher, and the Lanch,” Chelda swore from the trees behind them. “What in the fargin’ hells was that?”

  “One less thing to worry about,” Zeezle joked as he rolled to his feet.

  “How much farther is the wizard’s mark?” Castavonti asked, wiping sweat from his brow. He was shivering. “This robe isn’t made for all this exertion.”

  “Here.” Vanx stood and handed the sea mage a canteen full of water. “Sit and sip until you cool down.”

  “Nah, nah.” Zeezle gave Vanx a look. “We just wasted a lot of time. We can sit and sip in the cool dusk once we get to our mark.”

  “All right.” Castavonti nodded, taking Vanx’s canteen. He took a deep swig and then started to take another.

  Chelda snatched the container from him. “He said sip for a reason.” She took a small sip and gave him a look that said, do something about it. Then she handed Vanx the canteen.

  Vanx took a deep breath, wondering if everyone was taking this seriously enough. The one thing that troubled him about his portent was that he hadn’t seen any of his companions with him. He didn’t want to think about some of the possibilities that implied.

  “If you drink too much, too fast, you’ll get cramps and feel worse.” Vanx let Poops lap up water from his cupped palm for a minute, then handed the canteen back to Castavonti. “You can drink it all, but do it in small sips.”

  “And share,” Chelda added.

  Soon, they were back underway. It wasn’t a hard trail to follow, but they found a muddy patch and saw a massive feline paw print. Vanx could have curled up in each of the pads, so it had to be at least fifteen feet tall at the shoulder. He imagined a leopard stalking through the forests of the island, as if the trees were wheat. The island could have easily held a population of them, for there were smaller creatures aplenty skittering away from their intrusion.

  At one point, when the evening sun was starting to sink below the ridge off to their right, there was an explosion of birds that caused Poops to respond with a series of deep, savage warning barks. The trees shook, and more birds left their perches with noisy protest. Whatever it was, it was large, and it went away from them toward the sinking sun. It was hard to tell where the creature stopped, but everyone was so glad it fled that they were back underway in no time.

  Vanx wasn’t sure what he’d expected to find where the wizard had made his mark, but a giant hole that went straight down wasn’t even on his list.

  Zeezle found a place nearby that put enough rocky hill behind them that they felt they could defend themselves.

  The evening was full of disappointment and agitation.

  After they ate thin stew and had situated themselves, Castavonti said, “I wonder if something lives in the hole? Like a giant snake or something?”

  The mood changed then, and they decided to set watches, even though Poops was a better alarm than stringing intrusion bells. Zeezle even went as far as to sharpen some limbs into spears and leave them pointing skyward, in case something attacked from above.

  The night went uneventful for Vanx’s, and then Castavonti’s, watches. It wasn’t until Chelda and Poops were the only ones awake and the nearly full moon was high overhead that Vanx fell asleep.

  Poops started barking, and Vanx sat up. In the moonlight, he saw a handful of giant black spiders emerging from the hole and scrabbling toward them. He was on his feet in seconds, using his and the dog’s senses together.

  The spiders weren’t hard to see, for they had glowing, red streaks along their furry, segmented legs, and there was a bright red design, each one unique, on their underbellies. They were just low enough to the ground that a man couldn’t run under them. Roll and stab up maybe, but even getting that close, Vanx decided, would be foolish, for there was a stinger dripping glowing red venom on the ass end of each of them, too.

  Chelda was so terrified, she couldn’t even scream to wake the others. Luckily for them all, Vanx thought, Poops had already done the deed.

  Chapter Nine

  If you think you are the hunter,

  prepare for a surprise.

  ‘Cause sometimes that little rabbit,

  is a lion in disguise.

  Vanx and Zeezle must have had the same idea at the same time, or maybe it was because they learned from the same lesson masters growing up together on Zyth, but two spheres of light appeared over the group—one over Vanx and one over Zeezle. The stark light from the two glowing orbs stalled the spiders, but only long enough that nearly a dozen had time to get out of the hole, and now had the group pinned against the boulders they’d chosen to keep at their back.

  “Start blasting them,” Vanx called, as he ignored the instinctual urge to grab the bow lying beside the rest of his gear. He used magic instead, and wondered as he did, why?

  It didn’t take long to figure out that magic was faster and more potent, and that their backdrop only served to give a few of the braver spiders a ledge to scrabble up and use to drop on them from above.

  Vanx used a Tempus Fist and splattered one of the first spiders back over the others. It was a bad mistake, because the ground now was covered with glowing red splashes of the pulverized victim’s guts, and the other spiders were harder to see because of it.

  Chelda swung at one of them with the dwarven hammer, but almost stumbled into the thing when she missed. Poops got between her and the spider and snapped at it, causing it to skitter back and turn swiftly, bringing its stinger to bear.

  Castavonti saved them from its venom by using one of the few kinetic pulses he could summon each day. Vanx decided he owed the man one. Not only had he just saved Chelda and Poops, he’d shown Vanx what spell he should be using against these things.

  Zeezle was using one of his sharpened spikes, waiting on the next one to leap down. Already a spider was shafted through by his quick placement of one of the sticks, but some of the glowing red stuff was smoldering on his cheek and shoulder.

  “Chelda, get the Glaive of Gladiolus to Zeezle, now!” Vanx ordered.

  She didn’t even hesi
tate. Chelda ran, clipping the hammer to her belt and drawing the ancient elven blade of healing without missing a stride. It never ceased to amaze Vanx that the Glaive looked like a table knife in her gargan hand.

  Zeezle met her, this time angling the spear away from them when the next spider came leaping from the rocks. Chelda stabbed him in the thigh with the blade. Its discharge of healing magic made the look of anger that came across Zeezle’s face all the more inexplicable.

  “You ruined my pants!” he snapped, as he threw a magical pulse of energy at another approaching arachnoid.

  “Bah!” She stabbed him again, in the other leg, and ran back over to Vanx.

  Another pair of spiders had gotten Vanx, Poops, and Castavonti between them, and Chelda just ran right into the situation. Worse, another spider was preparing to leap on them, and Zeezle was caught up fighting the remaining two spiders Vanx could see.

  “Get one of them, Sea Mage,” Vanx said. “Chel…”

  And his next Tempus Fist exploded from his hand upward, blasting red glowing spider goo all over the rocky rise behind them.

  Vanx knew Chelda would kill one of them, so if Castavonti did, too, they were okay. Trusting they would manage it, he turned and sent a trio of less destructive, but equally lethal pulses into one of the spiders Zeezle was fighting.

  Zeezle managed to dodge a stinger and ram one of his wooden stakes into the bulky back section of the other.

  Castavonti did kill a spider, but he exhausted himself to unconsciousness ending it.

  All Chelda had to fight with was a tiny magic sword of healing, and a heavy war hammer, and now Vanx could tell that she was afraid of the things.

  He’d never seen Chelda afraid before, and he decided that he couldn’t hold the fear of spiders against her. He’d met the Hoar Witch’s spider thing, called Sissy, and nearly shit his pants.

  With a sigh, he blasted the final spider away from them all.

  “Are there any more?” Zeezle asked.

  Vanx let Poops sniff the air, and the dog didn’t detect any of them. “I don’t think so,” Vanx finally replied.