Called to Darkness by Richard Lee Byers

Author:Richard Lee Byers
Language: eng
Format: mobi, epub
Tags: Epic, Fantasy, General, Fiction
ISBN: 9781601254658
Publisher: Paizo Publishing, LLC
Published: 2013-01-01T05:00:00+00:00

Chapter Twenty-Two

Council of War

Kagur didn’t think Vom had originally intended that he and his companions should spend the night away from the mountain village. But everyone needed a rest after the fight with the worms, and afterward, when they’d all marched from the swamp back into jungle, he called for a halt under the spreading branches of a towering, creeper-laden tree.

Night fell with its usual suddenness shortly thereafter, as everyone but Kagur had likely sensed it would. When they all climbed the tree, she remembered she no longer had any rope to tie herself in place. Fortunately, though, she found a fork in the trunk where she could jam herself in half lying down and half sitting up. With wood pressing in on more sides than not, she managed to sleep without rolling over and plummeting to her death.

The rest of the Dragonflies shouted greetings when the hunters reached the village the following day. People waved Kagur toward the healer’s cave, and she realized Holg must be awake.

Eager as she was to see him, she hesitated before stepping into the shadowy chamber with its painted walls. She didn’t want to find him maimed or dying.

“I know you’re out there,” the old man called. “I keep telling you, my senses are different than yours.”

At least he sounded the same as always. Kagur snorted and strode on in.

In fact, Holg wasn’t the same. The beak and claws of the flying reptile had left livid scars. But he didn’t appear to be in pain or moving any more stiffly than usual as he sat with his back against a wall sipping water from a gourd.

“My amber fetish is missing,” the blind man said. “Do you know what’s become of it?”

“Yes.” Kagur started telling him about the false trail she’d laid to mislead Eovath and the reptiles.

“Xulgaths,” Holg interrupted.

“What?”

“According to our hosts, the reptile-men are called xulgaths.” Evidently, the old man had felt strong enough to make use of his translation spell.

“If you say so.” She finished her explanation of the fate of the fetish, which led in turn into an account of all that had happened since the fight atop the cliff.

When she finished, Holg sighed and said, “Well, I’m sorry to lose that bead. I had it for a long time. But I’m grateful to you for carrying me all the way up into these mountains.”

Kagur scowled. “Don’t be.”

“All right. I was forgetting, you help me simply because you need me.”

“No! That’s not what I mean! It’s …” She groped for words. She wasn’t good at apologizing. In the times before Eovath had gone mad and dragged her whole life into madness along with him, she hadn’t needed to be.

“I don’t deserve your thanks,” she said at last, “I’ve been an ungrateful, surly companion.”

He smiled wryly. “I’d rather have a comrade who snaps at me but comes to my aid when I need it than one who speaks cordially but is of no use when some unpleasant creature is ripping out my liver.

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