The Forgotten Stone by E.A. Winters

Author:E.A. Winters [Winters, E.A.]
Language: eng
Format: epub, azw3
Publisher: DragonLeaf Press
Published: 2022-08-02T16:00:00+00:00

25

They continued to travel for six days. The forest, once composed of bright, leafy emerald ceilings, began to choke off again into thick brush and dark thorns. The colors seemed no longer hopeful but gloomy and full of dark shadows. The overgrowth became so great that she yearned for a sunbeam to find its way to the wooded floor, and the rabbits and squirrels they’d caught to eat before were nowhere to be seen. Surely the horses couldn’t have come this way. Perhaps it was better they were free. She missed Inferno and hoped he’d found a grassy plain somewhere.

Everyone felt the difference and everyone was on edge, but Vadik became truly uneasy, looking this way and that, skittish toward the empty air. Canukke remained in his brooding state for hours, saying little, except to complain that in the shade of the wood Yadara shone like a beacon of bright blue and white. Enouim had wondered if her skin would eventually start reflecting the forest, like a chameleon, but she continued to reflect the sky even when dense trees overhead obscured the sky. Kilith offered Yadara his cloak after Canukke’s remark. She wrapped it around herself and lifted the hood to cover her hair, so that from behind she looked like any one of them and from the front only her face stood out. Everything out here seemed so hidden away and abandoned, who could Canukke think of coming across? It didn’t look as if anyone had been here in many years, if at all.

With Ruakh’s help, Yadara climbed a tree in an effort to see the stars, but the branches were too weak to carry her to its full height, so she was cut off from her map of the world. “I can make estimations as best as I know how, but without seeing the stars, we are lost,” she said apologetically.

“Don’t you have the stars on you already?” Vadik asked. “You know, look at your arm, and then we’re good to go.”

Yadara looked at him incredulously.“Does a single leaf reveal the entire tree? Does a feather reveal the whole bird?”

“We need to get to higher ground, then,” Kilith said.

Gabor spat to one side. “It’s been flat for ages, and we can’t see far enough to know what direction might lead us upward.”

“There should be hills near here,” Yadara stated. “Perhaps more to the west?”

“Our supplies are thin. We can’t afford to wander in circles,” Baird pointed out. “Even the animals seem to have forsaken this dark place. I can’t say I blame them.” He shivered.

As if on cue, a bright flash in Enouim’s peripheral vision caught her attention. The whole company saw it, and all hushed and turned toward the sight. A white stag! Majestic and graceful, he bounded through the wood and came to a sudden stop within their line of sight. Gabor raised his bow.

“No,” Ruakh whispered, “Such a creature does not deserve death. And I sense something more to this animal than meets the eye

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