Heirs of Prophecy - Lisa Smedman [99]
A dark shape shot past them, cawing furiously, then made a sharp turn to the side. Only then did Larajin remember the danger. The elf who had tried to kill her earlier was down there still, somewhere on the shore, and there would probably be others scouring the edges of the lake, looking for her. She doubted they'd recognize her in tressym form, but it was best not to take any chances.
Nodding to show that she understood, she turned in a graceful arc and allowed Leifander to set their course.
Had Leifander been in elf form, he would have wept at what he saw below. The forest looked as if giant slugs had crisscrossed it, leaving meandering trails of slimy destruction in their wake. Wide swaths of the woods lay in blighted ruin, streaked with mud brown and ash gray that stood out clearly against the surrounding green. Inside the blighted areas, sticklike trees leaned at angles or lay broken upon the ground, and what few leaves remained on them were a lifeless, mottled yellow-gray.
Patches of mist drifted here and there, spreading the blight in new directions with each shift of the breeze. It seemed never to dissipate but instead maintained its deadly potency long after the wands had created it.
To the south, thick plumes of smoke rose from
J
the edges of the great forest: the handiwork of Sembia's soldiers, whose encampments Leifander could see in the distance on the rolling hills of Battledale. They were burning the edges of the wood, trying to either flush the elves out or draw them into battle.
Glancing up at the flat blue sky, he offered a silent prayer to the Leaflord to send rain. The summer sun was hot, the woods below tinder-dry. If the fires spread…
Leifander flew grimly on, every now and then glancing behind him to see how Larajin was faring. To his great surprise she'd mastered skinwalking in a fraction of the time it should have taken-moments, instead of days- and now was indistinguishable from the tressym that seemed to accompany her everywhere.
The speed with which she'd learned it made him jealous. As twins, they were both destined for greatness, but Larajin seemed far more favored by the gods than he. Magic came to her easily, without effort. Even the difficult balance she had chosen-giving equal reverence to two goddesses, one human, one elf-didn't seem to slow her down. Any spell she turned her mind to, she accomplished, whereas Leifander had learned his magic only through long periods of fasting and solitary prayer, perched high in a sacred oak.
It didn't seem fair. Why, if they were twins, had the gods apportioned out their blessings in such unequal measure? v
Behind him, he heard a plaintive mewing. Glancing back, he saw that one of the tressym-Larajin-had once again dropped behind and was flying in a circle just above the treetops. It was a warning sign that Leifander recognized. Her spell was coming to an end-much sooner than he'd expected. She needed to land.
At least he had one advantage. Unlike Larajin, who could skinwalk for no more than a morning or afternoon at a stretch, he could maintain animal form for days on end, shifting endlessly back and forth between crow and elf. Larajin had to pray anew each time her spell began to
falter and hope that one of her goddesses would answer.
Leifander swooped back to where Larajin circled, surveying the forest below for a place to land. They'd come far already. They'd left the crystalline towers two nights before, crossed the River Ashaba, and had come to a place above the Vale of Lost Voices. The slash in the forest below was the trail that linked Essembra and Ashaben-ford. Rauthauvyr's Road lay perhaps ten or fifteen miles to the east. If they paused only briefly then flew on through the afternoon and