Neversfall - Ed Gentry [69]
Again, no response came, and Adeenya leaned forward, anxious to hear more of the man's words. After keeping the information he had gathered about the formians from her, she wouldn't be surprised to find out he was still hiding more.
"I've come to leatn that you may have seen something during the attack on this place. Is that correct?" Jhoqo asked.
Guk gave no response.
Jhoqo shook his head. "I cannot help you if you do not speak to me," he said. Jhoqo swayed from one foot to the other for several quiet moments before turning to leave. His face was in a tight scowl as he approached the door.
Adeenya watched him through a small crack between some of the stones. His eyes drifted toward the piled rocks but did not tarry. He grasped the door handle and left the room. Adeenya shifted to place her ear on the wall again. She heard Jhoqo's voice as he spoke with the guards outside.
"Get some rest, soldiers. You've done well. I'll have your relief along shortly," the man said.
The guards affirmed the orders. Adeenya heard feet shuffling as they all moved away from the door. If the shift-change was so close, then she had lost track of time by more than she'd suspected. She thought about taking the chance to slip out, but her plan might have a chance to succeed now. With no guards outside the cells, the traitor might make a move. Adeenya stretched her tired legs as well as she could and readied herself.
+ + + + +
The sun was past its zenith for the day, but still it poured the midday heat down upon Taennen as he marched behind Bascou. The Maquar durir glanced back toward the fortress. Though it was still only a few hundred paces away, he felt the tether of safety it provided him snap in his mind. To judge by the faces of the Maquar and Durpari with him, he was not alone. Eight soldiers plus himself and Bascou made a small force, especially with an enemy lurking somewhere just out of sight.
"There, do you think?" Bascou said, pointing to the border of the Aerilpar in the nearing distance.
He indicated a narrow parting in the otherwise thick, unrelenting line of trees at the edge of the forest. The trees to either side of the path stood tall and straight at their bases, their tops leaning in toward one another with centuries of branches weighing them down. The opening looked like nothing so much as the mouth of some cursed cave, beckoning fools to enter.
"It is the only break in the trees. Surely it must be what the invaders use to gain entrance to the forest," Taennen said.
"Exactly. We will find them quickly, will we not?" Bascou said with a smile.
"But they will know the area and could be expecting us to take the most obvious path to find them. If we cut a path through another part of the forest, we could come at them from a different-" He stopped when the Chondathan leader waved him off.
"Quicker is better. We will find them faster if we go this way. We will go this way," Bascou said.
Taennen could think of a hundred arguments against the idea, but all were quelled by his training and, he could not deny, his thoughts of earning back Jhoqo's trust. Taennen nodded to Bascou and fell into step behind the man, marching toward the mouth of the forest.
As they entered, the dense foliage of the trees blocked the light, making the interior of the woods a world of night in the middle of the sun-drenched plains. They pushed through underbrush that, while mostly cleared, slowed their progress. As their eyes adjusted, the darkness was not as deep as it had seemed at first. Trickles of light filtered down through the canopy, and their ears filled with the sounds of the wild. On the plains silence reigned, but in the forest the sounds of beasts none of them had dreamed of held court. Men were trespassers in that kingdom.
Chirping, squawking, buzzing, and something akin to the tittering of tiny children filled the air as Taennen brushed broad leaves from his path. Bascou navigated