Son of Thunder - Murray J. D. Leeder [73]
"You would kill me to protect that thing?" he growled, waving a weak hand in the stone unicorn's direction.
"No," Royce said. "Because we want you dead."
"We're only here because of Geildarr!" he protested. "He wanted me dead, and…"
"Please," Royce protested. "You've given us plenty of reasons to hate you."
"You would murder a priest of Cyric?" he asked, blood dribbling from his mouth down his chin. He raised his shoulders in a pathetic gesture of contrition.
"Somehow," Ardeth said, "I doubt the Lord of Murder will mind."
Royce released another crossbow bolt, this one hitting Leng through his cheek and driving into his brain. Whether it killed him on impact or not they did not know, but he fell back into the fast-flowing water and was swept away by the current, carried off by its fury. The last they saw of Leng was a flash of his purple robes as the Unicorn Run dragged him around a bend.
The four survivors spun to face the stone unicorn, the spirit of the Run, which seemed unaffected by Leng's destruction. It was almost upon them.
"Shall we run?" asked Gunton. "Downstream, perhaps?"
"What good would it do?" asked Royce. All around them, unicorn heads now poked out of the forest-they were utterly surrounded, as well as outnumbered.
"We must stand our ground," Ardeth said.
"What?" asked Royce.
"We must link hands," she said, reaching out to Gan. The hobgoblin took her small hand in his massive one.
"This is how we face death?" asked Royce, his brow furrowed.
"It's how we survive," said Ardeth, hanging her crossbow at her belt and grabbing Royce's hand. Shrugging, his head shaking, he took Gunton's hand as well. The four of them anxiously watched each step of the creature until it was almost upon them. "Patience," said Ardeth, and its shadow fell on them, blacking out the sun like an eclipse. "And don't let go."
There, in that deep black shadow, they vanished, borne away as if on a swift breeze.
The spirit dissipated, shedding its material form. It rejoined the rocks, waters, trees, and air. The woods grew silent as the unicorns slipped away, the threat gone.
And the river kept on flowing, clean and pure.
CHAPTER 12
"We can relax now," Ardeth said. All the beautiful colors around them bleached away from the land, replaced with pallid blacks, grays, and whites. The Unicorn Run was transformed to a literal shadow of itself-ripples of dark mingling with flashes of white. The forest around them trembled with gray leaves.
"What happened to the world?" asked Gan.
"It's still there, but we're not," Gunton supplied. "This is the Plane of Shadow." He turned to Ardeth. "You're more of a wizard than you let on."
"I am just an initiate," Ardeth said. "But I have a trick or two. This place isn't safe either. We should get moving. Do not lose hold of me, or you could all be stranded in this place, or lost in one of a thousand worlds." She led the others north, in the direction of the Star Mounts, or rather the massive white peaks that stood in their place, wavering and trembling against a starless black sky.
The experience was unnerving for Gan, as a trembling world shorn of color zipped by them. They moved faster than they possibly could on Faerun, traveling up the rising hills. Soon the smoky spires towered around them on all sides. Ardeth told the others to be still, and soon the darkness melted away as light and color broke through.
They found themselves standing in a high alpine valley, disturbing a family of curly-horned sheep that dashed away over jagged rocks. The sudden blast of sunlight was an assault on their senses. The ground was rocky with generous vegetation-mosses, lichens, and fragile cedars sprouting from every free spot-and great mountains soared all around. These weren't just any mountains, but the fabled Star Mounts. High on the cliffs they could glimpse blue-purple shapes, like vast crystals.
It took the group several long