The Lost Library of Cormanthy - Mel Odom [17]
Xuxa, he called.
I am here, Baylee.
Stay with the girl. Protect her if she needs it. Baylee saw her again, still fleeing through the forest, instinctively reading the terrain herself and making for a defensible position. Her rapid departure from the area bothered him somewhat. Together, they could have made a stronger stance against the orcs. And Jaeleen had weapons.
We owe her nothing.
No, but I mean to see her protected. Still in full flight, Baylee sprang for a thick limb overhead. Skillfully, he transferred his forward momentum into climbing as he scampered up the tree as easily as most men might scale a ladder. The leather work gloves protected his hands from the rough bark. He carried the sling in his mouth as he took care not to disturb the branches with his climb.
My place is with you.
Xuxa, please don't argue now.
The azmyth bat made a sound of displeasure.
Glancing upward through the tree, the sky limned by the quarter moon and looking a dark sapphire color now that the sun had dropped below the rim, Baylee saw the angular bat's body suddenly flip in mid-flap and alter course. Thank you.
Be safe, Baylee. Until we are together again. The bat streaked after the woman.
Baylee felt Xuxa's presence fade from his mind as the limits of the bat's telepathic abilities were exceeded. Being separated from Xuxa seemed unnatural after all these years. Even when he dropped off to sleep, Xuxa's mind-voice was generally the last thing he heard of an evening.
Jaeleen reached the high ground near the dig site, choosing an area that was ringed by high rock and dense brush. Her chances of holding the position looked good. But the probability remained that the orcs would choose to starve her out.
Baylee didn't intend for that to happen. He smiled grimly as he scouted the terrain and spotted the advancing line of orcs. Apparently none of them saw him take to the trees. They concentrated their efforts on closing on Jaeleen, calling to each other in their rough tongue. Baylee could only make out snatches of conversation. Even his prodigious knowledge of languages, both spoken and written, was taxed to figure out the orcish communications. Despite having common roots, few of the orcs held a common tongue.
The ranger moved through the trees with hardly a rustle. Exploring the elven environs of Cormanthor, in particular those in the Tangled Trees after Fannt Golsway had been invited by one of the elven families to pursue a lost cache of heirlooms thought destroyed when Myth Drannor fell, had schooled him in the ways of woodcraft. His mentor had only been partially successful in recovering the lost items, but in the months that Baylee had lived among the elves, he'd learned how to pass through the trees as if born there.
He swung from the branches, and landed with sure-footed balance on chosen limbs, closing in on his target. The orcs had the advantage of being able to see in the night, but Baylee's own abilities had been sharpened by long living in the wild. He hunted as easily by night as by day, moved as quietly. Catacombs often held no light either, save for torches carried along for that purpose. And those had to be used sparingly. He hadn't always made it back out with benefit of light. So he'd learned to trust his other senses and his intuition.
He hurled himself through the air again, landing on a thick-boled limb thirty feet above the ground. A pair of orcs ran through the brush, their path taking them beneath the tree he'd chosen.
The ranger released a tense breath and focused all his attention on the orcs. Both of them neared the base of the tree. Baylee let himself down through the limbs hurriedly, avoiding dead branches that could break off and fall below to warn the orcs. He dropped the final six feet, having no choice if he wanted to arrive in time.
He hooked his legs around one of the lower branches, then fell so he hung upside down. Both orcs heard him and tried to figure out where the sound came from.
"Cat!" one of them yelled out in warning.
The forest held a number of feline