Tavalon

The people who had cut the trail to Tavalon had not expected to vanish.

Zook decided that on the second day.

The route west from Windmarch was not a road in any proper sense, but someone had spent considerable effort making it passable. Branches had been cut back where the forest pressed close, stones dragged away from steep sections, and shallow steps hacked into places where the land dropped too sharply for carts or heavily loaded travelers. Farther on, rough wooden bridges crossed narrow cuts where spring water had eaten through the soil.

None of it was old.

Grass had not yet reclaimed the cleared edges, and axe marks remained pale inside the bark. Whoever had established the archaeological camp at Tavalon had expected people to come and go often enough that improving the route had been worth the trouble.

Now no one was using it.

For two days the five of them had seen no other travelers.

Zook walked ahead, as he usually did, following the evidence of people who were no longer there.

There were plenty of signs at first. Old bootprints preserved beneath overhangs, grooves where supply carts had fought through softer ground, places where pack animals had been tied while someone repaired a wheel or adjusted a load. None were recent enough to matter individually, but together they formed a story.

People had gone west.

For some time, people had come back.

Then they had stopped.

Zook did not like trails that ended that way.

Rain began on the third morning.

It came gently at first, a whisper through leaves, then settled into the sort of steady gray weather that made distances seem farther than they were. Water collected along the path and darkened the trees almost to black. Deacon covered his crossbow as well as he could, Vegon complained once about moisture getting into his books, and Jandar spent perhaps half an hour insisting that someone had promised him archaeology would involve indoor work.

“No one promised you anything,” Deacon said.

“Someone implied it.”

“Who?”

“I don’t remember.”

“Convenient.”

Zook smiled and kept walking.

The forest had changed since Windmarch. The trees grew taller here and closer together, their roots gripping slopes where stone pushed through the earth in long gray ridges. Every few miles the land offered another reminder that the Sundering had not merely redrawn maps. A shelf of stone would appear where no shelf should have been, or a stream would cut through rock at an angle that suggested the water had found its course after something much larger had broken.

Zook knew forests. He understood hills, rivers, erosion, animal paths and the slow work of roots.

This land looked as though some of it had arrived all at once.

That thought stayed with him as they crossed the river.

The expedition had built a narrow bridge there, little more than thick timbers laid across old supports, but it was sound enough. Zook crossed first, tested the far bank and waved the others over.

Jandar stopped halfway.

“Why are you doing that?”

Jandar looked down at the water. “Doing what?”

“Standing there.”

“I’m appreciating the bridge.”

Deacon had reached the middle behind him. “Appreciate it from the other side.”

“You have no respect for craftsmanship.”

“I respect moving.”

Jandar continued.

Zook waited until all of them were safely across before turning west again. He had begun noticing something else about the path.

The expedition had grown less careful the farther it went.

Not careless. Hurried.

Near Windmarch, every difficult turn had been widened and every fallen tree cut cleanly away. Here, someone had dragged branches aside rather than remove them. Repairs had been made quickly. At one muddy section, a broken plank had simply been laid over the worst of it.

“Maybe they were tired of building roads,” Jandar suggested when Zook mentioned it.

“Maybe.”

Deacon looked ahead. “Or they wanted to get where they were going.”

That was what Zook thought too.

Late that afternoon, the path began to climb.

The rain had softened to mist, but water still fell from the canopy in heavy drops. Zook noticed the stone first, a smooth curve visible through the trees where the hillside had been cut away.

He stopped.

Deacon came up behind him. “What?”

Zook pointed.

At first it looked like a boulder.

Then Vegon reached them and went still.

“That isn’t natural.”

“No,” Zook said.

Jandar emerged through the trees behind Xil. “What isn’t?”

They climbed another twenty yards.

The shape resolved slowly.

A brow.

An eye.

The upper curve of a cheek.

Stone larger than houses rose from the hillside, half excavated and half buried beneath earth, roots and centuries of growth. Rainwater ran down a face carved on a scale Zook had never imagined anyone attempting. The visible portion was only the head, tilted slightly where the broken statue—or whatever remained of it—had disappeared beneath the land.

For several moments nobody spoke.

That was unusual enough that Zook looked back.

Vegon stared openly.

Deacon had lowered his crossbow.

Xil stood with rain gathering in his pale hair, studying the enormous stone eye.

Jandar finally said, “Well.”

Zook smiled. “That’s what you said in the cave.”

“It continues to be useful.”

They moved closer.

The archaeologists had cleared much of the soil around the exposed head. Shovel cuts remained visible in the banks, and several wooden braces held loose earth away from one side. A few abandoned boards lay near a shallow trench.

Vegon stepped toward the carving.

“How large was the rest of it?”

“No idea,” Zook said.

“If the proportions are consistent—”

“Don’t.”

Vegon looked at him.

Zook pointed at the ground. “You’ll step on that.”

Vegon stopped with one boot suspended above a narrow depression in the mud.

He withdrew it.

Jandar nodded approvingly. “He’s learning.”

Vegon ignored him and crouched instead.

The carving was old beyond anything Zook knew how to measure. Weather had softened some of its details, but not enough to erase the workmanship. The eye alone was taller than Zook. Whoever had shaped it had expected the face to be seen from a distance.

A very great distance.

“Tavalon?” Xil asked.

Vegon looked toward the buried head. “Part of it.”

Zook studied the surrounding slope.

That was what bothered him.

If this was part of Tavalon, then the city was not merely ruined.

It was beneath them.

He was about to say so when something moved in the forest.

Not quietly.

Branches snapped downhill.

Leaves thrashed.

Several bodies were coming through the undergrowth without making any effort to hide.

Zook raised one hand.

The others reacted at once.

Deacon’s crossbow came free. Jandar drew his rapier and moved toward the nearest tree. Xil stepped behind the exposed stone of the great head, while Vegon backed away from the excavation cut where the mud offered poor footing.

The sounds grew closer.

“Not animals,” Zook whispered.

“How many?” Deacon asked.

Zook listened.

“Several.”

Jandar glanced toward him. “Several continues to be an unhelpful number.”

Zook drew his weapon. “Then count them when they arrive.”

The first figure broke through the trees.

Zook had never seen anything like it.

Its skin was blue, though the wet forest made the color appear almost gray. It stood upright and carried a crossbow in two hands.

It had two more arms beneath them.

A second creature appeared to its left, then another farther down the slope. One carried a spear and a heavy spiked weapon at the same time, its four arms moving independently with disturbing ease.

For half a heartbeat, everyone simply looked.

Jandar spoke first.

“Those are new.”

The first crossbow fired.

They scattered.

The bolt struck the great stone face hard enough to chip it.

Xil lifted his holy symbol and spoke, the words nearly lost beneath rain and shouting. A subtle warmth passed through Zook, brief but unmistakable, settling into his muscles like a hand between his shoulders.

Then the creatures attacked.

Deacon fired first.

His bolt struck one of the blue figures high in the torso and turned it sideways, but another had already raised its crossbow. Zook dropped behind a fallen log as the shot tore through leaves above him.

Vegon answered with magic.

A sphere of fire formed between his hands, bright against the gray afternoon. The spell trembled for one dangerous instant—Zook saw the familiar distortion crawl around its edge—before Vegon forced it steady and sent it across the clearing.

It struck one of the creatures and burst.

The thing screamed.

The smell of scorched leather and wet vegetation rolled through the rain.

“Still standing,” Deacon called.

“I noticed,” Vegon replied.

Zook moved.

He preferred not to fight from the same place twice, and the woods gave him options. He slipped around the fallen log, went low beneath a crossbow shot and closed on the creature Deacon had wounded.

It saw him coming.

Four arms made for too many choices.

One weapon came high. Another low.

Zook avoided the first, nearly lost a leg to the second and drove his own strike into the creature’s side as he passed. It turned faster than he expected.

He barely cleared the return swing.

“Four arms is cheating,” Jandar shouted from somewhere to his left.

“Tell it that!”

“I intend to!”

Jandar flashed past the edge of the clearing and suddenly appeared beside Vegon, intercepting a creature that had broken through toward the wizard. His rapier caught one of its weapons aside; he stepped inside the reach of another, turned his body impossibly narrow and forced the creature to follow him rather than Vegon.

Deacon’s next bolt hit it from the side.

Jandar glanced over. “You waited.”

“I had a shot.”

“You always say that.”

Another crossbow fired.

Jandar ducked.

“Less talking,” Deacon said.

Zook smiled despite the creature in front of him.

Then its spear came around.

He had been watching the wrong pair of arms.

The point caught him before he could move.

There was a hard impact, then pain so immediate it seemed to empty the world.

Zook stumbled.

He tried to step back and discovered his leg had forgotten how.

The forest tilted.

Someone shouted his name.

He saw wet leaves very close to his face.

Then nothing.

Cold water ran into Zook’s ear.

That was the first thing he knew.

The second was that breathing hurt.

He pulled air in anyway.

It came shallow and ragged, but it came.

For several seconds he remained exactly where he was, cheek pressed against mud, listening to battle somewhere beyond him. Metal struck metal. Deacon’s crossbow snapped. Vegon shouted something arcane, followed by a crack of energy and the smell of lightning.

Zook opened his eyes.

A blue-skinned creature stood ten feet away with its back to him.

That seemed rude.

He found his weapon.

Getting his fingers around it required more thought than usual.

Standing required even more.

He made it to one knee.

The creature heard him.

It turned.

Two of its arms lifted.

Zook rose anyway.

The expression on its face changed.

He liked that.

“Surprise,” he managed.

He struck low.

The creature recoiled just enough for Deacon’s bolt to arrive over Zook’s shoulder.

It hit with enough force to drive the creature backward.

Jandar appeared a moment later and finished what the bolt had started.

Then he looked at Zook.

“You were dead.”

Zook leaned on his weapon. “Apparently not.”

“Excellent.”

“Don’t start.”

Jandar actually laughed.

Xil reached them and immediately looked at Zook’s injuries.

“Sit.”

“I just got up.”

“Sit.”

Zook sat.

The fight continued around them, but it had turned. Two of the strange creatures were down, another badly burned, and the remaining ones were being pushed toward the trees.

Xil put a hand against Zook’s side.

Warmth spread through him.

The healing hurt less than breathing had.

“Better?” Xil asked.

Zook considered. “Some.”

“Stay here.”

Zook looked toward the battle.

“No.”

Xil’s eyes narrowed.

Zook stood more carefully this time. “Some was enough.”

Xil looked as though he intended to argue.

Then Vegon’s magic struck one of the remaining attackers, a streak of force hammering into it from several directions at once, and Deacon shouted for space.

The argument could wait.

They finished the fight together.

It did not end cleanly. The last creatures were too stubborn and too well armed for that, but once the five stopped reacting to what they were and began treating them simply as enemies, the balance shifted quickly.

Deacon controlled the open ground.

Jandar forced them to turn.

Vegon struck whenever a line opened.

Xil kept everyone standing.

Zook stayed close enough to make the creatures regret having four arms because none of them could easily reach straight down.

Eventually the final blue figure collapsed into the wet leaves.

For a few seconds there was only rain.

Zook bent forward with both hands on his knees.

Jandar looked at him. “Still alive?”

“Stop checking.”

“I feel the question has become reasonable.”

Deacon walked among the bodies, crossbow ready in case any of them disagreed about being dead.

Vegon crouched near one of the creatures.

“Do you know what it is?” Xil asked.

“No.”

Jandar sighed.

Vegon looked up. “Would you prefer I invent an answer?”

“Not when you phrase it that way.”

Zook examined the tracks leading back into the woods. The creatures had come from the direction they were already traveling.

That mattered more than their name.

“They came from Tavalon.”

Deacon joined him. “Sure?”

“They came along the expedition trail.”

“Could have crossed it.”

“Could have.”

Deacon gave him a look.

Zook smiled faintly. “But they didn’t.”

They followed the trail to the edge of the ridge.

The land dropped sharply ahead.

The expedition had cut narrow steps into the cliff face, reinforced in places with timber and rope. The descent looked to be seventy feet or more, and water made the stone slick.

Jandar peered over the edge.

“No.”

Deacon walked past him toward the first step.

Jandar looked offended. “Was there a discussion?”

“No.”

“Good. I thought perhaps I had missed another leadership ceremony.”

Deacon began descending.

Zook went after him, slower than he would have liked because his side objected whenever he twisted. Xil stayed close enough to notice.

Zook pretended not to.

By the time they reached the bottom, the gray afternoon had begun surrendering to evening.

They found shelter near the cliff and stopped.

No one argued.

That alone told Zook how tired they were.

The rain continued through much of the night, tapping against whatever cover they could arrange. Deacon checked his crossbow twice. Vegon spent part of the evening drying pages with more concern than he had shown for his own clothes. Jandar examined a cut in his coat and declared it a personal insult.

Xil checked Zook again.

Zook allowed it.

Mostly.

“You’re lucky,” Xil said.

“I know.”

“You were closer than you think.”

Zook looked toward the fire.

“I know that too.”

Xil seemed to believe him.

The night passed without attack.

By morning the rain had weakened to mist, and they continued west.

The enormous head stayed in Zook’s thoughts.

He had seen old ruins before. Broken walls. Abandoned towers. Foundations buried beneath villages that had forgotten who first laid the stone.

The head was different.

It did not feel abandoned.

It felt buried.

There was a distinction.

An abandoned place had been left behind by people.

Tavalon looked as though the world had fallen on top of it.

The expedition trail continued another day and into the next. Evidence of the archaeologists grew more frequent as they approached the site: cut brush, stacked equipment, wheel marks preserved under trees, scraps of cord, a broken tool handle discarded beside the path.

Near midday on the fifth day, Zook smelled smoke.

Old smoke.

Then blood.

He stopped so abruptly that Jandar nearly walked into him.

“What?”

Zook raised a hand.

Jandar’s expression changed immediately.

Deacon moved forward. “What do you have?”

“Camp.”

“You see it?”

“Smell it.”

They approached carefully.

Ravens lifted from the trees ahead.

Too many.

Black wings crossed the pale sky, circled and settled again.

Zook no longer needed the smell.

They found the first tent thirty yards later.

Or what remained of it.

Canvas hung in burned strips from a collapsed frame. One side had been ripped open, leaving long tears through the heavy cloth. A table lay upside down nearby, its legs broken. Papers had turned to pulp beneath several days of weather.

Beyond it spread the camp.

No one spoke.

Tents had been knocked flat or burned. Crates stood open, some smashed entirely, their contents scattered through mud. Picks, shovels and brushes lay where they had fallen. A large canvas awning had collapsed across several worktables.

Blood marked everything.

Dark stains in the dirt.

Smears across torn cloth.

A handprint on the side of a crate.

Far more than Zook wanted to see.

But there were no bodies.

Not whole ones.

Jandar stopped beside something in the mud and looked away.

Zook did not need to look closely.

He did anyway.

A piece of someone remained where the rest did not.

Across the camp, ravens argued over another.

Xil’s face became very still.

Deacon raised his crossbow and scanned the tree line.

“Survivors?”

Zook shook his head. “Not here.”

Vegon moved toward one of the ruined tables, careful not to disturb anything. “Could they have fled?”

“Some did.”

Four heads turned toward Zook.

He was already crouching.

The mud was ruined by rain and too many feet, but ruined did not mean empty.

There were human tracks.

Many.

Some ordinary movement within the camp.

Others running.

He found one bootprint dug deep at the toe, another where someone had slipped, then a smear where a body or injured person had fallen and risen again.

Then he found the gnolls.

Large pads and claw marks pressed over the human trail.

Deacon saw his face.

“Gnolls?”

“Yes.”

His jaw tightened.

Zook kept looking.

There were other tracks mixed among them.

Longer stride.

Different weight.

Foot shape unlike gnoll or human.

He followed three impressions toward a burned tent.

Same spacing.

Same pressure.

He had seen those tracks before.

“The blue ones too.”

Jandar looked toward him. “Our friends from the statue?”

“Same kind, I think.”

Vegon stepped away from the table. “Working with the gnolls?”

Zook studied where both sets of tracks crossed.

“At least attacking the same camp.”

It was the most he could prove.

Deacon understood the distinction.

“Direction?”

Zook moved through the wreckage.

The attackers had entered from more than one side, but afterward the story simplified. Blood, bootprints and claw marks all converged toward the northern edge of camp.

One trail.

A bad one.

Someone had been bleeding heavily.

Possibly several someones.

Zook stood.

“North.”

Xil looked toward the trees.

“The archaeologists?”

“Some of them.”

“Alive?”

“When they left here.”

That was all Zook could promise.

They searched only long enough to make certain no wounded person had been overlooked. The camp yielded no hidden survivor and no explanation. There were tools everywhere, supplies, fragments of notes too wet or damaged to tell them much, and the evidence of people interrupted in the middle of ordinary work.

That was what Zook found worst.

A cup still sat beside one ruined table.

A pickaxe lay where someone had dropped it beside an excavation trench.

One tent contained a bedroll still neatly folded at the foot of a cot while the entire opposite wall had been torn away.

They had expected another night.

Instead, something had come for them.

Zook returned to the blood trail.

“We should move.”

No one argued.

They went north.

The land changed quickly beyond the camp.

At first Zook thought the scattered stones were natural. Then one line became too straight.

A wall.

Or what remained of one.

Another rose farther ahead, broken almost to ground level. Trees grew through both. A section of carved stone protruded from the earth at an angle, followed by another and another until Zook realized he was looking at the upper edges of buildings.

Tavalon.

Not the expedition.

The city itself.

The trail led directly into it.

They crossed between two broken walls as afternoon faded.

The deeper they went, the harder it became to understand what had once been above ground and what had once been below. Some structures stood several stories tall before disappearing into piles of rubble. Others showed only their uppermost windows above soil and roots. An old tower leaned over the ruins, one side torn open so that rain and centuries had filled its lower levels with debris.

The scale bothered Zook more than the destruction.

There had been a city here.

A great one.

Then the world had broken, and nearly all of it had vanished beneath the land.

He looked at the ruined streets around him and tried to imagine enough people to fill them.

Could not.

That might have been the strangest part.

The stories of the Sundering had always sounded distant to him: kings, wizards, dragons, the Hand, Fyros, great battles spoken about so often that the words had become smooth from handling.

A carved head taller than a house was not smooth.

Neither were buried streets.

Those were real.

Night found them among the ruins.

There had been no sudden darkness, nothing magical about it. The sun simply disappeared behind cloud and broken stone until moonlight became the brightest thing left.

Zook continued ahead.

Xil moved near him where the darkness mattered less to his drow eyes. Behind them came Jandar and Deacon, with Vegon farther back where there was less chance of someone surprising him at arm’s reach.

The blood trail weakened.

Rain had damaged it, and stone held almost nothing.

Zook found a smear on one broken wall, then several bootprints in soft dirt beside an old tower.

After that, nothing.

He stopped.

Deacon’s voice came quietly from behind him.

“Lost it?”

“For now.”

Jandar looked around the ruined city. “Wonderful place to lose a trail.”

Zook ignored him and crouched.

Sometimes when the ground stopped telling the story, everything else did.

Broken branches.

Disturbed rubble.

Birds.

Smell.

Sound.

He listened.

Wind moved through the shattered tower.

Water dripped somewhere below street level.

Farther away, stone scraped softly against stone.

Zook lifted his head.

Xil heard it too.

“Left,” the drow whispered.

They moved toward the sound.

A low wall blocked part of the street ahead. Beyond it, pale moonlight spilled into an open space between ruins.

Something stood there.

At first Zook thought it was a person.

Human shape.

Torn clothing.

Head hanging forward.

It moved slowly through the rubble.

Jandar came up beside him.

“Survivor?”

Zook did not answer.

The figure stepped into the moonlight.

Its skin was gray.

One side of its face had been torn open.

No living person should have been standing with that wound.

The figure raised its head.

Its eyes found them.

Then another shape moved behind it.

And another.

Zook drew his weapon.

The dead began walking toward them.