The Familiars #3: Circle of Heroes Read online

  “None were more famous than a brilliant young warlock named Yajmada. He started a secret sect—what some called a cult—that would become known as the Noctonati.”

  Aldwyn noticed Skylar glance down at her anklet upon hearing the word. Lothar saw her, too, as Orion continued.

  “Back then, just like now, there was a limit to how much magic it was believed one person or animal should have. This was a philosophy that some disagreed with, and none more outspokenly so than Yajmada. The king heard of his rebellion and gave Yajmada a swift and harsh warning. When the Noctonati kept meeting, the king had his soldiers burn their library. The warlock vowed that in return, he would ruin what the king loved most: Jabal Tur.

  “Using all the forbidden knowledge that he had accumulated over the years, Yajmada constructed a suit of armor with four diamonds, each containing the essence of one of the four kinds of rain clouds. Together, these storm diamonds could summon a tempest that would destroy the city. The king foolishly thought the warlock’s threats were empty. The ruins you see before you are proof they were not.”

  Aldwyn looked back at the ruins with new eyes. What he assumed was a city that had fallen into natural decline over time had actually been the victim of a battle over who controlled magical power.

  “Thousands were killed, but Yajmada made one mistake: the king was not among them. Wizards from lands near and far were recruited, and together they tracked down the warlock. Upon his capture, the four storm diamonds were separated and kept under guard.”

  “I know how this story ends,” said Simeon. “For hundreds of years, the jewels remained safe, until two dark mages, Uriel Wyvern and Jakab Skull, raised a Dead Army to overpower the strongholds that protected them. They succeeded in collecting three of the four storm diamonds, but before they could unearth the last, Kalstaff, Loranella, and the Mountain Alchemist defeated them. The diamonds were split apart once more, but this time they were not only guarded but hidden, their locations made a mystery. To this day they have remained unfound.”

  Aldwyn was quite certain that he had seen one of these very diamonds in the cellar at Stone Runlet, embedded in Yajmada’s armor. Now hardly seemed an opportune time to share his discovery with the others.

  The group was getting closer to the mountain now, and Aldwyn could see several large cave entrances. Piles of ore were stacked nearby, alongside abandoned mine carts.

  Just then Lothar let out a howl. Everyone turned, but it was too late for the wolverine’s cry to alert anyone to his whereabouts. Or was it? If there were zombies here, Lothar’s heightened sense of smell would have detected them first.

  “Who were you signaling?” Aldwyn demanded.

  “I have no idea what you’re talking about.” Lothar raised his eyebrow to make it clear he was lying.

  Then Aldwyn’s ears picked up a noise from the direction of the mine entrances. He turned to see a dozen skeletal figures slinking out from the darkness and moving swiftly toward the familiars. As they got closer, Aldwyn could see that they were zombie cats. Not big ones like the great cats that had risen from the Chordata Plains. These were Aldwyn’s size, some perhaps even from Maidenmere.

  Orion stamped his hooves, preparing to charge. A confrontation appeared inevitable.

  “Forget about them,” Skylar called out to the lightmare. “Head for the Canyon!”

  Unfortunately the only path to the crack in the Kailasa mountains was through this new attacking enemy.

  Lothar, still shackled behind Orion, called out to the zombie cats, “Free me from these chains. I, too, am loyal to Paksahara.”

  Aldwyn could now get a better look at the cat who was leading the group. The spike poking through the rotting cartilage of the zombie cat’s ear left little doubt about who it was.

  Aldwyn was stunned. He thought he had seen the last of his traitorous uncle Malvern at the Crown of the Snow Leopard, when Paksahara’s misguided blast had sent him to the Tomorrowlife. It had never crossed Aldwyn’s mind that his uncle could come back from the dead to join the other animal zombies in Paksahara’s army.

  “Hello, nephew,” said the zombie Malvern. “How do you like my new look? I think it really accentuates my cheekbones.”

  He turned to reveal that the flesh and fur once covering his face was gone, exposing nothing but bone.

  Aldwyn could feel all his rage boiling up inside him. Malvern was the cat who had betrayed his father and murdered his mother.

  “You know, I only had one regret the day you died,” Aldwyn said. “I wish I’d killed you myself.”

  “Well, you’ve got your chance now,” replied Malvern.

  The zombie cat took a flying leap, digging a claw into Orion’s hide and pulling himself up beside Aldwyn. He swung a bony leg at his nephew, his claw catching on the whisper shell necklace. Malvern pulled so hard it almost snapped free, but Aldwyn fought him back.

  “You already took away my family once,” said Aldwyn. “I won’t let you do it again.”

  Malvern lunged out and bit Aldwyn’s ankle, tearing at the flesh with his teeth. Aldwyn stifled a scream, unwilling to give his uncle even a moment’s satisfaction.

  Skylar flew over and started pecking at Malvern, while Gilbert began slapping at him with his flower bud backpack. Aldwyn’s cruel uncle was distracted by these nuisances for just a second, but it was enough time to allow Aldwyn to give a hard kick to the zombie cat’s exposed jawbone. It knocked out a few loose teeth and sent Malvern tumbling to the ground.

  Skylar took to the sky and began plucking bright yellow storm berries from her satchel and throwing them at the half dozen zombie cats standing in their way. Storm clouds immediately formed in the air. Tiny lightning bolts began shooting out from the clouds, one singeing Skylar’s wing tip. The other lightning bolts struck the zombie cats, halting their attack. Orion kicked up his hooves and barreled past them, making a run for the Abyssmal Canyon. Aldwyn looked back at Malvern, who hissed at him from the dirt. There was little doubt that the two would be meeting again. Then the lightmare, with Lothar still in tow behind him, dashed into the crevice, leaving the zombie soldiers of the Dead Army behind.

  The crack at the base of the Kailasa mountains was just three horses wide at the entrance but hundreds of feet tall. As they entered the Canyon beyond, it widened slightly, but not enough to get rid of the claustrophobic feeling Aldwyn was having of being stuck between two rock walls. Above, he could just make out a sliver of dusky sky. He felt like the entire mountain could come crumbling down on them at any moment.

  Telekinetically removing a stretch of cloth from Skylar’s satchel, he wrapped it around his bleeding ankle. Now the bite taken out of his ear would be joined by another battle wound.

  “You okay?” asked Gilbert.

  “Yeah,” replied Aldwyn. “It’s nothing.”

  “I wasn’t talking about your ankle,” said the tree frog. “I was talking about seeing your uncle.”

  “Oh, that. I’m fine.” But even as the words came out, he knew that they didn’t sound very convincing.

  Skylar removed the Olfax tracking snout from the Mobius pouch. “Find us a white-tailed mongoose and a king cobra. Follow the same scent Grimslade had you track once before.”

  The nostrils immediately began sniffing the air.

  “Gilbert, you hold on to it,” said Skylar, passing the snout to him. “If it starts tugging you, let us know.”

  “Am I the only one who gets creeped out by this?” asked Gilbert. The disembodied nose suddenly let out a loud sneeze. “Aw, and it’s allergic to me, too. Just my luck.”

  “This is a brick that has fallen from the Bridge of Betrayal,” said Orion, who had stopped to examine another artifact. “It has the markings of Brannfalk’s throne.” He scooped it up and dropped it in his saddlebag before continuing on.

  “I get collecting shields and rare jewelry,” said Gilbert. “But bricks?”

  The lightmare smiled. “This is not just any brick, but one that dates back over two hundred yea
rs, and it tells a story as rich as any other artifact.”

  Aldwyn looked up at the steep walls and could see the peaks of the mountain high above them, blanketed in snow. He remembered how along with Skylar and Gilbert, he had crossed the Bridge of Betrayal. There he’d learned firsthand how quickly friends could turn into enemies when under the spell of the bridge’s cursed stones. They’d spent the night huddled within one of the mountain’s caves, where they had discovered walls painted with stories of animal magic and had battled a cave troll that nearly crushed them.

  Now, as they continued deeper into the silent Canyon, Banshee pulled out her drum and, first quietly, then more firmly, started to play. Boom bah bah boom. Boom bah bah boom. The sound resonated beautifully within the cathedral-like space.

  Almost involuntarily, Aldwyn began to move his head to the beat, and he could see that the others did, too. It was a nice reprieve from the heaviness of everything they had endured on their journey so far.

  “The howler monkeys in my village play the drums to communicate across vast distances,” said Banshee. “But more importantly, they play to lift the spirits and feel at one with their heartbeats.”

  Her hands tapped the sides and top of her drum, coaxing a surprising variety of sounds out of the simple wooden instrument.

  “Sometimes all it takes is a steady rhythm to make life’s problems go away for a little while.”

  The familiars were nodding along and getting swept up in the moment. Then the sound of Lothar’s laughter wrecked the mood.

  “What’s so funny?” asked Aldwyn.

  “I was just thinking about how much I’m going to enjoy telling the story of how the heroes of Vastia danced to the beat of a drum while the second glyphstone was being destroyed.”

  Through the narrow crack that led into the Canyon they could see a funnel of gray ash soaring up to the sky—the same thing that had happened when the glyphstone in Bridgetower had crumbled.

  The sobering sight increased the urgency of their mission. Orion began moving faster again. Simeon continued to run at the lightmare’s side, showing no signs of his age or fatigue.

  Suddenly Gilbert’s shoulder bumped into Aldwyn. The tree frog was trying to hold on to the Olfax tracking snout, but the force with which it was pulling him forward nearly threw him off Orion’s back.

  “Is this what you meant by ‘tugging me’?” asked Gilbert.

  Aldwyn reached out his paw and grabbed the gold chain, helping his friend tame the snout.

  “Looks like it’s trying to lead us down that gorge,” said Skylar.

  Aldwyn looked where she was pointing her wing and saw an offshoot of the main canyon that quickly twisted out of view. The animals turned and headed for the narrow passage. As they entered, the ground became sandier and the way darker.

  Orion moved forward, following the snout, which was pulling them toward a fork in the canyon. The eastern passageway’s walls were covered with crude drawings of white-tailed mongooses slaying king cobras with astral claws. On the western passageway’s walls, the cobras were shown as the victors, overpowering the mongooses with blasts of venom shooting from their fangs.

  Grimslade’s magic tracking device was sniffing in both directions, tugging Gilbert back and forth.

  “Now what?” asked the tree frog.

  “The cobras must live in one canyon, and the mongooses in the other,” said Skylar. “Let’s split up and meet back here. Aldwyn, Banshee, and I will collect a mongoose. Orion, Simeon, and Gilbert, you’ll retrieve a cobra.”

  “Whoa, hold on a sec,” said Gilbert. “How did I end up on the team looking for the snake? Last time I checked, they were poisonous and enjoyed eating frogs.”

  “They do indeed have a reputation for being ruthless killers that shoot their venom blasts first and ask questions later …,” said Skylar.

  “Not helping,” said Gilbert.

  “… but they are also fair and noble, and I’m sure after they learn of our quest, one of their kind will join us.”

  “No matter how you cut it, they’re still snakes,” said the tree frog.

  Orion had walked up to an ancient painting in the center of the divide. “Everybody, look at this,” he called.

  Aldwyn approached the picture and studied it more closely. Six animals—a bloodhound, a golden toad, a king cobra, a howler monkey, a wolverine, and a mongoose—were standing in a circle around a glyphstone, along with a man.

  “This must record the time just after the lightmares left the First Phylum,” said Orion.

  “Look how their magical energy is all connected,” said Simeon.

  It was true: sunlight seemed to be shooting out from each of the seven in the circle, striking the glyphstone.

  “So the Shifting Fortress could be summoned with a human,” Banshee said with surprise.

  “Look how well the different species work together,” said Gilbert.

  “Listen to you fools, reveling in its beauty,” snarled Lothar. “All I see is the foolish, trusting eyes of those animals, who have no idea of the traitorous deception that man is planning. Can’t you see that picture for what it is? An atrocity.”

  “I warned you once already about trying to breed discord among us,” said Orion. “You will not poison our unity.”

  “I’d listen to him if I were you,” Aldwyn told Lothar. “According to that painting, you can be replaced by a human.”

  “I wish that were the case,” said Skylar. “But they’re all channeling magic, and no human in Vastia possesses any right now because of Paksahara’s curse.”

  Lothar flashed a smug grin.

  “Come on,” continued Skylar. “Let’s hurry before it gets any darker in this canyon. Banshee, Aldwyn, come with me. We’re going this way.”

  “What about the Olfax tracking snout?” asked Gilbert. “We can’t both use it.”

  “I’m sure you won’t need it to find the cobras,” said Skylar. “They’ll find you.”

  Skylar started toward the eastern passageway, with Banshee and Aldwyn following right behind her. Gilbert gave a nervous gulp and the others headed west, quickly disappearing from view.

  As Skylar, Banshee, and Aldwyn traveled deeper into mongoose territory, they came across constant reminders of the feud these white-tailed mammals had with their reptilian neighbors. The snakeheads on spears were a first clue. Cobra skins nailed to the wall were further evidence of the bad blood between the two species.

  “Not exactly the friendliest way to welcome visitors,” said Banshee.

  “Not if you’re a snake, anyway,” said Aldwyn.

  “Well, luckily none of us have scales,” said Skylar.

  Peering into the nooks and crannies of the rocky walls, Aldwyn saw small triangular beacons of aqua blue light floating toward him. At first he dismissed them as freak reflections of the moon, but then the beacons sped up and headed straight for Aldwyn’s neck and took hold. He stifled a scream and saw that Skylar and Banshee, too, had these strange, disembodied claws gripping their necks. They were in fact astral claws—sharp, blue, glowing blades attached to no hand or body.

  “Spies of the cobras will suffer as they do,” said a mongoose standing in the shadows.

  “We don’t stand with the cobras,” said Aldwyn, choking out his words. Skylar quickly added: “We need one from your species for a mission of the utmost importance. We need a white-tailed mongoose to help ensure the survival of Vastia.”

  Another mongoose hidden in the darkness of the rocks, this one female, said: “Could she be telling the truth?”

  “If you are in league with the fork tongues, we will put your heads on stakes, too,” said the first mongoose.

  The astral claws released their strangleholds, and several dozen mongooses emerged from the shadows. They were small and rather adorable; certainly not the kind of animal one would expect to battle king cobras.

  One of the white-tails stepped forward. The long, gray hairs growing from his chin gave him the appearance of having
a beard.

  “You must forgive our caution,” he said, and Aldwyn recognized his voice as the one they had first heard. “Our dispute with the cobras goes back centuries. They are a devious and untrustworthy band of belly crawlers. They eat their own young when they are hungry.”

  “And those are some of their nicer qualities,” added the female mongoose.

  “We need one from your clan to join us,” repeated Skylar. “The evil hare Paksahara is trying to conquer all of Vastia. She will not spare any human or animal that defies her. Even here hidden away in the Abyssmal Canyon.”

  “We know about her plan,” said the bearded mongoose. “Her minions tried to recruit us but we refused. I’m sure the same cannot be said of the cobras.”

  “I will go,” said the female mongoose.

  “But, Marati,” the bearded mongoose started to protest. “We need you here. To help protect against our enemy.”

  “I’m sorry, Father. There is a greater enemy out there. I’m going to help these animals with whatever it is they need me for.”

  Marati walked to join Aldwyn, Skylar, and Banshee. Then she turned back to her clan. “But should I encounter any cobras on my journey, I will be sure to bring back their heads.”

  The mongooses all let out a cheer.

  Aldwyn and Skylar exchanged a look. If Marati stayed true to her promise, their plans just got a lot more complicated.

  12

  POISON DARTS AND POCKET DRAGONS

  Skylar and Aldwyn had taken the lead back down the canyon toward the agreed-upon meeting place at the divide. Banshee and Marati trailed a few yards behind them.

  “You think it’s time to tell Marati that she’s going to have to team up with her sworn enemy to do this?” Skylar quietly asked Aldwyn.

  “Absolutely not,” replied Aldwyn. “Sometimes it’s best to refrain from sharing all information.”

  “You mean lie?”

  “No. More like not tell the whole truth.”