Page 46 of Lake of Sorrow
The responding whuff sounded like the equivalent of obviously.
Levitke issued a querying whuff.
“Yes, you’re a good girl. Very helpful, thank you. Both of you.”
The next whuffs sounded smug.
Kaylina no longer doubted that the intelligent taybarri understood everything humans said.
Once she had Vlerion’s legs and arms astraddle, his chest and face smashed into blue fur, she climbed up behind him.
“I’ll hold him up here,” she told Levitke, lest she be upset that her rider was cheating on her with another taybarri.
Levitke trotted off into the ruins while Crenoch headed straight for the lake. As Kaylina gripped Vlerion’s bare legs to hold him in place, she glanced at his pack strapped between Crenoch’s shoulders, thinking of delving in for spare clothes. But it would be almost as hard to dress him as it was to lift him. Once he woke, he could handle that himself.
It concerned her that he hadn’t woken yet. In the dungeon, it had taken several minutes, but more time than that had passed now. And she didn’t think the battle against the Kar’ruk had lasted as long as the fight under the castle. Nor did he appear to have been injured as badly. A few shallow axe gouges bled here and there, but he’d been peppered with crossbow quarrels when he’d fought the Virts.
“If you’re not conscious by the time Crenoch gets us wherever, I’ll try waking you with a kiss.” Kaylina patted Vlerion’s thigh. “After I wash your face and mouth. You’re nasty right now, my lord.” She smiled, half-expecting him to wake to tell her that her honorific had been sarcastic rather than properly respectful. He did not.
Levitke caught up to them, carrying Vlerion’s sword, boots, and were those his torn clothes in her mouth?
“Thank you,” Kaylina said. “I forgot. And he would have been crabby if we left his sword behind.”
She was less certain he would want to put his underwear on after they’d been covered in saliva in a taybarri’s mouth, but maybe she wouldn’t mention that to him.
Crenoch padded through trees as they followed the shoreline of the lake, heading to the other side. More birds, insects, and other wildlife made noise, a sign that the forest had returned to normal.
Here and there, a few vines flicked, making Kaylina feel that she was being monitored, as if the altered plants had a sentience and the druids had left them to guard the preserve. Maybe they had. After all, the druids must have been alerted somehow during the famine when rangers had hunted within its borders. Were they still in the world somewhere, and would they be drawn to return if poaching happened again?
Kaylina eyed the brand on her skin. She wasn’t eager to meet the people who’d animated the murdering vines in the castle.
When the taybarri reached a stream trickling into the lake, Crenoch turned to follow it inland. Through breaks in the trees, the mountains were visible, white peaks stretching toward the blue sky.
The forest thinned further as they entered a valley carpeted with lush green grass that rose a foot or two, spreading outward from either side of the stream. Numerous plants grew amid the grass, leaves and buds stretching above the blades, a few flowers starting to open. They dotted the verdant valley with blues, purples, oranges, and yellows and made the area vibrate with electricity. Or… with magic?
Kaylina picked up buzzes among the humming. Were those bees? Yes, she spotted a couple of plump black-and-yellow honeybees flitting among the flowers. Who could blame them for living in such a place? With the mountains visible in the backdrop, the valley was breathtakingly beautiful. As with the lake, it would be a wonderful scene to paint.
“You should wake up, Vlerion.” Kaylina trusted that anyone who played an instrument and hummed to calm himself would appreciate the beauty of nature.
Levitke issued a questioning whuff, her tail swishing with interest. Kaylina sniffed but didn’t catch the musky odor of the Kar’ruk. Crenoch looked toward one of several stone or maybe ceramic domes that dotted the verdant valley and headed toward it.
He shifted from walking to trotting. Eager to reach it?
Kaylina pressed her hands down on Vlerion’s back to keep him from slipping sideways.
More bees buzzed around the ceramic dome, numerous slit openings all around its sides. The holes, as well as the structure itself, were time-worn, as if the dome had been there for centuries, but no moss or mildew grew on it.
“Are these… hives?” Kaylina wondered. “Built by the druids?”
Crenoch and Levitke slowed down, but their nostrils twitched with interest.
“Is there honey inside?” she guessed.
It was early in the season for there to be much, but the taybarri must have caught the scent. A bee buzzed toward Crenoch’s face, and he backed away with a mournful clucking sound and looked over his shoulder at Kaylina.
“Did you get stung when you were here earlier?”
He whuffed and shook his head, gazing with longing at the hive but not moving closer.