“Paithan and I were standing on the … the ledge. They came up and put their hands on it and began to sh-shake it . . .”
“Shhh, there. It’s over now. Quin all right?”
“I-I think so.” Rega glanced down at her spore-covered clothes. “The fungus must have broken our fall.” Leaning near the elf, she spoke softly. “Paithan! Paithan, can you hear me?”
“Ayyyy!” Paithan woke with a cry. “Shut him up!” growled Andor.
The tytans had ceased observing each other and transferred their sightless gaze to their captives. One by one, moving slowly, gliding gracefully over the jungle floor, the tytans came toward them.
“This is it!” said Andor grimly. “See you in hell, Thillian.”
Someone made a whimpering sound. Whether it was Rega or the elf, Roland couldn’t tell. He couldn’t take his eyes from the giants long enough to find out. He felt Rega’s shivering body press against his. Movement in the undergrowth indicated that Paithan, bound like the rest of them, was attempting to wriggle his way over near Rega.
Keeping his eyes on the tytans, Roland saw no reason to be afraid. They were big, but they didn’t act particularly menacing or threatening.
“Look, Sis,” he whispered out of the corner of his mouth, “if they’d wanted to kill us, they would’ve done it before this. Just keep calm. They don’t look too bright. We can bluff our way outta this.”
Andor laughed, a horrible, bone-chilling sound. The tytans- ten of them-had gathered around their captives, forming a semicircle. The eyeless heads faced them. A very soft, very quiet, very gentle voice spoke.
Where is the citadel?
Roland gazed up at them, puzzled. “Did you say something?” He could have sworn that their mouths never moved.
“Yes, I heard them!” Rega answered in awe.
Where is the citadel?
The question was repeated, still spoken quietly, the words whispering through Roland’s mind.
Andor laughed again, manically. “I don’t know!” he shrieked suddenly, tossing his head back and forth. “I don’t know where the goddamn citadel is!”
Where is the citadel? What must we do?
The words were urgent now, no longer a whisper but a cry mat was like a scream trapped in the skull.
Where is the citadel? What must we do? Tell us! Command us!
At first annoying, the screaming inside Roland’s head became rapidly more painful. He wracked his burning brain, trying desperately to think, but he’d never heard of any “citadel,” at least not in Thillia.
“Ask . . . the . . . elf!” he managed, forcing the words out between teeth clenched against the agony.
A terrifying scream behind him indicated that the tytans had taken his advice. Paithan lurched over, rolling on the ground, writhing in pain, shouting something in elven.
“Stop it! Stop it!” Rega begged, and suddenly the voices ceased.
It was quiet inside his head. Roland sagged weakly against his bonds. Paithan lay, sobbing, on the moss. Rega, arms tightly bound, crouched near him. The tytans gazed at their captives and then one of them, without the slightest warning, lifted a tree branch and slammed it into Andor’s bound and helpless body.
The SeaKing couldn’t cry out; the blow crushed his rib cage, punctured his lungs. The tytan raised the branch and struck again. The blow split the man’s skull.
Warm blood splashed on Roland. Andor’s eyes stared fixedly at his murderer; the SeaKing had died with that ghastly grin on his face, as if laughing at some terrible joke. The body twitched in its death throes.
The tytan struck again and again, wielding the gore-covered branch, beating the corpse to a bloody pulp. When the body had been mangled beyond recognition, the tytan turned to Roland.
Numb, horrified, Roland summoned adrenaline-fed strength and plunged backward, knocking Rega to the ground. Wriggling around, he hunched over her, shielding her body with his own. She lay quietly, too quietly, and he wondered if she had fainted. He hoped she had. It would be easier . . . much easier. Paithan lay nearby, staring wide-eyed at what was left of Andor. The elf’s face was ashen. He seemed to have quit breathing.
Roland braced himself for the blow, praying that the first killed him swiftly. He heard the scrabbling sound in the moss below him, felt the hand grab onto the buckle of his belt, but the hand wasn’t real to him, not as real as the death that loomed above him. The sudden jerk and the plunge down through the moss brought him sharply to his senses. He gasped and spluttered and floundered, as a sleepwalker who stumbles into an icy lake.