Excerpt from "Season of Crows." Ash must find Elder Veil and ask him to lend aid...
The
sun climbed higher and burned with deathly intensity as Ash battled
his way through the seemingly endless sea of skeletal grasses. Fat
grasshoppers rose in clicking arches over him, settling again beyond
his sight.
The
trees of Torzeria loomed larger now as he fought his way toward their
promise of shade. The land sloped downward, which made his journey a
little easier. At the bottom of the slope, the grass thinned
somewhat, and he was able to make his push for the trees much
quicker. At long last, he reached the first shade on the edge of
Torzeria. He paused, breathless, drinking deeply from his water
pouch.
The
trees here grew about as close together as they did in Evershade, but
the undergrowth was thicker, with very few discernible paths cutting
through the brush. At last, he discovered what appeared to be an old
trail and followed it deeper into the little wood.
Recalling
the king’s words, he forged ahead in search of the heart of
Torzeria, for that was where Elder Veil would likely be. The ground
rose slightly, and soon fat wedges of limestone bedrock jutted out of
the slope. Ahead, the trees thinned noticeably, allowing a pool of
light to dapple the earth. The underbrush all but disappeared here.
He stepped into a roughly semi-circular clearing edged by the oldest
and largest trees of the little wood. To his left, thick shelves of
moss-entrenched bedrock in various stages of erosion erupted from the
earth. At their base, the ground leveled off and remained relatively
flat to the edge of the clearing, then sloped gently away into the
trees.
An
unexplainable sensation of something very ancient resonated here. He
could feel it in his whiskers. He paused and listened, his torn ear
trembling in anticipation. Time seemed to stop, and his sense of
urgency faded gently away. All was still, but he sensed a low, gentle
pulse vibrating up his legs from the very earth. He exhaled. This
truly was a holy place.
He
strode gingerly into the clearing, allowing the patches of sunlight
to splash across his fur as he crunched through the bed of dry leaves
that covered the ground. He scanned the bedrock for any sign of the
turtles, peering into the bushes and hollows made by gnarled tree
roots at the clearing’s edge. But there was not a sign the turtles
had ever been there.
“Elder
Veil?” he half-whispered. His voice sounded strange, almost
musical. Then, louder, “Elder Veil?”
At
once, there was a slow, deliberate movement among the rocks. The
large, round form of Elder Veil emerged from the moss and layers of
leaves on the stone outcropping above. Ash stood stock still and
gawked openly at the turtle. Elder Veil had been completely
camouflaged, and he had been none the wiser.
