Kala felt awkward replying in kind, so she just decided to jump right in. “I need your help,” she said.
“With what, dear girl?”
“Stopping Soren.”
“You have that well in hand,” the Priestess replied serenely.
“I do not. He has an army. I only have my friends, and they’re not warriors.”
“Do not sell short the strength of friendship.”
“They’re going to get killed,” Kala objected.
“Everybody dies in some way or another.”
“How can you be so uncaring?”
“I am not uncaring. I care deeply about the world. I care enough about it to sacrifice what needs be sacrificed for it.”
“I would rather not sacrifice my friends. They matter too much to me.”
“And that is precisely why they’ll sacrifice themselves for you.”
That only made Kala feel worse about it. “Can’t you spare some monks to help us? They train their whole lives to fight. Wouldn’t they want the opportunity to put that training to good use?”
“We watch. We don’t interfere.”
“Then what’s the point of the training?” Kala asked bitterly.
“They train because sometimes the world cannot restore balance on its own, and we have to do it. We don’t want to do that – it is absolutely the last option.”
Kala sat there frustrated, struggling to come up with anything she could say that might sway the Priestess.
The Priestess tried to reassure her. “Has it ever struck you as odd that villages, towns, and cities have walls when they have almost no interaction with the outside world?”
“I assumed it was to keep out predators.”
“That may have been true for your tiny village, set deep in the forest, but do you really think it necessary for large cities to have such towering walls just to keep out wolves?”
“I guess not.”
“Cities have walls because they get invaded. No one alive remembers the last time or has any record of it, but we do, and it is a cycle that has repeated for millennia. The world will survive this. It always has.”
This did not reassure Kala in the slightest. “I don’t want the world to survive. I want my friends to survive.”
“We can’t choose the era we’re born into. At least you were born to matter – to make a difference. Content yourself with that. The Ancients have faith in you. You should too.”
What some glowing rock thought gave Kala no confidence at all. “Can I at least ask Brother Grey for advice?” she asked.
“He’s not here, I’m afraid,” the Priestess replied. “I sent him on an errand, and I believe he attends to it now.”
Kala just sat deflated, feeling like she’d utterly failed her friends.
20
Forest
Jarom called together his kin. Nara fetched Forest but told her that it would be best not to bring Lily. Once they’d all gathered, Jarom began.
“If we fight Soren on the fields surrounding the city, we’re going to be overwhelmed. If we fight him from the city walls, or in its streets, we’ll have the advantage, but only briefly. We have to take the fight to him, on our terms, on terrain we’re familiar with. We’ll fight him in the forest.”
His kin nodded their assent.
“By eliminating his scouting party, we’ve only alerted Soren to our location and probably hastened his descent upon us. We’ll slow his advance by attacking his supply lines. That’s where he’ll be most vulnerable.”
“Wouldn’t his supply lines trail his forces?” Ravi asked.
“That’s what I saw,” Forest agreed.
“We’ll have to sneak past his main force and attack from behind,” Jarom pointed out. “It won’t be easy, of course, but the forest is our home, not that of the barbarians from the vast northern plains. We leave immediately, so gather your gear for a long excursion. Dress for stealth,” he said and dismissed them.
As Nara and Forest turned to go, he called them over. “Stick close to me, girls.”
“How come Ravi doesn’t have to?” Nara protested.
“Because I love him less,” Jarom replied.
“Father!” Nara exclaimed.
“Just humor an old man and do as I ask,” he requested.
Forest replied for her. “Of course, Uncle,” she said and spun Nara toward the flap of the tent, still pouting. “I know what it feels like to want to protect those you love,” Forest told her. “Let him have that.”
Nara sighed. “Meet you back here?” she asked.
“I won’t be long,” Forest replied and headed back to collect her things. She let Lily know that she’d be out in the woods with Jarom for a while but gave her no specifics that would only serve to worry her. She returned to Nara, and they joined Jarom’s party heading out.
Forest asked Jarom as they walked, “Shouldn’t we invite Dhara to join us? She’s as capable a fighter as anyone could ask for.”
“I think her sister’s loss is still too raw. I fear it may cloud her judgment. We need to be stealthy, not vengeful. Best to let her tend to her sister Kaia and grieve Zara.”
Forest mulled this over as they moved through the trees. After walking for a long while, they took a break and sat drinking from their waterskins. Someone passed around small pots of paints that served as camouflage. When they were given to her, Forest stared at them, trying to figure out how best to apply them, but Nara snatched them from her.
“Let me do it,” she said and began applying paint to Forest’s face. When she’d finished dabbing and rubbing, she leaned back and took in her work. “Perfect,” she declared. “You have a rugged beauty about you.”
“Right – because you’ve made me up to look like a rock,” Forest replied.
“Well – more like a bush,” Nara admitted. “But an attractive bush,” she reassured her.
Forest rolled her eyes, and Nara passed the pots to the next person. They waited until everyone had applied the camouflage before they moved out again. They proceeded cautiously with Jarom in the lead, and he grew more cautious the farther north they ventured. He led them over challenging terrain so they wouldn’t find themselves in the path of any advancing forces. It made the going slower, but safer.
They walked for days, and everyone was keyed up when Jarom signaled a sudden halt. He motioned for everyone to drop to the ground and pointed ahead and left. Forest and Nara lay down and crawled closer to some scrub for cover. Having stayed close to Jarom, they could see what had caused him to signal the others – an enemy scout was moving through the trees in the distance. He was heading in their general direction, and Forest feared that he would stumble upon them and alert others. She was less concerned about any ensuing fight, and more worried that this chance encounter would undo their mission. She willed herself flatter to the ground. Nara reached for her hand and held it tight.
She watched as Jarom hid behind a thick tree trunk and pull a throwing axe from his belt. He looked back over the party and glared at anyone he could make out until they hid themself better. He locked eyes with Forest and looked to her to prompt him. She used her eyes to tell him to hold his position and tracked the advancing scout. The scout moved closer and closer, then angled off slightly to the left toward lower ground. Forest looked right insistently, and Jarom edged a little around the tree to the right. She continued guiding him around the tree to enable him to remain hidden, despite his not being able to see the scout himself.
When the scout drew too close for comfort, Forest dipped her head and pressed her cheek into the cool earth beneath her. She breathed in the pungent aroma of moss and willed her heart to stop beating. She could hear the man’s steps and held her breath until they seemed to recede. Eventually, she risked peeking up but worried when she couldn’t see Jarom anymore. She stared at the tree that she’d seen him edge around until he peeked back around it. He cautiously moved back into view and moved between the trees until he arrived at the girls’ position a
nd knelt beside them.
“Here’s where it gets tricky,” he said, his voice barely audible. “We don’t know if that scout leads the main force or if it’s somewhere off to the side. We don’t want to be in front of it when it arrives. I’m going to climb this rise and look for it. Be ready to move quickly when I signal you.”
“No,” said Forest.
“No?” he asked.
“I’m smaller than you and less likely to be noticed. I am used to being on my own in the woods – I can read its signals. Let me do it.”
To her surprise, he did.
She rose and moved like a wraith through the trees to the top of the rise. She lay down in a depression and stilled her breathing. She listened for the sounds of the forest – crickets, birds, squirrels – anything that moved or made noise. She closed her eyes and extended her senses farther and farther around her. A distant bird burst into the air, and she opened her eyes and tracked the faint sounds of its wing beats. Far to the right, she caught sight of another bird taking wing. A squirrel froze on a branch overhead. She peered toward where the birds had left their perches and was eventually rewarded with a glimpse of movement. She didn’t take the time to confirm what moved. It had spooked the birds, and that was good enough for her. She edged back down the ridge to Jarom’s position.
“Right,” she reported. “We need to move off to the left and fast.”
Jarom signaled to the others, and their party moved off quickly to the left. Jarom searched for a vantage point, spotted a slight rise, and headed straight for it. He waved everyone past to the other side and bade them hide. As Forest made to move past him, he reached out his arm to stop her. “Not you. Stay with me,” he told her and lay down in a pile of leaves.
Forest lay down nearby and pushed the leaves out of the way of her view. She waited patiently and caught sight of a scout cresting the rise she’d just vacated. With time, more and more men appeared, silently moving southward. If she weren’t watching them, she wouldn’t have believed that so large a force could move so quietly, so near to her.
Jarom motioned to her to move, and they crept down the back of the rise, staying low until they reunited with the party. “We move away,” he commanded, “and swing back in due course.” The party moved perpendicular to the direction of advance of Soren’s forces, then slowly turned northward again. “We need to stay out of sight of any scouts that Soren might have spread out around his forces,” Jarom explained to her when she was beginning to wonder if they had moved off too far.
They headed due north again fairly quickly and proceeded for two more days before risking returning toward Soren’s forces. “By my reckoning, we should be even with his supply lines by now if his host has continued to grow as I expect it likely has,” he told the party as they rested briefly. “Here’s the plan,” he said. “Our aim is not to kill – we aim to slow them as much as possible. We want to be as disruptive as possible, but don’t take unnecessary chances. Use the element of surprise, hit hard, then get out. We’ll move off westward after our attack, and regroup in the woods far off, so don’t get disoriented. Got it?” he finished.
Everyone nodded their assent.
“Let’s do this then,” he said. “I’ve timed our approach so that we’ll meet back up with Soren’s forces late in the day. They’ll be less inclined to pursue us at night. That should work in our favor.”
Jarom led them due east until they began to hear the faint sounds of creaking wagon wheels and the bleating of livestock.
“Fan out,” Jarom motioned. He pointed at Forest and Nara. “Stay back,” he ordered, “cover us.”
Forest pulled out her bow, and Jarom handed her the arrows from his quiver. She and Nara split them between them.
They waited until dusk began to fall, and the convoy was stopping for the night. They crept forward until stealth was no longer an option, then rose and sprinted for the wagons.
Forest notched an arrow and waited. Jarom hefted his battle axe and smashed the wheel of the nearest wagon, then moved on the next, and the next. Ravi ran for the livestock and hurled a throwing axe that caught the handler off guard and split his skull. Ravi made swift work of cutting the animals loose and shooing them off into the forest. A cousin smashed water barrels with her axe.
Most of the people leading the wagons or animals were not warriors and fled into the woods in a panic. The few guards that traveled among them rushed to engage their ambushers. Jarom’s kin turned their attention to fighting them in between their wanton destruction.
Forest took her time to make every arrow count and felled several men before they could engage Jarom’s party. Two guards rushed at Jarom from both sides of a wagon. Jarom turned to face the closer one, and Forest barely took down the second man before he reached her uncle. Jarom nodded his thanks and continued his attack.
A trio of guards noticed Nara and Forest and rushed at them. Nara took down one and Forest another, but they had moved swiftly, and the third man swung his sword down on Forest. She tensed and closed her eyes, awaiting the blow. When it didn’t come, she opened an eye to see Nara pulling her dagger from the man’s side. His sword was still upraised, and she flinched as he collapsed to the ground.
“I’ve got your back, cousin,” Nara told her.
Forest spotted a large force of men cresting a distant hill, racing toward them. She raised her bow and fired an arrow into a barrel beside Jarom’s head. He spun around and saw her motioning frantically toward the advancing forces.
“Fall back!” Jarom yelled, and his kin broke off their attack. One of their party had just smashed a barrel that he discovered contained oil. He took the time to pull out a flint and strike it until the fuel ignited. Forest covered him and took down two approaching guards to buy him time. He raced away as flames exploded into the air.
Everyone raced into the forest. Nara and Forest pulled back last, harrying their pursuers with arrows until they ran out. With everyone fleeing ahead of them, they turned and raced after them.
Darkness was falling rapidly, and they stumbled on in the descending gloom until they caught up to the rest of their party.
“Anyone injured?” Jarom asked. When no one spoke up, he added, “We keep moving. Stay near me.” He began to sing a low song, and they were able to follow in the dark by listening to it. They walked for a long time before he called a halt. “We rest here,” he announced, and everyone collapsed where they were.
Nara mussed up her brother’s hair and he shoved her away playfully. Forest crawled closer to her. “Thank you,” she told her.
“I’m just making sure I have a bridesmaid for Thorvyn and my wedding,” Nara replied.
“Aren’t you getting a little ahead of yourself?” Forest asked.
“I sure hope not,” she replied and snuggled into Forest. She was asleep before Forest could think of how to respond. Forest fell asleep not long after.
Forest bolted awake at dawn. She had slept so soundly that she felt vulnerable on waking. Nara had snored in her ear all night, but even that had not disturbed her. Forest looked about and saw Jarom sitting with his back to a tree watching her. She rose and moved to sit down beside him.
“You’re a credit to your kin,” he told her. “I’ll have you at my back any day.”
It meant a lot to her, and she blushed with pride.
“We haven’t bought ourselves much time, sadly. Hopefully, we’ve slowed them down by a few days and given the city more time to prepare or evacuate. Maybe we’ve made them divert some forces to protect their rear better. We can only hope we’ve accomplished something here,” he said, but his eyes didn’t convey enthusiasm.
Forest headed back to rouse Nara.
“Too soon,” she mumbled.
Forest shook her until she opened a groggy eye. “Wake up. We’re heading out.”
Nara grumbled but rose, and they moved out as a party, heading back toward the town and the certainty that the fight would come to them before long.
21
Lennox was growing annoyed. “Why are you smiling?” he asked Soren. “I just told you that our supply lines were ambushed last night.”
“Finally, we’re meeting resistance. It means we’re ruffling the feathers of our real foes. Did you think it would stay easy forever?”
“I suppose not, but it sets us back several days.”
“A trifling matter.”
“I have a guard in for questioning who was present during the attack. Is there anything you want to ask him?”
Much as Soren detested Lennox’s methods of extracting information, there were questions he wanted answered, so he nodded.
Lennox led Soren to his tent. Inside, a man was tied to a chair, bruised and bloody. Soren disregarded the discomfort he felt and approached the man, who couldn’t decide whether he should be hopeful or terrified at the sight of Soren.
“I understand you witnessed the ambush on our supply lines,” Soren began.
“Yes, sir,” the man croaked through split lips.
“Describe what you saw.”
“It was getting dark, but I believe there were about twenty of them.” The man had initially tried to convince Lennox that they had met with a more significant force, but Lennox’s methods were persuasive at extracting the truth, and the man had abandoned any tack other than telling exactly what he knew.
“Go on,” Soren coached, “I want details.”
“I didn’t see everyone, but their leader was a burly man who wielded an axe.”
“What else?”
“There was a girl. She was petite but accurate with a bow. She provided cover fire and took out many of our men.”
“Forest,” Soren mused out loud. “Brave girl.”
“Sorry, sir?” Lennox inquired, but Soren disregarded him.
“I have no further questions,” Soren concluded. “You’re welcome to do what you will with him,” he added and stalked out of Lennox’s tent. He called over his shoulder, “Council at dawn.”
“Yes, sir,” Lennox replied and turned his attention back to the man. The screaming resumed before Soren had made it more than ten paces.
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