It was not too difficult to find the lady Margarid. Since the day of Michael's arrest and imprisonment, she had spent much of her time outside the walls of the prison hold, waiting, watching, and praying for his release. Portus had often come with her. Though he was not nearly as brazen in his attempts to convince the guardsmen of Michael's release as she was, he still did not wish for her to wait alone.
"Michael! Michael, can you hear me?" Margarid would shout at the top of her lungs. "Michael, we are here! Michael-"
"You have to be quiet, you have to stop that now," Portus said in a stern whisper as he interrupted her incessant shouting. "They are going to throw you over the barbican if you are not careful!"
"But we cannot just leave him in there alone to wonder if he is forgotten!" she said defiantly as she met the eyes of the large merchant.
"What good is shouting your greetings in the street if the ears of those prison walls have long since fallen deaf?" Portus argued sympathetically. "He cannot hear you, Margarid, and clearly no one else cares to listen either."
"He will hear me ... he will hear me, and he will take heart. I know it sounds mad," she said as her hazel eyes now misted over in the wake of such strained, exhausted emotions. "But I do not care, nor do I plan to stop, Portus."
"How is riling up the already agitated guardsmen going to free him any sooner? What if they mistreat him in there because of your insistence out here?" Portus asked softly, for though he was a strong, tall mountain of a man, his heart was soft and his compassion was great.
"I cannot say, and yet, I cannot bring myself to stop, either," Margarid replied.
The two of them stared in wounded silence at each other, both of them feeling the void of Michael's absence. "What would Engelmann do, I wonder?" Portus asked her.
"I am not so certain. I haven't seen him, nor heard anything from him since Michael was taken," she said.
"Would he keep shouting to the prison walls? Or would he just bide his time and wait for an opportunity to free Michael to present itself?" Portus pressed her again.
"Well ... neither, I should say. Neither of those ideas makes for a very good plan at all!" Engelmann interrupted their conversation, startling them with the surprise of his presence.
"Engelmann!" Margarid shouted gleefully as she spun around and wrapped her arms around his wispy frame, burying her auburn-colored head in the thickness of his robe.
"There now, my girl," he said sweetly. "It would seem that today has turned out to be a rather fortunate day, after all. For I have something that needs telling, and now I have two sets of ears that might be willing to listen."
"Tell me you have a plan?" she pleaded.
"Have you spoken with the Citadel? What word have you heard from the northern borough? What of the enemy? What of the siege?" Portus let his questions rain down in rapid, breathless succession.
Engelmann nodded to his merchant friend. "I do, and I have. But for the moment let me address the fears of the lady Margarid before I go into the business of wars and rumors of wars."
Portus nodded in submissive agreement. "Alright then."
"I do have a plan. It will require your strength and your trust, and it will beg of you to protect the hopeful and lead them out of the city. When the evil that ravenously besieges us finally comes to roost here within these walls of ours, the only place safe enough for the remnant will be beyond the Northern Gate."
The two of them stared at Engelmann in shocked silence for a moment, for neither had expected this sort of a plan.
"Out of the city? Surely you cannot be serious," Portus finally said, mustering the courage to question the one whom they had always turned to for answers. "What death awaits us out there in the darkness?"
Margarid laid a calming hand on Portus' shoulder. She locked eyes with Engelmann, willing to hear the Arborist and his plan. "If it will help Michael, I will leave the city. What would you have us do?" she asked him.
"You must trust Elmer, my younger brother. He has been given a path to follow, and he is willing to aid our remnant to endure this coming tide," Engelmann told her.
"But why him? What do you mean?" Margarid implored him. "Where will you be in all of this?"
"Well, my girl, that is where this plan of mine will come into play." The tenderness in his leaf-green eyes conveyed his understanding of her confusion. As she looked at him, she realized that such gentleness given could only mean that she would not want to wholly embrace what was about to be asked of her.
"I am not going to like this plan, am I?" she asked.
"Whether you are affectionate towards it or not is of little consolation to my confidence in your ability to see it on to completion," the old Arborist encouraged.
"Enough with all the riddles and dancing back and forth!" Portus blurted out. "The tree will be dead and dark before we finally get to hear this plan of yours!"
Engelmann smiled a kind yet slightly mischievous smile at the both of them. "When the tree fails, and indeed it will fail very soon, you must gather the remnant and find Elmer … and do not tarry along the way."
The mossy-bearded Arborist, without warning or further explanation, walked away from his befuddled friends and strode towards the main gate of the prison hold with deliberate haste. In his heart he was sad for the confusion that was sure to assault his young pupils, but he hoped that this next move of his would indeed be the first act of rescue for his friends.
"Engelmann?" Margarid whispered after him. She took one step to follow after him and then instinctively stayed herself. "Engelmann?"
"Citizens of Haven!" Engelmann shouted at the top of his lungs, merely a dozen paces from the guarded gates of the prison. "Citizens of Haven, hear my voice, hear my words!"
Merchants and maidens alike began to stop along the stone street, halting their business and busyness to hear the brave and reckless words of the old Arborist. Guardsmen atop the prison hold began to stiffen and bristle, pointing and motioning towards the shouting on the street.
"There is a dark and deadly enemy camped outside our very walls!" he continued shouting. "Even now the tears of our fellow citizens are silenced by the suffocating evil that rains a fearsome green fire upon our northern brothers! Death is coming for us, and our city and its walls will not be able to keep it at bay!"
"What is he doing? Is he mad? Arborist or not, the old fool is going to get himself arrested," Portus whispered in Margarid's ear.
Margarid looked wildly at Portus, knowing that his words were true. Again she moved to go to Engelmann, and again she stopped herself. "Arrested …" she thought aloud.
"When the great tree fails us and the green-lit evil breaks our lines and invades our walls, where then will you place your trust? Where then will you place your hope?" Engelmann continued on, shouting his ominous words without even a hint of reservation.
The gathering crowd began to grow both frightened and angry at his words. "When the tree fails us? Isn't that your responsibility, Arborist?" someone shouted at him. The people began to press in towards him, hurling insults and enraged questions as they fueled one another's anger.
"You have failed, and now you just want to blame the Citadel for your shortcomings!"
The portcullis opened and four tired-looking guardsmen with halberds in hand began their deliberate march toward the ranting Arborist. As the gathering mob around him intensified their offense, the wary guardsmen hastened their pace.
"Will you trust in the wisdom of your Priest King, then? Will you hide in bullied silence and follow in his cowardice? Will you wait and hope that the colony sends back the timber of the Wreath? Ha! What good will a Priest King and his coerced fidelity do us when our light has failed and evil has overtaken the city? What good will timber do us if our homes and our freedoms have been reduced to a pile of rock and rubble?"
The crowd gasped in horror at the very thought of what this Arborist dared to proclaim.
"Lies!" came the enraged voice of a Priest. "Blasphemy!"
&nbs
p; "Shut your mouth, Arborist!" one of the guardsmen snarled as he tried to push his way between the angry citizens and this brazen fool of a caretaker.
"How do you know these things?" an old woman demanded.
"Open your eyes, woman! The answers are right in front of your blinded face!" Engelmann's retort was pointed enough to enrage the woman, pushing her for the moment past the point of her own fear. She seethed at him silently before she leaned in and spat at him.
"Your fear-mongering doesn't scare me, Arborist!"
"Perhaps it should, my child," he replied with an intensity that settled the woman down.
"Engelmann, shut up!" Portus shouted at him. "What are you doing? They are going to-"
"Arrest him!" the sergeant-at-arms ordered his men.
Engelmann turned his gaze and met the disbelieving, hazel eyes of Margarid. "We must hope together! We must not trust in a Priest King or in the dark evil that approaches. We must hope that the promised light will still come for us! The Citadel has no hope! They cower and they compromise and their confidence is foolhardily placed in the strength of their own might."
The guardsmen reached towards Engelmann a bit timidly at first, for he was still an Arborist after all. But as his shouting continued, they grabbed the arms of the traitor and began to drag him towards the gate of the prison hold. Engelmann gave little resistance, but rather chose to put the force of his strength into his final words.
"But you, citizens of Haven, you must endure! You must endure,. and you must seek the light!"
"Engelmann, no!" Portus shouted. "We have to help him! We have to do something!" he implored his auburn-haired friend.
Margarid took in the scene playing out before her. As she watched the guards drag her teacher away, the disbelieving look in her eyes shifted to one of fresh understanding.
"What about his plan? He never told us his plan!" Portus continued.
"No ... he showed us instead," Margarid said matter-of-factly. "He didn't tell us because we would have stopped him."
Portus stared back at her, clearly not understanding her meaning.
"He wants to be arrested. He is going inside for Michael," she said.
"What?" Portus exclaimed. "Well, that is great for Michael, but what about us? What about the rest of us out here? What in the damnable dark are we supposed to do now?"
The iron bars of the prison's portcullis slammed closed with a deafening boom, and the onlookers stood and stared in drop-jawed amazement at the arrest of Engelmann the Arborist.
"He just told us, Portus. We are to prepare the remnant to escape the city," Margarid replied.
"I don't believe that Engelmann is in his right mind … he just wants us to run right into the spears of that green-eyed enemy?" Portus argued. "That sounds like a spectacular plan, Mar." The large tanner shook his head in sarcastic displeasure.
"Engelmann said that Elmer will know what to do ... perhaps we should trust him," she retorted. "Of course … we have to find him first."
Chapter Fifteen
THE CLOSER CAL CAME TO the edge of the colony's stronghold, the more nervous and unsure he felt about bringing Astyræ into its tense environment. Something inside his heart mistrusted the militant civility of the guardsmen and their governor. Just before they got to the edge of the forest, Cal stopped his small company and took the moment to consider his misgivings.
"What is it now? Why in the damnable dark are we stopped here?" Wielund asked, a bit annoyed to be so close to safety and yet not permitted to enter it.
"I ... I just have this feeling, Wielund," Cal said earnestly. "A feeling that says I need to find Yasen first before I bring her into the stronghold."
"Cal-" Wielund tried to interject.
"Just ... just trust me, smithy," Cal retorted, cutting off his protest before he could even give breath to the words.
Astyræ shifted behind Cal in the saddle. "Well, while you figure out your feelings, groomsman, would you mind if I stretched my legs a bit?" She dismounted Farran, not waiting for his answer, and walked towards the edge of the trees, peering into the darkness towards this colony of the tree men. She swallowed hard, for both curiosity and trepidation threatened to choke her breath all in the same moment.
"Astyræ!" Cal said with warning in his voice. "Don't be foolish. You don't know these men."
She turned and looked at him coyly. "And they do not know me." A glint of yellow flashed in her violet eyes, and Cal felt all the more unsettled. His genuine concern must have shown on his face, for her features softened. "I understand, groomsman," she told him earnestly. "The tree men were friends of my grandfather once, and I am sure ..." her voice trailed off as she heard the booming crash of felled trees colliding with the hardened soil of the Wreath. Astyræ turn her gaze towards the torch light of the colony, and then after a silent moment she found Cal again. "I am sure I will be alright."
"Your grandfather?" Cal prodded, hopeful that he might learn her story.
She nodded silently at him, but offered nothing more.
Deryn hovered next to Cal, taking in the exchange. "If finding the North Wolf is what your heart tells you is prudent, then do not ignore its words, my friend. I'll watch over these two." He drew his blue sword halfway from its scabbard in a convincing display of sincerity.
Cal allowed himself a grin at his trusted friend. "That you will, Deryn!" He dug his heels into Farran and departed the group before any of them had a chance for further protest.
The sounds of the biting rhythm of the woodcutter's axes littered the dark, midday air, while dozens of watch fires cast an amber glow along the western line of the colony's reach. Cal rode alone into the midst of the holy soldiers of the Citadel, observing the hewing and heaving of the Wreaths' timber.
"Hail, master groomsman!" Goran shouted out in mocking heraldry.
"And hail to you, mighty woodcutter," Cal replied with an amused shake of his head.
"Have you returned from your scouting alone?" Goran asked a bit suspiciously, carefully inspecting the attitude and behavior of his young friend. "I pray that nothing ill has befallen that smithy of ours."
"No, nothing ill yet. Though if that chestnut were to have her way, we all might as well get used to the heat of the forge and the heart of the anvil," Cal told him playfully, hoping to defuse the obvious suspicions.
"Ha, ha!" Goran bellowed. "That would be a sad day for those horses of yours indeed, for they might have to get used to wearing wooden shoes then! Huh!"
Cal scanned the line of the fur-clad woodcutters until he spotted their chieftain and his friend. "Thank the THREE who is SEVEN that there is nothing wrong with the smithy other than a few bruises and a sore backside!" With a smile and a laugh, he said goodbye to Goran and rode off to speak with Yasen. Cal approached his friend who was busy laying waste to an enormous, red-barked cedar. "Yasen!" he called softly as he gracefully dismounted the silver horse.
The chief of these woodcutters here on the Western Wreath turned his attention from the task at hand. His dark beard and long, untamed hair were accented in the flickering light of the watch fire nearby, giving him a wild and dangerous quality that was quite fitting for the time and the place. "So, the great scout has returned in one piece from the mighty forests of this mysterious land, now has he?" The North Wolf spoke in playful deference, but his features showed a hint of relief at the safe arrival of his friend, the groomsman.
"Indeed I have, and ... well, I am in need of your wisdom for a moment," Cal said quietly, and the serious tone of his words was not lost on the woodcutter.
The levity that had not mere moments before colored the lone, unpatched eye of this mighty axe man seemed to vanish at the call for private counsel. "Very well, then," Yasen agreed. "Are we talking here, or should I fetch a horse?"
Cal thought about it for a moment and decided it would best if the two of them rode back to Wielund and Astyræ. "No, I think it might be best if you come with me."
Yasen narrowed his gaze, doing his best to
listen in between the non-spoken words. "Have you seen Seig yet? Tahd? Do they know that you have come back?"
"No, you are the first I have seen. Well, that is unless you want to count Goran over there," Cal laughed.
"Aye, well then," Yasen said as he wiped his double-bladed axe with a red cloth. "Let's go see what kind of wisdom it is that you are after then, brother."
The two friends mounted their horses and rode back out towards the edge of the watch fires that burned there on the westernmost border of the mighty forest. They did not speak as they rode, for the horses' pace was swift, and Yasen could see that his young friend seemed to not want to make his presence known until he had made it safely back into the cover of the forest. When they had reached the tree line, Cal and Yasen brought their horses to a halt and quickly dismounted. "What is it, brother?" Yasen asked him, clasping his shoulder with a firm hand. "What did you find out there?"
"Trees, mostly," Cal said matter-of-factly. "Leagues upon leagues of them, probably enough to fuel the whole walled city for a decade of time."
"Well, that is plain enough, but you didn't ask me to follow you here just to show me trees, did you now?" Yasen asked.
"No. No, we found an old prison tower," Cal said, then paused for the briefest of moments so as to allow the gravity of his words to come and settle upon the conversation. "A prison tower … complete with a prisoner," Cal finally revealed.
"Oh?" Yasen said with a depth of intrigue as the implications of the discovery rolled in like a thick fog.
"And ... well, I, ahhh … I let her free, too," Cal blurted. "And … I brought her here." Yasen just stood there for a moment as he took in the meaning of these last few words. He looked much like an older brother, merely observing the young, flushed groomsman who stood at his side. "I don't know why exactly, but I do not feel like I should bring her to the stronghold … and yet I cannot just leave her out here to the dark unknown either, Yasen," Cal continued.
"There is much unspoken still, my friend, of that I am certain. And yet, I can see plain enough for the moment," Yasen said kindly, his eyes lit with the light of understanding. "I think your caution is on the side of wisdom, though I will need you to tell me a bit more about this prisoner of yours."
The Ravenous Siege (Epic of Haven Trilogy Book 2) Page 13