The Forgotten King

by D. W. Vogel

  Chapter 15: Treachery

  Boris the Bearstruck Berserker sniffed the cool, damp air.

  “Someone comes.”

  The King-in-Shadow did not need his second-in-command to tell him that. He’d been aware of the presence since it had entered the Downs, racing at top speed through the twisting corridors and down the steep staircase that led to this chamber. It was Grolf, one of his Bramble Knights who had been at the raid on Stonebridge. He stood at the bottom of the stairwell, panting, composing himself before entering his lord’s presence.

  A worthy Knight who understands his place.

  Grolf entered the room. He wore a long gray robe belted at the waist, with only his face showing. “My lord, I bring news.”

  The king raised a hairy eyebrow.

  “We have found him. He approaches even now.”

  The king jumped up from his throne. “He comes here on his own? How do you know?”

  Grolf smiled. “I met him in Stonebridge.”

  The king glanced toward one of the bright corners of his prison. “He did answer his father’s summons. Apparently a day too late.”

  Weeks ago, his forces had brought him a broken old man, one of the House of Bear. He wore no armor, but the king had been hopeful. His blood hadn’t broken the magical seal. The old man was a Questing Knight no more. But he had carried his family’s wax seal, and the king had laid his trap, only to miss his quarry yet again.

  Grolf cleared his throat, a hoarse, barking sound. “He travels with a Wood elf. He’s looking for Princess Emerald.”

  “Princess Emerald.” The king nodded. “Daughter of the usurper to my throne. A pure-blood princess.”

  His eyes flickered to the two glowing corners of the room. Light from the crystals in the points of the star played around the narrow, tapering hallway.

  Grolf nodded. “They seek her here.”

  “How could they know her whereabouts?”

  Grolf removed the robe, revealing his hairy body, with a dog’s paws and tail tucked between his legs. “They believe she is here because Trent told them she was coming here.”

  Boris growled at the mention of his rival.

  “Why would a Questing Knight ever believe the words of my Treant?”

  “Because I vouched for him. They saw only my face and believed me to be human. I told them I was the village’s mage, and that Trent had been living in the village for months. He travels with them now, leading them straight here.”

  The king paced around the room. “The Knight is coming on his own to rescue a princess.” He stopped in one of the lit corners of the room, where the bear-shaped crystal glowed on its pedestal. His eyes traveled to the opposite corner, where the glowing crystal statue was shaped like a crown. “When I have him, only one seal will remain. With a true Knight of the House of Bear in my power, the final seal will be vulnerable. And when royal blood spills upon that seal, I’ll be freed from this accursed prison.”

  He whipped around to Boris. “My wayward Knight approaches. We must prepare his welcome.”

  Chapter 16: Emerald’s Teddy

  They walked through the morning. Gawain held back as usual, avoiding Treffen and Trent’s conversation.

  Trent kept glancing up at the sky.

  “What are you looking for, buddy?” Treffen’s elven sight saw nothing but birds and clouds through the treetops.

  Trent turned a worried face to Treffen. “Dragons,” he said.

  “Oh, right.” Treffen nodded at the huge Treant. “They fly silently. If the dragon that was around yesterday is still nearby, we’d never know it.”

  A whimper escaped the woody lips.

  “Oh, buddy, don’t worry.” Treffen patted a trembling branch. “Even if it’s here, it wouldn’t eat you. They’re strictly meat eaters.”

  “Yes, but . . . Treants burn like trees. It wouldn’t have to eat me.”

  “Right.” He thought about how to allay his large friend’s fears. “Well, dragons fly hundreds of miles every day. I’m sure it’s long gone.”

  “You’re sure?”

  “I’m sure.”

  Trent sighed and plodded on through the forest, still glancing up through the treetops.

  Treffen hopped over a fallen log and waded into a creek. A slimy green frog leapt out of his way. Emerald would love this journey. If only it wasn’t her we were heading to rescue. “You’re going to love Princess Emerald.”

  Trent followed, drenching Treffen with his splash. “Will she love me?”

  Treffen laughed. “I’m sure she will. She’s . . . something special. I remember the first time I met her. I was just a Junior Ranger then,” he said, as if it had been ages ago that he wore the diminutive title. “The Druids were all in an uproar. All of them were fussing at each other, saying, ‘Why don’t you put your ingredients away?’ and, ‘Why would you leave your books all lying around?’” Treffen imitated the deep voices of the elven magicians. “Nobody would admit leaving the messes, and since I was the newest Junior Ranger, they set me on an overnight watch.”

  Behind them, Gawain splashed into the creek. Does Knight armor rust? Surely he knows?

  “So I sat up late, and I . . . fell asleep,” Treffen admitted. “I was leaning against the doorway into the lab where the Druids make all our potions. They’re very skilled, and part of a Ranger’s job is collecting the things they need to make them.”

  A bird called overhead, sharp and shrill.

  “When I woke up, I heard noises. There was light coming from inside the lab. I drew my bow and flung the door open.”

  “What was it?” Trent was wide-eyed with excitement, his dragon fears forgotten.

  “It was a little girl. She couldn’t have been more than six or seven human years. Just a tiny thing. She had long green hair, and she was so engrossed in what she was doing that she didn’t even hear me come in.”

  “It was Emerald!” Trent shouted.

  “It was Emerald,” Treffen confirmed. “She had one of the potion recipe books open and was stirring some mixture in a crucible. I said, ‘What are you doing in here? Who are you?’ When I spoke to her, she dropped it on the floor, and it broke. She started crying, and I had no idea what to do. Crying human girls was not part of Ranger training.”

  Trent knocked a large shrub aside, clearing the path ahead of them. Treffen followed the tree-beast through the forest.

  “So the Druids came and asked her what she thought she was doing in there, and she said she was making a potion because her teddy bear was sick. The Druids all thought that was just the cutest thing. They figured out that she was Princess Emerald and that she had snuck all the way to the Glade from Crystalia Castle by herself. They sent her back with a couple of Rangers for protection and told her to bring her teddy bear back to the Glade, and they’d make her a special potion to heal him. I think they planned on doing a little chant, sprinkling on some water, and having one of the seamstresses sew up whatever holes the toy might have that were worrying the princess so much.”

  They paused to let Gawain catch up. His armor sounded creakier than usual after the dousing.

  “When the Rangers came back, they brought Emerald with them. And they brought her teddy bear. Which, it turned out, was an actual bear. Not even a shapeshifter . . . a real, honest-to-Goddess grizzly bear named Teddy Bear. The thing was too sick to walk and wouldn’t let anyone but Emerald near it. She made the Rangers drag the bear and her on a litter all the way back to the Glade. You never saw a Druid so shocked as when a bunch of Rangers dragged a half-dead grizzly bear into their laboratory.”

  “I never saw a Druid at all,” Trent offered.

  “Right. Well maybe when this is over, you can come back with me and meet some.”

  The woody face split in a huge grin. “Really? You would take me?”

  “Sure, buddy.” Treffen glanced back toward the lagging Gawain, who plodded head-down behind them. “So they healed her Teddy Bear with e
nough potions to fill a river, and Emerald said, ‘Thank you very much. My father will pay the bill.’ She marched out of the Glade with that bear, and we thought we’d seen the last of her. But Emerald and her Teddy loved the Wood. She was always hanging around, playing with a toy bow and arrow her father had given her or climbing a tree or swinging on some vine. Eventually the masters decided she was more dangerous untrained than she would ever be as a Junior Ranger, so they put her into training with my class. She can’t be a true Ranger, of course. She’s a princess. She has . . . princess duties. But she’s as close to an elf as any human has ever been. We trained together, and she’s like my sister.”

  They paused to refill their waterskins at the next creek. Treffen approached Gawain, who had removed his helmet to mop his sweaty forehead. The Knight’s face wore a deeper frown than usual.

  “Everything all right?”

  Gawain grunted.

  “I’m serious, Gawain,” Treffen said. “Are you doing all right? Are you feeling . . . cursed?” He tried to sound sincere, but Gawain scowled deeper.

  “I’m fine.”

  They ate their lunch on the move. Gawain munched on a dried strip of meat while Treffen pulled a handful of fiddleferns out of his leather pouch. Trent didn’t have any food, so Treffen handed him the pouch. Trent gave it a sniff and popped the entire pouch into his mouth. He chewed noisily, swallowed, and burped.

  “Not bad. Better than home.”

  “Right.” Treffen pulled out his machete to chop through a deep thicket. “Where are you from?”

  “Mistmourn. Grew there in a pine forest. Pine trees aren’t nice trees.”

  Thorns tore at Treffen’s skin, and Trent reached in to help, narrowly avoiding the machete’s swing. “How . . . how did you come to grow in a pine forest?”

  The Treant sighed. “In the fall, Treant makes fruit. Birds eat it and fly away. Bird poops out the seed, new Treant grows.”

  I never even wondered where baby Treants came from. Apparently they come from bird poop. “Were you the only one of your kind there?”

  Trent nodded. “Pines aren’t nice,” he repeated.

  Treffen could only imagine the teasing that the big oaf must have endured as he grew. “I never fit in where I grew up, either,” he said. “Lunar Elves are all book smart. My mom is a chemist. She invents new potions that have never been made before. And my father conducts the largest orchestra in Crystalia.” Treffen then had to explain what an orchestra was, to the beaming delight of the Treant. “But that was never who I was,” he continued. “And no matter how hard they tried, I was never going to be like them.”

  Trent nodded again. “You have a sister.”

  “Not a real sister. But all the Rangers are my family now.” He saw the wistful expression on Trent’s face. “And when we go visit them, you’ll fit right in. There’s all kinds of kodama around the Glade. Not many Treants, but you’ll have lots of friends.”

  The look of joy on Trent’s face almost made this journey bearable.

  Chapter 17: On the Edge

  The air grew thicker with each step they took toward the Downs. Trent led the way, looking fearfully around.

  “We’re close,” he whispered. “The king’s forces could be anywhere.”

  Treffen knew which king he meant. He already had an arrow nocked, and beside him Gawain’s sword was free of its sheath. They crept along, expecting ambush at every step.

  Trent tripped over a large black stone and sprawled to the ground. “Oh, it hurts,” he groaned.

  “Quiet,” Treffen hissed. “This is not a good place to be wailing.” He knelt next to the downed tree-beast. “Let me see.”

  Trent held out a root, which had been stripped of bark in the fall.

  “You’ll be fine.” Treffen shook his head. “Rub some dirt in it. And for Goddess’s sake, be quiet.”

  Gawain examined the stone that had tripped the Treant. “This is shaped stone.” He peered around them at the twisted trees, dripping with dangling vines. “This is the edge of the ruins. We’re here. We’re in the Downs.”

  Treffen had heard stories of what Lordship Downs had looked like in the days before the Betrayer’s curse. A shining fortress rivaling Crystalia Castle, it had towered into the sky. Built of granite and clad in marble, it had shone in the sun like a pearl. When the curse had fallen, so had the gleaming towers, crumbling to black, rotted ruin. Nothing above the ground had survived . . . only the endless chambers beneath the earth, dark and slimy with fungus. Treffen touched the stone, expecting it to feel hot with ancient power. But it was just a stone, dead as an empty skull.

  Trent hung back, and Gawain took the lead. Treffen watched the Knight’s movement. He’s tense. Edgy. He could feel the tension in Gawain’s posture. Anyone with a brain would be edgy here, Treffen reasoned. Actually, anyone with a brain wouldn’t be here at all. They crept forward through the thinning forest. No birdsong filled the air, only the endless screeching chatter of night insects, though it was not yet twilight. The forest smelled of rot, and every instinct in Treffen screamed for him to flee.

  Someone is watching us. Or some . . . thing.

  Movement to the left.

  Treffen pulled his bowstring taut, searching with sharp elven sight among the gnarled trees.

  Nothing.

  “Be cautious,” he said. “Something’s out there. And I can’t believe we’ve gotten this far without being attacked.” Step by step they approached. The squishy loam gave way to a crumbling stone walkway. Dripping trees gave way to stone arches, a few still intact, but most of them tumbled into piles of dark rock.

  “Maybe . . .” Trent began. “Maybe the princess isn’t really inside. Maybe she’s just . . . somewhere around.”

  Treffen smiled sadly at the Treant. “I sure would like to see her outside the Downs. But you don’t know Emerald. If she thinks Amethyst went in here, she would certainly go in to find her. All we can hope is that she’s still poking around on her own and hasn’t been captured. And that we can find her before the Forgotten King knows we’re here.”

  The ruins of the great castle loomed up before them. The walkway they were on must have once been the entrance to the fortress, grand and welcoming. Traces of elegant carvings still peeked through the dark slime on the arches, and Treffen resisted the urge to wipe it off as the party passed under them.

  “Duck down,” he whispered over his shoulder to Trent. “If you hit one of these with your . . . head, it will come crashing down.” He wasn’t sure if “head” was the right word, but “high branches” sounded so rude.

  Gawain was hanging back, and Treffen edged over to him.

  “Are you all right?”

  The Knight took a few moments before answering. “I’m fine.”

  Treffen was not reassured. He returned to Trent, who was carefully ducking under each of the crumbling arches. “We need to keep a good eye on Gawain,” Treffen whispered. “This place is . . . bad for him.”

  “It’s bad for everyone,” the Treant agreed.

  “Right. But we’re not bound to the Betrayer by blood or whatever this curse thing is that Gawain’s fighting.” Treffen looked around the wide, dark walkway at the hulking piles of ruined architecture around them. “We just need to find some sign of Emerald. I’m not going in there unless I know there’s no other way.”

  “Well, maybe we could . . .” Trent began, but Gawain cut him off.

  “That’s enough, tree. By the Goddess, don’t you ever shut up? We’re here to find a princess, and if you don’t want to join us, you can head right back out into the forest.”

  Trent hung his head.

  Treffen looked at Gawain, but the Knight’s visor was down, hiding his expression. That was a mean thing to say. He resolved to keep a close eye on Gawain. The Downs are making him crazy.

  Movement to the right.

  “Down,” Treffen hissed, and Trent dropped into a crouch.

  “Something�
��s over there,” Trent whispered. “I’m going to look.” Treffen started to protest, but the Treant held up a branch for silence. “I’m safer here. Arrows can’t hurt me.” He rubbed the thick bark of his skin for emphasis. “Maybe some animal. Wait here. I’ll go see.”

  Treffen slipped back to Gawain as Trent lumbered away off the stone path. They watched the place where he disappeared around a giant pile of slimy rock that must have once been a beautiful sculpture. The remains of a face peeked out from the rest of the rock, just an eye and half a nose, pitted as if by acid or by a thousand years’ wear. Which, Treffen reasoned, was absolutely true. This place had been untouched for eight hundred years, serving as the Forgotten King’s prison. His evil minions had come and gone through this derelict entry for ages, but none had picked up a dust mop or a rake or a bucket of mortar to fix anything in all that time. All we really have to do is wait, Treffen thought. In another thousand years, this whole thing will fall to dust. Whatever’s left inside will be entombed forever once the doors collapse. But Crystalia didn’t have a millennium. And Emerald might not have another hour.

  A loud thump echoed around the ruins, followed by a short scream, which abruptly cut off.

  “Hey, guys, over here!” Trent’s voice rumbled around the stones.

  Treffen and Gawain sidled off the path, crouching low to peek around the remains of the statue. Trent was on his knees, branches wrapped around the neck of a figure struggling on the ground. They rushed over, weapons drawn, scanning the area for more enemies, but seeing none amid the overgrown vines of what had once been a formal garden.

  “Tell them,” Trent said once Treffen and Gawain were in earshot. “Tell them what you just said.”

  The creature on the ground gagged as the pressure on its throat was reduced. It turned its head, revealing a flat, brown-feathered face with a duck’s bill. It wore the tattered remnants of what might have been a military uniform, and a wicked-looking dagger had been thrown clear when Trent made the tackle. A green-plumed helmet lay a few feet away, obviously knocked loose by the struggle.