The Forest at the Edge of the World

by Mercer, Trish

  “All right. I give up. But I’m not a Guarder, if that’s what you’re wondering,” she teased.

  “What?” he asked, startled.

  “You’ve been staring at me all afternoon. Something’s obviously on your mind, and you’re wondering if it’s on my mind, too. Aren’t you?”

  His shoulder twitched. “Maybe. Depends on what you’re thinking.”

  “I think you have something to tell me,” she accused. “Something you haven’t shared.”

  She’d never seen such a perplexed look on his face before. “Shouldn’t it be you telling me?”

  Now she was baffled. “How would I know?!”

  His jaw dropped. “You’re supposed to know first!”

  Mahrree blinked. “I’m beginning to think we’re not talking about the same thing.”

  He squinted back. “I think you’re right.”

  “So, what are you thinking?”

  He studied her. “How do you feel right now?”

  She couldn’t understand where his question was going, but she shrugged. “Better, but still a bit light-headed. I’m just tired, but I think it’s because I haven’t slept well.”

  He didn’t seem satisfied by that answer. “Why do you think you were sick?”

  “Because you were gone!”

  He didn’t smile, but something was changing his eyes. “Are you sure that’s the only reason?”

  Mahrree sat up a little. “What other reason could there be?”

  “It’s just that . . . certain things . . . it could be that . . . you’re so emotional today . . .” he stumbled with a growing smile. The dark brooding in his eyes began to lighten for the first time since he came home.

  It wasn’t until he raised his eyebrows in suggestion and nodded at her belly that Mahrree caught his meaning.

  Oh.

  Ohhh . . .

  Every morning, her irrationality and queasiness . . .

  She looked quickly down at her belly, then back at him.

  “Hmm?” he hinted and shrugged with a gentle smile.

  “No!” she gasped.

  “Are you absolutely sure?”

  “No! I’m not!” she admitted. His smile was contagious, now growing on her face.

  “So how do we know for sure?”

  “We wait, I guess. By the end of the Raining Season we should definitely know something!” She laughed. Then she started to cry. Already?! She had heard it could take seasons and even years, but already?!

  “I think we’ll know a bit sooner than that. You’re making a good case for it right now!” He dabbed at her tears and chuckled. “My mother told me all kinds of things to watch for, and according to her comprehensive list—”

  Mahrree didn’t realize until then that every Shin was an extensive list maker.

  “—you’re more than just ill.” He sighed—rather contentedly—and his eyes grew shiny. “If you are what I suspect you are, then this will have been a good week after all.”

  With growing giddiness she covered her mouth with her hands, astonished that the thought never occurred to her. “I just don’t dare believe it!”

  “So, that’s not what you’ve been thinking today?” he reminded her.

  “What? Oh, not at all!”

  He kissed her. “So my darling wife, who may be getting much larger in size in the next eight moons or so, what was it that you were thinking today?”

  “About your uniform!” She kissed him back. “Wondering why it was so muddy with pine sap on it. Why, I completely forgot about it!”

  “Good,” he said shortly. “Now, I suppose once we’re sure this is the real thing, we’ll need another addition—”

  Mahrree blinked in surprise. “Usually couples wait to see if the baby survives before building an addition. Not that I’m suggesting that . . .” She couldn’t bring herself to say the awful alternative, but she knew it was a possibility.

  So did her husband, but Perrin wasn’t going to accept that. “Our baby will live, Mahrree,” he said with enough determination to almost ensure it. “Every Shin son for the past four generations came into the world robust and screaming.”

  “But . . . what if it isn’t a son?” Mahrree winced.

  Perrin’s expression went stiff, as if he’d never considered that. He tried to soften it, but the damage was already done.

  Of course he’d think only of a boy, Mahrree thought. That didn’t bother her, just concerned her.

  “You obviously survived,” Perrin finally managed. “So too would our daughter.”

  She was impressed he didn’t hesitate on that last word. “We should likely wait anyway,” Mahrree decided. “Just to be sure. Now’s not the best time to begin an addition anyway, with the—”

  She stopped, suddenly remembering the previous conversation he’d so easily steered her away from.

  “Wait a minute. We were talking about why you uniform was dirty—”

  “Doesn’t matter,” he waved it off. “I was thinking, if we put the baby’s addition against the study, both rooms can share the fireplace—”

  She sat up. “Perrin, why was your uniform so filthy, with pine sap on it?”

  He patted her shoulder. “Now, now. Don’t overexcite yourself. Not at a time like this—”

  “Oh, don’t patronize me!” she snapped. “This is another avoidance tactic, isn’t it? Before we married we promised that we’d be honest with each other from now on. I’m asking you a question, and I expect an honest answer. And so does your baby, should he or she be in there!” She patted her belly and tried to keep her chastising tone, but another wave of joyful anticipation bubbled up and leaked out her tear ducts.

  Perrin smiled at her conflicted face. “We can discuss this later.”

  “We’re discussing it now!”

  He sighed and sat back, keeping a hand on hers. “I went into the forest,” he confessed.

  “No!”

  “Yes.”

  “Did you get out safely?!”

  He raised an eyebrow at her.

  She rolled her eyes at her stupidity. “Of course you got out safely, what am I saying . . . wait, what are YOU saying?! You went in deliberately?”

  He nodded.

  “Why?!”

  “That’s where the Guarders are, Mahrree,” he said simply.

  “First rule of the army!” she reminded loudly. “No one in the forests!”

  “Yes, yes, yes. I know.”

  “So how long were you in there?”

  “We were there about . . .” He looked up at the ceiling as if estimating, “almost the entire time.”

  Mahrree’s mouth dropped open. “Who else?”

  “Karna.”

  “Willingly?”

  Perrin only shrugged.

  “What will your father say?!”

  “That’s why I can’t sleep. That’s what I’ve been working on—my excuses, explanations, evidence of success, and a proposal to let me do it again—”

  “NO!” Mahrree cried, and protectively held her belly. “You’ll die!”

  He sat up and took her hands off her belly to hold them. “I don’t understand why you’re reacting like this. Just last season you proposed that I go in there and stop them.”

  “Well, now things are different,” she insisted, realizing that she had completely reversed her position in the last few minutes. True, a few moons ago she wanted her intended to defy the rules, barge into that forest, and scare away all of the bad men.

  But that was before she realized just how bad the bad men were, and before she realized this was real, not just some vain woman’s bravado. Her mind was too frazzled to formulate exactly what had changed but something had!

  “Back then, you were . . . you were just—” she started.

  “Just some man you sort of fancied?” he suggested with a hint of teasing.

  “Well, no! I mean, I love you—”

  “Oh, now, but not before?”

  “Stop it!” she exclaimed, aggravated by
his new attempt to detour her. “I mean, you can’t go into the forest because now you might be a father!”

  He smiled at that before his face became earnest. “Mahrree, the forest isn’t that bad. The trees are the safest parts. Where the ground is unstable, nothing grows. It’s easy to avoid. There were a few gaps and caverns which were overgrown, but watching for them isn’t hard. Mahrree, I can conquer that forest! I scared out several Guarders. They crash around since no one else is there to see them. I’m sure that if I can get an army in there, we can annihilate them, once and for all. Then, Mahrree, no one will die.” He put his hand tenderly on her belly. “No one.”

  “You can’t be serious about going back,” she whispered.

  “Ah, Mahrree, believe me—it’s just not that bad. Not even the cavern where the two Guarders fell in. It was obvious to see. I stood at the edge and—”

  She stared at him, horrified.

  He stopped talking and rubbed his forehead. “If your response is anything like my father’s—”

  “He better be as shocked as me!” she declared. “Perrin, why? Why take such a risk?”

  “For you,” he said quietly. “For Edge. For everyone in the world being terrorized.”

  “And not for yourself?”

  “Maybe a bit for myself,” he confessed, the annoyed officer emerging again. “I wanted answers. Why are they doing this? No one, in all these years, has ever carried on a civil conversation with one of them. It’s always been challenges and shouting then blades and then nothing. We have an entire class on them in Command School, and you know what? There’s nothing to talk about. If I could just find one willing to explain to me what’s going on. Find some truth—anything. You understand that, don’t you?”

  He slumped on the sofa, discouraged.

  “It would have been fantastic to find their base or even a settlement, but Mahrree—there was nothing in the forests north of here. Just a few random men chasing each other. And the few men I encountered preferred to die rather than talk. Why? It makes no sense.”

  “It never has,” she whispered. “It’s never added up. Perrin, right before we were engaged, I charted when new kings came to power and when Guarders attacked: always a year and fourteen weeks later, as if the Guarders knew. Or as if the kings knew they needed to defeat someone to prove their strength.”

  “You really did that?” he asked, intrigued. “Where are your notes?”

  “I burned them before you arrived that night.”

  “Good,” he nodded. “That’s what I did, too. It occurred to me some time ago that Guarder attacks were convenient. But when the Administrators came to power, and nothing happened after a year and a season, I realized that now maybe things were different.”

  “So are they?”

  He nodded. “The spy my father interrogated was a hardened, bitter man. He was for real, Mahrree. I remember that conversation we had the night we were engaged, you questioned their authenticity. To be honest, I have too. Even after the attack on Grasses I still had a fragment of doubt. But now?” His face grew pale, his expression grim. “Mahrree, they’re even more mysterious than before. Take that business with the small knives . . .” He closed his eyes and shook his head, trying to dislodge the images. “Anyway, I hate mysteries.”

  She leaned over to snuggle into him. Everything about him was solid and confident, even when he expressed his doubts, and especially when he demonstrated how much his mind was like hers. As he wrapped a muscled arm around her, she imagined he was the strongest man in the world. Which, she smiled to herself, he likely was. It was precisely his strength she needed—his strength of body, and his strength of thought. It was almost as if he was the most perfect man in the world. At least, for her.

  “Please don’t go back there again,” she begged him. “I want answers just as much as you do, but not this way. Should anything happen to you—”

  His grip around her tightened and he kissed the top of her head. “I’m asking my father for permission, but I doubt he’ll say yes.”

  “Good. I like him.”

  He chuckled mirthlessly. “You’re terrified of him, and you know it.”

  “As long as he keeps you safe, so you can be with me and our . . .”

  He put his hand on her belly. “Still waiting to know, right? We could ask your mother about it when she returns.”

  She sat up and blinked rapidly. “Are you serious? My mother? We’ll just wait.”

  The next morning Mahrree awoke to another wave of nausea. She sat up in bed, recognized what the feeling could mean, and cried out, “Oh Perrin! I’m still sick! Isn’t that wonderf—” and couldn’t say anything more.

  But he was ready. He immediately produced a bucket from under the bed, and his timing couldn’t have been better.

  ---

  “You’re looking much better today, my boy!” Hogal Densal slapped Perrin on the back.

  He wasn’t the first person to do that today. For his entire walk to the village center, people had been congratulating and thanking him for coming to Edge, and now that he was nearing the markets, the crowds were thickening. Speaking to the tanner about his idea for leather armor was going to take a lot longer than he anticipated. Normally this would have been Wiles’s duty, but the man was still unwell and spending the day sleeping in his quarters.

  When Perrin saw Hogal’s proud smile just outside the tanner’s, he realized his great uncle had likely presented a most colorful—and perhaps slightly embellished—retelling of the past few days’ events. Trying to win him more hearts and minds, perhaps.

  “I am better, Hogal. Thank you.” But before he could continue, another woman came up to pat his arm. “Yes, all over now. No, you’re quite welcome. Army of Idumea’s here to serve. Hogal, exactly what—Oh, thank you. Just doing what I was trained to do. Yes, everything’s safe again . . . Hogal,” Perrin took his great uncle’s arm and steered him between two shops, away from the well-wishers. “Exactly what did you say last night? You didn’t tell them about the Guarder suicides, did you?” he ended in a whisper.

  Hogal’s merry eyes darkened and his demeanor became somber. “Of course not. These people wouldn’t be able to handle such details. I’m still struggling with them. No, my boy—” the rector’s face brightened again, “I just told them what you told me about the army’s ability to keep the Guarders from the village. Everyone here knows too well what happened in Grasses. You prevented another tragedy like that from occurring, and with a smaller army, even. I’m surprised you didn’t hear the cheering at your home, especially when I told them about your success in saving a private’s life. I wished you’d been here last night.”

  “Mahrree and I were a bit tired,” Perrin explained, “and occupied by . . . other things.”

  “Ah, newlyweds!” Hogal winked.

  Perrin opened his mouth to clarify his meaning, but realized he wouldn’t know what to say without unintentionally revealing that Hogal might be a great, great uncle in the next year. Hogal could always get Perrin to confess everything. But not this.

  Perrin just winked back instead.

  Chapter 19 ~ “He’s finished, Shin! Out of the army!”

  The High General wasn’t due to make his report for another hour, but some things will not wait.

  That’s why Chairman Mal, after reviewing the initial report from the garrison, marched out of his office shouting at his guard to ready his carriage. Within minutes he was whisked to the garrison, with the rest of his schedule destroyed because one man went off on a stupid impulse.

  “Will take me days to get it all straightened out again!” Mal growled as he exited the carriage and strode up the stairs to the headquarters of the garrison.

  As ornate and elegant as the Administrative Headquarters was, the new garrison was functional and dull. Every building was an inevitable rectangle, made of gray blocks and regularly spaced windows and plain doors that suggested exactness, order, and drudgery.

  Army life, depicted in architectu
re.

  But, if army life was as predictable as the garrison, Mal wouldn’t have been bursting through the double doors shouting at the top of his lungs. “Where is he? Shin! I want to see you, NOW!”

  The officers and soldiers walking down intersecting corridors all stopped to stare at the uncharacteristic outburst from the Chairman of Administrators.

  A simple door down one of the hallways opened, and the large figure of the High General slowly stepped out into the hall.

  “Chairman Mal, what a pleasant surprise,” he said sardonically. “A little confused by your schedule? I’m not due to brief you—”

  Mal stepped around two large colonels to get to his target. “Why’d he do it, General?!” he shouted, not caring who witnessed the argument that was about to ensue with the top wolf of the army. “Lost control over your pup? What’s wrong with him?”

  General Shin folded his arms. “We can discuss this in my office.”

  “Why?!” Mal bellowed, his face turning as red as his coat. “Don’t want the rest of the officers to know your reckless son broke the first rule of the army?!”

  General Shin’s hard glare didn’t change, even though more than two dozen officers and soldiers were now looking in his direction, awaiting his response.

  “All of them know the risks my son took in order to preserve the safety of Edge and eliminate several Guarder threats,” he said evenly. “I have nothing to hide about his success and his fort.”

  “His fort?” Mal barked, a vein bulging on his forehead. “Does that mean his rules now, too? And he dragged a lieutenant in with him?”

  “Karna is an obedient, faithful officer—” Shin started, but Mal cut him off.

  “Unlike your son! He’s finished, Shin! Out of the army! Bring Perrin back, NOW!”

  That finally drew a reaction from the High General. His eyebrows shot upwards and he unfolded his arms to put his hands on his hips, one hand next to his long knife, the other next to his ornate sword hilt.

  “Bring him back for what? For keeping the Guarders out of Edge? For confining them to the forests? For preserving the lives of each of his soldiers, while at least nine Guarders died? Take away his commission for being successful, Mal? While he was unconventional—I’ll not argue that—he was most certainly progressive in his approach to dealing with the Guarder threat!”