by William King
From all around the forest came sounds of conflict that told him that his captors were being overhauled by Weaver’s creatures. Gilean paused, her eyes glazed momentarily and she said, “No casualties.”
“They are not trying to kill us,” Kormak said. “They are trying to slow us down.”
The horns sounded again, closer now, the braying voice of the great hungry beast of Shadow that hunted them. Gilean nodded her understanding. “You are right. And they are slowing us down.”
“What now then?”
“We keep running,” she said. “There’s nothing else we can do but try and keep ahead of them for as long as possible.”
Kormak sighed and started to run once more.
The horns were closer now. Spears, darts and arrows were starting to fall at his heels. Packs of spiders assaulted him, forcing him to turn at bay and kill. Every time he did, the pursuers seemed to be nearer and nearer. He was panting hard, tired despite the elfdraft from the constant running and fighting.
“This is hopeless,” he said. “We can’t outrun them and if we keep going I will be too tired to fight.” He was going to say we but the elf did not seem any more winded than she had at the beginning of the long pursuit. “I say we turn and kill some. At least that way we will have the satisfaction of sending their souls back to their master.”
Gilean shook her head. “Not much further now,” she said.
“Not much further till what?”
“Save your breath for running.”
He wiped the sweat from his forehead, cleaned spiderblood off his blade and scabbarded it. Then he started running again.
An arrow flashed over his shoulder and buried itself in a tree trunk. It stood there quivering as Kormak ran past. Another one whizzed past his ear. He ducked involuntarily. The space between his shoulder blades tingled. Every pounding heartbeat he expected to feel a sharp blade go into his back, to be bowled over by the force of impact. It took all his willpower to keep from turning to face his tormentors. He did not want to leave this life with his wounds on his back.
He zig-zagged from side to side, hoping to make himself a harder target, fearful of the fact that he might just run into the shaft that killed him. He threw himself to one side, behind the bole of a tree. Gilean was there, nocking a shaft in her bow. She stepped out, aimed and fired, aimed and fired again and then casually stepped back into cover. A scream rewarded each shot.
Kormak looked at her. “So now we are going to stand,” he said.
“Yes.”
“Why?”
“Listen.”
He did. All around him, in the woods, he could hear screams and the sounds of conflict. It was as if two vast quiet armies had suddenly clashed under the shadows of the trees. Looking around he could see that was exactly what was happening. More and more elves were heading past them, back the way they had come. Their faces were marked by similar patterns to Gilean’s. Quivers of green fletched arrows hung over their shoulders. Some carried small leather shields and long obsidian bladed spears. Others were armed with those deadly longbows.
Dire wolves bounded by, roaring as they raced towards their prey. Huge owls swept out from under the boughs of the trees. All around them battle was joined.
“The followers of Shadow cannot be allowed to come here unpunished,” Gilean said, as if that explained everything, which he supposed it did. “The Speardancers of many Lodges are here. They have been gathering in anticipation of war with the Lost. Now war has come to us.”
Kormak glanced around. It was a strange fierce battle. Elves sniped at one another from amid bushes and behind the boles of trees. Here and there groups of spear and knife wielders clashed with quiet ferocity and blood stained the ground. Owls scratched at eyes and faces. Spiders crawled over those paralysed by their venom.
Even in the branches overhead, the fighting raged. Spiders and elves danced along boughs, seeking to kill their foes. Kormak kept his hand on his blade. There was no way to tell who was winning in so scattered a fight, at least not for him.
He glanced out once more and saw a group of men racing through the forest floor gloom. They were armed with bows and spears and hunting knives and Kormak recognised some of them. They had been numbered among the hunters who had accompanied him into the Blight. He saw Jaethro and Grogan. His old friend had a bandage around his head but he seemed to be in charge. As if warned by some evil spirit Grogan turned and looked directly at Kormak. His face was pale and feverish; some inner torment glittered in his eyes. He raised his bow and sent an arrow flashing in Kormak’s direction.
The Guardian just ducked back behind cover in time. The arrowhead buried itself in the wood near where he had been standing.
“Give up, Kormak,” Grogan shouted. “We’ve got you. There’s no getting away this time.”
Kormak kept his mouth shut, not wanting to give his position away, to grant any unearned advantage to a shot as deadly as Grogan.
“Weaver wants you, Kormak. So does the Spider Mother. They will not rest until they have you. You have angered the most powerful beings in the Blight. That is something you will have cause to regret.”
A scream sounded somewhere off to their right. It sounded like a man had been wounded. One of Grogan’s hunting party had caught an arrow. If that was the case, they were most likely moving to try and flank his position. He looked over at Gilean. She glanced up then sprang, caught a branch and pulled herself into the tree overhead.
Shouts sounded off to left and right. Kormak glanced and saw a large body of men had indeed circled that way. One of them was only a few yards away and was raising a bow. Kormak threw himself into the group, sword flickering like a thunderbolt. He was surrounded but that did not bother him. It protected him from being shot. None of Grogan’s allies could shoot into the melee without a much greater chance of hitting an ally.
Kormak ducked a spear-strike, lashed out and removed a hand, took two steps forward and beheaded a man. He side-stepped a knife thrust, parried another, smashed a man’s teeth in with the pommel of his sword and then cut around him in a massive circle. Leather jerkins parted on the edge on the dwarf-forged blade. Blood flowed, a man tried to hold in his guts with reddened hands.
A whirlwind of death, Kormak cut through the huntsmen, leaving maimed and broken bodies behind him. And suddenly, he was standing on his own, everyone round him was down. He glanced around and saw Grogan raising his bow to shoot. Even as he did so, the man sensed something, dodged to one side, turned and fired into the trees above Kormak. A green fletched arrow fell where he had been. A moment later he was gone, running off into the distance. The horns of the pursuers sounded a different note, one of retreat.
A moment later Gilean dropped out of the tree, and landed by his side. “It is over for the moment,” she said. “We have won. And now it is time for you to face the judgement of the trees.”
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
THE TREES WERE glowing. No, that was not it. Some of the buds blossoming from their branches glowed like fireflies in the darkness. It was a warm welcoming golden glow, not the corrupt light he had come to associate with plants found in the Shadowblight.
Large fruits dangled from branches. The trees were tall and graceful and the branches seemed perfectly sized for elves to run along them. Creepers formed ladders in their sides. He could see families dwelling within tents formed by interlinked meshes of leaves.
High above him others lived on platforms, grown from the bark and branches of the trees themselves. Owls, dire wolves and elves moved around in the stately avenues between the boles of great trees. In clearings between the more massive trees, were groves of smaller plants. They swayed as if caught in a breeze although there was not a breath of wind.
Elves paused before plants and bowed and made religious signs. Sometimes the trees responded. Branches creaked, the heads of flowers or leaves or fronds would reach out and touch the elf as if giving a blessing.
Over everything was an atmosphere of calm and pea
ce that was distinct from that of the forest they had passed through. When he passed the massive trees, Kormak felt a tremendous sense of presence, as if he were standing close to some powerful, magical entity. His Elder Sign was warm against his chest. He did not doubt that if he drew his blade, the runes on it would be glowing. He did not think the magic surrounding him was inimical but it was definitely present and in greater quantity than any place he had ever been save perhaps the City of Magicians.
He was still accompanied by Gilean and his guard of elves. On his way into Tristane, he had been surrounded by the returning army of the Kayoga. They had been unlike any victorious army he had ever been part of. There had been no shouts of celebration, no singing of rowdy victory ballads. The only songs he had heard had been unutterably sad and seemed to come from every throat in perfect harmony until they reverberated within his chest and skull.
Once the elves reached the town that was their home, they had melted away leaving him with those people who had captured him on the border of the Settlements. They did not pay too much attention to him now.
He supposed they did not have to. Every living thing around him was part of the Green. If he tried to flee, all of them would know it and all of them could be set to pursuit. There were more living houses around him now, trees whose branches and leaves and roots seemed to have been shaped to form pavilions inside which elves could dwell. A few smaller elves, children perhaps, watched him curiously as he passed. No one else seemed to pay much attention.
He tried counting to see if he could get some idea of the population and he came to the conclusion that for a place that seemed so vast, there were remarkably few people, perhaps several thousand at most. There seemed to be space for a lot more. Perhaps it had once been needed.
Without warning, Gilean halted before one of the tree pavilions. It lay in the shadow of the largest tree Kormak had so far seen in the village.
“This shall be your dwelling place during your time among us,” she said. “You are free to come and go within the boundaries of the steading, but do not go beyond them.”
Kormak nodded.
“I suggest you get some sleep now. What is coming may prove to be an ordeal for you and you will want your strength.”
Kormak stepped within and the leaves around the opening folded together like a door closing. He felt trapped but when he moved towards them again, they rolled up and formed an exit once more. It seemed he was not in a prison.
In the centre of the chamber was a pile of soft petals, they were perfumed with a clean, tangy scent. He lay down on it and the glowing flowers emerging from the bole of the nearby tree dimmed. He felt himself relax but for some reason he could not get to sleep. He slid his blade partially from its scabbard and saw, as he had known he would, that the runes along its upper length glowed in response to the flow of magic all about him.
He slid it back into the sheath and lay down again. Above him he heard a soft popping sound. Something tingly landed on his skin. In the dim light, he could see that the pods in the roof had burst open and glittering pollen was falling on him. Roots were emerging very slowly from the ground and beginning to entangle him. He tried to move but found that he could not. His limbs felt weak and he could barely move.
His lips and skin felt numb but he noticed a slight prickling sensation on his limbs. When he looked down he saw that he was held by entangling roots; from each of them small thorns had emerged and were biting into his skin. There was a faint pulsing about them, and they had reddened and he wondered if they were drinking his blood.
What sort of trap had he stumbled into he wondered, but then blackness took him and all consciousness and all sensation left his mind.
He floated in a sea of green light. Around and below him he had a sense of vast presences, as if he had been immersed in the ocean and beneath him Leviathans swam. Even as that thought occurred to him, one of the presences came closer. He felt like a rat watching a dragon advance upon him. He was tiny and fragile and brief and the thing was immense and ancient and watchful. His body vibrated or so it seemed to him and he realised he was listening to voices so great that they resonated within him.
“His blood is clean,” said one voice.
“His flesh holds only the usual taint,” said another.
“His brain is whole.”
“Then we must dig deeper,” said the most potent of the voices.
“Agreed,” said the others in chorus.
He had the sensation of being invaded, of titanic minds, vast and slow, examining his thoughts, his memories, inserting tendrils into his very soul. He knew he was being judged as he had never been judged before by beings as remote from humanity as the face of the moon.
“You are aware of us,” said a voice, and Kormak knew the thought was directed at him.
“Yes,” Kormak said.
“You are not a child of the Green and yet in this place, you can speak with us, as you spoke with all that was left of Mayasha.”
“It would appear so,” said Kormak. “What do you wish of me?”
“We wish to see that you are free of taint.”
“And am I?”
“As much as any of your kind can ever be.”
“Free enough?”
“Yes,” said the voices in agreement. “And we will cleanse you of that which is in your blood.”
“You have seen then why I did what I did, that I meant no sacrilege, that I was merely an agent of the will of Mayasha in what I did.”
“So it would appear.”
“Then you know I meant no harm, was seeking only what is best.”
“We know you believe that.”
“Am I wrong?”
“It is too early to say.”
He felt tendrils of thought burrow deep into his soul, like the roots of a plant seeking water in a desert land. He saw images of his blighted childhood, the massacre of everyone in the village where he had grown up by an Old One, his rescue by Malan of the Order of the Dawn, his being taken in and trained at the Chapter House on Mount Aethelas. He saw the war with the orcs and his battles with demons and werewolves and vampires. He saw his capture by the Lost and his encounter with Mayasha.
The light of the green penetrated his mind now and he felt like he was drowning in it, just becoming one more of this chorus of voices, that his mind was starting to come apart under a strain it had never been intended to endure.
The tendrils of thought moved away from him. He was there now seemingly forgotten for the moment, simply observing part of the great composite mind of the forest. At last a decision was reached.
“You may go,” said the voices in his head.
Kormak opened his eyes. The luminescent blooms glowed dimly above him. In their light, he could see Gilean. “Is it over?” he asked. He sat up. He felt better than he had in a long time. All weariness had fallen from him and a number of small aches and pains troubled him no longer.
She nodded. “We have found what we needed to know. Now we must deal with Weaver and the Blight.”
“How will you do that?”
“The Blight must be eradicated if we can do so. Contained, if it is not. If worst comes to worst we must use the flame that cleanses. And we will need allies.”
“You want my Order to help you.”
“Yes.”
“So you are letting me go.”
“We will aid you to reach the boundaries of our land, provide you with food and water and a steed when you get there.”
She produced a large brown leaf folded around something, unwrapped it and removed what looked like a small green gem. It was a piece of resin of some sort. “When you are ready, burn this, and breathe the incense. It will let you visit the Green once more and communicate with the Listeners.”
He took the resin. It felt a little sticky under his fingers. He packed it once more in its leaf and placed it within his pouch. She tilted her head to one side and studied him with her strange green eyes, leaned forward and kissed him on the
forehead.
“Farewell,” she said. “We shall meet again before this is ended.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
KORMAK LOOKED BACK at the army strung out along the road behind him. There were thousands of armed and armoured men there and he prayed to the Holy Sun that it would be enough.
The great Dragon banner of his Order was at the forefront, borne by a company of brothers. It was the sign of the Burning, the summons that had brought all of these petty noblemen together. It had not been raised in this part of the world in decades but all of the local rulers knew what it meant. That their lands were threatened by a supernatural force so great that the Order of the Dawn felt it necessary to call on their aid. He could see the faces of the brothers carrying it. They were all younger men, and they were proud, revelling in the importance at being at the head of the Burning, in knowing that the organisation to which they belonged was capable of wielding such power. Other than the Order only the King of Taurea would have been able to assemble a force such as this.
Master Graydon of Westergate did not look as pleased. His old lined face was grim. His armour was bright and well maintained. His surcoat was immaculate. In his youth he had borne the sword of a Guardian and he knew what it was like to ride out against the darkness. He eyed Kormak distastefully, as if he personally was to blame for the Blight descending on the Settlements, as if it all represented some great failure on his part.
Kormak met his gaze evenly. It had taken him many sessions of questioning to convince the Master to raise the war-banner. He had gone over his story again and again. His description of his dealings with the Kayoga had seemed to particularly incense the old man, as if he suspected Kormak of being hell-bent on committing some foul heresy. He did not like dealing with the elves, so much was clear. It took a lot of gold to organise a Burning, and the Master behaved as if every guilder of the Dawn’s contribution came from his own purse.