by Jack Porter
“I did not,” I said, and the scent of blossoms grew even stronger, almost overpowering my senses.
The dryad reached up and, as her hair continued to swirl around her face, touched my jawline. “Then what will you make as payment for passing through the forest? One of you must stay behind. And she is the one I want.”
I grabbed her hand, but found that it sort of slipped through my fingers as if it had never been there.
She grinned again, and this time it felt malicious. Her teeth were sharpened to points, more like fangs than the teeth of a human.
“None of us are staying,” I said. “We have an errand to complete.”
She scowled, dropping the pretense of smiling. “You do not have a choice.”
“And what will you do if I disagree?” I asked.
Ilana now moved a bit closer, as if to block Wren from the dryad’s line of sight.
“Then I will say you are very foolish,” the dryad said. Her voice had a sing-song quality, and yet, it sounded almost like the rustling of the trees.
“Stand aside,” I said. “My patience is growing thin.”
“You dare to enter my forest without payment? You dare to bring your stink in here, to desecrate my trees and bring them pain? They are sacred!”
“I will do no such thing. We don’t want to hurt any trees, just to pass through.”
It was the wrong thing to say, apparently. The dryad bared her teeth in a silent snarl, and the trees whipped into an even greater frenzy. “All humans defile the trees!” she spat. “And you dare to bring these abominations in here, as well!”
That was the wrong thing to say to me. I moved forward threateningly, making a move to grab her arm, which again slid from my grasp. “Step aside, or you will see me defile this forest, but it will be with your blood, if you have any,” I hissed.
The dryad laughed. “And what will you do to me? There is no power within a man to harm me.”
I raised my hand and opened my palm so she could see the fire that ignited there. “Trees don’t like fire, do they?” I asked menacingly.
The dryad hissed and backed away. “You wouldn’t dare!”
She was right. I wasn’t going to burn down the forest, especially with us in it, but the dryad didn’t have to know that. “Let us pass, now,” I said once again.
The trees nearly bent double, lashing us with their limbs. The horses whinnied and snorted. And somewhere among the trees, Sarina yelped as if she’d been whipped.
The dryad, however, was who held my attention. Her beautiful face had changed into a snarl, and her arms rose as if she was summoning something.
Beside me, my mare half-reared and screamed.
“Jon!” Ilana said. “The vines!”
I looked down, and the forest floor had become a writhing, dangerous mass of vines and thick roots, twisting toward us, around the base of the trees, and beginning to grow up our legs. The horses, worthy beasts that they were, began panicking and stomping. Sarina rushed out toward us, biting at the roots that tried to grab her paws.
And then Wren yelled. I looked back, and the half-elf was completely engulfed in the vines. They twisted around her, encasing her arms, her legs, and even snaking around her neck. Her purple eyes looked terrified as she tried to fight them off. But it was no use, they had taken hold of her.
Ilana ran to her, as did Sarina, but the vines were already trying to take Wren away. I snarled and spun back to the dryad, letting my anger feed my magic. Instead of shooting fire at her, I summoned some actual wind in my hands, letting it build until I felt as if it would overflow. And then, I released it straight at the wood nymph. She shrieked as the energy threw her back against the trunk of a tree. But it didn’t seem to damage her, for she continued to summon more vines.
The horses were going mad with terror now, and their rearing and jumping away from the roots threatened to trample us all. I moved away from them, trusting that Ilana and Sarina would help Wren, and this time gathered fire to me. I shot it at the dryad, who tried to move out of the way. But the fire hit her dead in her beautiful chest, and she screamed. I hit her again, and again, aware that I was igniting some of the dry brush around us. The dryad was crying now, but not dying. And yet, she dropped her hands, and the vines stopped writhing at our feet.
She fell to the ground, holding an arm up as if to ward me off. “Please, no! Do not burn my trees! Please!” she begged.
By this point, I was angry enough to allow the magic to wash through me. To allow everything to burn, just because she had dared to cross me. And because she had threatened my friends. I had a hard time not letting the rage take over, and I hit her once more out of spite before finding a place of calm where I could become myself once more.
It was a side effect of using my magic, and why I only called on it now in cases where a sword wouldn’t do the job. I couldn’t risk slaughtering innocents in my rage.
The dryad didn’t look up at me, but she continued to sob. Then, realizing that some fires still burned around her, and that they were beginning to take hold and spread, she leapt to her feet. “Call away the fire!” she screamed. And then she rushed toward me, her hair waving madly as if she was going to attack me with it. “Call it off!”
I raised my hands again to ward her away, and she halted a few feet from me. “Only if you let us pass unharmed. All of us.”
The fires began to crackle in earnest, and smoke began to fill the air. “What’s it going to be?” I asked softly, reveling in her despair. “Your lovely trees? Or us?”
With an anguished cry, the dryad hurled herself away from me and began to hold her hands over the flames, as if she was trying to put them out with some spell of her own. But my magic was too powerful, and she soon realized, even as the flames crept up the first tree, that she would never extinguish them on her own.
With tears running down her face, she snarled again. “Begone! And never come back.”
It was good enough for me. I calmed myself, and allowed my thoughts to drift toward the fire. The magic running through me loved the destruction, and for a moment, I even felt the wyrm’s blood running through my veins, encouraging me to burn it all. But I ignored it, and with a simple spell, put out the fires. Soon, the air was filled with more smoke and a few embers, but the danger had passed.
When I looked, the dryad had run farther away. Sarina growled once again, and I thought she wanted to hunt the wood nymph down, but I shook my head. “Let’s get out of here.”
I ran over to Wren and finished helping to cut her free. Ilana had done most of the work. And Sarina had been busily tearing at the roots with her fangs. So, in another moment, the half-elf was free. Her already skimpy clothes were shredded, revealing most of one breast and her smooth, flat abdomen. We helped her step out of the mess and then tried to calm the horses, which to their credit, hadn’t tried to bolt, but were still spooked.
Sarina changed back into a human, and before gathering her own clothes from under the tangle of roots beneath us, she moved from one horse to another, speaking into their ears, and using calming spells on them.
In a few minutes, we had freed ourselves completely, calmed the horses, and Sarina had found her clothes.
I led the way, making a wide berth of the area where the trees were still disturbed and lashing about. We didn’t escape without cuts to our faces and any flesh that was exposed. Wren, whose clothing was ruined, suffered the worst of it. Ilana pulled her black riding cloak from her saddle bag and gave it to the slight woman, who put it on and, since it was a bit too long, tied up the ends around her waist. It protected her, at least, as we hurried as fast as we could away from the dryad’s area.
I didn’t doubt that there were more of them, and if we had to fight more than one at a tie, I would have a much harder time without burning down the forest around us, with us in it.
All in all, it had been a rough first day in the forest, but we didn’t stop until well after nightfall. Finding a bit of shelter with our backs t
o a giant boulder that looked as if it had been thrust up from the ground, we ate a meager meal and tried to relax. The trees were quieter here, only moving when a real breeze swept through from the mountains. It wasn’t cool, though, but hot, dry air, and I hoped that the Sacred Forest of the wood elves would be cooler, on the other side of the mountain.
“Thank you,” Wren said gratefully after we’d eaten. “I thought she was going to take me.”
“You’re welcome,” I said. “And we won’t let that happen. You don’t have to go with anyone unless you want to.”
Wren came over to where I was sitting and put a hand on mine, which was propped up on my knee. “Thank you,” she whispered again. Then, she went to sit close by with her back to the rock, pulling the cloak around her and tucking her head inside the hood.
“There are many dangers in this forest,” Ilana said. “More than we’d bargained for. But that dryad was only defending her home.”
“I know,” I said. “It doesn’t mean she gets to keep one of us as a pet, though.”
Ilana smiled and kissed my cheek. “You have a good heart, Jon.”
“Hmm,” I said noncommittally.
16
We didn’t camp in the forest. Instead, after a just a short break, we pushed onward. And since night wasn’t much darker than day, it didn’t seem to matter much. We stopped a couple more times to allow the horses a few moments of rest and water, and then we would keep moving. By the time the first red light of dawn began to push through the dark canopy above, we were climbing up increasingly rocky ground, and the trees were thinning.
I was happy to be out of there, and figured that if I ever returned to the Slavers’ Bowl, I would find a different route than through that particular forest. My vision was still vivid in my mind, and anything that put distance between me and it was welcome.
By midday, we stood on a low ridge, overlooking a valley covered in a different type of forest. While still dotted with dark trees, this one covered the valley in a blanket of yellow, red, and even golden leaves. Almost like a spectacular Fall scene, but less vibrant and more gray.
“The Sacred Forest,” Wren said as she stood beside me. “Home of the wood elves. It has been a long time since I’ve been here, but it looks the same now as it does in my memories.”
“Well, no point in waiting here where anyone can see us,” I said. “Let’s get going.”
Our party moved carefully down the rocky side of the low mountain, to protect the horses. But they were surefooted beasts as well as swift and loyal, and my mare picked her way confidently down the barren, brown rocks.
“What about Razor?” I asked her. The horse snorted, and even Wren turned up her nose at that. “Sunshine? Bright Star?”
When my mare ignored these options, I shook my head. Maybe she didn’t want a name. Maybe I would just keep calling her ‘horse.’
Once at the bottom, I called for a rest before entering the Sacred Forest. And once again, Sarina went to scout, but this time not as a Hellhound. The elves, if there were any this close to the border, might not take kindly to a Hellhound sniffing around their lands.
After about an hour, Sarina hadn’t yet returned, and I began to worry. Beside me, Ilana fidgeted with the stopper on her water skin, popping it out and then pushing it back in.
“I’ll go look for her,” I said, standing.
But Ilana shook her head. “No, let’s all go together,” she said, including Wren with her statement. “It won’t do for us to all be separated.”
I couldn’t argue with that, so we led our horses under the trees. The undergrowth here was less dense than in the earlier forest with the dryad, and walking was easier. But there still wasn’t much visibility. I closed my eyes and tried to catch a whiff of Sarina’s apple scent, but the rich, earthy smell of black soil greeted my nostrils instead. Looking down, I saw that this was the richest ground I’d seen since entering Hell.
“No wonder the wood elves keep themselves a secret,” I said. “I think they may have found a small haven.”
Still walking beside me, Wren frowned. “But they do not want anyone but their own kind enjoying this haven,” she said bitterly.
“Yeah,” I said, not quite knowing what else to say. I felt a bit of anger on behalf of the half-elf, and pity. She had been ostracized simply for who she was. Then again, if most people knew who I was, I probably wouldn’t be welcome anywhere, either. And Ilana fought the same sort of prejudices all the time. She could barely enter a human town. As for Sarina, she was accepted until people—elves or humans—learned she was a Hellhound shifter. I guess we were a party of outcasts, but it suited me just fine. I was fond of my little band, including Wren. I didn’t care for her as I did Sarina and Ilana, or Nya and Syn, but she had asked to travel with me, and that meant I would protect her as one of my own. Until she decided she wanted something else.
The half-elf left my side after a few minutes of walking, tempted by the plants she saw growing within her reach. I saw her gather unnamed roots, berries, and mushrooms, carefully wrapping them separately in fern leaves and placing them inside her bag. Sometimes, when she found something, she would mutter a few words over them before picking them.
“What are you saying?” I asked when she returned to my side.
“I am thanking the plants for allowing me to use them, and asking them not to do anything to harm me as I pick them. Some plants spoil themselves or produce poison when they are harvested. Unless you perform a spell over them.”
“Even the plants are murderous in Hell,” I muttered.
“All things are capable of murder,” Wren said cynically. “Even those that are meant to sustain life.”
I nodded, and we walked further in silence, keeping our eyes open for Sarina. Her trail was faint, but I knew it so well by now that following it was relatively easy. But after another ten minutes, her footprints stopped, turned about and spread as if she had taken a fighting stance, and then disappeared.
“Hold on,” I said. I looked all around, but didn’t see any other footprints join hers. Neither did I see any evidence that she had shifted and jumped away as a Hellhound, because her clothing and sword should still be here.
“Shit,” I whispered. “Where did she go?”
Before anyone could hazard a guess to my question, three beings fell from the trees around us, landing so softly on their feet that they made no more noise than a butterfly. I let go of my horse’s reins and drew my sword from over my shoulder without thinking.
But the elves already had arrows nocked on the strings of their bows, and each arrow was trained at someone.
We were at a standoff.
The elf who had me in her sights was a female a little shorter than me, with dark bluish hair and olive skin. She was beautiful, and wore leathers from neck to toe. But I wasn’t too concerned with her looks at the moment, instead keeping my eye on her arrow.
“You are trespassing, stranger,” she said. Her dark eyes held a determination within them that I didn’t question. Without a doubt, if I made a move, she would loose that arrow. I knew I would heal quickly, but if she shot me in the face or in a vital organ like the heart, I wasn’t so sure I would survive.
I didn’t want to test it.
“My apologies,” I said, still keeping my sword at the ready. If she did decide to fire, I could parry it with my sword. But with Wren beside me and my horse, the chances of one of them receiving the blow were greater than I liked. “We are travelers who have a purpose, not idle wanderers.”
“Your reason for being here does not negate the transgression,” the first elf said, and her voice was low and soft.
“I understand,” I said. “Still, perhaps you could tell me where another member of my party got to. A redheaded woman wearing armor.”
“She has been captured and is even know awaiting a decision from our lord.”
A sense of cold calm rushed me, and I knew my fiery wrath would come next. “You must release her, or at least tak
e us to your lord,” I said with deadly calm. I could kill these elves if I released my magic, but then I might endanger Sarina. And anyway, killing elves wasn’t my purpose.
“We could just riddle your bodies with arrows,” the first elf said. “And be done with you.”
“If that was your purpose, you should have done so when you had the element of surprise,” I said heatedly, “because now you have stepped into something you don’t know anything about.”
The elf peered at me closely, her eyes running up and down my powerful body as if she could see the magic coursing through me.
“I know a bit about it,” she said after a moment. “But the question is why you have come into our forest, bringing abominations with you.”
“Careful,” I said, letting some anger through. “I have already offered to tell you why I’m here. But now, I think I would rather speak to your lord. A male, I take it? That is unusual.”
“We do not care about the gender of someone in the Sacred Forest, only what they can do.”
I nodded. I could respect that. “Then take me to him, let me make sure my friend is okay, and then perhaps I will explain my errand here.”
The elf glanced at the other two who still held their bowstrings stretched and ready to loose. She nodded, and they took up positions behind us.
“You have magic within you,” the first elf then said. “And my lord has given orders that any magic users be taken to him, or I would not grant your request. It is by his grace alone that you still live.”
I nodded carefully but didn’t lower my sword until she lowered her bow.
“Follow me,” she said.
17
The first elf walked next to me, and I knew she was keeping her eye on me. I sheathed my sword, in part to keep anything from escalating, but mostly to free my hands in case I needed to use magic.
I led my horse, Ilana led her mare, and Wren led Sarina’s gelding.
“What is your name?” I asked as we picked our way through brambles and thorny bushes.