by Greg Keyes
"Because eventually our names find us, just like our deaths."
"This child isn't going to die, Aspar. I know that in my heart. I don't know why you would try to-" Her voice cracked.
They rode along for a moment.
"What names?" he asked.
"Never mind," she answered.
He glanced over at her. "I always thought Armann was a good name," he said.
She frowned, and at first he thought the conversation really was over. But then she nodded. "Yes," she allowed. "My father would like that."
"And if it's a girl?"
"I like Emmer," she said. "Or Sally."
A bell later the wind shifted to blow from the woods, and the scent of corruption was so strong that Aspar gagged and lost his breakfast, then lay over his horse's neck dry-heaving.
"For the saints, Asp, what's wrong?" Winna asked.
"The smell."
"Smell?" She sniffed at the air. "I smell something a little rotten," she said. "Nothing to be sick over. Are you all right?"
"Yah," he said.
But he wasn't. When they got nearer, he saw some others wrinkling their noses, but to him the stench was so overpowering that he could hardly think. He wanted anger to hold him up, get him through it, but mostly he felt sick, tired, and sad. Something deep in his chest told him it was time to lie down and die, along with the forest he had known.
Because it was gone.
Every natural tree had rotted into viscous black slime, and growing from their putrefied corpses were the triumphant black thorns he first had seen growing from the footprints of the Briar King.
But it wasn't just the vines now. They had been joined by trees with long saw-toothed leaves, barrel-shaped plants that resembled giant club moss, leafless, scaly bushes. He recognized some of them as being like those he had seen in the Sarnwood, but although unnatural, those had seemed healthy. These were not; like the ironoak, yew, poplar, and pine they had sprung from, these plants were dying, too.
So were the beasts. They came across the corpses of a greffyn and an utin. It looked like the first had killed the second, started to eat it, and then died of its own wounds.
Later they came across other sedhmhari that appeared simply to have dropped dead, perhaps of hunger.
There were no birds at all, no sounds except those they and their horses made. And for Aspar the smell only got worse and worse as they climbed up into the Lean Gable Hills and then back down along the edge of what once had been the Foxing Marshes but were now noisome meres infested with the giant scabby mosslike plants. There were things still moving in the water, big things, but none came close enough to see.
"This is insane," Emfrith said as darkness started to settle in and Aspar hunted for a campsite. "What could have done this?"
Aspar didn't feel like answering and didn't, but the knight persisted.
"And what refuge do you hope to find in this desert? And where will we find supplies? We don't have that much food or wine left, and I wouldn't drink from any of the springs we've seen. There's nothing to hunt."
"I know a place where we might find supplies," Aspar said. "We can be there by tomorrow."
"And then what?"
"Then we head into the mountains."
"You think they won't be like this?"
No, Aspar thought. They'll be worse.
They reached the White Warlock the next morning, crossing the ancient Brew Bridge, a narrow span of pitted black stone. The river was no longer the clear stream that had inspired its name but ran black as tar.
When they were halfway across, something exploded out of it.
As his horse reared, Aspar had the impression of something that married snake and frog. Its immense greenish-black bulk rose up above them and showed a mouth topful of yellow needles that was reared to strike down toward them.
But it stopped suddenly, swaying there. Aspar saw that its eyes had pupils like a toad's, and weird gills opened and closed on the sides of its massy neck. He saw no limbs; the sinuous neck-or body-continued deep into the water.
He started to put an arrow to his bow, but the beast suddenly turned its head, looked back the way Aspar and his companions had come, and vented a forlorn croak. Then it withdrew into the river as quickly as it had risen.
"Sceat," Aspar breathed.
"It didn't attack us," Emfrith wondered.
"No," Aspar agreed. Fend told it not to.
After the lowlands around the river, they again began to climb up into the Brogh y Stradh, where wild cattle once grazed in pleasant meadows and periwinkle finches came to breed and lay their eggs. Traveling through the forest wasn't the discovery of a loved one lost; it was a fresh loss around every corner, a new corpse every league.
Toward dusk they reached Tor Scath.
Unlike the forest around it, Tor Scath was unchanged. The last time he'd been there had been with Stephen Darige. He'd just rescued the lad from bandits, and he remembered with muffled amusement the way the boy had gone on and on about things that at the time seemed absurd.
But time told, and in the end he had been more of a fool than Stephen, hadn't he? Stephen, with his knowledge of the ancient past, had been more ready to face what was coming than Aspar, despite the lad's sheltered upbringing.
"That's an odd-looking place," Emfrith said, breaking Aspar's chain of thought.
Aspar nodded, taking the place in once again. It was as if someone had taken a small, perfectly reasonable keep and tried to cram as many weird towers onto it as possible. There was actually one tower that had another one starting from it halfway up.
"Yah," he agreed. "They say it was built by a madman."
"Does anyone live here? It hardly seems defensible."
"It's lately a royal hunting lodge," Aspar replied. "Kept by a knight named Sir Symen Rookswald. I doubt that anyone is here now."
"Surely Sir Symen left in time," Winna murmured.
"I'm sure he did," Aspar said. "He was onto the danger before I was."
He said it, but he didn't really believe it. Sir Symen took his duty seriously despite his morose character.
Human bones lay in a thick scatter outside the walls.
"The people of the keep?" Emfrith asked.
Aspar shook his head. "I maun Tor Scath is more defensible than you think. These died trying to get in."
"Slinders," Winna reckoned.
"Yah."
"So Sir Symen stayed and fought."
"For a while, anyway."
"What are slinders?" Emfrith asked.
"Tribespeople from the hills, driven mad by the Briar King. They were like locusts. They would pull down and eat anything before them."
"Eat?" the knight asked incredulously. "I heard rumors like that, but I never believed 'em."
"No, they ate people, all right," Aspar said. "Without salt, even. Now keep aware. We don't know what lives in here now."
The keep's entrance was as odd as the rest of it, a smallish gate at the base of a narrow tower. Aspar tested it and found it barred from the other side, but that triggered a sudden baying and barking from within.
"There are dogs in there," Emfrith said. "How is that possible?"
A few moments later the gate opened, revealing a hulk of a man on the other side.
"Isarn?" Aspar said, not believing it.
"Master White," the fellow replied. "It's good to see you."
But Aspar was looking around, astonished. There were not only dogs in the yard but chickens and geese. There were even a few green weeds and what looked like a plot of turnips.
"Sir Symen? Is he here?" Aspar asked.
The giant nodded. "In the hall. He'll be glad to see you. Let me show you where to put the horses."
Symen's long hair and beard were more unkempt than ever, lending him the appearance of an old lion on the verge of starvation, but he smiled and came shakily to his feet when Aspar entered. Winna rushed to him and gave him a hug.
"Aspar," the old man said. "What a pretty gift you bring me." He
frowned. "Is this little Winna?"
"It's me, Sir Symen," she confirmed.
"Oh, sweet girl, how you've grown. It's been too long since I went to Colbaely." He glanced at her belly but politely didn't say anything.
"Have you heard anything about the town?"
"Your father left, I know that; headed over the mountains toward Virgenya. Most others fled or died when the slinders came."
He turned to clasp Aspar's arm. He felt no more substantial than a straw.
"I told you, didn't I, Aspar? Hardheaded man you are."
He nodded. "You were more right than wrong," he admitted. "What happened here?"
"Sit," Sir Symen said. "I still have wine. We'll have a drink."
He signed, and a young boy who had been sitting on a stool in the corner got up and went off down the hall.
"Anfalthy?" Aspar asked.
"I sent her to relatives in Hornladh," he replied. "Along with the other women. This is no place for them now."
The boy returned with a jug of wine. Mazers were already scattered about the table, and he set about filling them.
Symen took a long quaff. "It's good to have visitors to drink with," he said. "We don't have much company these days."
"You never did," Aspar replied.
"No, that's true," the knight allowed. He trailed a glance at Emfrith and his men. "Who are your friends?"
Aspar made the introductions, trying not to let his impatience show. When that was all settled, Symen finally got around to the holter's question.
"The slinders came," he said. "But they couldn't breach the walls, and they soon left. They came several times, but it was always the same. They were terrifying if you met them in the forest, but against a keep-even such a poor keep as this one-they had no weapons. They couldn't chew their way through stone, could they? So we stayed put, and when they were distant, I sent men to help the villagers and to lay up meat for a siege.
"Then the monsters started to show, but it seems mad King Gault wasn't so mad after all. He built this place to keep the alvs and booyghs out, and damned if it doesn't."
"What do you mean?"
"They can't or won't come in. I can only imagine some enchantment keeps them out."
"Grim," Aspar murmured. "That's a turn of weird."
"But a fortunate one for us," Symen replied.
"Yah."
"So they came and went, and then the forest began to die. Then slinders returned, hundreds of them, and greffyns and manticores and all manner of beasts, and they killed each other outside the walls, and what was left starved. We waited inside here, and now here you are."
"But that's wonderful," Emfrith said. "Holter, this is the place. This is where Winna can have her child."
The geos was still finding a lie for Aspar to tell when Isarn suddenly burst into the hall.
"Sir Symen," he shouted. "There's an army coming, not two leagues away. Henne saw it."
"From the north?" Aspar said. "Yah, that'll be Fend."
"And he'll be helpless," Emfrith said. "His beasts can't harm us here. They'll starve like the others."
"He still has men," Aspar pointed out. "They can come in, and probably the Sefry, too."
"This army is marching from the west," Isarn replied. "Men and horses, maybe five hundred."
"Not Fend, then," Winna said.
"Relief from Eslen, perhaps?"
"Perhaps," Aspar said. But he remembered what Fend had told him, and in his heart he didn't think there was any relief in sight.
CHAPTER ELEVEN
DRINKING WITH WARRIORS
THE ARROW felt like liquid fire in Cazio's arm, and he went all knee-weak.
Dodging arrows, he had decided, was not his forte. That was too bad, because he could see that the man who had shot him was drawing back another shaft as another fellow with ax and shield was bearing down on him hard.
He stepped to put the axman between him and the archer and raised Acredo, glad he'd been hit in the left arm. The arrow was still there, like a little tree sprouting from his bicep. His balance felt off.
He speared at the axman's face, but the fellow lifted his shield, turned his blade with it, and stepped in with a hard cut. Cazio jerked his blade to parry in a high prismo, with his hand above his head and the blade slanting from right to left across his body. It met the ax just below the hilt, deflecting it a fingers-breadth from hitting him.
With his point down and standing belly to shield with the other man, Cazio did the only thing he could think of: He sprang straight up, tilting his hand out so that the earth-pointing blade came down on the other side of the enemy's shield and stabbed him in the neck just above the breastbone. Encountering no bone, Acredo slipped right down into the man's lungs.
When Cazio's feet hit the ground again, his legs wouldn't hear of standing, so he went on down while the axman stumbled off, trying for a little while to pull Acredo back out of his body before fetching against a tree.
That left the archer, who was advancing cautiously toward him. Desperately, Cazio began crawling for cover, glancing back often. The man looked grim now and stepped up his pace. Cazio wondered if the axman had been his friend.
But then the fellow sat down hard and dropped his bow. Cazio saw that he had an arrow in his belly.
"Ah, sceat," he heard the man say. "I knew it." He sat that way for a moment and then used his bow to push himself to his feet. He looked around, then cast another glance at Cazio.
"Sceat on this," he said, and began hobbling off into the woods.
"Good luck," Cazio called after him.
"Fooce-thu, coonten," the man called back.
"Right," Cazio breathed, trying to stand. It was absolutely astonishing how much blood was on him. Should he try to get the arrow out?
He took hold of it, the sun exploded, and the next thing he knew, someone was looking down at him. He hoped it was a friend.
"This is going to hurt," z'Acatto said later that evening.
"You've never lied to me before," Cazio said sarcastically. "I-" But he forgot whatever he meant to say as his vision went white with pain and his capacity for speech was reduced to a series of ragged gasps.
"Told you," the old man said.
"Yes," was the cleverest response Cazio could manage.
"You'll be fine if the fever doesn't get you."
"What a relief," Cazio replied, wiping tears of pain from his eyes with his good hand.
A glance at Austra's concerned face, and he felt suddenly a bit ashamed. He'd only had an arrow in the meat of his arm. What had been done to her was far worse.
He drank something z'Acatto handed him. It tasted like fire stirred with the sweat of a drunk.
He took another drink, and as z'Acatto plugged and bandaged the wound, he got the broad strokes of what had happened. Shortly put, they had won. The hedgehog had held back the attackers so that the archers could keep putting arrows in them.
"Then the Cassro orders us forward," Jan told him. "Against what's left of the horse. At first they can't believe it; they reckon we're a defensive formation. But we advance with pike a step at a time, braced together like old times, and they got their infantry behind 'em. Even charging they couldn't break us, and now we're startin' to tickle 'em with our pikes, and they've no room to charge. Before you can say Jaq Long-wick, they turn and cut their way through their own infantry."
He jerked his chin toward the swordmaster. "That's a man who knows a thing or two about fighting," Jan said.
"I'm sorry I missed it," Cazio said.
"Ah, you did your part. Here, have another drink with me."
"Pleased to," Cazio said.
"One more," Austra said from behind him. "Then he's mine, boys. The sun's going down."
They'd set up a tent for her, and once inside, he took her gently by the shoulders and kissed her. She had alcohol on her breath, too, and her eyes were troubled, showing more need than desire.
He pulled her closer, and need suddenly was replaced by wh
at looked like panic. He felt her go rigid and released his grip.
"I'm sorry," she said.
"No need for that," he replied, stroking her head. "You've been through a lot."
She kissed the shoulder of his wounded arm. "So have you."
He bussed her forehead, then sidled around behind her. This time when he pulled her close, she didn't tense up. He kissed the back of her neck, and she sighed.
Gently, gently, he undressed her, and soon they were spooned flesh to flesh. He reached around and stroked her forehead, then down her ribs and hip.
"Is this enough for this evening?" she asked softly.
"More than enough," he replied. "Kingdoms more. Empires more."
"Thank you."
"You'll heal," he told her. "I'll heal, and we'll both be better. But we're fine now. We're alive, and we have each other."
"That's true, isn't it?" she murmured.
He woke a few bells later. It was cold, and he made sure Austra was well covered in her blanket. Then he pulled on his pants and shirt and went outside. His arm throbbed as if a demon were in it, and the liquor had gone thin as milk in his veins.
About half the men were still awake, singing and laughing by the fire.
He found z'Acatto alone, up on the wagon.
"Is it time for the wine yet, old man?" he asked.
He could just make out his mestro's face in the distant firelight. It looked like he was smiling a little.
"No, not yet."
"Why didn't you tell me any of this? I mean, I know we have our quarrels, but you're almost my father."
"I'm not your father," z'Acatto snapped. Then, more softly: "I could never be that."
"No? But you took on the role. Why?"
"I couldn't think of anything better to do," he said.
"You haven't answered my question."
"Doesn't look like I'm going to, does it?"
Cazio sighed. "Don't you ever get bored with this bickering?"
Z'Acatto was silent for a moment, and then he chuckled. "Easier than talking," he said.
"Exactly. For me, too."
"Fine," z'Acatto said. "I never wanted you involved in this sort of thing. Your father made me promise to teach you the sword, but he never asked me to make you a soldier. I don't think he wanted that for you, and I damned sure didn't. So I didn't fill your head with tales of our exploits."