He struggled to take a grip on himself; it would be a disgrace for the warriors of King Krassos to succumb to psychological breakdown.
But it was hard to avoid feeling helpless as the hours wore on and his force was steadily, mercilessly depleted by all the horrid means the forest had at its disposal. Then, sometime after midday, Octrago gave brief warning of a second major attack.
They had been hacking through thick bush, when he was alerted by a curious motion ahead.
“Call a halt,” he advised urgently. “Ready the fire engines.”
Vorduthe immediately did so, and studied the object of Octrago’s alarm. In their path lay numerous trees of a type he had not seen before, dwarfs in comparison with the tall trunks that gave the forest its ever-present canopy. Their olive-colored branches were long and whip-like, and thrashed constantly about as if tossed by a strong wind.
Many of the branches bore on their tips fluffy white spheres, resembling large puffballs. Octrago was shouting to Vorduthe to have the fire engines wheeled forward when, as if by command, the whip-branches drew themselves back and flung several dozen spheres at the advancing army.
They flew swiftly at first, until slowed by the resistance of the air, then sailed, then drifted, over the ragged column.
Petrified with dread, most men cowered or dived under wagons. Only one fire engine operator had the presence of mind to swivel his nozzle, swing his match-cord, and send a swath of fire through the setting spheres.
In that moment, the puffballs burst. It was as if a cloud of gnats came into existence and dispersed, all in the space of seconds.
Again the trees threshed, flinging more puffballs.
“Fire engines forward!” Vorduthe bellowed, galvanized into action. “Burn those trees! Burn them!”
But even as the crews moved to obey, the puff-balls showed their deadly purpose. Each seed-like particle expelled by them floated on the air by a parachute of silken threads; now it in turn burst to release a puff of violet spores.
If the colorful little clouds encountered nothing, they sifted harmlessly to the ground. Yet where they settled on human skin, a horrible transformation took place. In less than a minute a patch of discoloration could be seen spreading fast over the helpless victim. This quickly thickened to become a slimy carpet. His flesh had become food for a quick-growing fungus. If touched, fungus and tissue fell away together in rotting gobs, revealing bone that, too, was rapidly disintegrating.
“The mould! The mould!”
The disbelieving moans came from those stricken, who staggered about in horror and despair while their comrades fled from them, refusing to deliver the mercy of their swords lest they should receive contagion from the blades. Vorduthe forced himself to ignore the gruesome sight. Like everyone else, he could do no more than hope to escape infection and to keep his mind on the task in hand. For now, at least, was a peril that could be dealt with after the manner of a military engagement. It was indeed fortunate that the fire engines could frizzle the puffballs in midair, or else the fungus-rot might well have consumed the entire army. As it was, only a dozen or so of the second volley won through the criss-crossing firestreams to airburst their spores, and in seconds the trees themselves were writhing, massed with flame, even while letting loose the last of their delicate artillery.
It was then that the forest sent in its second wave: a hail of lances and a rain of danglecups from the taller trees all around. To these, too, Vorduthe responded with his only effective weapon: fire. He realized he would have to forsake all restraint, all thought of conserving the precious fuel. He created a conflagration. Tree trunks roared with leaping flame. From above, there came a snowstorm of burning leaves.
A fuel wagon was pierced by a tree-lance that had been converted to a spear of flame, and exploded. Yet somehow Vorduthe kept his ravaged force together, leading it between burning stumps that had been a grove of whiplash trees. Behind them the fires flourished but briefly before the forest, in its usual manner, magically damped them down. Behind them, too, lay numerous corpses, including those that had fallen with the fungus-rot. These were almost visibly decomposing. They would add their substance to the soil and furnish fast food for the root system—in its own way, the forest was fiercely logical. Perhaps, Vorduthe thought, they would even be the means of regenerating the whiplash trees he had just burned.
While still on the move he took stock of the supplies. By the gods, there was not much left! Yet, at the same time, he noticed a lifting of spirits among his men. They had won a kind of victory.
And as if to concede that victory the forest became quiet. Vorduthe decided to streamline his resources. He called a brief halt and had the fire engines’ fuel casks refilled. This left but one full fuel wagon and two perhaps a quarter full.
He ordered the contents of one pumped into the other. He also sacrificed three partly laden provisions wagons, abandoning what supplies could not be accommodated elsewhere. The empty wagons were then hurriedly broken up to provide makeshift shields.
Thus unburdened, a more compact party made faster progress, winding between the tall boles. The forest was becoming spacious again, and again Octrago led them upward. One hour, then two hours passed, and blessedly there were no more than occasional single attacks—a lone lance or danglecup, a fallpit which opened up and not always caught its prey. There were no more cage tigers, no more mangrabs. The warriors of the Hundred Islands began to experience a feeling of euphoria, and to hope that the time of dread was now over.
“The forest’s fury seems abated,” Vorduthe said to Octrago. “Are we nearly through?”
But the Peldainian merely grunted in reply. Eventually they were forced to take a downward path again, following a gentle and almost meadow-like slope.
Vorduthe knew that exhaustion played a large part in the mood of relaxation that was being felt. It was now late afternoon, and he was tempted to call a halt and camp for the night, in what seemed a safe spot. But remembering Octrago’s promise, he was eager to be out of the forest before nightfall.
He allowed a short pause for each man to refill his water bag. On resuming, the head of the column encountered what looked like nothing else but an extensive fruit orchard.
The trees, like the whiplash trees, grew in the shade of the great overhang, whose supporting trunks sprang from among them. But unlike the whiplash trees they were enchanting to look on, smothered in pink blossoms. The column sauntered to a halt, more to view the spectacle than anything.
The contrast with everything they had been through so far was startling and refreshing. Was this, then, the end of the nightmare? A smiling serpent harrier walked slowly forward, breathing deeply. “Hey!” he shouted. “It’s pretty!”
Vorduthe could smell a powerful sweet perfume the orchard wafted. Askon Octrago came loping from where he had been loitering at the rear of the column.
“Beware!” he called to Vorduthe in a low tone. “Call that man back!”
Vorduthe felt a prickling in his spine. Already the harrier had reached the nearest tree. He was reaching out to pluck a flower.
And then it happened. The tree shook. It seemed to become a cascade: liquid was pouring down it, squirting out from it. An acrid odor blanketed out the pleasant-smelling scent.
Uttering a high-pitched scream, the serpent harrier staggered back. The tree had doused him from head to toe in its colorless fluid. He flopped to the ground where he writhed in agony, white vapor drifting from his corroding flesh.
“Drench blossom,” Octrago muttered. “So innocent-looking. At close quarters the scent can overpower one’s judgment like a drug. Then it squirts digestive juice.”
Mercifully, the acid did its work quickly. The screams became a gurgle, and stopped. The body ceased its writhing. Bone was already showing.
Vorduthe sighed. “What is your advice?”
“It looks like a large plantation. Send scouts to right and left. If they find no way round use fire again.”
“Send me
n alone through the forest?” Vorduthe said incredulously. “Will you be one of them?”
Octrago shrugged. “I was thinking of your fuel supply. Very well, burn your way through without delay. It will come to the same, I suppose.”
“First tell me one thing. You spoke of two days’ march, and we are now near the end of the second day. Are we, then, near the landward fringe of the forest?”
Octrago did not hesitate. He looked Vorduthe directly in the eye. “I think not,” he said bleakly. “I think there is some distance to go yet.”
“Then you lied to us.”
“No. I gave my assessment, that is all. As a military commander, you know yourself that everything is subject to changing circumstances.”
“Indeed. I am wondering if in fact you know this route at all.”
Octrago gave a wintry smile. “Are you then coming round to Lord Korbar’s view? That I am an agent of insurgents in the Hundred Islands? In that case perhaps you can explain how I know so much about the Forest of Peldain.”
“Even I know that it contains cage tigers and mangrab trees.”
“And drench blossom? Shoot tubes? Dart-thorns? So far I have managed to guide us clear of any slime carpets, which are the most to be feared. They are next to invisible, but prefer the moister pastures. But how would you tell which are the moister beds, beneath the moss? I tell you, without my help you would all have perished long before yesterday’s nightfall.”
Vorduthe’s reply was openly cynical. “So is this the comparatively easy path you promised us?”
“It is.”
“My army is all but wiped out.”
“It is not wiped out. It still survives as a fighting force, and that is all that is needed. Waste no more time. Use your fire.”
Vorduthe could think of no further retort, or see any other course of action. The now-familiar billowing heat of the fire spouts played on the deceptively pretty orchard. Soon the wagons were rolling over ash, then pausing and extending the path of flame.
Beyond reach of the gushes of liquid fire, the whole orchard was discharging its acid in an orgasmic frenzy. The mind-deluding perfume, the acrid vapors, the smell of oil and smoke, all mingled to concoct a nauseating stench.
After burning a path nearly a leever long, they broke through to more open ground. Vorduthe proceeded another leever, then consulted Octrago again.
“Is there any point in continuing farther today? The light is fading, and the men need rest.”
Even the Peldainian looked tired. “Probably not,” he said. “This spot will do. Make camp here.”
As the barrier went up, and the covering net was fitted, it became pitifully obvious how much Vorduthe’s army had shrunk. Few trees needed felling: the camp area was far smaller than the previous night’s.
Neither would the coming hours be plagued by the intermittent explosions of men into whose bodies dart-thorns had entered. All such men had been slain, frequently in the face of their frantic protests.
Most of the force, after devouring a hastily prepared meal, fell into an exhausted sleep, oblivious even of the pressings of the forest against the barriers. Vorduthe ordered the guard shifts to be changed every hour; any longer, he feared, and the sentinels might not be able to stay awake.
As before, he sent Lord Korbar to tour the camp and make a count of losses. When he returned with his report he was glowering. He cast an accusing finger at Octrago.
“This man has deceived us, misled us—guided us into our own destruction!” he fumed. “Five hundred men, my lord—that is about what we have now!”
Octrago returned to Vorduthe. “This man’s loyalty to King Krassos is touching, my lord,” he said, “but I grow tired of his calumnies. You must tell him to forebear.”
“He has lied to us!” Korbar insisted. “His tale falls to pieces in the light of what we have suffered! If he truly came to sea by this route, then he must have set out with a body of men and equipment at least as large as ours. Why, then, did he have to come at all? He already had the army he claims he needs!”
Korbar was in a fury. Vorduthe could see that only the iron discipline of an Arelian nobleman was preventing him from falling on Octrago’s throat, so convinced was he of his treachery.
“Well, what do you say to that?” Vorduthe asked Octrago.
Octrago rose. Vorduthe was suddenly struck by his regal appearance. It was easy to imagine him wearing the pearled shoulder-plates that were the insignia of the kings of the Hundred Islands.
“Believe what you will,” Octrago said superciliously. “What difference does it make? I undertook to guide you through the most deadly place in the whole world, and that is what I am doing. Kill me if you think it will improve your situation. None of us can tell if he will live through another day in any case.”
He strode from the campfire, spurning the bowl of food that was about to be handed to him. Korbar fell silent. For all his anger, he saw the logic of Octrago’s words as well as anyone.
As for Vorduthe, he suddenly realized that he had, to some extent at least, fallen under the spell of this putative king of Peldain. The ground of reality had been cut from under him. Only this peculiar foreigner sustained him, with promises that mostly, it seemed, were lies.
Chapter Six
Next morning Vorduthe assembled a force that, if still haggard, was less bleary-eyed than before. Yet when he came to deliver his exhortation, and demanded the same courage in the day’s march that had been shown already, few eyes met his.
There would be mutiny, he suspected, but for the knowledge that there could be no turning back.
He took Octrago and Korbar to one side as the wagons were being lined up, and spoke bluntly. “You have not been honest with us,” he said to Octrago. “That is evident to me as well as to Lord Korbar. You claimed the forest was little more than twenty leevers deep at this point, yet by my estimate we have traveled thirty leevers already. Tell me now, without prevarication, how much farther we have to go.”
“We may have marched thirty leevers, but not in a straight line,” Octrago responded smoothly. “To avoid various dangers I was obliged to divert us hither and thither. In this forest you would not be able to keep track of every change in direction, or know where we were headed. As the seabird flies, we have not progressed more than fifteen leevers.”
“Then you still say no more than five leevers separates us from safety?”
“Perhaps.”
“Nothing but deceit and prevarication!” Lord Korbar burst out, exasperated. “How can you listen to this man, my lord? For all he may know, the forest covers the whole of Peldain, as our forefathers have always believed! I for one have no hope in a kingdom of Peldain—or that he is any kind of king, either.”
“That is only your assumption, Korbar.”
“Think, my lord. Could a party only fifty strong, without fire engines, have made the journey we have made? It is preposterous. Yet that is what Octrago’s story requires.”
“I told you only five survived,” Octrago murmured, unperturbed as ever.
“None could have survived. We have been duped, my lord. It grieves me to imagine what may be taking place in the Hundred Islands.”
Vorduthe stared hard at Octrago. “There is something in what you say, Korbar. Yet I do not think our friend is merely an agent of rebels, as you suppose. I will tell you why. If it were the case, he would not merely be leading us to our deaths, he would be sacrificing himself as well. Such self-sacrifice in the service of King Krassos might be believable, but not in the cause of treasonous scum. Askon Octrago, I have noticed, does not particularly want to die. Besides, he does have some knowledge of the forest, even if not as much as he pretends, and how would some rebel in the Islands gain that?”
He continued speaking, but addressed Octrago now. “I do not know what your motive is, but we have no choice except to follow you, King Askon, if such is what you are. But if by today’s end we have not emerged from this forest, I shall have you put to death
.”
The condescending half-smile still did not leave Octrago’s lips. “You hold my life in your hands, commander,” he said.
The wagons were poised, the army—if five hundred men could be called an army—was formed up. Vorduthe bellowed the order to march.
They traveled several leevers through a region where trip-root was scattered, hidden in knee-high grass. Often, too, stranglevine made its appearance, hanging in masses which would either have to be burned, cut away or simply gone through. Vorduthe could not afford to waste fuel by now and usually it was harmless. But occasionally it would suddenly spring to life, claiming a trooper or two or even those who were attempting to clear it with the long-handled cutters.
Vorduthe became sickened by the regular amputations and stranglings. More and more he was haunted by the image that Lord Korbar had summoned up: namely, that the forest extended over the whole island and they were merely pushing their way deeper and deeper into it.
Either by luck or because Octrago was guiding them well, they were meeting none of the dreadful mass traps encountered previously, and shoot-tubes, danglecups, fallpits and the rest struck only now and then. Yet, by degrees, nerves were breaking, so much so that toward midday Vorduthe found himself having to spring to the defense of Octrago, the cause of all their troubles.
A fallpit had opened just as a harrier was about to step off its lid. As near as Vorduthe could judge through the coarse grass, he had but a toehold on solid ground, while his other foot plunged into the pit.
Only a few paces away, Vorduthe instantly leaped to help the toppling warrior, but he was too late. Caught off-balance, the harrier flailed, howled, tried to rescue himself, but slid down the slippery tap-root. By the time Vorduthe reached the spot he was bubbling in the underground acid bath. All that could be done was to watch helplessly while the lid closed up again.
The Forest of Peldain Page 6