The Forest King

by Paul B. Thompson

  Mathi felt their doom was fast closing in. They had no defenses, no stockade, and only the weapons each of them carried. Aside from the Longwalker and a few of his friends, not a single kender had been seen in a week. Even Rufe was long gone. Mathi still owed him a horse, but Rufe was apparently no longer interested in trying to collect. If Mathi had been him, he would have written off the debt too. Treskan alone seemed busy. He inscribed volumes on any surface he could carry—leaves, tree bark, scraps of cloth, all written with charcoal sticks and spit. Mathi thought he would keep scribbling up to the moment a howling nomad lopped his head off.

  At night Balif crawled out of his tent and slipped into the trees. He wished to go unseen, but Mathi and Lofotan kept watch from a discreet distance. All they saw was a dark, stooped figure creeping on all fours. It was enough to make the old warrior shut his eyes and shudder.

  After his leader had departed on his nightly prowl, Lofotan returned to a project of his own. Mathi found him sitting cross-legged near the cliff edge overlooking the river. He had collected a large mound of green vines and was painstakingly braiding them into a single thick strand.

  “What are you making?” Mathi asked.

  “A lifeline.”

  The scribe didn’t get his meaning at first. Lofotan explained that when the time came, he wanted a rope he could throw over the cliff. That way they could climb down to the river and not be hopelessly trapped on the bluff.

  It was a good idea. Mathi asked how much he had made.

  “Twenty feet.” About half of what was needed. Mathi fingered the coil of finished rope Lofotan had made. It was tight and supple, amazing handwork. Elven dexterity at work.

  She left him to his task. Mathi intended to return to her shelter—she shared the largest tent with Treskan and the elves’ baggage—but first she followed the edge of the hill around, looking down at the water sparkling in the darkness below. She hadn’t gone halfway around when she spotted movement in the heavy shadows along the west bank of the river. Unsure what she was seeing, she slowed, then stopped. More movement, in another place. Someone was down there. More than one someone.

  “Lofotan!” she hissed. “Lofotan, come here!”

  The elfjogged up carrying his bow. Without a word Mathi pointed to the spot she thought she’d seen figures moving. She held up two, then three fingers. Lofotan nocked an arrow.

  “Are the centaurs all back?” Mathi whispered. They weren’t. Lofotan said something about them not coming back from the west.

  “Balif?”

  “Deer, maybe.” Lofotan waited, bow held loosely waist high. His eyesight was several times better than Mathi’s. He saw something she couldn’t. The bow mounted swiftly to his cheek and the arrow flew. Like most elves, Lofotan used a pinch draw, rather than the three-finger draw favored by humans. The pinch draw was not as powerful, but it had the advantage of nearly silent release. The arrow flashed into the night with only the softest thrum of the bowstring behind it.

  There was a thud below, a loud snapping of greenery, followed by a splash. Mathi strained hard to see what had happened. Moments later the answer came floating down river. A body, face down in the water, with Lofotan’s arrow through its neck.

  “Watch out,” the warrior said calmly. He leaned aside. Mathi stepped back more slowly and a brace of arrows cut the air where he had been.

  “We’re silhouetted against the sky,” Lofotan said. “Stay back.”

  He went down on one knee, bow resting on his thigh. Mathi fidgeted.

  “Wait,” the elf whispered.

  He heard a sound with his keen ears, popped up, aimed, and dispatched an arrow. He was rewarded with a screech of pain. Lofotan dropped down again. An arrow whistled past, high over his head.

  “He has the range but not the angle,” was his professional assessment of the enemy archer. “A smart soldier would beat a retreat now.” Another missile thudded into the clay of the bluff. Mathi muttered, “That one’s not smart, he’s angry.”

  Lofotan found a loose stone. He pressed it on Mathi and told her to go eight or ten feet away and toss it over.

  “He won’t fall for that old trick!”

  “Do as I say!”

  He had a second rock himself. Mathi crept on her hands and knees to where a small cedar tree was barely clinging to the crumbling cliff. She hurled the stone, then dropped on her belly as fast as she could.

  From his position Lofotan pushed his stone off the edge with his foot. Clods of dirt went with it, making a miniature avalanche. A white-fletched arrow sang through the air where the stone fell. If Lofotan had been sitting there it would have hit him in the face.

  Straightening his back, the elf took aim and let fly. Without waiting any time to see if he hit the mark he got up, tapped Mathi on the back and said, “Get your spear and follow.”

  They descended to the water’s edge. The first victim had floated down thirty yards but was snagged on a low-hanging tree branch. Target number two, the one who had yelled, was dead on his back on the sandy bank. Number three was in a tree, his arms and legs hanging lifelessly over the slow moving stream.

  The last nomad fascinated Mathi. She walked under the tree and saw Lofotan’s arrow had gone through four inches of trunk before piercing the man’s skull. He had never seen such marksmanship, especially in the dark and from a height.

  “It’s nothing,” Lofotan replied to his amazement. “I have always been counted a mediocre archer. Artyrith could have gotten all three in half the time.”

  They hid the bodies in a gully, covering them with vines. The night was too quiet for safety. All the normal sounds of the woods had stilled.

  “Too many people around,” was Lofotan’s assessment. They returned to camp.

  Zakki and the centaurs were there, waiting. Only nine had come back from their patrol. Two centaurs had fallen trying to escape swarming nomad scouting parties.

  “How far from here?” asked the elf.

  “An hour’s walk.” For a centaur, that meant eight to ten miles. Even with the thick foliage slowing them down, that meant the nomads could be upon them at any time. Now, in fact.

  Mathi looked to the stars. Four hours till dawn. Suddenly she felt very naked. Why did she linger with these doomed fools? Her mission was a failure; part of her was glad of that. Now Balif and his companions faced utter destruction. Why remain? Two reasons occurred to her. One, the woods were alive with vigilant nomads. Her odds of escaping were not high. Even more compelling, she remembered her vow to Balif.

  Lofotan broke the spell when he swept his arm in a wide arc from one side of the bluff to the other. “I want a line of sharpened stakes across here, every one six feet long or better.” A line of stakes would halt any mounted charge, but it wouldn’t delay a determined assault on foot.

  “Who’s going to make the line of stakes?” Mathi wondered.

  “We are, all of us.”

  With axes, swords, and jury-rigged mallets the elf, the scribe, Mathi, and the surviving centaurs set to work. Mathi and four centaurs went to where the trees began and started to cut down saplings. Two centaurs dragged these to Treskan where the trees were stripped of branches and had one end sharpened. The elf, Zakki, and two sturdy centaurs drove these at an angle into the clay, then chipped the protruding end to a point. Lofotan spaced them about a foot apart. It would take more than a hundred to cover the ground he indicated.

  Chopping down trees was noisy work. The silent forest echoed with the sound of blades biting green wood. Nomad scouts could not fail to hear the commotion.

  Mathi chopped and hacked until her hands were blistered. Then she chopped some more. She dulled an axe and switched to a thick-bladed falchion loaned to her by one of the centaurs. The horse-men were unflagging workers. They’d been dashing around all night, but they kept at the work until the sun’s first rays put the stars to sleep.

  Mathi raised the falchion high to finish cutting down her forty-third sapling. An eerie baying filled the woods below, a
nd she stayed her hand. She listened, and the sound grew more distinct. Hounds. They had the scent of their prey.

  Something crashed through the undergrowth. It was hurtling toward her. She put an elm tree to her back and raised the battered falchion. The dogs were chorusing loudly now in a wide half circle, all the way from the extreme left to the far right. As on the night she was caught outside Bulnac’s camp, the baying dogs raised the hair on her neck and made her heart hammer. Their calls spoke to her blood far more frighteningly than anything the humans did.

  She saw a sudden blur of muddy brown. For a moment Mathi thought it was a bear. It drove past her beyond arm’s reach but close enough for the wind to stir her clothing. The eyes of the beast met hers in passing, then Balif was gone. He ran up the hill through the field, disappearing over the rise into camp.

  Balif had been out nosing around when the dogs had picked up his trail. Even he could do little against a veteran pack of hunting hounds.

  The centaurs arrived at a gallop. Warchief Loff—as they called Lofotan—was calling everyone back. From the summit he could see movement in the trees. Lots of movement. Mathi ran. The centaurs thundered past her and kept going.

  Lofotan’s fence was only three-quarters complete. A small pile of poles lay scattered on the ground where the stakes ended. There was no time to finish.

  Balif had run to the first shelter he could reach, which happened to be the supply tent where Mathi and Treskan slept. The tethered horses, brought with great labor across the river, were terrified by his presence. They milled around snorting and stomping. Mathi watched the centaurs join their fellows behind the stakes. Treskan had a spear. Lofotan was there too, but he did not see the Longwalker. She guessed the kender had abandoned them to their fate at last.

  Mathi approached the tent. She heard Balif snarl, “Get back!”

  “This is no time for vanity,” Mathi said. “I’m coming in.”

  The general’s response was a low, throaty growl that would have stopped a charging wolf. With the hounds still baying in the woods and Lofotan shouting for him, Mathi braced herself and strode straight into the tent.

  She looked at the general of the Speaker of the Star’s armies, lying on his side, panting. There was just enough of his original form left in him to make his appearance even more grotesque.

  “I … shall kill … you!”

  “You’ll have to stand in line, my lord! The nomads are coming!”

  “Think … I don’t … know?”

  “We need you, sir. We need everyone, every hand!”

  Balif’s panting sound like laughter. “I … have no … hands left.”

  “Then lie here and die! I’ve no more time to waste on you!”

  She raced to where Lofotan, the scribe, and the centaurs waited. Seeing the elf warrior with his helmet on gave Mathi an idea. She diverted to Balif’s tent and got the general’s polished helmet, with the white horsehair plume on top. She held it out to Lofotan.

  “I can’t wear the general’s armor,” he said.

  “Wear it, captain. Be our general in this last fight.”

  Taking in the expressions on the centaurs and the scribe, Lofotan removed his simple headgear and donned Balif’s helmet.

  The baying hounds abruptly ceased their song. Everyone on the hill stirred nervously. Only the dogs’ handlers could silence them so suddenly. The enemy must be close.

  They were. Daylight glinted off bits of armor and naked blades down at the tree line. Mathi couldn’t count them scattered among the trees, but it looked like several hundred men on foot, milling around in the greenery.

  Between them they had seven bows. Centaur bows were simple curved staves, which lacked the range and power of Lofotan’s elegant Silvanesti weapon. They also used stone arrowheads, not bronze like the elf’s. Against fur-clad nomads it might not make much difference, but if there was much armor distributed among Bulnac’s men, the centaurs’ arrows would be almost useless.

  Nevertheless they braced and stood ready. Mathi swallowed hard. If only the kender had been as steadfast as Zakki and his comrades.

  After a short period of disorder, the nomads advanced up the hill. They came on in no formation, just a ragged line with men bunched together around individual leaders. It was close to two hundred yards from the forest edge, to where Lofotan stood. He pointed his arrow skyward and released. Plunging out of the lightening sky, Bulnac’s men couldn’t see it coming. It hit a nomad in the center of the line. He threw up his hands and went down. His friends stood around him momentarily, then resumed their advance.

  Lofotan loosed arrow after arrow. He never missed. His targets were thickly clustered together. The morning light was against them, but they doggedly came on. At a hundred fifty yards some of the nomads halted and loosed their own arrows. Things were hectic on the hilltop as everyone dodged incoming missiles. To Mathi, who had never been on the receiving end of archery in broad daylight, it seemed as though the arrows flew and fell very slowly. When they hit the ground they only buried a few inches of shaft. Were they really dangerous?

  Her curiosity was answered when one of the centaurs was hit in the palm of one hand. The nomad arrow penetrated for half its length. It was a horrible looking wound, but the tough centaur snapped the hardwood shaft with his teeth and pulled the arrow out.

  The nomads’ archery sputtered and ended. Too many of their comrades were in front of them, and they no longer had a clear field of fire. From the heights, Lofotan had a perfect view. The centaurs joined in, and they attacked the advancing humans without mercy.

  Beating their swords against their wooden shields the nomads kept coming, shouting their chief’s name over and over, like a spell to insure victory.

  Without anyone in overall command, the mob of nomads began shifting to their left. The gap in the stake line lay that way, and even though they could have squeezed between the stakes at any point, the warriors naturally made for the easier path.

  Lofotan lowered his bow. Mathi asked, “Are you out of arrows?”

  “No, but there’s no point using them all now.” He called for the others to form beside him with weapons drawn.

  “We’ll charge them when they enter the gap,” he said. The narrow way would cause the nomads to bunch together, hampering their movements and their ability to use their weapons.

  “Now, forward!”

  They trotted toward the fence gap. As they passed the supply tent, the canvas sides billowed out, and a dark shape burst out of the front. A blood-chilling howl rang from the hilltop.

  Balif had joined the fight.

  Mathi checked Lofotan. The elf warrior kept his eyes straight ahead, not paying the slightest attention to the misshapen creature entering the battle on their side.

  Balif reached the enemy first. They gave ground before his charge, unsure what they faced. He batted away the spears they jabbed at him. The beast’s jaws opened wide, revealing a jaw full of long yellow teeth. A human archer took aim, but Zakki put an arrow in him first. Balif sprang at the enemy, bowling over three when he landed. His power was terrifying. He had claws on all four limbs, and he ripped his way through the lightly clad nomads. What his talons did not shred, his teeth tore apart.

  The nomads were surprised to be attacked by an animal, but they were men of field and stream, used to hunting animals of all kinds. They rallied, trying to ring in the beast and cut him down. Fortunately for Balif, Lofotan’s band arrived.

  They battered the nomads back, breaking the circle and freeing Balif. He snarled defiance and stormed into danger again. The centaurs fought valiantly, not only with sword and spear but with their front hooves too. Lofotan moved like a dancer, slashing in and out among the nomads with ruthless precision. But for all their ferocity, bravery, and skill, they were thirteen against hundreds. Nomads flowed left and right, getting behind the defenders. Two of Zakki’s centaurs went down in quick succession to thrown spears. Treskan did his best, which wasn’t much, so he settled for keeping the enem
y off Lofotan’s back. Mathi could do little but parry and block sword and spear thrusts. The circle shrank and shrank. When Mathi’s heels bumped the elf’s she knew the end was near.

  And then, a miracle.

  At two-score points along the slope of the hill dirt flew upward. Holes opened in the ground, holes that had been covered with panels of woven vines and camouflaged with dirt. Pouring out of these holes came kender—hundreds of kender. Decked out in a motley collection of found weaponry they mixed with the nomads and fell upon them from all sides. In the time it took for a sparrow to cross the ridge the course of the battle completely reversed. The nomads broke. They ran for the woods, many with two or three kender clinging to them, battering them with swords, knives, stones, or sticks. The ring of bloody blades that threatened to close around Lofotan’s defenders disintegrated. Zakki and his warriors took up their bows, stinging the retreating enemy. Treskan and Mathi were content to watch the humans flee, stunned by the sudden turn of fate.

  Balif chased them, howling for more blood. When a stout warrior turned to spear the general, Lofotan raised his bow and shot him down. Pointed ears laid back against his head, Balif howled and charged the next nearest nomads. He pursued the enemy into the woods.

  Mathi saw the concern on Lofotan’s face. Alone in the woods, Balif could be ambushed at any time. There was nothing Lofotan could do. Sound tactics required him to remain on the hill no matter what his cursed leader did.

  The Longwalker hailed them. “Greetings, noble friends! We have won!”

  “Only the first throw,” Lofotan said. Uncharacteristically, he smiled broadly at the kender chief, however. “I wish you could have told us what you were planning!”

  “We thought we were going to die!” Treskan added.

  “Many apologies, but it was vital that the humans not know about our wall-less walls.”

  The Longwalker explained that the kender had begun tunneling into the bluff since the first night they arrived. At first they were simply making holes to hide in, but as the number of holes multiplied, someone suggested linking them with tunnels. They knew they had neither the time nor materials to fortify the hill in the usual way, so they reverted to kender tactics—doing what no one else thought of.