“Let others break their vows. Let them bicker, and blame, and fight amongst one another. Let them ignore the truth that stands before them. But not us!” And now she set her jaw, and her eyes shone like polished steel as she said, “We will stay true. We will honor the oaths that we swore. The people may not want our protection, but they will have it!” She drew her sword and held it high, and its blade was gilded by the morning light. “For the Promise!”
Her women did not disappoint her. As one, they lifted their weapons and took up the cry. For what must have been the first time in more than a thousand years, the First Forest echoed with the sound of human voices.
I did not join in. It would have been a lie. Bryndine’s words were stirring, but I was not risking my life for some ancient ideal. I had sworn an oath, and I would keep it, but not for the Promise. This was no longer about the good of the many for me—it was about the lives of the few I cared about, and the memory of those who were gone. It was about setting right the crimes that had distorted our history for so long, that had led us to this point. If the citizens of the Kingsland were saved too, it was lucky for them, but honestly, I couldn’t have cared less.
As the women organized themselves, I moved into position at the eastern side of the First Tree, nestled in the cleft between two enormous roots. The spot provided some amount of cover, but left me with a clear view of the gap in the trees to the north, where Bryndine and the others were forming their line. Where they would mount their defense.
The plan, as Bryndine had explained it, was a simple one. We had a certain advantage here, she had said. The thick wall of trees around us made the clearing defensible. The narrow gap to the north was the only way in, and it would limit the numbers the Burnt could bring against Bryndine and the others. Nine women could hold such a spot. For a time. Not forever. It fell to me to ensure that it was a short fight.
Of course, if things went badly, the single point of entry also meant there was no escape. But I preferred not to think about that.
“Isn’t this cozy.” Deanyn’s voice cut through my thoughts as she slipped into the gap in the roots that sheltered me.
“Shouldn’t you be with the others?”
“I know where I’m supposed to stand, and I don’t think they will start without me. I just… wanted to see how you were.”
“Anxious. Frightened. Several thousand leagues from prepared.”
She smiled. “That may be a good thing, if what the Wyddin said is true. Perhaps you’ll reach the Eldest on your first attempt, and we’ll look like fools for being so worried.”
“Perhaps,” I said. “But I don’t think it very likely.” I looked down at my feet. “Deanyn… If I can’t make them listen, you should know…” But I could only gesture vaguely, unable to come up with the words I wanted.
She touched my cheek, gently, and lifted my chin until I was looking her in the eyes. “You can tell me after,” she said. “They’ll listen. I trust you.” Then, she pulled me into her arms, pressed her body against mine, and whispered into my ear, “Be careful, Dennon. Remember your promise.”
“You’re the one who will be in danger, trying to protect me. I…”
She clubbed a hand against my back. “Shut up, Scriber.”
Laughing despite myself, I closed my mouth and held her.
And then, over her shoulder, I saw Bryndine approaching, with Sylla at her side, and I knew it was time. My throat went dry, and I pulled away from Deanyn’s arms.
“We are ready, Scriber,” said Bryndine. “Deanyn, you should take your position.”
“Yes, Captain.” Deanyn gave my hand a final squeeze, and departed.
“Are you certain this is the best place for you, Scriber?” Bryndine asked. “I would sooner have you out of sight behind the tree.”
I shook my head. “No. I need to be able to see when the Burnt come. I need to be afraid. Fear is the only thing I know that works.”
“Very well.” She gave me a very solemn look, and she said, “The Kingsland owes you a great debt, Scriber Dennon.” Then, to my surprise, she saluted me before turning away.
An unexpected sense of pride rose in my breast as I watched her go. I knew what that salute meant. To Bryndine, who had devoted her life to the King’s Army and everything it represented, it was the highest honor she could give.
Strangely enough, Sylla did not immediately follow her Captain. With a worried glance over her shoulder at Bryndine, she stepped towards me, and my stomach clenched with dread. But there was only supplication in her dark eyes, and her voice was soft and plaintive as she said, “Please, Scriber. Be swift. Do not let her die for you.”
“No harm will come to her,” I promised, and prayed that it was true. Looking at Sylla’s face right then, I could not bring myself to tell her anything else.
Sylla looked at me in silence for a moment, then nodded brusquely and hurried back to Bryndine’s side.
I was alone beside the First Tree.
I looked up at the giant, crooked trunk and the maze of twisted branches high above. The leaves I had seen reflecting the moonlight the night before were nothing but tiny spots of green among the distant boughs. There couldn’t have been more than a hundred. If each leaf was the spirit of one of the Eldest, there were not many ears for my voice to reach.
Please listen. Wake up. I tried to direct my thoughts towards the tree, but there was no response. I had not expected one. It would have been too easy. No, I had to use a Gift that had been lost to mankind for a thousand years. I had to somehow find an emotion powerful enough to reach the Wyd, while at the same time staying distant enough to protect myself against the Burnt. It was ludicrous, and insane, and impossible; it was a thousand things, but easy was not one of them.
Taking a deep breath, I laid my hands against the pale bark of the First Tree.
A prickling sensation began in my palms, then swept up my arms and spread throughout my body. Gooseflesh rose on my skin. There was power here, woven into the very wood of this ancient tree, and something inside me responded to it.
And the Burnt responded as well. In the back of my mind, I heard a distant voice.
“All will burn.”
They were coming.
Fear lanced through my heart, but it was not enough. There was no moment of clarity, nor did I feel the awareness of the Burnt sweep over me. I could hear their whispers, low at first, then growing louder. “We will have vengeance,” they hissed. “We will not be robbed.” But they did not command me to burn.
“There!” I heard Selvi cry, and I looked towards the sound.
The twins’ hands blurred as they drew and released their bow strings, sending arrow after arrow into the trees. The women blocked my view, but I knew what they must be seeing—the animals of the forest gathering to attack. Distance was no obstacle to the Burnt; they were already here, in whatever bodies they could take.
“Death,” they shrieked into the Wyd. And then they attacked.
Ivyla fell to the ground as a lithe grey form leapt upon her. The wolf snarled and went for her throat, but Debra kicked it aside and wrenched the other woman back to her feet as Deanyn brought her blade down on the creature’s spine.
Over their heads, I saw a set of antlers emerge from the trees. A large stag lowered its head and charged at Leste. Bryndine stepped into its path. There was a loud screech as the antlers scraped against the steel of her shield, and she staggered back. Sylla darted forward, slicing low at the stag’s leg. Its knee gave way, and Bryndine cleaved downward with a heavy stroke that severed an antler and bit deep into the animal’s skull.
The battle became a blur of fur and steel, growls and cries. The women held their line, but they were being slowly forced back, step by step. Terror pulsed in my veins, for the company and for myself, but I could not find the tipping point that had always come naturally before. It was as though reaching for the Wyd only made it retreat further. “Please!” I yelled at the tree, pushing my hands against the bark until my ski
n was raw. “Help them!”
The only answer was the voices of the Burnt. “Pain. Fire. Death.”
And then I heard something else: a dull roar, like hundreds of banners flapping in a heavy wind. A shadow fell over the clearing. I looked up.
Birds. Birds of all sizes and colors and kinds flew together, crows and sparrows and falcons and more. A thousand pairs of wings blocked out the sun.
They dove.
The birds threw themselves through the boughs of the First Tree with no regard for their own lives. Hundreds collided with the branches and plummeted to the ground, but hundreds more slipped through the gaps. And many of them were coming directly at me.
I didn’t know what to do. There was nowhere to hide, and still the Wyd would not open to me. No matter how afraid I was, I could not find a way to do intentionally what I had done so many times by instinct. “Wake up,” I whispered, over and over again, as I pressed my bloody hands against the First Tree. But no one was listening. I hunched against the tree and closed my eyes as the birds descended.
“Down, Scriber!” I recognized Bryndine’s voice, felt her big hands push me lower. I looked up to see her standing over me with her shield held high, just as I had seen her the night she had first saved me in Waymark. The birds hurled themselves against her shield, against her body. Their talons and beaks tore at her leather armor, and at her skin wherever they could find it. Hundreds collided with the ground around us, and against the trunk of the First Tree. The sound was deafening.
Peeking through a gap in the roots around me, I watched the others trying to defend themselves. The line had scattered. The sheer number of the birds had driven the women apart, and the other animals were using it to their advantage. Debra knocked a falcon aside with her axe as it dived for her face, but a wolf bit into her leg and pulled her down, then leapt atop her and tore out her throat. I turned my eyes away, pressed my face against the First Tree and screamed. “Listen to me! You have to help us!” There was no response.
Finally, Bryndine stepped away from me, bleeding from a long wound across her brow. There were few birds left now—most had shattered themselves against the ground and the trees. Those that were left flapped about the heads of the women, clawing and screeching, distracting them as the more dangerous animals attacked. The gap that led into the clearing was open and undefended, and more creatures entered every moment.
“To me! Protect the Scriber!” Bryndine’s voice cut through the noise of battle, and her women responded. They fell back towards us, forming a half-circle around my niche in the roots of the First Tree.
The Burnt followed, in the bodies of badgers, wolves, deer, even various vermin; every kind of animal I could imagine. Their voices howled through my mind, the same insane litany I had heard so many times before.
Elene screamed as a boar impaled her leg with a huge curled tusk, and her sister came to her aid, plunging her sword into the creature’s skull until it ceased moving. Wolves bit at the women’s ankles and birds clawed at their eyes. And Bryndine and her company held. Against an unceasing horde of beasts, they held.
I noticed then that only seven of them remained. In a panic, I swept my eyes over their faces. Ivyla was missing. Debra was not the only one who had fallen.
I am letting them die, I realized with horror. I have to do something. Climbing to my feet, I placed my back against the tree and held my palms against it. I pictured the men who had died at the Old Garden. I thought of Janelyn and Genna and Varrie and Wynne. I gathered all my fear and sorrow, all my guilt over every death I had ever caused. I could still feel the power of the First Tree tingling in my palms, and I poured everything I had into grasping it.
“Let me burn, let me die, just hear me,” I begged.
The Eldest remained silent. Fear had always sufficed before; now, nothing seemed to be enough.
In the corner of my eye, I saw a blur of brown and crimson, and I turned my head to see a dozen men of the King’s Army enter the clearing. For just a moment I hoped that they had come to help. Until I saw their wounds.
Where the men had come from, I could not say—perhaps they had been looking for us, sent by the scouts from the Timberhold. But one thing was certain: the Burnt had found them first. One man’s stomach had been rent open and his intestines dangled free; another had a ragged red hole in his throat. Every one of them bore horrible wounds that did not bleed. These were dead men, kept on their feet only by the spirits possessing them.
And behind them came the Beast.
That was the name that came to me, the moment I saw it. I might have called it a bear, but the word simply didn’t suffice—there was a sheer primal presence to the animal that defied classification. It reared up on its hind legs behind the men, monstrous and powerful, more than twelve feet of muscle and claws and teeth. Its forelegs were as thick as my torso; its claws were longer than knives, and undoubtedly deadlier. Huge puckered scars like mountain ridges rose from the forest of matted fur all over its body, and a great gash across its face had taken one eye. I had the distinct impression that this creature had survived battles I could not have dreamed of, that it was a warrior from the dawn of the world, full of the might of Earth and Sky.
The Beast loped forward, and the men parted to let it by. They advanced together, the men flanking the monster as though following their commander into battle. And as they came, two more figures joined their ranks. No. Mother below, please not this.
Debra and Ivyla walked with the Burnt. Their wounds did not bleed.
Despair gripped me. Bryndine and her women could have held back the animals, even the possessed men for a time. But not the Beast. Not with every woman who fell turning against us. It was hopeless.
A thick mist rose from nowhere, filling the clearing and thickening with unnatural speed. In moments, everything further than a few yards from me was gone. Of the women, I could see only Orya and Deanyn nearby, and only as ghostly forms moving through the grey. I remembered the words of the Wyddin: There are many things that they might turn the Wyd towards.
The Burnt were doing this. And somewhere in the mist, they were still coming. I felt the footsteps of the Beast shaking the ground beneath my feet, and the sound of steel on steel rang from somewhere to my right as the dead crossed swords with the living.
“What in the ruttin’ depths?” I heard Orya curse, looked, and saw a giant shadow forming before her in the fog.
The Beast struck.
With astonishing speed, Orya ducked under the massive blow. She was pitifully small next to the Beast, but she did not retreat, did not even take a step back. Fearless as ever, she lunged forward, and her sword pierced the monster’s hide.
An instant later, a huge foreleg caught her in the chest and flung her against the First Tree. She slumped to the ground and moved no more.
Deanyn leapt at the Beast’s side with a two-handed strike that bit deep, but the creature hardly seemed to notice. She rolled under a sweep of its claws and came to her feet behind its back, swinging at its hind leg. Her blade struck flesh, but if it hurt, the Beast gave no indication. It turned and swung; she dodged to the side. She was too slow. The Beast’s claws tore into her calf, flaying down to the bone. Deanyn screamed, and I shouted her name, certain that I was about to watch her die.
But the circle was broken now. No one stood between me and the Beast, and I was the one it had come for. It turned to face me, bared its teeth, and charged.
Out of the mist, Bryndine Errynson stepped forward to meet it.
She swung her sword in a vicious arc, and the Beast halted and reared back just in time. The blade cleaved the air inches from its chest. The monster swung back. Bryndine caught the blow on her shield, and the Beast’s claws tore deep gouges in the metal, with all the force that had sent Orya flying through the air.
Bryndine kept her feet, undaunted and unmoved.
I looked at her, standing firm before that impossible creature like a hero out of legend, and for just an instant, everything e
lse dropped away. All my life I had dreamed of moments like this. When I was a boy, discouraged by a world that seemed to celebrate mediocrity over all else, Illias’ stories had taken me to those moments in time when extraordinary people had done incredible things. The moments that were never forgotten. The moments that history was made of. And watching Bryndine stand before the Beast, I knew that this was one of those moments. Like Erryn and Rynd and Delwyn before her, Bryndine Errynson was forging history. And I was there to see it happen.
Something opened up inside of me then, and the power of the First Tree coursed through my veins. I felt the invisible eyes of the Burnt turn towards me, and heard their voices wailing through my mind, joining as one to speak that single, terrible word.
“BURN,” the voices ordered. And I did.
Fire danced across my flesh, and pain came with it. But I had found the Wyd, and I could not let this chance pass. I forced myself to push past the agony of melting flesh, to look beyond the flames. And there, I found something more. Something pure. Everything slowed, became sharp and clear. I could see between the mist in the air. I could see every creature, every movement in the clearing.
Then, suddenly, I was somewhere else.
A deep green forest, and in it stand two groups of humans dressed in crude clothing, tall and broad of shoulder, filled with the power of the Earth and Sky. They argue. We watch as one group leaves in anger, and we are saddened. We wanted only to give them guidance.
My senses returned to me, and I looked around, disoriented. I still stood before the First Tree; the fighting had not stopped. Flames devoured my body, but I ignored them, shoved the agony into the deepest recesses of my mind. The Eldest slept, but I could feel their dreams floating through the air around me. I just had to find the right words to wake them.
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