by Jordan Reece
It was mid-afternoon when they came to the second brother. There was no inn here, only a one-room hut, and again the ferry was returning slowly from the other side. It was no steamboat, of which there was a blackened hulk of one beached on the shore, but an old tram-wood too small to carry five people and four horses all at once. The tram-wood was attached by wires to a long cord that ran over the whole of the river. As the ancient man paddled, the tram-wood slid along the cord.
The poor excuse for a ferry was falling apart, the bindings on the logs coming loose on one side. When the captain brought it near to shore, he jumped into the water and pushed it the rest of the way. His face was crumpled over a missing eye, and he could not hear half of what Master Maraudi was saying. But he would not go over again today, and when Keth showed her sword, his mind did not change. The tram-wood had to be thoroughly retied after each crossing or it would sink, and if she wanted to risk her life taking it over on her own, she was welcome to try.
“We are hours from her,” Keth said in frustration. “Mere hours.”
“Sometimes they just swim across in hide wrappings because of the snakes,” said the old man as his shaking, wrinkled hands released the ties. Swimming was not a choice for the search party, as Arden had only ever paddled about in the squelly pools, which were neither long nor deep, and Dieter could not swim at all. And to have to do it while leading the horses made the problems thornier still.
“Can’t you call on a great lot of those dragons to fly us over?” Master Maraudi asked Arden. “Leave the horses and just take us?”
It was the first time in all day that Arden was not able to find dragons nearby. He walked the shore and came across only tiny birds in small numbers. Thinking it over, he removed everything of his clothing but his undergarments and stepped into the river. The old man croaked out a warning about biting snakes, but Arden had nothing to fear.
The water was moving at a calm pace, the wind creating small crests upon its surface. He walked out until it was up to his neck and went no further. Then he sank down and searched for what creatures swam below. The fish were of no use. They were tiny, flickering things. Of water snakes there were many, streaking along in sinuous waves. Turtles moved deep beneath the surface. He could only feel their presences with his penchant; it was too dark to see them. Coming up for air, he sank back down again and searched.
Snakes! They were simply everywhere down here, slipping silently after unsuspecting fish. Long and thin, they swished their bodies back and forth to swim. None bothered Arden, all obeying a command to leave him alone. They thought of fish, fish, fish, and that was all.
He considered using turtles to make a stepping-shell path to the other side of the river. It was not as wide as the first brother. But swimming in the purplish blue were turtles too small to bear much weight. He rose again and retreated to the shore, where the captain checked him over for snakebites and was incredulous that there were none.
After drying himself and dressing, he had an idea. “Are you truly willing to leave the horses?” he asked Master Maraudi. “I think I can get us across, but not them.”
“Cut them loose,” Keth said at once, and Master Maraudi agreed. The horses were stripped of their saddles and reins, and Arden pushed a command into their minds. They could drink from the river and eat the tall grass along the shore, straying no farther than they needed for nourishment. Three were excited at their relative freedom and one worried, but she did as the others did and moved off to graze. He washed away her worry. The captain was given money to guard over their tack. Accepting the coins and directions, he protested, “But I can’t take you over just now-”
“We don’t need the tram-wood,” Arden said, and faced the river.
He commanded the snakes to rise to the surface. The purplish blue of the water turned into a dark sheet of writhing bodies. The old man shouted and backed away from the shore in fright.
More. Arden needed more. COME TO ME.
They came to him from all around the river and lifted to the surface. Thousands of snakes turned to face the other shore and packed themselves together into a shape almost like the tram-wood, but narrower and longer. Arden went to the water and put his foot atop them. They sank at his weight, and he called over more to bolster below. Then his foot rose.
Water boiled away from the snakes, all of them swishing fiercely as he placed his second foot on the pathway they were making over part of the river. The tram-wood captain was peeking out from around the trunk of a tree, his mouth agape. Arden beckoned to the shocked search party, who gathered up the packs of supplies and approached this bridge of snakes. Volos came onto it first, and then Keth. They followed Arden down the path, their steps hesitant at the slight sinking response to their weight. Then Master Maraudi came with a sharp command to frightened Dieter. When everyone was aboard, Arden went to the very edge of the path and called away the snakes at the shore. They swum beneath his creation and came to the front, supplying him with several more meters to walk.
“This is incredible,” Volos mumbled to himself, and Arden for once beamed at his penchant. More snakes left the back behind Dieter and pushed for the front to extend the bridge. A young bunny trapper appeared near the tram-wood captain, and the two of them cried out in wonder as the search party made it to the middle of the river.
Arden fixed his eyes on the shore and uttered quiet commands to the water snakes. They weaved the bridge around a large rock jutting from the surface, and when the wind picked up and splashed water over the path, Arden pulled over more snakes to pile on the side as a barricade.
“Dagad in heaven, Dagad in heaven,” Dieter whispered, his steps as small as if his ankles were shackled. “Don’t let us fall in, Arden.”
The snakes reached the shore and held there. Arden was the first to step off the bridge. As hesitantly as everyone had boarded it, they exited at speed and stood in relief on the solid ground. Master Maraudi roared with laughter once he disembarked. “No power worth anything, eh? That’s what your first lead said to us? Anyone could do as you do? Could he do that? A fool.” Dieter took a huge step off the bridge and scurried away from it.
FISH, Arden reminded the snakes, and the bridge dispersed. They sank into the river and were gone.
“The king . . .” Dieter gasped. “You should be in the army, Arden, gone south to the pirate islands to fight them alongside Isle Zayre’s forces. You should be decorated as the general of animals! The king does not know what he has in you!”
No, he didn’t. And he wouldn’t until Arden was beyond his reach.
“The shackles for his ankles, Arden,” Master Maraudi said. “Long chain-”
“We can’t. We must move at top speed and not be bothered by it getting caught on things. His wrist shackles are enough,” Keth said. “A step out of line, tracker, and you will be sorry.”
“I’ve been sorry since I came low the Cascades,” Volos retorted. “I doubt there is more you can do to make me sorrier.”
“We shall see,” Keth said in deadly seriousness, and then they made haste to the path. A white bird flew overhead.
A strange sensation settled over Arden as they rushed forward into the forest. He could swear that he was seeing movement out of the corner of his eyes, but whenever he turned his head, nothing was there but the trees hunching toward the path. The branches were devoid of birds and dragons, yet at the edge of his hearing were sounds that had no one to voice them. The wind reduced their hurry to a fast walk, and the fast walk became a slow walk with all of them half-bent against the cold torrents. Yet fallen leaves beneath the trees off the path did not fly away or even rustle from it.
When Master Maraudi noticed this curiosity and stepped from the path to travel off it, the wind changed. Leaves gusted upwards to plaster his body and blind him. Volos jerked his head and stared out into the forest as Master Maraudi staggered back to the path with leaves falling off him everywhere.
“What sense is this?” Dieter asked. “Wind acting like tha
t? This place is cursed, it is. Ghosts walk this forest.”
“Don’t speak nonsense, squire, there is no such thing as ghosts,” Keth said firmly, although Arden could see uncertainty in her eyes.
“I’m seeing things, I am,” Dieter insisted.
It was a hard walk. The path curled and climbed short, steep hills, descended sharply into ravines and vanished beneath mud puddles at the bottom. Then it disappeared altogether around a curve, and they had to stand there at its end as Master Maraudi went seeking out where it continued. The barkeep had told the soldiers that the roads went straight through the forests from one ferry landing to another, and while they were rough, and some barely wide enough to qualify as a path, they were easy to stay upon. That had not been the truth.
The hair rose on the back of Arden’s neck at this queer stretch of forest. He disliked how the trees loomed over the path and trailed fingers of leaves through his hair when he walked by them. Odd plants grew at the base of many trees, each a spike of gray with serrated edges. Small animals had perished upon them, carcasses of birds and squirrels mired in the thorns. Keth bent down to inspect a spike as they waited for Master Maraudi and then leaped away. “Dagad’s-first! Don’t touch those!”
“What are they?” Arden asked.
“A plant I have only ever seen in children’s picture books of history. This is sword-weed. Soldiers in ancient times used it for arrowheads. Those spikes are filled with toxin.”
“They’ll kill us?” Dieter gasped, jerking away from a spike near the seat of his trousers.
“No, not unless you take in too much. It will weaken and sicken you in small doses.” Keth turned around in a circle, marking how much sword-weed was there. “This has not grown for centuries. It sprouted so out of control wherever it landed that green-growth penchants swept all of Havanath, Odri, and the wildlands to kill it. Loria’s climate is too warm for it to survive. How has it made a resurgence here?”
Master Maraudi screamed.
It was not a shout but a genuine scream riding atop a blast of frigid wind. He was sprinting through the trees, a spike ripping a hole in his trousers as he fled for them with wild waves of his arms. “Penchant! Penchant!”
If he was calling for Arden, then there had to be an animal. Dodging sword-weed, Arden ran for him. He could not see the creature that was pursuing Master Maraudi, but the expression on the man’s craggy face left no doubt that it was something horrifying. But where was it? Nothing was coming through the hunched greenery save the soldier.
Master Maraudi twisted abruptly and ran deeper into the trees. Arden gave chase, waiting for the creature to appear and his mind seeking out the animal minds around. He found birds upon the branches, yet nothing was there, dragons squabbling over the bugs floating on the surface of a puddle, yet no dragons were around either.
He sensed bugs yet none flew in the air or crept upon the ground, nor were any marching up or down the trees. Still the soldier ran, coming near the path and then darting away from it, charging in a circle around a thick trunk, leaping a fallen tree and running until he vanished. Arden dashed on in bafflement. The animals he could not see, yet could feel, were not chasing Master Maraudi. Most had not even taken note of his presence. There was nothing malevolent around.
The soldier had tripped and fallen over a rock almost completely concealed by a shrub. Arden came upon him holding his ankle and wincing. In his other hand, he had his sword. In terror as Arden approached, he held it out in warning. His eyes skirted around. “Did you call them off?”
“Call off what?” Arden asked, quite alarmed. “I cannot see what is after you!”
Keth, Dieter, and Volos were cutting through the trees to get to them. The cold wind followed. It had abandoned the path entirely, where leaves rested undisturbed. This part of the forest was nothing like the stretches around the other rivers they had passed through without trouble.
Master Maraudi held his sword aloft, his head wheeling around his shoulders. “The bears! How can you miss the bloody bears?”
Arden searched all of the minds around them again. None belonged to a bear. The biggest creature he discovered was an owl, and it was fast asleep within a hole high in a tree. Everyone looked at one another, to Arden, and then to Master Maraudi. He sheathed his sword and put his second hand upon his ankle. Pained, he said, “I had just found the path when a great black bear stepped upon it not twenty feet in front of me! It lifted onto its hind legs, twice the size of a man, and roared as another bear even larger than the first appeared farther down. Then they came after me! Didn’t you hear them growling and roaring, and striking the branches of trees as they ran?”
“If there’s a bear or two out here, they are beyond my reach,” Arden said.
“What do you mean, if?” Master Maraudi exclaimed in outrage. “They chased me all the way over here where I tripped over that bloody rock!” His look was so ferocious that Arden didn’t dare to disagree.
His ankle was either broken or severely sprained, and he could bear very little weight upon it. There was no way that he could go forward from here, nor could they waste time in going back with him. The search party would have to separate. Fashioning a splint, he got up and flinched. “I’ll double back to the tram-wood and ride my horse to the ferry. That captain can direct me to the nearest healing penchant.”
“If Arden could make the river snakes-” Dieter suggested.
“No, no, boy, there isn’t time for all of us to go back together. She’s close, isn’t she, tracker?”
“Extremely so,” Volos said.
“And on the move?”
“No. She isn’t moving at all.”
“Then this is your chance,” Master Maraudi said to Keth and Arden. “Reach her before she reaches Havanath. She could cause a terrible scene in one of their busy little towns when you try to claim her. Take her down before she gets that opportunity.”
“We will,” Keth said.
“I’ll get my ankle fixed and return to the first brother’s ferry stop to wait for you there. And I’ll buy us a ruddy new pair of cages while I’m at it,” he growled. “Come, Dieter, you’re with me.”
Dieter helped him to walk. Affixing the packs to their shoulders, Keth and Arden pushed on with Volos. Arden turned back once to look at the parting members of their company. Master Maraudi was limping with his arm over the squire’s shoulders, and the wind chilling Arden to the bone wasn’t so much as ruffling a single hair on their heads. There was no such thing as ghosts, but the ground between the second and third brother was not natural.
Keth walked with her sword out, Volos watched for problems, and Arden kept his mind attuned to the invisible life teeming all around them. Why could he feel so many animals yet not see them? It was their motion and sounds that teased at the periphery of his senses, and for this, he had no explanation.
“Can sword-weed make one hallucinate?” Arden asked Keth.
“Yes, a little,” Keth said. “That was one reason it was used in war. Should the arrow not kill outright, the toxin weakened both the body and mind of the victim. That made him easier to slay later on.”
“Master Maraudi must have raked himself on sword-weed while hunting for the path and only imagined the bears,” Arden said. “We heard no roars or chase.”
They found where the broken path went on again. There were no bear tracks in the dirt, only Master Maraudi’s. Sword-weed grew so prolifically just off the path that it was very possible this was the cause. But that did not provide a sufficient reason for Arden’s missing yet present animals, since he had not touched the plant.
“This is not how it should be!” Keth said when the path split later on into three. One went straight ahead and the other two curled to the right. “The barkeep would not have lied to my face with my sword already shown to her, and I warned that we would be coming back the same way.”
“Looks like she lied anyway,” Volos said blithely.
“There was nothing deceptive in her eyes when s
he gave me these directions. One path! One! At most to expect scratches off it to the few who call this place home.”
These could have been new paths of which the barkeep had no knowledge, Arden thought, and therefore not a deception. But the paths were greatly weathered. They were also exactly the same width, a precision of their makers that he found odd for rough paths through a forest.
Keth viewed the paths in silence and pointed out another oddity in the tufts of grass growing along their sides. “Strange, this. Three tufts of grass, two paces of dirt, and then one tuft of grass and two paces of dirt. Now look at the other paths.”
Arden stared at them and found the same pattern. Nature had not created this. He was overcome with the desire to go after Master Maraudi and Dieter. “We should travel no further here. This forest belongs to some strange power. We are trespassing.”
They shivered in the wind that only trailed upon the paths. “If only that were a choice,” Keth said. “Tracker? Breathe in these paths and locate her.”
Volos paused to breathe at each of them and shook his head. “She stepped upon none of these paths. She is that way.” He pointed ahead and to the left, where there was no path at all. However, there was a proliferation of sword-weed.
Their pace was agonizingly slow from there on. Picking through the serrated foliage, ducking under low-hanging branches from these sulking trees, shivering in the blasts of icy wind, Arden grew ever more alarmed at the invisible inhabitants of this forest. Once he put his hand to the top of a shrub where he could sense a dragon sitting. It moved under his fingers, calmed by his mind, and then the shrub dipped as it flew away. He knew every breed of dragon, and none was invisible.