Forest For The Trees (Book 3)

by Damien Lake

  Wyman was a perfect example. A loner who could work as part of a larger group, who valued his privacy yet interacted enough with the others that they accepted him as ‘one of us’. But he showed naught but a cold shoulder to Marik whenever the mage showed up. Marik could not call it shunning so much as wariness. Nor could he blame them in the slightest.

  Marik was uncertain whether Wyman had ever actually spoken to him before. Not since his first day in the band, anyway, and perhaps not then either. Most of what he knew about the man came secondhand from Dietrik.

  Wariness. I would be too, if I were still an ordinary squad fighter and a mage were suddenly thrust into the unit. Perhaps mages aren’t as power mad as we all thought, Ilona was right about that, but that’s still a far cry from being trustworthy.

  Ilona. His thoughts returned to her while Wyman worked his way along his body, binding limbs that had been scratched, scraped and heavily bruised. She was the most amazing woman he had ever met, and she was waiting for him.

  Or…not precisely the most amazing if one considered Celerity’s powers, yet all the more incredible for her lack of magical ability since she could still bewitch men’s minds. Nor could she really be said to be waiting since she was busier than an entire beaver family setting her business’ new location into motion. But she would have a warm smile ready for him when she saw him walking through the door of Kerwin’s newly constructed inn.

  He pictured Ilona smiling at him like that. Skeptical. At best. It was likelier she would send him to deal with a troublemaker first thing before uttering any phrases that resembled ‘hello’ or ‘welcome back’.

  Wyman finished and, following standard merc field ministration practice, gave him a hearty slap on the bandaged area. Marik winced. He held back a yelp only because he had half-expected the treatment, and he was pleased that he had received it.

  “Caresse! Your light is about gone. If you are going to do whatever you do, do it soon if you don’t want us to freeze.”

  She raised her eyebrows at Wyman’s pronouncement. Marik waited for a retort, but it never came. He watched her study the dimming entrance…and felt his spine tingling.

  Through his magesight he watched the purple hole of the entrance in the jet black wall shift. The glowing purple brightened to a sheen of amber streaked with vermillion. After a moment the geomantic aura glowed a brilliant ruby.

  Caresse drew into the crevice the elemental essence of fire extracted from the sunlight. She embedded the aura’s energy in the pile of stones around which the blankets were laid. Flames burst from the stones as if logs burned merrily in a cook fire.

  Marik withdrew his sight from the mage’s domain to ordinary vision, intrigued by Caresse’s achievement. The stones glowed slightly, the fire strangely silent since no fuel was being broken apart to produce the flames. He guessed she had imbued enough fiery energy for the flames to last until dawn, yet not so much that the heat would overcome the rock and melt it.

  Geomancy was as alien to him as magician-style magic. Was it so simple as his assumptions perceived, or did this apparently simple trick require her to alter the stone’s elemental structure all night long to maintain it? Something else to speak to her about in the morning. She needed down time as much as the rest of them.

  “No wood for a fire?” he asked when the loner rose. “The Stoneseams have plenty of trees.”

  “Lots of trees out there.” Wyman gestured with a jerk of his head. “But let’s see you try to get to them and back.”

  He crossed to the place he had staked as his own. Dropping to a squat, he withdrew his ten-copper coin and began flicking it into the air off his thumbnail. Catching it easily, the coin would emerge from his fist at his small finger, roll over his knuckles to rest on his thumb, then shoot into the air again.

  Marik watched, knowing the coin would repeat its path without error for candlemarks until Wyman crawled into his blankets…and found it comforting.

  * * * * *

  Jerked meat had been the primary staple of foot soldiers on the march since time began. Marik must have eaten enough since his first days on the road after leaving Tattersfield to rebuild a small herd. Whoever had stocked their pack with a supply probably had done so without a second thought, must have been an experienced traveler rather than a lifelong city mage. Good thinking on their part, but he chewed the tough meat without relish.

  As long as men were on the march or needed new boot soles, the meat would never be wasted.

  Spinning coins of light revolved around the crevice fast enough to make him feel sick if he tried to follow them. Wyman sat near the entrance, leaning easily on the sloping rock. He kept an eye out for the others’ return. Caresse had led the search party today, exasperated at the mercenary’s inability to follow her directions to the nearest mountain spring. She elected to find it herself and then direct the others in investigating potential escape routes her earthsense groped for.

  The sunlight bounced off the walls, the floor and the ceiling every time he flipped the copper coin. A golden shaft shone directly through the entrance during midmorning. Wyman’s whirling ten-copper caught the light, which turned the humble currency into a brilliant, sparkling star.

  Marik shifted his mind inward to decrease his queasiness. None of them were Healers the likes of Glynn Allegra Eyollandish III, yet a comment made in passing by Lynn that morning stuck in his mind. They had watched his wounded leg with concern, knowing they could do nothing if infection set in. That they could tell anything at all centered on their ability to see his life energies and observe their behavior around the wound.

  During his first sojourn in the Chirurgeon’s Wing, the head chirurgeon had told him not to fight the need to sleep, whatever his personal feelings about being invalid. The body needed to redirect its available energies into healing processes. Being asleep was the state in which the body consumed the least amount of energy on necessary functions.

  The ramifications of that had never occurred to him before. Always there had been Healers, or chirurgeons, or someone knowledgeable in the ways of recovery to give him instructions on what would be best for him. He could not Heal himself, but perhaps he could…nudge his body along a bit quicker.

  He studied his ribs carefully through his magesight. The complex life energy network enmeshed in his flesh glowed its usual pure white. It wrapped around the bones he had learned to strengthen along with his muscles in the course of perfecting his own original working.

  Marik looked intently into his body as closely as he could. With his magesight open to its fullest extreme, he could make out the smallest pathways in the network that were usually swallowed by the aura’s larger glow.

  The minute channels were disrupted.

  He could see small tendrils that had never been present before. They wrapped around the fractured ribs in a tight net, life energy pulsing through channels narrower than a single hair. Hard as he tried, he could see nothing of sharper detail than that. The energy flowing through the channels must be marinating the damaged bone, providing the substance the body needed to mend.

  A study of his gashed leg revealed similar results. New hairline pathways wound through the torn skin and muscle, channels redirecting energy around the gashes torn through the original network by the wound, fresh life force working tirelessly to repair the damage, replace blood, re-grow skin.

  Marik relaxed against the cold stone with his eyes closed. His mental hands reached into the etheric plane to gather the free-floating mists. When he felt a comfortable amount pouring into his reserves, he released it to flow through his body’s channels. He usually sent them as a flood to swell the muscular channels and increase his physical strength. This time, he let them ease gently along, a leaf floating on a placid stream, interested in nothing except providing an increased amount of energy cycling through his entire network.

  The immediate effect, when he had not been so hopeful as to expect any, was a lightening of the general soreness throughout his myriad of bruis
es. He optimistically looked for any signs that his wounds were Healing, rather than simply mending, but if their recovery rate had accelerated at all, the signs were too infinitesimal for him to recognize.

  Laying on the cool mountain’s flesh, feeling the energy’s warmth flowing through him, Marik succumbed to a relaxation he rarely ever felt. It would have been complete if only his head could rest against twin olive-colored legs, as bare as the rest of her.

  He watched Wyman across the way, feeling at peace enough to say, “You don’t look complete without Churt holding your shadow in place.”

  The coin halted briefly on the central knuckle. Wyman gazed at him sideways until it flipped high anew. “Is that supposed to be an observation or a conclusion?”

  “A curiosity, I guess. You were all new and unknowns when Sloan brought the year’s greenies in from the entrance trials. We were keen on knowing who had been cherry-picked to be our shieldmates since we had been shorthanded since the war. It was an odd portrait you lot painted, but if anyone was easiest to read it was probably you, since loners always seem to stick to secret conduct codes you haven’t let the rest of us in on.”

  Wyman stared at him wordlessly.

  Marik really did feel excellent! He continued, “What I meant to say is that it’s no surprise Churt latched on to a fellow entrant. Being so young and having lost his family, it would have been worrisome if he tried to be a tough old wolf. He’d be bound to snap eventually under that sort of pressure. I’d rather not have that happen during a difficult battle, and the others wouldn’t either.” When Wyman still offered no response, Marik concluded, “I think I made a short story long, but the easier way of saying it would be that I’m a little surprised he latched on to you, of the whole lot.”

  “No one has ever called me a man-eating troll before.”

  Marik laughed. “How did you reach that conclusion from what I said?”

  Wyman caught the coin. This time he held it tight in his fist and shifted on the rocky pile until he face Marik fully. “You’re full of ideas about human nature.”

  “Only my own thoughts,” Marik shrugged. The slow energy coursing through his interior channels reminded him of basking in the summer sunlight, floating face up on a grassy sea.

  “Yes? Then allow me to offer one of my own. The people who are most amazed by the actions of men they consider thuggish are the ones who are, themselves, the most thug-like by nature. Are you so amazed that a lad such as Churt would find a common bond with me because you could never have accepted that same bond yourself?”

  The words were delivered without malice, yet with a hint of challenge nonetheless. Marik forestalled an automatic denial in order to give the question a fair appraisal. Wyman watched with interest until Marik at last spoke.

  “I don’t know,” he admitted. “Ever since I struck out into the world on my own at sixteen, I’ve been determined to be self-reliant. I’ve learned better since, that no one can ever completely refuse depending on others because the simple fact is that dependency comes in as many varieties as trees. I consider myself an equal with Dietrik. It would be uncomfortable to me if I were a leader, and he a follower, the way you and Churt look like.”

  Wyman’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead at Marik’s bald statement. “That’s not any sort of candor I would have expected from you.”

  “Another troll from the tribe of ‘expectation’ slain, I fear.”

  The world outside the entrance absorbed Wyman’s attention for an untold number of heartbeats while Marik’s body reclined on a pure white cloud, swallows flying in playful circles around him.

  “It’s not.”

  Marik glanced up from his lap. “It’s not what?”

  “A leader/follower bond. That isn’t healthy for lads like Churthington in the long run.”

  “What do you call it, then?”

  “If it is anything,” Wyman answered slowly while digging a loose stone from under his hip, “I would call it a surrogate father/son relationship.”

  “That makes sense. After a fashion. Churt did lose his father to the Noliers when they attacked the Hollister garrison.”

  “And what is that look for?” Wyman demanded heatedly the instant he noticed the speculative expression Marik wore. “Is it so unbelievable that I might find comfort in lending my shoulder to a young man grieving over loss?”

  “Most never seem to stop and consider it one way or the other.”

  “They don’t have sons.” Wyman unshackled the coin in his grip to renew its flight from his thumbnail, a bit more forcefully than usual. “Or if they do, they’re the type who choose not to admit to them. Leaving the children behind to be raised alone by the mothers foolish enough to dally with a mercenary. Well,” he spat, and Marik could hear his teeth gnashing, “where is it written on the pages of life that a free-sword isn’t allowed to do his best for his son?”

  “I would make the same argument.” Filtering in through the mellow warmth enveloping him, Marik felt traces of intrigue at Wyman’s fierce declaration.

  Wyman hardly seemed to register his words. His mind had bent inward, perhaps far enough that he no longer remembered Marik’s presence. “Men sitting on cots others put there for them, eating food others acquired and prepared, living under roofs they don’t have to maintain…and they never stop bitching, do they? Their hardships are the woes of ages, their complaints the flowing blood of martyrs. They honestly believe they know what true responsibility is.

  “But how many care about anything outside themselves? Damned few, and that’s for certain. They don’t remember their father’s faces, so what hope could any child of theirs have that these men appreciate the magnitude of their responsibilities?”

  “My own father,” Marik announced loud enough to shake Wyman from his reverie. “Did you hear about him?”

  Wyman graced him with a look all the harder for the fact that he realized he’d been speaking aloud. “Why would I know anything about your father?”

  “Most in the unit did, about two years ago. Most of the squad, for that matter. Cork spent time spouting off about it too, so I assumed all the new recruits must have heard.”

  “I only listen to men when they speak words worth hearing.”

  Marik smiled. “Then I suppose you wouldn’t recognize Cork’s voice if you heard it. There is a long story which probably wouldn’t interest you much, but I spent my childhood living in a town not too distant from these mountains. It was mother and me making do as best we could. Father would come home for as long as possible during the winter months, and leave behind every coin he could. Together with mother’s work, we managed.”

  He continued for what felt like a half-mark, though it would probably have been closer only to ten minutes if he bothered to reel-in his time sense. It was comfortably off on holiday with his senses of embarrassment and apprehension, enjoying their leave as long as he kept the slow-moving energy coursing through his inner channels.

  The only clue that Wyman listened with interest was his coin. It sailed only half as high into the air, and moved across his knuckles with less alacrity.

  “And you never knew before?”

  “No,” Marik answered. “It was brassy luck I survived. Though that opened a whole floodgate of new problems, and Torrance wanted me to train under Tollaf. That way he’d have an additional mage to play on the battlefield.”

  The older mercenary cocked his head. “I had wondered why you had no room in the Tower with the others.”

  “The women,” Marik corrected. “And Tollaf. Each mage is assigned to a squad, usually the specialists. Each magic user can live in the Tower if they want, but the men always decided to live in their squad barracks. I hardly cared about that, but the Ninth was my home, and still is.”

  A slow nod came from Wyman. “I can see how you came to be the man you are. Perhaps better than others.” He caught the coin between his thumb and first fingertip, holding it in the sunlight. “Perhaps my story’s beginnings are not so unusual
after all. My son is nine this coming spring. He tries hard to act tough as nails. Except I can hear it under his words. The boy doesn’t like having me away most of the time. If I were the father I should be, I would find work in the town that allowed me to stay at his side. But this is all I have the skill to do, thus I try to make the best of an undesirable situation.”

  “You can speak Traders fluently,” Marik countered. “Wouldn’t that be enough for some jobs?”

  “I am no merchant, and have no mind for their miserly wiles.”

  “What about a regular caravan guard for a local merchant? You’d still travel often, but you would also spend as much time at home as on the road.”

  “I see you have never done that work. The pay is lousy. Half the trouble caravans encounter are the result of the guards deciding to steal the cargo and blame it on nonexistent highwaymen.”

  “No, I didn’t know that.”

  “It is true. Guards are usually offered a bonus to watch each other as closely as they do the trees. If they catch and stop another guard, it is well worth their while.”

  Marik nodded. “I can already see where that would cause problems as well. How many times has a disliked man, or mercenary, been falsely blamed by the rest of the guards in order to get better pay?”

  “Often enough. It is a popular way to get revenge among them.”

  “I don’t know what to say, then. Except that as long as you are making the most of the time you have with him, it will be all the more valuable to your son than you might imagine. That is how it was for me. Our time was sweeter due to its shorter duration.”

  Wyman offered no response. The keen edge in his gaze had softened. Marik had the sense that there was now another man in the world he could trust to watch his back in battle.

  “They had best return soon,” Wyman said. The glisten off his coin dulled by the heartbeat. He leaned backward to peer up at the entrance above him. “We’ve got a mean storm coming in.”

  * * * * *

  A small delegation waited in a breezy copse in the mountains’ shadow. Four acolytes nervously busied their hands with pointless work to keep their minds distracted. Colonel Mendell, or Archbishop Mendell as these four knew him, projected serenity.