Forest For The Trees (Book 3)

by Damien Lake

  Xenos reached a hand for Marik’s forehead. In a flash, the memory of the Red Man diving into his brain in Thoenar burst through his mind’s eye. He knew, he knew, this could be nothing except a similar invasion!

  In the final moment before the cold hand touched his skin, he ruthlessly forced the memory of the Red Man away. Instinctively he focused on anything except the memories that related to his mage abilities. The mere thought of this demonic man discovering his magical talent or that his father traveled with Xenos’ apparent enemy…

  He focused on Raymond appointing him as a temporary crown-general. There was no time to craft a lie and have it look convincing. Marik concentrated on imagery of battles and sword fighting.

  Xenos touched his forehead. Behind Marik’s eyes, images bloomed faster than roses born from lighting strikes. Most flashed past too quickly to recognize…except a few returned after several other images sped past. They lingered. Marik had the feeling that Xenos was interested in those. The fight with the Arronathian mage in the battle on the Rovasii’s fringe, armed with naught but a naked sword.

  After a moment, Xenos withdrew his hand. Marik was exhausted. Had he succeeded in hiding any of his memories from Xenos? How much had the man gleaned?

  “A servant of the Cerellan king, I see. You must be a loyal man to pursue enemies of your liege who possess strength surpassing your own.”

  A new man parted from the soldiers to stand beside Xenos. “A personal agent of this land’s king? Your grace, that could be trouble in spades.”

  “There are no Galemarans anywhere within this forest Mendell, excepting these ones here with us.” Mendell? Marik felt a stab of recognition at the name. Where had he heard it before?

  “Unexpected developments can be more troublesome than a field commander at first appreciates.”

  “Quite true, though there are times where such encounters are serendipitous rather than detrimental, colonel. It may interest you to know this one fought directly against Harbon during his last hours in life.”

  “This one?” The colonel, Mendell, weighed Marik with a scornful appraisal. “Were that so, there would be nothing left of him.”

  “Under ordinary circumstance,” agreed Xenos, seemingly at ease. “And Harbon struck him down, according to his memory. Yet before he could ensure his victory, Harbon was destroyed by the forces led by this kingdom’s greatest warrior. A very narrow escape.”

  Mendell drew his spine straight. “I would be impressed if this were the warrior you tell of. This man is little better than a common swordfighter.”

  “Does it please you none at all to have at your mercy one who set himself against a fellow archbishop, Mendell? One who, rash as it was, made best effort to kill your brethren?”

  Xenos’ voice maintained the same timber, yet a quality Marik could never describe made it sound far colder. Mendell whitened in the firelight. “Of course it pleases me, your grace! Had I but known anyone foolish enough to defy Harbon still lived, I would have never rested until the heathen was brought to the light!”

  “Then praise god for His generosity in allowing you the chance,” Xenos said softly.

  Mendell nervously glanced at Dietrik. “What of that one? Has he any crimes to atone for?”

  “Let us see.”

  Xenos reached for Dietrik’s forehead. Dietrik jerked his head back sharply. It bounced off the mossy log. Marik stared helplessly, unable to tell Dietrik to hide his thoughts as best he could.

  A spark crackled violently in the air when Xenos’ hand closed to a single inch from Dietrik’s skin. Dietrik rapped his head harder against the log. Xenos snatched his hand back with a quicksilver motion.

  Mendell watched in confusion equal to Marik’s. Xenos stared with dagger-edged intensity into Dietrik’s teary eyes for several moments before turning that gaze on Marik. Fiery suspicion bored into Marik.

  “It would seem,” Xenos declared flatly, “that you may have been prescient in this matter, Colonel Mendell. There is a touch on this one’s mind that is not to my liking in the least. These two could be trouble for which we have no time to deal with. Put end to them at once.”

  A curt nod from Mendell brought four soldiers sprinting to pull the mercenaries to their unsteady feet. Marik’s eyes widened when he recognized the rasp of steel clearing a sheath.

  “But not too quickly, colonel. It would be a shame to waste what god has provided. Make certain to ripen them before their last.”

  A smile Marik feared played across Mendell’s features. He barked in the alien language of the Arronaths, and only then did Marik realize both men had been speaking in Galemaran the entire time. So much had occupied his mind that he’d never noticed.

  The straps were pulled from their wrists. Marik lashed out at the nearest soldier. A second Arronath in black armor backhanded him across the face. For a brief moment the starry sparkles reappeared.

  Before he could adjust he felt the straps tighten around his ankles. His feet were brutally yanked upward. It felt as if his legs had been torn from his hips. In seconds he dangled upside down from a long rope that had been slung over a high branch and tied to one of their horses.

  Ten feet to his left dangled Dietrik. Both mercenaries resembled plucked chickens hanging from a butcher’s rack. Xenos sat pleasantly on the log, his dark dagger in hand, watching the two mercenaries while he idly pried the Galemaran’s toenails from his flesh.

  Mendell barked a comment that drew laughter from the men over the bound Galemaran’s cries. A knot of activity unwound and Marik saw that the group had brought along one bow after all. The arrowheads were wicked creations, with as many hook-like barbs as a thistle pod.

  The colonel held aloft the bow, shouting harsh questions to the soldiers. As one they replied with a roar that palely imitated the Taurs. Mendell barked again each time they responded until, after several repetitions, he started pointing to specific men, who strove to out-shout each other.

  He finally selected one. The chosen man pumped his arms jubilantly while his fellows pushed him bodily to the front. Mendell tossed him the bow. A different soldier pulled a ragged cloth from supply packs stacked beside the horses and tied it in a blindfold around the winner’s eyes.

  The blindfolder held a finger to the top of the winner’s head and pushed against one shoulder. With a grin the bowman spun blindly while the soldiers chanted in a mob’s unison. Their syllables must represent the Arronathian words for numbers. All the while, the blindfolder kept slapping the bowman’s shoulder as if spinning a child’s top.

  On the tenth spin, the blindfolder stepped back. The dizzy bowman fitted an arrow to the string.

  “You realize,” Dietrik shouted, “that you should have listened to me, don’t you?”

  “I wish I could give you the chance to say ‘I told you so’!”

  An arrow streaked through the air between them. They barely heard it over the howling from Xenos’ victim. The barbs cut the air with wicked hisses.

  “I should never have been so sympathetic!” Dietrik called across. He kept attempting to bend upward, to reach his toes. To reach the straps. His efforts never reached halfway.

  “What do you mean?” The bowman had pulled a second arrow from the quiver. Behind him, nearly fifty men shouted advice that Marik dreaded. Their words sounded as if they consisted of only two phrases, which probably meant ‘more to the right’ or ‘more to the left’.

  “I should have tied you in a sack and made you study your lessons with Tollaf.”

  “What good what that have done?”

  “We wouldn’t be bloody here, would we? Or at least you’d be able to get us the bloody hells out of this cook pot we’ve landed in!”

  The bowman took fresh aim. Marik read the angle and saw it was directed closer to him. Unseeing, the archer’s aim remained faulty, but this would be far closer. Perhaps too close. This arrow could easily pierce his side between ribs.

  Marik flailed his arms, twisting side to side. He needed to move his
body out of the flight path. Already he felt weak from the blood rushing to his head. And the physical effort of bending sideways, of making his body swing, was far greater than he ever could have imagined.

  He saw the archer grin a cruel smile when he released the arrow. Marik bent at the waist desperately. The arrow shot past with only inches to spare. A unified laugh bellowed from the soldiers. Xenos smiled with mild pleasure as he dug the knife point into the man’s heel, scraping it across the bone.

  Strength evaporated from Marik’s body while he swung like a fish on a line. He might be able to avoid the next shot. Perhaps the one after that as well. But not an entire quiver filled with barbarous arrows.

  Marik knew exactly what this was about. A continuous stream of life energy fed into Xenos from the tortured man. The harvester intended to terrify and mutilate them both that he could gather their energy, the yield increased due to the body’s reaction to peril.

  His strength might be on the decrease but Marik intended to take as many with him as possible. Once it became clear he could no longer avoid the arrow’s path, he would summon his full reserves. Fast as he could he would fire an etheric orb as Xenos. The man would never expect that. If he were fast enough, he might be able to kill the demon before he could react. Then he would destroy as many of these black-armored ghouls as he could before they skewered him on their swords.

  Marik glared defiantly at Mendell, who stood slightly behind the bowman. The colonel returned the look with haughty superiority. He would definitely be the third to die, immediately after the archer.

  His playful executioner drew back the bowstring for the next shot. The alarm shattered the night as if the very air were a glass vase dashed against a marble tile. It startled the archer badly. He released the string too soon and the arrow missed Marik by several feet.

  Every Arronath in the campsite jumped a foot. When they landed, they pointed in several directions while barking meaningless questions. Xenos immediately materialized at Mendell’s side.

  A single sound rose above the alarm tone. It was a horse screaming in pain. All heads jerked to see it rearing, an arrow shaft imbedded in one flank. The protruding shaft could not be the executioner’s arrow because of the differently colored fletching.

  Unknowns inhabited the night. The horse had moved so suddenly that no one could tell exactly where the shot had come from.

  Still screaming, the horse leapt forward. Marik was yanked upward at painful speed. Before he could start his own terrified yell, the rope snapped high up in the branch where its burning friction forced it to fray against the rough bark.

  Marik plummeted headfirst to the ground. He barely got his hands in front of himself in time. The jarring impact was made no less so by the soft ground. For a moment he feared his arms had snapped as cleanly as the rope. His breath was knocked clean from him, leaving him motionless in the dirt, stunned by the impact.

  The alarm cut off. Mendell was shouting loudly. Instants stretched into eternal moments, the grains in Time’s sandglass growing to mountainous proportions. Alien buzzing filled his ears while he fought to breathe.

  Abruptly, the camp was still. He found the strength to raise his head. Everyone had gone. Xenos, Mendell, every last black-armored soldier…gone. Off to capture the new intruder same as they had captured the mercenaries.

  Marik rolled onto his back to look up at Dietrik. His friend still dangled like a cocoon. “Mate, are you—”

  A yelp escaped Dietrik when his own rope severed as Marik’s had without warning. Dietrik landed with a bit less force.

  “All you all right?” Marik frantically called. “What happened? Why did you fall?” He cast his gaze up into the branches.

  His soul froze anew when, high up in the tree, he discerned a shadowy figure darting back along the thick branch. It moved like a squirrel, bouncing back and forth from branch to branch, already moving before it barely had the chance to touch the limb it bounded from.

  It was coming down the tree. Here it was at last! One of the forest’s spirit denizens. An imp, a demonling, a voracious monster intent on feeding.

  “Dietrik! Get up! Get up now! We have to leave!”

  “I can’t…I’m trying to…”

  Dietrik struggled with the straps around his ankles. Marik bent and furiously pulled at his own. The damned Arronaths used a buckling system that no sane person would ever hassle with. He couldn’t figure out which latches unfastened which parts—

  The Taurs roared their hunting cry. Gods, the Arronaths must have gone in the direction the white-robes had set their own small camp. Xenos or Mendell must have roused them to add their strength to the hunt.

  “Dietrik! We have to go! Now! We have to—”

  A callused hand closed firmly over his. Into his ear came a soft voice that said, “Mage. Move your hands aside and allow me.”

  Marik stared with disbelief into Colbey’s face.

  Colbey held his long steel knife in one hand. He pushed Marik’s fumbling hands away and slashed the straps in a single motion. Without delay he moved to Dietrik.

  Marik rose shakily to his feet. He stared unbelievingly at Colbey while the scout gave Dietrik a hand up. “W-where did you co—”

  “There is no time,” Colbey declared. “Follow me. The invaders will return quickly when they realize the trick I played on them. If you are to live you must escape at once.”

  “I can agree with that,” Dietrik replied with all the warmth of an ornery wolverine.

  Colbey nodded. He cast a fast glance in the Taurs’ direction. With the speed Marik remembered, he dashed sideways. His knife flashed in the firelight. An eye blink later, the Galemaran man lay on his log, his throat severed to the bone. “There is nothing else we can do for him. Now quickly! This way!”

  Marik met Dietrik’s gaze. He read the worry writ there. But staying where they were was unthinkable. They only had time to snatch up their weapon belts before plunging into the dark trees after Colbey, leaving their packs behind.

  The firelight faded at their backs. Colbey’s head spun nonstop, searching the darkness with his formidable scouting skills. Marik could not hold his burning questions in abeyance.

  “Damn it all, where in the hells did you come from, Colbey? I thought you must be dead!”

  The scout kept silent, pushing them at the fastest pace these non-woodsmen could manage.

  “How did you ever find us?”

  “That was simplicity,” Colbey chose to answer. “Do you see the stars?”

  They followed his pointing finger. Dietrik snapped, “How in a bloody god’s mercy could anyone see the stars through these trees?”

  “Exactly. The forest canopy is solid this deep into the woods. Noise as loud as the din you invoked carries for untold miles underneath it. Further than you might imagine.”

  “A stroke of bloody luck you were camping next door then, is it?”

  “No. I was on the move. I came to investigate the noise.”

  “On the move where?” Marik wanted to know.

  Colbey fell silent.

  Marik tried a different tack. “Colbey, let’s go a different direction. We’ve cleared their camp. This way is taking us deeper into the forest.”

  “Yes.”

  “Well, we are already too far in for my tastes! I want to get out while the forest still lets me!”

  “If you turn back, the Taurs will track your scent. You will be unable to hide from them.”

  “We can…do what we have to! We can deal with the Taurs!”

  “Once the Taurs begin to hunt, they are tireless. They will pursue you until you drop from exhaustion, but they will most likely capture you before you run so far.” He stopped spinning his head to look over his shoulder at Marik. “As long as you remain with me, nothing in the Rovasii will harm you.”

  “This forest is haunted, Colbey!”

  “Only those who do not belong run afoul of its inhabitants.”

  “Perhaps,” Dietrik observed sourly. “B
ut I’m concerned about you more than a bleeding tommy living under a rock!”

  Marik held his breath. A comment like that was bound to set Colbey off.

  Instead, the scout met Dietrik’s gaze as levelly as he had Marik’s. “I understand.”

  Dietrik blinked. Much of the edged wariness melted from his bearing. Before Marik could ask the next question, the Taurs voiced their bloodlust to the night.

  “We move,” Colbey announced. “Quickly.”

  Over the next ten minutes they could tell the beasts were tracking them. Their howls grew closer through the darkness. What had Colbey said? They tracked by scent? How could they possibly evade the monsters and their white-robed masters if that was true?

  “We’ll never be able to lose them like this!” Marik gasped.

  “We shall not need to.”

  “Do you expect you can slaughter the lot like sheep?” Dietrik wheezed.

  Marik shook his head in the inky blackness. “Both of us together could never tauupphh!”

  “Mate?”

  “Stop,” Colbey ordered Dietrik in time. Marik peeled himself off the wall he had run face-first into.

  “What…by the gods…is this?” One arm clutched his torso. The impact had finally been too much for his tender ribs. They were throbbing again. His other hand probed the wooden barrier.

  “It is a Euvea root.”

  “How can something this dashed large be a root?” Dietrik asked.

  “I’ve heard of this. Colbey, this is bad! We’re at the heart of the Rovasii.”

  “Climb up onto the top of the root.”

  “What?”

  “Mate, budge on up already! We’ve got demons dogging our hides, and right pissed off ones at that!”

  “But the heart is the one place where you are guaranteed to run afoul of the forest!”

  “Mage, you will come to no harm with me.”

  The terrible howl sounded far closer than before. Marik scrambled to climb the massive root. He moaned, “Oh, this is never going to end!”