By now the whole camp was in an uproar. Brands blazed; shilder and foot soldiers searched the camp, even turning out the civilian wagons. Durazen could not be found.
No one slept for the rest of the night. At dawn, the nervous shilder and foot soldiers greeted the sunrise with relief, though there -was still no sign of their missing commander. And with Durazen gone, there was no clear leader among the footmen or shilder.
Tol, mounted on Smoke, addressed the assembled warriors and civilians. He told them of Felryn’s vision of an ambush.
“We must find Lord Odovar and Warden Egrin,” he declared. “I need at least a hundred men to do it. Who’s with me?”
“We can’t leave camp,” Janar protested. He was only half-dressed, his broad chest bare and blond hair askew. “Our orders were to stay here.”
“The marshal is in trouble—he maybe dead already!”
“We don’t know that,” said Relfas skeptically. “Felryn is an admirable healer, but I’ve never heard he was a seer.”
Tol turned to the older man for help. Felryn said, “I am a priest of Mishas, chosen by the goddess to serve the marshal of Juramona. If she grants me visions of my charges, you can believe them.”
The shilder remained unconvinced. “We should send a few riders to contact Lord Wanthred and the Firebrands,” Relfas countered. “That would be the wisest course.”
Many relieved voices supported this plan. Tol’s frustration grew.
“If Lord Odovar is to be ambushed and cut off, every hour is precious,” he insisted. “For the honor of the empire and the safety of our comrades, we must do something!”
On and on they wrangled, until a delegation from the footmen interrupted. Relfas disdained to discuss strategy with mere foot soldiers, but Tol went to speak to them.
“It’s Durazen. We found him,” Narren reported. Tol looked relieved until Narren added, “He’s dead, Tol. Come and see.”
Shilder, civilians, and foot soldiers streamed out of the camp behind Tol. Narren led them to the extreme eastern end of the meadow.
“Boys from the cook wagon went out a little while ago to collect tinder for their fires,” Narren explained. “Instead they found this.”
Forty steps from the edge of the woods, the crowd halted as though they’d all been turned to stone. Lashed to an oak tree, his hands bound behind him, was Durazen. The shaft of an arrow protruded from his throat, effectively pinning him to the tree trunk. His belly had been cut open, and his entrails wound around the tree.
The forest folk had not simply killed the commander of the Ergothian camp. They had sacrificed him to the spirits of the trees in which they lived.
The sound of retching behind him broke through Tol’s shock. He had to clear his throat twice before he could speak. Even then his voice was hoarse.
“Cut him down,” he rasped. No one moved. Dazed, he drew his dagger and did the job himself. Felryn knelt by the body, examining it closely.
“Why did they do this?” Tol asked, stunned by the method of the old warrior’s death.
“To propitiate their ancestors’ spirits—and to terrify their enemies,” Felryn answered tersely.
Tol stared at the bloody tree. Was Lord Odovar going to meet a similar fate in the forest? And Egrin?
His name, sharply spoken, called him out of his horrified daze. Narren and the footmen had gathered around.
“We’ll go with you, Tol,” Narren said. “We’ll find Odovar and the warden, and pay back the savages for what they did to Durazen, too!”
Tol surveyed the foot soldiers’ hard faces. Aside from Narren and a few others, they were generally older than the shilder, some as old as thirty. Of humble birth, they were used to being looked down upon by Riders of the Horde. None of that mattered now. Their blood was up, and they would take the battle to the devious enemy in their own way: on foot, face to face.
“Pick a hundred men, Narren, no more. Each man is to bring food and water for two days, his sword, dagger, helmet, a pair of spears, and breastplate. Everything else stays behind—we have to move fast,” Tol said. He looked up at the mid-morning sun. “We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”
Narren took off running, to do as Tol said. All the way back to camp Relfas, Janar, and the other shilder harangued Tol, warning him not to go. He was disobeying orders, they said. He was inexperienced. He was risking the lives of the ignorant footmen who chose to follow him.
Tol ignored them. Finally, Relfas quieted the others and said, “So be it! If Tol wants to throw his life away, that’s his choice. At least he won’t weaken the Rooks doing it!”
Considerably more than a hundred footmen lined up to follow Tol into the forest. He sent a third of them back, not wanting to leave the camp’s defense so weakened. Among the volunteers, he was surprised to see Felryn and Crake. The healer refused to be left behind, insisting that, as his auguries had stirred them up, he felt responsible for the expedition.
To Crake, Tol said, “You’re not a soldier. You don’t have to do this.”
“None of your men has a bow. You’ll need one,” Crake said with a shrug. Flashing a smile, he added, “Just don’t try to order me around, all right?”
Before they set out, Felryn took Tol aside and showed him the arrow that had been removed from Durazen’s throat. Made of ash wood, blackened with soot and fletched with crow feathers, it would be nearly invisible at night. It was obviously forester workmanship, except for its head, which was a sharp triangle of bronze. Common knowledge held that the foresters used flint heads.
“Also,” Felryn added, “the cuts on Durazen’s body were too smooth and even to have been made with stone blades. He was cut with metal.”
“Where would the forest tribes get metal?” Tol said. “Taken from those they’ve slain?”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps the foresters have found someone to supply them,” Felryn suggested darkly.
With a minimum of fuss and no noble speeches, the rescue expedition slipped into the woods. The trees closed in behind them, and Zivilyn’s Carpet was quickly lost from sight.
Chapter 9
The Place of Bones
The Great Green was denser than any forest Tol had ever seen. Ancient trees stretched lordly limbs up to the sky, blotting out the sun. The glare and heat of day gave way to a sort of muted twilight. Gray lichen clung to the trunks, and thick carpets of moss filled the space between gnarled tree roots. Not only were there majestic oaks and broad maples, but several of the truly gigantic vallenwoods united to form a leafy canopy under which lesser plants could not grow.
By the time they’d gone ten score paces into the forest, the Ergothians found the way clear of the clinging growth that first had hampered their progress. The forest floor was covered by a thick bed of dead leaves, broken here and there by islands of mossy boulders. The soft light and great tree trunks made it impossible to see much more than a dozen paces in any direction. A thousand savages could be hiding within a stone’s throw and they’d never know it, Tol thought. He wondered how Odovar’s and Egrin’s hordes had gotten anywhere on horseback in this maze.
The forest was still as death. No birds sang, and there was no game in sight, not even a rabbit. The weird silence brought out a kind of nervous tic in the soldiers. Every few steps, each man would pause and look around, certain he was being observed by hostile eyes. Even Felryn succumbed to the sensation.
Without asking permission, Crake slipped away from the soldiery. For a flute player who spent most of his days in a tavern, he was remarkably stealthy, moving ahead of them through the leaf-litter with hardly a sound.
A shrill whistle brought Tol’s band to a halt. He continued forward and found Crake crouched by a pit dug in the center of the trail. Sharpened stakes lined the bottom of the pit. Their points were darkly stained.
More traps, all likewise sprung, were found—snares dangling in the air, deadfalls tripped, more of the stake-filled pits. A few traps held dead horses, and there were plain signs Odovar’s
men had fought back: tree trunks defaced by sword cuts, blood spattered on leaves, scraps of shredded buckskin. Still, there were no human bodies, living or dead. That mystery played on the soldiers’ already taut nerves.
When the rescue party topped a slight knoll they beheld an even more startling sight. A series of vines had been stretched between trees directly across their path. From the vines hung skulls, more than a hundred of them. Their missing lower jaws gave them an especially horrible aspect: they seemed to be silently screaming.
The soldiers shifted uneasily, drawing closer together. Their muttering was loud in the silence. Even the veteran campaigners among them were powerfully affected by the sight.
Felryn took a small vial from his belt pouch. He flung droplets from the vial at the screen of skulls. A musky, sweet aroma surrounded the men.
His banishing oil used up, the healer gripped Tol’s arm. “It’s woodland magic,” he said. “A display meant to cause fear.”
Tol swallowed hard. “It works well.”
Felryn examined the nearest bones with professional detachment.
“Human, elf, human, human—and judging by the size of those two, kender, or perhaps gnome,” he said. “And they’ve been here for years. Bones don’t get this dry overnight.”
Tol felt a flush of anger drowning out his earlier horror. “Cut them down! Cut them all down!” he commanded, drawing his saber.
The task helped dispel the last traces of the Ergothians’ fear. When the way was clear, Tol sheathed his saber and the rescue party moved on.
At the top of the next rise, behind a tangle of bracken, they found a distinct path worn into the mossy earth. It was the first real trail they’d seen, and as it ran along their line of march, Tol decided to follow it. Wary of traps, the Ergothians paralleled the trail on either side, moving single file through the closely growing trees. Crake alone chose to walk down the worn path, bow in hand.
Crake suddenly stopped. Keeping his right hand low, by his side, he waved for everyone else to halt as well. The Ergothians knelt in the leaves.
The young flutist nocked an arrow very slowly, hands still held low. Raising the weapon swiftly, he loosed the arrow at a high angle. There was a screech, and something heavy came hurtling down from the tree tops.
“Tol! Now!” Crake shouted.
Trusting his friend, Tol rose with his sword in the air. “Have at them!”
They ran forward with no thought of stealth. Ahead, the path passed between a pair of tall boulders, and more waist-high rocks formed a barrier between the pair. Shouting the name of Juramona, the foot soldiers leaped onto the rocks. On the other side, still scrambling to grab their weapons, were several dozen foresters.
Tol dropped into the midst of the shocked tribesmen. Though he’d never attacked anyone with lethal intent before, the heat of the moment seized him, and he slashed forward without mercy. In such close quarters, most of the Ergothians abandoned spears and drew swords too, hacking at the unprepared enemy. The foresters fought back as best they could with wooden spears, stone axes, and clubs.
Tol struck a spear from the hands of an older man, then followed this with an underhand cut. It caught the tribesman under one arm and sent him reeling. Tol leaped over his fallen foe, not even bothering to see if he was alive or dead. He ran the next man, a painted half-elf, through, then spun around and recovered his blade. As the foot soldiers battled below him, Crake stood atop a convenient boulder, picking off enemies with his bow.
The fight was quickly over. Not one of the foresters escaped. The Ergothians, flushed with battle fever, were dazed as the fight ended abruptly. They gathered in the center of the camp and surveyed the carnage.
“I can’t believe we were able to steal up on them,” Tol said, panting. His mouth was searingly dry, his voice little more than a croak. One of the older footmen passed him a waterskin.
“They had a sentinel,” Crake said. “I shot him from the path.”
“Odovar must have come this way,” Narren observed. “The fools thought the danger had passed. Only one man on watch? Stupid!”
Twenty-eight foresters had been killed in the skirmish. Eight were half-elves—and four were women. As the elf Harpathanas Ambrodel had warned in Prince Amaltar’s camp, the women had fought as hard as their men, and died just as bravely. The Ergothians had lost not a single man, though five had received minor wounds.
One tribesman still lived, though he was wounded. He had long blond hair pulled back in a queue, and a short beard. His ears swept up to blunt points. Some of the men, eager to avenge Durazen, were ready to cut the injured half-elf s throat. Tol forbade it, though the footmen grew angry.
The awful scene of Durazen’s death would live in his dreams for a long time, but Tol stood firm. Looking at the fair-haired prisoner, the face of Vakka Zan came back to him. Tol adamantly refused to allow them to kill the captive.
One or two might have disputed the decision with force, but they were drawn away and calmed by the rest. Tol called for Felryn.
The healer examined the wounded forester, reporting the fellow had a sword cut on his calf. He applied a herbal powder and tied up the wound with a scrap of soft leather.
“It’ll hurt like a bite from the Dragonqueen, but he should live,” Felryn said.
Questioned, the green-daubed man would not reveal even his name. Felryn gave the ends of his leather bandage a tug. The tribesman’s face whitened.
“Nara,” he finally grunted. “Name’s Nara.”
There was no time to waste on interrogation. The forester’s comrades might even now be massing a force to counterattack the Ergothians. Over Felryn’s protests, Tol put him in charge of the half-elf s safety. Without the healer’s protection, Tol knew the other soldiers would likely finish the prisoner.
Uncertainty gnawed at Tol. As he walked along the row of slain tribesmen, he wondered if he had made a terrible mistake disobeying orders and coming into the forest. Like a hunter trembling after taking his first buck, he was sickened by the sight of death. His hands were shaking, and his eyes stung with tears.
Narren came up beside him, also gazing at the enemy bodies. Tol clenched his jaw, forcing the lump back down his throat. He would not shame himself by weeping at a time like this.
“Why do they color their faces?” Narren asked. He’d taken off his helmet, letting his fair hair blow free.
“To look fierce?” Tol suggested. “Or to better hide in the greenwood?”
His own words sparked a thought, and Tol turned abruptly. He clamped a hand on Narren’s arm.
“That’s it! That’s how we’ll get through!” he exclaimed. Narren’s confusion was plain, so Tol added, “We’ve been fortunate so far, don’t you see? The Panthers and the Eagles must have drawn off most of the tribesmen in these parts—the best armed, the ablest fighters. That’s why we’ve encountered only these ragged scavengers. If we go on, we’re sure to run into more fell warriors.”
“What of it?” said Narren. “We came to find our comrades. We’ve no choice but to walk the way in blood.”
Tol managed a smile. The plan forming in his mind chased away his earlier doubts. “Odovar, with two hordes at his command, foundered, so how can we hope to get through with only a hundred? We can’t, unless…” He looked again at the lifeless half-elves and their verdant skin. “Unless we become foresters too!”
* * * * *
It was easily done. Among their scant possessions, the slain tribesmen had small bags of paint, compounded from boar grease, leaves, and sap. There wasn’t enough pigment for the entire Ergothian band, but the veteran soldiers didn’t much fancy the idea of painting themselves up anyway. Tol and thirty-two of the youngest soldiers shed their armor and smeared their faces, arms, and hands with paint. As best as possible they copied the markings Nara bore, for extra authenticity.
The day was well advanced by the time they finished, and night would fall early under the shield of leaves. After a quick, cold meal in the boulder-ringed c
amp, the Ergothians set out again. Tol and his painted comrades led the way.
They detected signs of activity. More paths, leading off in various directions, were discovered. A faint smell of smoke drifted on the breeze, and twice they heard the distant pulse of drumbeats. At dusk, the drums grew louder.
By Felryn’s estimate, they’d come some five leagues from Zivilyn’s Carpet. Everyone was weary, but no one asked to stop. Night had truly fallen when they reached a small clearing. Tol signaled for the company to kneel in the shadows at the edge of the clearing. He called for Felryn.
Stars shone overhead in a clear circle where the trees had been cleared. The white moon was just peeping over the trees. In the center of the clearing stood a single white column. It was two paces tall, a handspan wide, and shone brightly in Solin’s light. The column stood on a low base of dark stone. Indistinct objects lay in heaps around its base.
“An altar,” Felryn explained softly. “There is power here, much greater than the simple fear-spell at the wall of skulls. This is a consecrated spot, though from this distance I can’t tell to which god it belongs.”
Tol took a deep breath and stood up. Felryn grasped his wrist, hissing, “What are you doing?”
“I’m a forester,” Tol replied coolly. “I’m not afraid to be seen here.”
He walked into the clearing. No alarm was given, so he advanced boldly to the white column.
The pillar was eight-sided, its top cut off on a slant. A smooth yellow gem was inset in the angled top. Around it and all down the sides of the column were finely carved hieroglyphs. Tol knew the writing was not Ergothian.
He squatted to examine the objects piled up around the pillar. To his surprise, he saw they were pieces of bronze weaponry—arrowheads, spear tips, knife and sword blades. All looked newly made and unblemished by corrosion.
Taking a spearhead to show Felryn, Tol started back toward the trees. Before he was halfway there, he was brought up short by a sharp command.
[Ergoth 01] - A Warrior's Journey Page 13