by Matt Heppe
“I will bring light, but you must make it fast.”
Maret made her preparations as slowly as she could, but she could only delay so long. Her tent ended up the last one brought down, and the entire troop was mounted and waiting for her to mount.
“This won’t be permitted again,” Grax said. “You cannot delay us.”
“It is not even light. How can I prepare two babies in these conditions?”
“I don’t care. It won’t happen again.” He turned away from her. “Captain Saunder, get the company moving.”
As he had the day before, Kael had the job of carrying little Enna. He seemed unperturbed by the task and cradled the child with the experience of a father. Enna, for her part, made no fuss.
“Let’s take our place,” Kael said as the company formed up.
Maret rode to Kael’s side. The Idorians seemed well organized and quite competent. There were outriders to the left and right, scouts ahead, and a rearguard behind.
Captain Saunder and Baron Grax rode near the front of the column with a dozen or so men. Maret and Kael rode just behind the first group of soldiers, with a pair of soldiers immediately behind them.
Next came the packhorses loaded with camp gear and weapons taken from the Landomeri. The trader Johas and a few soldiers kept the baggage train in order. The remaining soldiers, maybe sixteen of them, rode behind the pack horses.
Maret glanced to the left and right, into the darkness of the forest. Hadde was out there, watching them. She had to be.
Hadde wouldn’t fail. She had rescued the Maidens in Waiting when they had been taken hostage in the Great Keep of Sal-Oras. She had killed Waltas. She had killed Akinos, wielder of the Orb of Creation. And she would rescue Maret and the children.
They plodded through the muck and mud of the churned up forest floor. The pace was slow. She supposed it was the near dark and the mud, but the sun would soon rise and she was certain the pace would increase.
I could just ride off. There would be no hope she would actually escape, but they would have to chase her for some time. Her heart beat faster just considering it. They wouldn’t kill her, would they? Grax wanted Maret and Orlos. He wouldn’t kill them.
The thought gave her small comfort. There were so many other things that could go wrong. She was no rider for one. How could she risk a fall from a running horse while carrying Orlos? The fall could easily kill him.
Maybe she could do it when she was alone. Leave Orlos behind. Would they shoot if it was just Maret and not Orlos? Would they just let her go if she broke free? She looked down at Orlos as he pulled at a button on the front of her dress. No, she could never leave him.
Slowly, night retreated. Stars faded and branches took shape in the canopy above. But day was slow to arrive in the shadow of the forest.
“Will we soon stop to eat?” Maret asked Kael.
“Not until full light, I imagine, lady,” he said. He held Enna in front of him so that she stood on the saddle pommel looking forward over his horse’s head.
“Shouldn’t you have your hands on the reins?”
“Bah, reins are for ninnies. And if I don’t let this little imp move around a bit she’ll be giving me fits in no time. It will be a long trip.”
“You do know you are kidnapping her? That you are stealing her from her mother.”
“I suppose we are, lady.”
“That’s all you have to say for yourself?”
“I don’t kill women and children. I don’t rape. Captain Saunder is a firm man and keeps to the rules.”
“The rules allow kidnapping?”
Kael paused a moment. “He wouldn’t have done it without good reason.”
“That’s good enough for you?”
“It is, lady.”
“He didn’t tell you why?”
Kael never got a chance to answer. There was a shout from ahead and an animal scream. More shouts and then an order in Idorian. Captain Saunder’s voice, Maret thought as she clutched Orlos closer to her. Her heart pounded. Was this the rescue?
The column halted for a moment before starting again. Maret looked ahead to see what was the matter, but could see nothing in the pre-dawn light. The scream, and the following whinnies were terrible, but then abruptly cut off.
“What has happened?” Maret asked.
Kael peered forward, shaking his head. “I’ll bet a horse has broken its leg. It is dangerous riding through the forest at night.”
“Why are we doing it then?”
“We are trying to get ahead of the Landomeri.”
Water splashed up from the horses’ hooves, wetting Maret’s legs. Not that it mattered much. She was still damp from the night’s rain. If the summer night had not been so warm she was certain her misery would have been doubled.
Maret frowned as the water deepened. At first she thought they were fording a stream, but then she realized the forest had flooded. She kept looking ahead to see what the problem had been.
And then she spotted a fallen horse. Two soldiers struggled to pull the saddle from the dead steed. The second man’s horse stood nearby.
“Get me a remount!” yelled one. “Now!”
“Coming up,” Johas replied.
“What happened?” Maret asked.
The soldier glared up at her. “Broke his leg on a hidden root. Dromost! A good horse, too.”
“I’m sorry,” she said, not knowing why. She hated the soldiers. She shook her head. I’m sorry for your loss, you kidnapping akinos.
They had only ridden fifty strides more when the column halted again. They had finally come to the actual streambed, submerged below the flood, and the riders ahead were carefully making their way across. Some riders had spread out to the left and right, searching for an easier path.
“Wait,” Kael said. “Let’s see who finds an easy way.”
Maret didn’t like the look of the crossing. Horses sank to their chests as they crossed, and although the current wasn’t strong, it did push some of them downstream.
“I don’t think I—”
There was a loud splash as one of the men riding up the far bank suddenly toppled off the back of his horse into the steam. He had been attempting to ride up the bank near a tree and was swept off the saddle by a branch.
A man jeered at him. More laughed as the soldier floundered in the shallow water. His horse scrambled up the far bank.
The man’s head appeared above water for a moment. He choked out, “Aidos,” before being pulled under again.
“Get him!” Kael shouted. His command provoked little Enna into a wail. “Take her,” Kael said, holding Enna toward Maret, but she was too far away to reach. For a moment Maret feared he would drop Enna.
And suddenly the men weren’t laughing any more. The drowning soldier’s legs frantically kicked, but his upper body was completely submerged. Several soldiers leaped out of their saddles and jumped into the water. “He’s trapped under a root!” one shouted. He clutched at an arm and pulled, but the man didn’t appear.
Another soldier reached under the water and pulled at something. Maret thought she saw a dark length of root appear. More soldiers scrambled through the water until Maret could no longer really see what was happening.
Beside her, Kael had abandoned his efforts to hand Enna over and instead yelled instructions to the rescuers. Enna screamed and kicked, held under Kael’s arm like a bundle of wood.
“Watch her, Kael!” Maret shouted.
A sudden gust struck Maret so hard it threatened to toss her from the saddle. The tree the men worked under was struck by the same wind, and its branches flailed as if alive. One branch struck one of the rescuers in the head, causing him to recoil into the deeper water.
Maret held Orlos closer. Unlike everyone else present, he was not focused on the rescue or the wind-blasted tree. He stared at something off to the left. Something high in the trees.
Maret followed his gaze. Twenty strides off, perched high on the branch of an oak, sat
a silver bird. A spirit bird. The morning sun struck it, causing it to shine as if pure silver.
The bird was as still as Orlos as it gazed at the chaotic scene below. It sat too still, Maret thought. The bird’s shimmering blue-silver feathers were unruffled by the tempest.
Maret shivered as she realized that there was no tempest where the bird was. She glanced around the tree canopy. No wind at all.
Only around the tree where writhing branches struck at the soldiers.
Others had noticed it as well, pointing their fingers at the still forest surrounding the whirling chaos.
A soldier shouted desperately in Idorian.
Saunder shouted commands in Idorian as he and Baron Grax arrived. Twenty or more soldiers now surrounded the tree, half dismounted and helping with the rescue, the others mounted, watching helplessly.
Three soldiers struggled to lift the root pinning the tree’s victim. Two more tried to pull his still form free.
A mounted solider shot his crossbow into the tree’s trunk. It struck home, but had no visible effect. Two more followed his example. The wind raged on.
Maret glanced back to the spirit bird. Still it perched motionless. Orlos cooed and reached his pudgy hand in the bird’s direction. She knew he was the son of the last spiridus, but he had never done anything before that showed him to be any different from any other child. Was he just fascinated by the bird, ignoring what the adults thought important?
The trader, Johas, charged into the river, three axes clutched under his arm. He dropped one into the water before managing to hand one to another soldier.
Johas and the soldier turned to the tree, but then Johas faltered and shouted, “I’m stuck!” panic clear on his face. “Pull me free!”
The soldier grabbed his arm and yanked and both fell backward into the water. Both emerged and clambered up the bank where they proceeded to hack into the tree trunk.
The axes bit into the tree. The wind-lashed tree gave one last convulsion and the wind died. The commotion around the base of the tree stopped. Maret watched as they pulled the lifeless body from under the root that held it.
Still heavy axe blows sent chips flying.
“What are you doing?” Grax called out. “Stop cutting that tree!”
“It killed Neros,” a soldier said. “It drowned him.”
“Idiots,” he said with a look of contempt. “He fell and was stuck under a submerged branch.”
“But the wind!” The soldier looked up to the tree canopy as if to prove his point, but the air was dead calm.
“So there was a wind. Don’t be fools.”
“It was the Spirit of Landomere!” Maret called out. Suddenly all the men, by this time most of the company, turned their attention on her. “You’ve angered the Great Spirit and she has come to slay you.”
She saw fear in some of their eyes. “You’ve taken two children of the forest. The Great Spirit will never let you leave the forest alive.”
“Silence!” Grax shouted. “Nobody believes—”
“I’ve lived here,” Maret cut him off. He rode toward her, but the streambed hampered his approach. “I’ve seen the trees walk!” the lies came easily and she took encouragement from the belief she saw in many of her listeners. They had heard the same stories she had listened to as a child. Stories of the bewitched forest of Landomere.
“Hadde, Slayer of Akinos, comes for you. She is half-spiridus and her arrows will take you in the night. The trees will tear you—”
“Another word and I’ll take your child and drown you in this blasted flood!” Grax was halfway across the stream, his sword drawn.
Maret relented as he approached, the fury on his face plain to see.
“Nobody believes in this superstitious crap!” Grax said. But it was plain that many did. He turned on the assembled soldiers. “Cut it down! It will fall like any other tree. There is no Great Spirit. There are no spiridus.”
Maret glanced down at Orlos. He no longer stared off into the canopy. Instead he watched Grax. Maret glanced off to where the spirit bird perched, but it was gone.
The axes bit into the tree trunk. There was no response. No wind, no movement, no roots grasping at legs. Just chips of wood flying from the trunk.
Grax rode up to Maret. “Do that again and I’ll have you bound and gagged.”
“You need me,” she said, bolder than she felt. But her words struck some truth.
“No, I need him.” Grax’s sword pointed to Orlos.
Maret’s stomach tightened. Would Grax kill her? Or just leave her behind? She didn’t know which would be worse.
“This will be your death,” Maret said, hoping to keep up a bold front. “The Landomeri will kill you. Hadde will kill you.”
“She and her friend are two against fifty. The other Landomeri will never catch us.”
Maret didn’t respond, listening instead to the sound of axes cutting into wood. All around them horsemen sat, waiting for a tree to fall. Maret looked out into the forest. Somewhere out there Hadde hunted them.
Chapter Ten
Nidon dismounted in the inn’s courtyard as a storm rumbled overhead. “Get Thunder into a stall and fed,” Nidon said to Rayne as the boy rushed up. “Don’t curry him until the storm has passed. He won’t like the noise, despite his name.”
“Yes, Sir Nidon.”
Fat raindrops slapped the cobblestones as Nidon made his way to the porch. He turned to check his page’s progress as a heavy gust brought the first wave of rain down the street. A stable hand came out and helped Rayne usher the horse into the stable.
Nidon watched as people scurried from the street, and thought of his soldiers camped down by the river. The Queen’s Gardens were beautiful but exposed, jutting into the river on an outcropping of land. Their tents would be hard pressed in a summer thunderstorm’s wind.
Nidon had been with his men all day, making sure they were settled in and well encamped. The men were furious, and rightly so. They had expected to return to the city and enjoy the comforts of civilization. Something they had seen little of for over a year.
But instead of being treated with the respect they deserved, they were forced to camp outside the walls, just yards from the food, women, and comfort they all craved.
They just want their pay, and the freedom to build normal lives for themselves. And I just want to leave. Why did I accept that challenge?
The streets had cleared as a torrent of rain rapidly flooded the central gutter. Lightning flashed across the sky. It wouldn’t last long—just a summer thunderstorm, but Nidon enjoyed the show for a few moments longer. And, however briefly, the summer heat was broken.
Nidon stepped into the inn’s great room and was immediately greeted by the innkeeper, a skinny man who never smiled but ran a fine establishment nonetheless. “Sir Nidon, it is a pleasure to see you again. I will have fresh water brought up to your room. Or would you prefer a refreshment first?”
“I will eat now, Master Kendor. It has been a long day.”
“Very well, my lord.” He waved his arm graciously toward the nearly empty room. Two men dressed in the finest linens worked with gold thread sat near the door. They wore gilt merchant’s tokens pinned to their coats. In a far corner, near the exposed staircase and the back hall, four guild masters huddled together over tankards of ale. “It is early yet. You have your pick of the tables.”
Given his choice, Nidon would have taken the corner table. He liked being able to survey a room. He’d have been able to see the main door in front of him and the staircase and back hall to his left.
The two merchants stood and approached. One was a tall, gaunt man in a blue tunic and brown trousers. The other was a shorter, chubby man in red and black. His high black boots gleamed. They might cost as much as a fine riding horse.
“Champion Nidon, my name is Vilios of Kar-Oras,” said the taller man, “and this is Denne, formerly of Sal-Oras. It would please us greatly if you would join us. We would love to hear the news fr
om the east.”
Nidon wanted to say no. He had no desire for company. But he did want news. And who better to get it from than a pair of merchants. He nodded his assent. “It would be my pleasure.”
“You are so gracious to join us, Sir Nidon.” Vilios pulled out a chair for Nidon, and the two merchants sat only after Nidon had taken his seat. Nidon’s back was to the door, an arrangement he never liked.
“Master Kendor, your finest wine,” Vilios said. He wore more gold on his fingers than Nidon had on his Champion’s Belt.
“Iced white,” Denne said. “Don’t worry at the expense.” He waved his hand as if money meant nothing to him.
“Very well,” Kendor said. “I’ll send out the first course as well.”
“Very kind of you,” Nidon said to Vilios. “They’ve kept ice this late into summer?”
“I should know,” Vilios said. “I bring it down the Vara from Caross.”
“That is your trade?”
“Among other things. I trade the Vara River all the way to Metten in Namir.”
“And you, Denne?” Nidon asked.
Thunder pealed so loudly outside that the merchant had to pause for a moment before speaking.
“Forsvar is angry today,” he said with a smile. “I trade with the Idorians. My ships even sail the Great West to Nording on occasion.”
“Have you been there?” Nidon asked, his curiosity getting the best of him. “I’ve heard they are a cruel people and fierce warriors.”
“That they are. One day they’ll trade with you, the next day they’ll burn your ships. I’ll say I made my share of gold trading with them when I was young. And they do have gold.”
“And you, Sir Nidon,” Vilios said. “How are things in the east?”
“The fighting is over. We’ve walled off the Dragon’s Gate.”
“So much for iron prices,” Denne said with a frown. “But I don’t trade much to the east.”
Vilios leaned forward and lowered his voice. “Is that why you have returned? With your army?”
And so we get to the point. Faster than I expected. But are they grasping merchants, or agents of the queen?