by R S Penney
She had no other way to describe it. All of their branches grew on the side facing away from the path, leaving the way clear for Desa and Kalia. That couldn’t be natural. But then nothing about this place felt natural. If she journeyed eastward, would she still find the forest extending into the sea? Or had that been some trick of the man-bat’s?
Something about that felt very similar to what Vengeance had done to them in the Borathorin. Perhaps this creature could manipulate geometry in some way. Bend what should have been straight.
Walking quickly with the packhorse’s bridle in hand, Kalia peered into the thicket. “How long?” she asked. “Until we reach the other side?”
“It took more than a day for us to cross the forest last time,” Desa replied. “I should think this journey will be much the same.”
“Meaning we have to spend the night in here.”
“Indeed.”
It was well past midday when Desa finally decided to stop for a light meal. Bread and cheese and raisins: hardly a feast, but it filled the belly just the same. The horses had grazed yesterday when they made camp, and they would have a chance to do so again tomorrow. For now, some oats and carrots kept them happy.
Kalia was leaning against a tree, munching the last few bites of her sandwich. She licked her fingers one by one and then sighed. “Something that bothers me,” she said. “We haven’t seen any animals.”
On the other side of the path, Desa stood with arms folded, nodding along with that assessment. “We should have seen something,” she agreed. “A squirrel or a rabbit at the very least.”
“What do you think it means?”
Tilting her head back, Desa narrowed her eyes. “If I had to guess,” she began, “I’d say it means most animals are smart enough to avoid this place.”
“And what does that say about us?”
“That we’re desperate, my love.”
With bellies full, they pressed on, continuing their sombre march northward. The path meandered somewhat, curving slightly to the east and then slightly to the west, but it was always unnervingly free of obstacles.
The hours passed in silence, and the gray clouds overhead began to darken, a touch of twilight blue creeping in. The air grew chilly and damp. Desa knew it was unrealistic, but she kept hoping to see an open field around the next bend. Maybe they overestimated the size of this place. They had been forced to walk along the beach last time, and that slowed down the horses.
She kept hoping, but there was only more forest.
As the light began to fade, she was confronted with the revelation that they would have to make camp in these woods. Even with Light-Sources, traveling by night was a bad idea. She didn’t trust this place not to throw a ditch in their path, and if one of the horses broke a leg…
She was just working up the nerve to voice her thoughts when the sound of a crackling fire made her pause. Another traveler? Could she be imagining it? The scent of smoke put paid to that idea.
They rounded another bend and found a campfire in the middle of the road, complete with a black stew pot that sent steam wafting up to the treetops. The aroma of chicken soup greeted Desa and made her mouth water.
A man in a poncho and wide-brimmed hat stood with his back turned, stirring the pot with a wooden spoon. “Don’t be alarmed,” he said without so much as glancing in their direction. “Come. Join me.”
“Who are you?” Desa inquired.
The stranger turned around, and she had to resist the urge to jump back. His face was unusually pale, but that was hardly his most striking feature. No, it was his unearthly, rictus grin that set her nerves on edge, a grin that stretched from ear to ear. “Just a fellow traveler,” he said. “It would be most unwise to go any further tonight.”
Kalia had one hand on her pistol, ready to draw. Her eyes were fixed upon the man, sizing him up. “You never answered her question,” she said. “Who are you?”
The packhorse was snorting, trying to back away, but Kalia held its bridle in a tight grip. The animal sensed something amiss, and Desa had to concur.
Cocking his head, the stranger regarded Kalia for a long moment. His grin never faded, never even twitched. It was almost as if he were a manikin come to life. “Heldrid,” he said. “You may call me Heldrid.”
Suddenly, there was a wooden bowl in his hand. Had that been there a moment earlier? He spooned soup into it. “Come,” he said. “You must be hungry.”
His footsteps were almost inaudible. The sight of him coming toward her made Desa want to reach for a weapon, but she resisted that inclination. Whatever this thing was, she did not want to provoke it.
Heldrid offered her the bowl.
Desa looked down into it, her mouth tight with anxiety. She raised an eyebrow but said nothing.
The stranger tossed his head back with a rich, belly laugh, a laugh that sounded like the buzzing of bees. All the while, that hideous grin never wavered. “If I wanted to kill you, Desa Kincaid, I could do it easily.”
Perhaps she should have been unnerved by the fact that he knew her name, but it only made her angry. “Don’t be so sure about that.”
“True, you are more dangerous than others of your kind.”
“What are you?”
He shoved the bowl into her hands, then turned around and sauntered back to the fire. “Once I was a wanderer,” he said, spooning soup into a second bowl that she could swear had not existed mere moments ago. “But I have wandered long enough. I like it here. I would prefer to stay.”
Desa was certain that if she tried to flee, this Heldrid would only find a way to trap her. Perhaps the path would suddenly end in an impenetrable thicket. Or perhaps she and Kalia would walk for hours only to find themselves right back here. The same tricks that Vengeance had employed.
Defeating the goddess had been a matter of wits, not of strength. She suspected that it was much the same now. If she wanted to get past Heldrid, she would have to play his game. For now.
Gesturing for Kalia to follow, she cautiously approached the fire. “I’m curious,” she said. “If you are content to remain here, what is preventing you from doing so?”
Heldrid offered her a spoon that seemed to come from out of nowhere, and she used it to stir her soup. It was actually more of a thick stew with peas, carrots and tender chicken meat. Hesitantly, she tasted it. It was wonderful!
Heldrid gave the second bowl to Kalia and then bowed low like a servant at court. He chuckled and then returned his attention to Desa. “Why, you are, of course!”
Pausing with the spoon raised halfway to her mouth, Desa scrutinized him. “Dear me,” she said. “It sounds as if I’ve been a dreadful inconvenience. What precisely am I doing to make you leave this place?”
“Well, it’s not so much what you’re doing as what you’ve done.”
“Meaning?”
“Hanak Tuvar.”
Desa shoved a spoonful of chicken into her mouth, then shut her eyes and chewed thoroughly. After a week of dried bread and cheese, it was the most delicious thing that she had ever tasted. “I see.”
Heldrid moved with serpentine grace, his grin insinuating things that she would rather not think about. “If Hanak Tuvar is left unchecked,” he began. “This world will no longer be safe for a lowly wanderer like me. Frankly, Desa, I need you to clean up your mess.”
“Then why have you delayed me?”
“Because you haven’t the faintest idea of how to begin,” he replied. “And neither does that aberration in the desert. Don’t you think she tried? The best that she could do was imprison it, wrap it up in what you call the Ether. A prison as fragile wet cloth. All it took was for one of you little monkeys to pull on the wrong string, and…”
“So, how do I kill it?”
“Eat your soup,” Heldrid muttered. “We’ll talk.”
He slipped between two trees, and when she tried to follow him, he was just gone. There was nothing to do but wait; so, she ate. Kalia seemed to be enjoying the soup im
mensely. “Best meal I’ve had since we left Te’Alon,” she murmured.
An hour passed, and the last traces of sunlight vanished from the sky. Midnight waited at the edge of the firelight with the very skittish packhorse. She had hobbled him with thick rope to prevent him from bolting, but the poor dear was frightened.
Desa was beginning to grow impatient. Where was Heldrid? The man…or entity…or whatever he was had said he wanted to talk. But then he just disappeared? Perhaps he had to go tend to the man-bat.
After two hours, Kalia began to pace around the campfire, rubbing her hands together for warmth. “Should we leave?” she asked. “I don’t think he’s coming back.”
Leaning one shoulder against a tree trunk, Desa grunted as she considered her next move. “I don’t believe he would go to all this trouble just to exchange pleasantries,” she said. “We should make camp.”
“Here?”
“We already have a fire.”
Kalia pressed a fist to her mouth, clearing her throat forcefully. “No offense, love,” she said, striding toward Desa. “But I don’t fancy going to sleep when I know that thing is lurking in these woods.”
“If he was going to kill us, he would have tried already,” Desa said. “I don’t know what his game is, but if he has information that can-”
She was cut off by the shrill cry of the man-bat and the sound of wings flapping overhead. The packhorse whinnied. If not for the ropes around his legs, he would have fled in terror.
Before she even realized it, Desa had her pistol out and pointed at the treetops. But there was nothing to see. The firelight made it impossible to distinguish one shadow from another.
The next cry seemed to come from miles away, from somewhere well to the north of here. Perhaps it had gone to terrorize the farms near Hedrovan. Desa had come to realize that there was a reason no one would settle too close to the Halitha.
Kalia was crouching by the fire, her face turned up to the sky. “I was wondering when it would show up,” she muttered. “What’s Heldrid’s relationship to that thing?”
“He might be its keeper.”
“And what? It hunts for him?”
Squeezing her eyes shut, Desa shook her head. “Nothing about this place makes sense,” she said. “Any attempt to understand these creatures is doomed to fail from the outset. I suggest we get some rest.”
The other woman was reluctant to take that advice, but in the end, Kalia concurred that making camp was their best option. Trying to leave might anger Heldrid, and then the man-bat might be hunting them. Still, they couldn’t stay forever. If the stranger did not return by morning, she would set out northward.
The packhorse required quite a bit of soothing. Some gentle brushing from Kalia and nuzzles from Midnight calmed him enough to let him sleep. After that, it was a simple matter of setting up the tent.
Desa’s exhaustion was so intense that she fell asleep within minutes of curling up in her bedroll. The last thought she had as consciousness drifted away was that she felt oddly safe here. It wasn’t so much that she trusted Heldrid, but the knowledge that he wanted her alive suggested that no harm would come to her. If there were other predators in these woods, the grinning stranger would keep them away.
She woke a few hours later, feeling somewhat rested, dimly aware of Kalia’s soft breathing. And of soft footsteps just outside the tent. Instead of getting up to investigate, Desa made use of a much more powerful tool.
She made herself one with the Ether.
Her mind stretched out through the fabric of the tent, sweeping over every inch of the campsite. The fire was out. She sensed neither heat nor light from the small pile of charred wood a few paces away. The trees on either side of the path were just as they had been: twisted branches growing on only one side of their weather-worn trunks.
But there was something else.
Not a man, not a bat, but a distortion. A wrinkle in the fabric of reality that moved around the tent. At last, she began to understand.
Dismissing the Ether, Desa threw off her blankets and climbed out of the tent. She stood up slowly, arching her back as she stretched. And when she turned around, it was right there in front of her.
With a thought, she triggered the Light-Source in her ring, and then she was looking at Heldrid’s hideous face. That rictus smile promised all sorts of unspeakable things. “You’re not from this universe, are you?” Desa whispered.
“Clever, clever girl.”
“You came here with my ancestors,” she went on. “No doubt they visited your realm on one of their many expeditions, and you decided to follow them. Eventually, they led you here.”
“Very good.”
Craning her neck to stare up at him, Desa narrowed her eyes. “No more games,” she said. “How do I defeat Hanak Tuvar?”
Seizing her by the shoulders, Heldrid leaned in close to whisper in her ear. “It will try to impose its will upon the world,” he said. “You must not let it.”
“That’s it? That’s all you have for me?”
He tilted her chin up with two clammy fingers. She wanted to cringe, but she refused to give this thing the satisfaction of knowing that it had unnerved her. “Good luck to you, Field Binder,” Heldrid said. “I will be gone when you wake up in the morning. Do not be here when I get back.”
4
The spyglass gave Tommy a good view of the black-coats. He estimated at least eight dozen camped just beyond the swamp at the base of Hebar’s Hill. They were setting up tents in neat, little rows. If he wasn’t mistaken, several of those men wore epaulettes that marked them as officers. This looked like a campaign.
Lowering the spyglass, Tommy squinted into the distance. “Trouble,” he muttered, shaking his head. “Big, big trouble.”
Miri stood at his side on the hilltop, clasping her chin as she assessed the situation. “Big, big trouble,” she agreed. “They showed up an hour ago and made camp.”
“Is there any chance they aren’t here for us?” Zoe asked. She was stooped under a tree branch, watching the distant army like a cornered cat. “Maybe they’re on their way to Hedrovan or something.”
“And why might they be on their way to Hedrovan?” Miri countered.
“Don’t panic,” Tommy urged. He was amazed by the steadiness of his voice. Guilt warred with fear for his attention – guilt over having led these people to disaster, fear of what that army might do to his people – but he couldn’t show any of it. They needed him now. “They have to cross through a quarter-mile of swamp to get to us. And we set up traps, remember?”
Michael, a copper-skinned man with black hair that he wore parted to one side, approached the edge with caution. “We’re all assuming they’ll come from the west,” he said. “What if they hit us from the east?”
“To do that, they’d have to cross through three miles of swamp,” Miri replied. “No, they’ll come this way.”
Tommy exhaled, his face crumpling at the realization that he had failed to anticipate that possibility. He mopped a hand over his face. “Well, just the same. I should check the traps on that side of the hill.”
They didn’t require much checking; he could feel them as little knots of awareness in the back of his mind, Force-Sources that he had Infused into rocks and scattered across the hillside. Anyone trying to attack this camp would be in for an unpleasant surprise. Still, he had grown so accustomed to those little knots of awareness that he might not have noticed if one was moved by wind or rain. He would have to do the work himself. The others would have no idea what to look for.
“We should break camp,” Miri suggested. “We’ve been meaning to do it for the last few days. Now is as good a time as any.”
“We’re light on supplies,” Tommy said. “If we’re going to undertake a long journey, I’d rather have food.” That had been the reason for their delay. Well, that and the fading hope that he could free the last remaining slaves in Hedrovan with one more raid on the city. The Banker’s Guild was still using so
me of them as clerks. Their security was tight; he had not been able to devise a workable plan even with Field Binding at his disposal. Tommy hated the thought of leaving anyone behind, but this revolution was dead.
“Besides,” Zoe added, “they’ve blocked the easiest way out of here. Unless you want to wade through three miles of swamp yourself, escape isn’t an option.”
Miri turned her head to fix the younger woman with an icy glare. “Better the swamp than the guns and cannons we’ll be facing soon enough.” A moment of cold silence passed, and then her face hardened. “Spread the word to everyone in the camp. Gather your things and saddle the horses. We’re leaving.”
Tommy could have argued with her. Neither one of them was in command, per se, but the others needed guidance, and they generally looked to either him or Miri. But in this case, he suspected that Miri had the right of it. It was time to abandon this place and move on. Some small part of him had been hoping that Desa and Kalia would come north before they were forced to depart, but it was a fool’s hope.
Quickly, they ran back to the camp, to the tiny city of empty tents in the middle of Hebar’s Hill. Tommy remembered the mission that he, Miri and Dalen had undertaken to get those supplies. After returning north from Ithanar, they had come upon a regiment of Eradian soldiers about two days north of Hedrovan. A little creative Field Binding had convinced those idiots that the Almighty himself had come down upon them in a fit of wrath, and then it was just a matter of grabbing whatever they could find.
At the time, Tommy had been expecting at least four or five dozen freed slaves to join his cause. He had even entertained ideas of seizing Hedrovan itself. Foolish notions. Just the daydreams of a bumpkin from a northern town that no one had ever heard of. He had never truly believed that taking the city was possible, but he had expected things to go better than this.
Slipping into the tent that he shared with Miri and Dalen, he began packing up the other man’s books. Dalen would, of course, be livid that Tommy had displaced his belongings, but there was no time to waste.