Paks heard, but did not answer at once. She felt dizzy with relief: she had not dropped the sword, had not run away, had not fainted. The slash on her arm stung, but did not bother her; it was not pain she had feared.
“Are you all right?” he asked. She looked up.
“Oh yes. Well enough. It has been a long time, that’s all.” She looked for Tamar, and held out the sword. “I thank you for the use of it; it’s a fine blade, indeed.”
“A family weapon,” said Tamar, smiling. “It was my aunt’s before me, and her mother’s before that.” Paks thought of old Kanas’s sword that hung over her father’s mantle. “Here—” She took out of her pouch a little jar and a roll of cloth. “Clean that scratch and put some of this on it.” Paks thanked her and rolled up her torn sleeve to wipe the blood away.
“You have scars enough,” commented Giron. Paks nodded without speaking, and spread ointment from the jar along the line of the cut. “You’ll need more clothes, too,” he said. “We should make the nearest karrest by nightfall; plenty of stores there. You haven’t asked what pay you’ll get.”
Paks looked up, then handed the jar back to Tamar. “No. I haven’t. Whatever I earn, I expect.”
He laughed, for the first time a natural laugh. “Well enough. It won’t be as much as it might, since we must outfit you with clothes and weapons. But the crown of Lyonya has its honor.”
* * *
Within a week, Paks felt at home with the rangers, almost as comfortable as with the Duke’s Company. She wore their green and russet with leaves and crown woven into the pattern, and she was getting the same calluses on her fingers from the great blackwood bow she’d been given. So far she had seen no fighting; she had wandered the woods with the same small band, uncertain just what they were doing or where they were.
“I still don’t understand,” she said one day as they were stretched in the sun resting. “Are we guarding a border, or hunting robbers, or what?”
“Lyonya is not like other kingdoms,” said Giron. Paks had heard that so many times that she was tired of it; it wasn’t the explanation he seemed to think it.
“I know that, but—”
“Impatience!” Tamar laughed gently at her. “You are all human, aren’t you?”
“All but my name. Go on.”
“In Lyonya, we have not only the borders to worry about—the clear borders—but the taig of the forest itself. You met the elfane taig, in the valley, and that was but one taig. Each place has its own, some greater and some lesser. Here the forest is unbroken enough to have a taig—I should rather say, to be a taig.”
“Does it have a name?”
“If it does, I am not the one to know it. The taig of a forest would not speak to me, not directly. It is too mighty for that. Even the kuakgannir would not claim to speak to a taig so vast.”
“I still don’t know just what a taig is.”
They all laughed, but it was friendly laughter. “No. And I don’t know how to explain it. If you live long enough, Paksenarrion, perhaps this understanding will come to you. But you can feel a taig, as you know, even when it does not speak to you: you felt the lure of Ereisbrit.” Ereisbrit, they had told her, was the name of a tiny waterfall only two spans high, that poured itself into a moss-edged slash of blue-gray rock. When she first saw it, she had stood frozen in delighted awe.
“Yes. I remember that.”
“We are to feel the taig of the forest, and tell the King if anything goes amiss in it. We can wander far, listening and feeling for anything wrong. As for robbers, there are few in Lyonya, and the lords have their own guards to hunt them. They may ask our help, and if we have time we give it. Borders—yes, we guard those. But surely you are aware that we have more than mortal borders here.” He looked at Paks sharply. She glanced around the sunny glade where they lay.
“I’m not sure—”
“Lyonya is human and elven. Elves are immortal. Does that tell you nothing?”
Paks thought hard. Haleron had said something about elven magic, about other levels. “Magical borders?” she guessed finally.
He grunted. “Magical—yes. Elves—the true elves, not we mixbreeds—are not wholly in the world humans know. In the elven kingdoms, the borders are so other that unescorted humans never pass them: never know they are there. Here, in a mixed kingdom, we have both kinds of borders. We rangers worry less about the obvious ones. With loyal lords holding close to Tsaia—and Tsaia itself an ally, for the most part—we need not look for armies of that sort. Brigands—if we see them, we deal with them, but the lords of steadings rarely need help. To the south, though, in the high mountains, are remnants of old troubles: these sometimes come down and try to invade. And through both borders. Thus the thriband—what you call orcs, or urchii—and sometimes far worse.”
“Like that—whatever it was that held the elf lord?”
He nodded. “That and others. Some are very subtle. Not all evil desires immediate dominion. The foul weaver of webs—I will not name her—” he glanced at Paks. She shuddered and nodded vigorously. She did not want to hear that name aloud. “Her minions have tried our borders again and again. They insinuate themselves—hiding, perhaps, or feigning to be merchants or farm folk. For years they will bide without action, weaving slow coils of evil about them, plotting in many ways. A little gossip, a little rooting of secrets they can sell. No ordinary guard can detect them. But we are to sense, in the taig of forest and field, that slight unease. The fern knows when it has been trodden by a cruel foot; the sly levets—”
“Levets?” Paks had never heard the word.
“Swift running, long but low. Hunters of mice and such. Dark bright eyes, sharp claws and many teeth. Farmers call them bad, for they will take eggs, and the large ones even hens on the nest. But like all such little creatures they are not truly good or bad but only levets. The levets, though, are much prized by the web-worshippers, and their bodies may be used in evil rites. Also they can be spelled, and forced to serve as messengers. This we can detect, by their behavior and that of their prey.”
“I see. But if you have that ability because of your elven blood, how can I help? Except to fight, if that is necessary.”
“You do feel the taig,” said Tamar quickly. “We saw that at once. And you had contact with the elfane taig before.”
“Besides,” said Giron, “the Kuakgan of Brewersbridge sent you. He would not send someone wholly blind to the taig.”
“You didn’t accept—”
“I didn’t accept his judgment of your ability to fight, Paksenarrion. I had listened to rumors, to my shame. But I knew you would be able to sense evil in the taig.”
* * *
A few days later, threading along another forest trail between Tamar and Phaer, Paks felt a strange pressure in her head. She stumbled, suddenly dizzy; Phaer caught her arm before she fell. Tamar whirled, alert.
“What happened?” Phaer looked closely at her face. Paks could feel the sweat springing cold on her neck.
“I—don’t know. Something inside—in my head. It all whirled—” She knew she wasn’t making sense. Her stomach roiled. Pressure crushed her chest; she fought for breath. Out of her past came the image of Siniava’s ambush in the forest, the day of the storm. “Danger—” she managed to gasp.
“Where?” Giron, now, stood before her. Paks felt, rather than saw, his concern. She leaned against Phaer, unable to speak, sick and shaking with fear and the unbearable touch of some evil. She heard Giron say “Stay with her, Phaer. The rest of you—”
She was huddled on the ground; beneath her nose the soil had a faint sour tang. At last she managed to draw a full breath, then another. Whatever it was had not disappeared—she could still feel that loathsome pressure—but it seemed to be concentrating elsewhere. Paks pushed herself up on hands and knees. Above her, Phaer’s voice: “Are you better?”
She nodded. She didn’t trust her voice. Slowly, feeling at every moment that she might fall into separate piece
s, she sat back on her heels, managed to rise to her feet. Deliberately she took the great bow from her shoulder, and braced her leg to string it. With the bow strung, she pulled an arrow from her quiver, checked the fletching, then took another, to hold as she had been taught. She looked around. The others had disappeared into the trees; only Phaer was visible, standing beside her now, his own bow strung and ready.
“Can you speak? Are you spelled?” She knew instantly that one of his arrows would be for her, if she were.
“No.” Her voice surprised her; clear and low, it held none of the unease she felt. “No, it’s looking elsewhere. It is very close, but I can’t tell where—too close.”
Phaer nodded. “After you fell, we all could feel something wrong. Did it attack you, or—”
Paks shook her head. “I don’t think it did. Somehow I must be sensitive to it—whatever it is—as night creatures are to a flash of light.”
“It is rare for a human to be more sensitive to anything than an elf or part-elf.” Phaer sounded faintly affronted. “Do you have a god, perhaps, enlightening your mind?”
Paks did not want to discuss it. The sense of wrong and danger was as strong as ever, though it didn’t center on her. Now that the sickness was past, she tried to feel her way toward its location. She turned her head from side to side, eyes half shut. A slight tingle, there. She could see nothing openly. Phaer was watching her, still alert.
“I think—that way—” Paks nodded to the uphill side of the trail.
“I still don’t feel any direction.” He looked worried. “Perhaps we should wait until Giron comes.”
“No. If we move, we have a chance of surprising it, whatever it is. If we wait here—” Paks took a cautious step off the trail. The tingle intensified: a sort of mental itch. She shivered, and moved on. She looked at each tree and stone as the rangers had taught her: she knew the names, now, of nearly all the trees and herbs. When she glanced back at Phaer, he was following in her tracks, his bow already drawn.
A fir, another fir, a spruce. A massive stone ledge, high enough to break the forest roof and let in more light, lay just uphill. Paks went forward, one slow step after another. She felt a wave of vileness roll down from above.
“Now I can tell,” murmured Phaer from behind her. “Don’t move, Paks; I’ll call—”
But the ledge itself heaved and shuddered, lifting in stinking coils. Without thought, Paks flipped her first arrow into position, drew, and saw it fly across that short sunlit space to shatter on rock-hard scales. She had the second arrow already nocked to the string.
“Daskdraudigs!” yelled Phaer. This meant nothing to Paks. The menace, too large to conceive, reared above them, tree tall, and yet the ledge still shifted, as if the stone itself were moulting into a serpent. Paks breathed a quick prayer to Gird, and loosed her second arrow at the underside of a lifted coil. It seemed to catch between two scales, but did not penetrate. She hardly noticed. Great waves of hatred and disgust rolled over her mind. She struggled to keep her eyes fixed on the thing, tried to fumble another arrow out of her quiver. Suddenly something slammed into her back and knocked her flat. “Daskdraudigs, I told you!” Phaer growled in her ear. “Stay down, human; this is elf work.” Through the noise in her head she yet managed to hear the other rangers: Giron shouting in elvish; Tamar’s higher voice rising like a stormwind’s howl. She turned her head where she lay and saw Phaer fitting an arrow to his bowstring.
“Why can’t I—”
“Special arrow. You don’t have these.” Paks noticed now that the fletching looked like stone; the arrowhead certainly was a single piece of chipped crystal. Phaer stood, drawing the bow. Above them more and more coils had risen, and the front of the creature was moving downslope to their left. He stepped forward, looking along the monster’s length (she could not tell for what purpose), then shot quickly and threw himself down.
The arrow flew true, and sank into the monster’s scales as if they were cheese. As Paks watched, that coil seemed to stiffen, to return to the stone she had first seen. Already Phaer had pulled out another of the special arrows. This time he aimed for the next coil ahead of his first target. Again his aim was true. But the unbound coils of the monster’s trailing end whipped and writhed, rolling down upon them. Before Paks could leap up to run, the trees they sheltered in were crushed, broken off like straws. Coils as heavy and hard as stone rolled over them.
Chapter Five
Paks was aware of something cold and hard touching her skin before she could think what had happened. It was dark. She began to shiver from the cold. A pungent, resinous odor prickled her nose. When she tried to rub it, she found she couldn’t move her arms. Sudden panic soured her mouth: dark, cold, trapped. She tried to squirm free. Now she could feel pressure along most of her body. Nothing moved. She heaved frantically, heedless of roughness that scraped her. She stirred only dust that clogged her nose and made her sneeze. The sneeze stirred more dust; she sneezed again.
A ghost of reason returned: if she could sneeze, she was not being crushed utterly. She tried to think. Her head hurt. Her arms—she tried to feel, to wiggle her fingers. One was cramped under her; she worked those fingers back and forth. The other moved only slightly as she tried it. It felt as if it were under a sack of meal—something heavy, but yielding. When she tried to lift her head from the dust, it bumped something hard above her: bumped on the very place that hurt so. Paks muttered a Company curse at that, and let her head back down. Her legs—she tried again, without success, to move them. They were trapped under the same heavy weight as the rest of her body. She rested her cheek on the dust beneath it and wandered back into sleep.
When she heard the voices, she thought at first she was dreaming. Silvery elven voices, much like Ardhiel’s, wove an intricate pattern of sound. She lay, blinking in the darkness, and listened. After a moment, she realized that the darkness was no longer complete. She could see, dimly, a gnarled root a few inches from her nose. Remembering the hard barrier above her head, she turned cautiously to the side, and tried to look up. Tiny flickers of dim light seeped through whatever held her down. The voices kept talking or singing. It might not be a dream. She listened.
“—somewhere about here, if I heard the call rightly. Mother of Trees! The daskdraudigs must have fallen on them.”
“So it must. Look how the trees are torn.”
“But the firs would try to hold—”
“No tree could hold against that.” Paks suddenly recognized a voice she knew. Giron. Rangers. A dim memory began to return.
“They must be dead.” A woman’s voice. Tamar? Yes, that was the name.
“I fear so.” Giron again. “I fear so, indeed. Yet we must search as we can. I would not leave their bones under these foul stones.”
“If we can move them.” Another man. Clevis, or Ansuli—Paks could not think which. He sounded weary, or injured; his voice had no depth to it.
“Not you, Ansuli. You but watch, while Tamar and I search and move.”
It occurred to Paks, as slowly as in a dream, that she should say something. She tried to call, and as in dreams could make no sound: her mouth was dry and caked with dust. She tried again, and emitted a faint croak. She could hear the bootsteps on nearby stone; that sounded louder than her attempt. Once again—a louder croak, but no human sound. Then the dust caught her nose again and she sneezed. Boots scraped on rock.
“Phaer! Are you alive? Paksenarrion?” The sounds came nearer.
Paks tried again. “Ennh! ‘Ere. Down here.” It was not loud, but the rangers’ hearing was keen.
She heard a scraping and swishing sound very close; more light scattered down from above. “Under this tree?” asked Giron, overhead somewhere. “Who is there?”
“Paks,” she managed. “Down here.”
“Where’s Phaer? Is he alive?”
“I don’t know.” But as she said it, she realized what the “sack of meal” weighing down her right arm must be. She tried to sense, f
rom that arm, whether he breathed, but could not; the arm was numb. “I—think he’s under this too.”
“Can you move, Paksenarrion?” That was Tamar, now also overhead.
“No—not much. I can turn my head.” She tried to unfold the arm cramped under her, without success.
“Wait, then, and don’t fear. We’ll free you.”
“What is it that’s holding me down?” There was a brief silence, then:
“Don’t worry about it. We’ll free you. It will take some time.”
In fact, it seemed to take forever. The sky was darkening again when Tamar was able to clamber down cautiously and touch Paks, passing a flask of water to her lips. Then she planted one foot in front of Paks’s nose and went back to work. By the sound of saw and knife, Paks knew that much of the weight and pressure came from a tree—or many trees. Gradually a wider space cleared before her. She could look down her body now, and see Tamar trimming limbs away from her hips. Directly above was the main trunk of the tree; she still could not raise her head more than an inch or so from the dust. She worked her left arm out from under her body. It felt heavy and lifeless; she could not unclench her fist. She turned her head carefully to look the other way.
Phaer’s face was as close to her as a lover’s. Cold and pale, stern, and clearly dead. Paks froze, horrified. She had not known he was so close—and being so close, how had he been killed while she was safe? She crooked her neck to look over her right shoulder. Phaer lay on her arm; tree limbs laced across him, and on the limbs a tumble of great boulders that ran back up the slope to the base of the ledge she had seen. Paks tried again to pull her arm free, but she couldn’t move it.
“Tamar!”
“We’re working, Paks. We can’t hurry; the tree could turn and crush you completely.”
“I know. But I can turn a little, and I saw Phaer—”
“We know.” Giron’s voice came from the other side of the rock pile. “Tamar was able to see past you.”
The Deed of Paksenarrion Page 109
