“Not until recently, but desperate times have a way of shifting professions. Here.” Tapped his finger and cleared his throat. “I’m going to read off a list of names. Tell me if any of them still work here, or if any of their children do.”
He worked his way down a list of names upon the page. Each paired with a blotch of brick-brown and a short description. For most of the page, that description was the same: Liberation from forced labor, woodsman, North Melorn Forest.
“You can stop right there. You named a good half-dozen of the fellows swinging axes out there. And I suppose if I wait long enough you’ll get to me as well.” He leaned forward. “You don’t look familiar to me… But I suppose there’s plenty from those days I’ve been trying to forget.”
“I trust you haven’t forgotten that your freedom came at a small price.”
“That I haven’t.”
“Then I have fine news for you. My associate, the one who rightly holds this debt, has passed it to me. And I am willing to wipe it free for whichever of you is willing to fetch me enough Marten-spore to satisfy my needs.”
Stromann ran pulled his cap off, revealing a head of thin hair, and ran his fingers through what was left of it. “How do I know you’re telling the truth? How do I know you’re really the one who holds the debt? Suppose I do what you say and tomorrow another man shows up and makes the same claim.”
“What I’m offering you is a bargain, Stromann. That is a very small price for the years you’ve had profiting from your own sweat rather than serving another. But since you are so interested in the hypothetical, I’ll suggest another. Suppose I accept your refusal and walk away. Tomorrow I come back asking for a much higher price. A price it will take you years to work off.”
“I don’t much like threats.”
“Fortunate then that we’re just speaking hypothetically.”
Stromann drummed his fingers. “What about the rest of the men in the camp with debts to pay.”
“There’s not much to be had in Melorn Forest. I think I can see my way clear to crossing out the names of any of the men present if I get what I’m after.”
He drummed his fingers some more, considering the offer.
“There must be some particularly bad spirits in that stretch of the woods if you’ve got to consider this for so long.”
“Like I said, bad things happen when we head that way. It’s easy enough to get hurt in this line of work without tempting fate. We’ve all heard tell of a whole squad of soldiers that more or less got devoured by Ravenwood. We’re none of us eager to find out if Melorn’s got an appetite to match.”
Desmeres sighed. “You are in luck at the moment. I’m normally quite shrewd when it comes to negotiating a price, but time is of the essence, and I have my own spirits to worry about. If one of your men can take me as far as the edge of this cursed piece of the forest and point me in the proper direction, when I come back with my spores I’ll consider your debt and all of those present wiped clean.”
“When you come back? You’re so sure you will?”
“Like I said, I’ve got my own spirits to worry about. If the one that’s after me now hasn’t killed me, whatever your imagination has churned up in this forest doesn’t stand a chance.”
Stromann stood. “You’ve got a deal then. I’ll give the men the day off, we’ll draw straws, and the short straw will take you as far as where that branch nearly got me.”
Desmeres shook his hand. “A wise decision.”
#
Anrack sat uncomfortably at his desk in Castle Verril. The sprawling grounds of the palace were distressingly empty, a testament to how thoroughly the D’Karon had taken control. So many of the affairs of the castle and the kingdom had fallen into the hands of the five Generals that the palace, upon its liberation from them, was practically a husk. Anrack selected a small hall near the royal stables as his personal headquarters, and spent all of each day and much of each night poring over the materials available to him. The queen’s shortsighted limitation of the materials he was permitted to utilize from the archives, coupled with the relapse that had claimed the record-keeper, required him to branch into less fruitful avenues of study. The most recent was the personal journals and correspondences of his deceased predecessor, Trigorah Teloran.
“'He presented me with a weapon today,'” Anrack read. “'Like the helmet, had the palace mystics investigate, but there are no apparent charms or curses that might threaten me. It must be admired that he would not willingly sully his workmanship with such things. The man confounds me. I am quite certain he is in league with the Red Shadow. All evidence supports it. He is well aware that I seek his associate, and that if for a moment I could prove his connection I would have him locked up. We are foes by virtue of our allegiances, and yet he gave me this weapon. I know not how to feel about the gesture. Does he mean to insult me, believing that even so armed I will not be a threat? Is it a great honor, evidence that he believes me worthy of the rare honor of owning one of his weapons? Perhaps most frustrating of all is the knowledge that it would bring him no end of joy to know how his every action ties me in knots.'”
The commander snapped the book shut.
“Lumineblade has made a lifelong habit of frustrating the commanders of the Elite,” he grumbled.
Boot clicks along the hallway signaled the arrival of a set of runners. He’d been running the palace messengers ragged in his attempts to keep his intelligence fresh, and still he was days behind on even the newest information.
The messengers opened the door. There was a man and a woman, each with the short stature and wiry build favored by those tasked with swift travel by horseback. He didn’t allow them a single syllable before he barked orders.
“Report!” he growled.
“Messages from the Low Lands, Commander!” yelped the elder of the two, the woman.
“On the desk and off with you,” he growled.
They eagerly dropped the stacks of folded parchment and retreated. One by one, Anrack checked the wax seals, then broke them and set about decoding them. Each message was brief, efficient, and confounding.
“Desmeres and Genara sighted at the Ravenwood fringe near Shimat. … Desmeres sighted near Melorn, alone. … Genara sighted near southern edge of Ravenwood… A customer calling himself Desmeres purchased feed…”
He threw down the messages. “He is using his blasted name. He spits in my eye with his sheer gall. As though I am so minor a concern he need not hide himself. And yet he evades me. This man has been a person of interest for the military for decades. He has waffled between serving the Alliance Army and being marked for death, and yet more Northerners than not don’t even know his name!”
He shuffled through the pages.
“And now the two have split up. This is a blasted kingdom composed entirely of dark corners and endless fields. I am to find two wily people within it. This would be a difficult task with the whole of the Alliance Army at my command, and I am expected to achieve it with less than fifty. … Ah… but what’s this?”
The final message was composed by palace staff, the sort used within Verril to summon those expected to attend royal functions.
“‘Duchess Celeste has agreed to meet with you,’” he read. “Exceptional. The Duchess at least has committed herself to the rebuilding of one of our most potent fortified cities near the front. She just may be a sound mind in this floundering kingdom. And having dealt with Lumineblade as both friend and foe, she may just have some insight into his tactics. This should prove to be enlightening.”
#
Desmeres guided his horse with some difficulty through the woods once more. The man who had been selected to guide the way was short and squat enough to make Desmeres wonder if he had any dwarf in him. He certainly had the beard for it, but he was a shade too baby-faced to be one of the mountain-folk. Desmeres had yet to meet a dwarf more than a few years into adulthood who didn’t have a craggy, weathered face. It was curious, given how little wea
ther the little miners faced.
Another thing that suggested his guide was not a dwarf was the raw anxiety that poured from him as he rode. Another trait every dwarf Desmeres had met shared was a boastfulness that extended to all parts of life. Every last one of them was the strongest, the fastest, the cleverest, and the bravest. None would dare show the sort of fear that this woodsman was.
They continued until the scattered stumps of fallen trees became more and more sparse. Dowser became incrementally more difficult to handle as they moved forward, indicating that something was waiting ahead, though Desmeres doubted spirits had a scent. When they reached a pyramid of stones stacked on the ground, they stopped.
“Right…” his guide said shakily. “Past here is where the things start to go wrong. This is as far as I’ll go. Just continue in that direction. Marten mushrooms look like an orange and brown cabbage leaf growing out the base of a tree. Pretty rare, but easy to spot. I suggest you get what you need and get out quick. These curses that start out all mischievous and the like don’t end that way.”
“I’ll be swift. And you needn’t bother waiting for me. I believe I can find my way back.”
“I didn’t offer to wait for you,” the woodsman said, already turning his horse to retreat.
Desmeres watched him go, then guided his horse forward, unconcerned. It wasn’t that he didn’t believe in spirits or curses. Naturally, he’d dealt with more than his share of each over the years. Indeed, it was precisely the amount of experience he’d had with spirits and curses in his long life that made him quite sure he wasn’t going to encounter anything of the sort here. In broad terms, one should never be more concerned than one’s horse. Animals in general and horses in particular were quite closely attuned to the way things should be and the way things should not be. The scent of a predator on the air, the barely audible rumble of thunder from a terrible storm, and any manner of dark magic was often more than enough to put a horse on edge. Neither his horse nor that of his guide had shown the least bit of concern as they’d ambled forward, so at the very least it meant there was probably nothing here that shouldn’t be here.
That wasn’t to say the woodmen had entirely imagined the hostile nature of this bit of forest. Evidence of it abounded. Many stout branches had dropped from the trees and driven themselves into the ground. Most looked far too healthy to have broken free on their own. Not far from the boundary of this no-man’s land he found an ax head embedded in a tree near one of the fallen branches.
“Let’s see what this is about,” Desmeres said, hopping from his horse to investigate.
He leaned down and looked over the branch. Its end was splintered and jagged, but irregularly so. Much of it had short, stubby splinters, but about a third of the branch instead ended with a much longer, much thinner spike of broken wood. He pressed into the wood with his fingers. There was some rot, but only at the surface. Most of it was good and solid. For a branch this thick to fall away on its own, he would have expected it to be practically rotted through. He glanced at the rest of the branch. A bit of it had broken when it struck the ground, but most remained intact. Another thing that might tear a branch from a tree was high wind, but wind high enough to tear this branch free would have been powerful enough to strip half the trees bare, and that clearly hadn’t happened. There wasn’t enough in the way of foliage or lesser branches to hold enough snow to pull it down through sheer weight. As near as Desmeres could determine, this branch should not have fallen on its own.
Next he looked to the ax handle. Treated as it was to ward off rot, it was in much better shape than the branch. This meant it also preserved clues better, and at even his first glance there was evidence that something was amiss. It had the same odd splinter pattern: short, almost bristly splinters for most of the break and a few longer ones for the rest. Here, though, the rot had not set in, and when he leaned close, he saw something else. Tiny notches in the wood. They were a bit shorter than the nail of his little finger, and each was perfectly straight. Most telling was the head of the ax itself. Long strips had been carved out of it. This wasn’t the work of evil spirits, and though their presence was something of a curse, it certainly wasn’t the sort that a wizard or witch would cast upon a forest.
Now knowing what he was facing, he knew what to look for. It would be low to the ground, probably near water. He paced along, holding his horse’s reins and clutching a now desperately struggling puppy under one arm. If things went as he expected, it wouldn’t take long before something came along to startle the creatures. He’d not taken a dozen more paces when it happened. A distant crackle filtered down through the branches. He stepped back in time for a stout branch to fall perhaps two steps ahead of him. It may not have hit him if he’d continued, but it would have been a near thing. Between the rearing horse and Dowser’s panic, Desmeres very nearly lost control of both animals, but he barely managed to steady them both.
“All right!” he called out. “No sense hiding yourselves. I know you’re there.”
He waited for a reply, but none came. Desmeres muttered briefly, then reached deep into his memory for a bit of learning he’d not had reason to use since he’d left Entwell. When he spoke again, it was in a peculiar language. The words were short and clipped, and the sentences rapid and musical. He sounded more like he was chattering out a particularly complex bird call than speaking.
“I am a friend of the burrow and seek to trade,” he stated in the odd language.
“You’re no friend of the burrow,” remarked a small voice over his left shoulder, speaking in perfect Varden. “And your diction is lousy.”
Desmeres turned and looked up. A small man—perhaps a bit more than knee-high if he were standing beside Desmeres, stood on a branch that had seemed empty not moments ago. He was dressed in finely tailored traveling clothes, fashioned from the thinnest leather and finest weave of cloth Desmeres had ever seen. The hide had a silvery white color, with careful accents in browns and greens that blended quite well with the icy bark of the tree he stood upon. His proportions were just a bit squat, not as broad and stout as a dwarf but a bit more exaggerated in hands, feet, and face than a human. Most notable, aside from his size, was his weapon. The creature had shouldered what looked like a massive siege-style crossbow, though to someone Desmeres’s size it would have been far smaller than even a single-handed crossbow. Multiple bows, each tipped with intricately fashioned pulleys and stretches of thread that ran back and forth between them, made it clear that this was no traditional weapon, and a pair of cranks with hand-cut gears and coils added further complexity.
“I am certainly no enemy,” Desmeres said.
“That remains to be seen,” he said. “You came with one of those ax-wielding dolts. That doesn’t put you in good company.”
“You’ll note I left him behind,” Desmeres said.
“You didn’t leave him behind—he ran off, because he’s rightly scared of what’s here. Show’s he knows more than you. Now tell me, how do you know gnomish?”
“I grew up on the other side of these mountains. There were a few gnomes there as well. One of them ground some very fine lenses I still use to this day.”
“The other side of that mountain there?” the gnome said. “You think I’m a real fool. There isn’t anything on the other side of that mountain there but water.”
“I can show you one of the lenses, if you like,” Desmeres said.
“Yeah… Yeah! Toss it here! I’ll know a gnome’s handiwork when I see it.”
Desmeres dug inside a pocket and revealed a small velvet pouch, which he tossed in its entirety toward the gnome. The sprightly little devil hopped from the branch and snatched the pouch on the way down, landing deftly on the ground and attempting to awkwardly angle the crossbow with his free hand.
“You don’t try anything stupid, so-called friend-of-the-burrow. You won’t spot them, but there’s a dozen more of these bows aimed at all your softest bits.”
“I wouldn’t doubt i
t.”
The gnome set down the crossbow and tugged open the pouch. He pulled out a flat lens about the size of a large coin. It was embedded in a brass setting and larger than the little creature’s head. He looked it over critically, then turned it on edge and looked at the rim.
“Are you Croyden Lumineblade?”
“Desmeres Lumineblade. Croyden is my father. And my son, but that lens belonged to the former before me.”
“All right. This is definitely gnomish work, and we don’t do engravings for just anybody.” He tucked the lens away and tossed it to Desmeres’s feet. “So you’ve dealt with gnomes before. Doesn’t mean much, except you should know to get out of here when I tell you to, because we don’t bluff.”
“I just need to get some Marten-spore for a potion and I’ll be on my way.”
“Like fun you will. I know those lunkheads with the axes sent you in here to talk us into letting them come and thunder around like ogres. Just because us gnomes tend to get along with the fair-folk, humans think they can just send a watered-down elf like you to talk us into something. Not likely.”
Desmeres grinned. There was something genuinely entertaining about a creature who had to look almost straight up to address him somehow managing to talk down to him.
“I promise you, I couldn’t care less about where they do their logging. I have a potion that requires the spores and I was told they can be found here.”
“Yeah? What’re they worth to you? Make an offer.”
“I notice you’ve been harvesting bits of that ax head. Having some difficulty finding decent ores?” Desmeres said.
“Bah. The ground here is terrible for iron and copper. The mountain’s so dry of the stuff the dwarves don’t even waste their time there.”
“I’m sure I can convince the axmen to part with some of their spare equipment.”
“Fine, fine… That’s a good start… but between you and me, there isn’t a Marten mushroom in this forest that I don’t know about, and I could have my boys strip them clean in the blink of an eye and you won’t have anything left for your precious potion, so you’ll have to do better than a few ax heads.”
The Redemption of Desmeres Page 29
