by David Cook
Whether from bravery or foolishness, Krote stepped forward to stand directly in front of the chieftain. “Only if there is a duel. That is the correct way.” He spoke in a soft voice that the wind barely carried to Martine. “It was an accident. The kit did not mean to spill his soup on you. Spare his life, and the kit will die willingly for you in battle.”
The fiend paused as if considering Krote’s words, although at her distance Martine could not read any expression into the creature’s face. The Word-Maker stepped back a pace, trying to ease the tension of the scene.
“You are right, Word-Maker. The kit will die—but not willingly.” The elemental clenched its hand more tightly. The young gnoll convulsed in a single twitching spasm as its larynx and vertebrae were crushed with a series of thick, meaty popping sounds that echoed over the silent clearing. Martine had heard that sound before, many years ago in the port city of Westgate, when a mob had hanged a pair of suspected thieves. Like those hanged men, the gnoll’s jerky struggles lasted longer than its life, the muscles flailing long after the mind had ceased to control them.
As if the dead body were no more than a soiled rag, Vreesar let the corpse drop. “My slavez will not be clumsy,” it hummed. Of all the warriors, females, and kits gathered before the longhouse, the elemental ignored them all save one—Krote, who still stood directly facing the creature. The Word-Maker was rigid with outrage.
Martine could read in the gnoll’s flattened ears and curled lips the warnings of a dog about to fight. So intent had she been on the confrontation that it came as a surprise when she suddenly noticed that she was alone. Her guard had vanished, apparently joining the onlookers who circled the pair. The ranger needed no more prompting. Grabbing up her bundle, she wriggled through the door and immediately sprinted for the woods. Having already failed once because she had been too cautious, she decided now to act boldly and trust Tymora’s wheel. By its spin, she’d either make it or be captured once more.
“Word-Maker!” The elemental’s shrill cry made the Harper’s heart drop, for in that moment, she was certain her flight had been discovered. Panic forced her to increase her speed.
I’ve got to reach the woods before them. I’ll be safe there. Martine knew her skills as a ranger would serve her well in the forest. The forest would become an ally. She knew how to travel without leaving a clear trail, how to conceal herself in the shadowed spaces between the trees.
“Word-Maker!” Vreesar shrilled again, its buzz keening like a furiously spun grindstone. “Do not defy me!”
Even as she sprinted across the last bit of open ground, Martine breathed a sigh of relief, for behind her the drama had not played out as she had feared. The onlookers would still be watching, her guard still away from his post, and her escape might yet go unnoticed.
There was a jumble of voices behind her, none of which Martine could hear clearly, and then Vreesar’s stinging drone once more pierced the clamor. “I do not care for your advice or your customz, Word-Maker. Get out of my sight before I kill you, too. Hide in your hut, weak one. Do not come into thiz hall again!”
The elemental’s orders gave Martine very little time. If Krote went to the hut, he was sure to discover her escape. Nonetheless, at the very edge of the clearing, the Harper deliberately veered from her course. The shelter of the thickets beckoned to her, but the woman resisted plunging through the unbroken snow. Just ahead was what she sought, a well-used trail that wound through the woods. Her plan, quickly formed, was to follow it until she was well away from the village and then strike out on her own. With luck, she’d hide her own escape route among the footprints of her captors.
At the entrance to the pine forest, she paused to scan for pursuers. Success hinged on secrecy, and if she had been discovered, the ranger wanted to know now. There were no gnolls in sight. She didn’t wait for the cry of pursuit. Turning onto the path, she plunged into the welcome gloom of the winter forest. The trail almost instantly twisted out of sight of the camp, bending past tall pines, birch thickets, and the bare canes of last summer’s berry bushes.
The temperature was frigid, whipped colder by the strong winds that swirled through the trees. She welcomed the wind, though, for the fine powder it swept along with it would quickly drift over the trail, making it harder to distinguish her tracks from all the others. Without weapons, food, or proper gear, Martine needed every advantage possible. Even though the snow was fairly well packed, following the trail was arduous without skis or snowshoes. It didn’t take long before the cold was forgotten. Sweat worked into the thick weave of her clothes, where it froze, making her legs and arms crackle with each step.
A half-mile along the trail, perhaps more, the ranger heard the first sounds of alarm. A series of baying howls, like jackals calling together the pack for a hunt, drifted through the woods. In the silence of the forest, the voices of the gnolls were unmistakable from the hoots of the owls or even the occasional call of a lone wolf.
Maybe they won’t find the trail right away, Martine thought as she ran. No, wishful thinking like that gets people killed, her warrior instincts reminded her. They’ll find my path soon enough. It’s time to get off the trail.
With that in mind, Martine stayed on the path until it skirted a granite upthrust, one of many that marked the lower slopes of the surrounding mountains. The weathered stones rose from the undulating snow in a series of spires, tilted and tumbled to form irregular terraces. Few trees grew around the base, leaving a windswept area where the snow had thawed and frozen with each sunny day until the snow was a hard crust of wind-rippled ice.
It was the perfect place, since she would leave no tracks on the hard bare ice, so Martine abandoned the trail and clambered over the rock, taking care to avoid the patches of snow that clung to the cracked stone. Slipping through a cleft in the spires, she came out on the back side of the outcropping. There she waited, crouched in the lee of the stone, screened from the wind-driven snow, listening to the brutal squawks of the ravens answered by the titters of the chickadees. Already her fingers were cold and her feet numb inside her fur-wrapped boots, but her patience was at last rewarded when she heard the barking voices of gnolls nearby. The hunters were on the trail.
She set off into the deep snow, this time heading back toward the gnoll village. Martine knew she didn’t have to leave the rocks. She knew she didn’t have to go back. She could have turned her footsteps south and made for the pass to Samek. Still she slogged through the drifts that coiled around the pine trunks, always taking care to stay in the deep woods, well away from any trails.
Duty drove her back.
Jazrac’s key was still in the village, against the wall in the main lodge, and she had to go back and get it. It’s my duty as a Harper, she thought. That’s what Jazrac or Khelben or any of the others would tell me. I’ll never be a true Harper if I’m afraid to go back. I’ll have failed, and they’ll all know it. I have to go back.
It’s all part of a plan, she convinced herself. First I lure the gnolls out of their village, then I slip behind them, get the stone, and escape. They’ll never find me, because I’ll be behind them. It’s a brilliant plan—or is it? Martine didn’t know, couldn’t know, until it either succeeded or failed.
Using the sun and a few landmarks she had noted, Martine backtracked slowly. The voices of the gnolls grew louder until she was certain they were just off her left flank. The huntress took shelter in a thicket until they passed and the voices had faded farther up the trail.
When their barked commands were no more than dim echoes, Martine angled back onto the trail. It was a risk. There might be a straggler or even a second search party, but she needed to make better speed. Breaking trail through the deep snow was exhausting her, and that was a condition she couldn’t risk, especially without food. With exhaustion would come uncontrollable shivering, then frostbite, collapse, and a dreamlike death as the cold overcame her. As a precaution, she found a stout branch. Swung with two hands it would make a fair club—the
crudest of weapons, but a weapon and therefore useful.
As she trudged along the trail and read the signs of her pursuers, Martine caught a flash of movement off to her left. As quickly as she could focus her vision on the spot, the shape vanished, leaving only the glimpse of a burly, stoop-shouldered shadow. A gnoll? She couldn’t be sure. It could be a bear, or even a change in shadow as clouds drifted across the sun. Hefting her cudgel, the ranger slowly approached the spot where she had sighted it, silently picking her way from shadow to shadow.
Ten feet and several moments later, a gnoll suddenly stepped from behind a tree trunk, sword drawn but oblivious to her presence. With a great roundhouse swing, Martine smashed her stick against the side of the creature’s head and was rewarded with the metallic twang of wood cracking against a helm. Her cudgel split with the force of her blow, and the jolt rang down through her arms. The gnoll dropped like a felled ox.
Martine sprang astraddle the body, doubting that she’d killed her foe. With numb hands, she fumbled in the snow to recover the dropped sword. Stepping clear, she pressed the blade to the gnoll’s throat just as the creature began to stir.
“What … what happened?” the gnoll groaned, and the Harper instantly recognized the voice. By some capricious whim of Lady Tymora, it was the Word-Maker who lay sprawled before her. A trickle of blood soaked the fur that stuck out from beneath his helm, but the wound didn’t appear to be serious.
“Lie on your back, arms up, hands together,” Martine ordered, all the while smiling in grim amusement at this sudden reversal of their situations. The shaman groggily complied, and she quickly bound his wrists with some of the sinew she had salvaged from the hut. “Not one sound,” she ordered next, sword still held at his throat.
Krote obeyed, clearheaded enough to recognize the peril of his situation. She began searching him for other weapons.
“Why are you here?” the shaman asked in a whisper. With the blade held close to his jugular, he took care not to alarm his captor.
“The rock … the one in my gear. I need it. Is it still in the lodge?”
His answer was a choked laugh. Before she could demand what was so funny, her hands patted a hard lump in one of the shaman’s pouches. Quickly she opened it and pulled out the familiar reddish cinder that was Jazrac’s stone. In the same pouch, she discovered the wizard’s bone-handled knife.
“I knew you wanted it, so I took it,” Krote explained, grinning. “Am I right? Is the rock why you came back? It is the thing Vreesar seeks, true? The way back to his home?”
“Get up,” she ordered abruptly, ignoring his questions. The discovery of the rock and the knife eliminated the need for several steps in her plan, but now it left her with a new problem. She couldn’t leave the Word-Maker behind. Already the shaman had correctly guessed too much. Vreesar would almost certainly learn the truth from the gnoll. Nor could Martine bring herself to kill the shaman now that she’d caught him. The practical solution was too cold-blooded for her to stomach.
Like it or not, I’ve got myself a prisoner, she thought ruefully.
“Move,” the ranger snapped, furious with the situation, herself, and her ever-present sense of right and wrong. Once more she doubled back, this time turning in the direction of Samek. Dragging along Krote as a prisoner didn’t improve her chances of reaching the gnomes safely. She doubted he’d be of much value as a hostage, and there was every chance the gnoll would betray her at the first opportunity.
With the shaman in the lead, the pair followed the gnoll trail once more, traveling the same direction as she had before. It was a good plan. Certainly any tracker would be confused, although there was considerable risk that they might run into the returning gnolls. Knowing these things did nothing to lessen her nerves, which were as jittery as a rabbit’s.
They reached the granite outcropping that marked the place where she had begun to backtrack. Kneeling, Martine examined the trail she had not taken. It was with some relief that she noted the tracks of the hunting party continued on. They missed my backtrack, she thought, pleased with herself even though she knew they might return at any time.
Leaving the trail once more, the Harper guided her prisoner over the ice and rocks, rousing the dark ravens from their roosts. As before, she used the hard surfaces of granite and ice to make their trail disappear, although this time she did not backtrack toward the village but instead headed south toward the dark saddleback ridge that was the pass to Samek.
Descending from the rocky ledges, Martine plunged into the darkest heart of the woods. At sword point, she forced Krote to plow through drifts that sometimes reached well beyond his knees. There was no hiding their trail now, should her pursuers somehow find it. Speed was all-important, and the race was against cold and exhaustion as much as those who hunted for her.
The forest here was virgin pine, the kind cut elsewhere for their long, straight logs. The Harper doubted that any axe had ever touched most of this wood, for the trees were incredibly tall and barren except for bursts of needled boughs near the top. The drab green canopy was laden with snow, casting the forest floor into a perpetual quasi-twilight.
Their journey wasn’t easy. The snow ranged from shallow to deep as it drifted around the tree trunks. Frequently brambles conspired to block the way, and steep ravines stood in their path at several points. Massive deadfalls, where several trees had fallen in a single storm, created impassable snarls that could only be bypassed. All around these falls, uprooted pines leaned perilously on their neighbors. The woods softly resounded to the creaking trunks and the dismal hiss of the wind. Ravens spoke of their passage, the birds’ harsh voices ringing far through the mute woods.
Although Martine was born to the outdoors and knew it well, this forest was different from others she was familiar with. The endless tracts of pine were not like the woods of oak and elm in Sembia and the Dalelands. The forest here was tall, muffled, and cold.
A feeling of dark watchfulness tingled at the back of Martine’s neck, and she knew it was the spirit of the forest. Others, townsfolk and farmers, never felt it. That sense was knowledge only true woodsmen knew by the way the wind rustled the leaves, the direction the water flowed, or even how a rabbit left its tracks. This forest’s spirit was ungenerous and unforgiving, barely tolerant of intruders. Martine didn’t feel any warmth in these woods like those of her homeland.
Exhausted, the Harper finally called a stop as she leaned, perspiring in the chill, against the trunk of a tree. Krote squatted, his jaw slack and tongue hanging as he panted clouds of frost, almost as spent as she and glad for the rest.
“You do not need to threaten me with the sword. I will not escape,” the shaman finally growled as he brushed snow from his dirty bindings.
Martine thought she heard an edge of bitter irritation in his voice. “Why not?” she asked doubtfully.
“I cannot go back.”
“Why not?” It seemed all she could manage to say.
Krote’s lips curled in a snarl. “Vreesar banished me. If I go back, I die.”
“I heard him bar you from his lodge. That’s not banishment.” Martine poked her sword at the snowbank, carving little holes near the gnoll.
“Lodge and tribe are one.”
“How come he didn’t kill you? He killed Hakk and that other gnoll.”
Krote waggled an ear at her words. “You saw that, human? I live because even Vreesar fears the gods.” Krote jangled the charm that hung around his neck. “Kill me and you anger Gorellik, the god of my people.”
That was enough talk for Martine. She didn’t like the implied threat in the shaman’s words, and so with a rough shove of her foot, she got the gnoll back on his feet.
For the next hour, the woman plodded in silence. It took all her effort just to keep her attention on the trek, and she had no desire to talk through her cold-burnt throat. The path became even harder to follow as dusk fell, the thick shadows hiding jarring bumps and holes. Her leg muscles were beyond aching, numb wi
th incessant pain. Sweat weighted her clothes. Even with the growing cold of nightfall, she drove them on by moonlight. Moonlight was almost a euphemism, silver Selune not yet even half full and barely penetrating through the black-needled boughs. Silver rivers ran through the trees, broken by black rapids of bare rock and exposed moss.
Martine had no idea how many hours or days it had been since starting when she finally called their march to a halt. Krote, exhausted as well, stood still among the dimly lit trees. “If we stop, we freeze,” he warned grimly.
Freezing almost seemed appealing to Martine, but the gnoll was right. They needed protection from the night cold.
“We’ll dig a shelter,” she said, pointing to a large snowbank at the base of a bluff. She began to scoop away handfuls of snow. Krote did not resist or argue but mutely held up his bound hands for her to cut them free.
In a short time, the two had tunneled out a chamber—a tomb fit for an ice queen, Martine felt—barely big enough for them to lie down in. “This is where we sleep,” the woman explained as she re-bound the gnoll’s wrists. She didn’t have enough cord to tie his ankles, so she could only rely on common sense and trust. “If you run away, you’ll freeze in the cold. If you kill me, you’ll freeze here. Understand?”
The Word-Maker nodded. “And if you kill me, human, you freeze. This night we need each other.”
Martine nodded, her sore shoulders screaming at even that slight turn of the head. With tinder and Jazrac’s knife, Martine kindled a tiny fire in the entrance that barely warmed them.
Dinner consisted of moss and tender bark, the best the ranger could gather in the snow. Normally she wouldn’t have bothered, but her captivity had left her starving. Krote was not that desperate and so only watched her eat
“Inside,” Martine said after the unappetizing repast. As the gnoll squeezed in through the entrance, Martine gave one last look skyward. Selune’s Tears, a waft of star motes that hung off the crescent hook of the butterfat moon, weaved through the sparse branches of the wind-blasted pines along the cliff face. The sky was clear and bitter. Night birds lurking in the icebound woods called to any listening ear, speaking to each other of their might and wisdom. Something, a breeze or a small beast, snuffled beyond the rim of light. The night forest excited her; even here, it was a world she understood and loved, more so than the timid towns and villages she had sworn to defend as a Harper.
