Through the Wildwood

by M. R. Mathias

  While they were at the river, Trevin spent the time trying to cool Gallarael’s body with strips of cloth soaked in the frigid water. It was there that he voiced his extreme concern over the band Vanx had tied around her bitten arm.

  “Vanx, I’m afraid,” Trevin said with tears pooling in his eyes. “What if taking it off of her makes it worse?”

  “There is no worse, Trev,” Vanx said calmly. “I’ll do it so you’ll not have to live with the guilt if it goes bad, but she will lose the arm if we don’t let it get some blood.” Already Gallarael’s limb was pale and purple-green. Though it wasn’t as swollen as it had been on the first day, it was still twice the size of her other arm.

  “I think I’d rather have a one-armed lover than a dead one with two.” Matty threw her two coppers in without being asked.

  “Her arm needs to have blood flowing,” Vanx said plainly to them all. “If it doesn’t, then it will start to rot and infect her whole body. If there is any poison left in her, I’m sure it’s lost its potency.” Then, as if to punctuate the certainty of his statement, he leaned down and yanked at the knot.

  “Ahhh!” Gallarael’s whole body shivered and she sighed loudly. After that she lay still, as still as stone. For a moment Vanx thought she’d died. In the silence, Trevin sniffled, and Darbon pulled Matty away before she could say something else inappropriate. In the few heartbeats of relative silence that followed, Vanx heard a branch snapping. The sound came from a distance, but it was on their side of the water flow. An icy tingle of alarm ran up his spine, but Gallarael muttered something, causing Trevin to rush close to her and start talking in comforting tones.

  Throughout the rest of the evening Gallarael seemed no better, yet no worse, than before. With every mile they traveled her arm seemed to improve, but Vanx found no relief in it. His keen Zythian senses were telling him that they were being followed, or maybe hunted. Finally, after a late-day rest break, he told Trevin and the others of his suspicions. Not sure whether to follow Vanx’s instinct, or call him worrisome; the two men followed his lead and took up bows and quivers from the pack.

  “I think you’re right,” Trevin whispered a short while later. “I thought I saw a flash of movement far off to the left.”

  “Probably just a bird,” Matty chuckled at them. “Or a big squirrel.”

  “Or another one of those peeping freaks we saw last night,” Darbon joked, causing Matty to harrumph to hide her fear.

  “If it’s one of those things, Kobalts, I think they are called,” Vanx said in a quiet voice, “there will be more than just one of them this time.”

  “What I saw was bigger and grey-colored,” said Trevin. “It was low to the ground like a big fox, or maybe a small wolf.”

  “Wolf?” Matty asked, her voice now a sharp whisper and her eyes wide with concern.

  “That’s what I said, woman,” Trevin shot back. Then to Vanx, “We should make camp soon so that there is enough daylight to set up some defenses.”

  “Aye,” Vanx agreed. “You’re the military man among us, take the lead and mark our place.”

  Trevin did so. He found a partial clearing that was barely big enough to contain their bedrolls. The animals were tethered and fed at the trail edge of the camp. Anyone following their tracks would come upon the animals before them.

  “We’ll make no fire this night,” Trevin said. “We need one set of eyes up in yon tree, and another on the ground.” He pointed up at the tree. “The rope we set will clang the cups together if something comes from that way, and I don’t reckon that even the inhabitants of this fargin place would try to come over that tangle of blood thorn over there.” He paused and looked at Vanx. “Is there any more of your brew left?”

  “I saved some of the last batch in a skin,” Vanx informed him. “There are enough of the herbs to brew another small pot. If we ration her intake, I think we can get her to Dyntalla alive.”

  Trevin nodded. “Give Matty the skin.” He glanced up at the darkening sky through a small opening in the foliage. Taking up his bow and arrows, he started for the tree. “Matty will watch and tend Gallarael while I look out from above. Rest, Vanx, you’ve barely had any sleep. I’ve only seen your eyes closed twice since we left Highlake a week ago.”

  “Aye,” Vanx agreed. He filled a cup for Gallarael from the skin and gave it to Matty. “Don’t be dallying with Darbon this night. He needs his rest,” he told her.

  “I wore him out last night,” she said proudly and pointed at the young man’s bedroll. “Look.”

  Darbon was already sound asleep.

  Vanx gave her a reassuring pat on the shoulder and found his own blankets. It took him only a few moments to find a deep, much-needed slumber.

  Vanx dreamt of the Duchess of Highlake. She was smooth and round and full of wicked desire, but when she threw her hair out of her face and met his eyes, it was Gallarael he saw. She wasn’t lusting and intense like her mother was. She was dazed, with a cloudy film over her eyes. She did manage to raise her head and face him, though. Her gaze was vacant, her skin a jaundiced shade.

  “I don’t want to die,” she croaked through cracked lips. “But if I do, take Trevin and run for your lives.” Her brows narrowed as if she were growing angry. “Promise me this, Zythian!” The skin of her face shrunk around her skull as if she were in a baker’s oven. Her cheeks and chin split open and sizzling flesh curled away from the bone. Her hair went up in a burst of flame and her eyes bulged, finally popping into dark, bloody spills of fluid. Through it all her jaw continued to move and her voice stayed firm. “Promise me Zythian, promise me you’ll take Trevin and run.”

  Her visage was that of a red-eyed, gore-covered skull now, but the voice was still hers. “I died saving you! Promise me. You owe me as much. I saved you; you save Trevin.”

  “I promise,” Vanx blurted out with a start. Trevin was shaking him awake.

  “Shhh,” Trevin hissed in a whisper. “Wake up, man, but by the gods, be quiet about it.”

  “Is Gallarael—” Vanx didn’t finish the question. He rolled to his hands and knees and crawled over to Gallarael’s side. To his great relief she was still alive, and for the first time since she was bitten, her skin was cool to the touch.

  “She’s better,” Trevin grinned. “But we may not be.”

  “What is it?”

  “Those eyes of yours seem to see better in the night than mine, but I swear I can see a small fire a few miles behind us.” Trevin gave Vanx a look of deep concern, and then his eyes fell on Gallarael. “Matty said her fever broke a short while ago.”

  “Appears so.” Vanx grabbed the bow and quiver from Trevin. He took a moment to clench his eyes shut and shivered off the ill feelings the dream had left him with. He looked up, and through the trees he saw the moon was already long past its zenith. “Why didn’t you wake me sooner?”

  “The fire only appeared a short while ago, or maybe I only noticed it then. It’s a good ways off and I thought you needed the rest.”

  Vanx nodded his thanks. “Let me go piss, and then we can go get a better look at what’s riled you.”

  While Vanx relieved himself, the eerie memory of Gallarael’s dream voice crept back into his skull. Had she reached to him across the empty space? While many Zythians were clairvoyant to a small degree, very few, if any, humans could manage to project their thoughts without the aid of magic. He remembered eating some bread covered with spoiled butter once. The fever dreams had plagued him for two days and nights. His stomach roiled and he vomited profusely after eating it. Gallarael’s dream image was burning up. Did it represent her feeling her own fever breaking? She’d called him a Zythian too. Did she know? Did her mother suspect?

  Lacing his britches up, he sensed more than heard movement in the darkness. His eyes sought the sensation, and then found for the briefest of moments a sight that stopped his heart cold. A wolf, poised to bound away - but it was no ordinary wolf. This wolf was saddled like a horse and one of the dark-skinned Koba
lts sat in the rig glaring at him. Reflexively, he blinked and the image was gone. There wasn’t a wavering limb, or even a rustling leaf, to indicate if he had imagined the sight or not.

  Trying not to alarm Trevin and the others, he eased toward the lookout tree. He stopped and grabbed a second quiver of arrows. Trevin was hunched over Gallarael and Matty was rousting Darbon for his turn. Vanx hurried his pace, and with no concern over his companions seeing his true Zythian grace in action, he literally ran up the tree trunk like a scrabbling squirrel. In less than a heartbeat he settled himself in the branches and started to scan the distance in search of the fire. What he saw, though, nearly caused him to tumble out of the tree.

  Trevin’s fire was there, just where he estimated it to be, flickering like a tiny jewel in the night. What had Vanx grasping for reason was the three score other twinkles of firelight he could see. They were all around them, and just out of the range of human sight.

  They were surrounded. Knowing this gave credence to his vision of the wolf-riding Kobalt. Vanx was certain that if they were aggressive, they would have attacked already. What wolf-riding Kobalts would do to a peaceful group of travelers was the question now. Be it good or bad, he had no doubt they would soon find the answer.

  The king saw the wizard and the wizard did speak

  “You might be a king, but your kingdom is weak.”

  Wrong said the king, for I’ve a wizard too

  now out of my castle with the sorry likes of you.

  – The Weary Wizard

  “She’s alive, my lady, but barely,” Orphas, the spiritual advisor to Duchess Gallarain, told her.

  He was hunched over a melon-sized sphere that formed a flawless crystal, at a small, three-legged table in the middle of a dark, candlelit cellar. The room seemed like a cavern to Gallarain, and it smelled like hot steel. The amber glow of the crystal before Orphas shone upward onto his elderly face, giving him a sinister look. The sharp widow’s peak of his polished silver skull cap and his high-collared crimson robe lent to the eerie image. In truth, he was no spiritual advisor at all; he was a wizard, and so far, one of the most honorable men Gallarain Martin had ever met. She conveniently overlooked the fact that he dishonestly paraded around as her spiritual advisor and had been sent there by King Oakarm himself to spy on her husband. To her, those particulars made him seem even more wise and mysterious, like some scholarly well-traveled uncle figure. Why he had revealed his true identity was a mystery to her, but she was sure that it had a great deal to do with the fact that Gallarael was King Oakarm’s illegitimate daughter.

  “Barely alive?” Gallarain gasped. “What do you mean?”

  “She’s not conscious, my lady, but alive.” Orphas looked at her with sympathetic eyes. “Apparently she is in good hands, for her spirit is calm and at peace.”

  Orphas took a deep breath and sighed. With a flick of his hand a pair of lanterns hanging from wall hooks flared to life. The room was crowded with tables loaded with vials, racks, and beakers, some containing colorful liquids, some with stoppers wired tightly shut. There were sagging shelves full of books and unthinkable things floating in jars of liquid. Only the wall with the old iron-banded door set in one side of it was empty, but it was scorched black with a dizzying set of arcane symbols drawn into the soot by a fingertip. A crude, man-sized archway had been drawn there among the ruins.

  To Duchess Gallarain, the blackness looked impossibly darker inside the archway, as if it led into the sky of a moonless, starless night.

  “Tell me what you overheard,” Orphas commanded in a soft voice. “And try not to worry. Trevin is surely with her, keeping her safe. If he weren’t, her spirit would be uneasy at best.” His confident tone and steady gaze settled her enough that she could remember what he wanted to know.

  She pulled up a stool, gave a look of distaste at the thick coating of dust on its surface, but sat down anyway. With a groan of frustration she started speaking in a quick, furious clip.

  “He had the caravan attacked to kill Vanx Malic. The man who returned somehow survived the ordeal and is accusing some men he recognized. He said trolls came down on them all and only a few survived.” She paused, but only long enough to draw a breath. “Now he’s sending his commander to make sure that the tale of his murderous plot stays secret. I—I — I was behind that old tapestry, the one hiding the narrow passage that opens up on that little cubby in the linen pantry. He didn’t know I overheard.” She looked down at hands that were wringing of their own accord. “It was all I could do to keep from storming out of my hiding place to tell him that he had killed his own daughter.”

  “But she’s not his daughter,” Orphas said quietly. The look on his face was curious and distant. It was as if he were seeing something in his mind, or with his vacant eyes, that no one else could see.

  His appearance distracted Gallarain to a moment of confused silence.

  “Is there any possible way the duke might have learned that Gallarael wasn’t of his loins?” Orphas finally asked, as his eyes refocused.

  “None!” Gallarain answered defensively. “The night I spent with Ravier Oakarm was the night before I married Humbrick. Humbrick was too eager to consummate our union to even notice that he wasn’t my first.”

  “But her eyes, my lady, and her features? The duke’s lineage favors dark hair and dark eyes on the women’s side. Gallarael has neither, nor is she thin and willowy.”

  “There’s no doubt she favors the women of my ancestry, but there’s nothing about her that resembles the king, or his sisters. The worst part is that Humbrick has designs to marry her to Prince Russet. They are brother and sister, Orphas; it cannot happen.”

  “No, it can’t,” Orphas nodded his agreement. “But they, the king’s mother and sisters, all know that she is the king’s daughter. They would never allow it to happen. I doubt they would ever put her in jeopardy by letting the cat out of the sack, so to speak.”

  “Father Orphas, Humbrick didn’t know that I sent her on my errand, I’m sure of it.” She was wringing her hands again. “He may be a monster and a fool, but he loves Gal.” She frowned. “It’s the only good quality he has.”

  “Well, he has to be stopped from unwittingly ordering her death. The men he has been gathering are the sort who won’t care who she says she is if they come upon her on the trail.” He looked at the duchess, his eyes dire and serious. “You will come into the temple and stay among the acolytes until this has been rectified. When the duke is confronted, your life will probably be in danger.”

  “Have you seen the way he glares at me now?” she blurted. “There’s already murder in his eyes.”

  “Those dark desires will surely manifest themselves into action when he learns that you sent Gallarael to save the slave who caused him so much shame.”

  A tear trailed down Duchess Gallarain’s cheek. “Oh, by the gods, I never meant for that man to come to so much grief. Now, Gallarael is hurt and in danger—and—and—and—” Suddenly her worry consumed her and she broke down.

  Orphas conjured up a soft lace kerchief. He came around the table and gently pressed it into her hands. She buried her face in it and sniffled loudly. Even through her anxiety she could tell that the wizard chose his next words carefully.

  “Humbrick Martin will surely come to an ill-fated end once the king learns about all his murderous deceit and how his hand has been so deeply involved in the robbery of caravans in the past. He is a traitor for taking the kingdom’s coin to fund soldiers to protect the passage, while funding bandits to pick it clean. The grief coming his way is not your fault, my dear.”

  He went to pat her on the solider but she jerked around and looked at him as if he were mad. “I wasn’t talking about that idiot,” she snapped sharply. “I was talking about the grief I’ve brought on Vanx Malic. He is innocent, just a bard I seduced in a tavern. Now he’s been enslaved and murdered for naught but his desire for me.” She put her face in the kerchief and sobbed again. “And Gallarael, by
the gods, what have I done?”

  Orphas put his arm around her. She leaned into him, thankful for the gesture. After a long bit of snuffling she looked up at the wizard with pleading eyes.

  “You’ll save Gallarael, won’t you?” she asked. “I care not for the fate of myself or my lout of a husband, but Gallarael must survive this.” More tears fell from her red-rimmed eyes. “Tell me you’ll save her, Orphas. Tell me.”

  Master Wizard, posing as a priest or not, there was no way a gentleman could do anything else other than tell her that he would. Knowing this, she didn’t even listen for an answer.

  “What is it, priest? I have no time for folly,” Duke Martin barked from his throne-like perch in the counsel hall. The duke’s sharp nose and closely spaced eyes contrasted with his round, chubby face. The man was built like a barrel keg with stilted legs, just tall enough to make him not seem fat. Orphas had the extreme displeasure of seeing the duke naked once in the bathing chambers the men of the stronghold shared. The duke was really an obese man with long, spindly limbs, like a four-legged spider, or an overly hairy troll.

  “I have urgent information for you, my lord,” Orphas said, trying to appear nervous. It wasn’t that hard. Along with High Commander Aldine, and an advisor named Coll, who Orphas suspected of being a dabbler in the dark arts, the counsel hall contained a half-dozen hardened trackers. These were the men who lived and hunted outside the protective walls of the stronghold, men that only entered the gates to trade and carouse or claim the bounty for an ogre head they brought in. They would be gone for weeks on end out among the treacherous beasts of the wild. Orphas knew they were here because they were about to be contracted to hunt down and kill the witnesses to the duke’s treachery. He was pleased that he hadn’t arrived too late, but the news he bore was volatile at best. Pretending to be nervous wasn’t hard at all.

  “Out with it then,” the duke barked. “What is this information that is so important you dare to demand an audience?”