by Jocelyn Fox
“I thought about seeing this place again,” Ramel said after he regained the ability to speak, staring at the Princess’s tent.
“And you thought of how you would feel,” the Vaelanbrigh said quietly.
“And I feel none of that,” he said raggedly. “I don’t understand it. I don’t know what to feel.”
“There is nothing that dictates what you should feel.”
Ramel took a shuddering breath. “You must think me weak, letting this affect me so.”
“On the contrary,” said the Vaelanbrigh, his bright green eyes lingering on the ruins of the tent. “I would think you weak of heart if you did not feel something at this.”
Ramel let Midnight have his head. The charger walked slowly about the abandoned and overgrown camp. Ramel picked out the slight scar on the ground where their fire had been and saw the glint of a dropped copper cup, now rain-tarnished and half-swallowed by the undergrowth. He shivered. Their camp lingered here, silent testimony to their presence on that fateful night.
“Lady Guinna said that Guard Elias leapt down from their mount to fight for the Princess and sent her into the forest alone,” he said.
“You followed your master’s orders,” said the Vaelanbrigh. “You were a squire, and you did your duty.”
“I did my duty, but even now I think that perhaps I was a bit relieved that I wasn’t asked to fight to the death.”
“It would be foolish to accuse yourself of any lack of courage when you Walked back to Darkhill at this distance and protected Lady Guinna for days.” The Vaelanbrigh shook his head. “This is the only time that I’ll try to convince you, lad. If you allow yourself to sink deeper into this mire, thinking the worst about yourself when you were executing the orders of your Knight-master…then you are not the Knight I thought you to be.”
The Vaelanbrigh’s words stung as sharply as the prick of a needle. Ramel straightened in the saddle. “You’re right, sir.”
Sayre rode up to them, sweating slightly and dirt-stained. He held out a weather-beaten scabbard to the Vaelanbrigh. Ramel recognized it as Guard Halin’s sword.
“The Guard is buried,” said Sayre.
The Vaelanbrigh nodded. The Queen had already held a ceremony with the traditional words of memorial for the Guard and the Walker after Ramel told of their deaths. It felt oddly unremarkable now to bury their bones. While they waited for Morcant to finish the burial of Orin, Ramel spotted a saddlebag embroidered with a Northern emblem. Rye’s bags. He felt his throat close and he swallowed hard as he slid down from Midnight’s back. Kneeling in the cool grass, he opened her bags with trembling fingers. He stared at the everyday items that spilled out: a little glass jar of a balm for her skin that he remembered smelled like winter; a silver hairbrush; a packet of extra bowstrings, still sealed; a small sewing kit, one of the needles still threaded. Without pausing to ask himself why, he swept everything back into the bag and picked it up, unfastening the cover over his own pack behind Midnight’s saddle and adding the small battered bag. The Vaelanbrigh said nothing.
Morcant rode silently to the center of the clearing. He handed the Vaelanbrigh a sheathed dagger.
The Vaelanbrigh looked at Ramel. “Is there anything else we should take from this place?”
“No,” Ramel replied after a long moment. “No, all else belongs to the forest.”
They rode out of the clearing, the Vaelanbrigh leading their column as they continued their search and Ramel wrestled with resurrected memories, trying to calm his racing heart as they forged a path through the green and living forest.
Chapter 36
Finn felt Rye’s runes fading. They had pulsed through him in those first heady moments after his escape, rushing through his body like blood, filling every fiber with strength and power. He ran through the forest, feeling faster than a faehal. He ran until the last of the light faded from the sky and he plunged through darkness, surefooted even during the moonless night. He slowed only when the new light of another day dimmed the stars, and then the pain that the runes had held at bay slowly began to seep back into his body. Now, Finn carried his sword in his hand and kept walking through the forest, checking his navigation by the fading constellations visible in snippets through the canopy of the trees.
He didn’t let himself think about the sight of the Princess, cold and pale in the arms of the sorcerer. He did raise his face to the breeze and stare up at the sky, watching the dawn with a certain disbelief. His freedom felt ethereal and his escape seemed a cruel game. Every rustle in the brush and sigh of the wind through the trees sounded like a garrelnost or some winged creature pursuing him Every dark shadow looked like a cloaked slave ready to emerge and bind his hands. Finn shook his head and pressed onward. He knew he had to find water – he had no supplies and his headlong sprint through the forest had taxed his body, despite the runes.
As the sun climbed into the sky, Finn felt the first rune flicker and wink out of existence, a strange sensation that felt a bit like being stabbed with a thin blade. He shivered, and then stiffened as he heard the chuckle of running water. A quick foray through the trees revealed a small chattering stream, its cold water tasting finer than any vinaess, and he found a few edible lichens on rocks at the water’s edge. The lichens tasted exactly as he expected, damp and cold, their only flavoring a slight earthiness that wasn’t unpleasant. They weren’t nearly enough to fill his stomach, but the meager meal was better than nothing.
Finn checked the angle of the shadows and the moss on the trees and set out again, hoping that he was headed toward Darkhill. Every step carried him farther away from the cave and the sorcerer, and that was enough to give him courage. Another rune died just before noon, sliding a large, invisible dagger into his ribs. He stumbled and winced, almost dropping his sword at the shock of it. When the third rune flickered out of existence a short while later, the pain left him doubled over and gasping. But he had to keep moving. If he gave up, if he allowed the sorcerer’s creatures to find him, Rye’s sacrifice would be for nothing. He gritted his teeth and walked.
Then the runes began to die two and three at a time, his body shaking with the internal assault. He felt the sting of the fresh wounds on his back and the deep ache of his half-healed scars. But somehow, even as the runes faded and flickered, he didn’t lose the strength that Rye had bestowed on him. His body hurt, but there was no question in his mind that he would press onward and fight whatever creatures tracked him. His breathing grew harsh, and as the afternoon faded into evening, exhaustion sank its fangs into him. The sorcerer’s creatures favored the darkness. He pushed onward, focusing on the next twenty steps, then the next ten steps, then just the next step itself. Even after the gauntlet, he hadn’t experienced such fatigue. He drifted in a state between waking and sleeping, but the dying runes drew him back into his body with their sharp pain. And each cluster of agonizing dissolution of a part of Rye’s extraordinary sorcery reminded him of her. He owed his life to her. Only after her loss did he recognize the depth of his respect and love – she had been his companion and his solace during the eternal hours of torture and long cold nights in the cave, she had been his healer and his confessor, the anchor keeping him from being swept away in the tides of cruelty and madness. And, in the end, she had been stronger than he’d ever imagined her to be, sure of her path and unflinching even when she knew it was her own death that his escape demanded. He trudged onward, even as his legs grew stiff and wooden and he switched his sword to his left hand. Night descended on the forest. The last rune wrapped his collarbone in a hot thread of agony as it finally gave out. Finn stumbled and fell to one knee. The coolness of the forest floor seeped through the cloth of his trousers.
His body begged him to lay down right there on the bed of leaves and dark loam, there would be no harm in a few hours of sleep. But beneath the desire for sleep lurked an insidious thought – leave all of this pain and suffering behind, sink into a blissful blackness beyond sleep. Finn stared at the darkness of the for
est floor and listened to the wind rustling the boughs of the trees. He breathed in deeply, the scent of the living and growing greenery piercing through his exhaustion with a strange power. After so long in the cave, he’d almost forgotten the scent of the forest. And then beautiful Shaleh appeared in his mind’s eye, crouched atop one of her tree’s great roots, the muscles of her strong body echoing the solid trunk and spreading branches of the oak.
I understand the world through the whispering of the wind and the tidings of the creatures that make my branches their home.
He listened again to the wind in the branches overhead, and he thought he heard a curious hum beneath the voice of the wind.
Sometimes we may help heal, once in every century or so.
Were there nymphs in these woods? He stumbled upright. How was he supposed to call them? Shaleh had willingly appeared to him. He tried to remember how it had felt when she’d stepped out of her tree – the air had shivered and there was a shimmering along the bark of the oak. He cast about and walked toward the largest tree he could see, a snow tree that stood pale and spectral among the other trunks. It wasn’t nearly as large as Shaleh’s oak, but he pressed his hands against its white bark and tried to summon the right words.
“I once knew your sister Shaleh,” he said, his voice low and hoarse. “I don’t know…if that even means anything…” He rested his forehead against the smooth bark of the tree, fighting not to close his eyes. Words were a struggle. “There’s evil…in these forests…I will fight it…and I must tell the Queen…”
The tree remained silent. The sounds of the forest continued unabated around him. He swallowed and tried to push away despair. There was no use in mourning what did not exist, but he’d never felt so alone. With a titanic effort, he pushed away from the tree, found a patch of visible sky and checked his position by the stars. His vision wavered, and he ran through his positioning four times until he felt confident. Then he nodded and focused once more on placing one foot in front of the other, gradually lengthening his stride into a lope, wringing every bit of speed possible out of his body.
Dawn passed and the sun began its climb into the sky once again. Finn wondered briefly now and again why the sorcerer’s creatures hadn’t hunted him down yet. Perhaps he was not important enough. With the Princess dead, he mattered little. What had Rye said about the Princess’s death? He struggled to remember through the fog of exhaustion. Despite the bright sunlight, coldness trickled through his limbs.
His thoughts turned toward the rest of the journey. He couldn’t survive many more days without sleep. He thought that perhaps sleeping during the day would mitigate some of the risk. There was no one to stand watch or give warning if he slept and a creature stalked him. Again, he felt the reality of his piercing loneliness, but the discovery of a little stream distracted him from his misery. He drank until his head hurt from the coldness of the water and his stomach ached. For a moment, he thought about a proper bath, but he was already shivering and settled for a quick wash of his face and neck.
“Always onward,” he said to himself as he picked up his sword and pointed his feet in the direction of Darkhill. His voice sounded loud and out of place against the gentle chattering of the brook and the rustling of birds in the sunlit branches. He felt out of place, cold and exhausted, marked by his time with the sorcerer, the perfection of his body ruined. He keenly felt the contrast between his loud steps and the innate grace of the forest. “Always onward,” he said again, and some small creature scurried away in alarm before his crashing and blundering.
When the sun began to set, Finn felt a change. Now the shadows truly seemed malicious, pooling darkly across his path and slithering behind him like a coil of snakes. Some of his tiredness fell away as the sound of life in the forest around him disappeared. He distinctly felt the sensation of being watched – no, he corrected himself, not merely watched. Hunted.
Finn slowed his breathing and slowed his steps, moving deliberately through the undergrowth and sweeping the darkness with his eyes, his sword in a ready position. A huge dark shadow too large to be anything but a garrelnost slid through the trees to his left, and he raised his blade to face the creature, but it disappeared, moving with chilling silence and speed. He watched for a long moment. Nothing stirred. Then, as he stepped forward, a flash of movement to his right. Finn pivoted but saw nothing but darkness. He clenched his jaw. The creatures were toying with him, and there was little he could do about it. He began to walk again, still tense and waiting for an attack, but the beasts circled him, giving him nothing more than glimpses of movement out of the corner of his eye. Finn frowned. It was almost as though they were…waiting. Tracking him, circling him and baiting him, yes, but waiting for something.
Then he heard a sound in the distance. He stopped and strained his ears. The faint noises contrasted against the fearful silence inspired by the garrelnost. Finn strode toward the sounds and gradually they sharpened: muffled hoof beats and murmured words, the occasional clank of metal on metal and snort of a faehal. He stopped, his heart beating painfully hard in his chest, clinging to those sounds like a drowning man clutching at a piece of flotsam. There was a patrol here in the forest.
And then just as quickly as his heart leapt, it sank. The garrelnost were tracking him, waiting for him to lead them to the patrol – which he’d done, albeit unwittingly. He could run toward them and try to warn them, but the beasts ran faster than he and their shock at finding him might for an instant distract them from the imminent danger. But the garrelnost were probably readying to attack now, without any further input from him. What was there left to do?
Finn clenched his jaw and rested the tip of his sword on the ground. He gathered what little strength remained to him and raised his other hand. His heart stuttered as he drew the taebramh from behind his breastbone and he firmly pushed back the darkness pressing at the edges of his vision. If nothing else, he would warn them. A bolt of red shot from his hand up into the sky above the forest, the Knights’ universal signal for warning and distress. His flare illuminated the forest in scarlet, fountaining into sparks that slowly drifted back down toward the trees. He heard a shout from the direction of the patrol and nodded in satisfaction, even as he heard a snarl from the shadows.
The first garrelnost advanced on him with unconcerned malevolence, its eyes glowing red in the light of his taebramh flare. Finn felt the last vestiges of his self-control snap. He raised his sword and snarled at the beast in challenge. It opened its jaws and leapt at him. Incandescent fury burned within Finn as he leapt aside and slashed at the garrelnost, opening a long wound on its shoulder. A smaller creature rushed him before he could drive his sword into the wounded beast. With a roar that echoed hoarsely through the trees, he spitted the smaller garrelnost and its momentum wrenched his arm as he refused to relinquish his grip on his sword. With two hands, he heaved his blade free of the dying creature’s flesh, only avoiding the snap of the next beast’s jaws by stumbling and falling to his back.
The garrelnost he had wounded and the one he had just avoided fell upon him in a fury of claws and snapping jaws; he rolled under the belly of one of them even as the other’s jaws closed on his ankle with bone-crushing force. Stabbing upward into the beast’s belly, he dealt a deathblow as its pack-mate jerked him into the open. His leg went numb and he wondered for an instant if the beast had ripped off his foot. The creature released its hold, grinning evilly as it loomed over him. It was too close for him to strike a good blow with his sword. He bared his teeth in defiance as he swung his blade at the creature’s head. It dodged the blow and when it lunged at him, he caught it in the throat with his uninjured foot, every muscle in his body straining as he held off the massive weight of the monster.
And then the ground shook with the thunder of chargers in full gallop. For the first time since his escape, for the first time since his capture, Finn felt joy surge in his chest – joy and hope and love for the brothers about to violently end these monstrosities. A ch
arger leapt over him as its rider dispatched the garrelnost attacking him. He stared in amazement as his squire reached a hand down toward him, his words lost in the din of battle.
Finn reached for Ramel’s hand, but the black charger wheeled suddenly as more beasts emerged from the forest. He saw Ramel’s glare of determination as he faced the new threats, and he also saw that Ramel held a Knight’s sword.
“Good lad,” he murmured to himself as he regained his feet. Three other Knights battled the creatures. The trees hampered their vision but also meant it was difficult for the beasts to unleash the full terror of their capabilities. One of the small garrelnost crashed into a tree, launched by a powerful kick from Ramel’s charger. Blue light flashed from the blade of one of the Knights. Finn recognized the Vaelanbrigh with a dull shock. Then the smaller beasts that had harried him during his escape emerged from the darkness, biting and leaping at the faehal, needle-sharp teeth sinking into unsuspecting flesh. The other Knights shouted and their mounts began to trample the dozens of small creatures. A sudden wind shook the branches overhead, once and then again – Finn felt icy dread drop into his stomach as he recognized wing beats.
The creature crashed down through the trees, sending dagger-sharp slivers of wood flying as branches snapped before its onslaught. Its cry sounded like nothing Finn had ever heard before. He glimpsed black bat-like wings and reaching talons, but the distraction in the branches overhead meant that the garrelnost weren’t being watched. He tore his gaze away from the winged creature at the instant that a garrelnost leapt at the Vaelanbrigh. The beast hit the Knight and his mount squarely, bearing them both to the ground with a terrible thudding impact. Finn hacked his way toward them, fighting his way through the teeming mass of small creatures. One of the other Knights shouted a word and taebramh fire ripped into the creatures on the ground. The white blaze spread faster than any real fire and the beasts screamed. The ground cleared, the smaller monsters scattering back to the safety of the shadows, fleeing from the white fire.
