Protector Of The Grove (Book 2)

by Trevor H. Cooley

Justan tried, but neither of them got much sleep that night.

  Chapter Twelve

  The next morning Justan awoke to the smell of roasting rabbit. Yntri was crouched by the fire, whistling as he turned two spits, each one with three rabbits on it. Justan had no idea how he’d managed to bag so many at this time of year. As usual, the elf had spent his portion of the watch hunting while the others stayed closer to the campfire. Were it anyone else Hilt would have berated them, but the ancient elf was above everyone else’s rules.

  Yntri had also become the unofficial cook for the journey. He had a good sense for herbs and always seemed to cook the meat just right. Justan envied him the skill. Lenny had once called a rabbit Justan had cooked, ‘dag-gum jerky on a stick’.

  “How do you do it, Yntri?” Justan asked while he put on his boots. “I’ve never been able to cook. My meat is usually either raw or overdone.”

  Yntri clicked something in response.

  “He says anyone would pick up cooking if they lived to be two thousand years old,” said Jhonate, stifling a yawn. Her shift had just ended and by her dreary eyes it was obvious that she was tired. She approached the fire and leaned in to smell the bubbling meat. “Oh that is going to taste good.”

  Jhexin approached the fire behind her. He had just finished his watch as well. He looked at Justan and snickered. “I see you’re up, Sir Edge. When I saw you two kissy fishes holding hands and staring at each other last night, I half expected to wake up and find you two sharing the same bedroll.”

  Jhonate turned on him, her staff a blur. The blow caught Jhexin across the side of the face, sending him stumbling. She pointed a finger at him, her eyes in a tight glare. “I will not have you disrespect my betrothed like that, Jhexin!”

  “Witch-daughter,” he spat. He twisted around, his Jharro sword at the ready.

  “We share the same mother,” she growled, spinning her staff.

  Jhexin snorted. “But you got all the witch.”

  “Hey, calm down,” Justan said, coming to his feet.

  “No. Let them have it out,” said Sir Hilt. The warrior was still in his bedroll blinking the sleep out of his eyes. “This has been building for awhile.” He raised his voice. “You two, take it away from the fire. I don’t want you spoiling our breakfast.”

  “Come,” said Jhonate jerking her head towards an open spot at the edge of the camp. It was just where the trees opened up to meet the plains and a swirl of chill wind was spinning the leaves about in a small dust devil. “I shall teach you your lesson now.”

  Jhexin scowled and followed her. Justan could see a long red welt rising where Jhonate had struck him. “Much has changed since you left. You do not know my skills.”

  “Hmph, well your sword has not become any longer,” she replied and they went at each other, weapons a blur.

  “Blunt only!” Hilt shouted. “I don’t have any wizards around to heal you.” With a grunt, he sat up, perturbed at being wakened. He swung his legs out from his bedroll and stood, never having taken his boots off the night before.

  Hilt didn’t bother to watch the fight as he approached the fire. He bent and picked up one of the water skins that had been set near the fire the night before so that it wouldn’t freeze and took a long swig. “What do you have there, Yntri? Rabbits? No snow birds this morning?”

  “Aren’t you going to watch?” Poz asked from his own bedroll. His eyes were fixed on Jhonate and Jhexin’s athletic display. The two warriors floated about each other, their Jharro weapons changing shape and form fluidly as the leaves danced around them.

  “Why?” Hilt asked, glancing at them briefly. “Jhexin doesn’t have a chance.”

  “You treat him unfairly,” said Qurl his sharp eyes following the combatant’s every movement. “He has trained hard.”

  Just as Qurl said that, Justan saw Jhexin execute a splendid move. He ducked under a swipe of Jhonate’s staff and sliced out, his wood sword thinning and extending to hit Jhonate’s leather breastplate. Jhonate spun out of the way, causing the strike to be little more than a graze, and swung down with her staff in a blow low enough that Jhexin had to drop to the ground to avoid being hit.

  “You all train hard,” Hilt replied. “Jhonate is just better.” He nodded at Justan. “She had to be. With the way Xedrion praised her, she had to measure up. Jhexin has a hard time with her because, though he is a year older and shares her same mother, Xedrion doesn’t dote on him.”

  “It never has made sense,” Qurl said, shaking his head. “She is the sixth daughter. The sixteenth born overall and he treats her like his second born. All we have heard from father the last three years is talk of Jhonate. It would not be so bad if she was not such a mean sow all the time.”

  Hilt chuckled and took another long draw from the waterskin. “Maybe that’s what he loves so much about her. Like father like daughter.” Qurl frowned but he didn’t disagree.

  The fight was over moments later as Jhonate knocked Jhexin’s sword wide. Then with three quick taps she struck him in abdomen, chest, and side of the face again, sending her brother to the ground. Jhexin laid there, gasping, another welt swelling to match the one on the other side of his face, and let out a yell of frustration.

  Jhonate stood over him, breathing heavily and held out her hand. “Come, brother. You were right. You are much better.” He gave her a sour expression, but let her pull him to his feet. “In fact, I would say that you are very good. Had I been a fraction off on some of my blocks, you may have won.”

  “I was training with Brother Hubrin’s squad before father sent them looking for Brother Xeldryn,” Jhexin said, the anger draining from his voice. “I would have gone with them had father not sent Qurl and I after you.”

  Jhonate put an arm around his shoulder as they walked back towards the fire and said with a quieter voice. “Please do not speak of our mother like that again. You know it is not fair.”

  He pursed his lips, but gave her a tight nod. “It is not always easy. She is not always easy.”

  “This I know,” she said, patting his back and Justan found himself smiling to see her connecting with her brother. She raised an eyebrow at him. “What, Sir Edge? Do you wish to be next?”

  “No, ma’am,” he said, raising his hands defensively.

  They gathered their things together and loaded them up on Stanza, then ate breakfast quickly. The rabbits were as good as they had smelled. The meat was tender and nearly falling off of the bone, with just a hint of sage and a red powder that, to Justan, tasted faintly of cinnamon.

  They headed into the Tinny Woods, taking the main road. They passed one group of travelers a few hours later and asked them how the forest fared. Their guide, one of the Sampo Guidesmen named Bander the Nose, said that the calls of moonrats were sparse and they hadn’t been molested along the way. He kept giving the Roo-Tan members wide-eyed looks.

  They continued on and Justan could see remnants of what the war had done to the forest. The sides of the road were lined by the trunks of fallen trees that had once been laid across the road by Mellinda’s army of monsters. Justan found that he didn’t miss the wizard’s barrier at all. Its absence was a reminder that the moonrat mother was gone and no longer a threat. He found the forest soothing. It would have been a pleasant journey if not for the fact that basilisks were out there somewhere looking for an opportunity to kill him.

  When they stopped at midday to eat, Yntri came up to Justan and tugged on his arm, clicking at him.

  “He says he wants you to scout ahead with him,” said Hilt around a mouthful of dried meat and bread. He made a pained swallow and drank a swig of water. “Are you sure that’s a good idea, Yntri?”

  Yntri jabbered at him a bit more and Hilt gave him a hesitant shrug. “He says he can make sure you’re fine.”

  Justan gave the old elf a curious look. Why did Yntri want to scout with him? “The only problem is that I don’t speak your language.”

  Yntri simply smiled and pulled his bow off of hi
s back. A thin, flat piece of wood grew from the side of the bow. The elf gripped the piece and pulled it free with a twist of his fingers.

  “Will that work?” asked Jhonate dubiously. Yntri gave her an irritated whistle and clicked something. “Yes, I know you are two thousand years old. But he still does not know how to understand you.”

  Yntri slapped the band of wood over Justan’s wrist and it conformed to his arm like a wristband. When Yntri clicked again, he sent a message to Justan at the same time. His thought patterns were a little strange, but what Justan heard was, “He is a bonding wizard, muskrat. He will understand.”

  “He’s right,” Justan told her. “Don’t underestimate me.”

  Yntri clicked again, pointing at her.

  “Or him,” Justan added. “He is two thousand years old after all.”

  She sighed. “Very well. I was wrong.”

  “What?” said Jhexin with a laugh. He looked at Qurl. “Did I really just hear Jhonate admit she was wrong?”

  “I have never been wrong about you,” Jhonate said, shooting her brother a glare.

  “Come,” clicked Yntri, sending Justan the meaning of his words through the wristband as he spoke. “Talk and run, Sir Edge.”

  Yntri stepped off of the path and jogged into the woods. Justan hurried to follow. He spoke to Yntri through the link. You know, Jhonate used to say that to me while we were training, ‘talk and run’.

  “Speak with your lips, Sir Edge,” said Yntri aloud and through the wood. “It is part of the run. To speak with the mind only is laziness.”

  “Okay,” Justan replied. He could see what the elf was talking about. It required a greater amount of concentration and breath control to carry on a conversation on the move. Still, it was a pain when jumping fallen branches and dodging trees.

  He began to wonder how smart this was. A basilisk could be hiding anywhere around them and in any form. But instead of feeling fear, a smile broadened his face. This was so much better than hiding behind everyone else.

  “You have a good attitude, Sir Edge,” said Yntri, expressing approval through the wristband. “Though you could be in better shape.”

  Justan laughed. It really had been a long time since he’d done something like this. He pulled upon the reserves of stamina given him by his bond to Gwyrtha and his breathing eased. He used the strength given by his bond with Fist to leap higher and absorb the extra strain on his body. Then he called upon the things Deathclaw had taught him. This was a battle, not a run. He focused his senses.

  Time slowed around him and he became hyper aware. He could see the space around him in greater detail, he could smell the difference between the fragrances of the various plants around him, and he could hear and make sense of all the sounds around him.

  “Good,” clicked Yntri, approval again echoing through their connection. “You know to slow the world. This is a gift not many have. Some of the best warriors do. But many of them do it only subconsciously, as your betrothed does.”

  “I have gotten out of the habit of using my abilities,” Justan replied. “Most of the time they are not necessary.”

  “You should use them all the more then,” said Yntri. “Like any muscle that is not used, bonds can atrophy.” The elf bounded effortlessly over a thick bush.

  Justan knew he wouldn’t clear the bush with a single jump so he used a tree as a springing point, leaping up and kicking off of its trunk to get more height. “I understand. Is this why you wanted me to come out here with you?”

  “No,” said the elf. “There are other things. You have much to learn and little time.”

  “I know,” Justan said. He nearly treaded on a coiled frost viper, but saw it at the last second and dodged. It still struck out at him, but his momentum kept him out of its range. It was a nasty reminder of how dangerous the forest was even without Mellinda. “Whoa! Uh, and these things you want to talk about are things I can’t be taught in front of the others?”

  “Some of them,” said Yntri. “Most of them. Our muskrat has been lax in her teaching.”

  Justan couldn’t disagree. “What do I need to know?”

  “The most important thing is your relationship with the tree,” Yntri replied. He stopped suddenly and crouched, looking at something on the ground.

  Justan slowed and halted beside him, feeling a little bothered. He had been in the flow of things and wasn’t ready for the run to end. “I assume the tree you’re talking about is the one my Jharro bow came from?”

  “That is the one,” Yntri said, brushing away some leaves from the ground in front of him, exposing a cluster of thin white mushrooms. He thinned the edge of his bow to a knife-like point and cut the mushrooms loose from the thick dark soil.

  “Chillblossoms,” he said, or at least that’s what Justan’s mind translated his clicks into. The elf seemed pretty pleased to have found them. He tucked them away in his pack and stood again. He gave Justan a stern look. “You have not communed with the tree.”

  “Communed,” Justan said. That was the closest word Justan could come up with, but in Yntri’s mind it meant more than a simple conversation with the tree. It also meant entering or becoming an extension of the tree. “I don’t understand. How is it done? The way you visualize it, it seems like I should travel physically into the tree.”

  “Talk and run,” said Yntri and he started off again, heading back towards the road at a wide angle. Justan followed, sure that with the speed they had been making, they would reach the road quite a ways ahead of the others. “The thing you say is correct. My people go inside the tree to speak with her, but humankind normally do not.”

  “Then what do we do?” Justan asked.

  “Do not be ignorant. You have a tool. She has given you an instrument to use to converse with her.”

  “My bow,” Justan said, feeling foolish. It was obvious now that he thought about it. “So I speak with the tree through the bond. Why didn’t Jhonate just tell me that?”

  “She has the brain of a muskrat,” Yntri replied. “Yours is not much better. Our tree has been trying to speak with you. Constantly she tries, but you ignore her. You use her like any other bow.”

  “I am sorry. I guess I never saw her that way. I’ll need to apologize to her when I . . .” Justan frowned. “You did say our tree is a she?”

  “All Jharro trees are mothers, but this does not make them female,” Yntri said. The elf came upon a stagnant pool of ice-covered water and leapt up. He grasped a low hanging branch and used it to swing to the other side.

  The water was black and the sheet of ice thin. A terrible stench came off of it and Justan did not want his foot to sink in. Justan tried to follow Yntri’s example. He jumped and was just able to grasp the branch with his fingertips. It took all of his considerable strength to hold on as his lower body swung over the water. He shivered as he barely cleared the far side. What was in that pool and why did he have such a bad feeling about it?

  “Evil,” said Yntri. “A small amount of filth left behind by the Troll Queen.”

  “But she’s gone now. How long until it fades?” Justan wondered.

  “It may take some time. But these woods are full of good life. It will fade,” Yntri assured him.

  They ran on for a while, neither of them saying anything and Justan just enjoyed the run. This was how Gwyrtha felt when going at full speed. There was an exhilaration that came from gliding through the forest as if it weren’t an obstacle, but a roadway.

  To Justan’s consternation, Yntri stopped again. He crouched to examine something and this time he motioned Justan over and clicked, “This is something else you need to know.”

  Yntri was looking at what to Justan looked like a small paw print. Justan looked closer. From the way Yntri was encouraging him it seemed the elf wanted him to identify the source of the track.

  From the little claw marks at the end of each toe he knew it wasn’t a cat and the toes were too short to be a raccoon. So a canine. It was too small for a wolf.
“Is it a fox?”

  “Your thinking is not wrong,” Yntri clicked. “It is the print of a fox. If a fox weighed the same as a man.”

  Justan realized then how deep the print was for ground this cold. He grit his teeth. “A basilisk then.”

  “Yes. The flesh changer can make itself smaller or larger, but it cannot change its weight. This is one of the ways you can tell,” Yntri said. “But that is not all. Flesh changers learn several shapes and do them well. Sometimes they choose a shape that does not belong in an area. A fox would not live so near the troll queen’s old lair.”

  Justan scratched his head. He wouldn’t have thought of that, but then he wasn’t so familiar with the behaviors of animals. Tracking was not his strong point.

  Yntri was listening to his thoughts. “You need not know everything to recognize the flesh changer. Come closer. Smell. Your senses are stronger than most humans.”

  Justan leaned in closer and breathed in, focusing his attention on his sense of smell. His nostrils were filled with a strange odor. He leaned back, his nose wrinkled. “It smelled like . . . it’s hard to describe. Like a mix of things. A hundred creatures at once.”

  “Yes,” Yntri said, nodding. “The flesh changer has difficulty reproducing scents, but it tries. What comes out is a combination of every creature it has tried to become. Learn that scent. Don’t forget it. If you ever smell something like this, there is one of them nearby.”

  Justan leaned in and smelled again, memorizing the odor. It was not a pleasant task, but he planned on sharing the scent with Deathclaw and Gwyrtha the next time he spoke to them. He sat back on his haunches with a look of disgust and smacked his lips. He could taste it in his mouth. “Will the nightbeast smell the same?”

  Yntri hesitated. “It is hard to say. I have only come across three of the creatures in all my years. At times I did catch that same kind of smell, but they are wily and can control their scent in a way that other flesh changers cannot. Perhaps it only happens when they lose their focus.”

  “Tell me more about them,” Justan said. “I need to know what to do if I come across it.”