Oath Keeper

by Jefferson Smith

  The thought sobered her and she quickly realized that she needed a more plausible pretense for being there than “just walking by.” A squat red mail box stood on the curb, in front of the now-open window. That would do. Sue dug through her purse and managed to find a folded piece of paper and a pen. Hardly a letter, but she walked up to the mailbox as though it was, and paused there for a moment while she carefully wrote down an address, as though she’d been about to post a letter and had only just now realized that she’d forgotten to address it.

  While she wrote, she listened, but strain as she might, she couldn’t hear a word of chatter coming from the window. The rush of wind past her ears obscured whatever sounds might escape the open window. Sue paused and looked back toward her car, then the other way. There didn’t appear to be anybody watching, but she didn’t want to take any chances either. So, with an exaggerated jerk of her hand, she “dropped” her pen and then turned to watch it sail toward the window, where it banged the glass and then clattered to the concrete sidewalk.

  “Oops,” she said, to no one in particular, and then she scurried over to retrieve it.

  She had remembered correctly. Just inside the glass and just below the level of the sidewalk, Sue could make out the top level of a bunk bed, its blankets pulled tight, like a hotel bed. Or an army cot. This was where the girls slept. And realizing that she was just inches from making contact with someone who might actually know something, Sue had an idea.

  So she picked up her pen, unfolded her sheet of paper, and began to write once more.

  Chapter 7

  “What a pathetic trio we are,” Eliza said, as she pushed forward, following the course of a small brook. “One ancient ghost on a secret mission, who was totally hip a bajillion years ago, but has no clue about today. One ill-tempered crow with a cruel sense of humor, who knows where everything is, but doesn’t know what anything is called. And then there’s me, stone dead, naked as a seal—except for this very stylish tarp—and apparently my one big contribution to the team is that I’m the only one in the bunch with hands. All together we add up to one full moron. But just barely.”

  Hunger always made Eliza grumpy. She had no idea how much time had passed since she’d last eaten, but she did know it had been in the kitchen of the Old Shoe, so a couple of days at least, and her stomach was now clenched in a continual snarl of complaint. When she asked Mardu about food, the Flame of the Dragon had consulted Scraw’s memories—the crow’s name apparently was “Scraw”—and had found a hiker-berry hedge not too far away. Berries weren’t pizza, but at this point, Eliza didn’t really care what she ate. Just as long as it was soon.

  “So what does a Flame of the Dragon do, anyway?” she asked, as she skirted past another of the strange, multi-colored local trees, twitching at the corner of blanket dragging behind her so it didn’t get caught on the roots. Mardu and Scraw flitted off its lowest branch as she passed, and flapped ahead to another perch.

  It is my duty to remake the Oath of Kings, Mardu replied, the words sounding clearly in Eliza’s head. For millennia, the Forest has known peace, ensured by the pact between the Peoples of the Forest and the Dragon Methilien.

  “The Dragon’s Peace thingy, right? That big mojo that stopped working?”

  Indeed, Mardu replied. And with its passing I was awakened and sent forth to re-establish the Oath of Kings and renew the Peace once more.

  “So how does that work? You just need to find the king and get him to pinkie swear? Doesn’t sound so bad.”

  Hardly. There is not one king, but three—one for each of the Peoples. Nor will a simple vow suffice any longer. Were the Oath simply to be renewed, I would need only assemble the kings upon the mountain and have them re-say the words, but the Oath has not weakened—it has been broken. To remake it will require more than words.

  Eliza paused, leaning heavily against a rock for a moment as a wave of dizziness washed over her from the exertion. She could feel her knees starting to quiver and it was getting harder to keep herself from stumbling and falling with each step. “How much further is it?” she asked. “I might actually be starving now.”

  I am not certain, Mardu thought back at her. Scraw only sees memories from above, yet we are down here. It is perhaps three wing beats further. Continue alongside this brook. I believe we are almost there. Eliza pushed off the rock and resumed lurching from one aching, stick-poked foot to the other. Odd to be so driven by mindless hunger when you’re dead, isn’t it? But she hadn’t thought that thought in the part of her thinker that broadcast thoughts to her… thoughtbird?

  Eliza shook her head to clear it. “Keep talking to me,” she said. “Help me stay focused. You said you need more than words to fix the oath. What else? Fairy dust? A magic donut?”

  Sacrifices, Mardu replied. Each king must bring with him a member from his own household, to be sacrificed upon the Bloodcap. They will join with the Dragon, their blood mingled with his, and with the Mountain, and with the Forest. In this fusion, the Peace will be enjoined once more.

  Eliza stopped in mid-lurch. “What?” She turned to stare at the crow with open-mouthed disbelief. “You have to get three kings to kill off members of their own families? As in ‘dead?’ Like me? How are you going to get them to agree to that? Or can they just toss in a slave or pay some sick dude to stand in for cousin Wilbur?”

  Not dead—enjoined. And no, there can be no substitutions. It must be blood of the House. Each royal is bound to their House, and each House to their Peoples, and so by enjoining the blood of the king, the Peoples themselves are bound together, each to the other and to this world as well. That is the foundation of the Peace.

  “That is totally crap-side-up,” Eliza said, then she turned away to resume her stumbling progress, still shaking her head at the strangeness of this… place.

  There is one other difficulty, Mardu added, as she and the bird flapped forward once more to their next perch.

  “What could possibly be more difficult than getting three powerful kings to drag off a sister or a nephew to be slaughtered?” Eliza asked.

  Those who would be enjoined must go willingly.

  Despite her exhaustion, Eliza laughed. “You people are crazy!” she said, although the laughing had brought back the dizziness and she clutched at the tree for support. “Do you really think that’s going to happen? That people will go willingly? As volunteers? What idiot would sign up to be slaughtered on a mountain so that everyone else can live happily ever after?”

  For a moment, not a sound could be heard. Even the crow was silent. And then a quiet voice spoke in Eliza’s mind.

  I did, Mardu said.

  The silence continued for some time.

  * * *

  “I’ll see you chopped and stacked for that,” Mehklok hissed.

  The offending tree did not reply.

  It had taken him all morning to work up the courage to try climbing the miserable thing, but had this tower of splintery arrogance given him any consideration? Of course not. Instead, it had shown gall enough to give way under his scrabbling feet when he had most needed its support, and dropped him to the ground without the slightest bit of regard for his station. It was clearly nothing but an ignorant, ill-tempered tree.

  The Gnome chaplain picked himself up and brushed bits of leaf and bark from his clothing. As he picked at the pieces tangled in his hair, he whimpered quietly at the little flares of pain burning down the long, continuous scrape that now decorated his left arm. The Forest was just as he remembered it to be: chaotic and unpredictable. But as much as he ached to be back in his warm, damp hole in Gash-Garnok, this was clearly where that wretched witch woman had fled, and if he was going to recapture her and get her corpse back where he’d found it, he was just going to have to live with a few inconveniences. This whole situation was so unfair!

  And to steal the marrow from an already softened bone, his head still hurt too. Not from the fall out of the tree—although that had certainly not helped matters an
y—but from the thumping the witch woman had given him the night before, when she’d spurned his hospitality and run off into the night. If anyone was to blame, it was her. If she had just taken the food and eaten it, he’d have had time to redisanimate her and then he could have taken her corpse back where he’d found it, with nobody the wiser. But no. She’d had to get selfish about the whole thing and make his life a complete shambles. So now here he was, dragging himself through this sky-cursed Forest, terrified and alone, exiled from his comfortable home and the seat of his authority back in Gash-Garnok. The sooner he found the woman and set her back to rights, the happier he’d be.

  Mehklok stopped picking at himself and looked up. He still didn’t know which way she’d gone from here. Which is why he’d been forced to climb the tree in the first place. Wasketchin though she may be, the woman left a big enough trail in the Forest for even him—a Gnome—to follow. But somehow, he’d still managed to lose her. He had hoped that a higher vantage point might reveal some clue about which way she had blundered next, but the trees were not cooperating, and there was no way he was going to risk his neck for an uppity corpse. If she wanted to be found and taken back to where she belonged, she was just going to have to show herself. Uttering a curse for all women and trees everywhere, the chaplain of Garnok’s Rage picked himself up and marched off into the Forest.

  In a random direction, just for spite.

  * * *

  The news that Mardu herself had volunteered for some kind of religious execution was a jolt to Eliza. Where do you go with information like that? So, you were a teen-aged cult sacrifice, huh? That must have been fun. Is there a support group for that? Between the sweeping waves of stomach cramps, and the whole trying-to-keep-her-feet-moving-in-the-same-direction-as-her-eyes thing, Eliza just couldn’t wrap her head around the enormity of that news, so they proceeded in silence until they rounded a rocky jut and Mardu suddenly called out.

  There! Ahead! The red bushes with the golden thorns. That is hiker-berry. You will be nourished by—

  But Eliza was already lurching toward the hedge as fast as her zombie shuffle would carry her. Mardu had warned her about the sharp thorns, but Eliza only cared about the clusters of large, purple berries those thorns were supposed to protect. She grabbed convulsively at the first clump she saw, and by a small miracle, managed to avoid skewering her hand in the process. The berries were ripe and three came off the branch easily, which she quickly popped into her mouth.

  “Oh my god!” Eliza groaned. Sweet juice ran around the inside of her mouth, lighting up her tongue with a gush of liquid happiness. “These are fabulous!” Eliza all but attacked the bush, yanking off berries as quickly as she could and stuffing them into her mouth. Somewhere along the way, she started chewing them too, and was rewarded with another surprise. “Hey! They’ve got chewy centers!”

  Indeed, Mardu thought back in reply. That is why they are prized by travelers.

  “Kack!” said Scraw.

  Scraw complains that the berries are inedible to his kind.

  “All the be’ffer me,” Eliza said around a mouthful of berry pulp.

  By the time she had filled the hole in her belly, Eliza had worked her way deep into the red foliage—almost to the point of popping out the far side—and she might have done so if she hadn’t been startled by shouts of laughter coming from beyond the hedge.

  Cautiously, Eliza peered out, keeping herself hidden behind a final screen of leaves and thorny branches.

  There are people out there, she thought, forming the words carefully in her head in the hope that Mardu would hear her. The response was a quick fluttering of feathers from behind her that passed over her head. Scraw glided into her field of view and lit onto the lowest-hanging branch of a tree that stood part way between Eliza and the laughers.

  Wasketchin boys, Mardu reported.

  The boys seemed to be engaged in the sort of good-natured rough play that fascinated boys everywhere. There were four of them and they stood in a circle around a low-burning fire, pushing and swiping at each other playfully. To their right was a large, strange looking hut that appeared to be woven together from the branches of a ring of living trees. Two more boys emerged from the hut, each with an armload of some kind of dry, brown moss, which they heaped onto the fire, causing it to flare up. The group jabbered at each other rapidly in a language Eliza didn’t recognize, but it was clear that their conversation was in keeping with the jesting nature of their behavior.

  They discuss the work they are here to do, Mardu sent, and which of them will finish his tasks first.

  Sounds like boys, Eliza thought back. Talking about work and boasting about it instead of actually doing any. What kind of work? Her stomach grumbled loudly just then, no doubt joyful at having work of its own to do again, but Eliza pulled back deeper into the hedge, just in case any of the boys had heard it.

  They speak of this place as a rest area for travelers, Mardu replied. Their work is to visit such places and see to their upkeep.

  And maybe to have a party, while they’re at it, Eliza thought.

  Well, they are boys, Mardu replied.

  “K-k-k-keh!” laughed Scraw, who approved of any disparaging comments made about any creature. Crow humor.

  Eliza watched the hi-jinx around the campfire for a while longer. In a way, the boys and their banter reminded her of working in the kitchen at the Old Shoe. These hut cleaners were a bit more boyish about it, of course, but they showed the same easy familiarity as they moved around the site, gathering wood, and doing a dozen other little tasks. This was more than just a randomly assembled work crew. These boys were friends.

  Much of their activity centered on the shelter itself. One boy was threading the newly-grown shoots and leaves on the side of the hut back into its outermost layer of woven greenery. Two of the others carried large armloads of moss back inside, although Eliza hadn’t seen where they’d gathered it from. Perhaps they were replacing the dried stuff they had pulled out earlier?

  I wonder if that hut has a bed, she thought, half to herself and half to Mardu.

  Such shelters are not familiar to me, but Scraw has seen people sleeping within them on low beds.

  Sounds great, Eliza thought. I wonder if they’d—

  Suddenly, the bush just to her left shook and before Eliza could react, a face appeared among the leaves, peering in at her, accompanied by a grunt of surprise.

  Uh oh.

  The boy turned to his friends and called out something that almost certainly meant, “Hey guys! Come see what I found,” because a moment later, the entire group was hurrying over to the hiker-berry bush. The first boy was talking to Eliza excitedly, but he was of course speaking that weird language of theirs, so she had no idea what he was saying.

  Um, Mardu? What’s going on?

  They are puzzled. That one wishes to know why you are hiding in the bush and watching them.

  What am I supposed to say? “Take me to your leader?”

  Eliza pulled her blanket more tightly around herself. Great. Boys. And me in my frumpiest blanket. The original boy and one of the others talked rapidly back and forth between themselves, and then the second one turned to her and held out his hand. He seemed to be inviting her to come out. Eliza took a tentative step forward.

  This may be fortunate, Mardu sent. Perhaps they will assist in restoring the Peace.

  No! Eliza thought, trying to keep the sudden panic from her eyes. These are not your new suicide buddies! Let’s just… Well, never mind. Time for Operation Pylon again. When you don’t know what’s going on, shut up and play stupid.

  The boys pulled the bushes back gently, and assisted Eliza by unsnagging her blanket and hair from the thorns for her as she stepped out of the bush. She gave them one of her best “pylon” smiles and waited to see what they would do next.

  There is no time for wait and wonder, Mardu said, and then a rush of black wings hurtled toward her and settled onto her shoulder. Eliza felt the pinprick of
crow talons biting through the fabric of her blanket as Scraw found his purchase, and she looked quickly at him before turning back to the startled expressions on the boys’ faces.

  Which was the perfect moment for Scraw to puff himself up and begin to speak. So he did.

  “Bow down before me, for I am the Flame of the Dragon returned. By my will, the Oath of Kings shall be restored and all who oppose me shall fall.” He spoke the words in the local language, but their meaning echoed in Eliza’s mind, in English or brainspeak or whatever it was, courtesy of Mardu. All around her, jaws flopped open and the boys looked back and forth between her and the talking crow on her shoulder. Suddenly, the naked girl wrapped in a blanket had mojo.

  It worked! Mardu sent, along with a giggle of happiness. I wasn’t sure I could make him talk, but it was actually pretty easy.

  Great, Eliza sent back. But now what have you done? Look at them! Judging from the look of fear on their faces, the boys clearly believed that Eliza was the Flame of the Dragon.

  Oh, Mardu sent. That could be a problem.

  You think? Eliza replied. But aloud she said nothing. She simply smiled her cryptic idiot smile and tried to look all-powerful at the same time.

  Piece of cake.

  * * *

  Eliza fought down a growing need to run away. The boys pressed in around her, babbling and excited, asking questions and pointing at Scraw, but Mardu could not keep up with the translations and everything was a confused smear of noise. A lesser girl might have screamed like a crazy woman and run off into the Forest, but Eliza and Tayna had been staring down Goodies with their hearts pounding since before they were old enough to talk.