I did not see what struck me.
15
Alsman Leger Mertone
The 91st of Autumn, 1194
I finished another cup of water at Dia’s insistence. It sloshed in over the food I had been as powerless to refuse. I was not sure if I could keep the meal down, but felt good enough from the bath that I resolved to try. I worked hard to figure out the date while I sipped at the cup. It was the 91st, I eventually decided, just three days until the start of winter.
Dia had insisted Gern join us. She did not trust him any more than I did and questioned him throughout the meal about Urnedi and its people. I’d have done more listening but was having a hard enough time eating.
I set the heavy ceramic cup on the table and sat back in my chair. Dia filled it again. I had a mind to protest but knew better. I did not know if such fire had always burned inside her, but I could feel it every time she moved. Her face and clothes were road-weary, but her green eyes blazed. The determination that had carried her across Zoviya was a heavy spear, hard-thrown, its target not yet struck.
I sipped at the cup and tried again to listen to their conversation.
“Your family lives near theirs?” she asked Gern. Her tone confused me. I had missed something while I ate. Gern looked relaxed, and neither of them seemed like they faced an adversary.
“Yes. Most of Urnedi’s staff is from Hippoli. Beautiful place it is, too, milady. Best farmland in Enhedu—trees as old as the earth and streams enough to keep a fisherman happy for a hundred lifetimes.”
“How did you get posted here?”
“Sahin made several bows for my father over the years and would stop by whenever he was passing through. He knew how good a shot I was and put in a good word with the reeve.”
“Can you show me?” she bubbled.
“Milady?”
“How good a shot you are?”
“Well, yes. With pleasure,” he said and Dia encouraged everyone up the stairs.
I would have stayed put but she took me by the arm. “Are you going to be ready to move soon? We need to go looking for Barok.”
I worked to shake the cobwebs out of my head while Gern found a bow and led us up to the east corner of the keep’s battlement. A canvas target waited below in a brief clearing beyond the curtain wall.
“Can you hit those?” Dia asked with that straight-toothed smile of hers.
Gern blushed and managed a small nod. He strung his bow, found his feet, and set the quiver in easy reach against the battlement. His brow creased into four fierce lines, and his thin eyes narrowed as if he were about to kill a man. I had seen it before—the thinking about it too much. I hoped he would never have to experience it. The boy would never be the same again.
He took a breath, drew, and fired. A second arrow followed before the first had reached its target, and in no time at all, he had hit each a dozen times. He ran out of breath and arm strength before he ran out of arrows.
Dia and the small crowd applauded. I did not.
“You shoot too fast, guardsman, and fail to consider the fatigue of your bow,” I said. “Your stamina and your aim would be much improved if you took three long breathes between each draw, and unstrung your bow after every six so it could rest.”
“Sahin tells me the same,” he replied with no embarrassment, though he did start to unstring the weapon. “I always thought it important to hit the target quickly.”
“If you are going to keep your post, you best heed our counsel. It is unlikely that a single man will attack the keep. You should be able to fire 300 arrows in a day that hit a target the size of your fist, not twenty in an instant that hit one the size of a house.”
“Leger,” Dia said, “we are not at the capital, and we are not going to be attacked. I was rather impressed. He did a fine job.”
“No, milady. The alsman is right. I will do as instructed. Forgive me.”
I could see the fear in the boy then. Dia must have seen it earlier. A belligerent prince and a drunken alsman had terrified them.
I relaxed my shoulders and softened my voice. “See that you do, guardsman, but do not feel you have to learn on your own. I was once a Hemari captain and have taught men with far less talent how to become patient and deadly archers.”
The crowd made happy noises. Gern bowed again though his grin had returned. I decided to let the girlish smile pass without reprimand and stood a bit taller. My stomach still pained me, but the impressed chatter felt good. I had not heard it from anyone but dried up veterans in a very long time.
One of the women pointed over the wall. “Alsman, Sahin is coming.”
We all looked down to see a pair of riders emerge from the trees. Neither was Barok.
“Where is my prince?” Dia asked.
No one responded, and amongst the concerned looks Gern’s fear stood out. I kept him in front of me and we reached the open drawbridge as Sahin was riding beneath it. His face did not betray his nervousness as he turned, but his horse backed and tried to shake its bit before the bowyer relaxed the reins.
“Where is the prince?” I asked.
Sahin looked once at Gern. “He is not here?”
“No, bowyer. He was last seen riding out with you. Explain yourself.”
“I was telling him about our spring festival and the horse races held along the trail we were riding. He challenged me to a race. I should have known better. He got too far ahead of me, and we lost each other. After witnessing his horsemanship, I assumed he would return without difficulty. When the rider you sent found me on the trail, I hoped it was still the case. If he has not come back, then I fear he must be lost.”
The small crowd became animated and chattered their concerns behind me. I ignored them. They had nothing to do with the plot at hand.
I turned to Gern. “How many horses do we have?”
“Counting Dia’s and these two, four.”
“Saddle both fresh horses. We ride out immediately to search for him.”
He sprinted down, and Dia stepped in close as we made our way down. “Lost?”
“Sahin is not telling the truth, but I do not believe he could have killed the prince alone. Is anyone missing from the staff that you can tell?”
She searched the crowd. “Everyone is here.”
“Then stay close and yell if you see any strangers.”
We made our way around the keep and Gern hurried out of the stable with the horses. The quality of Dia’s mount was startling. I would have to do something about it later. One look at its shoes would reveal where it had come from. Dia jumped atop the stallion like it was hers, however, so I focused on the matter in front of me.
“Take us to where you last saw him,” I ordered Sahin before I mounted the other fresh horse. Gern replaced the rider atop the fourth.
“It will be late by the time we get there.”
“You will have more to worry about than darkness if the prince is not found this day. Lead on.”
He did so, and we rode past Gern’s targets and along a forest trail. The trees crowded in and troubled me. Sahin had lived his whole life in the depths and darkness of those woods. I fixed all of my attention upon the bowyer and let my horse follow his.
The trip took some time, and the sun was beginning to set when we crossed a rather remarkable bridge. Sahin pulled up on the far side.
“We raced down this trail. He lost me around this next bend.”
Dia called out Barok’s name. I repeated the call with my loudest voice but without result.
“Ride on,” I ordered.
He led us along the twisted route up through low hills and into a forest of the strangest trees I’d ever seen. I was confused by their size, shape, and number. Their smooth red trunks were enormous and twisted. Some were hollow while others seemed to have divided long ago or had fallen over only to grow new roots, trunks, and branches. The canopy above was not made of leaves but dark-green needles and round, red berries. I considered the fruit for a time, and thought i
t must be their sweet smell in the air. I wondered if anyone had ever tried to distill them.
“What are they called?” Dia asked Gern.
“Yew trees, milady. There is quite a forest of them out here. None grow on the plains?”
“I have never seen one before,” I replied as the true depth and height of the ancient forest came into view. The ground beneath them was open and even. The air was still and heavy.
“What is that?” Dia asked.
I followed her finger to a downed horse beneath one of the monstrous trees. The bowyer and guardsman dismounted, and I followed them closer.
The horse was dead.
I drew my heavy blade and advanced on Sahin. “Where is the prince?”
He stood his ground while Gern stumbled away. Dia drew her blade and stepped in beside me.
“I did nothing, Alsman. You misunderstand.”
Gern reached for his sword.
“Don’t do it, boy. I have put down more men than you’ve had pimples on your face. I should have ended both of you while you plotted in the entrance hall this morning.”
Sahin’s expression changed then as dramatically as his estimation of me must have. My expression only darkened. If the prince was dead, so were they and so was I. Gern, meanwhile, raised his hands above his shoulders.
The bowyer stepped slowly toward the guardsman, untied his sword, and tossed it on the ground. “There is very much more to this than what you see, Alsman.”
The woods had gotten darker, and it began to take on a very ominous quality. Perhaps it was the unnatural shape of the yew or my thoughts of a dead prince, but I no longer felt safe.
I pushed down my fear and leveled my sword at Sahin. “Explain it to me, then. What am I missing?”
“I think I see him,” Gern said and pointed off to my left.
I took a quick step toward the boy. “Try another trick like that, and I’ll gut you.”
“He is there,” Dia said. “Lying against a tree.”
I kept my eyes on Sahin and Gern. “Is he moving?”
“I think he is,” Sahin said and his posture changed so completely I could not read it. His face twisted in confusion but then seemed almost happy.
“Move to your right,” I ordered and circled them. The light was failing, but I spotted Barok propped against one of the yew trees a good distance into the terrible forest.
The woods felt ever more perilous, and I was convinced it was all in my head until I heard the horses shy.
“We should not be here,” I said. Dia and Gern looked like they agreed. Sahin, however, kept grinning at Barok like a boy who’d learned how to throw a ball.
Dia stepped over Gern’s sword. “Leger, get my prince out of there.”
“And leave you with these two?”
“I could put all three of you down. Now do as I say. Gern, get ahold of the horses.”
It was a poor bluff, but Gern took two full steps away from her before he rushed as she ordered. Sahin, meanwhile, continued simply to grin.
Her plan would have to do. She was not my charge, after all. I started toward the prince with all the speed my broken-down body could muster.
The soft, brown earth was even and clear beneath the twisted trees. The monster he lay beneath seemed smaller than most, but after I moved beneath it, I could not help but slow.
The ancient trunk and six like it formed a perfect circle. They were not seven trees but one. Their twisted branches rose as high as the tallest spire of Tanayon Cathedral and its ancient hollowed center could swallow Urnedi whole. This was something more than a tree. I stumbled sideways and nearly tripped over the prince.
His shirt was red with blood. My thoughts and body halted.
I sheathed my sword and knelt to see if he yet lived.
16
Arilas Barok Yentif
I was not alone.
A broken branch lay next to me on the mossy ground. The twisted red trunks of the trees were all around me. I leaned against the nearest one. What noise had stirred me? I could not find the sun or sky through the canopy. I stood but doubled over from the wrack of pain across my left hip. My head felt like an overripe melon. I turned a slow circle but did not spot my horse.
“Who is there? Sahin?”
A dry rustle of needles high overhead was the dark forest’s only response. The feeling grew, and I turned a second circle. A tingle ran up my back and neck, and a sudden heat moved through me.
What evil place had Sahin delivered me to?
I drew my sword and stumbled from tree to tree through the twisted forest.
Something moved to my left. I hid behind the enormous tree and peeked around it to see smoke and molten ash spilling from the trunk of another of the terrible trees. The shifting smoke and embers swirled up and began to take a shape. The savage thing had arms and eyes. I tried to convince myself I was dreaming while another legless being emerged from the next trunk. They whispered and sniffed at the ground as they moved through the trees.
I backed away as fast as I could while keeping the huge tree between us. I reached another of the massive trunks and began to edge around it when an angry shriek filled the silent forest.
A dozen more apparitions poured from the twisted trees and the first two rushed toward me. Through my fear, I felt the boil of their anger. It radiated from them, all of it directed at me.
I swung my blade at the first, but it only stirred the vaporous soup as the hot ash and smoke slammed me against the tree. The second being was more defined. It carried a sword and wore heavy armor like none I’d ever seen. Its head and helmet were cleaved open and its one good eye was surrounded with flame. It aimed its sword at me and started forward. I tried to parry but my blade passed through his and he stabbed my shoulder. I screamed and dropped my sword. It withdrew the blade to stab me again, when its edge caught fire and sent sparks and embers cascading onto the ground between us.
I leapt at the thing and tried to take hold of its sword arm, but my fingers pushed through the hot ash, and my injured hip gave way. I hit the ground hard and was startled by the vivid colors of the dark earth and thick green moss.
I staggered to my feet. The tortured forms hovered close. I leaned against the tree and waited for death, but it did not come. As fast as they had attacked, the shrieking ghosts stopped. The weight of hatred diminished, and they parted for a new form that floated in beside the one that had stabbed me. It was solid from the waist up, its armor and body ravaged. Flames licked its limbs and its skull was made of only bone and fire. The mutilated thing moved forward and touched my wound. Heat lanced through my blood and my ears wrung. It collected a drop of my blood upon its finger and flicked it to the forest floor. It bubbled, flashed, and left behind a wide black circle.
The ghosts stopped their wailing. Their expressions softened and they began to fade like a fog touched by the sunrise. The one that had stabbed me was last, and he saluted me with his sword before his fading form gave way to the breeze.
I looked down at the growing stain of blood upon my tunica and slid down the tree. My arms would not move and my eyes began to close.
My mind seemed to move.
It was night and a sputtering torch lay on the ground beside the trunk of that same tree. I had a full beard and wore a suit of strange armor.
Whose dream am I having? What magic is this?
I tried to wake up or stand and flee, but I was paralyzed. I rolled my eyes around and saw other men in armor laid out upon the forest floor.
‘My kin,’ I heard inside my head, though the thought was not my own.
I was Kyoden Vesteal, their king—the king of Edonia. We had lost battles upon the road, lost in the forests, lost our capital. Now we were being hunted.
The light of other torches began to move toward us through the woods.
‘We are caught. The Hessier have found us. Rise, my kin. Slay them.’
But they did not hear me and the first Hessier appeared with axe in hand. It stood over my
son, Solon, and cleaved his head in two. Flames roared up around Solon’s broken skull, and the Hessier started toward me. I tried to close my eyes, to bellow, to weep. I called upon the will and strength of all the generations of my people to help me rise and avenge my son. I was left, instead, to watch the Hessier’s butchery until my view was blocked by a pair of scorched boots and a bloody axe. My son’s blood dripped free and burned circles into the mossy ground. The metal went up and then rushed in upon my eyes.
My mind moved again.
The bright sun lit the forest below me, as if I were straddling a high branch.
Am I dead? Am I Barok?
‘I am dead now.’ The thought did not help my confusion. I tried to find my legs, my arms, but I had none. I found it below, hacked to pieces and burning beneath the tree. I was inside the tree.
‘Kyoden Vesteal,’ the tree said in a languid, feminine tenor. ‘You have been entombed.’
I did not know what the word meant. The king seemed to know. A magic had been sung, powerful and very old.
‘Who has done this to me? Was it you, Mother Yew?’
‘No.’
Who had survived that could perform the entombment magic? Had they not all been hunted and murdered before the invasion? My grandson? Had he, the last who had been taught, had he done this? But he was so small, so young. The king did not know. I did not know. The bodies of my dead kin littered the burning forest around me. I felt them in the other trees; sons, cousins, nephews, and even my grandson. We cried and called each other’s names.
‘All of my kin are lost—my line ended. The Zovi have erased us.’
‘What is this I see?’ the old yew asked. The sight of other trees and birds came to her, and she shared the vision with me, with us. Three men ran through the forest far to the north. One clutched a small bundle. They were tall, strong men, wounded, yet fierce of face.
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