by Cindy Dees
It rained on and off throughout the day, making their travel damp and cold. Near sunset, though, the clouds cleared somewhat and the temperature dropped sharply. Based on the sun’s position, he was able to tell that Cicero led them in a generally northerly direction. But beyond that, Will was lost.
Not that he could summon the energy to care. His fever had worsened and his stomach hovered on the verge of revolt. Raina even gave him a big dose of healing magic, but it made him feel no better at all.
They headed for a wooded patch that would give them cover for the night. The scrawny trees were dank, stinking of rot, the ground spongy underfoot and the branches slick with slime. The trees were not properly thinned and trimmed to provide knot-free boards for fine furniture, and a general feeling of neglect hung about this place. It was entirely unlike the neatly tended forest about Hickory Hollow. Given their all-night march, the group had agreed to stop before full dark today to hunt for a decent meal and get a good night’s rest.
Between them all, they had a respectable camp laid, a fire burning, and a stew heating over the blaze in no time. Cicero and Kendrick disappeared into the trees to set warning trip wires around their camp, collect firewood, and generally scout out the area. Eben took care of the last details of making camp.
Will, as accustomed as he was to hard outdoor work, was worn out. He felt ill and weak, and the stew did not smell the least bit appetizing. He felt better, though, when he spied even the indomitable Sha’Li drooping in fatigue. He was merely overtired. At least their exhaustion prevented them all from snapping at one another. Everyone would perk up when they got some hot food in them.
Not long after the entire party had returned to camp, Will’s preternaturally sharp ears picked up a sound nearby. Or maybe he sensed a foreign presence first. But either way, he snatched up his staff and was on his feet in time to see a dryad step lightly out of trees and into the clearing. Will rolled his eyes. Not this again.
The males of the party groaned while Sha’Li grinned, Rosana looked ready to hurt someone, and Raina sat back to observe the show. They were all too tired to fend off the machinations of another dryad tonight.
He said patiently, “My lady, if you wish to stay in camp, I need you to give me your word that you will leave my male friends alone and make no attempt to charm or enslave them.”
The familiar laughter trilled, but the creature nodded her promise to behave.
Will looked up sharply as more rustling became audible in the shadows beyond the fire. “Who goes there?” he demanded sharply. “Show yourself!”
Three ursari stepped out of the trees wearing expressions of chagrin. “The human has sharp hearing,” one of them commented wryly.
Cicero spoke low to the trio and reported, “They insist the dryad has not charmed them. Rather she asked for their protection that she might reach you safely, Will.”
“Me?”
The dryad interrupted, “The wind has whispered to me of a strange young man who shrugs off our magic like it is nothing. I came to investigate.”
Will turned to the warriors skeptically. “She asked you to protect them?”
“Aye. In the name of the Lady.”
Cicero sucked in a sharp breath. Will turned to him questioningly, and Cicero explained, “Invoking the Lady among my kind is serious business. We do not take it lightly, and neither do her kind.” He nodded in the direction of the dryad without making eye contact with her.
Silence fell in the clearing.
“Have you eaten?” Will asked the faerie. He doubted the dryad would take him up on a bowl of common stew, but his mother had been a stickler for courtesy. You always offered to share your meal with a guest.
“Thanks be unto you, Will Cobb. But I do not hunger.” She added, “At least not for what you seem willing to offer.”
He hadn’t introduced himself, yet she knew his name. He sighed. The dryads were definitely gossiping about him among themselves. He studied her more closely. Her skin was noticeably more golden in tone than any dryad’s he’d seen so far. It shimmered as if gold dust were sprinkled across it. She seemed more … mature … than the others. Self-possessed. If there was some sort of hierarchy among dryads, he’d lay odds this one was a noble of some kind.
Her gaze, which had roamed around the clearing, swung back to him. He looked away hastily, considering whether or not he dared look this one in the eyes. What the heck. He already had her promise to leave the other males alone.
“Watch my back,” he murmured at Eben.
The jann’s eyebrow arched faintly, but he nodded slightly.
Will looked back at the golden dryad. Her gaze was amber, warm and joyous. She exhibited none of the intense concentration the other dryads had used on him, merely a certain wry humor. Her very lack of an attempt to ensorcel him was more appealing by far than the best efforts of any of the others.
Something surged up within Will so quickly he had no time to stop or hide it. He knew this dryad. She was a noble of the Green Court and chief among the dryads of this part of the wood. “Elysia?” he asked incredulously.
The dryad jolted. Alarm flitted across her face, chased by curiosity. And then anger took her over. She surged around—or maybe through—the fire in a trice, her hand unexpectedly strong and fierce on his throat. “How do you know my name, boy?” she snarled.
The party would have jumped to its collective feet, but the ursari warriors abruptly loomed over them all threateningly, weapons drawn, making it clear that any interference on their part would get them hurt or worse.
Elysia’s inhuman fury was fully roused, and he needed no special powers to sense death in her molten gaze. Will blinked at her, startled. “I haven’t the slightest idea. Your name just … came to me.”
“How, human? Who are you?”
“I am Will Cobb. Of Hickory Hollow in the Wylde Wood. In the west,” he added lamely.
“Did one of my kind tell you? Did one of them break the Silence?”
“The Silence? What is that?”
“Answer my question!”
“None of your kind spoke your name to me. In truth, until a few days ago I did not believe your kind existed.”
“Then how? How do you know my name?” She gave him a little shake by the neck, glaring deep into his eyes, searching for answers.
Anger boiled up unbidden in Will’s gut. How dare she treat him thus? He’d done nothing to merit an attack from her. “Let me go!” he ordered in a voice that shook the spirit itself. Like the Dragon’s Roar but different, deeper, older, more powerful.
The dryad’s hand leaped away from his neck like he’d physically flung it off. She staggered back, staring first at her hand and then at him. She whispered, “Is it truly you?”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” he mumbled back in his normal voice.
“Lord Bloodroot. Is it you?”
Alarm speared through him. Would the dryad try to harm him if she knew a piece of a tree spirit was trapped within him? What would his own companions do if they knew? Her hand shot out and she tore back the top of his shirt. Reverently, she touched the disk of wood on his chest lightly.
“Oh my lord, it is you,” she whispered too quietly for the others to hear.
He answered the dryad urgently, “I’m not this other fellow. I’m Will Cobb, I tell you!”
Elysia bowed low. “It is my great honor to stand before thee once more, my lord. We thought thee gone forever. Others have tried and tried to free you, but your spirit was bound. We knew not how nor where nor by whom.”
Although his impulse was to roll his eyes, Will choked out, “It’s only a piece of a tree spirit.”
“You do not hold a piece of him, human; you hold him. His core. Yon is the piece of heartwood that holds his spirit.”
“What is all this about spirits?” Rosana demanded.
The dryad ignored the gypsy and demanded of Will, “How are you not dead, human?”
Rosana interrupted even more
forcefully. “Dead? What?”
The dryad stared at him wonderingly. “No human should be able to withstand the power of that one’s spirit. It should have rent your puny spirit to pieces. And yet, you live.”
Did she speak truth, or was this some trick of her kind? Suspicion warred with certainty deep in his gut that she spoke the truth.
“Long have we waited for the prison that bound Lord Bloodroot to be broken. Long have we waited for the forest lord to find a host. Now that you are awake, we deliver a message and a task.”
Will snapped, “A task? I do not do your bidding, dryad!”
The dryad responded, “This is not my bidding, human. It is his bidding for you. I am but the messenger.”
The tree spirit inside him was giving him orders via dryads now? Will frowned, not liking this development in the least. “Deliver your message then.”
“To you shall the secret be revealed, long forgotten by all but she who once kept it. Retrieve that which is lost; find it, but do not claim it. It is not yours, yet you must give it freely.”
Will blinked. Replayed the words in his mind. Then he grumbled, “Did I ever mention how much I hate riddles?”
The dryad’s lips twitched in humor. “Nonetheless, you must solve this one, human.” She gazed at him expectantly, as if waiting for him to question her. Very well then.
“Whose secret is it?” Will demanded.
“It belongs to the last one bonded to this living continent.”
“Could you be a little more specific?”
She shrugged, dislodging the garlands covering her chest in a most distracting manner. “I speak of the Mythar, of course.”
Will couldn’t help but notice how Raina lurched upright at the mention of that. He asked, “And this Mythar is who, exactly?”
Elysia sighed. “Ignorant boy. The Mythar is lord of all the nature guardians.”
“You said he was bonded to the land. Past tense. Is he dead?”
“No, but he is lost to us nonetheless.”
Will rolled his eyes. Couldn’t any legendary heroes from the past just die like normal people? Did they all have to enter some strange sleeping state?
Raina interjected, “Is this lost Mythar of yours by any chance an elf who was also once a great king of an elven nation?”
Elysia seemed annoyed at the intrusion in her conversation with Will, but snapped, “He was an elf!”
Raina pressed, “So, the Mythar and the Sleeping King might be one and the same person?”
The dryad shrugged. “We call him only Mythar. We have no care for mortal kingdoms and titles.”
Will stared at the blond healer across the fire. If Raina was right and the Mythar and Sleeping King were one and the same, it was a good sign that these magical creatures were trying to help him find the fellow, right? Maybe his quest was not entirely doomed, after all.
Elysia was speaking again. “I was told only to seek he who bears our lost lord home, for he and his boon companions would have the power to uncover the secret which must be revealed if we are all to survive.”
“Who, exactly, told you to seek me?”
“The Green Lady.”
“Is she a dryad as well?”
That made the dryad laugh until tears ran down her cheeks, but no clearer answer than that was forthcoming from the faerie. He supposed, given the degree of her humor, that this Green Lady person must not be a dryad.
Will glanced at the rest of the party. His “boon companions” looked as flummoxed by this unexpected message as he felt. “Do any of you know who this Green Lady is?”
Raina answered, “I am given to understand that she represents the entirety of nature and living things, mayhap the Urth itself.”
Elysia seemed to delight in adding cryptically, “The Green Lady has not forgotten her son.”
Will scowled. Stars above, he hated it when people talked in circles! “Will you please give me a clearer answer than that?”
Elysia laughed, a rich, contralto ripple that made him shiver with delight. “I like you, human. Perhaps when you have grown up a little more we might … come to know each other better.”
If he was not mistaken, she’d just propositioned him. And given that Rosana made a sound in the back of her throat not unlike that of a dog growling over a bone, he was fairly certain he made no mistake. Well, wasn’t this turning out to be an interesting evening?
His head whirled with it all. That and the whole rot about him being some sort of chosen one who was supposed to find some lost thing but not claim it, then keep it but give it away. Never mind that he hadn’t a clue what he was supposed to do with this thing between finding it and getting rid of it.
He asked the dryad, “Assuming I can solve this riddle of yours, what am I supposed to do about it?”
“All in due time.”
“I also really hate it when people answer my questions like that, all mysterious and evasive.”
“I but speak the truth, impatient human.”
“Where am I supposed to look for this secret?”
“All will become clear.”
“When? How?”
“Patience, Will Cobb.”
He bit out, “I’m running exceedingly short on that at the moment, lady dryad. Won’t you give me a direct answer to anything?”
She placed a gentle hand upon his chest, laying it directly over the wooden disk of Bloodroot. “You have all you need to do this task. Let your heart”—she pressed down lightly on the disk—“be your guide. A chain of events has been set in motion by forces greater than you or me. And for whatever reason, you have been thrown into its path. I can only tell you this. Do your best to succeed, Will Cobb. The fates are not kind to those who fail them.”
He demanded, “What fates are these who make me their tool? I have no desire to be anyone’s pawn.”
She replied sadly, “Nonetheless, that is exactly what you are, young human.”
He scowled at her, thoroughly annoyed. He just wanted to get the stupid disk off his chest and go home. Except the cursed disk refused to let go and he had no home left to go to. Other than those two small, rather inconvenient details, everything was just perfect.
You are not alone in your quest. You have friends and allies of whom you are not yet aware, grandson of Hickory. We have been watching out for you for a long time.
“Some lot of good all these invisible friends have done me so far,” he grumbled.
“Who do you think tripped that Boki scout next to the grandfather hickory and saved your life back in your hollow?”
Will stared at her, stunned. “That was you?”
“Aye. Just so.”
“Whose bidding did you do to protect me?” he demanded.
Ignoring his question, Elysia spoke quietly. Soberly, even. “I shall leave you now. Safe travels and my apologies for any … inconvenience … my kind might have caused you”—a glance over at his companions—“or your friends. I shall see to it you are not disturbed by my kind again.”
As a murmur of fervent thanks went up from the male party members at that news, the dryad evaporated back into the trees. The kindari warriors who had accompanied her nodded silently, turned, and disappeared into the night.
Sha’Li sighed. “Miss it I will, watching Rainbow Boy, Mister I’m-a-noble, and Captain Pointy Ears squirm like worms down their shorts they have.”
Rosana replied grinning, “Be nice!” She turned to Will. “What in stars’ name did she speak of? What secret are you supposed to find?”
Will shrugged. “I have no idea. You know as much about it as I do.”
Sha’Li commented snidely, “In green methinks the boys will be dreaming for weeks to come.”
Kendrick scowled. “Jealous because you’re black and scaly?”
“Closer come, and say that.”
“Hah!”
Sha’Li’s scales lifted. The effect was similar to that ofa bird ruffling its feathers. “Think you a scrawny human like you can take me?
”
Raina stepped between them hastily as the two bristled at each other. “Who’s hungry? The stew smells ready. Here, let me serve it up.” She thrust bowls of hot stew into Kendrick’s and Sha’Li’s hands, effectively ending their spat. They subsided, sulking into their bowls.
“What name did that yellow dryad call you?” Rosana asked Will. “I did not quite catch it.”
He had no intention of confessing to them that he might be possessed by some crotchety old tree spirit. He did detect—and secretly enjoy—the hint of jealousy in Rosana’s voice, though.
He answered casually, “It was nothing worth repeating. But the good news is they won’t be bothering us anymore. The golden one is some sort of noble among her kind. If she can’t bewitch me, I think they all will give up trying.”
“But she said she would come back sometime to see if you are interested in her then, yes?” A definite note of resentment had crept into Rosana’s voice now.
Will laughed. He couldn’t resist teasing, “There are worse fates.”
The party ate in silence for a few minutes, the rest of them wolfing down the stew. Will picked at it halfheartedly.
A rustling sounded from off to his left.
Eben threw a disgusted look at the forest in general. The jann hummed around a mouthful of stew, surly. “I thought you said the dryads were going to leave us alone. Sounds like your girlfriend is already back. With more of her friends this time.”
Will sighed. He was really getting tired of this. Why did he have to be a cursed dryad magnet? He peered into the darkness. And smelled them before he saw them. Rotting meat. And then his disk started to burn so fiercely it stole his breath completely away.
Orcs.
The brush all around them erupted. A half-dozen howling orcs charged them, clubs raised and blood in their eyes.
Will spewed out the mouthful of stew he’d just taken and threw his bowl at the nearest orc as he scrambled for his staff. Dregs! Where had these beasts come from?
