Choices

by Mercedes Lackey

  At a second glance, there was something else different about these houses. All of them were, either in whole or in part, built on top of a foundation of what must have been the stumps of the huge trees, planed flat to the ground. It made her head whirl to think how much work that must have taken.

  People around here dressed absolutely alike, which was interesting: leather trews and fabric shirt and supple leather tunic for both sexes, in a limited palette of browns, yellows, and dull reds. But again, that was smart if your resources for fabric were limited. If everyone in the family wore the same outfits, they could be handed down regardless of which sex the child was. Not a lot of sheep or flax in a forest. Fabric obviously had to come from outside.

  Finally someone—she guessed it was a blacksmith from his leather apron—approached her stirrup. He opened his mouth, and she prayed he would utter something she understood, or she’d have to burn some precious magical energy to learn the local language in a hurry.

  “Well coom, leddy,” he said, and she let out her breath in a sigh of relief. “Who be ye?”

  “Melysatra of Silence Tower,” she said, “Formerly in service to the Mage Urtho.”

  Truth to tell, she expected incomprehension at best. Instead, the man’s face lit up. “Och, well!” he said. “There be more of setch peoples some tenday down rood. Good folk and all. T’kind as he’ps at need. Got tree here a-now, t’he’p wi tha Beast. Be ye here for same?”

  “I am,” she replied, with a little prodding from Need.

  “Then I be take ye to ’em, if ye’ll foller, leddy,” he said. She gave Sam a little nudge to get him going as the blacksmith walked off, the crowd parting for him.

  Pretty much everyone was smiling at this point, so Mel judged she’d said all the right things.

  But where he brought her was . . . unexpected.

  Right at the edge of the village was a perfect circle of perfect meadow. She judged it to be between ten and fifteen acres worth. It had absolutely no right to be here, and the edges were cut off as precisely as if they had been laid out by a surveyor.

  In fact . . . now that she looked closer, the edges were cut right through the center of the trunks of many of the trees. Whatever had happened had occurred about the time when the magic around Urtho’s Tower imploded, because while the trees with parts cut off were dead, they weren’t shedding limbs yet.

  What in the Seven Hells. . . . She had a good idea what she was looking at: some sort of epic displacement magic. The meadow had no right to be here because it wasn’t from here. And probably somewhere in some far off meadowland, there was a fifteen acre circle of these enormous trees, planted where they had no right to be either. It had to be an effect of the Mage Storms that had followed the fall of Urtho’s and Ma’ar’s strongholds.

  Sam was very happy to see all that lush grass, however, and just as happy to see the three other horses, since he was a very sociable animal.

  The three horses, she was pleased to see, were out on a standard and familiar picket line, and she was even happier to see that the three young men—who had made a very respectable and neat camp—were wearing faded blue tunics with a familiar design.

  “Warrik’s Wolves?” she called, as she got within easy speaking distance.

  All three heads came up, and all three faces wore smiles. “Aye, lady. Another refugee from Mage Urtho’s forces?”

  “That I am, and damned glad to see a familiar uniform. I got dropped by my lonesome in the back of nowhere.” The blacksmith grinned as if he were responsible for the four of them finding each other. Mel patted him on the shoulder. “Thanks, friend. I’ll find out what this Beast of yours is all about and see what I can do to help.”

  “Tenkee, leddy,” he replied. “Us’ll tell ta wives tis one more at table.”

  “They bring us meals,” one of the lads said as the blacksmith ambled off. “Beats my cooking any day.”

  She made a face. “Mine too. Let me picket Sam and get settled, and then we can introduce ourselves and you can explain things to me.”

  Shortly she had her own shelter pitched, her bedroll laid out on a nice soft pile of cut grass, and had learned that the three young men were named Harl, Kerd, and Pol, that they were the only three of their mercenary company to have come through with a big group of tribesfolk, and that when this village had sent that group a plea for help with an unspecified “Beast,” they had volunteered.

  “They’re good people and all, Mel,” said Pol, who seemed to be the one most inclined to do the talking. “But they’re very keep-to-their-own-kindish.”

  “They are that,” Mel agreed, who’d had a few interactions with the tribesfolk.

  She also learned that the circle of displaced village and forest had been the location of the village’s inn and tavern. “They don’t seem all that—upset—about losing the tavern and whoever was in it,” she observed cautiously.

  Harl laughed. “It seems the owner of the tavern was generally disliked. Since this happened in the middle of the night, he was the only one in it. All that I hear is, ‘We bain’t miss ’im. Miss his mead, though.’”

  She also learned that the Beast had appeared shortly after the tavern and forest vanished and the meadow appeared. “Mage Storm, then,” said Mel. The lads nodded. “Might have dropped another plot of land around here with something in it. Could be some monster of Maar’s. We never saw everything he’d made. Has anyone actually seen it?”

  “Oh, yes,” Pol said. “They may seem relaxed about it, but they’re not. It’s not an immediate threat to this village, but they know it’s moving toward us, and they know it’s already destroyed a village west of here, because the survivors made it this far. They have an expert hunter tracking it.”

  Harl added shyly, “He comes back here every few days to see if help came, they say. He should be back any day now.”

  “And let me tell you, we’re damned glad to see a Mage,” Pol went on. “This is some sort of creature of a sort they’ve never seen before. If it’s something of Ma’ar’s, well, we’re going to need you. And if it’s not something of Ma’ar’s . . . we might need you even more.”

  “Nice to be needed,” she said dryly and winked. “An old bitch like me doesn’t hear that very often from a lot of young bucks like you.”

  She managed to surprise a laugh out of them, which made them all friends, and shortly after that, two boys, a girl, and an older woman approached them carrying buckets.

  She discovered that the buckets were an extremely clever way of carrying a whole dinner without spilling. Three nested dishes were inside. The top held something that looked like a loaf of bread and turned out to be a very large mushroom. The middle held braised meat. The bottom held sliced fruit drizzled with honey. And immediately, she noticed the lack of bread. Which made sense—there were no grain fields around here, after all.

  And that . . . made her rethink the vague plans that had started in her mind for rebuilding their tavern here. No grain meant no beer . . .

  But wait, there was fruit. And honey. So, wine and mead at least. I can work with that. There might be something else she could ferment and distill. A starchy tuber or root, for instance.

  The mushroom was shockingly good; she was expecting something tasteless and woody for its size, but no, it was roasted to perfection, dense, and with a meaty taste. One thing she did sorely miss with it was butter. But then . . . no cows in a forest.

  Would this meadow be enough to support some cows?

  She paid only half an ear to the three young fellows chatting away, but enough of one to be able to respond appropriately and pleasantly. Night came quickly to this towering forest, and before too very long it was full dark.

  The horses dozed on their picket; one of the young men spread nuts of some sort on a flat stone he dug out of the fire and shared the toasted result. They were bigger than she expected, but they were d
efinitely pine nuts and tasted grand with a sprinkling of salt. So I’ll have bar snacks.

  :You’re already planning on settling here, aren’t you?: Need asked, amusement in her voice.

  :I guess I am,: she replied.

  :Oh, it’s a good idea. The place doesn’t have a tavern anymore, and you’re due for a chance to settle down.:

  She blinked. Well, that was interesting. She’d expected to get an argument from the sword, but . . . well, maybe Need had been thinking the same thing—why go hunting for a new bearer when you could let the new bearer come to you?

  Need didn’t seem inclined to say anything more, so she took to her bed while the lads were still talking around the fire. Maybe they were still young enough to stay up half the night, but she was an old campaigner at this point, and the first lesson of campaigning was eat and sleep when you can.

  * * *

  • • •

  The hunter did indeed show up at just about midmorning. A slim, middle-aged, extremely fit man named Lemuel, he had a very worn bow, a quiver full of expertly crafted arrows at his belt, and a beard. Otherwise he looked like another of the villagers. He also looked relieved to see them.

  “Tha Beast looketh naught like ony crathur I ever saw afore,” he said once they’d all introduced themselves. He shook his head. “Lethal, ’tis. An it be only a day away. Seems t’not want t’wander too far from a uncanny place.”

  “Uncanny place?” That got Mel’s attention and Need’s too. “What kind of ‘uncanny place’ are you talking about?”

  But Lemuel just shook his head. “I canna rightly say, only ’tis uncanny,” and Mel had to be satisfied with that. She looked to the three fighters, and as usual, Pol took the lead. “Can you bring us there on tracks the horses can use?” he asked.

  “Oh, aye,” Lemuel replied, and brightened. “I see where this’s goin’. A-horse we can be there just arter noon, an’ we start now.”

  “Then let’s start now,” Pol decreed. “Harl, you and I and Mel will pack up our kit and get the horses saddled, bridled, and loaded. Kerd, you get provisions for three days for all five of us. We should be ready to go by the time you get back.” When Kerd ran off to the village, Pol turned to Mel. “Can your horse carry double?”

  She snorted, as she turned to pack up her bedroll. “Triple. Quadruple, even. He’s built for a man in full armor, and he barely notices me.”

  Pol cast a glance full of envy at Sam, then laughed. “And I bet he eats enough for three horses too.”

  She shrugged and laughed. “Within every silver lining, there’s a dark cloud.”

  Pol had timed things well; they were just tightening down all the straps and cinches when Kerd came running up with small leather packs. “The blacksmith says this is what they carry with them on long trips—”

  The pack seemed awfully small for three days’ worth of provisions, but the hunter nodded with approval. “Aye,” he assured them, digging into the bags and coming up with flat tan squares wrapped in paper, and a dark brown block that looked like nothing she’d ever seen before. “These be nut-flour cakes,” he said, holding up the tan stuff. “And this be dried meat pounded wi’ berries.”

  Now she understood. That was very concentrated food. “How hard is it to gnaw some off?” she asked.

  “Still got all m’teeth, leddy,” Lemuel replied, grinning.

  Packs tied to the top of their gear on the horses, they all mounted up. Lemuel looked up very doubtfully at her. Sam was a tall horse, and if he wasn’t used to riding—which, of course, he probably wasn’t, since she hadn’t seen any other horses in this village—he was probably pretty uncertain about how to get up there.

  “Follow me,” she told him, and led him to a stump that stood about as tall as his waist. “Put your left foot on top of mine and give me your left hand,” she ordered, and hoisted him up to the makeshift riding pad she’d rigged behind her saddle. He grunted with surprise, probably at how far he had to spread his legs. Sam was not a thin horse.

  “Eh, leddy, this’un feels unchancy,” he said uneasily.

  “Just hold onto that loop of rope I rigged behind my saddle,” she told him. “Sam has a surprisingly easy pace; you won’t fall off.”

  She took the lead as Lemuel directed them down a series of game trails—and indeed, even at Sam’s fast walk, a pace the others had to trot to keep up with, he didn’t fall off.

  With Sam setting the pace, shortly after noon, they reached an area where Lemuel indicated they should stop and leave the horses behind. “Lessen ye want tha horses t’be bait,” he added soberly.

  “How big is this Beast?” Mel asked as she helped Lemuel slide off, grimacing with sympathy at his groan as he touched the ground again.

  “Big,” he said. “Tall as tallest housen i’ village.”

  They looked at each other, then looked at his arrows. “Lemuel, how do you feel about staying here to guard the horses?” Pol asked. He pulled an arrow out of his quiver and showed it to the hunter. His was a proper war arrow with a makaar-killing point on it. Lemuel’s was . . . a hunting arrow with a deer point. The pull on Pol’s bow was probably twice, or even three times, that of Lemuel’s.

  The hunter took the hint. “Aye, that,” he said. “Ye’re aright. I’ll do nobbut tickle ’im.” He pointed at a game trail that wound through the smaller trees and brush that somehow found enough light to thrive beneath these giants. “Foller that. ’Twill take ye to tha uncanny place. He’ll be not far from’t. On’y time he strayed was when he et Waybrook.”

  Mel made them all hold still long enough to cast “Featherfoot” on them. She wasn’t powerful enough for a full Silence spell, but this would muffle their footsteps and prevent any breaking twigs from making a sound. Then they all crept down the game trail at a crouch, with her bringing up the rear, ready with the handful of combat spells she had at her disposal.

  They heard the “uncanny place” before they saw it. A sound like a nest of angry wasps—and when they finally got to a place they could see it, well, it was uncanny, all right.

  What looked like a column of pale lavender light, barely visible, began at the ground at the end of the trail, and continued up as far as Mel could see. The area it covered was roughly house-sized, and inside it, the vegetation was just . . . wrong. Plants and grasses were in bloom, bearing fruit, and dropping autumn leaves, all at the same time. Bushes had two or three kinds of leaves on them, some shapes she didn’t recognize. One bush didn’t have leaves or branches at all; it seemed to be a cluster of spiky insect legs, which moved restlessly.

  “Change Circle,” she hissed under her breath. She’d never seen one, only heard of them—places where magic went wild, distorting and twisting the unfortunate creatures that got caught or stumbled into them.

  :I haven’t seen one of those in a very long time,: Need replied. :Must have been caused by the Mage Storms.:

  Before any of the lads could ask her what she meant, the Beast slunk into view, and she smothered a gasp of dismay. Well, now she knew why the Beast lingered around the Change Circle. It probably was trying, in its dim way, to figure out how to get changed back.

  It had two heads on the end of the long, sinuous neck of a cold-drake. One was the cold-drake head you’d expect to find there. The other was the head of a makaar and most closely resembled that of a horned vulture, just as the gryphon’s head resembled that of an eagle. Black feathers sprouted in channels between the scales, all down the cold-drake neck, ending in a six-legged body. The body was all cold-drake, complete with the heavy, thrashing tail, though it too had black feathers sprouting from between the scales. Four of the legs were the cold-drake’s, and two were the makaar’s forelegs, growing from the shoulder, and looking absurdly small on the cold-drake’s massive body. And the black wings of a makaar sprouted from its back, much too small to allow the thing to fly.

  As they watched, the th
ing walked up to the Change Circle and tried to get inside, but it threw up both heads and sent out a roar and a scream when it touched the lavender light. Cries of agony, it sounded like to Mel. Something about the Change Circle obviously caused it great pain. It backed up, tail thrashing the brush unmercifully, and screamed again.

  :I think we ought to back up and try to come up with some kind of—: Need began.

  The Beast whipped its neck around as if it had heard her, and both pairs of eyes stared right where they were hiding.

  Then it charged.

  Mel got off a light-flash right into its eyes, which was the only thing that saved them. Blinded, it continued its charge anyway, but at least they were able to fling themselves out of the way as it blundered on in a straight line, bouncing off tree trunks and tearing up the ground with its talons.

  They regrouped immediately as it bounced off a last trunk, then stood its ground, shaking its head to clear its vision. It pivoted and peered in every direction, shaking its heads. And then it spotted them, uttered its twin cries of rage, and charged again.

  * * *

  • • •

  They barely made it away from the thing, and two of them were unconscious. Pol had Harl draped over his shoulder, and Mel managed to get a spell off to lighten Kerd enough that she could manage him with one hand—because her arm was broken. She’d blinded the Beast a second time, but it had swept the three of them with its tail, and Pol was the only one who’d dashed away unscathed. They’d managed to get away before it got its sight back again, but they could still hear it in the distance, thrashing around and screeching.

  “I think we might be far enough away,” Mel panted. “And I need to do something about my arm right this minute, or I’m not going to be able to cast another spell.”

  “It’s so fast . . . how can something that big move so fast?” Pol gasped, lowing Harl to the ground. He knelt beside his fellow mercenary and felt him all over. “No broken bones, just a concussion, I think.”