“Nasor, milord,” the mayor told the hooves of the sergeant’s horse. “Dere’s been na soin o’ ta aivil lurkin’ aboot fer near a fortnicht.” His caveat of: Other than the king’s men, he kept to himself.
The sergeant spat angrily onto the cobbles between the trembling mayor’s knees, splashing tobacco juice onto that worthy’s none too clean breeches. Four days the patrol had been on the road atop the previous week’s patrol, stopping at every piss hole three hut village and crofter’s hovel to no good end that he could see, and he was heartily sick of the whole business. Not sick enough to stop before finding what the lord chamberlain had sent them to find, of course. His concern for his own life was a good deal stronger than that. So he scowled down at the pale, bald pate of the terrified mayor, cursed the man’s great, great grandchildren, and spurred his stud down the mud of the village’s main street, bowling the hapless village headman over as he went.
The corporal waved the troopers to follow, sparing a sorrowful and repentant glance for the man lying in the street as they cantered their horses in the sergeant’s wake. He took in the village square, such as it was, thinking his own, dark thoughts. The man in the dirt might easily have been the corporal’s father, for he’d been born in a village no larger than this. He watched the elderly peasant attempt to take his feet, and perhaps salvage some small shard of his shredded dignity.
The last of the troopers was throwing his share of dust over the tattered robe as the mayor found his feet and pressed his dented cap of office over the frizzled grey lump of his hair. The corporal waited until he’d straightened, and bowed in his saddle. “Thankee, yer grace,” he addressed the old man. “Fer yer assistance in this matter.” Then he eased his horse closer and pressed a half silver imperial down into one withered hand. “Fer th’ church fund, sor.”
With a final bow, he kicked his horse after the troop. Life was hard enough in these villages at the edge of the faerie wood without tearing a man’s pride to bits before his people for no more reason than your arse had blisters! The corporal’s show of respect and the silver would make the old man’s position a bit less precarious the next time he was forced to call out the militia for the wandering monsters or brigands that infested the area.
True, the silver had been the corporal’s own, and his last, but what the hells, he’d had a beer before, right? And payday was only a bit more than a seria hence. He licked his lips, already parching at the loss of future beer denied as he caught up and passed the rearmost troopers.
He was near upon column’s head when he remembered that his girl was due to stop in Clairbourne with her family any day, and here was he now with not a bent penny to spend on her. Damn that lout of a hairbrain sergeant anyway!
* * *
Time ticked off its slow, measured beats in the soldier’s mind, but he felt no urge to move. The trail was not wide — he took up nearly its entire width. The stag before him filled it to overflowing. They’d been facing each other for quite some time now, having taken one another quite by surprise.
The stag showed no sign of any fear of the thing confronting it, regarding him coolly, head slightly lowered, impressive rack not quite aimed. Neither did it seem quite certain of what else it might do. It was a magnificent beast, all russets and ivories and power, and he was duly impressed.
The problem was that, if it didn’t know what to do about him, neither could he decide what to do about it. Thus, the standoff.
The wood was cool at the best of times, and at night, it got downright cold. Here, before him were warm clothing and moccasins. Sinew for a bow, cartilage for fish hooks. Hell, fat for soap if he got right down to it. That it was also food went without saying, and he was very hungry.
The beast outweighed him better than three to one and had the more impressive weapons, but he wasn’t all that worried. Take the first step... there. Another step and a leap low and to the side. He’d be inside the antlers and too close to the foreleg for a kick. Punch and twist with the knife, and the heart would be so much goo on his blade. In an hour, he’d be fed and well on his way to being clothed. And the largest part of the stag would be left behind to rot.
Not, he finally realized, such a dilemma after all.
He stepped off the trail, sweeping his knife arm slowly to his rear. “Pass on, brother,” he told the stag. “Perhaps next time I’ll be hungrier or colder, and we’ll see which of us has the bigger horns.”
The stag regarded the now cleared trail for a moment, swinging its great head back and forth between the free way and the soldier. All at once, it exploded into motion. In an instant, it was past and thundering down the narrow path.
The soldier stepped back out onto the trail and watched it for the few moments it remained in sight, ignoring the angry grumbling of his empty stomach. “Be well,” he whispered to the retreating back. “And eat well... one of us should.”
And then he was alone again. But he had a handle on the hollowness now and he could function. He didn’t let himself think about how hard was the struggle to not reach out for something that his rational mind told him was no more than dementia.
Perhaps it was time to start thinking in terms of acquiring better gear, though. He already knew how to be hungry, there was no real need to refine that skill any further. Likewise thirsty and cold. He started off again, this time with a weather eye out for likely bits of debris.
* * *
“There are sylvans following it,” Dunnear said, nostrils flared as he surveyed a partial track within the moss lining the rotting log. “Two, I think. Woodrovers. Females.”
The trader stood beside the bravo, head down, yellow eyes examining the track for himself. He’d no doubt the information was correct — Dunnear was the best tracker in Turalee, and near the best in the Iskan Republics. No, his problem remained, as ever, what to do. Did he break off and allow the woodrovers the trail? Or did he continue following, despite the loss of business it was causing him? His wife joined him, laying her head upon his shoulder in mute question.
“Do we continue?” Dunnear growled, none too happy.
“A pair of woodrovers,” the trader clarified for his wife.
“It’s their wood as well as ours,” the bravo persisted.
“But only two of them,” the trader’s wife breathed.
“There’s sommat else,” Dunnear begrudged then, clearly none too happy about it.
“And what would that be?” the trader’s voice echoed the tracker’s emotion.
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“It knows it’s bein’ followed.” Dunnear indicated the trail solemnly. “It’s been stopping at odd points to try and catch the woodrovers at their stalk. And the trail it’s leavin’ is gettin’ harder to follow.”
“How so?” from the trader’s wife.
“Couldn’t say, really,” he started, then paused. “It’s almost as though it’s moving into closer... I lack the words, lady, but it’s like it’s becoming a creature of the wood, almost.”
“Explain.”
He hesitated. “When first we began tracking it, Lady, it moved well enough, but no more than one would expect of a reasonably skilled man child within a wood. But now... Lady, it’s almost as though I’m tracking a sylvan rather than a man child. A great, bleedin’ large sylvan, granted, but one of the forest children none the less. The trail’s lost all flavor of man.”
“We follow.” The trader interceded sharply at that. And there, he bethought himself as the bravo faded into the gloom before them, goes the profit in Clairbourne. Wallach would do the trading, and Wallach would reap the rewards.
* * *
“I hope you’re satisfied,” Swallow demanded as she ran beneath the canopy. The old forest had given way to the tall wood, and they raced along beneath widely spaced forest giants. “You and your inward looking. Well now we’ve lost it, haven’t we?”
“We haven’t lost it,” Thrush insisted for the tenth time, her pace not slackening. “It’s somewhere ahead.”
“And how are you so sure?” Swallow was still angry and frightened over what she’d found on the inward looking, and it colored her voice.
“Because we haven’t passed it and it hasn’t left the trail!” Thrush snapped, none too happy herself. “Not since its confrontation with the stag. Ergo, it must be somewhere ahead.”
Swallow snorted at the logic, a sound like water sluicing down a flat rock.
Thrush ignored the sound, staring up the wide trail from beneath a troubled brow. She wouldn’t — couldn’t tell swallow the real reason for her certainty. That she could feel him —it— out there ahead. Feel him —it— him... feel him like the touch of warm sunlight against her breast. For the first time in their lives, she kept a secret from her sister, and it troubled her greatly. But she couldn’t admit the confusing feelings that had taken hold of her heart since the incident at the crossroads. She shivered involuntarily, glancing aside to see if Swallow had noticed.
* * *
They were back! The soldier’s head lifted as though he’d caught their scent. Far back along his trail, but closing. He could separate them now, the serious one from the mischievous one. Feather-light and sweet upon his tongue, he could taste their mood. Frustration. It colored their thoughts, both of them....
“No!” the soldier snapped aloud into the forest silence, startling the rabbit he’d been stalking. Why couldn’t he stop playing this damned stupid kid’s game! He could taste spit and dust and that was all. There were no watchers. There was no touch. The only frustration he needed to worry about was at his own inability to give up this childish fantasy. A fantasy that —he reminded himself again— if he wasn’t careful, was going to get him killed.
Without conscious volition, his potential meal entirely forgotten, he resumed the trail, silently cursing himself and his child’s imagination. Cursing more vehemently the phantom voice from within the blocked off portion of his memory, and its amused condescension.
.* * *
“There’s nothin’ bleedin’ out here!” the angry sergeant shouted into the talking glass. “Five flackin’ days we’ve been traipsin’ about this bleedin’ faerie flackin’ road and we’ve no seen a bleedin’ faerie flackin’ swamp rat bother a scat flippin’ monster!”
The mage’s wavering image flickered in and out of focus, as though attempting to avoid the foul rush of the sergeant’s breath. “Be that as it may,” the voice of the far off mage wasn’t so much heard as known, “your orders are to continue until you find something.”
“Troll shit!” the sergeant exploded angrily as the image faded for good.
His blistered nether regions clothed him in pain from heels to hipbones thanks to twelve consecutive days in the saddle, and his mood was foul. Mad to ease his frustration, he glared wildly about him, searching for the least excuse to flay someone —anyone— alive for something — anything. But his men had been serving under him for far too long to offer up an excuse at such a time. Each sat ramrod stiff in the saddle, lance point exactly perpendicular to the rough cobbles of the road, eyes trained in the distance directly ahead. Later, perhaps, they’d assume more slovenly ways, but for now, they might have been Royal Guardsmen on parade in the capitol.
Stuffing the talking glass angrily beneath his breastplate, the sergeant spurred his mount viciously, drawing blood and sending the startled stud into a sudden gallop that nearly dislodged him. Belatedly, the troop took out after him.
* * *
“Something strange here,” Dunnear announced abruptly.
“What is it?” the trader was instantly alert.
“Something seems to have struck the woodrovers a blow —from their reactions, at least— but I cannot find any traces of physical harm. No blood, no meat... only the fear smell, and pain.”
“A sorcerous attack?” the trader’s wife pushed into the tiny clearing.
“If so, a poorly executed one,” Dunnear spoke from the ground, where he had his nose almost in the sign. “They seem to have fallen senseless and writhed about a bit, only to get up and take once more to the trees.” He hunched his back in puzzlement, yellow eyes confused.
“The thing we follow?” the trader inquired.
Another hunch. “No sign of it hereabouts, but the junction with the main road is just ahead. Doubtless they chose this vantage to observe any changes in its direction without themselves being observed.” A repeat of the enigmatic back hunch. “I can look there and see...?”
“If it wouldn’t be too much trouble,” the trader’s tone would have left blisters on one who hadn’t known him
“What does it mean?” his wife asked as the bravo faded into the wood.
“I dare not even guess at this point,” he shook his head. “Remember you, dear wife, we’ve yet to see the thing in the flesh. And while we’ve gleaned several things it is not, we’ve yet to fathom what it might be. That it has magic about it comes as no surprise, knowing what we do about how it arrived in the wood to begin with. No surprise at all. The thing I’m working on is why it would lay the woodrovers low and not then kill them.”
“Perhaps it was distracted or—?”
Dunnear was back, looking more confused than ever.
“What is it now?” the trader demanded.
“It was there alright, and at about the same time. Scouted the main road for a bit and then jumped up and took off down the trail as though a demon were tied to its tail.”
“What?”
“By the moon,” Dunnear swore, “whatever felled the woodrovers, would seem to have frightened it off into the bargain.”
“That makes no sense,” the trader’s wife complained.
“Unless the pigs’re about,” the trader thought aloud.
“Think you the pigs would suffer woodrovers to live once they’d been laid low?” she demanded.
“P’rhaps they attacked the sylvans,” Dunnear interposed, “but before they could move in for the kill, whatever it is we’ve all been following flushed and they took out after it instead?”
The trader’s wife shook her head slowly. “The pigs have power, there’s no doubt. But have either of you once seen one with the finesse the gods grant a tornado? If there were pigs about anywhere,” she gestured mockingly around them, “would there not be a bit of added destruction merely for destruction’s sake? Or at least a sign of their leaving? Or having been here?”
Neither male liked it a bit, but each was forced to concede the point. “What then,” the trader demanded. “Dunnear?”
“Not a thing, milord. Not so much as a fly spec disturbed by aught but the rovers and their prey, and not a hint of a whiff of their stench.”
“They did an inward looking, Daddy,” the trader’s daughter broke her silence, reminding one and all that she was still with them.
“What?” all three demanded at once.
“Where?” her mother added hard on the heels of the exclamation.
“How can you tell?” her father’s voice nearly overrode her mother’s.
“See here,” she pointed to a trampled spot in the dirt. “They knelt knee to knee and put their foreheads together. See how deep the knee imprints are? That’s what they do, the grey widow says, when they look inside themselves together.”
The trader lowered his head and glared at Dunnear.
“And when was the last time I bespoke the grey widow?” the bravo demanded. “My job is to scout and to track, and to bust the odd head. I leave sylvan mythology ter you great thinkers.”
“Be that as it may,” the trader’s wife lifted her head, tasting for the invisible threat. “Be it pigs or man children, or monsters from beyond the world, whatever frightened the woodrovers so that they must needs look inward before they could move on, is surely far more dangerous than what we’d anticipated.” To her husband; “Do we call for the pack?”
The trader thought hard before answering. Then, “not yet. But we’d better be on firmer guard. Dunnear? Lead on. Cautious. As though we were scouting a pig warren.”