Amber Magic

Chapter Twenty-Three

Stealthy shapes moved closer, they could feel them now, a closing ring. Here a bush rustled, there a fallen leaf cracked. Instinctively, they put their backs together and circled, hands and eyes wide. Brand and Corbin groped at the ground for a rock, a branch-anything.

Heavier footsteps crashed through the brush toward them. A single thought ran through Brand's mind, turning it to ice. Rhinog.

He felt a rock, heaved it up in both hands, ready to smash down, ready to kill.

“Brand?”

“Jak!” shouted Brand, coming forward in relief. “Look out, they're all around us!”

The goblins attacked. Small bows hummed. Glimmering shapes charged forward, leering. Jak cried out and fell, then stumbled back to his feet clutching at his leg.

“Run for it!” roared Brand. He rushed their tormentors, heaving his rock at them. Corbin and Telyn charged with him, yelling. On the way he lifted up his limping brother and they all ran blindly into the darkness. Behind them feet pattered on dry leaves as the goblins gave chase.

Somehow in the darkness, Brand lost Corbin and Telyn, who fled on ahead. It was not their fault, he realized. In the darkness they had not understood that Jak was injured. Blindly he and his brother stumbled forward, Jak limping, Brand holding his arm across his shoulders and half dragging him. After a time they came to a place where the land seemed to bottom out. There was no clear way to go that was downhill. Brand realized that they were lost and he all but despaired. He listened for a moment, but heard nothing of Telyn or Corbin or the goblins. He could hear only their labored breathing and the night sounds of the forest. Crickets chirped and a chill wind rattled the finger-like winter branches.

“Come on, Jak. We've got to get back to the common,” he whispered. Jak made no reply. Brand helped him up and started forward. Jak was limp now, he was only dragging him. He stopped, realizing that his brother must have passed out. With hands fumbling in the darkness, he felt his brother's body, searching for wounds. He found one arrow in his leg, another in his breast. The wounds were sticky with blood he couldn't see. Should he pull out the arrows? No, he thought, not when he could not see to staunch the blood.

He took a moment to try and think. Blind panic would probably lead to both their deaths, he told himself. He had to think. Where were the goblins? In which direction lay the common?

Of the goblins there was no sign. He hoped that this did not mean that they had gone after Corbin and Telyn instead of him. He reasoned that if he just kept on in any direction, within a mile or so he should come out of the trees. He was on the corner of an island, after all, much of which was inhabited. This section was perhaps the most wild, due to a natural tendency of folk not to live too close to the faerie mound, which was the only place that the Fair Folk could appear on Stone Island that he knew of. The forest was not endless, he had to come out somewhere along the line.

So Brand picked a direction, heaved up his brother, feeling very glad that he had outgrown him, and set out. The going was hard. There were thickets of berry bush to be crashed through or circumvented. Everywhere the trees blotted out all but a rare gleam of moonlight. Soon his legs were wooden and his arms as heavy as lead. Jak grew heavier and wheezing coughing fits wracked his body. Brand walked on as if in a dream, wondering if Jak would be dead in his arms when he won through the forest, as the farm girl had been in Myrrdin's arms so long ago.

He wept for a time in fear for his brother's life and for all the Haven, but kept going all the while. Blinking and stumbling as if in a waking dream, he became aware that he was not alone. Someone was pacing him, off to one side. He pressed forward, not knowing what else to do. He cast about as he went, but could find no suitable weapon. He bitterly recalled Modi's words when he had sought to relieve himself of his woodaxe. Keep it with you, the warrior had said. Better words had never been spoken.

The thing pacing him was stealthy. Whoever or whatever it was, it made almost no sound. Fortunately, it seemed content to simply walk through the forest, shadowing him, no more than a stone's throw away. Every now and then he caught sight of a glimmer or heard a tiny sound from this shadow. Brand worried and fretted, but tried not to show it. Was it a goblin captain? Was it Voynod, toying with him? Or worse yet, the Enemy himself?

Finally, he could stand it no longer. “Speak, shadow!” he commanded angrily.

“Hush! Sing not aloud for the Dark Ones. They hunt thee still,” came the reply. It was a soft, odd sound. Words such as the winds might speak, if they had a voice.

“Are you friend or foe?” whispered Brand, refusing to be commanded to silence by another of the haughty Faerie.

“I am thy friend, and thy foe, both and none.”

Brand was in no mood for riddles. “Then you must serve my enemies. Begone!”

“I serve none but myself,” came the reply.

“Then why trouble me?”

“We hath both lost something precious. Thou hast lost thy way through the woods, and I have lost something of perhaps even greater value. We hath this in common, among many other things. My future is intertwined with thee. Thou art a potential ally and foeman, both together.”

They walked on a while, Brand pausing every so often to see if Jak still lived. Each time he heard his brother take another gasping breath, he felt both relief and pain. He wondered if the forest would ever end. He estimated he had been slogging through the trees for an hour or more. The only possibility was that he had taken the longest possible route, missing the cliffs and all roads, walking across the wild back end of the Drake estate. Another idea struck him: could he be walking in circles? Perhaps that was this creature's foul game.

“I will be stalked by you no further,” he said, halting. “Either come forth and try to kill me if you dare, or leave me to my suffering.”

The other stopped for a minute as well and both fell silent. Brand had begun to wonder if his shadow had fled, when it spoke again. “I have decided. I will neither kill you nor leave you to die. I will point the way.”

Suddenly, the figure revealed itself to Brand. Brand took an involuntary step backwards. The Faerie appeared as a boy of perhaps twelve, but with pointed ears and eyes that held wisdom and great age in them. He was as white-skinned as fresh milk. Despite the bitter cold he wore only a pair of soft leather pants. Even his feet were bare.

“Look there!” said Oberon, for Brand knew in his heart that it must be the Faerie lord. He pointed over Brand's shoulder and into the depths of the trees.

Brand looked, and thought to see a tiny glimmering light, like that of a single candle in the distance. He felt relief flood over him. The candle meant home and hearth, a house and other human beings. Perhaps Jak would live through the night.

He turned back, but his shadow had fled. With only a moment's pause, Brand stumbled forward, toward the light. He knew he could be walking to his death, lured into a trap by trickery, but he had run out of options. The forest could have gone on for miles, and he doubted he could bear his brother through the whole of the frozen night, even should Jak live so long.