Flight of the Fallen

19 The Grandfather Tree

Linsha awoke to sharp points digging into her skin and a small weight bouncing on her chest. She opened bleary eyes and looked directly into round, golden brown eyes surrounded by a ring of creamy feathers. A sharp beak clacked a greeting.

“Oh, good. You’re awake,” chirped the owl, bouncing up and down again for good measure.

“Varia,” Linsha croaked. “Where have you been?”

“Yes, I see you had a busy night.”

Linsha pushed herself up to a sitting position and looked around. The mists of night had vanished. The sun was shining brightly on the water. She was still lying on the bank, but there was no one else in sight.

“Where is everyone?”

“Getting ready to go,” Varia replied, hopping up onto Linsha’s shoulder. “Messengers arrived at dawn. Centaurs.” The owl bobbed again in excitement. “The tribes and clans of Duntollik are already meeting. They heard we were coming and wanted someone to come now to talk to the chiefs. If they agree, we’re supposed to go the Grandfather Tree for the gathering of the warriors.”

Linsha’s forehead wrinkled in thought. This was a great deal of information to force into a brain that was still trying to work out what time of day it was.

“The Grandfather Tree? What is that?”

Varia’s eyes glowed gold with delight. “I will not spoil the surprise. It is one of the true wonders of these Plains.”

Linsha felt too lousy to argue. “Fine. So where have you been?”

“Following the Tarmaks. They are about three days’ march behind.”

“Is Crucible …?”

“He is still alive and still a prisoner. They keep him in the center of the army and keep guards around him. I cannot get close.” She fluffed her feathers, a habit she had when something bothered her. “Someone else is following you now.”

Linsha rubbed her eyes and took a deep breath. Memories of the night before were coming back with painful clarity, and she remembered something one of the draconians had said, something about a bounty.

“Bounty hunters? Did the Tarmaks put a bounty on me?”

“It’s possible. I saw maybe twenty or thirty humans and draconians riding in the Tarmak army, and other small bands are roving along the trails in this area. But no, this is someone else. Sir Remmik.”

“What?” Linsha sat bolt upright and stared at the owl in astonishment.

“Sir Remmik and three Knights. I saw them last night. They are following your trail. I think they’re going to Duntollik, too.”

Linsha was too dumbfounded to speak. What was the Knight Commander doing free of the Tarmak army? Had Sir Remmik and some of his Knights escaped?

“I told Falaius about them,” Varia went on. “I said you might want to send someone back for them, but he refused. We don’t have time. We have to get the Grandfather Tree in two days’ time. They’ll just have to catch up.”

“You talked to Falaius already?” Linsha demanded. “How long have you been back? What time is it? How long was I sleeping?” She struggled to her feet, dislodging the owl from her shoulder.

Varia fluttered to the large rock and perched, waiting while Linsha found her sword and the poniard and shoved them into the scabbards at her belt. “It’s still morning,” she said. “You’ve only slept a few hours, according to Mariana.”

Linsha, balanced on one foot, glared around at the grassy bank. “Where is Sir Hugh?”

“Oh, he left a little while ago. He volunteered to go speak to the tribal leaders at the Grandfather Tree.”

“He left!” Linsha snapped. “Oh, for pity’s sake, wasn’t anyone going to tell me anything?” She struggled forward on one foot, sore and aching and annoyed with the whole world.

“I just told you,” Varia said.

“Stop it, right there,” Mariana called from the top of the riverbank. “You shouldn’t climb this without help. Your ankle has a bad sprain.” She jogged down the slope and put an arm around Linsha’s shoulder.

Linsha transferred her glare to her friend. “Why didn’t someone wake me up sooner?”

“You were on guard duty half the night, remember? There was nothing you needed to do. Now we have broken camp and are ready to go.”

“Sir Hugh managed to get up and be useful,” Linsha said, grumbling, but listening to herself, she had to admit she sounded rather petulant.

“Sir Hugh was just coming on guard duty when we were attacked. He’d already had some sleep. And he does not have an injured ankle. He can get there faster. Now stop sounding like a fretful child and be grateful you are still alive. Not everyone I know survives a fight with three draconians.”

Mariana hefted some of Linsha’s weight onto her shoulders and helped her up the steep bank to the grassy grove where they had pitched their camp the night before.

Linsha saw the horses were already saddled and the gear packed. Off to one side in the trees, she saw a pile of bodies—the bandits from the night attack. Everyone in her party was upright and alive. Thank the absent gods for that.

Varia winged past her and came to land on the pommel of the saddle on Linsha’s horse. While Falaius and the others mounted, Mariana gave Linsha a leg up then sprang onto her own mount.

Moments later they were gone, and the dust slowly settled over the dead.

Linsha had always found a way to feel at home wherever she went. Her family home was in Solace, to be sure, but she had traveled so much during her lifetime that she had learned to adapt. After all, one place was much like another in the background. Anywhere she stayed for more than a day or two she soon felt comfortable, even in Schallsea where her parents had forced her to go, or Palanthas, or Haven, or Sanction, or Missing City. Everywhere there were the same rocks and dirt and people and plants and animals. Only the trappings and the names were different.

Everywhere she could find something familiar.

Everywhere except the interior of the Plains of Dust. This drear, rugged land even she found difficult to embrace.

While her party had followed the Toranth River the past few days, she had been comfortable enough. Although she much preferred a city, here along the river there was abundant water and forage and prey for the hunters’ bows. She found peace in the voice of the swiftly rushing water and pleasure in the wind as it swept through the willows and cottonwoods lining the banks. There were colors to please the eye—green in the rushes and grasses, a touch of autumn gold in the leaves of the cottonwoods, soft reds and tans in the rocks, and the vivid blue of the vast sky.

But that afternoon when the horses crossed the river’s ford and trotted over the line of hills at the valley’s borders, all of the bright color and rushing life of the river drained away to burned reds and umbers, drifting sand, and the endless solitude of the desert. Linsha had seen the southern end of the wastelands from the sky when Iyesta took her on a flight to Thunder’s realm, but this was the first time she had seen the desert from the ground, and she did not like it. It looked empty and hostile to her eyes.

She stopped her horse on a small bare hill and looked out over the barren emptiness. There was nothing to see but sand dunes, windswept rock, and a few scruffy hills.

Falaius came to a stop beside her, his tanned face split with a smile of pleasure. “Isn’t it beautiful?” he said. “I have loved this land since my eyes first opened upon it.”

Linsha looked at him as if he had just declared his devotion to draconians. She remembered though, before she said anything stupid, that the big Plainsman came from this desolation. What was dismal to one could be home to another.

“Why?” she said. “What do you see that is so beautiful?”

He swept an arm around to encompass the vast sweep of the land. “I cannot name any one thing. The desert is a vast entity unto itself. It simply is, and what you make of it is entirely up to you. You can look at it as a great, terrible emptiness or you can enter it with open eyes and see beauty and subtlety wherever you look.”

Linsha tried not to be skeptical as she viewed the desertlands. To her, it still looked like a wasteland, the backside of nowhere. But for Falaius’s sake, she tried to find something to appreciate.

“What is that trail over there? Does it go to the ford?” she asked, pointing out a faint track to their north that stretched like a dusty ribbon to the western horizon. Any track that led out of that desolation was worth appreciating.

Falaius’s expression grew grave. “That is the trail of the Qualinesti. The centaurs who found us this morning told us they talked to several stragglers at the river. The main body of refugees passed by here about nine or ten days ago.”

Linsha glanced up at the hot sun then down at the pale track. She could not imagine what that trek must have been like for the elves. To have lost their lands, their homes, so many of their friends and family; to have to cross that treacherous desert to find other elves who did not want them. What courage that had taken.

“They must have had a great faith in their leaders,” she said softly.

“So I understand. You can ask more about them if you like,” the old Plainsman said. “The man who led them across the desert is meeting us at the Grandfather Tree.”

“What is this Grandfather Tree?” she demanded. “Where is it?”

“You’ll see tomorrow.”

He gave Varia a wink and urged his horse downhill.

For the rest of the day, the small party of riders rode in the sweltering heat and dust, deeper and deeper into the great desert. All too quickly the influence of the river and the grasslands fell away behind them and rough, arid lands surrounded them. The sun burned hot in the sky and the dry desert wind blew plumes of red dust and sand from the horses’ hooves.

Much of the time Linsha sat hunched in her saddle and dozed. The heat made her groggy, and since there wasn’t much to look at, she closed her eyes and let her mind wander on lonely paths. When it became difficult to ride with her swollen ankle in the stirrup, she took both stirrups off and rode balanced in the saddle, her injured foot dangling.

Late in the evening when the sun sank like copper disk into a haze of dusky purple, Falaius led his party into a tiny oasis with a water hole hardly bigger than a mud puddle.

“We are only a few miles from the Run,” he told them. “That’s the road that rings Duntollik and marks its borders. From there we are only a day’s ride from the Tree. But it will be a long ride. Sleep tonight and be ready before sunrise.”

Surrounded by sculpted outcroppings of reddish stone, they made a cold camp and bedded down under the stars. Like many deserts, this one did not keep its heat long after the sun went down. By midnight the cold hovered near freezing, and Linsha, keeping watch in the dark camp, had no trouble staying awake. Without a cloak or a warm piece of clothing, she shivered under a thin blanket until Mariana relieved her.

They rose before dawn the next day and were on the move before the sun touched the land. In the east the cold light of dawn slowly turned pale gold and apricot as they rode, and the stars disappeared into the bright light of another day. The riders crossed the Run and hurried on, anxious to keep well ahead of the Tarmak army.

All too quickly the cold of night became a memory. Linsha cast off her blanket, sighed, and steeled herself to face another blazing day of heat and boredom. It was going to take far longer than a day or two for her to feel at home in this place.

Shortly after daybreak the horses climbed a low range of hills and stopped on the crest so their riders could look down on the sweep of the desert.

“Over there,” Falaius said and pointed to a place far in the distance.

Linsha tried to see what he was showing her. She blinked and stared hard into the hazy horizon, and all she could find was a dark spot that wavered slightly in the sea of rising heat. He grinned a crooked grin at her and rode on. Curious now, she concentrated on that dark spot for the rest of morning. Whatever it was, it seemed to be large and it sat alone on a high, broad hill. Before long, she caught a clearer glimpse of it and realized with a start of surprise that it was a tree—a huge tree, the only green thing in a realm of browns and reds. She searched her memory for anything she had ever heard or read about a large tree growing in the Plains of Dust, and eventually she remembered reading bits of passages on some old scrolls in the Citadel of Light on Schallsea. The Grandfather Tree was also called the World Tree, which was why she hadn’t recognized the name immediately. It grew on an ancient mystic site and was sacred to the god Zivilyn, the god of wisdom, the Tree of Life.

The god of wisdom, Linsha thought. That seemed appropriate. May the absent god of wisdom find a way to help his people find wisdom these next few days.

Late in the afternoon, the travelers spotted a cloud of dust approaching and drew their weapons. This was supposed to be a safe realm, but after the attack on their camp two nights before, they were taking no chances. Varia flew to observe the approaching party and came back wheeling and hooting with pleasure.

It was Leonidas. Accompanied by a half-dozen other centaurs, the buckskin galloped up to join them, his bearded face beaming. Greetings were passed around, and the other centaurs gathered around Falaius talking all at once about the gathering of the clans and tribes.

Mariana fell back to ride with Linsha and talk to Leonidas.

“Many have already come,” he told them excitedly. “Wanderer has brought his band. The Ereshu are here, and even many of the Windwalkers have come, and there are more on the way!”

Linsha turned to smile at his exuberance. “Wait! Slow down. Who is Wanderer? Who are the Ereshu? What are you doing here? I thought you went to talk to some of the northern clans?”

“We did! But most of them were already here, so we came here, too. They had a gathering just a few days ago, called by some the northern chiefs. Wanderer was trying to convince them that the Tarmaks meant war. Then Sir Hugh showed up last night and talked to the chiefs. They have agreed that they must fight the Tarmak together. They will not give up the Plains without a fight.”

“Do they understand the nature of the Brutes they will face?” Mariana asked.

“Of course. They have talked to me, to the other centaurs with me, to Sir Hugh, and they have an amazing network of spies themselves. Oh,” he took a quick breath and plunged on, “Horemheb is there. He’s been helping Wanderer gather information about the Tarmak.”

“Wanderer.” Linsha had to say again. “Who is this Wanderer?”

Leonidas looked at her curiously. “I thought you’d know. I just assumed you know of him.”

“Why should I?”

“Because he is the son of Goldmoon and Riverwind. Weren’t they companions of your grandparents?”

A flood of surprise swept through Linsha’s mind. Wanderer! He would be about her father’s age, and now that she thought about it, she vaguely remembered hearing her father mention a young tribesman named Wanderer. But there was something tragic connected to his name. She wondered what it was. “No,” she answered softly. “I don’t know him.”

The young centaur shrugged and went on talking about the tribes and the army that was gathering to face the threat of the Tarmak. The third group of militia that had split off to warn the tribes north of the King’s Road had gathered as many warriors as they could and were moving west to join the tribal confederation at the Grandfather Tree. Other tribes were coming, too, including the more settled Wan-kali and the southern nomadic tribes of the Kordath who had suffered much under the lordship of the dragon, Thunder. The population of the Plains of Dust was such a hodgepodge of nomadic barbarian tribes, centaur clans, and scattered human villages that gathering them all for an immediate offensive was impossible. All the leaders hoped for at this point was to gather enough warriors to defend the borders and drive the Tarmaks out should the blue-skinned Brutes decide to invade. From all indications, the invasion was just a matter of time.

After a while, Leonidas reached the end of his news, and Linsha and Mariana told him about the attack on their camp and the possibility that the Tarmaks had put a bounty on Linsha. He waved off the danger of any more bandits.

“Not this close to the Tree. This area is too well patrolled. If anyone wants to get close to Linsha, they will have to go through half the Plains tribes to reach her.” He chuckled. “When I saw Sir Hugh last night, I wondered what had happened to him. Fought a draconian barefisted, did he? He looks like he went through a sausage grinder. And you,” he said to Linsha, “don’t look much better. There is a mystic healer in Wanderer’s band who is very good. I will ask if he will see you.”

“You don’t have to,” she hastened to say. “I don’t need a healer.”

He tilted his head to look at the owl on her shoulder. “Maybe you do and maybe you don’t. But you would like him anyway. He is a good man. He has a kestrel.”

Although the kestrel piqued her interest, Linsha did not give the tribesman much more thought. There were too many other things to think about and see. As they had talked and the miles had passed, the Grandfather Tree loomed larger and larger in the distance. At first she thought it was just a large cottonwood or a willow or something indigenous to the Plains, but the closer the troop drew to the Tree, the more familiar its shape became. They were still miles away when all at once recognition came to her mind with sharp, poignant clarity. It was a vallenwood tree, as shapely and lush as any vallenwood that grew in Solace. She almost cried. Here at last was something dearly familiar, something on the Plains she could embrace and call home.

Falaius glanced back, saw the look on her face, and dropped back to ride beside her. “Beautiful, isn’t it?” he asked.

She heard the reverence in his voice and responded in kind. It was beautiful. In fact it was enormous. It was the largest, most magnificent vallenwood she had ever seen.

“They say one hundred grown men can spread their arms and link their hands and just barely encircle it,” Leonidas told her.

“Just do not cut wood from it,” Falaius warned, “or tear down its nuts or leaves. It is a symbol to our people of life and the ancient ways, and we take these things very seriously.”

It was nearly dusk before Falaius and his riders reached the Grandfather Tree and rode under its branches. Awed, they gazed up into the canopy of huge limbs and spreading leaves gleaming in the last light of the day. Dusk had already crept in under the tree’s skirt, and small gold lamps glowed like fireflies where various groups camped under the branches.

Linsha stared in delight. She sat for so long, mesmerized by the beauty and comfort of the vallenwood that she did not notice Sir Hugh approach her.

“There you go, sleeping again. Why is it every time I come to look for you, you’re gazing off into the distance like a stunned kender?”

Before she could make a witty retort, he took her horse’s reins and led her to a site just under the fringes of the great tree where the refugees from Missing City were regrouping and setting up a camp. He helped her down from the horse, helped her unsaddle it, and led her to a seat on an old tree trunk that had been hauled in for that purpose. He left her there while he took her mount to the picket lines and gave it some food.

She noticed a pot of liquid heating on a small cooking fire and inhaled with deep appreciation. Someone had found some kefre.

“That’s for later, for the sentries,” Mariana told her, catching her look of yearning at the pot. “Wanderer has invited us to a meal in his camp. Food before business. It’s an old tribal custom.”

Linsha felt her stomach rumble. It had been too long since she’d had a warm meal that filled her belly. “I appreciate old tribal customs,” she replied heartily.

“Good,” Sir Hugh said behind her. “And you can get there on your own. I am not carrying you all over this camp.” He walked around beside Mariana and tossed Linsha a walking stick he had cut and shaped to her height. “No, it is not vallenwood. If you look carefully at the grain you will see it is olive. There is a grove of wild olive not far from here.”

Linsha tried it and found she could hobble around well enough to ease the pain in her ankle. Her expression of gratitude was thanks enough for Sir Hugh. She winked at the Knight and, using her stick, limped away to take a closer look at the Grandfather Tree’s huge trunk. She glanced over her shoulder just once and saw the half-elf and the Knight sitting close together on the old log and quietly talking. It was as it should be.