Ilse Witch

14

When Bek woke the next morning, he was back where he had started the night before, rolled into his blankets next to the defunct fire. It took him several minutes to shake off his confusion and decide that what he remembered about the King of the Silver River was real. It felt as if he had dreamed it, the events hazy and disjointed in his mind. But when he checked inside his tunic, there were the chain and phoenix stone, tucked safely away, just where he had put them before falling asleep.

He sleepwalked through breakfast and cleanup, thinking he should say something about the encounter to Quentin, but unable to bring himself to do so. It was a pattern he was developing with the events surrounding this journey, and it worried him. Normally, he shared everything with his cousin. They were close and trusted each other. But now he had kept from Quentin both his conversation with Coran and his midnight encounter with the being that claimed to be the King of the Silver River. Not to mention, he amended quickly, his possession of the phoenix stone. He wasn’t entirely sure why he was doing this, but it had something to do with wanting to come to terms with the information himself before he shared it with anyone else.

He supposed that he was being overly cautious and perhaps even selfish, but the greater truth was that he was feeling confused and somewhat unnerved by all of this happening at once. It was difficult enough coming to grips with the idea of making a journey that would take him halfway around the world. This was Quentin’s dream, not his. It was Quentin, with his sword of magic and his great courage, of whom the Druid Walker had need, and not Bek. Bek had agreed to go out of loyalty to his cousin and a rather fatalistic acceptance of the fact that if he stayed behind, he would be second-guessing himself forever. It was only in these recent developments with Coran and the King of the Silver River that he began to wonder if perhaps he had his own place on the expedition, a place he had never even imagined might exist.

So he kept what he knew to himself as they ate their food and packed their gear and set out once more, into a day that was bright and sunny. Loose and easy as always, Quentin joked and laughed and told stories as they rode, leaving Bek to play the role of the audience and to simmer in his own uncertainty. They rode upstream along the banks of the Silver River through a morning filled with spring smells and birdsong, through a backdrop of mingled green hues splashed with clusters of colorful wildflowers and the glint of sunlight off the river. They sighted fishermen seated on the banks of the river and anchored in skiffs just offshore in quiet coves, and they passed travelers on the road, mostly tradesmen and peddlers on their way between villages. The warm day seemed to infect everyone with a spirit of good humor, inviting smiles and waves and cheerful greetings from all.

By midday, the cousins had forded the Silver River just west of where it disappeared into the deep forests of the Anar and were traveling north along the treeline. It was a short journey from there to the Dwarf village of Depo Bent, a trading outpost nestled in the shadow of the Wolfsktaag, and the sun was still high when they arrived. Depo Bent was little more than a cluster of homes, warehouses, and shops sprung up around a clearing in the woods that opened up at the end of the sole road leading in or out from the plains. It was there that Bek and Quentin were to ask for Truls Rohk, although they had no idea of whom they were supposed to make inquiry.

They began their undertaking by leaving their horses at a stable where the owner promised a rubdown and feeding and watering. Bluff and to the point, in the way of Dwarves, he agreed for a small extra charge to store their gear. Freed of horses and equipment, the cousins walked to a tavern and enjoyed a hearty lunch of stew, bread, and ale. The tavern was visited mostly by the Dwarves of the village, but no one paid them any attention. Quentin was wearing the Sword of Leah strapped across his back in the fashion of Highlanders, and both wore Highlander clothing, but if the residents found it curious that the cousins were so far from home, they kept it to themselves.

“Truls Rohk must be a Dwarf,” Quentin ventured as they ate. “No one else would be living here. Maybe he’s a trapper of some sort.”

Bek nodded agreeably, but he couldn’t quite fathom why Walker would want a trapper on their journey.

After lunch, they began asking where they could find the man they were looking for and promptly discovered that no one knew. They started with the tavern’s barkeep and owner and worked their way up and down the street from shop to warehouse, and everyone looked at them blankly. No one knew a man named Truls Rohk. No one had ever heard the name.

“Guess maybe he doesn’t live here after all,” Quentin conceded after more than twenty unsuccessful inquiries.

“Guess maybe he’s not going to be as easy to find as Walker led us to believe,” Bek grumbled.

Nevertheless, they pressed on, continuing their search, moving from one building to the next, the afternoon slipping slowly away from them. Eventually they had worked their way back around to the stables where they had left their horses and supplies. The stableman was nowhere in sight, but a solid-looking Dwarf dressed in woodsman’s garb was sitting on a bench out front, whittling on a piece of wood. As the cousins approached, he glanced up, then set aside his knife and carving and rose.

“Quentin Leah?” he asked in a way that suggested he already knew the answer. Quentin nodded, and the Dwarf stuck out his gnarled hand. “I’m Panax. I’m your guide.”

“Our guide?” Quentin repeated, extending his own hand in response. He winced at the other’s grip. “You’re taking us to Truls Rohk?”

The Dwarf nodded. “After a fashion.”

“How did you know we were coming?” Bek asked in surprise.

“You must be Bek Rowe.” Panax extended his hand a second time, and Bek shook it firmly. “Our mutual friend sent word. Now and then I do favors for him. There’s a few of us he trusts enough to ask when he needs one.” He glanced around idly. “Let’s move somewhere less public while we talk this over.”

They followed him down the road to a patch of shade where a clutch of weathered benches was grouped around an old well that hadn’t seen much use lately. Panax gestured them to one bench while he took a second across from them. It was quiet and cool beneath the trees, and the traffic on the road and in the village suddenly seemed far away.

“Have you eaten?” he asked. He was a rough-featured, bearded man, no longer young. Deep lines furrowed his forehead, and his skin was browned and weathered from sun and wind. Whatever he did, he did it outdoors and had been at it for quite a while. “You look a little footsore,” he observed.

“That’s probably because we’ve tramped all over this village searching for Truls Rohk,” Bek said sourly.

The Dwarf nodded. “I doubt that anyone in Depo Bent even knows who he is. If they do, they don’t know him by his name.” His brown eyes had a distant look, as if they were seeing beyond what was immediately visible.

Bek glared openly. “You could have saved us a lot of trouble by finding us sooner.”

“I haven’t been here all that long myself.” Panax seemed unruffled. “I don’t live in the village, I live in the mountains. When I got word you were coming, I came down to find you.” He shrugged. “I knew you’d be back for your horses sooner or later, so I decided to wait for you at the stables.”

Bek would have said more on the matter, but Quentin cut him short. “How much do you know about what’s going on, Panax? Do you know what we’re doing here?”

Panax snorted. “Walker is a Druid. A Druid doesn’t feel it necessary to tell anyone more than what he feels they absolutely have to know.”

Quentin smiled, unperturbed. “Do you think Truls Rohk knows more than you do?”

“Less.” Panax shook his head, amused. “You don’t know anything about him, do you?”

“Just that we’re supposed to deliver a message from Walker,” Bek said rather more sharply than he intended. He took a steadying breath. “I have to tell you that I don’t like all this secrecy. How is anyone supposed to make a decision about anything if there’s no information to be considered?”

The Dwarf laughed, a deep, booming sound. “You mean, how is Truls supposed to give you an answer to whatever question you’re bringing from Walker? Hah! Highlander, that’s not what you’re doing here! Oh, I know you’re carrying a message from the Druid. Let me guess. He wants you to tell Truls something about what he’s up to now and see if Truls wants to be a part of it. Is that about right?”

He looked so smug that Bek wanted to tell him it wasn’t, but Quentin was already nodding agreeably. “You have to understand something,” Panax continued. “Truls doesn’t care what Walker is up to. If he feels like going with him, which he usually does, he will. It doesn’t take you two coming all the way here to determine that. No, Walker sent you here for something else.”

Bek exchanged a quick glance with Quentin. To test the power of the Sword of Leah, Bek was thinking. To put them in a situation that would measure their determination and toughness. Suddenly, Bek was very worried. What sort of challenge were they being asked to measure up to?

“Maybe we should go talk with Truls Rohk right now,” he suggested quickly, wanting to get on with things.

But the Dwarf shook his head. “We can’t do that. First off, he won’t be out until after dark. He doesn’t do anything in the daylight. So we have to wait until nightfall. Second, it isn’t a matter of going to him to have our talk. He has to come to us. We could hunt for him until next summer and never catch even a glimpse.” He gave Bek a wink. “He’s up in those mountains behind us, running with things you and I don’t want anything to do with, believe me.”

Bek shivered at the implication. He had heard stories of the things that lived in the Wolfsktaag, creatures out of myth and legend, nightmares come to life. They couldn’t hurt you if you were careful, but a single misstep could lead to disaster.

“Tell us something about Truls Rohk,” Quentin asked quietly.

Panax regarded him solemnly for about two heartbeats and then smiled almost gently. “I think I’d better wait and let you see for yourselves.”

He changed the subject then, asking them for news about the Southland and the war between the Federation and the Free-born, listening intently to their answers and comments as he resumed work on the carving he had been shaping while awaiting their return to the stables. Bek was fascinated by the Dwarf’s ability to divide his attention so completely between the tasks. His eyes were focused on the speakers, but his hands continued to whittle at the piece of wood with his knife. His blocky, solid body settled into a comfortable position and never shifted, still save for the careful, precise movement of his hands and the occasional nod of his bearded head. He might have been there or gone somewhere else entirely inside his head; it was impossible to tell.

After a time, he placed the carving on the bench next to him, a finished piece, a bird in flight, perfectly realized. Without so much as a glance at it, he reached into his tunic, produced a second piece of wood, and went back to work. When Bek managed to work up sufficient courage to ask him what he did for a living, he deflected the question with a shrug.

“Oh, a little of this and a little of that.” His bluff face was wreathed momentarily in an enigmatic smile. “I do some guiding for those who need help getting through the mountains.”

Who, Bek wondered, would need help getting through the Wolfsktaag? Not the people who lived in this part of the world, the Dwarves and Gnomes who knew enough to avoid passing that way. Not the hunters and trappers who made their living off the forests of the Anar, who would choose better and safer working grounds. Not anyone who led a normal life, because there was no reason for those people to be here in the first place.

He must guide people like us, he concluded, who needed to go into the mountains to find someone like Truls Rohk. But how many like us can there be?

As if reading his thoughts, the Dwarf glanced at him and said, “Not many people, even Dwarves, know their way through these mountains—not well enough to know all the pitfalls and how to avoid them. I know because Truls Rohk taught me. He saved my life, and while I was healing from my wounds, he instructed me. Perhaps he thought he owed it to me to help me find a way to stay alive when I left him.”

He stood up, stretched, and picked up his carvings. He handed the bird to Bek. “It’s yours. Good luck against the things that frighten you now and again. Like a good carving, such things can be better understood when we give them shape and form. Whatever undertaking Walker has in store for you, you’ll need all the protection you can get.”

He started away without waiting for their response. “Time to be going. My place, first, then up into the mountains. We should be there by midnight and back again by sunrise. Take what you need for the hike in and leave the rest here. It’ll be safe.”

Bek tucked the carving into his tunic, and the cousins followed after obediently.

They walked out of Depo Bent and up into the shallow foothills fronting the peaks of the Wolfsktaag, the shadows lengthening before them as the sun settled into the west and twilight descended. The air cooled and the light failed, and a crescent moon appeared overhead to the north. They proceeded at a steady pace, climbing gradually out of the flats into more rugged country. Within a short while, the village had disappeared into the trees, and the trail had faded. Panax led the way, head up and eyes alert, giving no indication of having to think about where he was going, saying nothing to either of them. Bek and Quentin kept silent in turn, studying the forest around them, listening to the sounds of the approaching night begin to filter out of the twilight’s hush—the cries of night birds, the buzz of insects, and the occasional huff or snort of something bigger. Nothing threatened, but the Wolfsktaag loomed ahead like a black wall, craggy and forbidding, its reputation a haunt at play in their minds.

It was fully dark by the time they reached Panax’s cabin, a small, neat shelter built of logs and set back in a clearing near the crest of the foothills, well out of sight. A stream ran nearby, one they could hear but not see, and the trees formed a sheltering wall against the weather. Panax left them standing outside while he went into his home, then reappeared almost immediately carrying a sling looped through his belt and a long-handled double-edged battle-ax laid comfortably over one shoulder.

“Stay close to me and do whatever I tell you,” he advised as he came up to them. “If we’re attacked, use your weapons to defend yourselves, but don’t go looking for trouble and don’t become separated from me. Understood?”

They nodded uneasily. Attacked by what? Bek wanted to ask.

They left the cabin and the clearing behind, hiked through the trees to the lower slopes of the mountains, and began to climb. The way was unmarked, but Panax seemed to know it well. He took them in switchback fashion through clumps of boulders, stands of old growth, and shadowy ravines and defiles, steadily ascending the Wolfsktaag’s rugged slopes. The night sky was clear and bright with moon and stars, and there was sufficient light to navigate by. They climbed for several hours, growing more alert as the trees began to thin, the rocks to broaden, and the silence to deepen. It grew colder, as well, the mountain air thin and sharp even on this windless night, and they could watch their breath cloud before them. Shadows passed overhead in smooth, silent flight, night hunters at work, secretive and swift.

Bek found himself thinking of his own life, a past wrapped in vague possibility and shrouded in concealments. Who was he, that a Druid had brought him to Coran Leah’s doorstep all those years ago? Not just the orphaned scion of a relative with a family no one had ever heard anything about. Not just a homeless child. Who was he, that the King of the Silver River would appear so unexpectedly to give him a phoenix stone and a warning of dark and hidden meanings?

He found himself remembering all the times he had asked about his parents and had his questions deflected by Coran or Liria. Their actions had never seemed all that important before. It was bothersome sometimes not to be given the answers he sought, to be put off in his inquiries. But his life had been good with Quentin’s family, and his curiosity had never been compelling enough to persuade him to insist on a better response. Now he wondered if he had been too accepting.

Or was he making something out of nothing, his parentage no more than what it had always seemed—an accident of birth of no consequence at all, incidental to his upbringing at the capable hands of his stepparents? Was he looking for secrets that didn’t exist, simply because Walker had appeared in Leah so unexpectedly?

The night deepened and swelled with cold and silence, and their efforts to climb higher slowed. Then a gap opened in a cliff face, and they were passing through a deep defile into a valley beyond. There the forest was thick and sheltering, and what lived within could only be imagined. Panax continued on, his thoughts his own. The defile opened into a draw that angled down onto the valley floor. Beyond, the peaks of the Wolfsktaag rose in stark relief against the moonlit sky, sentries standing watch, each a little more misted and a little less clear than the one before.

Within the valley’s center, Panax called an unexpected halt in a small clearing hemmed in by towering elm. “We will need to wait here.”

Bek glanced around at the encroaching shadows. “How long?”

“Until Truls notices we’ve come.” He laid down his ax and moved toward the shadows. “Help me build a fire.”

They gathered deadwood and used tinder and flint to strike a spark and coax a flame to life. The fire built swiftly and threw light across the open space of the clearing, but could not penetrate the wall of shadows beyond. If anything, it seemed to emphasize how isolated the travelers were. The burning wood crackled and popped as it was consumed, but the surrounding night remained silent and enigmatic. The Dwarf and the Highland cousins sat in silence on the ground, backed up against each other so that they could share the warmth and watch the shadows. Now and again, one of them would add fuel to the blaze from the small pile of wood collected earlier, keeping the clearing lit and the signal steady.

“He might not be in the valley tonight,” Panax said at one point, shifting against Bek so that the youth was bent forward under the weight of his stocky frame. “He might not return until morning.”

“Does he live here?” Quentin asked.

“As much as he lives anywhere. He doesn’t have a cabin or a camp. He doesn’t keep possessions or even stash his food for when he might have need of it.” The Dwarf paused, reflecting. “He isn’t anything at all like you and me.”

He let the matter drop, and neither Quentin nor Bek chose to pursue it. Whatever the cousins were going to learn would have to await the other’s appearance. Bek, for one, was growing less and less certain that this was an event he should anticipate. Perhaps they would all be better off if the night passed, morning arrived, and nothing happened. Perhaps they would be better off if they let the matter drop here and now.

“I was just twenty when I met him,” Panax said suddenly, his gruff voice quiet and low. “Hard to remember what that was like now, but I was young and full of myself and just learning that I wanted to be a guide and spend my time away from the settlements. I’d been alone for a while. I’d left home young and stayed gone, not missing it much, not thinking I should have reconsidered. I was always apart from everyone else, even my brothers, and it was probably a relief to everyone when I wasn’t there anymore.”

He glanced over his shoulder at Bek. “I was a little like you, cautious and doubtful, not about to be tricked or misled, knowing enough to take care of myself, but not much yet about the world. I’d heard the stories about the Wolfsktaag and decided to go there to see for myself. I thought that lying as it did across the backbone of the Eastland it would have to be crossed frequently enough that a guide could earn a living. So I tied in with some men who did this, but who didn’t know as much as they pretended. I made a few crossings with them and lived to tell about it. After a year or two, I struck out on my own. Thought I’d be better off alone.

“Then one day I got myself so lost I couldn’t find my way out. I was exploring, trying to teach myself how the passes connected, how the crossings could best be made. I knew something of the things that lived in the Wolfsktaag, having learned of them from the older guides, having seen most of them for myself. Some, you never saw, of course—unless you were unlucky. Most could be avoided or driven off, at least the ones made of flesh and blood. The ones that were spirit or wraith you had to stay clear of or hide from, and you could learn to do that. But this time I forgot to pay attention. I got lost and desperate, and I made a mistake.”

He sighed and shook his head. “It hurts to admit it, even now. I backtracked into a stretch of land I knew I shouldn’t go into, thinking I could do so just long enough to get clear of the mess I was in. I fell and twisted my ankle badly enough that I could barely walk. It was almost nightfall, and when it got dark enough, a werebeast came for me.”

The fire snapped loudly, and Bek jumped in spite of himself. Werebeasts. They were something of a legend in the Southland, one half believed in by most, but seen only by a few. Part animal, part spirit, difficult even to recognize, let alone defend against, they fed off your fear and took shape from your imagination and almost nothing could stand against them, not even the great moor cats. The possibility that they might encounter one here was not comforting. “I thought they only lived in the deep Anar, farther east and north.”

Panax nodded. “Once, maybe. Times change. Anyway, the werebeast attacked, and I did battle with it for most of the night. I fought so long and so hard I don’t think I even knew what I was doing in the end. It changed shape on me repeatedly, and it tore me up pretty good. But I held my ground, backed up against a tree, too stubborn to know that I couldn’t possibly win that sort of contest, growing weaker and more tired with every rush.”

He stopped talking and stared off into the dark. The cousins waited, thinking him lost in thought, perhaps remembering. Then abruptly he came to his feet, battle-ax gripped in both hands.

“Something’s moving out there—” he started to say.

A fleet, dark shape hurtled out of the night, followed by a second and then a third. It seemed as if the shadows themselves had come alive, taking form and gathering substance. Panax was knocked to the ground, grunting with the force of the blow he was struck. Quentin and Bek rolled aside, the shadows hurtling past them, dark shapes with just a flash of teeth and claws and deep-throated growls.

Ur’wolves! Bek snatched his long knife from its loop at his belt, wishing that he had something more substantial with which to defend himself. An ur’wolf pack was even capable of bringing down a full-grown Koden.

Panax had recovered and was wielding the two-edged ax, shifting his weight left and then right as the shadows flitted all around him at the edges of the light, looking for an opening. Every so often, one would launch itself at him, and he would meet the attack with a sweep of his curved blade and find nothing but air. Bek shouted at Quentin, who had tumbled away from the fire and was struggling to climb back to his feet. Finally Panax moved to aid him, but the moment he shifted his gaze to the Highlander, an ur’wolf slammed into him, knocking him flat and sending the battle-ax spinning away.

For an instant, Bek thought they were lost. The ur’wolves were coming out of the darkness in a rush, so many the Dwarf and the Highlanders could not have stopped them even had they been ready to do so. As it was, Panax and Quentin were both down, and Bek was trying to defend them with nothing more than his long knife.

“Quentin!” Bek screamed in desperation, and was knocked flying by a sleek form that materialized out of nowhere to catch him from behind.

Then the Highlander was beside him, the Sword of Leah unsheathed and gripped in both hands. Quentin’s face was bloodless and raw with fear, but his eyes were determined. As the ur’wolves came at them, he swept the ancient weapon in a wide arc and cried out “Leah! Leah!” in challenge. Abruptly, his sword flared white-hot, threads of fire racing up and down its polished length. Quentin gasped in surprise and staggered back, almost falling over Bek. The ur’wolves scattered, twisting away frantically and disappearing back into the dark. Quentin, shocked by what had happened, but exhilarated, as well, impulsively gave chase.

“Leah! Leah!” he called out.

Back came the ur’wolves, attacking anew, sheering off at the last moment as the sword’s fire lanced out at them. Panax was back on his feet, astonishment mirrored in his eyes as he retrieved his battle-ax and moved to stand next to the Highlander.

Magic! Bek thought as he rushed to join them. There was magic in the Sword of Leah after all! Walker had been right!

But their problems weren’t over. The ur’wolves were not breaking off their attack, just working around the edges of the defense that had been raised against them, waiting for a chance to break through. They were too wily to be caught off guard and too determined to give up. Even the sword’s magic could do little more than keep them at bay.

“Panax, there are too many!” Bek shouted above the din of the ur’wolves’ howls and snarls. He snatched up the cold end of a burning brand to thrust into the jaws of their attackers.

Half-blinded by ash and sweat, the three put their backs to the fire and faced out into the darkness. The ur’wolves flitted through the shadows, their liquid forms all but invisible. Eyes glimmered and disappeared, pinpricks of brightness that taunted and teased. Unable to determine where the next attack would come from, Bek swept the air before him with the long knife. He wondered suddenly if he should use the magic of the phoenix stone. But he couldn’t see how it would help them.

“They’ll rush us soon!” Panax shouted. His voice was raspy and filled with grit. “Shades! So many of them! Where have they all come from?”

“Bek, do you see, do you see?” Quentin was laughing almost hysterically. “The sword is magic after all, Bek! It really is!”

Bek found his cousin’s enthusiasm entirely unwarranted and would have told him so if he could have spared the strength. But it was taking everything he had to stay focused on the movements of their attackers. He had no energy to waste on Quentin.

“Leah! Leah!” his cousin howled, darting out from their little circle, faking a strike at the shadows, then quickly retreating. “Panax!” he cried. “What are we supposed to do?”

Then something even darker and quicker than the ur’wolves crossed in front of them, trailing shards of cold wind in its wake. The three defenders shrank from it instinctively. The night hissed as if steam had been released from a fissure, and the ur’wolves began to howl wildly and to snap at nothing. Bek couldn’t see them in the darkness, but he could hear the sounds they were making, sounds of madness and fear and loathing. A moment later, they were in full flight, gone back into the forest as if swallowed whole.

Bek Rowe held his breath in the ensuing silence, crouching so far down he was almost kneeling, his long knife extended blindly toward the trees. Beside him, Quentin was as still as carved stone.

Suddenly the darkness shifted anew, and a huge, tattered form that was not quite human, but not quite anything else, rose against the flicker of the firelight. It came together in a slow gathering of shadows, taking shape but not assuming identity, never quite becoming anything recognizable, formed of dreams and nightmares in equal parts.

“What is it?” Quentin Leah whispered.

“Truls Rohk,” Panax breathed softly, and his words were as chill and brittle as ice in deep winter.