Onslaught

CHAPTER TEN: STONEBROW

The First crouched in a wet hole and clung to a tangle of roots. His death-touch had killed them, and now they were his. Touching here, touching there, he could take control of whole stands of trees. The First was delighted to discover that a kindred darkness lurked in their heartwood. The corruption at the forest's heart had already reached its dark tendrils this far. Soon, the metastasis would be complete, and the First would go to the Gorgon Mount and take hold of that cancerous heart.

Just now, though, he had a trap to set. "Let's see how the champion fares against a forest turned to darkness."

With a twitch of his hands and a twist of his mind, the First hurled trees down upon a cringing village of centaurs. They screamed, some dying instantly, others bolting, and a blessed few lingered in broken agony. Their wails would draw Kamahl, and then these boughs would slay him.

It was a time of terrors. Trees lay on the ground and grew like hair. Their trunks were as thick as hillsides. Their branches reached for miles. In violent surges, the forest overran itself.

Many of its creatures perished beneath the crushing boughs.

A few fought.

Sixteen centaurs crouched, a bulwark of muscle before the advancing tide of wood. Their ancient home lay buried beneath ravenous foliage. Encroaching limbs lashed with a will. The centaurs had retreated twice, but here they dug in to stand or fall. If the forest would make eternal war, the centaurs would be its eternal foes.

A great bough plunged down from the top of the snarl. It struck ground like a pummeling arm. Its impact shook the glade and sent dust spinning. The bough twitched, growing rampantly even where it lay.

The centaurs roared. Their simian faces split in fury, and their fangs gnashed. Sixteen stags leaped over the rock embankment, hooves sparking on stone. Anns as brawny as oak boughs swung axes, though they were sacrilege to the forest folk. The blades rose and fell. Sixteen steel teeth bit deep into the bough. Their impact reverberated through the glade. Axes reached the quick, canted to widen the wounds, and then chucked loose for more blows.

The bough recoiled. It screamed through twisting fibers and lashed slender shoots across its tormenters.

Welts striped the centaurs' backs. Their steel stormed into the wood. They cut crosswise, hurling great chunks into the air. Two blades sank into heartwood, rotten and rank. A third followed and chopped straight through.

The bough riled like a severed serpent, lashing violently and jagging across the glade. It would take a long while for the branch to die. Other such boughs still convulsed their lives away on the far side of the clearing.

The stump wouldn't die, though. It spewed sap onto its attackers. They retreated. Bark crawled across the wounded end, closing it off. New tendrils jutted with green defiance and swept toward the centaurs.

The beast men had retreated to their wall, but the shoots had followed them. Axes were no good against tendrils. Green scourges whipped them.

'Tall back!" shouted Bron, the centaur leader.

He and his warriors did, but they all knew what it meant. If they lost the wall, they would return with fire. If axes were sacrilege, fire was abomination-no weapon at all but a hateful god, the anti-forest. Still, the centaurs were desperate.

Two more boughs surged down from the height of the forest tangle and crashed before the centaurs.

"Back!" called Bron again. Though he and his warriors were massive, they seemed mere ants before the onslaught.

Turning, they galloped away, heading for a pile of deadfall and dry straw. At its base lay sixteen fist-sized stones-flint. Reaching the spot, the centaurs dropped to their knees and lifted the stones. They struck the flint obliquely upon their steel axes. Sparks showered away like meteors and lighted upon straw. The centaurs blew to awaken flame, but the straw would not even smolder.

Sudden illumination drew their eyes up from the tiny sparks. Golden light poured through the glade and cast shadows on the deadfall. Fire did not provide the glow. Something had arrived, something brilliant.

The centaurs shielded their eyes. It seemed as if a star stood at the edge of the glade.

The star was a man. He emerged from folds of rampant growth, his face and hands beaming brightly.

Boughs coiled and recoiled around him. One great tree bent and rushed down to crush him. The man reached up. The tree struck with purpose, but as soon as the man's hands touched the wood, it shuddered to stillness. Green power bled from his fingertips and bounded down the gnarled bark. Where it struck, the dead bark came to life. Steam hissed from the bole, and fibers wrestled against each other, black against green.

The man, seeming to hold aloft that massive tree, tilted his head back and roared. Power fountained from him into the tormented trees. The black tide ebbed away before a surging green wave. It poured down the trunk and rushed through to the root tips. Sparks and smoke leaped from a wet hole at the tree's base.

The bole rose and stood upright again, and the rampant glade grew suddenly silent.

All eyes turned to the man, who stood inviolate in the midst of the trees. He was cloaked in verdant leaves over gleaming armor, booted in vines atop metal soles. In one hand he lifted a gleaming staff, which burned a slanted line in the centaurs' minds. Come.

Come.

Bron dropped the flint. He stood and stowed his axe at his waist. His hooves shifted as if following channels in the air, and allowed himself to be inexorably drawn toward the man.

The other centaurs shouted. Their fingers clawed at his pelt, but they could not keep him back.

Bron walked across the glade. There was no simpler thing to do.

He knew the man, the barbarian Kamahl who had brought these horrors, but Kamahl had been changed by the divinity within him.

Bron wished to be so changed. He approached to within a few strides and knelt. He bowed his head, power streaming around him.

You once defended this forest, sent the man by way of mind.

"Yes," Bron replied simply.

Now you fight against it.

"Yes."

/ need such a fighter as you. Others will remain to defend the forest, but you will be my general, to come with me and fight in distant lands.

Bron exhaled. "I would gladly fight anything if I did not have to fight my own home."

The light changed. For a moment, its radiance seemed reflected inward, casting long shadows through the man's soul. It is a terrible thing to fight one's own home. The luminosity returned. What is your name?

"I am Bron, leader of the Cailgreth centaurs."

The staff sparked on the ground as if it were lightning touching down. The man reached out and touched Bron's forehead. Henceforth, you will be called Stonebrow.

Bron hadn't time to approve or disapprove. With that touch, he had ceased to be. He was Stonebrow now, and he grew.

Though the centaur still knelt, his eyes rose even with those of the man. Next moment, they were above him. Beamy shoulders widened, stout bones lengthened, and iron muscles strengthened. Ribs became the size of an ox's. Arms grew until they could shatter boulders, legs until they could topple trees. Fur thickened into a pelt that would turn arrows. Even belt and axe had grown.

Stonebrow climbed to his feet and towered above his creator. He was a giant among centaurs. He roared. The forest paused its tumult to listen to that sound. He pounded a hoof on the ground, and the glade trembled. Snatching the axe from his belt, he hoisted it high. It caught the sun and threw a violent wedge of light across the ground. He was not just huge but filled with fury. As if blood welled up through every follicle, his pelt took on a red cast.

There is new fire in you-too much for you to defend the forest. You will do more to slay than to save. With me, you will go. Together we will take the fight to the forest's foes.

"Yes. I will go, Master Kamahl. You will call me simply Kamahl.

"Kamahl."

Kamahl turned his gaze away from General Stonebrow. Oh, it ached to go from the heat of that gaze to the chill of its shadow!

Kamahl looked to the other centaurs. They stood wonderingly on the opposite side of the glade. Their hooves churned the soil as if preparing to flee. Their eyes, though, were locked on Kamahl. Invisible cords drew them forward.

These will be the forest's defenders. These will fight to protect the wood.

Stonebrow shifted to stand alongside his master. "How can they defend the forest when it is fighting itself?"

Kamahl did not answer at first. He only watched the fifteen beast men stride slowly nearer. The forest does not fight itself. It grows. Forests grow. It will continue until all the world is forest.

Even transformed, Stonebrow sensed the lie. This rampant growth was not good for the forest. Kamahl was deceiving his new general. Was Kamahl also deceiving himself?

Who will succeed you as leader of this village?

Stonebrow considered the folk. "Boderah was my lieutenant. Let him be leader."

The named centaur stepped forward. He seemed only a colt beside Stonebrow. They no longer belonged to the same species, but soon that would change.

Boderah, you will be called Granite, for you will be bedrock for this wood. Kamahl touched the beastman's forehead. The transformation began again.

Stonebrow watched. It had been a glorious thing to transform, but it was a hideous thing to witness. Every tissue, every sinew warped out of all natural proportion. The skin bulged as if inflated with air. The bones crackled in their rush to outgrow each other. Granite thrashed and screamed. Stonebrow realized he must have screamed as well. Years worth of growth were crammed into breathless seconds.

Stonebrow looked away while sockets popped and muscles split. When he looked back, the transformation was complete. Beside him stood a similar creature-a giant centaur whose flesh bore a greenish cast.

Granite gave a rueful smile, and his teeth were like wooden stakes.

Stonebrow looked away again, this time to the trees. His own twisted sinews were brother-flesh to the twisted boughs. He had become grotesque. Of course he would no longer fight the rampant growth of the forest. Now he embodied it.

There was no going back. He could not regain the creature he once had been. Nor could Granite. Nor could any of them.

Kamahl walked among them and touched their brows and gave them new names.

What power he wields! the First thought as he clung, within the smoking hole. Though the forest is riddled with rot, this Kamahl is a channel of pure green power.

The First's hands still stung from the life-force that had lashed at him. He would not attack Kamahl directly again. Instead, the First lurked in the wet hole, waiting for Kamahl and his new warriors to move on. When finally darkness settled, the First climbed out.

Kamahl was already too powerful to be slain in his homeland. Luckily, his homeland was weak enough to succumb.

The First crept toward the Gorgon Mount. Under cover of night, he would slip in, and his death touch would turn the forest's power into his own.

In their plethora, he made them-giant serpents, great centaurs, fire panthers, forest goblins, spine folk… Wherever Kamahl's hand came to rest, new life came to being. Those creatures who would defend the forest grew larger, imbued with its vitality. Those creatures who would march with Kamahl grew fiercer, tempered by fire. He had done what he had come to do. He had awakened an army.

At their head, Kamahl strode solemnly, and beside him marched General Stonebrow. From the desert's edge, they carved a highway toward the center of the wood. Huge squirrels leaped from bough to bough, surefooted on warping branches. Emerald-eyed elves climbed across gnarled shoulders of wood. Enormous slugs slithered along the ground, and toad men scampered among roots, gathering bugs. To all sides rolled spinefolk-tumbleweeds replete with thorns and will. It would be a terrifying army to face, but tonight Kamahl did not march them for war. Tonight they were an army of peace.

"There, do you see?" Kamahl asked, gesturing with his staff toward the Gorgon Mount. "It is the source of power." His eyes shone as he gazed at the rumpled mass. It was tenfold the peak it had been before and grew even still. Soon it would be like the mountains of his homeland, and here in the midst of the forest. "We go there."

Stonebrow marked out the site. His eyes were flinty. "Where is the ziggurat?"

"What ziggurat?"

"The sacred ziggurat. The druid temple, palace of the mantis lord," answered Stonebrow matter-of-factly. "Where is it?"

Kamahl's eyes roamed the tortured ground. Where was the ziggurat? Built of the entwined branches of four majestic trees, the ziggurat should have stood here, on the near slope of the great mound. It was nowhere. Only an endless twist of vast boughs covered the ground. "I don't know."

The giant centaur stomped a few steps farther. "There it is," he said, gesturing to one side.

The ziggurat lay there. Its trees had grown like all the rest and become too tall, too massive to stand. They had bent over. The walkways were twisted wreckage, the parapets shattered.

It was a grim sight, that ruined tower. Mangled bits of dead wood were clutched in coils of living. The old glory of the forest had been ruined by the new.

"All things change," said Kamahl. "It is the way of Nature."

Stonebrow gave a noncommittal grunt and strode onward.

"I embody the very power of the forest-this new, voracious life," Kamahl continued as though to justify himself. "Never before has it lived as it does now."

"Never before," echoed Stonebrow, though the centaur's rumbling voice left doubt as to whether he approved.

Kamahl's own brow turned stony. "It seems wrong only now, for the mantis folk have not yet felt the transforming power. I will touch them. I will change them so that they match the new sacred-ness."

To that, Stonebrow offered no comment.

Kamahl bristled at the silence. Had he not transformed this ingrate? Had he not given a new, more powerful aspect to this whole army? His eyes swept back over the creatures. They followed him dutifully. A moment before, it had seemed enough. Now he wondered why they didn't follow joyfully.

No looking back. Kamahl turned his attention to the mount, a thicket gone mad. Each thorn stood the height of a man, each twig the width of a tree. The forest moaned. It grew so quickly that wood ground against wood. Trees plowed deep furrows as they shoved along, and giant things loped in the midst. They grew visibly and preyed upon each other-rutted, birthed, hunted, and ate in fast cycles of want. It was an ugly place, caught in transformation.

Ah, but when the changes were complete, how glorious it would be!

Kamahl and Stonebrow approached the thicket. It was impassable. No creature, not even an ant, could penetrate its thick nap. Only one path gave entry-an archway hewn by stone blades and retained by poison. The space was guarded even now by the creatures that had cut it.

Nantuko warriors stood before the gate, their stone-bladed polearms held across their chests. They stared at Kamahl, and their podlike eyes showed no sign of fear.

Kamahl signaled his army to cease their march. He and General Stonebrow approached the guard. "Allow us through."

Unblinking eyes studied the man and the centaur. "It is forbidden."

Kamahl said, "Forbidden by whom? To whom?

"Forbidden by Thriss, Nantuko Master. Forbidden to all those beneath his sway."

"I am not beneath his sway," Kamahl said.

"We know. If you enter, you will be defying him."

Kamahl took a long breath. "I contain the power of the land. The mount is not too sacred for my feet."

The mantis shook his head slowly. "No. It is too profane."

"Profane?"

"Those who venture within become monsters. They stalk it even now. Any who pass this wall are killed by them or become monsters themselves."

Kamahl peered up through the passage. The shorn ends of dead stalks formed a weeping cave, unhealing. Kamahl could not keep his hand from straying to the wound in his belly. "I will go there. I will change these monsters into new forms. They will become defenders of the wood."

Even those merciless bug eyes showed surprise. "Defenders such as these?"

Kamahl did not look behind him. He didn't need to. Giant serpents, huge squirrels, toad men-of course his creatures would seem monstrous to this simple warrior, but these would be the saviors of the forest.

Kamahl said simply, "I must go."

"I cannot follow," rumbled Stonebrow.

His master shot him an angry look. "You agree with him?"

The centaur lifted one weighty eyebrow and gestured into the small passage. "No. Physically. I cannot follow."

"That's fine," Kamahl replied. "I go in alone and return with an army twofold." He ducked his head, gently brushed the mantis men aside, and stepped into the long passage. His century staff angled like a lance beside him.

It was a strange tunnel, a dead place in the midst of endless growth. The dry stalks were the color of sun-baked rocks, and they echoed Kamahl's footsteps. No breeze moved through the gap. Decay permeated the air.

At the far end of the passage, a gray and thorny light shone. Things moved there, massive, horrid things. A scaly leg flashed past, and then another-as if a giant lizard ran by. No sooner had its lashing tail disappeared than enormous bug legs pounded the ground. An abdomen with hissing spiracles eclipsed the light, and then the bug was gone. A reptilian wail told that it had caught its prey.

Kamahl neared the end of the tunnel, seeking the perfect forest within himself and its boundless power. He gripped the staff tightly in both hands, and motes of power scintillated along his arms. Three more steps, and Kamahl emerged.

A terrible beast crouched there-a monstrous mantis. It was the size of Stonebrow. Gone was the elegant slenderness of the insect folk. Bulky and brutal, the monster gorged on the lizard it had slain. While its mandibles ripped off scaly flesh, its haunches shuddered with violent transformation. A split began in its carapace, and fibers stretched and broke. All across its grotesque body, the outer skin failed. A worse beast, rumpled and wet, was emerging.

"Turn!" shouted Kamahl, his staff lifted high. "Turn, and be transformed."

The mantis lifted its triangular head from the gory corpse. Gore dripped from its mandibles. It seemed to consider its opponent. Rodlike legs shifted, and within splitting sheaths, muscles gathered. The creature leapt.

Kamahl stomped his foot, sending a jag of green energy down from his skull through his spine and legs and into the ground. It rooted him solidly. He swung his staff. It swept the legs of the charging mantis.

It stumbled but did not fall. The creature rammed him. Claws tore into his arms, and mouth plates bit into his head.

The wounds gushed not blood but power. It arced in a crown from Kamahl's head and jabbed into the monster's mouth. It rattled out of his pierced arms and into the creature's legs. Green transformation swept through the beast.

The splitting shell gave out entirely and sloughed to the ground. A slick and steaming creature emerged. Its head warped into a long, wolflike snout. The hairy thorax of the monster grew as deep as a barrel and blackened beneath thick carapace. The spiracles all down its abdomen widened into toothy mouths.

No, railed Kamahl, struggling to shape the magic he poured into the beast. No. Something pure… something good…

It was neither pure nor good. The creature's legs became barbed stalks with razor edges. Its antenna drooped and widened into a pair of lashing tongues. Its face began to boil.

No! You will be conformed to the new way of the forest. You will not be a monstrosity, but a noble beast.

Kamahl sent a new impulse surging into the creature. The glare of energy became blinding. In each violent flash, he saw a greater atrocity. The thing's eyes burst, its mouth drooled maggots to the ground, and its new shell split, oozing pink material.

No! You will be transformed.

The beast exploded. Its innards spewed until every plate shot free and spun in the air. The cracked exoskeleton slumped to the ground.

Kamahl fell back. Mouth parts still formed a coronet around his head. Little more remained of the creature. Gelatinous hunks shuddered across the thicket.

What had happened? Why had the transforming power failed?

"It did not fail," he muttered breathlessly. "It succeeded all too well."

In grief, Kamahl closed his eyes, and over the image of the monster he glimpsed the creature as it must have looked before becoming a monster.

The sentinel. This nantuko had been the druid sentinel beside the spirit well. She who had looked on his ascension with eyes of hope had been transformed horribly by the power he had awakened.

Kamahl lay there panting. He reached down to the perfect forest within him but found only a tangle that matched the Gorgon Mount. At last, the glory was gone from his eyes, and he saw this rampant growth truly. It was simply a cancer. What worse foe could a forest have?

Even as he knelt there, breathing raggedly, Kamahl knew he must withdraw and regain his strength. He could not advance i farther this evil night-perhaps not even in a fortnight. To recover, he would have to steal power from a dying forest, but in time he would return, whole and hale, to do what he must do.

Kamahl would descend to the Mirari sword, destroy it, and kill the cancer.

He will come soon. The First sent his thoughts down through the Mirari sword and into the heart of the wood. He has defeated your watcher, and once he has had time to heal, he will descend. He wishes to draw the sword. Do not allow it. Tell him what I have commanded of you. Convince him of what he must do…

Night lay deep on the Gorgon Mount as the First rose from the spirit well. Swathed in his death aura, the man was invisible. He floated upward and glimpsed Kamahl, sitting to one side and panting as if almost slain.

For a moment, the First considered killing him. No. That would only end all his best-laid schemes.

Setting his feet to ground beyond the mount, the First picked his way easily among the boughs. He had become a coconspira-tor with the cancerous wood. It opened a trail for him out of Krosan and toward distant Aphetto.

Soon Kamahl would be acting out the First's plans. A smile of glee lit the patriarch's face. Now he need only enlist one other barbarian. The First would fly upon the wings of darkness, across the desert and to the swamps. There he would acquire a barge crew, and pay a visit to Kamahl's other half.

Phage.