The Assassin King

43

If Melisande had not seen two hundred foresters mount up and ride into the woods around her, followed immediately by another five hundred on foot who disappeared into the great forest behind them, she never would have known that she and Gavin were anything but utterly alone on their journey. The mounted men who had accompanied them from the Circle for the last several weeks had taken off in two cardinal directions upon crossing the Tar’afel River, riding north and west with the rising sun behind them to the outermost edges of the lands of the dragon. The Invoker had explained to her that only the scouts assigned to the farthest reaches would continue to ride; foresters could move far more quickly and quietly on foot than on horseback when traveling through the heavy glades of virgin wood such as those that comprised the lands of Elynsynos. His face had no hint of a smile as he fur- her explained that foresters would not wish to tempt a dragon with horse meat unless the distance made it necessary. The young Lady Navarne had listened to his explanation from atop her own mount, a thick-bodied forest mare with gray dappling. “Why are we mounted, then, if it is more easily done on foot?” she had asked. The bearded Filidic leader had smiled. “Do you fancy yourself a forester, then, Lady Melisande Navarne, as well as all your other accomplishments?” He turned away quickly as her face changed color, but the gentleness of his tone left her vanity intact even as she choked on her own foolishness.

As soon as Gavin’s contingent was out of sight, the Invoker mounted his own horse, a Lirin roan that had been given to him by the border guards of Tyrian in tribute, took hold of her mare’s reins, and rode smoothly into the greenwood. Melisande clung to the mare’s bridle at first, but soon discovered that the Invoker’s quiet vocal cues led the horses easily around deadfall and the deeper pits in the mossy floor of the forest, ensuring a reasonably stable ride. They traveled northwest in silence, following the path of the sun that gleamed through the budding leaves of the ancient forest, casting lacy shadows on the ground before them. Melisande struggled to stay awake in the saddle; the exhaustion of her ordeal was compounded by a dreamy lulling sensation that surrounded her thickly the deeper they traveled into the greenwood. Her eyelids grew heavier as the sun made its way down the vault of the sky, and by dusk she had drifted off to sleep, jostled awake only for a few seconds at a time, and only by the most egregious of bumps. She surrendered to the sensation of riding the spinning world, helpless in the force of its turning, and let her chin come to rest on her chest. For the most part she was able to doze, led by Gavin’s skilled hand and the horse’s gentle canter. She was dreaming of her mother, or at least a woman who looked like the painting of her mother over the fireplace in her father’s library, when she felt the world stop spinning around her. Melisande was startled awake; the light was gone from the sky, leaving nothing but the faintest hint of aquamarine peeking through the trees to the west, while clouds sped through the darkening canopy above her.

She looked around for the Invoker, and spied his horse a few feet beyond her own, but the saddle of the roan was empty.

“Gavin?” she called softly, her voice trembling a little.

A gentle birdcall that blended in with the night sounds of the forest answered her. Melisande knew immediately it was the response of the Invoker, and was reassured, but still she leaned forward in the saddle and peered into the growing forest shadows, trying to find him. The Invoker stepped out of the darkness behind the horse, “You really have a terrible sense of direction, Lady Melisande Navarne,” he said pleasantly. He extended his hand to help her down from her mount.

“Are we stopping here for the night?” Melisande asked.

“A little farther north, about a hundred paces. There’s a spring-fed fairy pond there where the horses can drink.”

Melisande nodded and took hold of her horse’s lead, preparing to follow Gavin. In the distance, a mournful howl rose on the wind, a high, dark whine that held steady for a moment, then undulated down the scale into silence.

The hair on the back of the little girl’s neck was suddenly damp as cold chills ran through her body. She stiffened, just as the horse she was leading did.

Gavin did not turn around. “Don’t panic,” he said quietly. “Keep walking, and stay behind me.” A chorus like animal voices took flight on the wind, whining in discordant unison in reply. They seemed closer than the first, or at least louder. “Wolves?” Melisande whispered. She had heard dark tales of the beasts from her nanny, and from listening to the servants talking among themselves in the buttery in hushed tones, long after she was supposed to have been to bed.

In front of her, she could hear the Invoker chuckle.

“Nothing so dramatic,” he replied, his voice still soft, but stronger now. “Coyotes. Perhaps wild dogs, or half-breeds.”

“Aren’t they the same thing?”

“Hardly. A wolf alone will seldom bother a human, but in packs they are fierce, because they have a strong hierarchy and a sense of community. Alone, surrounded by wolves, you would be in great peril. Coyotes are cowards for the most part, carrion feeders with no real organization, smaller and weaker, preying on rabbits and moles and eating that which larger predators leave behind. With a walking stick, and an adult who has one, you will be fine. Fear not, Lady Melisande Navarne.” The Invoker came to a stop beside a small forest pond, black and deep with the beginnings of water lilies fringing its edges. “Take down your bedroll while I start the fire,” he directed as the horses stepped forward and bent to drink. Melisande, suddenly thirsty, followed their lead and dipped her hand in the water, raising it to her lips, but Gavin shook his head. “I’d advise against that if you don’t want to swallow a mouthful of frog eggs or, even better, tadpoles.” He snorted in amusement as the little girl leapt away in revulsion, spitting and wringing her hand. “Why do they call this a fairy pond?” she asked, curiosity replacing disgust, as she unrolled the thick blanket on the mossy ground.

The Invoker was bent over, assembling their campfire.

“I don’t know,” he said. “That’s just what a small, spring-fed pond is called, I guess. I never really asked.” Melisande sat down on her outstretched bedroll. “You don’t know? You’re the Invoker of the Filids, the head nature priest in all the world, and the guardian of all the holy forests, aren’t you? I thought you were supposed to know about fairies and nature spirits and all those magical things. If you don’t know, who on earth would you have asked?”

“Vingka,” the Invoker said to the small bundle of sticks and dry grass. The wood ignited, snapping into flame. Gavin turned back to the girl, whose eyes were wide, and regarded her thoughtfully. “Now, that’s a good question,” he admitted. “I don’t really know. I suppose I could have asked Llauron if I had thought of it, but alas, there was not time. I didn’t serve as his Tanist, so I did not have much time to learn the lore of the Invoker from him.”

Melisande uncapped her waterskin. “Have you ever seen fairies at a fairy pond?” she asked before she took a drink. The Invoker shook his head. “I’m not certain they exist anymore, though I am told by ancient Cymrians who I respect that they once were real, long ago, before the death of magic in the world.” Melisande took another sip, then dried off her lips and recapped the skin. “I’d hardly say that magic is dead, given that you and Rhapsody can say a single word and make wood burst into flame.”

Gavin shook his head again. “Some people might call that magic, I suppose, but really it’s elemental lore, power left over from the creation of the world,” he said seriously. “Magic was more complex. It was formed from elemental lore, but it needed a certain atmosphere in which to survive. When the sister of the Great White Tree, the ancient oak known as Sagia, was destroyed along with the Island of Serendair, where both our ancestors came from, it took a good deal of the magic out of the world, Lady Melisande Navarne. The world’s a darker place than it used to be, and growing dimmer all the time.” He regarded the child in the shadows of the flames. “But after what you’ve been through in your life, I don’t suppose I have to tell you that.” Melisande inhaled, then let her breath out slowly, considering. “My father didn’t believe that,” she said finally. “He believed in fairies, and magic, and honor and chivalry, and that you could hang on to the ideals of better times in history, and if you did, they would one day come back. I think that’s why he kept the Cymrian Museum so carefully. I used to help him polish the statues and clean the exhibits, and he would tell me of the grand times of the Luminaria, the age of Enlightenment, when the Cymrians were building great cities and cathedrals, and making advances in science and music and literature. He felt that if we maintained the memory of those times, we could recapture them someday.”

Gavin leaned back against a tree as the horses moved away from the pond. “Your father was a great man, Lady Melisande Navarne,” he said quietly, without a hint of sarcasm. “May he rest peacefully beyond the Veil.”

Another chorus of primal howls broke the stillness, much closer than before. Melisande skittered away from the fire as the Invoker rose, in one smooth, quick movement, to a stand. “Mount your horse,” Gavin said, taking the mare’s lead and holding her steady. Melisande complied, fumbling for the horn of the saddle, with a quick boost from the Invoker. He handed her his staff. “Hold on to this—you won’t need it, but it will make you feel better.” Then he turned and walked away from the fire. The shadows seemed to open and swallow him. Melisande waited atop the mare, nervously gripping the staff. Well, she thought ruefully, you wanted responsibility and adventure, stupid. How do you like it? She glanced around the forest glen where Gavin had made camp, at what appeared to be glittering eyes watching her from the dark recesses beyond the edge of the firelight.

Another brief howl was suddenly cut short, and in the distance she could hear the muffled sounds of cracking branches and the rustle of leaves, louder than what the wind was making. The moon broke through the clouds above the forest canopy, spilling silver light over the dark trees, making them shine eerily, their still-bare arms twisting menacingly in the dark. Melisande swallowed the impetus to call out for the Invoker again, and waited. The wind whispered across the glen, fluttering the grass and the newborn leaves, making the fire crackle and wink.

The Invoker appeared at last at the far edge of the glade. As always, he had made no sound in passing, but his face was grim and his body tenser than it had been when he left. “What’s wrong?” Melisande asked; her voice came out in a choked whisper. “Where did the coyotes go?” The Invoker came back into the circle of firelight. “I drove them off,” he said. “But I think we will move on from this place just the same.”

“Why? If they’re gone, why don’t we just wait until morning?”

Gavin exhaled. “The second set of howls you heard was the pack warning each other of our presence,” he said seriously. “The first was a call to food. They were feasting on the remains of what appears to be a woman; it’s hard to tell. She’s unrecognizable.”

The backs of Melisande’s ears tingled numbly.

“I thought you said coyotes don’t generally harm people, especially full-grown ones.”

“They don’t,” said the Invoker. “I do not believe they killed her. Strange—even the foresters who travel the holy forest of Gwynwood south of here would never broach these lands. I wonder what a woman was doing here, in this place that has been sacrosanct from the beginning of history.”

“Oh, no,” Melisande whispered. “Oh, no.” The Invoker lowered his chin and stared at her. “I—I forgot something Rhapsody told me to convey to you.”

“What is that?” Melisande fought back tears. “She said I was to tell you that the foresters should comb the woods for a lost Firbolg midwife named Krinsel, and should they come upon her, they were to accord her both respect and safe passage back to the guarded caravan to Ylorc. But I—I forgot, in all the commotion.” She began to tremble so violently that Gavin reached quickly up and pulled her down from the mare, who was starting to dance impatiently in place. “It’s all right,” he said soothingly, or at least an approximation of an attempt at comfort. “You’ve told me now. We’ll keep watch for her on the way to the dragon’s lair.”

“But what if the foresters who set out first came upon Krinsel and killed her, not knowing she was supposed to be left unharmed?” Melisande persisted.

“Foresters are trained to accompany and guard wanderers, not kill them, unless they are threatened,” the Invoker said. “Had they found a Bolg woman, lost in the woods, they would have reported it to me, and taken her back to the Circle. And they would not have left a body for carrion in any case; it’s against Filidic practice. She would have been burned. I don’t know what happened to this woman, if she in fact is your lost Bolg midwife, but I do know that whether you had told me at the outset or not, it would not have dissuaded Fate if she was to meet it. Stop looking for reasons to be worried, Lady Melisande Navarne. You will have more than enough of them when we get within a few miles of the dragon’s cave. Now come; there’s a thicket up ahead where we can pass the night in safety and a semblance of calm, if not peace.” The little girl nodded, and allowed the forester to lead her away from the fairy pond, the dark waters of which reflected back the racing clouds passing in front of the shimmering moon.