The Forest King

CHAPTER 10

The sea of grass thinned out as they approached the Thon-Tanjan, becoming isolated tufts of tall grass in a sea of stony loam. Tracks appeared in the bare soil, lots of them. Not an hour passed that the elves didn’t spy other wanderers entering the great bend of the river. Many were humans, mounted and on foot. Balif said that the people he saw walking concerned him more than the riders. Nomads traveled constantly, moving their families and herds wherever water and forage was best. No one in a nomad clan walked unless they were in dire straits. Humans on foot meant emigrants, settlers. They were looking for a place to stay. Speaker Silvanos would not tolerate them on land he claimed as his own. There would be war.

In addition to humans, they also saw centaur bands in the Tanjan bend. The Silvanesti had never had too much trouble from the horse-men. They were even more footloose than human nomads, and if they caused trouble, a few flights of griffon riders usually sufficed to drive them out. Balif confessed he had never seen centaurs in such numbers. While the humans seemed to be moving west to east, the centaurs were coming down from the north. After a full day of watching horse-men streaming south, Balif resolved to speak to them.

“Is that wise?” asked Artyrith. Even from a distance, it was easy to see the centaurs were armed.

“Nothing about this journey is wise,” Balif replied. He smiled wryly. “That’s why it will succeed. No one expects us to behave so foolishly.”

He took a moment to don his most impressive outfit, white silk robes with a cloak made of cloth of gold. At the general’s insistence, Mathi, Treskan, and Artyrith smartened up, though there was little the scribe or the orphan girl could do about their poor wardrobe. Tidied as best they could, they abandoned stealth and rode forth as if they were lords of all they surveyed.

It didn’t take long to make contact with the centaurs. They found a band of close to a hundred males trotting along the bank of a dry wash ravine. They were a swarthy breed, dark coated and dark skinned. Balif noticed that they wore a lot of seashell ornaments. That meant they were a coastal clan. Why were they so far inland?

The outriders spotted Balif’s party. It was hard not to, what with the general’s golden cape billowing in the wind. Centaurs broke off in small groups, fanning out on either side of the elves. Everyone but Balif watched their movements with concern. It looked very much as if they were being surrounded, and there was no Rufe in a blanket to distract a large party of dangerous opponents.

The main band of centaurs, forty strong, descended the ravine bank, crossed the dry bed, and climbed out, coming straight for Balif. At a strategic point atop a rocky outcropping, Balif halted. Artyrith and Treskan drew up one either side. Mathi halted behind him. She had to admire Balif’s presence. Sitting there on his horse, dressed like a great lord of Silvanost, he looked fit to command any situation.

Whooping and whistling, the centaurs made a ring around the trio. Mathi rubbed her sweaty palms together and tried not to stare at the array of weapons around her, stone axes, mauls, bent and dented swords taken from metal-making foes. The centaurs often carried two weapons at once, one for each hand. Their favorite tool was the one they had invented, a long-handled club of dark, dense wood with a ball-shaped head. Swung in wide circles by madly galloping centaurs, the knob could easily crack an elf skull wide open.

The centaurs jostled each other, making loud whistling sounds through their teeth. Visible over their heads were an array of totems, or standards, brandished by the chief’s champions. With some shoving and loud rebukes, the champions bulled their way through their comrades. The totems were poles fourteen feet high with crossbars lashed along their length. Important spiritual and magical artifacts were fastened to the crossbars: skulls of slain enemies, crystals, shells, bits of metal chain gleaned from a despoiled caravan, and odder things such as dried hornets’ nests or painted gobs of molded clay.

When the champions reached the front, they made a lane for their leader. A centaur chief was always the eldest male in the clan, and he was ancient. His hair and coat were dappled with white. His left rear leg dangled off the ground. The muscle had been cut in some long-ago fight, and upon healing it had shrunk so much that the chief’s hoof no longer touched the ground. In many barbarous societies, a damaged warrior might have been turned out and abandoned but not among the centaurs. They esteemed the wisdom-and cunning-of the aged.

The seashell centaurs were beardless, either by heredity or custom. When the chief emerged from the pack, he limped up to the splendidly dressed Balif.

“May the sun shine only on your back,” he said gruffly. His voice was low and raspy. Mathi saw why. He had a huge scar across his throat, an old one.

“My greetings to you, mighty Chief,” Balif replied. “You honor me with your words.”

“Sky-folk are alone?”

“We three are part of a larger company, sent here by my great lord, the Speaker of the Stars. In his name I greet you. I am Balif, son of Arnasmir Thraxenath, of the Greenrunners clan.”

The champions around the chief muttered and shifted. The general’s name was well known and carried weight even out there.

“You are welcome, son of Arnasmir, but I must ask, why are you here?”

“I came to see you, Chief.”

The old centaur blinked his liquid brown eyes. He put a thumb to his own chest.

“Yes. You are Greath, are you not?” Balif pronounced the centaur’s name to rhyme with teeth.

The centaur spread his hands. “Greath I am. Have you seen our faces before, sky-folk?”

“Never, mighty Chief, but even in the Speaker’s land we know the name of Greath.”

The ancient horse-man made a horrible face. He was smiling. Mathi saw his front teeth had been knocked out long past.

Having made the old chief smile, Balif went on. “Mighty One, my great lord, the Speaker of the Stars, hears grave things about this land, his land.” All three elves watched closely for signs of resistance to the claim. Greath was in such good humor, he let it pass.

“It has come to the ears of the Speaker that many folk from outside his realm have entered his land, to pass through and to live. Those who pass through go with the Speaker’s blessing. Those who settle on his land without his leave are not welcome and will face his displeasure.”

The warriors shook their knobkerries and dented swords. They were proud creatures, not easily intimidated. Greath let them grumble a bit then silenced them with a bob of his shaggy gray head.

“It is not the way of the Hok-nu to grow in place like trees,” he said, naming the centaur tribe. “We have left our place of wandering, the land of Vesh, to seek grazing for our families.” Vesh was the centaurs’ name for the great northern coast.

In spite of their ferocious appearance, centaurs were vegetarians. They lived off roots and shoots of trees and grasses, enlivened by fruit in season. They regarded cultivated crops as travesties of nature and would often burn gardens full of produce rather than eat such unnatural bounty.

“The land is your land, as the Great Speaker knows,” Balif said. “Those who pass through the Great Speaker’s land are not the Great Speaker’s enemies, but there are those who come to take that which belongs to the Speaker of the Stars.”

“Vay-peh.” That was centaur dialect for humans.

Balif nodded solemnly. “Not only vay-peh. The wander-folk too.”

Mention of the kender caused the assembled centaurs to grimace and prance. More than a few looked back over their broad backs, as if to find Rufe or the Longwalker skulking there.

Mathi had not seen such reaction in centaurs before. They were very bold in their emotions-love, fear, hate, joy-but that was new. At the mention of kender, the Hok-nu were disturbed.

“We have met them. They are troublesome,” Greath declared.

“Do you know where the little people come from?” Balif asked.

Greath pressed a palm to his forehead, the centaur equivalent of a shrug. “It is said they came out of a crack in the ground, like vermin from a wound. Nothing is a barrier to them, not water, not the brown land, not the high mountains of Khal.”

With much flowery language, Greath explained further that the kender had been seen lurking around for the past four seasons, but the summer brought a torrent of them. At first the centaurs had no problem with them, but lately the newly arrived little people had taken to pilfering the centaurs’ meager possessions. That they would not tolerate.

“Him, little man.” The old chief hiked his dusky thumb at a totem held behind him. Balif, Mathi, and Artyrith followed his finger and saw a small, white skull attached to the lowest crossbar. The forehead had been crushed by a knobkerrie.

Sensing he would learn no more from the centaurs, Balif presented Greath a gift, a brightly polished bronze knife with a gold hilt and a round beryl stone in the pommel. The old roughneck was greatly pleased.

“You are Greath’s friend!” he vowed. “The people of Balif are the friends of the Hok-nu!”

“It warms my heart to hear you say so, mighty Chief. I will tell my lord, the Speaker of the Stars, the passage of the Hok-nu into his land should not worry him. You will return to the coast by autumn?” Flipping the shiny blade back and forth, the centaur chief agreed. “Then I shall tell my great lord, the Speaker, to be easy in his mind about his friends the Hok-nu.”

The assembled centaurs gave Balif their version of a rousing cheer. They reared back on their hind legs, pawing the air with their front hoofs and ululating deep in their throats. It was an uncanny sound.

Greath galloped away surrounded by his standard-bearers. In orderly files the warriors followed until Balif and his companions were alone on their windy outcropping. Mathi suddenly realized she had been holding her breath. She let it out in a long sigh.

“Amazing,” said Artyrith. Mathi couldn’t remember so long a time the garrulous cook had remained silent. “They actually smell as badly as they look.”

“They are honorable folk,” Balif replied. “Far more so than most humans.” His handsome face appeared weighed down with sadness. “It grieves me to assist in their destruction.”

He admitted Speaker Silvanos would never allow centaurs, Hok-nu or not, to graze in his territory. Once Balif’s report reached him, he would summon the fearsome griffon riders of Silvanost to harry the horse-men out of the country.

Mathi said, “That is not just!”

“It is the Speaker’s will,” said Artyrith.

Balif watched the dust trails rising from the departing centaur horde. “The Speaker’s will can be shaped by what the Speaker knows.” He gripped his reins so hard the leather creaked. “Or does not know.”

They rode on to the ford. Because of the delay with the centaurs, they were unlikely to reach Savage Ford before dark, but Balif pressed on. With each mile, he rode a little faster, forcing the others to keep up. Treskan and Mathi, handicapped by the pack train, dropped back. The cook stayed with them, and together they watched Balif diminish in the distance as the gap between them widened.

Artyrith called to his master in vain. Annoyed, he reined up and watched Balif canter away. “What ails him?” he said, blotting sweat from his face with the back of one gloved hand.

“He pities for the centaurs,” Mathi suggested.

“They’re little better than beasts,” Artyrith replied. “Not fit company for our people!”

Inwardly Mathi wondered what Balif was up to. He felt bad about the centaurs’ future, no doubt, but he was not so emotional that he would let his anger or grief cause him to abandon the rest of his party. The three of them shared a quick drink-tepid water for Mathi, solid swallows of surplus Free Winds nectar for Treskan and Artyrith-and started after their wayward leader.

At least his path was easy to follow. Balif rode straight as an arrow through every clump of wire grass and scrub in his path. Then they found more troubling traces smeared on the foliage. Artyrith found blood on the leaves, still fresh enough to flow.

Artyrith rubbed the drops between his fingers. “This does not smell like elf blood,” he declared, puzzled.

“Is it from his horse?” asked the scribe.

It was not horse blood, either. Mathi yearned to sniff the traces herself. Her nose was keener than an elf’s, but she wasn’t prepared to answer the questions her prowess would raise.

Wrapping the reins around his fist, Artyrith urged his horse to a gallop. Mathi and Treskan had to follow as best they could, leading the stubborn pack ponies.

The bowl of the sky was blue streaked with crimson as the sun sank down to a well-earned rest. Wind was kicking up out of the north. A bank of dark clouds was building there, promising a wet night.

The terrain began to change rather quickly from uplands to riparian. Rocks and boulders dotted the landscape. Real trees reappeared for the first time since leaving the elves’ homeland.

Mathi’s pony stumbled into a draw and refused to climb the other side. Treskan started down after her. The pack-horses half tumbled in too and voiced their displeasure loudly. While the two tried to calm them, they heard another horse approaching fast. Treskan tried to draw his sword-it took three tugs to free it from its scabbard-and had only just gotten it out when a long-legged saddle horse hurtled around the bend in the draw, riderless. Mathi watched open mouthed as it passed. It was Balif’s horse. The saddle was torn to shreds and smeared with blood.

Hastily Treskan dismounted, tied the pack animals to a tree, and got back on his pony. Thumping his heels, he steered his horse after Balif’s fleeing mount. The general’s horse was almost out of sight. Mathi tried to get her blinkered pony to gallop, but the wise beast declined, shuffling off at an indifferent trot.

The wind picked up, driving in the storm from the north. The crimson sunset disappeared under a veil of clouds. The wind blowing down their backs was hot. Silent flashes of lightning threw the ground ahead into bright relief for an instant; then everything faded into the stormy dusk.

She rode a mile or more, blundering along the sandy bottom of the draw. Saplings and tree branches tore at her. Mathi had to throw an arm over her face to protect her eyes. Lightning flared again, followed by a growing hammer of thunder. By the flash she saw Treskan had caught Balif’s big horse up ahead. Mathi urged her mount on.

Her pony stumbled in a drift of sand, falling nose first. No equestrian, she was hurled headlong over the animal’s head and hit the ground. Something snapped loudly. Rolling head over heels down a short, steep bank, Mathi came to rest flat on her back. Her pony walked past, nickering loudly. It sounded as though the beast were laughing at her.

A dark figure on horseback loomed over her. “Are you all right?”

“I think my back’s broken,” Mathi answered. “I heard it snap.”

“Blink your eyes.”

Lightning snapped overhead. Mathi saw her interrogator was Lofotan. She bolted to her feet, exclaiming in surprise.

“No one with a broken back leaps around like that,” the old soldier said.

“The general’s horse! Did you see it?” asked Mathi.

Lofotan pointed. Off to his right, Treskan sat on his pony, holding the reins of Balif’s mount. It was shivering and foam flecked.

“Let’s find yours,” Lofotan said.

Together with Treskan they went up the draw and found Mathi’s pony cropping fronds. Returning to where the pony tripped, they spotted a fallen pine branch.

“There’s your back,” said Lofotan. Mathi had heard the limb snap and thought it was her back.

Mathi reclaimed her reluctant ride. It circled away from her, rearing more than a pony its size ever did.

“What’s the matter with the nag?” Artyrith shouted, coming over on foot. He seized the pony’s halter and held on. Eventually the disturbed creature calmed enough for Mathi to mount.

“Where’s General Balif?” she said.

Lofotan didn’t know. He was coming up the south bank of the Thon-Tanjan, looking for his comrades, when Artyrith appeared, riding like a madman after the general’s horse. Between the two of them, they cornered the terrified runaway, but still there was no sign of Balif.

They backtracked to the pack train. Everything was present except their leader. By the intermittent glare of lightning, they examined Balif’s horse.

The smooth leather saddle was scratched in long, parallel lines on either side of the seat. There were smears of blood on the saddle and on the horse. The quivering creature had a bad wound on the right side of its neck, four deep gashes side by side. It didn’t take eagle eyes to see they matched the scratches in the saddle.

“A predator must have attacked our lord, knocking him off his seat. It then mauled the horse before the horse got rid of it,” Lofotan said. “We’ll have to trace the trail back and find our lord.”

Artyrith strung his bow and hooked a full quiver on his belt. Lofotan armed himself with a spear of unusual style. It was shorter than a standard horse spear, with a thick shaft and a bronze crossbar set back about a hand’s span from the keen bronze head. When Mathi asked, Lofotan said it was a bear spear.

“Are there bears in this country?” Artyrith asked, but Lofotan let the cook’s question go unanswered.

Mathi remembered the phantom she had seen at Free Winds. The creature Lofotan expected to find was no bear. Another one of Vedvedsica’s children had trailed them from the outpost and struck when Balif was alone and vulnerable. Inwardly she shook with anger. Or was it relief? If the traitor Balif was dead, her task was finished, even if it did mean her effort had come to naught.

Rain began to fall in big drops. Lofotan ordered them all to stay behind with the baggage. Treskan and Artyrith erected the tent and picketed the pack team to some surrounding trees. Artyrith laid a fire in the entrance of the tent, angling the canvas flaps to protect the flames from rain and wind.

“Keep it burning and stay awake,” Lofotan warned. “Whatever attacked our lord may still be out there. Do you have a weapon?” Mathi and the scribe had their swords; that was all. “You’d be mauled to pieces by the time you got a chance to stick it with that.” He gave the scribe a standard spear.

“That will keep the beast a little further away,” he said.

The old warrior and the cook rode off just as the rain started lashing down in earnest. Mathi and Treskan huddled by the fire, the spear laid across his knees. The scribe got out his writing board and recorded the day’s events.

Mathi asked him what he wrote. He read his last lines aloud:

We have arrived at the Thon-Tanjan at last, but our leader is missing. From the evidence, it appears one of the beast-creatures has attacked Camaxilas, either killing him or carrying him off. It hardly seems possible, slain by an animal transformed to resemble an elf. It does not seem just that he should pass out of Silvanesti, only to perish in the wilderness like this …

Mathi looked up. Rain was coming down in torrents. The horses huddled together, starting noisily when lightning flashed or thunder boomed.

Still, Treskan read, if Camaxilas has survived the attack, where is he?

A fat drop of water landed squarely in the center of Treskan’s words. The ink ran, ruining the empty space below the scribe’s previous lines. He tried to blot it dry, putting his spear aside to better reach the page. At that exact moment, the creature that had stalked them all the way from Free Winds landed on all fours between them.

Treskan was speechless with terror. The sodden creature was a mass of matted, dripping fur. By firelight Mathi could see its dark eyes veined with red and a hint of fang protruding from its black lips. It squatted on its haunches, leaning forward on its front claws. Breath steamed from its pug nose.

Treskan’s hands closed around the spear shaft. His movement was too obvious. The creature bared a black lip, snarling.

“Don’t,” whispered Mathi. Another breath in the wrong direction, and the thing would tear the scribe to bits.

“What can we do?” said Treskan in the faintest voice.

“Listen to me,” she said to the monstrous visitor. “Begone now. Run away before the elves return and slay you. You have no reason to be here. What you want, who you want, is well watched.”

Treskan stared.

Mathi ignored him and went on. “He’s not an elf anyway.” To the scribe she said, “Hold out your hand.”

“What?”

“Hold out your hand to him. Let him smell you!”

“Are you insane?”

“Do it or die!”

Trembling, Treskan put out his left hand. He never got it closer than half an arm’s length, but the black nostrils flexed deeply. Slowly the creature uncoiled itself, withdrawing from Treskan’s imminent death.

“Go now. Seek out the others. They will tell you what is happening. Do you understand? Your being here violates our covenant with the Creator. Go!”

An arrow whizzed out of the darkness and struck the ground, quivering, by Mathi’s right knee. The creature sprang away, snarling. Mathi snapped to one side, and Treskan rolled the other way. She saw the creature running away into the stormy night. A spear flew in a heavy arc and hit the ground behind the fleeing beast, not even tangling its feet. In a moment it was gone, though a silent blink of lightning highlighted it as it loped off into the storm.

Artyrith and Lofotan appeared.

“Which way did it go?” shouted the cook.

Shaken, Mathi pointed in the true direction. “There! Next time don’t miss, my lord!”

“I didn’t miss. I was only trying to drive him off. If I hit him, he might have torn you limb from limb.” Lofotan rode off after the creature.

“Any sign of the general?” said Treskan.

“None.” Artyrith was grim. He took a long swig of nectar. “We couldn’t find a trace! We did locate the spot the creature jumped on his horse, but there was no sign our lord fell off or was carried away!”

Crash! Thunder put emphasis to the cook’s words.

“What shall we do?”

“It’s pointless to hunt in a storm,” Artyrith said. “We can’t see, and we can’t smell anything but rain!”

“What’s Lofotan doing, then?”

The cook was almost respectful. “He won’t give up. He’ll ride through the storm until he finds Balif or kills the beast-maybe both.” He sighed wearily. “I had better join him. He’ll never let me hear the end of it if I don’t!”

Alone again, Mathi and Treskan sat together by the struggling fire. Much had been revealed between them in the brief, tense moments when they faced the beast.

“You are not an elf,” he said after a long silence.

“Neither are you. Why are you here?”

“I cannot say. You must trust that my presence is totally benign. I mean no harm to you, the general, or anyone. I am a scholar on a mission of learning,” said Treskan. When Mathi did not reply in kind, he said, “And you? You are one of those beast creatures.” Still she said nothing. “More presentable, more civilized, I see, but still one of them.”

“Civilized? Civilized?” She laughed bitterly. In her dark mirth, Mathi leaned forward quite far. The odd necklace Rufe had left on her swung free of her rain-soaked gown.

“My talisman!”

Treskan’s hand darted out to snatch the little artifact. Faster by far, Mathi caught his wrist first.

“Yours? How do I know that?”

“I brought it with me from my homeland. I must have it back!”

Mathi closed her free hand around it. “The little man, Rufe, took it from you and gave it to me. I don’t know why.” She pulled the string over her head and gave the talisman to Treskan. He looked vastly relieved to have it back.

“Is it magic?”

“You could say that. It’s worth more than my life.”

She caught his hand holding the talisman in both of hers. “Then swear to me on your precious artifact you will not reveal me to the others. I will swear the same for you.”

Treskan hesitated only briefly. He clasped his free hand around hers.

The storm blew itself out after midnight. Stars winked in one by one until their usual millions were displayed. The scribe and the orphan girl passed the night awake, saying little, wondering who would return to them-Lofotan, Artyrith, Balif, or the indestructible beast that was haunting their steps.