The Forest King

CHAPTER 14

Together Mathi and Treskan got their horses from the picket. Mathi prepared to saddle hers, but Rufe insisted they not take the time. A rough blanket and a rawhide halter would do, he said. The kender sat in front of her, and together the trio trotted off into the twilight. On the way Rufe explained his plan to get the talisman back. Upon hearing it Mathi hauled back on the reins and stopped.

“That’s the maddest thing I ever heard!”

“Oh, I’ve heard plenty of madder things,” Rufe replied cheerfully. “Trust me, boss. I know how this goes. Do it my way and all will be well.” Treskan was speechless with astonishment.

I must be mad to even contemplate this, Mathi thought. Putting my fate in the hands of this kender, this criminal gang of one … when that phrase came to mind, she brightened. Rufe was a gang of one. He had reduced the garrison of Free Winds to impotence all by himself. Maybe there was some crazy logic to his scheme after all.

They rode many miles under cloud-swept skies, galloping then walking, galloping then walking. After three repetitions of that pattern, Rufe grabbed the reins from Mathi.

“Now we walk, quiet as can be,” he whispered.

They had left the woods long before, dashing across the windy, open grassland northeast of the forest. It was a high, flat plateau, higher than the Tanjan valley or the old forest. The glow of many campfires dotted the horizon. Rufe, Treskan, and Mathi got down and started for the distant nomad camp, leading their ponies by their halters.

Though he had called for quiet, Rufe chattered on about humans and elves, ways to confound either, and what worked with one group but not the other. Humans, he said, were always fooled by boldness. If they thought it was impossible to walk out of a gate unseen, then the way to confound them was to walk out that very gate. He had walked in and out of the nomad camp unmolested simply by skipping along and singing off key. The nomads who saw him took him for a human child and did not bother him.

Elves, on the other hand, readily succumbed to subtlety. With their greater senses, they believed they could not be surprised by stealth, so Rufe always resorted to stealth to deceive elves. At Free Winds Rufe came and went from the fortress at will by clinging to the backs of the guards, often hidden under their cloaks. By such simple methods, he reduced Dolanath to hysteria and had his run of the place.

Mathi listened with half an ear. The rest of her was alive to her surroundings. She was no scout trained to creep up on hostile camps, so she relied on her native skills long buried beneath a shell of elflike flesh. The shell was slowly eroding, and the night took on new dimensions as she walked. Sounds and smells were stronger than ever. Subtle changes in cloud colors meant things to her she had forgotten. Every step, every breath, every beat of her heart held meaning. Mathi had lost those sensations, but they were creeping back. She wondered if they would bring her to life or reduce her to madness.

Listening to the kender’s lecture, Treskan asked, “Have you always been a thief?”

“Thief?” Rufe stopped dead. “I beg your pardon! I’m no thief, no sir, not me!”

“Shh, please! Lower your voice!”

“I won’t be called a thief by anyone!” said Rufe shrilly.

“All right! I apologize! Now lower your voice before the nomads hear us!”

Rufe stamped his small foot. “Thieves take things for their own gain. They make their living stealing the property of others. I’ve never done that, no sir, not ever! Anyone who says I have done so had better be prepared to deal with Rufus Reindeer Racket Wrinklecap!”

“You do know an awful lot about how to deceive gullible people,” Mathi said, trying to divert the little man’s ire.

“That’s different,” he returned proudly. “A lone traveler like me wouldn’t last a week in the wide world unless I took advantage of the quirks of my fellow creatures.”

They went on, Treskan chewing his lip, Mathi absorbing the expanded world around her, and Rufe fuming about the scribe’s infuriating slander. When they were close enough to make out individual tents in the nomad camp, they halted again. It was time to enact Rufe’s plan.

Mathi and the scribe dragged the blankets off their ponies. He pulled two corners of his over his shoulders like an oversized cloak and tied the corners to his sash. Leaning forward, he braced his hands on his knees. Rufe explained where he intended to go. Mathi promised to cut his throat if he tried to do that to her. Shrugging, Rufe wormed his way under Treskan’s tunic instead. He braced his feet against the edges of the blanket and held his face averted so his nose didn’t protrude from the scribe’s clothing. With the laces of the scribe’s tunic drawn tight, only the top of the kender’s head showed. In poor light it could be taken for part of a fur vest, a garment much favored by the nomads.

Treskan straightened up, but staggered under the kender’s weight. “This will never work,” he grunted.

“It will if you make it work,” said the kender’s muffled voice.

Mathi stuffed tufts of grass inside his clothing to round out his profile. With Rufe inside, he looked rotund indeed. He wrapped a scarf around his head to hide his elf ears. Mathi tied the horse blanket around her shoulders too, making a sort of turban to cover her fine hair and ears. At Rufe’s muffled urging, she used a charred stick salvaged from the campfire to blacken hers and Treskan’s faces. Nomad warriors were famously dirty, so there was no point trying to pose as them if their faces were too clean.

Mathi tied the ponies to a stake thrust in the turf. Carrying the concealed kender, Treskan lumbered toward the camp. Mathi followed, breaking her step so as not to outpace the burdened scribe.

The border of the camp was well marked by a hedge of sharp spears. Each nomad carried a bundle of them on his horse, and every night they were combined to form a defense for the camp. They were no deterrent to visitors on foot, and even with the kender, Treskan managed to slip between the sharp points. Behind the barrier the nomads had mown down the grass with scythes to provide both fodder for their horses and a clear lane to spot intruders. Mathi was surprised by the sophistication of their defenses. When she had been captured before in the hills, the nomads’ camp did not have so elaborate a system of protection.

She passed stands of ready weapons-spears and poleaxes mostly-and came upon the outer line of tents. Treskan whispered to Rufe for directions. Peering out through the lacings of the scribe’s shirt, Rufe said, “Right.”

They tramped along a darkened line of horsehair tents built in the round style of the northern plains. It was not very late, but many nomads were sleeping, as evidenced by the great amount of snoring they heard. Mathi was behind the scribe, guarding his back. Treskan was watching his feet closely as it was hard to see where they were falling with the bulk of a concealed kender in the way. Thus he did not see the large warrior standing with his back to him. Man and kender blundered right into the nomad.

“Get off!” the man growled. He was watering the grass.

To his horror Mathi and Treskan heard Rufe snap back, “Out of my way, oak tree.”

The hulking figure turned slowly around. He was a head taller than Treskan, with a beard like a raging flame.

“Men who speak to me like that don’t live long.”

“Not if you breathe on ’em,” said Rufe.

Treskan gasped and thumped the kender through his tunic. The warrior drew a short, wide sword and displayed it under the scribe’s nose.

“Got a cough, have you? I’ve got the cure!”

“Begging your pardon,” Treskan said between gasps. He shoved the heel of his hand into Rufe’s mouth to stifle him. The kender promptly bit him.

Wincing, he sidled past the warrior’s butcher blade. “Too many strange victuals,” he muttered, keeping up his phony cough. Mathi kept her face averted and darted after him.

Red Beard sheathed his sword. “The only strange one here is you, lard bucket.”

Rufe struggled to deliver a stinging reply. Treskan clamped both hands over the hidden kender’s face and hurried on.

“Are you trying to get us murdered?” he demanded.

“Tuh! Big bullies haven’t the tongue for taunting,” Rufe said.

“It’s not their tongues I fear. Now shut up, or you’ll be eating pancakes through a sliced gullet!”

They circled halfway around the sizable camp until Rufe recognized a group of tents. He dug an elbow in Treskan’s ribs. They had arrived at their destination.

At first Mathi imagined they would have to creep into some dark tent and make off with the talisman. That was not what Rufe had in mind. They got down on all fours and crawled through a closed hide flap. Beyond the leather door, a fat lamp burned, barely lighting the interior but also making it stifling hot. Five nomads, dressed in leather jerkins, sat in a circle around the lamp.

Mathi’s heart sank. She gauged how likely it would be that they could back out without being challenged, but Rufe piped up in a deliberately gruff voice, “Is there a game goin’?”

Mathi recognized the nomad named Vollman. “It is,” he grunted.

From inside Treskan’s tunic the kender jangled a purse. “Room for another?”

“Always room for losers,” said Vollman. The others grinned wolfishly, but none of them looked very close at the newcomers. Treskan and Mathi crawled into a spot between Vollman and a sandy-haired nomad. It was fiendishly hot in the tent. It also stank. The nomads had acquired many traits of civilization, but bathing wasn’t one of them. Mathi swallowed hard.

“The wager is six,” said the black-headed warrior sitting across from Vollman. He shook a dry gourd and dumped the contents on the ground in front of his crossed legs. Five square tokens fell out. They were white, made of bone or stone, and one side of each was blackened with soot. The warrior’s cast showed four black faces and one white. Vollman cursed.

Mathi didn’t know the game. They were gambling, but she hadn’t the faintest idea how to play. She kept her chin tucked in low so that no one would notice her slender, female features. Treskan, for better or worse, let Rufe do his talking. Fortunately, the light was so poor that no one noticed his strange shape. He could have been an ogre, and the men huddled around the sputtering lamp would not have recognized him.

“I’ll take one.”

“Hard odds. What do you wager?” said Vollman.

Rufe slipped his hand into the top of Mathi’s sleeve and dropped something small and hard. It rolled out in the scribe’s palm: a nice bit of beryl, deep red and unpolished, a desirable stone.

The other men eyed the wager appreciatively. They were betting metal mostly-bronze knives, earrings, copper bangles, all looted from unfortunate victims in the path of Bulnac’s raiders. One man took back his wager, a poorly made copper cloak frog. The rest left theirs where they lay.

The black-haired warrior scooped up the tiles in the gourd and passed them to Treskan. “One, two, three, dump, that’s how to do it,” Rufe said in a sing-song voice. He was telling his clueless partner how to proceed while trying to sound like he was reciting a gambler’s lucky chant.

Treskan imitated what he saw. He rotated the gourd in a circle three times, then dumped it upside down in front of him. When he lifted the cup away, one black side and four white showed. Everyone grunted with surprise.

“What do you know, a win first off,” Rufe said. Treskan raked in his winnings. He didn’t yet understand the game, but his little companion did.

“Go again,” said the blond warrior beside him. Treskan gathered in the tiles. From under his chin Rufe growled, “Three.”

“Easy bet. What do you hazard?”

More stones trickled down the scribe’s sleeve. Rough emeralds! Treskan was as startled as everyone else when they rolled out in the dirt.

Three men took their bets back. Only Vollman and a nomad with an empty eye socket remained in. One-Eye put down a nice dirk with an embossed silver handle. Vollman wagered four golden bangles.

“Them real gold?” Rufe asked.

“Yeah. Want to test them?” He held the bangles out for Treskan to try with his teeth. Since he didn’t know the hardness of gold from a chicken bone, he waved them off.

“Point is five,” Rufe announced. The two betting nomads grinned. Mathi assumed that was a hard point to make. He shook the gourd three times then upturned it: all black.

One-Eye cursed. Vollman stared hard at Treskan then at the tiles. He picked them up, rubbing each one between his thumb and forefinger.

“What’s the matter? Got an itch?”

Mathi didn’t dare punch the kender while sitting in front of so many witnesses, but she dearly wanted to.

“New tiles,” said Vollman. A nomad with silver beads woven into his scalp lock tossed a small leather bag to his host. Vollman poured them out. There were five tiles, red on one side, white on the other. They were slightly bigger than the previous playing pieces.

“Lemme see those in the light.” Treskan picked up one as Rufe indicated and held it up at arm’s length. To his amazement, Rufe snaked his little arm down Treskan’s sleeve and took the red and white tile. Close beside them, Mathi bit her lip to keep from gasping. Treskan kept his palm cupped so that no one could see what happened. He was sweating from the heat and from pure fear. If the nomads caught Rufe cheating, they would surely die for it.

To his relief the kender returned the tile to his hand.

“My toss still?” growled Rufe. Vollman nodded.

A minor trove of gemstones cascaded down Treskan’s sleeve. Garnets, beryl stones, tourmalines, and a trio of big, uncut rubies littered the ground.

“Too much?” Rufe taunted the gawking nomads.

Vollman dug through the collar of his deerskin shirt and brought out a small leather bag. “This is all I got.” He poured out his poke. Amid the rings, bangles, and the odd gold tooth lay the desired talisman.

“That’ll do. You toss,” Rufe said. Mathi passed the gourd and tiles to the nomad. That pleased him. After all, how could the fat stranger cheat if he was throwing the tiles himself?

“Your call,” he reminded Treskan/Rufe.

“One,” said the kender.

No one said a word as Vollman shook and tossed the dried cup. With a flourish, the warrior upturned the gourd in the dirt. He held his hand there, not removing the cup.

“Well, what are ya waiting for?” said Rufe.

He snatched back the gourd. One. Rufe had gotten the talisman back and a lot more besides.

Vollman drew a dagger from the small of his back. “No one makes four hits in a row-not unless they’re cheating!”

Frightened, Treskan forgot to stop the kender’s mouth. Rufe replied, “I ain’t lucky and I ain’t a cheater. I am loved by fate; that’s all.”

“Your fate, fat pig, is to die tonight!” The dagger came up under the scribe’s chin.

Rufe squirmed under his shirt. Mathi thought he was coming out to run for it. The sensation of the little man scrambling against his ribs and stomach proved too much for Treskan. He laughed.

“Funny, am I? Let’s see how much you laugh with a cut throat!”

At that, Rufe pushed his head through Treskan’s lacings. His cheeks were bulging. The nomads seated across from them recoiled, unsure of what they were seeing. Before Vollman could strike, Rufe spewed a stream of liquid onto the lamp. It exploded.

A ball of fire gushed upward. The flash dazzled everyone’s eyes, including Mathi’s. Rufe’s arm snaked out and grabbed Vollman’s booty. “Now go!” he cried, kicking backward into Treskan’s ribs.

Mathi lashed out, upsetting the lamp. Burning oil splashed on men’s laps and in the dirt. The dry hide tent quickly caught fire. Players were bailing out as fast as they could in every direction, slapping out the flames licking their clothes. Vollman’s sleeves were on fire. Roaring, he rolled on the ground to put them out. In the chaos Treskan crawled away on all fours until Rufe wriggled free.

The kender and Mathi hoisted the scribe to his feet. “Up now and run!”

He did and the kender leaped on his back. The tent blazed and everyone fled. In the general uproar, no one paid any attention to them. Once away from the conflagration, Treskan and Mathi assumed a calmer manner and walked carefully to the fence of stakes. En route Treskan brushed by the red-bearded nomad he’d bumped into on the way in. Without Rufe under his shirt he no longer resembled an obese nomad.

“What’s the row?” exclaimed Red Beard.

“Fire,” Treskan said in his own voice. He made sure he faced the nomad, hiding the kender clinging to his back. “See?”

The hulking warrior hurried to the blaze. Mathi and Treskan hurried too, in the opposite direction. They didn’t stop running until they reached their ponies still staked and undisturbed. Rufe let himself down from the scribe’s back.

The glow of firelight for the camp was brighter than before. Mathi threw the blanket over the pony, wondering aloud if the whole camp would burn down.

“Nah,” said Rufe. “Just six tents.”

“How do you know it will be six?”

“I know.” He tapped his high forehead with two fingers. “Want to bet how many?”

Neither one of them was willing to take him up on it. They had seen enough of the kender’s prowess at gambling.

“What was that you spit on the lamp?” Mathi asked, climbing onto her horse. She held out a hand to the kender.

“Oil.” Rufe carried a small vial of oil on a loop of cord around his neck.

“Why do you carry that?” Treskan asked.

“Tastes good on greens,” he replied.

They rode off quietly, keeping to low ground to avoid being seen by nomad sentries. Treskan clutched the returned talisman in his hand as if his life depended on having it.

“All good, boss?”

“Well done, friend Rufus.”

“You are a dangerous fellow, do you know that?” said Mathi.

“I’m just gettin’ by. So when do I get my pancakes?”

Relieved like an unwound spring, Treskan nodded on his pony. The sturdy beast plodded ahead with a slack hand on the reins. Somewhere along the way, Rufe had left her, for when the moons rose early after midnight Mathi, discovered she and Treskan were alone. She had no idea when Rufe got off or where he went.

She let Treskan’s mount draw ahead. When she was sure he was asleep, she took a wide roll of birch bark from inside her gown. By the moons’ light she scrawled in her childish hand the message she hoped her brethren would find. It read: sPEll ON BALLIF/ ChANgINg LIkE us / kEEP tO PlAN?

Mathi rolled it up and tied it with a strip of rawhide that she had chewed until it was pliable. The crude scroll she tucked under her arm for a mile or so until her body warmed it. Then she dropped it in the waving grass. Her brethren searched by scent, and if they found her note, they would know it was from her by the smell. If they found it. If they were following her still.

The forest edge was just a few yards ahead, looking like a black wall. Treskan’s pony had halted, head down, staring at the impenetrable gloom. Mathi’s did likewise.

The scribe stirred at the sudden loss of motion. “Where are we?” he asked thickly. She didn’t answer, but he saw the trees and knew anyway.

“’S all right,” he said, climbing off the pony and patting its shaggy neck. His pony would not proceed until Treskan led it by the reins.

“Go on; there’s no reason to fear the dark,” Mathi told her mount. She said it, but the canny animal had other ideas. Only when Mathi got down and led the pony like Treskan did it stir from where it had stopped.

The trees closed in overhead, a vault of green leaves turned to black stone by night. They cut off the constant wind of the plain, leaving the way between the trunks airless and still. Even so, Mathi and Treskan felt they had little to fear. They knew where the nomads were, the centaurs were kindly disposed toward Balif, and the kender were probably all asleep too.

They followed the trail signs to the kender camp. By the time they reached the picket where Balif’s and Lofotan’s horses were tethered, they were both bone tired. There couldn’t be more than three or four hours of night left, not long to rest. They tied their ponies, pulled the blankets off and hung them over a tree limb, and set out for their bedrolls. Treskan still had his talisman clenched tightly in his fist. Mathi wondered if he would ever put it down again.

She made for her sleeping spot but halted when she heard talking. They were low and calm, and there were two distinct voices. Balif and Lofotan? No, the outline of the slumbering majordomo was plainly visible under his blanket. Balif and who? Treskan was a few yards behind her, sleeping apart as usual.

She saw that the general of the Speaker’s armies was chained again. There were no modest trees to bind him to, so the indefatigable Lofotan had dug a shallow hole and chained his lord to a root as thick as Mathi’s waist. Balif was sitting up, back as straight as a Silvanesti spire.

“Who’s there?” rasped a guttural voice that Mathi didn’t recognize.

Balif looked at her. His eyes glowed from within with a foreign, amber light. Tired as she was, Mathi rooted to the spot. The transformation had come over Balif again, more severely than before. Every inch of the elf’s exposed skin was covered with dense, brown fur. The skin on his nose and lips was black, like a dog’s, and hard claws studded the ends of his fingers.

“The girl,” Balif said, drawing out the initial sound of the word.

“My lord,” she said. “Who are you speaking to?”

“An old friend of yours.”

In one bound, a dark shape hurtled out of the shadows and landed in a crouch between Balif and Mathi. It was Taius, the former elf and present beast Mathi had met during her brief captivity in Bulnac’s camp.

“She heard us. Let me kill her. I can do it quietly. No one will hear,” Taius vowed.

Mathi tensed to fight or flee. She searched for a sign of understanding in Balif’s savage eyes. She saw none but the accursed general replied, “No. Harm her not. She will be my mouthpiece to the world.”

“She is one of the brethren!” Taius had chosen sides, and he was not on Mathi’s.

“Brethren? You mean half-breed. She is half-human.”

Taius stood with his back bent, so his head was lower than Mathi’s. “Smell again, mighty one. Her skin smells of fur and night. She is a creature of the forest, like I was.”

Again the relentless beast eyes of Balif raked over her. “Is this true?”

She saw no reason to deny it any longer. “Yes, my lord. I am child of the Creator you betrayed.”

“Betrayed?”

Her heart was beating hard against her breastbone. “Yes, betrayed. You gave our maker over to the persecutors, those who slew and imprisoned us, his children!’

“I obeyed the orders of my sovereign.”

Mathi sneered, “That is the excuse of slave masters the world over.”

His chains jangled ominously. Though she was glad her secret was out-relieving so much tension in her-she truly feared what might happen if an aroused Balif escaped his bonds.

“The judgment of the Speaker was not just,” Balif said. “But I could not alter it.” His tone of voice had changed, softened. “I have known for a long time that you were not an elf. I thought you were one of those unhappy mixed breeds, like the scribe.” And yet, knowing Mathi was not who she claimed to be, Balif had chosen her to go on his mission. Why?

The bewitched general smiled, showing long canines. “Spies and assassins are better defended against when they are in view,” he said as though he had read her mind.

“A spy is a spy,” Taius snarled. “Let me kill her.” His voice had risen so high that Lofotan stirred on his pallet.

Balif gave him a withering glance. The beast-elf subsided.

“Where have you been?” asked Balif coolly. “You have been gone many hours.”

Mathi related her adventure with Rufe and Treskan in the nomad camp. She omitted all reference to the talisman, explaining her trip as a reconnaissance of the enemy camp.

“Reporting to your masters, more likely,” Taius said.

“Go away,” Balif told him. “We are done.”

Taius sprang away in one breathtaking bound. “Let me serve you,” he called back. “You were my commander. I am still your soldier.”

“Go away. I am not lost to the world yet, and I cannot fulfill my duty with you by my side.”

Rejected, Taius melted into the shadows. His voice drifted back.

“I serve you, my lord, until I die. I shall keep the beasts of the brethren off your trail!”

In a flicker of a moment, the half-beast was gone. A few moments later, Mathi heard a far-off snap of a tree branch high overhead, Taius’s gesture of farewell.

Mathi sidled away toward her bed. As arrow-straight as ever, Balif watched her with unnatural intensity. Why did he say no to Taius?

“Ask the question.”

“My lord?”

“Ask the question in your mind.”

“What did Taius want of you?”

Balif sank down on his side with a grace more feral than elflike. “He offered to free me from my fetters if I would allow him to serve me again.”

Taius was being hunted by magicians and trackers from Silvanost, as were all the few creatures of his kind who had escaped arrest. Joining Balif was one way to escape them perhaps.

“You let me stay and sent him packing?”

“I am not a beast. Not yet.” He coughed a little, shuddering. “You may go or stay as you choose. You are free. Your ancestry does not change that. The coils of this curse are close around me, but I am not lost yet. I will carry out the mission the Speaker gave me, defend the wanderfolk, and then … there are a few throws I still have to make.”

Mention of throws made Mathi think of Rufe and his skill at the nomad gambling game. Strange, but it seemed that Balif, the famed warrior of Silvanost, saw life in the same terms.