Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (53 page)

“Only my own thoughts,” Marik shrugged.  The slow
energy coursing through his interior channels reminded him of basking in the
summer sunlight, floating face up on a grassy sea.

“Yes?  Then allow me to offer one of my own.  The
people who are most amazed by the actions of men they consider thuggish are the
ones who are, themselves, the most thug-like by nature.  Are you so amazed that
a lad such as Churt would find a common bond with me because you could never
have accepted that same bond yourself?”

The words were delivered without malice, yet with a
hint of challenge nonetheless.  Marik forestalled an automatic denial in order
to give the question a fair appraisal.  Wyman watched with interest until Marik
at last spoke.

“I don’t know,” he admitted.  “Ever since I struck out
into the world on my own at sixteen, I’ve been determined to be self-reliant. 
I’ve learned better since, that no one can ever completely refuse depending on
others because the simple fact is that dependency comes in as many varieties as
trees.  I consider myself an equal with Dietrik.  It would be uncomfortable to
me if I were a leader, and he a follower, the way you and Churt look like.”

Wyman’s eyebrows crawled up his forehead at Marik’s
bald statement.  “That’s not any sort of candor I would have expected from
you.”

“Another troll from the tribe of ‘expectation’ slain,
I fear.”

The world outside the entrance absorbed Wyman’s
attention for an untold number of heartbeats while Marik’s body reclined on a
pure white cloud, swallows flying in playful circles around him.

“It’s not.”

Marik glanced up from his lap.  “It’s not what?”

“A leader/follower bond.  That isn’t healthy for lads
like Churthington in the long run.”

“What do you call it, then?”

“If it is anything,” Wyman answered slowly while
digging a loose stone from under his hip, “I would call it a surrogate
father/son relationship.”

“That makes sense.  After a fashion.  Churt did lose
his father to the Noliers when they attacked the Hollister garrison.”

“And what is that look for?” Wyman demanded heatedly
the instant he noticed the speculative expression Marik wore.  “Is it so
unbelievable that I might find comfort in lending my shoulder to a young man
grieving over loss?”

“Most never seem to stop and consider it one way or
the other.”

“They don’t have sons.”  Wyman unshackled the coin in
his grip to renew its flight from his thumbnail, a bit more forcefully than
usual.  “Or if they do, they’re the type who choose not to admit to them. 
Leaving the children behind to be raised alone by the mothers foolish enough to
dally with a mercenary.  Well,” he spat, and Marik could hear his teeth
gnashing, “where is it written on the pages of life that a free-sword isn’t
allowed to do his best for his son?”

“I would make the same argument.”  Filtering in
through the mellow warmth enveloping him, Marik felt traces of intrigue at
Wyman’s fierce declaration.

Wyman hardly seemed to register his words.  His mind
had bent inward, perhaps far enough that he no longer remembered Marik’s
presence.  “Men sitting on cots others put there for them, eating food others
acquired and prepared, living under roofs they don’t have to maintain…and they
never stop bitching, do they?  Their hardships are the woes of ages, their
complaints the flowing blood of martyrs.  They honestly believe they know what
true responsibility is.

“But how many care about anything outside themselves? 
Damned few, and that’s for certain.  They don’t remember their father’s faces,
so what hope could any child of theirs have that these men appreciate the
magnitude of their responsibilities?”

“My own father,” Marik announced loud enough to shake
Wyman from his reverie.  “Did you hear about him?”

Wyman graced him with a look all the harder for the
fact that he realized he’d been speaking aloud.  “Why would I know anything
about your father?”

“Most in the unit did, about two years ago.  Most of
the squad, for that matter.  Cork spent time spouting off about it too, so I
assumed all the new recruits must have heard.”

“I only listen to men when they speak words worth hearing.”

Marik smiled.  “Then I suppose you wouldn’t recognize
Cork’s voice if you heard it.  There is a long story which probably wouldn’t
interest you much, but I spent my childhood living in a town not too distant
from these mountains.  It was mother and me making do as best we could.  Father
would come home for as long as possible during the winter months, and leave
behind every coin he could.  Together with mother’s work, we managed.”

He continued for what felt like a half-mark, though it
would probably have been closer only to ten minutes if he bothered to reel-in
his time sense.  It was comfortably off on holiday with his senses of
embarrassment and apprehension, enjoying their leave as long as he kept the
slow-moving energy coursing through his inner channels.

The only clue that Wyman listened with interest was
his coin.  It sailed only half as high into the air, and moved across his
knuckles with less alacrity.

“And you never knew before?”

“No,” Marik answered.  “It was brassy luck I
survived.  Though that opened a whole floodgate of new problems, and Torrance
wanted me to train under Tollaf.  That way he’d have an additional mage to play
on the battlefield.”

The older mercenary cocked his head.  “I had wondered
why you had no room in the Tower with the others.”

“The women,” Marik corrected.  “And Tollaf.  Each mage
is assigned to a squad, usually the specialists.  Each magic user can live in
the Tower if they want, but the men always decided to live in their squad
barracks.  I hardly cared about that, but the Ninth was my home, and still is.”

A slow nod came from Wyman.  “I can see how you came
to be the man you are.  Perhaps better than others.”  He caught the coin
between his thumb and first fingertip, holding it in the sunlight.  “Perhaps my
story’s beginnings are not so unusual after all.  My son is nine this coming
spring.  He tries hard to act tough as nails.  Except I can hear it under his
words.  The boy doesn’t like having me away most of the time.  If I were the
father I should be, I would find work in the town that allowed me to stay at
his side.  But this is all I have the skill to do, thus I try to make the best
of an undesirable situation.”

“You can speak Traders fluently,” Marik countered. 
“Wouldn’t that be enough for some jobs?”

“I am no merchant, and have no mind for their miserly
wiles.”

“What about a regular caravan guard for a local
merchant?  You’d still travel often, but you would also spend as much time at
home as on the road.”

“I see you have never done that work.  The pay is
lousy.  Half the trouble caravans encounter are the result of the guards
deciding to steal the cargo and blame it on nonexistent highwaymen.”

“No, I didn’t know that.”

“It is true.  Guards are usually offered a bonus to
watch each other as closely as they do the trees.  If they catch and stop
another guard, it is well worth their while.”

Marik nodded.  “I can already see where that would
cause problems as well.  How many times has a disliked man, or mercenary, been
falsely blamed by the rest of the guards in order to get better pay?”

“Often enough.  It is a popular way to get revenge
among them.”

“I don’t know what to say, then.  Except that as long
as you are making the most of the time you have with him, it will be all the
more valuable to your son than you might imagine.  That is how it was for me. 
Our time was sweeter due to its shorter duration.”

Wyman offered no response.  The keen edge in his gaze
had softened.  Marik had the sense that there was now another man in the world
he could trust to watch his back in battle.

“They had best return soon,” Wyman said.  The glisten
off his coin dulled by the heartbeat.  He leaned backward to peer up at the
entrance above him.  “We’ve got a mean storm coming in.”

*        *        *        *        *

A small delegation waited in a breezy copse in the
mountains’ shadow.  Four acolytes nervously busied their hands with pointless
work to keep their minds distracted.  Colonel Mendell, or
Archbishop
Mendell
as these four knew him, projected serenity.

It was a trick he had mastered as a survival skill among
the Earth God’s faithful.

The four posed no questions about how the archbishop
knew the things he knew, or what they should do in the event he was wrong. 
They had found their way into Xenos’ reviving religion years before and had
learned the wisdom of passing unnoticed by the top ranks.

A lengthy morning passed before a figure emerged
silently from the trees, moving with the purpose of expectation.  Mendell knelt
in the fallen leaves in order to kiss Cardinal Xenos’ knuckles.  The others
followed without hesitation, obeying their rank and kneeling still lower to
kiss the hem of his robe.

His ragged robe.  The rich brown fabric sported tears
in numerous places.  Its cuffs bore closer resemblance to a shroud concealing a
wraith’s wrists, countless holes perforating them until they could have been
mistaken for moldy lace.

As war-torn as the clothing might be, the man bore not
the slightest scratch.  Xenos touched Mendell’s shoulder lightly and the two
walked off side-by-side.

“For my ears alone.”

Mendell nodded.  He trusted his superior would see to
it any words spoken could not be overheard by the acolytes.  Possessing no
magical powers in any form, he relied instead on his faith.

“I’ve re-secured the lands leading down to the
forest’s edge, but I suggest we move without delay.  These Galemarans are a
trickier bunch than the Tullainians.  I never would have expected they could
respond as radically as they did.”

Xenos nodded, a slight quirk to his lips.  “The
Galemarans are well known for their ability to overcome what are, I believe the
term is, ‘long odds’.”

“I still don’t know how they overcame Harbon,” Mendell
allowed, a trickle of sweat rolling from his brow.  “Unfortunately my men are
scattered hells to heavens.  I haven’t been able to subdue any…problems we
might encounter within the forest.  Too many were left behind in Tullainia to
maintain our hold.  Most of the trustworthy believers were slain during
Harbon’s battle.”

“A disappointment, that.  I confess I had hoped for
better.  Still, one who has labored under such difficulties will find me
reasonable.”

Mendell watched the cardinal through his peripheral
vision.  A rueful satisfaction played there.  He held his breath and gambled. 
“If we go directly, we could be at the forest in a day-and-a-half.  However,
your eminence, with your abilities, we might be able to gain a stronger
presence.  Roughly two-dozen Taurs are running wild in the region.  The few
enlightened controllers I still have are unable to bring them to bay on their
own.  Also, if you are willing to delay slightly longer, several patrols I have
out will return and we can march on the forest in force.  Not that your
eminence needs additional strength,” he hastily added at Xenos’ eyes studying
him.

“Additional time.  During which the fabled Galemarans
might find it within their means to conduct a second counterstrike in the same
vein as the last.”  After Mendell’s sweating increased, Xenos smiled benignly. 
“Or in the chaos of the Citadel’s destruction, they perchance might find
insufficient strength to act for some time.  You are correct in that I require
no additional strength, archbishop.  Yet there exists little sense in carrying
a heavy load when carts are so ready to hand.  Take me to the nearest town you
command to refresh and change garments, then, in three day’s time, we will take
whatever strength has gathered with us into the Rovasii.”

Colonel Mendell bowed his head immediately.  “Yes,
your eminence.  I will put together a guard sufficient enough to guarantee
you’ll have no need to expend any of your strength before we reach the hidden
village!”

“That would be service well rendered, my archbishop,”
Xenos said, and the satisfaction played across his features as before.

“No, I am
not
all right!  If I said I was, then
you’d know my head was addled, wouldn’t you?”

Caresse shrugged indifferently.  “Is it polite manners
to ask, so it is.”

“I do not think a travois would be the smartest idea,
anyway,” Lynn commented in a tone suggesting that if
she
thought it,
then surely it must be Absolute Truth.  Marik noted she spoke in that manner
with increasing frequency the longer he spent in her company.  “There is no
flat land.  It is all points and ridges.  If we put you in a travois, you would
be toppled out within thirty feet.”

“I don’t remember asking for one,” he replied in
irritation.  “We can’t make decent speed across this terrain in any event. 
Don’t worry your heads over me.”

Lynn’s face puckered in exasperation that might have
been insult.  “You should keep in mind that none of us are in the mood to watch
you kill yourself after the effort we put into hauling you this far in the
first place!”

Marik refused to rise to the bait.  The bandages
around his ribs were so tight he could barely breathe and his leg ached as
badly as the time it had been chewed on by Fangs, the psychotic hell-dog.  He
leveraged his weight off the mountainside, forced his legs not to wobble, then
shuffled in the direction Wyman had left minutes earlier.

When he’d exited the crevice a short time earlier, he
had expected surroundings similar to the overlook; flat areas broad enough for
groups to stand on, slopes that any child could traverse with ease and views
over the northern plains.

Instead, he learned what it meant to be in the heart
of the Stoneseams.

Surrounding them were uneven flat areas the size of
his torso.  The problem was that no two were at the same level with each
other.  In-between most were cracked stone, loose rocks or wide gaps.  Several
areas were clogged with protrusions that reminded him of wolves’ teeth pointed
upward in clusters.

That would have been enough to deal with.  Worst of
all, fewer than twenty feet from the crevice, the world fell away in a sheer
void.  Three-hundred yards across the chasm, the next mountain rose with walls
equally as razor-edged.  From where he stood he could peer into the depths. 
Far below were
clouds
!  Or perhaps only fog, but they sure as all the
hells
looked
like clouds, and he disliked the notion of being so
infernally close to the sky.

Marik walked south with the sheltering crevice to his
back, his hand following the monumental granite walls to his right.  He moved
with deliberation, determined to reach his destination in one piece, to defy
his apparent destiny of falling to his death.  The ground refused to help and
insisted on sloping without mercy toward the yawning empty space to his left.

“Don’t go that way,” Lynn ordered from his rear. 
Perhaps it stemmed from his preexisting irritation, but her tone grated on his
nerves.  “It goes nowhere.  You will be forced to return this way.  Follow
Caresse instead, since she knows what she’s doing.”

He paused to watch the wizardess step closer to the
gap.  Ahead, he could see a new ridge rising in their path, splitting the
narrow track in twain.  One angled up to the right, the distant ways vanishing
around corners.  The other appeared to run straight over the cliff’s edge.

“It seems safer to look for a way over a dead end than
to walk off a mountain and end up dead.”

“You won’t find too many ways after you’ve broken your
ankle.  Caresse has felt out the right paths to take that won’t bring us higher
than we already are.”

Marik forced his legs to carry him closer to the
edge.  Ten feet from an early demise, he could see what the broken ground had
kept from being readily apparent.  The gods must have been feeling playfully
sadistic when they created what looked to be a four-foot wide path sloping down
along the sheer wall.  Cracks split the stone in numerous places, many of a
width that it would be a stretch to step across without jumping.

“Your sense of humor is anything but funny,” Marik
hissed through gritted teeth.  “That’s a death sentence, or I’ve never seen
one!”

“It’s the way out.  I don’t think it is too much to
ask after pulling you out of an avalanche.”

She moved without fear onto the downward track.  If
the imminent peril to her left unnerved her at all, she moved smoothly in its
face.

He could feel his legs trembling.  In fact, he doubted
if any force short of cataclysmic would be able to make them move.  Had they
ever been so unsteady?

One of the city mages looked at him with
apprehension.  Marik swallowed the saliva flooding his mouth and
forced
his foot to skitter forward along the uneven ground several inches.  Oddly, as
he had experienced before, once he began actually moving, most of the shakes
subsided.  The situation still gnawed at his sanity yet he could control his
body as long as he didn’t focus too much on the dangers.

The going got slightly easier once the cliff wall rose
enough that he could press intimately to it as he shuffled down.  It would have
been tough had the slope descended at a steady rate.  Instead, there were times
it was nearly level, others where it plunged as steeply as the back hillside of
Kingshome.

It remained free of loose stones or scree, for which
he offered silent thanks.  His first test of faith came twenty feet below the
crest.  A three-foot fissure split the entire wall, including the pathway for
good measure.  He could not lean against the mountainside during the crossing
or else he would fall inward.

Unfortunately he would be spared a splattering death. 
A hundred yards down, the fissure’s wound closed.  He would instead be squeezed
into a bloody mass when he struck the narrows.

Further along, Caresse mocked Fate by skipping over
the cracks.  Watching her made his stomach queasier still.  His heart stopped
after she vanished from sight, her hair billowing in weightless clouds when her
body plummeted without warning.

A moment later, Lynn hopped over the same ledge.  He
goggled until Caresse’s bobbing head reappeared further away.  There must be a
drop down in the pathway.  Sweat froze on his forehead at the mere thought.

He reached across the gap with his wounded leg. 
Trusting his weight to it would be suicide.  If it were going to collapse on
him he much preferred it to do so while he had the chance of propelling his
body forward.  That way he might be able to collapse on the opposite side.

For one terrible moment, vertigo made his vision
swim.  He lost sense of his body.  It seemed he plunged in an uncontrolled free
fall when, in fact, his foot only moved an inch.

The sensation of his foot coming down on the far side
startled him.  Marik nearly twisted off the path.  Muscles surrounding the
wound tightened.  In a panic, he threw his weight across.  He stumbled several
paces until he regained control.

Ahead, the mountains loomed under a gray sky left over
from the evening before.  It would be just their luck if the heavens sent a
deluge down on them while they clung like ants to the mountainside.  Marik cast
a quick glance behind and saw there would be no going back.  The minor fissures
could be crossed going down, except traversing them on an upward slope would be
nigh on impossible.

He reached the drop where the women had so casually
leapt without concern.  It was shaped like a giant’s step.  The stone shelf
they crawled along continued after a plummet the length of his body.  Six feet
lower, the path waited maliciously for him to leap in the same childlike way
Caresse had.

Marik’s gaze traced the dagger’s-breadth trail until
he found, a hundred feet lower and a quarter-mile off, the place where the
ridge merged with the mountainside again.  The narrow path vanished.  At the
end, inset at the furthest point, he could see a small clearing littered with
ancient boulders.  Wyman stood there waiting for the others.  There must be
pathways through the peaks from the clearing.  He scarcely cared as long as the
journey’s next leg proceeded along a route away from this bottomless chasm.

And speaking of legs…

He studied the drop.  The path below widened to an
entire six feet.  Nevertheless he would sooner tackle three Taurs at once than
leap and trust his landing to his wounded leg.

“You’re going to have to help me,” he told the city
mage dogging his heels.  “Look, let’s try this.  You hold my hands and I will
go down like this.”

The man grasped his wrists tightly.  It both reassured
Marik to have such a solid connection, and unsettled him to have to trust
another with his wellbeing.

He sank to his knees, his feet over the ledge behind
him.  Slowly he reached for granite with his toes while the city mage let him
slide backward inch after inch.  Marik winced when his ribs pressed hard
against the sharp stone.

At last he felt the solid stone underfoot.  His ribs
ached enough that he leaned against the wall several feet on, allowing it to
take his weight.  The city mage sat on the ledge, his legs dangling over at the
knee, and pushed off.  He landed easily.  A casual brush at his breeches to
dislodge the dirt put end to his easy action.

Marik stared at the showoff without emotion.  “You
stay behind me.”

The man shrugged, as if to say it did not matter to
him.

It took them a half-mark to reach the area where the
others waited.  Marik sat gracelessly on a handy boulder, his breath the heavy
bellowing of oxen towing plows in their earthen wake.  He knew the others
stared at him and he mentally wished them each the pleasantries of afternoon
tea in whichever hell most suited them.  While he recovered from the horrible
trip, he gathered the etheric mists.  Within moments the energy was trickling
through his network.

Though it bestowed no fresh stamina or additional
strength, the gradual increase through at the damaged portions eased the pain. 
This ability to work inside his interior channels was proving highly useful. 
He gloated momentarily that the likes of old Tollaf and his ilk had gone
generations overlooking this simple application of mage talent.  The old man
still demanded to know exactly what Marik had done to defeat Duke Ronley.  Not
a single one in the entire lot was capable of original thought.  If they
couldn’t find it in a book, then it must be impossible.

He amended the thought while his breathing slowed. 
His father certainly seemed to be practicing a similar technique.  In fact, the
mental training that had aided Marik so greatly had passed to him though Sennet
from Rail.

“We must press on,” Lynn called to him.  “It has been
a goodly amount of time since we left, and we haven’t managed a single mile
yet.”

“Lynn, I don’t care if we had a dozen white stallions
and a grassy carpet leading straight back to the camp.  We aren’t going to get
out of these mountains today.”

“And we won’t make it back tomorrow, either, if you
sit on that rock until noon.”  She picked her way westward into the rocky area
the path had led them to.

The gods must certainly be laughing at them.  After
the tortuous crawl down, the next leg required them to pick their way
up
along a broken slope.  At some point in the past this must have been where an
avalanche had cascaded stone over the edge into the chasm.  He could not say
whether the jumbled mess was the slope’s surface, or if a smoother one lay
buried under the mountain rubble.

To the right, his gaze traveled upward along the
wall.  It towered over them.  Behind it must be the dead ends Lynn had so
sweetly warned him of.  He could see that even if he had managed to climb over
every obstacle, the final trial would have been the abrupt drop two-hundred
feet to this stony junk pile.

A hundred yards further up he could see the
avalanche’s path turn to the left.  The rolling disaster must have struck the
wall and been forced sideways by its own power.  Could that mean this track was
a natural channel that avalanches had been following for centuries?  What if a
fresh disaster were scheduled for…just about now?

Marik gnashed his teeth and forced his mind away from
that pleasant image.

Any number of nasty situations could be waiting for
his return.  Torrance had the experience to keep his command as intact as
circumstances allowed.  Gibbon was far more worrisome.  He would not put it
past the man to have bungled the simple assault in such a way that most of the
crossbows were seriously damaged.

Of course that relied on the assumption that they’d
had the opportunity to react once the Citadel started breaking apart.  In every
scenario he’d anticipated, the bloody monster had come to a stop in order to
prepare for battle.  The fact that it had kept moving relentlessly forward must
have caught the ground fighters off their guards.

No doubt about it, a mess must be waiting.  One that
could mean the end of all western campaigning until King Raymond ordered Tybalt
to cut loose enough men from the eastern fighting to join against the
Arronaths.  The thought instigated a painful throbbing in his temples.  Best
not to think about that either.