Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (57 page)

Adrian examined him from head to toe, taking in the
clothing and the jeweled eyes.  “I would have suspected you for Ignis.  Or at
least related, after a fashion.”

“I must disappoint, general of Arronath.”

“All well and with flaming icing!” Jide snapped.  He
held his sword pointed firmly at the stranger.  “If you don’t say something to
blow my skirts up in the next three seconds, we’re stepping out of this
hoorah.  I don’t much care for people who play around with my dick without my
permission!”

“Matters have escalated beyond my anticipation,”
confessed the Red Man.  “I intended to put down the instigator while still he
was a seed.  His roots had delved deeper than ever I feared.  It has reached a
plateau where plucking the body of the weed is, doubtfully, sufficient.  The
roots will remain, unseen, until a dozen sprouts break the surface.”

“Let’s push on,” Jide growled.  “We have important
business to finish.”

“The creature known to you as Xenos,” the Red Man
announced, freezing Jide in his tracks, “is far more dangerous than apparent to
your eye, spymaster.  Where he goes, corruption stains.  His return to this,
his homeland, was only affected once guaranteed the crops sown in Arronath would
continue their growth, free of his constant hand.  He intends to return,
unquestionably, yet should he not, his designs would fail to perish with him.”

“What the—”

Jide’s furious outburst was cut short by Adrian’s
forceful demand.  “I would know what connections you bear to Arronath, and by
what convictions you speak so regarding the king’s counselor.”

Adrian’s voice had grown colder than the rain.  Jide
clenched his jaw, exasperated that Adrian still persisted in his fierce belief
for king and kingdom.  What else would it take to make Adrian accept the whole
truth before him?

“My convictions stem from knowledge, Adrian Ceylon. 
Knowledge gained through experience.  I would pass certain knowledge to your
stewardship, that you might root out the corruption spreading under the feet of
Arronath.  It must be expunged if Arronath is to fulfill the duty under which
the eleven-point crown was forged.”

“That’s a mighty claim,” Jide husked.  His voice felt
desert dry.  “Especially seeing as that old god is
dead
, along with
every last one of his followers!”

The Red Man met his eye with equanimity.  “Is it
within your credulity that a god may ever truly perish?”

“He flaming well did!”

“Standing in the rain,” Adrian cut in, “on foreign
soil in hostile territory is not the place I wish to discuss theology.  Red,
you have succeeded in garnering my interest.  Let us find a shelter of sorts,
and I will listen to you.”

“I am heartened.  Step this way and I will bring you
to the shelter you desire.”

Jide jerked his body from its paralysis, firmly
keeping himself between Adrian and this…creature.  He could look as human as he
liked, but Jide was not fooled for a moment.  This ‘Red’ raised too many danger
flags.

A higher number of them than he could ever remember
from a single encounter before this.

The Red Man led them to the mountain walls where they
found a deceptive fold in the stone that opened onto a wider pocket once they
squeezed through.  Several trees grew in the enclosed space.  It felt like a
miniature forest hidden away by woodland denizens intent on protecting their
home from rampant men.

Jide sword whipped up to the ready position again when
he saw a prone figure draped over a cart-sized boulder.  The man was clearly a
local by his dress and facial features.  Being unconscious, and looking like a
drowned ragman, might be a sham.

“I pray, to him devote no attention,” the Red Man
kindly stated.  “He has been through most difficult ordeals, little of which is
of concern to you.”

“I am not comforted, seeing you in company with
inhabitants of these lands,” Adrian stiffly replied.  “A dark threat is growing
on this side of the ocean, one that threatens every soul in Arronath.  You
speak of the eleven-point crown and its forging.  If there is any merit to the
tale you intend to spin, it may be that we have at last begun unearthing the
source of the seers’ nightmarish visions.”

The Red Man tugged the cuffs on his long-sleeved coat
to straighten them.  “Several matters of which you believe to be well informed
are, in fact, vast unknowns to you.  The first, and most inconsequential, is
this man.  He is no threat to your homeland.  As the man Jide Cray serves as
your
maen’edom
, so does this man Rail Drakkson act as my
kkan’edom
.”

“Old words,” Adrian observed, while Jide kept as
neutral an expression as he could.  “So old, in fact, that I can glean no
meaning from them.”

“Not in the precise, to be certain,” smiled the Red
Man.  “But in the general, you understand me well, I believe.”

“Perhaps.  Yet I only have your word that he has no
relation to the danger my kingdom faces, or ties to the council of kings.”

“The days of that august union of leaders across all
of Merinor are long past, Adrian Ceylon.  Not for over a thousand years has a
ruling summit been convened.”

“Your credibility just went down the jakes,” Jide
growled.  “The damned council murdered the king’s diplomatic envoys three years
ago!  Sent back a lone guard to tell us where we could put our alliances!”

“Then they took great care to see to it he returned
alive to tell the tale.  Having made the crossing in person, can you see a
single man surviving months on the sea alone, with no geomancers to sooth the
elements?”

“He made it back, plain enough!”

“Yes, for he never left Arronath for a single moment. 
Here I begin to pass the tale I bring you.  It begins with a man who, by
darkest fortune, discovered an artifact from the ancient days.  The days
wherein your ancestors stood on a continent ravaged by the god of earth.  The
time when a crown with eleven points was forged to symbolize the union of
eleven gods who had united to bring down their mad brother, and too was forged
a vow by the founders of Arronath to never again allow His sects to gain in
power.”

“If ever a threat could be so dark as to destroy
Arronath…it must be the rise of
that
unholy cult!” Adrian whispered
harshly.

“What artifact?  And what man?” Jide demanded to cover
Adrian’s muttering, though the rain still sounded loud enough in the enclosed
woods to dampen the words.  He already suspected whom Red would name.

“An artifact well known in Arronathian lore.  A
shattered fragment of blackest obsidian.”

Both Jide and Adrian sucked in identical, hissing
breaths.

“Indeed,” the Red Man continued.  “One of the many
pieces gone astray after the destruction of the obsidian monument depicting the
god of earth.”

“It
must
be recovered!”  Adrian’s fist clenched
tightly.  “It must be destroyed, as the others were!  If the earth cult is
rising anew, then they too must be stamped out!  Tell me, where in this
benighted land are they? 
This
is what we came so far to accomplish!”

“Sadly, Adrian Ceylon, your long journey has brought
you farther from their place of rites.  If it is your desire to eradicate their
ilk, you must return to Avenlight.”

“What?”

The Red Man answered Jide’s bark with a calm, “Long
have I sought to put end to these happenings before they could incept.  Sit,
and listen, and take understanding from my tale.”

He spoke at length, the story made lengthier by their
constant interruptions and angry demands.  For all Jide had wallowed in
humanity’s foulest slime, he still felt incredulous hearing this stranger
explain that the sect was being reborn.  Every child in Arronath was taught the
histories.  A festering, abiding hatred for the acolytes in acid-green robes was
passed through the generations from father to son, mother to daughter.  No one
in Arronath would ever dare
think
of rekindling that abhorrent faith.

Adrian in particular argued fiercely, convinced that
if the old religion were active anywhere, it must be in Merinor.  The Red Man’s
insistence that the seers’ visions were a deception crafted by Xenos’ powers
found difficult purchase in Adrian’s ears.

“Xenos continues to change apace,” the Red Man
finished much later.  “His humanity is long since burned from his existence. 
He marches along a path leading to places unknown to all but he, leaving behind
his touch in the places of his passage.  This is why you must return to
Arronath, Adrian Ceylon.  In the catacombs, the ancient temples pulse with life
reborn.  You must fulfill your ancestral duty and put the new followers to
trial.”

Jide watched Adrian sit in silence for a long time. 
He knew what conflicts warred inside his old friend’s heart.  When at last he
spoke, Jide was not entirely surprised at the words.

“If your claims are true…then Councilor Xenos must not
be allowed to escape the king’s justice.”

“You hold no power to combat the creature who once was
Xenos, Adrian Ceylon.”

“I hold the power of a general over the Arronathian
Armed Forces!  And I will not accept such accusations without solid proof!”

“General, your duty lays in your land of birth.  By
the day your foot touches soil in Arronath once again, Xenos will have fallen
by my hand.”

“No.”  Adrian stood.  “Red, I will not abandon my
duties, as you have pointed out.  First and foremost must be the recovery of
the obsidian shard.  If Xenos is in possession of it, then I will return it to
Arronath for immediate destruction.”

“That is a course possessed of less wisdom than
others.”

“Nevertheless, it must be verified.  We will go to
Xenos together, you and I.  I will question him regarding this tale you have
spun.  Should the worst come to pass, I shall return to my king with the proof,
and also with the other news you have imparted.  The long isolation has wrought
numerous changes to Merinor, the dissolution of the council of kings being the
least among them.”

The Red Man looked displeased.  “Adrian Ceylon, and
Jide Cray, I seek to battle a power far beyond what you, using your experience
with Armed Forces mages, comprehend.  This is a power that flourished when the
followers of the earth god were at their apex.”

“Which is why,” Jide stated, sitting back down
obstinately, “we ought to make damned sure we put an end to it.”

Adrian looked at him with the slightest quirk raising
the corner of his mouth.  He sat beside Jide, crossed his arms, and glared back
at the Red Man.

The Red Man likewise folded his arms.  They stared at
each other.  A contest of wills had begun.

“Wait a moment.”  Wyman ranged ahead as silently as he
could, which was far less ghostly than the average scout.  Clearly Wyman had
never studied woodlore.

Marik waited with the other magic users.  Everyone
shivered terribly in the darkening gloom, soaked to the bone and with a chill
breeze kicking up.  It would be typical, he reflected, to finally escape the
mountains in time to die from exposure.

Though full dark remained a candlemark off, it already
seemed to be night.  Thick woods had sprouted around them while coming down the
trail Caresse’s senses had located.  They stood near the tree line as Wyman
attempted to discern possible enemies.  Shadows robbed them of what little
warmth remained in their bodies as surely as the wind weaving through the
trees.

Marik stood under a white oak, contemplating moving no
further until dawn.  They were exhausted both physically and mentally from the
hard journey.  It seemed ludicrous to push on further in the dark.

His legs trembled.  Whatever the current situation,
they had endured too much to go on.  He slowly slid down the oak’s trunk until
he sat on the inundated ground.  A small comfort was gained since there was no
mud to squelch through his breeches.  Thick layers of leaves and twigs covered
the mossy roots.  They were firm, if damp.

The city mages stood apart now that there was room to
do so.  They looked forlorn, alone, the last survivors of a group who had never
thought to face anything more horrendous than the aftermath of an unsolved
crime.  None had spoken beyond what was necessary the whole way.  Marik
suspected their minds where wholly bent on returning home.

“How far are we from civilization?” he called to
Caresse.  “It’s only trees here.  No solid walls.”

“T-there is n-nothing close by, s-so far as I c-can
t-tell,” she answered through chattering teeth.  “N-nothing at all, s-so there
i-isn’t.”

“Then after it is full dark, we need to build a fire. 
They won’t see the smoke.  I don’t think we should leave the trees until we—”

Wyman dashed back into the small clearing. 
“Arronaths.  A copping lot of them!”

“Are you…damn!  Where?”

“A force. Coming south along the mountains.”

Marik shot upward through the etheric plane.  He
briefly sailed over the woods abutting the Stoneseams until they abruptly
vanished, replaced by open grassland.  There were no foothills to ease the
transition into the mountains, only the sloping path into the peaks within the
trees.

Immediately he could see the vast glowing pool formed
by multiple auras huddled together.  Or rather, on the move.  Enough blue auras
mutated the overall color that he could tell this group traveled on horseback. 
Overhead he could gain a better evaluation of their numbers than Wyman, who had
only seen them from a distance.

They were larger than any patrol force he had
encountered thus far.  He estimated they were about thirty riders.  Wyman had
seen nearly their entire force from his vantage beneath the trees yet assumed
he only saw the outriders, or the enemy group’s edges.

“It is—” he began the moment he reentered his body
except Lynn was already saying, “—small group.  If we stay still in these
trees, and do nothing to draw attention, they will likely pass us by.”

In a most irksome manner, they scattered to individual
trees.  Who was in charge here, anyway?

Marik’s tree was the most open, with the branches
further up, too high to conceal him.  He rolled over the lumpy roots, which
jabbed hard into his weary muscles until he lay on the far side away from the
tree line.  A half dozen trees separated his white oak from the open.  Under his
body he felt scores of hard, pointed acorns pressing into him.  Several moments
would be little concern, but having to lay like this on the unexpected torture
bed for however long it took the riders to pass would be excruciating.

After two minutes, which felt like candlemarks, they
could see the figures passing the furthest trees.  Their armor left no doubt
whatsoever that they were black soldiers from Arronath.  Marik’s consciousness
was halfway outside his body when an overwhelming sensation made him slam it
back in.

He had no idea why, possessed no solid reason for
doing so…yet he felt unsettled about drifting closer to the enemy unit. 
Perhaps, if he did so…perhaps…  Perhaps what?  It might give their presence
away?  Nonsense.  Even if another mage traveled with the group, the
self
that he projected through the etheric mists was utterly insubstantial.  No mage
could detect it because there existed nothing to detect.  Tollaf had said so
when Marik specifically asked about it.  In the Forest of Green Reaches he had
drifted around a magician, and only later did it occur to him that it might
have been a serious blunder.

Marik nearly forced himself to send his mind toward
the Arronaths in order to prove his sudden jitters were baseless.  They needed
to know as much as they could about the Arronaths’ field composition and
positioning.  No one could detect his extrasensory presence in the same way
that no one could tell if they were…being scryed…

A cold sweat trickled across the corner of his right
eye.  Marik watched the figures move past where the eclectic mage collective
cowered.  His skin trembled.  Drift out or not drift?  He scarcely dared
breathe.  The slightest motion of a finger seemed a guarantee of their
immediate deaths.

He kept staring hard at the grassland long after the
Arronaths moved on.  The space between his shoulder blades shivered
uncontrollably.

Caresse crept to his side.  “Did you…feel funny? 
Looking at them?”  Her voice was slightly unsteady, but the chilled teeth
chattering had vanished.

“Yeah.  But I don’t know why.  I thought I was jumping
at shadows.”

“I have never felt like that before, so I haven’t!”
she hissed in whisper.  “You were closer.  Could you see anything?”

Lynn scurried over at a huddled crouch.  Before she
could get the first word in, Marik stormed her defenses with an angry demand. 
“What in the hells was
that
?  I know you felt…whatever it is we all
felt!”

She returned his hard glare with one that suffered
from an undertone of worry.  “Animal instinct.  Every living creature has it,
though we humans tend to overshadow ours with our capacity for intelligent
thought.”

“I was thinking clearly until…
that
hit us!”

“Exactly,” she pointed out, the worry replaced by her
usual superiority.  “Your instincts cut through your thoughts in order to save
your life.  I expect you were about attack, or were contemplating a similar
action.”

He felt his mouth tighten in annoyance.  “I get enough
shifty answers from Tollaf!  If you know what is happening, say so.  We need to
decide if we are going to stay put or move on before nightfall.”

“Most animals have the ability to sense the…well,
strength is the best word.”  She folded her arms sternly under her breasts. 
“If your power could be described as a ten, and you met a mage whose power was
twenty, then you would be a fool to start a fight.  That is how animal
societies work.  They instinctively sense the strength of other animals.  The
weak do not prey on the strong.  The weak avoid those stronger than they at all
costs.”

“Doh-ah?”  Caresse wore an expression of innocent
comprehension.  “It is like a frog looking into a snake’s eyes?”

“Yes,” Lynn agreed with softer tones than she would
have gifted Marik, he felt certain.  “A frog can only be eaten by a snake.  It
has no power to avoid that fate.  What we experienced is exactly the same.”

“Except frogs don’t sweat, to the best of my
knowledge,” Marik acidly commented.  He wiped the lone trickle off his face and
flicked it at Lynn, who winced with one eye.  To cut off her angry retort, he
called to Wyman, “Hey!  Wyman, where are you going?  Stay back!”

The mercenary had boldly moved several trees closer to
the open.  He looked back with evident surprise.  Marik shot a quick glance to
the city mages, finding them in a small cluster matching the Crimson Kings
magic users; spooked and speaking in quiet voices.

Apparently Wyman had missed out on whatever dark
miasma had poisoned the rest of them.  “Don’t go out there, Wyman!  Stay back!”

Wyman had halted beside a larger white oak.  He made a
hand gesture Marik assumed meant the other man cared little for having his
judgment questioned.

Marik felt his teeth ache from clenching them too
tightly.  He leapt to his feet in order to sprint after Wyman, forcing strength
into his limbs, shouting in as restrained a manner as he could.  “You’re going
to get us spotted, damn it!  Something is wrong with those Arronaths!  We can’t
afford to tangle with them!”

A second gesture, far more violent, accompanied a
guttural word Marik could not hear clearly.

“What?”

Wyman’s eyes burned furiously at the single, ringing
word.  When Marik reached his side a moment later, he growled in imitation of a
grizzly awoken from its hibernation by a drunken fool petting its fur and
crooning about puppies.  “
Shut
…
up
!”

A large grizzly.

Marik heard it an instant later.  The soft noises made
by hooves picking their way across sodden ground.  Grasses laden with lingering
raindrops.  Firmer ground coated by fallen leaves.  A snap from a fallen twig
breaking under the horse’s weight.

Wyman turned his head to meet Marik’s.  “It’s only a
guess, but I would say whoever it is heard you.”  Venomous sarcasm dripped from
the observation.

The sounds grew louder.  Yes, Marik reflected
bitterly, cursing himself thoroughly for acting so amateurish in front of
Wyman, the unknown horse moving through the trees was definitely moving closer
to their position.  He strained his eyes to pierce the surrounding leaf-laden
spaces.  Drifting through the etheric to easily locate auras no longer felt
safe, let alone wise.

He hardly felt any pain from his ribs as he gripped
the hilt of his daily sword.  The loss of Sennet’s unique labor still chafed,
yet he admitted the heavy weapon would be a hindrance in present circumstances,
with his body still on the mend.  Marik half-drew the blade and held his breath
along with Wyman until they could locate the threat.

The mages held statue-still, reading danger in the two
men’s postures.  Wyman found the rider first.  Marik knew it when his eyebrows
narrowed, the pupils locking on a screen of firs to their left.  Portions of
the rider flickered through the interwoven branches.

Marik’s heart thundered at double speed.  His sword
rested lightly in hand.  It felt far less comforting than it had before.  Sweat
slicked the grip.

Lightning flickers made him jerk his head sideways
against his training, which demanded he never divert his attention from an
enemy.  Caresse had formed a small etheric orb which hovered two feet in front
of her chest.  Lynn had crafted…something.  It must use the sorcery half of her
esper class since he could see no mage energy at work.  Her lips muttered too
softly for him to distinguish her speech and her fingers were twisted into
knots as if roots from two trees vied for the choicest soil.  A hazy nimbus
smaller than her head bobbed in the air before her.  Across the way, the city
mages did likewise, constructing a second etheric orb, a fist-sized fireball
whose flames curled upward like a candle, and a purplish-green fog that roiled
furiously in a bucket shape.

He felt his apprehension spike.  The city mages were
excusable, but
Lynn
and
Caresse
fully understood the oddity of
what they had felt only moments before!  How could they possibly make use of
their powers this soon after?  Those Arronaths were still uncomfortably close,
not to mention their drogue rider, who could escape the trees and gallop away
to bring the main group back!

This situation…it made his skin crawl worse than any
battle he had fought in where his life could be sliced away before he could
blink.  Too much magic was involved.  If the rider charged through the trees,
Marik would take him on with his sword ninety-nine times from a hundred.

But that one time out from all the rest…only magic
could effectively take on magic.  Whatever the talent, the opposing forces
could grapple where naked steel would be swept by the wayside.  The last
quarter-mark had already been pregnant with alien doings.  Could this be any
different?

The dull light glinting off his sword matched
Wyman’s.  Together they moved toward the firs.  They could see the figure
passing the far side.  Only thirty yards separated them.

From behind the last branch, a mud-colored muzzle
emerged.  He and Wyman charged without war cries.  They raised their swords so
each could deliver an angling downward slash, Marik’s from the west, Wyman’s
from the east.  The distance closed to ten yards when the rider came into
view.  Marik could make out the whites of his…

A terrified yelp from a city mage made Marik whirl and
cry, “Wait!  Don’t do—”

The toxic cloud flew forward in total solidity.  Marik
rocked back on his heels to avoid it.  He lost his balance as he saw, from the
corner of his vision, the noxious vapors strike the horse’s head.