Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (60 page)

Marik frowned.  “Mmm.  You could be right.  I mean,
what else is it about this place that would attract them?”

“I sincerely doubt it is the ambiance.”

“No more surprises,” Marik murmured.  ‘We can’t afford
them.”  He squared his shoulders.  “Let’s find out then, shall we?”

Dietrik followed Marik into the trees, offering one
last comment to skies unblocked by interweaving branches.  “Whatever sins I am
guilty of in my previous lives, I have heartily come to regret them.”

The Taurs bellowed.  Marik and Dietrik scrambled
through the underbrush.

“Was that us?”  Marik panted the question while they
navigated the wild growth.

“You’re asking me?” Dietrik hissed back.

Behind them, the bestial roaring subsided.  The
white-robes were forcing a calm over their animal-like minds.

They rounded a bramble patch and stopped, waiting to
see if pursuit would follow.  When none did they sighed in relief.  The
white-robes must have assumed the Taurs were restless or that a passing
squirrel had upset them.

Marik could see Dietrik’s face had grown ashen.  Dark
stains still discolored his lips from the blackberries they had foraged
earlier.  His own face must be similar in appearance.  Hearing the Taurs
voicing their fury was one sound a man could never grow accustomed to.  It
still terrified them both.

The four days since entering the Rovasii had been
unpleasant.  Their rations had dwindled rapidly.  They were forced to scavenge
whatever sustenance they could from the forest.  It sounded easy enough, except
they were inferior woodsmen.  Finding edible food while maintaining their trail
left them constantly hungry.

For the first two days they had kept close to the
Stoneseams.  On the third the Arronaths had angled southeast, plunging into the
forest’s heart.  It left Marik exceedingly nervous.  Every step brought them
closer to the tavern tales.

This was the closest to the Arronaths they had dared
draw.  Marik’s attempt to sneak around the encampment to see what the humans
might be doing had startled the Taurs.  How the bull-creatures had detected
them, he knew not.  They must stay further away from them in the future.

“I am still at a loss for what this will accomplish,”
Dietrik whispered harshly, forcing the brambles to relinquish their hold on his
clothing.  “Other than ensuring we never need worry about the directions our
lives are taking again, after we have them taken from us.”

“Quiet down!  We need to move over this way.”

“You can’t discern their intention from their bloody
camp!  You will never know what they are about until they reach wherever they
are going to.”

“I don’t want to go any deeper into this forest than
we are,” Marik husked back, hoping to somehow speak quietly and convey his
conviction at the same time.  “Torrance could be anywhere by now!”

“To the lowest hell with bloody Torrance!” Dietrik
exclaimed in a sibilant hiss.  “Mate, this is the maddest act I have seen you
commit!  And that is speaking volumes!”

“Shut up!  Did you hear anything?”

They froze, listening to the surrounding environment. 
The Taurs to their rear had settled into their usual non-combatant routine,
which was comparable to mountain sheep butting heads to establish dominance. 
Occasional growls drifted through the trees but they were far short of the
hunting cries the beasts were capable of.  In fact, they looked to be settling
down to rest the deeper into night’s candlemarks they penetrated.

Men moved in their own camp, which was never set
closer than five-hundred yards on previous nights.  The soldiers maintained a
safe distance from the Taurs at all times.  Marik would have done the same no
matter how many white-robes were present to maintain control.

“What are they about?”

“That’s what we need to find out,” Marik muttered. 
“And I think you’re wrong.  They aren’t going anywhere.  Whatever they do each
night
is
the reason they came to this forest.  Let’s get closer.”

“Mate, this—gods damn it all, mate!”  Dietrik slunk
after Marik, cursing the entire way.

“There, see that?”

Marik pointed to a forest rise.  For no readily
apparent reason, the ground rose sharply, creating a steep hillock under a
dense forest covering.  Trees, unidentified brush and vines grew in a uniform
tangle across it.  Dietrik squinted, searching for details in the flickering
torchlight emanating from the Arronath’s picket line.  The forest beyond the
torches always remained dark as late evening during the day, becoming nearly
unnavigable in the oil drop of the nighttime wildwoods.

The Arronaths had yet to post a single guard on their
picket.  They staked a torch line alone, providing the illumination they
required for whatever actions they performed.  Both mercenaries had listened to
the wordless sounds, mystified by noises they were unable to identify.

“In the dark?”

“What else,” Marik retorted at Dietrik’s incredulous
tone.  “Want to light a torch and wave a hello?  We’ll see into their camp from
up there.”

“A pox on that!  We’ll end up ripping away half our
flesh.  Why don’t you do your ‘looking-down-from-above’ trick?”

“Can’t.  Too risky.”

With Marik poking him hard in the back, Dietrik
crawled up the hillock.  It took them a quarter-mark before they reached a
decent vantage point.  They moved cautiously, hoping to avoid making any
revealing noises, feeling their way through the natural vegetative cages as
much as seeing them.

The Arronaths had put their backs to the hillock. 
Dense growth surrounded them on the other three sides, so thick they looked
imprisoned by the malevolent Rovasii.  Scattered trees grew up through the
camp.  It was a thin spot within the forest rather than a true clearing.

Seventy feet above them, Marik and Dietrik gazed down
into their midst.  As camps went it was little different from any that Marik
had called home since beginning his mercenary career.  It was composed of
necessary elements.  Horses tethered in a line, a long rope staked into
immobility along the ground to which the reins were secured.  A central cook pot
for a group small enough to get by with only one, around which sleep rolls were
arranged.  After rest call, men of highest rank would claim those closest to
the fire.

The oddity that immediately drew their attention lay
on the fire’s far side.  Soldiers were adjusting a log they only then finished
hauling from the forest.  Thick green moss covered the top in a rich carpet. 
Marik could see no reason for it.  It was large.  Ten men had to wrestle it
into a position beside the fire.  To what purpose?  He half expected to see
them roll it over into the flames, though starting a blaze that massive could
easily set the surrounding trees to burning.

Once they had it in place, the soldiers retreated to
the space between the fire and the hillock.  Dietrik tensed.  When the
Arronaths formed ranks facing the log, he relaxed.  Marik released a breath he
had no memory of holding.  His fingers were curled around his sword hilt in
anticipation of the enemy swarming up the steep slope.

When a man appeared from the darkness beyond the
horses, Marik felt less apprehensive.  Clearly this was a leader.  He must
intend to stand on the log in order to address them, following whichever alien
customs the Arronaths held to.  His bearing would have been sufficient to give
away his stature, but his clothing set him further apart.  Robes of rich brown
rather than armor.  Marik might have taken this man for Xenos except he could
feel no sense of the terrible presence that he had while laying prone on the
rain-soaked ground.

Following the leader came two soldiers hauling a
chained man between them.  Dietrik elbowed him in the ribs.  With Marik’s
attention, he pointed beyond the horses.  For the first time Marik noticed four
women and a second man chained together in an unsettling parody of the mounts. 
Where had they come from?

At the leader’s direction, the two soldiers bound the
wailing man to the log, face up, his arms stretched far above his head.  Knives
appeared.  With ruthless precision the man’s clothing was reduced to torn shreds
burning merrily in the flames.

The leader spoke.  Marik strained to hear better, to
restructure the tantalizing mumbles into coherent speech.  A terror sparked
within the bound man.  He began shrieking into the forest.  They were calls to
Sheirleon for deliverance from evil.  That his cries were intelligible meant
the man on the log must be Galemaran.  A soldier the Arronath patrols had
captured, or a hapless villager who had survived the devastation wrought by the
Taurs.

Suspicions grew within Marik the longer he watched.  A
black knife emerged from within the leader’s robe.  Soft as a lover, the leader
caressed the bare chest.  He knelt beside the screaming man and lowered his
face closer.  The knife moved down the torso with grace, seemingly without touching
the skin.

Yet in its wake ran a thin, red line that had not been
there before.

The screams intensified.  Marik felt sick, watching
with his magesight as the Galemaran’s aura burned feverishly bright.  Absolute
terror and physical injury were causing his body to manufacture life energy at
an accelerated rate.  Worst of all, that which churned Marik’s stomach most,
were the vapory trails leading from his aura into the leader’s own.  Without
question, the leader was harvesting the man’s energy, adding it to his own
power.

Could this be any man other than Xenos?  The dark
harvester his father had spoken of, had hinted was making his way in Galemar’s
direction?  The crippling terror that had earlier struck at his passing was
absent.  How could that be?

The knife rose to cut across the living medium of
flesh, carving a cross whose arms sliced through the vulnerable nipples.  For a
brief instant, Marik saw the victim’s aura surge…and then the same cold
paralysis from before struck him anew.  It passed a moment later as the renewed
scream split the night.

What did it mean?  Had Xenos come to the Rovasii to
kill prisoners?  Did the forest somehow amplify the power he would gain? 
Perhaps whatever evil spirits resided here were sympathetic to his cause, and
could increase the effectiveness of the blood rituals.  Or did he hope to lure
a dark sentience beyond imagining out from hiding by using this bloody work as
bait?

Xenos made a gesture with one hand that Marik missed
because the angle was bad.  He moved three steps closer to the slope to gain a
better view.  This would bring him to the last tree growing along the hillock’s
heights.

The instant he reached the tree, a piercing sound rent
the night.  It drowned the Galemaran’s screams, reducing him to a voiceless mouth
open wide in tortured pain.

A pure, crystalline tone battered him with force
enough that his body quivered.  His blood froze at the sudden attack.  The
sound assaulted his body like a fierce wind.

Dietrik’s hand yanked him backward.  His mouth moved
soundlessly.  Only the shrieking tone filled their ears.  When Dietrik pushed
Marik hard, Marik finally regained control.  He and Dietrik leapt away from the
light and plunged into the Rovasii.

On the opposite side of the hillock, Dietrik’s foot
caught a root.  He sailed headlong into a tree.  Marik’s clumsy hands helped
him back to his feet.  Dietrik’s face bore numerous scrapes and enough blood
flowed from his nose he feared it might be broken.

They leaned on each other while they fought the
forest.  It refused them passage with ominous deliberation.  In the faint
torchlight the branches looked like they were reaching for them, intent on
holding them back.  Marik felt the thudding in his chest quicken with every
half-glimpsed movement, with every hint of gnarled fingers stretching out from
corded tree limbs.

The strident tone abruptly cut off while they leapt a
particularly spooky cluster of entwined roots.

“Gods above,” Dietrik panted.  “What was
that
?”

“I don’t know.  Some sort of warning.  An alarm to
catch intruders.”

“Well it bloody well worked!  Why didn’t it go off
sooner?  We were there for several minutes!”

Marik spat out a mouthful of sappy leaves.

They could hear the Arronaths shouting from the camp. 
Predictably, they sounded confused and furious.  It took only moments before
the noises changed to ones of pursuit, to branches snapping or the leaf-covered
ground pounding under numerous feet.  The distant glow changed when men
snatched up the torches to carry them into the trees.

“Dietrik, hold onto me!  Don’t let go no matter what!”

Marik switched to magesight.  As long as he stayed
inside his physical shell, Xenos could not harm him.  Or catch him.  Or do
whatever it might be that Marik feared the man would do.  If the bastard even
could in the first place.  He clenched his teeth in frustration, wishing for
answers that lay beyond his knowledge.

The thick, almost jungle-growth fought him as
stubbornly as it had since the beginning.  Plant life glowed the vibrant green
it always did, far brighter than anywhere else he had ever seen it.  Energy
saturated the Rovasii growth.  These were, perhaps, the healthiest, strongest
plants in all Galemar.  Many a farmer would sacrifice an arm to know how to
achieve such miraculous results.

Under his magesight they glowed blindingly bright
until they merged together in more than aura.  The lines defining their
physical forms were blurred.  It became difficult to distinguish where one tree
ended and the next began.  Was that blur a sourberry bush in front of the broad
oak tree, or flush up against it?  He ran into obstacles as often as avoiding
them.