Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (67 page)

Marik and Dietrik jerked their heads sideways,
scanning the darkness in unison.  “Not in the middle of the night, I expect,”
Dietrik whispered.

“No,” Colbey agreed.  “They should have passed by
midday.  By following the curve of Area Forty-Eight’s seal, we shall find them
before morning breaks.”

“So long as the break does not involve our necks.”

“Follow me.  I will lead you across the easiest
terrain for your feet.”

Colbey stepped lightly into the night.  Before long,
Marik felt certain the scout
could
see through the darkness more
adroitly than either of the mercenaries.  No matter how familiar he might be
with the territory, no one could skip with preternatural ease from root to root
shrouded in thick nighttime veils the way Colbey did.

He and Dietrik fell as often as not.  Their feet would
come down on stones or bulbous protrusions from the massive roots
unexpectedly.  The crashes they produced always brought remonstrations from
Colbey, though Marik noticed the scout’s ire ran at a far lower level than the
time he had led Captain Trask’s party through the Green Reaches.  Perhaps he
truly did feel he owed Marik a debt.  Or perhaps it was simply that he felt his
claws closing on a long-hunted enemy.

Either way, Marik wondered about the man.  Had his
edge softened as much as his attitude?  Would he still be the same unstoppable
hurricane in a swordfight as before?  The answer would only come long after the
time it would be best to know.  During an actual battle.

Colbey slowed after two candlemarks of their blind
groping.  Neither mercenary asked.  His slower pace could only mean that they
closed on the place where the scout expected to discover the Arronaths’
campsite.

Except, when dawn lightened the enclosed forest
atmosphere by the slightest increments, they had yet to come across their
quarry.  Colbey began ranging from side to side during their trek.  In short
order he found horse spore from the animals accompanying Xenos’ party.  It
mollified him and quieted his mutterings.  They were on the correct track.

His mutterings renewed by the time the sun brightened
their surroundings as much as it ever did under the solid tree ceiling.  They
had come to a forest stream winding around the arcing Euvea roots, many times
flowing beneath the natural foot bridges to emerge several dozen yards beyond.

“Whether you approve or not,” Dietrik huffed, “I am
going to sit my bones down here on this root and take a breather!”

Colbey paused in his mystified grumbling while Dietrik
put hands and boots to an impressive root wall and began scaling the heights. 
Sixteen feet up he hoisted his body over the top.

“Can you see anything interesting?”

Dietrik put a hand to his brow despite a lack of
sunshine blinding his vision.  “Not a jot,” he called back to Marik.  “Although
that means little enough.  I can’t see down into this labyrinth past a hundred
feet.”

Marik shook his head in disappointment.  “I’m amazed
you could ever find anyone in this mess,” he said to Colbey.  “Any hunters who
wandered in wouldn’t have to work very hard to hide from you scouts.”

“From this vantage,” Colbey admitted.  “We rarely
traveled by ground.  The Euvea Road made for faster traveling, and better
surveillance.”

“There’s a road in here?”

“Yes.”  Colbey pointed to the incredibly sized Euvea
branches far overhead, larger than most tree trunks outside the Rovasii.

Marik stared uncomprehendingly for a moment before
exclaiming, “You must be joking!  Who would be crazy enough to walk around that
far off the ground?  One slip and you’d break every bone in your body!”

He felt dizzy staring straight up.  His legs wobbled
alarmingly.  Marik reached a hand to the root to steady his vertigo.  After a
moment he walked along it to the water’s edge.  There was a stool-sized root
that looked suitable to rest on until they continued the hunt.

“You are not thinking of sitting there, are you?”
Colbey called when Marik was a step shy of the water’s edge.

“It’s cool and relaxing,” Marik irritably retorted. 
“I think it’s
worthy
enough to support my backside for a short while.”

“It is also a good way to die.”

Before Marik could work that comment out, Colbey threw
a stone which Marik had not seen the scout lift from the ground.  It missed his
waist by less than its own width.  Marik leapt backward as the rock smashed
into the water with a splash.

At the same moment he opened his mouth to demand an
explanation, additional splashing met his ear.  A long, black whip undulated
through the water away from where the root emerged.  In horror, Marik
recognized the triangular shape broaching the surface as a snake’s head.

“Water snakes possess potent venom,” Colbey delivered
as calmly as an observation on the differences between wagons.  “You would be
dead within minutes of a bite.”

“H-how did you know that was there?”

“Are you not using your ears?”  For an instant, Colbey
sounded like his old vitriolic self.

Marik listened, and realized for the first time how
loud the birds around them were.  A veritable avian cacophony rang through the
trees.

“Birds?”

“Woodlarks,” Colbey growled through clenched teeth. 
“And any child could tell you that woodlarks despise water snakes.  They make
tremendous noise anytime they see one.”

“One of your village children, by the by,” Dietrik
called from above.  “Living in these parts makes a lad learn about that sort of
tidbit fairly quick like, I expect.”

An angry expression illuminated the scout’s features
before melting away, leaving only the sadness Marik had glimpsed across the
campfire.  Colbey pulled himself far enough from its depths in order to flatly
state, “Do not sit there either, mage.  Use your eyes if you truly intend to
stay alive.”

Marik awkwardly jumped away from the other seat-sized
root several yards back from the water’s edge.  Rather than ask what might be
wrong with it, he looked hard until he noticed movement along the point where
it vanished into the earth.  Fat red ants large as his thumbnail moved in a
line.  He followed their column by eye until he located a squirrel carcass
within smelling distance.  Half its meat had been stripped away.  While he
watched, the ants tore fresh chunks from the protruding bones.  Bright, wet
blood trickled from the ghastly wounds.  This squirrel must have died less than
a quarter candlemark gone.

Or been overwhelmed.

“This forest is definitely unnatural,” he whispered.

“These are the common hazards,” Colbey disagreed. 
“Water snakes and fire ants can be found in any similar environment.  Only the
creatures within the seals are unique to the Rovasii.”

“You mean these little savages could have crawled into
my bedroll last winter?”

“Yes.”  Colbey seemed amused at Marik’s revulsion. 
“Except I made a thorough check of our surroundings before we—”

He cut his words off abruptly.

“What is it?”  Marik stared at Colbey, then up at
Dietrik, who had stood to peer into the forest.  “Anything?”

“If it is, it is staying low.”

“Silence,” Colbey hissed.  He took four steps,
stopped, closed his eyes and listened intently.

“How can he hear a blasted thing over those bloody
birds?” Dietrik whispered after he climbed down to stand next to Marik.

“He just can.”  Marik said nothing else, yet thoughts
of Colbey’s uncanny abilities floated through his mind.  The entire time Colbey
had taught him the stamina boosting technique, Marik had sensed the scout
possessed other tricks.  What they might be, he only guessed at the time. 
Watching him move easily through the dark and listen to sounds neither
mercenary could hear shed light on what a few of those tricks must be.

Colbey’s eyes snapped open.  “Quickly!  We go!”

He dashed away at top speed.  Dietrik cursed
vehemently and ran after with Marik on his heels.

The scout seemed to scale the roots as easily as
touching them.  No sooner would his fingertips brush the bark than he would be
flying upward.  Marik could scarcely believe it.  He stared, searching for
evidence that Colbey’s boots touched the root, yet for all appearances Colbey
catapulted over each by the simple act of yanking his body into the air
one-handed.  Dietrik and Marik were quickly left behind.

They panted and wheezed, strained and used their full
strength.  After they leapt to the ground from one root, they climbed over the
next in line.  With no Colbey to lead they way they were forced to assume a
straight-line course.

Worry began to set in Marik’s mind when Colbey’s hand
shot up from behind the current root, grabbed his tunic and pulled the
mercenary down.  A startled grunt was cut off before it could escape by
Colbey’s other hand.

“They are close, mage.  Be silent and listen.”

Dietrik landed quiet as he could while Colbey released
Marik.  None spoke.  They honed their ears, listening for the noises Colbey had
discerned.

“They must have pushed harder than we thought
yesterday,” Dietrik said shortly.  “Or else moved in the darkness after all.”

“It sounds as if they are coming back this way
though,” Marik observed.  “Why are they making so much racket?  Anyone could
find them like this!”

“Let us find out,” Colbey tersely stated.  “I would
know what they do before making my strike.”

The roots grew away from each other at the point where
they had climbed over the last.  A long clearing had formed with brush
scattered in random clumps.  They put their backs to the Euvea tree from which
these roots grew, using the brush as cover to wait and see what would emerge
from the distance.  Marik could hear the brook babbling out of sight to his
right.

“They will come from there,” Colbey softly imparted,
pointing along the easterly roots that formed a twelve-foot, gnarled wall.  He
gestured to the western counterparts and said, “Over those roots is the stream,
which runs along the base of Sealed Area Forty-One.”

“Definitely won’t be coming from that direction then,”
Dietrik breathed.

“Not unless they emerge through the entrance there. 
But they will not.”

The patter of running feet approached beneath the
distant sounds.  All three crouched, tense, waiting to see who would appear. 
From the sounds these runners must be attempting to escape from a fight.  Marik
assumed the distant group had to be the Arronaths, for who would the
black-armored soldiers be running from in this forest?  On the other hand, who
else was there in the Rovasii to run from the invaders?  Other survivors from
Colbey’s secluded village?

Out of the gloom dashed a grizzled warrior, a
long-time veteran, Marik instantly recognized.  The posture, the bearing…he
exuded the old salt professionalism so many strived for, yet few attained.  He
ran with sword bared, his free hand gripping his sheath to prevent it from
tangling in his legs.  With his one eye he raked the clearing thoroughly.

Behind him jogged a second man, older to judge by the
crow’s-feet around his eyes and his graying hair.  They both studied the
gnarled walls in search of the best scalable surface.

Marik believed they must be free-swords in search of
valuable forest treasures.  Men who had dared the haunted trees…until the man
with the eye patch barked in strange syllables.

The Nolier language flowed, while Tullainian contained
the jagged edges of basalt rock.  What little Olandish he’d heard struck his
ear as musically exotic, likened to water in a babbling brook, and Trader’s
Tongue was nothing short of a lumpish mess.

There was no mistaking the language spoken by these
two men.  Arronathian.  His prolonged association with the war prisoners had
left the linguistic traces burned into his memory.

If the Arronaths were
fleeing
, then friendly
forces must have attacked the larger group.  The battle they could hear was
between the friendlies and whatever guard forces had purchased the escape these
two utilized.  They must be important figures if their protection was a
priority.

The thoughts flashed across Marik’s mind faster than
an eye blink.  No time to stop.  No time to consider.  Surprise was never as
effective as when it was fresh.

Marik surged forward over the brush.  His right
shoulder jarred off Dietrik.  His friend’s exclamation went unheeded by Marik. 
All his concentration bent on getting the first strike against the enemy.

In his peripheral vision he caught sight of a shadow
matching his movements, lunging into the fray no less ferociously than he.  A
shadow of flesh and blood.  Colbey unsheathed his blade in a single motion that
seemingly left the air behind it sliced in twain.

Both Arronaths reacted fast as rabbits.  In the split
second before he and Colbey closed the gap, they spun to face the unexpected
adversaries.  The one-eyed man sidestepped, directing his blade in a flawless
arc to meet Colbey’s.  His older partner held his ground, sword at the ready,
until it clanged off Marik’s deadly steel.