The Forest at the Edge of the World (48 page)

“I’m not very happy with you,” Perrin growled. “You didn’t even lock the doors! What’s the point of reinforcing the windows and doors with iron bars if you don’t use any of it?”

Mahrree pushed herself up in a sitting position. Jaytsy stayed snoozing next to her. “I wanted to make sure you could get in this morning. You realize you’re such a bear when you’ve been up all night?”

He’d taken off his uniform jacket and was setting it properly on the chair again. “I thought I explained to you,
very clearly last night
, that we’re practicing for attack scenarios. That, Mrs. Shin, includes YOU!”

Mahrree’s eyes grew large.

“You will BAR those windows and LOCK those doors as you have been instructed, as soon as I leave the house tonight. Understand?”

“Yes.” She blinked back tears. “You have to go out again t
onight?”

“Yes!”

Jaytsy sat up, her light brown hair in wild disarray, and beamed at her father. Then she screamed at him.

“Not now, Jayts.” He sat down on the side of the bed and Jaytsy crawled over to him. He smiled and kissed her cheek. “Want to rest with me for a while?”

She roared in response. He lay down on the bed and she immediately thumped his chest with her fist.

“So how did it go last night?” Mahrree asked timidly.

“Fine. Boring.” He closed eyes. “Which is good. Sort of.”

She dared to kiss him. “I missed you.”

He only grunted.

Mahrree pulled Jaytsy away, quietly got off the bed, and shut the bedroom door behind them.

-
--

That night in the barn Perrin put on two extra pairs of socks. “My feet started to go numb last night. Until I found that one spot.”

Neeks, holding his weapons, squinted. “What spot?”

“A place where the snow was all melted and steam rose from the ground. Even some scrawny deer were there, eating the last of the grasses. Fascinating, really. You see—”

“I don’t want to hear it!” Neeks shook his weather-beaten head. “I can’t claim innocence about your doings if I know too many d
etails.”

“Ah, Grandpy,” Perrin chided as he put on the white knitted sweater again. “I told you—I left the letter with the surgeon. Should anything go wrong, that letter exonerates you, Karna, Gizzada and everyone else at the fort. My father will know that I acted alone and that no one else at the fort participated with me, or had any power to prevent my activities.”

He slipped on the two pairs of trousers.

“The surgeon even signed it, verifying that I was of sound mind. What he was signing, he still doesn’t know, nor will he know unless . . .” He left the rest up to
Neeks’s imagination as he put on the white coat. “This really did the trick last night. Kept out the chill quite nicely. Indeed, a lovely
coat.”

Grandpy grunted that he was not amused and handed Perrin his long knives, then his quiver and bow. “Just bring that lovely coat back again tomorrow morning, still white.”

-
--

Deep in the forest the man in white and gray mottled clothing peered up at the boulder field faintly illuminated by the light of the moons. It was another cloudless night, which meant it would be exceptionally cold again. But that wasn’t a concern as long as he sat by the warm steam vent.

His mouth dropped open as he saw them come, pouring out from a thick stand of trees, as if the entire neighborhood was dro
pping by his eating room for a snack.

“What are . . . what’s going on?” he whispered to the first man to reach him. “Why so many?”

“Something different,” the man told him as he was joined by many others eager to warm their hands and feet by the vent.

“But, but,” stammered the
man whose cozy surroundings had been invaded, “it’s cold! Nothing ever happens in the snow—”

“I told
you—something different, and we have little time to find our positions.”

---

Mahrree was watching the back door as she stirred the cracked wheat for breakfast. She smiled when he marched up the back stairs and yanked on the door. She would have heard his yelp of surprise all the way up in her bedroom.

“All right, all right, you locked the door. Very good. Now let me in!”

Mahrree chuckled and went to the back door, unlatched the locks and slid away the three long iron rods that secured it.

He pulled it open. “Now, how did you know it was me? What if I was a Guarder?”

“I knew it was you, Perrin! I watched you jump over the fence.”

“But what if I wasn’t alone? What if a Guarder was holding a knife to my throat, making me say those things?”

Mahrree sighed. “You’d never submit to that. I’d sooner find a dead husband at my door.”

To her surprise, he smiled. “Yes, you would. Very good.”

“Another boring night?” she asked as he kissed her on the cheek.

“Yes.”

“How many more?”

He shrugged. “Not sure.”

“Breakfast, then bed?”

He nodded. “Where’s Jaytsy?”

“Actually asleep in the cradle in her room.”

They heard a high-pitched scream.

“But now she’s awake and wants you.” Mahrree sighed.

He smiled. “I can give her, and you, ten minutes.”

-
--

It was Karna’s turn that night to help prepare the captain. “No more finding warm spots in the forest, all right?”

“Grandpy told you about that?” Perrin adjusted his gloves.

“I have to admit, I’m curious as to what else you find out there. In the dark. Everything covered with snow—”

Perrin shook his head. “Not everything is covered with snow. The ground is warm, even hot, in many areas we were in before. Then there’s—”

“Stop! Stop! I don’t want to hear it.” Karna covered his ears like a toddler. “Grandpy said you’d start talking again, and we really shouldn’t know.”

“Your name is on that letter too, Brillen. You won’t be in any kind of trouble.”

“But I already feel I am! Perrin—” Karna dared say his first name because sometimes ‘second minds’ really needed to get through to the first ones, “—maybe, maybe it
is
nothing,” he said earnestly. “Maybe it’s an elaborate hoax. Was there anyone mean-spirited that you went to Command School with?”

“Brillen,” Perrin said as he put on the quiver, “only about half of my class. But this is no trick. I feel it, deep in my bones.”

“Sure that’s not just the cold you’re feeling? It’s another clear night.”

“It’s real, Lieutenant.”

Brillen took a deep breath. “And you’re sure you’re the
only
one who can break this rule, go over this wall, barge into this forest?”

“You know it as well as I do. I can see it in your eyes. Besides, your skin’s not pale enough.”

Brillen exhaled in unwilling agreement.

---

Mahrree was putting the iron bars back into her windows again, grunting as she did so. “Why did your Grandmother Peto insist on taking these down today, Jaytsy? So what if they look ‘uninviting’? That’s kind of
the point!
She knew I’d have to put them back up again.”

Jaytsy pulled out some wooden blocks from the bottom shelf.

“Good idea, Jayts. Trip up any intruders on your scattered toys. We could—”

The sudden knock on her front door filled her with immediate fear. No one would be coming by this late at night, unless . . .

She hesitated until she heard the knock again.

“Mahrree? It’s cold out here!”

“Hogal!” She rushed to the front door, unlatched the bolts and opened it as quickly as she could. “What are you doing here? Is Tabbit well?”

Hogal stepped quickly inside and shut the door behind him. “Tabbit’s just fine, my dear,” he said as he undid the long scarf wrapped around his face and unfastened his thick coat. “We’re act
ually worried about you, with these all-night training sessions. Tonight I had a feeling that maybe you might appreciate a little company. I’d be happy to sleep on the sofa there, keep the fire going, and get Jaytsy for you when she wakes in the night,” he offered, a little bashfully.

“Oh, Hogal,” Mahrree felt herself growing weepy. “I’d hate for you to sleep on the sofa, or to spend the night away from Tabbit.” But that wasn’t what she meant.

And Hogal could tell. “It was Tabbit’s idea, and I was more than happy to agree with her. If you send me home, she’ll be angry with me.”

Mahrree swallowed and nodded, sniffing her gratitude.

“Any recent pains?”

“Some this morning,” Mahrree admitted, “but after I rested this afternoon they stopped again.”

“Well, let’s make sure it stays that way. Now,” Hogal said, clapping his hands, “I see some bars that need replacing. I think I’m up to that! Why don’t you get little Jaytsy ready for bed and let me finish up down here?”

“Thank you, Hogal.” She kissed him on the cheek.

About fifteen minutes later Mahrree left her bedroom after lulling Jaytsy to sleep. Mahrree really didn’t want Jaytsy disturbing her great-great-uncle tonight, so she would stay in her parents’ bed. From the storage trunk on the landing, Mahrree pulled out a thick blanket and two pillows, and started to make her way downstairs. She paused when she saw that Hogal, who had finished securing the iron rods in the windows and doors, was now standing near the eating room table.

Not realizing he was being watched, he slowly slid open the s
ecret drawer and retrieved the long knife. He peered suspiciously at the blade as if it might suddenly come to life. Hogal touched it gingerly, winced and then did something extraordinary—he slipped the long knife into his waistband, making sure the handle was concealed under his knitted tunic.

Mahrree blinked in surprise. What in the world did an eighty-two-year-old rector think he could accomplish with a long knife?! She stepped noiselessly back up the stairs to her bedroom and sat down on the massive bed to think.

Why
was Hogal here, and so worried about securing the house? Why—

Mahrree realized she was the dumbest woman in the world. How could she have been so self-absorbed to not see it? Last year Perrin spent Raining Season teaching his soldiers hand-to-hand combat in the indoor training arena. He said he wouldn’t force the men into the bitter cold unless there was a legitimate—

“Oh, dear Creator!” Mahrree whispered and held her belly. “There really
is
something happening, isn’t there? Why wouldn’t he tell me?!”

A tightening of muscles in her lower back that spread around to her front told her why. She took a deep breath to calm herself, al
though that never worked.

“He didn’t want me to worry. So, naturally, I’m worrying even more. And the only reason Hogal is here is because . . .”

She closed her eyes to try to stop the tears, the stupid tears that so easily trickled out whenever she was expecting a baby.

“Because tonight, the world is out to get my husband.”

Chapter 23 ~ “And if it is Your will, let me
walk out of here again.”

P
errin was beginning to know the forest rather well. And it wasn’t nearly as fearsome as he remembered it a year and a half ago. He thought of himself as a manifestation of snow as he moved quietly, looking for anything that would signal twelve Guarders had finally arrived. He’d plotted his course for this night, moving in erratic patterns that wouldn’t suggest any kind of deliberate behavior to whoever might see him. He also stooped to avoid being recognized for his size, but he saw no one, again.

He knew he was effective, though. Several times during the past two nights he’d come within a stone’s throw of his own soldiers, crouching at the edge of the forest like a snow-covered rock while his soldiers rode and walked right past him.

The forest had become familiar. Instead of feeling cold terror, he felt as if he’d come home. There was something about the trees that called to him like a foggy memory he’d forgotten. And
that
was what was so unnerving about the woods. He considered once asking his parents if there was any dormant Guarder blood in his veins. He suspected that’s why all the family lines were lost after the Great War—to hide who was related to Guarders. But he could imagine the look of shock on his father’s face should he ask such a question.

Instead, Perrin focused on the trees. Or rather, the areas behind, in front, and between the trees where no one normally looked. That’s where he moved as well, close to shrubs and pines to become part of the numerous boulders caked in frozen white. He was grateful he remembered to bring along a white scarf tonight, lifted from Mahrree’s wardrobe, to wrap around his mouth and nose in order to
trap his breath so he left no telling steam clouds behind. The only thing he couldn’t control was the crunching of the snow underneath him. He practiced walking on his toes to minimize his impact, but he was a large man, and sticks even under a foot of snow still insisted on snapping with disturbing irregularity.

As he crept and scanned the area, he felt the same unexpected sense of tranquility that surprisingly enveloped him the first night. He could stay there all Raining Season if necessary. He wouldn’t mind at all.

-
--

One of the men in mottled white and gray clothing held out his arm to stop his companion. The group had dispersed from the steam vent high in the forest and now moved, two by two, throughout the trees just as they had the night before. This pair was close to the forest’s edge and had watched the usual patrols of the soldiers. They also saw the
other
patrols, close to the tall timber walls of the fort, noticeable only to those who knew how to recognize the unnoticeable.

But this—
this
was completely unanticipated.

“What
is
that?” the man’s companion breathed.

“Must be a soldier,” the other one whispered in awe. “He has a bow and quiver.”

“Is he one—”

“No, he’s not! He’s dressed in white.”

The men froze in position as the large being continued to creep along, almost noiselessly, and turned down into a small ravine.

“Remarkable!” The first man exhaled.

“But if it’s not . . . Wait a minute.” The second man peered carefully. “Might that be—”

“Yes, it’s
him!
”

“But why? How?”

“He must know.” The first man sighed.

“What do we do?”

“Tell everyone!”

---

Perrin saw it out of the corner of his eye, but he needed to discern if the movement also saw him. He stopped, held his breath, and hoped that he looked like one of the boulders around him. Only his dark eyes were still exposed, and they shifted to look to his right.

Definitely movement—and human. The dark shadow was lo
ping along an elevated ridge about sixty paces to the right of Perrin. His sloppy gait indicated he didn’t know he was being watched.

“This is it.” Perrin sighed, almost disappointed that this would be his last night in the forest. He slipped between two of the bou
lders, noiselessly took his bow off his arm, nocked an arrow, and took aim.

The figure in black stopped to look around.

“Always two together,” Perrin whispered. “Waiting for your companion? I’ve got time.” He shifted his aim to where the figure had come from.

A moment later another shadow burst out of the trees. He never heard the twang of the bowstring, but his companion saw him drop to the ground.

“One,” Perrin whispered as he rapidly nocked the next arrow.

The first figure in black ran back to his fallen companion and dropped to his knees. Panicked at seeing the arrow protruding from the still body’s chest, he scrambled back to his feet and looked fra
ntically around.

“Two,” Perrin whispered as he released the arrow. It struck true with a muffled thud, felling the man on top of his companion.

The urge to run up to the ridge to see if they were dead or merely injured overwhelmed Perrin, but he knew he had to stay where he was, in case they moved in fours now, instead of twos.

He’d wondered how he’d respond to taking a life from a di
stance. Stabbing that Guarder with his sword a year and a half ago had felt as if he was stabbed himself. But this time, he wasn’t even sure where he hit the men.

Mostly likely their chests, which was what he was aiming for. Neeks was right—the bow wasn’t his strength, but he was a fair shot.

He’d expected to feel the crushing burden of taking a life to overwhelm him as it had when he and Karna killed the Guarder. But instead it hovered in the air as if it were a black cloud, knowing more was to come, so it was waiting until it could engulf him.

It was better that way, he reasoned. He wasn’t finished for a
nother ten men.

The forest remained silent, and he looked around to orient hi
mself. He was probably two miles west of Edge, and the men had been running from the west. Maybe several more pairs were on their way, or had already passed him below or above his point near the boulders.

A surge of heated dread rushed through Perrin. Targets might be slipping past him, or he might be surrounded and not even know it. It would take only two men to make it into Edge, to find his house—

He darted out of the cover of the boulders, not entirely sure where he was headed. He readied another arrow as he made his way through a thicket of trees, trying not to bump into any of them.

He stopped, closed his eyes, and whispered, “Think Perrin, think . . . don’t panic, just think. How can you find them?”

Tracks.

He rolled his eyes. Yes, no problem tracking at night.

He peered into the dark forest and whispered, “Dear Creator, please guide me. Please save my family. And if it is Your will, let me walk out of here again.”

It was in the corner of his eye that he noticed the movement. Without even thinking, he raised the bow with the arrow already in position and let it fly. It hit its target, barely fifty paces away. The man holding the jagged dagger fell to the ground with a soft thump.

Perrin already had the next arrow readied, waiting for his companion. A cascade of snow falling from a tree to his left spun him to look to see what caused it.

The black shadow burst out so fast that initially Perrin thought the tree was falling, until he saw a glint of steel right in his face. He fell backwards as the weight of the Guarder pushed him down. The bow was no longer in his hands as he wrestled with the man, much smaller and weaker than him.

Perrin flipped the Guarder off of him, throwing him into the snow. As the Guarder rushed to stand up, Perrin lunged, pushing the man on to his stomach. Perrin kneeled down on his back, shoving his face into the hard snow. With his free hand, Perrin pulled out one of his long knives as the Guarder wriggled to free himself from suffocating. Perrin lay on top of the man, crushing him with his full weight.

With the blade of his long knife up against the Guarder’s throat,
he whispered in his ear, “Where are the others?” He yanked up his head to allow the man to answer.

“You’ll never get out alive!”

“That’s not what I asked. Where are the others?”

The man merely
laughed.

Until Perrin cut his throat. “Four. And all of that was just to d
ivert me from seeing your companions, wasn’t it?”

He stood up quickly and faced the forest. He barely registered that another man was rushing him until he felt the smack in his face. Instinctively, Perrin went on all fours and rolled down the ravine to a cluster of shrubs. There he stopped to look around to find his attac
ker.

He came trotting down the ravine, his jagged blade out and ready. Perrin charged up the slope, his own long knife still bra
ndished.

The Guarder never had a chance. He was obviously not used to running in the snow, because his feet slipped out from underneath him, sending him sliding right into Perrin’s blade.

“Five,” he whispered as he dropped the body on to the ground. “Where’s number six?” It took only a moment to discover him. Perrin beckoned him with his knife that was dripping red drops into the snow.

The man thirty paces away instead turned and ran to the south, towards Edge.

“Oh, no you
don’t!
” Perrin took off in his own slip-sliding race towards the man who was narrower, swifter and unfortunately, more elusive. Perrin looked ahead through the trees to try to determine where he might be.

“Yes!” he whispered as he continued his pursuit. Karna should be about eighty paces away from where the Guarder would break from the forest in his race towards Edge.

Perrin stopped to catch his breath, and a second later the silence of the woods was broken by his ear-piercing whistle. He practiced it frequently as he strode along the forest’s edge. He knew it carried far, because on several occasions when he puckered to the trees, a flock of birds would fly out in alarm, at least five hundred paces deep. He followed the long, high-pitched noise with three shorter whistles. Then he held his breath and waited for the response.

One quick whistle. Karna would be waiting.

Perrin bent over to slow his breathing and waited to hear if Karna was successful. About half a minute later Perrin heard shouts, the clang of metal, and a cheer that was immediately muffled, most likely by a sergeant’s hand covering an over-eager private’s mouth.

“What did I say about keeping it quiet?” he groaned silently at the premature victory. “Six more. Keep your eyes open!”

Six more.

---

“To the west! The west!” the man whispered hurriedly as he came upon three other companions. “He’s taken down five, chased one to the soldiers.”

Two of the men in white and gray mottled clothing looked at each other in surprise.

“Impressive,” one of them said, “but he’ll never get everyone.”

“Agreed,” said another. “It’s time. The rest should already be on the move.”

The three other men nodded, stood up, and ran towards the west.

---

Perrin had been walking for ten minutes now, but saw no one else. He kept fighting down the fear that they’d slipped past him and were on his way to his house. But there were soldiers there, too, walking in quiet patrols through the neighborhoods. Another four would be dispatched to watch over his home specifically. Karna would have understood the three short whistles telling him the Guarders were in the forest, and this was not, repeat—
not
an exercise.

He nocked another arrow and held up the bow, stepping past boulders and staring into dark shadows.

-
--

They were in the clear, and they knew it. While the large man in white was wrestling one of their own in a ravine, their group of four in black moved above them, heading east before they turned south.

They still couldn’t understand where the man like snow had come from, but that didn’t matter. There was a mission to acco
mplish.

That’s why they each stopped short, staring in astonishment at what blocked their path.

“What . . . what . . .” one of them stammered, but the other three had already turned and were running, chased by what appeared to be a mysterious hoard of men, dressed in gray and white.

They all ran west.

-
--

Perrin continued to step cautiously, looking down the shaft of his arrow. He twisted and strained to hear any sound. He’d already pushed back his furry hood and slipped the knitted cap up off his ears. Some time ago he lost Mahrree’s white scarf, but she never wore it and wouldn’t miss it. He was filled with a raging heat so strong he was surprised the snow didn’t melt around him.