Forest For The Trees (Book 3) (66 page)

“I can guess.”  Marik stood so he could pace.  “I’d
bet that the mage had several magical objects in his base.  Things that made
this particular forest area valuable, instead of just another random set of
fortresses.  If they were solid enough that they could operate on their own,
without a mage to power them, that would mean anyone could use them.  A new
enemy detachment could sneak in, set them off, then the alliance fighters would
be right back where they started.”

“Generally along those lines,” Colbey agreed.

“They could not remove them?” Dietrik said.  “Rip them
to pieces or hurl them into the Southern Sea?”

“Looks like not,” Marik observed.  “They couldn’t move
them, couldn’t wreck them, couldn’t risk letting anyone else know about them in
case the lingering enemy soldiers heard about them…so they sat down on top of
the whole mess to guard it all.”

Colbey crossed his arms, a narrow pinch between his
eyes.  “An uncouth description, yet close enough.”

“Perhaps,” Dietrik allowed.  “But for entire
lifetimes?  Where is the sense in that?”

“The damage that caused the distortions is impossible
to undo.  That was determined early by men well-practiced in such knowledge. 
All that can be done is to seal them away.  Yet the seals require much care, so
there must live nearby those who tend to them.  Also, the remnant that lingers
beneath the village is far too dangerous to entrust to any man.”

“You sound roughly thirty levels holier than the rest
of us.”

Colbey returned Dietrik’s angry retort with a stony
glance.  “We make no use of it.  No one can be trusted to handle the power
lying dormant behind the strongest seals my ancestors were capable of
producing.  It grows stronger with every passing year.  What was a worry
two-thousand years past is a cataclysmic concern today.”

“Sounds damned dangerous,” Marik agreed, retaking his
seat.  “But how can a power grow stronger on its own?  That shouldn’t be
possible.”

“Knowledge beyond yours created it, mage.  Expect
nothing familiar from it.”

Marik frowned.  “Sealed distortions spawning twisted
creations, and an old magical object far too powerful to use hidden away.  No
wonder the forest has such a dark reputation.”

“Of our doing,” Colbey admitted.  “We fostered
numerous rumors to keep the outlanders out, and to those who ignored the
warnings, the scouts would deal with in an appropriate manner.  It was a point
of pride among the scouts who would not advance to the Guardians.  The
cleverest tricks or most skilled pranks played on outland hunters earned
respect from the rest.”

“And so?”  A hard quality pervaded Dietrik’s words. 
Marik glanced sideways in concern, noticing his friend’s hand resting on his
rapier’s swept hilt.  “Generations of secrets passed over a camp fire. 
Thrilling and exciting…and damned peculiar.  I get to thinking that the dawn
might be harder to reach than I’ve been led to expect.  And I don’t take to
being buggered without my consent.”

Marik eyed Dietrik nervously.  He had a point, but
he’d never once felt ill intention wafting from Colbey during the talk.  On the
other hand, if Colbey
did
want to kill them, then few could wear an
impartial mask the way the scout could.  Going against a Colbey who was calm
and collected, rather than hot and obsessed, drove icicles through the back of
Marik’s neck.  The scout remained the best swordsman Marik had ever known.

Colbey stiffened.  Marik matched the movement,
thinking the scout tensed from anger at Dietrik’s accusation.  After a moment
he saw that Colbey’s reaction bore no resemblance to a lethal coil preparing to
unwind.  Instead, his bearing forcibly struck Marik as familiar.

A raw emotion swallowed the man.  Neither fury nor
rage, it was equally primal, though of a different nature.  In his eyes, Marik
saw the reflection of his own years in the days following his mother’s death. 
Bad days.  Times where he switched from the desire to sob until his body
withered to desiring a violent fight with any of the town’s pompous
princelings.  The change could wash over him in a single instant.  Chaotic. 
Unfettered.  Wild.

His pain had eventually lessened as he approached a
decision.  Setting out along the road to Kingshome with Maddock and Harlan and
Chatham had finally released him from the lingering pain evoked by living in a
cottage drowned in her memories.  For several months afterward his temper had continued
to blaze fiercely, ready to explode at the slightest provocation.  He had kept
his mind focused sharply on the quest to find Rail because it enabled him to
avoiding thinking about the simple fact that locating his father had only been
the excuse.  The
reason
for leaving was the abiding pain of watching his
mother steadily deteriorate to a paltry shadow resembling her former self, and
his being unable to stop it no matter how hard he fought to save her.

Colbey’s tortured soul, having slipped momentarily
from behind its resolute mask, churned Marik’s memories to a boil far too
quickly to sort properly.  Marik struggled with the remembered emotions, at a
loss for what to say.

Dietrik appeared to notice the change as well.  His
friend’s harsh posture softened slightly, Dietrik’s head stretching forward to
imitate a turtle’s venturing from its leathery carapace.

“To be a Guardian…was to stand for the noblest
causes.  Strength of spirit beyond strength of force.”  Colbey’s words were
choked.  Marik stared in amazement.  “My…obsession for revenge…it twisted my
sanity in ways I believed myself immune to…”

“Revenge against us?”  Dietrik’s hand clenched tighter
on the hilt.  “What bloody cause have we given you for that?”

“None at all,” Colbey admitted.  The scout stood to
peer sorrowfully into the dark trees.  “And that is my shame.  Mage, I betrayed
you and yours.  I did this out of weakness.”

“I don’t think you are weak,” Marik responded. 
Everything about Colbey, from his bearing to the eerily haunted tone, disquieted
him.

“Weakness is in he unable to hold fast to his morals. 
The enemies I sought had eluded me far longer than I expected them to.  My rage
grew until I finally abandoned by principles.  With no enemy to slay, I created
monsters from the men closest to me.”

Marik touched Dietrik’s elbow lightly.  His friend
took the cue and relaxed his grip on the rapier.  Relaxed…but not released. 
“What are you talking about, Colbey?”

“The village where I once lived is vanished,” the
scout uttered in a hoarse whisper.  Neither man was surprised.  Colbey had
spoken of the village during the entire tale in the past tense.

“I expect it is,” Dietrik said to fill the long
pause.  “And what connection does that have to us.”

“None at all.  What happened…is this.  What the
village had long feared finally came to pass.  Mages hungry for the power we
kept from the world came to the village without warning.  Casting spells from
behind the Taurs they brought, they slaughtered every person they found, from
children to elder.  The Guardians fought, but were killed all the same.

“I know this because several villagers were left for
dead.  The survivors gathered once the…murderers departed.  A bare handful
remained…”

Marik stroked his chin in thought.  “Then why come
back?   Unless…they couldn’t get anything.  Could they?  They didn’t!  Whether
it was the seals, or the artifact, they couldn’t get their hands on what they
wanted!”

Colbey’s eyes were blank, his ears unhearing.  Dietrik
looked to Marik, his hand finally leaving the hilt so he could rest his
forearms across his knees.  “That’s a bit balmy, mate.  The Arronaths only
arrived in Tullainia about two years ago.”

“They must have sent forces over sooner than that.  It
makes sense.  No army charges into unknown territory to start a war!”

“No,” Colbey countered.  He focused his attention on
the two mercenaries.  “For a long time, I believed, as a dying village elder
did, that the attack on the village was to gather power to use during a war. 
It currently seems unlikely to me, seeing what I have.  This invasion by the
Arronaths required time to set in motion.  Only after they failed to obtain the
power hidden in the village did they resort to warfare.”

“I hear a false peal to your bell,” Dietrik
countered.  “That must have put it around the same winter we entered the band. 
If a flying mountain had been lurking anywhere, someone would have seen it and
raised the bloody racks!”

“Their Citadel is a mover of armies.  A smaller force
could have easily crossed the ocean by boat with a skilled crew.  It is too far
for conventional ships, except the Arronaths are clever in the uses they put
their resources to.”

“That’s why you joined the Crimson Kings, isn’t it?” 
The
same reason as me
, Marik thought with wonder.  “You hoped you would find the
ones you were searching for during a contract with the band.”

“There were few choices,” Colbey admitted.  “The
alternatives seemed less likely to bear fruit.  Few are as knowledgeable about
strife in the kingdom as a mercenary band.  I had hoped to find the enemy,
which proved to be the Arronaths, quickly.  Instead my need to avenge my people
drove me attack you.  The closest mage I could vent my…my fury upon.”

“Mage is right,” Marik declared with iron-clad
conviction, ignoring Colbey’s self-recrimination.  When he met his eye, Marik
continued.  “I can see how it must have
truly
happened!  It fits too
well.  The Arronaths have to be as much a victim as we are.”

A spark fired in the scout’s pupils.  “Is a murderer a
victim?”

“If he is the murderer, then no.  But this must be
what Xenos has been planning!  This is what father and his…his friend have been
trying to stop him from doing!”

Dietrik grew wary, while Colbey turned quizzical. 
“Mate, you realize what that means?”

Marik nodded.  “Xenos couldn’t get the artifact
before, so he tricked the Arronaths into starting a war.  Because…I’m not
sure.  Maybe the army will help him break the protections in some way.  But
he’s in the forest and heading to where the village must be.”

“Explain this to me,” Colbey ordered.  “Who are you
speaking of?”

They resumed their positions around the fire while
Marik recounted the facts passed to him by Rail in the Queen’s Head.  Colbey’s
manner soured throughout the entire tale, regaining a measure of his former
personality in time to spit, “Mages!  Never satisfied with their own power! 
How many
mutilated
to satisfy their greed?”

“Why don’t you ask Marik how many children he has
diced into stew ingredients if you want an answer?” Dietrik needled sharply.

Colbey deflated at the pointed jab.  “This man is the
sort against whom we worked tirelessly our entire lives to prevent from
entering the Euvea.  My course is clear.  Sleep, so that we may rise with the
first light.”

“Your course?” Marik puzzled.  “What course?  We
finally know what the Arronaths are planning!  We have to get the information
back to the army!”

“That is not an option to me,” Colbey tossed back.  “I
will not travel to the outlands to bring thousands into the Euvea groves.”

“And how will you stop us from doing exactly that,
eh?”  Dietrik’s hand drifted back to his rapier.

“By simply not aiding you in doing so.  Come morning,
we will travel to the southern entrance of this area.  Once outside the seal,
you may leave or not, but without my guidance.  Find your own way back to your
kingdom.  My duty was to die alongside my fellow Guardians, fighting to protect
the villagers and our legacy.  I will stop this man from his goal, or perish in
the attempt.”

The fire reflected in the scout’s eyes…or perhaps it
was new purpose Marik saw burning there.  Colbey dropped to his side, back to
the flames.  Within instants he had fallen asleep.

Dietrik whispered, “Let him choose his own hand-basket
for the journey.  I say we clear out first thing after we get free of this
hell.”

Marik shrugged noncommittally.  He lay down to catch
what sleep he could, listening for sounds that might be a predatory plant
creeping through the darkness.

Go?  Or stay with Colbey?

Around them, the twisted forest lurked as no other
woodland he’d ever camped in had.

Sealed Area Fifty-Three’s exit mystified Marik.  His
questions annoyed Colbey, whose mouth tightened until he would have starved to
death were he unable to find food smaller than a shucked pea.

As before, the point where they would pass through the
seal lay between two massive Euvea trunks.  They must have been twin offshoots
centuries before.  Except, Marik pondered while he watched the scout press his
hands to the bark, they could never have started life remotely close to each other. 
If so, then when they grew to their enormous vantages their bodies would have
crushed together.  These must have sprouted a hundred yards apart in the
beginning, at minimum.

What confused Marik was how Colbey could manipulate
the seal in the first place.  The scout possessed no magical talents of any
sort.  Also, why here?  He looked around the left-hand tree, staring into the
distance of what appeared to be continuous sunlit forest, stretching on into
eternity.

Yet Colbey insisted that the exit lay between these
trunks, no matter what his eyes told him of the yonder reaches.  Marik had
expected some sort of wall or shimmering veil to mark the seal’s boundary. 
What would happen if he walked around the Euveas, marching on into the trees? 
Would he end up walking back toward Dietrik and Colbey, despite keeping to a
straight course with no turns?

The only scar on the seemingly flawless tableau was in
the space between the trunks.  Exactly as before, the air between swallowed the
light, becoming a void blacker than pitch.  It waited for them to enter its
cavernous mouth, uncomfortably bringing to mind the image of those rythas
blossoms lunging for the stick.

Colbey bent his concentration on the Euvea trunk. 
Marik watched closely, wanting to understand the trick to it.  He saw nothing. 
Even when the air began to ripple and waver.  Unlike the stamina boosting
trick, this new technique instigated no visible changes to Colbey’s aura.

“How did—”

“Go through, mage!”  Colbey waved a hand briskly. 
“The breach is only momentary.  You would not wish to be in the middle when it
reforms.”

Marik swallowed and crowded Dietrik’s back on the way
through.  He closed his eyes.  The sensation washed over his body, starting
with an icy pinprick on his belly, enveloping him in an expanding ring.  It
curved around to converge in a frozen dot against his lower spine.

Before he could gasp in fear, he was across.  The
light vanished when he entered the exterior forest.  He blinked underneath the
black velvet bag of night that had been pulled over his head.  Colbey walked
into his back with a muffled curse.

“Give me a moment, if you don’t want to run right over
me!”

“It is dark as sin,” Dietrik exclaimed.  “Can’t we
have a torch or the like?  We’ll end up walking off a cliff like this.”

“Not around here, I expect,” Marik called into the
blind surroundings.  “I’d be worried about falling off these roots!”

“It’s a broken neck we’ll have, making our way back.”

“Yeah, well…we need to talk about—”

A hand cuffed his chin without warning.  “Still your
mouths!” Colbey hissed.  “Unless you wish to call down every Arronath within a
league on your heads.”

“Are they so close as that?” Dietrik queried in a
moderated tone.  “I do not hear their monsters baying.”

“Move to your left,” Colbey instructed them.  “Take
care with your feet.  The ground is uneven.  Your
other
left, mage!”

They followed the scout’s direction until they
abruptly broke free from the inviolate blackness.  The canopy was as solid as
back where the Arronaths had used them for spot shooting…or nearly so.  Beneath
the trees, the brightest noon would appear gloomy, except enough light somehow
filtered through for their eyes to use.  Darker shadows became visible while
their eyes adjusted.  Forms took on shape if not color.  Within a minute, Marik
and Dietrik could reasonably distinguish their surroundings.

“That’s a little better,” Marik observed.  “Now we can
find a place to wait until dawn.  I’m not tired since we slept all night. 
Er…all day, I suppose.”

“Better not to walk straight into a bloody Arronath
camp in the dark,” Dietrik agreed.  “If we see them skulking about tomorrow, we
can slip between these roots and wait for them to be off.”

“As you see fit,” Colbey stated.  “You two, I need not
say that I would prefer you keep what I revealed to you private.  The world has
no need to be aware of the Rovasii’s secrets.  But…as you choose.  I will do
nothing to stop you.”

“You’ll be dead, more as like,” Dietrik snorted. 
“Picking a fight with the likes of these bastards.”

“It holds no fear for me.”

When Colbey moved to leave, Marik spoke up.  “Wait a
moment!  I’m not so certain about going back.”

“It is as simple as the hedge-mazes you outlanders
love to fashion.  All you need do is keep your left hand to the wall as you
travel and you will find the exit soon enough.  In two miles, you will cease
being turned back by the seal, and you will know you have circled the corner.”

“No, that’s not it.”  Marik took a deep breath.  “It’s
that I’m concerned about you going off alone.”

“Mate, there is no better swordsman to be found that
him,” Dietrik spoke from his side.  “He’s long since left his mother’s teat and
can fend for himself.  We, as you kept putting it, need to get the information
back to Torrance.  And I heartily agree with the sentiment.”

“Except,” Marik countered, aware that Colbey had
paused to listen, refraining from departing outright, “that by the time we get
back, convince Torrance and Tybalt’s stooges about how dangerous Xenos is and
what he’s up to, it will be long over.  When we return with the band and
whatever army soldiers we can muster, Xenos will have been gone an eightday.”

“That’s not our bloody problem!  Let Tybalt send his
army chasing after Xenos and the Arronaths both.  Look after your own skin
first.”

“What do you think Xenos will do after he unlocks
whatever power is hidden in this sealed artifact?  Throw a tea party?  My
father told me well enough what floats his boat.  He’ll try to spread his
poisonous religion as far as he can.  First thing he’ll do is recruit followers
to sacrifice every non-believer they can capture, all so he can suck up their
life energies and grow stronger than ever.”

“Then we’re well in the lead!  You’ve seen these
blighted seals and how they work.  He’ll be squatting on his hunkers poking at
them until the hells pardon all their sinners.  A few hundred fighters would be
better to have on hand than only a sword or two.”

“The mages Xenos sent before tried to break through
the seal on the artifacts, didn’t they?” Marik asked Colbey.  “When they wiped
out your village.”

“Indeed,” the scout agreed.  “They were repelled in
their effort.”

“There you have it,” Dietrik finalized.  “They do not
have the power or skill or whatever it takes to reach it.”

“But don’t you see?”  Marik waved a hand which Dietrik
could barely make out.  “They failed then, but they learned exactly what they
were up against!  If Xenos came back it is because he has prepared.  He’s ready
to tackle the seal until it gives.”

“Or thinks he is.  Blighters like this chap never seem
to have a clear-eyed estimation of what they aren’t capable of.”

“It is too irresponsible to walk away and
hope
he’s overestimated his abilities.”

“Gods damn it all, mate!  What do you think you can
accomplish against them?”

“Not them,” Marik countered.  “I don’t care about
them.  The only one that matters is Xenos.  There has to be a way to stop him.”

“You said yourself that Xenos is a mountain compared
to most mages.”

Marik glanced at Colbey through the gloom.  He had the
eerie impression that the scout could see them clearly despite the darkness. 
“The most terrible enemies can still be brought down with an effective surprise
attack.  Isn’t that what you told me during our sword training?”

“Quite so.”  Colbey unfolded his arms.  “If you
accompany me in this fight, it will likely mean your death, mage.  Are you
prepared to accept death?”

“What he said!”  Dietrik exhaled loudly through his
nose.

“I am not ready to die.”

“Then there is little point in you coming with me.”

“In point of fact,” Marik stopped Colbey’s departure
by saying, “it is a positive trait.  Those willing to die for their causes
usually end up doing so.  If you are ready to die, you don’t fight half so hard
in order to live.  Anybody can die for a cause, but you only win if you make
the other side die for
their
cause.”

Colbey studied him for several silent moments.  “That
is an interesting observation.  I believe you and one of my instructors would
enjoy discussing philosophies.”

“Perhaps between the two of them, you might piece
together half a brain!”  Dietrik jabbed his finger hard into Marik’s forehead. 
“You are outsmarting yourself again, mate.  Last time it led you about as close
to your death as it is possible to go.  Why do you keep insisting on breaking
your own records?”

Marik pushed away the finger.  “You go back, Dietrik. 
Three won’t be much more effective than two, and we’ll either take Xenos by
surprise or fail.  You can make sure word gets back to Torrance and Raymond,
whatever happens.”

“And what about Ilona?  Am I supposed to tell her you
deliberately bared your throat to a rabid wolverine?”

“I don’t intend to die,” Marik repeated.  “But there
are too many reasons to try and stop them, and not as many to cry off.  Even if
I weren’t the crown-general—”

“Which you bloody well
aren’t
any longer!”

“Maybe so.  But even if I’m not, I have a
responsibility to stop this man.”

“What logic is that?  If you have any responsibility,
it is to get home alive and start a life with your woman!”

“It is the simplest responsibility of all,” Colbey
said calmly.  “To fight for those who lack the strength to do so themselves.”

“That’s about it,” Marik agreed.  “But also because I
do know what would happen if I did nothing.  Sooner or later, the trouble would
spread to my doorstep, wherever I lived.  It is a preemptive assault, this. 
Fighting the fight, before it becomes a no-holds-barred battle.”

Dietrik kept silent, mulling Marik’s words.  When
Marik groped through the shadows to reach Colbey, his friend barked, “So what
are you saying that makes me, mate?  A quavering poltroon?”

“No, I never—”

“Well, if you insist on acting like a right plonker, I
had best keep to your heels.  You’ll need somebody to look after your carcass
until a Healer puts your pieces back together.  I’ve grown used to the job.”

“You don’t have to do that.”

Dietrik nearly tripped twice while he marched to
Colbey’s side.  “I never asked for your permission.  And you.  This is your
playground.  How are you going to go about sniffing out these Arronaths?”

“Where they must be is not in doubt,” the scout
replied.  “The only question that remains is if they have passed this spot, or
have not yet reached it.  Except the question’s answer is obvious.”

“Explain that.”

Colbey walked to the small moonlit patch sifting
through the interlaced branches.  He scuffed the ground until enough dirt had
loosened for him to draw in.  Using his finger, he poked holes in the earth. 
“These represent the sealed areas within the Euvea.  As you can see, there are
a higher number to the south than to the north.”

Marik leaned close to see better in the gloom.  What
Colbey had created looked like an elaborate necklace; a single line of holes
along the top, curving down on both sides to a thicket at the bottom.  He had
seen these types of necklaces on women at the opening ceremony of the
tournament.  Mostly they had been gold chains around the neck with attached
jeweled strands hanging over their bosoms.  Each inward strand was slightly
longer than the previous until the central length dangled in the exposed
cleavage.

“Why are they arranged like that?”

Colbey cast a quick glance over his shoulder at
Marik’s forgetfully loud voice before answering.  “None can say.  I would guess
that whatever enchantments existed among the northern battlements were of a
different nature than the southern ones.  Most collapsed before they could
twist into the unnatural distortions.  There is circumstantial evidence as
well, since the vast majority of distortions involving time are in the north.”

“I suppose anything is possible,” Marik mused.  “Since
we don’t know what spells he used or what he did, or how he did it, or what the
original enchantments were, or how powerful they were…there’s no telling.”

A curt nod came from Colbey.  “To the west of where we
entered, three seals exist so close to each other that you cannot pass between
them.  The last is one of the largest and extends a considerable distance. 
Feeling their way east would bring them around Area Fifty-Three’s edges.  After
a quarter-mile, Area Fifty-Two’s seal closes to within two hundred yards,
forming a channel that leads to a place a short distance from where we stand. 
Area Forty-Eight’s seal is directly south, so to find their way around it and
delve further into the Euvea groves, they would feel their way past this place.”