The Forge in the Forest (14 page)

By the late afternoon both rafts had their canopies, indeed, and all the baggage was aboard. All that remained was for Gise, with Arvhes and Tenvar, to turn the ponies loose upon the western shore. Even Kermorvan in all his impatience was loth to abandon those game little beasts under the Forest's shadow. In the Open Lands they would find good grazing, and perhaps make their way back to the Northmarch, where they would fare well enough, wild or tame. But leading them back took time, leaving Kermorvan anxiously eyeing the sinking sun. At last, as the shadows lengthened, they espied the three drovers picking their way back across the last difficult ford. Arvhes fell in once, and Tenvar many times; Gise plucked them out by the scruff of their necks, like puppies. "They're too small! Heave 'em back!" jeered Kasse. But his raucous laughter rang alarmingly loud among the trees, and the others glared at him.

"Quiet, Kasse!" commanded Kermorvan sharply, as the three came straggling ashore. "All well, Gise? Then to your rafts, and cast off!" He drew on one end of the forward mooring line, the knot slipped free, and with long poles they thrust the leading raft's blunt bow out into the current. The line that linked it to the second raft thrummed taut, and Elof jerked the moorings free. An eddy sucked at it; the blunt-nosed logs ground and jarred against yellow mud, and the water grew suddenly thick as milk. But poles, and the pull of the leading raft, freed it and together, as the sun fell behind the trees, the rough craft leaped out into the smooth onrush of the Westflood.

Its flow was faster than it had seemed from the shore, and they found themselves hurled forward at a smart pace, with the breeze whipping at their hair. The younger folk of the company whooped with excitement, Ils loudest of all; Roc's cry went almost unheard till he seized Elof's arm and jabbed a hard finger at the receding shore. "There!" he hissed, to be heard through the river's rumble and rush. "There below the cedars! Can't you see 'em?"

"Not a thing; no, a few boughs shaking, perhaps. Some beast…"

"With suchlike eyes? They were watching us, no mistake, really watching. But not like a man's neither…"

"Green? Cat-like? The Forest folk have such eyes…"

Roc shuddered. "Naught so wholesome. Just… two gleams. Slanting, yellow. Maybe they caught the last sun, I don't know. But they sent a proper chill through me, they did."

Elof looked around. Nobody on the leading raft seemed to have seen anything, and nobody else on their own. Ermahal leaned unconcerned on the steering oar; Tenvar and Bure sat in the bows, enjoying the ride, and Arvhes dozed peacefully on the baggage. Only Kasse gazed at the shore, and he gave no sign of having seen anything. "I believe you, nonetheless," said Elof quietly. "Whatever they were, they prove one thing; Kermorvan did right to goad us hence so fast. I would not now care to linger by that ford, after dark."

Roc nodded. They were glad to see Kermorvan ahead of them shift his weight on the steering oar and take the raft further from the bank, aiming it straight down the center of the stream that flowed down the divergent channel. Their own matched it smoothly, as Ermahal followed suit. Kermorvan's way with boats he had gained chiefly at sea, so he had taken Ils to advise him, skilled at sailing the shadowed mountain rivers, and put Ermahal in charge of the second raft. The skipper was probably the most practiced waterman of them all, whether on sea or river, and he seemed glad to be at a helm again. His screwed-up eyes scanned the river ahead with keen appraisal, watching every little shift in the water's flow as they passed between islet and shore, and when they rounded the sharp turn at its end it was he who called the first warning.

Ahead of them, like an outstretched limb of the island, a low shelf of rock thrust out halfway across the river, just below the surface, so that the water bubbled and foamed across it, like a natural weir. It was onto this that the current was carrying them, faster already than a horse could gallop, and with no chance whatsoever of steering for the clear channel. "Down, and grab 'old!" yelled Ermahal. Elof saw Kermorvan fall on his steering oar and sweep it from the water, and after that there was little any could do save throw themselves flat upon the logs. With a booming crash, a dreadful scraping, the first raft hit, slewed sideways a moment so Elof feared they would strike it amidships, then it was lurching up and over. Elof saw its stern bounce and settle, then the impact took and shook him, rattling his very teeth in their sockets. His raft tilted and water sluiced along the logs; there was a roar of rage from Arvhes as the awning toppled onto him, then that terrible scraping once again. Elof felt the logs judder under him, heard the crosspieces creak with the strain, and then the whole craft slid bouncing and splashing into the wider channel.

"Well," said Kermorvan as they strove in the fading light to set the rafts in order again. "That is one feature your father's map did not show, Ils! No doubt there will be more; we must keep a proper watch, especially when faring on through the dark."

"You'd no thought of doing that tonight, had you?" inquired Elof, among groans and protests.

Kermorvan shook his head. "No, tonight we are all too weary. We will find somewhere to moor and sleep if we can. There are some islands marked a way downriver, too far perhaps for tonight. But we must find somewhere safe."

All of the company understood him, for in rounding that bend in the river and crossing the weir they had lost their last sight of the Open Lands, and of the west. Both banks now were high walls that closed in as completely behind them as ahead. Wherever they looked, they saw nothing save rank upon rank of trees, upthrust at the sky above, mirrored in the river below. Aithen the Great, the Forest realm, had closed its gates behind them.

So
it was that
as
the last light faded from the sky, the rafts glided on down the stream. It was a clear night, but warmer as the wind fell. The Forest was beyond sight for the moment, dark upon darkness, but never out of mind; the wafting odors of pine sap and tar and damp humus bespoke its awesome presence, and the myriad scurryings and snufflings of its small night-dwellers. Then the stars came out, and the moon arose, dusting the treetops silver. Their dark reflections narrowed the river, but the rafts sailed on serenely down the strip of sky mirrored at its center, across shoals of glittering cloud and deeps of starry blackness. By then most of the company not on watch lay asleep, but Elof could not; he moved astern to sit by Ermahal, who seemed quite happy to go on steering.

"And why not? Grand night to be out on the river again, like when I was a lad. Grew up on a river barge, I did, d'you know that? Used to borrow the tender to take the lasses for rows on a moonlit night like this." He chuckled. "Worked a treat, did the moon. You ever do that?"

Elof shook his head regretfully. "Nothing but swink and study. There were no lasses where I grew up. Save one."

The corsair nodded, not unkindly. "Aye, 'er you seek, would that be? Guessed as much. Must be quite a lass, to 'aul you so far."

"She is."

Ermahal was obviously expecting more details, but when none came he sighed and scratched his head. "Ah well, I might've felt the same when I was your age, if only for the adventure of it. Not now I'm old."

"You? You are no graybeard yet!"

"Five winters short of my 'alf-'undred. Twice your age, if I guess aright."

"More or less. I cannot be sure of it myself."

"Well, there you 'as it. Precious few lasses'd fetch me out into the wilds now. Save one, p'raps, 'er I used to go with that many years back. Pretty's a picture, all long blond curls to her waist and a bold blue eye on her like a summer sky. A fine shape, too, that a man could get a hold of. 'Er beckonin' me to come, and I wouldn't, not me, seein' I was on first watch an' all. Funny, that. Seeing 'er again, after all these years, just the same, beckonin', beckonin'… On one of them big willows down by the ford. Fancy."

Elof looked up in astonishment. Ermahal looked much as he always did, if anything calmer and more serene; the moonlight seemed to have smoothed away some of the salt-hardened lines from his broad face. Perhaps that was why he was wandering in memory, seeming to talk of his memories as if they were only of last night. "Sittin' on the tree limb, out over the water bold as brass, swingin' those plump little legs and beckonin'…" His voice tailed away, and when he spoke again it was of another and less innocent memory. He did not mention the girl again.

They had at last to accept that they could not reach any islands that night, and chose to moor on an out-thrust sandspit, wide enough for them to sleep on but narrow enough to be guarded by one. Ermahal, still apparently unwearied, offered to take the first watch once more, and was not opposed; even Kermorvan was stumbling with weariness. But Elof, though he also wished to sleep, was concerned enough to seek out Kermorvan, and tell him of Ermahal's words. Kermorvan also looked concerned, but not unduly so. "I know of few men less given to fancies than he. Perhaps it was only weariness that spoke, and the strains of a long day. Still, we should have a care for him. You travel on his raft; watch him, and if anything seems worse about him, summon me at once. And now I must have some sleep, if I am not to start babbling also."

Elof agreed with Kermorvan's judgment; the corsair skipper was a hard man to daunt. At their first encounter he had feared anything that might have strayed off the Marshlands, but he had not been afraid to fight it. Sitting on watch now, leaning on his steelbound halberd, he looked the very image of solidity and strength. But when he awakened Kermorvan for the second watch, some two hours later, Elof also awoke. The corsair rolled himself in his blankets, grunting comfortably, and appeared to drift off at once. But only a few minutes after, when Kermorvan's attention was fixed upon the wood, Elof saw the skipper sit up, clutching his blankets nervously to him, and stare fixedly across the dark waters around. Then with a disappointed sigh, he lay down and at last began to snore.

The night passed without incident, and the next day's sail, save that the Forest seemed to be closing around them ever more closely. Open patches of bank were scarcer; the trees were growing down to the water's edge, many overhanging it with their long limbs. Some had broken, or partly torn away, and lay rakelike below the water's surface, perilous snags for any craft less solid than the rafts. That night they did not moor, but set full watches and sailed on; Elof chose his with Ermahal. The skipper seemed cheerful enough, but nervous; he started violently when an owl plummeted silently from the trees to pluck some small beast shrieking from the bankside grass, and once again at a sharp splash from the calm waters astern. They looked, but saw nothing save wide circles of ripples spreading outward from a deep place in the moonlit water, and the flickering dance of nightmoths above them.

"A fish rising for a moth," Elof remarked. "They must grow big in these pools with none to fish them. We should try trailing some lines astern one of these nights; our supplies…"

He stopped. In the strong moonlight Ermahal's face was aglisten with sweat, his breath labored as if with some great effort. But all he said was, "Might be an idea, that," and turned the talk to other things. When they went off watch he took gladly to his blankets, but Elof watched him lie for a long time on one elbow, gazing into the black river, till finally his head nodded and he sank into unfeigned sleep.

All the next day's sailing Ermahal seemed in high good spirits, as if some weight of worry had been lifted from his mind. He was as pleased as any when they rounded a bend and espied a fine flock of deer ahead, drinking at the bank. Gise leaped for his bow, but they fled too quickly. "No matter," Kermorvan said. "I had hoped that we could hunt for our food by the river, and this proves it. We shall find other drinking places, and lie in wait." He looked at the mud churned by hooves, and at the trees beyond. "Interesting, though, that the beasts fled so readily. As if they were accustomed to being hunted by men. Or folk like men."

Ils bit her lip thoughtfully, looking at Elof. "You mean the tall ones—the Children of…" She seemed reluctant to speak the name, and here beneath the frowning treewall Elof was of like mind. He felt suddenly very vulnerable out in the open, and acutely aware of the power within the woods. Memories came to trouble him, the gaze of green eyes, a voice over vast distances, ravens riding a stormwind, and for that time they obscured his other concerns.

Toward evening of that day they came upon the string of small islands the map had promised. They were nearly as thickly wooded as the shores, but seemed safer in their isolation. The company chose one well apart from the rest, and in deep water. Here at least they could search the brush, climb the tall willows and other trees and be sure neither man nor beast lurked there in wait. They found nothing, not even snakes, and settled down to sleep with only one on watch. When Elof's turn came, not long past the middle hour of night, he was happy enough to sit with his back to the smooth bark of a tall tree, a maple of a variety new to him, and think his thoughts. He listened to the soft windrush overhead, imagined it sweeping across an incalculable plain of treetops, like a green ocean, and wished he could sail over them as easily. But he was not minded to complain. Despite the horror of the Ekwesh attack, his own quest had proved lighter by far than he had feared. Instead of wandering alone and aimless into the wild lands, he had traveled fast and with friends, and in relative peace. Whatever the terrors of the Forest, it seemed they might not extend to the river. He wondered how long it flowed, how far it would bear them, whether they might not find other rivers flowing eastward and so be whirled safely right through these menacing lands…