The Forge in the Forest (33 page)

Morning, gray-bleak as ever, found them chilled and aching and uneasy, eager only to be gone from there. Walking loosened their muscles but brought them little warmth and less comfort, save that there was no sound of pursuit. "So they have not found our trail," muttered Kermorvan. "I hardly dared hope it…"

"Maybe they search the wrong way," suggested Ils, "eastward or south. They might not guess we'd take the way north, that they fear."

Kermorvan nodded. "That must be it. But when Tapiau's eye turns this way… Still, we should be within an hour or two of the margins, and those they will not cross." So the travelers cast nervous glances at the trees about them, expecting every moment to be shot at from the branches, or fallen upon like the onehorn. That nothing came only made them the more uncertain. The borders of the Forest might be minutes away, or hours, and all manner of ambushes set between. But suddenly, as they came out into the bank of a dank little streamlet, Kermorvan stopped and pointed. "See! The far bank, beyond the trees!"

That there should be anything beyond trees, save more trees, was a hard thing to realize. Yet they did indeed seem thinner, further apart; light as cold as the sky above shone pale upon their trunks, unhindered. It must be a wide clearing, for the trees of the far side were an indistinct black line; the Forest was growing thin indeed. Down the bank they hurried, splashing through the water without seeking a drier crossing. Elof stopped short, gasping; it was as if some chill weight had suddenly settled on his heart. Bure, limping along last, missed his footing on the bank and all but fell back in; Roc and Elof, turning to haul him in, looked back, saw the pines bend and sway, and heard the rushing as of a great wind, that they knew was no wind. "
Kermorvan
!" they yelled.

"I hear!" he cried, and sweeping out his sword he urged the others past him. "Now for it! Run, and stop for nothing! Run to the light!"

Only when Bure went crashing by him, with Roc and Elof on his heels, did Kermorvan turn and run with them, leaping and bounding. The way was further than it looked, and there was more undergrowth here, frost-browned grasses and low tangled bushes that grew in the lee of fallen trunks; it seemed almost to rise up and snag them as they went, and the branches whipped and lashed across their faces. Kermorvan hewed at them furiously, and Elof drew sword also. It was like fighting some live enemy, some beast with a thousand entangling arms above and below. And at their very heels now was the windrush, all but overhead. Elof winced, expecting arrows in his back any moment. But all the time the light grew stronger, the open space seemed wider, the other side more distant. Then suddenly, staggering from one tree to another, Elof realized there were no branches overhead, nothing but the gray sky, and that the trees beyond were even further apart, a gap wider than the longest arms. Ahead of him he saw a root snag Ils' ankle, tipping her into his path, and Kermorvan scoop her up almost without breaking stride. A jagged stump snagged Elof's cloak, and in one whirling movement the black blade hewed flying splinters from it, and he was sprinting after the others. Ahead of them was open space, and they were slowing, staring, almost stopping. "Too near!" he yelled. "Still within bowshot!" Then he also slowed, and stared. It was no clearing they were in.

Trees ahead there were, as line of them tall and dark, impenetrable as the densest Forest. But to left and right, where the line should have curved back to surround them, there was only open space. Near at hand it was flat grassland streaked with half-thawed snow, sparse stands of scrub, wiry and stunted, poking up here and there. Beyond it was grayness, with a glimmer that might be water. There were other lines of trees, but none more than stands, clumps, scarcely linked to one another across the snowy scrubland and dismal pools, and nowhere to the trees of the Forest. Elof, turning to look back, saw the outermost trees bend and tremble, yielding tall figures that stalked and paced within the bounds of the treeshadow, like menacing specters afraid of day. They would not step beyond the fortress of the Forest, the immense wall of trees outflung to either side, set like vast uneven ramparts against this chill open land. He knew then that they had reached the bounds of Tapiau's power. They were out of the Forest at last, free as he had fought to make them. What was this heaviness upon his heart, then, this faint nagging ache within him which was no pang of honest weariness? Why could he not rejoice?

By him Kermorvan stood, his face as gray and grim as this land they had come to, and as desolate. "
Genhyas, a'Teris
!" he was muttering. "
Genhyas, a'Korentyn
!" Then he lifted up his sword, as a salute. But from the Forest a single arrow came curving, to plunge into the icy soil some way short of them and there shiver to pieces, as against a stone.

"Come!" said Ils hastily, drawing them both away. "That may have been a ranging shot. Let us not await a volley!" But in a lower voice she added, "I am sorry about Teris. Could she not have come with us?"

Kermorvan's face was set, but Elof was shocked by the deep unhappiness in his voice. "I did not dare ask her. She who had dwelt so long in Tapiau's thrall, she might have betrayed us. I could not risk us all for her alone, when there was no certainty she would come, or be happy if she did."

Elof swallowed. "Believe me, I am sorry. I… was never sure how much she meant to you."

The tall man's mouth twisted. "No more was I. And I to her? Something new, perhaps, to be tempted, teased out, made to last as long as might be lest it grow stale. To be lured ever within the hand, yet kept from the heart…"He shook his head. "No more was I. Matters are better as they are, lesser now than greater to come. Day advances, and we must go." And swiftly he turned his back upon the Forest, and strode out at a fierce pace across the gray ground. Elof and Ils looked at their companions, and fell in behind him. Thus it was that they entered Taoune'la-an-Arathans, Taoune'la the Wastes, the gray and shadowy marchlands of the Ice.

Certainly it was no hospitable land they saw stretching out before them. Kermorvan stamped on the snow-spattered earth as he walked, and it rang and crunched beneath his boots. "This will be a swamp soon, when the thaw comes," he remarked, his voice more normal now. "As well we left our flight no later; we would surely have been mired here, and taken."

Elof gazed around him uncomfortably. "Save for the trees, it reminds me of the Saltmarshes. The worst parts."

"Small wonder in that!" said Ils. "For both that land and this are shaped and sustained by the outflowing meltwater of the Ice. The same shadow lies over both."

"It is less flat than the marshes," said Elof thoughtfully, "though the rise and fall is very slight. But if anything it is wetter, and that means the water has pooled in the valleys and dips, and cuts channels between them."

"A land of pools and rivulets and little lakes," agreed Kermorvan, "of mists and mires and quags. All bitterly chill, and hard to cross. There will be no fixed paths in such a place, not even animal tracks. We will have to go around and about so much it will be hard to keep to anything like a straight route."

"Let us not be drawn too far northward, all the same," warned Ils. "Remember the evil name of this land!"

Nevertheless, even on that first night they found themselves with little choice. For in their way they came upon a wide swampy area that ended only under the eaves of the Forest itself, and was already more than half thawed. When they climbed to the top of a low slope to spy out its extent, Elof, whose eyes were keenest in the ashen dimness of afternoon, exclaimed in dismay. "A river flows through it!" he cried. "Down from the north, in among the trees!"

"Aye!" said Tenvar. "A vast river, twice as wide as the Forest River! There is no fording it here, even if we dared go back among the trees! That water flows fast, and it is very dark."

Ils squinted into the grayness. "Dark indeed!" she muttered. "There are tales among my folk of such a river, that flows from the Black Lakes in the northern Wastes down through the Forest, and they are darker yet. The Kalmajozkhe it is to us, River of the Dead."

"Yet the living must cross somewhere," muttered Kermorvan. "Or they will not long remain so; there is little to eat in this land. What is that, upriver there? An island?"

"It seems so," admitted Elof, straining his eyes. "A large one, covered with trees; there are more along the banks. We might try there for rocks or shallows."

Kermorvan nodded. "We might, though the current may be faster." He saw the others looking to him expectantly, and shrugged. "You wish me to choose? I see no choice. We may at least find somewhere more sheltered than this to sleep."

They turned northward then, skirting the margins of the cold swamp, and plodded wearily on into the barren lands. Even over the short distance they could make out ahead they saw the lines of trees grow fewer and shorter, the land flatter and more desolate. Only coarse grass covered the soil, and a few bushes that cowered low to avoid the searing wind, their tough strands running through the grass like entangling tentacles; it was a miracle no ankle or leg was broken in the gathering gloom. They feared lest it might grow too dark to go on, even with Ils to guide them, but around sunset there came a fierce gusty wind that drove the clouds like sheep to the horizon and there tore them to bloody shreds. It gave the keen air an edge like jagged glass, and for all their warm hunting garb it cut the travelers to the bone. The rough ground leached their strength away as they stumbled and faltered over it. In the clear sky the stars appeared like frost-flecks upon cold stone, the full moon rising rained down its sterile light upon the bleak lands. And all across the sky to the north, in answer or in mockery, there arose the shimmering curtain of the Iceglow.

But when they lifted their streaming eyes against the blast, they saw tossing black against it the tops of a thick-meshed wood, upon which the moonlight fell without lightening its solid gloom. "The island!" cried Tenvar. "The island's thick with trees! Shelter, and fuel!"

"Would you light a fire in this place?" cried Ils.

"I would!" barked Roc. "We'll need shelter and more to stay living this night!"

"There is a rapids!" cried Bure. "See the white water about the rocks? And past the island as well! It goes right over! There's our crossing!"

"If anywhere!" agreed Kermorvan. "But go with great care! The rocks will be icy, and death swift in those black waters. I will lead."

Of that crossing Elof remembered little save weariness and terror, the cold rocks and the roar and swirl of the river around their feet as they clambered between them. The moonlight was clear, or they would never have managed some of the wider leaps; Bure and Ils were at a terrible disadvantage, and had often to be swung across on the single length of rope they had. But even longer legs were aching before they came beneath the first overhanging branches, and saw the island rise stark above them. "Find a hollow," gasped Elof as they clambered up the steep bank. "Screen fire… with branches…"

Ils shook her head fiercely, and he caught the glint of fear in her look; but even she, stronger and hardier than most men, was too chilled and weary to argue. Elof and Kermorvan were little better, and Roc, Tenvar and Bure staggering as if drunk. Bure had fallen at least once, and leaned on Kermorvan's arm for support. Nevertheless they waited on the bank, slumped against the lichen-encrusted trunks of the black spruces, while Ils with her night eyes searched the gloom. The wind whined through the branches overhead, their hard needles rattling and whispering horribly; it reminded Elof of gibbets he had seen outside the ruined farms of Bryhaine. But at last she grudgingly admitted she could see nothing amiss, and the travelers hobbled gladly into shelter. As Elof had suggested, they found a hollow, a deep gully carved by some flood long ago and now well screened by the wiry undergrowth, taller here than in the open. Kermorvan kindled flame in a hastily dug pit, and while the others cut branches to screen the little camp Elof decided to fetch water for a hot broth. Very slowly and carefully, keeping low and rustling the bushes as little as he could he slid out from among the trees and along the bank to a spot where he might fill a waterskin without falling in. He lay down at a place where the water had cut away the bank, shuddering at the freezing touch of the soil, and lowered the skin into the dark water. The cold river bit agonizingly at fingers just recovering from their numbness, and he leaned down further to make sure he could hold the full skin. A gleam caught his eye, and he stared in horror. The water had sliced a section through the bank, and the face of it glimmered gray white in the river's reflection. Under a hand's depth, little more, of brown grass and peaty soil there lurked a layer of some whitish substance. He reached down to touch it, and jumped at the chill throb in his fingers; it was a deep layer of solid ice. He looked up and down the bank opposite and saw many such gleams, always at the same shallow depth, though in some places it seemed to have forced the ground upward. Suddenly the whole wide land seemed to him no more than shriveling skin atop a cold empty skull. This far, within a day's march of the Forest, the distant Ice had already its hidden vanguard beneath the surface.

The full skin tugged at his hand, and he reached down to put in its stopper. But as he did so he saw a brief flicker of movement mirrored in the water, a swift dark shadow sweeping over moon and star. In one movement he heaved up the skin and sprang back
to
cover; then he saw it clear, a shape of sable wings out-swept, arcing down the sky onto the moonlit blackness of the river. He heard the fierce wingbeat as it settled, and then the graceful folding, the curving of the delicate neck into its shape. Down the flow of the flood it drifted, a huge swan gliding upon its own shadow over the glittering waters; but which the swan, which the shadow, was hard to tell, for in every feather it was black. And as Elof stood there, beyond movement, beyond understanding, he heard a low music drift across the waters, a haunting, somber singing of dark things. For the music was a voice, low and mellow as that of a human woman, and its words of deep lamentation came clearly to him over the relentless lapping of the flood.