Dragon Wing

22

The road Hugh followed was, at the beginning of the journey, a broad, clear stretch of highway. They met numerous people on their way, for the interior of the isle was well-traveled. As they neared the shore, however, the road narrowed. It was rough and ill-kept, littered with splintered branches and broken rock. The hargast trees, or crystaltrees as they were sometimes called, grew wild in this region and were far different from the carefully cultivated “civilized” trees grown on the hargast farms. There is nothing quite so beautiful as an orchard of hargast trees—their silver bark gleaming in the sunlight, the carefully pruned crystalline branches clinking together with musical sounds. The farmers work among them, pruning them, preventing them from growing to the outlandish size that obviates their usefulness. The hargast tree has the natural ability not only to store water but also to produce it in limited quantities. When the trees are kept small—about six to seven feet in height—the water they make is not used to enhance their own growth and can be harvested by driving taps into the trees’ bark. A full-grown hargast tree, over a hundred feet tall, uses its water itself. Its bark is too thick to tap. In the wild, the hargast’s branches grow to tremendous lengths. Being hard and brittle, they break off easily and shatter when they hit the ground, scattering lethal shards of sharp crystalline bark. A hargast forest is a dangerous place to traverse and consequently Hugh and his companions met fewer and fewer people on the road. The wind blew strongly, as it always does near the coastline; currents of air sweeping up from the underside of the isle eddied and swirled among the jagged cliffs. Strong gusts caused the three to lose their footing, trees creaked and shuddered, and more than once they heard the ringing, shattering crack of a falling tree limb. Alfred grew increasingly nervous, scanning the skies for elven ships and the woods for elven warriors, although Hugh amusedly assured him that not even the elves bothered with this worthless part of Pitrin’s Exile.

It was a wild and desolate place. Cliffs of coralite jutted into the air. The tall hargast trees crowded close to the road, cutting off the sunlight with their long, thin leathery brown filaments. This foliage remained on the tree during the winter and only fell off in the spring, prior to growing the new filaments, which would suck moisture out of the air. It was nearly noon when Hugh, who had been paying unusual attention to the trunk of every hargast tree growing close to the roadside, suddenly called a halt.

“Hey!” he shouted to Alfred and the prince, who were trudging wearily ahead of him. “This way.”

Bane turned to stare at him questioningly. Alfred turned—at least part of Alfred turned. His upper half swung around on Hugh’s orders, but his lower half continued acting on previously given instruction. By the time all of Alfred managed to obey, he was lying in the dust of the road. Hugh waited patiently for the chamberlain to pick himself up.

“We leave the road here.” The assassin gestured toward the forest.

“In there?” Alfred peered with dismay into the tangle of underbrush and densely packed hargast trees, standing unmoving, branches clinking together with an ominous musical sound in the swirling winds.

“I’ll take care of you, Alfred,” said Bane, taking hold of the chamberlain’s hand and squeezing it tightly. “There now, you’re not scared anymore, are you? I’m not scared, not at all!”

“Thank you, Your Highness,” said Alfred gravely. “I feel much better now. However, if I might venture to ask, Sir Hugh, what necessitates our going this way?”

“My airship is hidden in here.”

Bane gaped. “An elven airship?”

“This way.” Hugh gestured. “And be quick about it.” He cast a glance up and down the empty road. “Before someone comes along.”

“Oh, Alfred! Hurry, hurry!” The prince pulled at the chamberlain’s hand.

“Yes, Your Highness,” answered Alfred unhappily. He set his foot into the mass of last spring’s rotting filaments on the roadside. There was a rustle, the underbrush leapt and quivered, and Alfred did the same. “What . . . what was that?” he gasped, pointing a trembling finger.

“Go!” grunted Hugh, and shoved Alfred ahead.

The chamberlain slid and stumbled. More out of terror at falling headlong into the unknown than out of agility, he managed to stay on his feet in the thick undergrowth. The prince plunged in after him, keeping the poor chamberlain in a constant state of panic by descrying snakes beneath every rock and log. Hugh watched them until the thick foliage had blocked them from his sight—and him from theirs. Reaching down, he picked up a rock and removed from beneath it a sliver of wood, which he thrust back into the notch that had been made in the trunk of a tree.

Entering the forest, he had no trouble finding the two again; a wild boar blundering through the thickets could not have made a greater clamor. Moving with his accustomed soft-footed tread, Hugh was standing right beside them before either of the two was aware of him. Purposefully he cleared his throat, figuring that if he didn’t give some indication of his presence, the chamberlain might drop dead from fright. As it was, Alfred nearly leapt from his skin at the startling sound, and almost wept with relief when he saw it was Hugh.

“Where . . . which way, sir?”

“Keep going straight ahead. You’ll strike a cleared path about twenty feet further.”

“T-twenty feet!” Alfred stammered. He gestured at the thick brush in which he was entangled. “It will take us an hour to get that far, at least!”

“If something doesn’t get us first,” teased Bane, round-eyed with excitement.

“Most amusing, Your Highness.”

“We’re still too close to the road. Get moving,” commanded Hugh.

“Yes, sir,” muttered the chamberlain.

They reached the path in less than an hour, but it was hard going nonetheless. Though brown and lifeless in the winter, the bramble bushes were like the hands of the undead, reaching out with their sharp nails to tear flesh and rend clothing. This deep in the forest, the three could hear quite plainly the faint crystalline hum caused by the wind rubbing against the hargast branches. It was much like someone running a wet finger over a crystal glass, and had the effect of setting the teeth on edge.

“No one in his right mind would come in this accursed place!” grumbled Alfred, glancing up at the trees with a shudder.

“Exactly,” said Hugh, and continued to beat a path through the brush. Alfred walked ahead of the prince and held back the thorny branches so that Bane could pass through them safely. The brambles were so thick, however, that this was often not possible. Bane endured scratched cheeks and torn hands without complaint, sucking his wounds to alleviate the pain. How bravely will he face the pain of dying?

Hugh hadn’t meant to ask himself the question, and he forced himself to answer it. As bravely as other kids I’ve seen. Better to die young, after all, as the Kir monks say. Why should a child’s life be considered more precious than a man’s? Logically, it should be less so, for a man contributes to society and a child is a parasite. It’s instinctive, Hugh supposed. Our animal-like need to perpetuate our own kind. This is just another job. The fact that he’s a child shouldn’t, won’t matter!

The bramble bushes gave way eventually, with a suddenness for which Alfred was evidently unprepared. By the time Hugh reached him, the chamberlain was lying sprawled facefirst on a narrow space of cleared ground.

“Which direction? That’s it, isn’t it?” cried Bane, dancing around Alfred in excitement. The path led only one direction. Deducing that it must lead to the ship, the prince bolted down it before Hugh could answer his question. Hugh opened his mouth to command him to come back, then shut it abruptly.

“Oh, sir, shouldn’t we stop him?” queried Alfred anxiously as Hugh waited for the chamberlain to drag himself to his feet.

The wind whipped around them, shrieking and moaning, driving the bits of stinging coralite and hargast bark into their faces. Leaves swirled at their feet and the crystalline tree branches swayed above their heads. Hugh stared through the fine dust to see the boy running headlong down the path.

“He’ll be all right. The ship’s not far from here. He can’t mistake the trail.”

“But . . . assassins?”

The child’s fleeing his one true danger, Hugh said silently. Let him go.

“There’s no one in these woods. I would’ve seen the signs.”

“If you don’t mind, sir, His Highness is my responsibility.” Alfred was edging his way down the path. “I’ll just hurry after—”

“Go ahead.” Hugh waved his hand.

Alfred, smiling and bobbing his head in servile thanks, broke into a run. The Hand half-expected to see the chamberlain break his head at the same time, but Alfred managed to keep his feet under him and pointed the same direction as his nose. His long arms swinging, hands flapping at his sides, he loped down the path after the prince.

Hugh lagged behind, deliberately slowing his steps, pausing, waiting for something uncertain and unknown. He’d felt the same when a storm was approaching—a tension, a prickling of the skin. Yet there was no rain smell in the air, no acrid whiff of lightning. The winds always blew high along the coastThe sound of the crack splitting the air was so loud that Hugh’s first thought was of an explosion, his next that elves had discovered his ship. But the subsequent crash and the shrill, agonized scream, cut off abruptly, informed Hugh of what had really happened.

He felt an overwhelming sense of relief.

“Help, Sir Hugh! Help!” Alfred’s voice, blown apart by the wind, was barely heard. “A tree! A tree . . . fallen . . . my prince!” Not a tree, thought Hugh. A branch. Most likely a big one, from the sound. Sheared off by the wind, it had come crashing down across the path. He’d seen such a thing many times before in this wood, narrowly missed being struck himself.

He did not run. It was as if the black monk at his shoulder laid a restraining hand on his arm and whispered, “There is no need for haste.” The shards of broken hargast branch were sharp as arrow points. If Bane was still alive, he wouldn’t be for long. There were plants in this forest that would ease the pain, put the boy to sleep, and, though Alfred would never know it, speed the child to an easy death.

Hugh continued walking slowly down the path. Alfred’s cries for help had ceased. Perhaps he’d realized how futile it was. Perhaps he’d discovered the prince already dead. They’d take the body to Aristagon and leave it there, as Stephen had wanted. It would appear as if the elves had badly abused the boy before killing him, and that would inflame the humans. King Stephen would have his war, much good it would do him.

But that wasn’t Hugh’s concern. He’d take the bumbling Alfred along to help, and at the same time worm out of the chamberlain the dark plot he was undoubtedly aiding and abetting. Then, with Alfred in tow, the Hand would communicate with the king from a safe hiding place and demand his fee be doubled. He’d [...] Rounding a bend in the path, Hugh saw that Alfred hadn’t been far wrong when he said a tree had fallen. A huge limb, big as most trees itself, had cracked in the wind and split the trunk of the ancient hargast in two when it came down. The tree must have been rotten, to have separated like that. Coming nearer, Hugh could see within what was left of the trunk the tunnels of the insects that had been the old tree’s true killer.

Though it was lying on the ground, the limb’s branches that had remained intact towered above Hugh. The branches that had struck the ground had shattered and cut a wide swath of devastation through the forest; its crystalline remains completely obliterated the path. The dust it had raised still hung in the air. Hugh searched among the branches but could see nothing. He climbed over the split trunk. When he reached the other side, he stopped to stare.

The boy who should have been dead was sitting on the ground rubbing his head, looking dazed and very much alive. His clothing was rumpled and dirty, but it had been rumpled and dirty when he entered the forest. There weren’t, Hugh noted, his eyes scanning the boy, any shards of bark or filaments in his hair. He had blood on his chest and on his torn shirt, but nowhere else on his body. The Hand glanced at the split trunk and then turned his measuring gaze on the path. Bane was sitting squarely in the spot where the branch must have fallen. He was surrounded by the sharp, deadly shards.

Yet he wasn’t dead.

“Alfred?” Hugh called.

And then he saw the chamberlain, crouched on the ground near the boy, his back to the assassin, intent on doing something that Hugh could not see. At the sound of a voice, Alfred’s body twitched in startlement and he jerked to his feet as though someone had yanked him up by a rope attached to his shirt collar. Hugh saw now what the chamberlain had been doing. He was binding a cut on his hand.

“Oh, sir! I’m so thankful you’re here—”

“What happened?” Hugh demanded.

“Prince Bane has been extremely fortunate, sir. A terrible tragedy has been averted. The branch came crashing down, just barely missing His Highness.” Hugh, watching Bane closely, saw the puzzled glance the boy gave his chamberlain. Alfred did not notice—his eyes were on his injured hand. He had been attempting, without much success apparently, to wrap a strip of cloth around the wound.

“I heard the boy scream,” Hugh said.

“Out of fright, sir,” explained Alfred. “I ran—”

“Is he hurt?” Hugh glowered at Bane, pointed to the blood on the child’s chest and the front of his shirt.

Bane peered down at himself. “No, I—”

“My blood, sir,” interrupted Alfred. “I was running to help His Highness and I fell and cut my hand.”

Alfred exhibited the cut. It was deep. Blood was dropping onto the broken remnants of the tree limb. Hugh watched the prince to gauge his reaction to Alfred’s statement, saw the boy’s frowning gaze fixed intently on his chest. Hugh looked to see what had captured the boy’s attention, but saw only a smeared patch of blood.

Or was it? Hugh started to lean down, examine it closer, when Alfred, with a groan, toppled over and collapsed onto the ground. Hugh nudged the chamberlain with the toe of his boot, but got no response. Alfred had, once again, fainted.

Glancing up, Hugh saw Bane trying to wipe the blood off his skin with the tail of his shirt. Well, whatever was there was gone now. Ignoring the comatose Alfred, Hugh faced the prince.

“What really happened, Your Highness?”

Bane gazed up at him with dazzled eyes. “I don’t know, Sir Hugh. I remember a cracking sound, and then”—he shrugged—“that’s all.”

“The branch fell on top of you?”

“I don’t remember. Honest.”

Scrambling to his feet, moving carefully amidst the shards that were sharp as glass, Bane brushed off his clothes and started over to help Alfred. Hugh dragged the chamberlain’s limp body off the path and propped him up against a tree trunk. A few slaps on the cheeks and he began to come around, blinking up at Hugh dizzily.

“I’m . . . I’m most sorry, sir,” Alfred mumbled, attempting to stand and failing miserably. “It’s the sight of blood. I never could stomach—”

“Don’t look at it, then!” Hugh snapped, seeing Alfred’s horrified gaze go to his hand, his eyes start to roll back in his head.

“No, sir. I ... won’t!” The chamberlain squeezed his eyelids tightly shut. Kneeling down beside him, Hugh bandaged the hand, taking the opportunity to examine the wound. It was a clean, deep slice.

“What cut you?”

“A piece of bark, I think, sir.”

Like hell! That would have made a ragged cut. This was made by a sharp knife. There came another cracking sound and a crash.

“Blessed Sartan! What was that?” Alfred’s eyes flew open, and he shivered so that Hugh had to grasp his hand and hold it steady to wind the bandage around it.

“Nothing,” Hugh snapped. He was completely perplexed and he didn’t like the feeling, any more than he’d liked the feeling of relief over not having to kill the prince. He didn’t like any of this. That tree had fallen on Bane as surely as rain fell from the sky. The prince should be dead. What in hell was going on?

Hugh gave the cloth a sharp tug. The sooner he got rid of this kid, the better. Any feeling of reluctance he had once experienced at the thought of murdering a child was rapidly freezing over.

“Ouch!” Alfred yelped. “Thank you, sir,” he added meekly.

“On your feet. Head for the ship,” Hugh ordered.

Silently, none of the three looking at each other, they continued down the path.