The Forest King

CHAPTER 16

Lofotan poured tepid water from his waterskin over his wounds. Some hours had passed since Balif had run off after the fleeing wolves.

“If he isn’t back by dawn we’ll have to find him,” he said wearily.

“What if he doesn’t want to be found?” Mathi said. The old warrior trickled more water on his cuts. “Worse, what if we find him and he won’t come with us?”

“My lord will not roam the plain like a savage beast.”

Mathi noted the strung bow, the quiver of arrows, and the ready spear. Lofotan’s meaning was clear.

Later, when daylight was breaking, Lofotan shouldered his spear and set out to find his commander. Mathi and Treskan followed on foot, leading the horses. Lofotan tried to order them to stay behind, but they were in no mood to obey. There was safety in numbers, so the girl and scribe followed, and there was nothing short of violence Lofotan could do to stop them.

It was a short hunt. Just as the first rays of the sun were piercing the sky Balif came into view on the northern horizon, loping along at a jaunty pace. His old comrade halted and waited. Balif arrived, dishevelled but beaming. Under one arm he carried a bundle of fur. Without being asked he whisked it open, revealing a fine wolf pelt, freshly skinned.

“This was the best of them,” he said proudly. “What do you think?”

“Did you kill them all?” asked Mathi.

Again the sly smile. “Not all. Just the four largest males.” The rest of the pack had scattered to the winds to escape his remorseless pursuit.

“This is not right, my lord.” Balif asked what he meant. “To exact such a punishment on wild animals is not just. Astarin teaches that all creatures have a right to life, according to their natures. Wolves hunt for food. You killed them for sport,” Lofotan said.

Balif tensed, like a predator poised to pounce. “Sport? I killed them for a very good reason!” They waited for him to explain. “By scattering the pack and killing its leaders, I have shown them who rules this land now-” He visible relaxed and said simply, “Me.”

Balif’s horse, having borne up under his earlier transformations and forgiven its rider, steadfastly refused to allow Balif on its back. The general grew angry as the animal danced away from him, rearing when Balif took hold of his bridle. Lofotan offered his mount, but his horse wouldn’t allow Balif on his back either. Something very fundamental about the general had changed. His companions were beginning to recognize it. The horses already knew.

Balif said, “Looks like I walk.”

So he did, all morning at an amazing pace. The day waxed hot. Biting flies homed in on the horses but also feasted on targets of opportunity, like Mathi. A band of dark trees appeared on the eastern horizon, growing each hour until the view was filled from north to south. According to their griffon-made charts, the forest surrounded the confluence of the two streams that made up the Thon-Haddaras.

The kender were already there.

Wanderfolk in oversized helmets, sporting spears and too-long swords greeted them at the edge of the woods. Hot and thirsty, Balif brushed past them into the shade, where he sat down demanding a drink. Treskan tied the pack team and brought him a bottle of spring water.

“Greetings, Illustrious General!” the kender said, crowding around.

“Greetings to you. Is the Longwalker around?”

“By the river, Glorious General.”

How do they get around so quickly? Mathi wondered. By her reckoning, being on horses and pushing as they did, they ought to have been two or three days ahead of any kender crossing the plain on foot. But no …

“Fetch him at once.”

Kender were not usually good at taking orders, but three of them dashed away to carry out Balif’s request. Treskan and Mathi prepared a long-delayed meal, which Balif ate alone under a broad maple tree. His companions ate standing up by the horses, which they watered and fed next.

Serius Bagfull, Longwalker of the wanderfolk, arrived after a kenderish interval. He wore a new hat woven of vines and leave plucked from the banks of the Wanderfolk River. The kender with him-they weren’t his retainers, just whatever curious little people who chose to tag along-were likewise decked out in fresh greenery.

“Nice place, General!” he declared. Apparently the banks of the river abounded in fruit trees, and the water was well stocked with fish, freshwater mussels, and tiny lobsters the kender found good to eat.

“You like it here, then?” asked Balif, still resting with his back against the maple.

“It is great, Excellent General!”

“I am glad. Now we must issue a challenge to Bulnac.”

Everyone, from kender to Lofotan, were dumbstruck. “Challenge?” Mathi managed to say.

“Of course. We must fight him some time. It is better to fight on our own terms, at our own place and time, than wait for the humans to choose those situations for us.”

Lofotan agreed with his lord’s tactical judgment, but pointed out they had no one to meet Bulnac’s army with. A few hundred kender, maybe a thousand? Armed with some salvaged and improvised weapons?

“We have the best weapon of them all,” Balif said. He showed his new, savage smile. “We shall create a fortress, a redoubt upon which the nomads will break themselves. I’ll have Bulnac’s hide to hang on a tree next to my wolfskin.”

Through consummate wheedling, the Longwalker got Balif to agree to postpone challenging Bulnac until he had seen the spot that Balif had chosen for his redoubt. The kender led the way. Balif went with him on foot, leaving Lofotan and the others to keep up as best they could with the horses and baggage.

Unlike the west woods, the river forest was dense and full of undergrowth. It was humid too, and the air was thick with insects. Mathi noted ruefully that mosquitoes and flies didn’t appear to bother the kender at all. It wasn’t that they didn’t mind being bitten; the pests didn’t bite them. Another stroke for the Wanderfolk. Here was a tactic Balif had not considered. If the nomads dallied long enough in the lowland woods, they’d be eaten alive by mosquitoes.

It was by all appearances good land to settle, bugs or no bugs. The soil was evidently very fertile, as there were flowers and fruit everywhere. The trees were not so old or lofty as their western neighbors, but useful varieties grew everywhere: pine, elm, maple, and ash. Treskan made careful mental notes of the flora. His stylus may have been broken, but he could still keep notes if he could find the basic ingredients to write with-soot and oak gall for ink, birch bark for paper. The Haddaras river basin was a garden. He could probably find everything he needed. There was much to record.

The western branch of the river came into view. It was a far different water course than the rough Thon-Tanjan or the deceptive Thon-Thalas. Narrow, muddy, closed in by overhanging vines and branches, the Wanderfolk River was unlike any other river in Silvanesti territory. The Longwalker’s description was on the mark. Descending the bank to the water’s edge, the air was heavy with the smell of overripe fruit. Wild grapes hung down, banging against Mathi’s forehead. They were brown and fat and astonishingly sweet when she tried one. She saw kender lolling on the riverbank with willow fishing poles. Every so often one would flip his pole backward, tossing a silver captive onto the bank.

“Have you been across the river?” Balif asked the Longwalker. They had paused atop the earthen ball of an overturned tree’s roots, surveying the land.

He had. The triangle of land between the two tributaries was much higher than the bottom land where they were now. In fact there was a bluff about forty feet high overlooking the eastern branch.

Balif clapped his hands. “Excellent.” His final redoubt was shaping up to be a better defensive position than he imagined.

He went down to the water’s edge and prepared to wade across. Perched on the bank behind him was Rufe, munching a bunch of grapes piled on his belly.

“I wouldn’t,” he said.

Mathi, Treskan, and Lofotan arrived alongside their leader. “Why not?” asked Balif. “Too deep?”

Rufe displayed the calves of his legs. There were dozens of reddish spots on them.

“Leeches.”

Mathi drew back from the water’s edge. She said to Rufe, “How did you get here so fast?”

Rufe pointed at the sky. “By way of the moon.” Kender.

Balif wasn’t squeamish about leeches, but there was no point feeding the bloodsuckers if he knew they were there. He asked the Longwalker for a different way across.

The kender cupped his hands around his mouth and shouted at the trees, “We need a way across the river!”

A voice unseen on the other side called back, “All right, boss.” For a time the only sound were the whine and buzz of insects. A loud snapping filled the air. It came from across the river.

“What are they doing?” Lofotan wondered.

He quickly had an answer. Nine kender came into view on the eastern shore, backs bent over a large log. They were rolling it down the hill, pushing it with their hands. Mathi wanted to shout at them to be careful. When the slope got too steep it was bound to get away from them. She didn’t have time. The log gathered momentum. It outraced its little drivers, smashing down bushes and saplings in its path.

“Look out below!”

A stump stuck up on the east bank. The big log came rumbling down, parallel with the stream. If it hit the water at this angle it would simply crash into the water and float away, but that’s not what happened. The end of the log smacked into the stump, which deflected the log enough to cause the free end to swing around in a half-circle. When the stump gave way, it allowed the other end of the log to slide through the green fronds to the water, halting when the far end buried itself in the mud of the west bank.

Even Lofotan could not refrain from laughing. Engineers trained in the finest schools in Silvanost could not have done a faster job bridging the river.

“Tell me they did not do that on purpose,” Treskan exclaimed.

Rufe ate a grape. “Do what on purpose?”

Balif ignored him. He went to the log and planted a foot on it, testing it with his weight. It held. He started across.

“My lord, what about the horses?” asked Lofotan. The log wasn’t wide enough to allow them to cross.

“Tie them on that side.”

Lofotan tried to enlist some kender to ferry the elves’ baggage, but as soon as he mentioned it the riverbank emptied in no time. The ones fishing vanished, leaving their poles stuck in the mud. Rufe disappeared too, which surprised everyone but Mathi. Kender were willing to do many things, but manual labor did not seem to be one of them.

Ferry duty fell to Treskan. He made many trips back and forth bearing their gear. The river was shallow enough that the big log had a damming effect on the flow, and by Treskan’s last crossing the water had risen enough to lap over the log. It was a dicey journey bearing heavy equipment on his back, trying to keep his footing on a slick, wet trunk. That he made it without falling in was counted a blessing of the gods.

They found a deer track up the steep hill. At the top the trees cleared out, revealing a wide promontory about forty feet above the river. They found Balif out on the very tip gazing into the distance. He was perched on a slender spire of clay, not sturdy looking at all. Lofotan gently suggested the general come back to firmer ground.

“This is a magnificent site for a fortified town,” Balif declared. “Look here!”

They did, from a good ten feet back. Two muddy streams met at the point below, combining to form a broader version of its two branches. The Thon-Haddaras was muddy and slow, but the banks were wide and largely clear of the creeping growth choking the western branch. If it was navigable down to the sea, it would be an invaluable trading asset for any settlement atop the bluff.

“What now, my lord?”

“We must fortify this spot.”

Mathi said, “How, general? The wanderfolk are strangers to picks and shovels.”

“They can fell trees, can’t they? We need a stockade as wide as this point to stop any mounted charges.” He turned and strode rapidly past his companions, gesturing to the weedy meadow on the wide side of the hill.

“This land needs to be cleared as far back as possible to deny cover to the enemy.” He pulled up a handful of weeds, crushing them in his fingers. “Burning it off is the quickest way. Won’t be easy. Everything’s green.” Balif dug his fingers into the dirt. “A lot of thatch, though. It will burn.”

Good soldier that he was, Lofotan was an elf, and the idea of burning an entire hillside clearly appalled him. The Balif he had served under so long would never have suggested such a course, except in the direst straits.

“My lord, is all this feasible?”

“What can be imagined can be done, captain, if we are bold enough.”

He strode briskly to the nearest tree, a sapling about as thick as Mathi’s wrist. With a single chop of his sword Balif cut it down. He came back, slicing off the small branches with deft strokes of his blade.

“We shall raise our standard here,” he said, “so that all may rally to it.”

He ordered Mathi to search through the baggage and find his personal flag, the one his troops had carried into forty battles. Mathi found a cylindrical silk case and loosened the drawstring. Out came a long, heavy pennant made of dark green leather. There was nothing on the triangular banner but an odd brown shape-something like a square with a off-center triangle attached to one side. Balif attached the banner to the sapling with a couple of horseshoe nails and raised the pole skyward.

“Spread the word!” he announced to any kender in earshot. “All who suffer under the heel of the human raiders should come here. Here all will be protected!”

Standing near Lofotan, Mathi felt strangely embarrassed. Kender were not the sort to rally to a flag, especially an uninspiring pennant like Balif’s. She asked the old warrior what the symbol on the flag represented.

“It is the sign of the Brown Hoods,” Lofotan said, “proscribed by the Speaker over a century ago.”

He returned to his commander’s side. Ever loyal, Lofotan trailed behind Balif as the general stalked back and forth, drawing grandiose fortifications in the air.

Days passed. The oppressed did not flock to Balif’s banner.

A few kender arrived to look the place over, curious about the proclaimed safe haven. They looked at the pole with its flag, the empty hilltop, and went on their way. Mathi couldn’t blame them. The whole thing smelled like a nomad plot to concentrate their enemies in one spot to ensure their utter destruction. Only the magic of Balif’s name drew anyone there. Once they saw there were no defenses and no one to fight off Bulnac’s experienced warriors, the curious kender melted into the greenwood. If she hadn’t grown to care about the elf general, Mathi would have left too.

The Longwalker remained. At times in the following days he was the only one of two kender on the bluff. He had another with him-white-haired and wizened. The Longwalker produced swaths of different colored cloth, gave them to the oldster, and in a days’ time a second flag flew from the sapling. It was a bold blue rectangle covered in tiny brace-shaped crosses made of red silk. It was the banner of the united kender clans, the Longwalker explained. It attracted no more support than Balif’s.

The whole thing began to feel farcical until a band of centaurs arrived. They came through the lowland woods late one day. Their arrival sent ripples of alarm all the way to Balif. He ordered that the centaurs be welcomed as friends. The next morning they reached the hill. They were eleven strong, all warriors. It turned out they were all that was left of a much larger band wiped out by Bulnac’s tribe.

“Greath’s band?” said Balif, recognizing their tribal tattoos. Sadly, the centaurs nodded. “Where is the mighty chief?”

“Slain, wise one! Slain by the two-and-ones!” Centaurs, being half human and half horse, considered themselves whole people, while horse riding humans were only half normal. The combination of a human on horseback they called a two-and-one.

It was grave news. Greath had declared his friendship to Balif, an oath unbreakable. The general had hoped to cultivate Greath’s band as allies against the humans. Now they were gone.

“You are welcome to stay among us,” he told the centaurs. They were stout fighters, loyal and fierce, and they stayed. Whatever qualms the kender had about Balif’s fortress, the centaurs remained. Not one of them complained about their position. Why should they? They had nowhere else to go.

Each night Balif disappeared into the woods alone. That was unsettling enough, but on the third night Mathi discovered his clothes in a pile by the general’s tent. Balif had gone off without them, carrying only his knife. She told Lofotan. The old captain tried tracking his commander, but lost him in the swamp a few miles upstream from the bluff. When he returned to camp, Mathi questioned how an experienced Silvanesti soldier like Lofotan could lose anyone’s trail.

“All right, here is the truth: I didn’t lose him. I turned back. I did not want to see what my commander has become.”

On the sixth night after raising his banner, Balif returned before dawn dragging a heavy body. At first they took it for game, but the carcass wasn’t a deer or wild pig. Balif dragged it to the foot of the hill and left it.

The Longwalker, the centaurs, and Mathi gathered around. The curious kender turned the corpse over.

It was a human, a nomad by his clothes and hair. Evidently Balif had encountered him on his nightly prowl.

“A scout,” Balif said from the recesses of his tent. “I caught him in the forest not ten miles from where we stand.”

“I understand killing him, Lord General, but why fetch back his remains?’ asked the leader of the centaurs, Zakki by name.

“I didn’t want to leave him out there.” There was something very odd in his voice, a plaintive quality out of step with his new restive manner.

“Slain, he points to enemies,” Lofotan said, interpreting for the others. “Vanished, anything might have taken him.”

Zakki said, “We will bury him, Lord General.” Two centaurs dragged the nomad away by the feet.

Lofotan went after them to see that the grave was well concealed. That left Mathi, Treskan, and the Longwalker outside Balif’s tent.

“Chief, will you excuse us? I have some information to share with my scribe.” With a shrug, the Longwalker departed. “You remain, too, girl.”

“Yes, my lord?” Mathi said when they were alone.

“Bulnac will be here soon. Two days, maybe three.”

Mathi was astounded. “But how, my lord?”

“The scout was not alone.” He grimaced. “I could not get them all.” Bulnac was pouring south and east, driving everything before him. Greath’s centaurs were no longer a threat. That left only Balif and the kender.

“How many warriors does he have?” the scribe asked.

“Five thousand horse, plus many more on foot. Remember the road we found? He’s rallied every footloose and disaffected nomad in the eastern province to his banner.” All told, Balif estimated Bulnac’s force at nearly twenty thousand.

“We can’t possibly hold off such a horde!”

“There’s more.”

What more mattered? Treskan fingered his talisman nervously. Mathi noticed he always did that when confronted by the greatest danger.

“I will not be myself much longer,” Balif said. His voice, normally clear and confident, was choked. “Already I am … changed, and what is changed is not turning back to anything close to my normal self. In a week I won’t be able to command anything.”

Mathi was surprised. Her own reversion was very slow, almost imperceptible. Hair was returning to her legs and body, but as yet she thought as clearly as ever. It must be part of the Creator’s malediction, robbing Balif of his wits early. Taius and the other beast folk retained their powers of understanding, even as their bodies reverted to beastly form.

“I am not like them!” Balif shouted for both to hear. “I am being transformed into an animal, not from an animal into an elf. My mind is-is failing. The nomads escaped last night because I thought like a beast, not like a soldier.”

The truth dawned on Mathi. Balif’s strange attachment to the dead nomad wasn’t due to security or sentimentality. It was the bond between predator and prey.

“Don’t leave me, either of you. Not until the end. Do you swear?”

They swore, but Treskan asked, “Why me, lord? Don’t you want Lofotan at your side when-when the time comes?”

“Lofotan is Silvanesti. He is my comrade in arms, but he cannot comprehend what will happen soon. I think you can. And-”

He stirred in the darkness, putting out a hand to close the tent flap. It muffled his last words slightly.

“And you must tell history what became of Balif.”

The hand yanked down the tent flap was not a hand, but a paw, covered in fur.