Whispering Woods

CHAPTER 15

Questions paralyzed Gull.

Greensleeves had called his name? Chad and Oles wanted to kill them? Or capture them? Bells of Kormus, why?

Something whistled at his head and he ducked, shot up an arm to deflect it. Oles, swinging his club. The shock on his biceps jolted him to the spine.

Then Chad charged, club in the air.

Rather than leave his head exposed to another shot from Oles, Gull charged too. Low down.

Scooching, he ducked under two sizzling blows. Stabbing, he grabbed Chad's booted leg and hauled. Chad swore and toppled onto the woodcutter. Gull rolled sideways, yanking, to keep Chad atop and block Oles.

The two men grappled in the dust and trash of the nighttime street. Chad was strong, but no match for Gull. The woodcutter heaved, grabbed Chad's throat. The bodyguard's surprised bleat was cut off. He gulped but couldn't swallow. Without air, panic set in.

Unable to cry for help, Chad drummed his heels. From above, Gull heard Greensleeves mewling. He yelled, "Run, Greenie!"

Because he was busy. Squeezing the life from a traitor.

Chad kicked, thrashed, gurgled as his air ran out. He beat at Gull's head, but the woodcutter was too close for a solid blow. He scrabbled at Gull's face, clawed at his eyes, but Gull bit a thumb until salty blood stained his mouth.

Strangling, Chad found manic strength. Arching his back, he dragged his short sword from its sheath. He swiped -as Gull tossed him away and bounded to his feet.

Wheezing, Chad clutched his throat, but remembered his danger. On all fours, he tried to raise the sword -and Gull hit him like an avalanche.

Kicking with wooden clogs, the woodcutter cracked the man's collarbone, smacked his shoulder, grazed his handsome head. Gull stooped and hoicked Chad into the air, rending his shirt. Spinning to keep from where he supposed Oles to be, Gull hustled the dancing Chad a fast five steps.

Both gasped as they struck the corner of a building.

Gull crowded Chad, mashing him against the corner with his hip. The bodyguard flailed his sword, slashed at Gull's back, slit leather tunic and skin, but his arm was trapped.

Like a blade, the woodcutter's hand chopped down on Chad's arm. The sword clunked in the dust.

Gull grabbed a fistful of Chad's hair. Lifting the bodyguard on his tiptoes, he pulled to his shoulder -then slammed the handsome man's head against the corner hard as he could.

Like stunning the sedge troll, the first blow dazed Chad, took the fight out of him. Dark hair and skin stuck to rough building shingles.

The second blow was harder, better aimed, and knocked him out.

The fifth killed him.

Gull dropped Chad's maimed body, wiped blood from his hands onto the building.

"Feed the rats, rat."

Battle-fury abating, he remembered the rest of the attack. Oles. Greensleeves. Lily.

But he was alone in the dark street. He shouted the women's names, got no answer. Where the hell had they gone?

Frantic, he searched up and down the wide street. If Oles were returning to camp-why?-he'd go west, away from the docks.

Gull took a chance. Snatching Chad's sword, running on his aching knee, peering through the darkness, he hunted his sister.

Hundreds of feet on, Gull spied a wide man toting a struggling girl on his shoulder.

Greensleeves squirmed, twisted, hammered with bony fists, kicked, all while mewling like a starved cat. Oles lurched onward, shifting his burden, peering around for the town watch.

Kicking off his clogs, Gull pattered full tilt. Greensleeves's noise drowned out his approach. Leveling the borrowed sword, Gull aimed for Oles's back, low so the blade wouldn't bind in his ribs.

The sword bit clean as a snake's fang, slithered a cold path through Oles's gut. The sword point jutted from his belly, then withdrew, the rasping steel making him shiver.

Oles's strength failed as blood gushed from the wound. He stumbled, tried to hold the girl captive, but she was plucked from his shoulder.

He landed facedown in the dirt without a sound.

Gull towed his sister along the strand. The sand was firmest between the high tide line, marked by seaweed, and the waves. From what Lily had told him of tides, incoming water would cover their tracks.

Because most of all, Gull needed time to think.

Waves crashed and collapsed on the shore, streaming toward their feet as creamy white foam. The beach became rocks farther on, and he ducked between them, hopped from one salty boulder to the next, squished over heaps of seaweed that popped underfoot. The Mist Moon and starlight and the glow of the ocean itself lit their way. Wakened sea gulls squawked and took flight. Gull hoped his namesakes didn't betray him.

Past the rocks was a headland of sea grass and scrub oaks. He boosted Greensleeves up, climbed after her, and dragged her to the deepest patch of cover he could find. Grass and brambles tugged at her skirts and his bare legs. Kissed by the breeze through his slit shirt, his sword slice burned and itched.

Once past the first barrier of brambles, he used Chad's sword to hack through mulberry bushes. Cuttings gave a sweet resinous scent. A large flat rock stippled with lichens formed a clearing big enough for them to sit. The rock was warm from the day's sun, and they were below the chill sea breeze. Surf sound was muted.

Gasping, Gull collapsed, careful he didn't nick his sister with the sword. He took quick stock of their situation. He had his black dagger and mulewhip, Chad's sword, a purse full of coins, and nothing else. Greensleeves had less, a gown and shawl.

The question was, how much trouble were they in?

Had Chad and Oles worked alone? Had they planned to… what? Kill Gull for revenge, over a few insults? Not likely, since they'd used clubs and not swords. Sell Greensleeves to prostitution? Slavery? Sell both of them? Lily had warned merchants sometimes kidnapped landsmen, "crimped" them to be sailors, since seafaring was a harsh and miserable life. Was Greensleeves bound for a harem? Whom had they been after, exactly?

And more importantly, and darkly Had Towser sent them?

Gull disliked Towser as a man, considering him foppish and superior and snotty and fussy, but perhaps all people of education or position were that way. Still, he hadn't minded working for him, as the wizard was a fair and undemanding master. Mostly Towser was distracted and aloof, his head full of mystical plans and problems. Gull didn't trust him, but had no reason to distrust him.

Until now.

So what to do? Approach Towser and demand the truth? Would anyone in the entourage help if treachery were afoot? Morven, maybe, Stiggur, perhaps. Lily, of course, but where was she? He'd felt her slump, but then she'd disappeared. Crawled off? Hauled off?

A thousand questions and no answers. Nothing made sense.

As always, he spoke to his sister, as to his mules, to clarify his thoughts. "Any ideas, Greenie?"

He got his biggest shock of the night.

She answered.

"N-no."

Gull rubbed his brow. Maybe he'd been thumped on the head without knowing it. Quietly, he asked, "What did you say?"

"No…"

"You can understand me?"

"Y-yes…" Her voice was hesitant. Also pleasant, he noted, like birdsong, or his mother's singing. But very slow, as if she had to fathom each word. In the shadowed glen, he couldn't see her eyes, but sensed she watched him.

For the first time in her life, she showed intelligence. "A-always c-could."

"Could what?"

"Under-stand… I kn-knowed you were th-there, but h-hard to-to-I c-couldn't-" She flapped small hands in exasperation. "I-heared you. B-but there was-was so much el-se. Birds. Flow-ers… Sk-sky…"

Her brother strove to understand. "You always knew my words, but other things distracted you?"

"Yes… yes!" Her voice became animated, like a child's.

Gull pondered. When he was young, a father in the village had fallen from a roof. He'd landed on his head and almost died. Forever after, he'd be some days foggy-minded, some days clear-headed. Brain-damaged, in short, like his sister at birth.

Or so they'd thought. Now she was lucid. Had she been hit on the head too?

"Why can you suddenly talk so well? Do you know?"

"T-trees," she intoned.

"Trees?"

"Too much trees. All around." Gesturing, she formed a canopy over her head. "W-words of trees- talked in my head. Told me… stories."

"Whispers? The Whispering Woods? You heard stories?"

She nodded, her face a pale blob in the semidarkness.

Gull scratched his head, found a crusty scab that stung. So… the mystery of the Whispering Woods was solved, partly. The trees did talk. Except normal folk couldn't understand them, as if they spoke a foreign tongue. But his poor benighted sister heard their songs and secrets, so many they overwhelmed her poor brain.

So that meant…

"Oh! We left the Whispering Woods behind when we struck the pine barrens… Then a few days of travel… and you started to talk. Oh! Once clear of the forest, your mind cleared!"

"Yes. T-talk on my own, now. To you. Br-brother Gull."

Gull was surprised at the sob that choked him. His name, so sweet coming from his sister-who'd lost her mind and found it.

Grabbing, he squeezed her till she squeaked. "Sq-squash me… Gull."

"Yes," was all he could say.

Then it struck him. He held his sister at arm's length. "Oh, my. All this time I took you to the forest because you loved it so, and to keep you out of trouble, and here the forest clouded your mind! It's my fault you were-stricken."

"No," her smile was gentle, "I-I love the w-woods. I-"

She stopped. Hunting the right word, Gull assumed. But her glance went over his head, into the moonlit sky.

Within bowshot, hovering against the canopy of stars, a man flew.

A dozen thoughts crashed upon Gull.

They'd been found! By Towser!

And the bastard could fly! So it had been he and not the brown-robed wizard who'd flown over White Ridge and unleashed the weakness!

And now he hunted Gull and Greensleeves. Probably not to succor his lost lambs.

"Get down!" Gull hissed. He mashed his sister flat, leaned over her. But it was probably too late. Between the hush of surf and hum of sea breeze, and excitement over their fantastic discoveries, they'd talked normally. Anyone nearby could have heard them, especially in the air. Gull knew that from climbing trees.

He looked again, but the wizard was gone. Was that good or bad? Either, they must get away.

A barbarian shout shook the night, issuing from a score of throats. Gull had heard that before, far away Brush rattled, thrashed, split. A blue-painted warrior, white-haired and tusked, armed with a curved sword and leather shield, charged. Gull shoved Greensleeves, ordering her to flee, then lifted his sword-knowing full well he was no swordsman. But even if the barbarian killed him… But there were a score or more: he'd heard them shout… How many could he battle before he was killed? One? Who'd guard Greensleeves then…?

Another blue barbarian burst into the clearing, and a third and fourth, men and women. Gull didn't know which way to point. The invaders smelled oddly sweet: their blue color must be berry juice. They panted from their shout, growled with battle lust.

Gull stood ready to kill or be killed. But Greensleeves A shadow like an eagle's swooped overhead, and Gull swooned. So weak he couldn't stand, his knees buckled. His sword arm drooped.

He landed on his sister, who'd also sunk. A blue-painted man collapsed too, tusks striking rock with a sickening crunch. Another. But more barbarians thrashed into the clearing.

With the flat of their swords, they whipped Gull as if threshing grain. A blade hammered his arm, his thigh, his shoulder, his head Lights twitched, faded, came back into focus. Someone called outside the circle. The beating stopped as the barbarians grunted in a guttural tone. As a half dozen pinned Gull's arms, a woman raised her club high, took aim.

The heavens crashed down on Gull's head, stunning him. Stars whirled around the compass.

And winked out.

Voices woke him. Towser's. Kem's. Felda's.

For a moment he imagined he woke beneath the chuck wagon, as always, while people talked around the morning fire and waited for Felda to serve breakfast. Suddenly he felt a great and surprising pang of homesickness for those simple times.

But he couldn't move, and when he tried, ached all over. He could only open one eye, for the other was swollen shut. Biting down a groan, he pried open his good eye.

It was still full night. His arms trailed over his head, swollen and dead from lack of circulation, bound to a wagon wheel. The four wagons were circled, and he was lashed to the chuck wagon.

By campfire light, the scene was almost normal. Knoton the clerk sat on his wagon seat, looking ill at ease. Dancing girls peeked from various wagons. Lily was there, looking fatigued and anxious, and Gull wondered if she too had betrayed him, deliberately led him into a trap on that street. But the brawny Jonquil hovered close behind, and when Lily would have spoken, yanked her head back sharply by the hair. Felda sat dumpy on a box to one side, next to the old astrologer. Stiggur leaned from the chuck wagon over Gull's head, looking as if he'd cry. The nurse and bard were nowhere in sight. Kem with his scars and missing ear, Morven the sailor, and the partistriped wizard Towser stood with jacks of ale by the fire.

Greensleeves sat next to the clerk on Towser's wagon, hands tied behind her back, head throbbing.

Gull wondered where the bodies of Chad and Oles lay.

Fully awake, the woodcutter cleared his raspy throat. Licking his lips, he found them so swollen he drooled. But he could still speak.

"Towser!" he bellowed. "You treacherous black dog! You yellow cur! You lousy dirt-grubbing shit-eating muck-wallowing son of a poxied whore! You slit-eyed bastard…" He went on and on, using every filthy phrase a muleskinner knows, for a long time, until he began to repeat himself and his voice gave out.

Towser took no notice. He pointed to the hills north of town, along the coast. Quietly, he gave Kem orders about laying in supplies, hiring more bodyguards, replenishing the livestock, finding a new freighter, moving out soon. The scarred man nodded at his mental list. Idly he scratched the bandage around his elbow.

Having caught his breath, Gull shouted, "Kem! You one-eared son of a bitch! You owe me your life! I went into a stinking swamp and fought off trolls who planned to eat you, you prick! I carried you on my shoulder when you blacked out and Chad gave up! Do you remember that, you miserable dog? Or are you less than a lousy garbage-eating mongrel, for even the ugliest ass-licking dog knows gratitude!"

Kem showed no concern, but did walk around the fire. Standing over Gull, he pitched ale into the woodcutter's face, followed with heavy slaps, across, back, across. He only stopped because his arm ached at the elbow.

Towser nodded. "He's become tiresome. We've got his sister, we don't need him anymore. Bury him in the scrub before the sun comes up. Deep, so the dogs don't dig him up."

Gull wanted to scream with rage. Towser's casual indifference to his death, as if Gull were a hog for slaughter, was the greatest evil he'd ever seen. Kem and Chad might be thugs, but they were honest men compared to this wizardly viper.

And for the first time, Kem showed emotion. Gull saw his brow cloud. Maybe the mercenary did feel gratitude after all, Gull thought wearily: he might make my death a quick one Something tugged at Gull's wrist. His hand flopped into his lap.

Kem growled, "Hey there! Stop!" He reached past Gull, whose other hand plopped in his lap. The woodcutter hissed at pins and needles.

Snarling, Kem dragged out Stiggur by the wrist. The boy had slipped under the wagon and cut Gull free with a kitchen knife. He yelped as Kem cuffed him.

His hands useless, Gull raised a clog and kicked Kem in the ankle. The bodyguard flipped forward and smashed face first into the iron rim of the wheel.

Things happened very fast.

Morven tossed his jack and grabbed Towser by his stiffened collar, hauled him to tiptoes, swung him broadside into his own wagon. Knoton, the soft-handed clerk, slapped at the sailor with the trace reins. With long red fingernails, Lily jabbed Jonquil's eyes, blinding her, and leaped from the wagon, bound for Greensleeves. But the old astrologer hooked a skinny foot and tripped her so the dancing girl crashed in the dust.

Gull rolled to his feet. He'd learned who was friend and foe, and there were no surprises. A shout turned him. Stiggur.

The boy swung both arms, lobbed something at the woodcutter. His mulewhip and axe. Hands unable to clasp, Gull let them thump his chest, bounce to the dirt. Kneeling, he cursed as he tried to pick them up, clumsy as a child. Finally he fumbled the whip in his belt, clasped the axe against his hip.

He turned for Towser. Morven struggled to hold him as Knoton slapped his face with the traces.

Up beside the clerk, Greensleeves was safe for the moment. Tingle-fingered, Gull leaped and bit the reins, jerked his neck to tug them from Knoton's grasp. He kneaded his fingers, felt them respond slowly Someone hit him from the side, and he banged against the wagon. Kem, angry froth on his lips. He slammed a forearm across Gull's throat to pin him. Gull kicked but couldn't connect. He didn't dare move his numb hands lest he drop his axe.

Rasping, the woodcutter croaked into the scarred face, "Less than a dog, is it?"

Kem spit back, "A dog obeys its master." Then he pulled back a fist and slugged Gull in the breadbasket, hard, three times.

But Gull was too furious to notice more pain. Bracing his back, he waited for the man to swing again, then lowered his head and rammed.

The crown of Gull's head smashed into Kern's mouth, making both bark, for Gull had been bashed unconscious earlier. Grappling, the groggy men stumbled toward the fire.

The camp was a riot. Gull shoved Kem so he tripped over the campfire. Sparks glittered, scattered light. Lily wrestled with the old astrologer, strong as rawhide. Felda flapped her fat hands, unsure what to do. Unnoticed, Stiggur latched onto Kem's ankle and made him stumble again. Morven gripped Towser's collar in two hands and banged his head against the wagon. Greensleeves was gone, down on her back behind the wagon. Gull saw slippered feet, red-nailed hands plucking her up. He wanted to hoist the wagon into the air, send it flying to the moon to rescue his sister, and felt he had the strength. He flexed his hands, found he could carry his axe.

Grabbing Towser was the key. He wouldn't kill him outright-not yet. But he'd break his arms and legs with an axe handle, then slowly twist out the truth…

Morven suddenly flopped backward, out cold. Slumped against the wagon, Towser poised both hands as if still pushing.

Spells. Magic. He had to be stopped.

Gull rushed the striped man, but suddenly his feet were floating above the ground. Or so it felt.

What was Ghostlike, Gull saw his legs twinkle blue, like early morning stars. His arms twinkled too. He could see the bright paints of Towser's wagon through his wrist.

His vision went twinkly, growing brighter as if stars exploded before his eyes.

Then everything went black.

Then bright, white, hot.