Whispering Woods

CHAPTER 16

Surf surged around Gull's ankles, slapped his knees.

For a second he thought he'd been cast over the town into the ocean.

But the sky was white, the sun straight overhead. Seconds ago had been midnight: now it was noon.

He was somewhere far, far away.

Before him lay a shoreline so green and verdant it hurt the eyes. White sand sprouted tall fleshy plants adorned with flowers like rainbows. Long-tailed birds in all colors squawked in tufted trees hung with strange fruits. Beyond rose a dull gray cone a hundred feet high.

Something twinkled beside him, lost its balance, and fell in the water, spluttering. Shifting his axe, Gull reached into the gushing surf and plucked out Stiggur. Another splash revealed Morven, facedown, unmoving, drowning. Shifting his axe again, Gull towed the sailor to the beach.

"Wh-where-are we?" gasped the boy. Skinny and streaming wet, he looked like a muskrat.

Gull knelt, hoicked Morven over his knee, jounced him. Dully, the sailor vomited seawater, waved his arms like a crab, growled to lay off. Gull dropped him.

Stiggur shucked his tunic to stand naked. He wrung it out, then donned it. "Where are we, Gull?"

"Hush. We're safe." The woodcutter scanned the horizon, empty but for heaving swells and dots of islands. He sighed. "Towser's safe too. We're as far away as he can send us, I'd guess."

Then he howled, a drawn-out scream of pain, and slammed his axe against the sand so hard it buried half its length. Screaming, shouting, cursing, Gull pounded his fists until they were raw and bloody. "All my fault! My fault! So thick and trusting! This-is-all-my- fault!"

A hand touched his shoulder and he froze.

Morven's forehead bled, his face was white from vomiting, his hands shook. But his eyes were steady. "It's not your fault, matie. The wizard gulled ye. They lie, cheat, and steal. It's their nature, like vipers bite babies."

Gull's anger returned with a rush. Hopping up, he banged both fists against Morven's breast, rocking him. "Then why, you know-it-all bastard, did you work for him? Why didn't you tell me he was rotten?"

The sailor's tone was mild. He'd faced bigger threats than berserkers in his day. "I only signed on a little afore ye. Towser seemed different. Honest. Should'a known 'twas a spell on me mind. So if you blame anyone for this mess, blame me and not yerself."

Fists swinging by his side, Gull panted, spent. The mild words extinguished his anger as water damps fire. "But-what can we do?"

Morven looked at the sky, turned to listen to a birdcall like water gurgling from a jug. He only sighed.

Stiggur pointed. "Look!"

Coming down the beach, lurching CLUMP CLUMP CLUMP crunchgrindgrowlsnap CLUMP CLUMP… lurched the clockwork beast on three good legs and one bad one.

A shout from a break in the foliage turned them. Naked and shaggy, the centaur Helki cried, "Oh, no! Not you too!"

Lo and behold, they were all there.

Helki led them between fleshy green plants, up a mild slope, to a clearing with a firepit and huts of different sizes.

The centaurs went naked except for their armbands, Helki distracting with her tight breasts and brown, thumb-sized nipples. Their manes and tails were shaggy and matted.

Liko, with slant eyes and two bald heads, still wore his patchwork suit of ships' sails. His severed arm, Gull noted, had healed to a clean white stump, but had not regenerated. So Towser had lied about that, too.

On a log sat three tough-looking bronzed men with black beards. They looked at Gull's scars and bruises with professional curiosity, but kept quiet. Gull recognized their red kilts from the battle of White Ridge: the scale-mailed mercenaries summoned by the brown-and-yellow wizard. Evidently this trio had been left behind, like the centaurs, and Towser had sent them here. These hard men may have threatened Gull's family, tried to rape Cowslip. But he couldn't deal with that now.

Also present was a tall man in chain mail who kept sword and shield handy. Gull guessed him a paladin from the northern lands: only one of those would go armored in this heat.

While Helki gave everyone's name, the woodcutter glanced around. "Is everyone Towser ever touched stuck here?"

Helki's four feet danced. Tears spilled down her face, the same as Holleb. "No, not everyone. Some pawns he must return to homelands. This place, this island, is midden-dumping ground."

Tearfully, she explained, "We all tell same story. Summoned to fight by Dacian, she in brown and yellow, abandoned in chaos, Towser offers send us home. But he not know where our home, so sends us here to use when needed. We can never escape," she added miserably.

Gull nodded. That explained what Helki meant by "We are captives!" that black night in the burned forest. Suddenly weary, he collapsed on the sand, propped his axe across his knees. It was already tinged with rust from the seawater.

"A wizard's greatest skill must be lying. I should have guessed. How could a wizard know your homeland? He even claimed to know the origin of the clockwork beast, a thing without a brain."

Bardo, the tall paladin, nodded. "It's partly our fault. Ve hear fabulous stories about vizards until ve believe they can do anything, like gods. Thus ve believe their lies." His accent clattered on the ear like a raven's croak.

"How did Towser know Broken Toe Mountain," Holleb growled, "if he was never there?"

A black-bearded, balding soldier named Tomas waved both hands as he spoke. "I think one wizardly power is to read your thoughts. They ask of your homeland, and a picture comes to your head. They read that and pretend to know it. They bewitch you, too. I've had it happen."

"True," muttered Gull. He rubbed his aching head. "I've felt it. While they talk, the lies seem believable." Others nodded, and Gull felt less stupid and gullible. "I never even objected when he called me 'pawn': a tool to be used and discarded."

Since Helki was crying, Holleb spoke in his harsh voice. "More are stranded here. Goblins who fly by balloon are here, but we banished to other side of island, they steal and lie so. Some orcs there. Big ant-folk on mountaintop."

"Banished, we all are," said Helki. "Forever."

Stiggur began to cry.

Gull stood up. "No, we're not."

People looked up. Stiggur rubbed streaming eyes, "Not what?"

"Not banished forever." Yet Gull wavered. Lack of sleep, battle fatigue, mental exhaustion, worry over his sister-all conspired to crush his will and sap his energy. He brushed them aside. "Think, everyone. We come from all over the Domains. There must be a way out of this-cage. Who knows something?"

No one spoke. Stiggur dried his face with sandy hands.

Sighing at impetuous youth, Morven the sailor touched the corrugated bark of a palm tree. "I've sailed these waters, I think. We're way t'south, where the islands lie far apart. Most're too small to hold fresh water: we're lucky we got that. But we can't build a boat with these junk trees: they fall to pulp and string. So we can't sail away."

"Nor can we make goblin balloons," said Gull bitterly. "So the only escape is by magic. And only wizards possess that."

The leader of the red soldiers, bald, bearded Tomas, sketched in the air. "Our best bet is on the battlefield. Once we're summoned, we must attack-such is the geas placed on us. But if we defeat our immediate foe, we're free to act on our own, usually. That's the time to get away."

"But you are not home," growled Holleb. "You are with wizard elsewhere in Domains."

Powerful round shoulders shrugged. Arms and neck were laced with scars from a lifetime of war. "True. But we're somewhere civilized. We can walk to the sea and take passage for our homeland."

"If we can find it," objected one of his men. "If anyone knows where it lies."

"Has anyone ever known?" asked Gull.

Tomas shook his shiny head. "No. If we've learned one thing, it's the Domains stretch on forever. Under Dacian, she of the glossy black hair, we've seen a hundred lands. Some were pleasant, some were hellholes. But all were different and far from one another. Never have I met anyone who knew the way to our homeland. Of course, I'm usually stabbing them…"

"Dacian," muttered Gull. "The name of the one who killed my family. Though now I know Towser lies, so he must have had a hand in it too…"

Morven crossed his arms, leaned against the palm tree. "In my travels, I've seen a thousand lands. The Domains are all islands, some hundreds of leagues long, some small as a kerchief. But the seas run on forever. Some navigators think the world is round, like a ball, and if ye keep sailing, ye'll circle and find yer home port. But how long? Years? Decades? No one's ever done it, or even lied about doing it. It's impossible."

"It vill get vorse for us," intoned Bardo the paladin. "Truly powerful vizards move beyond humanity. They learn to valk the planes between vorlds, lands ve can't imagine, vhere the sky is green with five moons, and men turn inside out, or breathe smoke, or…" His imagination failed. "For now, the vizards Dacian and this Towser valk lands ve can understand. Vun day, vhen they're powerful, ve'll be summoned to places even the gods shun…"

Silence followed this prophecy.

"I don't understand," Gull groused. "If wizards can pop from one place to another, the way a rabbit can dive in a hole and surface a bowshot away, then why does Towser travel in a wagon train? Why not wave his hands and move the whole kit and caboodle to the next spot leagues on?"

"Ye need someplace to store yer food and loot," put in Morven. "Even wizards have to eat."

Holleb frowned in thought, swished his tail. "There are places to more easy jump off-magic places where music sings in the ears. Your rabbit has many tunnels underground, yes, but only two-three holes. He cannot dive through earth-he must run to opening."

Gull fingered the edge of his axe. "Yes, that's wise. I learned from my sister-gods, just this past night- that the Whispering Woods are such a place, a magic jumping-off place. Towser came there and destroyed our village, but then needed to drive his wagon train cross-country to get to the next jump-off, wherever that is. Chatzuk's Curse! What does he want with my sister?"

At the confused faces, he explained his sister's words, how she could suddenly talk, how Towser had betrayed them. "But where is he bound? And why?"

It fell silent in the clearing. Trade winds soughed in the treetops. The clumping of the clockwork beast came closer, then receded. A green lizard skittered from under a leaf, and Stiggur, a boy, caught it instinctively.

"We may never know," Morven sighed. "Holleb, have you figured how to brew beer from coconuts?"

"No!" Gull's shout startled them all. Fear for Greensleeves had renewed his anger. "We're not going to settle in here! We're not going to get comfortable in this cage! We're going to find a way out!"

Everyone just stared. Stiggur showed a glimmer of hope, knowing his hero could accomplish anything. But the rest were sober. And resigned.

Gull couldn't stand their helpless air. "Stiggur, get up! Morven, you too!"

Sitting, the sailor just shook his gray head. "Me days o' taking orders are done, bucko."

For answer, the woodcutter grabbed his shoulder, hoicked him to his feet.

The sailor rubbed his arm. "Belay, belay! I'm with ye! Where are we bound?"

Gull didn't know. But they mustn't sit idle: that was slow death. "Around the island. We'll see what there is to see."

"Not much," droned Tomas.

Ignoring that, the three walked off, Gull setting the pace.

With every step, Gull's resolve to escape increased. This island might be paradise, but it was still a prison. He strode down the beach while Morven and Stiggur struggled to keep up.

Surprisingly, there was much to see.

At the center of the island they found Holleb's "ant-folk." Upright, five feet tall, brown as tree trunks, made of articulated segments covered with stiff black hair, they looked as if some wizard had kicked an anthill and conjured its denizens into soldiers. Their only decorations were palm fronds cemented with some gum-ant spit, Morven suggested-to their helmetlike heads. They carried crude iron blades, a cross between a shovel and a spear. In the crater of the dead volcano, they dug tunnels, ridges, trenches. Some fetched leaves and fruit while others stood guard. They worked in an eerie silence, waggling antennae as if talking.

The travelers did not test the guards, but watched from a low tor. As best they could count the identical bug-beasts, there were at least a hundred, though there could be scores more underground.

"Let's hope they don't develop a taste for meat," Morven hissed.

Moving to the island's far side, they found the goblins, including the skunk-striped thief Egg Sucker. With them lived some large gray orcs, the first Gull had ever seen. Orcs of the Ironclaw Clan, they shouted that they ruled the island-until Gull flattened one with his axe handle. After that, they were all whining politeness, but knew nothing.

The explorers passed on, slept the night curled in the warm sand.

Birds sprang away at their steps, wild pigs scurried through brush, even a sea turtle was sighted beyond the reef, swimming slow as a barrel. They came across a primitive clay statue a dozen feet high. It had obviously been dropped there, for it lay on its side in a thicket of fronds. Along a spit they found an old shipwreck, a caravel, Morven explained, with high forecastles and aftercastles like a wooden shoe. Much of the ship was intact, but her bottom had been torn out by the reef in a storm. Other than scrap iron and some broken masts, there was nothing the ship could offer.

That second day, they passed the clockwork beast, stumping, stumping along.

When the sun was high on the third day, they found their landing spot.

Morven and Stiggur trudged into the rude camp and plunked down on the sand. But Gull's quick tread made the sleepy giant and red soldiers and centaurs look up.

"Gather 'round!" the woodcutter ordered.

Curious, ready for any diversion, the motley crew rubbed their eyes and prepared to listen.

The woodcutter did not sit, but paced the small circle. As he talked, he tapped the axe haft in his hand. Bobbing in the air, the big steel head almost hypnotized them.

"We're stuck here," Gull began. "We feel helpless, as if we must sit and wait for salvation."

He paused. Everyone listened, rapt.

"We might be stuck, but we're not helpless. We got sent here, we can be drawn back."

A murmur ran through the small crowd. Morven said, "But that-"

Gull cut him off. "We're fighters, all of us. We've been thrust into a war: the common folk against wizards. Yet just to sit, and slack off, and despair, and wait for someone to help us-is to lose the battle without raising a hand! We're not sheep awaiting slaughter! Are we?"

A negative mumble. But mostly the listeners looked at each other.

"What?" Gull hollered. "All I hear is the mutter of surf. Are we, or are we not, sheep?"

"No!" said the black-bearded Tomas.

"No, we're not," said Morven mildly. "But what can we-"

"We can prepare to fight!" Gull bellowed. "Fight! But we're not ready! Where's your weapon, Morven?"

The sailor waved vaguely at the air. "Last I saw, in the men's wagon."

"Then we'll get you a new one! Where's yours, Stiggur?"

The boy piped, "I ain't got a weapon."

Gull plucked his whip from his belt, tossed it into Stiggur's hands. "You do now. I want to see you plucking gray hairs out of Morven's beard by the end of the week."

The boy looked stunned, held the whip like a dead snake. Morven nudged him, thumbed his chin. "Aim for black ones. Fewer targets, more of a challenge."

For the first time, folks laughed.

The woodcutter kept up the pressure. "There's one volunteer armed and ready to practice! Helki, Holleb, where are your weapons? When I first met you, you were festooned with weapons and tack, all neat as a pin! Now…"

The centaurs looked shamefaced at their slovenliness. Their breastplates rusted in their hut, their lances had been used to broil fish. Without a word, they turned with swishing tails, plucked up their armor, scrubbed at the rust with sand.

Tomas nodded to his comrades. They fetched short swords and hunted whetstones. Gull followed his own advice and honed his axe blade. He continued to talk. "We're agreed then. We'll be ready for the call when it comes."

With empty hands, Morven could only scratch his armpit. "Ain't ye forgettin' somethin'? Towser picks who he needs for a battle. Same as ye and me can pluck up a chessman and move him thither on a board. He might conjure the centaurs, or these blokes, but why conjure ye and me? They might twinkle away anytime and we're left to build sand castles-"

"Morven," Gull interrupted, "while there's life, there's a way. All of us will work together and all of us will get off this island. And when we do, we'll kill Towser and every other wizard we find!"

At that, Tomas gave a glorious war cry from deep within his soul. People started, then laughed. Helki reared onto her back legs and whinnied her battle call, and Holleb joined in. Morven laughed and hollered a snatch of sea chantey.

Then all were whooping and hollering and shouting and dancing around the clearing.

Gull called the loudest of all. "Remember White Ridge! Remember White Ridge!"

Long into the night, they made plans. They worked out a watch, everyone standing three hours around the clock. They worked out warning signals in case anyone was suddenly "summoned," compared notes and the little knowledge they possessed. Could someone disappearing drag a companion along? Was it better to run, or return to the island with news? Was that possible?

At dawn, Morven groaned and stretched his back. "But still, just hangin' around waitin'…" "We don't wait," said Gull. "We work." The sailor was caught in mid-stretch. "At what?" "We work with what we have, fix what needs fixing. We'll start with the clockwork beast." "Eh?" asked several. "What good is that?" Gull shrugged. "Some wizard created it, other wizards summon and banish it, so it must have a use. Howsoever, we'll knock it down and replace that missing leg with a mast cut from the shipwreck. Morven, that's your job: tell us what you need. And tear that wreck apart, see what else you find. Liko, can you help? Good man. We'd best carve you a club so you can whomp Towser's bullyboys. Stiggur, I want you snapping that whip until you can flick the eyelash off a gnat. You're a bright lad and quick, so I know you can do it."

Beaming with pride, the boy nodded. One of the red soldiers, a thin man named Varrius said, "I can help with that repair. I was apprenticed to a blacksmith before I ran off soldiering."

"Fine, good," said Gull. He was discovering powers of diplomacy he never knew. "Helki, Holleb, will you go up to that ant colony? You've got patience and sense, see if they've got brains and can help. They might want to go home too. Tomas, Neith, you've led soldiers, commanded their respect. Will you organize those goblins and orcs? Tell 'em we're planning to leave and they must help. Kick their arses if they grumble. Make spears with fire-hardened points, or whatever you think practical, and drill 'em as shock troops." The soldiers rubbed their hands, glad for the compliments and the hard work ahead. "Bardo, you've traveled, seen much of the Domains. Hunt up that clay statue, hew down the grass and get it upright, see if it can help us. Does everyone have a task?

"Right then. To work!"

It was marvelous to see the troop hurl themselves into their tasks, proving old Brown Bear's saying, "To be happy you must be busy." They were busy, and more.

Armor and weapons polished, kept close at hand, people dispersed over the island.

Within a day, they fell to their first big task.

Having impressed the goblins and orcs, Morven directed the piling of rocks and slash into a barricade, the digging of a long trench. Then the crew waited, each poised with a long pole lever.

As the clockwork beast clumped down the shore, hitting on three legs and missing the fourth, Gull reflected what a strange contraption it was. Was it even alive? It showed no wear, as a millworks would, even bore spots where wood and iron had seemed to scab and heal. Further, it never walked blindly, but steered around large obstacles. More and more, he wondered what lay inside that wood-and-iron head. But short of breaking it open, there was no way to tell.

As the beast approached their barricade, it steered for open sand. Shouting for courage, men and centaurs and orcs stabbed levers at its great iron feet, while Liko put out one huge arm and shoved, ramming the thing sideways. The crash it made shook them off their feet.

Wedged sideways in the trench, the beast mindlessly churned powerful legs.

Then suddenly stopped, the first time anyone had seen it still. Up by the massive head, Stiggur shouted for joy. "Look what I found!"

Behind the beast's ears were four iron rods with polished hardwood heads. The boy pushed one lever forward, and the legs churned. Another, and they churned backward. Then right, then left. Hauling all the levers back stopped it.

"Stiggur," Gull laughed as he tickled the boy's ribs, "you'll be general of this army before long."

For days, they worked from dawn to dusk.

Helki and Holleb struggled to learn the ant soldiers' language. In the meantime, the centaurs drilled, charging and galloping and wheeling in tandem, shouting battle commands, then racing flat out, laughing like young lovers to crash into the surf to kiss. Every morning, Tomas and Neith rousted the goblins and orcs and drilled them in spear work. The trashy fodder whined, ran off when they could, but fear and raps on their bony heads sank in, and the gray-green villains learned. Stiggur not only split leaves with his new mulewhip, he did it while riding the clockwork beast up and down the beach. Morven sharpened a rusty cutlass he'd scrounged from the shipwreck, killed a pig, and fashioned a scabbard from its hide.

Everyone maintained his or her watch without complaint, and slept with armor and weapons close at hand.

And a good idea that proved to be.

Gull dreamed of Lily.

He shared a hut with Morven and Stiggur, lying under palm leaves to stave off the morning chill. Yet many nights he tossed and turned, groping for Lily's sweet soft form, waking when he didn't find her.

Did he love her, he wondered? Did he know what love was? He'd always liked her, enjoyed her company, her chaste yielding body pressed against his. Gull missed her the same as he did his sister. Or more? What was love, really…?

"Gull, wake up!" came a voice. "For pity's sake, wake up!"

Morven swore, "Lord of Atlantis!"

Muzzy-headed, Gull croaked, "What? Get that light out of my face…"

No light. He was shining.

Bolt upright, Gull grabbed his axe, looked at his hands. Outlined ghostly white, they glowed like foxfire on a swamp log. The light grew brighter, spread to his whole body, making him squint and the others fall back.

Neith, the red soldier on watch, had awakened him. "You're being summoned! Through the void, to battle!"

"Me?" gasped the woodcutter, blinded by his own illumination. "Why me?"

Then the earth moved.