Whispering Woods

CHAPTER 5

Cowslip lay on her back, alone.

Gull blinked, stunned. He could hardly recognize her.

She had crumpled in the path not far from the victims of the mysterious weakness. She'd been fetching them water. A puddle and a broken redware crock lay by her hand. Her mouth hung open, arms flopped alongside, one foot folded underneath. Even under a wool gown, her armpits and groin looked swollen fit to burst. Her skin was dark as dusk, as if she were choking to death. Or already had.

None of the villagers would go near. Horror froze them. Fathers held their children at bay. Mothers sobbed, one of them Cowslip's.

As Gull ventured close, an old man, Wolftooth, grabbed his arm. The woodcutter barked, "Let go! I must see to her! Why aren't you-"

"Don't!" Wolftooth rasped. "It's death. Black Death! I know it from the legends! It fells a person in their tracks! Oftimes a wisewoman come to administer dies before her patient!"

Gull stared, but did not approach. He'd heard the stories, too, about whole cities wiped out by the Death. "What if she's…"

"She's not," interrupted Wolftooth. "She's dead. All the rest, too, all inside the house." The "house" was the roof under which they'd laid the victims. " 'Twas rat bite killed her. Poor Cowslip."

So that was her epitaph, thought Gull. Poor Cowslip, who might have been wife to Gull the Woodcutter. Tears blurred his vision of her, burned his cheeks. Clumsily, he stumbled around the path and wreckage and Cowslip's corpse to peer into the shelter.

By the low entrance lay a boy, Otter, set to shoo out rats. He, too, was swollen and black. Fleas trailed from his body, more fleas than Gull had ever seen.

And everywhere inside the shelter, tiny eyes glittered at him. Hundreds of them. Yellow teeth were bared, then the rats returned to feeding.

The horror was so great, so overwhelming, Gull couldn't grasp it. His mind shut down, walling off the terror before he went mad.

All he could think was: First his mother and father, then his sisters and brothers, then Sparrow Hawk missing, and now a woman he'd just discovered he could love.

And moments ago he'd been whistling in the woods. Suddenly he hated himself. And everything else.

Behind him, Wolftooth argued with Seal, the village bully. And others. The argument rose to a roar. "… We're going, and now, and that's that!"

"Going where?" Gull demanded, falling into his old ways of questioning everything Seal said. Other villagers stopped squabbling and stared at the two men.

"Away!" snarled the fat man. "This village is cursed! It's an open grave!"

"Going where!" Gull repeated. "You don't say where! You've never been anywhere else!"

"That doesn't matter! Just away!"

Feverfew quavered, "But Seal, do you think-"

The fat man turned to his cowering wife and slapped her head. "Fetch your pots and my jug!" He would have belted her again, but Gull snagged his wrist and squeezed until Seal gasped.

Gull snarled at the villagers. "Is this the man you'd follow when you quit this village, when you abandon your homeland? This coward and bully? Think of what you're leaving behind here!"

But no one answered him, or would return his gaze. They were afraid and they were running, and it was pointless to condemn them. Maybe they'll return someday, maybe not. There was nothing Gull could do about it.

So he sat on a rock not far from Cowslip's ravaged body and watched them prepare to leave.

Greensleeves talked to a ladybug on a dandelion. Rats scuttled under the propped roof. Flies droned. The clockwork beast clumped and stumped in the distance. The giant, Liko, slept with his bandaged stump in the air.

Gull sat and did nothing.

There was nothing to do. He couldn't bury Cowslip or his family for fear of corruption. Come dark, the rats would have her. He couldn't find Sparrow Hawk. The boy might have been lost in the woods, or been captured by soldiers or the wizard, but more likely he was one of the many corpses that littered the valley. Gull couldn't even think of a reason to live, except to care for Greensleeves.

One by one, as shadows lengthened, the villagers gathered their pitiful belongings. One by one, they traipsed along the ruined road, north over the ridge. A few waved to Gull, but he didn't wave back.

By sunset, the last villager, old crippled Wolftooth, had passed out of sight.

Greensleeves came to Gull and mewed, a sign she was hungry. Gull took her hand.

"Yes. Time to eat. We'll hie to the woods. That's all that's left now."

He picked up his axe and bow and quiver, took his sister by the hand, and walked toward the whispering depths of the forest.

As if to welcome them home, the forest offered up a brace of fat pheasant that Gull knocked down easily. They found the clearing he'd made-only yesterday morning? Ash branches, which burned green, caught to his flint and steel. Rather than roast the birds, he gutted them, dug some mud, encased them feathers and all, and buried them in the ashes. They could eat later. Gull wasn't hungry, and Greensleeves was wandering again, cooing to some doves in a birch copse. He thought he should restrain her, keep her close to hand, for who knew what evil still lurked. He'd seen signs of goblins. But keeping Greensleeves was like holding smoke. She went where she would. The gods would have to protect her-Gull couldn't do everything.

Flossy was glad to see her master, and even Knothead accepted scratches on his stiff mane without biting. Unhobbled, the mules had nevertheless stayed near the clearing, foraging and awaiting his return. He found that oddly comforting. Gull told them, "You've fared well, I see. Better than White Ridge. 'Tis good. Our old home is no more, so perhaps this haunted wood is our new one…"

And suddenly he was sobbing, his face pressed to the mules' necks. The poor beasts were confused, but they stood still.

Gull's grief didn't last long, for there sounded a clumping of many feet in the darkness outside the fire ring.

Soldiers! screamed his tired mind.

Frantic, more for his mules and sister than himself, Gull snatched up his axe. Where was Greensleeves, damn it? He couldn't let her wander. Things were dangerous enough Into the circle of yellow light tripped the two centaurs, Helki and Holleb.

They danced to a halt, tails switching gently. They planted the butts of their lances near their forefeet. With firelight glistening on breastplates and closed helmets, their upper bodies looked more like caterpillars than humans. Gull waited with his axe in two hands.

The silence dragged. Light glistened from glossy hides and Gull's axe head, reflected off white-veined leaves that rustled above. A knot popped in the fire, spraying sparks. Gull stepped on a patch of grass that flared. Otherwise, no one moved.

Helki, the talker, broke the silence. "We… saw you… talk… to your mules. They are fine animals…"

They'd seen him crying? Suddenly Gull was mortified. Absently he rubbed his face. He was so tired and battered he could sleep a week.

Yet the centaurs' remarks weren't meant to embarrass, but to open conversation. Gull replied, "Thank you." Remembering his manners, he dropped his axe till the head rested on the ground. "Would you share my fire?"

The plumed helmet nodded. The centaurs' eyes were shadowed within, but Helki's voice was civil. "Thank you. We would. Fire is nice on a cold night."

"Yes," was all Gull could say. But they waited for more. "I talked to Liko, the giant. He too was a slave to the wizard's will, as you must be."

"Is true," said Holleb. His voice was harsher than Helki's, rough as gravel sliding down a hill.

"So," said Gull, "I owe you an apology. I'm… sorry."

The centaurs conferred in their own language- horse talk, Gull thought it. Finally, Helki reported, "We are sorry also. For the loss of your homeland. But we were under geas, compulsion deep in our minds that we must obey, and could not but fight."

"I understand. Now."

"Since we all speak true, we must talk."

"If you insist," Gull sighed, too tired to argue. "But talk of what? There's nothing left. You might as well return to your homeland."

"We have no way to return," Helki said. For the first time, Gull heard a catch in her voice. "It is impossible."

Gull dug up the mud-baked pheasants, broke the hard shells, separated skin and feathers from brown meat. Laying the carcasses on a stump, Gull cut them into threes. He'd offered the centaurs some. Greensleeves could fend for herself, finding mast, mushrooms and teaberries and such, in the forest. She didn't much like meat anyway, and would probably just leave it.

As he worked, the centaurs shed their armor. Their breastplates fastened in front, yet they helped one another as if they couldn't touch enough. Breastplates and helmets hooked to the harness on their backs, where already there hung haversacks for food, pouches for tools and gear, a coil of rope, a water bottle. Even the lances slid into loops along their left sides. Come what might, Gull realized, the two could dash off in a second's notice.

Yet he barely noticed this, for staring-while trying not to stare-at their fantastic shapes.

Their revealed faces were ordinary enough, even pleasant, though they had prominent yellow teeth. Covering their pates was short reddish hair that matched their bodies, though their manes continued almost to their foreheads. Their bellies were whitish, though Holleb was covered with matted hair, while Helki had flatfish breasts with brown nipples that stuck up thick as a thumb joint.

Finally, the man and the horse-folk sat by the fire, the centaurs with legs tucked underneath. Even sitting they looked delicate and graceful. With his maimed hand and bad knee and axe scars, Gull felt clumsy and old. He proferred the pheasants on slabs of bark, and the centaurs accepted graciously. In return, from a haversack Holleb produced a block of dried orange fruit, pried off a slice. It was "apricot," and good.

They ate in silence a while, then Gull offered, "I understand little of what happened here, no more than an ant understands a lightning storm. How did you fall under the sway of that wizard? And why can you not return home?"

"We understand not much more," sighed Helki. "Our people live on steppes and taiga we call Green Lands near Honeyed Sea. Far to the east, to judge by sun. Ours is border country, where often are wars. We train as warriors from small child time, work as scouts for good causes. But one time wizard-not a native, traveler-hire us to survey land. We were unsure, but gave service as asked. Wizard thanked each by shaking hand. Then she gone."

"Gone? You mean she disappeared?"

"No. Mounted horse, rode off with servants. We think nothing of it. But of a sudden, one day, I and Holleb find us on battlefield, like day past. Wizard is there, now our mistress, we know not how. Geas placed on us, we must obey commands. Outside, we obey, though inside rebel, but do no good. As if had two minds in one, one rule, one submit. Fight dwarves, we did, small folk but strong, and bull-people. Then battle stall, and we home again. Like dream, except left scars." She showed her left elbow, striped with a white slash. "Happen twice more, always somewhere different. When battle done, wizard wave hands, send us home.

"Then comes day past. Scout and fight here. But when battle done, wizard is gone. No one to send us home."

"The wizard ran," growled Gull. "In those past battles, she must have won, so could tend her charges and see them home safely. But this time she got skunked, and ran like a rabbit. And left you stranded. Is that it?"

Choked up, Helki only nodded. Holleb snapped a thick stick apart, piece by piece.

"Like that silly clockwork animal out there," Gull mused, fitting pieces of the puzzle. "And those useless goblins and the poor giant with his arm shorn off… For that matter, it explains the soil under that thorn wall."

"Thorn-wall? What is thorn?" Despite her sorrow, Helki was curious, for herein might lie answers to their plight.

Gull explained, "That heap of briars. When I was hiding my sister, I noticed the soil was red. We don't have soil like that in our valley. I've only heard of it from travelers. So that whole thorn hedge was actually lifted from somewhere else in the Domains and dropped on our village… Imagine the power to do that, to uproot part of the earth and transport it elsewhere. Look what these wizards can do! And yet they spend their time warring on one another, forcing innocent folk to fight to the death for-well, why do they fight, anyway? Kings fight for glory and soldiers for pay. What are wizards after?"

"Power," rumbled Holleb, startling the other two. "Power to become gods."

The fire slumped to red coals. Around them, the Whispering Woods were so still Gull had to strain to notice the hissing almost-voices that droned like summer bees.

He'd fit together a few pieces, yet the puzzle only loomed larger. If wizards warred for power, or magic or mana or whatever they called it, why had two of them come here? The only power in White Ridge had been water turning a gristmill. And there was little magic. Their wisewoman was more midwife than witch. She could bless the seeds at planting, and their blacksmith could conjure twinkles while forging steel, but…

It made no sense for wizards to invade their valley.

And since the battle had been pointless, his anger flared anew. How dare they use people like tools, then cast them aside when broken, or they needed to run?

A crashing and thrashing and snapping of branches sounded from the edge of the woods.

Gull snapped alert, snatched up his axe, looked for Greensleeves. The centaurs leaped up and liberated their lances. All three faded from the firelight.

Along with the smashing, like a tornado shearing branches, came a pounding Gull felt through his soles. He took a new grip on his axe. Whatever it was…

High up, branches parted at the edge of camp. Filling the firelight stood Liko, the two-headed giant. Leaves fluttered from his shoulders and spiraled into the fire. With one heavy arm missing, he listed left. The almond eyes looked sleepy, like a child's.

"Have you food? I hunger."

They had the giant sit down against an oak. The tree groaned, as did the man-thing. His twin faces were pale as birch bark, oily with sweat.

Gull asked the giant how he felt, but got only a murmur. The woodcutter turned instead to the centaurs. "What shall we do? He's a brother-in-arms, a victim of wizard slavery like you."

The centaurs talked in their own language, snarling and snapping like a dogfight, then Helki offered, "We see cattle in other wood. We could fetch one. Eats he meat?"

"He eats anything. But can you really find cattle at night?"

The man-stallion Holleb went hot-eyed. "Do you jest?"

"No." Gull was surprised. "But I searched for cattle- gods, just this morn-and found no sign."

Helki snorted delicately. "Holleb can track ladybug across lake. We fetch." Gear flapping on their flanks, they cantered off into the dark.

Since there was no one else to do it, Gull inspected the giant's wound. The giant's left head watched him curiously while the right head slept. Unwrapping the green horsehide unleashed a gagging stink. Jagged bone jutted from flesh both flaming red and rotten gray. Sighing, Gull rebound the wound.

No wonder the giant was tired, he thought, fighting infection like that. He'd have relief soon, and the peace of the grave, once the blood poisoning reached his heart. Gull kept his voice light. "Giants are made of stern stuff, I see. No wonder they tell legends about you."

He wasn't sure if the giant understood or not. With his slitted eyes and parchment skin and bald pate, Liko looked ancient and wise, yet Gull could see that most everything confused him.

To change the topic, he asked, "How did you fall into the service of that wizard, Liko? Did she shake your hand too?"

A frown. "Wizard?"

Gull's neck cricked from having to look up. Even seated, the giant's heads were four feet above his. "The woman in brown and yellow, the hand waver. Did she shake your hand?"

"No. She gave me wine barrel. In tiny boat." He raised his arms to show the length of the boat, but lacked a hand and frowned again. His heaving chest and stomach made the patched-sail smock toss like a ship at sea. "Good wine. Good friend."

And Urza's own bargainer, the woodcutter thought, to buy a slave with one barrel of wine. "Why not rest, Liko? The centaurs will bring food soon."

"I like wine, too."

"Don't we all. You'll need wait till the fall harvest."

A twig snapped behind him. Not one crackling in the fire.

Gull whirled.

A goblin was stealing his axe.

"Yaaahhh!!!"

The woodcutter howled to startle the thief, jumped awkwardly over the firepit.

Short-legged and weighed down by the eight-pound axe, the goblin didn't get far. Gull swatted, knocked it against a tree.

Dropping its prize, screeching, the goblin scrambled to get away. Gull grabbed a skinny ankle and hoisted the creature like a hooked fish. With a ragged kilt hanging around his arms, he was obviously male. He didn't weigh forty pounds, and had a black streak in his gray hair, like a skunk.

The wretch gibbered, pleaded, threatened, wind-milled his arms, almost snapped his own ankle with contortions. Gull shook until his head bobbled and he fell silent. "That's better. Now, do I bash your brains out on this oak? Or will you say why you stole my axe?"

"I didn't, I didn't!" the goblin cried. Normally a lichen green, his inverted face turned bright as clover leaves.

Gull snorted and walked to the firepit. Waving the goblin over the flames, he asked, "What did you say?"

"All right! I did, I stole! Is that s'bad?"

"What? Of course it's bad! It's wrong to steal! Especially from me!"

"Yes, yes, I see that now! I won't do't again! I swear!"

"Pah! Once a thief, always a thief." He shook the skinny leg for emphasis.

"Yessir, very true. But I'm a bad thief. See? I got caught! So I'll give it up!" Not killed, the goblin calmed. "If you could leggo me leg, sir?"

"Hush." Gull let the goblin drop onto his head. What to do? He should just wring his neck and throw the carcass to the ants. One wasn't much threat, but goblins were like rats or cockroaches, and should be stomped whenever possible.

A rustling made him turn. Greensleeves returned from the woods.

Burbling in a questioning tone, she put one hand on Gull's arm, the other on the goblin's foot. Upside-down, the goblin latched onto her ragged hem. "Oh, save me, sweet lady, good miss! I'm innocent, I am! This brute's seized me, a poor wretch who never done any harm…"

"No harm?" Gull couldn't help laughing at the bald-faced lie. "You and your bunch tried to cut me! And eat my sister! You did eat Liko's arm! I ought to-"

Chattering, Greensleeves pushed Gull's arm lower. Spiderlike, the goblin scrabbled, latched onto a rock near the fire, screamed at burned fingers. "Green-ie…"

But with her gentle urging, Gull finally dropped the culprit. Bouncing on his head, rolling upright, the goblin shrilled. "Ha! Fooled you, white-skinned ninny! You donkey, blundering boob! I got away! Takes more than a great stupid mountain of meat to conquer Egg Sucker! Ha, ha!" His gloating was spoiled by blowing on singed fingers.

Gull took one step, and the goblin bolted into the darkness.

The woodcutter turned to chide his diminutive sister, then gave up. Her eyes shone adoration for her big brother. "That's foolish, you know. Letting a rabid skunk like that loose. But I suppose there's been enough killing…"

His sister glanced over his shoulder. Had the centaurs returned?

No.

Standing in the firelight, bright as sunrise, was a man in stripes and a headful of yellow hair.

Snatching his fallen axe, Gull acted on pure instinct. He charged. "I'll kill you!"