The healer slumped wearily against the side of the wagon, but he assured Tol he was well. Tol left him and ran to the center of the square, shouting Durazen’s name. Soldiers and shilder sat up all around, but he didn’t see the commander of the footmen.
Narren suddenly came running, wearing only a breech-clout and clutching a blanket around his shoulders. He had a war dagger in his free hand.
“Tol! Come quick!” he panted. “It’s Durazen!”
Tol raced through the roused camp. In the far corner, Narren stopped and stood over an unmoving figure on a bedroll. For a moment Tol thought Durazen must be dead or drunk, but Narren kicked the blanket aside to reveal not the commander’s body, but a bundle of grass and vines, cunningly lashed together to resemble a man.
“Torches!” Tol yelled. “Search the camp! Find Durazen, or anyone who doesn’t belong here!”
By now the whole camp was in an uproar. Brands blazed; shilder and foot soldiers searched the camp, even turning out the civilian wagons. Durazen could not be found.
No one slept for the rest of the night. At dawn, the nervous shilder and foot soldiers greeted the sunrise with relief, though there -was still no sign of their missing commander. And with Durazen gone, there was no clear leader among the footmen or shilder.
Tol, mounted on Smoke, addressed the assembled warriors and civilians. He told them of Felryn’s vision of an ambush.
“We must find Lord Odovar and Warden Egrin,” he declared. “I need at least a hundred men to do it. Who’s with me?”
“We can’t leave camp,” Janar protested. He was only half-dressed, his broad chest bare and blond hair askew. “Our orders were to stay here.”
“The marshal is in trouble-he maybe dead already!”
“We don’t know that,” said Relfas skeptically. “Felryn is an admirable healer, but I’ve never heard he was a seer.”
Tol turned to the older man for help. Felryn said, “I am a priest of Mishas, chosen by the goddess to serve the marshal of Juramona. If she grants me visions of my charges, you can believe them.”
The shilder remained unconvinced. “We should send a few riders to contact Lord Wanthred and the Firebrands,” Relfas countered. “That would be the wisest course.”
Many relieved voices supported this plan. Tol’s frustration grew.
“If Lord Odovar is to be ambushed and cut off, every hour is precious,” he insisted. “For the honor of the empire and the safety of our comrades, we must do something!”
On and on they wrangled, until a delegation from the footmen interrupted. Relfas disdained to discuss strategy with mere foot soldiers, but Tol went to speak to them.
“It’s Durazen. We found him,” Narren reported. Tol looked relieved until Narren added, “He’s dead, Tol. Come and see.”
Shilder, civilians, and foot soldiers streamed out of the camp behind Tol. Narren led them to the extreme eastern end of the meadow.
“Boys from the cook wagon went out a little while ago to collect tinder for their fires,” Narren explained. “Instead they found this.”
Forty steps from the edge of the woods, the crowd halted as though they’d all been turned to stone. Lashed to an oak tree, his hands bound behind him, was Durazen. The shaft of an arrow protruded from his throat, effectively pinning him to the tree trunk. His belly had been cut open, and his entrails wound around the tree.
The forest folk had not simply killed the commander of the Ergothian camp. They had sacrificed him to the spirits of the trees in which they lived.
The sound of retching behind him broke through Tol’s shock. He had to clear his throat twice before he could speak. Even then his voice was hoarse.
“Cut him down,” he rasped. No one moved. Dazed, he drew his dagger and did the job himself. Felryn knelt by the body, examining it closely.
“Why did they do this?” Tol asked, stunned by the method of the old warrior’s death.
“To propitiate their ancestors’ spirits-and to terrify their enemies,” Felryn answered tersely.
Tol stared at the bloody tree. Was Lord Odovar going to meet a similar fate in the forest? And Egrin?
His name, sharply spoken, called him out of his horrified daze. Narren and the footmen had gathered around.
“We’ll go with you, Tol,” Narren said. “We’ll find Odovar and the warden, and pay back the savages for what they did to Durazen, too!”
Tol surveyed the foot soldiers’ hard faces. Aside from Narren and a few others, they were generally older than the shilder, some as old as thirty. Of humble birth, they were used to being looked down upon by Riders of the Horde. None of that mattered now. Their blood was up, and they would take the battle to the devious enemy in their own way: on foot, face to face.
“Pick a hundred men, Narren, no more. Each man is to bring food and water for two days, his sword, dagger, helmet, a pair of spears, and breastplate. Everything else stays behind-we have to move fast,” Tol said. He looked up at the mid-morning sun. “We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”
Narren took off running, to do as Tol said. All the way back to camp Relfas, Janar, and the other shilder harangued Tol, warning him not to go. He was disobeying orders, they said. He was inexperienced. He was risking the lives of the ignorant footmen who chose to follow him.
Tol ignored them. Finally, Relfas quieted the others and said, “So be it! If Tol wants to throw his life away, that’s his choice. At least he won’t weaken the Rooks doing it!”
Considerably more than a hundred footmen lined up to follow Tol into the forest. He sent a third of them back, not wanting to leave the camp’s defense so weakened. Among the volunteers, he was surprised to see Felryn and Crake. The healer refused to be left behind, insisting that, as his auguries had stirred them up, he felt responsible for the expedition.
To Crake, Tol said, “You’re not a soldier. You don’t have to do this.”
“None of your men has a bow. You’ll need one,” Crake said with a shrug. Flashing a smile, he added, “Just don’t try to order me around, all right?”
Before they set out, Felryn took Tol aside and showed him the arrow that had been removed from Durazen’s throat. Made of ash wood, blackened with soot and fletched with crow feathers, it would be nearly invisible at night. It was obviously forester workmanship, except for its head, which was a sharp triangle of bronze. Common knowledge held that the foresters used flint heads.
“Also,” Felryn added, “the cuts on Durazen’s body were too smooth and even to have been made with stone blades. He was cut with metal.”
“Where would the forest tribes get metal?” Tol said. “Taken from those they’ve slain?”
“Perhaps. Or perhaps the foresters have found someone to supply them,” Felryn suggested darkly.
With a minimum of fuss and no noble speeches, the rescue expedition slipped into the woods. The trees closed in behind them, and Zivilyn’s Carpet was quickly lost from sight.
Chapter 9
The Great Green was denser than any forest Tol had ever seen. Ancient trees stretched lordly limbs up to the sky, blotting out the sun. The glare and heat of day gave way to a sort of muted twilight. Gray lichen clung to the trunks, and thick carpets of moss filled the space between gnarled tree roots. Not only were there majestic oaks and broad maples, but several of the truly gigantic vallenwoods united to form a leafy canopy under which lesser plants could not grow.
By the time they’d gone ten score paces into the forest, the Ergothians found the way clear of the clinging growth that first had hampered their progress. The forest floor was covered by a thick bed of dead leaves, broken here and there by islands of mossy boulders. The soft light and great tree trunks made it impossible to see much more than a dozen paces in any direction. A thousand savages could be hiding within a stone’s throw and they’d never know it, Tol thought. He wondered how Odovar’s and Egrin’s hordes had gotten anywhere on horseback in this maze.