With a nod of approval, the man nearest him began to gather up the nearest body; others followed suit, handling the abandoned flesh of their fellow soldiers with a reverence that was born not only of love, but of fear. It could have been them. In another fight—perhaps in their next one-it might be.
The Patriarch walked slowly to where Andrys stood. His steps were heavy, as though he bore some great weight upon his shoulders. When he came within hearing, he said, very softly, “I shouldn’t resent the time it will take, I suppose. Or remind myself that the flesh is but a shell, which has no real value once the spirit has abandoned it. Every minute we delay here puts us at greater risk, but the alternative——” He shook his head in frustration. “It clouds too many futures. Fosters too many resentments. Let them do what comforts them.”
He winced then, and reached out to a nearby tree for support. Andrys hesitated, then dared, “Are you all right?”
The Patriarch exhaled slowly. “I’m over seventy,” he said at last. “Such exercise as this is hardly recommended at that age.”
Then his sharp gaze fixed on Andrys, ice-blue, unwavering.
“You must help us,” he said quietly.
Andrys felt his heart skip a beat. “I ... I don’t know what you mean.”
“If the Forest is our enemy now, then it’s only a matter of time before something else takes an interest in us. Judging from this experience ...” He looked about the camp, his eyes narrow with foreboding. “We might survive another open assault, like this one, and persevere despite it ... but not all the dangers of the Forest will be so obvious.”
He remembered the sense he’d had of hungry things burrowing beneath the earth, and he nodded tightly.
“You have to find us a way through, Mer Tarrant. Either that—”
He drew in a sharp breath. “I can’t—”
“-Either that, or we’re doomed.”
He opened his mouth to protest, but no sound came forth. Because the Patriarch was right, God damn it, and Andrys knew it. Shaking, the Prophet’s descendant struggled to find courage within himself. There was so precious little of it to draw on! But they would all die if he failed them now, he knew that. And he would die as well. Not merely losing his life, as the others would do, but surrendering it to the very power he had come to destroy.
“How?” he whispered at last.
“I don’t know,” the Patriarch said quietly. “You tell me, Andrys Tarrant.”
He was about to say something in response, but at that moment one of the supply officers came toward them, with a list of precious armaments lost in the struggle. As Andrys listened to the two of them discuss the amount of black powder lost with the horses, he felt a cold certainty crawl down his spine, to settle uncomfortably in his stomach. If the Forest were their enemy now, then there was only one thing to do. And only one man, he knew, who could attempt it.
He stared out into the Forest and shivered, sensing its power. Its hunger.
Only me.
He went to a far corner of the camp. It was as far as he dared go for privacy, while still being within the border of the light. Two soldiers flanked him silently, a man and a woman, and took up positions just out of his line of sight, but close enough to protect him if any new danger threatened. Respectful but determined: the man to whom they had sworn their fealty would not be allowed to die.
For a long time he just stood there, trying to work up enough courage to do what had to be done. His whole body was trembling. Was that the first manifestation of alcoholic withdrawal, or a simple fear response? It frightened him that he could no longer tell the difference.
Calesta, help me.
It wasn’t the first time he had prayed to his patron within the Forest, but this was the first time the demon didn’t answer. That in itself was fresh cause for panic. While Calesta hadn’t always answered his prayers in Jaggonath, it had been pretty clear that once this campaign was underway he would support Andrys. The thought that the demon might leave him on his own here was something so frightening he couldn’t even consider it.
Calesta, he implored. I need you!
No answer.
Shaking inside, he drew in a deep breath and tried to steady himself. If the demon wasn’t going to help him, then he would have to do this himself. There was no other option, right? People would die if he failed. He would die if he failed. Right?
Shivering, he shut his eyes and tried to clear his mind. It took no effort for him to establish contact with the Forest. The instant he stopped fighting to resist it, sensations slid into his brain, trees and birds and insects and microbes and even the earth itself—
Only it had changed. All of it.
He felt the trees throughout the Forest twitching, tension eating into their bark like acid. Hungry things that burrowed beneath the ground writhed blindly in their tunnels, unable to find their way to the surface. Sharp-toothed predators growled at their mates, and a white-furred scavenger ate her children while her packmates fell on one another in mindless rage. All throughout the Forest it was like that, fear and fury reigning where order had once held sway, and Andrys could feel the cause of it echo in his flesh: the loss and the shock and the pain of a wound that would never heal, a separation so unspeakable that the entire ecosystem reeled in despair.
He could feel his body staggering as he tried to absorb that knowledge and still maintain his own sense of identity. If he failed in that-even for a moment—he would never be able to return, he knew that. He struggled to establish some kind of focus, to narrow his senses in on the area surrounding the camp and the paths leading from it, in the hope of discovering ... what? What did they want him to do?
You tell me, Andrys Tarrant.
He could feel the currents now, not just coursing about his feet but flowing through his very flesh. Chill currents, swift and powerful, they tugged at his body like a riptide and nearly pulled him off his feet. He could feel the earth-fae surging through the Forest, uniting all creatures within its confines even as it drew them inexorably toward the Center. Toward that place where the power was strongest, the earth-fae was deepest, the very heart of the region—
He felt his heart skip a beat, and for a moment nearly lost himself. How easy it would be to give in to that current, and let it sweep him toward the heart of the whirlpool! That was where all the energies of the Forest were focused, that was the heart and brain of Jahanna, and every living thing that drew strength from sorcery was drawn there, to commune with the Forest or to be devoured.
That was where the black keep would be.
Shaking, he forced the visions out of his brain. It took every ounce of his strength to do so, and even so he wasn’t entirely successful. A faint echo of the Forest remained within him, as though somehow a seed of it had invaded his flesh. Dark and cold, he could feel it growing inside him, and he knew that if he nurtured it too much it would take root in him and flourish, until his own soul was strangled by it.
The Patriarch had come up beside him. He said nothing, waiting. For a long moment Andrys was silent, drawing strength from his presence.
Then, without looking at him, he said quietly. “I know the way.”
For a moment there was no response. Then a firm, strong hand clasped his shoulder in silent support. It seemed to him that strength flowed through the contact, bolstering his own failing courage.
“It isn’t easy to fight for one’s soul,” the Holy Father said. The hand remained a moment longer, then fell away. “I know that.”
Something hard and cold touched his arm. He looked down, and to his astonishment saw the head of a silver flask. The sight of it shook him to his roots, and it took a moment before he could take the container from the Holy Father, a moment longer to uncap it.