I did not have to wait long. Herrel returned and with him another like him, save that his helm crest was an eagle with half unfurled wings, his saddle cloth a netting into which feathers had been woven. He sat his horse a little aloof while Herrel told me that I was bidden to speak with their lord. The second rider busied himself by driving four wands well into the ground, each being topped with a tuft of fur or feathers. Herrel, indicating them, told me that they would keep my mounts within bounds as well as any fence, but that I must go afoot.
So it came that I paced as might a captive between the two of them into the dusk of that dark wood. I did not allow my hand to brush near my sheathed sword. From now on I must be doubly wary, though I did not sense from these two, as I always had in Imgry’s camp, the waves of hatred that my appearance fired in the Dalesmen.
Once within the first screen of trees, the way was not hard going. In fact there was a path or narrow road, wide enough for only one horseman, so deep-trodden one might believe it was a highway used through many years. To my advantage, my hooves were no longer constricted by the boots I had worn so many years in concealment. In fact I was glad to stretch my legs by this tramp. The many scents of the forest were heady. I drew deep breaths, and I discovered that I was growing lighter of heart and less wearied than I had been since I entered the Waste.
What did begin to impress me was that I saw no other life save the three of us who moved silently, for the hooves of the horses awakened only the slightest of sounds. No bird hopped on any branch, nor did I spy, along the outer edges of the trail, any beast’s prints. The greenery was very dark nor had I elsewhere seen such trees of so huge circumference of bole. Their bark was black and deeply ridged.
The path we followed wove a meandering way, turning often to avoid such an obstruction as one of those trunks.
How long we traveled I had no way of knowing. My two escorts held their curiously dappled steeds to a walk, while around us the silence grew, the light became more and more dusky. Twice we passed stones, set upright, no normal outcroppings, for they had been wrought upon by man.
The tops of each of them had been carved with diabolical skill—I say diabolical for the creatures sculpture had evoked out of the rock were grim. One was a head, or perhaps better a skull, with a huge beak looming out to threaten any passerby. That bill was also a fraction agape as if about to seize on the unwary. There was something of a bird about it, also a bit of a long-snouted reptile. The holes, which had been left to represent eyes, had insets, so deep within I could not see whether they were gems or not (though how, in the absence of sunlight, any gleam could have been awakened from such was a mystery). I only know that red pits of utter savagery regarded me.
Neither of my companions so much as turned an eye in the direction of that looming guardian. Nor did they, either, regard the second such we passed. Where the first had been beaked or snouted, this was a life-size death’s head possessing close kinship to a skull of my own race. The thing had been more graphically and disgustingly carved as if far gone in decay, stretches of rotting skin portrayed across cheekbones and chin, a nose half sloughed away. Once more there were eyes to watch, these yellow.
I made no comment as we passed these posts. For I was determined not to allow my companions to believe I found anything strange in this wood. To my own pride I owed that much, so I clung to an outward show of self-possession as I would to a battle shield.
We had left the skull post at least five turns of the path behind when Herrel leaned forward to sweep out an arm. As if he had so loosed the latch of a door a mass of branches lifted, swung to one side, to allow us out into the full light of day once again.
The wood still stretched like encircling arms on either side, and, by a distant mark across the horizon, formed another barrier there. However, directly ahead lay a section of land as wide as any Dale holding I had seen. Planted fields were guarded by low stone walls from pastures in which horses, such as Herrel and his fellow rode, grazed. There was the blue sheen of a pond or small lake farther west. Near that stood the first building that was not a long-abandoned ruin that I had ever seen in the Waste.
Stone formed the walls of the first story, but, rising above that, logs were set in tight company. The strangest thing was that these logs were apparently not dead and seasoned wood. Rather branches jutted here and there and those bore living leaves. The branches were thickest near the top of the walls, and spread wide as if they so formed the roof.
From the point where we had issued out of the wood, running directly toward the building, was a continuation of the forest path. Here in the open, however, the way was much wider. Perhaps four horsemen could have ridden it abreast.
He who had followed me on the trail did not urge his mount forward and we proceeded by the same line of march as we had kept under the trees, save that Herrel slowed a fraction to allow me to pace beside him. For the first time since we left my camp he spoke:
“The lodge.” He gestured to the building.
Any Dale keep whose lord abode within its wall would have flown his banner from the highest point. None such Happed here. Rather in a line flanking the front of that half-alive structure, there was planted in the earth a series of poles, all perhaps twice my height. From the top of each fluttered a narrow ribbon of color. The closer we drew the better able I was to recognize the devices these bore. Whereas the lords of High Hallack used for their heraldic crests either some fanciful monster, or an object suggesting a deed of valor performed by some ancestor, these carried very detailed pictures of well-known animals or birds.
A boar, a rearing stallion, an eagle, a mountain cat, a snouted and armored lurker of the river—there were a full twenty banners and not two alike. Save for my escort, however, there were no signs of life except four men, stripped to breeches and boots, at labor in the fields. Not one of them raised his eyes from his task to mark our passing.
Herrel swung out of his saddle and dropped the reins of his horse. The animal stood as if tethered.
“Wait!” He flung that single word in my direction, then passed beneath the outgrowing, bushy leaves of the building to push in a massive door. He who had been my other guide or guard, swung his own mount around and rode off. Nor did he look back.
I studied the strangeness of the keep for want of any better occupation. There were windows set on either side of the door on the lower floor. Each was covered by a fine latticework of branches perhaps as thick as my thumb. However, they were of worked wood, showing no leaves or twiglets.
My attention was drawn to a stirring among the leaves above, certainly not induced by any wind’s rustle, for not the slightest breeze blew. I caught sight here and there of a small head—then two or three more—that could be viewed only for a moment, disappearing again before I had real sight of them. I thought though they were not of any species of animal or reptile I knew—and they were not birds.
They left an impression of a long, sharply pointed snout, ringed by fangs, exposed as if the creature possessed no concealing lips. Above that were the eyes, bright, inquisitive, knowing . . . Yes, knowing.
Almost the whole of the brush wall facing me was a-shake now. Numbers of the creatures, small as they were, must be gathering, right above the door. I had a sudden hint of what might happen should an intruder attempt entrance there against the will or orders given to such sentinels, guards, or whatever they might be.
As abruptly as he had disappeared, Herrel returned, the door left open behind him. He gestured for me to come. Nor did he glance above to where boughs creaked under unseen weight. The watchers remained at their posts, as, trying not to show any interest in them, I passed under that overhang and came into the hall of these Waste riders.