Marrec’s face flushed, and his eyes grew wide. He knew that rattle. It was his, from his earliest childhood.
“Where…?”
“You had it clutched in your hand when I found you,” explained Thanial gently. “It was I who found you, a child in the forest, sixteen years ago almost. It was I who asked the cobbler to take you in to make a home for the orphan I found lying all alone in the woods.”
“You found me?” Marrec didn’t know where to start. “But where? Why? I don’t understand.”
“Your adoptive father thought it best to indicate that it had been he who found you, not I. That’s all.”
Marrec swallowed, but he could see that Thanial had more to say. “What else?”
“When I found you… you were not exactly as you appear now. Oh, from a distance you seemed a human child of nearly two years, crying, red faced, clutching your rattle, but when I bent to retrieve you from the forest floor, I saw something I didn’t want to believe. I thought at first it was a parasite, but I was wrong. Curling up through your black hair were tiny… serpents. They were rooted, as if hair, in your head.”
Marrec heard a rushing noise in his ears. He stared at Thanial, uncomprehending.
Thanial continued, “I took my blade and severed them. I didn’t think twice. I cut them out by their roots. They didn’t grow back. You didn’t seem to miss them. In fact, you acted like any toddler would act, though at first I feared otherwise; I feared some monstrous influence. But no, at least one of your parents was obviously human. You were perfectly harmless. I kept you for a time, but I knew I couldn’t raise you right. I gave you up to the village. I gave you up so you could have a real family.”
Still Marrec couldn’t utter a word. As he did unconsciously every day of his life, he raised a hand to his brow and with his fingers probed above his hairline for the hidden scars.
The edge of the main forest was dark and close. Clouds tumbled across the sky, gray and vast, and from their bellies they unleashed yet another downpour.
Forest leaves caught the falling rain, deflecting it from its original goal of the moist earth, but only temporarily. Tiny trickles of water collected and ran down the columns of conifer, pine, and the occasional grove of silver aspen, green with spring growth. The Forest of Lethyr sheltered trees of many sorts within its confines, but all were glad, in their own way, to feel the rain on their boughs.
Five riders, one no more than a child, entered the eaves of the forest, eager to gain some protection from the sudden spring rain. The group hailed from Two Stars, having crossed the intervening distance in just a little more than a tenday.
The elven woman in the lead raised a hand and called for a pause. She said, “We’ve entered Lethyr.” She slipped easily from her saddle to stand on the rain-soaked ground.
“Elowen, how far now to the Mucklestones?” asked the dark haired woman in wizardly attire. “Though I’ve journeyed there several times, this will be the first time I’ve done so by taking every jarring step in between.” The dark haired woman sighed, rubbing the small of her back.
Marrec swung down from his horse. He studied the forest floor. He was acquainted with many forests in the west, but he was unfamiliar with that one.
He asked Elowen, “Anything we should watch out for, aside from rotting volodnis?”
Elowen said, “Certainly. This is a wild forest, and dangerous creatures roam below its dark canopy. Of course, most are goodly creatures that bear us no ill will. If we’re lucky, we might meet a treant. I know a few in this part of Lethyr.”
“Treants?” asked Gunggari. Gunggari was clothed more in tattoos than cloth, and the chill rain threatened to raise goosebumps on his skin. He took advantage of the pause to dismount.
“Great stewards of the forest. Nentyar hunters like myself sometimes work hand in hand with these great treeish creatures to protect the woods from threat.”
“I hope their ‘treeishness’ doesn’t make them susceptible to the same sort of controlling rot as the volodnis we’ve faced,” commented Marrec.
He walked over to Ash on her pony, checking her saddle. The horse and child had weathered the trip amazingly well, without soreness, hurt, or abraded skin. He suspected the girl’s healing ability had been at work. Reminded of that, he mentally sought out his own remaining powers as a tongue seeks the space formerly occupied by a recently pulled tooth. His powers had diminished, and without contact with Lurue, he couldn’t replace the powers he used up. During their trip across the plain, his feeling of connection with Lurue had grown more tenuous than ever. He prayed for the thousandth time that he was on the right path, and that the girlr held the answer to Lurue’s silence.
Marrec toweled the girl’s hair dry with the hem of his cloak. The child briefly fixed him with her dull gaze. “Ash,” she commented.
Elowen walked back to join him, as did Gunggari. Ususi on her horse was already close. They had an impromptu conference beneath the weepy canopy.
The elf hunter said, “I’ve brought us in just to the south of a human settlement on the forest edge. I think we’re far enough from their loggers,” she sniffed. “Likewise, all the wood elves who inhabit Lethyr are clustered further to the west and south of here, so we’ll likely avoid having to explain our presence to them. Really, it’s a straight shot through the treess”
“How far?” repeated Ususi, a somewhat testy tone to her voice.
“With a clear route and no trouble, it’d be no more than a day’s travel, but of course wending through the trees will slow us. I estimate we’ll reach the Mucklestones tomorrow evening.”
Ususi shook her head and said, “Not soon enough for me. Even one more-night of ‘camping’ is more than I can handle.”
Gunggari grinned at the mage’s words but said nothing. Marrec forbade comment, too, realizing that for the city woman, stone-like skin or not, their trip must have been hard to endure.
“What?” Gunggari snapped, stepping back and looking intently up into the leafy foliage ahead and above them. The Oslander had pulled out his dizheri just as quickly.
The others all reacted with alarm, peering ahead and grabbing up their weapons.
“What’s going on?” demanded Ususi.
Marrec strained his eyes but saw nothing unusual amidst the dripping leaves. It was midmorning, but the light, already filtered by lowering clouds, was further reduced under the trees.
“Gunny, what is it? I don’t see anything.”
“It’s gone now, Marrec,” responded the tattooed warrior, still looking forward intently, “but something was watching ussome sort of ape.”
“There are no apes in Lethyr,” pronounced Elowen.
“It wasn’t exactly an ape,” continued Gunggari. “At first I thought a man’s face was staring at me, but then I saw that gray-white hair covered its twisted limbs, and it had more than just two eyesmany more than I could count in the heartbeat it appeared to me.”
Elowen. frowned.
“Uthraki?” she murmured, almost under her breath.
“What’s an uthraki?” wondered Marrec.
“A nasty beast native to Rashemen. I have never heard of one so far west. They are confined to Rashemen and further eastor they were.”
“Anything we should know about these uthraki?” asked Marrec.
“Yes. They can assume forms other than their own.”
Gunggari narrowed his eyes, and gripped his war club all the tighter.
CHAPTER 8
All variety of trees were contained within Lethyr, Marrec realized: maples, firs, aspens, pines, holly, oaks, tulip-trees, crabapples, and many more that the cleric could not name, despite his familiarity with forests to the west. Of wildlife, they heard and saw many birds, a fox chasing a rabbit, more squirrels than could be numbered, a sleepy owl, and once, far off, the yip of a wolf.