“Two days.”
CHAPTER SIX
A bolt of lace I brought her
and a ballad I did verse.
My love professed, I should have guessed
she ran off with my purse.
When the companions entered the Wildwood it was midmorning. None of them knew they were being watched. Several sets of eyes from several different vantage points saw them slowly disappear into the mist that still clung to the trees. Some of those eyes followed hesitantly, others hungrily, and some of the followers were being followed themselves.
Vanx decided that the forest wasn’t as bad as he’d heard. The trees were widely spaced, enough for relatively easy travel. After a while, though, Vanx figured that maybe the tales of thick growth and the grotesque trunks of imposing old tangle trees hadn’t been exaggerated enough.
The group was forced to dismount, then choose a path through the humid, overgrown mess. The sounds of a normal forest thriving in late spring glory were there-whistling birds, chirping tree jumpers, and a loud, thumping groan that erupted occasionally. That particular sound reminded Vanx of the woodpeckers back home, only this sounded like a bird with a beak made of iron was hammering on a stone wall instead of a tree trunk. After every outburst of the deep, clacking tattoo, the rest of the forest stilled for a few heartbeats. Then slowly, the hum of the insects and the whistle of the birds would resume.
The flora was abundant and varied; thorny clusters of bright yellow flowers hosted a plethora of busy insects. A glittery, silver-green butterfly fluttered from the lavender-petaled bloom of a ropy vine which twisted its way up and around through the limbs of one of the old tangle trees.
Vanx watched as Gallarael flushed with embarrassment. She was looking at a fleshy pink flower that strongly resembled a woman’s genitalia. Bright crimson splotches specked some of the blooms as if someone had slung a bloody sword across them.
Obviously curious, the girl tromped through the undergrowth and grabbed the stalk on which the flowers grew. With a tentative grin she pulled the flower to her face to smell it. The plant suddenly squirmed in her hand, causing her to yelp and jump back. When she tried to let go of the stalk it wouldn’t separate from her palm. Vanx was flooded with alarm. The flower twisted over on its stem as if it were a snake and latched onto her wrist. Gallarael screamed.
“It’s biting me, Trevin! It hurts!”
Trevin already had his sword out and was using it to hack a trail toward her. He looked calm as he charged over and cleaved the thick stem in two. He and Vanx both were startled to the point of nearly fouling their britches when a loud roar erupted.
A score of the flowers shook and danced away crazily. Vanx saw that they were growing from the back of a strange, turtle-like creature as it scuttled off.
Since it was no longer attached, the gripping bite of the flower relaxed. Gallarael pulled the thing from her wrist and examined the wound. A trio of puncture holes were leaking blood and an ochre fluid. Vanx knew immediately that it was venom. Purple bruises were already starting to form, and her flesh was streaking red up her arm.
Vanx snatched the collar lacing out of the calfskin hauler’s shirt he was wearing as he raced over. He tied it tightly around Gallarael’s upper arm while he racked his brain trying to recall the herb lore Master Karzen had drilled into his brain a dozen years ago. Trevin took his lover’s wrist in his hand and cut deep crosses over each hole. He began milking the blood and poison from her body as if her arm were a teat. This was far more serious than the bite of a trail snake, Vanx knew, but getting some of the poison out of her body could not hurt.
“Good, Trev,” Vanx voiced his approval as some of the knowledge he needed came back to him. “Stay with her. We need grutta spore and palin root.”
Trevin grunted and gave a nod that he’d heard, then overcame his fear and sucked a mouthful of the thick- looking poison from her arm.
Vanx looked at Gallarael before he charged off, and regretted doing so. Her eyes were rolled up in her head, and she was hanging limply in Trevin’s grasp. Her cheeks were cherry red, and rivulets of sweat ran freely down her face as if water were being trickled over her head. The bitten arm was already swollen to twice its normal size. She had very little time left.
Vanx stepped away from them and called on his Zythian goddess for aid. It wasn’t so much the fact that he needed Gallarael’s testimony to clear his name as it was the fact that he’d grown to like her fiery personality, and the fierce loyalty she had for her common-born lover, that caused him to do so. Besides that, the girl was only in this situation because her mother had sent her to help him.
It was no small thing to call on the Goddess. She had smiled upon the Zythian race so much during their creation that to ask her for more bordered on blasphemy. This wasn’t a request for himself, though. Vanx didn’t hesitate to voice his need in the prayer he mumbled as he stalked away into the deeper Wildwood.
His goddess must have heard him, for he’d only made it twenty paces before he stumbled and fell into a patch of mushrooms growing at the base of an ancient oak tree which had somehow managed to keep the tangle of the rest of the forest at bay. Grutta spore. Vanx’s realization came with a snap of surprise. He gathered up a few of the reddish-purple caps and got to his feet. Looking around, he realized that the elder oak wasn’t part of the Wildwood at all. He was standing in a hazy patch of forested glade that was open, lush, and free of undergrowth. After a moment, he shook off the wonder he was feeling and tried to focus his mind on the task at hand.
“Palin root,” he said, thinking of Gallarael and her horrible dilemma. He started pacing around the edge of the glade looking for the five-tined leaf of the palin plant and its tiny white flowerings. As he did this, the instructive words of Master Karzin came to him:
“Boil two parts palin root to one part of grutta spore in a small pot of water.” Even in memory, the old Zythian’s singsong voice was roughened by his vast age. “Once the concoction cools, the one affected should drink the resulting tea until it’s gone. While the affected is doing this, brew another dose for them to sip while the initial mixture works at the toxins in the body. This potion will only work on the most common of bites and stings. More complex poisons require more complex remedies.”
Vanx hoped this would work. He hoped that he could find some of the elusive palin root that he needed to make the stuff. He wasn’t sure that the potion would even work on a human. At the moment, though, none of that mattered. He had to find the palin plant and dig up its root before he could even find his way back to the Wildwood and brew the tea to test it.
Vanx searched everywhere in the glade, but never let the old oak from his sight. He’d heard of Zythians getting lost during happenings such as this one. Gallarael didn’t have time for that. He was just about to panic when a pair of blood-red butterflies fluttered in his face. After a moment it became obvious that they were trying to lead him. Vanx didn’t hesitate to follow.
Trevin was sucking only blood from her wrist now. His mouth felt hot and raw from all the venom he’d extracted. He was starting to feel feverish himself, but he didn’t care. Gallarael’s color was getting closer to normal again, but her skin was still hot to the touch. For a while she’d glowed cherry.
Trevin would die for her, he knew. He loved Gallarael that much. That is why he didn’t even pause to acknowledge the fact that Captain Moyle was hacking his way into the area. Trevin spat a wad of cottony saliva
