you and see the man I should have been.”
“You are that man,” said Hercol. “You have outlived the curse you carried.”
“I have done that,” said Vadu. “Yes. That is something. Farewell, strange friend-”
Vadu said no more. He lay still, and though Pazel knew he might be imagining it, he thought that peace stole over the counselor’s body; and Bolutu, no longer a monk of the Rinfaith but practiced in such moments nonetheless, gently closed his eyes.
The Infernal Forest
8 Modobrin 941
Thasha’s hair was half the length it had been an hour before; her locks ended in singed, black strands. Kneeling beside Pazel, she cut away the shreds of his trouser leg, and winced at what she saw. But Pazel knew he was lucky. His calf had been pierced in four places, but the broken fangs had not gone deep; the troll had meant to hold him while its claws did the killing. Still, something was wrong. The wound throbbed, and ugly green-purple blotches were rising around the broken skin. Thasha looked around helplessly. “Blary wonderful place to be without a doctor,” she said.
Pazel thought of Neeps, and cringed inside. What doctor could help him, though? In Arqual Chadfallow had cured the talking fever, but that was not a magical plague. And all the doctors of the South had obviously failed. So much horror, he thought, watching a Turach wrap wet bandages about a burned dlomic forehead.
“The trick will be to keep those holes from getting infected,” said Ensyl, studying his leg.
No, he thought, the trick was to keep moving. To keep moving, and not to let his thoughts wander anywhere he couldn’t stand to look. With that goal in mind he glanced up at the trees. There were fifty shades of green straight overhead. Tiny butterflies were descending like a fall of orange snowflakes. “This doesn’t look very infernal to me,” he said.
“No,” said Thasha, “I don’t suppose we’re there yet.”
The survivors dressed their wounds, and those of the three remaining dogs. Then they carried Vadu into the forest, and built a cairn of stones over his body, and held their breath to the count of one hundred for the dead, as their people had done for so many generations that no one could say how the custom began.
As they returned Pazel looked over the remaining soldiers. Two Turachs: an older warrior, with a scar on his forehead like an extra eyebrow; and a younger man with a sullen, boyish face. Five dlomic warriors, including a tall and capable woman who appeared to be taking charge of her comrades.
Ibjen walked knee-deep into the river, staring intently at something offshore.
“What is it, lad?” asked Cayer Vispek. But instead of answering, Ibjen suddenly dived.
He surfaced many yards away, swimming with a power no champion human swimmer could hope to match. As Pazel watched he closed on some jagged rocks at mid-river, where sticks and other debris had collected. Carefully he plucked something from the detritus, then turned and swam back to the shore.
“This is yours, Thashiziq,” he said as he emerged. On his palm rested an ornate wooden box, soaked and battered but intact.
“The box from Vasparhaven!” said Thasha, taking it. “The one the novice said came from you, Pazel. I thought for sure it was lost. But that lovely crystal-it can’t possibly have survived.”
She sprang the latch, raised the lid. Unfortunately she was quite correct: nothing but a fine dust remained of Kirishgan’s exquisite sphere. The parchment was damp, but not soaked. As the others gathered, watching, Thasha took out the little scrap and unfolded it with great care. The selk’s writing had begun to blur, but it could still be read. A sworn secret must be kept-but in like measure, a fateful meeting must be honored. Therefore in deepest trust I tell you: there is hope downriver, between the mountains and the sea.
Alyash turned away, sneering. “That’s profound, that is. I’m all a-quiver.”
“You’re a fool,” said Pazel. “He’s telling us something important. As clearly as he can without breaking an oath.”
“The message is surely important,” said Hercol, “but we cannot debate it now. Rest a little more, all of you, and see that your wounds are dressed properly. We have our own oaths to keep, and they will soon spur us onward.”
Pazel lay down with his head on a stone, watching the butterflies, trying not to think of the trolls. He closed his eyes and saw their faces, their flame-slobber, their claws. He heard Dastu say something about “Pathkendle’s nurse” and realized that Thasha was still fussing over his leg. Once again he felt a surge of annoyance with her, although he knew the response was foolish. What was he resisting, exactly? Her touch, his need for it? Whatever it was, Thasha sensed his impatience, and her fingers grew clumsy on his bandages.
Very soon Hercol called the party together. “It is best that you know the truth,” he said. “We have lost all our supplies, save the weapons we managed to swim with, and what Alyash and I carried on our backs. We have some half a dozen mul, but nothing else to eat. We have no spare clothes, no oilskins against the rain, no telescope, or rope, or compass. There are torches, and a box of matches that may dry out eventually. Among the twenty-one of us we have nine swords and two knives.”
“And one pistol,” said Alyash.
“One soaked pistol,” said Hercol. “This is what I would tell you now: we may perish in this quest. But if you are with me still, I can promise you that ours will not be a thoughtless or an empty death. We will stand together, and if need be fall together, but we will yet do all that we can to prevail.”
“But of course we’ll follow you,” said Thasha.
Hercol’s fondness for her shone in his eyes. “You are my right hand, Thasha-or perhaps I am your left. It is to others I speak.”
“As for the three of us,” said Cayer Vispek, “you need not waste your breath. The scriptures tell us that it is a blessing to discover one’s fight, to see the devil by the plain light of day, and take after him with a blade. Most are denied this; most lunge at false devils-even at their brothers. We have taken enough false lunges. I think now that you were sent to show us our true fight-even if that is a fight from which we do not return. So lead on, Tholjassan. I say again, if we did not follow you, where would we go?”
“This is no debate we need to have,” added the dlomic woman. “Any doubts we harbored, we left behind in Masalym. Even Counselor Vadu knew in his heart that you must lead. We will go forward, and if fate permits we will kill this sorcerer before it is too late.”
The other dlomic soldiers nodded. “The Otter speaks for us all,” said one.
“Otter?” said Hercol.
The dlomic woman looked slightly embarrassed. “I am Lunja, a sergeant of the Masalym Watch. My name means ‘Otter’ in the old tongue of Chaldryl. So to my men I am the Otter.”
Hercol nodded to her. “I thank you for your trust, Sergeant Lunja.” He looked at the remaining faces, one by one. His gaze fell last on Alyash, who was something of an apparition. His hair had burned off completely; his shirt was torn open, revealing his old, extensive scars, and blisters like embedded pearls graced his ears and forehead.
“What are you staring at?” said the bosun. “Yes, I’ll blary follow you. Not as if anyone here’s going to take orders from me.”
“Then prepare to march,” said Hercol, strapping Ildraquin over his shoulder. “Fulbreech is still moving away. We will rest at dusk, whether he pauses or not. But since we have crossed the Black Tongue by daylight, let us at least do as Vadu wished and use these hours well.”
He set off at an unforgiving pace, and the others, in their burned boots (and in Vispek’s case, no boots at all) struggled to keep up. They walked under the trees, out of the dense underbrush at the margin of the forest, but near enough its edge to keep the river in sight. Thasha, who carried nothing except her sword, began to help Pazel hobble along on his wounded leg. After a few minutes she gave the task to Neeps. “You’re the right height,” she said, sliding Pazel’s arm over his shoulder. Neeps flashed her an awkward smile, and so did Pazel. But when he smelled lemons he turned away, pretending that his leg hurt him awfully, so that neither would see the truth on his face.
An hour later Pazel felt stronger, and told Neeps he could manage on his own. The forest began to thin by midafternoon, and in time they marched out of it altogether, onto a narrow plain of low, feathery grasses, bounded on the right by jagged cliffs and the scree of old landslides, and on the left by the crumbling banks of the Ansyndra, along which grew scattered pines and cedars and the occasional oak. It was strange country, very warm and windless, and yet enclosed on all sides by those enfortressed mountains, looming over them with vast shoulders of
