Ojanen. They joined hands, facing outward in a ring that corralled nine nervous horses. Jedit's big furry paws enfolded Wilemina's and Simone's hands halfway to the elbow.
Hazezon Tamar pried the wax stopper from his jug and dipped his finger in a bluish gel like berry juice with an eye-watering reek like vinegar. Touching a gooey blue finger to Adira's left hand, he traced up Adira's arm to her neck, crossed her throat gently, and striped down to her right hand. Adira protested 'slime,' but Hazezon carried on, dipping and smearing the liniment across Lieutenant Peregrine's chest, careful to keep the azure thread intact. Around the circle he plodded, smearing goo across leather and cloth and skin and tiger hide, all the while incanting under his breath, until he returned to his ex-wife. The desert mage's brow dripped sweat, which made the travelers cringe, but they kept silent.
Looking at the bulky horses and towering cliff wall, Hazezon gritted his teeth as he wound up the incantation.
'… on the wings of Wullab Fountain-Spitter, on the hooves of Gybo the Galloper, with the speed of the Firestorm Phoenix, upon the breath of Phanal-Unorg, I bid you, all joined as one, be gone!'
A great wind swept from nowhere to sizzle about the adventurers. Hair and skirts and mustaches billowed. Capes flipped over quivers and shoulders. Dust spattered faces, making people squeeze their eyes shut and snort. Horses whinnied with fright and skipped to break out of the human corral.
Adira gasped above the howl, 'Don't let go or the magic-'
Gone.
Hazezon's servants and guards chirped. One second, Adira's crew swayed in a gale, the next they vanished, and the air fell still. Ears rang in the silence. The heroes hadn't faded away like sunlight nor been whisked upward like birds. They just ceased to exist.
A guard walked to the circle and gingerly toed a boot print.
A cook squeaked, 'Did the charm work, Milord?'
In the shadow of the cliff, Hazezon Tamar leaned back and squinted at the distant blurred cliff top. The others peered upward.
Then a guard shouted a laugh. 'Look!'
Arcing from the cliff, bright against a darkening sky, fizzled a fire arrow. It soared far out, high overhead, and gradually dropped to disappear in the desert.
Hazezon Tamar laughed with relief. 'I knew it would work! I just dislike to boast and tempt fate. Our desert gods are fickle. Silly of me not to have arranged a signal beforehand. Live and learn, live and learn.'
He wiped his face and shivered.
'Don't stand gawking, children. Tighten your cinches and mount up! Let's quit the shade of this fell cliff!'
Atop the cliff wall, Heath watched his fire arrow wink out far below. He had no fear of the bluff's sheer drop, but everyone else staggered back from the awful precipice. Wilemina sank onto shaking knees and gasped for breath, frightened both by magic and heights. Whistledove Kithkin crept on all fours to peek over the edge, then changed her mind and crabbed backward. Murdoch and Simone grabbed reins and cooed to nervous horses. Others straightened tackle or tended weapons to soothe shaking hands. Only Adira Strongheart turned to the business at hand, to explore a newfound world.
What she saw were pine trees, hundreds of them.
Marching almost to the cliff's edge, the trees reared straight and tall a hundred feet or more. Their uppermost branches swayed together, murmuring quietly like surf surging. The ground was soft black loam thickly carpeted with brown needles that hushed footfalls. Jots of unseasonable snow were dotted in hollows like flowers. A heady spice of turpentine and moss and water enveloped the party, the breath of the forest. Up here the sun was still high but was already eclipsed by towering trees. The adventurers could see past scaly gray-brown trunks for a hundred, in some places two hundred, feet, but past that light was defeated, and the forest lay still and dark, quiet and cool.
Adira blinked. An orange-black form glided between trunks then vanished. Spinning in place, Adira realized Jedit had slunk into the forest without a sound. At the roots of one tree, the tiger crouched to sift a handful of snow, totally amazed.
Marveling, Adira Strongheart kicked her boot heel and only disturbed more dirt. She wondered how far down it sank, since somewhere below must begin the massive stones of the giant hand-laid wall. Then she shrugged and retted her headband, dropping concerns of tigers and titans.
People startled as she asked, 'Who's been here before? Heath? Jasmine?'
The part-elf shook his pale head. 'Other pinelands, yes, but not these.'
Jasmine Boreal was most local, hailing from a clan that lived beyond Buzzard's Bay, but she, too, shook her head. 'This is Arboria, they call it, or the Pinelands. Near a hundred fifty leagues to the Goat's Walk and Buzzard's Bay, methinks. None cross this forest. Rather they trek the heath to reach the Northern Realm.'
'Had we sailed the Storm Coast, we'd ride in luxury instead of tramping in mud and rain,' groused Adira, 'but we must follow Johan and see whither he wanders.'
'Why,' asked Whistledove, 'does no one enter this forest?'
Jasmine shook her head, irritated by a lack of knowledge. 'This forest was once home to pine dwellers who hunted and trapped and traded at Buzzard's Bay. Pixies too, t'was said, though none were ever seen or caught. They left. Driven out, perhaps.'
The heroes gazed at the mysterious and green-misted beauty of the land. The forest seemed to wait, but for what? A red squirrel scrabbled down from a branch and crossly chattered a challenge. Simone the Siren chucked a pinecone, and the defender scampered up and away. People laughed, and the spell was broken.
Adira nudged Sister Wilemina, still shaking from the magical shift, gazing back the way they'd come.
'Close your trap, Wil, before a swallow builds a nest in your jaw.'
— 'Look,' whispered the archer. 'Down there lies sere desert and up here lush forest! A division sharp as beach and sea! Because of this giants' wall! Surely we must wade knee-deep in ancient magics, and what can protect us?'
'I'll protect you, sweetheart,' laughed Murdoch and swatted Wilemina's rump, so she jumped a foot. His laughter died as the blonde archer cracked a homy fist on his jaw that toppled him to the turf.
'There's magic for you,' chuckled Simone. 'Woman magic!'
Fretful and wary and heartened and excited, the party tightened cinches and swung into saddles.
They goggled as Jedit Ojanen stepped from behind a tree, silent as a ghost, to report, 'No scent of our enemy.'
'None?' asked Adira. 'How can that be?'
'If Johan levitated his party,' put in Jasmine, 'they may've alighted miles within the forest.'
'Or anywhere,' said Virgil, always glum.
'Or nowhere,' admitted Adira, 'but we'll flush him out. Jedit, Heath, take point. Murdoch, Peregrine, the vanguard. And don't 'Yes, milady' me, Peregrine, or I'll kick you off this cliff top. 'Adira' suffices. We're brigands, thank the stars, not soldiers.'
Perched in a basket atop a packhorse, Whistledove Kidikin held her rapier in one hand, so looked like a child playing pirate.
Peering big-eyed under flat red hair, she asked, 'Why would native peoples abandon such a beautiful forest?'
'Only one way to find out,' said the pirate chief. 'Hi-ho and go.'
Strung single file on skittish horses, led by a talking tiger, Adira Strongheart's Robaran Mercenaries penetrated the deep woods.
The leader added in a hush, 'Besides, if someone does live here, we shouldn't fret. We've done naught to aggravate them. So far.'
Miles ahead, in the depths of the forest… 'Halt and speak! Where are you bound?'
Johan, Emperor of Tirras and the Northern Realms, again disguised as a drab monk, sat bald and unblinking
