The Oath and the Measure

Jack said no more in the presence of the smith. He ignored Sturm's eager questioning and paused in the doorway of the smithy, the moonlight at his back and a curious unreadable look in the shadows of his face.

'Come with me,' he said. 'Bring the elf if you must. Come by foot or on horse, it makes no difference. You must come with me, though. The first hour of spring approaches.'

The rain subsided as they stepped from the smithy. Cyren crouched outside the stable, wet and shivering and thoroughly ill-tempered; Sturm wagged his sword at the spider, and the creature backed away, letting them bring out the horses to be saddled and mounted.

From there, the path into the forest was smooth, almost suspiciously so. No alarm had sounded, there had been no warning bell or crier's proclamation, and the village seemed asleep and unaware.

'You don't suppose Lord Boniface is… waiting in the forest, Jack?'

Jack shrugged, leaning forward in the saddle atop durable little Acorn. 'Like as not,' he said, 'Boniface is on his way back to Solamnia. If he knew you were taken to Dun Ringhill, he'd amuse himself on the road home with dire imaginings as to what a pack of druids might do to a Solamnic prisoner.'

'What would they have done, Jack?' Sturm asked.

Jack snorted. 'Nothing, perhaps. Unless the Order paid them.'

'The Order? Paid them?'

Jack Derry looked over his shoulder, regarding Sturm with a brief, ironic smile.

'I happened to explore the belongings of the bandit dead,' he explained. 'For clues, you might say, as to where they came from and who sent 'em.'

'And?'

'And each of them carried Solamnic coin.'

The Darkwoods seemed to open and receive them. In single file, they rode down the narrow forest trail just north of the town. Several yards into the forest, the lights of the village seemed to wink out, abruptly and completely, as the dense foliage engulfed the party.

Sturm drew his sword at once. The newly reforged blade caught the last white hint of moonlight over his shoulder as Solinari vanished behind a thick stand of juniper. On the blade, for the briefest of moments, a face seemed to appear-a face not his own but familiar nevertheless, as though someone had been watching through his eyes and was suddenly, unexpectedly, caught in the reflected light. Sturm shook his head and sheathed the blade again.

Jack led the way atop Acorn, a hooded lantern in his hand. A slow, stately music seemed to rise from the trees before them, and confidently the gardener urged on his little horse, who traveled the trail surefootedly, as though she had walked it numerous times before. It was all Sturm could do to keep up with Jack. Luin still moved gingerly, uncertain of her footing, and the extra burden of Mara on her back made the going even slower. Time and again Jack would stop ahead of them and hold the light aloft; through the green darkness they followed, the air about them sweet-smelling and close.

The forest was quiet and expectant. Now and again, a bird would call and another would answer, but the country around the travelers lay hushed, and even the early insects of spring were still and silent.

'Jack,' Sturm whispered. The gardener reined in his mare to allow him to move alongside. 'How is it that you know-'

Something in the underbrush rustled and snapped. A brown dove hurtled overhead with a soft, skidding cry of panic. At once both men reached for their swords, and suddenly, as if he had been one of the trees themselves, a green knight stood on the path ahead of them.

'Vertumnus,' Sturm breathed.

'Hardly,' Jack Derry hissed. 'And if you've aught of your wits about you, you'll steer widely of him.'

The enormous knight did not move. A visor of bright enameled ivy concealed his face, and his hauberk was woven of thick green vines instead of mail. The shield he carried was as large as the hay door of a barn, and indeed resembled just that, its thick oak boarding hammered and pegged together.

It was the weapon, though, that captured the young men's attention. A club, every bit as large as Sturm's leg, lay at rest over the big man's shoulder. If the shield was rough-hewn, the club was almost fresh from the forest, a limb still bearing the scars of its severing, the smaller branches that once were its outshoots trimmed and honed into vicious-looking spikes.

'I expect there's a better path into these woods,' Jack suggested, and with a deft turn of the reins, he took Acorn off in search of it. After a nudge from Mara, Sturm followed, casting a last look back at the knight, who hadn't moved from his station on the pathway.

'I don't like it,' Sturm muttered. 'That man before us… and to refuse the challenge… why, according to the Measure, a Knight is supposed to accept the challenge of combat-'

'To defend the honor of the Order,' the elf interrupted, wrapping her arms firmly about Sturm's waist, gripping him so hard that for a moment he lost his breath. 'We all know by now, Sturm. We know what the Measure has to say regarding everything from grammar to table manners to the etiquette of swordplay. You've defended the Order against phantasms and innocent spiders and bandits so far, and I've yet to hear any of them slander things Solamnic.'

'What was he?' Sturm asked. Jack turned to him, his face lost in leafy shadow.

' 'Tis a treant, Sturm-an old race of giants, older than the oldest vallenwood in the forest, older than the age itself. They were here when Huma was a pup, they say, and they ward the forest, protecting its greenery and secrets. Some things there are in this forest that are beyond your fathoming, or mine either.'

'How do you know these things, Jack Derry?' Sturm asked.

Jack said nothing, but motioned them around a low-spreading vallenwood. Sturm ducked his head dutifully to pass beneath an overhanging branch, halfway hoping that Mara was too busy lecturing to avoid being knocked from the saddle. But she bobbed alertly and kept on babbling about insults and chivalry and Oath and Measure.

'Nor did I hear the man behind us speak ill of your precious Order,' she said. 'You're taking offense where there's none to take and reading challenges in the wind and the rain.'

Her grip loosened, and she sank back into silence. But she couldn't resist a last word. Reaching up and tweaking Sturm's ear, she pulled his head back and whispered.

'Your greatest danger is always with you.'

Skirting thick bramble until he found passage, Jack Derry guided the party onto another trail. By this time, dawn was breaking in the woods, and shafts of sunlight streaked into the shadows, dappling the forest floor with pale and various green. They found a small woodland pool, dismounted, and watered the horses.

Mara offered sleepy attendance to Cyren, who had begun to spin a web in an alder some distance away. Since they had left Dun Ringhill, the spider had seemed confident, almost brave: no longer trailing behind the party, half-hidden in leaf and branch and bramble, he had walked resolutely beside Luin, rumbling happily and mysteriously to himself.

The faint baying of dogs arose from somewhere to the west.

Sturm knelt beside Jack Derry, and the two of them bent over the water and drank deeply, each using his hand as a ladle. As the water settled back to its customary stillness, Sturm looked at their reflections, side by side, framed in a canopy of leaves.

Again he saw a sharp resemblance, then quickly cast a stone into the pool.

Jack looked up at him, water still dripping from his chin. He regarded Sturm with a bright, unwavering stare, and again the mysterious smile crept over his face.

'The sound of the dogs is the sound of a hunt, fanning out from Dun Ringhill way, as near as I can tell it. I expect that by now old Ragnell has wind of your going, and if I know her, she's sending forth the search to bring you back.'

'What can we do, Jack?' Sturm asked imploringly, the Solamnic swagger gone from his voice entirely.

Jack looked at him thoughtfully, then nodded.

'I expect I can… see to something at the western borders, Sturm Brightblade,' he said cryptically. 'I can brush away our tracks with branches, scatter the scent with rose-water and gin. I can purchase an hour with craft. Perhaps two hours, or even to midday before the dogs take up your scent again.'