The Forest King

“Are you hurt, girl?” asked Lofotan. Mathi managed to shake her head no. She felt a burning sensation on her right cheek. Absently wiping the spot, she noticed blood on her fingers. She didn’t know if it was hers or the creature’s.

Artyrith reached the body first. Bow drawn, he nudged it hard with his toe. It didn’t move, but he planted another arrow in its neck, muttering an obscenity under his breath.

Balif arrived. He put his nocked arrow back in his quiver and lowered the bow. He knelt on one knee beside the corpse. “Roll it over,” he told Artyrith.

The cook levered the body over with his bow stave. When he beheld its face, the worldly Silvanesti backpedalled. Mathi’s breath caught in her throat. She gasped.

“What is it?” said Artyrith.

“One of Vedvedsica’s children,” said Balif. Hearing the mage’s name brought everyone’s eyes to the general. He looked down at what had so startled Artyrith.

It was like no creature he had ever seen. The beast-elf who broke into Balif’s villa his first night there had been elflike but covered in brutish hair. The creature before them was different. In general form it resembled a tawny panther, though leaner and with considerably longer limbs. Covered in light brown fur, it was tailless. It was also clearly female. White fangs protruded from its bifurcated upper lip. Strange as it was, it could have passed for an unhealthy breed of plains cat except for its face. It had a woman elf’s face, lightly furred, with ears on the sides of its head, a small nose, and elflike eyes. Open and staring, they were round like any elf’s, with brown irises.

Balif drew his sword and used it to lift the dead creature’s paws. It had fingers, five per limb, tipped with hard, yellow claws.

“What is it?” Treskan said, echoing Artyrith. His curiosity had overcome his fear, and he had crept forward to see what had been slain.

“An animal, magically altered to resemble an elf,” Balif said. He rose, still gazing at the creature. “One of Vedvedsica’s less successful efforts, I would say.”

That was the mage’s crime-whispered about, here and there, and scrupulously suppressed by every Silvanesti official and sage since. Vedvedsica had used his considerable magical skills trying to create elves out of common animals. But why create such abominations?

“Do you know this one?” Lofotan asked solemnly.

“She was called Urnya. She was a highland lynx at birth.”

Tears streamed down Mathi’s face, though not for the reason the elves understood.

“Why was it stalking us?” asked Treskan, agog.

“Not us … me.” Balif closed the staring eyes. “Some of Vedvedsica’s creations escaped the Speaker’s net. They have all the cunning of their motherkind, after all, and each has vowed vengeance on me.”

“Why you, sir? Why not a curse upon the Speaker, who ordered their destruction?”

“Great Silvanos dwells within a fortress, guarded night and day. I have only my wits and a few good comrades with me, and I did turn Vedvedsica over to the Speaker’s justice.”

The truth dawned on Treskan. That’s why Balif lived in such isolation. He had dispensed with servants and isolated himself from his kin to spare their becoming targets of the vengeful beast-folk.

“They hunted me in Silvanost,” Balif went on. “I thought we could outdistance them and reach Free Winds first.” He sheathed his sword. “Urnya always was fleet.”

Balif offered Mathi a hand. Shaking, the girl took it.

“Are you all right?” he asked gently. “Did the beast hurt you?”

She shrugged off his hand. “It’s nothing.”

He went to the packhorses, still tied together and trembling even though the threat was dead. They shivered and flecks of foam covered them as though they’d run ten miles. Balif hunted around and returned with two short-handled spades.

“Time to bury her,” he said. “Poor, unnatural thing, she at least deserves not to feed the crows.”

Lofotan took one spade. Mathi stepped forward and tried to take Balif’s tool. It wasn’t right that a great lord should bend his back digging a grave, she said.

Balif would not relinquish the spade. “I’ve buried many a comrade,” he said. “No one is too good to render this service to the dead.”

Artyrith, Treskan, and Mathi stood back as the two warriors dug a short, deep hole. They put the creature in and replaced the dirt and sod so carefully that it was very hard to tell where the grave was. Treskan remarked that no one would ever find the body.

“Oh, they already know she’s dead.” Balif’s handsome visage was streaked with sweat and grime. Artyrith offered him his flask of nectar. The cook wondered how anyone could know Urnya had been killed.

“They are beasts inside, even when they resembled us on the outside,” Balif said after downing a long swallow of nectar. “They can smell her blood on the wind. Ours too. When she doesn’t return with my blood on her claws, they will know why.”

Since leaving the woodland, Balif had known they were being followed. He purposely had rode far ahead to lure any pursuer into attacking the straggling pack animals. Circling back with Lofotan and Artyrith, they arrived in time to stop Urnya’s attack.

Sunset was fast at hand. “Come,” said Balif. “We’ll stay together this time. Treskan, you lead the way.”

Bows still strung, the three Silvanesti rode in a line abreast behind the pack train. Treskan preceded them on foot for a mile or two until they spied Mathi’s wayward pony grazing at the base of a hill. Remounted, they were able to set a better pace.

Dusk was unusually quiet. Crickets and peepers were still, and the whippoorwill did not sing its melancholy song. It was nerves of course, but Mathi felt a hundred eyes upon her as she guided her pony across a shallow stream. Running water would obscure their scent from the sharpest nose.

She heard a sharp call from behind. Twisting around, she saw Artyrith sit up high in the saddle, take aim, and loose an arrow into the gathering darkness. Balif asked what he saw.

“A pair of eyes, watching up from that thicket!”

A stand of high grass filled the base of a substantial hill north of them. Mathi looked but saw only lengthening shadows.

“Never mind,” Balif ordered. “Keep going. Free Winds isn’t far.”

“But what about the eyes?” demanded the cook.

Lofotan said, “You put an arrow between them, didn’t you?” Unwilling to deny his accuracy, Artyrith said he did. “Then we have nothing to worry about, do we?”

When the hills flattened out, they found themselves on a plain, higher and drier than the grasslands they’d crossed. Half an hour’s ride more, and they beheld a lone, steep-sided hill, rising up from the flat terrain. Twenty or so feet high, it was the only promontory around. Centered atop the hill was a curved stone wall, the outer defenses of Free Winds.

Artyrith gave a cheer. Balif rebuked him in a mild but definite way. The party rode faster. It was truly night. Every chirp, every chuckle by a night-dwelling animal made them flinch. None of them had any desire to meet another one of Vedvedsica’s children that night … or ever. The sooner they were safe behind stone walls, the better.

There was a wide, well-used track up the hillside. Mathi had to lean far forward to keep her seat as they climbed. The packhorses stumbled but kept going. At the top of the hill there was a narrow strip of level ground six feet wide, before the wall. To Mathi’s surprise, the trail ended against a blind expanse of stone.

Balif and the others arrived. Their horses were panting with fatigue. Finding the girl motionless before a solid wall, Balif asked what she was waiting for.

“There’s no gate!” she said, perplexed.

Artyrith said, “I shall ride around.”

Picking his way carefully in the dark, the cook disappeared off to the right. After a time, he reappeared on the waiting party’s left. It was his turn to look puzzled. “There isn’t a gate,” he declared.

Balif was amused. Cupping a hand to his mouth, he called out in a clear, strong voice, “Hello! Soldiers of the garrison, hello!”

A torch poked up, held by an unseen hand. “Who goes there?”

“A surveying party out of Silvanost! We need shelter for the night!”