I reached out with my bare toes and found I could grip magical power, so it had been worth it.
As a Caller, I could only work with things that typically move. It doesn’t do much good to call things that can’t move to answer. I could rile up animals and coax broken bones to heal and fool water into falling on my enemies like it was the heel of Krak. But as far as iron, stone, and dirt were concerned, I was no more influential than a butterfly. The iron manacles and plaster mittens were out of my reach.
Our escape would probably be loud, so we wouldn’t be able to wriggle away like grateful snakes. But I felt I could contrive something that was superior to my earlier horse-kicking escape plan, which could only have failed worse if my horse had stumbled and crushed me to death.
I didn’t tell Pil I had an idea yet. I wanted to think it through rather than rush to the escaping part. Maybe I could come up with a vengeful attacking part at the same time. Why limit ourselves?
Before I finished the details, I heard two soldiers trudging toward us. A little, slow man said, “There is no ding-dong-damn reason this can’t wait until morning.” He pointed off into the darkness. “There’s animals out there. And holes.”
His big companion bounced along, jittery even after a day of hard riding. “Hell, that’s even better! We’ll fling her in a hole all bound and let something come eat her up!”
I saw the outline of the slow one stop. “I didn’t bring my knife.”
“What kind of ignorant piece of shit walks around without his knife? Here, use mine.”
The slow one cleared his throat. “I don’t like your knife. The handle hurts my pointy finger.”
The jittery one spouted abuse of some kind, but I lost interest in the conversational details. That soldier’s pointy finger wouldn’t save Pil from a slit throat for long.
“Pil!” I whispered. “Be ready to roll to your right, fast, when I tell you!”
“Fine.” Her whisper was strained, but she didn’t sound scared.
She should have been scared, since I was about to do something as dangerous as hell. I intended to rot a section of the tree trunk so that the tree would fall as if it had been cut with axes. Chained together, Pil and I sat exactly on opposite sides of the tree. If I rotted the trunk just a little in the wrong direction, it would break one or both of our arms when it fell. If I erred more than just a little, one of us would be smashed to death.
I didn’t explain any of that to Pil. I said, “Scoot a little to your left.”
The soldiers weren’t quite yelling at each other, but their spirited discussion had somehow evolved to include a redheaded whore in the Old Quarter.
“A little more,” I whispered.
Pil scuffed the dirt on the other side of the tree, and it made a scrunching sound.
The slow soldier gasped. “What was that noise? Do you see something?” He stared right past me into the darkness.
“I don’t see nothing.” The other one’s voice quavered a little.
“Bugger this!” The slow one turned toward the camp. “I’m getting my sword!”
The jittery one strode after him. “You can’t even get your knife, you pokey turd!”
I let out the breath I was holding. “All right, Pil, wait for my word.”
I wished that I could press my toes against the tree trunk for this. Direct contact improves power and control. Since I couldn’t bend like an orangutan, I put that thought away and pulled with my toes to force a blue wedge of power through the trunk, low to the ground. I flinched at the sound of the two soldiers walking back toward us.
Adjusting the blue wedge and the rot within it, I gave the rot a twist and the tree trunk gave way. The big tree, which had just started to bud for spring, creaked like a small herd of dying cattle and leaned toward the camp. The two soldiers froze, saw the tree, and sprinted away from us.
“Now, Pil!”
As the trunk separated, we rolled away from the falling tree. Something whacked me on the head, but not too hard. I glanced back but didn’t see whether those soldiers had been crushed when the tree slammed against the ground. I did see that the great network of limbs and branches had obliterated two campfires, whooshing embers up in all directions. Embers and stars provided our only light, leaving the camp in near darkness.
I shook my head and crawled to my feet along with Pil. We were still manacled to the other’s opposite hands so that we faced each other with only four feet between us.
“You’re hurt,” Pil whispered.
I made a face she couldn’t see. “Screw it.” For two seconds, I contemplated my sword, which I hoped was now attached to Leddie’s mangled corpse, squished flatter than a biscuit. This might be the best time to steal it back. “Come on, Pil! Grab my boot!”
Pil had no true choice but to follow or fight me. We traveled facing each other at a skipping sidestep, and she came along, but not graciously. “No! Let’s run! Run, you ratty old man!” I guided her along toward the place I’d marked as the tent’s location. She lowered her voice but kept cursing me.
I tripped on a branch, and when I recovered, I found tent canvas under my feet. Soldiers had begun shouting from all around the camp, so I rushed to find any edge of the collapsed tent. After five seconds, the shouting had come closer, and in five more seconds, a man yelled almost in my ear, “Where’s Jod? Anybody seen Jod?”
Pil grabbed my collar and hissed. “We’ll be caught, and then what will you do? Knock down every tree in the forest?”
Pil was right.
