Title: Surrender
Author: Mir
Date: May 2021
...
Part Two
I raced past empty fields and slumbering houses, beneath canopies of trees that creaked and moaned, over the freezing ripples of the Spindle that threaded through the landscape and cut gouges through the hills. The moon sank low, and the stars faded into a grim smudge of dawn.
The villages lay quiet -- Poniets, Radomsko, Viosna -- all ignorant to the Wood's onslaught just miles down the road. At the edge of Dvernik, a tiny pile of homes sunk down into the earth, a rooster's call filled the air. Simple people thin as the dirt they tilled. I left them behind, still asleep in their beds. Near Zatocheck, the road dwindled down to little more than wagon tracks. Two lines of frozen mud dyed orange in the day's first light.
I heard the village before I saw it. A cacophony of voices ringing down the icy path. Every man, woman, and child talking, shouting, crying. In truth, it was just a handful of villagers wrapped in worn coats and blankets squabbling in an open square while children huddled on the ground nearby.
"You--" A tall, hard-eyed man yelled as he jabbed a finger into the air. "Stay back. Come no closer." Silence rippled though the crowd. Heads turned. I stopped beyond their reach and did not dismount. "We want no strangers here." His breath hung in the air between us.
His challenge meant nothing to me. "I am a wizard of the king," I replied. "And I am going to Porosna."
The man stared back with eyes cold and empty. "Why would the king send you when he's never sent anyone before?"
This lumbering dolt was blocking the path and wasting my time. Did he not recognize?-- No, I had dressed for the road in dark leather and heavy wool. Perhaps the pewter clasps and embroidered hems meant nothing to them. Perhaps their small corner of the world had no place for lords and wizards. Perhaps they wouldn't even recognize my name.
"The Raven was his envoy. And I have come to defend Porosna." They should have welcomed me as their rescuer, should have been grateful that I'd rode though the night on their behalf. Instead they squabbled like children. No wonder corruption crept so easily across this land.
An older woman wrinkled and gray pushed to the front, and the men stepped aside to let her pass. She wrapped thin arms around her chest and squared herself before me. "Wizard, Porosna is no more."
"That's impossible." But I had heard the Raven's words and knew it must be true. "It was there just yesterday. Villages do not simply disappear."
"The Wood has stolen it. And taken the Raven too." Her eyes drifted to the tower draped in distant shadows above the valley. "See for yourself. This is the road to Porosna."
She turned, and I fumed at her retreating back. What a miserable pack of ignorant fools. I was nothing to them. Not a threat, not a rescuer, nothing more than an inconvenient stranger. Had the Raven never shown them her true power... no, apparently not... or perhaps she'd grown weak in the decades since she left the court. But the villagers would see. They would see how a real wizard handled the Wood, and I would be the one to set them free.
The last two miles were the longest of the journey. New spindly trees bristled above the frosted ground, and the air was thick with malice within the Wood's newly-claimed domain. Then, as the sun crested above the hills, the path ended abruptly in what might have been a clearing. Yes, the old village square.
A breeze rattled the branches, and deep shadows jumped and flickered. Where were the villagers? To one side, vines had invaded a house and splayed the walls open wide. To the other, a roof had caved in, and the home's door swung loosely from a single hinge. The village seemed to have been abandoned for decades, not a single evening.
And there in the center, a new heart tree thrust up into the sky. I barely felt myself dismount, take one step closer, then two. 'You' the tree seemed to call, though it spoke no words. It tugged, pulled, grasped at my magic with sharp claws that pierced my defenses and tore through my resolve. 'You're mine.'
The bark pulsed beneath my fingers. Smooth and soft. Hungry, devouring. My hand sank down through the surface, fingertips, palm, knuckles. And I watched, detached, unwilling to wrench myself free. Until something stirred beneath the bark and just for an instant a flash a color caught my eye. The Raven. Entombed within the tree. Barely alive. The Wood fed ravenously from her magic, expanding its reach outward and forging new boundaries. Terrifying.
"No," I whispered into the empty grove. "No!" And with a burst of sparks, I tore my arm from the Wood's grasp. There was no time. No time for anything but a single bolt of raw power shot deep into the heart tree's core. Drained, I collapsed to the ground, and the damp chill seeped through my clothes. I had given the Raven a clean death. There was nothing I could do for Porosna.
The sun gained strength above the ruined homes. Light without warmth. There was no one left to save, not even the Raven herself, and nothing left to do except return empty-handed to Zatocheck. Failure. I had done nothing, saved no one. And the Raven's frantic message had been in vain. Why did I fear the scorn of villagers more than the the ridicule of lords and ladies?
The horse had fled somewhere among the trees. I called, whistled, slapped my hand against my thigh. Nothing. Tired and alone, I dared not use magic and risk drawing more attention to myself here within the Wood's domain. So I called again, louder. The trees swallowed my voice.
A rustle from the underbrush. I spun around and reached instinctively for the sword I no longer carried. Not that I'd ever had much skill with a blade. Had that imbecile horse finally returned?
A walker. No, two. They burst from the shadows and rasped their mandibles back and forth like knives. Legs, so many legs, skittered sideways as the leader circled into the clearing. And within a breath, it was upon me, razor-sharp forelegs brushing the air where I'd stood. They were fast. But not fast enough. With one incantation I rooted them to the ground and and with another I set them ablaze in a gale of flame. Swept up in the expanding air, they crashed from tree to tree, sparks of white in the red smoky dawn.
My breath heaved in my chest as I stumbled back toward the crumbling homes. The clearing had expanded, burnt black and blown away as ashes that fell like snow. Where were the walkers? There, at the tree line, singed but mostly unharmed. They lingered for a moment beneath the blackened branches, shifting restlessly from foot to foot. Then they were gone. A blur charging forward through the clouds of dust.
They would come from above. The first leaped, jumped the clearing in a single bound, and I barely turned it aside with a spelled boulder that smashed into its armored plates and sent it sprawling to the ground. Defensive spells are short, barbed with hard consonants and simple vowels. But the second walker was upon me before I could find a single word. Its limbs gouged trenches in the dirt as I flung myself aside.
The ditch offered little protection as the creatures pressed closer. Their prey was cornered, and there was nowhere to hide. Desperate, panting, I dragged myself upright and flooded the clearing with an intense burst of light. Just a momentary distraction. I staggered behind the remnants of a house and sank against the wall as I fought against the sharp pain in my side. It hurt to breathe. When the Raven had came to Porosna, had she known she would never return?
I backed around the side of the building as the walker stalked closer, and it loomed over the shattered roof and surveyed the debris with dark whirled eyes. Near the wall the ground was littered with broken timbers. I grabbed one and tugged, strained and pushed against its weight with all my remaining strength. The walker sprung forward as I heaved the plank into the air, and it landed impaled on the sharp splintered end.
But the second was close behind and clamored up the body of the first as it twisted and lashed out in throes of pain or death. My hand trembled before me as I threw up a barrier that shimmered in the air like ice. A delicate spell, meant for diverting water or deflecting wind. But I'd never been good at thinking on my feet, and I'd always convinced the king I was too valuable to be sent away to war.
The barrier shattered as the walker crashed through. And weak, depleted, I fled. Carried by magic to the one place in the valley where I knew the Wood would not follow -- The Raven's tower.
...