"What is it?" Yoko stared at the ground under her horse's hooves. There was a deep gouge in the earth, perhaps fourteen feet wide that wound through the trees, scarring the bark from trunks some three feet high.
Schneider frowned down at it, peering into the sunlight dappled shadows of the forest into which the trail disappeared. He had never seen the like and he had been witness to a good many incredible things. This looked like nothing less than some great snake had slithered its way through the wood, leaving bruised trees and scratched earth in its path. He was aware of the existence of no such snakes. Not in this world, at any rate.
He pushed hair behind his ears and shook his head. "I don't know."
Yoko shuddered, spurring her horse up the opposite side of the indention to join him. "There are things that have appeared since -- since Ansasla was defeated. Strange things that no one has ever seen before."
"Things like what?"
She shrugged, wrapped in her cloak, her hood half obscuring her face against the chill. "Creatures that never existed before. Father thinks that a rent was formed when you were fighting Ansasla. A tear into another world that never has quite healed. He thinks the strange things that people are seeing more and more in the lands are coming across that rent. We haven't seen so many in the south, but the rumors of odd creatures in the less civilized lands are growing."
He rode for a while in silence, thinking that Geo Note could very likely be right. There had been a great altering of things during that final battle. A rent could very well have been made. If he'd had his power, he might have tracked it down and sealed it. God forbid that anyone else had the presence of mind to do it.
At least Yoko was talking again. For a while she had rode in silence, a dour, depressing companion. Two days into the forest and the trees grew older and larger, the underbrush more strangled from lack of proper light reaching the forest floor. They were into the Great Forest now, the oldest woodland on the continent. It had been here during the age of old. Probably long, long before that. Forests had the habit of outliving generations of men.
They had roots and mushrooms for dinner, with berries for desert. Yoko refused to use any of her magics to hunt a livelier dinner. She would not kill with her gift. He thought she was being overly prudish, but one could hardly tell her that in the face of her recent trauma. So he ate the things she gathered without much enthusiasm. He stared at her across the small fire they had made, trying to fathom her moods and her disposition towards him. With anyone else he would hardly have bothered. No one else, no other lover or friend had quite the ability to affect him with the mere swing of their mood. Yoko, he catered to, for some unknown reason -- it was often beyond his understanding why it mattered so much what she thought of him. He hated her censure. He despised her sad sighs and her refusal to met his eyes, when she was usually so bold in her opinions. Other than physically comforting her, which she would not allow, he was at a loss at how to make things better. He had never bothered to learn the subtle ways of soothing the hurt feelings of others. It had never been a concern of his.
So they were silent companions, Yoko lost in her own moody soul searching and he despairing of ever getting his magic back. With it things had always worked out so much better. He could fix the wrongs that bothered her if he had his power. He was certain of it.
They rode out the next morning with a fine mist in the air that added bit to the usual chill. Bird song twittered through the leaves. A pair of squirrels played tag over their heads, dislodging leaves that fluttered down gracefully in their path. Yoko smiled at the antics and Schneider felt ridiculously beholden to a pair of furry rodents for causing the reaction. He nudged his mount closer to hers, thinking to initiate some inane conversation. Anything to draw out her good humor.
And rather suddenly the squirrels disappeared and the birdsong ceased. Yoko hardly noticed it. Schneider frowned, staring at the leafy canopy overhead.
With no more warning than a rustle of leaves, from out of the foliage a tree swung out at them. It hit his horse, square in the chest, sending the animal staggering into Yoko's mount, then sprawling off its feet when her horse shied backwards, screaming in equine fear. The animal slammed against the bole of a tree and only blind luck saved Schneider from being crushed between it and ungiving wood. The fates were damned kind to see that his leg, instead of being trapped under the weight of the horse body was merely pinned under the limp neck. Breath was hard in coming, from the impact of the fall, and he hadn't the presence of mind to do more at first that stare dumbly at the foliage where the blow at originated. Foliage which parted to reveal the towering form of a giant, who held a club longer than Schneider's body in its meaty fist. It had to stood to get under the intercrossed branches of the lower pine limbs, standing some eighteen feet in height and some eight feet in width at the shoulders. Its face, in the brief glimpse he got of it, was much like any giant's face, broad and thick boned, with overhanging brow and small, dull eyes. Its mouth was filled with rotting, yellowed teeth, which were revealed when it opened it to scream out a battle cry. One step out of the brush and it was almost on them. The club, which was no less than the trunk of a good sized tree came down towards Schneider, ready to finish the job the first strike had started. He pulled at his leg desperately, heard Yoko scream from near by and the club smashed down.
And rebounded off the invisible shell of a shield of her making. She was off her frightened horse, mindless as it bolted from the protection of her shield, and on her knees beside the bloody head of his own downed and very dead mount.
"Are you all right?" Her fingers grasped the mane and helped shift the dead weight of the head and neck off his leg. He didn't answer -- the club coming down again, backed by all the rage of a giant's frustration. She shuddered, flinching back. The power of the impact that rocked her shield, rocking her body as well. He scrambled over the horse to crouch behind her, grasping her shoulders to shore her up.
"Tell me you've got something offensive you can throw at him?"
Another blow, this one two handed, as the giant realized it was up against something not of a natural character. The thing was dressed in scrapes of fur and cloth that had been haphazardly sewn together with thick ropes. Yoko cried out. She had never studied offensive spells. She did not have attack spells in her arsenal and with a few more blows the giant would shatter her shield and the both of them would be paste.
"Illumina." He cried. "Throw Illumina in its face as strong as you can, then run after your damned horse and don't look back. I'll draw it off from you."
"No." She moaned.
"Do it, Yoko." His fingers tightened on her shoulders as the club came down again, bouncing off the shield a mere feet over their heads. Damned disconcerting to sit here helpless, under the weakening shields of another, with no recourse but flight.
She took a breath as it raised the club over its head for another strike, then cried out the single summoning word. A blare of intense white light appeared outside the shield and with a sharp gesture of her hand it flared into the giant's face. The creature cried out, loosing its grip on the makeshift club, clutching at its eyes in sudden pain.
Schneider pushed her to her feet, shoving her roughly in the general direction her horse had fled. She followed his directions for once, running madly through the trees, never once turning her head to look back. He hesitated a moment in his own flight, drawing his sword, even though he didn't know what good it would do against a giant, but certain that the creature would pursue the prey that had thorns before it would hunt down the more seemingly helpless. It blinked away the blindness and Schneider struck out at its legs, cutting a thin slash across its thighs before bolting away into the forest with its cries of rage behind him.
It had longer legs. It could cover considerably more ground than he in fewer strides. The only thing he had going for him was the close confines of the forest, which he could slip through without slowing, while his pursuer had to either ram his way past or go around.
The trees were a blur in his vision. His breath came painful and hard. There were a hundred little scrapes and scratches from the bramble he tore through and he cursed the fates that had ever stripped his power from him. Oh, how miserable to be a normal, mortal man with no more connection to the arcane realm than to the elusive gods they all worshipped. There were a dozen minor spells that could have wiped this annoying giant from the face of the earth. They trembled on his lips and he could not utter them for fear of the wards on his wrists throwing the power right back at him, either killing him outright or incapacitating him long enough for the giant to do it.
He heard it closing the gap and thought how humiliating it would be to be killed by a mere, slow-witted giant. No matter what realm he ended up in, he would forever carry that shame with him.
There was a gully ahead. A wide, deep gully with steep, muddy slopes that dropped down to a forest stream. There was no jumping it. All he could do was slide down one muddy slope, loosing his footing on the slick dirt and ending up on his knees at the edge of the stream, then scrambling up and splashing across thigh high water to the other side and a higher slope leading to escape. One look over his shoulder and the Giant was almost to the gully. He could not climb that muddy slope in time. He grasped a root and pulled himself up, used it as leverage for his boot and grasped after dirt and rock for more support, threw his sword up and over the edge and made a concerted lunge for the small roots protruding there. Pulled himself up and almost over the lip as the giant screamed in victory and made to jump the gully and land on top of him. Almost made it, but its great foot slipped in the mud and it miscalculated the leap, falling just short of the other side, slipping more when it landed and crashing down, its chin slamming with a distinctive crack against the opposite lip where Schneider scrambled for footing. He found himself staring the giant in the eyes, the giant's somewhat dazed from the fall, blood seeping out from between its slack lips where it had bitten its tongue.
Schneider looked about frantically for the sword, found it even as the giant was blinking awareness back into its eyes, and thrust it into its face, piercing the left eye almost up to the hilt. The tip lodging the back of the giant's skull would not let the blade slide deeper. A cry almost issued from the torn lips, but died quickly, even as the giant did, its brain destroyed.
Schneider sat back, legs sprawled, hands supporting his weight on the pine littered forest floor. There was blood seeping over the hilt of his sword. And the giant was slowly beginning to slide backwards into the gully. He reached out, grabbing the sword hilt to save it from going with down with the giant. Almost had it yanked out of his hands as the tip lodged in bone refused to let go. It did, with a pop and he was left with the gore covered thing on the ground between his legs. His hands were shaking from reaction. He had destroyed greater things than this without a blink of the eye, and yet this one victory, which had achieved without a drop of magic had him trembling. He laughed. Dropped the sword and laughed, a surge of adrenaline that had been all but gone welling up in him at the purely mundane victory.
For a long while he sat there, laughing, then cleaned the blood off the sword with leaves and pine tags. There was the sound of crinkled leaves and twigs snapping from the other side of the gully. Slight sounds. A small creature passing, not a large one.
Yoko appeared through the trees, eyes wild, bramble tangled in her hair. Her eyes took in the scene, passed over the slumped form of the giant damming the path of the stream, lifted to him still sitting on the far lip. She swallowed and scrambled down the slope, wisely avoided the form of the giant as she sloshed across the stream and started to struggle up the other side. Schneider stirred to activity, going to the edge and reaching down a hand for her to grasp and pulling her up by main force alone, since her feet slipped madly in the slick mud.
"I couldn't find the stupid horse." She cried, flinging herself against him, wrapping her arms about his neck and clinging tight. "Oh, goddess, goddess, you're so stupid. I thought you were dead."
He sighed, resting his chin on the top of her head. "Not so easy as that, to kill me. At least to keep me dead." He added.
She pulled back, looking up at him critically, reached up to finger a thin briar scratch on his cheek. "Well stop trying so damned hard, would you. You like to drive me crazy."
She smiled at him. At him and not at the antics of some damned squirrel, and it made the whole hectic thing worth it. Now if he could just get her to rub the ache out of his shoulders ----
Sta-Veron sat at the crux of two mountain ranges, where the Eastern Mountains turned into the Great Northern Range and the God's Tooth mountains, which bordered the tundra to the extreme north, collided with those more milder ridges. It formed a great valley of cold, snow bound lands that were protected on either side by the formidable barrier of mountains. It was not a pleasant land to live. It was frigid nine out of twelve months of the year and only tolerably warm those other elusive weeks. The people of the north were a hard folk, tempered by a climate the people of the warm south shivered just to think of. A fair number of the people were nomadic and predatory, hunters that moved with the game and owed no man allegiance. The others carved villages and towns out of the snow, drawn to the north by its lure of riches. The diamond mines of the God's Tooth range were legendary. Gold littered the high cold streams of the Great Northern mountains. Though few in the south much entertained the thought of living the cold north, they did relish the trade friendship with it brought. Exotic furs, gems and gold were a enticement to any man.
Contrary to the opinion of the south, Sta-Veron was not a
barbaric, desolate city, riddled by the winds down from the Tundra.
Though it did not in any way boast the size of the jewels of the
south, its walls were thick and high and its streets wide and clean.
Its houses were orderly and well constructed to keep the cold out,
and its people well protected and content under the rule of their
enigmatic lord. They spoke of Him
They did not know if they loved their lord, for he was sullen and moody and often they never saw him for months at a time, but they respected him and would defend his name to any who dared slander it. He was not like them in any respect, not hardened and weather lined, no gruffness at all to him, more a refined, quiet elegance. He did not even show the years that they knew he possessed, instead showing the face of fresh youth, but that was only the wizardly core of him showing though. The people of the North were not frightened by the arcane.
He sat in his castle above the sprawled houses and businesses of his folk and drifted in solitude. His servants were wary to disturb him. Sometimes for days at a time, he spoke no word to any living being. He had books from all over the world, scrolls of ancient and arcane things. Books older than that and rarer, which he found fascinating and poured over with fanatic zeal. The library was the warmest place in the castle, from the mere number of things that crowded in it. The other rooms were stark and cold in their decoration.
He spent most of his time in the library. The walls were lined with books. A treasure trove more valuable than all the gems in the mountains, when it came right down to it. He sat behind a great, carved desk, a thick book open before him. A witch light hovered over his shoulder, brighter and easier on the eyes than reading by candlelight. In the comfort of his own home, he dressed casually, in a thick, soft robe, over loose pants and tunic. There was a cup of mulled wine by his hand, brought by a silent servant, who crept in on cat's feet and disappeared as silently.
It was a book of spells. Most of them were unintelligible to his understanding, even after weeks of scrutiny. Spells were like that. If a body and a mind were not oriented towards a certain type of spell casting, then they would forever be unattainable. He, for all his vaunted power, was useless at casting fire oriented spells. They just escaped him. He was too intertwined with the aura of the Ice magic he did excel at. It didn't matter how long a body studied, it just didn't work. Even his mentor, Schneider, who had lived 400 years and who was primarily a fire mage, could not manage a decent Cold spell.
Kall-Su sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose with thumb and forefinger to drive away the ache of reading all through the night and into the early morning. It was a habit he had taken up over the last year or so, staying up the long night, putting sleep off until exhaustion drove him to it. He dreamed less that way.
Outside the frosted window he could see drifting flakes of snow. The stuff was already piled up in the streets. It was going to be a cold winter. There was a soft knock at the door. The captain of his guard slipped in, bundled for the weather, his face still holding the chaffing recently being in the cold.
"My lord." Kiro inclined his head respectfully, but wasted no more time than that on honorifics, instead striding to the desk and standing before it in a business like manner.
"Yes." Kall-Su asked.
"There are reports of another one in the mountains. Nomads saw it this time. From what they saw, and I believe them, it was bigger than the last."
Kall sighed closing the book, putting a marker in his place. Not even full winter and already the creatures that lived in the high colds were coming down to warmer climes and plaguing his folk. Only they were not the normal beasts these past few years. They were things that had no name in the tongue of men, hideous, gruesome things that belonged in another place. Things that had come with the passing of Ansasla. He could feel the faint presence of the rent that had swallowed the god of destruction. He knew without a doubt that small, sibilant things slipped through on occasion. He would not get near it, that place where Ansasla had gone. He had been taken over by it once, and would not risk the magnetic pull of its presence again. It was gone from this plane and would stay gone, and the little things that passed through could be dealt with.
"Where was it seen?"
"On the north side of the Great Northern Mountains, not far from Hesranha town. If it's like the last, it will be drawn to the people in the town."
It needed to be destroyed. The last one, the smaller one, if reports were true, had killed a dozen of his men before they had taken it down. He had no wish to deplete Kiro's forces more.
"Prepare a party. We'll leave tomorrow morning."
Kiro lifted a brow, pleased. "You'll lead us, my lord?"
Kall-Su nodded once, ignoring his captain's obvious satisfaction. He was well aware that Kiro thought he closeted himself too much of late in the castle. In this very room. And it did matter, that opinion, deep down where Kall-Su secreted his inner most feelings, behind a thick armor of imperious disdain for the rest of the world. It mattered a great deal what Kiro, and Rysen, his chief steward and the people of the town and his far away friends thought of him, only he never allowed it to the surface. If he did and they censured him, it hurt too much. It brought back the flickering traces of memory of a time where he had known nothing but censure and he was no more able to tolerate that, than he was the nightmares that tormented him. So his facade of ice stayed firmly in place. None were ever the wiser what their lord truly felt.
They rode down from the castle and through the streets of Sta-Veron, warmly clothed for harsh weather, on thick-furred, heavy mountain horses that could wade through snow chest high if need be. People were out in the gray of early morning, clearing the streets and the paths between houses and shops of snow, carrying bundles of wood inside for fires, and trudging to work. They looked up at the passing of the well bundled party, curious perhaps of the destination of armed men with pack horses for a long ride, but not overly so. Garlands decorated the doorways, in preparation of winter festival not more four weeks away.
Out the main gates, where snow had been shoveled into high piles to open the twin gates and beyond that was a stretch of pure whiteness that seemed to go on forever. In the far distance it met the sky, white to gray.
They set out at a mile eating trot that the horses could maintain for hours. Kall's great warhorse tossed his shaggy head in delight to be out after so long in the stables. He kicked snow with his massive hooves and pulled at the rein, eager to be allowed a faster pace. It was invigorating to be out himself, and he gave in to the simple eagerness of the horse and loosened the rein. The war horse broke into a pounding canter and the rest of the party followed suit, snow flying up behind them. His men were in good cheer. He found himself tempted into it by the crispness of the morning and the good natured chatter of his soldiers.
An omen, Kall thought, of good things to come.
Schneider was limping. Not much, he was hiding it to a certain degree, his pride not wanting her to see that he hurt, but Yoko noticed anyway. The horse falling on him, then the mad flight through the forest with a giant on his heels had taken its toll. Tonight, if he complained of it, she would attempt a healing spell. She doubted he would let her, being prideful and male, the two combined making for a stubborn streak when it came to a woman's pity.
She gathered berries as they walked, trusting him to be alert to the dangers of the forest, which she was certain now there were a great many of. She would pluck a handful, of which she would give him the majority, and slowly eat the remainder. They passed a brook, not quite as steep as the one he had slain the giant in and paused to drink. She searched the banks for mud-hen nests and found two ripe with eggs. She harvested half of what she found, not wishing to deprive a hen of all her hatchlings, and counted on roasted egg for dinner as a change from tubers and mushrooms.
It was near dark by the time he found a place he felt safe to stop for the night. He made a fire the old fashioned way -- it galled him to have to strike flint to stone, that was clear -- and she wrapped the precious eggs in leaves and nestled them on the outside coals of the little campfire. She gave him four and had two herself and sat on the opposite side of the fire from him after that listening to the sounds of the forest night dwellers as they came awake for an evening of hunting and courting.
He rubbed absently at his leg.
"I can try a healing, if it pains you overmuch." She said. He shook his head.
"No. It's not bad. Just bruised. There is a kink in my shoulder." He rotated a shoulder hopefully. She sighed, hiding a smile and moved around the fire to kneel behind him.
"Here?"
"Lower."
He discarded the cloak so she could better work on him. She kneaded flesh and muscle and he purred under the attention. She was careful around his ribs, remembering the nasty bruise there.
"Why won't you let me use a healing spell on you?"
He leaned his head back, looking at her from that odd angle. Hair fell over her hands and wrists and she absently gathered it together, twisting it into a thick silver rope.
"I've an aversion to spells being cast on me. Not that I don't trust you -- I do -- it just makes me nervous."
"Something makes You
"I can deal with pain."
She placed the hair over his shoulder, fingers straying to his neck. He leaned back against her, reaching behind him to run his hands along her folded legs. Oh, goddess, she thought, this will go beyond comforting. How do I stop it? Do I want to stop it? She leaned down and her lips almost brushed his --
-- and the sense of something watching intruded upon her awareness. She froze with her fingers on the pulse of his throat, and felt a Presence .
"Yoko?" he murmured. She moved her fingers over his lips to shush him, and whispered against his ear.
"There's something out there."
He shifted, staring out into the night. She knelt behind him with her fingers in his shirt, listening for the sound of it and hearing nothing but the normal sounds of the night. But she knew it was out there. She sensed it as she sensed her own presence or his.
"Yoko, there's nothing." He looked down at her. She shook her head.
"No. It's there. Can't you feel it?"
"How do you feel it?"
She slapped a palm against her chest. "In here. Something is watching us."
He did not dispute that cryptic claim, too much a creature of mythical portents to dismiss the augur of another. "Where?" he asked quietly.
"I don't know. All around us."
"Do you sense ill-intent?"
She shook her head, not knowing. A gust of sudden wind blew the fire out, scattering sparks in its wake. She gasped. He snatched for his cloak and scrambled to his feet. Reached out to grab her hand and haul her up with him.
"What is it?" she moaned, as frightened of this elusive presence as she had been of the all too solid giant.
"Something --- something." His eyes were shadowed pits with the death of the fire. The wind gusted again, blowing leaves and forest debris at them with gale force. Yoko cried out, shielding her face, staggering a step backwards. He pulled her away from the source of the wind, abandoning their small camp. She ran blindly, the trees black shadows against the dark of the night. He swore once, rebounding off the trunk of a tree. She caught at him and pushed him on, desperate to escape the presence that followed them. The wind rattled the leaves, making smaller trees sway and branches creak overhead.
There was a faint light ahead. A hazy glow that made the shadows gray instead of black. She felt him hesitate when he saw that illumination, undecided whether to travel on towards it or veer away. Wind tore at their backs, driving twigs and pine cones past them. Driving them towards the light. She did not want to go of a sudden, and he certainly did not, digging his heels in when the staggering wind wanted to push them forward. He tried to veer away from it, but a maelstrom of debris was swept up, creating a wall of swirling leaves.
With the force of nature at their backs they had no choice but to go forward. Into the small glade where fuzzy white light cast everything in a strange glow. The moment they stepped into the light, the wind ceased. It did not go away, for when Yoko turned to look behind her the wall of swirling debris was a furious barrier around the small clearing. It circled the whole clearing in fact, like they stood in the eye of a tornado, only no slightest breeze intruded to lift their hair.
"Goddess." Yoko breathed, holding tight to Schneider's hand. He turned about, glaring at the trees, the sky, the whirl wind that had driven them here and demanded.
"What do you want?"
A mist seeped up from the ground under their feet. Yoko hopped back with a little yelp, and Schneider took a more dignified step backwards, eyes narrowing as the mist rose in cohesive form and swirled around them. Slowly, it brushed their bodies, leaving behind a warm mist on skin where it touched. There was something deep and all invasive in the presence she felt. Something that was elusive and at the same time inescapable.
It took form, a ghostly, translucent shape of an unclothed woman. She reached out smoky fingers and grazed Yoko's cheek, trailed her fingers across Schneider's chest. He waved a hand through the smoke, displacing her arm. A tinkle of laughter echoed through the wood. She pulled back from them and solidified. A lilth, ageless woman with hair that tumbled like green water down her back and over her shoulders.
You've killed in my forest.. She said, her voice seeming to come at them from a dozen points about the clearing. Yoko stared at her, at a loss.
"I killed a giant, who attacked us first." Schneider said promptly, in full control of his wits.
He was my servant. He had a task. The strange woman said.
"Who are you?"
The laughter tinkled again, though she never seemed to open her mouth. I? I am the Lady of this Forest. Glyncara..
Glen Cara. It was the old name of the Great Forest. Yoko opened her mouth in wonderment. "Glen Car IS the forest."
The woman inclined her head. So I am. You've killed a servant of mine in my wood. You trespass where I no longer wish men to walk.
"Since when is it outlawed to travel through the great forest?" Schneider asked archly, and Yoko wanted to shake him, because this thing they faced was not a lovely, naked woman but something much older. Much older than even him. As old as the oldest tree in this wood and as powerful as all the quiet force of the forest.
Since men strive to destroy it. The colors of Glyncara's eyes shifted from moss green to bark brown and all the colors of the wood in-between. There was a flare of fury there and danger to them. The winds outside the clearing picked up.
"What men?" Schneider asked.
The men who raze the forest and leave nothing behind but stumps and broken ground. Who drive the animals away with their presence and their saws and their fires. Who slice the flesh of my trees and send them down the river -- corpses -- beautiful corpses -- to other men who might butcher them again.
She spoke of the trees as though they were alive. To her, they probably were.
"We're not those men." Yoko said in a small voice. "We mean you no harm. We're sorry about your giant. We didn't know."
It matters not. Those who enter my wood have sealed their fate.
"Then why don't you destroy these men who chop down your trees yourself?" Schneider demanded. "Instead of bothering us, who haven't toppled a single tree. She won't even kill a rabbit for dinner."
Glyncara's eyes flashed and some tendril of power coiled out to lash at Schneider for his impudence. He staggered a step backwards, grimacing.
I have power here, in the heart of my wood, but closer to the fringe, where they do their damage, my strength wanes. And as they cut acre after acre of my forest down, I die. So every human who enters my power shall die, as my trees die.
Her form started to dissolve and a sense of tremendous power washed over them. Yoko felt her breath catch in her throat against her will. There was a pain in her chest, as of a fist contracting about her heart.
"Wait!" Schneider cried out. "We can help you."
The pain subsided. Glyncara resolidified marginally. Her voice came out of the woods at them. How? You're bound yourself with those hideous things on your wrists.
"You can feel the wards?" he asked, a touch of amazement creeping into his tone.
They are abominations.
"Can you remove them?"
Glyncara's shoulders lifted. Perhaps.
"Do so and I will rid your forest of every threat that comes at it. I will place it under my protection."
And is your protection so great, you who destroy lands and peoples?
He stared at her, off guard. "It will be if I so promise."
Do you know the meaning of a
promise?"
"I can."
We shall see. I'll take your offer. You will stop the threat to my wood and I shall let you go.
"The wards?"
I don't think you know the meaning of an oath just yet. Stop the threat with the wards in place and then we shall see.
"With them I have no magic. How should I stop these men who destroy your wood without it?"
Like any normal man. Use your wits. My giant, poor dumb thing that it was, took up the task. Are you less willing than he?
Schneider glared at Glyncara. His eyes narrowed and he waved a hand in acceptance. "All right. Fine. I accept."
Good. The lady of the forest smiled, she reached out and touched Yoko in the center of her chest. There is yet one more thing. Should you decided to not honor the agreement and leave this forest to its fate. You will go alone. For this girl is cursed with my geas. If she steps foot outside the wood without the bargain being fulfilled, she will herself turn into a tree. She will forever be a part of this wood, unless the loggers cut her down.
Schneider cursed. He lunged at Glyncara, hands out to strangle her, but she dispersed in smoke when he reached her. Yoko stood staring at the spot she had been. The whirlwind of leaves just stopped. The wind died and the mass of them settled to the ground in great clumps around the clearing.
She put her hands to her chest, trying to feel for the sense of the curse. What did a curse feel like? She had never had one on her person to know. Schneider turned around to stare at her with anger in his eyes. She stared back with dismay in her own.
"Well," she said in a small, shaky voice. "I suppose this gives us a purpose. We were rather without one before."
"That bitch."
"I understand her. Protecting what is hers. No one should destroy this old forest."
"To hell with this forest." He snarled. Then cried it out louder so that it echoed off the trees.
"Do you believe her -- about the wards?"
"I don't know. I have damned little choice in the matter. God, I hate being a puppet."
"You're not." She reminded him softly. "You could walk away right now with no repercussions. I'm the one she cursed. Do you think trees are aware?"
"You'll never find out." He snapped, glaring at her. "Do you think I would abandon you? Is that what you think of me? Is it?!!"
"No." Tiny little voice in the face of his ire.
He threw out his arms and stalked past her, kicking at piles of leaves as he left the circle of clearing. Then he stopped and screamed out into the forest.
"At the very least you could tell me where the damned loggers are, you underhanded shrew."
The wind whispered past him, stirring his hair. To the north. It seemed to say and then was gone.