For a long time he remained on his horse, and though Zefila and a few others narrowed their eyes as they noticed him there, no one bothered him. But then the Patriarch came over and as usual didn’t say anything—as usual, didn’t have to say anything—and with a hot flush of shame he dismounted at last. The alternative was trying to explain that his gut churned at the mere thought of making contact with the Forest soil, and he couldn’t do that. Flinching as his soles touched the damned earth, he tried not to let his terror show as he walked to the place where rations were being doled out. How could they know what the Forest was, or what it was doing to him? How could he explain to them that it wasn’t just a collection of trees, or even a complex ecosystem, but a single creature, living and breathing in perpetual darkness, that seemed intent on swallowing him whole?
What good would it do to tell them? he despaired, as he received his allotment of food. The thought was not without bitterness. They’d be happy if it devoured me.
It was getting worse and worse as they went on. He had hoped that the hours of riding would dull his senses until all feeling ceased, but it had done just the opposite. Every hoofbeat that brought him closer to the heart of the Hunter’s domain was like a nail driven into his flesh, and it was all he could do not to scream, not to beg them to turn back, turn back! and take him out of this place that was slowly remaking him, turning him into something he was never meant to be.
How could he explain to the Patriarch what was happening ? He didn’t understand it himself. Shutting his eyes, he remembered the moment when they had first come to the Forest’s border, when he had stood so close to it that he could feel its power like a chill breath upon his neck. He had been afraid to go forward then, as any sane man would be, and for a moment it seemed to him that he would truly be unable to ride on. Then the Patriarch came up beside him, and he put his hand across the vast space separating them and clasped him upon the arm. Strength flowed through the contact, enough that Andrys could gasp out a few words.
“I can‘t,” he whispered. “I don’t have the strength.”
The hand on his arm tightened for a moment, and he quailed at the thought of the anger that might now be directed at him. But the Patriarch’s voice was quiet and level, with no condemnation in it. “Then trust in God, my son. He does.”
Andrys looked at him, and for a moment their eyes locked. For a brief moment he sensed the deep well of strength in the other man, a reservoir so vast that all the trials of a lifetime could never empty it. Give me one drop of that in my own soul, he begged silently. Let me taste it, just for a day. Then the moment passed and he was on his own once more. Heart numb, he urged his horse forward, into the point position. Past the Patriarch. Past Zefila. Forward, step by step, into ...
Temptation.
Oh, yes, there were horrors enough in the Forest to send any sane man running. Oh, yes, he was sickened by the foul odors of the place, nauseated by the aura of rot that clung to every tree, every stone in the place. Yes, he could feel the chill power of Gerald Tarrant battering at the gateway of his soul as the fae tried to pry his identity loose, to let his take its place. All those things and more were there, enough to freeze any man’s blood. But there was something else, too. Something so unexpected that he could hardly absorb it. Something so horrifying in its implications—and so seductive in its form—that he dared not give voice to it, for fear the others would declare him mad.
He could feel the trees, as the Forest breeze caressed them. He could feel their coarse bark as if it were his own skin, and he winced at the sharp bite of parasites burrowing beneath it as if it were his own flesh they ate. High above him he could feel the thick night deepening, the faint sting of moonlight on his branches, the cold breath of a mountain wind stirring his leaves. Too much sensation for any one man to absorb ... and yet only the gateway, he sensed, to an even greater vision.
Was he going crazy? Or was this simply a manifestation of Gerald Tarrant’s own link with the Forest, a sign that it indeed recognized Andrys as part of itself? He was afraid to ask. He was afraid that somehow, by putting the experience into words, he would give it more power. He was afraid that his soul would drown, not in a sea of terror, but in a tidal wave of sensation so rich and so fascinating that no man could resist it.
There were birds in the trees, and he could taste their hunger lapping at his branches as they searched for the insects that were their chosen fare. And he was aware of those insects as well, a patter of frenzied movement punctuated by such stillness that it seemed the whole of the Forest was holding its breath. The bark of the trees was alive with tiny organisms, and if he shut his eyes he could sense the Forest as they did, overlapping images of food and hunger and fear and satiation and so many other sensations, alien yet familiar ... he could lose himself in it, he knew. All too easily. He could lie down on the chill earth and let it take him, open up his soul until all the life of the Forest poured into him. Sweet, dark ecstacy! Unspeakably tempting to the hedonistic spirit in him, that craved sensation at any cost. Maddeningly tempting to the wounded shell of a man that he had become, desperately in need of escape. What narcotic could rival such an experience, or offer such total escape from the bleak reality that his life had become?
Shaken, he went back to his horse and fiddled with its saddle, as if seeking some weak point in the harness that needed his attention. His hands were trembling so badly he was afraid someone would notice, but the others were too intent on their own duties to bother. God, he needed a drink. How else did you drive out such a vision, which lapped at your brain like a woman’s tongue, hinting at sensations beyond human bearing? Was this what the Hunter experienced every day? he wondered. Did he escape his own undead flesh to revel in the heat and the hunger of his creations? Or was that an experience reserved for a living Tarrant, which even the great Hunter might not share? The thought of it made his head swim. And the very real fear that he would be swallowed up by those new sensations made him clench his hands into fists so tightly that his fingers throbbed with pain, as if by doing so he could somehow control the source of the alien sensations, and drive the Forest out of his soul.
They ate quickly, remounted, rode on. Into a night so endless, a land so twisted and degraded, that its oppressive power strangled even whispered conversations among them. They had no means of measuring their path or of even chosing their direction. Their compasses had ceased to work long ago, cursed by their own fears into a state of inaccuracy so pronounced that finally, with a sigh, Zefila ordered them put away for good. The path they followed was serpentine, and it seemed to Andrys that several times they crossed their own tracks as they rode along it. No one else seemed to notice it, or at least, no one mentioned it. Was it just a hallucination, conjured by his fear? Or was it a true vision, visible only to those who saw with the Hunter’s eyes?
The Forest was herding them, that much was clear, but to where? If their subterfuge worked, it should lead them to the black keep at the heart of the Forest. If not ... then they might wander these dark woods forever until hope and supplies both ran out. Wasn’t that how the Forest worked? Entrapping the men in a maze of wood and stone until they died, perhaps mere yards from a place where the sun was shining?
Don’t think about that, he thought, pulling at his collar with a feverish finger. You’ll go crazy.
After what seemed like an eternity on horseback, Zefila indicated that it was time to make camp for the day. When they came to an area that was clearer than most, they halted their horses and dismounted one after the other, as exhausted by the aura of futility that hung about their company as they were by the exertion of a long ride. Time to sleep, Andrys thought. Not a happy thought. God, he needed a drink. His throat was burning and his hands were shaking and he really didn’t know how he was going to make it through the next hour, much less continue on like this for another day without fortification. He almost turned to the Patriarch and begged for a swallow from the metal flask the Holy Father had confiscated back at the
beginning of their march. Almost. But in the end he lacked the courage to confront the man, or perhaps he was ashamed to admit to such weakness in front of him. Grimacing as he dismounted, he braced himself by remembering that there were times in the past when Samiel had locked up—or smashed—all the bottles of liquor in the keep, and he had made it through. Somehow.
Food was doled out: cold, uncomforting rations. He tried not to think about the predators circling the campsite just beyond the reach of their meager light, but his senses were more attuned to the Forest than before, and he could hear them treading warily about the camp, wanting only the right signal to attack. God willing, they’d keep their distance.
He stiffened suddenly. His nerves felt like someone had just screeched fingernails across a slate, right behind him.
Something was wrong.
He shook his head, wincing as a sharp bolt of pain shot through his temples. The animals had stopped their circling. The very night air seemed uncommonly still. He felt as if he were standing before a tidal wave, a vast bore of black water that was about to bear down on him.
“Mer Tarrant?” someone asked.
—And it struck him in his gut like a physical blow, so powerfully that he staggered backward, falling over a man who had been unpacking supplies behind him—falling over him and then still falling, down past the earth, down into the earth, falling into a chasm of darkness so absolute that there was no earth in all the universe, nothing to cling to, no one to scream to ... it was a hot darkness, so hot that he could taste his skin charring, he could hear his hair sizzling, he could smell his blood boiling to vapor—
He screamed. Or tried to. God only knew if the sound had reality; in his world it echoed and echoed until it filled the dark, hot space with sound, until it deafened him to hear his own cries, his own terrified keening—
“Tarrant ! What is it?”
He could feel a vast tremor run through the Forest then, a vibration that ripped loose ghost-white roots and sent the scavenger worms digging madly for cover. What was happening? Not an earthquake, but something infinitely more fearsome. He fought his way up from the darkness, struggling to focus on real things: the people around him, the horses stamping nervously on the ground, the sharp pain in his thigh where he had struck it against a rock in his fall. Focus. Think. Try to figure out what the hell is happening.
“Mer Tarrant?” a woman asked.
“I’m okay,” he whispered hoarsely. Hearing his own words as if they were that of a stranger. There was something wrong in the Forest, so terribly wrong that he sensed his very life depended on being able to define it, yet its definition slithered from his mental grasp. The soldiers were in danger now, he realized, far more danger than they had ever been in before, far more danger than any of them could anticipate—
“Oh, my God,” he whispered. Suddenly understanding. “No. Not that.”
“What?” It was Jensing, an older man with a wife and children to go back to. “What is it?”
Andrys looked for the Patriarch, found him. Their eyes met.
“We’re not safe any more,” he gasped. “You have to do something—”
“Why?” the Holy Father demanded. His tone was utterly cool, incredibly controlled. Couldn’t he sense the danger here?
“It broke,” he gasped. “His link with it. Gone.” He stared into those blue eyes, so maddeningly calm, and heard the terror rise in his own voice. “It isn’t his anymore. Don’t you understand what that means? I won’t be able to—”
White-furred shapes erupted from the forest’s edge. Sleek killers, lithe and powerful, with teeth that gleamed like pearls along their slathering jaws. They gave no warning, but burst from the stillness of the surrounding woods with a suddenness and a silence that seemed more demonic than bestial and they were upon the company so quickly that few could muster a defense. One man went down with a cry of anguish, sharp teeth ripping at his throat before he could manage to reach his sword. A woman screamed as two beasts bore down on her, their claws making short work of her face. Something pale and hungry leaped toward the group that was surrounding Andrys, and before anyone could react it had borne one woman down upon him, spattering him with blood as it tore through her throat mere inches from his face. There was screaming now—some battle cries, some howls of fear—and the mixed sound churned in Andrys’s brain as he struggled to kick the dead weight of the woman off his chest, praying that the creature would go with it. Then someone managed to take up a weapon and spear the beast, forcing a blade through its gut while Andrys struggled to get his own weapon loose. Even that didn’t stop the thing. He felt the teeth clamp shut around his leg as his sword slid free of his sheath and he kicked out wildly with his other foot, hoping to dislodge it before those powerful jaws slid around to the back of his steel greaves, or else crushed them utterly. Another sword hacked at the animal, blinding him with a spray of black, foul-smelling blood. He struggled to get away from the beast, and when at last he did he fought his way to his knees, and then to his feet. He was as ready to fight as he had ever been in his life, but he knew deep inside that even that wasn’t enough. Ten years of civilized fencing bouts in an upper-class salon had hardly prepared him for this.
There were dozens of them in the camp now, and they were carving their way through the Church’s troops with tooth and claw and sheer bestial savagery. Some of them were attacking the soldiers, but most of them were going for their mounts, as if they knew the saddled beasts to be unarmed. Amidst the rearing, squealing horses it was impossible to see how many animals there were, but the smell of blood was thick in the air and the few men who dared come near that battlefield were spattered in crimson.
As for the beasts who had chosen human prey ... with their strength, claws, and endurance they were five times as deadly as any equivalent human host would have been, and ten times more terrifying. Their powerful jaws cracked the shafts of the spears that were thrust through their flesh, and even the sharpened steel hooks of barbed spearheads that were left dangling from their flesh didn’t slow them down. Their misshapen paws grasped at weapons with almost human dexterity, and jerked them out of the soldiers’ hands with savage strength. They might have been devils for all that they acknowledged pain, and the worst of it all was that Andrys had no doubt that devils—true devils—would follow them. In one terrible instant the Forest had ceased to recognize him as its master, and now it was free to unleash all those horrors which it had been saving up since the moment they first violated its borders.
“Get together!” Zefila yelled, and somehow the order carried above the cacophony. Those men and women who were still standing began to fight their way toward each other, gathering together as herd beasts will do when surrounded by predators. Andrys struggled toward them, his own sword dripping a line of black blood along the ground, and relief washed over him as he got to the point where there was human flesh to put his back to, and sharp steel swords to protect his sides. Several of the soldiers had managed to take up their springbolts and now, with the protective efforts of their comrades buying them a precious second in which to aim, they launched their projectiles. Again and again, pausing only to reload from boxes at their feet, trusting to their brothers and sisters in battle to protect them as they did so. Bright quarrels bit into white fur, freeing blood as black as the night itself. A smell filled the clearing which was ten times more horrible than the rotting stink of the Forest, and Andrys felt bile rise up in the back of his throat with such re vulsive power that for a moment he feared he would be overcome by it. Several of the soldiers were, and their comrades struggled to protect them while they doubled over, giving vent to their fear and their revulsion in a hot, fierce flow.
I’m going to die here, Andrys thought as he gouged one of the creatures with his sword; the creature leaped back with such force that it took everything he had to yank the weapon loose before it was pulled from his grasp. Was that Narilka’s voice he heard, crying out his name in the midst of this madness? The delusion lent
him strength, and he dared move forward far enough to stab at the creature’s face. He didn’t hit it himself, but in its effort to avoid him it impaled itself on another’s spear. Good enough. We’re all going to die here.
But the tide of battle was turning. The beasts who had feasted on horse flesh had left, carrying chunks of their booty away in blood-soaked jaws; their fellows were slowly losing ground. As their numbers diminished the humans spread out, extending their protective circle to include their fallen comrades. So many were dead, so many wounded ... you couldn’t look at them, Andrys discovered, or you’d stop fighting. You didn’t dare think about what the battle had cost, or the sheer horror of it would paralyze you.
And then it was over. The last beast was dead, or dying, or fled into the night. Soldiers moved silently to slice each and every white-furred throat that remained, not wanting to be taken by surprise as they recovered the camp. Others moved quietly to where the fallen lay, and in a few comers of the battlefield soft weeping could be heard. That sound shook Andrys to his core. These were city folk, he realized, like himself, and for all their brave talk and macho posturing they had probably never seen more violence than a tavern brawl, or at best a temple riot. Nothing had prepared them for what they saw now. Nothing could.
Gerald Tarrant-you bastard!—you caused this! And so help me God, if I catch you, you’ll pay for it. With a trembling hand he wiped blood from his eyes, hoping it wasn’t his own. First by my hand, and then in Hell.
“You all right?”
It was Zefila. The blood smeared on her face was black, and it reeked of the beasts. He managed to nod and she turned away, evidently satisfied that he could take care of himself. Where had the Patriarch found a woman of such fortitude, he wondered? How had he known, when he interviewed hundreds for this quest, which ones would stand up to such horror?