David Farland - The Golden Queen

The two strangers rushed ahead through the forest, and Orick sniffed at their trail in the early morning, forepaws digging into the thick humus while his hind paws kicked forward in a rolling gallop. Maggie struggled to keep up. Between the towering black trees, the forest was wreathed in mist, with the early morning smell of fog that has risen from the sea. Sometimes Orick would spot a juicy slug as he ran. He would dodge aside and grab it from the mossy ground, flicking it into his mouth with his tongue. Yet mostly as he ran, he dreamed, and not all of those dreams were his own: snippets of racial memories stirred in him, visions from the Time of Bears, glimpses of forests from ages past. As he ran among the silent woods, he remembered being a bear cub, tearing at a log for sweet-tasting grubs and termites. Winged termites fluttered above him in a shaft of sunlight, glittering like bits of amber or droplets of honey. Sunlight shone on the emerald leaves of a salmon berry bush. In the memory he felt a vague longing for his mother, as if she were lost, and he heard something large crashing through the forest before him. A trumpet sounded, and a great shaggy beast suddenly towered over him, curved tusks thrusting out impossibly long. It shook its head, and the tusks slashed through the air, casually scattering the flying termites. The cub turned and ran.

Orick relived tales told by his mother, tales so familiar that he could not separate them from his own memory: how she had loved the taste of squirrel meat until she discovered the squirrel’s midden and found that eating its cache of food was wiser than eating the squirrel. He listened to his mother describe tactics for catching salmon-how an old bear should slap the fish from the water with his massive paws while a smaller bear should use his teeth, stretching his head down under the water to gaze open-eyed into the stream. In Orick’s waking vision, he dreamed of bright silver fish slicing through the icy foam. He tasted the small scales in his mouth, the juicy salmon wriggling as it tried to swim free of his grasp.

So it was that as Orick ran through the forest, chasing the strangers, he felt as if he were running backward through time, to the heart of wonder. Surely this morning had already been magic. In solitary battle Orick had defeated a monster, and now he was galloping away from others of its kind, grunting under the weight of his store of winter fat, barreling into the primordial forest of his dreams, into the unknown.

Once, as he passed through a shadowed valley, Orick glimpsed a wight-the flickering green soulfire of someone long dead, a woman with long hair and a frown. She glanced at Orick, and then the wight gazed heavenward. She seemed to recognize that morning had come, and she sank into the hollow of a log.

Orick tracked the strangers’ scent. After two hours, the strangers had marched into a bog of briny water and were forced to veer up a mountain and intersect the north road to An Cochan. Orick and Maggie crept to the edge of the road, Orick padding on heavy feet, sniffing the sour mud of the strangers’ footprints.

He stopped. The morning sun had nearly cleared the hills now, shining on the road, and it seemed strange that the sun could be so warm and inviting on a day so filled with fear. Orick listened. Kiss-me-quick birds were jumping in the bushes, calling out for kisses.

Maggie was panting from the long run. Orick glanced at the road, inviting her to climb up.

She shook her head violently. “I think I heard something.”

Orick tasted the scent of the strangers, looked uphill. They had crossed the road shortly before, heading up under the old pines, into a patch of chest-deep ferns on a knoll. Orick saw the bole of a young house-pine up there, grown from a seed gone wild. Though the house had only open holes for doors and windows, it was the kind of place that made a good temporary shelter for travelers. Orick could not see the strangers, but their scent was strong. He suspected they were hiding inside, resting where they could watch the road.

On both sides of them, the road curved sharply into the deeper woods. The trees provided heavy cover. Orick started to climb, but suddenly heard the shuffling of heavy feet on the muddy road to the south. Both he and Maggie faded back, crawled into the shadow of a twisted pine. From under the heavy cover, Orick watched the road above.

Orick’s snout quivered in fear, but the scuffling footsteps had halted a hundred yards off, and everything became silent. Orick wondered if the monster had stopped to wait for passersby, or perhaps quietly slipped off into the woods, or if it had turned around and headed back toward Clere. For ten minutes, he and Maggie waited in silence, and Orick was just imagining that the danger had passed when Gallen O’Day came ambling up the road, heading toward Clere, whistling an old tavern song. Orick moved a bit so he could see Gallen clearly. Gallen looked worn, and his head was wrapped in a bandage. Orick wanted to call to him, warn him of the strangers in town, but at that very moment a deep voice shouted, “Stop, citizen!”

Gallen stopped and stood looking up the road, his mouth hanging open. An ogre hurried down the road to meet him. The ogre’s chest and lower extremities moved into view, and Orick got a close look at the thing. Its long arms-covered with bristly hair and strange, knobby growths-nearly reached the ground, and in one hand it held an enormous black rod, like a shepherd’s crook. Its fingers could not have been less than a foot long, and they ended in claws that were like nothing Orick had ever seen on a human or bear. The ogre wore a forest-green leine, belted at the middle, and wore enormous brown boots. As Orick watched, the ogre clenched its fists rhythmically, in and out, in and out, flexing those claws threateningly. For a moment, Orick though it would lash out, catch Gallen by the throat.

“Citizen,” the ogre growled in a heavy voice Orick could understand only by listening intently. “I am searching for a man and a woman, strangers to your land, thieves. Have you seen them?”

“Thieves?” Gallen hesitated. “Well now, sir, with the great fair just ending at Baille Sean, the road is heavy with strangers. I saw several pass by an hour ago. Yet I must admit that in all my days, I have never seen anyone stranger than yourself. Would you mind if I be asking: do these strangers present as much of a spectacle as you?”

“No,” the ogre answered softly, hunkering closer to Gallen. “The two I seek are more of your size, citizen. One man is a warrior, skilled in all arms, and he is a scholar. Yet if you saw the pair, your eye would catch only on the woman: she is of unequaled grace and beauty, and at first you would watch her distractedly, almost unaware of anything or anyone else. But the more you watched her movements, the more entrancing she would become. Her every step is like a dance, every soft word a song, and soon you would fall under her spell. If you stood in her presence for an hour, you would think you loved her. If you were with her for a day, you would become lost, and you would find yourself helplessly worshipping her forever-such is her power.”

Gallen’s mouth had fallen open again, and he stared at the ogre. Orick bent lower so that he could try to see the ogre’s face, but the trees were in the way. Orick was tempted to come out of hiding, if only to see this curious beast, but fear made him stay hidden. Finally, softly, Gallen asked, “What is this woman’s name?”

“Everynne,” the giant answered.

“I saw her,” Gallen said, “late last night, at the inn in Clere. She had dark hair, and a face so sweet and perfect that she seemed then to steal my heart.” Orick wanted to shout, dismayed that Gallen would betray the strangers, but Gallen went on. “And I saw her with her companion again this morning, only an hour ago. They stopped in An Cochan to buy fresh horses, and they hurried off north.”