Barrington Bayley - The Forest of Peldain

He surveyed his force as the troop leaders organized the new formation, superintended by their squadron commanders. The brash shouting of the beach landing was gone, and had been replaced by a determination that was almost sullen. Orders were given in low tones, and the subdued air of the expedition, the quiet grunts and murmurs as the wagons were jockeyed into position, the clinking of weapons and armor in an oppressive near-silence was ominous.

Vorduthe understood the new mood. The seaborne warriors were accustomed to fighting men like themselves. It affected their morale to take such heavy losses without meeting an enemy they could identify as an enemy. If they had faced the ravages of wild beasts now, they would have remained of good cheer, but against plants and trees….

Octrago, too, was watching the work with a critical eye. “Don’t let them spread out too much!” he warned. “Our survival depends on our numbers—we must punch our way through the forest like a fist. Any who become separated won’t stand much chance.”

Vorduthe nodded. “Especially if they wander off the route, I suppose?” He glanced at the Peldainian. Several times he had pressed him for a map of the special route that was supposed to make passage through the forest possible. But Octrago insisted on keeping it in his head.

Perhaps the secret was simple, Vorduthe thought: keep to the high ground. But if that was all there was to it, why was Octrago so reticent?

He could think of one good reason: Octrago himself wanted to survive. And the Hundred-Islanders would take special care to protect the life of someone whose guidance they believed was indispensable….

The mass of men and wagons began to move, surging around the tree trunks like an incoming tide washing around rocks but giving them a wide berth whenever they could. Vorduthe noticed that Octrago hung back and fiddled nervously with the hilt of his sword. It occurred to him that the Peldainian wanted to be in the middle of the press so as to take advantage of the strategy he himself had outlined. The idea was that a relatively safe area could be created in the interior of the column, able to deal with threats by force of numbers, by fire—by whatever means lay at hand. To this end, the troop leaders on the periphery had orders to keep the formation compact.

Yet Octrago claimed to have come by this route with only fifty men, Vorduthe reminded himself. In that case, a party as large as this ought to be able to overcome the hazards fairly easily.

After a short distance springy moss gave way to tangled herbage standing calf-high. Vorduthe felt something tug at his ankle. He stumbled, then felt an excruciating pain as though his foot were being severed. In one swift motion he unclasped his sword and struck down through coarse grass and leaf. Something wriggled and attempted to pull him off balance.

“Don’t fall!” Octrago shouted in warning. “We are in a patch of the damned stuff! Use your sword and stay on your feet!”

Vorduthe pulled his foot free. From it there dangled a length of trip-root, woody and fibrous and harmless-looking now that it was separated from the parent plant. It creaked as he pried it with difficulty from his ankle.

That it was far from harmless could be seen from what was happening all around. A wagon lurched, the men in charge of it stuck to the ground as if they had blundered into quicksand, their faces grimacing with pain and fear. Elsewhere, too, men were stumbling and struggling, slashing at the grass with their weapons. And some fell, the trip-root quickly fastening itself on legs, arms and necks like the stranglevine to which it was closely related.

Octrago himself was caught. With deft strokes of his blade he freed himself, then loped to the stalled wagon, taking long, tiptoeing leaps. He began scything at the grass, rescuing as many as he could of the haulers.

For some it was too late. A warrior leaned against the nearside wagon wheel, one leg lifted to stare at the red-dripping stump where his foot had been.

The Peldainian did not hesitate. His sword-point went straight to the wounded warrior’s heart, sliding between the ribs of his armor. Octrago turned away without even waiting to see the body fall.

“On! Forward! You are too slow! Proceed like this—”

Bending slightly, he swished at the grass before him, scything a path. Where trip-root was revealed he chopped through it, cutting the woody musculature.

“You need your wits about you in this forest,” he said disapprovingly when he caught up with Vorduthe. “Your men should be more spirited, my lord.”

Vorduthe did not answer. They were leaving the field of trip-root; the ground was reverting to moss with only clumps of coarse grass and strange flowers with crude, blotched colors. He forced himself to turn around and look back to the bodies that lay scattered about, abandoned to be cut to pieces by the inexorable root network and slowly to add their blood, flesh and bone to this ghastly jungle.

He lingered until the last of the troops into which the force was divided had moved onto mossy ground. For the next half hour they traveled without incident. The ground continued to rise; rocky outcrops appeared. The trees, whether straight-trunked or gnarled and twisted into fantastic shapes as many were, became fewer.

But after a while their path began to slope downward, gradually at first, then more steeply. The eerie twilight cast by the overhang grew deeper. Octrago appeared to hesitate several times, casting his gaze here and there before resuming the march with dogged steps.

Vorduthe caught up with him. “Is something wrong?”

“No, we are on course.”

“Yet we are descending. Isn’t that dangerous?”

“The terrain is uneven,” Octrago responded grumpily. “We can hardly climb all the time. You must trust me, my lord.”

“So I must,” Vorduthe muttered, and fell back to where he could keep watch on his juggernaut of an army as it wended its way down the hillside. The forest was growing thicker, with less space between both the tall trees that supported the overhead canopy and the variegated species, mostly shorter, that displayed such strange shapes and foliage. Vorduthe spotted mangrab trees, lance trees, and the striped trees that Octrago had warned were cage tigers. So far none appeared to be of the active lethal kind, or if they were they were staying dormant.

The wagons were also carefully steered round the clumps of bush, bramble and other plants for which there were no ready names. Then an indistinct tangle loomed up ahead. It was as if the tree trunks rose from a foggy sea of twig and fern which barred the way in all directions.

Octrago halted, staring at the massed vegetation.

“Well?” Vorduthe asked. “Do we turn aside?”

“Not unless you want to go down into the vales, and you know all about that. It’s only a thicket. Call the wagons together. We’ll push them forward in a solid wall to trample it down, and walk behind.”

“Tell me what dangers lie in this thicket,” Vorduthe asked. “You had to come through it on your way to the coast, presumably. How did you manage it?”

“We hacked our way through,” Octrago said after a pause. “It held no special dangers on that occasion—but now, who knows? The forest is unpredictable.”

With that answer Vorduthe had to be content. Following the Peldainian’s suggestion, he had about half the wagons formed into a wedge, while his small and already-battered army clustered behind. The remaining wagons he kept in place along the flanks, as before.

The wedge crashed through the thicket with a crackle and a swish. For some time this, plus the creak of wheels, the clink of armor and tramp of feet, were the only noises to be heard. The air thickened and dimmed; overhead seemed to be an aerial jungle which cut off the light, and through which the wagons were carving a rough tunnel.