Rick Cook - Wizard’s Bane

But this was the only human he had seen today and this one was well away from the normal haunts of man. The raven was not intelligent, but he had been well schooled. With a hoarse caw he abandoned the search to his fellows and broke away to the south to report.

The forest deepened after Wiz and Moira passed over the river. They left the road around the first bend past the bridge and toiled up a winding game trail that ran to the top of a steep ridge. By the time they reached the top even Moira was breathing heavily. She motioned Wiz to rest and the pair sank down thankfully under the trees.

Through a gap Wiz could look ahead. The valley was a mass of green treetops. Beyond the valley lay another green ridge and beyond that another ridge and then another fading off into the blue distance. There was no sign of habitation or any hint of animal life. Only endless, limitless forest.

This was no second-growth woodland or a carefully managed preserve. The oaks and beeches around them had never been logged. The big ones had stood for centuries, accumulating mosses and lichen on their hoary trunks, growing close and thrusting high to form a thick canopy overhead. Here and there was an open patch where one of those forest giants had succumbed to age, rot or lightning and the successors crowding in had not yet filled the place. There were snags and fallen limbs everywhere, green with moss and spotted with bright clumps of fungus.

This is the forest primeval, Wiz thought and shivered slightly. He had never thought that trees could make him nervous, but these huge moss-grown boles pressed in on him from all sides, their leaves shutting off the sun and casting everything into a greenish gloom. The breeze soughing through the treetops sounded as if the forest was muttering to itself or passing the news of invading strangers, like jungle drums.

"I see why they call it the Wild Wood," he said.

"This is not the Wild Wood," Moira told him. "We are still only on the Fringe of the Wild Wood."

"Does anyone live here?"

"None we would care to meet. Oh, a few cottagers and a small stead or two. But most who live on this side of the Blackstone have reason to shun their fellows. Or be shunned by them. We will best avoid company of any kind until we reach our destination."

"Where are we going anyway?" Wiz sidled closer to her.

"To a place of refuge. You need not know more. Now come. We have far to go."

It was late afternoon when they came over the second ridge and descended into another valley. Although the forest was as dense as ever, there was a water meadow through the center of this valley. The broad expanse of grass was a welcome sight to Wiz, oppressed as he was by the constant trees. Here and there trees hardly more than shrubs luxuriated in the warmth and openness. Also interspersed were small ponds and marshy patches marked by cattails, reeds and sweet blue iris.

They halted at the edge of the open and Moira surveyed the cloud-flecked sky uneasily.

"Nothing," she sighed. "Now listen, Sparrow. We cannot go around because there are bogs above and below. We must cross and do it quickly, lest we be seen. Once we start we must not stop." She looked him over critically. "We will rest now."

Moira knelt, scanning the meadow and the sky above it while Wiz caught his breath.

"Moira?"

"What?" She did not stop searching the meadow.

"We’re being chased, right?"

"That is why we are running."

"Well then, can I ask a dumb question?"

"Of course," the hedge witch said in a tone that indicated he had been doing nothing else.

"Why are we being chased? What did we do?"

" We did nothing. It is you they want, Sparrow, and they want you because Patrius Summoned you at the cost of his own life."

"Yeah, but why?"

"We do not know that, Sparrow."

"Do they know?"

"I doubt it."

Wiz shifted slightly. "Well, if you don’t know and they don’t know then why the bloody—heck—are they chasing us?"

"They hope to learn from you what Patrius’s aim was."

"But I don’t know either!"

Moira snorted. "I doubt they will take your unconstrained word for that, Sparrow."

"Look, I don’t want any part of this, okay? Can’t we talk to them? Isn’t there some way I can prove I don’t know anything and then they can leave me alone."

"Sparrow, listen to me," Moira turned to him. "The Dark League of the South is not interested in your innocence or guilt. The fact that Patrius Summoned you is enough to make them want you. Probably they want to squeeze you for the knowledge we both know you do not possess. Possibly they simply want you dead or worse."

Moira laid her hand on his. "But either way, Sparrow," she said gravely, "if you are given a choice between the worst death you can imagine and falling alive into the hands of the League, do everything in your power to die."

Wiz dropped his eyes from her intense stare. "I get the picture."

"Good." She turned back to the clearing and checked the ground and sky again. "Then make ready. We will not try to run because the ground is boggy, but walk quickly!"

Moira rose and moved into the clearing with Wiz on her heels. The thigh-high grass whisked against their legs as they walked and the soil squished beneath their feet. Unlike the forest, the meadow was rich with life. Insects buzzed and chirped, frogs croaked or plonked into puddles as they went by. Dragonflies flitted by and once a yellow-and-black butterfly circled their heads.

In spite of the sunshine and wildlife, Wiz wasn’t cheered. Except for an occasional bush, the travellers were the tallest things in the meadow. He felt like a large and very conspicuous bug on a very flat rock, and the further they got from the suddenly friendly line of trees, the more nervous he became.

Moira was feeling it too. She pushed ahead faster, her head turning constantly. She dared not use active magic, but she listened as hard as she could for any sign of others’ magic.

Suddenly Moira dropped in her tracks. She went down so quickly that Wiz thought she had tripped.

"Get down!" she hissed and Wiz sprawled in the wet dirt beside her.

"What?" Wiz whispered.

"Something in the air of to our left. No, don’t look! The flash of your face might betray us." After a second she bobbed her head up for a quick look.

"Fortuna!" she breathed. "It is searching the area. All right, see that tree ahead of us?" She nodded towards a big bush a few yards up the trail. "When I give the signal, crawl to it. Understand?" Again her head bobbed up. "Now!"

On hands and knees they crawled for what seemed to Wiz to be an eternity. He dared not raise his head, so all he saw was a narrow strip of wet black earth and green grass stems on each side. By the time he pulled up under the bush he was panting, and not entirely from exertion.

They dragged themselves back far under the overhanging branches, heedless of the mud or the tiny crawling things in the litter of dead leaves. As soon as they were settled, Moira pulled her cloak off her pack and threw it over them, turning two people into one lumpy brown mass and leaving just a narrow crack to see out.

Even as frightened as he was, Wiz was exhilarated by Moira’s closeness. Her warmth and the sweet, clean odor of her was wonderful and the danger added spice.

"What is it?" he whispered.

"Shhh."

Then a shadow passed over them and Wiz saw what they were hiding from.

The dragon glided noiselessly above the trail they had just left. Its hundred-foot batwings were stiff and unmoving as it let the warm air rising from the meadow bear it up. Its long flat tail twitched slightly as it steered its chosen course. The four legs with their great ripping talons were pressed close to its body and its sinuous neck was fully extended. It came so low and so close that Wiz could see the row of white fangs in its slightly open mouth.