M. Mathias - Through the Wildwood

Trevin grunted and gave a nod that he’d heard, then overcame his fear and sucked a mouthful of the thick-looking poison from her arm.

Vanx looked at Gallarael before he charged off, and regretted doing so. Her eyes were rolled up in her head, and she was hanging limply in Trevin’s grasp. Her cheeks were cherry red, and rivulets of sweat ran freely down her face as if water were being trickled over her head. The bitten arm was already swollen to twice its normal size. She had very little time left.

Vanx stepped away from them and called on his Zythian goddess for aid. It wasn’t so much the fact that he needed Gallarael’s testimony to clear his name as it was the fact that he’d grown to like her fiery personality, and the fierce loyalty she had for her common-born lover, that caused him to do so. Besides that, the girl was only in this situation because her mother had sent her to help him.

It was no small thing to call on the Goddess. She had smiled upon the Zythian race so much during their creation that to ask her for more bordered on blasphemy. This wasn’t a request for himself, though. Vanx didn’t hesitate to voice his need in the prayer he mumbled as he stalked away into the deeper Wildwood.

His goddess must have heard him, for he’d only made it twenty paces before he stumbled and fell into a patch of mushrooms growing at the base of an ancient oak tree which had somehow managed to keep the tangle of the rest of the forest at bay. Grutta spore. Vanx’s realization came with a snap of surprise. He gathered up a few of the reddish-purple caps and got to his feet. Looking around, he realized that the elder oak wasn’t part of the Wildwood at all. He was standing in a hazy patch of forested glade that was open, lush, and free of undergrowth. After a moment, he shook off the wonder he was feeling and tried to focus his mind on the task at hand.

“Palin root,” he said, thinking of Gallarael and her horrible dilemma. He started pacing around the edge of the glade looking for the five-tined leaf of the palin plant and its tiny white flowerings. As he did this, the instructive words of Master Karzin came to him:

“Boil two parts palin root to one part of grutta spore in a small pot of water.” Even in memory, the old Zythian’s singsong voice was roughened by his vast age. “Once the concoction cools, the one affected should drink the resulting tea until it’s gone. While the affected is doing this, brew another dose for them to sip while the initial mixture works at the toxins in the body. This potion will only work on the most common of bites and stings. More complex poisons require more complex remedies.”

Vanx hoped this would work. He hoped that he could find some of the elusive palin root that he needed to make the stuff. He wasn’t sure that the potion would even work on a human. At the moment, though, none of that mattered. He had to find the palin plant and dig up its root before he could even find his way back to the Wildwood and brew the tea to test it.

Vanx searched everywhere in the glade, but never let the old oak from his sight. He’d heard of Zythians getting lost during happenings such as this one. Gallarael didn’t have time for that. He was just about to panic when a pair of blood-red butterflies fluttered in his face. After a moment it became obvious that they were trying to lead him. Vanx didn’t hesitate to follow.

Trevin was sucking only blood from her wrist now. His mouth felt hot and raw from all the venom he’d extracted. He was starting to feel feverish himself, but he didn’t care. Gallarael’s color was getting closer to normal again, but her skin was still hot to the touch. For a while she’d glowed cherry.

Trevin would die for her, he knew. He loved Gallarael that much. That is why he didn’t even pause to acknowledge the fact that Captain Moyle was hacking his way into the area. Trevin spat a wad of cottony saliva from his mouth and bent down to suck more fluid from her wrist. Vanx’s haulkatten let out a rumbling growl, but Trevin didn’t look up.

“What are you doing to her?” Captain Moyle asked harshly as he yanked his bow from the saddle and nocked an arrow.

“Where’s the escaped slave?”

Trevin spat the contents from his mouth. A trickle of blood ran down his stubbled chin. He tried to focus on the captain, but felt himself getting dizzy.

“You!” Trevin accused, pointing above and beside the captain. “You led us into a trap. It’s your-it’s your fault.” The last words came out in a drunken slur.

Captain Moyle took a single step and booted Trevin away from Gallarael. “I asked you where the slave was, man. Answer me! That’s an order!” The captain’s eyes skittered around nervously. From his knees, Trevin fumbled around at the ground for his sword but only managed to stumble.

“You’re not my captain,” he managed as darkness swirled around the edges of his foggy mind. “You-you’re a murderer.”

“Ah, lad, I had hoped you’d see it differently.” Moyle drew back the arrow he had ready and aimed it at Trevin’s chest. “Now I’ve no choice but to kill you too,” he said as he let the razor-tipped shaft fly.

Just then, Vanx stepped into view, seemingly out of nowhere. Captain Moyle was so shocked by the slave’s appearance that his arrow went high and caught Trevin in the shoulder instead of the heart. Trevin’s pain-filled yelp drew Vanx’s attention to the situation just as the captain brought another arrow up to bear.

“If you kill me, Gallarael dies,” Vanx said calmly. “She’s been poisoned and I have the makings of a remedy. You’ll not be able to return to Highlake without her.” Vanx snarled smugly at the man before him. “The duchess will have you quartered, and your head piked on ogre row.”

The captain licked his lips and glanced at Gallarael’s arm and sweat-slick skin. “What does an adulterous songsmith know about healing a poisoned girl? I think you’re lying.”

“She’s running out of time, fool,” Vanx sighed. “The duke didn’t want you to kill his daughter. He wanted you to kill me.” Searching his mind for an idea, or a plan of action that might actually work, Vanx drew a blank.

“Let me heal her and the boy,” said Vanx. “After that you can do what you want with me.”

Trevin moaned and struggled to sit up. He yanked at the shaft protruding from his shoulder and yelped out as the pain hit.

“Do what you must for Gallarael, slave,” Moyle snapped. “But Trevin Lispan will die with you when it’s done.”

“I’ll do as you say, captain.” Vanx went to his haulkatten to get a pot for the herbs he’d gathered, and the tinderbox to start a fire. He wasn’t sure why he couldn’t hold his tongue as he continued. He regretted each word even as he spoke it. “Gallarael and Trevin are lovers, and she already knows of your treachery. She will have your head faster than her mother will for all of this.” Vanx forced a chuckle. “If Duke Martin doesn’t remove it himself for botching his plan.”

“I guess that means I have to kill the lot of you and make it look like the trolls did the bloody work.”

By the icy sound of the captain’s voice, and the way the man so calmly sighted Vanx’s heart down the length of his arrow shaft, Vanx had no doubt that he was about to die.

The arrow flew and all Vanx could do was throw his arms up to block it. The herbs he was carrying went everywhere. There was a loud “ping!” then a sharp pain bit into his chest over his heart. At the same time the deep, rumbling growl of Amden Gore’s haulkat came from the forest not too far away. If Captain Moyle had others with him, Vanx knew that Gallarael and Trevin were done. Then he wondered why he wasn’t already dead. He fell to his knees and looked down to see Captain Moyle’s arrow sticking through the cooking pot he’d been carrying. Its tip was buried in his chest, but mostly visible. There was pain, then the relieved shock of somehow cheating death. Still, the emotion that consumed him was panic. How could he brew Gallarael’s remedy in a pot with a hole in its bottom?