Douglas Niles - Prophet of Moonshae

A hundred Ffolk or more, raggedly dressed and unarmed, scattered from the path of Gwyeth's column as he led them into the vale. The knight dismounted as they drew near the pool, and he made a point of ignoring the rabble that had ceased its flight at a respectful distance.

"There, lord. That's the one we dropped," explained Backar, indicating a great cedar trunk stretched along the ground. "You see the stump, right th-"

The man's voice trailed off in shock. Gwyeth, too, stared in disbelief. The tree, he could see, had obviously been felled recently. Its needles were still green, and moist pine sap gummed on the exposed end.

Yet the stump could not be seen. Where it should have been, another great cedar grew into the sky, nearly equalling the others in its lofty height.

"I swear, Sir Gwyeth!" Backar was nearly blubbering in confusion and chagrin. "There! Where that tree grows! Two days ago we left it a ragged stump!"

"Never mind!" snapped the knight, angrily scowling at the assembled peasants. "It's no more than I would have expected from this bespooked place. It makes it more important than ever to have done with the curse!"

Pryat Wentfeld had also dismounted. Quietly he performed another casting with the pinch of flour, the same he had used to examine the hallucinatory forest. This time the white powder flew away from him, dusting into the crowd of pilgrims to settle across the garments of one man-a man, the cleric noted, who seemed remarkably young and, though thin, possessed of a wiry strength that belied his appearance when compared to the ragged lot around him.

"There!" hissed the priest, pointing at the marked man, who had begun to sidle away. " That is your druid!"

"Seize him!" cried Gwyeth, who would have chased the varlet himself, except that his heavy plate mail practically immobilized him. "Bring him to me!"

The thin bearded man identified by the cleric turned and sprinted away, but a dozen men-at-arms, led by Backar, quickly overhauled and tackled him. They dragged him back to Gwyeth as they bound his hands behind his back.

"So you're the charlatan who pretends to practice the arts of druidhood!" the knight said, sneering. The man remained silent. Looking more closely, Gwyeth saw a hard determination in the druid's green eyes. His insolence annoyed the knight, who cuffed the prisoner across the face.

"The goddess shall prevail," hissed the druid, spitting out a broken tooth. "It's too late for you to stop her!"

"Silence, knave!" Gwyeth slapped him again before he could speak more of his treasonous drivel. The knight saw that already some of the more superstitious men looked at the prisoner with expressions of wonder, even awe. He knew he had to put a stop to this, and he drew his dagger, ready to slit the man's throat without further ceremony.

"My lord," said the cleric, anticipating his act. "Perhaps the deed would be better done with formality-an example lest anyone else presume to impersonate a member of that forgotten order."

"What do you suggest?" Clenching his dagger, Gwyeth held his blow long enough to listen.

"You say you shall burn the brush after you fell the trees. Why not affix yon charlatan to a stake in the midst of that fire? Such a death would be only suitable for this murderer, and the spectacle would also make a far better tale than to hear of him slain by your dagger while bound before you."

The image of the druid burning at the stake flamed in Gwyeth's imagination. The cleric was right.

"Very well. Detail six men to guard him," he told Backar. "Bind his feet and gag his mouth as well. He shall die by fire before this day is out."

Quickly he instructed fifty of his men to scatter the crowd of pilgrims who had sullenly watched this proceeding. The men-at-arms went about their task with relish, using clubs and the flats of their swords. The last of the ragged onlookers soon fled for the safety of the high rocks around the vale, where they looked down with unconcealed dismay.

The rest of Gwyeth's men hefted axes even before the pilgrims had been driven away. They started toward the grove of cedars, and soon the ringing of twoscore axemen sounded a cadence of death in the valley of the Moonwell.

Orange flames crackled upward from the weatherbeaten barn. The pyre marked the destruction of a season's precious straw and grain and the livestock that would have survived on the fodder. The farmer and his family had been butchered in the yard as the five pitiful figures had tried to defend their home from twenty-five mounted, armored knights.

"Valiant but stupid," Larth announced as his own black charger reared back, kicking anxiously at the flames. With the remark, the brigand dismissed the lives and deaths and all the hopes and aspirations of his victims. It was a mental tactic he had begun to use with increasing frequency as his reign of terror swept along the coast of Gnarhelm.

The thickset knight preferred not to remember the details of faces and forms that marked the bodies in his wake. By all measures except the nagging voice of his conscience, the mission had been exceptionally successful. He had lost only five of his riders, and the survivors had claimed enough treasure to make them all rich men.

The losses had come during a skirmish with hundreds of northern axemen, led by the King of Olafstaad. The armored knights, all mounted, fought the northmen on a grassy moor, and the horses had inflicted horrible losses on the footmen.

Larth's charger reared back suddenly, and the knight gaped in astonishment at the man who had abruptly materialized there.

"You!" he gulped, steadying his prancing mount.

"You have served me well," said the hooded priest. "Now I bring further instructions."

"I remain yours to command," Larth pledged as cold terror gripped his gut.

"You must ride with all haste into the Fairheight Mountains, to the Moonwell near Cantrev Blackstone."

"Why?" the knight had the audacity to ask.

"This entire island will explode in chaos if we can but maintain the pressure. Talos and his faithful will be richly rewarded! But there is a threat to his might found in this Moonwell. I need you there. My auguries show me that there is where the issue will be decided!"

"We ride with all haste," promised the warrior as his men gathered silently around them. The burning farm hissed as rain fell into the flames, but the dried wood crackled and burned as hot as ever.

"See that you make no delay," the cleric commanded. "I need you there in two days." As quickly as he had appeared, the robed figure vanished.

Larth and his warriors disappeared as well, swallowed by the dark, wet night as they rode away from the fire.

Danrak watched the preparations of Gwyeth's men in mute despair. His arms ached, bent as they were around the stake driven into the ground behind him. The dirty gag nearly choked him, but the cleric had ordered his eyes unmasked, doubtlessly so that the helpless druid could observe the destruction being wrought on the valley of the Moonwell.

Eight men stood near Danrak with swords drawn. They were taut as bowstrings, as if they expected him at any moment to turn into a viper and slither away. Now he was as helpless as any prisoner could be. He watched as cedar after towering cedar slowly gave way to the axes, each seeming to shriek in protest as it toppled in doomed majesty, then slammed into the ground with earthshaking force.

Other men hacked with their swords-they had neglected to bring sickles-at the berry bushes and the roses and other flowers that had blossomed throughout the vale. The brush they piled around Danrak, and the druid felt a bitter irony as the fragrance of the aromatic buds wafted around him, marking the impotence of his last moments on earth.

After a few hours of work, the once beautiful place already resembled a wasteland. The men cleared the near shore of the well first, and then slowly began to work their way around the pond. They reached the halfway point on either side, and the circle of destruction slowly started to close.