Harry Turtledove - Tale of the Fox

"I don't know." Gerin didn't hear the imperials, either. As Van said, he should have. Nor could he hear his own men, not any more. All he heard now was his own breathing, that of Dagref and Van, and the horses' panting and the jingle of their harness. "Turn back," he told his son. "Swing the chariot around and go back toward Ikos."

"I will, Father," Dagref said, "but only if you're sure you want me to."

"Go on," Gerin said. Shaking his head a little, Dagref flicked the reins and clucked to the horses. He was obviously reluctant. So were the animals. They rolled their eyes and snorted and flicked their ears. But they obeyed Dagref, and he obeyed Gerin. The chariot turned on the path, which was barely wide enough to let it do so, and rolled back toward the east.

It did not roll far. No sooner had it rounded the first turn in the road than there was no more road. Trees and bushed blocked the way, looking as if they'd been growing there for the past hundred years. Dagref stared. "How could we have come up this path if there's no path to come up?"

Before Gerin could answer, Van said, "The trees in this wood aren't to be trusted, and that's a fact. They move around some kind of way-I've seen it before. Never like this, though. Never like this."

"He's right," the Fox said. "I've never seen it like this, either, though, because…" His voice trailed off. Something was watching him from the cover of the bushes. He couldn't tell what-or who-it was. He couldn't even make out its eyes, as he could sometimes spot those of the strange creatures that dwelt inside this haunted wood. But he knew it was there.

Something passed from it to him-and to Dagref and Van. It wasn't a message in words. Had it been, though, it would have required only two: go away . Dagref swung the chariot back toward the west. Now the horses seemed glad to run. They scurried away from that new-risen barrier. Gerin blamed them not in the least.

Softly, Van said, "I wonder what's going on behind those trees. I wonder what's going on other places in the forest. Something quiet, but not something, I'd guess, that's making the imperials very happy."

"I'd say you're likely right," Gerin agreed. "No matter how slippery Swerilas the Slippery is, I think he's just run into something he's not going to be able to slip out of again."

"I wish I knew what was happening to the imperials," Dagref said.

He had every bit of Gerin's relentless itch to know. He had only a small part of his father's years to temper that itch. Still, Gerin found the right question to ask: "Do you want to know badly enough to step off the road?"

Dagref thought that over, then shook his head. He didn't spend much time thinking, either.

Gerin wondered what would happen if, quite suddenly, the road ahead closed off as the road behind had done. Whatever it was, he didn't think he would be able to do much about it. He hoped it would be quick.

But then he heard the rattle and squeak of chariots in front of him. Without his saying a word, Dagref urged the horses up to a quicker trot. They soon caught up with the cars at the rear of his force. The men in those chariots exclaimed to Gerin and his companions. "Lord king!" one of them said. "We didn't think you'd be coming this way again when you stopped there."

"Well, here I am," the Fox answered, determinedly making his voice sound as normal as he could. "Now, are you glad or sorry?"

"Oh, glad, lord king!" the trooper said, and others echoed him. "How far behind are the imperials, would you say?"

Dagref and Van both looked at Gerin. He, in turn, looked for the best reply he could give. "Farther than you'd think," he said at last, and then, liking the sound of the words, repeated them: "Aye, farther than you'd ever think."

The warriors took the literal meaning and missed his tone. "That's good," one of them said. "Maybe the bastards'll take a wrong turning and get lost in these stinking woods."

"Maybe they will," Gerin said, again with irony his men did not catch. When he spoke again, though, he was not being ironic at all: "I only hope we don't get lost in them ourselves."

"Don't see how we could," a trooper said. "It's just the one road, and it looks like it runs straight on through. Doesn't get much simpler than that." Gerin didn't say anything. He and Van and Dagref looked at one another again. Then that trooper spoke once more, in puzzled tones: "I wonder what happened to the rest of the imperials, the ones who went down those other paths."

"So do I," Gerin said solemnly. "So do I."

He was relieved when the trooper turned out to be right: the road stayed straight, and the men of the northlands emerged from the wood into bright afternoon sunshine. Rihwin, who had been one of the first men out, was forming them into a line of battle to resist the imperials. "If we hit them hard," he was shouting when Gerin came out of the wood, "we'll have the effective advantage of numbers, for most of them will still be back under the trees."

"Are you going to tell him, Father?" Dagref asked softly.

Gerin shook his head. "I don't know for a fact, not yet," he said. "The event will tell better than I could, anyhow."

Ferdulf came flitting over. "Do you know that I had to ride in a chariot like an ordinary mortal all the way through those ugly woods?" he demanded. "Well? Do you?"

"You seem to have survived," Gerin answered dryly. Ferdulf glared, then floated off in a snit.

The army waited, and waited, and waited. At last, as the sun began to set, the troopers made camp. No imperials came out of the wood, then or ever.

When morning came, the Fox rode into the forest again. He had no trouble traversing it. It seemed as normal as it ever did, perhaps even a little closer to normal than he'd ever known it before. Or perhaps the strangeness that dwelt within was sated for a time.

Presently, Van said, "We're farther in now than we were yesterday when we turned around and the track was gone, aren't we?"

"Aye, I think so," Gerin answered, and Dagref nodded. After a moment, the Fox added, "It's still here now. Or rather, it's here again now. Anyhow, it's as if the thing never went away, isn't it?"

"Isn't it, though?" Van fixed Gerin with an accusing stare. "You knew this was going to happen, didn't you?"

"This?" Gerin shook his head. "I had no idea this would happen. I did hope something would happen if the imperials came into this forest, and I was lucky enough to be right."

"Not, if the imperials came into this forest ," Dagref said. "The proper phrase is, if the imperials came into this wood ."

"What in the five hells difference does it make?" Van said. "The forest-the wood. So what? You're not a bard, to complain the one doesn't scan and the other does." He paused. Dagref looked very smug but didn't say anything, rare restraint for a lad his age. Gerin didn't say anything, either. That extended silence warned Van he was missing something. Though not quite so quick as either Gerin or Dagref, he was nobody's fool. After a moment, he snapped his fingers. "The oracle!"

Dagref grinned. Gerin just nodded. "Aye, the oracle," he said.

Van slapped him on the back, almost hard enough to pitch him out of the chariot. "You sneaky son of a whore," he said in admiring tones. "You sneaky son of a whore. When the Sibyl talked about `bronze and wood, I thought sure she meant swords and spears and arrowheads on the one hand and chariots on the other. Who wouldn't have thought that?"

"It's what I thought first, too, and I'm not ashamed to admit as much," Gerin said. "And we kept fighting the imperials, and they kept kicking us in the teeth. It's not surprising, when you get down to it-they had twice as many men as we did, near enough."