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Horses' Move, 2


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#1 Guest_Ananke_*

Posted 11 May 2007 - 06:27 PM

(2)

9 Mirtul, evening, Adratha’s cottage, swamp near Trademeet
Cernd is quite nice. When we first met, he thought that…



“Aren’t here? What do you mean, druid, aren’t here?”

The druid shrugged phlegmatically. “The grass has grown back, and there are no fresh tracks on the ground. Like a herd of deer in search of a greener pasture, they, too, have moved on. We can continue onto the camp site, but we will find nothing there.”

“Do you mean,” Sarevok growled, “that you have led us all this way for nothing?”

Gently and inescapably, a pleasant Kara-Turan face appeared before Imoen’s eyes, superposed on the soft grass of the forest clearing where they were now all standing; and, because it did, the girl said, “But if they are gone, how could they have taken our horses?”

The druid put his left hand under his chin and considered. “Gragus must have taken them to the swamps,” he concluded reluctantly. “There is a henge there… Though I cannot see why. It is not the time for rituals.”

“The swamps?” Imoen asked.

“Yes. Not two hours’ walk from here, and not a place where city dwellers may possibly be at ease,” Cernd replied peacefully, eyeing meaningfully Imoen’s hair and Sarevok’s clothes. “The hunting grounds of trolls, ettercaps and spiders.”

“…and spiders,” Sarevok repeated. “Are you saying that you think we are unfit to deal with trolls? And spiders?”

Imoen shot him a telling look. “I think that you will find out that we can just manage. Trolls and spiders,” she said to the druid. “We… aren’t without fighting experience,” she added, trying to restrain herself from snickering.

Cernd looked them both all over again, this time more carefully; and this time, something—perhaps in the way Imoen had arranged her cloak so that it would not get in the way when she reached for her sword; or in the way Sarevok, while not stopping leering at him askew, at the same time did not cease to scan the edges of the clearing for signs of danger; or in the way the siblings had, almost unconsciously, spread out so that they would not get into each other’s way when the time for fighting came—must have told him to ignore the lack of calluses on their hands, and the fact that a barely three hours’ walk through the forest had been enough to strain their strength and Sarevok’s patience; and to decide that, possibly, he was not facing only two rich, foolish scions of a noble family lost in a storm during a hunting trip; and thus, in the end, to murmur softly to himself, “Well. We shall see if a peacock’s plumage hides anything but a vain interior.”

Raising his voice, he asked, “Have you ever dealt with trolls before?”

“Yes,” Sarevok replied just as Imoen answered, “No.”

There was another pair of exchanged looks, brown and gold; at the end of which, Sarevok said, “Druid. As amusing as letting this farce continue would be, it is high time it came to an end. We are both entirely capable of defending ourselves. We know that to deal with trolls, we need acid or fire—”

“—we do?” Imoen interjected, fascinated; and ran in her mind through the list of fire spells she remembered and could possibly use given such circumstance.

Sarevok ignored her comment and continued, “Both my sister and I are capable of a measure of sorcery; certainly enough to dispatch whatever comes our way. In short: do you intend to guide us to this mere, or are we to seek our own path?”

The druid looked from the one determined face to the other; and Imoen could follow his train of thoughts as easily as if she could read his mind. If he refused, he was thinking, these two would do precisely what the brother was threatening: blaze their own trail through the forest and the swamp in search of their stolen property. Perhaps they would find it; probably not—but, certainly, city dwellers that they were, they would care little for the disturbance of peace and balance their visit would bring to the grove.

It would be more gainful to bow before the storm than to fight it, he was thinking. Besides, the news of the thievery was, indeed, upsetting. Most upsetting.

“Let us move, then,” Cernd said, confirming Imoen’s all sad ruminations. “But follow me, and be mindful where you step. Mother Nature suffers no fools.”

“Good,” Sarevok commented as they headed back into the forest. “Neither do I.”

-----


Lunch was roasted swan in herbs; half-burnt and half-rare, but nonetheless sating; and it left everyone in a much better mood.

The bird had been killed by Imoen as they had been entering the swamps: a cool, dark place under a dense canopy of alders, an interminable labyrinth of land and still, unmoving water; and on the border between them, reeds and ferns and duckweed and giant mushrooms; and the overbearing smell of rotting and decay. A paradise for frogs and birds and insects; and also, for giant spiders and trolls.

They must have scared the swan off by their approach, because it emerged, suddenly and majestically, from the reeds by the side of the path, flying low and almost straight at them; almost without bothering to move its giant wings. Imoen had one final moment to admire its beauty before the string of her bow played; and the bird, dead, fell into the water, losing all its life and elegance in a single instant.

Next to her, Sarevok swore; and, clearly judging that his clothes were long beyond salvation, quickly took off his sword, boots and bag, unclasped his cloak and tore into the water and in between the reeds. A moment later, he emerged, wet, barefoot, and covered with duckweed; and carrying the bird in his arms. “A fine shot, sister,” he said admiringly; the arrow was embedded deep in the swan’s breast.

“It was a clear target,” Imoen replied, noncommittally.

“Your brother is right to praise you, though,” Cernd said suddenly, and they both looked at him, surprised; the druid moved so calmly and quietly; he had not spoken a word since the exchange on the clearing—and had such a way of blending in with the background, that they had both almost forgotten that he was still there. “You are a quick draw and have a good eye. May I see it?”

He approached Sarevok, and examined the bird. “The cob, not the pen,” he said thoughtfully to himself; seeing the incomprehension on both faces, he added, “The male, not the female.”

“And—?” Sarevok asked in a combination of irritation, curiosity and amusement. “What of it?”

Cernd shrugged lightly. “Death is a part of the great cycle. But it’s the beginning of Mirtul, and the eggs are not hatched yet. Their mother is necessary in the nest.”

“And later?” Imoen asked, with an odd sort of morbid, obstinate curiosity. “What will happen later? When they hatch?”

“The cygnets are raised by both parents together,” Cernd replied. “Perhaps they will survive with only their mother to protect them. Perhaps not. They fledge quickly,” he added upon seeing the girl’s suddenly dead face.

“I forgot,” Imoen said; and, though this was the exact truth, she knew how weak the excuse must sound to a stranger. “I thought that, well, it weighs twenty pounds at least, and we almost haven’t eaten breakfast—”

Cernd smiled at her; and, suddenly, she felt relieved, as if, after all, she had been pardoned for her crime; or, possibly, found innocent of some other crime she had not, after all, committed. “As I said, death is a part of the great cycle,” he said peacefully.

“I think that we may make a stop here, before we enter the swamp?” he added, looking at the siblings to gauge their opinion.

Imoen nodded; and her brother, suddenly amused, added, “Why not? I’ll pluck the bird, and you two find something to make the fire, and some herbs. Or berries. Or—something,” he said, giving up every last pretence of possessing the slightest shred of wildlife lore that did not pertain to killing, finding himself a relatively level spot of ground to sit down, and putting himself, still covered in duckweed and dripping with water, but meticulously and efficiently, to his chosen task.

-----


Kyland Lind and his people, they met somewhat further on, after they had eaten, Sarevok had dried and Imoen had learnt that Cernd lived in the grove, but had been gone to Tethyr to speak with the Grand Druid there before— and here, the man suddenly grew silent; and, after a moment, asked her to excuse him. He did not really want to talk about himself.

Imoen understood this feeling perfectly; and so, instead, asked Cernd if he had ever heard of a druid by the name of Jaheira; or, perhaps, her husband, Khalid.

The druid considered this question for a moment in silence; at the end of which, he said, “I heard it spoken of Jaheira. A very strong-opinionated woman and a fervent defender of nature’s cause, the people said… But I have never spoken to her, or seen her. Why do you ask?”

“It doesn’t matter, really,” Imoen said, dissatisfied. “I knew her, once, and I thought that maybe you heard of her.” She looked in passing at her brother; his face was, predictably, expressionless. “This reminds me. I have another question you may help me with… Do you know a place called the Windspear Hills?”

“The Windspear Hills? Of course I do,” the man replied, slightly surprised. “A twelve hours’ travel on foot from here, in the exact opposite direction from our starting point. Or an hour-and-a-half’s ride from Trademeet. Is it where you were going?”

“Not really,” Imoen replied. “But I think that it is, now,” she added as, this time, she felt Sarevok’s curious gaze upon her.

“There is something I need to do there, and I’ve taken my time doing it already,” she added for Cernd’s sake, feeling at the same time a need to explain herself and a reluctance to explain the minutiae of her quest.

She could see a glimmer of curiosity cross the man’s eyes, though he hid it well; nonetheless, he said only, “It’s a rough terrain, with bears, ankhegs and—” slight hesitation; so brief, Imoen was almost sure that she would have missed it altogether, once, “werewolves.”

“Werewolves?” Sarevok asked casually. He, too, must have heard the slightly too long pause.

“Yes,” Cernd replied. “Dangerous and, though they control their lycanthropy to some extent, not to be reasoned with. Those packs enjoy hunting humans. After your previous display,” he smiled at Imoen warily, “I’m forced to admit that, even though I haven’t seen you fight yet, I will not be overly astonished if I learn that you are—you both are,” he said, nodding courteously at Sarevok, “more than novice fighters. Even so, you really should not try going there alone by yourselves.”

Imoen decided to omit the small detail that she was planning to visit the hills alone; and instead, once again, resolutely changed the topic, “All right. I get it. Another question, then. These trolls. My brother may have dealt with them before, but I did not. What’s this about fire or acid?”

“Trolls regenerate, little sister,” Sarevok interjected. “Acid and fire cauterise the wound and prevent it from closing.”

“I wasn’t asking you,” Imoen snapped at him; and encountered a smug look in return. The man was having entirely too much fun playing the conscientious elder brother in front of the oblivious druid. For all we know, you are the younger of us, brother, she thought. Though he is a bit of an idiot. For one thing, doesn’t he realise that glowing eyes aren’t exactly… well, natural?

“But he’s right,” Cernd replied quietly, nonetheless managing to draw both siblings’ attention to himself. “As the lizard regenerates its torn tail, so does the troll regenerate its body—even torn limbs. Acid and fire stop this process. You wouldn’t have acid or fire arrows with you, by any chance?” he asked Imoen.

Imoen shook her head. “No.”

“Adratha will have some, though,” Cernd said, before explaining, with a small smile, “An old acquaintance. Part ranger, part medicine woman… She lives not far from here, and,” he added, this time clearly for Sarevok’s sake, “we won’t stray far from our path to the henge. We should stop by her cottage as we go; she is a vixen, and little escapes her. She may even know why Gragus led my people here.”

Imoen felt rather curious about this Adratha, who was a vixen, a ranger, a medicine woman and Cernd’s old acquaintance; but before they reached the cottage, they met Kyland Lind and his people, fighting trolls; and many things changed.

-----


The druids were four, all wielding flame blades at whose sight Imoen again, for the hundredth time that day, recalled just why exactly she was here, trekking through this swamp in the presence of an utter stranger; and, worse still, that of her brother.

The men and woman were all in a hollow part of the path, in water; and Imoen, who was at that time in the lead, saw them first as she reached the top of the hummock: four figures, clad in dark skins, set against a backdrop of verdure, fighting three hideous, dark-green creatures with blindingly red, fiery blades. It was the second sight of that day which would remain with her for a long, long time; even after all that she was yet to see and experience.

The men joined her—she smelled an odd, errant whiff of frankincense still clinging to Sarevok; and an equally odd mixture of fungi and herbs, nightshade and ergot and monkshood, their druid companion had told her he was using to cure an ailment of his—and together, they watched as the druids below them felled the first troll.

“Kyland Lind,” Cernd whispered, showing them the tall, muscular man in front. “A good friend,” he added in reply to Imoen’s questioning look, “but rash and impetuous like a young bull. He will not thank us if we lend them a hand.”

Imoen, not ceasing to watch the spectacle below, grinned. “He will have to live with it, I guess,” she said. “I’m not staying here until evening waiting for them to finish. Brother?”

“After you, sister,” Sarevok replied, with a smirk of his own. “We owe it to our guide, I believe. The left one first?”

Imoen looked at him, mildly curious about what he was planning; but, in the end, shrugged and put an arrow on the string of her bow. Not the head, she decided; better in the rib cage—

She released the arrow; another one, magical, emerald-green and toxic, followed almost immediately. They both, unerringly, reached their target; two other such twin arrows soon dealt with the other troll.

-----


His instincts were telling him that the moon was almost full and out already, even though it was barely past noon; grasshoppers sang their song in the grass; and, for a moment, Cernd thought that his eyes were mistaking him, and that a deer’s head had flashed in the thickets by the path.

They were city people, he was thinking; though the sister, at least, must have once spent some time out of doors. Her each step was softer than the next, as if she had been once taught to move through forests and was now remembering the way. The brother lacked even that elementary knowledge; although he had fought trolls before, and she had not. Or so he claimed.

Mercenaries, possibly, confined to city for some time. This would explain the money, the scars and the skills at the young age. Far from a comfortable idea; far from the type of people one wanted to lead to one’s home.

Leaning against his staff, he watched the two, the huntress and her brother with his pestilential arrows, killing their prey; and, for an instant, it was as though he were not seeing human beings, but a pair of young gods descended upon the mortal lands, radiant and laughing; and intransigent.

But the impression passed quickly; and all that remained was a young, rosy-haired woman and her doting, odd-eyed brother.

-----


The impression passed quickly; not in the least because, once the arrows reached their targets and the trolls fell, the attention of the druids turned to the three figures standing on top of the hummock; for then, Kyland Lind started to chant a spell; his three companions followed in kind; and Cernd’s face froze.

“No! What is he—?” their companion said, stunned; Imoen put another arrow to the string of her bow; and her brother started to cast another spell.

But this time, the arrow and the magic missiles ran at different targets, and neither of the two at Kyland Lind: the arrow at one of his male companions, and the missiles at the woman. Their casting was disrupted; Kyland Lind’s chant was not.

Imoen had already reached for another arrow, and Sarevok had already started another chant, when they heard a low-key buzzing in the thicket around them. The buzzing grew louder very quickly, and soon, insects started to emerge from the bushes: flies and mosquitoes and grasshoppers and dragonflies, all flying straight at the siblings. They swarmed around them, sitting on their clothes and skin; Imoen could feel them creeping between her hair, getting under her cloak, her armour, falling into her boots, biting her skin; trying to get into her eyes through the eyelids she had closed just in time. It was a terrifying, maddening feeling, being sit upon by this black, thick, living, moving, biting and buzzing crowd; blindly, she shot out the arrow she had already put on her bow, and then dropped the bow, and reached instead for the ring on her finger, managing to forget just in time that insects do not see as humans do, and that invisibility spells targeted at humans do not affect them; and that even if they did, the insects were already upon her.

And when, belatedly, she realised that, she panicked.

She reached to her eyes, trying to swipe away the small flies which insisted on getting into her eyes; for a moment, it worked, and she was granted a tear-blurred vision of her brother, covered with a black, living coat of his own: running, reaching the hollow, with his one hand swiping flies off his own eyes; then, in passing, skewering Kyland Lind on his blade; and then, tearing the sword from the body, and spinning around to defend himself from the she-druid’s staff.

She reached to her own sword, and started down the path; as she did, a faint chant reached from behind her through the insects’ buzzing; and she had just enough time to wonder why, in all that, she had again let herself forget about Cernd—before an asp flew right into her eyes, and she closed them, and stumbled on a stone; and fell.

-----


She came to the awareness that she was lying in a warm place, under a cloak; that sunrays were falling on her face; that she was thirsty; that her armour was off; that there were no insects on her; and that her whole body hurt.

In particular, her left arm was nothing but one, large chaos of dull, numb pain. Something—something beyond a simple cut or bruise—must have happened to it; it had been healed, later, but the aftershock still remained. It would fade soon, of course; but, for now, the arm hurt.

Having reached this intricate conclusion, she opened her eyes; and saw Cernd.

So, he still lived, she thought dozily. Between Sarevok and his own friends, he still lived. That took some skill.

The druid was sitting next to her, cross-legged and erect, submerged in his own thoughts; though soon, perhaps somehow aware that she had awoken, he slowly opened his eyes and looked at her.

“Hello there,” he said, smiling. “I was almost getting worried about you. Here. Water.” He put something which felt like a water skin to her lips.

Imoen started to drink. It was water; although there was in it also a faint taste of something bitter and herbal she could not quite identify.

“Your brother is alive,” Cernd said quietly. “You don’t have to worry about him. He’s off to wash himself, but he’s alive.”

Imoen grimaced, and stopped drinking; then, she slowly pulled herself to a sitting position. It turned out that she was again at the top of the hummock, in the almost exact place from which she had been shooting at the trolls.

“I think that I’m remembering why I didn’t like adventuring,” she said, just to change the topic. “That is, I like it, but these bits I could do without. What happened?”

Cernd moved away from her slightly to give her some personal space. “You fell,” he started to explain softly, “and your bag tangled with your cloak and caught your arm. It sprained—”

“—and probably crushed and broke, too, I get it,” Imoen replied, trying not to see the picture in too much detail. It was no wonder that the arm still hurt, then.

Then, remembering herself, she said, “Thank you. For healing me, I mean.”

Cernd shrugged phlegmatically. “It is no problem,” he said, and smiled.

“But I wasn’t asking only about this,” Imoen clarified. “The last thing I saw was Sarevok—”

She broke off suddenly. There were some people with whom discussing killing was easy. But, sometimes, she wished that this wasn’t a constant topic of her conversations even with strangers.

Cernd shifted a bit. “After my friends,” he started to talk in a voice as gentle as before; though now, much sadder, “attacked you, I didn’t know what to do. I did not recognise Kyland any more than he recognised me. The druids here really have always lived well with the outsiders—not symbiotically, perhaps, but in respect of the boundaries of each other’s territories. That’s why I—” He fell silent.

“It doesn’t matter,” he said at length. “What matters is that I was perhaps willing to let the matters between you two and Kyland run their own course, as the river does—until I saw you both, fighting fiercely like a pair of wolverines cornered by hunters. Then, I… grew ashamed. The pack is not always correct. So, I—” He fell silent again.

“He transformed,” an amused voice picked up the tale. Imoen looked in the direction from which the voice came: Sarevok was leaning against a tree on her other side, dressed now in dark animal skins. He must have taken them off Kyland Lind’s body, because there was a large hole in the middle of the leather tunic where the sword had passed through. “Our guide, sister, is a werewolf.”

Imoen looked at the man sitting by her. He was looking at her with his usual stoicism; but this time, she could feel faint traces of apprehension behind the mask of composure.

“You’re a werewolf,” she said. It was a bit hard to believe that this gentle, laid-back man could turn into a throat-ripping, bloodthirsty monster taller than Sarevok; but, she decided, she was not the best person to judge by appearances.

“Yes,” Cernd replied.

Imoen filed away the information, and said, “All right. What happened next?”

At this, Cernd’s mask fell; he frowned, blinked, and looked questioningly at Sarevok. Imoen followed with her own gaze; her brother shrugged and said, “I told you, druid.”

“You,” Imoen asked darkly, “told him that I would not run away from a werewolf?”

Her brother replied matter-of-factly, “He asked.”

Imoen turned to Cernd and asked, probing the matter as if she were prodding an aching tooth, “Whatever gave you the idea that I would run away from a werewolf when he did not?”

“You cannot pin a werewolf to the ground and demand that he prove that he can transform back into a human?” Cernd suggested quietly.

Imoen looked from the one male face, long, dark-haired, and serene, on her right, to the other, bald, golden-eyed, and amused, on her left; and, having thus checked the veracity of the absurd implication of this statement, and, in a small part of her mind, told herself that though Cernd was probably correct (and the ‘probably’ in it was a matter of concern in its own right), there were a great many other things she might do to a werewolf; and finally, decided that the entire matter was ridiculous, anyway—said, acerbically, “I’m surprised that you let him go as it was, brother.”

Sarevok shrugged again; lightly, and yet in a way which, somehow, left completely open the possibility that the matter may be reconsidered in the future; and said, “You were missing, sister. And we still need a guide.”

“Yes,” Cernd added, picking up a blade of grass and playing with it. “After matters of,” he smiled slightly, “pack allegiance were settled, we realised that you were still missing. I remembered that you had turned yourself invisible, and purged invisibility in the area. That’s how we found you. I cleaned the wound and reset and healed the arm, and your brother carried you here. That is all.”

The arm was no longer hurting, but Imoen’s pride smarted. She ordered it to shut up, and tried to concentrate on the more important matters; such as, for example, the fact that the nice, gentle man who had just healed her had killed his friends fighting for her. The chaos we sow in their lives, she thought mirthlessly.

She knew perfectly that whatever had caused the druids to behave like this preceded Sarevok’s and her arrival in the swamp; but a small part of her mind couldn’t help thinking that, perhaps, if—

“I’m sorry for your friend. Friends,” she said; and, for the second time that day, felt inadequate.

Cernd smiled sadly, and shook his head. “This is a wound which, I’m afraid, may heal only with the change of seasons… But I would know what poisoned my friend’s mind so that, like only a human and a crazed animal does, he would kill without reason.”

Imoen smiled back at him, and said, “Then you’re still with us. You’re not a lone wolf,” she added, more quietly; and saw the smile on the druid’s face turn the slightest bit into a grin.

“Yes, he is, sister,” her brother replied; all too loud for the moment—from under the tree. “We’ll first go meet this Adratha; and then, if we manage to reach them today, his people. If not, we’ll stay overnight in the cottage.”

“You do know that you should spare the arm today?” Cernd half-asked, half-suggested; and Imoen, after giving the matter some thought, decided that, indeed, she did; and that some spell-casting practice would be a welcome change.

“I think that I’m ready to go,” she said; and then, reconsidered and said, “As soon as I wash off the rest of these flies and put on my armour, that is.”




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