The Forest of Peldain Read online

  “Thank you, sire.”

  “Then I expect to see you in a day or two.”

  Vorduthe bowed to King Krassos as the monarch turned casually away, flipping his cloak of woven purple grass over his shoulder, and sauntering through an arched exit from the audience room.

  The king’s palace was a graceful structure of gleaming white limestone, decorated with large, brightly colored clam-squirt shells, and with thin sheets of a smooth iridescent material resembling mother-of-pearl, a costly material taken from the internal lining of trench-mouths, sluggish beasts inhabiting the shallows surrounding the Hundred Islands. On leaving, Lord Vorduthe first made his way along the docks of Arcaiss, where ships were forever arriving and departing, so that the dazzling blue ocean looked like a board game on which rested slowly moving pieces in carved and painted wood. Despite the exhilarating sea breeze, the warmth and freshness of the day, and the stirring noise and color of the wharves, he knew he was greeting the prospect of adventure in a strange land with the wrong feelings. In his heart, he agreed with Mendayo Korbar.

  To one side of the bay, the land rose steeply. Slowly, Vorduthe mounted the sweep of steps that brought him to his house, overlooking both the harbor and the shore barracks of the seaborne warriors he commanded. He pushed through the gate-screen of long, cool palm leaves, crossed the scented garden, and entered the airy interior of the flat-roofed dwelling.

  “Is the Lady Vorduthe awake?” he asked of the servant girl who appeared to receive him.

  Briefly the girl bent her head. “Yes, master. She is listening to music.”

  He could hear the strains of a ketyr coming from his wife’s room at the end of the corridor. He removed his sword-harness from his shoulder and placed it in its niche in the wall, before padding down the passage.

  Quietly, he opened the door and entered. The ketyr player was bent over his instrument, plucking and caressing the strings with rapt concentration on his no longer young face. The simple waist-cinched robe he wore was crisply white and obviously donned anew no more than an hour or two ago. Musicians visited the Lady Kirekenawe Vorduthe nearly every day. It was one pleasure still left to her.

  Kirekenawe moved her face toward her husband in dreamy greeting, but did not take her attention from the music. On the other side of her bed one of the two female companions who nursed and tended her day and night sat silent and unmoving. Vorduthe moved to a cane seat, and waited.

  The ketyr sang, skirled, meditated plangently. At length the player paused for long moments, as if he had finished; then he broke into a furiously fast and rhythmic dance theme, which slowed first to a lilt, and then to a languorous plodding sound. Finally, with two evenly spaced, deliberate-sounding notes, he ended.

  Kirekenawe sighed, closing her eyes, and then opened them to look directly at Vorduthe. “You are home early.”

  “Yes,” he said gravely. “I have something to tell you.”

  Kirekenawe but glanced at her nurse, then at the musician. They rose, bowed, and left.

  Vorduthe picked up the cane chair and moved closer to his wife’s bed. The form showing through the white sheet was that of a young and beautiful woman, but in respect it was deceptive. Young and beautiful it certainly was, but motionless and inert.

  “The king sent for me today,” he began when he was seated once more. “I have to go away.” Concisely he told her what had taken place: of the arrival of Askon Octrago and his tale of what lay within the Forest of Peldain, and of Krassos’ orders.

  “If all goes well I shall not be gone long,” he told her. “The king has promised to recall me as soon as the conquest is complete.”

  “You must stay as long as is needful,” she said calmly. “A man like you should not spend all his time at home.”

  “Yes, but … I do not like to be away from you.”

  He avoided her eyes and gazed through the gauze of his wide window, through which the garden was blurrily visible. How often had he looked at her, and seen the thought in her mind: I should die, and then he would be free. But how can I die? No one will do it for me.

  It was four years now since their happiness had ended. Once it had been her delight to run, to swim, to make love with vigor and abandon. Now she could not even feed herself, and her own wastes had to be carried away by another.

  There had seemed hope when it had first happened. They had gone sea fishing together in an outrigger boat, something they did frequently. He had thought he knew the waters well, but a sandbank must have shifted—a bank that hid a barb-squid, buried beneath the sand and waiting for prey. When the outrigger struck, its tentacles had come lashing forth to seize and sting, spray and wet sand flying everywhere. Vorduthe had fought the squid, hacking its tentacles and forcing it to withdraw, but the spine of a barb, thick and green and hard as wood, was left in Kirekenawe’s neck. He had pulled it out with his own hands and sailed as quickly as he could back to Arcaiss, knowing there was a chance the physicians there could wash the poison out of her blood in time. And so they had. Days later her fever ended, and she awoke calm and collected—but paralyzed. He had believed it was but a temporary effect of the poison, until, days later still, the physicians told him the truth. The barb had severed nerves in her spine. She would never be able to move anything below the level of her neck again.

  She was made as comfortable as was possible. But no amount of love could erase the frustration he knew she felt, or her sadness at knowing his sadness.

  Chapter Three

  Vorduthe ignored the heat that struck through the thick bark of his sandals as he waded through the glowing ashes. All the expedition’s equipment was coming on to the beach-head amid a cacophony of shouting and a groaning of timber, carried in narrow, broad-wheeled wagons designed to file through the thickness of the forest.

  The task completed, the noise lessened. The ramps were withdrawn, dragging through the water. There came a call from the fleet captain: the ships pulled away, sent into reverse by the plying of oars until they lay in deep water where they would wait a day or two and then, if all went well, sail for the Hundred Islands. They would return in half a year’s time.

  And on this smoking beach were eighteen hundred men, a more than sufficient force, Octrago claimed—even allowing for the quite heavy casualties they would inevitably suffer in passing through the forest—to conquer the interior. In the wagons were supplies, building materials, but, most of all, fuel for the fire engines, the weapons on which they mainly depended to get them through.

  Everyone was staring at the charred fringe of the forest: at the burnt boles, the criss-cross tangle of stems, the singed but still green canopy that seemed to tremble and reach out.…

  Octrago was probing at the ash with the sword, frowning. Suddenly there came a cry from not far away. A serpent harrier (the formal rank of the ordinary seaborne warrior) was trying to lift his foot from the ground. He grimaced with pain.

  Darting to him, Octrago slashed downward with his sword, slicing through ash. Suddenly released, the serpent harrier hopped away. Some kind of root was wrapped around his ankle.

  “Trip-root,” Octrago explained briefly as Vorduthe came close. “I thought there would still be some about. It would have amputated his foot, in the space of about a minute.”

  He looked up at Vorduthe, his straw-colored hair shining through the metal strips of his helmet. “Are we ready to move, Commander?”

  Vorduthe nodded. “Pick the spot.”

  By his own account, Octrago had passed this way before. He smiled faintly as he inspected the edge of the forest, then pointed. “There is a suitable point for entry. Send a firewagon first, as planned.”

  On the cindery shore, amid the rubble of tree stumps, the expedition was forming itself into a column. Vorduthe had appointed three squadron commanders to officer his force: Mendayo Korbar, Kirileo Orthane, and Beass Axthall. Under them, two score of troop leaders were busy putting the men in order. Between the wagons, each hauled and shoved by up to thirty warriors, the
troops were to march two abreast—a formation made necessary by the denseness of the forest perimeter. Octrago had declared that a deft use of fire would see them through this outer, particularly hazardous fringe. About half a mile in, the forest would become less close-packed, and the procession could re-form itself into something less vulnerable.

  Men at fore and aft shafts trundled a firewagon into forward position, the muzzle of its fire spout poking and waving at the forest like an admonishing finger. A serpent harrier squatted over its fuel tank. In one hand he clutched the swivel lever. The other held the string of the matchcord. His face was grim with anticipation.

  Ahead of the wagon two testers walked, carrying poles to prod the ground for fallpits. Vorduthe issued the order to proceed, then took his place behind the leading firewagon, Askon Octrago by his side.

  The wagon eased itself into the narrow gap between two blackened boles. The shadow of the overreaching branches fell on them.

  And then the world he had always known, the world of sapphire sky and dazzling white cloud, of sparkling azure sea and wine-like air, was gone. The forest floor knew only a kind of green twilight, enlivened occasionally by sudden flashes of sunlight that darted through the shifting canopy overhead. Underfoot, the ground was moss-like. As for the trees, they were close-packed and Vorduthe could not for the moment discern any unusual features about them.

  By his side, Octrago spoke in a murmur. “In the forest is a large variety of trees and plants,” he said, repeating what Vorduthe had heard from him in Arelia while they had planned the expedition. “Remember that only about one in twenty is lethal, but that it is impossible to tell which is which. That is what makes the forest so deadly, so treacherous. A harmless cage tiger looks exactly the same as a predatory cage tiger.”

  Ahead, the wagon twisted and turned to pass between the tree trunks, which were of smooth, straight bark. While speaking Octrago continued to glance to left, to right, and up, sword still in hand as if he expected to be set upon at any moment by invisible assailants.

  Suddenly he pointed up ahead with his sword. “Stranglevine! Call a halt.”

  Vorduthe bellowed. The wagon creaked to a stop, and he called forward men with cutters.

  The vine, a straggly net, hung from a line of trees a short distance ahead. It could be no more than inert liana, but as Octrago had said there was no way to tell by looking. The cutters edged forward, extending their long poles on the ends of which were blades that worked scissor-fashion. The blades sliced and cut, dropping lengths of vine to the ground. Finally the way was clear; the procession pressed forward.

  Octrago picked up a length of vine, flexed it and shook it. “No reaction,” he said. “It would turn like a snake if it were killer vine.”

  Vorduthe looked back over the line that was still entering the forest from the clean sunlight outside, twisting and turning as it wended between the tree trunks. He glimpsed the feathered helmet of his squadron commander Mendayo Korbar, who had been so bitterly opposed to trusting Octrago. They were roughly three minutes into the forest and so far its supposedly deadly ferocity had not shown itself. Could it be that the dangers had been exaggerated?

  As the thought entered his mind there came a dull thwack and something shot out of a thicket: a pointed bamboo-like shaft which speared down from the crown of a tree. It transfixed a warrior through the chest.

  What followed was almost obscene. The other end of the shaft was still anchored to the tree that had launched it. Having made its strike, it began to elevate itself, like a phallus becoming erect, lifting the warrior into the air.

  The serpent harrier squirmed and clutched at the shaft. Then he gave one last spasm and hung limp and motionless, thirty feet off the ground.

  “Cut him down!” someone demanded in an angry growl.

  “No!” Octrago warned. “We must keep going—it is dangerous to linger.” He turned to Vorduthe. “This was agreed. The dead must be left where they fall.”

  “Fall is hardly the word,” Vorduthe responded glumly. “But I suppose you are right.”

  He signaled. Reluctantly, the men left their dead comrade. The column resumed its slow march.

  Then the surrounding forest seemed to erupt. It was as if an army of spearmen ambushed the procession. From both sides the bamboo lances lunged down, some failing to find a target, but many ripping through armor and flesh.

  The thought came to Vorduthe that his men were like fish in water being speared by stalking hunters. “We are in a spear thicket!” he heard Octrago saying. “Use fire!”

  There was no need for Vorduthe to give the order. As the ranks of living spears rose, lifting aloft wriggling bodies by the dozen, the firewagons were already being brought into play. Flame gushed to left and right. Fretworks of fire ran along twig and stem, consuming leaves and flowers. Sap exploded, trunks became pillars of flame.

  Acrid smoke obscured the scene. When it cleared, the attack was over. The trees, however, still blazed, crackled and popped. Vorduthe looked aghast at the grotesque honor guard made by the upraised spears and their gruesome burdens. He must have lost fifty men.

  “We must move quickly,” Octrago gasped, coughing in the smoke and heat. “The forest is aroused. We have to reach more open ground.”

  “You directed us this way,” Vorduthe accused. “Could you find no better path?”

  Octrago did not answer, but in his heart Vorduthe had not expected him to. He turned away as archers aimed at their comrades still squirming on the bamboo shafts. That was another rule he had been forced to adopt: they could not carry any seriously injured.

  The column started up again, but had walked only yards when a scream came from Vorduthe’s rear, accompanied by a gurgling noise.

  He dashed back along the line. The ground had opened beneath the feet of a serpent harrier, tumbling him into a pit whose tapering sides were lined with root-like substance. A nauseating, acrid stench floated up from the hole. The serpent harrier, still screaming, was floundering eight foot down in a bath of acid which came nearly to his neck.

  As Vorduthe watched, broad green-brown leaves uncurled from the rim of the pit. In seconds they had made a surface not easily distinguishable from the ordinary forest floor, and the dying warrior’s shrieks were muffled.

  As Vorduthe tested this lid with his sword and found it of the consistency of wood, Octrago pushed his way toward him. “It’s a fallpit,” he said glumly. “Our fire engines can’t deal with those, I’m afraid.”

  A warrior’s face reddened within the ribwork of withe and metal strip that protected it. “But we walked over that spot ourselves!” he protested angrily. “The wagon went over it too!”

  “A fallpit’s lid is solid most of the time,” Octrago said distantly. “It might allow one man, ten men, even a hundred men to step on it before its muscle relaxes. Beneath, the plant consists of a deep hollow root partly filled with digestive acid. Apart from the lid, nothing of it grows above ground.”

  He gestured. “Come. Move quickly.”

  Shortly all the expedition was in the forest, and Vorduthe hoped soon to be out of the dense fringe.

  But the next ten minutes were terrifying. As Octrago had intimated, the forest seemed to have alerted itself to their presence. Every half minute or so spears came thwacking into the procession three or four at a time. The two serpent harriers placed in the van to probe the ground both disappeared into the same fallpit, which had resisted their rods like solid earth until it was actually stepped upon. Trip root caught many by the ankles, but this was the least of the dangers since a sword could sever it.

  From above, there began to rain on the column brambletangles, as Octrago called them—loose clumps of thorny stems which detached themselves from the treetops. If a thorn or a serrated edge touched skin, death followed in seconds from fast-acting poison. The troops, whose bodies were mostly protected against accidental contact, soon learned to ward off the slow-falling masses with the flat of their swords.

  Octr
ago seemed to grow more nervous and advised the almost constant use of the forward fire wagon, so that they marched through a sort of charred, smoking tunnel seared into the deadly jungle. While this made it possible to progress in relative safety, Vorduthe wondered how long his stock of fuel would last at this rate. At length, however, the spaces between the trees began to enlarge, the green gloom to lighten to a viridescent twilight that was almost pleasant. The column filled into a large glade, where Vorduthe paused gratefully. At least one of Octrago’s promises had been fulfilled, he told himself.

  “Will the going now be easier?” he asked him.

  Octrago’s reply was a wry quirk of his mouth, and to point to a tall line of bush that barred their path and was almost artificial in its regularity. No end to it was visible, either to left or to right.

  “Yonder is a terror-hedge. We must burn our way through it.”

  “We cannot burn our way through the whole of the forest. Might there be a way around?”

  A short, explosive laugh escaped Octrago’s lips. “Perhaps, if you care to walk a hundred leevers down into the vales. The terror-hedges criss-cross the forest like a maze. The route we are taking encounters only a few of them.”

  “Then how thick are these hedges?”

  “A few yards, usually. But don’t think to hack our way through. The terror-hedge is not named for nothing. If interfered with it writhes and surges like a mad thing so that no one could ever evade its touch. Its thorns do not kill. Instead their poison instills uncontrollable fear into a man, so that he loses his mind and destroys himself.”

  “Very well.” Vorduthe stepped forward and spoke to the fire engine operator, who told him his tank was running low. He summoned a fuel wagon and watched while the viscous liquid was transferred through a waxed fiber pipe.

  The column was spreading out as it filled the spacious glade. From now on they would be able to move in a more compact mass, less vulnerable to the forest’s vegetable attacks.