The Bristling Wood Read online

  Something was wrong with the man. Even from his distance Maddyn could see it, because the fellow was riding doubled over in the saddle, and his horse was picking his own way, ambling slowly, pausing every now and then to snatch a tuft of grass from the side of the road before its rider would come to himself and get it back under control, only to slump again a few moments later. Maddyn’s first impulse was to ride on by a somewhat different route and not burden himself with anyone else’s troubles, but then he thought of Nevyn, risking his own life to heal and shelter an outlawed man. With a chirrup to his horse, he started off at a brisk trot. The rider ahead never heard him coming, or else he cared not a whit if he were followed, because he never turned nor even looked back the entire time that Maddyn was closing with him. Finally, when Maddyn was close enough to see that the entire back of the man’s shirt was thick with rusty-brown dried blood, the fellow paused his horse and sat slumped and weary, as if inviting Maddyn to have a clear strike at him and be done with it.

  “Here,” Maddyn said. “What’s wrong?”

  At that the rider did turn to look at him, and Maddyn swore aloud.

  “Aethan, by all the gods! What are you doing on the Gwaentaer road?”

  “And I could ask the same of you, Maddo.” His voice, normally deep and full of humor, was rasped with old pain. “Or have you come to fetch me to the Otherlands?”

  Maddyn stared for a moment, then remembered that everyone in Cantrae thought him dead.

  “Oh, I’m as much alive as you are. How were you wounded?”

  “I’m not. I’ve been flogged.”

  “Ah, horse dung and a pile of it! Can you ride any farther?”

  Aethan considered this for a long moment. He was normally a handsome man, with even features, dark hair just touched with gray at the temples, and wide blue eyes that always seemed to be laughing at some jest, but now his face was twisted in pain, and his eyes were narrow and grim, as if perhaps he’d never laugh again.

  “I need a rest,” he said at last. “Shall we sit awhile, or are you riding on and leaving me?”

  “What? Are you daft? Would I run out on a man I’ve known since I was a cub of fifteen?”

  “I don’t know anymore what men will do, and women neither.”

  In a nearby meadow they found a pleasant copse of willows planted round a farmer’s duck pond, with the farmer nowhere in sight. Maddyn dismounted, then helped Aethan down and watered the horses while his friend sat numbly in the shade. As he worked, he was wondering over it all. Aethan was the last man in the kingdom that Maddyn would have expected to get himself shamed, flogged, and turned out of his warband. A favorite of his captain, Aethan had been a second-in-command of Gwerbret Tibryn’s own warband. He was one of those genuinely decent men so valuable to any good warband—the conciliator, everyone’s friend, the man who settled all those petty disputes bound to arise when a lot of men are packed into a barracks together. The gwerbret himself had on occasion asked Aethan’s advice on small matters dealing with the warband, but now here he was, with his shame written on his back in blood.

  Once the horses were watered, Maddyn filled the waterskin with fresh drink and sat down next to Aethan, who took the skin from him with a twisted smile.

  “Outlawed we may be, but we still follow the rules of the troop, don’t we, Maddo? Horses first, then men.”

  “We need these mounts more than ever, with no lord to give us another.”

  Aethan nodded and drank deep, then handed the skin back.

  “Well, it gladdens my heart that you weren’t killed in Lord Devyr’s last charge. I take it you found a farm or suchlike to hide in all winter.”

  “Somewhat like that. I was dying, actually, from a wound I took, when a local herbman found me.”

  “Gods! You’ve always had the luck, haven’t you?”

  Maddyn merely shrugged and stoppered up the skin tight. For a moment they merely sat there in an uncomfortable silence and watched the fat gray ducks grubbing at the edge of the pond.

  “You hold your tongue cursed well for a bard,” Aethan said abruptly. “Aren’t you going to ask me about my shame?”

  “Say what you want and not a word more.”

  Aethan considered, staring out at the far flat horizon.

  “Ah, horseshit,” he said at last. “It’s a tale fit for a bard to know, in a way. Do you remember our gwerbret’s sister, the Lady Merodda?”

  “Oh, and how could any man with blood in his veins forget her?”

  “He’d best try.” Aethan’s voice turned hard and cold. “Her husband was killed in battle last summer, and so she came back to her brother in Dun Cantrae. And the captain made me her escort, to ride behind her whenever she went out.” He was quiet, his mouth working, for a good couple of minutes. “And she took a fancy to me. Ah, by the black ass of the Lord of Hell, I should have said her nay—I blasted well knew it, even then—but ye gods, Maddo, I’m only made of flesh and blood, not steel, and she knows how to get what she wants from a man. I swear to you, I never would have said a word to her if she hadn’t spoken to me first.”

  “I believe you. You’ve never been a fool.”

  “Not before this winter at least. I felt like I was ensorceled. I’ve never loved a woman that way before, and cursed if I ever will again. I wanted her to ride off with me. Like a misbegotten horseshit fool, I thought she loved me enough to do it. But oh, it didn’t suit her ladyship, not by half.” Again the long, pain-filled pause. “So she let it slip to her brother what had been happening between us, but oh, she was the innocent one, she was. And when His Grace took all the skin off my back three days ago, she was out in the ward to watch.”

  Aethan dropped his face into his hands and wept like a child. For a moment Maddyn sat there frozen; then he reached out a timid hand and laid it on Aethan’s shoulder until at last he fell silent and wiped his face roughly on his sleeve.

  “Maybe I shouldn’t be too hard on her.” Aethan’s voice was a flat, dead whisper. “She did keep her brother from killing me.” He stood up, and it was painful to watch him wince as he hauled himself to his feet. “I’ve rested enough. Let’s ride, Maddo. The farther I get from Cantrae, the happier I’ll be.”

  For four days Maddyn and Aethan rode west, asking cautious questions of the various farmers and peddlers that they met about the local lords and their warbands. Even though they sometimes heard of a man who might be desperate enough to take them in without asking questions, each time they decided that they were still too close to Cantrae to take the risk of petitioning him. They realized, however, that they would have to find some place soon, because all around them the noble-born were beginning to muster their men for the summer’s fighting. With troops moving along the roads they were in a dangerous position. Maddyn had no desire to escape being hanged for an outlaw only to end up on a rope as a supposed spy.

  Since Aethan’s back was far from healed, they rode slowly, stopping often to rest, either beside the road or in village taverns. They had, at least, no need to worry about coin; not only did Maddyn have Nevyn’s generous pouch, but Aethan’s old captain had managed to slip him money along with his gear when he’d been kicked out of Dun Cantrae. Apparently Maddyn wasn’t alone in thinking the gwerbret’s sentence harsh. During this slow progress west, Maddyn had plenty of time to watch and worry over his old friend. Since always before Aethan had watched over him—he was, after all, some ten years Maddyn’s elder—Maddyn was deeply troubled to realize that Aethan needed him the way a child needs his father. The gwerbret might have spared his life, but he’d broken him all the same, this man who’d served him faithfully for over twenty years, by half beating him to death like a rat caught in a stable.

  Always before Aethan had had an easy way with command, making decisions, giving orders, and all in a way that made his fellows glad to follow them. Now he did whatever Maddyn said without even a mild suggestion that they might do otherwise. Before, too, he’d been a talkative man, always ready with a tale or a jest
if he didn’t have serious news to pass along. Now he rode wrapped in a black hiraedd; at times he didn’t even answer when Maddyn asked him a direct question. For all that it ached Maddyn’s heart, he could think of nothing to do to better things. Often he wished that he could talk with Nevyn and get his advice, but Nevyn was far away, and he doubted if he’d ever see the old man again, no matter how much he wanted to.

  Eventually they reached the great river, the Camyn Yraen, an “iron road” even then, because all the rich ore from Cerrgonney came down it in barges, and the town of Gaddmyr, at that time only a large village with a wooden palisade around it for want of walls. Just inside the gate they found a tavern of sorts, basically the tavernman’s house, with half the round ground floor set off by a wickerwork partition to hold a couple of tables and some ale barrels in the curve of the wall. For a couple of coppers the man brought them a chunk of cheese and a loaf of bread to go with their ale, then left them strictly alone. Maddyn noticed that none of the villagers were bothering to come to the tavern with them in it, and he remarked as much to Aethan.

  “For all they know we’re a couple of bandits. Ah, by the hells, Maddo, we can’t go wandering the roads like this, or we might well end up robbing travelers, at that. What are we going to do?”

  “Cursed if I know. But I’ve been thinking a bit. There’s those free troops you hear about. Maybe we’d be better off joining one of them than worrying about an honorable place in a warband.”

  “What?” For a moment some of the old life came back to Aethan’s eyes. “Are you daft? Fight for coin, not honor? Ye gods, I’ve heard of some of those troops switching sides practically in the middle of a battle if someone offered them better pay. Mercenaries! They’re naught but a lot of dishonored scum!”

  Maddyn merely looked at him. With a long sigh Aethan rubbed his face with both hands.

  “And so are we. That’s what you mean, isn’t it, Maddo? Well, you’re right enough. All the gods know that the captain of a free troop won’t be in any position to sneer at the scars on my back.”

  “True spoken. And we’ll have to try to find one that’s fighting for Cerrmor or Eldidd, too. Neither of us can risk having some Cantrae man seeing us in camp.”

  “Ah, horseshit and a pile of it! Do you know what that means? What are we going to end up doing? Riding a charge against the gwerbret and all my old band someday?”

  Maddyn had never allowed himself to frame that thought before, that someday his life might depend on his killing a man who’d once been his ally and friend. Aethan picked up his dagger and stabbed it viciously into the table.

  “Here!” The tavernman came running. “No need to be breaking up the furniture, lads!”

  Aethan looked up so grimly that Maddyn caught his arm before he could take out his rage on this innocent villager. The tavernman stepped back, swallowing hard.

  “I’ll give you an extra copper to pay for the damage,” Maddyn said. “My friend’s in a black mood today.”

  “He can go about having it in some other place than mine.”

  “Well and good, then. We’ve finished your piss-poor excuse for ale, anyway.”

  They’d just reached the door when the tavernman hailed them again. Although Aethan ignored him and walked out, Maddyn paused as the taverner came scurrying over.

  “I know about one of them troops you and your friend was talking about.”

  Maddyn got out a couple of coppers and jingled them in his hand. The taverner gave him a gap-toothed, garlic-scented grin.

  “They wintered not far from here, they did. They rode in every now and then to buy food, and we was fair terrified at first, thinking they were going to steal whatever they wanted, but they paid good coin. I’ll say that for them, for all that they was an arrogant lot, strutting around like lords.”

  “Now that’s luck!”

  “Well, now, they might have moved on by now. Haven’t seen them in days, and here’s the blacksmith’s daughter with her belly swelling up, and even if they did come back, she wouldn’t even know which of the lads it was. The little slut, spreading her legs for any of them that asked her!”

  “Indeed? And where were they quartered?”

  “They wouldn’t be telling the likes of us that, but I’ll wager I can guess well enough. Just to the north of here, oh, about ten miles, I’d say, is a stretch of forest. It used to be the tieryn’s hunting preserve, but then, twenty-odd years ago it was now, the old tieryn and all his male kin got themselves killed off in a blood feud, and with the wars so bad and all, there was no one else to take the demesne. So the forest’s gotten all overgrown and thick, like, but I wager that the old tieryn’s hunting lodge still stands in there someplace.”

  Maddyn handed over the coppers and took out two more.

  “I don’t suppose some of the lads in the village know where this lodge is.” He held up the coins. “It seems likely that some of the young ones might have poked around in there, just out of curiosity, like.”

  “Not on your life, and I’m not saying that to get more coin out of you, neither. It’s a dangerous place, that stretch of trees. Haunted, they say, and full of evil spirits as well, most like, and then there’s the wild men.”

  “The what?”

  “Well, I suppose that by rights I shouldn’t call them wild, poor bastards, because all the gods can bear witness that I’d have done the same as them if I had to.” He leaned closer, all conspiratorial. “You don’t look like the sort of fellow who’ll be running to our lord with the news, but the folk who live in the forest are bondsmen. Or I should say, they was, a while back. Their lord got killed, and so they took themselves off to live free, and I can’t say as I’ll be blaming them for it, neither.”

  “Nor more can I. Your wild men are safe enough from me, but I take it they’re not above robbing a traveler if they can.”

  “I think they feels it’s owing to them, like, after all the hard work they put in.”

  Maddyn gave him the extra coppers anyway, then went out to join Aethan, who was standing by the road with the horses’ reins in hand.

  “Done gossiping, are you?”

  “Here, Aethan, the taverner had some news to give us, and it just might be worth following down. There might be a free troop up in the woods to the north of us.”

  Aethan stared down at the reins in his hand and rubbed them with weary fingers.

  “Ah, horseshit!” he said at last. “We might as well look them over, then.”

  When they left the village, they rode north, following the river. Although Aethan was well on the mend by then, his back still ached him, and they rested often. At their pace it was close to sunset when they reached the forest, looming dark and tangled on the far side of a wild meadowland. At its edge a massive marker stone still stood, doubtless proclaiming the trees the property of the long-dead clan that once had owned them.

  “I don’t want to be mucking around in there when it’s dark,” Aethan said.

  “You’re right enough. We’ll camp here. There’s plenty of water in the river.”

  While Aethan tended the horses, Maddyn went to gather firewood at the forest edge. A crowd of Wildfolk went with him, darting around or skipping beside him, a gaggle of green, warty gnomes, three enormous yellow creatures with swollen stomachs and red fangs, and his faithful blue sprite, perching on his shoulder and running tiny hands through his hair.

  “I’ll have to play us a song tonight. It’s been a while since I felt like music, but maybe our luck is turning.”

  Yet when it came time to play, Maddyn’s heart was still so troubled that he found it hard to settle down to one ballad or declamation. He got the harp in tune, then played scraps and bits of various songs or practiced runs and chordings. Aethan soon fell asleep, lying on his stomach with his head pillowed on folded arms, but the Wildfolk stayed to the last note, a vast crowd of them, stretching out beyond the pool of firelight across the meadow. Maddyn felt awed, as if he were playing in a king’s court, the great hall
crowded with retainers. When he stopped, he felt more than heard a ripple of eerie applause; then suddenly, they were gone. Maddyn shuddered profoundly, then put the harp away.

  After he banked the campfire, Maddyn paced a little ways into the meadow out of restlessness and nothing more. He could see the forest edge, looming dark not far from them, and even more, he could feel its presence, like an exhalation of wildness. He was sure that more than human fugitives lived there. It occurred to him that while the long wars were a tragedy for human beings, to the Wildfolk they were a blessing, giving them back land that men had once taken and tamed. As he stood there in the silent meadow, it seemed that he heard faint music, an echo of his own. Again he shuddered convulsively, then hurried back to his safe camp.

  On the morrow the blue sprite woke him just at dawn by the expedient method of pulling his hair so hard that it hurt like fire. When he swatted at her, she laughed soundlessly, exposing her needle-sharp teeth. Nearby Aethan was still sleeping, but restlessly, turning and stretching like a man who’ll wake any moment.

  “Listen carefully, little sweet one,” Maddyn said to the sprite. “Somewhere in that forest are a whole lot of men like me and Aethan, warriors with swords. They’ll have lots of horses, too, and they live in a stone house. Can you lead me there?”

  She thought for a long moment, then nodded her agreement and promptly disappeared. Maddyn decided that either she’d misunderstood or had simply forgotten, but as soon as they were ready to ride, she reappeared, dancing and leaping on the riverbank and pointing to the north.

  “I don’t suppose that misbegotten tavernman gave you any directions to this place,” Aethan said.

  “Well, he had a confused idea or two. I’ll try to lead us there, but don’t be surprised if it’s a bit roundabout.”

  It was a good thing that Maddyn had put in his warning, because the Wildfolk’s idea of leading someone left much to be desired. As soon as the men started riding north, two gray gnomes appeared to join the sprite, but they kept pinching either her or each other and distracting her both ways from her task. Once they were all well into the forest, the Wildfolk disappeared, leaving the men to follow a rough deer track for several miles. Just when Maddyn had given up on them, they flashed back into being, perching on his horse’s neck and saddle peak and pointing off to the west down a narrow and rough track indeed. Although Aethan grumbled (and a welcome sign of returning life it was), Maddyn insisted on following it, and every time the path branched, he faithfully went the way she pointed. By noon, Maddyn was hopelessly lost, with no choice but to follow where the Wildfolk led. Hopping from tree to tree, they grinned, giggled, and pointed in various directions, but Maddyn always followed the blue sprite, who threatened to bite the gray fellows whenever they contradicted her.