The cruasder road, p.21
The Cruasder Road, page 21
The undead ogre spread its arms. "I am come as a warning. At Silvershade Lake there is a village. Not like this one, but a new one, of wooden walls and wooden homes. Not like this one. Small. So small the goblins decided they would take it. And because it was not a town like this one, and because goblins are not as we are, I went to take what I could. I am an ogre. All is mine to take."
Creelisk let the ogre's hands drop limp to his side. "The humans of Silverlake are not like the humans of this town. They took all that I was. They cut me and stabbed me and killed me. Fearing what you would do if you learned of what they did, they sank me in the lake they now claim as their own."
A very large ogre strode around from Creelisk's blind side. "We chased you away long ago. You are dead, Grakka. How are you here now?"
"It is the magic of the wood. They hurt the wood. If we do not stop them, they will destroy the wood. They will destroy us."
"You are a trick of the wood."
"I am a gift to you from the wood. Know this. It was one of their people who came to Mosswater and slew two ogres. Here. In Mosswater, back under the new moon."
The ogres exchanged glances and whispered comments.
Creelisk's inquisitor pounded a fist into the ground. "A trick would know that. The wood knows."
"And gives you this knowledge as a gift. The wood's first gift. But the wood does not ask you to believe me. Send goblins as spies. The Bonedancers must know." Creelisk brought the ogrekin down to one knee. "And you should know this: in two months, on a night of the full moon, they shall feast. Their guard will be down. You can end the threat to Mosswater in a night of blood and killing."
"The family shall speak on this."
"You will destroy them. You must. The wood demands it."
"The wood should do it."
"Through you, it will." The ogrekin rose again and threw its arms wide. "And the wood gives you me for strength."
To guarantee my plan will come to fruition.
Creelisk sent the ogrekin lurching toward the others. He'd heard legends of cannibalism among ogres, and had made his plans accordingly. He headed straight for his inquisitor, fists raised in an overhand blow. He commanded the fists to fall, starting the fight that would end in a flesh-rending frenzy and feasting.
He moved to pull his consciousness free—
And failed. He pulled again, but the ogre flesh held him.
He was trapped.
His target slouched sideways, letting the blow glance off a shoulder, then shoved the ogrekin to the side. Other ogres sprang in, grabbing his arms and yanking him forward. More hands grabbed his ankles. Their powerful grips crushed bone. His shoulders ached as they twisted his arms around. Those holding his legs began to pull them apart. He tried to fight, but a femur popped free of the pelvis. Then the leg came off.
The large ogre filled his vision. Firmly grasping a handful of hair, he tugged the ogrekin's head up. Creelisk looked into the ogre's eyes, seeking sympathy or compassion, but saw only fury and hunger. The ogre reached out, grabbed the dead ogrekin's head in both hands. He twisted it left and right. Vertebrae cracked, then the ogre tore his head clean off.
Creelisk screamed.
"Father, what is it?" Ranall appeared at his bedside, shaking him by the shoulders. "What's wrong? You were thrashing in bed."
"It was nothing." The baron shook his head, glad to find it still attached. His arms felt numb from the shoulder down, and his neck ached fiercely. And my hip... I'll limp for a while. "A bad dream. Ogres."
"You're not alone in that." Ranall sat on the cabin's wooden floor. "Having heard the stories, there are times I can't sleep."
Creelisk forced a smile onto his face. "Those stories are designed to create sleepless nights or entertain children."
"And Echo Wood is rife with them." Ranall smiled. "I've already been told to stay inside the settlement tonight because the full moon summons creatures that run and howl like wolves, but aren't wolves at all."
Creelisk kept his smile in place. "As if Echo Wood isn't dangerous enough, the settlers import stories of werewolves from Ustalav. Perhaps they find comfort in the familiar horrors."
"You're likely correct, Father."
The baron raised an eyebrow. "I don't believe it was my crying out that summoned you. You were already coming to see me."
"I was."
"Because?"
His son rose and began to pace—which had always been a sign of something which had been bothering him for a long time. "Silverlake will be hold its harvest feast in two months. I know you have your heart set on returning home before then."
"We have no choice, Ranall. All the signs suggest an early winter. We don't want to be caught on the road when the snows howl down from the north. That's what killed your grandfather. I won't have it happen to you."
"I know. I've heard the story." He turned to face his father. "I'd like to ask you to let me stay. Let me winter here."
Creelisk drew himself up against the cabin's back wall. "Is this about the girl?"
"Yes, but not just her." Ranall glanced down, a smile stealing its way onto his face. "What you've done here, Father, is remarkable. So many people are amazed. You've worked hard and been generous. Some of the people are still afraid of you, but here, away from Ardis, they're seeing a new side of you. You wouldn't believe the number of people who never thought you would have joined to take a lash for Jerrad."
"I couldn't let some bandit lordling believe he had the better of Ustalavs."
"It's more than that." Ranall met his father's gaze. "You are my father. I have always loved you. I will always love you. What you have done for Silverlake has made me proud of you—prouder than I've ever been. It makes me work harder to be worthy of being your son."
Creelisk froze. He heard the earnestness in his son's voice. He parsed the sentence, draining it of its true meaning. He understood it all, including what his son wanted to hear in reply.
He just couldn't understand how his son could think that way.
"Ranall, I am far from a perfect man. You've heard stories about me, I know. I've done things—none as bad as the stories would make them out to be, but perhaps not things that would make you proud. But what you've just said, it rewards me for all the aches and pains and, I hope, offsets the less-than-virtuous things I've done."
"Father, if I winter here, I'll know, firsthand, what Silverlake needs. I can help you help Silverlake."
"And you can get to know Serrana Vishov even better?"
"Yes, Father."
"This isn't a decision I can make on the spur of the moment. There are things to be considered—not the least of which is explaining to your mother why I abandoned you in some green hell."
"I'll write her a long letter, I promise."
"You'll do that either way, I know." Creelisk slid off of his bed, stood stiffly, and enfolded his son in a hug. "You make me proud, Ranall. I hope I can become the man worthy of being your father."
His son tightened the embrace and hung on.
Creelisk stroked his son's hair. And when I lead an army into Echo Wood, I shall see to it that you, my beloved son, are very well avenged.
Chapter Twenty-Five
The Ritual
Jerrad desperately wanted to be alone, but the second he escaped into the wood, he felt terribly lonely. That made absolutely no sense, and he knew it. He hated having his mood carom between the aloofness someone like Baron Creelisk exhibited and his sister at her neediest. He just didn't feel at home within his own skin, and there seemed no escaping that sensation.
In Silverlake he felt like someone he wasn't. Part of that feeling came from his hiding his wizardry from the others. The magic aspects of things were easy enough to leave out of the story—his mother's version of it did just that. Still, he was deceiving people he liked, and feared their reaction when they learned the truth.
Because he was hiding something from them, life with them became almost unbearable. The people looked up to him, and made wonderful comments about him. They talked about how brave he was, at his age, to face down ogres and Baron Blackshield. Others weren't even fazed by the level of heroism, "given who he came from." The same people who would never have accused him of being even worthy of standing in his father's shadow now talked about how both parents had bred true in the children.
Despite what they all said, he didn't think what he'd done was heroic at all. He'd foolishly followed an undead monster and ended up in Mosswater by accident—or the wood's design, which was worse. He'd survived that first encounter with ogres by pure luck, and had escaped by doing little more than running fast. For him to be considered a hero for that was to consider a hare heroic for outrunning a wolf. No one had ever tried to push that view in his hearing, yet they were happy to make the case for him in that regard.
As for standing up to Blackshield, he really hadn't had any choice. The man wasn't going to listen to any explanation Jerrad offered, and Jerrad couldn't tell him the truth. That would reveal his learning to be a wizard. His mother had revised his tale once he'd told it to her: it became his trailing something large and falling into an old magical portal, perhaps something left behind by the Azlanti even. No one had questioned her telling of the tale, and it remained close enough to the truth that Jerrad was able to answer questions without being caught in a lie.
None of that mitigated the fact that Jerrad had been very foolish. He knew it from the first step. When the people of Silverlake were willing to fight to prevent him from being punished, he couldn't have allowed it. No one else should have been punished for my stupidity. So he said what he said, then Ranall stepped up, and all the others did. And Jerrad's claiming of the last lash, too, seemed only fair to him, but others saw it as the boldest move of all.
Part of him understood what was happening. The people had accepted punishment for him because they all felt united. What Blackshield was willing to do to him he could have done to any of them. They hoped that by standing with Jerrad, others of Silverlake would stand with them were the situation reversed. And Jerrad knew he would, simply because they were part of Silverlake.
But to see him as a hero when he felt like anything but a hero—that just didn't work.
He wasn't alone in being treated like a hero, of course. Ranall and Serrana had been elevated in the eyes of Silverlakers. Ranall's stepping up first simply cemented the position his demeanor and attitude had already won him. His affection for Serrana not only endeared him to those who wanted to believe in a fairy-tale romance, but was seen by many as what had saved Serrana.
Before the goblin attack, Serrana had wanted nothing more than to be back in Ustalav. In the attack's aftermath, she focused on learning how to shoot a bow. She went from being moody and useless to focused and lethal. While that made her very useful in Silverlake, there were folks—Jerrad first among them—that weren't looking forward to the moodiness returning to mix with lethal.
The fact that Ranall liked her for who she had become, and yet brought out the better bits of who she had been, gave Serrana a safe haven to discover herself. He gave her something else to focus upon. His willingness to pitch in and do almost anything, coupled with her desire to spend time with him, meant Serrana became a worthy heir to Tyressa's example. More than one person could imagine Silverlake growing into its fourth or fifth decade with Ranall and Serrana as its leaders.
Jerrad picked up a crooked stick and sliced it through ferns as he walked along. He'd grown to like Ranall, and his sister was tolerable, but he couldn't spend too much time with them together. It wasn't that they were too affectionate. They might walk hand in hand in the moonlight, or sit together watching the sunset over the lake. That he didn't mind because they generally sought some privacy for those moments. What he couldn't stand was the longing glances they shared at other times. Their longing annoyed him—in a very large part because he really couldn't imagine anyone looking at him that way.
Well, there's Nelsa, but she's different.
An acorn plonked off the top of his head. He spun around, looking up at a chittering squirrel. Its tail twitched just as a root caught his heels. Flailing, but avoiding a second acorn, he tumbled backward and somersaulted down a hill.
Not again! He covered the back of his head with his left hand and grabbed for anything with his right. Branches broke as he snatched at them. His fingernails scraped bark off roots. Leaves flew up in clouds, plastering themselves over his face. He barked a shin on a tree, which started him on a flat spin. That took him through a blackberry bush—a fact he learned from the scent of crushed berries and the fiery scratches of thorns raking his body.
And there will be mud. There has to be mud.
Finally he rolled to a stop on a flat greensward. Spitting out leaves and loam, he opened his eyes and found himself in a circle of mighty oaks. He glanced back over his shoulder, just to confirm what he already knew: there was no space between the trees to let him roll through there.
Glowing lights swirled around amid the leaves, strobing on and off as they disappeared behind trunks and branches. He heard nothing, even as the lights descended. As the bottommost ranks got closer, others appeared from the shade above. Sprites, hundreds of sprites, spiraled down slowly.
I think I would have preferred mud. He gathered himself into a sitting position, hugging his knees to his chest. This must be really bad.
As the first sprites approached the ground, a ring of mushrooms sprang up. They looked sturdy enough—the biggest of them anyway—that he could have sat upon one. He'd never seen mushrooms of the red and purple and blue variety that these were before, and was pretty much certain each was deadlier than a viper.
The first sprite landed atop a purple mushroom across the way. His flesh was the gray of a normal mushroom. His hair, wings, and long beard shared the brown of a dried leaf. Though his glow made it difficult to discern, Jerrad thought he saw wrinkles on the sprite's face. He didn't know what the signs of aging were among sprites, but he was willing to bet this sprite was heading toward the twilight of his existence.
Other sprites seated themselves on the remaining mushrooms, while yet more landed on branches or hovered above the green. Jerrad couldn't begin to estimate how many there were, but felt sure that if they all shot as Lissa had, he'd look like a porcupine before very long.
The older sprite posted fists on his slender hips. "You are Jerrad of Silverlake."
Jerrad nodded. "Butt of jokes, target of squirrels, mud-man. You know very well who I am."
"You, manchild, speak of who you were. I, Thyrik, speak of who you have become."
The youth frowned. "Then I'm Jerrad of Silverlake."
"Then you are the one we seek." Thyrik spread his arms wide. "Begin!"
A flock of sprites descended from the trees and flew so swiftly around him that any one became a blur, and any attempt to follow them made him dizzy. He closed his eyes for a moment to regain his equilibrium, but that was a mistake. While he wasn't watching, the sprites spattered his face with mud.
His eyes sprang open. He would have cried out save for two things. First, he didn't want to get mud in his mouth, and second, the sprites weren't haphazardly attacking him. Some smeared dark mud over his throat, jaw, and cheeks. Two delicately painted it over his upper lip. Others brought a white mud which they daubed down his nose and across his cheekbones. They spread it over his forehead and coated his ears.
A whirring began above him. He looked up. A legion of sprites descended bearing a construct of branch and leaf. It resembled nothing so much as a pair of their wings, but large enough to be meant for a man. The sprites brought it down and, using thorns, attached it to the back of his tunic.
Others flew down in their wake. They bore a coronet woven of ivy. They settled this on his brow, then withdrew. He expected to hear tiny laughter, as he had to look a sight, but solemn silence greeted him.
Thyrik looked at Jerrad, then smiled. "Now that you have the proper aspect, we may speak as equals."
Jerrad, not certain what to say, just nodded slightly. He didn't want the crown to fall off, and was afraid the mud on his face would flake.
"In Mosswater, in the Cursed Tower, you freed Lissa, and she recovered Alorek's Bow."
"Yes."
"Thank you." The leader of the sprites pointed toward the sky. "Bring her."
Four sprites descended, each holding a vine. Tightly bound and dangling from the ends, Lissa hung her head. Her captors brought her to the ground, then landed and pulled the vines tight so she couldn't wander.
"I don't understand."
"The Cursed Tower is so called because, for many years, sprites would disappear in Mosswater. The tower presented a challenge, for it was full of things we find intriguing. The Lost Ones would return after a time they could not remember. The only evidence of their disappearance came from a complete aversion to the tower itself. Even before the ogres took Mosswater, we forbade sprites from traveling there."
"I had to get my grandfather's bow."
"The prisoner will be quiet."
Jerrad thought for a moment, and a few ideas came together. It had to have been that the wizard captured the sprites and used them for light, then released them after a time. He clearly did use some sort of magic to make them forget their captivity and instill their leeriness concerning the tower. Those who were captives at the time of the conquest...
He looked up. "Did a group of Lost Ones return all at the same time when Mosswater fell?"
Thyrik's eyes narrowed. "Yes, but this is not at issue. You rescued Lissa, therefore you have a say in her punishment."
"I freed her from a brass lantern. She, using the bow she recovered, freed me from a city of ogres. I don't know who Alorek was, but I can't imagine him wielding that bow with more courage or skill." Jerrad shook his head. "If she is to be punished... What is the punishment?"
"She will be banished."
Lissa struggled against her bonds at that pronouncement.
