A Walk in the Wild Woods
One
Dora Cairnstone held dead tree limbs in her arms, squinting in the setting sun. Her friends were setting up camp among the trees. She could hear, but not see, them through the intervening brush. This would be the last night of real rest for them. Tomorrow they were to venture into the Wild Woods.
"Good day, mistress," said a voice at Dora's elbow.
Dora jumped, dropping the gathered firewood, reaching for her knife in its sheath strapped to her belt. A man sat on a rock to her left, smiling at her. Gloved hands fiddled with a pipe. Cheerful almost silver eyes sparkled in the shade of a broad brimmed hat.
"Forgive me for startling you," said the stranger, finally deciding to light the pipe with a flint box. "My manners aren't what they were."
"I am pleased to meet you," said Dora, her face trying to cover her surprise and small irritation. "My company is camping just over there if you would like to share our meal with us."
"I'm afraid I can't stay Dora Cairnstone," the stranger said, standing, puffing on his pipe. "The path will split a short way after you enter the Wild Woods. Stay on the left path to find what you seek. The right will always be trouble."
"How do you know my name?," asked Dora. "Who are you?"
"Stay on the left path," said the stranger, walking toward the trees, dark cloak seeming to bleed into the brush. "That's the best way to avoid trouble in the Woods."
Dora gathered her firewood, and picked the pile up again. She heard the voices of her comrades again, debated if she should tell them of the strange warning she had just received. She was the newest member of the company, and had doubts that they would believe her.
After all, what could she say? A strange man accosted me nearby, said stay on the left path, and then walked away. She didn't think she was up to answering any questions about her experience. She certainly didn't have any satisfactory replies in her own mind.
The company's patrons didn't inspire trust on her part either.
Peter and Myra Crossnight had hired the company to escort them through the Wild Woods to a kingdom on the other side. They believed that if they could open the way, a trading route would be established between Landshera and that kingdom. They would be the sole owners of the supply line.
The company would have sole discretion on what other companies would be hired to secure the route. That would earn them pay without placing them on the front lines fighting the things that the forest was famous for.
It would be a triumph if they succeeded.
The problem was Dora didn't believe the two. They struck false chords with her when they talked about their plans. It was like they were talking about something different from trade.
Two
The company started the next day along the trail leading into the Wild Woods. Dora took her place at the rear of the column, looking behind the group in case of ambush. Her gift with a bow might allow them to escape if they had to shoot anything that got in the way.
Henry, a knight from Griffenclaw, and Gladys Harridanblade, led the party. They were both skilled with swords, and were almost never surprised. Harland Hawkeye, the company's best archer, rode behind them. His ivory bow rested across his saddle in front of him. Their patrons rode in the middle of the line with the Swan Brothers on either side.
Then came Dora riding along at the back of the line.
The Wild Woods weren't known for bandits, or any force of men. Animals and things that meant weren't meant to know ruled its reaches. If anyone could forge a route through it, it would be a road to connect one side of the land with the other.
A man could get rich if he could hold that road open any length of time.
It was a dream, but the creatures of the Wild Woods would not be pressed aside to allow men to invade the center of the world. Many have gone into the forest, but known have returned the same, if at all.
If their company hadn't been so poor, Dora knew they wouldn't be riding as security for those two dreamers.
They rode across the threshold that marked the end of civilization. A shadow dropped over Dora, like thunder clouds blocking the spring sun. Only the sky was still as clear and blue as sea glass. She could tell that the others felt the same. They had gone on alert without speaking.
Eventually the fork in the road did present itself and the group stalled to consider the route.
"We will go right, Captain," said Peter Crossnight. "I have it on good authority that is the way we want to proceed."
"Sir," said Dora, at the back of the group. "I think we should go left. I was told by a local to stay on the left path no matter what."
"Are you questioning me?," said Crossnight, touching the hilt of his slim sword. "I'm the commander of this expedition."
"I am the commander of this expedition," said Henry, breaking in. "We will go right as you demand, but we will go quietly and carefully."
The group stretched itself out again, but Dora found Henry riding at the back with her. He slowed the pace so that they would be within sight of the rest, but able to speak without being heard.
"What was that about, Dora?," said the older mercenary.
"I met someone in the woods yesterday, a local woodsman I expect," said Dora. "He said to avoid going on the right if we wanted to get to where we wanted to go."
"Do you trust that advice?," said Henry, watching the sides of the path.
"More than I trust Crossnight," said Dora. "Something is not right with the pair of them."
"I agree," said Henry. "We've signed on to do a job for them. Either we complete this contract, or we might as well settle down and become farmers. No one else will hire us. Understand?"
"Yes, sir," said Dora.
Three
The nameless company rode on, following Peter Crossnight's directions. Dora marked the way with her knife, cutting an arrowhead in a tree to show the paths they took. She had the feeling that the forest disapproved, but only wanted the company to keep moving.
Finally they broke into a clearing after a day of riding the narrow trails. A tower stood in the center of the dead grass, pieces missing from its stone face. A wooden door stood against the outside world, as solid as the day it was put on.
"A place to spend the night," said Myra, smiling happily.
"Right," Henry said, dismounting. "Alec, check the door to see if it's barred. It's a cold dinner tonight for us. No fires, no taking off beyond sight."
The bigger of the Swan Brothers pushed on the door until veins stood out on his forearms. He admitted defeat with a shrug of his shoulders.
"We'll camp out in the clearing for the night," said Henry. "Standard watch. Is that understood?"
"Why can't we just break the door down?," Myra asked peevishly. "I have no desire to sleep on the ground when there is shelter nearby."
"We aren't going to break into someone's home like thieves," said Henry. "That isn't the way I like to do things."
Myra opened her mouth to say something, but her husband cut her off with a shake of his head.
"He's right, my love," said Peter. "We aren't here to examine the remains of a tower in the middle of nowhere. Tomorrow, we'll be near the center of the Woods, the day after totally outside it. Sleeping on the ground is no hardship for that length of time."
Myra nodded, trying to smile through the scowl she had worn.
The company set up the camp quickly and quietly. Dora noticed the alert expressions on her companions' faces. They knew something wasn't right as sure as she did. Trouble was on the horizon.
Dora placed her roll near the tower, close enough to watch the others, but far enough away where their talk wouldn't keep her awake. She invariably drew the last watch of the night anyway, so planned to sleep as soon as possible.
At least the wall of the tower would be at her back in case some animal did bother attacking in the night.
Four
The crescent moon gleamed scarlet above the camping group with stars twinkling as pieces of ice on black velvet. Dora sat with her back to the wall of the tower. Florin Swan, the younger brother, had kicked her awake before he rolled into his own blanket beside his brother.
"Hello again, Dora Cairnstone," said the woodsman, appearing out of the darkness. "I thought you would be long gone by now."
"I did tell them the correct way," said Dora. "These Crossnights have their own map the way they carry on."
"I understand," said the woodsman, silvery blue eyes flickering over the company. "There's bound to be trouble in the morning. Henry of Griffenclaw is not a man to violate his code even if he is under contract."
"You know Henry?," Dora asked.
"Only by reputation," said the shadowy presence, an ember and a strong burning tobacco smell indicating that his pipe had been lit. "I don't travel as much as I once did."
"I should wake everyone up to meet you," said Dora. "You know more than we do about crossing the forest without riling things up."
"The only thing I can do is warn you about the Crossnights, and give you this," the woodsman said. He held out a smooth rock with a symbol carved into its top. "Go on and take it. You'll need it very soon."
Dora took the almost flat disk of stone and tucked it into her belt beside her knife sheath.
"Do you have a name?," said Dora. "You already know mine."
"My name is Solomon Thirdeye," said the woodsman, standing up. "Be careful, be on guard. You are where the Crossnights want to be."
"I don't understand any of this," said Dora.
"When the day breaks, you will," said Solomon Thirdeye, vanishing as silently as he had appeared.
Dora looked around the camp again. Everyone else was still asleep. The solid stone pressed against her hip told her it wasn't a dream.
Something was going to happen in the morning, something she would have to fight to the best of her ability. Just killing her employers in their sleep without proof was not an option. She would have to be ready to stand up to the Crossnights, even if it was on her own.
Five
Dora spent the rest of the night thinking about what she had been told. It seemed foolish to trust a stranger that only talked to her when she was alone. It seemed foolish, but she knew that she could trust this Solomon, just as she knew how to ride a horse, or shoot an arrow.
The company roused themselves as the sun tried cut through the dense foliage surrounding the clearing. Dora rolled up her blanket and strapped it on her horse's saddle. A cold biscuit would have to do to break the night's fast. Henry had already strapped most of his armor on, and was urging the others to get started.
Myra Crossnight went to the tower's door, pushing on it with a flat hand. Red lines traced along the wood, a fiery face suddenly leering and then breaking apart in a silent scream. The door swung open on its own. The forest fell silent.
"What are you doing?," Gladys Harridanblade said. "We're leaving this place. Get your equipment together and stow it."
"Be silent, harlot," said the older woman. "I will command your tongue to flap when I want it to do so."
Dora winced, standing beside her horse. Patron or not, Gladys was not known for her even temper. Henry and Harland moved to keep the two women separate as the swordwoman advanced. Her blade was in her hand with a flick of the morning light.
"We don't need you any longer," Myra said, flinging her hand in a circle at the three fighters.
Tiny flowers filled the air between Myra Crossnight and the three from the nameless company. Henry had unsheathed his own sword by reflex but it dropped from his hand as he fell to the ground. Sickly sweetness filled the air as the petals came apart before they hit the ground.
Dora grabbed her bow from her back, hand shaking as she pulled an arrow from its quiver. One arrow through Mistress Crossnight's eye should put a stop to this tomfoolery. She notched the arrow to the bowstring and pulled the feather to her ear.
The Swan brothers screamed to her left, distracting Dora from her target. Peter had put his hands on their shoulders. Lines that were images danced on their bodies, making Alec and Florin conform to the drawn shapes in reality. They sank to all fours as tails sprouted, skin became scaly, and their features moved to resemble crocodiles.
Heat pinched at Dora's waist as she backed up. She didn't want to kill her friends to stop whatever was going on. She also didn't want to be ripped apart by lizards. Worse, something was burning her through the top of her pants.
Dora glared at the Crossnights laughing at her predicament. She let fly an arrow at Myra as Alec leaped at her. The witch dodged the projectile, fury twisting her face. The archer went down under her former comrade, claws digging into her shoulders. The bow went into the Swan Brother's mouth to block the rows of fangs hoping to bite her throat.
Dora held the lizard man off with one arm and her legs as her free hand plucked at the thing burning her. Her fingers wrapped around the round stone she had tucked away and forgotten. She pulled it out, amazed at the purple glow igniting the symbols on top. The light mixed with the surface of the once man's green skin.
She could almost see the human within in the warping vision where the colors danced together.
Dora slammed the stone against Alec's snout as hard as she could. The purple glow touched the interlocking lines of Peter Crossnight's spell, erasing some connecting line in the magical drawing. Swan fell to one side as his reptilian shape ran like water. The archer pushed him to one side so that she could deal with the rest of her enemies.
Florin, the smaller Swan, charged while Dora was still trying to get to her feet. She brandished the stone as a shield. The purple glow filled the air between them. The remaining lizard fell on his hindquarters in surprise. Dora stepped forward, swinging the stone like a hammer. The heavy blow sent Swan to the grass, shape buried in a rapidly evaporating puddle.
"Keep your hands to yourself," Dora said, looking around. "How many times have I told you two that?"
The Crossnights had vanished in the brief time Dora had used to subdue her colleagues. It didn't take a wizard to figure out where they had went. Their prize was in the tower, and that's where she would have to go to stop their plans.
They would regret their betrayal.
Dora paused to touch the stone to the sleeping members of the company before seizing Henry's sword from where it had dropped and crossing the threshold of the tower. There was a brief moment of tumbling through the air before her feet touched a solid floor. Torches cast a blazing daylight on her new surroundings.
Dora didn't stop to marvel at the unexpected luxury that filled her view. She ran to the stairs, and started up them. The tower's inside seemed to be in a lot better condition than the outside. Something told her that was wrong, but she didn't stop to think about it.
Her only thought was to race up the flight of stone stairs at the edge of a woven rainbow rug with scenes of battles that were fought before she was born. The stone in her hand pointed the way for her.
Dora passed closed door after closed door on her long climb. She felt she was pushing against a slow-moving river. The invisible current barely parted for the talisman she carried in front of her as a shield, and lamp.
Finally she reached the top of the stairs. Her lungs burned for air, leaving her gasping for breath. Damp fingers wiped the sweat off her brow as she took stock. Even her untrained mind could feel gathering forces ahead.
Dora took one last deep breath before pointing the stone at the door blocking the top of the tower from the staircase. It groaned out of her way. Linear locks fell under the spell breaker's purple light.
Let me do this before I fall apart.
Dora charged the portal, ready for anything. She found a wide room with a stone block well at the center of it. The Crossnights stood on either side of the low wall, speaking to each other in a tongue that made the adventurer's ears crawl at the sounds. Lines wrote themselves between the couple, forming images foreign to the world. Gurgling rattled inside the opening in the floor.
Dora pulled her knife and threw it at Peter. The steel deflected against the power of his summoning. It flipped out of sight without even scratching the wizard.
The two looked at Dora with a small amount of exultance. It was obvious, that whatever else they planned, the bow woman would be a sacrifice to their goals.
Dora did the only thing she could think to do.
She hurled the flat stone in the middle of the shimmering lines. The purple glow from the spell breaker erased the lines of the summoning as fluid floated from the well to fill out the lines with something men weren't meant to know. The yellowy pus-like substance collapsed with a scream as the design exploded. The Crossnights were knocked flat by the backlash.
"This is over," Dora said. "One way or the other, this thing of yours is over. Don't do anything that you will regret."
"I don't think that sword is going to do anything now that you have dropped your only protection," said Peter, picking himself up. "The only thing over is your precious freedom of mind."
Fiery lines dripped from his fingers as he started to draw Dora's doom.
Once she was out of the way, they could restart their incantation and use the other adventurers as fodder for their desire.
Dora knew she had a slim chance to succeed. She didn't know why Solomon Thirdeye had entrusted her however mysteriously with this task. She didn't even know what she was going to do. She did know that she was going to kill these two devils, or die trying.
Peter Crossnight held both hands wide in front of his chest. A black vortex appeared in the space between his thumbs. The still air turned into a whirlwind, pulling everything in front of the spinning blackness toward it. Dora felt herself sliding forward toward her death.
There was no doubt that was what Crossnight intended.
Dora considered how to avoid being crushed to death by the sucking singularity that her enemy had created. Small pieces of stone fell into the vortex and came apart in front of her as they sank across the threshold of the miniature monstrous mouth. She still held Henry's sword in her hands, but she was well out of reach of either one of the couple. She didn't risk throwing it at Crossnight to stop the spell. It would just go the same way as everything else in the room in front of the wizard.
Dora hated the wide grin on the man's face. She wanted to wipe it out of existence more than anything.
Dora slipped on the stone floor, losing her footing to the constant yanking from the wind shear. She slid along desperately trying to stop herself, but her fingers slid across slickness. She could feel her body lift into the air as she dove toward her death at an increasing speed. The hand still holding the knight's sword slipped out of the narrow focus of the spinning cone as she started to revolve in the air. The sword pried itself from her fumbling fingers, flying who knew where.
The whirlwind shut off as Peter screamed at the top of his voice. The spell twisted out his hands, lashing him with debris as he let loose his pain. Dora caught her breath, too worried and glad to be reprieved to understand what had happened to save her. Then she saw it, and smiled as she picked herself up off the floor.
Henry's sword had plunged from her grip into the top of Crossnight's left boot. The point had stabbed through his foot almost completely. His hands tried to pull it loose, but had problems just getting a grip.
"What did you do to my husband?," Myra asked, holding the spell breaker and Dora's knife from where she had retrieved them while her husband had been impaled by the sharp steel.
Dora bit back her retort, settling for kicking Peter below the belt to render him silent. She yanked on the sword in his foot, pulling it clear in a shimmer of blood. She smashed his features with the heavy pommel of the sword. The wizard dropped to the floor, blood from his mouth and nose joining that from his foot.
"I have had enough of you two," Dora said, advancing on Myra Crossnight. "You can come along quietly, or you can be dealt with the way you deserve."
Myra pointed the knife at the adventuress. Lines echoed around the blade, until a storm of daggers slashed at Dora. The bow woman leaped to one side, rolling to get away from the slash marks appearing in the stone as the spell tried to kill her. Madam Crossnight laughed as she turned to pour trouble at her would be goat.
Dora spun out of the deadly storm's path, releasing the sword in a flat sideways spin. Myra held the stone in front of her, muttering commands to it. Whatever she had tried to do with it failed because it didn't glow to show that it was ready for use. Henry's sword smacked her in the face with the flat of the blade. The wizardess reeled from the blow.
Dora charged forward into the opening from the blow. She took aim and kicked. Her foot smashed into Myra's thigh. That helped put the wizardess's face in the range of the other foot as the bow woman shifted her stance. That kick knocked out a couple of teeth as the adventuress followed through.
Dora took a long breath as she wondered what she was going to do with the Crossnights. She smiled slightly at an idea that came to her. It was probably a petty thing to do, but the bow woman didn't care.
She picked up her weapons and the spell stone. Then she took care of the rest of her business as quickly as she could. The Crossnights would have to bother someone else where she sent them.
She had never seen stars at the bottom of an empty well before.
epilogue
Dora sipped tea from her traveling cup, on watch again in the wee morning hours. Her friends slept around the dying fire while she had her back to a tree in the darkness. She had led them away from the tower and through the Wild Woods to the other side. Two days had gone by while they were riding on the trail. They had seen things but each side had left the other alone.
"Well done, Dora Cairnstone," said Solomon Thirdeye, settling beside the adventuress like darkness taking a form of its own. "You have done a great service to the realm. You should be proud of yourself."
"I broke the rock that you gave me," Dora said, unsurprised by her visitor. She handed the flat disk to him. "It really turned the tables when I needed it."
"I thought that it would," said Solomon, placing the rock on the ground, then tamping his pipe to be lit. The tobacco glowed to life after some fiddling.
"What did you get out of this?," Dora asked. "No one helps another without some kind of reward."
"I received nothing," said Solomon. "I was doing my duty with the least amount of effort. I am pleased with the results although I did have some doubts of how things would turn out."
"Other mercenaries charge for that sort of thing," said Dora, smiling around her cup.
Solomon laughed, standing. The light from his pipe made his silver blue eyes glitter redly in the dark.
"There will be a time that you will be crossing the Wild Woods again," said the woodsman. "If you have need, simply state my name on the air. Someone will bring word to me, and I will render aid as well as I can."
"I will remember," said Dora. "Unfortunately if you want to 'hire' my company again, you will have to come into the city of Landshera and look for me at the mercenary guild halls. Gold is usually the preferred pay, but I am sure some type of barter will be acceptable."
"I will remember," said Solomon Thirdeye, vanishing into the darkness again.
The flat rock he had left on the ground was a small block of stone rooted to the ground. It was almost a seat for the next tired traveler that happened by that spot. A rune decorated the top of the new marker to show the path to stay on to travel through the dark forest.
Dora had a feeling that it would never travel near where she had left the Crossnights to fall for eternity.