The Forest of Peldain

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 The ramps were withdrawn, dragging through the water.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.