The Maiden of Moonfane Forge

*

“Who in the hells was on last watch?” Vetch fumed. It was dawn. The forest was waking. The soldiers of Moonfane Forge’s garrison stood in their black and silver in a rough semi-circle, arms crossed, or hands on hips, waiting for the shirker to be singled out. Soldiers would know who it was, but they wouldn’t say. It fell to the captain to suss them out and order punishment. It wasn’t hard for Vetch to determine the culprit. Immediately, the posture of Iannitz, the youngest, told him exactly who had fallen asleep on watch and given Slouk his chance to escape. Vetch pushed his hair out of his eyes. “By all the hells, Iannitz!”

“I’m sorry, Captain,” the youth said. “I just, I just fell asleep. The thief was asleep, too!”

“Like hell he was, I’m sure,” Renzo muttered.

Vetch’s eyes bored into the youthful soldier. He didn’t want to be too harsh, not this early in their quest, but he couldn’t let him off easy, either, lest it set a tone for their entire mission that he would let things like this slide. “There’s more out here we need to be watchful for than our horse thief making a run for it. You know that.”

“Sorry, Captain,” Iannitz said, looking down at his feet.

Vetch realized his mistake too late. It didn’t matter who had fallen asleep on watch and allowed Slouk to disappear. Not yet, at least. They should have set out after Slouk immediately, rather than wasting precious time calling his soldiers to muster and berating the one responsible, however much it was deserved. That could have waited. Vetch knew that. Captain Tarese would have known that. Vetch cursed himself and remedied the misstep as best he could.

“Neschi, Mora, Renzo!” he barked and was pleased to see them still came to attention sharply. “We’ll ride after Slouk. His trail shouldn’t be tough to follow if he’s stuck to the road. Rolande, Oderyk ... and Iannitz, break camp and come behind us. We’ll stop when we catch him.”

“Sir?” Rolande spoke.

“Make it quick,” Vetch said. He was feeling irritable. He wanted to get things back under control, and soon.

“Do we even need Slouk anymore? The carriages left a clear path.”

“I’d as soon be rid of him as the rest of you, Rolande, believe me,” he answered honestly. “But he could be trying to meet up with them to tip them off. He’s also the only one who knows the faces of Marigold’s abductors. When we meet them, I want there to be no mistake.”

Rolande nodded sharply. Vetch took that to mean no one else had any issue. He mounted up and kicked his horse into a gallop up the forest track. Neschi caught him up and ranged out ahead on her quicker horse, while Renzo and Mora trailed them.

Despite their swift pace, the signs of Slouk’s passage were easy to spot. Ahead of Vetch, Neschi kept her horse to one side on the road so her passing wouldn’t overstep the clear new prints Slouk’s horse had left for them all to follow. The stride of the prints made it clear the man had led his mount only out of sight of the camp before he’d mounted and whipped his horse to a run. So, he would flee wildly, without any attempt to disguise his trail or throw off their pursuit. Vetch would have done the same. No smart man would strike too far off the path in these woods. He’d be as likely to get himself lost or attacked by wild beasts as he would to elude his pursuers. Despite the tradeoff of leaving an easy trail for Vetch and his fellows to follow, Slouk still had a few hours’s lead on them. There was a good chance the horse thief had arrived at Moonfane Forge by this very path and only made it appear as if he’d traveled there by the southern road, Vetch reflected bitterly. Were that the case, then he’d know the woods better than the soldiers. Vetch cursed the day he and Ennric had so easily granted Slouk permission to enter Moonfane Forge. What an ill omen the young man’s arrival to town had been.

Up ahead, Neschi waved her arm and slowed her pace. The horses were breathing hard now, but it wasn’t for a rest that she signaled. Two massive trees lay across the road. She reined in and Vetch did the same beside her. Mora arrived soon after that, while Renzo took his horse off the road and out around the thick trunk of one of the trees.

“They were felled with a saw,” he called.

“The horse thief couldn’t’ve done this,” Neschi said.

On the other side of the road, Mora dismounted and led her horse around the canopy of the first tree. “Over here, there’s some horse and boot prints.”

“Slouk?” queried Vetch.

Mora nodded and continued through the brush around the two trees. Vetch and Neschi dismounted and followed her around, while Renzo picked his way by on the other side. One tree had grown north of the road, the other south. It was plain to see the trees had been cut down deliberately to create a barrier. When the garrison soldiers met back up on the road past the two substantial obstacles, they found that not only did the trail Slouk had left continue on, but so did that of the older, but no less prominent, carriage and wagon wheels left by the raiders they pursued.

“The raiders really took pains to make sure no one’d follow ‘em,” Neschi said.

Silently, Vetch led his horse a way farther up the road on foot and gazed in the direction they must follow. The road, if it could be called that anymore, was becoming narrow again, overgrown and neglected. It stretched well ahead into deep green shadow, a tunnel composed of gnarled trees and clinging ivies. The day was warming, but in the perpetual shade, Vetch still felt chilled. Somewhere a raven croaked. It was echoed by another, farther away. Without a word of command, Vetch re-mounted his gelding, patted him on the neck, and nudged him back into a trot. The others took his lead and followed.

Greenery soon overtook the dirt track. Roots and stones jutted up from the leaf litter, necessitating that the soldiers must slow their pursuit to a walk, sometimes even having to dismount and lead their horses through particularly tangled patches of growth. If it frustrated their hunt, they were consoled at least by the knowledge that it would have slowed Slouk, as well. In addition to that, the trail left by the carriages became even more obvious. All could see where their passing had torn leaves and twigs from bushes and trampled down the lush undergrowth.

“What will we do if we catch him?” Neschi asked quietly, bringing her horse in near Vetch’s.

“I suppose we’ll keep a closer eye on him and make sure he can’t run again.”

It didn’t appear to be an answer that gave Neschi any comfort, for she only nodded and kept her eyes forward. Vetch wasn’t comforted by the idea, either. Perhaps Rolande had the right idea: let the thief go and be finished with him. They had the raiders’s trail without him, after all. If it hadn’t been that both paths were presently one and the same, he might have changed his mind and cut their losses. For now, it made no difference. And, in a way, keeping control over the horse thief was the only thing reminding Vetch that his garrison’s defeat had not been total, the one aspect of the raiders’s plan that he and his soldiers had confounded. There was something of his own pride mixed up in ensuring that he kept his grip on that miniscule victory. Quietly, he scoffed at himself. Was he becoming as stubborn as Ennric? Stubborn, but without the veteran’s experience to steer him?

The track soon began to wind back and forth and in on itself to skirt around and through large old-growth trees and patches of fast-growing, impenetrable brush. They could no longer see far enough ahead up the trail to watch out for danger or ambush, putting them all on edge. The woodland itself felt heavy and oppressive. Shrubs and branches and spiny vines clung to and tugged on their uniforms as they passed. The place was deeply unsettling, not at all the bright, airy kind of forest described in children’s tales, nor like the honest tracts of pineland clothing Mt. Moonfane’s hips. It was no wonder why most humans, save eccentrics and ne’er-do-wells, avoided the depths of Bannerman’s Wood if they could help it. The more the trees closed in, the more Vetch noticed half-glimpses of strange animals in the brush at the very edges of his vision. Or he would hear something large move up in the canopy, only to look and see nothing there but the swaying limb and falling leaves left in its wake. Even the smell of the place was beginning to bother him. It was dank and loamy, with an undertone of fungal aroma that reminded Vetch of a particular mushroom dish his mother used to cook that he’d hated as a child. Those mushrooms had come from these woods.

Vetch pushed his hair out of his eyes for the umpteenth time and then slapped a mosquito dead on his neck. “Damn this forest,” he muttered.

“Sir!” Mora whispered urgently. The tone in her voice gave them all pause. Vetch looked to her and she nodded up the track. When he followed her gaze, he spotted the break in the uniform green and brown that had caught her eye. As they came around a bend in the path, the nature of the object became clearer. Partially disguised beneath a pile of limbs and ivy was the jutting corner of a blue and white carriage.

Immediately, Vetch ducked lower and slid down off his horse, while the three soldiers beside him did the same. He put a finger to his lips and spoke as quietly as he could.

“Renzo, Neschi, with me. Mora, take the horses and keep them out of sight.”

“Do we attack?” Renzo whispered.

Vetch shook his head. “Let us see how many there are first.”

They handed their reins off to Mora. The horses appeared to sense the added tension in the air as she led them back the way they had come so they would not give away the soldiers’s presence. Vetch unsheathed his sword and moved off the path, crouching low and creeping tree to tree in the shadows toward the carriage, eyes peeled for the raiders and their own animals. Instinctively, Neschi and Renzo fanned out to either side of him. As one, the three soldiers made their way toward the camp, step by cautious step, keeping to the denser growth beside the path. Vetch’s heart thrummed in his chest. His chance at a reprisal might come sooner than anticipated. Well, let it come, he decided, rolling his sword’s grip slowly in his fingers. He breathed as quietly as he could and cautioned his eyes against blinking. His nostrils flared for any scent of a cookfire or horses that might lead him to a first spotting of their enemies. With any luck, they’d be resting. They could get an accounting of their numbers and readiness, then formulate a plan of attack. He wondered how far behind Rolande, Oderyk, and Iannitz were. Hopefully, they would arrive soon, and Mora could convey to them the situation.

Closer and closer they crept. Vetch could see the ornamental designs on the exposed part of the carriage now, its decorative woodwork and elaborate paint. When he came to a distance from which he could make a surprise charge if he so needed, he stopped and kneeled, peering out from behind a thick, wrinkled tree. There was no motion, still no raiders to be seen, nor signs of their camp. It was possible they’d be set up farther back in the trees, away from the path. Vetch knew it would not do to give themselves away before they had determined where their enemies might be. Until they knew that, approaching the carriage seemed out of the question. Perhaps it was even left there intentionally, as a means of drawing curious pursuers out into the open.

Vetch glanced to his left at Neschi. She peered back at him and subtly raised her brows, awaiting a command. Vetch looked to his right at Renzo, who was staring intently at the carriage.

“Renzo,” Vetch whispered, but the man kept his eyes on the carriage. He shifted his feet slightly on the ground and stood up straight. “Renzo,” Vetch said again.

Boldly then, Renzo sheathed his sword without a care for the sound it made and strode out into the open directly toward the carriage.

“Renzo,” Vetch put command into his voice. “Shit. Renzo, come back! Soldier, the hells are you doing?”

Renzo looked back at Vetch just before he reached the carriage. Decisively, he took hold of a few of the leafy limbs disguising the carriage and, one by one, pulled them away and dropped them on the ground. As he exposed more of the carriage, its missing wheel and damaged axel became apparent.

“There’s no one here,” Renzo stated, as if having to point it out irritated him.

With a sigh of relief, Vetch stood and sheathed his sword. He and Neschi approached the carriage while Renzo continued to pull limbs and dead vines away from it. Neschi circled around it before she, too, was satisfied that there was no one else in the area and put up her weapon. Once all the brush was out of the way, they saw that not only was one wheel missing, but that the other three had been chopped to pieces with axes. Not unlike the fences and paddocks out in Moonfane Forge’s pastures, Vetch reflected.

“It’s right in the middle of the trail,” Neschi observed.

Vetch nodded. “It broke down, so they made sure it wouldn’t move again and left it in our way. Like the felled trees we passed.” He crossed his arms and breathed out through his nose, coming to a quick decision. “Renzo. Go get Mora and the horses. We’ll all wait for the others here and make camp.” The man turned to go without a word, but Vetch called him back. “And, Renzo. Don’t ignore my orders again.”

The solid man eyed Vetch up and down, then a moment before it would have stretched into impertinence, said, “Yessir,” and went on his way.

When he was gone, Neschi shivered. “I’m surprised,” she said after a moment. “That they’d even expect us to follow them. Going to this kind of trouble, even with the way they obliterated our garrison. This Lady must be one paranoid woman.”

“That could be,” hedged Vetch. “But I think it more likely she simply knows the high value of the woman she took. She wouldn’t have overlooked the possibility of pursuit.”

Neschi chewed briefly at her thumbnail, thinking. “Damn. You’re right. Stealin’ a mage is no small thing, is it?”

“Worth destroying a town to disguise,” Vetch said, more to himself than to Neschi. Every new sign they had come upon painted their quarry as even shrewder and more capable than initially credited. The voice of doubt over his plans rose in Vetch’s thoughts once again.

As he stood there, Neschi levered herself up into the carriage. Both of the doors had been wrenched off. Had it really not been obvious, even from afar, that the carriage had been abandoned and that no threat awaited them here? It meant Slouk would have put even more distance between himself and them while Vetch had wasted their time here. He could attribute it to caution, but too much caution would lose them their mage.

“Vetch, look at this,” Neschi said from inside the carriage.

Vetch poked his head through the splintered doorframe. Inside the carriage, instead of the seats he would have expected to find, there was a nearly full-sized bed, stripped now of valuable blankets. At the foot of the bed were some frayed and cut ropes.

“This is where they had her,” Neschi said fervently. “This is where they fucking had her, Vetch! We need to get ‘em. We need to make ‘em pay.”

“We’re going to get them,” Vetch confirmed, his voice echoing Neschi’s resolve back to her. “We’re gonna get them, and we’re gonna bring Marigold back.”