Forest Mage

The three men who had attacked me? That was what they’d been after. Not to steal my horse and wagon, maybe not even to hurt me, but to get Clove’s harness, and show the one new strap amid all the old tack he wore. I’d killed them for that. I wondered where that harness was now. Did Hoster have it? Did anyone else know its significance?



If I didn’t flee Gettys and take to the forest and the Specks, my regiment would hang me for killing Fala. As Hitch had warned me, I had no choices left. Not if I wanted to live.



And Hitch, my friend Hitch, had set me up for all this. He’d framed me neatly. Who wouldn’t believe that a whore would mock a fat man who couldn’t perform with her? Was that a reason to kill her? Enough men would think so. And would they think me stupid enough to have throttled her with a strap from my own horse’s harness? Yes, they would. I looked at the wreck of a man whom I had trusted. I’d saved his life. I’d called him friend. “You’ve ruined me,” I said quietly.



“I know,” he replied as softly. “And as a man and as your friend, I’m sorry about that, Nevare. Sorry beyond anything you can ever know. All I can repeat is that the magic made me do it. Maybe someday you’ll understand what I mean by that, how it forces and lures a man to do what it wants.



“I’ll only say one more thing, and then you can do what you want. Beat me back to death, if it brings you any satisfaction. I’m headed that way anyway. But before I go, let me tell you this. Whatever it is you’re supposed to do, Nevare, you’d better do it. Do it and have done with it, and know that you did what was best for king and country, not to mention yourself. The Specks, they’re determined to have us out of here. The Dust Dance plague and the fear at the end of the road and the despair that rolls out of the forest and fills Gettys: you might think that’s awful magic, but the Specks think it’s sweet persuasion. They were sure it would send us all hightailing out of here. But it hasn’t. And you and I both know that likely it won’t. But if you don’t find a way to make it happen, well, then, all the Specks will say that Kinrove has failed and that it is time to listen to the words of the younger men.”



I was scarcely listening to him. My mind was racing through solutions to my problem. I could leave tonight and seek refuge with the Specks. That solution held little appeal to me. I’d be abandoning all my friends, and they’d believe what Sergeant Hoster told them about me. I also didn’t relish the prospect of Olikea flaunting that she had told me so. But a darker fear was that by giving into the magic, I’d be setting my feet on the same path that Buel Hitch had followed. I didn’t want to become what he was now, a decent man distorted and tormented by the foreign magic that had infected him. I’d rather face a hanging than be herded like a sheep. I would not flee directly into the jaws of what threatened me.



I could see two alternatives. One was to keep laboring at the cemetery and hope that in the tragedy and the confusion of the plague, poor Fala’s murder would be forgotten. Yet Sergeant Hoster had promised me he’d never let that happen.



The sole hope I had of remaining in Gettys and escaping the noose was the man now reclining in my bed, talking in a voice that sounded ever vaguer.



“The youngsters, they say they have to make it a war in the way Gernians understand war. Maybe they’re right. They say that Kinrove’s dancing has failed, that all it has done is consume the best and strongest of them. They’re the younger generation, and they’ve got new ideas of how to deal with us. They don’t want to give up what they get from us; they like the trade we bring. But they don’t want us living here, and they’re tired of waiting for us to go away, and they won’t tolerate us cutting their ancestor trees. Some of them think the best solution would be open warfare, bloodshed that we’d understand, and taking what they want from us. You were the last best hope for avoiding that, Nevare. If you don’t do whatever it is you’re supposed to do, they’ll bring war down on us. And there are two things you should know about that: there’s a lot more Specks than the other scouts think there is. And they’d all be willing to die, down to the last child, to protect one ancestor tree.”



His voice had become a hoarse whisper. His eyes were drooping shut.



“Hitch?”



He had stopped speaking. He turned his head slightly toward me but didn’t open his eyes.



“Hitch, I’m going for help for you. Just lie there and rest. I’ll be back. I promise.”



He took a breath and sighed it out as if it would be his last. But then he spoke. “Don’t fight it, Never. It all goes easier if you don’t fight it. I’m not going to fight it anymore.”