The Bristling Wood - Katharine Kerr [30]
“Not on your life, and I’m not saying that to get more coin out of you, neither. It’s a dangerous place, that stretch of trees. Haunted, they say, and full of evil spirits as well, most like, and then there’s the wild men.”
“The what?”
“Well, I suppose that by rights I shouldn’t call them wild, poor bastards, because all the gods can bear witness that I’d have done the same as them if I had to.” He leaned closer, all conspiratorial. “You don’t look like the sort of fellow who’ll be running to our lord with the news, but the folk who live in the forest are bondsmen. Or I should say, they was, a while back. Their lord got killed, and so they took themselves off to live free, and I can’t say as I’ll be blaming them for it, neither.”
“Nor more can I. Your wild men are safe enough from me, but I take it they’re not above robbing a traveler if they can.”
“I think they feels it’s owing to them, like, after all the hard work they put in.”
Maddyn gave him the extra coppers anyway, then went out to join Aethan, who was standing by the road with the horses’ reins in hand.
“Done gossiping, are you?”
“Here, Aethan, the taverner had some news to give us, and it just might be worth following down. There might be a free troop up in the woods to the north of us.”
Aethan stared down at the reins in his hand and rubbed them with weary fingers.
“Ah, horseshit!” he said at last. “We might as well look them over, then.”
When they left the village, they rode north, following the river. Although Aethan was well on the mend by then, his back still ached him, and they rested often. At their pace it was close to sunset when they reached the forest, looming dark and tangled on the far side of a wild meadowland. At its edge a massive marker stone still stood, doubtless proclaiming the trees the property of the long-dead clan that once had owned them.
“I don’t want to be mucking around in there when it’s dark,” Aethan said.
“You’re right enough. We’ll camp here. There’s plenty of water in the river.”
While Aethan tended the horses, Maddyn went to gather firewood at the forest edge. A crowd of Wildfolk went with him, darting around or skipping beside him, a gaggle of green, warty gnomes, three enormous yellow creatures with swollen stomachs and red fangs, and his faithful blue sprite, perching on his shoulder and running tiny hands through his hair.
“I’ll have to play us a song tonight. It’s been a while since I felt like music, but maybe our luck is turning.”
Yet when it came time to play, Maddyn’s heart was still so troubled that he found it hard to settle down to one ballad or declamation. He got the harp in tune, then played scraps and bits of various songs or practiced runs and chordings. Aethan soon fell asleep, lying on his stomach with his head pillowed on folded arms, but the Wildfolk stayed to the last note, a vast crowd of them, stretching out beyond the pool of firelight across the meadow. Maddyn felt awed, as if he were playing in a king’s court, the great hall crowded with retainers. When he stopped, he felt more than heard a ripple of eerie applause; then suddenly, they were gone. Maddyn shuddered profoundly, then put the harp away.
After he banked the campfire, Maddyn paced a little ways into the meadow out of restlessness and nothing more. He could see the forest edge, looming dark not far from them, and even more, he could feel its presence, like an exhalation of wildness. He was sure that more than human fugitives lived there. It occurred to him that while the long wars were a tragedy for human beings, to the Wildfolk they were a blessing, giving them back land that men had once taken and tamed. As he stood there in the silent meadow, it seemed that he heard faint music, an echo of his own. Again he shuddered convulsively, then hurried back to his safe camp.
On the morrow the blue sprite woke him just at dawn by the expedient method of pulling his hair so hard that it hurt like fire. When he swatted at her, she laughed soundlessly, exposing her needle-sharp