The Charnel Prince - J. Gregory Keyes [26]
“Perhaps you haven’t noticed, Fend,” Brother Pavel said, pushing wet brown bangs from his gaunt face. “We haven’t a choice.”
Fend sighed. “They aren’t attacking, are they?”
“They tore Refan to shreds,” Brother Pavel observed.
“Refan left the path,” Fend said. “We won’t be so foolish, will we?”
“You really think we’re safe if we stay on the path?” Anshar asked, looking down dubiously at the narrow trail they all three stood on. There seemed no real boundary between it and the howling wild of the forest, just a muddy mingling of earth and leaves.
“I didn’t say we were safe,” Fend amended with a grim sort of humor. “Only that the wolves won’t get us.”
“You’ve been wrong before,” Brother Pavel pointed out.
“Me?” Fend wondered. “Wrong?”
“At Cal Azroth, for instance,” Pavel persisted.
Fend stopped suddenly, focusing his single eye upon the monk. “In what way was I wrong?” the Sefry asked.
“You were wrong about the holter,” Pavel accused. “You said he wasn’t a threat.”
“Me, claim Aspar White wasn’t a threat? The one man who ever gave me a real wound in single combat? The man who took my eye? I don’t think I ever claimed, in anyone’s dreams, that Aspar White wasn’t a threat. I believe that might have been your friend Desmond Spendlove, who swore he would stop the holter ere he reached Cal Azroth.”
“He ruined our plans,” Pavel grumbled.
Well, let’s see,” Fend said. “I’m confused by your word ruined. We killed the two princesses, didn’t we?”
“Yes, but the queen—”
“Escaped, I grant you that. But it wasn’t because I was wrong about anything—it was because we were outfought.”
“If we had stayed—”
“If we had stayed, we’d both be dead, and our cause would have two fewer champions,” Fend said. “Do you think you know the mind of our master better than I, Brother?”
Pavel kept his brow clenched, but finally he nodded. “No,” he admitted.
“No. And see? While we’ve been arguing, where are the wolves?”
“Still out there,” Anshar answered, “but not coming any closer.”
“No. Because she wants to know what we’ve come for. As long as she’s curious about us—as long as we obey her rules and stay on the path—we’ll be fine.” He clapped Pavel on the back. “Now will you stop worrying?”
Brother Pavel managed a fretful smile.
Anshar had heard about the business at Cal Azroth, but he hadn’t been there. Most of the monks involved in that conflict had been from d’Ef. He’d taken his training at the monastery of Anstaizha, far to the north in his native Hansa. He’d been sent south only a few ninedays ago, told by his fratrex to lend whatever aid he could to the strange Sefry and Brother Pavel.
He’d been told specifically that the Sefry, though not a churchman, was to be obeyed at all times.
So he had followed Fend here, to the place where all the most frightening children’s stories of his youth were supposed to have taken place—to the Sarnwood—in search of none other than the Sarnwood Witch herself.
The trail took them deeper, into a cleft between two hills which soon became a gorge rising in sheer walls on either side. He’d been raised in the country and was familiar with trees, and at the outskirts of the Sarnwood, he’d been able to name most of them. Now he knew almost none of them. Some were scaled and looked as if they were made of smaller snakes joined to larger ones. Others soared incredibly high before spreading spidery foliage. Yet others were less strange in appearance, but just as unidentifiable.
At last they came to a spring-fed pool of clear water whose banks were thick with moss and pale—almost white—ferns. The trees here were black and scaled, with drooping leaves that resembled sawtoothed blades. Empty gazes stared down at him from the human skulls nestled in the crooks of the branches. Anshar felt himself trying to back away, and he crushed the instinct with his will.
He smelled something musky and bitter.
“This is it,” Fend murmured. “This is the place.”
“What do we do now?” Anshar asked.
Fend drew a wicked-looking knife. “Come here, both of