Chapter 21 - The Great Forest.
Morning came into the room through the gap between the shutters, casting a narrow bright strip across the plank floor, while Bernard lay on his back with one arm flung behind his head, his breathing slow and even, and dreamed of Golden Flow.
Warm soft light turned the roofs and the grass to honey, while the village went on with its usual day, a cart creaking somewhere, neighbours talking somewhere else, and here, on the wide clearing between the houses, a child's laughter ringing out.
Mia ran in circles with her head thrown back and her mouth open, laughing, while Bernard chased her, arms spread wide and his movements deliberately clumsy, which made the child's laughter flare brighter still.
At the lines strung between two apple trees stood Elara, half-turned towards the clearing, unhurriedly hanging out the washing and chuckling quietly to herself.
Leo sat on a stump a little way off, his head bent low over whatever was gripped in his lap, his fingers working quickly through the parts of his latest contraption.
Bernard changed direction sharply and caught Mia, scooping her up under the arms and swinging her off the ground.
"Got you!"
Mia shrieked and burst out laughing, kicking her legs and twisting her whole body to get free of his hands.
Bernard held her tight against himself, filling his voice with a warm, play-acted menace.
"Now wicked Bernard is going to eeeeeat somebody!"
Mia screamed louder still and went on struggling for all she was worth, and Elara laughed a little louder herself, without leaving the line, listening to her little sister's laughter.
Leo raised his head, holding a contraption of buckled leather straps with metal plates and tightly wound coil springs.
He fastened it deftly onto his legs, rose off the stump to his full height, squared his shoulders and planted his hands on his hips.
"Done! My super-jump boots are done! Now I can jump higher than any of you!" he announced.
Bernard set Mia down on the ground, straightened with a smile and put his hands on his belt.
"So it worked after all? Go on then, show us what came of it."
Leo smirked, well pleased with himself, adjusting the freshly fastened contraption on his legs.
"Behold!"
He struck the stump with his foot, and the spring mechanism released with a sharp click, but in the next fraction of a second the spring came out of its seat at the wrong angle and threw Leo forward almost horizontal.
Bernard lunged in to meet him, but Leo had already driven the crown of his head into Bernard's stomach, knocking the air out of him, and both of them went over backwards and landed on the grass a couple of metres from the stump.
Elara turned sharply, clapped a hand over her mouth and stared at them both in fright, then ran over.
"Leo, Bernard! Are you all right?"
Laughter reached her, first muffled and pressed flat, breathless, then ringing and choking on itself.
Elara let out a breath, a helpless smile touching her lips, while the two of them slowly pushed themselves up to sit.
Bernard shook his head reproachfully, laughing and getting his breath back.
"Oh, Leo, Leo. When are you going to start thinking about safety?"
Leo prodded him in the shoulder with one finger, wearing a smug grin.
"I thought of everything. My 'safety system' worked."
Bernard stared at him, letting a few seconds of surprise, outrage and comprehension pass through him, then grabbed Leo up in both arms.
"Come here, you!"
Leo exploded into laughter the moment Bernard's hands got to his ribs, and started squirming and thrashing at once, trying and failing to catch hold of Bernard's wrists.
Elara watched it all from where she stood, shaking her head with a tired smile.
"Bernard, stop it."
Bernard did not even turn his head her way, going on tickling the boy.
"Bernard."
He kept at it, and Leo choked with laughter, writhing in his hands.
"Bernard."
Her voice came again and again, but Bernard never turned round.
Then, instead of hers, another voice sounded, a man's voice, and a familiar one.
"Bernard…"
Bernard's hands stopped on their own, and his head turned slowly and heavily to the side.
Instead of the warm clearing of Golden Flow, a scorched battlefield stretched around him, its earth black with blood and fire, the bodies lying tangled together.
Thick black smoke rose in columns and dissolved into an overcast sky without a single break in it, while all around him catapults burned, the grass burned, and what had lately been fortifications burned.
A few paces off, in the mud and a pool of blood, lay his comrade, a warrior by the name of Linard.
One of his arms had been cut away and his own spear stood out of his chest, driven in deep, right up to the shaft, while blood came up out of his mouth with every weak breath and his wide-open eyes looked straight at Bernard.
From lips stuck together and parted with difficulty came one last word.
"Ber…na…"
Linard's head tipped slowly back and his eyes glazed over, leaving nothing behind them.
The young Bernard knelt a couple of metres away, covered in blood and mud, beardless, his hair tied back in a tail.
Heavy footfalls struck the ground and made him turn his head slowly, to find a tall figure standing ten paces off, cased entirely in black armour, two blades in its hands, a fearsome black mask hiding the face completely, and short white hair.
The figure stood side-on to him, running its gaze slowly over the field.
Bernard's breathing quickened, his heart slammed into his ribs once, then again, and began to beat in his ears, while his hands shook.
The figure began turning its head slowly towards him, and every degree of that unhurried turn drove the hum and ringing in his ears higher.
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Elara's voice came from the side without warning and pulled him round.
Golden Flow was around him again, with its grass, its lines of washing and its apple trees throwing soft shadows.
Elara was crouched beside him with a hand on his shoulder, her brows drawn together and her voice low.
"Is everything all right?"
Bernard did not answer, looking at her without moving.
From below him came Leo's voice, careless and faintly mocking.
"You look like you've seen a monster."
Bernard lowered his eyes and found Leo right underneath him on the grass, his own hands still under the boy's arms, while Leo looked up at him with mild concern.
Bernard took a breath and let it slowly out, closing his eyes.
"Yes…everything's fine…just for a second…my head swam."
Opening his eyes, he lowered them slowly to Leo's hands.
The boy's palms, closed tight round his forearms, were covered in fresh blood.
Bernard raised his eyes slowly higher and stopped on Leo's face.
In the next instant the boy's fingers locked hard round his throat.
Bernard grabbed at his arms at once, trying to prise them off, but the fingers would not give, while Leo's wide-open eyes looked at Bernard with absolute fury.
When Leo finally spoke, the voice that came out of his throat did not belong to a ten-year-old boy but to something closer to a youth.
"You won't stop me, Bernard. I will do what…I must…and nothing…no one…will…STOP…me."
Bernard hauled at his arms with both hands, teeth clenched, watching the dark start to come in at the edges of his sight.
Then a knock at a door came from somewhere behind it all, and at the last moment the sound finally woke him.
Bernard came awake with a jolt and sat up on the bed.
His shirt, soaked through with sweat, clung to his body, strands of hair hung over his face, and he stared at the opposite wall, breathing hard and unevenly.
The knock came again, then the door opened slowly and Elara appeared in the gap.
"Bernard? Are you up already?"
She saw him sitting on the bed with terror all over his face and stopped a moment in the doorway.
"Bernard?… Wh-what's happened?... Are you unwell?"
Bernard looked at her without answering straight away, while his breathing slowly steadied.
"Yes…everything's…fine…"
Bernard's gaze drifted slowly away in front of him, and he shut his eyes, putting two fingers to the bridge of his nose.
Elara came quietly into the room, closing the door behind her, and sighed.
"The nightmares again?"
Bernard answered with a slow silent nod, still without opening his eyes.
She crossed to the bed, sat down beside him on the edge and began moving her palm slowly over his back.
"It's all right. It was only a dream. You're here now, in Ockhaven, with us. It's all right."
Bernard's breathing gradually levelled out, his chest coming down more slowly with every breath.
Elara took her hand away and for a while looked at the back of his head in silence, with quiet worry.
"It's been a long while since those dreams troubled you…"
"Yes…that's true."
A few seconds later the corner of her mouth lifted a little.
"Just breathe. And think about it, you aren't alone now, we're all here beside you. Me, Leo, and Are…"
The word broke off halfway when Elara looked at Aren's bed and found it empty.
Selma was coming up the stairs with an armful of clean bedlinen when Elara and Bernard met her on the landing.
"Selma, have you seen Aren?" Elara asked.
Selma moved her eyes from one to the other in confusion, faltering a moment over her answer.
"Ah…er…not today…but in the night he went out onto the porch for some air—"
Bernard was already going round her without waiting for the end of the sentence, heading down at a quick pace.
He crossed the main room to the door, pushed it open with his shoulder and came out onto the porch, where he looked over the steps and searched the street in both directions.
There were few people out at that early hour, and Aren was not among them.
Coming back inside, he went behind the counter and out through the back door into the yard, which turned out to be every bit as empty.
When Bernard returned to the main room, Elara, Leo and Selma were already standing at the counter, watching him in silence.
"No. He isn't anywhere," he said.
Strain set on Elara's and Leo's faces, and the two exchanged a silent look.
"Did you see which way he might have gone?" Bernard asked, glancing at Selma.
"N-no…I only saw him go out onto the porch, since he said he just wanted some air, and…after that I couldn't have noticed whether he came back or not."
Bernard sighed, putting his hands on his belt and dropping his eyes to the surface of the counter.
Aren forced his heavy eyelids open, taking in the damp smell of the forest and the snorting of a horse.
The animal's hind legs swayed directly in front of him, its broad belly under his face.
His head was heavy and his vision swam from the steady rocking, and he was lying face down across the horse's rump while the ground drifted slowly past below.
Aren lifted his head with difficulty and saw trees of altogether unimaginable size rising on every side of him, each trunk several metres around, the bark lying in deep dark furrows overgrown with moss.
The crowns went up to such a height that they were lost in the gloom, letting through only rare bands of silvery morning light.
He squirmed, trying to move his arms, but his wrists were tightly bound behind his back with rope and his ankles were fixed to the saddle.
The rider turned, and Aren recognised Sir William Grant.
"Oh, awake already?" he said.
Aren wrenched at the ropes, trying to free his wrists, but they only cut deeper into the skin, the pain running all the way up to his shoulders.
"Sir William?! What are you doing?! Why are you—"
Grant slowly reined the horse in and turned his torso halfway round, meeting Aren's eyes.
"Better not to thrash about. I tied you tight, so the harder you try the worse it is for you."
Aren stopped tearing at the ropes, though his chest went on rising and falling heavily.
"Why did you do this?! Y-you lied!"
"That isn't so. I said you would get one more truth, and we're on our way to it now. I just couldn't wait on your decision while that voice…in my head…was eating my soul away."
Grant paused, turning his eyes off into the depths of the forest.
"Forgive me, lad, but we have to get there as soon as we can. I have to be free of this cursed voice."
"Where?" Aren asked, while Grant did not turn round.
"I told you. To the Great Tree. There you may get your answers, and I…my freedom," Grant answered, and rode on.
Aren looked around him uneasily, his fingers feeling out the knots at his wrists, but in the next moment a loud crack came from off to one side and made William rein the horse in at once.
His hand went to the hilt of his sword and his eyes went over everything around him.
Tipping his head slowly back and taking in the colossal crowns of the trees, he studied every shadow, trying to find the source of the sound.
An instant later a weight came down on the horse from the side, knocking Grant clear and throwing the animal onto its flank with a dying scream.
The rope holding Aren to the saddle snapped with the impact and pitched him onto the ground.
Aren rolled across the soft earth with his wrists and ankles still bound, and his chest took the blow of a root standing out of the ground.
By the time Aren raised his head, Grant was already on his feet with his sword drawn, while the horse lay with its flank torn deep open.
Then clawed paws appeared on the horse's ravaged belly, and running his eyes up them Aren saw a creature like an enormous cat, its body covered in small brown feathers instead of fur.
Massive clawed paws held it on the carcass, its long tufted ears were laid flat, and its tail, ending in a dense fan of feathers, moved slowly from side to side, while glowing green eyes came through from under the lowered lids.
"Fucking hell… A Cortex," William said.
The creature answered with a threatening snarl, at which William raised his free hand and covered his body and his sword in a magical shell.
The Cortex came down off the horse's carcass and began working round Grant in a wide arc, while he backed away step by step, keeping the sword pointed straight at the predator.
A second snarl came from behind him without warning and forced Grant to turn sharply and find the second animal ten paces off.
Grant moved his eyes from one predator to the other, setting his feet wider and closing both hands on the hilt, while Aren lay off to the side, defenceless and helpless.
The moment Grant's eyes slipped across to the first predator, the second broke from its place and threw itself at him in one leap.
William managed to turn in time, taking the impact on the blade and flinging the beast aside with a sharp counterblow.
The first made immediate use of it, coming down on William with all its weight and pinning his face to the ground, then setting to gnawing at the protective energy layer at his nape.
Aren saw William's fallen sword a few paces away and crawled towards it at once, dragging his bound legs behind him.
The sword, still wrapped in its magical shell, rose from the ground of its own accord and shot at the predator gnawing at the protective layer at William's nape, then went in deep through its flank.
The creature flew far off to the side with a short piercing shriek, and the second predator broke sharply from its place and threw itself in one leap straight at Aren where he lay, but Grant caught it in the air, closing both arms round its throat from behind and falling onto his back.
The creature thrashed and arched, its claws shredding the air, but William held the grip, teeth clenched, crushing the animal's windpipe.
The snarling weakened by degrees, the convulsions came further apart, until the paws hung slack.
William opened his arms and threw the dead body aside, staying on his back and looking up, where the morning sun came through the crowns of the colossal trees, split by the leaves into fine golden threads.
Aren's heart hammered at his ribs so fast that he could hear every beat distinctly in his ears, and after a time William sat slowly up, then rose to his feet and moved forward with tired uneven steps, going past Aren.
Coming up to the carcass of the first predator with the sword standing out of its flank, he took hold of the hilt, paused a second and pulled the blade sharply towards himself, and the sword came out of the wound with a wet sound and left a dark trail behind it.
William looked over the bloodied blade and shook part of the blood onto the ground with one sharp sweep.
Turning round, he came over to Aren and stopped a pace away, while the look on his face stayed cold and direct.
Aren looked at the bared blade in his hand, and his breathing quickened of its own accord, the pause itself only feeding more and more insistent thoughts of what might be coming.
Dropping to one knee, William cut the rope at the ankles with a single movement, then moved on to the wrists in silence.
Then, putting the sword away in its sheath, he stood and stepped back, and Aren got slowly up, looking at William.
"Well then. Do you want to learn your truth or not?…There's no way back now," William said, not taking his eyes off him.
Distrust flickered in Aren's look, mixed with indignation, but then he moved his eyes slowly aside, taking in the dead predators, the dead horse and the colossal trees standing around them.
After thinking a while longer, Aren drew a deep breath through his nose, breathed it slowly out, then looked at William again and nodded without a word.
William was silent a moment, looking into Aren's eyes, and walked on, stepping over the Cortex's corpse, after which they carried on deeper into the Great Forest.