Chapter 8

Late morning sunlight glanced through the branches overhead. Though the rain had stopped sometime in the night, water still seemed to float in the forest air. Duain Krun shook out his wet clothing as he stepped over thick vines, reflected that he and his men were rather ill-equipped for forest living. The storm, after taking them completely by surprise, had dumped water upon them relentlessly from the sky - rain did not fall in the forest, it poured in rivers off the broad leaves overhead, cascading to the ground below as a solid mass rather than harmless drops. By the time the Hai Krun army had set up their rain shelters beneath the trees, the last man was soaked to the bone and lay sleeplessly, shivering in the heat.

So they struck out late that morning, tired and still wet as they walked. Duain found himself amazed that nothing seemed to ever dry in the forest, despite the heat. He and his men woke up wet, and as the day grew upon them, they became impossibly more wet as they sweated from every part of their bodies. By the time the party came upon a small clearing, the aroma of perpetual wetness and unwashed exertion was anything but pleasant.

"My lord, prince!" called a sergeant with a scar across his mouth. "You need to see... this..."

The prince raised an eyebrow as the sergeant's voice faltered from urgency into uncertainty. "What is it, that I need to see so badly?" Even as he spoke he changed his direction to intercept the scar-faced man.

"It's... it's..." began the sergeant. "... we don't know what it is, my lord."

"You'd think, after..." Duain started in a chiding voice, but did not finish as he stepped out from the trees and into the clearing.

The prince had stopped in mid-sentence and mid-step. 'Chaos' was the word that came to his mind. Everywhere about the clearing, in a wide circle, were thrown about severed tree limbs, vines, soil and tangled weeds, shriveled and dead, looking very much like the dregs at the bottom of a swirled teacup. Above, a giant swath had been ripped through the canopy, a window through the green to the clear blue overhead, framed with broken and scorched limbs. Duain's eyes followed the swath down through the trees all the way to the forest floor, where it ended in an enormous crater of mounded dirt, the sides rising a man's height above the ground. And in the center of the crater, leering over the sides, was the most bizarre object he had ever before seen.

The thing was of a shape which was at once both angular and sweeping. Brought almost to a point at one end, the shape flared out gracefully at the other into something resembling the wings on an airship, though smaller and fixed in place. It did not have color, but rather gleamed in the sun, reflecting the colors around it. Along the sides were painted several designs and symbols which were not in any recognizable language.

"What the..." breathed Duain. He glanced at the scarred face, which did not provide an answer. "What the fuck?"

"We don't know, my lord," offered the captain, Granus. "But the clearing is secure..." He trailed off, open-mouthed and staring at the thing, as were the other hundred and fifty men standing circled about the opening in the forest.

"Goddammit, what the fuck are you?" the prince asked the thing, half expecting to hear and answer. When none came, he said to no one in particular, "What is it made of? Is it silver?"

"... I don't think so, my lord," ventured the man with the scarred mouth when no one else spoke. "I've never seen such a large amount of silver before in my life. I don't think that much exists in the world..."

"... and," said another man, "it's not possible to polish silver that smooth... the hammer marks always show..."

"... is it cut from rock?"

"... do you know any rock that looks like that?"

"... rocks are smoothed in riverbeds, but not in any shape like that..."

"Alright! Enough!" said the prince, with a hand pinching the bridge of his nose as though to hold back the beginnings of a headache. "What about the markings on the side?"

"That one looks like a banner, my lord," said the scar-faced man, pointing to an array of white-on-blue stars backed by a set of red-on-white stripes.

"What about the others?"

The man shrugged. "My lord, they appear to be writing of some kind, but the language is completely foreign."

"What do you mean, completely? Something from the South?"

"No, my lord... I mean... completely."

Duain nodded. He had, of course, already considered the possibilities his men had discussed, probably even before they had themselves. But with his head swimming the way it was, he somehow found it easier to sort things out when he heard his own thoughts verbalized by others.

"You said it's secure, captain?"

"My lord," answered Granus, "the clearing is secure... no one had touched the... thing... yet."

"Right..." said the prince. "I see an opening. Let's have a look inside."

The opening was little more than a gash ripped in the surface when the thing had smashed its way through the canopy above and buried itself in the forest floor. Duain, the captain, and the sergeant scrambled up over the lip of the crater to find their sandals sinking into thick mud once they found their footing at the bottom. During the height of the rain, the crater would have been partially filled with water, and then spent the morning draining; from inside the crater, a ring of mud was visible caked waist-height around the shiny surface, marking a water line on the strange object; the muddy walls of the crater were cracked and split in several places where trapped and pooled rainwater had forced its way out. The prince wrinkled his nose in disgust as he found himself submerged to mid-calf, looked at the thing before him, reached out to place a hand upon it.

The surface was indeed too smooth to be hammered silver, though it did not gleam as brightly. Upon close inspection, there were many visible seams in the material, joining many smaller pieces into a large, flowing shape, but the seams were almost imperceptible to touch. Even the designs patterned upon the sides, which had first appeared as paint, did not have the feel of paint and seemed instead to be part of the surface itself.

Duain stepped carefully to the opening and peered inside, into the haphazard darkness. The prince went through first, followed by the two soldiers. Now standing on the hard interior surface, out of the water, the mud on their legs and feet dripped and pooled on the floor. The pitched angle of the floor, perceptible to their feet, was made more obvious by the muddy ring ran at an odd angle around the inside of the strange object where it had been flooded. What had once appeared as an impressive scene of otherworldly power and precision was now little better than a wreck; bent, broken and smashed, countless items as mysterious as their silver home littered about the inside.

Nothing the prince saw was recognizable; nothing familiar. He found it a frightening prospect to be surrounded and enclosed by a scene of destruction when he had no understanding of anything he saw. To see a thing he did not comprehend: it filled him with a sense of powerlessness. And to see that thing destroyed... What power it must have taken to put the strange object in its current state! Duain guessed that the cornerstone from his father's castle could be hurled at the thing in which he was now standing and not cause the extent of damage he saw around him. A smile touched the corners of his mouth.

What a weapon the thing could make! Ten armed men could fit comfortably inside: ten men impervious to attack. And if the thing could be fitted with wheels...

"Halt!"

"Steady!"

"Who goes..."

"My lord!"

"What?"

"Stop..."

"No!"

"My lord!"

Duain whirled around towards the shaft of sunlight pouring in through the rended opening. The sudden outburst of confused shouts from outside in the clearing which interrupted his thoughts had set his pulse racing. It was three days, maybe four, until they reached Iordantan; no one was supposed to meet them in the forest. The captain and the sergeant had scurried out the opening ahead of the prince, who stepped out, splashed across the mud, and climbed the muddy wall to the rim of the crater. With clenched fist and set jaw, the prince's heart only beat faster when he saw the cause of the shouts.

"My lord," said a sergeant without looking at him, "they came out of nowhere. Our lookouts didn't even see them coming."

The man who spoke had his bow in his hands, string drawn and arrow ready. In fact, every member of the unit which had come into the clearing was standing in a similar pose; one hundred and fifty arrows aimed across the clearing in a posture of surprised aggression. And aimed back the other way were almost three hundred more arrows, and behind those arrows were almost three hundred stern faces, showing no surprise or fear. The tension was palpable.

"Who are..." began Duain, his heart in his throat.

"Shut the fuck up," shot back a reply. The speaker was an impressive figure, younger, taller than the prince, but not quite as broad, with a wild mane of silvery-blonde hair. "This is my forest, and I outnumber you two to one. I'll ask the questions."

"Iordan..." breathed Duain. But how? Did he know? Was the entire invasion doomed to failure from the beginning?

"That's right." The voice was scornful. "Now you tell me who you are."

Duian's panic eased a little. Iosoan did not know. "Duian," he said, "prince of the..."

"... the Hai Krun," Iordan finished for him. "I should have known. How dare you bring an army onto my father's land?" The question was stated with such venom that it was not really meant to be answered.

"This won't be your forest much longer, prince," said Duain. A bead of sweat rolled down his temple. Did Iordan have his entire force in the clearing, or were there more hidden in the trees? Surely, he was not facing the entire Hai Lei army, if Iordan had not even known who he was. Surely, there were only the three hundred before him... But did not feel sure at all.

"No?" said Iordan with a raised eyebrow.

"The men you see here are just an advance party. My full host is..."

"Two thousand, I know."

Duain was shocked. The damned Hai Lei prince had flipped the figure off his tongue with no more care than if he had been giving the weather or time of day. He knew. He knew and did not seem to care. It seemed their biggest advantage, the element of surprise, had been stripped clean away without even a second thought.

"I know where all your men are. I know how your units are arranged. I even know who your sergeants are, and I have snipers picking targets as we speak." Duian stiffened as Iordan spoke. "Now before I kill you, I want to know what you're doing here."

Duain's mind was spinning. How could he know all that? How could he have melted so silently through the trees in such a short amount of time? How many men did he really have with him? He opened his mouth to speak, but was interrupted by a new clamor from the back side of the clearing.

"My lord!" called out a man, his voice gurgling. One eye was missing and the other fixed itself on Duain as he spoke. A pulsing stream of red ran from his mouth and neck, and he held one good arm over the other, which was little more than a mass of tangled flesh. "We're under attack... by surprise... they..." he trailed off when he saw the arrayed standoff in the clearing.

Though none of the soldiers abandoned their aim to look at the new arrival, all ears in the clearing had tuned into the man's voice, muscles tense and throats dry. Then two more battered and bloody men rushed out from the trees, then a group of five, then another by himself. Each newcomer shouted his message in turn, then fell silent.

Duain was at a loss. His army was really, truly under attack. His host of two thousand, being slain before his very eyes as he watched in horror. Then when things could not seem to get any worse, they did. He had been looking at his own ranks as the bleeding soldiers had emerged from the trees, but whipped his head around the other direction at the sound of a cry from the enemy.

"Now!" shouted Iordan.

Duain did not know what the call meant, did not have time to think about it, but reacted on impulse with the only course of action his reflexes could find: he let his feet fall out from under him and slid backwards back into the crater. He felt the rush of an arrow flying by his head as he slid; he heard the whistling in his ear. As he crouched down in the mud, he heard the sound of four hundred and fifty loosed arrows flying both directions, and the sound of uncounted impacts and cries of pain and death.

But the typical sounds of continued archery, or the rush of soldiers upon one another, with the clash of spear and knife, did not come. Instead, Duain heard only the groans of injured men.

And silence.

"My lord," came a call. "Are you alive?"

The prince paused a moment, then stood and climbed back up, over the lip of the crater to the clearing below. "I am," he said as he took in the changed scene. The speaker was one of the men who had rushed out of the trees barely a minute before.

In amazement and horror, Duain saw over a hundred of his men lying dead on the ground. The Hai Lei attackers were nowhere to be seen; it was as if the forest had swallowed them completely.

A message runner burst into the clearing. "My lord," he said, bowing. "I have a report from sergeant Mundale."

Duain nodded, shocked, still looking at the most dead bodies he had ever seen. "What happened?"

"My lord, most of our units were ambushed just minutes ago while they rested. Mostly archery. Those that were engaged hand to hand report the attackers were in groups of about ten. The attacks all occurred at roughly the same time, so no one had any warning, and in each case the officer in command was shot first. The attacks were short, and by the time our men were able to mount any type of retaliation, the attackers had vanished into the forest without a trace. Sergeant Mundale is the only remaining sergeant, my lord."

"No," said Duain, numbly. He glanced at the dead captain. "He's now Captain Mundale. Have him report to me at once. Also have all the corporals report here so we can discuss our situation."

"Yes, my lord," said the messenger, bowing again.

As the boy turned to leave, the prince looked back again at the dead men lying on the ground, their blood staining the soil.

The mission, the plan: was it all over? Would it be wiser to turn straight around and march back to the Hai Krun? Duain found himself wishing he could communicate with Captain Burke, off to the East. Then, he set his jaw in a moment of cool determination. His pulse slowed, his palms dried, and he turned his head North to look at the trees where the prince Iordan had vanished. He almost willed the trees to spit the Hai Lei prince back out; the prince was his enemy, his prey. His host might be surprised and ambushed in the forest, but he had the advantage in numbers. Now he would be the aggressor; now he would go on the hunt.

A small smile again twisted the corners of his mouth.

Off to the North, the lord Iosoan sat beneath the vaulted ceiling of his great hall. With one arm resting on the arm of his chair and the other across his thigh, he managed to somehow appear both casually relaxed and regally dignified. Sunlight poured in through the open skylights, casting patterns across the woodwork; a sharp line was thrown across Iosoan's face, just below his eyes, where a splash of sunlight met the shadow. Several young servant girls clustered behind his throne on the dais, ready to run errands or deliver messages, and the members of the council were gathered, sitting below and to the left. The great lord cast a longing glance at the two chairs, now pushed off to the side, which were meant to hold his son and daughter.