Chapter 1

The tree was an ancient chestnut with wild lower limbs. It sat beside a small pool; smaller than the pool beneath the Eisefel, and warmer, and several of the limbs seemed destined to dip down into the pool some day.

"Do you feel the tree?" I asked Ilesa.

She cocked her head, a cute mannerism I'd decided was adorable, though I hadn't said so. Her eyes were closed and her hands were resting in her lap. With her head cocked, she swayed for a long moment. "Yes, I do!" I could feel her restraining her own excitement.

"If this tree is in you, then you are in it. Can you feel yourself within the tree?"

Another long moment of swaying, and then, in a low, slow voice not much like her own, "Yes, I do."

"What can you tell me about the tree?"

"There is magic within it." Ilesa licked her lips after she said it. "Old magic. Old."

The chestnut was itself born of old magic, I too could feel it. Its magic dominated the vicinity, and gave the pool and its environs a different air than much of the surrounding forest. "How does the tree's magic make you feel?"

"Happy, calm," She paused a moment. "Safe."

"There are fish in this pond," I announced. "I'll catch us one for our dinner. While I'm fishing, I think you should introduce yourself to the chestnut. The two of you are meant to know each other."

I left Ilesa to her meeting and I moved to the edge of the pond. There were a surprising number of fish in it; surely a result of the chestnut's influence. I touched the pond's surface with the tip of a finger and sent a low, unheard note into the water, letting the energy of it flow out in unseen ripples until it found a large, meaty specimen. It wouldn't be enough to feed the two of us by itself, but it would be more than enough when combined with the other things we'd foraged along the way. I lowered my hand into the water and waited, letting the perch brush my hand a few times, letting my magic wait for the feeling of acceptance to come, and lifting the fish from the water once I had it. The chestnut's magic was involved, and I did not want to be a distraction for what passed between it and Ilesa.

Fish in hand, I moved back to the open space across the pool from the chestnut where we had set up our shelter. We had our tents, but had stopped setting them up several days into our journey. We did set up a tent, but my tools and our gear went in it. We both slept beneath an oilskin rain fly that was big enough for us to spread our sleeping furs without crowding each other. To be honest, neither of us would have minded a little crowding, but after a little more than a week within the Starwood, we were still feeling uncomfortable about the bond that seemed to have grown between us.

Tarn and Brass walked free within the clearing, feeding themselves on the sweet grasses beside the pond. Brass was quite a bit smaller than Tarn, but agile and seemingly adept at anticipating her mistresses wishes. Tarn was a warhorse born and bred. Brass was a trail horse of equal measure.

I'd placed the perch on a swamp lantern leaf plucked from beside the pool and now was in search of wood for our cook fire. There was a good deal of lost wood around the edges of the clearing; fallen limbs and other dead wood. I collected as much as I could carry.

I had the fire going and the fish cleaned and ready for cooking by the time Ilesa came to sit beside me. "That looks pretty good."

"It will be, I think. We'll want to keep an eye out for plants we can coax into being spice and seasonings though. I've got some wild onions and dandelion greens to add to this, so it will be pretty tasty, but other than the salt we've both packed, we don't have much of that sort of thing."

I finished wrapping the fish in the leaves and spread the fire a little, wanting to have a large enough bed of coals when the fire burned down to heat the fish evenly and still keep the wild potatoes Ilesa had found earlier in the day cooking. They were small, but would still take much longer to cook than the fish.

"How did your conversation go?"

"Well," Ilesa said with a grin. "Very well. The tree and I are ... like sisters, I guess. No, more than that. I have a big sister, and this is different. More like finding another side to myself."

"This is old magic here," I nodded towards the chestnut. "Older than man's existence on Gaen. It says something about what it means to be a Wood Witch, I think, to have such old magic agree with you so well."

"Thank you," Ilesa said, leaning over to kiss me on the cheek.

"You're welcome," I blushed. "What am I being thanked for?"

"For encouraging me to listen to the chestnut, of course!" she laughed and leaned in to hug my arm briefly. "You continue to show me things that have been there all this time, but I didn't know enough to listen to!"

"You are welcome, of course!" I said, enjoying the contact on my arm but determined to ignore it. "I see magic as wizards do, and have been trained to understand what I see, and in that sense, I know much more about it than you do, and probably more than you ever will. Still, even with the knowledge I have, I could not have the conversation you just did. It is not given to me to speak to the old magic in that way, and living in that magic? I can only hope to help you set your feet on the beginning of that path, but it is not a path that I could walk."

"Truly?"

"Truly. Indeed, whether wizard or king would want it otherwise — any wizard or any king - this path is yours alone."

"How strange to think it so," Ilesa said, and I agreed silently to myself. The magic of Gaen had indeed given itself to man when he had come, but not every manner in which that gift manifested itself was well understood, and those that touched on the old magic, the magic that had existed before man, those gifts were true mysteries.

Our perch was delicious, and the potatoes, though they could have stood some butter, did well for mopping up the juices. Having set up our camp late in the day, we had little light left afterwards to spend time in idle conversation. In truth, Idle conversation always seemed to stir up the tension that existed between us, so already we had learned to avoid it once camp had been made for the night. Instead, when we did have time after eating, we spoke of magic and forestry and the trail we rode across the forest of the north.

As most nights, I spent a few hours in the storage tent, a little witch light to aid me, and continued my studies. I had long since finished the Hadof that my master had set me to reading, and I was reading what I had on the northern forest. If I hadn't built an internal catalog in my head of what I'd read across the years, it would have been an interminably slow process, but with my master being the Valedon, I had made sure to make note of many topics he considered relevant. The forest of the north was one such topic.

Iseden, it was known as in ancient Cunish; The Ice Forest. The word had strong connections to the name given to the Eisefel, which translated, slightly more poorly, as 'Icy Falls'. So I read tonight in 'Legends of the Vale', a book I'd paid scant attention to in my previous reading, as it dealt only briefly with magic and wizardry. It spoke a lot of the ancient magic though, and of the north in general, and particularly the north as it was in the early days of men, before the wardstones were set.

In the early days, the Vale was all forest, from mountain to mountain. Trice Lake was smaller and buried deep in the wild wood of the endless forest. With the setting of the wardstones and the banishment of the unhumans and other evils to the lands beyond the northern mountains, the land had slowly changed over the millennia; developing more open grassland and warmer climes. The worst of the beasts of the wood had faded, and plants that exhibited poisonous or noxious qualities became rarer. The land remade itself for man, and man, it was said, was sometimes remade for the land.

Such were the origins of Wood Witches, this book supposed. It was suggested within it that those others of magic were a part of the accommodation as well. Weather Witches, Mage-healers, Water Witches, Truth-tellers and the like. So said 'Legends of the Vale', and indeed it spoke of others, now gone from the world, or buried away from the eyes of man. Bog-Kings and River-sprites; Sea-sprites and Dust-riders. The legends, whose origins were always suspect, spoke of the role of men as the new Guardians of Gaen, a job we had been called to assume in place of the Elder Guardians, whose existence was only guessed at; who, if they had once existed, left no trace of themselves, only the rare bit of ancient magic, such as that left within the chestnut tree across the pond from where I sat.

"You were long at your studies tonight," Ilesa said from the dark of her furs.

"I read old tracts that guess about the meaning of the north wood and the Vale, and about the manner of man's coming to Gaen and what our coming means."

"Somewhere in it is buried the truth behind my Wood-witchery?"

"Perhaps," I admitted. "The problem with legends is that they are based on nothing, or almost nothing. Legends such as these are as tenuous as the words the deists worship."

"The deists? I thought they worshipped some god or another?"

"So they will tell you, but the god they speak of is so unprovable, so untraceable, so undemonstrative, that all they have left to worship are the words they themselves have written about him. It is a strange sort of narcissism, in the end."

"so it seems. Strange indeed."

I had stripped out of my day clothes and into my furs while we spoke. When Ilesa realized that I had done so, she asked. "Are you not setting wards tonight?"

"Given where we sleep tonight, and what you know of it, do you think it is necessary?"

"No," she chuckled. "I guess we are safe tonight, aren't we?"

"Indeed so," I agreed. "Do you still feel your connection?"

"Of course."

"If something came in the night, would you not know it, through that connection?"

"So it would seem," Ilesa sighed.

"Then let us both sleep well tonight."

"Sleep well," Ilesa answered.

I usually rose first in the morning, but this morning Ilesa stirred just before me. Perhaps the chestnut had her awake with the sound of morning moving across the forest. Whatever the reason, for the first time during our journey, I was able to lay in my furs and watch her putting her trail clothes on, as she had watched me in days past.

It wasn't that this provided a view of something not visible otherwise, except for some bare forearm and some calf and ankle. I saw as much whenever we found ourselves someplace where we could wash off the dirt of the trail. It was different because I was watching a woman rising from her bed. Conceptually, it brought some blood to rising that I was normally more successful at suppressing. A rising that kept me abed even longer than I might have otherwise, while I waited for it to subside.

Ilesa moved to the pool to wash her face, and finally I was able to rise and don my own trail gear. I stirred the cook fire and found nothing remained of last night's fire, but we had enough wood remaining from last night's fire for me to start a new one for our morning meal of lavis and trail biscuits. Once the fire was started, I went looking for a little more wood, to make sure we had enough to keep the fire hot while we brewed our morning's beverage.

"The trail biscuit's would be better with some honey or berries." ilesa commented when I returned.

"We'll have to keep our eyes open for the honey, but I think its too early in the summer for wild berries."

"You're right. I would kill for even the smallest pot of my Mom's apple jam."

"Please! Don't start talking about food we don't have. We're not likely to pick up a larder anywhere along the way to Silverlake."

"Truly? Are there no farms or steads within the north wood?"

"Very few, and with the trail sticking close to the northern edge of the forest, we aren't likely to come across any of the few there are."

"Drats! I can certainly see myself able to live off the land, but I would think this is a hardship I hadn't expected to bother me as much as it is."

"Well, we might have one option open to us, if we make it all the way across the Cairnheart."

"Whats that? Why the Cairnheart?"

"We are trying to determine the range of your association with the north woods, and the Cairnheart is a logical boundary. If you cross the river and feel no lessening of your connection, then one of the other tests remaining is to see how you do away from it. Following the Cairnheart south to Cairncross would be one way of testing that."

"Cairncross!"

And there it rested for the time being. We had many days travel before we would reach the Cairnheart. We had much wilder wood to travel through than we had seen so far, and we both were more of the days and nights ahead, and each other, than we were of the possible destinations waiting for us.

"How does he?" Tynis asked.

"Well. Better than we had a right to expect, and almost as well as we need him to."

"Will this girl do as well Ethric?"

"I do not know, my Lord. She impressed me with her wit when I met her, and she took the oath without hesitation, and I could see within her that she knew what it meant."

"Did she?" Tynis drained his wine glass and reached to refill it.

"She understood what we expect any of them that take the oath are meant to understand. If she understood more, I couldn't see it, but I wouldn't from within the eshada. I would have had to be there in the flesh. Pacasin is certainly sensitive enough to have seen it, but he has not been shown those secrets yet."

"Nor should he have been, but you said he has become somewhat curious about Cunish influences?"

"Yes, and I suspect it is Gaen having her say in the way we move our chess pieces about on the board."

"Why not? It has been Gaen choosing the pieces to begin with, hasn't it?"

"Since the beginning," Ethric admitted, bowing to his king.

"Gaen speaks and we listen, just as men have listened for untold thousands of years. But why does the word take so long to become reality, Ethric? Why does king after king have to die, and wizard after wizard succumb?"

"Gaen sings, but we do not understand the tune. She keeps raising up new generations, and each is found wanting."

I once thought you might be strong enough, Ethric, but you failed me."

"No, your dream failed you. I am what I am. I am what I need to be. I was never going to be strong enough to be what you envisioned. All I could be was ready for what would come, and I hope that I am up tp the tasks that fall to me."

"So far, my friend. So far you have."

"Shh!" Ilesa roused me in my furs.

"What?"

"Something is coming. A group. Get dressed."

"Right. How far away are they?" I slipped from my furs, feeling for my trousers. There was just the slightest hint of light in the sky, but not enough to see well. Knowing the state the dream I'd been having when she woke me, I was glad that Ilesa couldn't see any better than I could.

"A quarter hour or so. They're not moving fast, but they seem to be moving with some purpose," she pointed off in the direction they would come from.

"How did you find them?" I nodded and smiled in the pre-dawn dimness.

"Ah ... a ... an owl told me." Ilesa said it as if she didn't believe it herself. "They disturbed her hunt."

I found my topcoat and slid into it. It was heavy leather, studded with disks of ox horn. Not the most effective armor, but light and quiet. I tied the bottom around my waist and put my belt on a bove it, checking my sword and dagger to make sure they were properly positioned and ready for use.

"Is there a chance they will miss us?" I asked.

"It doesn't appear so. They seem to be headed straight for us."

"Do you have your bow?" I asked. There was more in my question than I asked, and Ilesa heard and understood it.

"Yes, and don't worry. I'll have no trouble using it if I have to."

"I know you can hit what you aim at. I'll try to give us enough light to show you what we're facing if it looks like we'll need to defend ourselves."

"There's no need. I can see perfectly well in this light. I see much better since you began helping me connect to the forest."

"Good," I wondered how much now she might have seen when I rose from my furs. Time enough to worry about that when we were out of danger. "Stay behind me and to the side when the time comes, but not too far away."

I added my battle cloak last, tying it in place so it wouldn't get in the way of my weapons. The cloak had enough enchantment in it to offer some protection, particularly from arrows and other weapons arriving through the air. Just then I heard a low snort from Tarn. Whether he meant to or not, he reminded me he was there. I wished for a moment that I had the barding I'd gotten with him. With the quilted leather neck and chest pieces in place, the warhorse was a formidable opponent. Even without it, he would be formidable, but more open to harm.

"If they rush us, Tarn will probably join the fight," I whispered. "Be sure you are clear of us both with your bow."

"Got it," She answered. I heard the rustle of her moving off behind me.

A moment later those approaching finally got close enough to trigger the wards I'd placed about us the night before. I let my wizard's sight flare up, and sensing no real magic from them, let my own slip out enough to 'see' them as they painted themselves with the lines of my wards as they passed through them.

"Ulmord," I whispered. "Eight of them."

Ulmord were elder creatures. Intelligent, and neither good nor evil, but ferocious and not that fond of men in general. They looked like walking porcupines, though their quills ran down their backs and at the sides of their muzzle-like faces only. The tallest of them would probably be no more than five feet, but they are a stocky, muscular race.

They drew within ten feet of our dead campfire and seemed to have no intention of slowing, so I muttered a little bit of Hadof under my breath and let the dead fire come back to life and flare up brightly in front of them. I changed the tune I muttered as the fire bloomed, wrapping myself in some magic.

"Hold, in the name of the Valedon and King Tynis. State your purpose."

"Your king's name holds no weight with us, youngling," an older, beefier warrior spoke. "Our purpose is your death, and we shall be about it!" He signaled as he spoke, and an arrow flashed out, from the darkness behind those closest to the fire. It got caught in a fold of my cloak as I leaned left at the sound of it. An answering arrow flashed from the darkness behind me, and I heard a coarse grunt. Ilesa had found a target. I yelled, as if struck, but leapt across the fire as I did, and drove my sword into the beefy Ulmord's belly. My dagger caught another sword's slash coming from my left before it could touch me and I diverted it down and into the dirt behind the recipient of my sword. I dropped a shoulder into him and let him fall onto the sword I'd just diverted, trapping it momentarily. Freed from its duties, I slashed out with my dagger and cut the throat of the Ulmord holding the pinned sword. I moved right with the slash, hearing another arrow fly past and into the group in front of me, followed by another grunt and a scream. If each of Ilesa's arrows had struck true, we had only half as many foes to fight as we'd had to begin. I tried to make it one less as I ended my move, but my opponent's axe caught my blade and bounced off, glancing across my forearm three inches below my elbow. I grunted in pain, but let my dagger follow the shaft of the axe handle up and into the hand of whichever of them wielded it.

I sang out; a quick, angry call and a spray of hot, stinging sparks shot out before me. There was a rough cry and what sounded like a sharp gasp, followed by the sound of another arrow going past me.

"To your left!" I heard Ilesa call. I caught the movement out of the corner of my eye and dropped, rolling in that direction and coming up, but whatever had been there was already past me. I saw two shapes moving in front of me with my wizard's sight. The fire had died down again and it was dark once again. I ran towards the upright shape and engaged.

A sword met mine, and I found my blade engaged. Behind me I heard the sound of Tarn trumpeting a challenge, followed by a scream. It didn't sound like Ilesa's. Three quick moves with my blade and I had my opponent's blade in the air, but I was turned too far to the right to bring my dagger back into play effectively, so I dropped a shoulder and tried to bowl my opponent over. He didn't fall, but did stagger back, just far enough for me to reverse my dagger and throw it into his face. I don't think the blade caught him cleanly, but it brought his other hand up high enough to block with my off arm. With his free arm blocked, I stepped across his sword arm and inside of it, bringing my own up and into him. I heard his breath go whooshing out of him, followed by a slick, shivering gurgle. He fell at my feet and around me, there was sudden silence.

"Close your eyes" I hollered, and with a humming note and a wave of my empty hand, let a globe of witch light spring up above me. Once the light had flared, I opened my own eyes and looked around. One of the Ulmord laying nearby struggled to move away. I moved over it and drove my sword down through an ear. The body shuddered and then went stiffly still.

"The one who got past me?" I called out, keeping my eyes in front of me.

"Tarn got him." Ilesa called back.

I did a quick body count. Seven Ulmord lay before me. I saw my dagger where I had thrown it - stuck between the noseplate of an Ulmord's helmet and the savaged nose behind it. In trying to swat it away in the dark the creature had managed to drive it through his face quite cruelly.

"We're clear then," I said loudly, but without the holler.

I turned and saw Ilesa standing by the trunk of a tree, her horse behind her. Tarn stood over the ruined body of a scrawny Ulmord with a battle axe still in its hand. I sheathed my weapons and rushed over to Ilesa.

"Are you all right?" I asked.

"I'm fine," she answered, but I saw her shaking. Before I could react, she was in my arms, and I was holding her and listening to her cry into my blood-stained shoulder.

"Its all right," I said after a while. "What you're feeling right now is just your body's reaction to the danger. Its the aftermath of the battle frenzy. Your body will settle itself, and so will your mind."

"I have killed an intelligent creature," Ilesa cried.

"You did," I agreed. "An intelligent creature intent on killing us both. You did well."

"Are you all right?" she asked suddenly, pulling back from me. "I heard you cry out!"

"I took a glancing blow. I haven't had a chance to examine it yet." I said, pulling my arm up in front of me, now that she had mentioned it. I had a nice gash, a couple inches long, but fairly shallow. The bone beneath it already felt sore. The blade of an axe was not a delicate instrument.

"You're wounded!"

"So it seems. We need to get that clean, and dressed. I can heal most of it, once we've had some breakfast."

"Breakfast? How can you think of food with that blood running out of your arm like that?"

"It will be light soon, and time for breakfast anyway. I expended a little magic too, during our battle, and if I'm going to try to heal myself with more, it would be best to do it with a full stomach."

"I'll get the fire going again and get last night's rabbit stew heating," Ilesa said rushing towards the fire.

"Careful," I cautioned. "Build a new fire, don't use the old one. The magic I used to make it flare is notoriously unstable."

I moved over to the gear tent and found my healer's kit in my bag. There was a small stoppered jug of pure water which I used to wash the cut, and a clean piece of bandage cloth. I muttered out a little subvocal magic directed at the wound and let my magic pull any remaining foreign material out of the wound before I wrapped the bandage around it. With the bandage in place, I tied a leather strap around it to cover and protect it.

Ilesa had a new fire going by the time I was done, and was working on getting the cookpot and its tripod moved over the new fire. The pot had been covered to keep insects and other denizens of the forest out of the stew. I was glad of that, as the thought of Ulmord blood spraying into the pot made my stomach twinge. I found the wineskin where it had been hung above our shelter and stopped for a quick swallow before going to check on Tarn. My warhorse seemed fine, and I checked his chest and forelegs to see if the unlucky ulmord had managed to land a blow, but it seemed that he had not.

"You did a good job Tarn," I told him, patting him alongside the neck. "Thank you." My warhorse snorted at my words and tossed his head, as if to tell me it was just a part of the job, no big deal.

"What's this?" I heard Ilesa from behind me. I turned and she was reaching at my side. I looked down just in time to see her pulling an arrow from where it had been caught up in my cloak.

"That first arrow," I told her. "That's where it struck."

"Better stuck in your cloak than in you," she laughed. I joined her in it. "How's the arm?"

"It'll be fine," I said, showing her my bandaging job. "Tarn and I will drag this fellow out of camp and move the rest of them out of sight while the stew warms." I motioned at the ulmord at Tarn's feet.

"I need some wine," Ilesa said with a shudder.

"Go ahead, its where we left it at the shelter. I've had a quick swallow already myself."

I spent the next fifteen minutes or so moving bodies, with Tarn's assistance. Not far, we would be leaving once it was light enough anyway. I checked their gear, for any clues as to their origins, or purpose, but they seemed suspiciously empty of personal effects or trivial belongings. Nor did they seem to have bulging purses. I spent a little more of my magic looking for clues of the magical kind, but found none.

We ate the stew, with most of it going into my stomach. With some trial biscuits and more of the wine to wash it down, I felt full, and knew I had what I needed to go into a brief healing session.

"Listen to the forest while I am in my trance," I told Ilesa. "These creatures had no coins jingling in their pockets, but that doesn't mean they weren't paid to kill us. They were set upon us though, of that I'm certain."

"I heard the first one you killed say they came to kill us," Ilesa said.

"Almost," I cautioned. "He said their purpose was our deaths, but that could have just been the boasting of fighting men. They're prone to that sort of bluster, whether man or not."

"Perhaps," Ilesa said, shaking her head. "That's not how I took it though."

"No, nor did I."

"Now, listen to the forest and be my eyes and ears while I get this wound a good start on the road to repair, eh?"

"I will," she said softly, giving me another hug.

The thought of that hug and the earlier one made it difficult to find the trance at first. I sat with my back against the tree that had shielded Ilesa during the battle and closed my eyes, and pushed those thoughts and everything else out of my mind. It took quite a while before my thoughts were settled enough.

I woke from my trance to find the camp struck and Ilesa sitting cross-legged in front of me. I found myself staring straight into her blue eyes. Once my own were locked with hers, she grinned back.

"About time. I was beginning to think I'd have to start fixing lunch before you came around."

"Its barely ten," I answered with a small amount of annoyance after consulting my internal sense of time.

"True enough, but it looks like its going to be a warm day, and I suspect that dead Ulmord do not smell pleasant after a while."

I looked around then, and that was when I saw that Ilesa had managed to pack up everything, including the gear tent. Where tent had been, was a canvas cloth with all my stuff in a small pile. She saw what drew my eyes and explained. "I know your particular about your tools and stuff, so I figured it was safer to leave that stuff for you."

"Indeed," I said wryly. Ilesa raised an eyebrow in answer.

"Too stuffy?"

"Very," she said, with the same air I had just used. I laughed, and she joined me.

"Thank you. I do tend to deal with my after-battle emotions by becoming a little stuffy. My master never notices, because he's even worse than I am." She laughed some more, nodding at the image I presented.

"How about you? Have you been able to handle the let down?"

"Yeah, but I did it by keeping myself busy breaking camp. If we don't get moving soon, I may cry and whine all over you."

"Well, we can't have that," I joked, rising to move towards the pile of my belongings. "Has the forest brought you any news in the time I've been healing?"