[news]
Hi, everybody!
I've been hard at work on the first few chapters of the newest Natalie Bryce saga, including one very steamy scene (wink). That will roll out onto my Patreon soon. On the meanwhile, I'm still developing OQV and Sisters & Brothers (which will roll out onto ScribHub soon).
All my best,
Ovid
52. The Old Pines
Val managed to help, and she managed to be busy, but life was very different as a noble. She was still coming to terms with the fact that people would treat her differently now that she was the daughter of a baroness, and the more she insisted that she didn't want to be treated differently the more difficult people got about it. It took days in fighting practice before any of the new people were willing to go hard against her, which was especially annoying because none of them were particularly good on top of that - somebody who barely knew how to grapple refusing to commit to a sweep was all kinds of pathetic, and Val was frankly worried that she'd injure one of them.
Another thing that Val hadn't prepared for was how much time she'd be spending outside. She was a city girl used to being in and out throughout the day. But in the country, there was a whole lot more out than there was in, even around the manor. Whether it was helping Ette fix the roof on the storage shed to practicing maneuvers with the baron's regiment, she was outside for most of any given day.
Every day news arrived from the capital, and Val was always there when Ette went over it with his commanders in the Fork Grove city hall every morning. As a baron of a substantial valley, he was now responsible for fielding around a thousand troops for the earl. He couldn't do it himself, obviously, and so he had a dozen knights and petty lords and ladies each running a portion of the force with two hundred assorted lieutenants, sergeants, and corporals below them responsible for smaller units. On top of that, the barony's home defense was, predictably, just about non-existent. Just as the old earl hadn't seen it fit to keep up the infrastructure in the regions outlying towns and villages, he hadn't been particularly keen on allocating resources for training and arming the men and women who didn't care for his. Now Ette had to ready the barony in what sounded like weeks - the Righteous Army was making its way westward and was an imminent threat to all of western Aurilicht.
"What about Fort Tunnie?" Lady Salvidora asked. "I've not been there in years. What sort of state is it in?"
"Not bad, if you'd believe it," Ette said. "It's a decent base of operations for defensive sallies, though it can only house about two hundred for a siege. But if we're under siege, we're already in a bad state. The more likely scenario is that we'll train the home defense to use the fort and our own army will join up with Zollen's forces to head off the righteous army. If they've split off from the Bolearic main forces, we should have the numerical advantage."
Salvidora pored over the map of the valley. "If we've got time, we can set up defenses along the ridge and along the mouth of the valley - if Terrian had thought to do that, the earl's forces would have had a harder time of things."
"Aye, I thought of that," Ette said. "I'd like you to take charge of starting those defenses - whatever can be done in a week's time. I expect to get the call to arms from the earl by then and don't want his first impression of me as baron to be a bunch of mismatched troops stumbling late into the fray. Val… what's the state of our battle-mages?"
"They…" Val sighed. "They need work. I've given them some books to study, but most of the Gifted who've volunteered aren't the sort who are going to make huge strides in a week. Until they can cast defensive spells at anything close to competence, there's no point in running drills with them."
Ette rubbed the bridge of his nose. "All right… in that case, I want you to spend one or two days with our scouts. I need to know if they're any good and I'm needed here."
"I don't know much about scouting…" Val said.
"You know more than you think you do. Enough to tell a good scout from bad, at least. Half of being a bondswoman is scouting, and you're better than fair at that."
"Niko and Izzy are coming," she said.
"Three peas in a pod," Ette said. "Okay, go have the quartermaster ready your things and then say goodbye to your mom and sit down for a nice country lunch with her or else she'll be sore at me."
Val saluted in the way the officers did. "No more than two days," she said. "I can't miss more practice than that."
Ette and his officers all chuckled. Val scowled, which made him chuckle more. "I wouldn't dream of it, love. Go on - we'll talk before you leave."
Thus, four hours later, Val, Niko, and Izzy rode out to the edge of the wood with the eight members of the barony's scouting squad. There were many more outriders than that, obviously - up to a few dozen at a time - but they didn't require as much training and weren't likely to be on their own for weeks at a time in the way scouts might be. Val was a bit intimidated, frankly - there were five men and three women with far more wilderness knowledge than she, a city orphan, had. Val's grand total wilderness experience amounted to a few weeks, and the least experienced scout had a few years.
"Four years," Livinia Forsooth clarified. She was a distant cousin of Viana Forsooth, a witch who Val had once helped Ette captured - no hard feelings there, fortunately. "My pa and I lived on the edge of the wood not too far from here. Starting at age sixteen or so, he'd take me on poaching runs into the wood, a few weeks at a time. Because of the way the old baron taxed us, we had to make ends meet through poaching."
She shot Val a challenging look, perhaps expecting the baron's daughter to have a harsh take on poaching. Val didn't care - she was a lot more worried about being merciful to the animals you killed and only killing them when you needed to. If you had to resort to illegal poaching to feed your family, that qualified.
"You know a lot more than me, then," Val said. "I've only ever been hunting five or six times before, and I've only ever brought down a kill by myself once."
"Heard you won some kind of archery competition…" Livinia said. All of the scouts turned their attention to Val, eager to hear the tale.
Val told them, in brief, what had happened. She was careful to mention that she'd got three practice shots and it was in an open field, neither of which you were likely to get while hunting in the wood. Not that hunting was a scout's primary forte, but it was a valuable skill to have. As was being silent - the scouts knew plenty about the wood and often spotted trails before the girls did, but they made a whole lot more noise.
"I thought scouts were supposed to be quiet," Val said.
"We are being quiet," Bavarnic Meissler said - he was the oldest of the bunch, probably the same age as Ette. He was a forestry guide who'd been offered a commission and was the nominal leader of the scouts. "We haven't all got crazy witchcraft keeping us silent as death in the woods."
"We're not using any witchcraft," Val insisted. "Izzy isn't even a witch."
"Not yet," Izzy added.
"Not yet," Val agreed.
Bavarnic shrugged. "Then how do you explain that she's probably the quietest of the lot of you. A human can learn to be pretty quiet in the forest, but it's a rare horse that is, and not half as quiet as that. No hoof-falls, no displaced foliage… how do you explain that?"
Val whispered to Tulip, asking her if she was walking in a special way, to which Tulip grunted: Tulip good horse, which was decidedly ambiguous. She asked tulip to stamp her hooves, and they made the usual sound… so there was something odd about the way they were moving, even Izzy and her horse, Pickpocket... and Izzy couldn't possibly be doing magic. Could she?
"I can't explain it," Val said. "Maybe it's the horseshoes?"
"It's not the horseshoes," Bavarnic said. Livinia agreed - something was afoot with their horses, but not on their literal feet.
"We could switch horses and see if anything changes?" Niko offered.
"Let's take a break and we'll think about it afterward," Bravarnic said, gesturing to the clearing up ahead.
Leistundvar Valley was not a wilderness barony - in fact, across its five hundred twenty square miles, it had four respectable towns, eleven proper villages, a hundred homesteads, and lots and lots of farmland. That still left an awful lot of room for undeveloped country, especially up in the hills. It wasn't exactly wilderness, but it was sparsely settled, with game trails and woodland homesteads giving way to old growth wood as you got into the hills. Val had asked Bavarnic to bring them to the purest wood he knew of as a sort of test - to see if the scout lieutenant could find the place and to see how the unit worked as they went. So far, Val was neither overly impressed nor entirely disappointed - they were at home in the woods, but didn't seem to be the eccentric folk of the wild she'd hoped to meet.
"Wild folk have no loyalties," Bavarnic stated. "Most of them don't even know there's a war on - and nor do they care." In the clearing, he set up tinder and wood for a fire. Elsewhere, in the woods beyond them, half of their party had ventured out to hunt something - Val wanted to make sure they would be self-sufficient. Bavarnic tapped his foot and glanced at Val poignantly. "I know you know magic to start a fire," he said.
"The baron told me to observe and learn," Val said, as if there was any doubt that any one of the scouts could start a fire.
"He didn't tell me that," Niko said, and she cast a fire right under the tinder, immediately bringing it to a pleasant crackle.
Bavarnic tilted his broad-brimmed cap and grinned - he was missing a few teeth and had replaced them with carved and painted bone, as some folks did. "Obliged, miss witch."
They ate and rested for a bit, letting their horses graze out in the clearing. Val sat next to Niko on a log, resting her head on her shoulder, their fingers entwined, and gazing out into the wood. The colors of autumn were all around them, but already they were fading. In a few short weeks, the trees would be bare, and shortly after that winter would be upon them. By then, they would probably be back in the war, the Righteous Army marching across the plains to take Port Rumm… if they took the port, the war was all but over. The only other sizable city in the duchy was Kaldhavin in the south, buttressed against the mountains. That city would be hard to take but easy to starve out, since it was sweeping plains on one side and soaring mountains behind.
Niko nudged Val's side. "What are you thinking about?"
"I don't want to fight in a war," Val said. "Lots of people are going to die… quite a few are already dead."
"Then don't." Niko tucked her chin down to kiss Val's forehead. "Uncle Ette doesn't want us to go. If the Righteous Army makes it this far, we could just go somewhere else. Sail across the sea."
Val sighed. "Even if I hadn't sworn a blood-oath… and I did… I did swear one… they're horrible people. What kind of person would I be if I just let… let evil stampede over a whole continent?"
"We're not grown ups yet. It's not our responsibility."
"You know this isn't going to change my mind, right?"
"Yeah," Niko sighed. "Mine either. I wish we didn't have to, either."
Livinia approached the girls. "If the young misses are rested, the Old Pines are about two hours away. If we leave soon, we can make it to the clearing by dark."
Niko pulled away from Val, eliciting a disappointed little sigh from her. She regarded the scout for a minute - they stood eye to eye with one another. "We're not the ones who suggested a rest, and we're not dainty little lordlings who need to be escorted." She clicked with her tongue and Petunia came trotting over, still munching away at meadow grass.
"Yes, I'd noticed… you'll have to excuse my humor. Everything about this is odd, but I've no doubt that witches don't need the help of a poacher's daughter and a woodsman, and nor do we need to be schooled by you, unless you can teach us the trick to making horses so silent in the wood…"
Niko shrugged. "Have you tried asking them?"
"Asking them?"
"It's only polite," Val added in. She stood and Tulip trotted over to her… and, of course, she'd managed to find something like apples in the middle of the woods. Val could smell it on her breath. She rubbed Tulip's snout and mounted up. "Let's see these Old Pines."
+++++
The Old Pines were old. Bavarnic said they were the oldest things in the forest, though Val didn't see how he could possibly know that. The pines would have been ancient when he was still in diapers, but there might be older things yet. Some of the trees had symbols on their trunks, trunks as wide as a horse was long, symbols grown into the very bark. They might have been carved in and scarred over, or maybe it had been natural magic. Bavarnic insisted that no human hand had made the symbols, that it had been some other folk of the deep wood.
"It's old runic," Val said - she recognized it from one of her books, though she could only recognize about half of the symbols. Surprisingly, the most prominent one was the twisted crescent that symbolized welcome. She'd have expected the exact opposite. "It's said that the fae peoples taught runes to the first humans, and that in repayment, humans devised an unnatural magic that banished the fae from our world."
"You'd know more about that than me, miss witch," the old woodsman said.
"Have you ever seen one?"
"I've seen things, aye," he glanced about the wood. In the early evening, the Old Pines were nearly as dark as night, the inky indigo of sky traced by pink clouds barely visible through the great spans of pine-nettled canopy. The trees there were tall, incredibly tall, and the forest floor was a mat of damp nettles with little in the way of underbrush. "I've seen things, but I couldn't tell you what they were… whatever lives here doesn't like to be seen. Forest devils is my guess…"
"They're not evil," Val stated definitively. "Though they might think we're evil. If I was fae, I wouldn't care much for humans."
Bavarnic grunted and nodded but said nothing. Val couldn't help but notice he'd set his bow in front of himself as he rode, as if he expected to need it at any moment. But all they saw were a few wild turkeys scurrying about the sparse bushes and a pair of scampering foxes, likely after the turkeys. As it got dark, Bavaric led them to a gentle gully with a crystal-clear brook running through and suggested they stop for the night.
"And if all we're here for is a little casual sight-seeing, and begging your leave, miss, we'll march about a bit on the morrow and then head back to Fork Grove."
"That's fine," Val said. "If we're looking for something, we'll know it when we see it."
The whole ride into and through the Old Pines had been strange for Val… the whole time, she'd felt watched. She'd felt something calling to her. And maybe it was her connection with the natural magic, but maybe it was something else. It was she who'd suggested that the scouts lead them to the pines… well, she'd asked them to take her to the oldest part of the forest… as if she'd had something in mind. But now that she was here, Val felt like she was in temple, with its vast and airy vault of a ceiling, with its great columns leading the way to the altar, and the babbling brook fifteen yards from their camp might well have been a baptismal font. Though her Old Sudren religion didn't do baptisms - that was for the Pale Order.
As they lay down for the night, Val snuggled in with Niko… and then Izzy snuggled in with both of them. She did that sometimes, but it didn't make things awkward. She was Val's sister, and they were close like that. Val drifted into slumber, warm in the cool forest, Niko breathing in her ear, Violet purring upon her belly, and Izzy curled against her shoulder, the sound of shushing nettles easing her to sleep.
+++++
When she awoke, the campsite was strangely moonlit. Something had awoken Val… with a thought, Tulip picked up on Val's alarm and plodded up to her. As Val extricated herself from Niko and Izzy, trying not to wake them, she noticed Violet staring off into the woods, utterly intent upon something. She wasn't scared or angry, just very, very alert, her purple cat eyes wide and nearly pitch black in the night. Val turned to see what Violet was looking at and startled when she spotted a fox staring back at her… no, not a fox. Almost a fox. Its face was too large, too flat, and it stood too tall… it walked on two gangly legs. It emerged from behind a tree, staring at Val.
They stared at one another for a moment, Val in her shirt and breeches and the fox lady in a simple, flowing dress. Her tail flicked… tails… she had at least three of them. Then she scampered off into the night…
Wait! Val almost shouted… but, for some reason, she thought it would be a bad idea to awaken the others. Instead, she disentangled herself from the cuddle pile and followed after it…
How she followed after it was a good question. It wasn't as if the fox woman had left any visible trail to follow, but some instinct in Val just knew. Val and Tulip crept away from the campsite, utterly silent beneath the canopy of the Old Pines. She caught glimpses of something once… twice… something faintly glowing in the woods ahead of them. And then the glow grew, as if they were approaching a great, roaring campfire. Only there were no flames, just the golden glow of magical light. As they pushed past the low-lying boughs of a tree, they entered a large, warmly-lit clearing, at the center of which was a great banquet table heaped high with the cornucopia of the forest.
A beautiful woman with red hair, a fox's ears, and glittering green eyes turned to Val… she was one of perhaps a dozen at the table. Some had diaphanous wings. Some had greenish skin and were clad in leaves. One had the legs, horns, and hooves of a goat.
"I told you she would answer the summons," the fox lady said. Her voice was an autumn melody.
"The summons?" Val asked. Her voice had an ethereal quality in the clearing, and she felt as if she might just float off of Tulip and join them at the table, as if none of what she was seeing was quite real.
"You are the queen of the humans."
"Maybe some day," Val said uncertainly.
"You were. You will be." The fox lady gestured to an open seat. "It matters not. Come. Join the ladies and lords of the wood as we feast."
Val dismounted and approached the group, surrounded by the golden light of a summer afternoon. There were nuts, fruits, and berries. Partridge and pheasant roasted to a golden brown. A great pink salmon lay in front of the fox lady… she wore a circlet of leaves with drops of dew serving as its jewels. She held herself as Val imagined a queen would.
"Thank you, your majesty," Val said.
The fox lady nodded at the recognition. "Please, eat. You promised us once that you would defeat the Pale One, Queen Friyja, but that has not happened. Some say you were defeated…"
"She was entombed deep underground," the man to her right said. He had big dragonfly wings upon his back and living vines tattooed across his body. "I saw as much in my visions…"
"Hmm," the queen said. "The wastrels of the Pale One defeated you?"
"I… I’m not her. That was hundreds and hundreds of years ago…"
"I see…" the fox queen tapped the table, and Val felt a shiver pass through her. Suddenly, all of the tattoos on her body were visible. It was such a reflex to hide them that she was often unaware that she was even doing so, but the feeling of her natural skin was unmistakable… and a bit liberating. "You say you are not her, and yet you bear her markings. I have felt your stirrings these past few months… I have felt you approach my domain… and so I must ask: is our bargain still intact or have you come to defeat us?"
"What? What bargain?" Val asked. Tulip had plodded up beside her at the table and was hungrily wolfing down nuts and berries. None of the guests at the banquet seemed in the slightest perturbed by this.
"Her memories are clouded," the winged man said. "Valkyrie sees her past, but only in dream… I have an elixir that might restore it…"
"No, Prince Byraelic. I would like the queen to answer in her own words. Queen… Valkyrie, is it? Queen Valkyrie, the blood of the earth runs in your veins. I could have it back, could sunder our bargain, and the cost to you would be terrible…"
"She would likely die," Byraelic said.
"And how many of ours have died?" the queen said. "Will you defeat the Pale One? And will you bring the old magic back to these lands, such that we need not cower in these shadows and hold our court at midnight in the deepest wood? I…"
"Val, what's going on?" Niko said. Everybody gasped at the intrusion… well, not Tulip…
"Treachery!" the goat-man said, and he reached for a staff of gnarled oak.
"No! No…" Val said. The forest lord eyed her warily. "This is my friend, Niko. She's also my…"
"Yes, your lover," the fox queen said. "The warrior huntress. I remember her well… it is said no prey can elude her. Did you follow your love's trail?"
"I… um… we're not lovers," Niko said. "We're too young. I, uh, followed the path…"
She gestured behind her… and, sure enough, there was a trail of glowing hoofprints leading up to the clearing, as if each of Tulip's steps had breached a hole into a glowing world beneath the forest floor.
The fox queen blinked slowly. "You did not come here to destroy us," she stated. "That much is clear. You have supped with us. Your horse has eaten all of my nuts and berries. It is close enough to Taagsnit - we will exchange gifts of goodwill in the old way. Things of great value. Queen Valkyrie, in addition to my feast of splendor, a feast to last through the cold and hard months to come, a feast to nourish the spirit, I offer a gift from the old wood. I note your Lady does not yet have a companion."
Niko yelped as a snowy owl flitted in from the night and landed itself upon her shoulder. It was large for an owl, probably eighteen inches high, pure white, with a beautiful black beak and ice-blue eyes.
"This one is called Silence… though he is not always so. His name in the old tongue is a play on words, for it also means 'snow daisy'. He will follow you, Lady Nikoli, for as long as you honor him. And what gift have you in return, Queen Valkyrie?"
"Um…" Val said. She didn't have anything of particular meaning or sentimental value on her. She had the knife she'd taken off of Terrian. That was valuable and even magical, but it somehow didn't seem a fitting gift for the fox queen. She didn't have anything worth giving… her jacket was pretty nice. Would the queen like hardened leather? Probably not. "Oh! I have got a present… this is very dear to me. My mother gave this to me when I was very young…"
She unclasped the silver pendant from around her neck and leaned across the table to hand it to the queen. "This is the most valuable thing I own. It's yours now."
The queen accepted the pendant, clasping it around her own slim neck. "Our pact is reaffirmed. The blessings of the wood be upon you, Queen Valkyrie."
"The blessings of the wood!" the other guests chanted…
+++++
Val awoke with a start. It was morning, the smell of breakfast wafting over from the campfire. For a moment, she was convinced that it had all been a dream. Up until she reached for her pendant and found it missing. She brought her hand to her collar and felt around for it, shooting up from her sleeping roll and nearly catapulting an also-suddenly-awake Violet off of herself.
"It… it was real?" she said. The snowy owl staring at her from the nearby log said nothing, but his presence all but confirmed it. "You're… Silence, right?"
The owl hooted softly, which meant, Not always. Which meant yes.
Niko groaned herself awake and then gasped. "Did… did something happen last night? We… there was a banquet out in the woods? With a fox lady and a goat man and a fairy prince?"
Izzy yawned and stirred from her position to Val's right. "No. If you'd gotten up I would have woken up. Slept the whole night through…"
"I don't think you'd have woken up if the Earl Zollen clashed with the Righteous Army on top of us," Val said. "Plus, Niko has a familiar now. How do you explain that?"
Izzy rolled upright, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and pulling her tangle of bed hair back into a tail. "I dunno… is that it?" She pointed toward Silence, and Niko and Silence nodded. "Birds can just find people sometimes… pigeons used to live on the windowsill at the orphanage and poop all over the ledge. Gotkosen Mellia used to chase them off with a broom, but they always came back…"
"This isn't like pigeons pooping on a ledge, Izzy," Niko said.
"Yeah, maybe. But a fox lady in the middle of the… um… is that Tulip?"
It took Val a minute to spot her own horse because, indeed, Tulip did not look like herself. Her brown and spotted filly looked like a different animal altogether, slightly larger and more muscular, her coat turned a tawny, golden color with silver and gold in her mane, her eyes the same intense violet as Val's eyes (or Violet's, for that matter). And yet she somehow felt like the same Tulip… only more so.
"You silly horse," Val said. "That's what you get for eating all of the fox queen's food…" Val wondered what would have happened to her if she'd had more than a few nibbles of the stuff, which she'd only eaten out of politeness.
Tulip grunted, which meant, I regret nothing.
"Oh! That's new!" Val laughed. "Tulip's smart now, too…"
More grunting: I was smart before.
"Not like this! Wow!" Val hugged Tulip, and the horse took it in good spirits, lowering her snout over Val's shoulder to bring them closer.
Bavarnic strolled over to them, taking in the sight of Val's transformed horse but saying nothing. And if Ms. Lyvanna, the stablemaster back at Darkvale House, didn't think Tulip was now the most regal horse ever, it would mean she'd lost use of her reason. The old huntsman grunted, but it didn't mean much since he wasn't a horse.
"I take it you've got what you came for?"
Val nodded. "We met some fae out in the woods, and we… we made a deal, I guess…"
"You made a deal with the fae?" Bavarnic rubbed at the little amulet he wore around his chest. "That was… probably unwise, miss."
"I don't think they were trying to trick me… I think they're scared about what will happen if the Righteous Army wins. And if we've got the same enemy, then they can't betray me without betraying themselves."
Niko nodded. "The fae seem fine. They gave me a familiar!" She held out her arm and Silence flapped over to it. Perched upon Niko's arm, he regarded the huntsman with unblinking eyes.
"Perhaps the forest folk are kindly to witches," Bavarnic conceded after a moment. "Still, I suggest we return to fork grove - the baron will want us back and rested if we're to ride out soon."
"Lead the way."
They made their way out of the Old Pines - Val turned and waved goodbye as they passed the last of the great and ancient trees, but she couldn't tell if the shadow lurking back behind the sentry pine was the fox queen, some other fae, or just a shadow. The whole time in the old part of the forest seemed gauzy and faded, as if it had happened in some sort of dream, some other reality. And yet the snowy bird rode atop Niko's shoulder and Val couldn't stop running her fingers through Tulip's sleek mane with its gold and silver, and Tulip clearly liked the attention. Something had definitely transpired, and it couldn't be denied.
For that matter, the scouts rode their horses in almost complete silence, whereas the day before they'd cracked and clomped through the woods loud enough to hear for yards around. They noticed it, too, but they dared not speak about it, lest the magic somehow be lost. Val suspected it was some sort of blessing from the fae, something to help them defeat their enemies in any small way possible.
Maybe if they lead the Righteous Army into the old pines, the fae would kill them? Or maybe it would anger the fae. Or they would be defeated. Val decided that was probably a poor idea - no, this would be a fight they would face on their own.
It seemed far too soon when they finally broke from the woods and found the well-worn path back to Fork Grove. The sun was still high in the sky and the farmers were busily bringing in the last of the harvest. Without the trees as protection, the air was cool and crisp, the last of the autumn whipping by under a silvery sky.
"Uncle Ette should be running drills about now," Izzy said, checking the sky for the time.
As Fork Grove appeared in the distance, its smattering of houses and buildings built up along the gentle slope of the river valley, they passed by the practice field where Ette and his captains had been training the troops. It was oddly quiet, the breeze shushing along the yellow grass. For an instant, Val was worried the army had been summoned in a hurry and gone off without them, but the army camp was still there at the base of the village and, as they rode through Fork Grove, she could see quartermasters with their gaudy patches busily purchasing supplies for the troops. Fork Grove had already been a prosperous community since Gunthald's family had favored it above the other towns in the barony, but a whole new cottage industry had sprung up around supplying the army with food, equipment, and whatever niceties and luxuries the soldiers could afford. They would be sad to see the army march out.
Fork Grove Welcomes its Brave Troops, the banner above city hall read. Never mind that about a quarter of the troops were locals.
Finally, they made their way up the hillside and to the manor stables, where Ms. Lyvanna was very surprised to see the changed Tulip, who trotted in with the bearing of a queen among mere horses and even managed a snooty air as she waited for the stablemaster to lead her over to her accustomed stall.
"Don't get a big head," Val said. "You're not getting any more apples than usual."
Afterward, Val, Niko, and Izzy all relaxed in the manor's big bath - the one that had its own room and was far bigger than the large tub in Val's chamber. With their bathing garb on and the door open, obviously, though Izzy certainly would have balked in Val and Niko tried anything hanky-panky. No, this was just a nice bout of relaxation after two days on the road.
Ginn had fussed over them upon their arrival, which was a bit odd since they'd only been gone for two days. One and a half, really - she'd seen them off yesterday morning and now it was barely evening. But Val's mom could be like that sometimes. Val had worried her enough times in the past that she sometimes got intuitions about when to be worried and couldn't get the nagging sensation out of her mind until she was sure Val was all right. Then she'd laid out a very full schedule for the girls the next day, stating that a traveling clothier had arrived in town and would be making them gowns for Taagsnit, which Val found both odd and exciting.
She sank down in the bath, letting the water dip over the top of her head, her hair floating all around her like a coppery halo. In the murky water, she could make out Niko's Shape, and the examined it for a bit longer than she ought to. When she eventually re-emerged into the cool air, Silence had perched himself at the edge of the tub and Niko and Izzy were both turned toward Val, concern and surprise playing across their faces.
"What?" Val said.
"Uncle Ette is planning on riding out with the troops tomorrow morning… and he doesn't want us coming."
OvidLemma
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-Ovid
[news]
Hi, everybody!
I've been hard at work on the first few chapters of the newest Natalie Bryce saga, including one very steamy scene (wink). That will roll out onto my Patreon soon. On the meanwhile, I'm still developing OQV and Sisters & Brothers (which will roll out onto ScribHub soon).
All my best,
Ovid
52. The Old Pines
Val managed to help, and she managed to be busy, but life was very different as a noble. She was still coming to terms with the fact that people would treat her differently now that she was the daughter of a baroness, and the more she insisted that she didn't want to be treated differently the more difficult people got about it. It took days in fighting practice before any of the new people were willing to go hard against her, which was especially annoying because none of them were particularly good on top of that - somebody who barely knew how to grapple refusing to commit to a sweep was all kinds of pathetic, and Val was frankly worried that she'd injure one of them.
Another thing that Val hadn't prepared for was how much time she'd be spending outside. She was a city girl used to being in and out throughout the day. But in the country, there was a whole lot more out than there was in, even around the manor. Whether it was helping Ette fix the roof on the storage shed to practicing maneuvers with the baron's regiment, she was outside for most of any given day.
Every day news arrived from the capital, and Val was always there when Ette went over it with his commanders in the Fork Grove city hall every morning. As a baron of a substantial valley, he was now responsible for fielding around a thousand troops for the earl. He couldn't do it himself, obviously, and so he had a dozen knights and petty lords and ladies each running a portion of the force with two hundred assorted lieutenants, sergeants, and corporals below them responsible for smaller units. On top of that, the barony's home defense was, predictably, just about non-existent. Just as the old earl hadn't seen it fit to keep up the infrastructure in the regions outlying towns and villages, he hadn't been particularly keen on allocating resources for training and arming the men and women who didn't care for his. Now Ette had to ready the barony in what sounded like weeks - the Righteous Army was making its way westward and was an imminent threat to all of western Aurilicht.
"What about Fort Tunnie?" Lady Salvidora asked. "I've not been there in years. What sort of state is it in?"
"Not bad, if you'd believe it," Ette said. "It's a decent base of operations for defensive sallies, though it can only house about two hundred for a siege. But if we're under siege, we're already in a bad state. The more likely scenario is that we'll train the home defense to use the fort and our own army will join up with Zollen's forces to head off the righteous army. If they've split off from the Bolearic main forces, we should have the numerical advantage."
Salvidora pored over the map of the valley. "If we've got time, we can set up defenses along the ridge and along the mouth of the valley - if Terrian had thought to do that, the earl's forces would have had a harder time of things."
"Aye, I thought of that," Ette said. "I'd like you to take charge of starting those defenses - whatever can be done in a week's time. I expect to get the call to arms from the earl by then and don't want his first impression of me as baron to be a bunch of mismatched troops stumbling late into the fray. Val… what's the state of our battle-mages?"
"They…" Val sighed. "They need work. I've given them some books to study, but most of the Gifted who've volunteered aren't the sort who are going to make huge strides in a week. Until they can cast defensive spells at anything close to competence, there's no point in running drills with them."
Ette rubbed the bridge of his nose. "All right… in that case, I want you to spend one or two days with our scouts. I need to know if they're any good and I'm needed here."
"I don't know much about scouting…" Val said.
"You know more than you think you do. Enough to tell a good scout from bad, at least. Half of being a bondswoman is scouting, and you're better than fair at that."
"Niko and Izzy are coming," she said.
"Three peas in a pod," Ette said. "Okay, go have the quartermaster ready your things and then say goodbye to your mom and sit down for a nice country lunch with her or else she'll be sore at me."
Val saluted in the way the officers did. "No more than two days," she said. "I can't miss more practice than that."
Ette and his officers all chuckled. Val scowled, which made him chuckle more. "I wouldn't dream of it, love. Go on - we'll talk before you leave."
Thus, four hours later, Val, Niko, and Izzy rode out to the edge of the wood with the eight members of the barony's scouting squad. There were many more outriders than that, obviously - up to a few dozen at a time - but they didn't require as much training and weren't likely to be on their own for weeks at a time in the way scouts might be. Val was a bit intimidated, frankly - there were five men and three women with far more wilderness knowledge than she, a city orphan, had. Val's grand total wilderness experience amounted to a few weeks, and the least experienced scout had a few years.
"Four years," Livinia Forsooth clarified. She was a distant cousin of Viana Forsooth, a witch who Val had once helped Ette captured - no hard feelings there, fortunately. "My pa and I lived on the edge of the wood not too far from here. Starting at age sixteen or so, he'd take me on poaching runs into the wood, a few weeks at a time. Because of the way the old baron taxed us, we had to make ends meet through poaching."
She shot Val a challenging look, perhaps expecting the baron's daughter to have a harsh take on poaching. Val didn't care - she was a lot more worried about being merciful to the animals you killed and only killing them when you needed to. If you had to resort to illegal poaching to feed your family, that qualified.
"You know a lot more than me, then," Val said. "I've only ever been hunting five or six times before, and I've only ever brought down a kill by myself once."
"Heard you won some kind of archery competition…" Livinia said. All of the scouts turned their attention to Val, eager to hear the tale.
Val told them, in brief, what had happened. She was careful to mention that she'd got three practice shots and it was in an open field, neither of which you were likely to get while hunting in the wood. Not that hunting was a scout's primary forte, but it was a valuable skill to have. As was being silent - the scouts knew plenty about the wood and often spotted trails before the girls did, but they made a whole lot more noise.
"I thought scouts were supposed to be quiet," Val said.
"We are being quiet," Bavarnic Meissler said - he was the oldest of the bunch, probably the same age as Ette. He was a forestry guide who'd been offered a commission and was the nominal leader of the scouts. "We haven't all got crazy witchcraft keeping us silent as death in the woods."
"We're not using any witchcraft," Val insisted. "Izzy isn't even a witch."
"Not yet," Izzy added.
"Not yet," Val agreed.
Bavarnic shrugged. "Then how do you explain that she's probably the quietest of the lot of you. A human can learn to be pretty quiet in the forest, but it's a rare horse that is, and not half as quiet as that. No hoof-falls, no displaced foliage… how do you explain that?"
Val whispered to Tulip, asking her if she was walking in a special way, to which Tulip grunted: Tulip good horse, which was decidedly ambiguous. She asked tulip to stamp her hooves, and they made the usual sound… so there was something odd about the way they were moving, even Izzy and her horse, Pickpocket... and Izzy couldn't possibly be doing magic. Could she?
"I can't explain it," Val said. "Maybe it's the horseshoes?"
"It's not the horseshoes," Bavarnic said. Livinia agreed - something was afoot with their horses, but not on their literal feet.
"We could switch horses and see if anything changes?" Niko offered.
"Let's take a break and we'll think about it afterward," Bravarnic said, gesturing to the clearing up ahead.
Leistundvar Valley was not a wilderness barony - in fact, across its five hundred twenty square miles, it had four respectable towns, eleven proper villages, a hundred homesteads, and lots and lots of farmland. That still left an awful lot of room for undeveloped country, especially up in the hills. It wasn't exactly wilderness, but it was sparsely settled, with game trails and woodland homesteads giving way to old growth wood as you got into the hills. Val had asked Bavarnic to bring them to the purest wood he knew of as a sort of test - to see if the scout lieutenant could find the place and to see how the unit worked as they went. So far, Val was neither overly impressed nor entirely disappointed - they were at home in the woods, but didn't seem to be the eccentric folk of the wild she'd hoped to meet.
"Wild folk have no loyalties," Bavarnic stated. "Most of them don't even know there's a war on - and nor do they care." In the clearing, he set up tinder and wood for a fire. Elsewhere, in the woods beyond them, half of their party had ventured out to hunt something - Val wanted to make sure they would be self-sufficient. Bavarnic tapped his foot and glanced at Val poignantly. "I know you know magic to start a fire," he said.
"The baron told me to observe and learn," Val said, as if there was any doubt that any one of the scouts could start a fire.
"He didn't tell me that," Niko said, and she cast a fire right under the tinder, immediately bringing it to a pleasant crackle.
Bavarnic tilted his broad-brimmed cap and grinned - he was missing a few teeth and had replaced them with carved and painted bone, as some folks did. "Obliged, miss witch."
They ate and rested for a bit, letting their horses graze out in the clearing. Val sat next to Niko on a log, resting her head on her shoulder, their fingers entwined, and gazing out into the wood. The colors of autumn were all around them, but already they were fading. In a few short weeks, the trees would be bare, and shortly after that winter would be upon them. By then, they would probably be back in the war, the Righteous Army marching across the plains to take Port Rumm… if they took the port, the war was all but over. The only other sizable city in the duchy was Kaldhavin in the south, buttressed against the mountains. That city would be hard to take but easy to starve out, since it was sweeping plains on one side and soaring mountains behind.
Niko nudged Val's side. "What are you thinking about?"
"I don't want to fight in a war," Val said. "Lots of people are going to die… quite a few are already dead."
"Then don't." Niko tucked her chin down to kiss Val's forehead. "Uncle Ette doesn't want us to go. If the Righteous Army makes it this far, we could just go somewhere else. Sail across the sea."
Val sighed. "Even if I hadn't sworn a blood-oath… and I did… I did swear one… they're horrible people. What kind of person would I be if I just let… let evil stampede over a whole continent?"
"We're not grown ups yet. It's not our responsibility."
"You know this isn't going to change my mind, right?"
"Yeah," Niko sighed. "Mine either. I wish we didn't have to, either."
Livinia approached the girls. "If the young misses are rested, the Old Pines are about two hours away. If we leave soon, we can make it to the clearing by dark."
Niko pulled away from Val, eliciting a disappointed little sigh from her. She regarded the scout for a minute - they stood eye to eye with one another. "We're not the ones who suggested a rest, and we're not dainty little lordlings who need to be escorted." She clicked with her tongue and Petunia came trotting over, still munching away at meadow grass.
"Yes, I'd noticed… you'll have to excuse my humor. Everything about this is odd, but I've no doubt that witches don't need the help of a poacher's daughter and a woodsman, and nor do we need to be schooled by you, unless you can teach us the trick to making horses so silent in the wood…"
Niko shrugged. "Have you tried asking them?"
"Asking them?"
"It's only polite," Val added in. She stood and Tulip trotted over to her… and, of course, she'd managed to find something like apples in the middle of the woods. Val could smell it on her breath. She rubbed Tulip's snout and mounted up. "Let's see these Old Pines."
+++++
The Old Pines were old. Bavarnic said they were the oldest things in the forest, though Val didn't see how he could possibly know that. The pines would have been ancient when he was still in diapers, but there might be older things yet. Some of the trees had symbols on their trunks, trunks as wide as a horse was long, symbols grown into the very bark. They might have been carved in and scarred over, or maybe it had been natural magic. Bavarnic insisted that no human hand had made the symbols, that it had been some other folk of the deep wood.
"It's old runic," Val said - she recognized it from one of her books, though she could only recognize about half of the symbols. Surprisingly, the most prominent one was the twisted crescent that symbolized welcome. She'd have expected the exact opposite. "It's said that the fae peoples taught runes to the first humans, and that in repayment, humans devised an unnatural magic that banished the fae from our world."
"You'd know more about that than me, miss witch," the old woodsman said.
"Have you ever seen one?"
"I've seen things, aye," he glanced about the wood. In the early evening, the Old Pines were nearly as dark as night, the inky indigo of sky traced by pink clouds barely visible through the great spans of pine-nettled canopy. The trees there were tall, incredibly tall, and the forest floor was a mat of damp nettles with little in the way of underbrush. "I've seen things, but I couldn't tell you what they were… whatever lives here doesn't like to be seen. Forest devils is my guess…"
"They're not evil," Val stated definitively. "Though they might think we're evil. If I was fae, I wouldn't care much for humans."
Bavarnic grunted and nodded but said nothing. Val couldn't help but notice he'd set his bow in front of himself as he rode, as if he expected to need it at any moment. But all they saw were a few wild turkeys scurrying about the sparse bushes and a pair of scampering foxes, likely after the turkeys. As it got dark, Bavaric led them to a gentle gully with a crystal-clear brook running through and suggested they stop for the night.
"And if all we're here for is a little casual sight-seeing, and begging your leave, miss, we'll march about a bit on the morrow and then head back to Fork Grove."
"That's fine," Val said. "If we're looking for something, we'll know it when we see it."
The whole ride into and through the Old Pines had been strange for Val… the whole time, she'd felt watched. She'd felt something calling to her. And maybe it was her connection with the natural magic, but maybe it was something else. It was she who'd suggested that the scouts lead them to the pines… well, she'd asked them to take her to the oldest part of the forest… as if she'd had something in mind. But now that she was here, Val felt like she was in temple, with its vast and airy vault of a ceiling, with its great columns leading the way to the altar, and the babbling brook fifteen yards from their camp might well have been a baptismal font. Though her Old Sudren religion didn't do baptisms - that was for the Pale Order.
As they lay down for the night, Val snuggled in with Niko… and then Izzy snuggled in with both of them. She did that sometimes, but it didn't make things awkward. She was Val's sister, and they were close like that. Val drifted into slumber, warm in the cool forest, Niko breathing in her ear, Violet purring upon her belly, and Izzy curled against her shoulder, the sound of shushing nettles easing her to sleep.
+++++
When she awoke, the campsite was strangely moonlit. Something had awoken Val… with a thought, Tulip picked up on Val's alarm and plodded up to her. As Val extricated herself from Niko and Izzy, trying not to wake them, she noticed Violet staring off into the woods, utterly intent upon something. She wasn't scared or angry, just very, very alert, her purple cat eyes wide and nearly pitch black in the night. Val turned to see what Violet was looking at and startled when she spotted a fox staring back at her… no, not a fox. Almost a fox. Its face was too large, too flat, and it stood too tall… it walked on two gangly legs. It emerged from behind a tree, staring at Val.
They stared at one another for a moment, Val in her shirt and breeches and the fox lady in a simple, flowing dress. Her tail flicked… tails… she had at least three of them. Then she scampered off into the night…
Wait! Val almost shouted… but, for some reason, she thought it would be a bad idea to awaken the others. Instead, she disentangled herself from the cuddle pile and followed after it…
How she followed after it was a good question. It wasn't as if the fox woman had left any visible trail to follow, but some instinct in Val just knew. Val and Tulip crept away from the campsite, utterly silent beneath the canopy of the Old Pines. She caught glimpses of something once… twice… something faintly glowing in the woods ahead of them. And then the glow grew, as if they were approaching a great, roaring campfire. Only there were no flames, just the golden glow of magical light. As they pushed past the low-lying boughs of a tree, they entered a large, warmly-lit clearing, at the center of which was a great banquet table heaped high with the cornucopia of the forest.
A beautiful woman with red hair, a fox's ears, and glittering green eyes turned to Val… she was one of perhaps a dozen at the table. Some had diaphanous wings. Some had greenish skin and were clad in leaves. One had the legs, horns, and hooves of a goat.
"I told you she would answer the summons," the fox lady said. Her voice was an autumn melody.
"The summons?" Val asked. Her voice had an ethereal quality in the clearing, and she felt as if she might just float off of Tulip and join them at the table, as if none of what she was seeing was quite real.
"You are the queen of the humans."
"Maybe some day," Val said uncertainly.
"You were. You will be." The fox lady gestured to an open seat. "It matters not. Come. Join the ladies and lords of the wood as we feast."
Val dismounted and approached the group, surrounded by the golden light of a summer afternoon. There were nuts, fruits, and berries. Partridge and pheasant roasted to a golden brown. A great pink salmon lay in front of the fox lady… she wore a circlet of leaves with drops of dew serving as its jewels. She held herself as Val imagined a queen would.
"Thank you, your majesty," Val said.
The fox lady nodded at the recognition. "Please, eat. You promised us once that you would defeat the Pale One, Queen Friyja, but that has not happened. Some say you were defeated…"
"She was entombed deep underground," the man to her right said. He had big dragonfly wings upon his back and living vines tattooed across his body. "I saw as much in my visions…"
"Hmm," the queen said. "The wastrels of the Pale One defeated you?"
"I… I’m not her. That was hundreds and hundreds of years ago…"
"I see…" the fox queen tapped the table, and Val felt a shiver pass through her. Suddenly, all of the tattoos on her body were visible. It was such a reflex to hide them that she was often unaware that she was even doing so, but the feeling of her natural skin was unmistakable… and a bit liberating. "You say you are not her, and yet you bear her markings. I have felt your stirrings these past few months… I have felt you approach my domain… and so I must ask: is our bargain still intact or have you come to defeat us?"
"What? What bargain?" Val asked. Tulip had plodded up beside her at the table and was hungrily wolfing down nuts and berries. None of the guests at the banquet seemed in the slightest perturbed by this.
"Her memories are clouded," the winged man said. "Valkyrie sees her past, but only in dream… I have an elixir that might restore it…"
"No, Prince Byraelic. I would like the queen to answer in her own words. Queen… Valkyrie, is it? Queen Valkyrie, the blood of the earth runs in your veins. I could have it back, could sunder our bargain, and the cost to you would be terrible…"
"She would likely die," Byraelic said.
"And how many of ours have died?" the queen said. "Will you defeat the Pale One? And will you bring the old magic back to these lands, such that we need not cower in these shadows and hold our court at midnight in the deepest wood? I…"
"Val, what's going on?" Niko said. Everybody gasped at the intrusion… well, not Tulip…
"Treachery!" the goat-man said, and he reached for a staff of gnarled oak.
"No! No…" Val said. The forest lord eyed her warily. "This is my friend, Niko. She's also my…"
"Yes, your lover," the fox queen said. "The warrior huntress. I remember her well… it is said no prey can elude her. Did you follow your love's trail?"
"I… um… we're not lovers," Niko said. "We're too young. I, uh, followed the path…"
She gestured behind her… and, sure enough, there was a trail of glowing hoofprints leading up to the clearing, as if each of Tulip's steps had breached a hole into a glowing world beneath the forest floor.
The fox queen blinked slowly. "You did not come here to destroy us," she stated. "That much is clear. You have supped with us. Your horse has eaten all of my nuts and berries. It is close enough to Taagsnit - we will exchange gifts of goodwill in the old way. Things of great value. Queen Valkyrie, in addition to my feast of splendor, a feast to last through the cold and hard months to come, a feast to nourish the spirit, I offer a gift from the old wood. I note your Lady does not yet have a companion."
Niko yelped as a snowy owl flitted in from the night and landed itself upon her shoulder. It was large for an owl, probably eighteen inches high, pure white, with a beautiful black beak and ice-blue eyes.
"This one is called Silence… though he is not always so. His name in the old tongue is a play on words, for it also means 'snow daisy'. He will follow you, Lady Nikoli, for as long as you honor him. And what gift have you in return, Queen Valkyrie?"
"Um…" Val said. She didn't have anything of particular meaning or sentimental value on her. She had the knife she'd taken off of Terrian. That was valuable and even magical, but it somehow didn't seem a fitting gift for the fox queen. She didn't have anything worth giving… her jacket was pretty nice. Would the queen like hardened leather? Probably not. "Oh! I have got a present… this is very dear to me. My mother gave this to me when I was very young…"
She unclasped the silver pendant from around her neck and leaned across the table to hand it to the queen. "This is the most valuable thing I own. It's yours now."
The queen accepted the pendant, clasping it around her own slim neck. "Our pact is reaffirmed. The blessings of the wood be upon you, Queen Valkyrie."
"The blessings of the wood!" the other guests chanted…
+++++
Val awoke with a start. It was morning, the smell of breakfast wafting over from the campfire. For a moment, she was convinced that it had all been a dream. Up until she reached for her pendant and found it missing. She brought her hand to her collar and felt around for it, shooting up from her sleeping roll and nearly catapulting an also-suddenly-awake Violet off of herself.
"It… it was real?" she said. The snowy owl staring at her from the nearby log said nothing, but his presence all but confirmed it. "You're… Silence, right?"
The owl hooted softly, which meant, Not always. Which meant yes.
Niko groaned herself awake and then gasped. "Did… did something happen last night? We… there was a banquet out in the woods? With a fox lady and a goat man and a fairy prince?"
Izzy yawned and stirred from her position to Val's right. "No. If you'd gotten up I would have woken up. Slept the whole night through…"
"I don't think you'd have woken up if the Earl Zollen clashed with the Righteous Army on top of us," Val said. "Plus, Niko has a familiar now. How do you explain that?"
Izzy rolled upright, rubbing the sleep from her eyes and pulling her tangle of bed hair back into a tail. "I dunno… is that it?" She pointed toward Silence, and Niko and Silence nodded. "Birds can just find people sometimes… pigeons used to live on the windowsill at the orphanage and poop all over the ledge. Gotkosen Mellia used to chase them off with a broom, but they always came back…"
"This isn't like pigeons pooping on a ledge, Izzy," Niko said.
"Yeah, maybe. But a fox lady in the middle of the… um… is that Tulip?"
It took Val a minute to spot her own horse because, indeed, Tulip did not look like herself. Her brown and spotted filly looked like a different animal altogether, slightly larger and more muscular, her coat turned a tawny, golden color with silver and gold in her mane, her eyes the same intense violet as Val's eyes (or Violet's, for that matter). And yet she somehow felt like the same Tulip… only more so.
"You silly horse," Val said. "That's what you get for eating all of the fox queen's food…" Val wondered what would have happened to her if she'd had more than a few nibbles of the stuff, which she'd only eaten out of politeness.
Tulip grunted, which meant, I regret nothing.
"Oh! That's new!" Val laughed. "Tulip's smart now, too…"
More grunting: I was smart before.
"Not like this! Wow!" Val hugged Tulip, and the horse took it in good spirits, lowering her snout over Val's shoulder to bring them closer.
Bavarnic strolled over to them, taking in the sight of Val's transformed horse but saying nothing. And if Ms. Lyvanna, the stablemaster back at Darkvale House, didn't think Tulip was now the most regal horse ever, it would mean she'd lost use of her reason. The old huntsman grunted, but it didn't mean much since he wasn't a horse.
"I take it you've got what you came for?"
Val nodded. "We met some fae out in the woods, and we… we made a deal, I guess…"
"You made a deal with the fae?" Bavarnic rubbed at the little amulet he wore around his chest. "That was… probably unwise, miss."
"I don't think they were trying to trick me… I think they're scared about what will happen if the Righteous Army wins. And if we've got the same enemy, then they can't betray me without betraying themselves."
Niko nodded. "The fae seem fine. They gave me a familiar!" She held out her arm and Silence flapped over to it. Perched upon Niko's arm, he regarded the huntsman with unblinking eyes.
"Perhaps the forest folk are kindly to witches," Bavarnic conceded after a moment. "Still, I suggest we return to fork grove - the baron will want us back and rested if we're to ride out soon."
"Lead the way."
They made their way out of the Old Pines - Val turned and waved goodbye as they passed the last of the great and ancient trees, but she couldn't tell if the shadow lurking back behind the sentry pine was the fox queen, some other fae, or just a shadow. The whole time in the old part of the forest seemed gauzy and faded, as if it had happened in some sort of dream, some other reality. And yet the snowy bird rode atop Niko's shoulder and Val couldn't stop running her fingers through Tulip's sleek mane with its gold and silver, and Tulip clearly liked the attention. Something had definitely transpired, and it couldn't be denied.
For that matter, the scouts rode their horses in almost complete silence, whereas the day before they'd cracked and clomped through the woods loud enough to hear for yards around. They noticed it, too, but they dared not speak about it, lest the magic somehow be lost. Val suspected it was some sort of blessing from the fae, something to help them defeat their enemies in any small way possible.
Maybe if they lead the Righteous Army into the old pines, the fae would kill them? Or maybe it would anger the fae. Or they would be defeated. Val decided that was probably a poor idea - no, this would be a fight they would face on their own.
It seemed far too soon when they finally broke from the woods and found the well-worn path back to Fork Grove. The sun was still high in the sky and the farmers were busily bringing in the last of the harvest. Without the trees as protection, the air was cool and crisp, the last of the autumn whipping by under a silvery sky.
"Uncle Ette should be running drills about now," Izzy said, checking the sky for the time.
As Fork Grove appeared in the distance, its smattering of houses and buildings built up along the gentle slope of the river valley, they passed by the practice field where Ette and his captains had been training the troops. It was oddly quiet, the breeze shushing along the yellow grass. For an instant, Val was worried the army had been summoned in a hurry and gone off without them, but the army camp was still there at the base of the village and, as they rode through Fork Grove, she could see quartermasters with their gaudy patches busily purchasing supplies for the troops. Fork Grove had already been a prosperous community since Gunthald's family had favored it above the other towns in the barony, but a whole new cottage industry had sprung up around supplying the army with food, equipment, and whatever niceties and luxuries the soldiers could afford. They would be sad to see the army march out.
Fork Grove Welcomes its Brave Troops, the banner above city hall read. Never mind that about a quarter of the troops were locals.
Finally, they made their way up the hillside and to the manor stables, where Ms. Lyvanna was very surprised to see the changed Tulip, who trotted in with the bearing of a queen among mere horses and even managed a snooty air as she waited for the stablemaster to lead her over to her accustomed stall.
"Don't get a big head," Val said. "You're not getting any more apples than usual."
Afterward, Val, Niko, and Izzy all relaxed in the manor's big bath - the one that had its own room and was far bigger than the large tub in Val's chamber. With their bathing garb on and the door open, obviously, though Izzy certainly would have balked in Val and Niko tried anything hanky-panky. No, this was just a nice bout of relaxation after two days on the road.
Ginn had fussed over them upon their arrival, which was a bit odd since they'd only been gone for two days. One and a half, really - she'd seen them off yesterday morning and now it was barely evening. But Val's mom could be like that sometimes. Val had worried her enough times in the past that she sometimes got intuitions about when to be worried and couldn't get the nagging sensation out of her mind until she was sure Val was all right. Then she'd laid out a very full schedule for the girls the next day, stating that a traveling clothier had arrived in town and would be making them gowns for Taagsnit, which Val found both odd and exciting.
She sank down in the bath, letting the water dip over the top of her head, her hair floating all around her like a coppery halo. In the murky water, she could make out Niko's Shape, and the examined it for a bit longer than she ought to. When she eventually re-emerged into the cool air, Silence had perched himself at the edge of the tub and Niko and Izzy were both turned toward Val, concern and surprise playing across their faces.
"What?" Val said.
"Uncle Ette is planning on riding out with the troops tomorrow morning… and he doesn't want us coming."
OvidLemma
An Obligatory Message from the Author
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-Ovid
