RHIDAUNA, The Shadow of the Revenaunt, Book 1

CHAPTER 14 - THE GISTERWOUD (Part One)

'Wha... what is this?' Torril gazed around wildly.

Olle drew his sword. 'It's like the stories about the Gisterwoud.' He looked around. 'Ghyll?' The only answer was the shriek of a bird in the distance. Ghyll, Damion and Uwella were gone, as were the horses and pack-mules. 'Ghyll!' A feeling of panic threatened to overcome him. His whole being wanted to go and search for Ghyll, but his mind realized the futility of it. The forest was too overgrown, too tangled.

A few steps away, Torril was on his knees beside Bo, who lay curled up on the moss. 'He breathes, but he doesn't react.' The prince sat back on his haunches. 'I think it's mana shock. Don't know what happened, but it must have given him a proper whack.'

Olle studied their surroundings. Was this indeed the Gisterwoud?

The old legends told of that primordial forest, unchanged since before the fall of Abarran. Looking around, he could well believe it. At least four ancient trees nearby could have been saplings when the Revenaunt Emperor rose to power. Now, their trunks were so wide that you'd need three men to span them. There was no path, nothing to show him the way. Wherever he looked, it was all the same: tall trees in a dark scene of shrubs and creepers. Above their heads, the massive crowns were interwoven into an almost impenetrable roof through which the sparse sunlight gleamed.

Olle felt hopelessness clawing at his mind. What should he do? He clenched his fists and a fierce anger exploded in his breast. That mech priest with his damned grin! He must have dropped them here. With difficulty, he kept a grip in his rage. They had to get away. But Bo was unconscious. 'We need a stretcher.' He looked at Torril. 'You have an ax.'

The young Nhael nodded. Within minutes, he came back with two suitable saplings, stripped of their branches. With these and Olle's long mail shirt, they made a stretcher for Bo.

'Where are we going?' Torril asked.

'That way.' Olle pointed in a random direction.

Torril glanced at him. Without a word, they lifted the stretcher, and walked away.

The dense deciduous forest made for tough going. Tree trunks, felled by the passing of time and overgrown with weeds and wild vines, were almost insurmountable barriers for two bearers with a stretcher. Every so often they had to stop to catch their breath, until after a few hours cursing and toiling they reached a river.

Olle looked at the sun. 'It could be a Yanthe branch-off.'

'Perhaps.' Torril dabbed his hands in the cold water and wiped his sweaty brow. 'I'm used to ice and sea; we don't have forests like this at home.'

'We should go downstream. People often live along rivers and in any case all streams lead somewhere.'

When dusk came, they stopped. After some desultory talk, they drew their cloaks around them and tried to sleep.

Next morning, Olle woke up cold and stiff. Everything was wet, his leather tunic and his hair dripping with moisture. A loud curse escaped him; the world around them lay shrouded in a dense, swirling mist.

'No use going on, now. We'd better wait until the fog lifts.'

He checked Bo's heartbeat and went to the river to urinate. Moments later Torril joined him and together they stared in silence at the fog, hoping to see the sun breaking through.

The fog gave no sign of abating. With a sigh, Olle turned around. He thought he saw something moving in front of them. 'Torril.'

'What?'

'Do you see anything?'

Torril peered into the mist. 'Shapes,' he said with some hesitation. 'Shapes in long dresses?'

'That's where Bo is!'

They ran to the place where they had spent the night. Three faint white apparitions danced around Bo's stretcher. 'Co-me... Cooome...' they moaned, with voices full of terrible desire. 'Cooome.' One of the shadows grabbed Bo's arm with a transparent claw and started pulling at him.

'Stop!' Olle let his sword cut the air with a humming sound.

'No-oo... Nooo... Cooome...' The shapes crooned, trying to drag Bo off the stretcher. With a cry, Olle fell upon them, Torril right behind him. To no avail. The weapons of the two Companions didn't touch the apparitions, as if their forms were made of the fog surrounding them. 'By Helgran, there's more of them!'

'N-o-o-o.... C-o-o-o-m-e... '

Soon there were twenty of the apparitions; they swirled around the two who were fighting them in a wild unholy dance. Even with their impressive muscles, Olle and Torril couldn't touch the ethereal forms and soon they began to weaken. Their breathing grew difficult and their hearts seemed about to burst. Exhausted, Olle sank to his knees and waited for the end. Torril stood beside him, head bowed, leaning upon his axe. The apparitions stretched their greedy hands out to the two Companions. 'C-o-o-o-m-e.' The chill of those hands paralyzed their limbs, touched their hearts.

All at once, a huge flash bathed the surroundings in light. Olle smelled the pungent odor that sometimes follows a thunderstorm. When his sight returned, the shapes were gone. In their place, men and women in gray apparel surrounded them.

One of them, a young man of their own age, came forward. He wore a black headband and his hair lay in a ponytail on his back. His lower lip and his ear lobes were pierced with small silver rings, and his face was white like Uwella's, with jet-black shadows around iris-less eyes. His glance met Olle's and then looked past him, uninterested. 'Come,' he said, cold as an echo of the white shapes.

A woman of middle age, like the young man dressed in a gray leather uniform, held out her hand. 'Your weapons please.'

'Who are you?' Olle's heart was pounding from the past effort and the pain behind his sternum took his breath away. 'You saved us.'

'Hand me your weapons,' the woman repeated.

Olle hesitated, but the drawn swords of the six fighters around him left him no choice. He handed her his weapon, then Torril reluctantly did the same.

Without a word, two of the strangers took Bo's stretcher and carried him into the woods. The others surrounded Olle and Torril, and led them after the young man with the headband, who had walked away without another glance.

They left the fog behind and soon the sun was shining, the subdued light reflecting in the dewdrops on the leaves. Olle had lost all idea of time before he saw, through the trees, a wooden palisade. A girl in the same armor as their escorts guarded the entrance. She saluted and exchanged some word with the young man with the headband. Then she opened the gate and Olle and Torril stepped inside a ring of elongated wooden huts. One of the buildings stood apart from the others. His bearers carried Bo inside and the door closed behind them. The young man with the headband walked away without looking back. Beyond that first 'come', he hadn't spoken. Before Olle could ask something, hard hands pushed him and Torril into a second, smaller hut. The door slammed shut and they heard a heavy bar fall into place.

Damion's cry drowned in swirling water. It dragged him round and round, until after a seeming eternity he ended up in a calmer stretch. He saw Uwella, struggling against the flow, hampered by her skirts. Horrified, he watched how the swift water slammed the wikke against a rock. With a supreme effort, Damion managed to reach her and grabbed her skirts. As well as he could, he held her head above water and tried to steer them both in the direction of the bank. A fallen forest giant, stuck between some rocks as a breakwater, saved their lives by catching them in its branches. Sobbing and panting, Damion managed to push the wikke halfway free of the water.

'I've got her,' said a voice. It was Ghyll, who had reached the same tree and sat astride the trunk. 'Can you climb?'

Damion grabbed the branches and hand over hand he worked himself up until he sat next to Ghyll. With their combined strength, they dragged Uwella out of the river and soon they all three lay panting on the shore.

Damion closed his eyes. His body was soaking wet, cold and numb. He just wanted to sleep. Sleep. He closed his eyes.