They picked their way carefully through the great maples and broad oaks, until Egrin found the beginning of a trail. A less experienced eye would not have seen a trail at all. It was no more than a scuffed area of moss, a few rocks worn free of dirt, and the suggestion of an opening in a tangle of windfall trees, but Egrin knew someone had trod this way before.
Unable to get more than a general glimpse of the sun, he could only guess how far he rode that first day. Eight leagues, maybe nine, passed beneath Brownie’s hooves by the time daylight faded and the first mournful call of the whippoorwill echoed through the trees. He saw little game. Although a deft tracker, and considered stealthy by his comrades in arms, by forest standards Egrin was a great lumbering oaf, tramping and crashing through the woods like a rampaging bull. Wild beasts and forest folk easily kept out of his way.
On the second day, he found more trails, some quite obvious now that he was deep in the forest. Artifacts turned up. Small things, but the bits of woven cloth, tufts of fox fur tied to twigs, and shards of unbaked clay, indicated people had passed this way.
That night he heard distant drums, and a strange humming sound rising and falling through the black trees. The noise was eerie, like nothing he’d ever heard before, and he slept with his sword by his side.
First light of the third day brought visitors. Four brown-skinned foresters stood in plain view on the trail ahead, watching him. They wore buckskin vests and long, floppy trews. Tufts of animal fur on loops of fine cord hung from tiny holes punched in their earlobes. All four carried deeply curved short bows. The stiff bows could easily put a flint-tipped arrow through a man’s leg. If they were still getting bronze and iron from the Silvanesti, their arrowheads would penetrate his mail shirt.
Moving with great deliberation, Egrin packed up his meager camp. He lashed his bedroll across the horse’s rump, mounted, and rode toward the waiting men.
The forester on the far right held out his hand. When Brownie’s nose touched the fellow’s hand, the aged horse shuffled to a stop.
“You’re a long way from home, grasslander,” said the forester on the far left.
Egrin ceased his fruitless efforts to urge Brownie into motion. “Peace to you,” he said. “I’m alone, and I’m looking for someone.”
The fellow who’d halted Brownie muttered something in his native language. The others grunted. The mistrust in their eyes needed no translation.
The man on the left said, “You’ve found someone. Now go back.”
“I seek Voyarunta.”
Two decades earlier, Tol had bested the Dom-shu chief Makaralonga in battle. Ergothian custom obliged him to execute the man. Unwilling to kill an honorable foe who’d surrendered on promise of clemency, Tol and the healer Felryn had conspired to fool their superiors and allow Makaralonga to go free. To help keep their deception from becoming known, Makaralonga had chosen a new name, Voyarunta, meaning “Uncle Corpse” in the Dom-shu dialect. It was his joke on the mighty Ergoth Empire.
The fellow’s dark eyes narrowed. “We are Karad-shu,” he said.
Egrin silently cursed his luck. Voyarunta’s tribe was friendly with the Ergothians, because of Tol’s wisdom in sparing their chief. The Karad-shu were another matter entirely. Reputedly allied with the Silvanesti, they were no friends of Ergoth.
“It is important I get to Voyarunta,” Egrin said calmly. “The lives of many foresters and grasslanders depend on it. Where can I find him?”
The tribesman regarded him in silence. Egrin waited, drawing on the legendary patience of his long-lived Silvanesti ancestors. His calm persistence was rewarded.
“The chief of the Dom-shu is at the Place of Birthing.” Twitching his head slightly over one shoulder to indicate a northeasterly direction, the Karad-shu added, “Two days on two feet.”
A day and half by horse. Egrin thanked the tribesmen. He had no idea what the Place of Birthing might be, but decided against questioning the foresters further. He was too relieved to see them go.
That day and the next night were full of portents. Drums beat far away; the whistling, humming noise continued to wax and wane. Egrin found totems and fetishes erected next to the trail-skulls on posts, carved boulders, and the skin of a bear tacked to a maple tree. As he rode by the latter, hornets erupted from the dead bear’s eyes and mouth.
He was instantly engulfed by a cloud of huge, stinging insects. The stings felt like a red-hot iron wire stabbing into him over and over. The attacking hornets caused the aged Brownie to dance sideways. Lashing the reins, Egrin drove the terrified horse away from the swarm. He slapped insects out of the air with his gauntleted hands, and the ferocious creatures tried to sting him through the heavy steerhide.
The insects pursued them only a short distance, but Egrin’s danger wasn’t done. Once stirred to action, Brownie was not easily calmed. The sway-backed horse barreled ahead, heedless of the branches that threatened to sweep Egrin from the saddle.
Galloping down a hill, the horse stumbled, throwing his rider. By the time Egrin sat up again, all that remained of the horse was the sound of his hoofbeats fading rapidly into the west.
Egrin cursed as he slowly sat up. Most of his gear had gone with the horse. All he had left were the sword and knife he wore. Ignoring his various aches and pains, he brushed dirt from his clothing and continued on foot.
The eerie whirring, humming noise was growing louder, sounding like a chorus of dragon-sized crickets. Distracted by the noise, stumbling a bit on tired, aching legs, Egrin found himself surrounded by a score of tall foresters.
They were armed with spears, most flint-tipped but a few sporting tarnished bronze heads. More startling than their arms was their attire. Each forester wore a long skirt made of strips of red bark. Breastplates of white whittled sticks, knotted together with cord, covered their chests. Any exposed skin was hidden beneath a paste of grease and ashes, and their heads were encased in fantastic masks made of clay, leather, animal teeth, and horns.
Before Egrin could speak, two tribesmen came up behind him and shoved him to his knees. A quartet of flint blades ringed his face. A forester with a pair of boar’s tusks protruding from his mask uttered a sharp phrase. It did not sound kindly.
“I am here on a mission,” Egrin said, keeping his hands out to his sides, away from his weapons. “I seek Voyarunta.”
Boar Tusk spoke again, a longer speech, but no more helpful.
“Makaralonga,” Egrin said carefully. “I have come to see Chief Makaralonga.”
Even with their faces hidden, the tribesmen’s suspicion was plain. Two of them hauled Egrin to his feet, taking his sword and knife.
A newcomer arrived, and the foresters parted ranks for him. His mask was of a particularly hideous mien, with protruding eyes, a sunken, twisted nose, and the tongue of a buck deer hanging from between its bared wooden lips. The entire mask was painted dead white.
White Face eyed Egrin up and down. “I will take you to Makaralonga,” he finally said, his words muffled by the grotesque appliance.
He addressed his comrades in their own tongue, and an argument broke out. Boar Tusk seemed strenuously opposed to the plan. White Face’s reply was to rap his spearshaft over Boar Tusk’s head. The blow likely would have felled a bareheaded man, but Boar Tusk staggered, merely stunned.
White Face turned to Egrin. “Do not speak, and when I hold up my hand, look at the ground,” he ordered. The lolling-tongued face came close. “Disobey, and you die.”
Egrin nodded, and they departed.
As they traveled, a quarter-league at least, the throb of drums grew more distinct. Glimpses of blue sky ahead revealed they were approaching a clearing. The redbud, dogwood, and other smaller trees disappeared, leaving only the widely spaced giants of the forest. The ground around the massive tree trunks was bare, packed by the tread of many feet over many years. They reached the edge of a ravine and halted.