“I bear Cold Iron in the steel of my sword.” Quicksilver started to draw it, but every bow in the company instantly shifted to aim at her. She froze.
“But our true weapon,” Cordelia said, “is magic.”
“Magic?” the Oakman said with a sour smile. “What manner of spells can you wield that would discomfit an ogre?”
“Something like this.” Cordelia glared at the bare earth of the trail; it erupted into flame. The Oakmen shouted in panic and crowded away, but the fire died as quickly as it had started. “I kindled it on bare earth,” Cordelia explained, “for I’ve no wish to let my blaze devour your trees.”
The Oakmen stared, the whites of their eyes showing as they shifted their aim to her.
Quicksilver smiled, knowing that she could draw her sword before they could shift aim back to her.
“Believe me, she can kindle flame more quickly than you can loose,” Allouette told them. “She might die, but your forest would burn for weeks.”
The crossbows swung toward her; the leader scowled. “Would you truly do such a thing?”
“To your forest, no,” Allouette said, “perhaps not even to an ogre. I might, however, do this.” She wrenched with her mind, and a tree branch swung down to slam against the bare earth of the trail, only a yard in front of the Oakman. He jumped back, shaken, as the branch swung back up. “How,” he asked in a husky voice, “can you so move the forest?”
“Because the trees know I am their friend,” Allouette said simply, “and that, in my own way, I seek to protect them as surely as do you yourself.”
Quicksilver cast her a glance of admiration.
The bows lowered on the instant. “It must be so,” the lead Oakman said, “for neither beech nor birch would heed one who sought its doom. Oak and elm both know their enemies and would smite them.”
“We are friends to the forest,” Cordelia said, “not its enemies.”
“Go, then, to fight the forest’s foes!” the Oakman said, and his people backed away to the sides of the trail, bowing. “There is a spring half a mile down the trail, and on its banks grow wild strawberries and blackberries.”
“It runs through a hazelnut grove,” said another gnome, “and the nuts are ripe and falling.”
“I thank you, friends,” Cordelia said slowly, “but if there is to be a truce between humankind and the forest, we cannot leave without our own.”
Quicksilver gave her a look that clearly said, Don’t push it! Allouette cast her an appalled glance that sobered even as she stared; she nodded judiciously.
“These are enemies of the forest!” the Oakman said angrily. “If we loose them, they shall attack our trees with axes, just as they did when they came to our coppice!”
“But you have buried their axe-heads and rotted the handles,” Cordelia pointed out. “As to their intentions, have no fear—most of them, I am sure, will never dare come near you again. Those who do will not dare defy two witches and a swordswoman.”
The Oakman looked doubtful, but he said only, “It will take some time.”
“We can wait an hour or so,” Cordelia answered.
“Or so,” the Oakman echoed, looking grim. “Very well, lady, you may have your criminals—but one move wrong from any of them, and be sure our barbs shall pierce their skulls.”
Two hours later, the women rode behind half a dozen dazed peasants who stumbled down the path, casting fearful looks at every tree they passed.
“Strange that four of them chose to remain as trees,” Cordelia said, troubled.
“Try not to think about it,” Allouette advised.
Cordelia glanced at the grimness of her face and drew her own conclusions. She turned back to watch the trail with a shudder.
They rode in silence a few minutes longer; then Allouette thawed enough to offer, by way of explanation, “You can never know how glad I am to have met your brother.”
“Are we closer to the coast than we know?” Alain asked.
Geoffrey followed the direction of his gaze. “What would make you think . . . why, what is that beast doing here?”
“That beast” was a shaggy pony, scarcely half the size of Geoffrey’s warhorse. His coat looked to be very rough indeed, and he was festooned with seaweed.
“Let us look somewhat closer.” Gregory kicked his horse into a trot.
“No, wait . . .” Alain said, overcome with a sudden sense of misgiving, but the brothers were already halfway to the pony. Alain sighed and rode after.
Geoffrey and Gregory rode up on either side of the shaggy pony, but Geoffrey dismounted fifteen feet away and walked forward, fishing a piece of carrot from his pocket and holding it out on his palm.
Both horses tossed their heads, snorting, and Gregory swerved to catch the reins of his brother’s mount. “How is this, Geoffrey? Our horses do not like this little fellow!”
“Jealousy, I doubt not.” Geoffrey held out the carrot, his voice smooth and gentle. “Here, then, fellow, take and taste, and know me for a friend.”
The pony blew through his nostrils and shifted uncertainly.
“Nay, take it!” Geoffrey urged. “I shall not seek to harm you.”
“Nor to ride you,” Alain prompted.
Geoffrey cast him a black look.
“We have not the time to tame a fourth horse, Geoffrey,” Alain said imperturbably, “nor the need for one.”
“I fear that is true,” Geoffrey sighed, and turned back to the pony. “Well, then, fellow, let us only greet one another in friendly fashion, as befits fellow wayfarers.”
The pony stepped forward warily, sniffed at the carrot, then wrapped it in mobile lips and carried it back to its teeth. It was gone in two grinds and a swallow.
“Very good.” Geoffrey smiled. “Perhaps on another journey, we shall meet again and become traveling companions.”
“Why should you think I am a traveler?” the pony asked in a gravelly voice.
All three men stared. The horses danced, not liking what they saw and heard.
Geoffrey recovered first and spoke as though a talking horse were the most natural thing in the world. “Why, because you are decked in seaweed, which certainly grows nowhere nearby—so you must have come from the coast.”
“And quickly, too,” Gregory added, “for your kelp is neither withered nor dry.”
“You mark what you see,” the gravelly voice said in an approving tone, “and make sense of it as few mortals do. Well, then, make sense of this.”
His form softened, melted, and flowed.
The horses reared, screaming; Alain and Gregory had all they could do to hold them down, but they quieted as the pony’s substance steadied into a new form—that of an old man with long white hair and beard that had seaweed plaited in with it. He wore only a seaweed kilt, and his skin, though loose and wrinkled, overlay muscles that were still thick and rolling. “You are kind to a lonely stray,” he said, “and good hearts deserve rewards.”
“I—I like all horses.” Geoffrey looked as though he were about to make an exception. He glanced up and down the almost naked man and added, “I expect no reward, nor do I see that you have any to give.”
“What I shall give you is knowledge, which takes no space to carry save a moiety of brain,” said the old man. “I shall tell you this: Beware the Whirlpool of Mist.”
“I thank you.” Geoffrey frowned. “Where shall we find it?”
“Over the river,” the old man answered, “in the mornings and in the evenings. Do not enter it, and whatever you do, ask no one to come from it.”
“We shall not,” Alain said gravely, although he hadn’t the faintest notion of humoring a crazy man. “What, though, if those we do not invite should pull us in?”