"Oh, pray, never let us be strangers." Deceptively mild, Johan tugged his brown robe at the knee and stepped onto "brown needles in bare feet. The pine folk exchanged glances, wondering how a poverty-clad hermit rated such an entourage. They frowned, bewildered, as Johan picked up a fallen twig still fresh with green needles.
"Who are you," asked the wizard, "besides my future subjects?"
"Subjects?" blurted the thin leader.
A woman in a wildcat cap snarled, "The people of the pines are no one's subjects!"
Toying with the twig, the stranger replied, "I am Johan, Tyrant of Tirras and Emperor of the Northern Realms, soon emperor of all Jamuraa. Thus, you peasants of the pines, will become my subjects and pay homage to me-if you survive."
Nine warriors recoiled from malice or madness, weapons poised, then shouted as Johan let slip his disguise.
The homely bald monk polymorphed into a demon from legend. Fire-red skin glowed with black stripes. Downtumed horns sprouted from his chin and forehead. The drab robe curdled into a loathsome purple hide that squirmed with life. As the natives stood stunned by the horrific vision, Johan snapped the twig between long black nails.
Immediately came a thrashing as a dozen pine limbs overhead broke and fell. Plummeting, thick branches like giants' spears thundered around Johan's party. A woodsman was lanced in the neck and fell, spurting blood. A dodging woman was impaled through the skull. A lad was crushed by a branch big as his waist, so he squirmed and twitched under a hundredweight of deadfall. Bark chips, splintered heartwood, and pine needles rained. One of Johan's porters flinched backward into the deadly hail and was clipped across the brow by a branch.
Only two woods warriors remained standing. Shrieking, vaulting deadwood, one swung an iron hatchet but was speared in the belly by Johan's pikeman. The other shouted and dived in a crouch but was slashed across the throat. Both fell dead. One guard snatched a wildcat cap as booty, and the other looted a wolf pelt.
Just like that, except for groaning wounded, the attack was done. Without a word, Johan stepped to his sedan.
Color drained from his skin and robe like fading twilight. Again a drab monk, the mage brushed pine needles off his chair.
"Dispatch the wounded, milord?" asked the Tirran captain.
"If you like. Leave a few to tell the tale."
Frightened survivors would spread more terror than plague. Johan ordered his shaggy bearers to rise.
"This porter is hurt." The captain nudged the fallen man with his toe. Another northern barbarian, one of many tribes conquered by Johan, he'd joined the army to see the world. "Sling him across the poles, your worship?"
"No. Divide his goods among the others." An invader left behind could spread terror too, singing songs of Johan's conquests, under torture if need be. "Come. The day wanes. Which way, seer?"
The seer, a gray-haired woman with no teeth and bad eyes, knelt on the pine sward, set down an open-weave pentacle of poured brass, mumbled an incantation, and threw a handful of bones, wood chips, river stones, and other bracken. Leaning close like a hound, the seer studied into which arms of the pentacle the oddments had fallen, then rocked back and pointed west of north.
"Blood. Human. And Johan's stink, like snake musk."
Rising from all fours, the great talking tiger Jedit Ojanen peered about the forest. Granite broke the surface, so hemlock and laurel scrub abounded. Off a ways, wild turkeys strutted and pecked and watched the intruders with beady eyes.
Jedit pointed a black claw. "This fight took place just yesterday."
Adira Strongheart surveyed the scene. Brown pine needles were churned, so black loam showed like open wounds.
Smashed branches and greenery bore jots of blood and scraps of leather and fur. The pirate craned her neck and saw, high up, that a circle of pine trees showed stark white breaks.
"What happened? Did Johan call down a meteor on someone's head?"
"There'd be scorch marks," said Heath. "A good spot for an ambush."
Jasmine the druid dabbed a finger in blood and tasted it. "Meat eaters. Pine dwellers must have run afoul of Johan."
"You said the pine people quit this forest," objected Adira.
Jasmine only shrugged, and the party pressed on.
"Is it good luck or bad we cut Johan's trail?" asked Virgil.
"Good," said Adira. "He steers for Buzzard's Bay, our goal."
Over the dull thud of hooves, Lieutenant Peregrine called, "I've a question. Why is yon port called Buzzard's Bay?"
"Ask rather why it's called the Storm Coast." Simone the Siren rode with her cutlass handy in a saddle scabbard, and now she tugged the blade free to test it.
"All right," Peregrine played along, "why?"
"Because storms wrack it six months out of nine." Simone's voice lost its mirth. "Anyone who ventures past the headlands consigns his soul to the sea and to squalls. So many ships wreck on the rocks, the buzzards can't fly from gorging on smashed corpses that wash ashore."
On that note, the party wended after Johan, bearing west of north.
As the last switching horsetail passed out of sight, a jittering was heard like locust wings. From the scrub flitted a tiny feather-thin figure dressed in rabbit fur. Buzzing on wings a yard wide, the pixie droned through the forest like a bumblebee, wary of hawks and owls that might prowl by day. Miles on, the pixie alighted beside a slender man in leather and wolf skin. Panting, she piped a message in a jerky voice like a chickadee's.
"West of north, eh. On horseback?" The scout pondered. "We can't spare hands for an ambush. Still, stay awake. We'll await their return, and make them pay in blood."
Chapter 9
"I seek the library," said Johan without preamble.
"Library?" The woman had once been tall and robust, like most of the coastal folk, but middle age and many children had softened her. Her hair was more gray than blonde, and her robes were patched, puckered, and peppered with burn holes and stains.
"I own the only library in Buzzard's Bay. Forty-two books, I'm proud. See for yourself. I am Hebe, a sea sage, by the way. You are…?"
Disguised as the drab monk, Johan gave no name as he glanced^ around the room. Tilting shelves were jammed with bric-a-brac. A stuffed seagull perched atop a conch shell. Strings of dried starfish dangled from the low ceiling. A horseshoe crab shell served as a dish for smaller shells. Tables were heaped with dried seaweed and blowfish, and nets bulging with oddments hung in comers. A slovenly bed and stool were all the furniture. In the corner hearth, a driftwood fire burned blue and green. The room reeked of sea salt and spoiled fish, for it occupied a loft above a fishmonger's market.
A clever, ruthless man, Johan could be pleasant when it served, yet politeness got him nothing. He studied the clutter as the sage fiddled, sizing similar shells on a board propped between tables. Alone most of the day, she blathered at her company.
"You've the look of a scholar, poor and thin like me, ha ha. You're welcome to read my books, but only here. They were hard-won, hard as plucking a drowning man from storm surf. Three, I confess, I wrote myself. I track sightings of sea monsters, you see, and other odd things the fishermen report. Fairy lights, ghosts who walk on water, tritons, giant turtles. If it floats above or below the waves, I hear the tales. The ocean harbors a thousand secrets."
Sliding edgeways past stacks and heaps of objects, Johan laid a hand on a crooked shelf of books. "The library I seek belongs to another. Not this trash."