Tol turned to the older man for help. Felryn said, “I am a priest of Mishas, chosen by the goddess to serve the marshal of Juramona. If she grants me visions of my charges, you can believe them.”

The shilder remained unconvinced. “We should send a few riders to contact Lord Wanthred and the Firebrands,” Relfas countered. “That would be the wisest course.”

Many relieved voices supported this plan. Tol’s frustration grew.

“If Lord Odovar is to be ambushed and cut off, every hour is precious,” he insisted. “For the honor of the empire and the safety of our comrades, we must do something!”

On and on they wrangled, until a delegation from the footmen interrupted. Relfas disdained to discuss strategy with mere foot soldiers, but Tol went to speak to them.

“It’s Durazen. We found him,” Narren reported. Tol looked relieved until Narren added, “He’s dead, Tol. Come and see.”

Shilder, civilians, and foot soldiers streamed out of the camp behind Tol. Narren led them to the extreme eastern end of the meadow.

“Boys from the cook wagon went out a little while ago to collect tinder for their fires,” Narren explained. “Instead they found this.”

Forty steps from the edge of the woods, the crowd halted as though they’d all been turned to stone. Lashed to an oak tree, his hands bound behind him, was Durazen. The shaft of an arrow protruded from his throat, effectively pinning him to the tree trunk. His belly had been cut open, and his entrails wound around the tree.

The forest folk had not simply killed the commander of the Ergothian camp. They had sacrificed him to the spirits of the trees in which they lived.

The sound of retching behind him broke through Tol’s shock. He had to clear his throat twice before he could speak. Even then his voice was hoarse.

“Cut him down,” he rasped. No one moved. Dazed, he drew his dagger and did the job himself. Felryn knelt by the body, examining it closely.

“Why did they do this?” Tol asked, stunned by the method of the old warrior’s death.

“To propitiate their ancestors’ spirits-and to terrify their enemies,” Felryn answered tersely.

Tol stared at the bloody tree. Was Lord Odovar going to meet a similar fate in the forest? And Egrin?

His name, sharply spoken, called him out of his horrified daze. Narren and the footmen had gathered around.

“We’ll go with you, Tol,” Narren said. “We’ll find Odovar and the warden, and pay back the savages for what they did to Durazen, too!”

Tol surveyed the foot soldiers’ hard faces. Aside from Narren and a few others, they were generally older than the shilder, some as old as thirty. Of humble birth, they were used to being looked down upon by Riders of the Horde. None of that mattered now. Their blood was up, and they would take the battle to the devious enemy in their own way: on foot, face to face.

“Pick a hundred men, Narren, no more. Each man is to bring food and water for two days, his sword, dagger, helmet, a pair of spears, and breastplate. Everything else stays behind-we have to move fast,” Tol said. He looked up at the mid-morning sun. “We’ll leave as soon as you’re ready.”

Narren took off running, to do as Tol said. All the way back to camp Relfas, Janar, and the other shilder harangued Tol, warning him not to go. He was disobeying orders, they said. He was inexperienced. He was risking the lives of the ignorant footmen who chose to follow him.

Tol ignored them. Finally, Relfas quieted the others and said, “So be it! If Tol wants to throw his life away, that’s his choice. At least he won’t weaken the Rooks doing it!”

Considerably more than a hundred footmen lined up to follow Tol into the forest. He sent a third of them back, not wanting to leave the camp’s defense so weakened. Among the volunteers, he was surprised to see Felryn and Crake. The healer refused to be left behind, insisting that, as his auguries had stirred them up, he felt responsible for the expedition.

To Crake, Tol said, “You’re not a soldier. You don’t have to do this.”

“None of your men has a bow. You’ll need one,” Crake said with a shrug. Flashing a smile, he added, “Just don’t try to order me around, all right?”

Before they set out, Felryn took Tol aside and showed him the arrow that had been removed from Durazen’s throat. Made of ash wood, blackened with soot and fletched with crow feathers, it would be nearly invisible at night. It was obviously forester workmanship, except for its head, which was a sharp triangle of bronze. Common knowledge held that the foresters used flint heads.

“Also,” Felryn added, “the cuts on Durazen’s body were too smooth and even to have been made with stone blades. He was cut with metal.”

“Where would the forest tribes get metal?” Tol said. “Taken from those they’ve slain?”

“Perhaps. Or perhaps the foresters have found someone to supply them,” Felryn suggested darkly.

With a minimum of fuss and no noble speeches, the rescue expedition slipped into the woods. The trees closed in behind them, and Zivilyn’s Carpet was quickly lost from sight.

The Great Green was denser than any forest Tol had ever seen. Ancient trees stretched lordly limbs up to the sky, blotting out the sun. The glare and heat of day gave way to a sort of muted twilight. Gray lichen clung to the trunks, and thick carpets of moss filled the space between gnarled tree roots. Not only were there majestic oaks and broad maples, but several of the truly gigantic vallenwoods united to form a leafy canopy under which lesser plants could not grow.

By the time they’d gone ten score paces into the forest, the Ergothians found the way clear of the clinging growth that first had hampered their progress. The forest floor was covered by a thick bed of dead leaves, broken here and there by islands of mossy boulders. The soft light and great tree trunks made it impossible to see much more than a dozen paces in any direction. A thousand savages could be hiding within a stone’s throw and they’d never know it, Tol thought. He wondered how Odovar’s and Egrin’s hordes had gotten anywhere on horseback in this maze.

The forest was still as death. No birds sang, and there was no game in sight, not even a rabbit. The weird silence brought out a kind of nervous tic in the soldiers. Every few steps, each man would pause and look around, certain he was being observed by hostile eyes. Even Felryn succumbed to the sensation.

Without asking permission, Crake slipped away from the soldiery. For a flute player who spent most of his days in a tavern, he was remarkably stealthy, moving ahead of them through the leaf-litter with hardly a sound.

A shrill whistle brought Tol’s band to a halt. He continued forward and found Crake crouched by a pit dug in the center of the trail. Sharpened stakes lined the bottom of the pit. Their points were darkly stained.

More traps, all likewise sprung, were found-snares dangling in the air, deadfalls tripped, more of the stake-filled pits. A few traps held dead horses, and there were plain signs Odovar’s men had fought back: tree trunks defaced by sword cuts, blood spattered on leaves, scraps of shredded buckskin. Still, there were no human bodies, living or dead. That mystery played on the soldiers’ already taut nerves.

When the rescue party topped a slight knoll they beheld an even more startling sight. A series of vines had been stretched between trees directly across their path. From the vines hung skulls, more than a hundred of them. Their missing lower jaws gave them an especially horrible aspect: they seemed to be silently screaming.

The soldiers shifted uneasily, drawing closer together. Their muttering was loud in the silence. Even the veteran campaigners among them were powerfully affected by the sight.