Days like this were making his skin crawl. He’d seen lone riders skirting the estate grounds, cutting fast and hard across Dracons land. He’d caught the faint smell of bad smoke, the kind of smoke that came from burnt clothes, burnt possessions, burnt hair and flesh — but never enough to be entirely certain, to even so much as sense a direction or possible source.
He had taken to watching sunsets, wandering out into the trees or drifting along the forest’s edge, and in the failing of light he found moments of frightening stillness, as if even in a held breath some breath was lost, the faintest exhalation, smelling of something wrong.
If all life possessed a soul, then perhaps it too was a burning fire, and just as life burned out when it had used itself up, so too did a soul. But maybe it took longer to wink out. Maybe it took for ever. But just as life could sicken, so too could a soul — sometimes one could tell, if there were eyes to look into, if there was an easy focus to that wrongness. When he walked through the dusk, along the forest’s dark line, he thought he could feel the land’s soul — a soul made up of countless smaller souls — and what he felt was something sickening.
Ivis turned to Corporal Yalad. ‘Round everyone up and head back. Walk the horses on to the track, then everyone dog-trot up to the gate. Shake out those muscles. Everyone cleans up before mess.’
‘Yes sir.’
‘I’ll be in later.’
‘Of course, sir.’
The forest, preserved by an edict from Lord Draconus, ran like a curled finger between hills, following the line of an ancient valley’s riverbed. Its tip, where it was thinnest, was at this field’s edge, where it stretched to almost touch Dracons Hold. If he walked northward, up the track of that finger, the forest thickened, and if one persisted in the simile, spread out to form the hand where the valley opened on to a floodplain. This was the forest’s ancient heart.
It had been years since Ivis last ventured there. Few people did, as Draconus had forbidden the harvesting of its wood or the hunting of whatever animals dwelt within it. Ivis had been instructed to patrol its edges on a regular basis, but at random intervals. Poaching was always a risk, but the punishment was death and that punishment could be carried out by the patrols, and this discouraged the petty hunters and wood cutters. But the real deterrent was the Lord’s own generosity. No one starved on his lands, and no one had to brave the winter without fuel. It was, to the captain’s mind, extraordinary what was possible when those people who could do something, did. He knew that not everyone appreciated it enough. Some poachers just liked poaching; they liked working outside the laws; they liked secrecy and deceit and that sense of making fools of their betters.
Ivis suspected that there weren’t many of those people left on the lands of Lord Draconus, or they were biding their time. The last hanging of a poacher had been three seasons past.
He walked through the forest. The few game trails he came across had been made by small animals. The larger game had been hunted into extinction long ago — long before the arrival of Draconus. There was a kind of deer, no higher than the captain’s knee, but they were nocturnal and so rarely seen. He’d heard the eerie cries of fox and had noted owl scat, but even these signs could not disguise the impoverishment of this remnant forest. His senses felt the absence all around him, like the pressure of silent, unrelieved guilt. He’d once enjoyed wandering these woods, but no longer.
The day’s light was fading. As if searching for something he knew he wouldn’t find, Ivis pushed on, deeper into the forest, where it spread out and occasional ancient trees still remained, their black bark sweating in the shadows. He saw slashes of red here and there, from trees that had toppled and split. The flesh of the blackwood was too much like muscle, like meat, to the captain’s eyes. It had always unnerved him.
He wondered at his own impulse, at this seemingly thoughtless push to continue onward. Was he fleeing what he knew was coming? There was nowhere he could run to. Besides, he had duties. His lord relied upon him, to train these Houseblades, to prepare them for the sudden loss of control that was civil war. Lord Draconus did not make use of spies. Dracons Hold was isolated. Unknown events swirled around them.
He found himself upon a trail, this one clear to a man’s height. The boles of the trees lining it looked misshapen. Ivis stopped. He studied one, peering through the gathering gloom. The trunk made a shape, as if hands had moulded the wood itself. It bulged outward. He made out a vaguely feminine form, but bloated. He saw something similar in the next tree, and upon others, all lining this trail. A chill crept through him.