The canopy shook with conflict. Dozens of harpies, like black-feathered missiles, launched out from under the treetops in a burst of scattered leaves and broken branches amid a barrage of shrieks and harsh laughter. Large spider-like creatures, each with thorax and abdomen bearing a human-like form exploded from beneath the canopy, hissing and leaping angrily after them, tearing much larger holes in the turbulent sea of leaves. The treetops trembled and shook from the embroiled battle above and below. The feathered missiles opened their large wings, pumping them up and sweeping behind as they gained altitude, twisting in aerial arcs, moving higher beyond the grasping, leaping limbs of the dryads trying to tear them out of the sky.
The haze of smoke rising from the sea of trees threatened to surfeit the treetop turbulences under a billowing deluge of gray. Fiery tongues licked hungrily at the yellowed sky. Dryads, thus revealed in their full foliaged rage, swatted at the diving harpies, some hits landing a solid blow, causing them to careen into the canopy below, others missing, throwing the lunging dryad off-balance, causing them to roll across the treetops and catch fire.
The scene was surreal. Like dark devils dancing and raging over the rotting, undulating canvass suspended over the smoky pit of hell as in Jonathan Edward’s vision.
Harpies curled in and out among the dryads bounding after them, heckling and deriding them. Dryads with long thorny vines swung their whip-like flagella after them, landing their barbs into feathered flesh, tangling the harpy’s wild flowing grey hair, scratching their scowling withered and twisted faces.
The harpies returned the fight, raking milky claws across the backs of the dryads as they swooped in and out, causing these to rapidly wither and crumble, breaking their branches as they became brittle and snapped.
Every dryad scarred by the talons of the harpies convulsed in spasms, had rough bark enshroud their bodies, obliterating any semblance of their human form, and they became rigid deadfalls crashing back down to break apart into the forest below.
The fight raged on until finally, the dryads realized what the harpies had been doing.
With each dive, swoop, corkscrew aerial and taunt, the harpies had been drawing the dryads further and further into the forest fires raging below and then evading them from the air, rising up on heat thermals to gain altitude out of reach. The harpies, though sustaining losses themselves to both thorn, strike and fire were systematically wiping the dryads out.
***
At the sound of Miray’s scream, the dark birds that had been above the group leaped from their perches and descended towards the dangling heads, raking their talons across the dreadful ornaments, causing them to sway and spin. The birds cackled at the gaping travelers as they circled further and further down to them.
Laura held Miray close to her, leaning down, taking the young girl’s face in her hands to calm her.
“Miray, look at me,” she coaxed, “Look at me.”
The young girl’s eyes were full of tears, as she tried again to look upwards at the horrible sights, not wanting to see, yet unable to turn away entirely.
“Miray,” Laura repeated, her voice was calming, as Nell stood over them, shielding the sights above with her body, and protectively gathering the two girls under her arms.
Miray held the backs of Laura’s hands, pressing them harder into her cheeks and ears, blocking the sounds, of the cackling “birds” above, if not wholly able to shut off her other senses.
“I’m afraid for you,” Miray’s lips trembled as she fought the urges not to look above and found a sense of shelter in Laura’s pleading eyes.
The shock caused Laura to blink rapidly and tear up. Bath or not, she pressed Miray into her arms and chest and choked back her own amazed-tears.
“Well, well, well,” the voices of the birds descended upon them, both bird-like in quality, yet that of rasping, old vulgar women one might associate with the brothel madams and past-prime, cigar-chomping, hard-drinking, bawdy saloon girls of the old west. These swooped over the tops of their heads, brushing by them with downdrafts from the beating of their wings, and glided to rocks and lower limbs just to either side and ahead of them.
“Outworlders,” one observed, the old haggard face of a wrinkled, scowling woman, pushing out of a tangle of long gray hair behind a large beak-like nose that dominated her features. Her eyes were deep-set and black–shining darkly, under a heavy forehead. Her broad brow was interwoven with both wiry gray hair and blackened feathers extending radially from the shadowy caves holding her eyes. Another of these creatures, its face barely feminine, if at all, looked sunken behind ridges of wrinkles causing her face to droop and frown from every aspect, croaked, “Prizes for The Pan, methinks. Master will be pleased.” A cruel chuckle coupled with bird chirps emitted from the three bird creatures, as they leaned forward to study their lot.
From the northwest came a trilling noise, almost flute-like. To the east, a rapid clapping sound, like two stones beat together. Before anyone could react fully, a hunched figure sprang up behind the dark harpy who had alighted on the mossy boulder rock.
“Hello, sweetness!” the figure said, pulling the harpy’s head backward, jabbing its jagged stone knife under her jowly throat, “So glad you could come down to play.” It leaned its wooly face over her shoulder, its yellow eyes dancing brightly from its ash-blackened face, its jagged, sharpened and broken teeth gleamed as it skinned its lips back in a disturbing grin.
“Back off, satyr!” the thick-browed, harpy jerked seeing her sister, held under threat, by the wickedly grinning creature, whose arms now pinned the harpy’s wings under a steely grip. “These are our prisoners!”
Mason sighted down the shaft of the arrow notched in his bow, not sure which of the enemies to aim at first. Christie swept her sword upward, ready to hack and slash at any one of the harpies than dared to swoop near them again. James raised his halberd into both hands, angling the hooked blade outward, ready to cleave into either the threat from ground or sky. Begglar lowered the reaper blade from his staff downward, letting it pivot from his midshaft grip to scythe through the legs of any satyr feinting and running by. Dominic fingered the jagged stones he’d collected, unnoticed, from the riverside. He bore a half-pouch sling tucked into his traveling tunic that he’d kept in reserve. The jagged stones were broken pieces of flint that he knew would serve for lethal purposes. He and his dad’s game of “Rats in the Barn” served many purposes and with many makeshift forms of natural weaponry. Back to back with the unarmed members, in their center, they bristled against the threats all around them.
“Beg to differ, harpy,” the satyr gouged the harpy he held in the back between the shoulders of her wings making her squawk, “Prisoners of prisoners belong to the one who has the upper hand. We knew you couldn’t resist this bait.”
The momentary distraction, caused the other to fail to see the dark shaggy figure snaking its way up the back of the tree towards the branch on which she rested. Before she was aware of it, the sneaking satyr had slapped a metal snap locking manacle upon the two metal shanks that covered and protected her legs against the symbolic threat of the dryads. The satyr leaped down from the tree trunk trailing a finely linked chain in his hand, and with the weight of his fall, tugged and jerked the harpy from her perch, pitching her to the ground, her wings flailing, her body slamming the ground with a thud, whereupon the satyr pinned the creature down with his hooves and squatted over her.
“You’ve been grounded, granny!” he fingered her breast ruffle with a dirty, sooty paw. Black nails scratching the top of her grey breast. Then he turned his ugly bearded face toward the other satyr who held the harpy under his knife.
“Are we allowed to eat this chicken?”
***
Maeven witnessed the exchange and the developments surrounding the company. One free harpy remained, glaring down at the two satyrs that had turned the tables and odds against their upper hand. She saw the crew loosen their vigilance and focus on the exchange between their would-be captors, turning away from the areas of vulnerability. Their weapons tracked on the known threats but opened them to others. Using these distractions, however, she knew she could work them to an advantage.
Quietly as she could, she had set natural timer traps to create forest noises. Small saplings bent carefully back under creeper vines she knew would break under the strain. Branches intertwined to come loose and swing and swoosh. A stone balanced precariously on an outcrop covered in scarred moss beds. A forked bush with branches pinned and folded against a shallow-rooted tree. And to cap off the distraction, she’d collected scrapings of the fine yellow dust from the leaves left by the dryads where Will had been abducted and sealed it in a pair of small glass flasks corked shut.
Spines of stone jutted out from the forest trail as it descended away from the mountain ridge road that led up to the once shrouded city of Azragoth. If the noises failed to distract the satyrs, the glass flasks, once shattered and spilled out upon stone, would not.
The satyrs were cunning in their own right, but even after all these years, they were still enslaved to their most primal animal instincts.
***
Syloam caught her plummeting body on a series of limbs, just before plunging into the burning brush below. A fog of smoke obscured the forest floor yet flashes of orange and yellow flame flared through it like lightning flashes.
A sheen of sweat beaded her brow, as she tucked and curled like a trapeze artist, and oriented back upward into the high woods, rising with the smoke. Ahead she saw harpies, flying low through the woods, embers and flaming sticks clenched in their flexor pin feathers, like lighted wingtips, as they flew and glided through the lower forest. Their flight was concerted and deliberate–touching off smaller fires as they brushed the leafy tops dragging the flaming embers through the dried brush and fallen leaves.
Above, and in the distance, she saw the place where her high bower nest had once been. Beyond, the abattoir basket bower, now torn free of its moorings, was being flown away by at least five or six of the black-feathered beasts.
“Mine,” she whispered, the words exhaled through red and full lips, then drew in a deep lungful of heated air and she shuddered at how little the air helped her breathe. Her next words, though forced and backed by outrage and feral wildness, came out raw and coughed. “MINE! THE MAN IS MINE! GIVE IT BACK! GIVE IT BACK!”
Vines and branches shot out from her, clawing her vaulted path through the trees, moving fast in pursuit. A patina of green frothy patches pulsing and fading all over her body, her fingers and hands growing in size, branching out like gnarled arthritic claws. She grasped, grappled and raced through the mid-level portion of the forest, high enough above the fiery floor, yet below the upper canopy, her wooden claws wrapping the trunks of trees driving her faster and faster forward after the rapidly deteriorating branch and vine-woven cage, carried in flight ahead of her. The harpies would have to find a clear flight path through, without dropping the cage and the man they held prisoner within. But Syloam had no such limitation. Though they were already far ahead, she knew she would catch them. And when she did there’d be hell to pay–the hell of a woman-dryad scorned.
***
Maeven moved low and quiet, turning her feet to find the soft ground of pine needles, avoiding the dried leaves as much as she could. And then the first of her timed noise-traps went off. Vines snapped, and the pinned brush swooshed, shaking the leaves and clacking branches. The tilted stone, heavily sliding down the smooth moss mud, fell from the boulder, down upon the assemblage of buried stone, cracking noisily. The sapling tilted down, pulled up from the soft staked earth, swishing back into its upright tilt, brushing the surrounding bushes. And Maeven palmed the glass flasks and threw them hard towards another outcropping of stone, shattering glass, spilling the powdery yellow substance across the rock and causing it to puff briefly in the air.
The satyrs followed the noises with their eyes, but when the glass broke, they whipped their heads around in the direction, their nostrils flaring, their breathing becoming more of a rapid pant.
Crack! She threw and shattered the other bottle, against another rock, even as she launched from out of the backwoods, racing towards the group gathered and surrounded.
Taking advantage of the distraction the third harpy, took flight, climbing back upward toward the treetops, with rapid movements of her wings. The satyrs responded excitedly and violently. The one with the stone knife stabbed savagely into the harpy’s feathered breast, then lept away as it quivered and stilled, moving towards the enticing scent that had captured his interest. The other, wrapped the chain around the harpy’s neck, garroting the bird-hag with a quick twist and then dragged its body after him as he launched himself towards the other strike site where the second shattered flask had landed.
Maeven slid in low, kicking the bottom tip of her bow from Mason’s hand, catching the arrow he released in surprise at seeing her suddenly emerge from the brush. She caught the bow, spun it into her forearm grip, had the arrow notched, pulled and let it fly whizzing through the air to pierce the back of the distracted satyr who had run to the first broken flask. The satyr buckled at the hit, misstepped and fell forward into the rocks, plunging face down into the yellow dust.
“Arrow!” Maeven shouted at Mason.
“Ain’t got all day, kid!” she shouted when Mason hesitated, amazed at how fast Maeven had turned the tables, “Arrow!”
Mason obliged, reached over his shoulder, catching feathered fletches of one, and pulled it out, tossing it to her.
She had it notched, in half a second, pointed the bow and tip upward, pulled it back deeply and let it fly. The arrow seemed to sizzle through the air, aimed at the fleeing harpy, trying to gain the safety of the upper branches.
Thock! The arrow point caught her mid-flight, driving deep into her feathered body, and she let out a “Gaaawwww!” noise, that quickly silenced as one of her wings folded over the driven shaft, and her horrible form tumbled downward, bouncing off of a tree pole, spinning from a branch, and then dropped down with a thud and snap as its body hit the road beyond them. The second satyr, dragging the garroted harpy from the thin chain, smothered its bearded face in the yellow dust, it bent down licking the powder hungrily off of the rocks and bits of glass that had once contained the substance, its hands and face smeared with smudges of yellow, oblivious to its own danger.
“You are better now than you have ever been, Storm Hawk,” a deep voice spoke from somewhere close, startling the party and Maeven as well.
She whirled and spun the bow, its sharp, blade-capped nocks, ready to slash the next unknown assailant.
A crouched and shrouded figure stood up from atop the boulder, looking down at them.
He raised his hands defensively and said simply, “Slow down there, I’m friendly. Don’t you remember me?”
“Jeremiah?” Maeven lowered her bow, the frame falling forward loosely from her palm and she flipped and caught it, and slung the arc over her shoulder.
“It’s been a long time,” she said.
“Too long, I’m afraid,” he took in the party, and the prone satyr sniveling in the dirt among the dusted stones.
He noticed a cut on its shoulder and a particularly familiar pattern of tufted hair ridges down its back.
Maeven moved towards the groveling creature, but Jeremiah stayed her.
“Leave this one to me. I’ve been tracking him. He maimed my horse and I had to put it down. Cut its ligaments.”
“Horrible,” Maeven said, matter-of-factly.
The satyr still did not look up, so consumed and obsessed it was with the dryad powder.
“You need to get these folks out of Kilrane,” Jeremiah said, “These forests are not what they used to be.”
“I know, I know,” Maeven said, looking back to the group.
Christie, Miray, Laura, and Lindsey rushed to embrace her.
“So glad to have you back.” Their voices crowded over each other.
“We were worried. We thought that…”
Mason’s heart was still pounding in his chest at how swiftly their situation had turned around with Maeven’s return.
Her speed and accuracy with the bow under pressure amazed him.
“Can you teach me that?”
Maeven turned to him and smiled, “It takes a lot of time and practice, but sure, kiddo. Desperation helps, but there are many situations, here in the Mid-World, which will amply give you that. If you want to do what it takes, I’ll show you what you need to know. But it’s still up to you.”
“I noticed you don’t hold the grip but let the tension of the drawstring pull press it into your palm. How do you aim so well if you don’t grip it?”
“Good eye, Mason. That is a common mistake understudy’s make. The aim is in the line between the string, arrow, and guide, not in the tension. Accuracy is deadlier than the power of the pull. Focus on the line of the arrow, not the grip or even the arrowhead. Gripping the bow will make your tightened arm muscles shake and you will tire too easily. Keep your fingers open and loose. Use the flat of your palm to push out as you draw it back and do not curl your finger around the arrow shaft. Use a finger glove or thimble if you can get one.”
“Where did you learn all this?” Matthew asked.
Maeven nodded at Jeremiah, “Him.”
Jeremiah had rounded and descended the boulder and was cautiously approaching the satyr, so consumed by the fallen powder, it did not sense its own peril.
On the road, the company of travelers gathered together around Maeven and the one she’d called Jeremiah.
The man was tall, solidly built, broad-shouldered, yet lean and rangy looking. His hair was cropped short and thin, and his face was reddened and tanned, his eyes deep-set and knowing, with age-worn gathers at the end. His demeanor was reserved and measured. He wore a dark green cloak and hood and carried a longbow, and rapier sword easily accessed from a hip scabbard, with a bell fist cage guard and a leather-wrapped hilt.
Jeremiah had used a bola weapon, a sort of cable with two weighted knuckles of metal or stone on each end, that was spun like a toss sling and hand-thrown, wrapping the target and inflicting debilitating injury when the weights on the cord smashed and bludgeoned the enwrapped victim. The satyr had been dazed by the weapon, and Jeremiah bound him to a tree using the self-same chain the creature had used to garrote the dead harpy. He’s stuffed and gagged the creature’s mouth with a hard pine cone and left it there for the “others” to find him. By others, he meant the dryads, whom he knew to be now lurking in the forest of Kilrane.
“Let the others deal with their own,” he’d said, once he’d securely bound the satyr and the body of the harpy together to the tree, he added, “The dead shall bury their dead.”
The group gathered around Jeremiah, eager to meet this one whom Maeven seemed to know already, yet one in the group already also knew the man and had known him well many years ago. Maeven made the introductions, for the man had but little to say, yet when she came to Begglar she stopped short.
Jeremiah studied him, and Begglar was silent a moment, but then spoke, “It has been a long time, my friend.”
Jeremiah’s eyes widened and then narrowed, “I know this voice. You are strangely familiar to me, yet I do not recognize you unless you are much changed.”
“I am. The years have not been kind. You once knew me as a man of the sea, before I left that life.”
Jeremiah moved in closer to study him under the dappled light, “Can it be? You are not McGregor, are you?”
“The very same.”
“I was told you were dead.”
“I was. Am. It is complicated. I do not go by my old name. That life I left behind me to become something else.”
“And what did you become?”
“A baker and Innkeeper. My name is now Begglar. This is my wife Nellus, and my son Dominic. Xarmni’s reach has finally extended to the place we made our home, so now, after these long years, I find that my old identity calls me back from the dead once more.”
Jeremiah stared at him, his eyes searching, and then suddenly he broke out laughing. Mirth transformed the man’s face and unlocked his guarded reserve at last.
“Ha, ha, ha!” he bellowed and embraced Begglar and then pushed back, grasping him by the shoulders, “McGregor the mighty scourge of the sea has become a baker and an Inn Keeper. Truly, sir, you are reborn. Ha, ha, ha! I would not have recognized you. You were a much more corpulent fellow back in the day.”
“Times have been hard, my friend. The travelers from the east quit coming when the Xarmnian occupiers began acquiring the territories. The company of the prior have long been disbanded. Few if any return here. From the looks of you, there are many changes in you as well. Where is the full-face beard, you used to have? The thick locks of hair? Are you balding?”
Jeremiah ran his hand over his head, and grinned sheepishly, “Aye, captain. Like you, I was a wanted man as well. I became a forester here in Kilrane. I’ve kept connections, but I’ve kept to myself as well. Xarmni’s reach is indeed long and brutal. Many from the old company have left the fellowship. Many have just forgotten who they once were. The spirit, if left unattended, eventually quiets into complacency. Few dream anymore. It is a sad state of affairs.”
“Gentlemen, if you’re through with your little reunion, we’ve got a crisis here and quite literally we aren’t out of the woods yet.”
Both men gave assent. She was right.
“So, what are your plans for this mission?” Jeremiah asked gravely.
“I am not the one called to lead. Mister O’Brian is.”
Maeven turned and looked among the group who were watching Jeremiah, “By the way, where’s Mister O’Brian?”
“Who is this Mister O’Brian?”
Begglar, interjected, “On this mission, he is called O’Brian. That’s another story, but you and I know him as Brian David.”
A series of inscrutable expressions seemed to pass over Jeremiah’s face that none could fully read, but after a long pause, Jeremiah said, “Well, now, this seems to be a day of many resurrections.”
“He’s seeing what’s in the pan,” Miray announced, grabbing Maeven’s hand.
“The what?”
Begglar cleared his throat, “He is scouting ahead. He thinks The Pan is here in the forest.”
Jeremiah’s head shot up, and both he and Maeven’s eyes met reflecting a mutually, startled look, upon this news.
“That explains it,” Jeremiah muttered to himself glaring down at the fallen satyrs and then turned to Maeven once again.
Maeven was suddenly more scared than she had ever been.
“Get these folks out of Kilrane and do it quickly. Stay off the forest roads. I’ll go after…O’Brian, if I can. I cannot imagine what may have been in his mind to abandon you and try to confront The Pan alone.”
Maeven studied his eyes for a moment. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I will find you. Bringing this many with you, there will be signs of your passage that cannot be hidden.”
“You’re going to leave us, too?” Laura asked, her voice quavering.
“But sir, we don’t know how to get out of this forest,” Matthew objected, “There are fires behind us. Things chasing us. What if we get turned around or lost? We need you to lead us out.”
“Son, Maeven, and Begglar both know enough to get you out of the woods. Stay with them. Do what they tell you.”
James interjected, “What if we get separated? They are creatures here that I would not have believed existed, had I not seen them with my own eyes. If we are attacked that could happen. We are not experienced fighters.”
“You have more skills than you believe. But there is more to this than you know. If you were brought here for a renewal of the Marker’s prophecy, then you need the one called to lead you to complete the journey. I am going to help bring him back to you if I can. If it is not too late. The Pan has a particular interest in the one you call O’Brian. There is something he does not know about what happened to my brother. I have to get to him before The Pan does.”
“But what if we get lost? How can we find our way out of a place we’ve never been to? What if…,” she glanced at Maeven and shrugged apologetically, “What if something happens to her? She almost died. How could we get out of here?”
“Seek a clearing,” Jeremiah said, “One never needs to get lost in a forest if you think carefully about the nature of it. The trees and vegetation around you will tell you all you need to know. Think about what they need to grow, and how they react to getting what they need.”
“What do you mean?” Tiernan chimed in.
“At the edge of the forest, the tree foliage is much lower and the ground vegetation is thicker and denser because sunlight can get to it. The deeper one goes into the forests the higher the canopy of foliage becomes and the more sparse the ground foliage is because the sunlight cannot penetrate the canopy and only dim filtered light makes it down to the forest floor. Moss and mushrooms and plants that thrive in decaying leaves, fungi, and low light are what thrives there. Look at the ground, the trees, the slope of the land. Water flows downward, so you know you will more than likely find rivers and streams in declivities. If one finds themselves lost in a forest with a high canopy observe the heights of it. If the canopy lowers as you move in a particular direction it indicates that there will be a clearing or field or bare ground ahead. The ground plants will become thicker and you will find more varieties of plants also indicating that sunlight is closer ahead. Once you reach an open field, stay within the edge of the forest, until you are certain the field is clear. Most cleared areas will have some sort of road along the edge of it. You’ll find animal trails leading into and out of it. Animals graze in the fields because the rains make the grasses sweeter and plentiful. If you find a field, you also can see the open sky and can find direction and bearings from the heavens.”
Begglar spoke up, “We have received information that Xarmni is amassing to the south. Something is bringing them out of their strongholds into the fields. We had thought to bring them to The Fairie Fade if Maeven can still find it. It has offered protection in the past as you and I both know.”
Jeremiah turned to Maeven, “Call you still find it? It has been a while.”
“I think so. I remember enough from before. The Half-Men fear it still. We will wait for you there.”
“Fine. That is a better plan. If we are not back within an hour or so, don’t wait. Take them in. Get them as far away from the forest as possible.”
And with that, Jeremiah turned and headed away into the foggy smoke following the barely visible road down towards the stone bridge that spanned forest slough.
Excavatia 