“You must talk to them before you leave.” Furin held on to his arm, not softly as she had before. Hard, insistent.
“No, I must stop those following us.” He tried to pull his arm away but though his strength slowly returned he remained weak, unable to fight off even the Leoric, and she was as tired and weak as any of them.
“Anjiin’s ruins, Cahan, they need to hear from you.” The pressure of her fingers on his arm, her brown eyes alight with a strength her body lacked. “Remember what I said about leadership? It is more than being gruff and standing tall.” Still he did not speak. He did not know what to say.
“This place, Cahan,” she looked around, “most of them have never been past Woodedge. You have given some solemn warnings about not starting fires. Told them that speech you are so fond of – ‘Harm not and you shall not be harmed’,” she said, briefly slipping into a parody of his voice. Then she spoke more softly. “They do not know what it means, Cahan. You need to help them understand.” It was as if his voice dried in his throat. As if what she asked sucked life from him as surely as his cowl or the trees of the hungry forest they had left behind. She softened a little. “Tell them what they can do, Cahan. Not what they can’t.” He held her gaze for a moment longer, then nodded.
“Gather the people, but needs must this is quick.” She let go of him, shouting out to the gathered villagers. Her voice filled the clearing, but it went no further as the forest held their sound close, keeping them to itself; cocooning them in the bare branches of Harsh, catching the sound in the closely knit and deep, dark green needles of the evergreens. The people came slowly, the bright colours of their crownhead wool clothes dulled by mud, spattered with the deep brown of dried blood. For some it would be the blood of their invaders, for others it would be the blood of their friends and for many it would be both. The stains of battle would wash out, but he knew it left deeper stains that could not be washed away.
He found a fallen log to stand on, being careful of his footing as the wood was already splitting, falling away where the plants and fungi of the forest had begun to break it down. Sprays of colourful moss grew on the bark, and his feet smeared them across the wood as he mounted it.
Silence.
The background noise of the forest existing as it had done for time past time, with little care for the people within. The drip of snow melting from the branches. The chirp of gasmaws. The whirr of wings, the bark of raniri.
He looked at them. Gathering his words and thoughts the way he once would have herded crownheads.
“You fear the forest.” They did not answer, only watched. “It is not foolish.” His words rang like bells in the clearing, each face reacting to their clangour. “But the forest does not hate you, it does not hunt you. It does not care about you.” They drank his words like they slaked a great thirst. “Think of yourself as tiny creatures moving around a great sleeping animal. It cares nothing for you, as long as you do not disturb it.”
“Must we starve?” said a voice from the crowd. “We have children to feed.” Before he could speak, Issofur, the Leoric’s child walked out of the wood. In his hands he held nuts and berries.
“No, you will not starve. It will feed you as it has fed Issofur.” Cahan pointed at the boy. “Berries and nuts and leaves. Take small amounts without killing the plant and the forest will not mind. As for these buzzing things that bite? Venn can show you how to make a necklace of mintwort to keep them away and a balm for the bites.” The crowd stared. “There is more; garaur can hunt for us. Larger animals, if wounded or weak, can be taken. I will show you more when I return.”
“You are leaving us?” This from Ont.
“A group of Rai follows us.” His words settled, like brackish black water thick with rot. “They must be stopped.” The group became silent and still, coalescing around Ont as if he had become their spokesperson. From the back of the group a voice, soft, resigned.
“You need sacrifice,” said Ont. “Who must die to make you strong?”
“Or maybe you can take a little from all of us,” said another.
“No!” His voice, and that of Venn who stood to one side of the villagers with Furin, Segur wrapped around their neck.
“But you need strength,” said another voice. “To fight them.” He clasped his hands behind his back to stop them shaking. Part of him wanted it, so much.
He hungered.
“I am not Rai,” he said softly. They did not understand, he could see it. Their world had been in service to others, even the battle of Harn, to them he had been their saviour. They could not see past what the world had impressed upon them. “You do not exist to serve. Dyon, and all those who gave their lives in Harn, saved you. I was simply a vessel.” Venn watched, their eyes wide – surprise? Were they surprised? “I go to fight the Rai, I do it to give you a chance to find your own way.”
Silence. Confusion.
“We could bring our bows,” said a voice and he was sure he saw Furin stand a little taller. He shook his head.
“I will find a way. And if I do not return, find yours. What comes to us is change. But change is life.”
“And if we cannot change?” said another voice.
“Then you will die,” he said, “but at least not under the weight of the Rai. Look around you, the forest is vast and you are small. It will not bend for you.” His words floating in the clearing. Furin looked at him and he knew these were not the words she expected. “But you,” he raised his voice, pushing it out beyond the trees around them, “you are the people of Harn. You are strong. You are versatile, you paint the marks of your families across your faces, because you are proud.” He let out a breath, a cloud hanging in the biting air. “You will change, and you will live. You have fought the Rai, and like very few others, you won! I was only one among you.”
They looked shocked. As if this had not truly occurred to them until this moment.
“He is right,” said Ont, looking around. “We can change, we threw the priest of Tarl-an-Gig from our village. We stood against the power of the Rai.” He stood straighter. “You know me,” he said, “I stood against the forester and his ideas. Blame me for your losses, not him.” The crowd were confused, made uncomfortable by Ont’s words. “But I have seen the truth now, that the forester was right. The monk, Udinny, and all those who gave their lives, were right. Ranya has touched our village, a gentler god has come to us.”
“This gentle god destroyed our village,” shouted another voice.
“The Rai did that,” said Ont.
“And Treefall was bringing them no matter what, Cahan just meant we were prepared,” said Furin.
“Ranya,” said Ont, turning to the people of Harn, hesitant, unsure, confused. Almost like the words were using him, rather than him using the words. “She shows us a path, and we must choose to walk it. We can stay and die, or go into the forest, and build our own Anjiin, a place for our god, a different way of being.” Silence met this. A long silence and he wondered if talking of the fabled lost city of the gods had been too much, until someone, one of the people in the front, the tanner, Tirra, spoke.
“We better get walking then,” she said, “all we are getting here is cold.” It was not agreement, not acceptance, only true. The crowd turned, getting ready to travel. Only Ont, Furin, Venn and the two Reborn stayed by Cahan.
“Thank you,” he said to the Leoric and the butcher. “For your help, though I am not sure I convinced them.” Furin smiled and put a hand on his arm.
“We will wait for you before we enter Wyrdwood,” said Furin. “Make sure you come back to us.”
“I will find a way.”
She nodded, let go of him and put a hand on Ont’s arm. Cahan was surprised that he felt a stab of jealousy. “Come, monk of Ranya.” Ont looked at her as if he did not understand the words she had spoken.
“Do you think that is my path?” asked the butcher.
“I can only show you it; you must choose where to walk.” They left; Venn, Segur and the Reborn stayed.
“We should go,” he said to the Reborn. “Venn, help Furin look after them.” The trion nodded. “There is much that is dangerous in the forest, you may be able to—”
“It hungers,” said Venn, “like the trees you raised but less so.”
“Make them go slow, Venn,” he said. “Tell Furin that weapons must always be a last resort.”
“Cahan,” said Venn, “they are right, you are not strong enough to fight. You—”
“I will be strong enough when it is needed.”
“The trees may not give, Cahan,” they said, and he wondered why they looked so pained, so worried.
“They gave to you, Venn. The land gave to you.”
“I think I am different. You need more than the trees will give.” They knew what he intended. “You mean to take from the Rai, so you can fight their Hetton.”
“It is what Cowl-Rai do,” said Nahac.
“You said you would not take from people, Cahan, said it hardened you. Made you cruel.” Cahan did not know how to answer.
“I will only do what is needed, Venn,” he said quietly, nodded towards the villagers organising themselves to leave, “for them.” Venn did not look away; the trion had grown a lot in only a few days. There was power in them and he could feel it. It was power of a different kind, a sort he had never known.
You need me.
“I will protect those people, Venn, it is all I have left.” For a moment the trion held his gaze then nodded, more to themselves than the forester. They looked terribly sad. How could he explain what he knew; that the fire that burned dark and cruel within him was not of the cowl, it was him. The cowl only made him more of what he was.
“If you can delay the fight,” said Venn, voice on the edge of desperation, “maybe we could find other ways, the Forestals may—”
“The Rai are coming.”
“It is not what Udinny would want for you.”
“Udinny is gone.”
Silence.
“Very well,” said Venn. “I only hope it is still you that returns.” For a moment, an infinitesimal movement of the Light Above, he could not do anything. Could not speak. Felt frozen in time and place.
“I will come back, Venn,” he said. They nodded, moved away to help the villagers. Cahan joined the Reborn.
“You will take from the Rai?” said Nahac, the Reborn’s face hidden behind their visor, the mask of a beautiful woman, forever frozen in painted wood.
“I will do what I must,” he said.
“It is the easiest way and the trion is right, you need more strength.”
“I have this,” he said, and lifted his forestbow.
“And if they get near to you?”
“I have you.”
“And if we are stopped?”
“Then as I said, I will do what I must, Nahac.” She nodded and began to turn. He grabbed her arm, stopped her. “We need to talk of your tactics.”
“We kill,” she said.
“You kill foolishly. You risk your bodies. In Harn you sacrificed yourself so one Rai could be taken down.”
“It worked,” she said. “The Rai died, we broke their shield wall.”
“It took you both out of the fight.”
“We killed the Rai,” she sounded puzzled. “You would rather they had lived?”
“You told me that you would fight for me.” She nodded, an almost imperceptible movement of her head. “Then that means you obey me.”
“We have worshipped at the Blade of Our Lady of Violent Blooms for more years than you can even imagine,” the voice behind the mask brittle.
“Maybe you have become too used to chasing the death you say you crave.” Her posture changed, or maybe it was something he felt through the cowl, he did not know. He only knew his words hit home. “Without the magics cast in Harn by Venn, you would still be gravely wounded, and your sister would still be a smoking corpse. I need your spears, I cannot afford to have you out of action for a year or more to heal or regrow or whatever it is you do.” She remained still, in that unnerving way the Reborn had of becoming statues no matter how awkward the position they stood in.
“Then what do you suggest, Cowl-Rai?” No mistaking the sneer in her voice when she called him that.
“Firstly, that you do not call me that. It is a title that we both hate, and I have done nothing to earn your hate.”
“Not yet,” she said, “and do not.” Cold. Implacable.
“Secondly,” he said, “I want you to fight as if you can die. As if you fear it.” Again, the stillness.
“We can do that,” she said. “But what if sacrifice is the only way for us to win?”
“Then that will be the way.”
She nodded. Looked at the bow in his hand.
“Even with that,” she said, “you are too weak to fight. You can barely stand.” It was true, and she had been too long a warrior for him to lie to her.
“First thing we do, when we come across the Rai,” he took a deep breath, “is you bring me one of their soldiers, alive.” That beautiful mask, staring at him. Behind her the other Reborn, just as fixed. “I will take the strength I need.” The saying of those words, it had the same rancid flavour as when the Hetton were near.
“And yet,” she said, “you do not want to be called Cowl-Rai.” Then she turned and walked away, and he, weak as he was, had to struggle after her.