Forest Mage (The Soldier Son Trilogy #2)

Forest Mage (The Soldier Son Trilogy #2) Page 214

Later, I would think it depravity. At the time, it was lust and gluttony combined into one glorious, sense-engulfing indulgence. The moon was high before we had finished our consumption. I lay back on deep, soft moss, completely satiated in every way I could imagine. She leaned over me, breathing her wine breath into my face. “Are you happy, Great One?” she asked softly. She stroked the curve of my belly, following the line of hair that led downward. “Have I pleased you?”

I was far beyond being pleased with her. And yet it was her first question that clung to my mind. Was I happy? No. This was transitory. Tomorrow I would be back in my cabin, fearing to go into town, digging holes to bury men I’d never known, and planning a fence that would keep out this world that I now wallowed in. I answered neither of her questions.

“Olikea, you are a very kind woman.”

She laughed at that and replied, “I am as kind to you as I hope you will be to me. Will you be kind enough to come to my village? I wish to show you to the people there.”

“You wish to show me to your people?”

“Some there do not believe that one of your kind could become a Great One. They mock me and ask, ‘Why would the magic choose as defender the one who has invaded us?’” She shrugged the question aside as if it were of no consequence to her. “So I wish to prove I speak true to them. Will you come with me to my village?”

I could suddenly think of no reason to refuse. “Yes. I will.”

“Good.” She stood up suddenly. “Let’s go.”

“Now? Tonight?”

“Why not?”

“I thought the Speck villages were far back in the forest. Days or even weeks from here.”

She tossed her head and puffed her cheeks. “Some are. All the winter villages are. But our summer village is not. Come. I’ll show you.”

She stooped and seized both my hands. I laughed at the thought of her being able to tug me to her feet. With a groan and a lurch, I rolled over, got my knees under me, and stood up. She took my hand. She led and I followed her, away from the spring and my discarded clothing. Away from everything. At the time, I didn’t even think that I was leaving my old life behind, only that I was going somewhere with Olikea.

The night was velvet around us. Olikea occasionally swatted at the gnats that hummed about her head, but none came near me. If she followed a path, I could not detect it. We walked on banks of moss and waded through drifts of fallen leaves from decades past. Other animals moved in the forest, as softly as we did. Our way led us across the sides of steep hills at a slant, always ever higher. We came to a place where the trees were as big around as towers, their tops lost in leafy darkness. We topped a ridge and went down into the shallow valley beyond it, and never once left the shelter of the trees.

Night was still deep around us when we came to her summer village. I smelled first the soft smoke of small campfires. Then I heard something that was more akin to the humming of bees in a hive than music, but was pleasant all the same. I began to catch glimpses of subtle firelight pooling in the hollows of the sheltered valley. As we descended, I expected to see a humble village of rustic dwellings. Instead, I saw only forest. It was only when we reached the edges of a natural clearing that I could see shadowy folk passing in front of the several small fires that dotted the dell. I estimated the population at about sixty, but there could have been three or four times that many in the darkness.

I had almost forgotten my nudity. It had seemed completely natural to move unclad and unencumbered through the soft darkness of the forest night. Now that I faced the reality of walking into a community of Specks unclothed, I suddenly felt intensely uncomfortable. I halted and said softly to Olikea, “I need to go back for my clothing.”

“Oh, do not embarrass me,” she chided me and, seizing my hand, led me inexorably forward.

I followed her as if unable to exert my own will in the matter. I walked into a child’s nursery tale. That is as close as I can describe it. The soft glow of the campfire was cupped gold in the mossy hollows that had formed around each hearth; they lit no more than the circles around them. Shadowy people moved intermittently as black silhouettes before it. The dappled folk who dozed or lounged and spoke quietly around the fires were, for that time, the legendary denizens of the forest, creatures forever beyond my ken. They were comfortable in their naked skins. Their adornments of feathers, beads, and flowers were aesthetic ornamentation only, and all the more potently beautiful for that. The summer village seemed a place where the forest had chosen to welcome the humans. The earth had shaped itself to receive humanity, rising as mossy couches around the fire circles. The curving roots of one immense tree cupped three small children curled and sleeping in its grasp. In the hollowed trunk of a still-living tree I glimpsed a couple indulging in unabashed passion in a privacy granted to them by their fellows and graced by a flowering vine that did not quite curtain them from the firelight. A hummock of earth sheltered a moss-floored cave. Glowing insects formed chains of light on the walls inside it, creating a mystical light for a group of women who were weaving baskets. Our destination was a central firepit where a group of people were singing. Olikea’s fingers imprisoned mine in a firm grip. She led me on a winding path through the village. She did not pause as we circled down and down to the lowest central firepit in the dell where the song was continuing. I felt she deliberately led me past the smaller family fires, as if she were leading an especially fine livestock purchase home and wished to be sure that her neighbors admired it. If that were so, she was achieving her purpose, for as we passed, people were rising from their fires to follow us. At last we stopped on the outskirts of the musicians’ circle. The men were humming a series of deep bass notes. The women were breathing out a sweet soprano counterpoint. A few shook bundles of dried seed pods that made a soft shushing sound. It was a gentle concert. At our approach, the music faltered, broke into pieces, and then died.