Forest Lady

Forest Lady

Celene could feel them on the land even before the owls came to find her. She had awoken with a start and knew immediately that there was a party of two hundred men crossing into her borders.

An owl careened at her head, and she quickly put up her hands to catch him.

“Flynn,” she said quietly as his heart pounded against her hand. Whether the brown barn owl was exhausted from his flight or scared to death, she could not tell at first.

Men. Men of war. He fluffed out his feathers and looked up at her with his black eyes. Many men of war. They do not seem angry, but they are prepared to fight.

The other owls perched on nearly every available space in her tiny cottage, and Celene could tell that they were all on edge because the new intruders of their forest. Even so, they were not afraid of them.

Strix, the great gray with his battle-scarred face fluttered his wings to get her attention. When she looked toward him, his blind left eye once again reminded her of a starry night sky. They came years ago, these men, when your mother was our lady. She let them pass, though a few of them nearly brought her wrath upon all of them when they killed a doe.

Once again, Celene wished her mother had eased her into this role. Perhaps Vera could have explained who these men were. Men in the forest always made Celene the most nervous, for it was men who seemed to care the least for her creatures and trees.

“My creatures and trees,” Celene whispered with a smile. It was the first time she had ever thought of them as hers. Flynn must have heard her – and understood – for he looked up at her with his beak wide in an owl-ish smile.

Yours, he repeated.

Strix fluttered his wings again. You are our lady. This forest belongs to you just as you belong to it. It has its advantages…and its disadvantages.

Celene thought of the bizarre sickness that came over her when she tried to visit her father. Unable to leave the border of the forest, she could only watch him from afar through the Eye Mirror. Certainly a disadvantage. She glanced toward the magic mirror on the wall where only hours ago she watched him lying in his deathbed. She would not be able to say goodbye to him.

Flynn pecked at her hands. Will you go meet these men, lady?

Your mother did. Strix eyed her with suspicion in his one good eye. Your powers come with a price, but if you do not accept them and take the responsibilities that come with them…

“I know,” she said aloud. “Are they dangerous?”

Strix let out a cry that sounded like a laugh and a sigh at the same time. You are the lady of this wood. They would not dare to hurt you or any in your care if they know what’s good for them. And if they don’t, they will learn.

Celene released Flynn, and he flew erratically into the air above her head.

We go, she told them. In a breath, she joined the fliers as they streamed back out the door and headed for the two hundred men who now camped among her trees.

***

“Sir, it just does not seem safe.” The young man was eyeing the trees fearfully. “We’ve barely heard any birds.”

“There are two hundred of us, Durgan. Do you really think they would be singing their songs to us with all the noise we make?” Captain Rivon asked.

“My ma always said this forest was haunted. Her grandmother told stories of a witch who lived in the trees…could even make the trees move, if that was what she wished.” Another young man, Vron, stepped up to the small fire and grimaced at the chilly air. A twig snapped somewhere behind them, and he and Durgan spun around to look.

Rivon laughed. “Old grandmother’s tales are all you ever talk about. If Lord Ashyr says it’s safe, then it’s safe.”

The captain left the two young men shivering in the light of the fire and went in search of Ashyr. The man was no more a lord than he was, but all the men in his mercenary band called him lord or commander. Mercenaries they were, but Ashyr ran a clean camp, and many families trusted their sons to him rather than the king’s armies.

Serving under the king meant little pay. At least as one of Ashyr’s men, these men and boys had a chance to send a little money back their families every new moon.

Ashyr stood apart from the camp, his back to the glow of the campfires.

“What are you looking for, sir?”

He turned at the sound of Rivon’s voice, but Rivon knew the other man sensed him approaching long before he ever said a word.

“There is a lady in these woods, one who should be here.”

“To warn or welcome?”

Ashyr laughed. “Depends on the day. She always did have a temper.”

Rivon eyed his commander. “You’ve met her before?”

“Aye, years ago, before the Treaty of Trall. We passed through these lands several times during the Mage Wars. She welcomed us…though she did not like so many men coming into her lands. And woe to any who harmed her trees or her animals.”

“Some say she is a witch.” It was more of a question than a statement, but Ashyr smiled.

“Aren’t all women like witches?” Ashyr asked.

Rivon chuckled, though his own muscles remained slightly tensed. No matter what he said to the other men, he sensed the strangeness of these trees as well. The moment they rode into the wood, he could feel the eyes watching him, though he could not see anything in the mass of trees. Now that darkness had fallen, the invisible gazes felt even more present, even more intense.

Ashyr shook his head. “I do not truly know what she is, nor do I care. She was kind to me then, and I hope she will be kind now. It’s been many years.”

“Surely you look almost the same then as now.”

“Except for the new scars,” Ashyr said with a dark chuckle.

“It’s the Everand blood in you.”

The commander scratched at the beard that was just beginning to show silvery-gray hairs. Rivon saw the Everand as a child and could honestly tell the men in his command that Ashyr had barely aged a day in the past twenty-odd years. The Everand did not age as most mortals did, and Rivon had been envious of it more than once.

Even so, Ashyr had said it was a long and hard life.

There was a sound overhead, and both men looked up to see dozens of owls streaming overhead, circling closer and closer to their encampment.

“What is this?”

Ashyr smiled. “She never comes the same way twice. We must move fast to the meeting place.”

The commander started running through the trees, the silvery moonlight allowing him to see the way. Rivon followed at a slightly slower pace, not sure whether to be frightened or not. He could still hear the surprised cries of the men behind him at the mass of feathered fliers swooping through the camp.

After cresting a small rise in a wide-open meadow, Ashyr stopped and stood looking into the sky. There were no owls here, just a breeze and the musty sweet smell of the autumn leaves. Rivon heard him whistle a strange tune twice through, then the older man stood still and waited.

A huge, winged shape suddenly plummeted from the sky, narrowly missing Rivon’s head and coming to rest on Ashyr’s shoulder. Swallowing his cry of surprise, Rivon watched Ashyr reach up to stroke the enormous owl’s gray head.

“Ah, Strix, my old friend,” Ashyr said quietly. “It is good to see you.”

The owl gave Ashyr’s ear an affectionate, if a bit begrudging, peck.

“Have you had any new owlets since I’ve seen you last?”

Strix let out a loud hoot and flapped his mighty wings.

“Mm, that many? You must be a proud papa.”

“Uh, sir? You…you’re talking to an owl.”

Ashyr’s broad grin split his face. “Yes, Rivon, and he is talking back.”

The owl turned its head and looked at Rivon, one eye the color of molten gold, the other black as night. The more Rivon stared at the enormous bird, the more he saw tiny lights, like stars, twinkling in the blank, empty eye.

The animal expanded his wings, some of his feathers brushing through Ashyr’s hair, let out a small sound that sounded strangely like Rivon, and then flew off into the night.

Ashyr frowned and looked around the meadow. “She never lets them come first to see me. Something’s wrong.”

A screeching cry erupted from the other end of the meadow, and both men turned in time to see a white owl rise up out of the trees and head in their direction. Strix flew alongside it, and just as the owl reached the top of the hill, there was a flash of light, and there was suddenly a young woman standing before them, clad in a simple white dress and earthy brown cloak.

“Speak quickly and tell me who you are,” she said in a tight voice, “and perhaps I shall spare you both your lives.”

Ashyr was staring at the woman in astonishment, and Rivon laughed out loud. “You and what army?”

She turned eyes on him, and even in the pale moonlight, Rivon could see they were the color of a field of grass after spring rains. She barely raised one eyebrow at him, but a rumbling started beneath his feet, and suddenly, the ground swallowed his feet and his legs up to his knees, encasing him in earth as solid as iron.

Rivon sputtered and saw that Ashyr was in the same predicament, seemingly still too entranced by this woman to see what had happened to his legs. Rivon moved for his sword, but the meadow grass wrapped itself around the hilt so tightly that he could not pull it out of the sheath.

“Vera?”

The woman looked at Ashyr again and narrowed her gaze. “You knew my mother?”

“Mother?”

“Vera. My mother. She is dead. I am the mistress of these lands now.”

Strix, once again perched on Ashyr’s shoulder, let out a screech, and she colored slightly.

“I am the lady of the forest.”