Chapter 13: The North-West Wood

The Northwest wood, so Lindír had named it on account of it being northwest of Stokvöllur castle, always confused the dragon. It was the wood which he had been forbidden from hunting in by the Countess, and it was clear even upon the simplest observation that there was something different about it compared to other forests. Most of the woods around Stokvöllur, and in the Flaxenvale as a whole, were tamed things. Their trees were coppiced, the tracks cleared of most undergrowth, the wolves dissuaded from hunting livestock and the herds of deer small and healthy. That was not the case with the Northwest wood.

The Northwest wood was dark, ancient, and alive. All along its border was stretched a dashed line of piled stone walls, upon one side of which lay the well-trod farmlands. But beyond that wall was no sign of habitation whatsoever. The trees were unmanaged, the wildlife disturbed. Occasionally a wild dog or great boar would burst from the trees and steal food from those who lived nearby, a house-pheasant or a few turnips. The farmers would chase it to retrieve what was theirs; but they would never cross into the Northwest wood.

Moreover, the Northwest wood lay so close to Stokvöllur castle that one could count individual trees from atop the castle’s battlements, and yet no effort had been made to clear it out. One could, conceivably, sneak a whole army right up to the edge of the castle, and so thick was that wood that they would be all but invisible. Something was off about it.

Two months into Lindír’s habitation of Stokvöllur castle, as cool spring began to shade into the fullness of summer, his curiosity finally got the better of him. Lindír needed to know what it was about the Northwest wood that was so unique. The humans gave the place a wide berth, and the way Halldis had spoken suggested danger strongly enough that Lindír was wary. But they were humans, and he a dragon. So long as he kept to the word of Halldis’s instructions by doing no hunting within the Northwest wood, he would surely be safe.

And so, late one morning, Lindír took to the sky. By that time, Lindír’s flight muscles were quite well developed, fed on practice and fresh meat, and he could stay aloft for as long as he could remain awake. So for the first few hours of the expedition into the unknown, Lindír only observed the Northwest wood from above.

It looked much the same from above as it had from without. The canopy was thick and verdant, the ground only becoming visible in a few rare clearings. He heard, on occasion, the calls of wild beasts, including several which he could not identify, but nothing so unusual or supernatural as to demand further investigation. Eventually his curiosity got the better of him. Lindír knew that any further knowledge about the woods would only be found from within, and so he descended through the canopy to land in the forest below.

The Northwest wood was dark and dry and cold. Animals were omnipresent, from the rodents skittering through the leaf litter to the herds of forest bison. That they had no fear of Lindír despite his species showed either impossible bravery or total foolishness. If he wished to hunt there, he could have glutted himself. Indeed, he was somewhat tempted. No defender, no mysterious curse had shown itself. But he had eaten a goat and a pig the previous day, so he restrained himself.

As Lindír paced through the trees, though, he did begin to perceive a strangeness. The first signs came in the form of an imperceptible energy in the air, an ephemeral otherness that picked at his scales, itched in his eyes and pricked at the membrane of his wings. He felt both sluggish and energized, torn between the desire to lie down and embrace sleep and the equally strong desire to run as fast and as far as he could. Then he began to notice the oddness of his surroundings. At first, the similarity of this forest to every other forest which Lindír had seen had blinded him, made him assume that it was the same in all respects as opposed to merely most of them. But when he truly looked, he saw things that should have been impossible. Some of the great bucks of the forest were larger than any elk he had ever seen, larger even than the bison and wild aurochs. Birds watched him from above with eyes that glowed like coals and talons that shone in the dark like shards of glass. Trees shifted and twitched in the total absence of wind, and a few of them had bark which bore more resemblance to flesh than it had any right to. None of these creatures bore any hostility—indeed even the strangest continued to be utterly nonchalant about the presence of a dragon—but they were not natural.

And then, in the middle afternoon, as Lindír crept through the trees, a voice from behind him broke through the quiet. “And what manner of creature might you be?”

Lindír whirled about at once. He had heard no creature approach, no sign that he had been followed. His wings flared and his teeth bared, ready for a battle with some ambushing foe; but Lindír instead found himself looking down at a strange, small man.

The man was barely half the height of any human Lindír had known, but that he was an adult was clear by his wrinkled skin and the curly grey beard clinging to his face. His clothes were garish and fanciful, with not a single article of clothing being satisfied to have any less than three colors, sky-blues and serpent-greens and flame-reds and wine-purples all at once. He produced a chestnut leather pouch from one pocket of his baggy trousers and pinched a few dried leaves from within it, slipping the leaves into his cheek before speaking again. His voice was rough, yet piercingly shrill.

“I’ve seen no beastie like you in these woods before, and I know you are a stranger. Again I ask: what manner of creature are you?”

“I am a dragon,” said Lindír. He continued to stalk forward. The little man showed no fear whatsoever. Lindír was fairly certain, the more he looked at him, that he was much too short to be a human of his apparent age; for other than his height, he looked for all the world like an elderly man.

“Ahhh, a dragon,” he said. “It’s been quite some time since I saw a dragon. I’d almost forgotten! What are you doing in these woods?”

“I could ask you the same question.”

At this, the little man chuckled. “You might as well ask the Countess why she is in her pile of stones and mortar, or ask the sun why he is in the sky. Oh, and don’t take another step.”

He said the last sentence simply, without command, his voice as calm and casual as if he were advising Lindír of the best place to find good drink in this land. Lindír obeyed, struck by the oddness of the situation. There was definitely more to it than even his draconic senses could detect, but what the full context might have been, he had no idea.

“I will ask you a second time, for kindness’s sake. I know you are a stranger to these woods. What purpose have you in coming here? What action do you mean to take?”

“I came merely to sate curiosity,” Lindír said. He spoke slowly, giving himself the time to slowly turn about in place, scanning the trees about him for some ambushing enemy. He found none. “The folk who live beyond these woods treat it strangely, and I wished to find out why.”

The little man narrowed his eyes, spitting the chewed leaves onto the ground and replacing them from the pouch. “I smell no blood on you, nor any ash. You have trampled a good deal of grass since you arrived here, and broken many a branch, but neither will prove fatal to the grass or to the trees. How very odd.”

Lindír completed his turn and found himself looking once more at the little man. He hadn’t moved in the slightest since Lindír had first seen him, except to raise or lower the hand holding the pouch. Even his other arm, which sat upon his hip with elbow turned out, was motionless.

“What is so odd about it?”

“You’re a dragon, and yet you’re telling the truth. You haven’t stolen or despoiled a thing, aside from that which you cannot help but destroy by virtue of your size. You may be off.”

Lindír recoiled, his lips curling from his teeth with instinctive revulsion. “I may? You do not decide my movements.”

“You came here to learn of the reason why our neighbors treat these woods with respect. Well, you have found them!” The little man laughed heartily; at his size it sounded squeaky, like the vocalizations of a large rodent. “I don’t like visitors, and I will not be offering you honey cakes and sheep’s blood. It was pleasant to meet you, dragon.”

“It was pleasant to meet you as well,” said Lindír, though he was lying for politeness’s sake. Why he was so polite to someone so rude, he had no idea.

He turned about and began walking once more in the same direction as he had been, though he thrice looked over his shoulder to see the little man. Each time, he was still stood in the same place, watching Lindír right back. Eventually the trees were too dense for him to be seen any longer.

Lindír remained in the Northwest wood for only a short while longer. Though the little man had been in no way threatening, something about the encounter set him deeply at unease. With each passing minute, paranoia came more deeply upon Lindír. He felt as though not only was he being watched by the animals, but by the trees and bushes themselves, by the very grass, and by other things which he could not see or smell but only feel the presence of. No matter how quickly he weaved amidst the trees, he could not escape those eyes, and no matter how still and silent he stood, he could catch no glimpse of them. Lindír was reminded very suddenly of his time amidst the homunculi of the Under-Queen, and of the feeling of what he now knew to be the Under-Queen’s eyes upon him.

He very nearly lost his composure entirely and sprayed his surroundings with flame. But before he resorted to that, he remembered the little man’s words. Instead, Lindír mentally declared his quest for answers a success—if the forest could so disquiet a dragon, then the humans stood no chance—and took to the skies. It was but a short flight before he reached the edge of the Northwest woods, and Stokvöllur castle, once again.

Immensely disturbed, Lindír went to the only person which he felt he could rely upon for discussion, that being Halldis Fast-Tower herself. She was in the first place he looked, to his relief. That place being, of course, the great hall.

Lindír interrupted the Countess in the middle of a game of chess with one of her knights. The man, a square-jawed and heavy-limbed brute of a man, was evidently in a losing position, judging by the intense frustration written all across his face. He was greatly relieved to hear the doors being thrown open by a dragon, and gave the Countess a nod as he retreated to his position standing guard over her.

Halldis sighed as she rose from the table, folding her hands behind her back and giving Lindír a practiced look of concern. “You did not seek the enclosure of this hall as fervently when there was a feast being held here in your honor,” she said. “Why have you come?”

“The woods which lay to the north-west of here. I entered them.”

Halldis’s eyes widened with sudden terror. “Tell me you did not disobey my orders. You did not hunt any of the beasts of that wood, did you? You have not burned any of its trees?”

“No,” Lindír said. “But I met someone within. It was a strange man, half your height but wrinkled and bearded like an old farmer, and wearing these ugly clothes that couldn’t decide what color to be. Do you know anything about that?”

“Truthfully, I do not,” said Halldis. Her expression was no longer quite so terrified; but it was frightened, and tinged with awe. “But he must have been one of the Good Neighbors, if you met him in the wood. Did he pronounce any spells upon you?”

“No, he did not. And I have seen spells before, I assure you.”

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Halldis chuckled, but it was more a nervous chuckle than anything else, the chuckle of one who had only just avoided an accidental death moments before. “So you met one of the Good Neighbors, whilst intruding upon their woods, and emerged uninjured and untouched by their magic. Incredible. I suppose the tales never do talk of dragons coming into contact with the Good Neighbors.”

Lindír paced closer, until he felt that the Countess would not have to strain herself to speak to him, before dropping his belly to the floor and laying himself out in a great draconic crescent. “But what was he?”

“You’ve never heard of the Good Neighbors?”

“I have not.”

“I suppose they may not dwell anywhere near where dragons tend to,” the Countess said. “Or you may have known them by another name; though I suppose if you did you’d be more likely to recognize them regardless. The Good Neighbors are what remains of the First Men, the beings that ruled the world before the coming of the gods. Now, they are much reduced, but still possessed of terrible power. They live in forests, mountains, natural places, and guard them so very jealously, even to the detriment of those around them.”

“Dare I ask what sort of power?” Lindír asked.

Halldis shook her head, sitting back down in the chair by the chessboard. “Magic beyond any sorcerer, ancient and masterful. The very trees and creatures of the wood are theirs to shape. And their capacity for cruelty is vast. Humans who set foot within that wood which they have claimed… they do not return, at least not with mind and body intact.”

Lindír fluttered his wings lightly, secure in the knowledge that he was indeed superior to humankind. “So none have ever seen the strange little man before me? He certainly did not seem to match the story you tell me. Though if he was such a master at magic, I imagine disguising himself would be easier for him than lighting a campfire for me.”

Halldis nodded. “My husband said that the Good Neighbor he entreated with took the form of an old crone. They do seem to prefer less frightening forms.”

Lindír reared back his head, thinking momentarily that he had misheard. “Your husband? But you have no husband.”

“Lindír! You would say such things in my—I’ve never told you about my husband, have I?”

He shook his head sorrily.

“I suppose that, when a story is so newsworthy as to be known by everyone in my domain or who would come to visit, it is easy to forget that it is not knowledge granted to the brains of every living creature upon birth. I’ll tell you about my husband, but first, I want your assurance that you won’t provoke the Good Neighbors merely because they did not hurt you the first time. The damage to my realm is not worth your curiosity.”

In truth, Lindír had no more reason to venture into the Northwest wood now that he knew the reason for his being not allowed there. However, he resented being told what to do by a human. If it had involved his oath, perhaps, but a mere suggestion almost made him wish to venture into the woods merely to spite her. He instead made a dismissive gesture with one claw and mumbled a half-hearted promise.

“My husband was a man named Umar Stone-eyes. He was an Akunian prince of some kingdom or another, a younger son who went abroad to seek his fortune at trade instead of risking cutthroat palace politics.”

“Was he a Namarlander?” Lindír asked. He still wished to know more of that far-off land. Razan’s stories of it burned brightly in his memory.

“I think so, yes. He found his way to Stokvöllur in a time of great need. You see, the Good Neighbors had been offended by an extended matter involving a lovestruck shepherd, and were about to claim the whole of the city as their domain in revenge. I was barely twenty at the time, and even my father, the Count, was terrified.”

“What right had they to claim the whole city?” Lindír said.

Halldis shrugged. “What right does a bear have to take the life of a squirrel? But when Umar arrived—he was not yet Umar Stone-eyes, just Umar—he was struck by my beauty and wit. The day he arrived, we talked late into the night, playing chess and exchanging jokes. I do not imagine that a dragon might know what it means to fall in love with someone in the course of a single night, but I assure you it did happen.”

Lindír remembered Razan, and the evening where she came to his cell and told him about Namar. It was not the same, of course, Lindír being a dragon and not a princess, but he could extrapolate how such a thing was possible. “I can see it,” he said.

“The next day,” Halldis said, “Umar appeared before my father. He said that he would go into the woods and treat with the Good Neighbors. And he asked that, should he return with the safety of Stokvöllur ensured, he would ask only for the boon of my hand in marriage, should I agree to give it.”

“And your father allowed it? I thought Kings and Counts and their ilk were obsessed with maintaining the continuity of their lines.”

“I don’t exactly have any brothers. That he was already a prince sweetened the deal So he did vanish into the woods. The day when the Good Neighbors had said they would come to claim our lands came and went with no sign of him. But on the third day, he did return, stumbling out of the woods in ruined rags, with a pair of smooth river-stones filling the sockets of his eyes. Hence Umar Stone-eyes.”

Lindír flicked his tail and clenched his jaw, attempting to hide the horrible revulsion which that mental image sent shooting down the length of his spine. The Good Neighbors were cruel indeed. “Could he still see?”

The Countess stared at Lindír, long and tensely, her face set in disbelief. “His eyes had been replaced with river-stones. How would he be able to see?”

“I don’t know,” Lindír said, tossing his head back imperiously. “Magic?”

“Well, regardless. When my father died—fell off a horse—my husband became the Count of Stokvöllur; and when he died—tumor of the intestine, the mortician told me—I became Countess. When my eldest son comes of age in four years, he is to succeed me. But between you and me…” Halldis cupped her hand by her mouth, stage-whispering at Lindír, “…I intend to remain here until I am dead.”

Lindír had the faint idea that she had just admitted to him something utterly treasonous. Stranger still, he was sure that the knights must have heard the admission, and yet none of them showed any sign of an emotional reaction. Human politics. Always so duplicitous.

“I wish you luck in your endeavors, I suppose,” Lindír said. He folded his neck across his back and began to scoot around on the floor of the hall until he could find a comfortable position to nap.

He heard, as he fell asleep, Halldis’s voice. “And luck to you, my friend,” she said. And then, “Hey, Vatnar! The game’s not done yet, you oaf. Come here and show your best.”

Within a couple of days, the incident of the little man in the many-colored clothes faded away until Lindír felt as though it was of no more import than any other incident in his time at Stokvöllur. The cycle of days and nights, of hunting and begging, of lying in the sun and talking to the Countess, continued as it was. It was a boring life, but a comfortable one.

At least it was for another two months or so. Then the war began.

 

 

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