An old man sat cross-legged on a reed mat near the door of a log cabin, smoking a long curved pipe. He and a boy were playing checkers with pebbles on a board drawn in the dirt. He raised his eyes from the game and regarded Elysia with a woodsman's heightened suspicion of strangers, before blowing several columns of smoke rings into the air. Messner nodded to him, and the old man responded with an elaborate wave of his left hand. "Is he warding off the evil eye?" Elysia wondered. "or communicating something to the other through sign language?"
He surveyed the small town with interest, paying special attention to the burly men carrying large two-handed axes. Their faces were covered in multicolored tattoos, and their eyes were narrow and watchful. They stomped through the muddy streets in their tall, fur-trimmed boots; they had the arrogant confidence of a champion of the Theocracy but without their distinguished chastity, for they sometimes stopped to gossip with the fat merchants who covered their heads with fur hats, or to cast impudent sideways glances at a pretty girl who he carried buckets from the river to fill the barrels with drinking water.
A man with a bulging paunch called Messner over to inspect the hides he had spread out on wicker mats before him, obviously a hunter's selection of spoils. Messner shook his head cordially and continued forward. He only stopped to let giggling barefoot children pass by, chasing a pig.
They passed a smokehouse, dangling large hams and halves of wild boar, and Elysia's mouth watered at the smell of her meat. There were chickens hanging from the eaves by her neck, and that scene brought to the catgirl an unpleasant memory of the men hanging from the gallows outside Kleinsdorf, so she looked away from it.
Messner proceeded to a scribe's house and, after a brief consultation, took a brush and ink and wrote something on a small piece of paper. Then they left and went to a cage outside another wooden hut, inside which were five fat gray pigeons; The Ranger took out one of the birds, attached the paper to its leg ring, released it, and watched with some satisfaction as the bird soared into the sky.
"Well, I have done my duty, and the old Duke of Bergland will receive notice," he said. "Perhaps Flensburg can still be saved."
Elysia thought that maybe she did; she certainly was quite defensible and she must have had about seven hundred people. Flensburg was situated near a bend in the river and resembled a huge logging camp more than a town or city. It was walled on two sides with a moat and a log palisade, and the curve of the river protected the other two flanks. From some embankments, rafts with large piles of logs were pushed into the water, which the current dragged to who knows what market... "Probably the one in Bergheim." Elysia thought.
As they approached, they had seen dozens of square log cabins within the town's thick wooden walls, each built like a miniature fort, with sturdy log walls and flat turf roofs. Functionality ruled here, and she guessed some of the buildings would be warehouses. One of them had a crude triangle shape made with three timbers and placed on the roof: a temple dedicated to the Father, the Mother and the Son; a temple to the Triumvirate.
Once through the well-fortified gate, she saw that the people of Flensburg were like her city: stern, austere, functional. Most of the men were clad in furs, had hard, sullen faces, and equally hard eyes. They regarded the two strangers suspiciously, their vigilance seeming innate. Nearly all of them carried lumberjacks, and some, those dressed in functional Ranger garb, used bows. The women wore more cheerful garments: multi-layered skirts, padded jerkins, and their hair was wrapped in red and polka-dotted scarves. Matrons marched through the muddy streets with baskets full of produce, followed by processions of children, like paws leading their chicks in file.
The people in that area near the southern edge of the forest lands were shorter in stature than the inhabitants of the kingdom cities. His hair was predominantly sandy in color, and his complexion was darker and more tanned. Elysia knew they were known to be pessimistic, god-fearing, superstitious, poor, and uneducated people. Looking at these people she could believe all that, but she realized that the prejudices of the cities told only half the story.
She was not prepared to find a proud and fearless attitude, but she had expected to find the downtrodden serfs of a lordship; instead, these people looked fearlessly into her eyes and walked upright through the frightening shadows of the great forest. At first, she had thought that Messner was an exceptional man, but now she saw that he was a typical example of her people. The cat girl had hoped to find servants and she found free men, and for some reason, she pleased him.
Frey looked at the walls and log houses, and turned to Messner.
"You'd better call your people and tell them what to expect. It won't be good."
♦ ♦ ♦
Elysia stared from the observation tower at the forest that stretched beyond the cleared area surrounding the town. Despite the fact that she was no longer under the shade of the trees, they seemed equally threatening to her: gigantic, strange, living beings, whose shade gave shelter to something hostile. She watched as the last stragglers of the day filed through the gates. Beside her, Messner kept watch with her cold gray eyes.
"The thing looks bad; that's for sure" commented the ranger.
"I thought that you often had to face beasts living in the forest."
"We fight them quite often, and the greenskins and stuff from time to time; but they have always been skirmishes, and nothing more. We kidnapped a child, and we killed a few. They steal our pigs, and we chase them. Sometimes we have to ask the old duke for soldiers to mount an expedition when the raids get too fierce, but he's never seen anything like this before. Something has made them very agitated no doubt."
"Couldn't it be that woman, the Demonic Knight?"
"It seems more than likely. One hears of them in ancient stories, the demonic heralds, the paladins of darkness, the champions of the dark gods, but one never expects to meet them.
"There have been times when I have thought that those old stories hold many truths." Elysia commented. "I've seen some strange things in my travels, and now I don't doubt so easily anymore."
"It is the plain truth, Miss Elysia, and I am glad to hear an educated woman such as yourself admit such a thing. I too have seen some strange things in the woods, and there is more than one story of my father's that I do not doubt. They say that somewhere in those woods there is a Black Altar, a thing dedicated to the dark gods, where human beings are sacrificed. They say that beastmen and… other things… worship there."
They fell into an uneasy silence, and Elysia felt her pessimism wash over her. All this talk of the dark gods had unsettled and unsettled her. She looked back into the clearing.
The women and children had stopped working in the fields and were returning to the safety of the walls; they carried the baskets full of potatoes and turnips in the direction of the warehouses. The town was preparing for the siege. Other women who had been gathering nuts and herbs in the forest had returned hours earlier when the alarm call sounded.
Rangers and woodcutters were inside, checking that water barrels were full, making stakes and putting metal points on spears. You could hear the steady hiss and thud of arrows hitting targets, indicating that the archers were still practicing.
She wondered if it was wiser for her to stay or for her to slip away into the woods. She maybe she could take a raft and let herself go down the river. She didn't know which was worse, the thought of being alone in the woods or the thought of being trapped there when enemy forces surrounded them. She tried to dismiss those thoughts as unworthy and remember Frey's words about mastering fear, but the terror of being trapped in the labyrinth of trees constantly plagued her from the back of her mind.
Looking outside, she saw a group of Rangers hurrying across the fields, bringing someone wounded. One of them kept glancing back over her shoulder, as if she expected them to be pursued, and two of the straggling women came forward to help them.
"There's Mikal and Dani," Messner commented. "Apparently, they have had problems. I'd better go find out what happened. Stay here and keep your eyes open; if something happens, sound the alarm."
He thrust a large horn into Elysia's hand, and before she could object, Messner had dropped through the trapdoor in the floor and was halfway up the ladder. Catgirl shrugged and stroked the smooth material of her horn with her fingers; the cool touch and weight of her were reassuring, though she had doubts about her ability to make it sound. She lowered her eyes to look at the top of the ranger's head, noticing for the first time a bald spot on the top of her head. Then she returned her attention to the fields.
The men stumbled forward as a result of having to hold onto their partner. The gates of the village creaked open, the inhabitants came out to help them, Messner in the lead, and Elysia watched as they immediately obeyed the orders of the duke's man. The fact that Messner was one of the leaders of the community had been made clear during the large public meeting in the plaza that afternoon. Strong woodcutters and old men, robust housewives and slender maidens had listened with equal attention to the jovial voice that described the approaching danger.
No one had argued with him, or doubted his words, and since Messner vouched for them, no one had questioned the story told by Frey and Elysia. They had also listened respectfully to Kat, even though she was a girl. He even at that moment he could remember everything they had said and done when they finished talking; the silence, the stern fatalistic expressions on her faces, the hot afternoon sun on the back of her neck. He remembered how the women with babies had turned around to take their children to the central hut, the temple, and how the crowd had parted without a word to let them pass.
Just as silently, the men had divided into squads of archers and axemen, and it was clear to Felix that he was witnessing a well-practiced routine, one that had been established for just such a case. Messner had given his orders in his usual calm voice; not a single cry had been uttered, nor was there any need to, for these people had the discipline of those for whom discipline represented the only means of survival in a harsh land.
In a way, he had envied them their sense of community; they trusted each other implicitly, and as far as he could see, no one doubted the other's ability or loyalty. He understood that it had to be the other side of the coin of life in an isolated community: everyone there had known everyone else for a lifetime, and their bonds of trust had to be resilient and strong.
For a while, Elysia had had the feeling that she was the only one out of place in this town; but she then she noticed Kat. She, too, stood a little apart from the crowd, differentiated from the other children by both her strange hair and her grimy clothes. So, he had felt a strong feeling of compassion for the girl, and wondered what would become of her. From what Messner and Kat had said along the way, he deduced that she was an orphan, which reinforced the feeling of empathy that the girl inspired in him.
"Is Kat important to the Demonic Knight?" Elysia wondered. The beastmen she had fought, were they just scouts or had they come looking for Kat? Not for the first time in his life, he found himself wishing he knew more about the ways of evil forces, but since he knew that was a sinful idea, he pushed it aside as he listened to the cries of the wounded man as he held him. They entered through the doors.