Vines
Lieutenant Nuhzar was indeed waiting for him. His expression was placid, but Math knew better; that was just Alik’s way of sneering.
“You shouldn’t be coming with us,” the knight said in lieu of greeting. He then threw a bundle straight at Math’s head.
Math caught it with the ease of long practice.
“So you said ten minutes ago.” Math glanced down at the bundle: his jazerant mail shirt, which was basically a chain shirt disguised as a padded jacket. Just the thing for going on missions where propriety demanded only full knights wore armor.
Math would’ve thanked the man, but Nuhzar had only done it to keep Math from delaying their departure.
“It’s still true. You’re not a knight. You’re twenty-two years old and still a novitiate.”
Math ignored him, at first. He headed to the stables, where the knights were readying to depart.
“You belong with the children, not out in the field. It’s a disgrace.”
Math swung back around. “Do you really want to start something right now? Think carefully before you get your ass handed to you by a novitiate.”
“You are not a better fighter than me.”
“Funny. You didn’t say that two weeks ago when I dropped you in front of half the yard.”
“How you do in a practice yard differs greatly from how you do in the field. Which we both know.”
“We both know what happened last week had nothing to do with fighting.”
“Calm yourself.”
“Am I shouting?” Math narrowed his eyes. “I know you don’t like me. That’s fine: I feel exactly the same about you. But it doesn’t matter. The commander gave us orders.”
“Oh, so now you’ll follow orders?”
Math tossed his jacket over on top of the rosebushes and then pushed hard at the center of Nuhzar’s breastplate. The lieutenant took a step back to keep from sliding on the polished stone floor of the colonnade.
“Those were children!”
All around them, everyone stopped. Math stepped back, dropped his hands, stilled his expression into something less furious. Math could feel the judgment of a dozen knights pressing down on him—not for what he’d said, but for how he’d said it.
Idallik Knights master their emotions. They do not let their emotions master them. Jaiik had done a better job of hiding his anger.
The look on Nuhzar’s face screamed how pleased he was by Math’s faux pas.
He straightened up, smoothed his tabard.
“They weren’t children,” Nuhzar said in a far quieter volume.
“They were grimmocks. And we have a duty when it comes to monsters: we eradicate them. Now, this time, follow orders, or I’ll make damn sure you’re punished by something a lot worse than meditation. ”
Nuhzar swanned off.
Math slipped into his chain shirt and had no choice but to follow.
Unsurprisingly, he was the last person. They’d even readied a horse for him, although not to do him any favors. Someone had instructed the grooms to find the sorriest nag in the whole stable, an old, spiteful mare named Calamity, who kept eyeing him like she hadn’t decided whether he was edible.
Math’s only consolation was that with so many captains watching, no one dared mess with his saddle or kit. Rabu’s Sword knights certainly would have otherwise, and then claimed they’d had no choice but to leave Math behind when his horse faltered.
Nuhzar was the one exception. He would never.
That would have required Nuhzar breaking a rule.
As Math waited in queue, a rider and horse pulled up next to him.
“What form do you think the magic’s going to take this time?”
Math glanced sideways, then glanced again when he realized who it was: Huraiik. “I don’t suppose we’ll be lucky enough to see velvet-lined carriages again.”
“That never happened.”
“Oh, it did.” Math kept his attention focused forward. There would be little warning once they started moving, and little tolerance for anyone left behind. He did, however, tilt his head in the knight’s direction. “I hear Jaiik won ball tag this week.”
Huraiik barked out a laugh. “Little bastard hits like a rhinoceros.”
“Which you deserved.”
Huraiik’s voice lost its cheeriness. “If he’s going to be an Idallik Knight, he needs a thick skin. Wadera coddles his children too much. Just look at you.”
Math’s hands tightened on the reins, but he controlled his temper. Huraiik didn’t get under his skin the way Alik Nuhzar did.
“What’s she doing here?” Huraiik’s question interrupted any cutting response Math might have delivered.
Math twisted in his saddle.
“She” was Captain Danvi of Idols, the captain who’d scried the logging campsite. The old woman made a querulous complaint as someone helped her up into a saddle.
“… coming with us?” Because that did seem to be what was happening.
Huraiik scoffed. “She’s as old as the cenobium! She can’t go out into the field!”
“She can hear you, young man.” Captain Danvi’s high voice carried as she settled on her horse. “And I suggest that if you mind your own business, I’ll do likewise.”
Given that Captain Danvi was the most skilled scryer in the cenobium, that was a threat with teeth. Nobody liked the idea of a captain literally watching their every movement.
Huraiik blanched. “Yes, Captain.” He lowered his helmet over his face like he was hiding from the nanny.
Math leaned over. “I take it back. She just won ball tag.”
“Circles up,” Captain Rabu called out. “We don’t know what we’re going to find. Be ready for anything.”
All around him, Math heard quiet mutters as knights said sacred words and moved fingers, hands. Math did as well, although he had to start over when Huraiik kicked his leg, startling Calamity.
Huraiik laughed. “Oh, I’m sorry. I hope I didn’t mess up your preparations for a family reunion.”
Math gave the knight a thin smile. “Your insight into how families work is yet another example of our founders’ wisdom in insisting on chastity.”
“Wait—”
“Sir Huraiik, fall back. I’ll be riding next to Novitiate Kaven.”
“Yes, Lieutenant Nuhzar.” Huraiik gave Math a mocking salute and pulled his horse out of line, while the Lieutenant of Swords took his place.
Nuhzar wasn’t riding a nag. In fact, Nuhzar rode a gorgeous coal-black stallion who Math adored, although he’d sooner eat hot rocks than admit it. Or rather, Math adored everything about the horse but his name: Inquisitor. That had always struck him as a bit much.
“You can’t miss me already,” Math said.
“Everyone ready!” the Captain of Fields called out.
Nuhzar’s reply was left hanging.
“Ride out!”
The entire group—horses, riders, and equipment—turned ghostly and translucent. When they began riding, the countryside blurred. Math suspected they would ride right through any travelers they overtook. The horses didn’t spook at the radical change, part training but mostly magic.
Math discovered a problem, however: it was impossible to talk. Wind and the speed of the riders ripped away any noise before it could be deciphered. He tried briefing Nuhzar, but he might as well have been shouting into a storm. Nuhzar’s attempts to shout back were as unsuccessful.
Fortunately, it didn’t take long to reach the logging camp.
Math identified it initially by smell. The horses tossed their heads and flattened their ears.
Burned bombard powder, first of all, a sharp slash through the nostrils but not enough to cover the scent of blood or voided bowels. Underneath, almost undetectable, lingered green cut wood and spilled sap.
Save for the rustling wind in the trees, the only sounds were the ones they’d brought themselves: hooves against grass or mud, the tin-bell sound of metal against metal from shifting armor and tack.
Someone had set off the bombard field. Many someones, as there seemed to be no bombards remaining.
Great rents gouged the earth where the explosions had done their best to rearrange the landscape.
Rainwater from some recent, brief shower had filled the tiny craters, reflecting blue sky in shining flashes.
No one had to point out how unusual this was. When grimmocks annihilated themselves on a bombard field, they left behind a field capable of continuing to fend off attacks. These explosions had been total, so destructive that they’d toppled or shattered the heavy log palisade around the camp.
“Someone had a party.” Captain Rabu laughed, and his knights laughed with him.
Captain Danvi of Idols did not laugh. She gazed at the scene with narrowed, sharp eyes. “This is not what I scried earlier,” she declared from atop her horse. “The tree line has moved one hundred feet closer to the camp since this morning.”
Everyone stopped laughing.
Captain Rabu motioned to his people. “Take positions. Stay alert. Captain Yihura, this is all yours.”
Lieutenant Nuhzar turned to Math. “You’ve been through this before. What should we expect?”
Math’s throat felt sticky. With great difficulty, he swallowed down the temptation to remind Alik Nuhzar that he’d been five. How much did they expect him to remember?
“They won’t—” Math pressed his lips together. “They’re not like normal grimmocks. They’re ambushers. They’ll attack from underground, from the branches. They’ll lure you into traps, trip you, take advantage, then lure you into the next trap.”
“You make them sound intelligent,” Nuhzar said.
Math stared. Hadn’t that been obvious?
“Novitiate Kaven, over here,” Captain Yihura called.
Captain Yihura of the Forest was a tall, thin woman of the sort that encouraged people to make comparisons to willow trees.
Math didn’t see it, but he understood the appeal of the pun.
Like Math, she had a Wood resonance, although in her case that magical facility was bent toward putting arrows through targets the size of flower petals at distances too far for most people to see.
She could also put that same arrow through most trees.
Math dismounted, handing the reins of his grouchy horse to a knight, who would have refused if there weren’t four captains and a lieutenant watching.