“Well,” Eli said. “Fancy meeting you here.”
Josef didn’t answer; he just scowled and bent over, wiggling his foot. There was a flash, and a long knife dropped out of his boot before the roots could tighten. The swordsman caught it deftly an inch from Eli’s face and bent over, reaching for the closest root.
“I wouldn’t do that,” Eli said, glancing up, or down. “It’s a bit of a drop.”
Josef followed his gaze. The ground swung dizzyingly a good thirty feet below them, but the drop was made even longer by the enormous hole the roots had left when they’d sprung. Josef shook his head in disgust and stuck the knife into his belt. “I thought you were friends with trees.”
“For the last time, it doesn’t work like that,” Eli said. “That’s like saying, ‘I thought you were friends with humans.’ Anyway, don’t be a grouch. We’ve found it! This is the Awakened Wood that guards the house.”
Josef sighed. “Wonderful. Fantastic welcome. Is your friend always this friendly, or are we a special exception?”
Before Eli could answer, a woman’s voice interrupted. “Eli Monpress.” The words were heavy with laughter. “I wouldn’t have thought we’d catch you.”
Both men craned their necks. Directly below them a tall young woman in hunter’s leathers stepped out from behind the tree they were dangling from, a smug smile on her tan face. She was very young, not more than sixteen, and lanky, as though she hadn’t quite grown into her limbs yet. She crossed her long arms over her chest and stared at them as though daring Eli to try and talk his way out of this one. Eli opened his mouth to oblige her, but he never got the chance. From the shadows behind the girl, a pair of white, thin hands in silver manacles shot out and closed around her throat. The girl’s eyes bulged and she dropped to her knees as Nico flickered into sight behind her.
“Release them,” Nico said in a dry, terrifying voice. “Now.”
“No, Nico!” Eli shouted. “She’s not going to—”
The rest of it was lost in the girl’s roar as she ducked and tumbled forward, using Nico’s own iron grip to take the smaller girl with her, slamming them both into the ground with Nico on the bottom. As soon as she was on top, the girl elbowed Nico hard in the ribs. Nico gasped, and her grip faltered. The girl shot up, rolling gracefully to her feet. When she turned around, she had a long, beautiful knife in her hands, the blade glowing with its own silver light.
Nico was back on her feet in an instant, and for a breathless moment the two watched each other. Then the girl in the hunting leathers shook her head and slid her knife back into the long sheath on her thigh.
“I begin to understand why you needed that coat,” the girl said, not taking her eyes off of Nico. “Let them down, gently please.”
The tree made a sound like a disgruntled sigh and lowered its roots, releasing Eli and Josef just a little higher than would have been a safe drop. The men landed hard in the dirt, and while Josef was on his feet almost immediately, Eli took a bit longer to get his breath back.
“Hello, Pele,” he coughed, trying to discreetly determine if his back was broken. “Always a pleasure.”
Pele arched an eyebrow. “Can’t say I feel the same.” She glared at Nico, who was still watching her from a crouch. “Must you always bring such trouble?”
“Trouble is my element,” Eli said, sitting up. “And is that any way to greet a customer?”
“Your custom is usually more trouble than it’s worth,” she said with a frown. “Get up. I’ll take you to Slorn.”
“Wait,” Josef said. “You mean Slorn as in Heinricht Slorn? The swordsmith?”
“He makes a lot of things besides swords,” Pele said crossly. “But yes, that Slorn, and he’s going to be testy if you make him wait. Now follow me, quickly. We’ve wasted enough time rolling in the dirt.”
“And whose fault was that?” Eli muttered, but the girl was already disappearing into the woods, slipping between the trees like a passing sunbeam.
“You never told me you knew Heinricht Slorn,” Josef said, walking over to where he’d dropped the Heart of War. He almost sounded hurt.
“I couldn’t,” Eli said, picking the leaves out of his hair. “Not talking about him is part of knowing Slorn. He’d never sell me anything if he thought I’d been spreading his location about, or the fact that he really exists. Most people think he’s a myth made up by the Shaper Wizards to sell more swords. When that tree sprung, I was half afraid he was going to have the Awakened Wood toss us out altogether because I’d brought you two. But, seeing he sent his daughter out to greet us, I think it’s safe to assume we’ve captured his interest enough to at least get our pitch in.”
“Daughter, huh?” Josef said, picking up the Heart and sliding it into its sheath on his back. “She’s pretty good to throw Nico around. Must be some kind of family.”
“That’s one way of putting it,” Eli said, wincing as he stretched his bruised back. “We should get moving, though. Pele was right about Slorn’s hatred of waiting. The man is brilliant, but…” He paused, brushing the dirt off his coat as he searched for the right word. “Eccentric.”
Josef snorted. “Funny way of putting it, coming from you.”
Eli just gave him a look and set off through the trees.
Though she’d entered the woods only moments before them, there was no sign of Pele’s passing. Eli, Josef, and Nico stumbled in the direction she’d gone, following the dry streambed that was the best they could do for a path. Now that Pele had come out to greet them, the trees were whispering openly, and what they had to say made Eli’s ears burn.
“Honestly,” he muttered, kicking a sapling as they passed. “She’s
right here
.” He looked over his shoulder. “Don’t listen to them, Nico! They’re just a bunch of prejudiced, gossipy old hardwoods with nothing better to do.”
The trees rustled madly at this, but Nico just kept walking with her head down, giving no sign that she heard his voice or theirs. Eli looked away. The girl was looking bad. She’d been unusually quiet since they’d left Mellinor, even for Nico, and while she’d been eating as normal, she seemed to be getting thinner. Eli didn’t know if that was just the effect of seeing her without her bulky coat all the time, or if he just thought she was larger than she was, but he’d heard Josef talking to her about it as well, at night when the swordsman thought he was asleep. Also, no one, wizard or otherwise, could miss the way her manacles danced on her wrist, jittering across her skin even when she was sleeping. That was new since she’d lost the coat, and Eli didn’t like it one bit. Overhead, the trees were whispering again, and Eli gritted his teeth, picking up the pace as they pushed through the thickening woods.
Fortunately, they didn’t have much farther to go. The woods opened up just a few steps later, and they found themselves at the edge of a sandy-bottomed valley. At the center, sitting crooked on what had been the sandy bank of a now-dead stream, was a house. It was two stories and heavy-timbered, with a shingle roof and a tall chimney made of river stones. It was a handsome house and well constructed, but quite normal looking until you got to the foundation. There, things took a turn for the bizarre. Where a normal house would have sat on the ground, or stood on stone supports, this one crouched on four wooden legs. They were made of the same dark wood as the cabin, beautifully carved with scales and lifelike wrinkles right down to the clawed feet. At first glance, this could have been passed off as eccentric architecture, but then the legs moved, like an animal shifting its weight, and the house shifted with them.
“No matter how many times I see it,” Eli said, “I never get used to it.” He set off across the sand, dragging Josef, who was still gawking, along behind him.
Thanks to the legs, the house’s doorstep was a good five feet off the ground. The gap was covered by a set of rickety stairs that would have been suspect in a normal building, let alone a moving one.
“I hate this part,” Eli said, grabbing the rope banister as the house shifted again. “I’m already feeling seasick.”
“Just go,” Josef said, giving him a push. Eli grunted and stumbled forward, pulling himself up enough to knock on the door.
It was opened immediately by a scowling Pele.
“Took you long enough,” she said, stepping back. “Come in and don’t hang on the stairs. They’re set to go any day now.”
“Ever the charming and comforting hostess,” Eli said as he lurched into the house. Josef and Nico followed more gracefully, and Pele shut the door behind them.
They were standing in a tiny entryway lined with pairs of oiled boots and racks of heavy coats. Eli pressed himself against the wall, partially to make room for Pele to get by and partially to steady himself against the sway of the house as it rocked on its spindly wooden legs. If the motion bothered Pele, she didn’t let on; she simply turned and motioned for them to follow her down a long, narrow hallway riddled with doors to other rooms. They passed a sitting room stuffed with books, a small kitchen with a warm hearth and a heavy table piled with chopped vegetables, and even a stone-tiled bathroom complete with an iron tub and a barrel full of steaming water. As they walked, Eli could hear the house adjusting to accommodate their presence, the scrape of chairs scooting themselves under tables when they passed the kitchen, or open books slamming shut on the library desk. Josef must have heard it, too, for the swordsman’s hands went to rest on the blades at his hip. Eli let him be nervous. Explaining the complex ecosystem of Slorn’s house was more work than he had the patience for at the moment.
The long hallway ended at a closed door. Pele stopped and knocked softly. Almost instantly a deep voice inside rumbled, and Pele pulled the handle.
Almost too late, Eli remembered this was Josef and Nico’s first time visiting Slorn. A warning of some sort was probably wise.
“Remember,” he whispered over his shoulder as they stepped through the door. “Don’t stare.”
Josef gave him a confused look, but then they were walking through the door and his eyes went wide as Eli’s meaning became clear.
They were standing at the end of a long, well-lit room with a cheery fire in the hearth and a dozen lamps swinging from the tall rafters. Long as the room was, it was mostly taken up by a heavy table large enough to seat eight full-grown men, but which was currently covered with everything from pieces of driftwood to incredibly intricate parts of unknown machinery. At the table’s head, an enormous man sat hunched over, working an iron ingot between his enormous hands like a potter works clay. At first glance, he could have been one of the giant, northern woodsmen, but with one slight, important difference. At his shoulders, where his neck should have been, rose the furry head of a black bear.
It was a sharp change, human skin suddenly giving way to black fur, as though the man’s own head had been chopped off and a bear’s put in its place. But other than the horrible wrongness, it was a natural transition. The man part of him looked like any other man, and the bear part looked like any other bear. His nose was black and wrinkled and it quivered under his slow breathing. Yellow teeth glinted in a jaw that could crush a man’s head, but his dark, wide-set eyes were calm and thoughtful as they watched the iron yield to his hands. Although Eli knew what to expect, a shudder ran from his feet to his head. No matter how many times it happened, seeing Slorn was always a bracing experience.
“You’re staring,” said a gruff voice, more growl than speech. The bear looked up, his dark eyes passing over Eli’s shoulder to the man behind him. “I heard Monpress tell you not to do that.”
Eli heard the creak of leather as Josef’s hands tightened on the knives at his hip, and the bear-headed man made a low rumbling sound that was eerily close to a chuckle. “Don’t insult my house with those dull blades, swordsman. Unless you mean to draw the monster on your back, or the monster at your side”—his dark eyes flicked to Nico, who was pinned to Josef’s arm—“I suggest you calm down.”
Josef relaxed slightly, and the bear grinned, a disturbing sight. “Come,” Slorn said. He tossed the iron down and motioned to the bench. “Sit and tell me how I might get rid of you.”
“Now, Heinricht,” Eli said, plopping down at the table across from him, “is that any way to treat your customers?”
“I’m a craftsman,” Slorn said, resting his furry chin on his knuckles. “Not a shopkeeper. Get to the point.”
Eli leaned forward. “You see that timid little thing beside my swordsman?” he whispered conspiratorially. “I need you to make her a new coat.”
Slorn’s dark eyes flicked over to the girl who was huddling in the doorway, as far from the bear-headed man as she could get, her eyes wide and disturbingly bright. They stared at each other for a long minute, then Slorn gave Eli a tired glare.
“When you asked for a cloth that could hide a demonseed’s presence,” he said, “and manacles to hold it down, I made them. I did it in thanks for the great service you had done me, and I asked no questions. But the debts between us are paid, Monpress. I took the risk of letting you find me today out of respect for our history together, but understand that doing what you ask now will put me in a very tenuous position. What compensation have you brought to make it worth my while?”
Eli’s smile brightened, and he motioned to Josef. The swordsman hefted the sack of Mellinor’s gold, which he had lugged halfway across the known world for this purpose, walked over to the table, and set it down with a very satisfactory thump. Eli reached out and undid the leather strap, letting the gold spill out in a glittering cascade.