Tales of the Apprentice - Book 1
Chapter 6
"We must be careful," Serana told Raven the following morning. "We have several more days to travel, and during the daylight hours we should be fairly safe. At night, though, we must make sure to have a fire and a few torches burning at all times. I wish we could take some of these lamps with us, but they're larger than what we can conveniently carry, and we didn't bring a pack horse."
Raven gave her a long, speculative look.
"Is there anything I should know about, my lady?" he inquired politely.
"Let's just say that the creatures you heard about are real. Light will keep them at bay, though."
"You are sure of this? If I may ask, how can you be?"
"That is my business," Serana said coolly. "But rest assured it's true."
Raven shrugged.
"Very well, my lady. I will go and find us some torches. And perhaps a saddle for your horse, if I happen to come across one."
Serana smiled.
"That would be nice. But don't spend too much time looking for one. I'm fine without it."
Raven nodded and left. Galen continued to gather their belongings and pack them into the bundles they had been carrying on the backs of their horses. He was feeling tired. He had slept rather fitfully, and visions of the dead-looking creatures had haunted his dreams until morning. His eyes felt gritty.
"Are you sure we'll be safe?" he asked. "I mean, after what we saw last night..."
"As safe as we can be," Serana said. "Traveling through these parts is always somewhat risky even at the best of times, and this is certainly not the best of times. But Raven seems to be quite capable, and between the three of us we should be able to take whatever measures might be necessary."
A few minutes later Raven returned, carrying a bundle of long, straight faggots.
"These should do," he said. "I also found a jar of pitch and a bundle of rope. We can distribute them among us, so it shouldn't be too much of a problem to add them to the packs we already have. Oh, and I've found you a saddle, my lady."
"Not one of these silly side-saddle things intended for a demure lady, I hope?" Serana asked with a smile.
Raven shook his head as he put the faggots down next to the door.
"Just a regular saddle, my lady," he said. "I hope that's alright."
Serana nodded.
"That will do very nicely, Raven. I was never much of a lady anyway."
"You are to me, my lady," the mercenary said, nodding respectfully.
Galen gave him a speculative look. He couldn't have explained it if his life had depended on it, but suddenly he was convinced that there was considerably more to this muscular man than met the eye, something that went far beyond the bravo-for-hire he appeared to be. Whatever it might be, though, the future would have to reveal. Out of the corner of his eye he saw Serana's expression change. Clearly she had picked up on his sudden realization. Then she deliberately looked away. Galen took her hint. Whatever it was, this was obviously not the moment to discuss it.
It wasn't much later when they rode out of the village, but not before Serana had left a few coins on the table in the dining room in case the owner of the inn would ever return. Galen agreed wholeheartedly. Somehow, on a deeply instinctive level, it was clear to him that taking advantage of anyone would be a bad thing to do for him. He had come to realize, albeit without being able to explain how, that there was something inherently pure about sex magic, something that depended on doing the right thing whenever possible, something that had to do with the eternal dichotomy between good and evil, between light and dark, between life and death. He couldn't have put it into so many words, but he felt he did understand at least the principle of it. He also realized that what he was doing right now was slowly changing him: he was growing, maturing, perhaps even becoming a better person. Serana caught his eye, smiled at him and slowly nodded. Suddenly Galen felt a lot less sure of himself. Had she known what he was thinking?
The sun was shining brightly as they continued south. The sky was blue, the air was clear, and there was no sign of the dreadful creatures that had stood gazing at the village last night, hungering and slavering. Yet Galen felt his skin crawl when they passed the place where he had seen them. Fortunately, not a single trace of them remained.
The land was flat and the riding easy, and the horses made short work of the few leagues between the outskirts of the village and the edge of the forest. Then, as they got closer to the edge of the wood, the head of a narrow trail became visible between the trees. A logging trail? Or simply the only road through the forest? Galen couldn't decide. The trees were standing close together, and the gloom between them deepened as he gazed further into the forest. As they reached the edge of it, Raven reined in his horse and loosened his huge sword in its scabbard as he eyed the dark mass of wood.
"We must be on our guard here," he announced. "These woods are home to all manners of robbers and cutthroats."
Slowly and carefully they rode down the trail, single file. It wasn't much of a road, and it wound its way around trees of varying thickness. But there were some signs of regular maintenance here and there, usually in the form of stumps or hacked-off branches where obstructions had been cleared away. The narrow path stretched before them as far as the eye could see, which wasn't all that far in the gloom beneath the trees.
"Does this path actually lead somewhere?" Galen asked skeptically.
Raven nodded.
"It goes all the way to the other side of the woods," he said. "It is mostly used by woodcutters, though. Not many others venture here."
"Why not?"
Raven looked to his left and pointed at a heap of what looked like a small heap of green, moss-covered branches.
"That's why not," he said.
Galen looked, and suddenly he could make out the vacant-eyed shape of a skull within the mossy pile. Then he saw that the branches weren't branches at all. Instead he was looking at a pile of bones.
"In a place like this it is easy to waylay an unwary traveler," he explained.
"It's a good thing we're wary, then," Galen said dryly.
Raven's smile was bleak.
"Indeed we are. Fear not, lad. I've been this way before."
They slowly made their way along the trail. One hour, two hours, three, four... Time seemed to stand still in this perpetual gloom. The light hardly changed as the day wore on. Nothing moved. There was no breeze to stir the still air. A faint haze blurred the shapes of the trees in the distance, and the atmosphere, while not really cold, was clammy and oppressive. No birds sang in the trees, there were no insects, and nothing seemed to burrow between the many tangled roots.
"This is like no other forest I've ever seen," Galen remarked.
Serana sighed.
"It wasn't always like this," she said softly. "But it's changed."
"Oh? So what changed it?"
