Simon R. Green - Forest Kingdom 3 - Down Among the Dead Men

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2024-12-20 0 0 419.18KB 283 页 5.9玖币

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Silence Carved in Stone.

Duncan MacNeil reined in his horse and looked around him. Narrow shafts

of golden sunlight pierced theForestgloom, shining down through the

occasional gaps in the overhead canopy. Tall trees stood close together

on either side of the beaten trail, their branches heavy with the

Summer's greenery. The hot, muggy air was thick with the scent of earth

and leaf and bark. A handful of birds sang in the higher branches,

warning the creatures of the wild that man was moving through the

Forest.

MacNeil stirred impatiently in his saddle. After two weeks' hard

travelling, the Forest's charms had begun to pall. In fact, MacNeil was

beginning to think he could live quite happily if he never saw another

tree. He glanced back down the trail, but there was still no sign of the

rest of his party. MacNeil scowled. He hated being kept waiting. He

looked at the trail ahead, but the tightly packed trees cut short his

view. MacNeil signalled his horse to move on again at a slow pace. The

border fort couldn't be far ahead now, and he was itching to take his

first look at it.

The Forest moved slowly by him, his horse's steady muffled hoofbeats

sounding loud and clear on the quiet. The birds slowly stopped singing,

and no game moved in the surrounding shadows. MacNeil dropped one hand

to the sword at his side, and eased the blade in its scabbard.

Everything seemed peaceful but he didn't believe in taking unnecessary

chances. His gaze fell on a clump of dead trees to his left. They were

twisted and hollow, eaten away from within by decay. The gnarled

branches were bare, the bark mottled with lichens. Even after ten years

there were still parts of the Forest that had never recovered from the

long night.

The trees fell suddenly away to either side of him, and MacNeil jerked

his horse to a halt at the edge of a clearing.

He leaned forward in his saddle, shading his watering eyes against the

bright sunlight, and smiled slowly. Square in the middle of the huge

clearing stood the border fort, a vast stone edifice with two massive

ironbound doors and only a series of arrowslits for windows. MacNeil

looked the fort over carefully. The two doors were firmly shut, and

there was no trace of movement anywhere in or around the fort.

The great stone walls brooded silently and enigmatically in the late

afternoon sunshine.

MacNeil sat back in his saddle and frowned thoughtfully.

There were no guards at the doors, and no one walked the high

battlements. There were no flags flying, no pennants at the watchtowers,

and no smoke curled up from the dozen or more chimneypots.

If there was anyone in the fort, they were going to great pains to hide

the fact. MacNeil looked back over his shoulder. There was still no sign

of the rest of his party. He looked back at the fort, scowling

unhappily.

Normally he'd have more sense than to get so far ahead of his own

people, but this business with the border fort worried him and the

sooner he got to grips with it, the better he'd feel.

There was a storm coming. He could feel it. Dark clouds were gathering

in the sky, and the air had been close and muggy all day. MacNeil looked

up at the lowering sky and cursed mildly. He had planned to look the

fort over (horoughly from the outside and then spend the night in the

Forest, but all the signs suggested it was going to be a filthy night.

And MacNeil had no intention of sleeping on muddy ground in a

thunderstorm when there were comfortable beds to be had close at hand.

He and his team had spent too many nights in the field of late, and this

Summer had to be the wettest he'd ever known.

He stretched slowly, and eased himself in the saddle.

Somehow he'd thought the border fort would look more impressive, given

the commotion it had caused at Court.

The panic had begun when it was discovered that the fort hadn't

communicated with the outside world in almost a month. No messengers, no

carrier pigeons, nothing. The King sent messengers to the fort. None of

them ever returned. Magicians and sorcerers tried to make mental contact

with the fort, but some kind of barrier kept them out. The King listened

to all the reports and grew steadily more worried. This particular fort

lay on the border between the Forest Kingdom and its neighbor, the Duchy

of Hillsdown. It had always been a disputed boundary, even to the point

of war, and in the chaos that followed the long night, Hillsdown had

made several attempts to settle the question permanently in its favour.

The new border fort had been built at the Forest King's command

expressly to discourage such actions, and shortly after it was

completed, that particular stretch of the frontier became suddenly very

peaceful again. The Duke of Hillsdown sent several threatening letters

and backed unobtrusively down, and that was that. Until last month.

MacNeil's hand settled comfortably on the pommel of his sword as he

studied the silent fort. There were no outward signs that anything was

wrong: the great stone walls were unmarked by fire or violence, and the

clearing looked still and peaceful. and yet there were no signs of life

either.

MacNeil stirred restlessly, and his horse shook its head uneasily,

responding to his mood. He patted the horse's neck comfortingly, but his

eyes never left the fort.

Duncan MacNeil was a tall, muscular man in his late twenties. Long blond

hair fell raggedly to his shoulders, kept out of his face by a simple

leather headband. Cool grey eyes studied the world from a broad, smiling

face. His shoulders were wide, his chest was broad, and there wasn't an

ounce of spare fat on him. He worked hard to keep it that way. His

dothes were simple and functional, and he sat his horse with the

unthinking ease of a man who'd spent most of his working life in the

saddle. His sword hung at his side in a well-worn scabbard, and his hand

rarely moved far from it.

He'd lied about his age and joined the guards at fifteen, keen as

mustard for a life of action and adventure. The Demon War had knocked

most of that nonsense out of him, but deep down he was never content

just to do his job and pull his pay. He needed a little excitement in

his life to give it spice. His constant search for it got him into

trouble more than once, and lost him as many promotions as he gained.

After one particularly unfortunate incident, involving the wrecking of a

fashionable tavern after the innkeeper objected to MacNeil's complaint

about watered ale, he was presented with a simple choice by his

superiors: join the Rangers, or spend the rest of his life turning large

rocks into smaller ones in a military prison.

Rangers worked in small mobile teams, sent out ahead of a main force to

investigate dangerous or suspicious situations. Such teams tended to be

brave, competent and ultimately expendable. The money was good, but,

truth be told, MacNeil would have done the job for nothing. Though of

course he never told them that. They might have taken him up on it.

Being a Ranger had given him all the excitement he could handle, and

then some. It was his life.

He studied the fort before him and smiled happily. This one was going to

be a challenge; he could tell. MacNeil loved challenges.

His smile faded slowly away. The trouble with challenges was that they

were often time-consuming, and he was working to a strict deadline. He

and his team had just three more days to find out what had happened at

the fort. After that, a full brigade of armed guards would arrive to man

the fort again. And if there wasn't an answer ready and waiting for the

Commander of that brigade, Ranger Sergeant Duncan MacNeil and his team

were going to be in big trouble. Heads would roll. Possibly quite

literally.

Hoofbeats sounded on the path behind him as the witch called Constance

rode out of the Forest gloom to join him.

She steered her horse in beside MacNeil's, flashed him a quick smile,

and looked out into the clearing with darting, eager eyes. The witch was

a tall, striking brunette who sat her horse with more determination than

style. She was only just out of her teens, and wore a smart shirt and

trousers of black cotton, topped with a billowing cloak of bright

scarlet trimmed with gold. MacNeil thought she looked like a mobile

target. He got nervous just riding beside her. Her face was raw-boned

and sensual, with sparkling dark eyes that missed nothing, and a great

mane of nightblack hair held back out of her face by strategically

placed ivory combs.

She was a bit skinny for MacNeil's taste, but she moved with an

unselfconscious grace and her smile was bright and challenging.

MacNeil still wasn't quite sure what to make of Constance. She'd joined

his team only a few weeks back, and this was her first mission, her

first chance to show what she could really do. If she was half as good

as she claimed to be, she'd be worth watching. MacNeil frowned slightly.

Constance was replacing a witch called Salamander, who had died three

months ago. Three months ago, almost to the day. Salamander had been a

pretty good witch, in her way, but she always thought herself a

swordswoman as well as a magic-user, and in the end that killed her. She

drew her sword when she should have cast a spell, and the bandit had

been just that little bit faster with his axe. She took a bad wound in

the gut, the wound became infected, and Salamander died in a filthy

village tavern, out of her mind with fever and calling for a husband

who'd been dead five years.

MacNeil had killed the bandit, but it didn't help. He'd led his team

into that village. He'd told them it was safe.

He'd had a lot of trouble finding someone to replace Salamander. Every

Ranger team had to have a magic-user; there were far too many magical

creatures and occurrences lying in wait in the Forest these days, left

over from the Demon War. Unfortunately, most of the Kingdom's magicusers

had been killed in the War, so instead of a sorcerer or sorceress he'd

haft to settle for a witch; first Salamander, then Constance.

Although he hadn't exactly chosen Constance. Truth was, he'd spent so

long hedging over his choice that his superiors got impatient and

appointed a witch for him. Constance had been a lot younger than he'd

expected, but since she'd been raised and trained in the all-woman

Academy of the Sisters of the Moon, he had no doubt as to the power of

her magic.

The Sisterhood didn't turn out under-achievers. You either graduated

with honour or they buried you in an unmarked grave and scratched your

name off the Academy rolls.

He bowed politely to the witch beside him. "Well, Constance; this is it.

That fort is what all the fuss is about."

"Poxy looking place,' said Constance airily. "Any sign of life?"

"Not so far. As soon as the others catch up we'll go and take a closer

look. See if it's still habitable.' Constance looked at him quickly.

"You're not thinking of spending the night in there?' MacNeil shrugged.

"There's a storm coming, and a bad one by the feel of it. You can sleep

out here in the rain if you want to, but personally speaking, I'm not at

all averse to the idea of having a solid roof over my head for a change.

You're new to field work, Constance; the first thing you learn in this

business is to take your comforts when you can, and be grateful for

them. They're few and far between in our line of work. There's plenty of

time to give the fort a thorough inspection before nightfall.' Constance

shook her head. "I don't know, Sergeant, I .. ."

"Constance,' said MacNeil easily, 'there's only one leader in this team,

and that's me. I've taken the time to explain some of my reasoning to

you because you're new to this group and this is your first mission, but

I'm not going to make a habit of it. When I give an order I expect it to

be obeyed, without question. Is that clear?' "Perfectly clear,' said

Constance coldly. She turned away from him and studied the fort with

great concentration. "I take it you have noticed that there are no

guards on the battlements."

"Yes. ' "Could they all have deserted, do you think?' MacNeil shrugged.

"It's possible. But if that's the case, what happened to all the

messengers the King sent ?' Constance pursed her lips thoughtfully, and

tried to look like she was thinking hard. She wanted very much to

impress MacNeil, but at this distance she couldn't See anything useful

about the apparently deserted fort. She was still learning how to use

her Sight, that mystical mixture of foresight and insight, and there

were limits to what she could do with it. Unfortunately the only cure

for that was experience, which was why she'd applied to become a Ranger.

It was one of the quickest ways to graduate from witch to sorceress. If

you survived.

She heard a noise behind her, and looked back sharply into the Forest as

the rest of the party appeared out of the shadows. Flint and the Dancer

guided their horses along the difficult trail with casual ease. They

both looked extremely competent and completely relaxed.

Jessica Flint was a good-looking brunette in her late twenties. She was

a little over average height, wore her hair cropped like a man, and had

a figure that would have been voluptuous if she hadn't been so muscular.

Flint was a trained swordswoman, and looked it. She wore a long chain

mail vest that had seen better days, but left her sinewy arms bare. Her

cotton blouse and leggings were old, but wellmaintained Her face was

open and cheerful, even in the heat of battle, of which she'd seen more

than her fair share.

She was one of the very few survivors of those who'd fought in the last

great battle of the Demon War, outside the Forest Castle itself. She

still bore some of the scars, and there were only three fingers on her

left hand. She carried her sword in a long, curved scabbard covered with

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摘要：

SilenceCarvedinStone. DuncanMacNeilreinedinhishorseandlookedaroundhim.NarrowshaftsofgoldensunlightpiercedtheForestgloom,shiningdownthroughtheoccasionalgapsintheoverheadcanopy.Talltreesstoodclosetogetheroneithersideofthebeatentrail,theirbranchesheavywiththeSummer'sgreenery.Thehot,muggyairwasthickwit...

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Simon R. Green - Forest Kingdom 3 - Down Among the Dead Men

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