Fawn crawled into the edge of the devastation. At her back, majestic evergreens reached toward the sky. Beside her, the trees bent double to touch the ground, like beanstalks desiccated and laid down by the coming of winter. The grass under her squirming body broke off, dead and brown as in the dregs of autumn.
It was spring. Elsewhere in the province of Foxwood, hyacinth, iris, and poppies were bursting into bloom. Songbirds were courting and building nests. Lord Eaglecry's lands were demonstrating how truly fair they could be.
But for many hundred paces around the castle, an ugliness had seized hold, killing the groves and gardens, leaving blighted ground and macabre growths of fungi in its place.
Fawn knew ugliness. She had only to look in a mirror. But she had never seen the likes of this. She wormed her way through more of the stricken trees, closer and closer to the zone where nothing of the former woodland survived. Avoiding guard spells that would have changed the turf beneath her to quicksand, she reached the crest of a tiny hillock and saw the graves.
Open pits yawned. The bodies of Lord Eaglecry's men-at-arms, pillaged of weapons and armor, steamed in the mid-morning sunshine. The naked bodies of maids-in-waiting lay casually heaped at the edges of the trenches, as if they presented too much trouble for the victors to toss in, much less cover with soil.
The breeze shifted, bringing the stench toward Fawn in a fetid, viscous cloud. She choked, struggling for breath but not daring to inhale. Mercifully, the wind shifted back before she lost her breakfast.
How could their enemies revel in such trophies? The Iron Claw seemed to deliberately enjoy surrounding themselves in putrescence. Was it to intimidate the populace? Surely, Fawn thought, they must realize it only serves to anger us.
Fawn did not move any closer. Not only might she be seen by the human sentries up on the battlements, but she did not care to approach so closely that she would recognize the dead--not that some of them would ever be recognizable. Instead, she squirmed back the way she had come. She had seen as much as her master required, and as much as any fourteen-year-old girl should have to witness.
The cool, fragrant shade of the Foxwood enveloped her, banishing the horror around the castle, reducing the need to be alert for magical traps. Here the forest was as it had been a fortnight ago, before the Flower Queen and her escort of Iron Claw mercenaries had come up from the Kingdom of the Rivers to attack Lord Eaglecry's keep. Fawn could be an ordinary sorcerer's apprentice again, not a spy for a fugitive army.
As she passed a stately oak, she mimicked a chipmunk call. Momentarily three of Lord Eaglecry's warriors drifted out of the bracken and vines ahead of her, and formed a welcome escort. Together they wended their way through two leagues of groves and thickets to the sanctuary where the marquis had taken refuge.
A dozen newly arrived survivors of the village of Bluewater milled about the camp, still numbed from the shock of seeing their homes, livelihoods, and loved ones destroyed the night before. The Iron Claw were wasting no time in their attempts to locate the marquis, and they spared few in their path, whether the victims had any knowledge of their lord's location or not. Some of the refugees noticed Fawn's arrival and grimaced in the startled way that all people did, the first time they regarded her gnarled shape. The warriors at her side fingered the nocks of their arrows, letting all know that this was no beggar child to be ridiculed. The warriors had no need to speak out loud. Any commoner in the province knew an ugly young woman treated with such respect could only be the ward and chief apprentice of Summerleaf, the grand mage--the realm's main hope of defeating the Flower Queen. Careful, neutral expressions replaced the grimaces.
Fawn noticed each and every reaction. Nature had cursed her with a gift for observation. But she ignored them, as she had long since learned to do.
Summerleaf, bent around his cane, hobbled out from under the canopy that served as Lord Eaglecry's sanctum. "There you are," he said to Fawn. "Come. The marquis is waiting."
"It is as you warned, Master," Fawn said solemnly. "The blight has spread a hundred paces farther out the past three days. Even the stones of the citadel look strangely dull and pocked, as if the ash from Fire Mountain had rained down again."
Summerleaf grunted, frowning. "Tell it to our patron, girl. I need no help to believe it."
As they stepped into the shade of the canvas, several men and two women turned toward them: Lord Eaglecry, his wife, his head councillor, the captain of his guard, and Mage Summerleaf's two high apprentices.
Lord Eaglecry held himself stiffly and perfectly upright, despite the red rivers in his eyes from lack of sleep, despite the livid scar across his temple that even Summerleaf's incantations had not yet managed to heal. Though in his late fifties, the marquis insisted on conducting himself like the brilliant military campaigner he had been at twenty-five.
Fawn gave her report. The lord listened with brows drawn, intimidating her with his stern glare.
"The tunnel entrance has not been discovered?"
"No, but the blight will reach it by tomorrow. Once the vegetation around it dies, it will be easily found."
"We must act tonight, Lord," Summerleaf declared. "We cannot wait for your brother-in-law to reinforce you. If we don't take this chance to kill the Flower Queen, you will never dislodge the Iron Claw from your castle in time to preserve the land. If you dislodge them at all."
The captain of the guard stiffened. The grand mage had once more made clear his lack of faith in a military assault, though without the captain's brilliant defense of the castle, Lord Eaglecry would never have escaped alive.
The marquis gestured for peace. "I don't like it. Oakroot tells me this sorcery will exhaust you for a week, perhaps more. I dare not be without the skills of my chief magician at such a vital time."
Summerleaf shot a severe glance at his male apprentice. Oakroot kept his gaze on the ground, contrite in his silence. "I'm afraid I neglected to mention that to you earlier, my lord," Summerleaf continued. "Nevertheless, it is worth the risk. You have seen what the Iron Claw can do, and you say, 'These are men, they can be defeated.' That is true, given time and lives. But even death will not stop the Flower Queen or her necromancy. Defeat her, and the Iron Claw will succumb to the internecine rivalries that kept it in check in earlier times. Defeat her, and the land will not have to suffer the fate of the Kingdom of the Rivers."
"How certain can you be that you will kill her?" Eaglecry demanded.
"Not certain at all. But I do know that I, with Fawn serving as my hands, am the only one who can succeed."
Eaglecry scanned Fawn with skepticism. "She doesn't look like much of a weapon, magician. Wouldn't your older apprentices be more appropriate?"
Fawn shrank from the inspection of the marquis. The lord, lacking the tact of his vassals, did not conceal his revulsion at her appearance. She let the dismissal wash over her. Of all people, only Summerleaf had never given her that look at least once--perhaps because Summerleaf himself wore a visage that could curdle milk.
"Her and only her," insisted Summerleaf. "If she fails, it won't matter how many men-at-arms you gather, the Iron Claw will gut them like hogs. However, if she succeeds, the Flower Queen will be dead, and the Claw will lose its focus."
Even the apprentices seemed skeptical, but they did not question Summerleaf. He was a sorcerer of great power. None of those present had ever heard such worry in his voice, and all were frightened.
Even the marquis. "So be it," he announced. "Tonight."
)
