Behind the alchemists the wizards did their work, chanting spells making sure that the flames only spread in one direction and did not start a conflagration that would burn down the entire forest and roast the army to death. It was slow work but they cleared a path of advance. The knights could lead their horses ten abreast if they wanted.
Kormak waited tensely. He sensed that there were eyes out there in the forest watching them and those eyes were not in the slightest bit friendly.
By the end of the first day they had covered a number of leagues and entered a great clearing in which they could make camp.
Foresters were set on guard around the perimeter of the camp for the night. Although they did not know it, they were not alone. Out there, Gilean and some of the Kayoga watched along with the great wolves and the giant owls. Kormak was glad of that. One of his greatest fears was the camp being attacked in the night and the men scattering into the haunted forest to be picked off one by one.
In the centre of the camp great bonfires burned, fuelled by wood and alchemicals and the magic of wizards. There was something about the flames that made the Kormak uneasy. Normally fire was the great enemy of Shadow but even it could be bent to the Shadow’s purposes. Some of the logs burned with a greenish flickering and Kormak remembered the sorceress’s words concerning the way that elementals could become corrupted. The fires provided them with a weapon against any attack but they could so easily be turned into a blade held at their throat by the wrong sort of magic.
The brothers of his own Order set up their camp slightly apart from the rest of the soldiers and the nobles. In that smaller camp, sentries marched with disciplined procession and Elder Signs were set against the encroaching darkness.
He saw the vats of alchemicals being stirred by leather-tunicked alchemists with their strange masks drawn across their faces to protect them from the vapours rising from their creations. He saw other brothers setting up strange machines, all crystal and mirror-smooth bronze marked with the runes of the First Empire. They were set up so that the catapult arms protruding from their smooth sides were aimed out at the forest. The sight of them made him feel easier – he had seen those ancient war engines at work before and he knew what they were capable of.
For his own peace of mind he walked the perimeter of the camp, checking on the sentries, making sure that they were all awake, and that they knew to give the alert first before investigating anything that they saw. Kormak studied the soldiers with him. The full horror of the situation was dawning on them. They had spent all day marching and peering out into the forest, catching sight of the wicked things that dwelled under the blighted branches. They had seen the glowing fungus, the giant insects, the awful, twisted mutated things. Some of them talked about seeing spiders the size of dogs staring at them with green glowing eyes. No one doubted these tales.
Eventually he finished his checks and returned to join his brothers. It had been a long time since he had spent any time in the field with members of his Order and he was pleased that they were there. He knew that whatever happened they could be relied upon, that they were protected against the Shadow, that they would know what to do if an attack came. Many of the others present were veteran warriors but they were used to fighting against human foes and not against the sort of things that they were likely to encounter here.
He went to the cook fires where a fat brother was ladling out stew from a consecrated bowl. He accepted his portion and a slice of waybread and he ate all of it, wiping up the last remnants of the stew with the bread until the Elder Sign carved on the bottom of the bowl was revealed.
He felt the warmth settle in his stomach and he glanced upwards into the trees and his sense of well-being vanished. He was sure that he could see spiders moving up there among the branches, their green eyes glowing and he knew that they were being spied upon by agents of Weaver.
A scream rang out, followed by another and another. Kormak raced towards where they came from, leaping over tent ropes. Up ahead he saw dozens of bodies sprawled, dark arrows protruding from their breasts, faces turning purple from venom. He glanced around and noticed great water barrels broken open and sacks of grain and meal and dried meat lying burst on the ground. A corrupt smell was already rising from them.
Gilean arrived moments later, her bow clutched in her hand, the tunic of a herald belted around her. “They have contaminated your water and spoiled your food. Weaver intends to let the Blight do its work for her.”
Kormak nodded. “She’s made a good start here then” he said, but the elf had already vanished into the night as other soldiers raced up to the scene of the killing.
In the morning, they discovered that some of the sentries had vanished, despite the best efforts of the elves and their allies. Kormak was not sure whether the men had simply deserted in the night or whether they had been spirited away by the forces of Shadow.
It did nothing to help morale in the camp. Unease was growing and it was plain to see why. All around, the influence of the Shadowblight could be felt. Despite the blessed amulets that they carried, despite the presence of the Order of the Dawn, all of the soldiers could feel the evil that waited out there, watching them, preparing to strike against them. Kormak could tell that even some of his own brothers felt that dismal presence despite all of their training and all of their protective amulets and prayers.
The second day proceeded as the first one had with the alchemists and the wizards burning their way into the heart of the Blight. The land was even worse than Kormak remembered it. The trees were larger and darker and more marred by fungus and twisted by the power of Shadow. Some of them seem to be pulling away from the flames that burned near them.
More shouts and sounds of battle came from down the line. Once again, Kormak raced towards them. Once again, by the time he got there, the battle was over. More men lay face down in the dirt, arrows protruding from their backs. The shattered carapaces of a few spiders lay near them, but it was obvious the elves and their pets had slain far more than they lost. Or perhaps Weaver’s people had simply carried their dead off into the woods with them. In any case, the effect on morale was not good.
He returned to walking in the direction towards the heart of the Blight. Behind them a long line of horsemen and carts and foot soldiers stretched out into the distance. Their pennons no longer fluttered bravely because there was no breeze to make them ripple. The air was close and still and all around them they could hear a buzzing as if a vast swarm of insects was hidden in the shadow of the trees.
The strain was starting to show on the faces of the magicians. It could not be easy constantly maintaining the spells that guided the flames that the alchemists were creating. All of the wizards and all of their apprentices were white faced with bags under their eyes. They drank their elixirs and chewed upon lozenges of strange drugs to maintain their strength but even those did not seem to make all that much difference. Kormak feared that if this kept up they would have no strength left for the conflict with Weaver when that came. And he feared that the power of the wizards was going to be very necessary during that fight.
All day long they marched into the heart of the blighted forest. All day long, screams and cries of anguish heralded another ambush and always by the time he got there, the fighting was over, as if the attackers knew where he was in the line and avoided him.
The pattern of the attacks was obvious. Small groups of Mayasha would infiltrate their lines, often using spider-created walkways in the branches above, and strike at the line, melting away into the trees when resistance became too strong.
Once. Kormak arrived in time to see the elves scampering away into the trees on web-lines, while their allies above sent a hail of darts and arrows raining down. More often than not, supply wagons were found contaminated with blighted fungal spores and water barrels broken and tainted. And still it seemed the enemy was not really trying, was holding the majority of its strength in reserve while the ancient darkness in the forest worked away at their will and their strength.
Kormak feared it was a strategy that would work.
At last, they emerged from the forest into the great clearing of Mayasha. It was every bit as gloomy as Kormak remembered. If anything, it was worse. He looked up at the gigantic tree. It was even more obviously dead than it had been the last time he was here. The great trunk was rotted and there was a smell of damp and mould and something worse, something of the Shadow, in the air. There were no leaves on the branches but huge webs stretched between them, and hanging from those webs were cocooned people.
An eerie silence prevailed over the entire expanse surrounding the great dead tree. No living thing was visible save for the army. Kormak remembered the vast camps of the Lost that had surrounded the tree. He remembered the armies of spiders that had seethed around it.
There was nothing there now. The place seemed abandoned, lifeless. It was as if everything he remembered was a hallucination. For a moment he even doubted his recollections. Was it possible the whole thing had simply been a figment of his imagination, a fever dream brought on by exposure to the Blight and the venom of poisonous spiders?
Slowly the human army began to emerge into the clearing. The brothers of the Order of the Dawn were in the lead, with their wagons carrying strange ancient weapons and vats of alchemical substances. After that came Lord Rhys and his knights and squires, all leading their horses. The beasts were nervous. Their nostrils flared and they whinnied as if sensing the presence of something predatory.
All of the men looked around with wide eyes, taking in the gigantic webs, seeing human beings stored like flies in a web. They blinked, and looked at the sky which for the first time in days was visible through the monstrous, leafless branches of Mayasha.
A horn sounded somewhere in the forest. Lord Rhys looked around trying to see where the sound was coming from. Before he could pinpoint the location, another horn sounded in a different part of the wood and then another and then another until it seemed as if they were surrounded by an army of horn blowers hidden under the leaves of the blighted wood.
Before the last echoes had faded, drums started to beat in the ground below them. Kormak could feel the faint vibration through the soles of his boots. The noise seemed to echo through the hollow bole of the great tree, becoming loud as thunder as it emerged from the cave-like openings in the tree’s side.
At the sound, the soldiers of the army looked about them. Kormak could see that they were on the edge of panicking and they had not even encountered the foe yet. Their ominous surroundings had them spooked and the noises all around them suggested that they were surrounded, cut off by the great force of a stronger enemy. All of the confidence they had expressed before they entered the forest had evaporated, worn away by long days of trudging through the Shadowblight.
Kormak raced over to where Lord Rhys was and shouted, “We need to get the men into battle order! Now!”
Lord Rhys started at the command, as if waking from a very bad dream and began bellowing orders to his followers. Knights mounted onto the steeds. Squires passed them their lances. They in turn began to shout as their followers began to emerge from the forest and form up into companies, bows at the ready, spears bristling outwards.
Baron Enderby was doing the same, all of his previous nervousness seemed to have vanished now that the moment of truth had come. His deep, rich voice boomed out across the field as he shouted insults and profanities at his troops, hurrying them to take up their positions before they were surrounded. Baron Magnus was slower but his troops seemed to be more experienced and they were emerging from the forest into the clearing, knowing that this was a better place to make a stand.
Or was it? Kormak was suddenly filled with doubt. If the elves chose to remain in the forest and simply shoot poisoned arrows at them, what could they do? The answer to that was simple enough, he realised. They would proceed towards the centre of the clearing and assemble around the great tree, possibly even taking cover within its hollowed out shell.
He could see Master Graydon shouting instructions to the brothers. Companies of them were forming up around the wizards, preparing to protect them with shields against any incoming missiles. Others were taking up position on the wagons, manning the ballistae and the First Empire weapons. The alchemists held no weapons except vials of their chemicals.
As all of this was happening, the enemy revealed itself. Out of the bole of the great tree, a seething army of spiders emerged, swarming onto the plain, scuttling out over the webs, so many of them that the press of their bodies cut out the light of the Sun. Faint screams emerged from the cocooned people and it occurred to the army that the victims were still alive and that a similar fate awaited them if they were defeated in this place.
Kormak could see that it was not just spiders that were emerging from inside the shell of Mayasha. Men had come out now and elves. In the middle of the force was Weaver, mounted on the back of a great battle spider surrounded by a pack of equally huge monsters. As all of this was happening, the horns in the woods came closer. Kormak could tell that there was an army of elves waiting for them there. They were cut off from their line of retreat. They were facing foes on both sides. Their position was not a strong one. It seemed waiting for them to arrive had indeed been Weaver’s plan all along.
Weaver spoke and some magic amplified her voice that carried over the distance separating the two forces. “Welcome,” she said. “It does my heart good to see so many new recruits come to join us.”
There was a horrible mockery in her voice and beneath that a strange sincerity that suggested that she believed what she was saying and really did regard them as potential followers.