Haladras

Twelve

The next two days it rained. Something Skylar had only heard tales about. He was glad of the oilskin his uncle hired the outfitter to make for him.

The gloomy weather only added to Skylar's longing for home, to the bitterness he felt toward Lasseter. How could Lasseter have done this to him? Skylar's one consolation during those days of endless walking and incessant rainfall was talking with Grim. The two had become fast friends since leaving Amrahdel. Something about this Grim Galloway made Skylar like him from the start. He had a noble bearing, and yet was as humble as any man Skylar had met. He told Skylar stories. Having travelled to nearly every corner of the empire, Grim recounted many stories of strange sights and heroic deeds, of adventures―they seemed to Skylar.

"If you call what we are on an adventure," said Grim after Skylar had expressed amazement over all Grim had seen and done, "then I have had adventures aplenty."

On the third day of their journey since abandoning the road and their paquas, they came to a break in the trees. Before them stretched several leagues of marshland, waist high with reeds. Beyond the marsh, rising from the earth like a living mountain stood another forest. Skylar was struck with awe as he gazed upon it.

"If there is any place on Quoryn that one can call forbidden," said Krom, "the Gray Forest is it. Few dare to enter it. And of those, few ever return."

"So why are we going there?" said Skylar.

"Because we have you," replied Krom matter-of-factly.

"I'm afraid I don't follow your reasoning."

"Don't worry," broke in Endrick. "I won't let them sacrifice you to the tree gods."

"There will be no sacrificing," retorted Krom, sternly. "The reason the Gray Forest is forbidden is because the Mauwik guard it so well that should anyone so much as break the branch off a tree, they will send an arrow through the culprit's heart."

"Comforting, isn't it?" said Endrick.

"That's enough of your quips, Endrick," chided Krom. "The Mauwik will not hurt us. They are friends of your father, Skylar. They hate Tarus. The Mauwik have few direct dealings with the world outside their forest. Yet, they are aware of the state of the empire. Shrewd and skillful people, they are able to traverse the forest unseen and unheard. They will be watching us the moment we step foot into their realm."

"And it's a bit unnerving," added Endrick. "They're a bit overprotective of those trees. My advice-don't touch anything."

Endrick raised one eyebrow and nodded as if to seal his warning, then turned and plodded on ahead.

Never before had Skylar beheld anything as magnificent as the trees of the Gray Forest. They were immense. So much so that he felt as if he were entering a land of giants. Each one was as big around as ten of the largest trees from the forest they had traveled for the past several days. And there was no end to their height. Standing at the base of one of them, Skylar looked straight up its towering trunk, spiked with green boughs, and it seemed to stretch on for leagues.

The companions entered the forest in silence, slowing their pace so that they scarcely moved at all. Something about the forest inspired a sort of reverence, like stepping onto sacred ground. The trees stood like sentinels, tall and alert, guarding some secret treasure.

Deeper into the enchanted forest they walked. The morning and early afternoon passed away calmly. Skylar began to wonder if the Mauwik weren't really part of some fable. There was no sign of any inhabitants in the forest.

"The Mauwik live up there," said Grim, appearing noiselessly at Skylar's side, as he was wont to do. He pointed at the green ceiling that was the mesh of tree limbs above them.