Covert of the Old Weald

Chapter Fourteen of Under the Goblin Trees

Campaign adaptation by Thomas Kelly

“Lords! My lords!” William fell to his knees, bowing and scraping before us, still trembling for the fright of the battle. “I swear by head and hide to serve thee, for I owe thee my debt of featly. But for thee, those captains would have flayed me! The ogre would crush me! The troll would tear off my arms and legs. Those bears—their claws—and that terrible eagle too! I am your servant, William, by my life!”  

“Swear to it against your own name! Swear by the ugly names of all your ugly jebli gods,” Myron menaced. “May hobgoblins ravage you, may bears maul you, may an ogre tread upon your torn corpse, may a roc carry your carcass away to feed its young, and may a troll grind his teeth on your bones if you prove false to us or do us any harm. Swear it now!”

Utterly in awe of our powers, the terrified goblin agreed to those stern oaths and swore them against his own head. Yet for all that show of fealty, none of us felt any need to unbind his wrists or grant him leave to go about as he would.

Wounds and Weals

Cirilli and I exhausted all our strength attending to Ivan, leaving Belvenore and Bruin without divine touch for their own wounds. In addition to Ivan’s sores, we had the matter of the woodsman’s horse. The troll’s great claw had raked the flesh and lamed the animal’s leg. The Backluni charger’s eyes lolled about, wild with pain. The animal staggered and stumbled, whinnying most pitifully. None could approach it to unsaddle it or remove the packs it bore. It seemed a kindness to release the poor beast from its pains, but Cirilli would not countenance it.

“Listen child. Is it meet for us to let the beast suffer?” Belvenore insisted. “Let me do the thing. She will scarcely feel the touch of my blade.”

Then rose Cirilli from Ivan’s side, drew near to the injured animal, whispered in her twitching ear, and calmed the poor beast. “She says she will suffer me to attend to her wound,” Cirilli explained. To my astonishment, the horse submitted to let her wash and bandage the torn leg.

“So she speaks horse now?” Bruin asked.

“There is a prayer that allows us to speak with animals,” I explained, but I too was flummoxed, for that prayer is not among the devotions of my school nor was it among the incantations I had taught the girl. Nevertheless, I encouraged my acolyte, “In the morning, when our powers are refreshed, we might grant this animal a healing touch. Better than losing two horses!”

We remained the night at the bridge. We took advantage of the abundance of lumber near at hand to stoke up the bonfire and drive back both the chill and the darkness of the night. Ivan’s wounds were grave. Scarcely had he recovered himself from the spiders’ venom before suffering these fresh blows. Cirilli’s ministrations and my healing prayers deflected the scythe of Nerull, but the club of that ogre had sorely bludgeoned the woodsman. He slept fitfully, moaning in his sleep for his pains, while the rest of us sat about the fire, soaking its warmth into our bones.

For some time, I paged through my psalter by flickering light of the fire while the others sat in weary silence. At length, I closed the book and posed to Cirilli the question that nagged at me. “Tut-tut. Tell me for the sake of my letters how you knew the art to summon those bears! Does that not seem like a druidish pagan magic of the Old Faith? Like that of the Flannish Geoffmen? No invocation of Our Lady, I should say!”

The reflection of the red firelight flickered hot in her face. She snapped back at me, “Was the magic my own then, father? Was it not the horn that Nyssa gifted me?” She stood up and stomped away into the darkness. I sighed at her impertinence.

“What’s the matter priest? Are your Oeredian gods out of their league?” Myron sniffed with contempt.

“I won’t countenance blasphemy,” I rebuked the glamorer. “If not for my prayers and the gracious intervention of my gods, where would you all be this night?”

“Dead,” Bruin readily admitted with a weary sigh. “More than once. Several times over. And I wish for the touch of the gods again this very night for what pains me.”

“The halfling speaks the truth. I’ll not be too proud to admit it. If not for his prayers, I would sleep beside Sir Merciful,” Sir Belvenore offered in my defense. I nodded toward him in gratitude.

“But I liked Cyrilli’s bears,” Bruin added. “I think there should be more bears.”

“Those were not real bears,” Myron the condescending know-it-all sniffed.

“More real than that fake bird of yours! The bears drew real blood. Went head-to-head against that troll,” Bruin’s voice trailed off in exhaustion.

Saint Bane’s Day

True to my word, I rose in the morning, attended to my devotions, and straightway prayed over both Ivan and his horse, beseeching divine healing. Cirilli did the same. The remainder of grace bestowed upon us we reserved should we have need of it later.

Now somewhat strengthened, Ivan rose and limped about sorely. He complained of a throbbing pain in his head. Small wonder at that, seeing that his head took the brunt of an ogre’s club. Nevertheless, we felt heartened to see him fit to ride and, moreover, his wounded horse miraculously made fit for rider (thanks be to Our Lady of Changing Seasons). Only Bruin remained without a steed and without the healing he desired. A pity that, I thought, for I could see by the morning light that he looked pale of face this day. We agreed the big warrior should be given poor Merciful’s horse, the steed upon which Cirilli had been riding since we left Nyssa’s tower.

I offered to take Cirilli up on my pony, and I offered to give her the saddle, but she declined, “I prefer to walk.”

“Let the girl ride with me,” Ivan offered.

“Tut-tut! For the sake of her dignity, that will never do,” I objected. “She is young and her legs are strong. Let her walk with William.”

With these things resolved, we set off again. Ivan, ever-wary, rode ahead on his charger, followed in order by Sir Belvenore, then by me on my pony with Cirilli and William walking beside. After us came Myron bouncing along on his unruly mare, and last of all came Bruin the Bear now mounted upon Sir Merciful’s steed. In this manner we would make slower progress into the dark, but there was nothing else for it. It does bear mentioning that, observing the calends for that morning, I noticed Saint Bane’s Day (Readying 1). I scarcely count myself a devotee, and I pay such heroes little reverence, but I spoke a few words in honor of the saint as we prepared to enter once more into the evernight of Dimwood.  

Deadfalls

Ivan warned us as we slipped into the shade beneath the boughs, “The roads on this side of Realstream are less well-known to me. We travel near fey lands. Olvenkind are not the only fair folk in these woods. Many are seelie and dark-hearted.”

We had not gone far beneath bough and branch before the gathering shadow swallowed up the morning light. Once more we walked in the gloom of that wood which is neither day nor night. The trees on this side of Realstream, it seemed to me, grew larger, taller, wider of trunk, and spaced themselves further apart. Between those wooden pillars frowned open hollows filled only with more shadow, gloom, and dread.

As the day warmed the snow-covered ceiling above us began its incessant drip, drip, drip on all sides. Other than the sound of the dripping and the plod of our horses’ hooves, we heard nothing in the heavy hush of the woods nor did we see anyone or anything lurking about. Still, I felt as if eyes stared out of the shadows, watching us pass, and I wondered what shadow folk might be readying an ambush. William too seemed ill at ease, apprehensively looking this way and that while softly growling to himself in the back of his throat.

The road we needed to take left the main way and reduced to not more than a narrow path. Deadfalls and fallen branches crisscrossed the trail every few hundred feet. When it was possible to clear the way, Ivan dismounted and opened the path with his axe. Some of the logs the horses might step over or leap. In some cases, we had to unburden the horses before they could be coaxed into attempting the feat. The larger trunks, enormous as they were, required us to find our way around and then, only with difficulty, make our way back to the path. Rotting branch and trunk stacked the soggy forest floor on either side of the path, making such detours nearly impassable. Slow and miserable was our progress.

After losing the better part of the daylight in these struggles, we stopped at a reasonably pleasant stony place beside an icy brook where cedars and oaks replaced the ubiquitous fuinoira. We made a little table among the great roots of a large cedar and broke bread and cheese together.

“Our path has long been neglected,” Ivan complained. “We would make better time without the horses. Hampered as we are, we might find we need all of ten days to reach the Goblin Trees!”

“Is there no other way? The fullness of Luna will not wait for us while we pick our way through these brambles,” Myron observed.

“What other way should we go but forward?” Bruin asked. “Should we go back to Nyssa and tell her, ‘The path was too rough. We had to turn around’?”

“Even if we wanted to turn around, I don’t think we could,” I mused. “There’s no sense denying that Nyssa holds us in her thrall, and we must do her bidding, whether gladly or not.”

“I do it gladly,” Bruin volunteered.

“As do I,” agreed Ivan with conviction. All the rest added their own consent as if they each had, on their own accord, chosen this adventure.

“Well, there it is then. Onward!” I said cheerily. In truth, my heart rejoiced to do the dryad’s bidding as if I had no other will of my own.

Ivan raised a suggestion, “There runs another path, but that one brings its own hazards. We might save as much as two, maybe three days, if we cut through the Covert of the Old Weald. I’ve not been that way myself, for good reason, but I’ve heard tale from others who have passed unhurt.”

“Verily!” William agreed with enthusiasm. “A safe path! A good path! No goblins. No ogres. No trolls. No wolves. Stay on the path and there’s nothing to fear from fairies. Only don’t go treading in their fields!”

Myron scoffed, “We might save two or three days to find that two or three centuries have elapsed while we trespassed in seelie lands.”

Sir Belvenore accused William of showing too much enthusiasm, “See how the goblin eagerly leads us into a trap!” He added his own caution, “If you heard half the tales of the unseelie wood that I have heard, you would nay suggest that perilous path!” He shook his helmed head for added emphasis.

“I know the tales,” Ivan rejoined.

Bruin glowered and growled at the knight, “Think on it! Which path will prove less perilous if we do not reach the Lord Baron Wulurich before Luna waxes full?”

The Old Weald

Several hours further along we arrived at a crossroad where Ivan (who always rode some way ahead) awaited us. “Here we make a decision,” he announced. “The one leads us around the Old Weald and then doubles back to the Goblin Trees at the height of the Covert. If we make better time than we have today, we should arrive there well before Luna waxes full. The shorter route to our destination follows this crossway path that must lead directly through the Old Weald, but, so far as I know, also passes through the Covert.”

“I’ll not willingly enter seelie lands,” Belvenore insisted.

“I’m voting for the shortcut. Shorter the better,” Bruin urged us. “Look at this!” He held up his right hand. His index finger extended longer than his middle finger. The nails on his fingers grew unnaturally thick, long, and narrow. Tufts of hair sprouted on the backside of his hand. “A fever burns in my blood. I feel like I’m slipping away, a little further each day.”

“I watched that malady take my sister in like manner,” Ivan nodded gravely.

“What say you, priest?” Belvenore turned to me.

I looked on mighty Bruin who now sat hunched over his steed, hanging his head wearily. Yes. Time was critical. “We will pass through the Old Haunt to save a few days if it will help Bruin.”

“By the gods, why?” Sir Belvenore exclaimed.

“So be it,” Myron consented. “Beware to observe the rules of seelie lands. Don’t stray from the path. If we meet the fey folk, show them every courtesy. Always offer a gift. Ask permission to come and go. Carry no iron into their domains.”

“I should like to meet more faerie folk if they be like Nyssa, but not all of them are so kind,” Cirilli said pensively. “When I was a girl in my father’s shop, back in Orlane, travelers from the Dim sometimes stopped on their way from Hochoch. They spoke of sylvan elves who walk the sunny boughs above the Dimwood, and they spoke of wondrous hidden halls in glittering caves where the faerie folk hold court. But they also told frightening tales of the unseelie kind that lurk in the dark places—dark places like this.” She shuddered involuntarily.

The way into the Old Weald ducked under a natural archway framed by the trunk of a tree bent in half circle over the pathway. Beyond that archway the forest seemed to threaten even darker and more foreboding, were it possible. Ivan led the way.

The path descending into the Old Weald proved no less challenging than the way we had already travelled. Not the trees leaned in closer, crowding the path on the left and the right. Their limbs hung low on either side, and twiggy fingers scraped and clawed at us as we passed, snagging our coats and gear, slapping and scratching at our faces. Mischievous roots and tangles seemed to have deliberately grown in such a fashion as to impede passage or to trip up our horses. Yet for all that, we found no deadfalls with which to contend, and we did make better progress for what remained of the day.

That night, we crowded our encampment onto the pathway, for William earnestly entreated us not to tempt the fairies by stepping off the path. “Sleep on their land and wake up in their dungeons,” the goblin warned us.

Sir Belvenore agreed, “I will not be dragged from the trail.”

Ivan showed no such concerns. Despite his weariness and weakness of body, he took Myron’s sunrod in hand, left the path, and wandered into the weald to gather what dry firewood he might lest we freeze in the night.

Moreover, we had nearly no water that night. The streams we crossed that day were frozen, and our canteens were all but dry. Cirilli wanted to make a tea of Nyssa’s wolvesbane for Bruin that it might ease his torments and cool the fever of lycanthropy, but without adequate water, she instructed the man to chew it like pipeleaf. That experiment induced only vomiting, and for some time, Bruin wretched up a foul ichor. When the man had recovered himself, he begged a sip of water, and we gave him all that remained.

The air had turned bitterly cold. We shivered in our cloaks and furs, sleepless through the first watch. A wind from Barrier Peaks whistled and moaned in the crowns of the weald. By the second watch, it rose to an angry howl. Its frigid blast could not find us where we sheltered between the trunks below, so it spent its anger on shaking the leaves, stripping the branches, and making the trees around us sway and groan. As the boughs above creaked and scraped against one another, I imagined I could hear words and cruel laughter in the gusts. William whimpered pitifully, clutching at himself and covering his ears. The remains of Ivan’s fire flickered dimly in darkness. Sleep overtook me.

---

Don’t miss chapter fifteen of Under the Goblin Trees. Subscribe to Greyhawkstories.

Artwork: Way to the Old Weald, ChatGPT4 + DALL-E