Pursued - Entire book

Chapter 25

Weary, Klair sat before Poral's hearth. Across his legs lay a thin branch which had already began to smell from the infection running through it. The leather strip secured at its open end had done nothing to stem the pungency.

The branch once fresh and unblemished had been recently infected by the wood worm just before they left the forest. Klair watched with his mind's eye as a single worm raised its black head with jelled secretion oozing between needlepoint teeth. Slowly it began to gnaw, crunching a lethal path through the tendon of wood.

Klair shivered. The insect made such a slow, meticulous passage of death through the tender flesh of wood. The branch would be completely diseased within in a span. What can he do about it?

Right now he could barely stand being close to it.

The disease only affected the interior trunk but not the exterior bark. That should be a hint of how to stop the infestation, shouldn't it? Could there be a way to influence the interior of each living tree to emit something to repel the worm? Was the worm intelligent enough to interpret such things as predators or did it follow an unquenchable hunger? Since cutting the branch, the lone insect started slowing down its feasting.

Klair carefully rested his hands on top of the branch and closed his eyes. The time he'd spent analyzing the spell felt like an eternity. A deep weariness, beyond the physical, consumed him.

"Is he asleep?" Jerinna asked her husband.

Poral shrugged.

Klair, even without seeing, could sense their movement. With the increase of magic, his senses occasionally stretched beyond sight. Sometimes, he could feel the dryness of the walls or floor, even the mouse hiding amongst Jerinna's vegetables. The dead wood of all the buildings and homes of a city gave him a sense of claustrophobia.

At lease the trips to the river with Nallock countered that. Running water bore a subtle energy that the he found comforting.

"Papa, it stinks!" Poral's son whispered.

"Shush, Nerrideem," Jerinna told the boy while holding her infant daughter to her.

Klair opened his eyes, looking up. Three pairs of eyes were riveted on him. Fear accented young Nerrideem's voice and his mother held him close. Klair looked down at the limb.

"It does stink," he admitted.

Jerinna laugh nervously. She was a plump lady with generous girth that often dominated a room. Not a weak woman by any means but obviously influenced by Poral's submissive tone to Klair.

Jerinna's stilted laugh trilled through the small room. She crossed her arms over her plump belly and watched him with wide eyes. (It says the same things, but isn't so passive.)

Klair bowed to his hostess. "My apologies for bringing the stench inside, I should have realized..."

"You're trying to save the forest," she said

Klair grimaced. Yes, one person, not yet a man, trying to save an entire forest.

He needed air.

When he tried to stand up and groaned. Muscles creaked from the length of time he sat.

Previously he'd wrapped a leather strap on the cut edge of the stick as, he attempted to stand. He caught the wood before it clattered to the floor

Poral's family remained sitting around the table at the opposite end of the room, watching him. How long had they been sitting there? Klair wondered. His stomach growled.