Reading Online Novel

The Forest at the Edge of the World(127)



Ever since the captain and the lieutenant emerged from the forest—filthy and scratched, but alive and defiant—and Perrin announced to Wiles and the master sergeant, “We can conquer that forest! I know it,” Wiles had been as pale as a first season private.

Two days after the Guarder attack and the suicides of the prisoners, Wiles didn’t even send a messenger to explain his absence yet again in the tower.

Perrin and Karna went looking for him and discovered him in his quarters, clutching his chest. They rushed him to the hospital wing and watched anxiously as the surgeon and his assistant tried to help the old sergeant major calm down his rapid breathing.

That’s when the message arrived from Idumea, and was delivered to the captain at the hospital.

Chairman Nicko Mal, concerned about the health of his old friend so near the forest, ordered that Wiles be returned to Idumea to retire immediately with full honors. The message was accompanied by release papers signed by the High General.

Perrin thought the offer of retirement was a surprisingly benevolent gesture. But curiously Wiles’s breathing became even more labored, and his chest pains more severe, when he heard that Mal wanted to bring him home.

Even though they lay him in the fort coach that evening to make his ride as comfortable as possible, the weakened Wiles seemed more restless than ever. They even sent a surgeon’s aid along to care for him during the long two nights and one day ride to Idumea.

But when the coach arrived outside of Pools for another change of horses late at night, Wiles was no longer in the coach. His crate with his possessions was still in there, but no sergeant major.

The soldiers driving the coach and the surgeon’s aid inside were baffled. They hadn’t seen or heard anything unusual, and when they changed horses outside of Vines, Wiles was finally sleeping on the carriage bench. The surgeon’s aid had nodded off to sleep for a well-deserved break, waking only when the carriage stopped for the next horse change.

That was three days ago, and still nothing had been heard about the sergeant major. High General Shin had thoroughly interrogated the soldiers and the surgeon’s aid, and was confident all three men were as innocent as they trembled to be. Soldiers from Pools to Vines and even up to Midplain were dispatched to check the roads, thinking that perhaps Wiles had become disoriented and tried to leave the coach while it was moving, but they found no clues.

That struck Perrin as exceptionally odd. The main road to Idumea was well-travelled. And even though the coach travelled at night, to get Wiles as quickly as possible to the surgeons at the garrison, it was difficult to imagine that no one would have noticed an old man’s body lying on the side of the road. At this time of year all the fields, farm after farm all the way to Idumea, were filled with workers bringing in the harvest.

Wiles had simply vanished. Just like people had vanished years ago, when the Guarders were most active.

Guarder snatched, as the more paranoid liked to claim.

A string of words he uttered just minutes ago replayed themselves suddenly in Perrin’s head. “Guarders dressing up in blue uniforms . . .”

His stunned whisper faded into nothing.

No.

No. That couldn’t be possible. That wouldn’t be imagined. Wiles had been around for years. That would mean that anyone . . . any time . . . and they could be anywhere . . . then they could—

He dropped the message as if it burned his fingers, and stared out at the forest for a very long time.



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That night he was very quiet as he lay in bed next to his wife.

“You’ve been lost in thought all evening,” Mahrree gently prodded him. “What’s wrong?”

It took him another minute to answer her. “Had a thought, earlier. At the fort.”

Mahrree tried to keep her sigh quiet. Dawn was only about eight hours away, and at this rate it would take her hours to get him to articulate his thought. “About . . .?”

“Wiles.”

Ah, some progress, and faster than she expected. “About him still missing? About—”

Another long pause. “Who he really was.”

Now Mahrree went silent, lost in worry. “What do you mean?”

“What if . . . what if he was one of them?”

Mahrree huddled closer to her husband, and he put a protective arm around her. “But . . . but that wouldn’t make any sense. He’s been around for years, right? It’s not like he suddenly showed up volunteering to serve in the army.”

Perrin’s shoulders relaxed. “True, true. He’s always been here. I keep reminding myself of that.”

“Why would you have to remind yourself?” she asked, grateful he was holding her. “I mean, if you thought he was one of them, that would mean he infiltrated the army years ago. That he’s been living among us for decades. Why, why that’s ridiculous!” Her tone wasn’t as light as she hoped it would be.