Loghain nodded. There were other bodies hanging farther in, just a few that he could see, hidden in the mist and shadows. Most of them were skeletons with nothing more than tattered cloth and scraps of wispy hair clinging to them.
“I see you’re already acquainted with my newest trophy,” came a new voice. A decrepit woman hobbled into view from among the trees. She was the very picture of a witch, wild white hair and a robe formed mostly of thick black furs and dark leather. Hanging down her back was a heavy cloak trimmed in fox fur, quite striking and delicately stitched. She carried a basket filled with large acorns and other items wrapped in red cloth, and she waved it absently in Dannon’s direction. “He never did introduce himself, foolish lad. I warned him after he started with the bellowing.” She stopped and appraised Loghain and Maric carefully, both of whom stared at her agape. “Thankfully, it doesn’t seem like either of you has the same problem. Good! That will make this easier.”
Her voice was cackling with easy amusement, which made the situation all the more surreal. Loghain wished the elves had left him with at least his blade. The old woman walked toward the hut without waiting for them and sat herself down in the rocking chair with a belabored sigh.
“Well, come on, then,” she grumped at them, putting down her basket.
Loghain approached grudgingly, Maric a step behind him.
“You killed Dannon?” Maric asked incredulously.
“Did I say that?” she chuckled. “I don’t believe I did, in fact. If you wish to know the truth, the lad killed himself.”
“Magic,” Loghain swore.
The woman cackled with renewed amusement but said nothing more.
“Who are you?” Maric asked.
“I don’t care who she is,” Loghain asserted. “I don’t like being played with.” He stepped threateningly toward her. She responded by narrowing her small eyes, but nothing else. “I demand that you let us go.”
“You demand?” she seemed impressed by the notion.
“Err . . . Loghain,” Maric cautioned.
Loghain held up a hand, warning Maric back. He stepped closer to the witch, looming over her as she remained seated in her chair. “Yes, I demand,” he repeated slowly. “Casting spells does not impress me. You need time to cast, and I can break your neck before you lift a finger.”
She smiled at him, a broad grin full of teeth. “Now, who said that I would be the one to do anything?”
Loghain heard Maric’s sharp intake of breath behind him but turned only in time to see one of the giant trees reaching toward him with lightning speed. Great branches wrapped around him like giant hands, pulling him up into the air. Leaves fluttered all around while flies buzzed angrily through the air. He struggled and shouted, but it was useless. The tree stepped back into line with its brothers, and Loghain became another dangling trophy only a few feet away from Dannon’s bloated corpse. Panicking, he tried to shout to Maric, only to have smaller branches wrap around his mouth and hold his head still.
Maric crouched, eyes wide and heart pounding as he watched Loghain get snatched. It happened so quickly—how could a giant tree have moved so fast? Frightened, he glanced back at the witch, but she only rocked quietly in her chair, regarding him with vague annoyance.
“Are you to be next, then?” she asked.
“I’m . . . hoping not.”
“An excellent choice.”
Sweat trickling down his brow, Maric cleared his throat and carefully lowered himself to one knee. “I beg your pardon on behalf of my companion, good lady.” His voice was quiet, but the old woman appeared to be listening, fascinated. “We have been running for days now, and after the Dalish attacked us . . . we expected more of the same, despite the fact that you have offered no provocation. I apologize.” He bowed his head, trying his best to remember the courtly manners so painstakingly taught to him over the years by his mother. To think he had rolled his eyes at those lessons, assuming that he would never have an actual use for them.
The witch laughed shrilly. “Manners? My, but that is unexpected.” When Maric looked up, she grinned at him. “But the truth is that you don’t know what I intend for you and your friend, young man. I might intend to give you both to the sylvans, just as I did your friend, isn’t that so?”
“Yes, it is.”
“Yes,” she repeated slowly, “it is.” She waved a withered hand toward the tree holding Loghain, causing its branches to unwind. He was dumped to the ground, where he immediately jumped up and turned to face the old woman, enraged. Maric held up a hand warning him to stay back, and Loghain snorted as if to tell Maric he was angry, not stupid.
“So you are he,” the witch said, nodding with approval as she studied Maric. “I knew you would come, and the manner in which you would come, but not the when.” She let out a sharp guffaw and slapped her knees. “Isn’t it marvelous how very capricious magic can be with its information? It’s like asking a cat for directions—consider yourself lucky if it only tells you where to go!” She howled with laughter at her own joke.
Both Maric and Loghain stared at her blankly. Her laughter slowly quieted into a sigh. “Well, what did you think?” she asked. “That the King of Ferelden could pass through the Korcari Wilds and it would go completely without notice?”
Maric licked his lips nervously. “I’m assuming you mean the rightful King of Ferelden.”
“Right you are! If the Orlesian who sits on your throne were to run through this part of the forest all by himself, I would happily scoop him up instead of you! Failing that, I suppose you will have to do. Wouldn’t you agree?”
“Err . . . good point.”
The witch reached down into the basket by her feet and drew out a large, shiny apple. It was a dark red, perfectly plump and ripe. She bit into it with gusto. “Now—” She spoke through her loud chewing. “—I have to apologize if the elves seemed overzealous. They were the only way I could cast out my net far enough to catch you as you passed.” She licked the apple juices off her lips. “But one does what one can.”
Maric thought carefully. “The elves . . . didn’t just happen to find us, then?”
“Now there’s a smart lad.”
“Who are you?” Maric asked breathlessly.
“She’s an apostate, a mage in hiding from the Chantry’s hunters,” Loghain insisted. “Why else would she be out in the middle of the Wilds?”
The witch rolled her eyes and chuckled again. “You’re friend isn’t entirely incorrect. There are things hidden in the shadows of your kingdom, young man, which you couldn’t begin to guess.” She looked directly at Loghain, her eyes suddenly sharp. “Yet I was here long before your Chantry came to this part of the world.”
“It isn’t my Chantry,” he snapped.
“As for your question”—she looked back at Maric—“the Dalish surely told you my name? I have many, and theirs is as good as any.”
“Then what do you want with me?”
She bit into her apple with a loud crunch and chewed it thoughtfully as she sat back in her rocking chair. “Why does anyone desire an audience with their sovereign?”
“You . . . want something from me?” He shrugged helplessly. “You probably would have been better off with my mother, if that’s the case. I don’t have much of anything.”
“Fortunes change.” The witch’s gaze shifted to far off in the distance. “One minute you’re in love, so much in love that you can’t imagine anything wrong ever happening. And the next you’re betrayed. Your love has been ripped from you like your own leg, and you swear you’d do anything—anything—to make those responsible pay.” Her eyes focused on Maric, and her voice became soft, caressing. “Sometimes vengeance changes the world. What will yours do, young man?”
He said nothing, staring at her uncertainly.
Loghain stepped forward angrily. “Leave him alone.”
The witch turned to regard him, her eyes delighted. “And what of yours? You’ve rage enough inside you, tempered into a blade of fine steel. Into whose heart will you plunge that one day, I wonder?”
“Maric and I are not friends,” he growled, “but I don’t want him dead.”
Her chuckle was mirthless. “Oh, you know what I speak of.”
Loghain paled, but regained his composure almost immediately. “That . . . doesn’t matter any longer,” he stated evenly.
“Doesn’t it? Have you forgiven them already, then? You no longer remember her cries as they held her down? The laughter of the soldiers as they held you back and made you watch? Your father when he—”
“Stop!” Loghain shouted, his voice filled with as much terror as fury. Maric watched in shock as Loghain launched toward the witch as if to strangle her. He lurched to a halt before he reached her, hands clenched tightly into fists as he struggled against his impulse. The trees around the hut seemed to creak in anticipation, like coiled springs. The witch merely rocked and watched him quietly, unconcerned. “You see too much, old woman,” he muttered.