Oathbreaker, Book 1: The Knight's Tale - Colin McComb

The Forester’s Tale
Cold steel presses into my throat, and passionless eyes stare into mine. My death is upon me…
but I feel no fear. The woods are alive around me. I hear birds call, and the hum of the forest’s
insects is a reassuring drone. The afternoon’s rain drips from the leaves, and the setting sun
sparkles through the trees like an oaken halo. I am not afraid to die in the woods I love.
All morning we were on full alert—we, the elite of the King’s Foresters, knew this forest better
than our husbands and wives and children, better than we knew each other, better than our most
intimate lovers. The forest nurtures us, fills us with joy, breathes new hope into lives dulled by
pain, war, suffering. We are renewed here. In the wind’s whispering tracks we hear the health of
the river that nourishes the mighty trees. The forest is our home.
We were alert before Cox summoned us to the lodge with three short blasts on his horn—
the breeze broke in strange ways that morning, and the birds screamed their indignation from
their high nests: the forest’s peace was broken by an intruder. We knew the intruder was alone.
We knew he was skilled in the lore of our wood, too, because we didn’t know where he was.
We also knew he was dangerous. Cox would never have called us otherwise. He would
have let us track the intruder down ourselves and deal with the interloper as we dealt with all
trespassers in the King’s Forest. We showed no mercy.
We gathered at the stilt lodge, moving silently, singly and in pairs among the old trunks.
Usually we traveled alone, but this was the Year of the Journeyman. Those of us who had taken
’prentices two years ago now traveled with our charges to see their skills. Warren had Xis, an old
southern infantryman who had taken to the teachings as well as any child, and already he moved
more silently than some who had been born to the wood. Three others came as well, with the
nicknames we’d given ’em: Toll Halfman, the eunuch from Terona; Strom Surehand from the
cold northeast; and Brus the Clean.
My ’prentice had washed out. There was no shame in it.
I was one of the first to arrive. We greeted each other with a nod and a name (“Mishi,”
they said to me), and no more—foresters are quiet folk at the best of times. When thirty of us
were there, Cox began to speak. His words were terse, clipped. “I received word from Terona.
Colin McComb Oathbreaker, Book 1: The Knight's Tale
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