Free Forest Kingdom Trilogy 3 - Down Among the Dead Men by Simon R. Green

sniffed cautiously at the air, but only familiar scents came to him: the sharp, taut smells of bark and leaf, and the rich smoky aroma of broken earth. Jack concentrated on his inner magic, the simple basic accord between him and the trees. There was a storm coming, a bad one by the feel of it, but he already knew that from the afternoon clouds and the closeness of the air. Something was
wrong
in the Forest … something old and terrible had been disturbed from its ancient sleep… .
    There were giants in the earth in those days
.
    Something evil was abroad in the night. The birds and the animals knew. The night should have been alive with the small, furtive sounds of hunters and their prey, but instead the darkness was still and silent, and animals and birds alike huddled together in their lairs and waited for the evil to pass.
    Jack frowned, worried. How could such an evil have awakened in the Forest without him being aware of it before now? And then he smiled grimly as he realized he already knew the answer. He’d been so taken up with his new partners of late that he’d had no time for anything but them. Half the Forest could have burned down, and he wouldn’t have noticed it till he smelled the smoke. Jack sighed regretfully. He wasn’t happy with the way things were, but for the moment he was powerless to do anything about it. He’d just have to wait and keep his eyes open. His eyes … or someone else’s. He grinned broadly as an answer came to him. He stood up and closed his eyes, cast his mind out among the tall trees, calling in a soundless shout. He opened his eyes and waited patiently, and a few minutes later a flurry of whiteness came sweeping through the night toward him like a silent ghost. Jack put up his arm at the last moment, and the owl landed heavily on his forearm and settled itself comfortably. The claws pricked his arm through the thin rags, but didn’t penetrate his skin. The owl looked at him seriously, and Jack met its great golden eyes with his own. An understanding passed between them.
    He was flying through the Forest, gliding on outstretched wings. The night was unnaturally quiet, and an evil presence beat in the darkness like a giant heart. He turned in the evil’s direction and flew toward it, curious. The trees swayed by on either side of him and then fell suddenly away as he burst out of the Forest and into the clearing. Moonlight flared around him like a shout of thunder as he fluttered to a halt in midair. A great pile of stone and wood lay at the center of the clearing—the border fort. Once he would have used it as a resting place or a nesting ground. But not now. The evil was there, waiting. A great eye crawled slowly open deep in the darkness, and the owl turned and fled back to the safety of the tall trees and Jack was suddenly himself again, the contact broken.
    He lifted his arm, and the owl flew back into the darkness and was gone. Jack frowned thoughtfully. While in the border fort his senses had been dulled by the unyielding presence of the human world, but now that he was back in the Forest all his instincts cried out against entering the fort again. Unfortunately, he no longer had a choice in the matter. Jack shrugged and padded off into the trees, accelerating slowly into a steady lope he could maintain for hours if he had to. He was already late, and Hammer hated to be kept waiting. Jack smiled widely. There were a lot of things about Jack that Hammer hated.
    His smile vanished as he thought about Jonathon Hammer. The man might be a cold bastard, but he’d undoubtedly saved Jack’s life, and Scarecrow Jack always paid his debts. He scowled briefly. It was his own damned fault for getting caught off guard in the first place. A simple little hole-in-the-ground trap, disguised and baited, and he fell for it. Literally. If Hammer hadn’t come along at just the right time, the guards would have had him for sure, and Scarecrow Jack’s head would have stood on a pike in