Chapter 108: What Corr Saw (1)

Ansel Corr’s eyes opened slowly.

For several seconds, they wandered across the ceiling without seeming to see anything.

Then they moved.

Across the chamber.

Past the Lord Commander and the officers seated around the long table.

Until they found Odrin Kass.

"Captain."

The word was barely more than a rasp.

Kass moved immediately.

He crossed the room and stopped beside the stretcher, taking Corr’s hand before saying anything.

"I am here."

Corr’s fingers closed weakly around his.

For a moment, his eyes remained on the Far Watch Captain.

Then something in his face broke.

"My party. Captain, I lost them all."

Kass’s expression did not change.

"I know."

"Dorn went first."

Corr swallowed.

"Sena after him. Brey... Brey was on the ninth day coming back."

His breathing became uneven.

"I couldn’t carry him."

Kass tightened his grip.

"Ansel."

"Wick was just nineteen."

Corr’s face twisted.

He turned his head away, but the tears had already begun.

"I left them to die."

Nobody at the table moved.

Corr had spent nineteen years in the Far Watch.

He was not a man who spoke easily about death. He had buried friends, lost patrols, and returned from places where other men had not. Kass had known him for years and had never once seen him cry.

Now the tears ran freely down Corr’s face.

"I left them," he whispered again. "I had to."

His fingers trembled inside Kass’s hand.

"I had to leave them to get back."

"You survived," Kass said quietly.

"I abandoned them, captain."

"You survived."

"I sacrificed them so I could escape."

The words came out broken.

"I knew if I stayed, I would die with them."

Kass looked at him for a long moment.

The sedatives were still in his blood. That was the only explanation.

Ansel Corr would not have said any of this otherwise.

Kass had no intention of letting the Council hear the rest of it from a man who could barely keep his eyes open.

"We will talk about them later," he said.

Corr looked at him.

"Later?"

"Yes."

Kass kept his voice firm.

"I will hear everything in my hall without an audience. But not now."

Corr seemed to struggle with the thought.

Then he gave a small nod.

Kass glanced toward the Council.

"For now, tell them why you insisted on coming here."

Corr breathed slowly and his expression was such that he was remembering something that he never wanted to.

The room waited.

"I saw something."

Kass nodded.

"I know."

"No."

Corr’s eyes moved past him.

"You don’t."

Kass stepped back.

"Then tell them."

✧ ✧ ✧

Corr had been trained to give reports in order.

He did not begin with what frightened him.

He began with what he knew.

"We entered the Great Green Forest eleven weeks ago," he said.

His voice was still weak, but the further he went, the steadier it became.

"Five men with me. We were ordered to investigate the changes reported along the eastern routes. The animals had been behaving strangely. Patrols had found tracks where there should have been none. Roamer activity had fallen all of a sudden."

He paused.

"For the first few days, we found almost nothing."

"Nothing?" Vice-Commander Danel asked.

"Almost."

Corr looked toward him.

"There were fewer animals than there should have been. Fewer birds. Fewer insects. The forest itself was quiet."

Danel frowned.

Corr closed his eyes for a moment.

"There is always noise in the Green. Even when you cannot see an animal, you hear something. Branches moving. Birds calling. Small things in the undergrowth."

He opened his eyes again.

"We heard almost none of it."

They had continued deeper.

On the fourth day, they found their first creatures.

Corr described them carefully.

A Rackhorn was moving alone in th north-east direction and passed them without any reaction.

"They were behaving incorrectly as if they had abandoned their instincts."

The room grew quieter.

"Roamers we should have found hunting were walking alone. Herd animals were separated from their groups. Predators ignored prey that should have been easy kills."

"And you followed them."

"Yes."

"Why?"

Corr gave him a tired look.

"Because that was the only thing that made sense."

No one argued with that.

"We changed our route and followed the roamers."

He took another breath.

"Three days later, we found more."

The numbers increased.

First a dozen.

Then dozens.

Then creatures appearing from different directions, all moving along the same general bearing.

"By then we knew something was drawing them. We didn’t know what or why."

Corr’s eyes drifted toward the ceiling again.

"But we followed."

His voice dropped.

"And that was when we reached the basin."

The basin was enormous.

Corr described it as a natural depression in the forest, nearly two miles across, surrounded by thick woodland and broken ridges.

He had been there before.

Twice.

Both times, it had been ordinary forest.

This time, it was not.

"We reached the ridge just before midday," Corr said.

His fingers tightened around the edge of the blanket.

"My first thought was that we had found a migration."

Kass watched him carefully.

"My second was that I had never seen anything like it."

"What did you see?" someone asked.

Corr was silent for a few seconds.

Then he said, "Tens of thousands."

The words seemed too small for what he had seen.

"There were creatures everywhere."

He began listing them.

Rackhorns.

Gorehorns.

Sumpers.

Reevers.

Predators and prey.

Creatures that normally would have killed each other on sight.

All gathered together.

None of them were fighting, feeding or fleeing.

"They filled the basin," Corr said.

His voice had become almost distant.

"They stood among the trees. They covered the streams. They were on the slopes."

He swallowed.

"We watched more arrive while we were there."

Corr looked toward Ulrich Vance.

"There were at least tens of thousands."

The Lord Commander said nothing.

Corr’s gaze moved around the Council.

"And the worst part was that they were not gathered because something had driven them there."

Corr’s eyes hardened.

"They were waiting."

✦ ✦ ✦