Green Jack (29 page)

Will stared at
her. “You’re my hero, Liv.”

Caradoc
exhaled. “Directorate trap.” His head snapped around. “Don’t
move!”

Too late.

The ground
suddenly gave away under Will and he crashed through the cover of
leaves into the pit waiting below. He disappeared, screaming. “I
said don’t move!” Caradoc yelled when everyone twitched
instinctively towards Will. He moaned, sounds more animal than
anything human. Every line of Livia’s body angled towards him.

“He’s alive,”
Caradoc snapped. “But we can’t charge in there blindly.” He
crouched to liberate a long branch from the side of the road.
“Nobody jacking move.”

“Let me do it,”
Roarke said. “They need you in the City.”

“Saffron,”
Caradoc asked, ignoring him. “If Roarke moves, knock him out.”

Caradoc used
the branch like a walking staff, gingerly prodding the ground ahead
before taking a step. It was a slow and arduous process. Sweat ran
down Saffron’s nose and she hadn’t even moved. He found another
pit, this one more of a shallow trench, but it was filed with
broken bottles and rusted metal. “Almost there,” Livia called out.
“Will? Will!”

There was a
clear path to Will, and another that required climbing over rocks
and partly up a tree. “Too easy,” Saffron warned loudly. She
remembered an old entrance to the underground market where soldiers
had set traps of wire, trigger-released rifles, and bombs in old
soda cans. One casual kick and Saffron and Killian had seen a girl
blown into pieces. Her blood stained the bricks for months.

“I need a
rock,” Caradoc said. Roarke bent to retrieve one from the rubble of
the road. “Don’t miss.”

Saffron stopped
him. “Let me. Saffron the Stupendous, remember?”

She focused on
Caradoc who pivoted to face her. He lifted his hand, waiting. She
stared at his palm until it was the only thing she could see. She
released a long steady breath and lobbed the rock. He caught it
easily and tossed it onto the path in front of him.

Nothing.

Saffron’s neck
muscles threatened to snap.

“Again,”
Caradoc said. Roarke was already collecting them, and passing them
to Saffron. She threw four more and they lay innocuously on the
path.

The fifth stone
broke open the forest.

The mine
shattered dirt, fire and twigs. The blast shivered through the
trees, shaking trunks and tearing though leaves. The force of the
explosion sent Caradoc careening backwards. He seemed to hang in
the seared air for an impossible moment before hitting the ground.
Heat and power flung the others away with enough force to steal
their breaths. Saffron’s ears rang and her lungs clenched. Yellow
dandelion petals drifted off her mask.

She grabbed
Roarke’s ankle when he scrambled to get up, screaming his uncle’s
name, and was nearly kicked in the face for her trouble. He only
subsided when Caradoc sat up slowly, covered in dirt and blood. His
shirt was shredded, the left side of his body raw with welts and
scrapes. Roarke slumped with relief. Livia took her hands away from
her ears. Caradoc spat dirt. “Guess I’m going to need more
stones.”

The sound of
his voice was muffled as if Saffron was underwater, but she could
mostly hear it around the throbbing in her ears. She studied the
damage of the landmine, the small crater of earth, the branches
dangling above, the smoldering leaves. The rest of the path led
into the trees. “I can get us through the next part,” she said. She
thought she might be shouting.

She eased
closer, taking care to step only where Caradoc had already stepped.
The grass tangled around her. She crouched, digging through it
until she could feel a tree root pushing up through the ground.
“Come on,” she muttered to the mask or the green, or both.
“Grow.”

The smell of
pine needles grew sharper, stronger.

She pushed an
image through the roots, and the branches growing out to touch each
other over the path. She imagined a bridge growing towards the pit
where Will had stopped making any noise at all. The branches grew,
touched, but didn’t form anything but more forest shadows. Her
hair, full of thistles fell into her face and she pushed back at
it, frustrated. A thick braid brushed her elbow, giving her an
idea. She pulled tendrils out of the leaf mask and braided them
together. “Come on,” she muttered. “You owe me.”

Slowly, slowly,
the branches responded. Birch and maple and pine tangled together,
braiding into a bridge any Dryad would have been proud of. She
straightened, weary and light-headed. “Let me try first,” she said.
“If it’s not strong enough, the trees should keep me from falling.”
It was as good a theory as any.

She used the
thrown rocks as a guide and stepped up onto the branches. She hoped
she wasn’t about to plummet and break something important like her
ass. They creaked, but held. She took another step and suddenly it
was just like crossing the rope bridges in the City. Caradoc and
Roarke followed.

Will was
slumped inside the pit, the bottom was lined with sharpened sticks,
glass, and rusted metal. He was just out of reach. There was blood
on his face and his neck, but he was breathing. “Will, grab the
branch,” Caradoc was on his stomach, reaching down. Will moaned,
eyelids fluttering. “Damn it, the blast knocked him out.”

“There’s rope
over here,” Livia said. She was close enough that Saffron could see
the melted buttons on her jacket.

“No,” Caradoc
said. “Anything that looks useful or tempting in any way is
probably hiding a bomb of some kind. Don’t touch anything.”

Livia recoiled.
Saffron reached up to grab three pliable branches from the tree
brushing her shoulder with leaves. She braided the branches
together, willing them to keep growing in the same pattern. She was
glistening with sweat by the time she had something long enough to
be useful. She looped it around her waist and Caradoc lowered her
down. She had to tuck her feet against the side so as not to get
caught in a nest of rusty barbed wire.

Will’s legs
were torn and raw. One of the stakes was stuck near his shin,
pinning him. She couldn’t quite reach it to free him. She looped
the branches around his chest, knotting them. She hoped he passed
out again. “Pull him up!”

There was a
sharp tug and he choked on a scream. He was conscious and clammy by
the time they pulled him out completely. Caradoc carried him on his
back over the bridge back to the relative safety of the fields.
Livia was cleaning and wrapping Will’s legs when Jane and Nico
found them. His boots, thankfully, had mostly protected his
feet.

“Shit,” Nico
rushed to Will. “What happened?”

“Protectorate
traps,” he downed whiskey from a flask.

“We got the
bleeding stopped,” Livia sat back. “Mostly.”

“You’ll have to
head back to camp in the morning,” Caradoc said. “Can you handle
it?”

Will nodded.
Saffron noticed Jane had a fat lip. “Shanti or Anya?”

“Shanti,” Nico
confirmed. “She was perfect.”

“No,” Jane
elbowed him hard. “You are not allowed to flirt with the girl who
beat up my face.”

“But she agreed
to a meeting?”

Jane touched
the bruise on her jaw. “Eventually.”

Chapter
50

Jane

The Feral
village was essentially the same: layers of baked clay and wooden
platforms and hidden gardens, but the scorched edges were new.
There were still plants, but not as many. The coyotes paced close,
growling softly. As the emissaries, Jane and Nico walked in front,
with Saffron tucked in the centre and surrounded with drawn
weapons. Likely an insult to Feral hospitality but Greencoats knew
one thing: protect the Green Jill, even here under the fierce blue
sky and fiercer sun.

Shanti and Anya
waited outside one of the painted tents. Shanti’s white face
tattoos glowed against her dark skin and Nico’s posture
straightened slightly. Jane resisted the urge to smack the back of
his head, but only barely.

“Elisande will
speak to you now,” Anya said. Her red hair was braided and coiled
into what looked like a hangman’s rope. Jane decided not to take it
as a sign. Sometimes, a creepy bloodthirsty girl was just a creepy
bloodthirsty girl. Anya’s and Shanti’s spears crossed. “Only the
Jill.”

“The Jill has
her honour guard, just like Elisande,” Jane said quickly before
Nico started spouting poetry or Saffron shot her mouth off.

Anya looked
annoyed. “Fine.” She moved aside. “Hands where I can see them,
Numina.”

Caradoc pushed
through to stand with Jane, and they escorted Saffron into the dim
cool of the tent. Elisande sat on a stool, pouring hot water over
the mint leaves she cut from a small plant in a mosaic pot. She
wore her full ritual regalia, from the antlered headdress to the
porcupine quill dress and the flute at her belt. If Caradoc was
surprised that the shamanka was an adolescent girl, he didn’t look
it.

Saffron dropped
onto the edge of a cushion and pushed the leaf mask up off her
face. “It itches,” she said by way of a greeting.

“Fox girl,”
Elisande said.

“Little girl,”
Saffron shot back.

Jane closed her
eyes briefly. “Diplomacy, remember?” she hissed at Saffron.

Saffron made an
irritated noise but made an effort not to glower. Elisande’s eyes
went distant, hazy. “Wolf,” she said to Caradoc. “And hawk,” she
added to Jane. Jane could have sworn she felt the flutter of
wings.

“We have a
proposal for you,” Saffron interrupted.

“Is it in the
form of an apology?” Elisande asked. “For burning down our
gardens?”

“I’ll apologize
for that when you apologize for taking us hostage.”

“We would have
treated you well.” She was dangerously close to petulant.

“And you still
can,” Jane said smoothly. “We need warriors,” she continued. “And
everyone knows Feral warriors are the best.”

Anya smirked at
the flattery. Still, it diffused some of the tension. Elisande was
too sharp to take it at face value, but she still struggled not to
preen. “We aren’t mercenaries,” she said.

“Maybe not, but
everyone has a price,” Saffron said, matter-of-factly. “We need
fighters to infiltrate the city and take on the Directorate; you
need a Green Jill.”

“What exactly
are you offering?” Anya asked sharply.

Saffron reached
out to touch the mint plant. It responded almost instantly, turning
a dark vibrant green and unfurling new leaves. The strong scent of
peppermint competed with the incense. “Once we’re done in the City,
I stay here for a month in exchange for your help with the
fight.”

“Ferals don’t
go into the City.”

“Wouldn’t you
like to take the fight to the Directorate for once?” Saffron asked.
“To take them by surprise?” Saffron explained the situation,
without mentioning Cartimandua’s relation to Caradoc.

Shanti frowned.
“This isn’t our concern.”

“It doesn’t
have to be,” Saffron pointed out. “Because come harvest time,
you’ll have food to feed your village. And I think that is your
concern.”

“Only a month?”
Elisande asked. “We’re worth more than that. A month per
warrior.”

Saffron choked.
“No way. Two weeks per warrior.”

“One
month.”

“Three
weeks.”

“One
month.”

Saffron
muttered something under her breath that sounded a lot like “brat”
but was too muffled to be properly heard. “Fine.”

“Why negotiate
at all?” Anya asked. “You’re here now.”

Caradoc hadn’t
moved or spoken since he’d ducked into the tent and the harsh snap
of his voice startled them. “Because I always assumed the Ferals
had honour.”

“You can’t eat
honour,” Anya shrugged.

“We’ve sent you
food,” Caradoc pointed out. “The Greencoats have always shared
their bounty. We aren’t the enemies.”

Elisande pulled
her knees up, making her look even younger. “And if you die,
Saffron? We’re left with nothing.”

“I’m not going
to die, you creepy little girl.”

“That promise
isn’t yours to make, is it?”

“Another Jack
would take her place,” Caradoc said.

Saffron’s
shoulders hunched. “I feel like a potato being bartered over at the
underground market.”

“And how do we
know this isn’t a plot to weaken us? To send our warriors out of
the village and leave it vulnerable?” Shanti asked.

Saffron rolled
her eyes. “I don’t want your village. I don’t actually like it
here.”

“You have my
word,” Caradoc said. “As Caradoc of the Spirit Forest.”

“And you would
really stay with us?” Eisande asked Saffron quietly. “Your oath on
the fox that walks with you?”

“For the
agreed-upon time, as long as you treat me well.” Saffron answered
very pointedly. “And you don’t get to keep me. I’m not a pet.”

“But you’d stay
inside the gardens the entire time? Sleep there too?”

“I’ll make out
with the corn if you think it’ll help.”

Elisande sat
for a long moment before turning to look at Shanti, then at Anya.
Shanti shook her head. Anya smiled. Elisande closed her eyes, lips
moving as she murmured words to spirits, or totems, or just
herself. There was no way to know. Except for Jane, who felt numen
brush her skin, lifting the hairs on her arms. Elisande’s eyes
snapped open. “I agree.”

“Good,” Anya’s
smiled turned to a grin worthy of a people called feral. “I’ll go.”
Shanti didn’t look pleased. Anya shrugged. “You don’t have to.”