The Whispering Trees (4 page)

Sordyr ran a branch hand over Shadowdancer's flank. His surprisingly nimble fingers were as long as broom bristles and segmented into dozens of barely perceptible joints.

“Kara,” he said. “You have returned to me. As I knew you would.”

“I had no choice.”

“Yes. They would have killed you otherwise, no? The same gutless sheep whose lives you saved.”

Kara said nothing.

“Come to me,” Sordyr said, inching forward until his cloak danced along the edge of the stone. “Just one step. That's all it takes. Close your eyes if it will make it easier. I have such things to teach you. You think you know magic. You think you've learned the extent of your power. You know nothing.”

“Let Shadowdancer go.”

Sordyr paused, confused for a moment, before following Kara's eyes to the mare. Something in his throat clicked with amusement.

“You've named the beast that carries you on its back? How very human of you.”

“She's my friend.”

“I see.”

Reaching beneath the folds of his cloak, Sordyr pried apart the bark-like plate of his chest. His hand dug deep,
loosening a waterfall of soil and black mud, then deeper still, searching for something.

Finally he produced a single black seed and offered it to Kara.

“You can save her,” he said. “Your
friend
. Simply swallow this and I will set her free.”

The seed vibrated eagerly between his branched fingertips.

Taff pulled on Kara's hand.

“No,” he said. “Don't do it.”

“I can't let him hurt Shadowdancer.”

“Listen to your brother,” added Mary. “I've seen what happens. Swallow that and you'll belong to the Forest Demon forever.”

Kara stepped forward to the very edge of the stone bridge. In the soil just beyond her boots, dozens of wormlike roots probed the air, ready to pounce the moment Kara's foot touched earth. Sordyr's cloak snapped at the air and strange odors overwhelmed her: a tree stump
swollen with decay, rotten flora scraped from the bottom of a swamp.

“Come to me,
wexari
,” said Sordyr. “I will not ask again.”

“Please,” Kara said. “Don't hurt her.”

Sordyr shoved the seed down Shadowdancer's throat. The mare gagged and shuddered but ivy slithered from within the arms of Sordyr's cloak and clamped Shadowdancer's mouth shut. “No!” Kara shouted, trying to rush to Shadowdancer's assistance but unable to escape the grasp of Mary and Taff, who pulled her backward onto the bridge.

The mare became very still. Kara looked into her eyes and saw the life there flicker and extinguish like a candle flame left too close to an open window. In less than a moment Kara's companion was gone forever.

A new life began.

Shadowdancer's beautiful chestnut-brown flank disintegrated, revealing not bones but a skeleton frame composed
of twisted branches. Black orchids burst forth from her eyes. The creature that was once Shadowdancer looked up at Kara without any sign of recognition, her flowered gaze now dark and malevolent, and whinnied—soft and choked, as though forced through a mouthful of dirt. The branchwolves responded in kind, not a howl of anger or hunger but something far worse: a cry of immense suffering. Kara covered Taff's ears and he clamped his hands over hers, shaking his head from side to side.

Sordyr waved a hand and all sound stopped.

“You could have saved her,” he said, stroking the mane of red ivy still growing into place. “You chose to save yourself instead. Perhaps we are not so different, you and I.”

Kara wanted to be angry. She wanted to tell him he was wrong. But words and emotions would be meaningless to the Forest Demon, a dark force as implacable as the sun abandoning the world to night.

He will win eventually. Even if I had my magic there is no way
to fight him. All I can do is run
.

“Good-bye, Shadowdancer,” Kara said, forcing herself to look straight into the horse's orchid eyes.

She took Taff by the hand and began to back away; Mary Kettle had already vanished into the darkness of the bridge. “It's all right,” she told Taff. “He can't cross the bridge. We're safe.”

But then Sordyr raised a branch hand and pointed in their direction.

“Bring me the girl,” he told the branchwolves gathered around him. “As alive as you can. The other two you can do with what you will.”

T
he five branchwolves that spilled onto the bridge seemed slightly unsure of themselves at first, like children learning how to ice-skate. Kara took this opportunity to open some distance between them. She longed to sprint, but the bridge was narrow and there were no walls to guard against a sudden spiral into the depths. Besides, even though Taff was fast for his age, he still wouldn't be able to keep up with her long strides, and there was no way Kara was going to leave him behind to fend for himself.

Quickly, however, the branchwolves found their footing and began to gain ground. Over the thudding of her beating heart, Kara heard their approaching nails clicking lightly against the stone.

“Run!” Kara exclaimed.

“I am!”

“Run faster!” She pulled Taff's hand as hard as she dared. If he stumbled or fell over, the branchwolves would be upon them. The stone blurred beneath her feet, darkness squeezing against them on all sides.

Suddenly Kara felt a sharp pain. A branchwolf—only a runt, but clearly the fastest of the pack—had jumped up and nipped her forearm, losing its balance in the process. Almost immediately it found purchase on the stones and charged again, leaping gracefully through the air. At the last possible moment Kara kicked it as hard as she could. It was light, like a sack full of leaves, and with a muffled yelp flew backward along the bridge, knocking into a second wolf. The two plummeted over the edge, their choked
whines followed, a long time afterward, by a cracking sound no louder than a foot stepping on a branch.

The remaining three wolves withdrew, and the bridge grew silent, even the rain slowing to a drizzle.

“Are you hurt bad?” Taff asked.

Kara shook her head. She could feel a thin trickle of blood running down her arm, but the pain was no worse than a bee sting. It was the least of their worries right now.

They proceeded through the darkness, their pace slower, more deliberate. The bridge, cracked with age and wear, narrowed considerably. Lifetimes ago the stones might have been smooth enough for wagon wheels, but now jagged fissures made even walking difficult.

Taff slipped his hand from Kara's grip and peered over the edge.

“I wonder how far it goes,” he said, picking up a stone from the debris that littered the bridge.

“Taff!”

“I just want to see!”

He tossed the stone over the edge, and it seemed to hover in midair for a moment before an undulating shape carried it away. Kara glimpsed what might have been the eye of a great leviathan floating in the darkness, far too large to notice something as insignificant as a stone on its back.

“Let's go,” said Kara.

“Yes,” said Taff, nodding in agreement. “Let's go.”

Sunlight was fading fast. Kara had no idea how long this bridge was, but if they didn't reach the other side by nightfall, the crossing would become far more dangerous.

“What happened to Mary Kettle?” Taff asked.

“She left us,” said Kara. “Just like everyone else.”

“I don't know about that,” said Taff. “She might be waiting for us at the end of the bridge. I think she went ahead to make sure it was safe.”

“Taff—you need to understand. No one is going to help us. We have to get through this by ourselves.”

“That's not true. There are good people. They'll help us. You'll see.”

Kara sighed.
How can he think that after all we've been through? After everyone he's ever known turned against him—even Father
.

“It's probably for the best anyway,” Kara said. “You know the stories about Mary Kettle. She's even scarier than Sordyr.”

“No,” Taff said, and there was a terrible timidity in his voice that Kara had never heard before. “Nothing's scarier than him.”

She squeezed his hand, hating the Forest Demon more than ever.

Their jog settled into a slow and steady walk, Kara constantly glancing downward to make sure each step met stone and not empty air. Finally Taff exclaimed, “I can see the other side!”

That was when they came. A dozen branchwolves, maybe more.

They didn't flee
.
They went back for reinforcements
.

“Go!” Kara told her brother. “Don't turn around! Just run!”

Taff sped ahead, vanishing into the dark. Kara hoped he was far away by the time he realized his sister was not by his side.

I need to buy him some time. It's me they want, after all. Besides, I handled two of these wolves pretty easily. Maybe they aren't as scary as they look
.

The pack crept toward her, noses low to the ground, like walking skeletons constructed from branches instead of bones. Within the rib cage of each monstrosity beat a clump of black mud.

Were these once real wolves? Did he change them like Shadowdancer?

At that moment one of the wolves leaped over her head and slid along the stone, turning nimbly to block her path. This one was larger than the others, with two broken branches where its ribs should be. Battle scars.

Kara took a step backward and heard dirt-choked growls just behind her. Though she was loath to take her eyes off the pack leader, Kara glanced over her shoulder long enough to see a semicircle of approaching wolves.

She could go neither forward nor backward. To either side of her loomed a long fall into nothingness.

There was no escape.

The pack leader arched his back and watched her expectantly, his eyes wilted roses. Behind the wolf she heard sounds of struggle, the participants obscured by darkness. “Let me go, you old hag!” screamed Taff. “We have to help her!”

“No,” replied Mary Kettle, the words meant more for Kara than Taff. “She needs to do this on her own.”

After this the old woman was silent, and though Taff had a lot more to say—including several words that would have earned his mouth a good soap-washing back in De'Noran—Kara blocked him out. Her concentration remained on the pack leader.
There's no point trying to
go back the way I came
, she thought,
with Sordyr waiting at the other end of the bridge. I have to somehow get past this big one
. Kara feinted to the right and then sprinted forward, thinking she could slip past the pack leader. The wolf remained still. She thought she saw the hint of a smile part the leaf where its mouth should be.

Then the wolf grunted something, lower and more guttural than the previous sounds she had heard. At first Kara thought it was trying to communicate with her, but then she turned and saw a member of the pack behind her step forward, stick paws clicking against the stone. Though not as large as the leader, this branchwolf was still fierce-looking, with a broken twig at the top of its head that extended like a sharpened horn.

They're not going to attack me all at once
, Kara thought.
It's too narrow. They don't want to fall
.

But even as Kara thought this, she knew it wasn't true. They weren't worried about their own lives. They were worried about something happening to her, what their
master would do if they harmed his prize.

They feared Sordyr more than they feared death.

Kara scanned her surroundings for a weapon and found a loose stone, as large as a brick, jutting from a crack in the bridge.

A hush of anticipation fell over the wolves. Bending its head so low that the pointed branch atop his head scratched the ground, the champion that the pack leader had chosen pounced forward.

For a moment, Kara considered throwing the stone. The branchwolf was hollow and probably weighed less than Taff; one solid hit might shatter him to bits. Before she could decide, however, the champion was already leaping through the air, headed straight toward her. Kara stepped to the side, thinking to dodge its horn, but the branchwolf surprised her by turning its head at the last minute and snapping at her calf instead.

Kara felt the bottom of her dress dampen with blood. She pricked a black thorn from her leg.

The champion gave her no time to rest. This time it slid across the stone bridge, using its momentum to knock Kara off her feet. It stood over her and drooled a handful of black earth onto her face. Without breaking eye contact, Kara grasped for a weapon and felt something solid. A stone. She drove it into the monster's left paw. The branchwolf howled in pain. Broken twigs scattered across the bridge. The champion fell, tried to rise, then fell again. Kara got to her feet and raised the stone high in the air but had no heart to destroy the creature, injured as it was.

A soft jingle filled the air: Mary Kettle's sack, swinging from side to side as she emerged from the darkness. Taff followed close behind, dragging a too-heavy stick along the ground. Instead of attacking them—as Kara was certain it would—the pack leader backed away warily, moving past Kara to rejoin the other wolves.