by Kevin Hearne
They had sown crops outside the walls, so they were definitely going to be staying for months. The walls, though, were undeniable proof that they intended to claim the land as their own. One simply didn’t go to the expense or trouble otherwise.
We could ruin their crops without a problem—so could the Raelechs—but they wouldn’t be depending on them for sustenance. They had the sea and a glass fleet. They’d trade with other Hathrim cities for all they needed or simply cast nets off the coast, and no one could stop them. The problem of how we would ever get them to leave without a full-scale war of allied forces grew and grew in my mind until I remembered that it wasn’t a problem I had to solve. I was meant to defend the Canopy, not besiege a Hathrim city on the plains. Let the strategists worry about that. All I had to do was get them the information they needed to do their jobs.
“Count everything,” I said. “We need numbers above all. Look especially for hounds, realizing that some are on patrol, and also see if you can spy any Raelechs milling about; the Triune Council would like to know.”
Silence stretched except for the susurrus of the ocean on our left and the sad sounds of chopping wood to our right. There were thousands of Hathrim below. Nearly ten thousand; when we consulted, the grassgliders’ figures and mine varied somewhat, but we put their numbers between nine thousand two hundred and nine thousand six hundred. And with Hathrim you almost had to count every single one as a potential military threat. Any giant could kick one of us in the chest and break our rib cage.
They had sixty-five hounds, though some of them were pups as tall as me; a protected well inside the walls; and what looked like an extensive cache of grain and other foodstuffs that they had brought with them. We could see the brown bags of it piled underneath a rudimentary shelter from the rain.
I supposed the key figure beyond their raw population would be to estimate how many lavaborn they had and of what strength. Sparkers and firelords were bad enough, but if they had a fury, we might as well give up now. Mere giants could be overcome, but giants made of fire were another thing entirely.
The number of giants wearing gray or black leathers was far too high, approaching a thousand. There was no way they had that many lavaborn. But that also meant we had no way to tell what we were facing.
Nef spotted the Raelechs because of the new construction. The wall was complete—it extended all the way to the shore and enclosed a vast area, so much that I thought it would be difficult to defend, but then I thought that anything besides the Canopy would be difficult to defend. I supposed that if you had lavaborn able to set attackers on fire, that would make it easier. Or spray oil over the walls and ignite that instead; probably less effort involved.
The Raelechs were constructing siege breaks outside the walls. Deep, wide pits that would have to be spanned, and outside of those pits were shorter walls, perhaps five feet tall. A giant could step over them. And a giant could certainly fire down over them from the top of the city walls—they were building this within bowshot. But attackers would have to climb the wall and then fall into a pit that the Hathrim would no doubt fill with a trencher of flaming oil, all the while dealing with the many different ways the lavaborn could make fire rain down from the sky. The Nentians wouldn’t stand a chance without our help and that of other nations. I wondered if other nations would care enough to actually send troops; it wasn’t their country being invaded, after all. I knew, however, that we wouldn’t hesitate. We could not abide having the lavaborn so close. Already their hearths were blazing with the wood of murdered trees.
“I want to know what those Raelechs are thinking,” Nef said. “I’d like to just ask them right now, ‘Do you know that you’re helping the Hathrim invade Ghurana Nent?’ And then, regardless of whether they say yes or no, punch them in their seed pods.”
Snickers and snorts from the others: it was what we were all thinking. “Tricking them was probably the cleverest thing he did,” I said. “Without those walls they wouldn’t be such a threat. You guys have your counts? We should withdraw and get back to the Canopy.”
Affirmatives all around, we made our slow, silent way uphill to our cache of clothes. I was mentally congratulating myself on a smooth operation when Nef heard the hounds coming a split second before the rest of us and said, “Houndsmen.” Grumbly woofs off to the east, not angry or excited, just conversation. A patrol coming our way. The grassgliders looked to me for direction.
“Up the trees,” I whispered. “Quick and silent.”
We knew coming in we couldn’t outrun the hounds, but we could outclimb them. The grassgliders had brought hooks and spikes for their wrists and ankles. My kenning would let me scale the trunks without aid, and I leapt onto the trunk of the nearest moss pine and began to climb as high as I could to get myself out of sight. I wasn’t camouflaged like the grassgliders were and would stick out against the bark. Disappearing into the branches above was my best bet.
Unfortunately, outside the kenning of my companions—unavoidable in this case—I made some noise. The grassgliders rose up the trunks without a sound, visibly jamming hooks and spikes into the bark that should have sounded like chopping, but only my soft scrabbling could be heard, and it attracted the hounds. Their barks grew urgent, inquisitive, and the houndsmen riding them sounded annoyed. They probably thought their hounds had heard a squirrel or something.
I suppose I did qualify as something.
There were two houndsmen, a small patrol, and their hounds snuffled at the ground beneath my tree and the others nearby that the grassgliders had climbed. I could not see my companions at all; they had gone still and blended in perfectly with the bark of the moss pines.
I, too, had gone still, since any movement could be heard and would draw their gazes upward. I did not blend with the bark, though; I was a black blob on the tree with odd gray patches where my silverbark limbs stood out.
The Hathrim riders groused at each other as their hounds inhaled our scents. One of them kept heading uphill, following the path to our cache, and that gave me an idea—if we could get out of these trees. I was counting on the riders to eventually get impatient and pull the hounds away, but a cone fell out of the tree I was clinging to and plopped to the ground behind the closest one. He turned, located the cone, and looked up. And that was when he saw me and shouted at his companion. Within a few seconds I had both houndsmen pointing up at me and shouting. If they wanted me to climb down and be eaten, they had unrealistic expectations regarding my obedience.
It could have been worse: they had axes but no bows, and neither one appeared to be lavaborn. I guessed the latter since I had not already combusted.
But it wasn’t long until one of them yanked his mount downhill toward the city, presumably to get either a bow or one of the lavaborn to smoke me out of the tree. I had a very short window in which to attempt an escape.
And this was why the grassgliders needed a greensleeve to lead them. If I could save them by sacrificing myself, I would. The houndsmen would conclude that I had drawn the hounds and eventually would move off. The grassgliders could wait in silence, camouflaged, and return to Forn without me. The Canopy would be served, and Gorin Mogen would surely be foiled. A worthy trade for my life.
This grand moss pine was not of the Canopy, but it was of Teldwen, and through my kenning I could speak to it and through it. Indeed, I could act through it if I was willing, and I was very willing.
Closing my eyes and sending shoots from my silverbark to merge with the soft woody flesh of the pine, I felt its strength and reach in the earth and its stolid contentment with the sun and the rain here, the birds that built nests in its branches, and the wild hogs that foraged nearby and fertilized its base every so often. I showed it the hound standing at its base, convinced it that it must be destroyed, and triggered the fusing of my impatient mind with its branching patience, catalyzing the channeling of Teldwen’s energy through the earth. It moved up the tree, into me, where it was infused with purpose, and then back int
o the tree, directed now to spur accelerated growth and then—
—my strong roots burst through the ground, wrapping around limbs and pulling down, down, until bones snapped and a creature cried out, but still I pulled until its limbs tore free and I took my prizes with me into the earth. Another creature landed on the ground, only two legs this time, but they must be taken also. More roots erupt and seek to twine about those limbs, but they are hacked and bitten by a blade, hateful axe hewing my flesh and spilling sap. Bigger roots, then, and more of them, reaching higher: Wrap its limbs, trap the axe, pull all of it down into the earth, where it will be still and silent and feed me its nutrients for seasons to come. Yes! Yes, hush, be quiet now; it’s over.
With some effort, I opened my eyes and broke the link with the grand moss pine, realizing that I was being kept aloft by nothing but the shoots from my silverbark embedded in the tree. Panicking, I lunged forward and grabbed on to the tree, then felt the ache all over and the weakness in my muscles. Melding my consciousness with that tree had drained me significantly. Looking down, however, I saw that it had bought us the opportunity we needed: The hound’s huge limbless body lay still below me, and its rider was nowhere to be seen, though the earth around the trunk was freshly turned.
“Grassgliders, move out!” I called. “We have to go before reinforcements arrive!”
My progress was slow and jerky, and I cared nothing for whatever sound I might make climbing down. I just wanted to make it to the ground without falling on it. I was breathing heavily by the time I got there, and my knees were shaky. The grassgliders were all waiting for me near the corpse of the hound.
“Ben Sah, that was incredible—hey. Are you all right?” Nef said. “You look ill.”
“I’m not ill,” I said. “Just older.” He was probably three or four years my senior, but I would not have been surprised if I looked like his elder now.
“Oh.”
“Don’t let the price I paid be in vain,” I said. “Let’s go, back to the cache, quickly!” I pointed uphill. “Move!”
I huffed behind them, barely able to keep pace but unashamed to strain. If we did not strain now, we might not survive.
When we arrived at our cache, I told them to just pick up their stuff and keep running. “No time to dress! Run back along the same way that we came in!”
I trailed behind them as we ran east along the Godsteeth, treacherous footing preventing us from moving much faster than a jog. It would be a troublesome pursuit for the Hathrim as the trees grew close together, but they would still move more quickly than we could and catch up to us long before we made it back to the pass.
But only if we remained on the same track. Keeping my eyes half on the trail and half in the branches above us, I waited until I spied a likely looking stand of pines and cedars stretching uphill.
“Stop here,” I said, and they did and turned to me, wondering if I had given up. I took a few moments to catch my breath and explained. “They will track us via scent. We have established a trail already coming in from the pass. We need to let them think that we stayed on that trail so that they will keep going. But we will not stay on that trail. We are going higher into the Godsteeth, and we will lose them on the Leaf Road.” I pointed up at the mixed canopy above us, which currently had nothing like a Leaf Road.
Their eyes drifted up, confirmed that it was just a random tangle of wood and needles, and then dropped back to me, no doubt wondering if I had succumbed to dementia.
“Ben Sah, your pardon, but I don’t see a Leaf Road.”
“Of course not. I haven’t made it yet.”
I had them jog a bit farther along the trail to strengthen the scent, and then they came back to the tree I had chosen and climbed first. They ascended after me with hook and spike on the side opposite the trail so that their passage might go unnoticed by houndsmen passing by. They leapt as far off the trail as possible first in an effort to leave no trace.
Once again, I sent my shoots into the bark of a grand moss pine, but this time my efforts were not quite so demanding or taxing. I was strengthening and shaping what was already there, and communicating through roots, I coordinated with neighboring trees to form a narrow wooden bridge of branches between our tree and the next.
“Stealthily we go,” I whispered as the distant bark of hounds could be heard now, and the grassgliders engaged their kenning and we tiptoed across a narrow bridge, single file, from tree to tree. The grassglider in front of me and the one behind kept my noise to a minimum, and all the while I kept speaking to the trees through my silverbark so that a walkway formed in front of us and then the branches returned to their normal state after we had passed. In this way we walked uphill, yet above the hill, until we could go no higher: the trees stopped growing, and the bald, ever-snowy peaks of the Godsteeth rose above us, stark crags that might be passed but not without equipment that we didn’t have. As it was, we were very cold and would have to spend a night in it.
But the stratagem had worked. The barking of hounds never grew closer than distant, and they couldn’t follow our scent in the trees or even know where we had gone since we left no visible trail in the canopy. By the time we reached the tree line, it was near dusk and we were all exhausted. I found a place where four trees grew close together and asked them to form a platform of branches for us to rest on. We were only twelve feet off the ground and a houndsman could still reach us there, but I figured it wouldn’t matter—they’d never find us. The grassgliders dressed, pulling layers over their painted bodies. Since we had only enough water to drink, we ate dry rations, and as the sunlight faded, I caught a couple of uncertain glances in my direction as the grassgliders started to think about sleeping arrangements. We were all shivering and would need to huddle together for warmth, but the silverbark on my legs meant I couldn’t have anyone in front of me lest I damage the mushrooms on my legs. It would be best for me to settle the question before it could be asked, and there was no question in my mind who I wanted at my back: Nef.
He was efficient and skilled and possessed a calm charisma, and no, it didn’t hurt at all that I’d met few men as handsome. Dark hair and deep brown eyes and a pleasant curve to his lips. Once night fell, there was little else for us to do at that elevation except survive it, so I pulled a blanket out of my pack and motioned to Nef to grab his.
As I lay on my side, knees drawn up, Nef draped an arm around my belly after asking if it was okay and I laid my arm on top of his. He smelled of cedar and sweat and fit me like the hammock at home. I was so exhausted that I fell asleep after only a few minutes, but I woke an unknown time later with a start, having dreamt I was the houndsman pulled underground by pine roots and torn apart so that my blood would feed the tree.
“What? What is it?” Nef said, keeping his voice low, half rising in the chill to match me, propped up on an elbow. My breath fogged in front of me, pale gasping clouds in the starlight.
“Nothing. Well, not nothing—a nightmare. Probably …” I sighed. “Probably the first of many.”
I hoped I hadn’t woken the others. I lay back down and snuggled up against Nef, placing his arm and mine back where they were. He was warm and safe, and a pleasant weariness returned until I drifted off, only to wake again when images of bantil blossoms eating my face made me cry out.
These were ridiculous nightmares: plant life would never behave that way toward me. But I supposed I must carry these images of death within me now that I had caused the death of others. Nef understood and did not even seem annoyed when I woke for the third time.
“I cannot sleep anymore tonight,” I whispered to him. “Would it be okay if we talked? Perhaps you can project your silence around us and we won’t disturb the others.”
“Of course.” The sound of the night muted somewhat as he employed his kenning.
“Do you ever have nightmares?” I asked him, still keeping my voice low but no longer bothering to whisper.
“Yes. Mostly about me thinking I’m being quiet
but everyone can hear me. Like when—well. Promise you won’t tell?”
“I promise.”
“I cannot stand the thought of anyone hearing me relieve myself, so I use my kenning whenever I do. And my nightmares are about people hearing me anyway and making comments.”
For some reason that started me laughing, and then, to my horror, I couldn’t stop. Fortunately, Nef found it funny, too—or perhaps just the sound of me laughing was funny to him—and soon we were both carrying on until our stomachs hurt. It was far better than crying.
Feeling grateful and warm and affectionate and too late to stop myself, I realized that I had caressed the back of his hand with my fingers, an undeniable signal that he couldn’t have missed. I let my fingers go slack and forced myself to relax instead of tense up and said, “Tell me about your clan. You’re from the Brown Marmosets, right?”
I doubted my obvious distraction would make him forget what I had done, but I hoped he wouldn’t return the gesture. Except for the part of me that did. What if he felt nothing like that for me?
He told me about his uncle Vin Tai ben Dar, the greensleeve who took him to his Seeking as a youth, who defended a stretch of the southern coast, and who never lost a single tree to timber pirates for ten years despite their many attempts. He also had a cousin who was an herb culturist, but few others were blessed. Most of his family, and indeed his clan, handled sanctioned timber exports to Hathrir. We traded stories like that until the dawn, and then, reluctantly, we disentangled and let the cold air come between us.