“Tie him up, Edric,” Barak commanded.
The other woodcutter pulled Quill’s hands roughly behind him and bound them at the wrists tightly enough to hurt, the rough hempen rope scraping his skin.
“So, what happens now, Barak?” Quill asked. “Is there any ending here that sees us all part as friends? The Duke will pay a fine ransom for me.”
Quill wasn’t actually sure that was true.
“If you are the same young lord who left one step ahead of a furious duke’s daughter, then I don’t think we will get much of a ransom.”
Quill tried not to let his dismay show on his face.
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
Barak just laughed.
“Even if that were so, where would you tell them we captured you? There is no amnesty for men like us. Once you’ve done what we have, the Duke’s men will never rest until they’ve taken our heads.”
“What do you . . .” Quill started to ask, then stopped as he realized that the axes the men held were covered in sap.
“You’ve been cutting wood here,” Quill said.
“Of course we have,” Barak replied. “We’re woodcutters, and we have a living to make.”
“But, the laws . . . the stories of a curse.”
Barak spat on the ground in front of him.
“That is for the Duke and his laws. What right does the Duke have to sit in his castle and tell me where I can and can’t cut wood? His children don’t go hungry if he doesn’t bring home enough food.”
“And the curse?”
“There is no curse,” Barak said. “It’s a story they tell to scare away the cutters that the Duke’s men can’t stop. I know dozens of men who have been poaching from the deep forest all their lives, and none of them have been claimed by the curse.”
“What about Robar?” Davak asked suddenly. “And Vatar? If you’d asked me a year ago about the curse I would have agreed with you, but a lot of men have disappeared in the last few months.”
“Don’t be an idiot,” Barak snarled. “I told you, the Duke’s men likely caught them but disposed of them quietly so people would start talking about the curse again. Or do you want to debate it with me in front of a stranger?”
Barak clenched a huge fist and his knuckles popped with an ominous cracking. The other men muttered among themselves, but none seemed inclined to argue.
“That’s better,” Barak said. “Anyway, we’ve taken plenty of wood, so if the curse is real, we’re doomed anyway. But if we let this lordling go, or try and ransom him, we won’t have to worry about forest demons—it’s the Duke who will have our heads on pikes.”
There was a sudden rustling in the branches directly above Quill and something moved in the trees around them, circling them. The other men flinched, their eyes darting about the clearing.
“What was that?” Tomas asked, his voice cracking with the beginnings of panic.
“Just a tree cat, or a bird,” Barak snapped. “Get a hold of yourself. Edric, kill him. We’ve ascertained he has nothing of consequence.”
Edric hesitated.
“Now,” Barak snapped.
Edric stepped forward and raised his axe. Quill tensed, ready to launch himself forward the moment Edric attacked. He was determined to at least go down fighting. Edric took another step, and then fell back, terror in his eyes as a huge shape stepped from the trees. Before the other men could react, a smaller shape dropped in the middle of them, spitting and snarling as it lashed out with claws and teeth.
Quill took advantage of the men’s distraction and rammed into Edric, driving his shoulder into the man’s midriff. The woodcutter folded up around the blow, his breath leaving with a startled whoosh, the axe flying from his hands. Quill dived for it, landing clumsily on his side and grabbing at the blade with his bound hands. He swore as he cut himself, but then the rope found the axe’s edge. A moment’s sawing and the thin rope began to part, and then snapped as he pulled hard against the strands. A second later, he was on his knees, bringing the axe up and preparing to raise himself to his feet. He froze, eyeball to eyeball with a pair of insanely gleaming eyes.
“You!”
Chapter 6
Rocket didn’t seem that happy to see him. Quill knew that the raccoonoid had a hair-trigger temper, but was still surprised when Rocket swung the cudgel he was carrying at his head. Quill ducked beneath the wild swing, only to hear a grunt behind him. When he whirled around, it was to see Barak shaking his hand in pain.
“You can thank me later,” Rocket snarled. “Just deal with him.”
Without another word Rocket bounded off towards the larger shape, who was now being assailed by the other three woodcutters, their axes swinging in a workmanlike rhythm. An anguished cry echoed across the clearing.
“I am Groot!”
Distracted, Quill only just managed to block Barak’s first blow with his axe, sparks cascading from the point of impact as the two blades clashed. The two men circled each other, neither willing to commit too early. Quill’s blade instructor had told him that an axe was one of the few weapons where offense truly was the best form of defense, and that when fighting a swordsman, his best chance would be to create an arc of death that his opponent would be terrified to come within. But he had also warned Quill that when two axemen opposed each other, all bets were off.
Barak handled his weapon with a causal competence, holding it as if it were part of him. The axes he and his men used were not battle axes, but were still razor sharp, designed for felling trees and cutting across the grain, rather than splitting logs. The shaft was almost three feet long, and there was only one side to the head, a long curved bit that gleamed wickedly in the light of the setting sun. Quill could hear that the fight behind him was still going on, but he dared not look.
Barak let out a hoarse shout and charged him. The woodcutter spun the axe shaft in both hands, using the momentum of the axe head to bring it up over his head and then down in a whistling arc, driving straight for Quill’s head. Quill managed to bring the shaft of his own weapon up in a horizontal block, catching Barak’s just beneath the axe head, the shock of the impact sending it rebounding away. Barak stumbled back and Quill pressed his advantage, swinging his axe in a sideways motion. Barak twisted away, but Quill’s weapon slashed through the woodsman’s tunic, leaving blood trickling down his side.
“Not bad for a soft lordling,” Barak said. “I was right, you are dangerous.”
With a wordless roar, Barak began to hack at Quill as if he were a tree. Each swing was perfectly placed, economical in motion, but with frightening power behind it. Quill dodged some of the blows and blocked others with desperate parries, but he knew that only one of those attacks needed to strike home—and that that would be the end of the fight. He remembered his instructor’s final piece of advice, a last resort when faced with a fighter whose skill matched his own. With a deep breath Quill stepped inside the next swing, grunting as he took the full force of the axe shaft in his side, then brought his knee up between the other man’s legs. Barak’s eyes widened, and then rolled back in his head as he slid to the ground.
“Ouch,” a voice said. Quill spun, raising his axe, then relaxed as he realized it was Rocket behind him. “Talk about a low blow. Effective, though.”
“Good to see you, too, Rocket,” Quill said. “Are you okay? And the big guy?”
Groot moved up beside Rocket. Behind him the other woodcutters lay in a battered pile.
“I am Groot.”
Quill looked at Rocket.
“Yeah, I’m fine, too—thanks for asking.”
Groot actually looked a bit worse for wear—a number of gashes in his thick, bark-like skin leaked a sap-like fluid, but as Quill watched, they were already healing.
“Saved your ass again, huh, Star-Lord?�
� Rocket said sarcastically.
Quill flushed. “I had things under control.”
“Yeah, right,” Rocket said. “So, what brings you here, anyway?”
Quill grinned at him. “Can’t I just pop by to see old friends?”
“I am Groot.”
“I agree, buddy, that sounds like a load of manure to me, too,” Rocket said. “Just tell us why you’re here, Quill. Can we fix the ship?”
As Quill explained the mission he had been given by the Duke, he tried to gauge the reaction of the odd couple before him. Groot was as inscrutable as always. In fact, Quill could never be sure whether the gentle giant was even listening. At that moment, he seemed enraptured by a caterpillar that was winding itself around one of his branches, a broad grin splitting his face. Rocket seemed impassive, but Quill noticed that the raccoonoid’s ears were cocked forward and quivering. Maybe their life in the woods wasn’t as exciting as Rocket had hoped.
“What are you two doing here in the middle of nowhere?” he asked. “Are you the curse that everyone is talking about?”
Rocket sneered. “The middle of nowhere is right—I’ve been going out of my mind here. It’s incredibly boring and it’s not like I get much conversation. Isn’t that right, Groot?”
“I am Groot.”
“When we left you and the others, we wandered for a little while until we reached the forest. The big guy loved it and he wanted to stay for a while. It’s not like I had anywhere else in mind, so we stayed. I listened around a few campfires and heard the stories of the curse, and we decided to use it to our advantage. I’m all for sustainable use of natural resources, but some of these trees have been here for centuries, and there’s plenty of wood for them closer to home.”
“So what will you do with them?” Quill gestured to the unconscious woodcutters. “Killing in cold blood isn’t your usual style.”
“I am Groot!”
“Exactly, big guy. We’ll leave them on the road and let the Duke decide what to do with them. We aren’t judges . . . or executioners.”
“Aren’t you still just sending them to their deaths?” Quill asked. “The penalty for chopping wood here is the headsman’s block.”
“It’s not our decision, Quill. What would you have us do, just let them go? We might run into them again.”
“I’ve heard of the laws, but why would the Duke be so interested in protecting the forest?” Quill asked. “No one was able to tell me anything about it.”
Rocket gestured to the trees.
“Because of them, of course. Why do you think Groot loves it here so much? I may not get much conversation, but he sure as hell does—they haven’t stopped nattering away since we got here. They told me about the agreement that they reached with the Duchy generations ago.”
Quill’s jaw dropped. “The Duchy signed a treaty with . . . trees?”
“Yeah, they’re sentient, at least the ones on this side of the boundary. The rest are just normal trees,” Rocket said. “They used to be far less . . . treelike, almost humanoid, and that’s when the treaty was signed. But that was so long ago, no one in the Duchy remembers them. All they know is that there’s a treaty that their forefathers signed, and when it’s broken, bad things happen.”
Quill felt slightly sick. “So, when they chop down one of these trees . . .”
“Yeah.” Rocket’s voice was grim. “Apparently they scream for hours.”
“I am Groot,” Groot said sadly.
“Now do you feel bad about handing them over to the Duke’s men?”
“Nowhere near as bad as I did, anyway,” Quill replied.
“Good—so we can leave them by the road as planned. I prefer to let other people’s problems stay that way. Which is why I don’t see why we should tag along with you in the service of some duke.”
“Look,” said Quill. “I know things got a bit . . . tense back when we landed here. But we’ve all had time to cool off, and it would be just like old times. Impossible odds, crazy plans—and plenty of gold at the end. What could be more fun?”
“I won’t lie, I am bored to tears here,” Rocket said. “But it doesn’t fix the ship, and I doubt that the big guy is going to be willing leave the forest to fend for itself.”
“I am Groot.”
“See?” Rocket asked. “He isn’t keen.”
Quill walked over to Groot and tilted his head back so he could stare into the creature’s surprisingly expressive eyes.
“Groot, I do understand why you would want to stay here. You’ve done a wonderful job protecting these trees; you should be very proud of yourself,” he said gently. “But the invading nomads aren’t just killing people—they’re also chopping down every tree that they come across just to fuel their war machine.”
“I am Groot.”
Did Quill detect a slight quivering in his voice? He wasn’t sure, but he went on.
“What do you think they’ll do when they get here? Do you think they’ll know that some of these trees are sentient, or even if they do—that they’ll care?” he asked. “We’re the only chance of stopping them. We need to find out who is helping the nomads, and we need to get that information to the Duke so he has a chance against them. I need you, Groot. You aren’t abandoning your friends here—you’re just protecting them somewhere else.”
“I am Groot,” Groot said sadly.
“I guess we’re both coming with you,” Rocket said.
Groot strode from the clearing, stopping to stand in the middle of a closely bunched group of trees. He was humming, a deep note that seemed to vibrate through air and into Quill’s bones. The giant raised his arms above him, reaching towards the sky, tendrils waving back and forth as he swayed gently. As Rocket and Quill watched, flowers sprouted from the tips of Groot’s fingers, a rainbow of different colored blooms. A sweet perfume drifted towards them, and Quill felt his eyes prickle with tears as he recognized the scent his mother used to wear. Beside him, Rocket was sobbing as if caught in his own memories, and Quill wondered what his companion was thinking of.
Groot’s humming rose in pitch and volume, and he brought his arms down, plunging them into the rich soil at his feet. Cords of muscle-like fibers bunched and flexed under his rough, bark-like skin, as if he were wrestling with the ground, which Quill could have sworn he felt quivering under his feet. There was a sudden burst of rustling behind them, and they turned to see trees writhing and shifting in a line as far as the eye could see into the gathering twilight. As they stared in wonder, the trees seemed to reach towards their neighbors, branches weaving together to form a solid wall twice as tall as Groot.
The wall continued to thicken, bolstered by thorns and spikes. Quill wouldn’t have wanted to try and climb it, even less so when he saw tendrils of poison ivy wind their way around the branches. It was a formidable barrier, and Quill guessed that its sudden appearance would feed a hundred tales of curses, and be almost as much protection as the wall itself.
Groot’s humming came to an abrupt end, and he staggered momentarily before pulling his arms from the ground. As he rejoined them, Quill shook his head—every time he thought he had lost the ability to be amazed by the giant, he was shown the error of his ways. This was only the latest in a long line of marvels.
“I am Groot.” Groot sounded wearier than Quill had ever heard him.
“Are you okay? That was incredible, but . . . did it hurt?”
“I am Groot.”
“He’ll be all right,” said Rocket. “Won’t you, big fella?”
“I am Groot.”
Without another word, Groot picked up the woodcutters, effortlessly lifting all four. He carried them to the barrier, not even slowing down as he approached, but before he could crash into them, the branches parted before him. Groot stepped through and gently placed the men on the ground, th
en stepped back through. The wall closed seamlessly behind him, leaving no trace behind of the opening.
“Which way are we going?” Rocket asked, wasting no time.
Quill went through his saddlebags and pulled out the map. He pointed away from the barrier, deeper into the forest.
“West.”
“But the only thing that way is the mountains,” Rocket said. “Oh, won’t that be fun.”
“Of course it will be—we always have fun,” Quill said. “If you’re a good raccoonoid, I’ll teach you how to ski.”
Rocket bared his teeth. “Don’t patronize me. Just lead the way.”
“Good enough,” Quill said. “We have a long way to go, and I’m on a schedule.”
He started walking west, and smiled. They did have a long way to go, but having two of his friends back by his side filled him with a renewed sense of hope.
Interstitial
The young girl huddles in the shadow of the ruined stable, back pressed into the corner where two crumbling walls come together. She shivers, arms clasped around slim legs, the smell of smoke harsh in the air. Mixed with the scent of wood smoke is something else, a sickly-sweet smell that reminds her of the rare times when the elders call a feast and slaughter a pig to roast over an open fire.
She chokes back a sob and tries to ignore the sound of clashing blades and pitiful screams, hoping that if she pretends enough they will simply go away. As hours pass, they do fade, an eerie silence falling over the night. The moon is full, illuminating the ground around her, sending strange shadows reaching towards her.
As she watches in terror, the shadows resolve into the men that have sent her fleeing into the night. The swords they hold before them are stained with blood, and one of them has a smudge of ash across his cheek. Their faces are almost bestial with the emotions playing across them. Anger. Excitement. Lust.
As they move towards her, she presses back against the rough brick of the walls. She is trapped, nowhere to go, and all she can do is watch them draw closer. There is a blur of motion, and a figure leaps from the darkness, springing over their heads and landing in a crouch between them and the girl.
Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy Page 5