by J. A. White
“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.”
The 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.
“Why aren’t you using magic to fight them?” Mary asked.
“I’m done with magic.”
“Hmm,” said Mary. “I wonder, though. Is magic done with you?”
The pack leader growled and two new wolves stepped forward to face Kara, the petals of their eyes opening and closing.
“They’re not going to kill you,” Mary said. “But they are going to tear the muscles from your legs and drag you back to their master. Unless you start acting like a proper witch and stop them, that is.”
Kara thought of the Forest Demon waiting for her at the end of the bridge. He would enfold her in his impossibly long cloak and thrust a seed down her throat, changing her into something else altogether.
The thought of using magic again frightened her. The thought of becoming one of Sordyr’s minions frightened her more.
“I don’t have a grimoire,” Kara said.
“So? You are wexari.”
“What’s a—”
“Lesson later,” Mary said. “For now, just cast.”
“I—”
“Just. Cast.”
Kara closed her eyes.
Focusing on the branchwolf directly in front of her, she thought: Stop this. Leave us alone. When she opened her eyes the branchwolf was a few steps closer, having rudely ignored her feeble attempt to enchant it. She tried to remember a spell from the grimoire—any spell—but the words that had once come so easily to her were now nothing more than a jumble. She could recall some individual sounds but the order of them was well beyond her.
The wolf continued to approach.
Kara grunted with frustration. Without the grimoire, casting a spell was impossible, like trying to read without using words.
“I can’t,” Kara said.
“Not yet,” said Mary. “But I felt something. Something weak and insignificant and pathetic, like a kitten trying to topple a mountain.” The old woman sighed and dropped the sack to her feet. “I guess it’s up to me this time.”
Humming under her breath, Mary pulled the sack open and shifted through its contents, seemingly unperturbed by their current predicament. Kara thought the branchwolves would use this opportunity to attack, but instead they backed away, eyeing the old woman cautiously.
They’re scared, Kara thought. Of Mary . . . or whatever’s in that sack.
Finally, Mary withdrew a battered glass lantern. It was set into a cracked and faded red and blue wooden base. Mary blew away its shroud of dust and placed the lantern carefully on the ground.
“You’re going to fight them with that?” Taff asked.
“What did you expect?”
“I don’t know. A sword or something.”
Mary shooed him away. “Bah. Boys and their swords.”
She removed a paper shade from her sack. Several elaborate shapes had been cut into the material, though Kara could not determine their identity in the dim light.
Lucas told me about these lanterns, she thought. They spin and project images onto the wall, matching the shapes cut into the shade. A bauble of the World, far too magical for De’Noran.
Mary placed the shade over the lantern.
“Don’t worry,” she said, taking a few steps backward. “This will take care of them. Watch.”
The branchwolves stopped, waited. Then, their confidence growing, edged closer. The one nearest to Kara bared its teeth, revealing a mouthful of razor-sharp thorns and a tongue speckled with black fungus.
Taff turned to Mary. “You’re just crazy, aren’t you? You’re just a crazy old lady with a sack full of junk.” He shook his head in exasperation. “Figures.”
Facing the wolves, Taff tried to raise his giant stick into attack position but could barely lift it off the ground. He looked about as threatening as a boy toasting marshmallows.
“Wait!” Mary exclaimed, producing a key from the folds of her cloak. “I always forget this part.” With surprising speed, she inserted the key into the base and cranked it three times.
The lantern began to turn.
Kara heard a whooshing sound. Looking up, she watched wisps of early evening sunlight slip between small gaps in the treetops. These threads of light gathered together in swirling whirlpools that rocketed straight through the slight opening at the top of the lantern. The lantern revolved faster, spinning like a top now, sucking more and more light into it.
Behind the lantern’s shade a small flame flickered to life, revealing what had been cut into the paper. Kara gasped. The lantern began to spin even faster, just a blur of fiery motion now, and against the sky a dragon of light appeared, a larger version of the shape in the shade. Flickering in and out of existence, it bore down on the branchwolves with a hideous roar. The bridge became a cacophony of piteous whines as the creatures fled, quite a few slipping over the side.
Moments later the dragon dissipated with a puff of white smoke. The lantern shook away any unused sunlight like a dog after a bath and then came to a creaking halt.
“Still want y
our sword?” Mary asked Taff.
She slid the lantern into her sack and knotted it tight.
They followed Mary along a narrow path lined with foul-smelling weeds and irises whose petals looked disturbingly like skin. Kara thought she saw the branches of one tree bend closer to the ground, as though to snatch her away, but it could have been her imagination. It was hard to tell anymore.
“Your lantern,” said Kara. “I’ve never seen such magic.”
“You haven’t lived long.”
“In the stories you use a grimoire.”
Mary Kettle winced at the word as though Kara had struck her.
“My spellbook was involved in the lantern’s making. But now it’s just a tool, like everything else in here.” She shook the contents of the sack. “Almost anyone can use them. No magic required.”
“What else is in there?” Taff asked.
“Toys.”
His expression brightened.
“What kind of toys?”
“Enchanted toys.”
“What kind of—”
“Shh,” whispered Mary. “In this part of the forest, there’s a terrible monster that feeds on little boys who ask annoying questions. We don’t want to awaken it.”
“I know that’s not true,” Taff said, but he remained silent until they reached Mary Kettle’s encampment, little more than a fire pit and lean-to built from some rotting pieces of ashwood.
“Rest for a bit,” she said. “Sordyr will have to travel days before finding a place he can cross. He needs earth, the Forest Demon does, two feet planted in the ground at all times. He cannot cross stone, as you know, nor can he cross water. He cannot ride a horse.”
“Why?” Taff asked, but Mary swatted the question away like a troublesome fly.
“The important thing is that Sordyr does not travel quickly—our one and only advantage.” She paused, biting her knuckle in consideration. “He’ll try to cut us off at Brille, I wager.”
“What’s Brille?” asked Taff.
“A village.”
“There are villages in the Thickety?”
Mary smiled but did not meet his eyes.