Forestborn

by Elayne Audrey Becker

  “RAT!”

  I’m gone before the broom hits home, flying through the door, then out into the hall. The linoleum floor trembles beneath the footsteps pounding behind me. Fighting panic, I tear down the corridor with no sense of direction or destination other than away. The broom slams down beside me once more, so near and so forcefully that it would have snapped my spine had it been a mere finger’s length closer.

  I swerve abruptly to the left, then right again, then left and straight through an open door. My infinitesimal lead enables me to skid against the wall directly beside the entrance, just around the corner. My heartbeat radiates through every crevice of my body.

  The pursuer flails into the room, mercifully overshooting my hiding spot by several paces, and I use the opportunity to race back out. There’s a closed door across the corridor, and though I have no idea what new danger may lurk behind, I scramble for the crack underneath it. My body is just small enough to squeeze through.

  The room is lit by a single source of light. Judging by the smell, it is also empty.

  Not knowing whether my pursuer will think to check this room, I make haste for the safety of a large wooden desk. Several long moments crawl past as I crouch beneath it, shaking and trying to calm my fraying nerves. My thoughts drift to the whisperers doubting my return, then Weslyn expecting it, and the latter steadies me.

  After a while, as the room remains quiet and no one makes any attempts to enter, the space around me begins to take shape. My whiskers detect a number of objects scattered throughout it, and my nose picks up the distinct scent of parchment.

  Maybe there’s information here that will tell me about this place.

  The door I crawled under was shut, which suggests that this room has limited access. The oil lamp is lit, though, which means whoever works or lives here can’t have intended to be gone for very long.

  I’ll have to be quick.

  It’s an enormous relief to return to my human form, but there’s no time to dwell on that. I cross the room in three strides and bolt the door; the sound of a key rattling the lock should give me enough warning to shift back to mouse. Then I locate the oil lamp and examine the walls. No windows. Good.

  A large map of Alemara has been mounted on the wall opposite the desk. Bright pins are stuck throughout the Western Vale. I don’t know what they signify, but it’s clear these soldiers have been working here for a while. A red one pierces the place where Caela Ridge used to be, and I feel a stab of rage before turning away.

  The desk itself is strewn with folders and papers, the former all bearing the vile stamp of Eradain’s standard: a gold crown encased in a scarlet sun with five rays, all centered over a navy blue backdrop traced with black. More are in the drawers, which prove unlocked except for one. I rifle through them all, trying to make sense of the charts, illustrations, and blocks of text without messing up the order or placement. Never have I been so grateful that everyone on this continent speaks the same language.

  In one folder, there are a number of logs, some sort of records for experimentation findings. Trials on prisoners involving medicines and weapons. Horrible illustrations accompany the notes, dozens of roughly hewn sketches, many immaculately detailed and stomach-churning. Too many. I slap the folder shut.

  The next one holds accounts of all the earthquakes that have shaken Alemara in the last seven years, growing in frequency but not much in magnitude. Another contains lists of dates and numbers stretching back several months ago, all of which are meaningless to me.

  I try the locked drawer again, and footsteps sound in the hall.

  Instantly, I shift back to mouse and dart over to the wall, positioning myself right beside the door. The steps come closer and closer—then they pass.

  Though my nerves are just about spent, I’m still contemplating trying for more information when the lock rattles ominously, and the door swings open.

  Bootsteps, so close to my face I can smell the pitch and blood splattered across them. While I was careful to leave everything the way I found it, I have no intention of sticking around to discover whether I slipped up. I run from the room, fasten my side against the corridor wall, and scurry to an untried set of double doors at the end.

  This time, it takes much longer for someone to come and open them, and there’s no crack underneath that I can crawl through. Instead, I’m forced to wait there, silent and still. I don’t dare backtrack all the way to the set of doors I came through. There’s no guarantee those would open any sooner, anyway.

  I wait.

  The key. I need a key to free Helos. The key to the cage is in that mounted box, and the key to that box is … Where? My best guess is in that room with the soldiers and smoke, but it’s still only a theory. For all I know, the woman I followed keeps the key on her at all times.

  I wait.

  The first question, of course, is how Wes and I are going to make it in here undetected. The one idea I have is risky, but then again, I suppose there are no safe options when planning a prison break.

  One thing is clear: we have to move right away. Today. After my restless night and the prolonged state of adrenaline from being here, the idea alone makes me weak in the knees. I have no choice but to push through the exhaustion, though. I have to get Helos out before they try one of those … experiments on him; I don’t know what exactly they’re searching for, but it was clear enough that not every subject makes it out alive.

  At last, the doors swing open and I rush through, relieved beyond words to be outside once more. I run and run, hardly even aware of where I’m going—and almost slam headlong into a wagon parked outside.

  Hollow bones, decaying flesh—the stench of death is so overwhelming I nearly gag. It’s what I smelled before, smelled but couldn’t place from afar. Corpses are piled atop the wooden slats, and now I know why the Vale seemed so empty, why many of the cages weren’t filled.

  They’re not just holding people and animals prisoner here. They’re killing them.

  TWENTY-TWO

  When I rejoin the group, back in human form, pack in hand and very much alive, the whisperers size me up like I really am a ghost.

  “Are you okay?” Wes demands, taking two steps toward me before stopping just as quickly. “Is Helos alive?

  I nod, and he releases a long breath.

  “What of my cousin?” Peridon adds, straightening the bow across his back. “Did you see her there?”

  “I think so.”

  His face erupts into a smile, and his people start conversing in low, urgent voices.

  Wes peers closely at my face, brow furrowing. “What is it?”

  At that, Peridon leaves the group and paces over to my side, his watchful gaze now holding all the intensity of a mountain cat’s. The black-tipped caw on his shoulder flaps its wings indignantly. Aside from a few brave birds chattering nearby, the air around us falls unusually silent and still. Almost like that day in the Old Forest with Finley, as if the firs themselves are holding their breath to hear what I have to say.

  Maybe they are.

  I tell them everything I encountered, from the compound layout and cages to the map and papers. Weslyn’s eyebrows knit together, but that’s the only change I can see as he absorbs the information. I suppose he has experience receiving news with a more or less neutral face. The whisperers mutter occasionally in indecipherable undertones, until I end with the wagon.

  Nobody speaks for a time. I spend most of it staring at the ground and running my feet continually through the grass. Those men I killed. I can’t stop thinking about their bodies lying alone, whether carnivores that have eluded capture will follow the scent and eat them. Or perhaps they’ll yield instead to the slow decay of time, until all that remains is a collection of bones—that is, if the marrow sheep left any.

  We didn’t even bury them.

  “What were the people there wearing?” asks Wes. “The same uniforms as the ones we met in the woods?”

  I shake my head. “I couldn�
�t tell. Mice don’t have good eyesight. But Eradain’s standard was on the papers.”

  “Eradain,” hisses Yena. “The human filth. I might have known.”

  Peridon’s caw croaks, and he strokes its feathers while making soft, soothing sounds. “Yena used to live there,” he explains.

  “It sounds like King Jol grew tired of waiting,” says Wes, running a hand over his mouth. “He must have begun his mission to take the Vale.”

  I ball my hands into fists, fury warring with anguish deep in my gut. The idea of a second Rupturing frightens me as much as it would anyone, but murdering magical beings as a preventative measure is not the answer. It should not even be a question. “We have to save them.”

  For a long time, Weslyn just returns my stare. I know what he’s thinking, because it’s what I’m thinking, too. If we stay and attempt to liberate the compound, there’s no telling how long that might take, or if we could even manage it ourselves. We might even die in the attempt. Either way, if the Fallow Throes continues to spread, his people—his brother—would be lost.

  Finley. My friend, his kin. Helos’s … what?

  It’s … important to me.

  Helos’s love.

  If we choose to save Finley, how many more here will die before we can return?

  How many more will die in Telyan if we stay?

  “How do you plan to do that?” asks a girl with a prominent nose who looks to be around Violet’s age, though she has none of the crown princess’s force of presence.

  I work the knots in my shoulders with weary fingers. “I don’t know yet. Do you have an idea?”

  Her deep-set eyes flicker nervously to her companions, and she raises her own shoulders practically to her ears.

  “I think—” Wes breaks off, considering some more. “I think any attempt we make on our own would be too risky. We need help.” Another pause. “Our greatest chance of success lies in telling Minister Mereth and my father. If we try to free them ourselves and are taken in the attempt, or killed, this secret will hold for longer. People back home would only assume the wilderness killed us.”

  “That’s your solution? To bring more humans into our land?” Yena grinds a heel into the ground. “The Vale is now the one place we can live without harassment. We want to rid it of your kind, not make room for more.”

  “Not all humans are bad,” I protest. “Weslyn, for one, along with his family.” Wes’s eyebrows lift a little. “I know things are tense, but King Gerar of Telyan is a good man. At least, he tries to be. He could help.”

  “How? By sending enough troops to outnumber Eradain’s? They could destroy half the Vale in their skirmishes for dominance. It’s ironic, is it not? So often, these people look for danger in magic when they should be looking to each other.” She raises her chin. “Humans always seek to control one another. To conquer.” She spits the last word. “That is their nature. And just as they will never break it, so we can never allow that poison to overtake the one refuge we have left. You believe the southern king might help. But even if he wins, who is to say he won’t simply stay and claim the land for himself?”

  “Would you rather do nothing?” I challenge. “The poison you speak of is here already, yet I just went into that compound alone!”

  She purses her lips.

  What would Helos do? I wonder in the silence that follows. Then I stop myself. It’s not Helos’s choice to make. It’s mine.

  And that makes the consequences of what I’m about to do so much harder to bear.

  “I agree with Weslyn,” I say at last. “We’ll rescue Helos and your friends who were captured and return to Telyan. And then we will have to return for the rest with greater forces.” I don’t mention bringing the stardust to the afflicted—for all I know, Yena could try to steal it from Wes to prevent us from rescuing more humans.

  The whisperers shuffle their feet.

  “What is it?”

  The short one who seems to be in charge lowers her chin a fraction. “We cannot help you in this quest.”

  My mouth drops open. “What about your friends? I saw several people in there. In cages. What about Andie?”

  Peridon glances at his leader. “Feren—”

  “No. You would have us launch an attack without a plan, and without enough fighters to pose a threat. We cannot disguise ourselves as you can.”

  I step forward. “I didn’t say—”

  “You did not think. If we fail, and in these numbers we will fail, what will stop them from destroying the rest of our home like they did yours? Perhaps you have no one to account for but yourself, but I do, and I will not risk a massacre.”

  My nails stretch into claws, and I make no effort to beat them back. “They’re already seizing your people one by one. Whether you choose to risk it or not, they are coming for you. For all the forestborn.”

  The word sits strange on my tongue, but I can tell it holds a significance among them, so I say it anyway. People like you and us. A collective. The idea of it stretches and settles deep between my ribs, rousing a glimmer of warmth despite the circumstances.

  For several long moments, we glare at each other, Feren examining my claws and I sizing up the weapon on her back. At last, she jerks her head for the others to gather around her. “I thank you for the information and wish you luck with your brother,” she says, dipping her chin once. “We will tell our clan what you’ve learned. Come.”

  The group retreats into the woods, one or two of them glancing behind as they go. Peridon lingers a few beats longer, clearly torn between staying and obeying.

  “I’m sorry,” he says quietly. “I wish I could help you.” With a final, tortured glance, eventually he, too, vanishes from sight.

  We’re alone.

  It’s familiar, of course, the dreaded place in which I’m used to being. But it still stings. Flexing my fingers, I’m considering going after them to make another appeal when Weslyn steps before me, leaning heavily on his good leg.

  He nods once. “So what’s the plan?”

  Gratitude pulses in, easing the usual tangle of loneliness and frustration. Rolling my shoulders a little, I take in the gravity of his expression, the lack of concern for the help we might have had, and lost. Even injured, he’s still here. And so am I.

  I clasp my hands before me. “You’re not going to like it.”

  * * *

  My flight back across the hills holds none of the usual joy. I glide high above the stretch of yellow brown, a shadow of vengeance tracing the ground below. As I predicted, Wes was vehemently against the plan. He wanted to stake out the compound longer, account for as many variables as possible. Ordinarily I would agree, but he didn’t see the cages like I did. He didn’t feel the way death and despair hang over the place like a veil. There’s no time for further planning.

  I come in from above, training my eyes on the watchtower and scanning the roof for a place to land. Overlapping tiles lay smooth and flat across it, but there are perches in the small ridges running the length. I drop quickly, the hunter’s approach, descending only when I’m above the tower. My talons grasp for purchase, hopefully no more than a pebble loosed from the mountains.

  I have rarely seen Wes as angry as he was when I told him he had to stay behind. His reaction didn’t surprise me; by now I realize how much he hates feeling useless. I feel no guilt, though. It was out of the question for him to come. His wounds would prevent him from fighting well, if it came to combat, and he has no way of disguising himself. Not like I do.

  Forcing that distraction out of my mind, I focus on an adjoining staircase in back of the tower—it must lead to an entrance. After scouring my surroundings for an enemy’s approach, I alight on the rail.

  Windows make up most of the tower walls, which means I’m now in plain view of anyone inside.

  Immediately I drop to the platform, shifting to mouse just before I land. Stupid. You’ll have to do better than that. The impact rattles my teeth, but at least it was quiet. I wait f
or several heartbeats, listening hard for alarmed voices or panicked feet.

  There’s nothing.

  The door is just across the landing at the top. From here it’s simple, really, as there’s a good-sized gap beneath it, plenty of room for me to crawl through. Yet my feet feel rooted to the floor.

  I force large gulps of air into my tiny mouse lungs. Nothing to count up here, no surroundings I can pinpoint with enough detail to blot out my nerves. I have only the facts before me and the spiraling anger clutched close to my chest. I don’t know how many soldiers are in the tower. I don’t know how well my plan will work, or if it will succeed at all. But I know what I can do, particularly if someone needs me.

  And Helos needs me.

  I crawl under the door, right in the corner, and hold myself still against the wall.

  There are only three people in here, likely as good a set of odds as I could have hoped for, all sitting at shallow desks set against the far windows. I can’t pick up the scent of metal blades; with any luck, that means they’re unarmed. The majority of the room feels fairly empty.

  I’ll have to move fast.

  Using vibrations in the air, I locate the biggest one, seated on the left by the windows overlooking the cages. The element of surprise will buy me only a moment—best to take him out first. Sticking close to the wall, I patter around the edges of the room until I’m under his desk, uncomfortably close to his greasy boots. My body is quivering.

  I allow myself another minute to steady my breathing. Then I step out from under the desk and shift.

  My fist slams into the side of his face before he has time to react. His body staggers off the chair and onto the floor, just as the other two watchtower guards leap to their feet. Gawking openly, they reach for weapons that aren’t there as I sprint toward them, feeling the power of the muscles I’ve gained by switching to the form of the man I just knocked out.

  The first one is quite small and demanding that I freeze—a kick to his chest catapults him to the ground. I prepare to deliver another blow when I catch sight of the object hurtling toward me.