by Jenn Reese
Aluna felt a tug on her tail. She turned and kicked one of the Humans away. It let go without a fight. What was going on? Aluna started toward Hoku again, but one of the creatures now knelt in front of her, less than a meter away, blocking her way to Hoku.
The skin on its face seemed rough and craggy, like the bark of a tree. Twigs and leaves jutted from its wild hair. Without her dark vision, she may not have been able to pick out the creature from the forest behind it, even this close.
Aluna shifted her weight to her arms and swept her tail around to knock the Human off balance. It hopped up and over her tail as if it were playing a game.
“Wait,” the creature said, holding out its hand. “We come to rescue you. You and she, the winged one. We will take you to the fluttering heights! We will save you.” Its voice came out raspy, as if it hadn’t spoken in a long time and it barely remembered how.
“Don’t kill the others,” Aluna said. “They aren’t enemies!”
The creature was blocking her view of Hoku, but she could hear him grunting and gasping inside her ear. He was still alive, and his Kampii necklace would help him breathe even while he was being choked. But what if the creature decided to stab him instead?
“Go limp,” she whispered, hoping Hoku could hear her despite his panic. “Breathe through your shell. Let them think you’re dead.”
“We have no understanding,” the creature replied. “We will save you. We will kill to save you.”
“No killing,” Aluna said. “No killing!” Her muscles quivered. Her body wanted to fight. It wanted to snap every one of these creatures in half like twigs. No one was allowed to hurt her friends. No one. Not even if they were trying to help. But wading into the fray herself would only make things worse.
Aluna rolled onto her back and vaulted herself up to her tail. “Stop fighting!” she yelled. “Everyone stop or they’ll kill you!”
Hoku had already stopped struggling, but a creature loomed over him, poking him in the chest. Aluna scanned the camp until she found Dash and Calli, too. Dash had blood dripping down his face and his sword in his hand. His gaze darted everywhere. His nose flared. Equians couldn’t see well at night; poor Dash was fighting blind.
“Stop, Dash. Please!” She rarely used the word, and it had power. Dash’s eyes widened. He lowered his sword.
“It’s a trap!” Odd bellowed. “Prisoners are working with these devils! Fight, you Gizmos, fight!”
“No!” Aluna yelled, but it was useless.
Mags had three of them on her, but was twisting and turning, managing to stab them with her needles. Aluna heard a creature squeak and saw it leap away, an empty needle dangling from its neck. Squirrel fought beside Mags, jumping this way and that, slashing her attackers with something small and shiny clutched in her hand. Odd seemed indomitable, flinging his attackers off of him as if they were small as rats and bellowing into the night. Only Pocket was down, pinned to the ground and surrounded. And even so, the boy struggled and kicked.
The tree creatures hadn’t killed anyone yet, but if the Upgraders kept fighting, they would, even if just by accident. Odd and Mags and Squirrel would never stop, not until their bodies had lost every last bit of fight. If this battle continued, the kludge would be destroyed.
Aluna tried to slow her breathing and clear her head. She could stay and help the kludge fight. With her and Dash and Vachir, and even Calli and Hoku, maybe they could turn defeat into victory. Not without casualties, she knew, but they’d still have a small chance of surviving the forest and making it to Strand’s army, and then to Strand himself somehow.
But if she fought, she’d be choosing her desire to find Karl Strand over the lives of the Upgraders in Odd’s kludge. A week or two ago, it would have been an easy decision to make. But now they weren’t Upgraders, they were people. People she’d begun to respect. The fact that she’d ever thought they were expendable overwhelmed her with shame.
Karl Strand had a plan, and he didn’t care how many lives were lost while he achieved it. If Aluna wanted to make a better world than the one Strand was offering, then she needed to make better choices. No plan was worth the senseless death of good people, regardless of its goal.
“Take us,” Aluna said to the creature. “Calli and I will go with you right now. Take the horses and those two as well.” She pointed at Dash and Hoku. “Leave the others alone. Do not kill a single one of the rest, or there will be blood on both sides, I promise you.”
The Human stood in one smooth motion and emitted a series of birdcalls. It sounded so much like a night owl that Aluna would never have known the noises were made by a person unless she’d seen it herself.
A cluster of tree people surrounded her. She ground her teeth together as their rough hands grabbed her. She smelled moist soil and bark. “Hoku, Dash, Vachir — don’t fight them!”
“Fight them!” Odd countered. “Break them! Set them on fire!”
The creatures carrying her moved as one being, graceful and quick. In a flash they had maneuvered her to the base of an ancient tree and started climbing. She thought they would struggle with her weight, with the awkwardness of her body and her tail. Instead, they continued to move smoothly, tiny hooks on their feet and elbows giving them easy purchase up the tree trunk.
Calli, Dash, and Hoku were being carried up other trees.
“I can fly,” Calli said. “Just let me fly!”
But the creatures continued to hold her, and Aluna understood why. Branches and leaves clotted their path. Calli couldn’t even open her wings up here, let alone find the space to flap them.
On the ground, the Upgraders continued to fight. She saw Odd smack a tree person and it flew across half the campsite. But the creatures were leaving now, breaking off when they had openings and making their way up the trees and into the darkness again.
The horses. The creatures hadn’t taken the horses.
“Vachir!” Aluna called.
Vachir looked up from the ground, her huge eyes searching. The horse cried out, and Aluna felt the sound deep in her chest. Vachir’s massive body was no bigger than an ant, and getting smaller and smaller.
“I’ll find you!” Aluna yelled. “Stay safe! Stay with the kludge! I’ll find you no matter what!”
Tears welled in her eyes and she blinked them out, not caring if the creatures saw. She tried to find the person who had bargained with her originally, but she couldn’t tell her rescuers apart. “I told you to take the horses,” she said, her hands squeezing into fists. “Rescue them, too!”
“No. Too big, too heavy. The wrong shape,” one of the people said. “They splinter if they fall.”
Aluna closed her eyes and swallowed. She couldn’t think about Vachir falling from a treetop. Her legs, so strong when they ran, were inflexible, fragile even, in other circumstances. No, horses did not belong in the treetops.
“Vachir,” she said again, her voice tired and broken.
She should check on Calli and make sure that Dash and Hoku were uninjured. She should find out where the things were taking them. Find out who their leader was and what they wanted.
But all she could do was say Vachir’s name over and over again and hope that this whole thing was a nightmare, an evil vision concocted by her brain to punish her and break her heart. It was better than facing the truth.
The creatures carried her higher than she thought possible. She began to see platforms stretched like cobwebs between the branches. Some were small, single sleeping hammocks, and some were large enough to hold huts with webbed roofs. Large glowing bugs the size of her head clung to the trees and the webbing and provided a faint light, just like the glowfish did back home. Without them, she’d have been blind up here. The tree people were almost invisible to her dark vision.
She watched one creature jump from a ledge and spread its arms. She’d thought it was wearing a loose cloth shirt, but the folds weren’t fabric — they were a membrane. A flying membrane. A thin layer of skin extended from the cr
eature’s wrists down to its ankles on both sides. Another membrane opened between its ankles. The membranes caught the air and the creature glided gracefully down to another branch of the tree.
The creatures talked more up here, but only in their bird voices. Answering calls came from every direction, filling the air with a cacophony of whistles and chirps and small melodies.
Eventually they reached a wide, hanging stairway. It swung side to side as the creatures carried her up it, toward a vast area inside the trees. Leaves and branches created a canopy overhead, not unlike the curved walls of the domes back in the City of Shifting Tides. Dozens upon dozens of tiny webs surrounded a single, round platform in the center. They’d been brought to an arena.
The creatures deposited her in the center area. She tried to balance on her tail, but the shifting webbed ground made it impossible. She toppled over and braced herself with her arms. A fish in the desert was bad enough; a fish in the treetops was simply ridiculous. At least the webbing under her palms felt thick and coarse and sturdy, and not sticky and fragile as she’d suspected.
Hoku, Calli, and Dash were dropped with equal ceremony by her side. Dash helped her stand again so she could hug them and check for injuries. Blood covered Dash’s face, but he waved it off.
“I am fine,” he said. “The old wound reopened. Nothing more.”
“We’ll go back for Vachir,” Hoku said quietly.
Calli nodded. “We’ll find her, Aluna. She’s smart and brave, and she’ll be okay until we do.”
Aluna wanted to say something. Anything. She could only manage to nod.
The arena filled with tree people. They sat two or three to each small web, some dangling their feet over the edge, some crouched, some leaning against each other. Some moved like squirrels, others like insects. Aluna couldn’t tell how old they were, or if they were male or female. They all wore the same sort of muddy bark clothes plastered to their torsos and upper legs, and they all seemed perfectly comfortable despite the fact that they lived a hundred meters up in the sky.
A hunched tree person limped onto their platform with the help of a walking stick. Tattered and worn membranes hung under its arms, and deep ridges etched the skin of its face, making it look like the bark of an ancient tree. When the creature looked up at them, Aluna could barely see its eyes under the protruding overhang of its woody brows.
“We rescued you from the glints,” it said, and smiled. “A brave rescue. A good rescue!”
“Yeah,” Hoku muttered. “Just great.”
ALUNA STARED at the creature’s grinning face, her heart heavy, her hands starting to clench, and tried to remember that these people had risked themselves to save her and Calli from what had seemed like a terrible fate. She should be grateful. She should thank them. She should try to recruit them for the war. But she really just wanted to punch this one in the nose. A few months ago, she probably would have.
“Thank you,” she finally managed. “Thank you for rescuing us.”
The air filled with hoots and whistles and caws. The tree people were cheering.
The leader emitted a series of notes, a birdsong, and the crowd settled back down. Aluna had thought that the tree people’s speech seemed simplistic, but suddenly she understood: their primary language was their birdsongs. They were actually quite well-spoken for a language they probably rarely used.
“I speak as Melody,” the leader said. He motioned to the group. “They sing as Harmony. Together we are Silvae.”
Calli gasped. “Silvae! One of my Aviar teachers mentioned them once. They’re one of the secret LegendaryTek splinters!”
“There were secret splinters?” Hoku asked.
“The ones LegendaryTek hid best of all,” Calli said. “No one even knows what they are, or how many. But my teacher’s grandmother had met a Silvae.”
“How many other secret splinters are there?” Aluna asked. They could also use more people to fight against Karl Strand.
“I don’t know,” Calli said. “That’s why they’re secret.”
The Silvae leader in front of them coughed politely. “I speak as Melody,” he repeated. “You speak as?”
“I’m Aluna. Calli has the wings. Hoku and Dash are the ones dressed as Upgraders,” Aluna said.
Melody, who Aluna was almost certain was male, repeated each of their names in turn. “Glints smash and burn, tromp and crush,” he said. “Good rescue from glints. Last rescue, not as good.”
“Last rescue?” Aluna said. “What happened on the last rescue?”
Melody shook his head slowly from side to side. “Glints with flames, trees on fire. Prisoners too big. Not shaped for treetops.” He motioned to another Silvae. It dropped down to its hands and pranced around on its webbing.
“A horse,” Dash said. “Your last rescue attempt involved horses?”
“That’s why they couldn’t take Vachir,” Calli said, laying a soft hand on Aluna’s arm. “It was too dangerous.”
“No,” Melody said. “Not a horse.”
Another Silvae joined the first in its pantomime. Aluna couldn’t tell if they were wrestling or just goofing around, but whatever they were doing, it wasn’t helping.
“Equians!” Dash said. “You tried to rescue the desert horse people!”
“Yes,” Melody said, grinning. The old man was clearly enjoying this game. “Horse people. Equians. Two people, eight legs.”
“Two,” Dash said. “Was one of them dark skinned and bald with a brown horse body? The other was the same color as me, short brown hair, with a black flank?”
“Who are you talking about?” Hoku whispered. “I don’t remember anyone who looked like that from Shining Moon.”
“Because they were gone before we got there,” Aluna said. Her breathing necklace pulsed faster. “Erke and Gan. Dash’s fathers! They left Shining Moon to look for him when Dash was exiled and didn’t return.”
She looked at Dash, wanting to see her own hope reflected in his face. But Dash didn’t look at her. He stared straight ahead at Melody, his jaw clenched, and waited for his answer.
Melody whistled to his people and listened as they answered with trills and hoots of their own. “Harmony says yes,” Melody said eventually. “Horse people were as you say.”
Dash closed his eyes and exhaled. “And what happened?” he asked. “How did the rescue go badly? Did you drop them? Did you . . . break them?”
Tides’ teeth. Aluna wanted to reach over and take his arm, to remind him that she was there if he needed her. But she could tell by the way his whole body had started to quiver that he needed answers, not kindness. If she offered comfort, it might burst the fragile bubble he’d suddenly become.
“Break?” Melody said. He tilted his head to the side and whistled again. His people chirped back. It only took two flashes for this exchange, but it felt like years. “We could not rescue horse people,” Melody said, “but we did not break them. Glints took them to join glint swarm.”
“They’re alive,” Aluna said to Dash. “The Upgraders wouldn’t have kept them alive unless Karl Strand wanted them that way. There’s still time. We’ll find them.”
“I hope you are right,” Dash said, his voice a painful mix of hope and despair. “Erke is strong. He once survived a full month in the desert by himself after a sandstorm. But Gan . . . Gan is not like that. I fear for him.” He looked at Melody. “Do you know where they are? Does swarm mean they are with Strand’s army?”
“Army swarm, yes, but where? Swarm is huge, sprawling, hungry,” Melody said. “Swarm started small, used to nibble at Song’s edge, a caterpillar snacking on a leaf.” He shook his head angrily. “Now swarm has grown vast. Swarm devours. Trees fall, animals flee, birds fly away. Song shrinks, curls up on itself, starts to die.”
The Silvae keened when Melody stopped speaking, their birdcalls anguished.
“Join the Equians and Aviars against Karl Strand,” Aluna said. She spoke in a loud voice, trying to sound like the leader she wan
ted to be, not one who’d recently watched her plans crumble around her. “Help us fight Strand and his glints. Help us save our people, and the Song. We want to stop the war before it even starts, but if it comes to fighting, you would add much strength to our side.”
“No, no, no. We have Melody and Harmony. Song needs no other voices,” Melody said. “When glints enter Song, we hinder and poke, trip and rescue. When glints leave Song — these trees, this sky, that breeze — we do not follow.” He motioned to all the people around him. “Silvae do not leave Song. Silvae do not fight wars.”
“You’re already fighting a war,” Calli said. “You’re just not acknowledging it.”
“Harmony defends Song and Song only,” Melody said. He pointed a twiggy finger at each of them. “When war is done — fields of dead, red rivers, weeping young ones — Silvae and Harmony will remain.”
Aluna clenched her fists and looked away. Melody was almost as closed-minded as her own father. The Silvae had survived on their own for hundreds of years, and even now, faced with the destruction of their beloved forest, they insisted on fighting alone. And probably dying alone, too.
But the Silvae had rescued them and had left Odd’s kludge alive. They clearly valued life. If she spent a few days here, maybe she could convince Melody to see things a different way.
“You will go now,” Melody said abruptly. “We take you where you want.”
“What? Take us where?” Calli asked.
Melody pointed east, west, south. “Wherever, but not to swarm,” he said. “You pick and we take you to Song’s edge.”
“They’ll take us to the edge of the forest in any direction we choose,” Hoku translated. “Except the one direction we want to go — toward the army.”
“Even if we got to the army, we would not pass as Upgraders without Odd and his kludge,” Dash said. “They would take Aluna and Calli and we would not be strong enough to stop them.”
Hoku plucked a twig off his shirt and broke it in half. “Dash is right. We can’t find Strand on our own, and walking into the army by ourselves would be suicide.”