by Shannah Jay
Katia frowned at him. 'What do you mean, Davred?' She caressed the great furry head that was butting against her waist. Nim seemed to be growing almost daily.
Before Davred could answer, Cheral and Herra came over to join them.
'I must say, it was very thoughtless of you to stay away all morning,' Cheral said, in her usual sharp tones.
'You might have guessed that we'd be worried.'
'But we didn't stay away for long! We only went a dozen paces into the woods and then we came straight back.'
Benjan looked around. 'Where's Rakmar? I thought he was going to wait with you until we returned.'
'He went back ages ago,' said Carryn, slipping her hand into Benjan's. 'He said,' her voice wobbled, 'he said you wouldn't come out of the woods again.'
'But we've only been gone a few minutes!' he insisted.
Herra was staring across at the blur of tangled greenery, brow creased in thought. 'Brother, what next! It seems that time itself is twisted in there.'
Quinna thumped one massive fist into the other. 'I don't like this, Ben.'
' You don't like it,' muttered Jonner, but as usual, no one paid him any heed.
'Are these more obstacles put in our path by the deleff?' asked Narla. 'I thought they said they were going to leave us alone from now on. I don't like the look of those woods, Herra. They seem to be alive, somehow, as if they know we're coming and they're just waiting for us.'
Herra turned round and clapped her hands. 'We shall gather before we do anything else. Come, my Kindred. Let us seek strength and guidance from our Brother.'
As usual, the Gathering made everyone feel better, even Jonner. Those who’d stayed behind ate a nooning, which Katia and Benjan refused, because to them it still felt as though they’d just had breakfast.
When all was ready, they picked up the babies and shared out their few bundles of possessions, then crossed over into the Tanglewoods. 'Brother, stay with us,' murmured Herra as her foot left the bare plank to tread on a mass of virulently green, multi-tufted grass.
If the foliage had seemed to press in on Katia and Benjan that morning, it seemed positively to snatch at the group on this incursion into the Tanglewoods. At first, Benjan and Quinna led the way, slashing at the main stems where they could, and clearing enough plants to allow the others to pass. But by the time the last of the group reached a spot that had been hacked, the plants had regenerated and some needed further slashing before anyone could pass. Nim stayed in the middle of the column, whining and snarling at the vegetation. Only Katia's voice quieted her, and even that was not for long. Of them all, the kit was the most bewildered by this burgeoning green prison.
'I'd better go nearer the rear,' said Quinna, after a few minutes of this. 'You can't leave someone like Jonner to slash through the undergrowth. He's about as strong as a new-born nerid and he's as likely to slash himself as the plants.'
'You save your strength to cut down the plants, and stop insulting others,' Jonner shouted, stopping to glare at her.
'Shut up and walk, Jonner, you fool!' she yelled down the line. 'And save your strength, such as it is, for keeping yourself clear of tendrils.'
'We're not all muscle-bound freaks like you,' Jonner yelled back, incensed. 'Some of us are used to earning our daily bread with our brains, not our muscles. Look at that!' He tore feverishly at a strand that was trying to wrap itself around his hand.
Quinna shrugged. 'Hack or get left behind, Jonner dear. Your choice. We could have done with someone like Fiana here,' she said as she squeezed past him through the dense tangles. ' Look out!' She leaped forward, sword slashing through the air with a whistling sound, just as a frail-looking net of foliage drifted down towards Alaran's dark head. It was dangling from a long slender thread. When she lopped it off, the net stuck to her blade instead and the ends of thread began to curl upwards towards her hand.
'Don't touch it!' called Cheral. 'It might stick to your fingers.'
Quinna tried plunging her sword into the ground to clear the sticky strands from it, but there were too many roots and tubers. Only when she accidentally touched a flower with the blade and saw the flower lick out with its stamens and dissolve some of the filaments did she find a way to rid herself of the glistening mess.
'Just look at that! Bust my guts, but I never saw a plant behave like that before.' Once the sword blade was clean again, the delicately-quivering mass of huge blue plate-shaped flowers became quiescent again.
'Ready to go on?' called Benjan from the front.
'Sure, Ben baby, but watch out for these blue flowers. They're flesh-eaters.'
'Stop!' yelled Katia from three places behind Benjan.
Everyone froze in their tracks.
'You're heading the wrong way, Benjan.'
While they had been standing waiting for Quinna to deal with the sticky aerial net, the undergrowth around them had grown so tall that they were all completely surrounded again. Cursing, Jonner laid about him with his long knife, and Quinna hacked at some pulsating strands of dark greenery that kept throwing down lighter side-shoots. These wove their way across the ground towards people's feet.
Katia handed Alaran to Narla and moved up to the front. 'This way, Benjan.'
'Are you sure?' Benjan scowled at the undergrowth.
'Very sure.'
After half an hour, Benjan and Quinna, for all their massive strength, were showing signs of exhaustion and to add to the Kindred's problems, darkness was falling.
'This is a wild, unholy place,' muttered Cheral. 'Brother, if you do not guide our footsteps, we shall be lost here for ever.'
'How can it be getting dark?' demanded Jonner, tripping over a thick snake-like tendril that was writhing across a mat of squashed yellowish greenery on the ground. 'We've only just set off! It's not even mid-afternoon yet.'
'Do we keep going through the darkness, Elder Sister?' asked Benjan, pausing to regain his breath after a spectacular bush covered in vivid yellow flowers had proved particularly hard to chop back. He slashed idly at some tendrils that were sprouting from it as he spoke.
'I think we must continue until we find somewhere safe to stop. Let me take a turn at chopping.'
'Just a short one,' he allowed, still panting. 'Give me a minute or two to recover, then I'll take over again.'
She started chopping with tight, efficient movements, but it was not long before she, too, became exhausted. Davred handed Erlic to Narla and took his turn.
'What happens,' Jonner's voice floated forward, 'if we stand still for more than a minute or two? Do you think there are plants which eat people as well as other plants? I reckon we're dead if we stop moving. And no one can keep walking for ever. How will we get any sleep? Or stop for a meal?'
'Shut up, will you!' shouted Quinna. 'We can do without your gloom and doom. Here, take Carryn's knife for a minute or two and give me a rest.' She didn’t offer him her sword, which was more effective than the knives. Only Benjan was allowed to touch that.
Katia remained near the front, ready to hand Alaran over to Cheral and take her place in the lead. The sweaty heat and the flickering filtered light had now been replaced by a slightly cooler, but still sweaty dusk and before long it would be completely dark. 'This is impossible,' she said to Carryn, who was holding Lerina in her arms. 'It shouldn't be happening. Time itself seems different here. I'm not even hungry from breakfast and yet night is falling. Brother, Brother, where have we strayed?'
'Brother, look down!' Carryn shuddered as she tore away a creeper that had caught in her hair from behind.
'Even if he looked down, he'd not see us in this place,' muttered Jonner, but shut up when Narla poked him in the ribs.
There was a slithering sound in the undergrowth.
'That isn't snakes, is it?' gasped Narla, clutching at Jonner. 'I can't bear snakes.'
'I don't know what it is,' he said, clutching her in turn. 'I don't much like snakes myself.'
There was a creaking noise above their hea
ds. 'What now?' demanded Quinna. 'Watch out above, Benjan!'
The creaking continued, but they could see nothing.
'Damn me if I like the idea of perishing in this stinking mess of green,' Quinna said with her usual frankness, continuing to slash around her, 'but I can't go on much longer. I'm sorry, Herra, but this is worse than climbing Drymouth Pass in a blizzard, worse than running up and down the Quoin a thousand times. At least in the desert, you can see where you're going. We could have been walking round in circles, for all we know, and only Katia seems sure that we're not.'
Something brushed against Davred's forehead and he yelled in shock. There was no way of running, no way of avoiding any danger that could come creeping through these near-impassable woods.
'Are you all right, Davred?' Katia called anxiously.
He squinted up through the darkness. 'It's a branch from one of the tall trees. It's hanging down right beside me. It wasn't there a minute ago.'
The branch creaked as it waved gently about and its huge leaves started to droop down, bending right into the writhing mass of green at the side of their newly hacked path.
'Look at that!' said Jonner, twitching away from a big leaf that was nearly touching him. 'Where the leaves from the tree touch the undergrowth, the plants curl away.'
They were all covered now by the same massive branch and the vegetation had slowed its thrust forward.
The smaller side branches jutted out at right angles to the main stem, and each was the thickness of a man's thigh. The branch itself stretched upwards for as far as they could see, and was as wide as Benjan's chest.
'There's no way that a branch that huge should have been able to bend,' quavered Jonner. 'Branches like that break off sometimes, but they don't b-bend.' Another creak made him jump like a startled grain-rat.
'Don't panic, dear friends. We haven't been hurt.' Herra stared around. 'Indeed, where the leaves are hanging, the undergrowth has coiled backwards. I would guess that somehow, that tree is offering us a path out of these tangles,'
'Or a path into its belly,' muttered Jonner.
' Will you shut up!' yelled Quinna. 'I've had just about enough of you and your moaning! If you make one more gloomy remark, Jonner, just one more, I'll give you something else to think about!' She brandished a huge fist under his nose and his gulp as he shrank back was clearly audible to everyone. Had their situation not been so desperate, they might have smiled.
'Herra, I think we'd better climb up that branch quickly. If we stay here much longer, we're lost.' Katia stopped speaking to slash at a vine shoot that had crept below two hanging leaves and almost managed to curl around Alaran's neck before she noticed it.
'Yes, you're right.' Herra raised her voice. 'Get up into the tree, everyone. And hurry! Katia, will Nim follow?, do you think?' But the kit hadn’t waited for an invitation to leap up into the tree and was even now walking slowly up the main branch.
There was a scramble to climb on to the branch and gasps when the leaves obligingly turned sideways to form steps up to the higher side branches, but no one complained. Even Nim needed no urging to move further along the branch.
Below them were the sounds of slashing as Benjan and Quinna guarded their rear. Suddenly the slashing sounds stopped, but no one could see the bottom end of the branch because of the huge leaves.
'Benjan, are you all right?' called Herra.
'Yes, lady. Quinna and I are both off the ground now.'
'Hey, Herra!' Quinna's voice floated up the line of humans and cliff cat, who were all clinging like beetles to the branch. 'This branch is rising up into the air again. I can't see the ground any more. It's good luck that there are enough side branches to go round, isn't it?'
Jonner moaned and buried his face in his arms. He could do without luck like this!
Those carrying the babies found leaves wrapping around them, as if to support their more precarious one-armed hold on the branches. Or were the leaves holding them prisoner?
'Brother, guide our steps!' Herra prayed aloud. 'Look down upon your Kindred.'
'Brother, look down,' came a chorus of echoes from below her.
CHAPTER 21 THE TANGLEWOODS
When the branch stopped rising, the leaves unfurled again and left the passengers free to move around a little. 'This branch is more like a path now.' Benjan stood up and walked a few steps along the flat upper surface, which stayed firm and steady, even beneath his weight.
'Take care!' Cheral called.
'I will, Sister. I'll just walk as far as the trunk and see what it's like there.'
Jonner opened one eye, yelped and shut it again. He was the only one not sitting up and looking round.
Even Nim had stood up and was stretching delicately.
Benjan came back. 'There's a cavity in the trunk, Elder Sister, with space enough for us all to sit down. Do you want to come and look at it? It might be safer for the babies in there.'
Herra and Davred both followed him and then returned to fetch the others. Katia sighed in relief as she put Alaran down between two inner folds of trunk, and he crowed up at her, quite happy with his rough cradle, but clearly hungry. By his side, Erlic looked around with those strange silvery grey eyes, eyes which always appeared too knowing for such a small baby. Nearby Lerina chewed sleepily on her thumb.
'Where's Jonner?' asked Quinna suddenly.
Benjan snorted. 'I'd forgotten about him. Anyone seen Jonner?'
'He's probably still clinging to that branch,' said Quinna scornfully.
'Poor Jonner,' said Narla softly. 'He really does fear heights.'
Benjan moved out on to the branch again. 'Shall I go and fetch him, Elder Sister?'
'Yes, but treat him gently. He cannot control his fear.' She snapped her fingers and light glowed in the air at her fingertips, showing them the extent of the hollow. 'Yes, this should be fine while darkness lasts. There is no feel of danger to it.'
There was a shriek from along the branch and Benjan returned to deposit a shivering Jonner on the floor next to the babies. 'If you were in the Guild,' he said, 'we'd have had you running up and down trees until you grew used to heights.'
'Enough,' said Herra, hiding a smile. 'Leave the poor man be.'
Narla helped Jonner find a place to sit and gave him an encouraging smile.
Nim stretched out across the doorway, on the alert, her eyes flicking back towards Katia, then round again to the darkness beyond the hollow. Herra allowed the light at her fingertips to fade, conserving her strength.
'I can't see anything now,' quavered Jonner. 'It's dark as a pit in here and who knows what's outside. Can't you leave that light glowing, Herra?'
'What do you need to see?' snapped Cheral. 'If anything approaches, Nim will let us know.'
There was a rumble of distant thunder and a hissing sound outside as rain started pouring down from the dark sky. 'Well, thank heavens we've found shelter!' said Cheral. 'We'd have been soaked in no time in that downpour. Now, does anyone want anything to eat?'
'I’m not hungry yet,' said Benjan. 'I don't understand this place. How can it be dark already?'
'I don't understand anything,' said Quinna, 'but at least we're dry in here and Nim's on guard. Things could be worse.'
'It seemed very strange to me in the Sandrims,' said Narla, in her soft hesitant voice. 'Just as strange as here.
But we're all alive and well, and surely that's the important thing.'
'You do well to remind us of that, little Sister.' Herra leaned across to clasp Narla's hand for a moment.
'Thank you for that comfort.'
They sat and chatted desultorily for a while, then the darkness and the soothing noise of rain softly falling lulled most of them into sleep.
Herra couldn’t sleep, so she sat near the opening, leaning back against the inner wall and staring out at the near-darkness outside their rough shelter. Her hand caressed the soft fur of the equally wakeful kit and an occasional rumbling purr testified to Nim's pleasure at thi
s attention.
Only a couple of hours later, by Herra's reckoning, the sky started to grow lighter and within minutes it seemed to be fully dawn. She would have expected birdsong, but they’d seen no birds in the Tanglewoods.
There was an occasional insect, but mostly of the hard-shelled creeping variety, and they seemed to have no interest in the humans who had invaded this fierce green world. It was left to the plants to resist the invasion.
Suddenly, the floor of the cavity started to creak and heave up and down. Everyone woke with a start and jumped to their feet. The babies seemed to sense the anxiety around them and started howling in fear.
'What now?' demanded Jonner.
'I think it wants us to leave,' said Katia, scooping Alaran up and moving over to stand by Nim, just outside the doorway. She jiggled her son up and down until he started chuckling and then she moved along the branch a little to make way for Davred and Erlic. The others gathered their packs together and followed. The morning sunlight was filtered to a faded green by the leafy canopy, but even that half-light was a relief after the stygian darkness of the brief night.
'Herra!' Katia indicated the broad branch which had led them to this shelter.
'Yes?'
'Is it my imagination, or does this branch now connect with a branch from the next tree?'
Herra stared through the dappled green light. 'I think you're right.'
'It didn't connect with anything last night.'
'Are you sure?'
'Yes. And not only that, but I'm fairly sure the branch we used to get to the hollow in the trunk was a bit further round that way.'
'Is that possible? How can such a big branch move?' Davred came across to join them.
'Is any of this possible?' asked Herra. 'I've seen nothing like it in the whole of my life, nor have I read of anything similar in the Archives. I sometimes wonder if I'm asleep and dreaming all this.'
'If you are, so am I,' said Jonner. 'Only these Tanglewoods are a nightmare, not a dream.' He was still standing in the doorway to the hollow, reluctant to stand out on the limbs. He yelped in shock as something nudged him from behind, and then called urgently, 'Look! Elder Sister, just look at that, will you! The hollow's all filled up again!'