First the boy with his sharp criticisms. Now Flint, nagging his conscience like a sore tooth. Quercus shook his head, the visions of a happy harvest threshed to dust. Had he really lost touch?
Flint continued, laying out precisely what his intentions were, “We must make our future where we find it, in the new Republic of Arborium.”
“You would pretend your cause is just? Gold has eaten all your common sense, man.” Quercus was furious. How many years did the two of them go back? “Do you honestly think that Maw will keep its promises to you? Trust me: Like these trees, they will cut you down.”
“Empty woods, empty words,” Flint countered. “I do apologize for the way matters have turned out. However, if you surrender, I promise that my men will spare your friends here.”
“Otherwise you would dispense with all of us, including the children?”
“War is as hard as heartwood, my lord. You and I know that.”
Quercus looked for a second as if he was really considering this offer. “I cannot agree to your demand, whatever the cost. My dignity, and that of my people, will not allow it.”
“Yes. I thought that might be your answer, old man. Fare you all well, then.” Flint’s visor dropped with a clang as he pulled out his sword.
It was the signal. As Flint dived toward the King, his men ran forward, poised to strike.
Ark felt hopeless. Children slashed and gored? He’d never intended it. He pulled the lever hidden in the nearest wall. Would it work?
It did. Flint’s blade was plucked from his hand like a feather as the sword flew toward the wall, landing with a great clatter. A hundred pairs of eyes were momentarily distracted.
“Dell and darnation!” shouted Flint.
From the shadows, Ark almost let out a whoop of joy. Maybe Goodwoody was right and the battle could be won without a single drop of blood shed! The phial of dark liquid might never need to be called upon. The hidden magnet was a good start.
But Flint was a hardened battle veteran. Setbacks, however miraculous, would not hinder the Commander. Despite his confusion, he instantly pulled a bone knife from an ankle holster. The instinct was good. Magnetized iron had no hold over this weapon.
Ark watched hopelessly as Flint advanced toward the King. However, Flint had not reckoned with the courtiers. They might be old, but the sap still flowed in their veins. They loved the trees like their own kin.
“I taught you when you were no more than a whippersapling!” said one of them, a retired major, blocking the way while the King retreated, holding up his weapon with obvious effort.
The Commander smiled. “Yes, you did, old man! Much appreciated.” Flint swung his knife in a single savage arc, severing veins in the old man’s arms. Blood blossomed and the offending sword dropped. “No hard feelings, eh?” he said with a stabbing motion deep into the chest that broke the man’s defense, and his life. The body collapsed to the ground, the first casualty that night.
Ark realized how stupid he’d been. There were other magnets hidden around the courtyard, but they would remove weapons from both sides of the fight. So much for preparation. And where had Flo gone? He felt outnumbered and overwhelmed.
The battle was begun and it was one-sided from the start. The ancient Marquis De-Gall did his best, parrying and foiling his attacker, and one of the ladies cried with delight as her little blade somehow slashed the neck of a surprised soldier. The man dropped his sword and clutched at his throat, trying to catch the lifeblood that leaked through his hands. But these were isolated incidents as Flint’s men trod through the smashed plates, swiping and stabbing both young and old.
All this time, Ark did his best. His handheld mirror was useful and cunning, harvesting light from the full moon above as he ran among the chaos, blinding one soldier after another with careful aim until the courtiers had time to knock them out. The Warden had talked about the sacredness of life, but Ark was still powerless to stop the carnage. He wondered briefly about the commoners feasting beyond the walls. Among the noise of their party, would they even hear the screams from deep within the castle as Arborium was stolen from under their feet?
Bodies fell, blood mingling with the wine from spilled pitchers. It was more than unequal. Those who survived scrambled over the tables toward the fountain at the center of the courtyard. The King was among their number, protected for now. But they were outflanked, surrounded by soldiers who closed in, eager as timber wolves for the final feast.
“All roight, me boyos?” The sound, light and tinkling like a bell, was enough to stop the soldiers for a brief second.
“Joe?” Ark shouted.
“Yas! My little Malikum. Yow saved me once. Oi’m just returnin’ the favor!” The leader of the Rootshooters stood on the high battlements, his white shift and long body turning him into a spectral apparition.
As he spoke, other white-clad figures popped up. “Them mealworms ain’t nearly as nasty as yow lot!”
“Yow tell ’em, Dad!” said Flo, popping up by her father’s side.
Flint paused, wiping the blood from his knife on a convenient napkin. “A bunch of foreigner Rootshooters! Oh gosh, we are terrified. Shouldn’t you lot be out nibbling mushrooms, or whatever else it is you ore monkeys do down there?”
“Oi be glad yow’re scared!” shouted Joe. “Aim up, lads!” Harpoons suddenly appeared, pulled from their loose white shifts. “Take ’im first.” Joe pointed at one of the soldiers standing on the ruins of the feast about to cut his way into the crowd around the fountain.
There was a hissing sound and the man clutched his shoulder where a tethered spike had suddenly impaled itself.
The man gave a wood-rending scream before collapsing to the ground, unconscious.
“Now for the rest of yow sun-fed turnips!” Joe roared. His intention had been to scare the growing daylights out of Flint’s men.
It almost worked. The soldiers wavered in their ranks, frightened of the white, haunting presences up above, shocked to see their colleague cut down so easily. But Flint had fought his way up through the woodways, where the unexpected was meat and drink.
“Bowmen!” he shouted, his voice like the snap of a branch.
And before the Rootshooters could even pull the rest of the harpoon triggers, arrows sped out from the shadowed cloisters with deadly accuracy. The Rootshooters’ height was for once a disadvantage, presenting large, outlined silhouettes. The perfect target for trained archers.
Ark had no time to act, so instead he sent an impossible thought out to the trees. Could these sharpened splinters remember that they were once alive, once part of the living heart of a tree? His mind strained at the idea.
“Let fall!” he whispered, sending his words like whispering wings straight toward the deathly volley.
Deep inside the dead grain, a spark moved. And the arrows wavered in their intent. If it was a prayer, the answer had come.
Ark concentrated with all his heart. He would not have his friends cut down like scaffield corn! The arrows agreed, plummeting away from their course, ignoring the wishes of the bowmen who strung them. All except one that was too close to its target, too sure of its aim.
“Noooo!” screamed Ark, finally coming to his senses as his old friend staggered slightly, an instant, sharp branch sticking out from his skin. “No!” he cried again. Ark of the wood, trained by Corwenna, unable to stop a mere sliver of arrow when it mattered most.
“Oi be hurt!” croaked Joe with a puzzled grin as he toppled forward headfirst, his white shift turning red. He plunged straight down, dying as his last words fled his lips.
44• DEATH OF A ROOTSHOOTER
Petronio had heard the distant thump-thump of the rotor blades starting up. Echoes of boots clanged around the inner chamber, deep in the heart of the flypod. He’d wondered what was going on. All had been quiet for hours although the feast should have begun. Fenestra had kept him busy in the storeroom, asking him to check the figures once again, burying him out of the way. But he’d
managed to filch a spare earpiece and tuned it to the right frequency. Using all this new technology already felt ingrained.
He could hear the panic in Fenestra’s voice as she put her forces on alert. Their transport was already accelerating toward its target. Had the coup gone wrong? Outside this sealed chamber, the men were getting ready and once again he was stuck on the sidelines.
Heckler popped his head around the door. “I told her it wouldn’t work. Man, these Dendrans are crazy! I knew it was gonna come to this.”
Petronio noticed a twig sticking out of the man’s tunic. “What’s that?”
Heckler’s face turned red. He looked around nervously as he tucked the twig out of sight. “Don’t tell the Lady, but that beautiful little stick is worth more than my pension. Every man’s got to look after himself, hey?” He winked at Petronio.
“Indeed!” said Petronio with sudden inspiration. Look after himself: That was exactly what he was about to do. “Something’s going wrong with the inoculation reserves.” He had to get Heckler’s attention. If those reserves ran out, every Mawish soldier was a dead man walking.
“Here!” said Heckler, ducking his head through the hatch as he clambered in. “Let me check it out.”
Petronio stepped out of the way to let the man inspect the glass-fronted freezer. He quietly lifted a shiny backup hard disk from a shelf.
Heckler bent over. “It seems all right to me!”
“And it will be all right!” said Petronio, slamming the sharp-edged hard disk onto Hecker’s head.
The man groaned once, then slumped onto the floor.
“Sorry!” said Petronio. “No hard feelings.” They were on the same side after all, even though the guy had once shot him. The choice of Heckler was opportune. The man liked his Buds. How strange that Maw named a drink after part of a tree! And he had a beer belly to match Petronio’s. The black one-piece zoot suit wouldn’t be a perfect fit, but he hoped no one would notice. After stripping the unconscious body, he gagged the mouth and tied the soldier up.
Five minutes later, what appeared to be one of Fenestra’s men quietly locked the chamber behind him and adjusted the infrared goggles on his face.
“We land in two minutes. Get strapped in, you fool!” snarled a voice behind him.
Petronio nearly jumped out of his disguise. But all that Fenestra saw was a combat-ready minion, ready to do her bidding. And that, after all, was his only intention. Adrenaline coursed like sap through his veins. At last, all his training had a purpose.
Ark ran toward the falling body, knowing it was too late. There was a dreadful irony, the master forger dying by the metal arrowhead he had dug from the deep roots. What power could bring the dead to life? Corwenna had shared dark secrets, but none for this tragedy.
Where was Flo? His eyes scanned the battlements as he ran, desperate for a sign. Loud sobs suddenly cascaded across the court as Flo threw her long arms over the battlements, trying to reach out for a life that was gone.
“Get down!” Ark shouted. “They’ll kill you, too!” As Ark spoke, another phalanx of arrows slipped through the air. Ark had no strength left to stop them.
Despite her grief, Flo ducked down at the last second, the arrows sparking against solid stone. The remaining Rootshooters had learned a fatal lesson. Adding to the body count would achieve nothing.
Ark now stood over Joe’s body, collapsed onto the ground, his eyes frantically searching for any sign of life. He knelt down, reaching out his hands, feeling only the warmth that was gradually leaving his old friend’s body. Joe’s eyes stared wide like a saint’s, that same crinkly smile on the Rootshooter’s face passing on a message that a good death was never to be feared. Ark grabbed a tablecloth, scattering goblets and glasses, then gently placed it over the body to make a shroud.
But battles do not wait on a single death. Before the next volley of arrows could fly, the Rootshooters took matters into their own hands. Working in teams, they launched a pile of leaves straight down into the courtyards. At least, they looked like a pile of leaves. But the soldiers’ amusement turned to horror when they realized that these leaves had been cleverly stitched together. Each double-winged construction supported the weight of a single Rootshooter. Those who lived in the depths of the tree now flew down toward the courtyard with only revenge on their minds and deadly iron spitting from the mouths of their harpoons.
“For Joe!” they screamed. “Our kith and kin!”
Flint’s men began to drop like plague victims. The Commander was furious. He rounded on the boy who was obviously responsible for this turning of the trunk tide. “Children and Rootshooters? You think you’ll beat the Armories of the North?”
“Yes!” answered Ark, turning away from Joe. “And now it’s my turn to deal with you!”
“Threatened by a boy who can’t even grow a beard. How very droll.” The commander crooked his fingers at two of his nearby men. “Kill him.”
When Ark first came to the Ravenwood, Corwenna also tried to dismiss him. Then, he was a frightened boy. Now, he was angry, a true child of nature, tooth and claw.
Two soldiers circled him. “Don’t really like it, you talkin’ to our gaffer like that!” snarled the first.
“It’s disrespectful-like,” said the second.
“And those ’oo disrespect our boss need to be punished!”
Ark looked around. The battle was in full swing. He saw the King backed against the fountain, sweat pouring from his face, his eyes gleaming. Bodies were strewn around the floor like straw. Rootshooters dipped and dived like sap swallows, some hit by arrows, fluttering over the edge to fall into the forest, and others crashing into the massed ranks of bowmen, causing devastation.
He had his own fight to wage. The men closed in, ready to finish off the arrogant apple-pipsqueak.
“Spring is coming,” said Ark.
It was a warning the men should have heeded. “It’s fall!” said one of them, confused.
“No. Spring is here right now!” Ark stamped hard on the floor in front of him. His words and the Rootshooters’ engineering were both accurate as a trapdoor slammed up, powered by a compressed spring. Unfortunately for the two soldiers, they were standing right on top of it. Like the Rootshooters, they flew. Unlike the Rootshooters, they didn’t have the benefit of wings as they slammed with an awful crunch into the side of the battlements.
“Sorry about the lack of a beard!” said Ark as he turned and stalked toward Flint.
The Commander looked worried for the first time. But then he smiled. “You’re clever, boy. I’ll give you that. And your friends appear to have the upper hand. However, you never know what’s behind you.” Flint helpfully pointed past Ark’s shoulder.
While all eyes had been focused on Ark’s trick with the spring, one of the soldiers had slithered like a snake through the mounds of bodies, under the table, and straight toward the fountain. The soldier sprang up now, dispatching the King’s closest bodyguard with a strike-punch to his Adam’s apple, cutting off the windpipe and effectively strangling him. Then a knife shone out of nowhere. One calloused hand held the King’s crowned head, the other a blade that rested easily against Quercus’s neck.
“It seems we have a draw!” said Flint. “The slimy Rootshooters might win, but if your precious Majesty is dispatched, everyone loses.”
Ark was flummoxed. One Dendran death against the whole of Arborium? Quercus might not have been the best of kings, but he was the symbol they were all fighting for. And that one Dendran’s life was now in his hands.
“Glad to see you’re thinking it over. Tell your friends to stop now, and we will let Quercus go into exile. I am a man of reason. I might even be able to persuade my colleagues not to butcher any more of the court’s posh little brats.”
Ark looked over Flint’s shoulders and saw the princess with the golden curls lying on the ground as if sleeping. Her teddy boar was ripped open, its stuffing spilling across her dress. Flint was loathsome, his followers a poiso
n fungus.
“Ignore every word!” the King spluttered as the knife nicked at his neck and a thin stream of blood trickled down. “My life means nothing. It is this kingdom that matters.”
“Shut it!” snarled the soldier.
“No, Sergeant. His words have a rather noble ring to them. Nothing like a lost cause to make one feel nostalgic.” Flint turned to Ark. “Come, boy, I need an answer. My time is precious.”
A sudden scream that was designed to detonate eardrums distracted them all. Ark was shocked. He’d recognize the mouth that formed that horrendous sound anywhere. After all, he’d grown up with it. Normally, it was the harbinger of tantrums, but today it was a siren song of hope.
The scream came to screeching halt. All eyes turned toward its source, hidden behind a pair of double doors in the corner of the courtyard. As the echo died away, the doors burst open and a stinking fusillade erupted from them, aimed straight at the fountain.
“You could scream for Arborium, Shiv. Well done! That’s it, Phlegm! Good aim, Biley!” came a familiar voice as the stream of unadulterated sewage hit the soldier threatening the King, squarely in the face.
“Urrgggh!” he spluttered, losing the grip on his knife and slipping in the muck before slamming onto the wooden boards headfirst. Unfortunately, the splatter effect meant that the King and his last brave defenders were no longer dressed in silk and velvet. Their cotes were now a fetching shade of sprinkled brown.
The King took advantage of the surprise, snatching the soldier’s falling knife and standing none too gently on the would-be assassin’s neck to stop him rearing up again.
Flint’s eyes nearly popped out, his brain trying to formulate a reaction.
“Am I too late?” the welcome voice boomed out.
Ark almost burst out laughing. “Mucum, you’re always late, but very, very welcome. Is Shiv all right?”
“You heard her.”
“We all did!” shouted the Marquis De-Gall.
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