The Redwoods

by Ross Turner

  In many ways, probably without even realising, Vivian had picked up many traits of the great bears, Red observed. He smiled to himself at the thought, finding the matter actually quite amusing, for he’d never really stood back far enough to notice it before. Humans were not generally welcomed in the forests, as the creatures of the wilderness knew all too well.

  They were a threat, a danger, and in many ways even a disease, just as the plague was.

  Vivian however, if not before, then especially now, was not only welcomed, but as much a part of the Redwoods as the plants and animals were, for she could even feel its beating heart, and it could feel hers, close and safe and protective. No human, not even her parents, had ever shared the connection with the mystical forest that she felt so keenly.

  But it wasn’t only the heart of the woodlands that Vivian could sense, and that of her dear Red, and the creatures all around them, flourishing with life once more, but also those fretting and pounding heavily in the chests of her enemies, still many leagues away.

  She had known this would happen. It had only been a matter of time until her power grew strong enough. The Redwoods had told her of it. They had warned her, when young Vivian had first learned of her supernatural heritage, that she would be able to sense the Greystones, for sorcerers were in some ways almost like kin. But that didn’t change the strangeness of the feeling.

  Far in the distance, on the very edge of her senses, at what felt like the very edges of her subconscious, though that was a confusing enough thought as it was, she felt a dark pulsing. Not only was there the feeling, but there too was the sound. It was like a great, heavy, slow, thunderous drumbeat, underlying everything else she was aware of.

  The sound was continuous, ominous, forever there in the back of her mind, behind and beneath everything else Vivian could hear. And then there was also the feeling. She knew it was the Greystones, of that she had no doubt, but the words to describe it did not yet, to her knowledge, even exist. If she could have chosen but one word to explain the terrible and ever present threat of her enemies, she would have been able to pick only one.

  Black.

  Vivian and Red continued on, marching through the rejuvenated forest at a steady pace. There was less need to rush now, for with each day that passed there was more life and more colour, as Vivian’s power grew and grew, ever expanding its reach. No longer afraid of the plague, for it seemed Vivian had found a way to repel it, at least for now, she had bought them valuable time.

  They had the upper hand now, and the Greystones were on the defensive. They’d lost the element of surprise, and their horrible attack had failed, falling finally with abandoned futility against Vivian’s overpowering will.

  She wondered as she walked whether this was what her parents’ power had been like: so strong and so far reaching, and if so, how in the world had she ever not sensed it? It was so blindingly obvious to her now that the thought that she’d simply ignored it was madness.

  ‘Their power was not to the same extent as yours, Vivian.’ A thousand voice whispered silently to her. Their tones were not so anxious now, and the urgency behind them had faded, though it had not vanished entirely, for the sight of danger was still clearly present on the not so distant horizon.

  Vivian was all too aware of it, for the blackness never left her, day or night.

  ‘How can that be?’ She asked. ‘Even with two of them?’

  ‘Even their combined strength was still not a match for your own.’ The Redwoods explained, their voices understanding as Red’s always was. That made Vivian wonder just how many of the red bear’s traits were passed on from the Redwoods themselves.

  ‘Why?’ She asked then. ‘Why am I so much stronger?’ The tremendous amounts of power she seemed to possess seemed quite unnecessary at that point. Surely her parents could easily have stopped the plague had they been alive?

  ‘No, Vivian.’ The Redwoods replied quite sombrely. ‘Their greatest strength was in their influence upon others. They were respected and prominent among the other families, and because of that, to have power such as yours would have been redundant.’

  Vivian processed that for a moment, piecing together just exactly what the Redwoods were trying to make her understand. And as ever they waited silently and patiently, their sound in the distance of Vivian’s thoughts.

  ‘So…’ She eventually began, the cogs of her mind churning. ‘For me to have this much power, must be necessary for something in particular…’ She replied slowly.

  ‘Very good.’ The Redwoods replied, their tones lifting. ‘You are right of course.’

  Vivian didn’t reply for a moment, and she knew the Redwoods would know what her next question was. Of course she wanted to know what is was she was supposed to do, but for some reason she knew they wouldn’t tell her, or perhaps they wouldn’t be able to. Perhaps, possibly, they didn’t even know. So she directed her questioning down a different route instead.

  ‘Why?’

  They remained silent for a moment and Vivian felt as if her question was echoing around the vast forest, though of course that was impossible, for she hadn’t even spoken. When the Redwoods eventually replied, their many hundreds upon thousands of voices were grave and serious.

  ‘Because what you must do is very different to the challenge your parents faced, and thus requires a different set of tools.’

  Vivian nodded, understanding and, of course, wanting in earnest to know more.

  ‘Their responsibility was to maintain peace with the Greystones, and to protect the people and the wilderness.’ The Redwoods continued, and Vivian nodded again, but still did not respond. ‘In your absence, the Greystones have usurped the Featherstone rule, and chaos has ensued in their manic race for power. Your task is to remove the Greystone threat once and for all.’

  ‘Remove it?’ Vivian questioned, not really liking the sound of that. ‘How?’

  ‘However it must be done.’ The Redwoods told her, a little evasively. ‘But it must be done.’ Clearly that was where the Redwood’s knowledge of what she had to do ended, and fear of the unknown stirred in Vivian’s stomach, opening a pit of anxiety.

  ‘What if I can’t?’ Vivian asked, even her thoughts quivering slightly.

  ‘Then the plague shall overrun the world, and kill every living thing within in. Right now, your power is the only thing holding it back. The Greystones, so blinded by their ceaseless quest to claim your life, have lost control of it completely.’

  ‘So Red was right?’ Vivian replied. ‘Even the one who created the plague can’t stop it?’

  ‘He is correct, yes.’ The Redwoods agreed sadly. ‘It comes down to you.’ Their many tones were understanding, sympathetic, resolute, and sorrowful, all at the same time.

  There was nothing for it. Rarely did such heavy responsibility fall upon such young shoulders. But then of course, any who had knowledge old enough to know, it was certainly not unheard of. There had been others before Vivian, in some cases even younger than her, who had felt a similar burden of responsibility.

  Vivian nodded for a third time and the voices ringing through her thoughts slowly quieted and faded away into the deep recesses of her mind. Where they always disappeared to she still wasn’t quite sure, but the noise of her thoughts lessened and Vivian was able to focus once again on the real world.

  She didn’t recognise where she was, though she sensed immediately both that it was much later in the day, and that they were considerably closer to Virtus. Looking round she saw that Red, as always, was close by her side, watching her carefully. As she looked at him his eyes brightened.

  “Welcome back.” He greeted her gleefully. “Are you ok?”

  “I think so…” Came Vivian’s unconvincing reply.

  “You think so?” Red questioned, raising one eyebrow above his deep, dark eyes.

  Then the resonating blackness that was the Greystone plague nudged at the very edge of Vivian’s subconscious thoughts. She barely noticed it at first, but
then almost instantly the light touch was followed by an almighty shove, a blow in fact, that knocked her from her feet.

  She cried out as she stumbled and Red dove with unimaginable speed to catch her before she fell.

  “Viv!” He gasped. “What’s wrong!?”

  His Vivian inhaled deeply, and was forced to catch her breath before she could reply, leaning on her shaky knees carefully. Red stood close, guarding and alert.

  “It’s the plague.” She said warily, looking up and all around her. “It’s getting stronger.”

  Something of a dark shadow fell over them then, and the light filtering through the canopy above lessened dramatically, and what little could be seen of the skies darkened ominously, clouds looming above.

  “We have to move.” Vivian said then. “We haven’t got long. If we don’t make it to Virtus in the next few days, the plague will return. And while the Greystones are still alive, I won’t be able to stop it again…”

  “How do you know?” Red asked, his deep voice coated with concern.

  “It’s growing - getting stronger. We haven’t got long. We have to go. I have to stop them…”

  The cold edge of her tone was chilling, and her words were lethal to Red’s ears.

  He had known for a long time this day would eventually come, and he had always dreaded it. But now that it had finally arrived, he couldn’t help but be proud of his Viv, even if the dark thoughts in her mind were ones of murder and revenge.

  18

  Over the next few days, just as Vivian had predicted, the blackness of the Greystone plague closed in upon them slowly, but dreadfully surely. She didn’t tell Red quite how close to them the blackness was creeping, nor how steady its progress was, but Vivian knew that there wasn’t really the need. He knew all the same.

  Luckily, though the plague hungered for them so tenaciously, they reached the outskirts of the desolated city, known to Vivian only as Virtus, before it caught up with them.

  Peering out through the treeline upon the place Vivian had only ever heard of and envisioned, she saw immediately that things were much worse than she ever could have imagined. Her parents had only ever spoken grandly of this place, of its splendour and its great importance to the people, and of course to the Redwood Empire itself.

  Now, looking out from her hidden viewpoint, her vantage over the streets before her clear, Vivian saw quite clearly that those words were nothing but a distant memory. They were a forgotten gem of the past, now shrouded in an immovable and ceaseless grey haze. Clearly the tales her parents had told Vivian when she was young and been lost long ago, and the splendour she had always envisaged was now gone.

  The multitude of stone and wooden buildings, all laced with mould and moss, were crumbling and rotting away, for clearly they had not seen attention for many years. The cobbled ground was chipped and churned here and there and even entirely missing in other places, mottled with enormous scorch marks, and with great chunks ripped up from the very ground itself.

  Littered about here and there were the burned remains of a wooden cart or two, and also, most repulsively, a few scattered carcasses and limbs of both animals and people lay discarded, strewn across the floor meaninglessly. What was left of the flesh was torn and riddled with maggots, but nonetheless clearly they had already been set upon many times by hungry mouths, for there were bite marks evident, even on the very bones themselves.

  It was then that Vivian spied a few residents of this forsaken place, sifting their way through the rubble and bloodshed in the not too far distance, their tattered and filthy clothes hanging precariously from their emaciated bodies. There were three of them that Vivian could see: an old man and two younger women. Though their faces were gaunt and unkempt, the family resemblance between them was unmistakeable, and Vivian could only presume that the two younger women, barely a decade older than herself, were the older man’s daughters.

  Unable to watch the three of them struggle any longer, scrabbling through the littered remains, seemingly searching for anything at all they could find, Vivian turned to her Red.

  “Wait here.” She instructed. “We don’t want to scare them.” Red nodded, understanding of course, though the expression on his face was one far from contentment. He watched his Viv as a hawk watches its prey as she ducked out from their concealment and headed directly for what was, presumably, the remnants of a house.

  It was only then as she approached them and they spotted her that Vivian felt the nerves build within her gut, widening the pit in her stomach into a winded hole, and tightening her chest, shortening her breath as if someone had just punched her full force.

  She had not even seen, let alone spoken to another human being for years now, and though she hadn’t seemed to even think on it at first, the prospect now terrified her.

  But it was too late. She had no choice. It was now or never.

  It was the old man who stepped forward to greet Vivian, and his creased face, his deeply set eyes, and his long white hair, dirtied and unclean, made him look decidedly ancient. His clothes hung off him loosely, torn and ragged, and clearly beneath them he was starved and weak. It may simply have been the frailty of his body that gave Vivian the impression, but for some reason on first sight she sensed that he clung to life simply for his daughters. It seemed that, quite literally, he had absolutely nothing else to live for, and that thought saddened the young Featherstone greatly, only further deepening her resolve.

  Nonetheless, Vivian’s clothes fitted her little better, and she too was thin from months of scarce hunting, so at least she didn’t look out of place. She hadn’t really had to think about her appearance since she had entered the Redwood Forest, though when she was younger Clover had always made a point of finding clothes for her, and then when she was old enough Vivian had stolen them herself.

  At first Vivian had never asked where they’d come from, but as she grew older and bolder amidst the trees and the animals, she had of course begun asking many questions. Nearby travellers and Keeps were really not all that hard to steal from, she had one day decided, and they had suited her needs.

  “Good day miss.” The old man greeted her, his voice antique and overused, croaking with each syllable.

  “Hello.” She replied automatically, though she was unsure what to say. The old man, however, was full of questions.

  “My name is Garth.” He told her a little tentatively, with what sounded like caution in his tone, though Vivian was sure it was more likely intrigue than worry. “Did you just come from the Redwoods?” He asked.

  “Yes, I wandered out there a few days ago looking for my dog and got lost.” She lied, not wishing yet to reveal her true identity. “I’ve only just managed to find my way back…”

  “Oh, I see…” Garth replied, seemingly a little disappointedly, but nonetheless he pressed on.

  He proceeded to introduce his daughters, delving straight into the inevitable line of questioning Vivian had been expecting.

  “These are my daughters…” He introduced the two women with him, both with long, brown hair and features that would have been gorgeous, had they not been gaunt and malnourished. “This is Mel, and this is Amber…” He continued, indicating to each of them in turn. Mel was clearly the older of the two, but they both smiled with the same interest in Vivian that Garth showed. It was interest tinged desperately with hope.

  “Pleased to meet you.” Mel said immediately, stepping quickly forwards and taking Vivian’s hand, looking deeply and longingly into her shining blue eyes. “What’s your name?” She asked, before adding another question as if on an impulse. “Did you find your dog?”

  In some ways Vivian didn’t even want to know what these three, and doubtless everybody else who lived here, had been through under the Greystone rule. The desperation on their faces was clear enough. But nonetheless, she kept her façade up a little longer.

  “Clover.” She replied, as convincingly as possible, smiling. “My name is Clover, and no, I’m afraid I didn�
�t find my dog.”

  “Oh…” Mel replied, the same disheartening look shrouding her eyes that Vivian had seen in Garth’s, only moments ago. “That’s a shame…”

  Vivian wasn’t sure whether she was talking about the fact that she hadn’t found her missing dog, or that she wasn’t the only surviving and likely fabled Featherstone, though she imagined it was the latter. She imagined it was more than likely that the Greystones had done everything they could to discourage any rumour or talk of a survivor of their massacre.

  “Has anything happened while I was gone?” Vivian asked then rather tactfully, for her mind was churning over information and ideas and questions at an alarming rate.

  “Nothing out of the ordinary…” Mel replied, still disheartened, her hands both dropping lifelessly to her sides and her shoulders slumping, her hope defeated. “There’s still no food, people are still dying. The Greystones are getting even angrier though. They’ve killed eleven people these past two days alone. That we know of anyway…”

  “Eleven!?” Vivian spurted, unable to contain her shock. “Why!?”

  “I don’t know.” Mel shrugged, seemingly unaffected by the fact.

  It must have been the norm here now, and that thought sickened Vivian right to her very core.

  “But they’re not even bothering to execute people now.” Mel continued absently. “Remember they were using the stage before? They’re just cutting them down in the streets. Everybody’s hiding.” She glanced around briefly as she explained the situation to Vivian, and as if to emphasise her point the deserted streets all about them whistled with a lonely, chill wind.

  As she spoke Vivian too looked up and glanced at the desolate town around them. At least that explained why there were so few people to be seen, she thought.