by Jeffrey Hall
But in the crowd of the great creatures it was impossible to make sense of one from the other. Fur, stripes, and fruit combined to make an indiscernible wall that they would be fools to try to penetrate,as they’d risk ending up as shreds of debris like the bushes and vines that had already been destroyed.
“It’s gone,” shouted Wish as another berry struck the back of his neck.His head swung. From every corner of the forest it seemed the bushes were advancing. “Let’s go.”
Not without the box. Moso peered frantically into the fray.
“We’re gonna get kill—”
There. Moso pointed, and there amidst the fight he saw the child that held the box, clenching it tightly, mewling as the greater of its kind fought violently around it. Before Wish could stop him Moso rushed into the crowd.
“Moso!”The black-and-orange curtain of fruit splatter and streaked ones closed behind his partner. Wish came to the edge of the streaked ones, hoping to find a way to pull the Chassa back to safety, or at least to a place safer than the one he’d just entered. But one of the creatures turned on him, counting him as an enemy just like the bushes and vines.
It swiped and Wish fell back, its claws cutting the air in front of his nose with an audible whoosh. It pounced, forcing Wish down onto his back as its frame slammed into his own.It snapped at his face and all Wish could do to avoid its teeth was roll, bringing the point of the short spear that rose over his shoulder from its position on his back into the creature’s face. The streaked one stumbled backwards, holding its cheek, a piece of fur whose whiskers had been replaced with a deep, bleeding gouge from Wish’s spear.
Wish hopped up to his knees and swung his machete into its leg, severing it just below the knee in a crackle of fire as the totem flared and theblade connected. The creature toppled, roaring.Wish came to his feet and was surprised to see the thing still reaching for him even from the ground. Enraged. Its eyes swollen with fury like the throats of a frog about to burst.
Wish ignored it and stepped out of its reach. Moso was still in there. He didn’t have time to waste dealing with a downed streaked one.
“Moso!” he screamed above the din of the battle, but only the roar of the legless streaked one answered. The Chassa was dead in there. Wish was sure of it, but he refused to believe it until he saw the monkey’s body himself. He raised his machete and went to slice his way to the center of the crowd, but something shot out from the bottom of the pile, stopping him where he stood.
The box.
It lay before him in the mud, covered in a mixture of blood and ash berry juice, scarred, claw marks running over the carvings on its face.
Wish picked it up just as Moso scrambled out beneath the feet of the streaked ones. He sheathed his machete and grabbed the Chassa’s hand, pulling him to his feet.
Now let’s get out of here. Moso wiped the blood running over his nose.
Another roar boomed behind them. The Red One stood in the middle of the fray, its mouth open wide, pointing at the two. The meat creatures circling the village turned towards the center of the village, and the stampede began.
Dozens of them sprinted towards Wish and Moso, some leaping over their own to reach the two, a storm of flesh threatening to pulverize them in a second’s time, the box in his hand be damned.
A headless bongo was the quickest of the creatures, its skinless body rippling as it pounded the soil that they would soon join.
Get ready to hold on,Moso signed frantically, and before Wish could even react the Chassa jumped onto his back and pulled his short spear from its sheath.
“What are you doing?” screamed Wish as he reached for his machete again, ready to try and cut down every last creature that came for them.
The bongo corpse pummeled through the trampled body of a bush. Moso threw the spear. It connected with the creature’s side, staggering it, causing it to change direction.
Moso leapt onto the thing’s back as it scrambled to come fully upright again. He waved Wish onward.
He had no time to question his partner or call him a lunatic. He grabbed hold of the spear with his free hand as the creature passed, regaining its footing,and swung his leg over its back just as the other reanimated bodies caught up and the piece of ground they were just standing on was trampled.
The bongo corpse shot forward, sprinting towards the edge of the village with the others of its kind in tow like a strange, headless herd. All the while Moso and Wish grabbed hold of the creature’s tender meat below as the ash berries continued to fall.
But their ride did not last long.
A line of living bushes awaited them. They lashed out with their limbs, tangling their mount’s legs and bringing it to the ground.
“Jump!”
They leapt from the corpse’s back, vaulting the bushes. They crashed onto the forest floor, downed trees and fronds painfully breaking their fall. Wish tumbled through the underbrush, cradling the box in his arms as he did.A tree stopped him from going any further.
He ached everywhere, but the adrenaline coursing through him dulled the sensation. There was little time to recover. A bush coiled its thorny appendage around his leg and pulled him back towards the village. Because of the way he lay on the ground he couldn’t reach his machete. Another bush snagged his wrist.
“Moso!” he called, but the Chassa was still rising to his feet.
The bushes dragged him closer. He turned and saw the downed bongo tangled in their thorns, his short spear rising from it like an unmoving limb of the bush. He pushed himself upright, lunged for the weapon, gripped its handle, and pulled it free before the bush could bring him back to the ground. He plunged the spear into the bush’s center, pushing it away from him until the limb snapped from his leg. Free to move, he rose, and using the spear, he hacked away the tangle still gripping his wrist.
He spun, the box still tucked against his body, ready to impale any of the other creatures still ready to fight him, but they all were advancing towards the center of the village, no longer concerned with him or Moso. Instead, between the stampeding corpses and falling ash berries, he saw the Red One staring at him from across the battle.
Thief. Murderer.
Its voice roared inside Wish’s head. Wish wanted to yell back. He wanted to tell it that it was wrong. But with the box still in his hand and its dead brethren scattered across the ground, he felt foolish to try and argue the creature’s verdict.
A vine dropped from the canopy to attack the Red One, breaking their stare. For a brief, insane instance Wish thought again about rushing back in to help the creature, but stopped himself. They weren’t allies. He was missing a finger to prove that. He turned just as Moso was coming to his side.
What the hell are you doing? Waiting for him to finish your hand?
Together they fled the village. They pushed into the jungle, soon escaping the falling ash berries and reaching a place where the roars of the streaked ones were barely audible. Only then did they come to a stop to catch their breaths.
They looked at each other, their hands on their knees. Mud, juice, blood, and other debris caked Moso’s fur. He looked like a half-decayed body the scavengers of the forest had forgotten to finish. Wish had no doubt he looked the same. The raw, dull throb of his missing finger and fingertip reentered his mind. He lifted his hand and was still shocked to see them gone, even though he had watched the Red One nibble them away.
Moso ran a hand through the fur on his head. And you say I am the crazy one. A hand for a box?
Wish spat as a dribble of sweat brought blood and ash berry onto his lips. “I didn’t go diving into a pile of streaked ones for it.”
I couldn’t let you waste a finger for nothing. Moso stood upright. The bushes. The vines. The berries... What the hell happened back there?
A whisper rose from somewhere in the forest. Wish thought he was imagining things, but Moso’s ears perked up.
What the hell is that?
The sound of groaning wood drowned out the
strange voice. The tree behind Moso swayed, and the Chassa jumped to Wish’s side. Together they watched in horror as it pulled its roots from the soil like feet stuck in mud and came to life.
It was a massive gola tree with bark as thick as the trunks of some of the surrounding smaller trees.It bent, lowering itself down from the canopy and taking with it the limbs and vines of neighboring growths, and stood before them like a many-armed giant awakened by ants and furious.
It swung down, a limb tangled with vines, broken limbs, and even some still chattering monkeys, like a mace built from an absurd smith. They dove as it came crashing between them, the limb itself breaking free of the tree from the impact. Shrapnel showered Wish. Some of the monkeys skittered over his back in wild escape.
The tree groaned.Wish pulled free his machete expecting to see a new limb come crashing down on his head, but instead found its attention turned to Moso.
His partner danced before the lumbering vegetation, striking out with his daggers at the lower branches that hung before him. His blades chipped away at the wood, but it was not enough to stop the tree from swinging down again.
“Watch out!” called Wish.
Moso jumped, but not far enough to avoid the tree’s swing. Though the main limb missed, the smaller ones that grew off of it pinned him on his stomach. With his one free hand he chopped at the limb, hoping to cut himself to freedom, but it was no use. The limb did not budge.
More wood groaned overhead. The tree was bringing down another branch to finish the job.
There was no time to free Moso from the limb. Wish charged the trunk, cutting into the wood with his machete. But even with the baboon totem flaring, shooting sparks into the wood, all it did was make shallow, inconsequential rends in the thick bark. It would take him an eternity to cut it in half.
Moso shrieked. Wish scanned his surroundings, desperately hoping for a solution. And there, amongst the cries of his partner and the groans of the tree, he heard more whispers.
As if he were hunting for a snake in a tree, he closed his eyes and listened to the way the noise moved through the forest like the current of a stream. He reached out and followed the noise upriver, navigating the trees, the underbrush, the other noises attacking his mind, circumventing all the things trying to stop him from finding what he searched for. But it was the jungle. He knew its currents. He knew the way sounds traveled along its chaotic landscape. He had been listening to them his entire life.
He opened his eyes, and there, hiding in the near distance of the underbrush, was a man in a dark brown hood, his own eyes closed, his mouth muttering a constant string of whispers that no one could understand but the plants that surrounded them.
A botamancer.
The limb fell faster. Moso yelled louder. Wish dropped his machete and the box, and unraveled the sling from his belt. He placed a stone in its pocket and ignored the hundreds of distractions trying to call him away, attempting to misguide his aim.He wound the weapon. Once. Twice. Three times. Until the sound of it cut the air... and let loose.
The bullet shot through the forest, leaving a trail of leaves in its wake as it crossed the distance and struck the botamancer in the head. He collapsed. The whisper stopped, and so did the tree, its limb hoveringmere inches above Moso’s head.
He picked up the box and his machete and went over to the Chassa, cutting away the bramble that stood in his way. He hacked backthe limbs that caged Moso and pulled him free. Other than the new cuts added to his hide, he was fine.
By the Flaw, that tree was alive.
“It was talked into attacking us.”
Moso raised his eyebrows.
“A botamancer.”
They approached the place where he had downed the whispering man, their weapons still drawn in case the entire forest decided to descend upon them.But they found him lying in a clump amongst a pile of fronds, a deep cut in his head dribbling blood onto the floor, perhaps unconscious, perhaps dead. It was difficult to tell in the shadow of the woods. A slight pang of regret filled him. He had killed others before, others that were trying to kill him just like this man had, but it didn’t make it easier. Every time he wondered if it made him closer to walking the darkness above, alone, without a fire to warm himself beside after he closed his eyes for good.
All of that done by one man? signed Moso.
Wish shook his head. “No botamancer is powerful enough to keep up all that. At least none I know or ever heard of.”
Not even Tabari.
“Tabari is dead.”
But her language isn’t.
“It’s better to assume that there are others.”
Moso looked about the forest suspiciously. Then let’s getout of here before another tree decides to wake up.
Wish turned to join him, but a brooch beneath the man’s hood stopped him where he stood. He nudged it with his boot until he could see it fully. It was a leafless tree in a circle of fire, with each limb coiling out like snakes, their mouths opened and their fangs exposed. He tore it free from the man and put it in his pocket.
The roar of a streaked one in the distance took him from his thoughts. He turned and followed Moso away from that place, both beaten, bloodied, and bruised, but with the third box in their possession, a grip that felt impossible to keep.
Chapter 7
The two limped back into Fangmora. Now that the adrenaline had worn off and the chaos of the forest had died down, the wounds they had received finally caught up to them. Every step Wish took hurt. Every movement he made with his left hand shot pain up his body, an anguishing reminder of what he had sacrificed to hold the box now tucked underneath his arm.
Beside him Moso didn’t fare much better. Despite having all his fingers intact, the cuts and battering he’d taken from the streaked ones and the botamancer’s attack were deep and still bleeding.
They sat in the crack of the westernmost wall of Fangmora, an entrance that allowed them to avoid the questions or improvised tax of the guards that manned the main gateways, an entrance close to the Chatter District, a step closer to Dargu. They caught their breaths, thankful for the slight reprieve.
“Two thousand lunars,” said Wish, trying to remind himself of what they were doing as much as he was Moso.
Two thousand lunars. Moso’s tail flashed lazily.
“You better buy a bath of beer with it to wash away this day.”
Moso smiled. And you better make a bed with it to lie in with your priestess. That’s the only way she’s going to rest her head next to someone as mangled as you now.
Wish knew it was a joke, but he didn’t laugh.
Do you think she could take care of us? Tie up our wounds?
Wish shook his head. “We’ll find someone else.”
Who?
“They’re just scrapes. They’ll heal on their own.”
Moso laughed. You just faced a living tree and yet you won’t even face her. You never cease to amaze me.He licked his hand and ran it through his fur. That red bastard, he was in your head?
Wish nodded. Though the Red One no longer spoke, he still remembered the creature’s crude voice in the back of his head. An unwelcome intruder invading his thoughts, things he kept others way from. Well, at least most of them.
What was it? Some sort of magic?
Wish nodded again. “That’s the only thing I can figure. The capabilities of a Meat Shaman weren’t exaggerated.”
Then let’s try to keep our distance from them, eh? I’d rather not have to trade body parts for a mental invasion.
He stared back into the jungle. He had come back from it many times, but never so bruised or beaten. He felt like a child reprimanded for something he had done wrong. But what? he asked it.
The jungle suddenly not as safe of a place, eh?
Wish didn’t answer. It may have happened in the jungle, but the jungle did not cause this. It was the people that infiltrated it. It was the reason why he was there. For the other people. But even as he thought it, his ha
nd ached, and he tried to remedy the feeling by imagining his fingers upon Marli’s hand. A callous thing, but still softer than the bark of the trees or the bite of the bush they constantly felt as he made his way through the jungle. He wished he was with her rather than feeling the pain he was.
“We’re wasting time,” said Wish suddenly, turning his thoughts away from her. They’d not serve him on his path to the nextbox.
Wish scrambled out of the crack and Moso followed. The alley they entered was quiet except for the faint drone of the nearby bugs captured in the mongers’ stalls. They had barely taken a few steps before Wings intercepted them.
“Hide the box,” he said, waddling up beside them.
Moso and Wish looked at each other in confusion. Wings unraveled a sack, pried the box from Wish’s underarm, and placed it inside.
“How’d you find us so quickly?” said Wish, his eyebrows raised. He knew they stood out amongst the other city folk, but to pinpoint them amidst the crazed current that littered the street seemed impossible.
Wings looked to either side of him, then pointed to the sky. “It’s much easier to see things from up above.” Finally his eyes fell upon the two fully. “The streaked ones weren’t willing to give this up?”
They were happy to hand it over after taking a few fingers. The others who were there seemed to offer a much harder deal.
“We weren’t alone. A botamancer attacked the village.”
“A botamancer?”
Wish fished inside his pouch and produced the brooch he had taken from the man’s robes. “He was wearing this.”
Wings stared at it unblinkingly and then sucked at the top of his beak. “Just as we feared. Hurry.”
This time the Eclectun shot into the air, the bag with the box trailing from his belt like a new tail. Three flaps of his wings later and he was soaring about the tops of the nearby buildings.