The southern winds beckoned Ako home as he navigated his way through the dark forest.
The air felt dense and suffocating around him. He’d just broken free after one hellish day trapped in his rooted prison. He could still feel the roots snaking their way around his beaten body, hear their hissing and cracking in his ear as they locked him into place. He could still smell that purple-eyed girl that captured him, the forest dirt reeking beneath her long fingernails. She’d technically spared him from her father and brother, he thought, but a quick death would have been more dignified than imprisonment. She was certainly thinking of killing him just before too, with her waving her blade in his face, all while he was powerless to defend himself. But she hesitated at the last moment, a critical weakness in any warrior. He’d spared her too, technically. Her fragile life was in his grasp for just that moment. She should count herself lucky he only incapacitated her rather than snapping her throat.
The forest was angry with him though. Its trees were already dense and maze-like, its roots and boulders making the path treacherous if he ran any faster. Ako could’ve sworn the trees were moving, shifting in the shadows, trying to confuse him and direct him back towards his prison in their so-called “home tree”. He was certain the forest people would be chasing him. He didn’t look back, but was terrified that the trees would turn and twist him right into one of them. He carried a heavy rock he’d found on the forest floor, just in case they did find him. He would not go out without a fight.
The forest grew darker as he made his way deeper into it. The leaves grew thicker, blocking out the fading light of the setting sun. Even the herbs’ and mushrooms’ glow started to fade. Ako continued to run through the forest, leaping and jumping over obstacles. He eventually came to a small clearing amongst the trees. Their branches blocked any path out like sentries. Their black bark cracked and splintered, casting dark, taunting grimaces at him. He felt surrounded.
Ako reached down and picked up a bunch of dry herbs from the ground. He cracked them in his hand, hoping that the southern wind would pick them up and point him in the right direction. As he sprinkled them around, the reek of the northern wind roared into the clearing. It locked blades with the southern wind, sending the herbal flakes flying around in a whirlwind. Neither wind truly prevailed in their battle before they both dissipated, the dry herbs floating back gently to the ground.
Panting and defeated, Ako sat against the trunk of a tree. He clutched his rock closer to him. His mind filled with thoughts of his partner, Eira. He’d had a fleeting thought earlier of them coming to save him, but he didn’t believe it. Eira was far too devastated by Frost’s death to save him in the dangerous forest. Ako felt the same way. He only came to the forest because his best friend begged him to, and he would do anything for Aeron. He wondered if his friend had made it out alive after they were attacked. He knew Afon would be worried sick about her son. Fern though, she wouldn’t be worried. She always had a positive, determined outlook. Just like her father, Ako thought.
Ako tried his hardest to channel Fern’s attitude now, but it was helpless. The darkness encroached on him, the trees’ taunting laughter grew louder and more menacing. Ako cowered against the trunk in fear, the fire within him fading, and resigned himself to his fate.
While the forest inhibited Ako, Genista flew through it with ease. The branches bent to her will as she swung between them, her arms instinctively reaching for vines that she could not see in the fading light, but that she knew would be there for her to catch. The northern wind hastened her, pushing her towards her brother and Ifor.
It wasn’t long before she caught up with them. Dozens of other hunters had joined them below, hooting and hollering on their horses in wild calls, their bellows soaked in bloodlust. She swung silently ahead of them, determined to catch her captive and reach the village before they did. She was determined to get the first kill tonight. The forest’s justice will be served.
Genista stopped and dangled in midair as the forest’s darkness was broken by flickering firelight. Curious, she leapt to the top branch of a nearby tree to get a better view of the light’s source. Six plains raiders walked quietly beneath her - four men, a young, plump girl carrying two heavy axes, and a pale figure that Genista recognised as her captive’s partner, who was carrying a flaming torch.
The northern wind whispered in her ear, reminding her that this was her chance to get the first kills on the board. But she brushed it away. Killing these people wouldn’t be dignified, it wouldn’t be justice, she thought. It would be ambush. Her dagger hissed in her pocket, but she shushed it. They weren’t here to hurt any of her people, they were here to save one of their own.
Her heart beat soared as she turned back. Brama and the other hunters were only a few minutes away. If they found these plains raiders, they would be slaughtered, and her people would be hurt too. Genista looked around frantically, trying to think of a creative way to divert the plains people without scaring them. As she did, she noticed a small clearing in the trees to the east. Genista leapt silently to a tree in the west, and placed her hands into its herbs. Her mind traced a line from her tree to the clearing, and the herbs did the same. A faint light shot out from the tree, in front of the plains raiders, and towards the clearing.
The young girl noticed the light. “Eira, look,” she said, tapping the pale figure. They hushed her. “Stay focussed Fern. It’s this way, I know it.” The group kept marching straight towards Brama.
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Genista grunted. They should’ve just listened to that girl! She tried casting shadows with her hands to communicate with her, but the moonlight was too dim, still overpowered by the now fading sunlight. She reached into her belt and pulled out a death whistle. This was her last resort - the whistle was a beacon for help among her people. If she blew it, Brama would run right to her. Or, more accurately, Ifor would force him to.
Genista had no other choice. She placed her lips to the whistle and blew, hard. The whistle let out a deafening, blood curdling screech, mimicking the cry of native forest birds. The group below startled. The girl looked up to her. They locked eyes - light blue and dark lilac. The girl went to reach for the pale leader, but Genista shook her head desperately. Fern lowered her hand, and looked around. “Let’s go that way,” she said, pointing to the line of glowing herbs.
Her leader had no time to respond before the bellows of the hunters flooded the forest air. Genista saw Brama and Ifor speed towards the plains group. They were mere meters away now. Fern clutched both her axes, raising them. The rest of the plains group drew their weapons too.
Desperately, Genista sunk her hands into the moss on her tree, which glowed a bright green. The group screamed as roots shot out from the ground in front of them. Vines blitzed down from the canopies. Combined, they formed a barrier that pointed the group towards the clearing, and diverted Brama and his group the other way.
The plains group didn’t hesitate. They fled with haste towards the clearing. Genista heard Brama let out an exasperated squeal, cursing the forest. “Come on!” he yelled, moving his group to the west.
Ako heard the rumble and slither of roots and vines shooting towards him. He’d already resigned himself to his fate before. Now he was certain he’d been caught. He sat back, too exhausted to put up another fight.
The roots blasted their way into the clearing. Firelight flooded the area, followed shortly by a warm wind. A small grey bird fluttered into the clearing. “Let’s go!” The voice was familiar to him. Fern jumped into the clearing and looked around, two of Deryn’s axes raised defensively around her.
Ako started to cry in disbelief. He’d been found. He weakly called out to Fern.
“Ako!” Fern dropped the axes and pummelled him into the tree with a powerful hug. “You’re alive!”
The rest of the plains group ran in after her. Ako clutched Fern tightly, but let go when he saw Eira. “My love”, he moaned.
“Oh my god.” Eira dropped their torch on the ground and ran to Ako. They started to sob uncontrollably. “Oh my god, you’re alive!” They stroked his hair with their cold hands.
Ako pulled both them and Fern closer. “I didn’t think you’d find me. I thought you were one of them.”
“Of course I’d find you,” Eira laughed through tears. “Don’t ever give up on me again.”
A tall, bald man walked up to them. “Deryn,” Ako moaned.
“It’s good to see you Ako,” Deryn sighed with relief. “But we need to get you out of here right now. The forest people are close.”
Deryn hoisted Ako over his shoulders. They all turned to the middle of the clearing. Eira’s torch had set the dry herbs alight. “Let’s move!” Deryn yelled.
Genista watched them from the treetops. She placed her hand in the moss again, highlighting a pathway out of the forest with the herbs. Fern faithfully followed it, guiding the plains group out under Genista’s protective gaze.
Genista then turned her gaze back to the clearing. The fire had grown quickly, boosted by the tinder of the dry herbs. The flames tasted the black tree bark, then started to devour them. The forest let out a sharp, sizzling screech as it became engulfed. The fire started to creep up to the tree tops where Genista crouched. She had to get out. Immediately.
Genista leapt back to where she’d shot the roots out of the ground. The forest let out a sharp shimmer of green as she pulled the roots back into the ground, carving out a clear pathway for her people to escape the impending inferno. She pulled a wall of roots up to block the fire off, but the fire easily blasted through them.
Genista then desperately followed the herbal path from the tree tops. The vines were harder to come by, as they had all started to retreat due to Genista’s magic. She leapt harder and further, but her hand missed a branch and she flew, crashing into the ground below.
Genista got up. Adrenaline pumped through her veins, and she sprinted towards the village. The inferno roared behind her. It had had its full of plant life. Now it was thirsty for flesh and blood.
Genista felt the advancing wave of heat as the flames raced along the herbal path. She winced as they licked her exposed heels and back. She tried to keep running, but the air grew thick with smoke as the flames were pushed towards her by the northern wind. Eventually she collapsed. Genista desperately clutched onto a root, and pulled herself into a cocoon of damp, mossy branches to wait out the inferno.
Further to the west, Brama and Ifor closed in on the clearing between the forest and the village with their group. The hunters pulled their shirts to their mouths as smoke filtered through the leaves towards them. Brama glanced to the east, the unmistakable glow of a raging fire simmering in the distance. He yanked their horse’s reins tighter in fury. The plains people had brought devastation upon his land, the land he was promised by bloodright. He resolved that their village would burn in turn, tenfold.
He approached the edge of the forest with Ifor and looked around. The dying herbs were a ubiquitous sign of devastation throughout the forest, but the scene Brama came across was a new kind of carnage. Small trees were hewn, lying decaying all around him under the setting sun. A large, guarding oak tree smiled through a ghastly, open gash deep into its trunk. The tree gurgled and choked on bloody sap which still trickled from its open wound. The tree looked up at him, begging for him to deliver justice and retribution.
Brama’s breath rate rose rapidly. He let out a pain-stricken cry into the dusk sky. Ifor let out a tear as he looked at the carnage the forest had been subject to. Brama turned the horse around to his group, who were all wailing.
“This, my friends, is the injustice we are answering tonight. The plains animals raid our land, destroy our trees, steal our herbs,” Brama pointed behind the group at the encroaching flames, “and set our home alight. The forest demands justice, it cries for it desperately.” Brama heard the blood curdling cries of the native birds as they fled the canopy. But it was the desperate, painful mewing of the wild forest cats as they perished in the inferno that broke him.
The flames approached his pack of hunters, reflecting off his dark purple eyes. He signed out a broken sentence in shadowlanguage. “If we burn, they burn too. All of them will die tonight!” The pack echoed his rally cries as they charged towards the village.