Choresh forest grew denser over the next few days so that it really became more of a jungle than a forest.

The trees, more numerous, grew taller and closer together. It became wilder too. Strange creatures started peering out at them from cracks in trunks, or scampering away when disturbed by the travellers. Daylight arrived with unfamiliar birdsongs, and Feanna would harmonise her wandering melodies with them, trying to imitate their various calls on her flute.

Night was spent in the company of the incessant cheep of some insect that made its home in this part of the forest. This did not really bother anyone, except for Zantheus, whom it drove half-mad. He found it increasingly hard to get to sleep at night with the irritating sound of the crickets, if that was what they were, filling his ears. In other places he would have slipped easily into sleep. Now instead he lay awake thinking, mulling over his situation.

Often his thoughts would turn to Leukos. Why had he abandoned them? Where was he now? At times Zantheus felt so angry at Leukos for leaving him behind, and he would work himself up into more and more of a fury before eventually falling asleep, so that he would inevitably wake up in a foul mood. At other times though, Zantheus felt sure that Leukos had not left him behind at all, and had a sense that he was still close by somewhere, watching over him.

More than once when he was lying on his side he could have sworn that he saw him only a short distance away, sitting writing with his back to a tree, just as he had seen him on Avarah. But on tilting his head to a new angle he would convince himself that it had merely been an arrangement of shadows and foliage playing tricks on his eyes. Because the forest was so much thicker here it was even darker at night and so easier to invent shapes as he looked out from the place where he lay on the ground. He came to dread the night, with its noisy insects and deceptive darkness and missing stars.

By contrast, the daytime journey became much easier. Their new guides raised their spirits with bursts of sweet, tuneful music, and Feanna continued to cook wonderfully, able to supplement her recipes with the things that grew in the forest. Tromo as ever stayed close by Anthē, but now and again he would peel off to join Ethall in a round of her favourite game, tig. Conn and Feanna filled the day by telling Zantheus and Anthē the secrets of the forest, their names for the trees, what they could and couldn’t eat.

They were much better company than the distant and elusive Leukos. Feanna gave Tromo ocarina lessons, showing him how to coax new sounds and even some tunes out of the small instrument. Zantheus found that while the sun shone his daymares of the endless hills came into his head less and less, and he had to remind himself far more infrequently of Awmeer in order to spur himself on. The journey had become almost...enjoyable. It was only on the afternoon of their fifth day with Conn and Feanna that anything happened to alter this opinion.

That morning Conn had explained that they were coming to a part of the forest where there was a very wide, almost ravine-like gully. He told them that it would take a very long time to go around or through it, that it was much quicker to find a certain place where one of the enormous trees had fallen, or been pushed, across the gully, to serve as a walkway over it. A couple of hours after lunch they then arrived at the gully. They could see the sky again.

This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it

But where the world above them had suddenly opened out, so had the world below them. It was as if someone had decided that this place in the forest should be lower than the rest and scooped a big hole out of the earth. The ground simply dropped away from them all of a sudden and fell very steeply a few hundred ammahs down. They could see the tops of trees growing far beneath them, and the bottoms of those growing over on the other side. It was an incredible sight. And indeed it was clear that it would be much faster to cross over the gully than to attempt a descent. They began to make their way along the edge of the drop, though not too close to it, making sure that Tromo and Ethall kept safe to one side.

After a while they caught sight of the tree Conn had mentioned. It was massive, even for Choresh. It had fallen from the other side, and the splayed branches invited them onto a walkway along its trunk. On the other side they could see that it still had some roots in the earth along with the gnarled ends that stuck up in the air and those that crept down the far side of the incline. So they climbed cautiously up the branches on their side and began their crossing. Atop the felled tree they had about three paces’ width of trunk to walk on, though they had to stay right at its centre as it curved away at the sides. Conn went first, then Feanna carrying Ethall, then Anthē carrying Tromo. Zantheus took up the rear.

Conn uttered the obvious advice, “Don’t look down.”

Walking very slowly and carefully, it took them about ten minutes to get near to the other side. During this time, Zantheus had noticed that in one place below them the trees disappeared. In fact, a whole section of the side of the gully running down to where the ground flattened out was covered not by trees but by some peculiar overgrown mass, a continuous mess of leaf and vine. It looked it like it was all part of the same organism, one enormous sprawling plant. It even seemed to seethe slightly.

Don’t look down, Conn’s words echoed in their minds.

But Zantheus could not resist. It was not that great a distance to the canopy down below. He reasoned that were he to fall he would probably be able to survive. There were probably enough branches and leaves to slow him down enough before he hit the ground, though it would still be a painful fall.

“Conn, what is that?” he asked.

“I thought I told you not to look down, Zantheus,” said Conn soberly.

“I could not help myself. What is it?”

“That,” said Feanna, “is a Hamartia plant.”

“What is a Hamartia plant?” was what Zantheus was about to ask, but before he could speak he was interrupted by a terrible screeching sound. All of them looked to their left to see where it had come from. Flying towards them unsettlingly fast was a flock of birds.

“Get down!” yelled Conn.

In front of Anthē, Feanna knelt down at once and leaned forward, sheltering Ethall and holding her secure in place. Anthē copied her without really knowing why she needed to assume this position. The reason soon became apparent. She shut her eyes as she felt the birds rush past her, still screeching as they went. A few of them buffeted against her shoulders. Tromo pressed himself close against her in terror. Had they remained standing they would not have been able to stay balanced for long.

The rush of feathered screams subsided. Anthē released Tromo and got to her feet. “Stupid things,” she turned round to say to Zantheus. But he wasn’t there. “Where’s Zantheus?”

“Oh, no,” said Conn. “He’s fallen in.”