Horax tried to flip Stormcaller around the back of his hand and catch the grip again, but he fumbled and the sword thumped onto the frosty ground. He heard Terrisa give a derisive snort from behind him. Tucking his foot beneath the blade, he kicked up, and managed to catch Stormcaller this time.

“So,” Terrisa said. “Have you figured out the magic Mum was talking about?”

A few hours had passed since they saw that big rabbitdeer, and they’d stopped to rest in the space between four enormous redwood trees. Sorrel and Terrisa sat together on a fallen branch, huddled for warmth, and probably smooching while Horax was actually trying to do something worthwhile. He glared over his shoulder at his sister.

“No. These things take time.”

Terrisa smirked. “I heard you say you could figure it out in what? A day?”

Horax whipped Stormcaller about, listening to it cut the air. “At the time, I didn’t exactly know I was going to be driven out of Mycoton by a mob of devil-soldiers. I’m a little distracted.”

Terrisa looked away, and Horax almost felt a little guilty at the look of worry that crossed her face. He turned away to keep practicing. Sorrel could be the sympathetic one here.

The yellow eyes of the winged sorcerer did not leave Horax’s mind. Garalore. He was so...intriguing. Tall, muscular, black horns framing his chiseled face. His deep yet soft voice murmuring to Horax in the dark of the forest. The warm, fire-heated touch of his long fingers when he placed the brooches into Horax’s outstretched palm, careful not to cut Horax with his fearsome black claws. And his wings….

Though Terrisa had said the demon man would not be able to find them beneath the thick redwoods, Horax almost hoped he still would.

A finger snapped before Horax’s eyes. “Horax!”

He stumbled back. “What? Huh?”

Terrisa was on her feet before him, eyebrows raised. “Were you listening? I said, let’s move on.”

Horax sheathed Stormcaller and shrugged. “Very well.”

Sorrel patted Horax’s arm and fell into step behind Terrisa. Horax stepped after the nymph. He and Terrisa had agreed, silently, with but a moment of thought-speech, that Sorrel should remain in the center. She was no warrior yet.

Horax hardly felt like a warrior either. He’d sparred with Mum, sure, but until last night, he’d never been in a real fight. He lowered his hand to grip the hilt of Stormcaller. That sword had killed not long ago. He had killed not long ago. And while the sword had surely seen many battles and taken many lives, Horax had not.

And that was why, when he had first seen Garalore lying in the grass outside the forest, Horax could not bring himself to take the wizard’s life. Of course, his choice was vindicated, because Garalore had said he was a part of the rebellion. Even if he had been evil, Horax thought perhaps he still felt better knowing he hadn’t killed an unconscious man.

Horax bumped into Sorrel’s back. He hadn’t realized she and Terrisa had stopped.

“Hey!” Sorrel said.

“Gods, pay attention, Horax,” Terrisa said. She bent over to inspect something. “What kind of shroom do you think this is?”

Horax peered around Sorrel to get a look. Before Terrisa was a knee-high shroom, growing from between the roots of redwood and glowing a faint purple. The cap was tall, almost conical, but more rounded, with a sort of skin of dark purple that was broken and cracked like the pattern of a mudfield dried by the midsummer sun. Horax picked at the tip of one of his pointed ears.

“Ehh, looks like a sootheshroom, but I’ve never seen one that big. Or glowing.”

Terrisa nodded. “I think so too.”

“There’s more,” Sorrel said, and gestured to the surrounding trees. Though the lighting was poor, the faint glow of more huge sootheshrooms could be made out.

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“Sootheshrooms are good for salves and ointments, right?” Horax said. He drew Stormcaller. “Let’s harvest one.”

Sorrel held up her hand. “Wait, Horax. That doesn’t feel right to me. I think we need to leave living things untouched here.”

Horax scoffed. “It’s not like Terrisa hasn’t killed a million rabbitdeer in the forest.”

“That was above,” Sorrel said. “In the shallow parts of the forest. Here in the depths…” She shook her head, and her grassy hair--still brown and dried with the cold--rustled softly. “No, we can’t. The elder rabbitdeer told me the blood of the forest runs in my veins, and I can feel that we must not partake of living things.”

Terrisa squeezed her girlfriend’s shoulder. “I believe you. We won’t take any.”

“Then what are we going to eat when our food runs out?” Horax asked, crossing his arms. “If it’s going to take us days down here, we can’t just never harvest anything.”

“Sootheshrooms aren’t edible,” Terrisa said.

“You know what I mean!” Horax said. “We’re going to need to eat some of the things that live here.”

“We aren’t starving yet,” Sorrel said.

Horax muttered, “You barely need food anyway, you’re a nymph,” but neither Terrisa nor Sorrel seemed to hear him.

They began to move on. Horax fell in behind Sorrel, but as he passed near one of the purple shrooms, he broke off a piece of the cap’s edge between his fingers and put it in his pocket.

Sorrel cried out and stumbled.

“Sorrel!” Terrisa said. “What is it?” She glared at Horax. “What did you do?”

Horax held up his hands. “Why do you think it was--I didn’t do anything!”

Bright pain shot through Horax’s hand and down to his elbow. He looked at his left hand, mouth open. A tiny arrow, no longer than six inches, had sprouted through the middle of his palm. As he stared, blood began to seep from the edges of the shaft.

“W-what?” he stammered.

“Ow!” Terrisa cried. She yanked another tiny arrow out of the side of her shoulder. “We’re under attack!” She shrugged her longbow off her shoulder and turned in the direction the arrow had been fired from.

Horax gritted his teeth and pulled the thin arrow out of his hand. He drew Stormcaller and turned his back to Terrisa and Sorrel, protecting behind them. Another arrow whizzed past his ear. He heard Sorrel get to her feet behind him, but her breathing sounded shaky.

“Mum and Mama should have given me a shield,” he said. A little arrow pinged off his ironshroom breastplate. “Well...that works.”

“Show yourself!” Terrisa shouted into the dark forest. Horax heard her bowstring twang, but did not hear the arrow impact flesh.

“Oh! Ow!” Sorrel said, as she was struck by two arrows. “Please! Who are you!”

Something flickered in the corner of Horax’s vision, and an arrow punctured his arm. He whipped his head around just in time to see a faintly-glowing figure dart behind a tree trunk. Faintly-glowing, and tiny. With wings.

“It’s--it’s,” Horax said, unsure of what to call them. “They’re like insects!”

“Insects?” Terrisa said.

“Insects!” said the highest-pitched voice Horax had ever heard.

A winged creature darted out from behind a tree and zipped at his face. He threw up Stormcaller and parried a miniscule dagger-thrust aimed for his eye. The creature--a foot tall, perhaps--was shaped almost like a tiny person, with skin of glowing spring green, and legs with backwards knees, or else strange elongated ankles. It wore a long tunic of stitched leaves, and at its side was a tiny sheath, from which its dagger had been drawn. Atop its head was a tiny mushroom cap, but whether it was a hat or part of the creature’s head, Horax didn’t know. It slashed its dagger across his cheek, and he stumbled back as the small cut began to bleed.

“Ow! What the fuck!” he said. “I’ll slice you in half, you little demon!”

“I’ll teach you to rob and insult us!” the creature said in its high-pitched voice. It spun midair to deliver another dagger-slash, but Horax raised Stormcaller and parried again.

Two thick-fingered hands reached into Horax’s vision and snatched up the creature. Terrisa had neatly plucked it from the air. It writhed in her grasp, but she pinned its dagger-hand to its side.

“Leave him alone!” she said.

Horax leveled Stormcaller at the creature’s neck. “What do you want with us?”

“Terrisa...Horax,” said Sorrel, behind them.

Horax looked up, and the point of Stormcaller slowly sank to the forest floor.

Dozens more of the glowing creatures had emerged from the trees. They hovered just out of reach above Horax’s head, all with tiny arrows nocked in powerful little recurve bows. Their wings buzzed like so many insects, but their eyes held a malice no animal was capable of.

Terrisa swallowed. She let go of the creature in her grasp, and it zipped up to join the others.

“Horax,” Sorrel whispered. “What did you steal?”

“Nothing!”

Terrisa poked his armor with the end of her longbow. “Well it wasn’t me, and obviously it wasn’t Sorrel. They said they were robbed.”

“Oh, here we go, little miss and miss perfect,” Horax muttered under his breath. He reached into his pocket and pulled out the little piece he’d broken off the sootheshroom.

“Horax!” Terrisa said. “Sorrel said not to harm anything!”

“It’s a shroom!” Horax protested.

Sorrel took the little shroom piece from him and held it up in the palm of her hand. “Please!” she said. “Please take it back! He’s sorry!”

“No, I’m not.” The winged creatures sighted along their arrows--directly at his eyes. He threw up his arm before his face. “Very well then! I am!”

A creature flew down to Sorrel’s hand and snatched up the shroom piece. It disappeared into a tiny bark bag at its side. It looked into Sorrel’s eyes.

“Hmm,” it buzzed. “Captain, I think we need to bring her to the grotto.”

“What about the rest of them?” squeaked the creature that had slashed Horax’s face.

“Shroom powder,” said a third creature, perhaps the captain.

Two creatures reached into their bags and darted in close to Terrisa and Horax. Before Horax could raise his sword, a fine blue powder was flung in his face. He gasped, inhaling it, and fell to his knees. His surroundings, already so dark, grew darker, and he felt himself falling to the redwood scales below.

When he awoke, cold and shivering, he found his sister beside him. Frost coated her cloak.

Sorrel and the winged creatures were nowhere to be seen.

“He’s awake,” said a voice.

Horax jerked upright. He reached for Stormcaller, but his scabbard was empty.

Three armed strangers stood before him.