Chapter 33
Flint
The Greenwood is enveloped in a dense shroud of gloom and carpeted with a thick layer of moss.
There’s not so much as a faint trill of birdsong or rustling of leaves.
It’s a dead, empty kind of silence, as though this part of the world has been forgotten, and yet I can’t shake the feeling that we’re not alone.
I’m thankful for the comforting weight of the bow slung across my back.
Whatever danger lurks among the darkened trees will not find me defenceless.
‘I’m starting to understand why people avoid this place,’ Spinner whispers.
‘Yes,’ I say with false joviality. ‘Cold, silent and distinctly off-putting. It’s little wonder Sheen looks right at home.’
My attempt to lighten the mood does not go as planned, however, as the sound of a twig snapping close to my ear causes me to emit a high-pitched yelp of terror.
Sheen lets the broken pieces fall from his hand with a smirk.
I feign innocence, turning to stare at Spinner as if she were the one who’d screamed.
She only raises an eyebrow at me, unimpressed.
We soon reach a small clearing. The forest floor is spongy and almost entirely covered with leaves.
‘This seems as good a place as any to set up camp,’ I say.
Spinner nods, but Sheen, standing a few paces ahead, frowns curiously at the ground then shakes his head. I sigh. Of course he’d find fault with my suggestion. I grab Spinner’s hand and push roughly past him.
‘No,’ he hisses, lunging for us.
But it’s too late.
At that moment the leaves beneath our feet quiver, grow still, then shoot upward in a rapid flurry alongside the large net they were concealing. I cry out as the three of us are ensnared, our heads knocking together.
We’re now dangling several feet above the ground, swinging gently from side to side, limbs sticking out of the net at various angles.
I make a face. ‘Oops.’
‘Oops,’ Sheen repeats, his expression livid. ‘What were you playing at?’
‘How was I to know?’ I protest.
‘Did it not strike you as odd,’ he spits, ‘that there were no leaves on any other part of the forest floor but here?’
I grimace. Truthfully, no. I just thought he was being a prick.
I’m suddenly all too aware of how close we are, our faces mere inches apart, legs intertwined. After weeks of hiking across moors, how does he manage to smell that good? Crisp and clean, like fresh snow.
I clear my throat. ‘Look, I’ll get us out of here, all right?’
‘And how do you propose to do that?’ Sheen growls.
‘Where’s your knife?’ I ask Spinner.
‘At the bottom of my satchel.’
‘Which is …’ I follow the direction of her gaze down to the ground. ‘Ah. Well, anytime either of you feels like flitting, just let me know.’
‘Harglade –’
‘Alternatively, I could always try and … I don’t know … chew through the rope?’
‘Flint, shut up, would you?’ Spinner’s eyes are on Sheen, a finger pressed to her lips.
That’s when I hear it – a low three-note whistle. I can’t tell where it’s coming from. Above? Below? Inside my head?
The hairs on the back of my neck stand on end as the signal is answered.
More whistling fills the air, shrill and eager.
I struggle frantically in the net, but only succeed in further entangling myself.
All I can do is raise my head to watch as our captors approach, moving soundlessly through the forest. They’re so shrouded in shadow that for a moment I wonder if the stories are true, if there really are spirits come to trap our souls for eternity.
One by one, they step out of the trees.
I blink, taken aback. For these are no spirits – they’re children. Two dozen of them at least. Some look around my age, while others are as young as Renly, yet all are armed. Their clothes are ragged, their feet bare and grimy. They stare up at us, excited, suspicious.
‘Well, would you look at what we have here,’ says a tall girl, grinning as she thumbs the hilt of her gleaming cutlass. ‘Talk about easy pickings.’
Spinner shrieks as yet more children swing down from the branches overhead. One of them begins rifling through her satchel.
I swivel my head round to take them in, my terror morphing into bemusement.
‘Ohhh,’ I say, finding my voice. ‘So you’re the ones terrorizing Heathcross. What d’you call yourselves again? The Purple Pickpockets?’
‘The Green Bandits,’ snarls a boy wielding a hatchet.
I click my fingers. ‘That was it. Well, lovely meeting you all, but if you don’t mind letting us down now, we’d best be on our way.’
The girl brandishing the cutlass steps forward. She looks as sharp and angular as her blade, her dark hair cropped short, jaw set, mouth stretched in a thin line. She seems to be the eldest, and given the way the others are looking at her, I’d imagine she’s the leader too.
‘People don’t tend to stray this far into the Greenwood,’ she says. ‘Either you have a death wish, or you’ve got something to hide.’
Sheen’s voice is strained. ‘Look, we mean you no harm.’
The girl narrows her eyes. ‘What d’you think, Darrow?’
The boy with the axe scoffs. ‘Not a chance. I don’t like the look of them. Especially the mouthy one with the eyepatch.’
I tut self-righteously. ‘Now, that’s just discrimination.’
There’s a giggle from among the congregation, the sound as sweet and silvery as a windchime. A little girl of about five or six skips into view, her wispy hair tied in bunches.
‘I like him, Briar,’ she says to the older girl as she tugs on the hem of her tattered shirt. ‘He’s funny. Maybe you should let them go.’
‘Stay out of this, Posy,’ cautions Darrow.
Posy pouts. I wink at her and she giggles some more, waving her tiny slingshot.
Briar deliberates for a moment. The others clutch their weapons, waiting for her verdict. ‘All right,’ she says at last.
Beside me, Spinner lets out a sigh of relief.
‘But in return, you can give us some information. It’s been a while since we left the Greenwood, and I like to stay up to date with current affairs.’
I can hardly begin to imagine it, living here in the darkest depths of the Wildlands, entirely cut off from civilization. ‘Deal.’
Darrow rakes a grubby hand through his long, straw-coloured hair. ‘What if they’re –’
Briar cuts him off. ‘If they were, they’d have used their magic on us, wouldn’t they? In any case, they’re outnumbered.’
I exchange a furtive glance with Spinner, my brandmark tingling beneath my glove. Best we keep up the pretence and let them think we’re Fidra.
‘Fine,’ Darrow growls before slicing his axe through the air and severing the rope.
We land in a tangled, breathless heap, my face buried in Sheen’s stomach. I’m sure I’ll have bruises to add to my collection of burns, because it’s surprisingly rock-solid. He quickly slides out from under me just as little Posy prances over and takes my hand.
‘My name’s Posy,’ she sing-songs. ‘What’s yours?’
‘I’m … Renly,’ I decide. ‘Pleasure to meet you, Posy. Tell me, why are you and your friends out here all alone? Where are your parents?’
She looks at me sadly with big blue eyes. ‘Dead.’
Oh.
So it would seem the Green Bandits are not a group of vicious cut-throat brigands. They’re just orphans running wild.
‘Where are we going?’ I ask as Posy begins to tow me through the trees, the others following in our wake.
‘You’ll see,’ she says.
The trouble is, I can’t see very well at all.
The forest grows darker and denser by the minute, not to mention that I only have the use of one eye.
I hear Spinner stumbling along behind, murmuring her thanks as Sheen holds her steady.
The Bandits possess none of his easy grace, yet rather seem to be entirely in tune with the forest itself, predicting every wayward root, branch and boulder.
I’m suddenly distracted by the sight of flickering lights up ahead. Posy pulls me through a thick copse of trees and my mouth falls open as I take in what lies beyond.
Treehouses. Nine – no, ten – of them, crooked but sturdy, curved round the trunks of several towering maples and connected by a series of rope bridges. Firefly lanterns hang from the lower boughs, illuminating the reddish-gold leaves.
It’s like something out of a storybook.
‘This is where you live?’
Briar nods.
‘But what about the …’ I screw up my face as I try to remember what Iris had said. ‘The … tree people?’
‘The dryads?’
‘That was it. I thought this place was supposed to be overrun with them.’
‘Oh, it is,’ she replies, grinning fondly at Posy as the little girl scampers off. ‘But we don’t interfere with the spirits, and in return they leave us be.’
I raise an eyebrow. ‘And why’s that?’
Briar shrugs. ‘Because we don’t fall for their tricks.’
It’s not long before the Bandits are assembled, sitting cross-legged on the earth like schoolchildren as I proceed to fill them in on recent events, doing my best to make it sound as though I’d merely heard about them rather than experienced many first-hand.
Darrow leans against a tree, twirling his hatchet while pretending not to listen.
There are several gasps as I speak of the Choosing Rite, even more as I reveal what happened at the Binding Ceremony.
At the mention of Blaze and Fox, several of the congregation cry out in rage.
Some even spit on the ground, their faces twisted with fury.
I tell them of King Balen’s betrayal and Hal’s elevation to emperor, Aunt Yvainne’s funeral and the attack on Fire Mountain. Afterwards, Sheen, Spinner and I are handed bowls of stew, which we readily accept. My stomach has barely stopped growling for weeks.
As I eat, I realize I’m not entirely sure whether this is supposed to be supper or breakfast. The canopy above is so thick it blocks out any dregs of moonlight or glimmers of dawn.
Come to think of it, how long has it been since we left Iris’s workshop?
Hours? A day? More? I can’t seem to tell.
I can’t shake this strange, warped feeling of detachment.
It’s as if the deeper one travels into the Greenwood, the more time bends.
‘That’s a fine bow you have there,’ Briar tells me, her eyes appraising.
‘I got it in Heathcross,’ I say. ‘You know, that village you plunder from time to time.’
Several conversations peter out, their participants turning to stare at me defensively.
Briar’s face darkens. ‘We do that out of necessity, not malice. We only take what we need to survive.’
‘What happened to your families?’ Spinner asks.
‘Some died in the storm,’ says Briar flatly. ‘Most died in the Cleaving.’
I feel my stomach drop. These children are not just orphans – they’re Storm and Rift Orphans. It’s little wonder their hatred for Blaze and Fox is so visceral.
‘How old were you when …’
‘Four,’ answers Briar. ‘My mother had me scale a tree to escape the flooding. She tied me to a branch, then climbed down to fetch my little brother. She never came back.’
My throat tightens. ‘I’m sorry.’
‘For the next few years I was all alone. I lived off scraps. Nobody helped me. People were too busy rebuilding their own lives to care. Until one day, I met Darrow.’
Darrow’s hard gaze softens momentarily.
‘Together we discovered other Storm Orphans. We became a family.’ Briar smiles at the oldest Bandits. ‘We travelled from province to province, looking for work where we could find it. Then, six years ago …’
‘The Cleaving,’ I finish.
She nods grimly. ‘As if we needed another reason to hate the Etheri. Needless to say, our numbers grew. Posy was only a few weeks old when it happened.’ Briar pulls the little girl into her lap.
‘I found her in the wreckage of a City of Buried Souls, under a shelf of rock surrounded by rubble and bodies, right on the edge of the Rift. After that, we decided we had to protect ourselves. So we came here, to the Greenwood, where nobody can hurt us.’
‘You really hate all Etheri?’ I ask, unable to help myself.
Sheen shoots me a warning look.
‘Of course we do. Look at what they’re capable of. And to think, they’re crowning the Storm Weaver Queen of the Fish,’ Briar spits.
‘Look, I’m sorry about your parents,’ I say softly. ‘And that the world was so unkind. But surely you can’t blame every Etheri for the actions of only two of uh– them.’ I catch myself just in time, biting down hard on my tongue, but the damage is already done.
Darrow straightens up, angling his chin, his voice low and dangerous. ‘Knew it.’
Shit.
I feel my bow dig into my shoulder blades as I cringe back against the tree.
‘Take off your gloves,’ Darrow orders.
I glance at Spinner, who looks stricken.
‘I said, take off your gloves.’
‘Darrow.’ There’s a note of warning in Briar’s tone.
I swallow. ‘What’re you accusing me of, exactly?’
‘I think you’re one of them,’ Darrow growls. ‘I think you’re Etheri.’
I shake my head, my mouth as dry as sand. ‘I assure you, you’re mistaken.’
Darrow grins, baring his teeth. ‘Well, I suppose there’s an easy way to find out.’
‘What d’you –’
But I don’t get a chance to finish my sentence, because Darrow has already raised his arms, his hatchet gleaming as it soars through the air.
I can’t move. Can’t think. All I can do is screw my good eye shut as everything goes quiet.