Confident the corpse had no link to Jacrys or Sallax, she turned to begin the long, sloppy trudge back to the relative comfort of the salt marsh. The sun had shifted just enough to ease the glare, but as she turned, something gleamed for a moment, just one flash – it blinded her for an instant and then was gone. She bent back over the body and this time spotted something shiny, a piece of jewellery, maybe, tucked just far enough up a sleeve for her to have overlooked it during her first cursory investigation.
‘What do you have up there?’ she asked, gripping the damp edge of the tunic sleeve with two fingers. Breathing quickly through her mouth, Brexan added a running commentary, hoping that would keep something dreadful from actually happening. ‘And this is right about when my father would leap out of the chair and scream something horrible in a shrieking voice – you know, the voice of the young girl being pursued through the forest by the man-wolf or the lion-dog-’ She tugged at the sleeve, but it was heavier than she’d expected and it slipped from her fingers. ‘Or this is when the very dead body wakes up and uses its unfathomable strength to grip the unsuspecting soldier by the wrist and pull her down into the mud where she chokes to death while listening to its terrifying song… right, Father? Isn’t that what happens about now, with the heroine exposed out here where no one can hear her scream-’ The sleeve finally yielded up its secret: a curious piece of jewellery the like of which Brexan had never seen before.
‘Now what in all the Eastlands is that?’ she asked, picking at the buckle to untangle the mud-covered object from the rotting cloth. She turned it over in her hands several times, but it was too filthy to make out the detail, so she took it over to the stream, where she scrubbed the piece thoroughly. It was a bracelet, a round piece as bright as polished silver, held in place by a tiny leather belt. On the back of the roundel was an engraving: an odd, two-limbed tree surrounded by a series of runes.
‘Hmm,’ said Brexan out loud, ‘I may have to take you to a jeweller. Maybe we can find out who you belonged to. I bet your family might want to know where to find the rest of… well, you know.’
The midday aven had passed, and Brexan didn’t want to be alone on the estuary in the dark, so she turned and clumped her way back.
The four friends crossed the barren expanse of the Pragan foothills, moving towards the edge of the ravine splitting the Great Range north to south. The chasm was so wide and deep that Hoyt thought it might have been where the gods had gripped the land to pull Eldarn together, but finding there wasn’t enough, they left the final seam gaping open. For as far as they could see the hills that rolled north into the granite slopes of the Great Range had been stripped bare; all the trees had been cut down or forcibly uprooted. Snow capped the highest peaks, and Hoyt shivered in anticipation of an overnight snowstorm.
Hannah, Churn and Alen had slept until midday, and once they’d cleaned up and eaten, the group set off for the western edge of the ravine, long stony bluffs that lined the chasm.
Despite his nearly incessant screaming the previous day, Churn had not made a sound since he woke; now he signed to Hoyt as they walked.
‘I don’t know who could have done this, Churn,’ Hoyt answered. ‘A farmer, perhaps?’
Churn’s face scrunched into scepticism. He signed, ‘It’s the forest of ghosts. The farm hands wouldn’t be able to go five paces before losing their senses.’
‘True,’ Hoyt admitted, ‘but I’m not complaining. Hauling you through that forest yesterday was a rough business. I don’t mind that someone shortened the trip.’
Alen interrupted, ‘So it stopped when we emerged from the trees?’
‘Right,’ Hoyt said, ‘as soon as you stepped out from beneath that big maple, the three of you collapsed. It was unnerving: there you all were, yammering away, not even pausing for breath, and then as soon as you broke through the tree line, that was it.’
Alen looked around at the rolling hills of barren earth. ‘So, it’s the trees.’
Hannah stopped beside him. ‘And someone realised that, and came here to cut down the whole forest.’
‘Right,’ Alen said. ‘But there’s something missing.’
‘What’s that?’ Hoyt asked.
‘The trees. Where are they?’
Churn signed, ‘Maybe they hauled them away.’
Alen nodded. ‘I think you’re right, Churn, but why?’ He led them towards the edge of the ravine.
‘To open a route south into Praga?’ Hannah said.
‘If they’re Malakasian, there’s no need to risk death just to cut a path into Praga. The Malakasians control every pass south. No. This is something else.’
As they stood on the edge of the chasm, Hoyt kicked a stone in front of him. They watched as it seemed to hang in the air for a moment before dropping from view.
As they peered over the edge, Hannah drew in a sharp breath. ‘What on earth did that?’ she whispered.
Below, lying in a huge tangled heap, were the skeletal remains of hundreds of thousands of trees, each stripped of leaves and bark. They spread across the valley floor and piled nearly halfway up the chasm.
Alen shook his head. ‘I don’t know, Hannah. I can’t imagine who – or what – would have taken the time to do something like this.’
Hannah shuddered: it looked almost like a charnel house: millions of twisting branches woven into a gargantuan thicket. Here and there some of the majestic enchanted trees clung to the sides of the ravine, looking as if they were trying to claw their way back from the grave.
‘Someone wanted the forest of ghosts cleared,’ Hoyt said, ‘but why shave them like that?’
‘For a spell,’ Alen answered. ‘The bark and leaves of these trees must have some-’
He was cut off by a high-pitched creak, tired wood rubbing against tired wood, from behind them.
‘What was that?’ Hannah whispered.
‘It came from over there.’ Hoyt pointed north to where the swath of naked earth outlined a winding path towards Malakasia.
‘Quiet,’ Alen ordered, listening. The creaking came again, louder this time.
Churn signed to Hoyt, his hands a blur, ‘A wagon or a cart.’
Alen whispered urgently, ‘Take cover, quickly!’
‘Where?’ Hannah looked around in desperation; she could see no place to hide, and she wasn’t about to run across the exposed crown of the hill to take cover in the forest of ghosts. She would face just about anything Eldarn could throw at her rather than set foot under those trees again. The memory of her father and mother warring incessantly was too alive in her mind, and cut too close to the bone. She felt hungover, exhausted, both physically and mentally, and she’d not even had the pleasure of drinking.
‘There’s no time,’ Alen said. ‘Just get down.’
Hannah did as he said, covering herself as well as she could with the folds of her cloak. She tried not to move as she heard the now-unmistakable sound of a wooden axle turning in a roughly hewn circular socket: a large cart of some kind. She shifted a few inches, holding her breath, and peeked out from beneath her hood, trying to see who had come over the hill.
She just could make out the large wagon as it rolled into view; it was full of people, but she couldn’t see how many, or if they were men or women, young or old, soldiers or civilians. As it passed by, she realised it wasn’t alone; a second loaded cart followed, then two more, side by side, with a fifth, empty, and a flatbed cart loaded with axes, saws, picks and metal implements for digging, stripping bark and hauling away lumber bringing up the rear.
The wagons rolled to a stop and Hannah watched two figures jump down. It was hard to be sure, but it looked like one was placing blocks around the wheels of the wagon; the other released the horses, which immediately started cropping what little grass remained on the nearly naked hillside. This one stood for a moment, watching as the horses moved off towards the ravine, as if to be certain none of his team were about to wander downhill into the forest.