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Chapter 3: The Girl
Part 2
It was a cloudy day, and the thick canopy cast a weighty shade over the leaves, branches, and roots of the forest floor. But a practiced Seedwind needn’t rely on the sun to spot the hopjack trails; decades of animal traffic painted a route through the very soul of the lush forest. He could sense it through the texture of the duff, from the pattern and cant of the tree trunks, from the way the swarms of insect life swayed and flowed. (The witchfolk, of course, knew nothing of these subtleties. To move their wares among the woods, they simply leveled a flat surface through the trees. Frix figured they thought it might be faster that way.)
The sounds in the woods were like old friends. They could be cool and rushy, or pattering and crunchy like it was now. Sometimes it was empty and eerie, and sometimes flush with life and music. But no matter the mood of the land, there was always a special undercurrent of ease that accompanied an unperturbed forest. The sound of everything as it should be, in harmony with nature. One could feel it, as one with enough experience could feel out the hopjack paths.
So when he felt a subtle shift in timbre, Frix stopped dead. Maybe it was a halt in birdsong, an errant snap of a twig, or a rustle that came out of sync. Either way, he crouched low, all too aware of his failure as sentry the night before. He was determined to not let the group down again.
There were at least six other runs that ran more or less parallel to the one they were using, and Frix was sure the disturbance happened along the one to his immediate right. It could be something like a clumsy bearling cub (not good) or an injured bog hog. It was too big to be a hopjack, that was for sure.
He took off his slinger and loaded it. If it was a bearling cub, he was close enough to climbable trees to escape any enraged momma. If it were anything else, he’d have a better answer. Worth the risk.
He shot off two stones in quick succession, hoping to scare or even strike whatever it was lurking out there. The stones whickered and snapped through the grasses—then the giveaway: a very un-animal intake of breath; a suppressed gasp.
The Seedwind were not alone.
Frix made to call out, but found his throat dry. Not dry: scratching. A sudden terror gripped him as he recognized the feeling. It was like on the bridge, but less intense. He realized his legs were also slushy, tired, and tingly. The urge to sit down was overwhelming, but he kept his feet, swaying. They had all been quite insane to venture this close to a witch town. How could they be so stupid? So naive?
The foliage rustled as the attackers moved closer. He could make out a waxy red glow on the green. Any minute now, some sort of witch detachment would burst through and impale him with a spike-pole, or maybe use their voodoo to squeeze his head until it burst.
Then, out of the bush stumbled a short, twiggy girl. She looked winedrunk, one arm outstretched and unsteady. The bloodlight wobbled out of her clothes, reflecting off sweaty dots and streaks on her chin and neck. It was that same tangle-weave hair. Same dress, same hood.
The girl from the bridge.
And when she looked up, there were those huge, flashing gold-green eyes.
But this time, he felt more in control. The restricting sensations faded with her every laboured breath. Frix found himself rather displeased with the idea of now having to silence this witchgirl. If she was going to get mixed up with them to the point where he’d have to dispose of her anyway, maybe he should have let her stay on the bridge. Dreff would never let him hear the end of this.
His throat cleared, and his legs became unstuck. She went down on one knee, shaking.
He prepared a hornrat call, but a curiosity stole over him.
“You’re by yourself, aren’t you?” he asked.
She stared at the ground, still on one knee. Her head bobbed.
“How did you find me?” Frix said.
She looked up. Pulse, pulse, pulse—those eyes were crazy. But not deadly. Frix saw an odd softness there. Her hair stuck to her cheeks, matted with sweat. It was curly, and tawny: not gold-green but the colour of river sand if you let it out in the sun long enough.
“Well?” he asked, keeping his sling at the ready. If she tried to run, or if he felt that weird sensation creeping back she’d get a rock right between those orbs of hers.
“Hunch,” she said.
“Just a random hunch, huh?”
“Yes.” She looked away.
“Sure, and my toes sprout vines.” He put away the slinger and unsheathed his shortsharp, making a little show of sweeping the blade out. She exhaled and fell, sitting hard on the crunchy forest floor.
“I might let you go if you tell me how you found me,” he lied, somewhat pleased with this investigatory intuition. It seemed more and more strange the more he thought about it. As far as he knew, the witches didn’t hunt hopjacks, or anything for that matter. So how had she known where their paths were, let alone which one to be on? He took a step forward, and she scuttled backwards.
“The bridge, the rivercrossing bridge,” she said.
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