We advanced. The charred remains of flowers crunched under my feet, leaving soot on my shoes, and I pulled out the half-empty magazine from the MP7 and replaced it with a new one, snapping it into the pistol grip with a click. The woods were silent, waiting. From behind, I could hear Luna’s breathing. There was a clatter and Variam swore as he stumbled over one of the skeletons; a skull went bouncing away.
The futures of violence were getting closer and I knew Karyos wouldn’t wait much longer. “Get ready,” I said. “When I say run, head for that tree. Stay close.” It was in view now: a huge thing with a thick trunk, visible through the rest of the wood. I counted as I walked. Three . . . two . . . one . . . “Now!” I called, and broke into a trot.
For a few seconds the only sound was our running feet, then the woods seemed to come alive, thornlings and flowers closing in on all sides. I fired, saw a thornling explode in a bloom of flame, knelt, and fired again. A flower swarm was engulfed in searing heat, then I heard Variam yell and the flow of fire magic winked out.
I spun. Variam had come too close to a knot of rosebushes and they’d seized him, stalks and branches binding around his limbs. He thrashed, trying to burn them off, and I changed direction and sprinted for him; I was halfway through drawing my sword when my precognition warned me of danger to the right and I twisted my head to see more of the thornlings on top of us. One was just about to hit Vari from behind and as it drew back its arm, long thorns aiming for Variam’s neck, my bullets took it in the head. Another was intercepted by Luna; the other two jumped on me.
Suddenly I didn’t have time to worry about Variam or Luna; the futures had narrowed to a whirl of combat where one wrong move could get me impaled. The thornlings threw themselves at me, slashing and stabbing; my armour took the worst of the hits but it didn’t cover everywhere, and pain flared in my cheek and hand. I hit one with the gun’s stock, but the MP7’s polymer didn’t have enough weight and the thing leapt on me. I fell back with one leg up, let my foot sink into its body, then heaved to send it flying over me. Before the thing could rise I rolled over onto my elbows and shot it through the chest.
I scrambled to my feet to see that Variam was free, staggering back; Anne had reached him and the rosebushes that had ensnared him were dead. There was blood on Variam’s legs but Anne was dragging him back, and as Luna stood over them to cover them both Anne put her hands on Variam; green light surged into him and he gasped and shuddered but a second later he was pulling himself to his feet just as another pair of flowers was snapped out of the air by Luna’s whip.
All of a sudden, our enemies were gone again. The four of us crouched in a defensive ring, shielded by the dead rosebushes and a tree. Thornling bodies were scattered all around us, but the remaining ones had disappeared. “They’ve backed off,” Luna said.
“They’ll be back as soon as we start moving,” I said.
“Shit,” Luna said. “You see how many of those things there are?”
The path towards the centre of the shadow realm was littered with those rosebushes. They looked innocuous, their blooms red and pink and orange, but I knew that as soon as we got close enough they’d lash out. “Screw this,” Variam said. His armour had been punctured and I could see blood through the holes, but he mostly just looked pissed off. “I’m going to burn a way through.”
“No,” Luna said sharply. “We need you taking out the swarms.”
“So I’ll do both.”
“Luna’s right,” I said. “We’re going to get bogged down.”
A scream sounded from ahead of us, and at the sound of it, all of us froze. There was something inhuman about it, wild and frenzied, a woman’s voice but one that spoke of madness and death. It sounded again and this time there were words in it, a shrieked challenge in some language I didn’t understand. It died away and all of us crouched motionless, waiting.
“I’m guessing that’s Karyos,” Luna said at last.
“No shit, Sherlock,” Variam said.
“Shut up,” I said tersely. “Listen.”
The scream came again, but this time I could make out the words. “Trespassers!” it shrieked. “Despoilers!”
“Go fuck yourself!” Luna shouted back.
“Slayers of the wood, burners of the groves!” The voice was coming from somewhere off ahead and to the left. “Die and be forgotten!”
The echoes faded away and there was silence. I stood very still, listening, but Karyos didn’t speak again.
“Hey, maybe you should try asking her nicely some more,” Variam said. “I’m sure this time it’ll work.”
I gave Variam a look. “She’s not far,” Luna said.
“I don’t think it’s her,” Anne said.
I looked at Anne. “Can you see?”
“Maybe.” Anne was frowning. “Everything is connected here . . . But she wouldn’t give her position away unless she had to, would she? If she can make thornlings, she can make something with vocal cords.”
My hopes fell. “Shit.”
“They’re moving,” Luna warned. “More thornlings.”
Variam swore. “How many of those things does she have?”
“She’s been in here a hundred years with nothing else to do,” I said. “I’m guessing a lot.” More and more my instincts were telling me that we were outmatched here. We had to come up with something different, and fast.
“Alex, check something for me,” Anne said. “I’m going to run straight at those rosebushes. Tell me what’ll happen.”
I frowned, not understanding, but there was a note of urgency in Anne’s voice and I didn’t argue. I seized the future just seconds away in which she went sprinting forward, coming within range of the roses’ grasping thorns, and . . . I blinked. “Huh?”
“Well?” Anne asked.
“They’re not going to attack,” I said. It had been only a brief glimpse, but I was sure. “They’ll go for us, but not for you. What are you doing?”
“Trying something,” Anne said. She took a breath. “Okay. I’m going after Karyos. Can you get her attention?”
“Wait,” I said. “Take someone—”
“We don’t have time,” Anne said. “Just trust me.”
I hesitated for an instant. Luna and Variam were looking at Anne and Variam was frowning, about to argue, and I made a snap decision. “All right. Vari, you’re not going to force a way through, but make it look like you’re trying to force a way through. Burn a path through the bushes, but at the first sign of a counterattack go back to focusing on the flowers. Luna, you and I’ll cover him. Anne, do what you’ve got to do, but if you get into trouble, you yell for help and we’ll come get you. And if this doesn’t work, then we’re pulling out, because we’re not going to get another shot. Understand?”
All three of them nodded and I took a breath. “Go!”
Variam cut loose. Fire erupted, leaves blackening and flaring in the heat, and thick smoke rolled up into the sky. Bark charred as Variam spread the flame outwards, burning a path.
The wood’s defenders recoiled, then struck back. Anne was gone; I’d had a brief glimpse of her running left before she’d disappeared into the trees. I sighted and fired, dropping one thornling, then two. The MP7 clicked empty and I ejected the magazine and slapped in a new one. Luna was fighting by my side, one hand lashing out with her whip, the other throwing hexes.
We made it maybe twenty feet before we were halted again. There were just too many, and now they had us surrounded. With only three of us, we each had to watch too wide a sector, and the thornlings weren’t presenting such easy targets anymore. Their attacks were just as furious but they were using the trees as cover, forcing me to take longer to line up a shot. Variam burnt a swarm of the flowers to ash, but all of his attention was on the sky and he didn’t have time to burn us a new path through the roses. As if sensing that they’d stopped us, the creatures pulled away, leaving us standing back to back.