19

The forest was silent. Totally silent.

Kerry had paused on the road, listening.

"No birds," he said, voice low, as if it might be sacrilege to speak loudly here.

He was right. No birds sang, where one might expect greenfinch and chaffinch and a scolding wren to flit in a blur between the trunks. No woodpigeons murmured in the depths, no blackbirds stirred up the leaves. Nothing.

"It's too quiet," Jack said, voice even lower. "Like there's something in there."

"There is," Corriwen said. "And they don't welcome strangers."

The mist was thicker now, turning the luxuriant foliage to fuzzy shapes. The crowded trunks deeper in the wood were like grey pillars reaching up to a thick canopy. From the damp ground scents of fern and bramble wafted, growth on growth, lush and loamy.

Despite the silence, they sensed life around them. They walked, one mile, two, and as they trudged, they could feel eyes upon them, but nothing moved save drops of water on the occasional bespattered leaf.

Every few yards they had to step over a stretching thorn-creeper or a bramble runner that looked as if it was lying in wait.

Jack watched a spiral of fern uncoil, faster than any fern had a right to, like a hairy butterfly tongue.

They rounded a bend that took them due north and stopped dead, as a wide clearing appeared before them. It was littered with broken branches, knee deep in wood splinters and spiked by a hundred huge tree-stumps. Some of the trees had been ten feet across and more.

"That's a whole lot of lumber," Kerry said. "Wonder what it's for?"

"It's for Mandrake's dam," Corriwen said. "Look, all the tracks go north, and that's where he is. I saw their wagons near the battlefield and wondered. Now I know."

"Must be some big dam," Kerry observed. "Some of those trees must have been a couple of hundred years old."

"Try a couple of thousand," Jack said. Over by one stump, a big peavey axe leant against the chipped bark, its head red with rust. A crude two handed saw was broken under a heavy branch. A cracked cart wheel lay aslant another stump.

Whoever had been felling here, they were gone now.

They began to pick their way carefully across the sawdust and shavings, skirting round the wide trunks, when Kerry stopped and held up a hand for silence. They froze. Jack strained and then heard a faint scrabbling sound. It was coming from beyond the nearest row of massive stumps. Corriwen peered round, her slight body pressed against the bark. She beckoned to Jack and Kerry.

They edged round the stump and all three stood silently for a moment.

At first it looked like a moving shrub, just a small green shape. But as they watched the movement, it became clear it was a child, a tiny thing in green, bent at the waist and working with a spike of deer antler at the soil between two of the felled forest giants.

Jack saw another motion further away and drew their attention. It was another infant, tending a sapling that had been staked with a hazel wand. This child was carefully placing a protective ring of stream-smooth stones around its base.

Suddenly they could see dozens of them, all tiny, hardly more than knee high, working in silence, planting whip-thin saplings and clearing the soil around their roots. Every few minutes, one of them would look up and scan the sky. Jack looked all round the devastated area, searching for any sign of adults who would be watching after children in this place, but saw nothing.

As he turned to Corriwen, a wide shadow swooped across the clearing. He looked up and saw a bird, coming in low over the stumps. In two powerful wingbeats it shot past, twenty feet above their heads. He saw the legs swing down and vicious yellow talons snap open.

The children scattered like rabbits.

The hawk swerved, banked, then dropped fast. Its talons swung down again and there was an audible snap as they snatched at a small shape sprinting for cover. A piercing cry rent the air.

"It's got one of the kids," Kerry shouted.

As quickly as it had fallen, the great bird soared up. The child in its talons wriggled and squealed. Jack tried to free his bow, but he wasn't fast enough.

Kerry dashed forward, faster than Jack had ever seen him move, straight towards the big raptor.

Without stopping, he scooped a heavy round stone in one hand, while the other slipped the leather sling from his belt. Still running he swung it twice round his head, like an underarm bowler.

The stone flew from the sling like cannon-shot.

It hit the bird where its wing joined its breast and they heard the crack of bone from where they stood.

The predator squawked, stalled and went into a tight circle. Its one good wing beat hard, but it began to lose height. Kerry drew his sword, waiting for it to fall, but the bird jerked its talons free, losing the weight of its prey.

The child dropped straight down towards the spiked stumps, spinning uncontrollably.

Jack was running now, sending up cascades of sawdust and wood chips as his feet fought for purchase.

The child came tumbling down head over heels. Jack gauged the distance, leapt on to a broad stump, launched himself up and caught the child in his arms before it smashed on to the hard wood. His momentum carried him well past the far side of the stump. Twisting in the air, he landed briefly on his feet and fell on to his back, protecting the child from his own weight.

"Got you," he gasped.

Kerry and Corriwen sprinted up to them. Jack had the squealing child tight in his arms. He loosened his grip, got to his knees and looked down.

A small, wizened face stared back up at him, and Jack almost dropped the struggling bundle in sheer fright.

The thing he held was no child. It opened its mouth in a gape that was impossibly wide and its face crinkled into a bark-like mass of creases. Small sharp teeth were visible behind stretched lips underneath a long, hooked nose. Its hair was stiff and bristled, the texture of birch twigs. What Jack had taken for a green romper suit was a covering that felt like young leaves and smelt like moss. He couldn't tell if it was clothes or skin.

Its wide eyes were as flat and as brown as polished oak.

"Leprechaun," Corriwen said. "The Little People. It's true then."

Kerry bent down.

"No, it can't be one of them. I've seen pictures. They wear green jackets and red hats and they tell you riddles."

He looked around. "And I don't see any rainbow either."

He bent towards the little person. "All right, we saved you. So you can tell us your name."

Its eyes blinked with an audible, woody click, then regarded Kerry impassively. It had stopped struggling. It looked up at them, from one to the other.

"Come on now, wee man," Kerry persisted. "We don't mean you any harm."

The creature opened its mouth and whispered something.

"What's that?" Jack bent to listen.

"Cut our hearts." The voice was a whisper of dry leaves.

He wasn't sure if he'd heard right and turned.

And just then, a runner of bramble uncoiled and snaked around Jack's leg.

"What the…?"

Kerry twisted off balance as the ground moved under his feet. A thin root wormed out of the bare earth and snagged his ankle. The bramble runner flexed and squeezed around Jack's leg and he gasped in sudden pain, reaching to pull it free.

He dropped the little creature, and it hit the ground running, shot across the clearing in a blur of green, and vanished in the depths of the forest.

As soon as he was gone, the bramble runner loosened its grip and unwound from Jack's leg. Kerry was hopping on one foot, trying to free the other. Jack saw Corriwen slash at a thin, tendril of ivy that had looped itself around both legs up to her waist.

The whole forest seemed to take a breath.

"Let's get out of here," Kerry said. "I don't like those wee folk. Never even thanked us."

They pressed on, staying close together and nervously searching the shadows, aware of the watching eyes, but unable to see anything. Now and then a bird circled overhead, checking them out for size, then wheeled away.

"This is a really creepy place," Kerry whispered, and his voice sounded small and scared. Jack tried to fight his own apprehension, but he knew if Kerry was scared, there must be good reason. He would spent nights in the forest back home, poaching rabbits and pheasants. Trees and darkness held no fears for him, hid no demons.

But this place was different.

"We have to keep going," he said. "We really don't want to be here by nightfall."

They were five miles along the narrowing track when Kerry paused and they all stopped with him. He pointed to the overhanging branches. Jack shaded his eyes against sunlight stabbing through the leaves and suddenly a shape snapped into focus.

A white skull grinned down at them.

"How did that get up there?"

He stood staring. They all did. Even from here, they could see from the shape of the narrowing head and wide cheeks it must be one of the Scree.

Kerry pointed to the other side. "There's the rest of him."

Another tree loomed on the westward side of the road. In its branches, just visible from where they stood, a white pelvis and two dangling legs hung like a skinned carcass in a butcher's shop.

"What do you think happened to him?"

Kerry shrugged. "I don't think I want to know. This place gives me the total heeby-jeebies."

"People don't come here," Corriwen said. "But Mandrake sent his Scree to fell the trees, I think. Maybe the Little People can fight."

They walked on, craning back until the Scree skeleton was out of sight, now aware of the real threat in the forest, or wheeling high above it. If something could catch a Scree and rip it in half, then it could easily do the same to any of them.

A half-mile on, they found another body, this one jammed in the fork of a tree that had been cut half through by an axe.

Not a hundred yards from it they came across a heavy wagon, axle deep in the rutted track, bearing a huge tree-trunk which weighed it down. Skeletons of dead Scree were scattered all around it. They looked as if they had lain, unburied for a long time.

But still there was nothing to show what had killed them or their oxen. No-one had come back for the wagon, or the newly-felled tree.

Jack wondered why.

Beyond the bogged down wagon, the road simply petered out and they stopped, all together.

"I thought this went all the way north," Kerry said.

"So did I," Corriwen agreed. "Didn't the Bard say so?"

"Those Scree thought so too," Jack said. "That's the way the wagon was headed. But they were wrong."

"Jack," Kerry whispered. "I get a really creepy feeling about this. It looks like the forest didn't like them cutting down the trees. It tried to stop them."

"You really do have the heeby-jebies." Jack shook his head. " No. It's just overgrown. They probably got caught in an ambush."

He didn't want to think about what Kerry was saying. Corriwen was white faced.

"Men don't come here," she finally said. "The Little People protect their home."

"So what now?"

"We can't stay here at night," Jack said. "We'll never get out if we do. I'm sure of that."

"Ok," Kerry said. "We'll find a way round."

They pushed on, throughthe thick stand of saplings and in mere minutes they were deep in the trees.

Jack turned back towards the road, but it was invisible. He closed his eyes and the compass in his head seemed to swing wildly for a moment before he found north. He opened them again, and stopped dead in his tracks.

A wide face screamed silently only inches from his own.

He jerked back in fright.

"What is it?"

Jack pointed, unable to say anything. Corriwen followed his direction.

The Scree's mouth yawned like a cave. A big beetle maggot writhed behind its spade-like teeth. Sightless sockets seemed to glare.

But it wasn't just the skull that froze them in mid-stride.

It was the fact that it was glaring at them from the trunk of a tree.

For a second Jack thought it had been nailed, right there into the rough bark. But then he saw the tattered, bony arms and clawed hands sticking out at shoulder height on either side of the trunk.

It was as if the very tree itself had swallowed him and let him die screaming.

Kerry backed away.

The stone heart on its chain beat in a slow pulse. Jack's own heart responded by trying to leap right into his throat.

"I really really don't like this…." Kerry said.

"I'm with you," Jack whispered back.

In the trees something rustled as if a wind had stirred the thick canopy.

"You see anything?"

"Sounds like a storm," Corriwen said.

"Kerry…?"

Jack turned, and this time his heart felt as if it had leapt into his throat.

Kerry was gone. Jack grasped Corriwen's arm and whirled around, eyes flicking left and right.

"Kerry!"

Above them the branches were thrashing, and it did sound like a sudden squall.

"Help!"

Kerry's voice sounded very frightened, and very far away.

"Where are you?" Jack was whirling still, searching, while the rustling sound above them got even louder. A green blizzard of leaves twirled in the air as they fell.

"I can't see him." Corriwen was scanning from side to side, her face so white her freckles stood out like inkblots.

"Let me go!" A high and panicked shout from somewhere above, almost a shriek. "Run Jack. Run!"

"He's up there…" Jack started to say, when close by, something came smashing through the undergrowth. The shrubs and ferns whipped from side to side. Jack saw a sinuous shape writhe towards them. His mind shrieked snake, and then he was running. He had Corriwen's sleeve in a tight grip and he dragged her with him.

Kerry screeched again. Jack's thudding heart almost stopped, but his feet didn't stop at all. He ran on, with Corriwen behind him, unable to stop despite the dreadful sensation of having abandoned Kerry.

Now it was simply survival. He got a glimpse of the knife in Corriwen's hand, knew she was preparing to turn, but he hauled on her arm, forced her onwards.

"This is it," he told himself. "I'm going to die here."

Something reared in front of him. Something else lashed in from the side and Corriwen was gone. He felt a brief, fierce tug on his arm and then she vanished. He was skidding forward and a shape snatched him right off his feet, threw him into the air. Another caught him such a blow that his breath was punched right out and the whole world began to fade away in shades of grey and green.

When his vision began to clear and his ears stopped ringing, he was gagging for breath against a crushing tightness round his chest. He was moving, up in the canopy, carried along like a trussed turkey. Twigs and branches poked at his eyes and he was forced to blink hard every second to protect them. Nearby he heard a soft moan which sounded like Corriwen, but he couldn't tell from which direction. Bound and helpless, he felt like an insect in a spider's web, unable to turn, unable to move.

The trees themselves were moving, the branches reaching like gnarled hands, creaking as they flexed to take him, like a bucket in a relay line.

It was impossible. It was preposterous. But it was happening.

And when he pictured the bones of the Scree, torn apart high in the branches, he was suddenly very much aware of what the forest might do to them.

* * *

They travelled a long way, in eerie silence, until finally he felt himself being lowered, so fast his stomach lurched. He plummeted down, crashing through thorns to land with a thump on the ground. Corriwen lay a few feet away.

Jack took two steps forward and then felt himself tugged back so violently his feet went up in the air and he cracked his head on a hard trunk, his arms and legs pinioned in a grip that felt like stone. Ivy or honeysuckle tightened around his neck like a garrotte.

They were in some sort of dell, deep in the heart of this forest, a forest that breathed as one creature. The hollow was ringed with trees, bearded with moss. Kerry was there struggling against living bonds that pinned him to a trunk on the other side of the hollow. He caught Jack's eye, his own rolling as he fought for breath.

The forest suddenly went completely quiet, a silence so profound, that at first Jack thought his ears had closed over. Then he saw the leprechaun, half way up the trunk, but not clinging to the side. He was peering out of the trunk itself, like an owl, polished eyes fathomless.

But he wasn't even in a hole in the bark. He was oozing from the tree and as Jack's eyes watched, the little creature emerged, inch by inch, as if it was a moving part of the great tree itself. Further up, another pair of eyes opened, and a little wrinkled leprechaun emerged from the bark. Then another, and another, until every tree around was alive with small, horny bodies, their eyes all fixed intently on the three captives.

The only sound now was the strange click of eyelids as the creatures blinked.

Down in the dell, one of the ancient rooted growths began to twist and creak. Its crumbling surface shuddered. Pieces of bark dropped to the ground.

The creature that hauled itself out from this one was another leprechaun, but it looked as old as the tree itself. It was small and wizened, skin like hoary oak, sprouting burrs and clusters of thick twigs. It peeled itself away from the tree and stepped on the ground.

He came slowly towards them, as if he had not walked in a very long time, limbs creaking like tortured wood.

"I am the Leprechaun." The words came out like the crackle of twigs underfoot.

"Too many come here, axemen, sawmen. Kill our heartswood. Steal our soul."

Jack tried to speak, tried to protest, but the creeper round his neck tightened and his throat shut with a dry gulp.

"No more trespass the wildwood. The wildwood takes revenge."

The blind-sight eyes stared right into Jack's own. They blinked slowly, as if this ancient little thing had difficulty keeping them open. As if he had slept a long time.

"The Leprechaun has spoken. The wildwood feeds."

On the trunks all around, the tiny, creatures began to drum their twiggy hands on the resinous bark. Above them, branches swayed in unison. On the ground, roots flexed and curved. Something grew at amazing speed directly in front of Kerry. It sprouted thin, purple leaves between which bloomed tiny flowers in a violent colour that made Jack think of venom. It swayed, back and forth and then it lashed forward.

Underneath the leaves, spiky thorns snicked up and stuck Kerry right under the chin.

He grunted and his head snapped back against the tree. Blood bubbled from his mouth and his face went deathly pale.

Jack felt the pinioning bonds loosen. He coughed, fell to his knees but before he could move, a thick ivy runner grabbed him around the ankles. At the same time, something coiled around his wrists and simultaneously, both tightened and pulled.

Jack felt himself being torn apart.

"No," Corriwen cried.

She saw Kerry's eyes roll upwards and a mottled toxic purple shade creep up from his neck, then Jack was down as two creepers slithered forward, fast as striking adders and had him racked between them, She heard him grunt in pain as they tightened and began pulling him from opposite directions.

The Leprechaun king watched impassively, as the rest of the little creatures drummed their rhythm on the tree-bark.

Just as the image came to her, the bonds on her arms and legs suddenly withdrew and she dropped forward, but she had been waiting for just such a motion. She rolled, quick as a stoat, shot to her feet with her knives in each hand, leapt towards Jack and slashed at the nearest ivy runner. It parted with a snap.

Jack screamed in pain. Above her the leprechauns gasped. Liquid like blood poured from the writhing end of the ivy stump. She whirled again, ready to defend herself, seeking a way to cut the other tendril that was hauling Jack away into the bushes.

Then something moved under her feet.

A plant, broad as a plantain, with rubbery leaves stretching way out on either side, like a green star. Before she could move, the leaves closed over her legs, curling up until she was caught at the waist, then at the chest. Then they folded round her like a giant, pliant hand. She struggled but her arms were trapped. It was swallowing her, growing around her, faster than anything could grow. Faster than anything should ever grow.

An orange flower uncurled like another hand and a sweet heady perfume wafted around her. The flower swayed forward and clamped on her face, drenching her in its perfume. The world began to waver and dance and her lungs began to burn.

* * *

Then a tiny shape leapt down from the height of the trees and landed right in front of Jack.

The little leprechaun was jabbering at the old king, so fast Jack could make out no words, no language.

It turned and pointed at him then faced the king again. He held up a twiggy hand, but the leprechaun stepped towards Jack.

Hands forced him down to his knees and he closed his eyes, expecting the end right here and now.

The little creature peeled Jack's tunic and shirt wide open and the king bent forward.

The red hand and the coronet of dots stood out clearly on his skin.

There was a collective gasp all around them and the hands freed him, so suddenly he almost fell forward on his face.

"Coronal," the king creaked. "The Red Hand returns."

He looked up at the wooden eyes that gazed down from the high branches.

"Free them," he said.