They took a longer path back through Woodedge. Venn and Udinny followed quietly, they did not ask why he had left the path and he could feel their curiosity with every step. He wondered how long it would be before one of them asked what he was about, and which one of them would speak first. In the end it was Venn, but they did not say what he expected.
“The Forestals are gone,” they said.
“Good, I am surprised they bothered following us, they know where we are going.”
“No,” said Venn, “they did not follow us, they continued south. Now they are gone.” He stopped pushing his way through the underbrush.
“What do you mean?”
“I could feel them in the forest. Then I couldn’t.”
“I have told you,” said Cahan, unable to hide his irritation, “not to drift out of this world using your cowl without telling me.”
“Ranya’s web protects, the forest will not hurt me.”
Cahan gave the monk a look, but she was finding a nearby bush very interesting, turning the leaves over to look for anything that might be living there. “The forest does not care about us, Venn. Not in a way we understand.”
“I think it does,” they said. “And the Forestals are still gone.” Venn sounded annoyed, raising their voice.
“You are new to these things, Venn,” anger within him smouldering, a struggle not to raise his voice. “Maybe you are not as in control as you imagine.” He sank down to one knee, pushed his hand into the dirt and searched for the connection to Ranya’s web, part of him angry he called it that so readily. He would speak to the monk when they got some time alone. He blamed her for Venn not listening to him. The web was there, but hard for him to touch. A deep breath. Calmed his mind, damped the fire within. Fear fed it, fear and worry.
Falling.
Upwards.
Life around him. A hundred, thousand, million connections. Each one bright as fire. He felt as though he looked down from the night sky, no, like he was part of it. Travelling through it. The trees, the plants, the life. Them in the centre, bright points. An expanding circle growing around them, like an explosion. The rootlings, startled by Venn’s voice. Further out, four points of light, slowly dimming, disturbing the forest as they moved away, not fitting into this place; Dyon and his party, heading towards Harnspire and destined to find nothing good there. No longer his concern. The web spinning around him, dizzying, filling him, taste and sight and sound in silver and black. Something out there, something he did not understand, like an echo, but not of sound. Like a memory.
But no Forestals. No sign of them at all.
He took his hand from the earth, for a moment Ranya’s web hung over Woodedge around him. He saw the life as lines running through and around everything that lived. He felt the great net of the fungal mats below his feet and beyond that something wrong, something –
“Did you find them?” said Venn. Shocked out of it. The trion looking pleased with themselves. “You didn’t, did you?”
“No,” Cahan said. “It must be some Forestal trick. I never felt them before they sprung their trap either.”
“Hiding?” they said. “Like, when you hid us from the Hetton?”
“Of course not,” he said, rubbing dirt from his hands. “You need a cowl for that.” Venn looked a little downcast, and he felt once more as though he had the upper hand before realising something he had never thought about. If he had not known Venn had a cowl, he would not have known. He did not feel it in them the way he did with the Rai. And the Forestals had indeed vanished. That raised possibilities he did not understand, or want to think about. “The Forestals have been in Wyrdwood for generations,” he said. “Who knows what tricks they have learned, or how close the great trees hold them.” Both Venn and Udinny were staring at him. “Put it from your minds and help me with my task.”
“And what is that?”
“I am looking for plants and bushes.”
“Cahan, we are surrounded by plants and bushes,” said Udinny. Cahan ignored her.
“Do you know what a crownwood is?” From the way they looked at him, they clearly did not. He let out a sigh. “It is a small tree, a bush. A round bole, about as high as my knee, and from it grow long sticks, hundreds of them.”
“Oh!” said Udinny, a smile on her face. “Does each end in a pair of wide leaves? And when the wind blows the sticks knock against each other and fill the air with tapping?”
“Yes,” he said. “That is it.”
“I know it,” said Udinny.
“Good,” he said, “keep an eye out, I am looking for them, and crosstick bushes, you know them?” Udinny nodded, but Venn looked blank. “It is a bush, Venn, called crosstick because the outer sticks grow across each other to make a cage around the inner leaves. But the inner plant will be hard to see now as it will be in leaf. The outer leaves are bright red.”
“That should be easy to find,” they said.
“You would think,” he looked around. “But I have had no luck so far.” They continued on the way back towards Harn until Udinny stopped them with a shout.
“Look!” she said, “is that your crownwood bush?” She pointed through the trees, and now they had stopped he could hear the faint knocking together of its sticks.
“It is, come with me.” He ran towards the crownwood bush, Segur bounding around them in excitement. Hundreds of straight sticks grew up from the bole of the crownwood. “We will harvest it, we want sticks that are about the thickness of two of my fingers at the thickest point.” He held up his hand, “See, my first two fingers held together, no more than that, and no less.” He reached in and took hold of one that looked right. “If you pull on it, low down like this,” he began to pull the branch backwards, “it will snap off right where it joins the bole.” With a crack the stick came away, startling Segur who leapt into the air and landed with all its fur on end, growling at him. Udinny laughed, and the garaur turned, ran at her and nipped her ankle before vanishing into the undergrowth.
“Iftal’s blood,” shouted Udinny, hopping on one leg and rubbing her ankle.
“Garaur do not like to be laughed at,” Cahan said.
“Ungrateful creature,” said Udinny, rubbing her shin, “to think I gave it my last sweetcake.”
“So you are the reason my garaur is putting on weight.” Udinny looked away. “As punishment, monk, you can go up into the trees and get us floatvine. I was going to send Venn but they can help me harvest the crownwood.” Udinny considered complaining, then thought better of it and started wandering about the trees, looking for one that had a good crop of floatvine drifting above it.
“Do we take all the sticks?” said Venn.
“What do you think?”
“No, we don’t,” they said. “The forest would not like it.” Cahan nodded.
“About a quarter of them, that will not hurt the bush, and will do us for now.” They set to harvesting the crownwood, while above Udinny cursed in the names of all the gods she knew and a few she may have made up. When she eventually came down, gently descending wrapped in floatvine, they had finished their harvest and bound up the sticks in the floatvine. Cahan gave the tether to Venn. They thought it an honour but the forester had tried to pull bundles of staffs through a wood before and knew how frustrating it would be, it caught on everything. Segur jumped onto the bundle and rode it, looking around the forest like a Skua-Rai in their splendour.
They walked for the rest of the day. Segur quickly bored of its ride and vanished into the forest, rejoining them just before dark. Cahan noticed its mouth was stained with blood, though it had clearly decided not to share its food.
“Still cross with Udinny, I see, Segur?” The garaur whined, and climbed up him to sit around his neck. They camped not long after, though they had still not seen a crosstick bush. They were rarer than crownwoods, considered ill luck and dug up when seen. There were reasons for that, of course, and they had nothing to do with luck.
They found the crosstick bush not long before they sighted Harn. A place Cahan would have expected it to be long gone from. They spent half an hour harvesting it, teasing out the straightest sticks and being careful not to break them. Venn excelled at it, Udinny did not. In the end he sent the monk away to try and repair her relationship with Segur, something she was glad to do as the crosstick sap stung the skin wherever it touched. It was annoying to Venn and Cahan, but Udinny did not have the benefit of a cowl and her skin was covered in painful red streaks. Before the first eight passed they had harvested nearly a hundred sticks from it and the bush itself looked no different.
“We will leave it there, Venn,” Cahan said. “Bind these up and add them to the crownwood.” Venn looked a little crestfallen as now they knew well enough the annoyance of pulling a long load through a wood. “Do not worry, we are nearly back. You will be done with your burden soon.”
“What are all these for anyway?” they asked. The trion sounded miserable.
“Do you remember me saying that with a hundred forestbows I could stop an army?” They nodded.
“To have a bow, Cahan,” they said, “is to be under sentence of death.”
“I know, Venn,” he replied quietly, “but if I have to make everyone in Harn into an outlaw so that some survive, then that is what I will do.” With that he walked away, leaving the trion thinking about what he had said. Realising the danger that was coming, the seriousness of it. They were about to say something, but Udinny came running out of the trees, laughing as she pursued Segur. The garaur yipped and cackled as it ran rings around her. Then she fell into a bush. Coming up covered in leaves and looking as though she was part of the forest herself.
“We are friends again,” she said as Segur clambered up to sit around her neck, “I have promised not to bite the garaur, and it has promised not to laugh at me.” Then she went cross-eyed and fell back into the ferns, making Venn laugh and whatever they had meant to ask, well, that was forgotten.