I remembered of a sudden how Cup had told me back in Calder that she was meant to be married once, to the Peacemaker’s cousin. She must of lived in Half-Ax then, or really close by it, for Half-Ax was where the Peacemaker had his court.
Ursala fixed Cup with a hard stare. “How do you know that?” she demanded.
“I seen their uniforms. What do you think? Them grey shirts they got on is Half-Ax issue.”
It sounded like truth to me, and I could see it struck Ursala that way too. She scanned the ridge for movement. I crouched down behind the drudge’s flank, for of a sudden it struck me that firing from the top of the ridge would be an easy thing to do, and if there was more than four of them they could be up there already. Cup stayed right where she was, like it was all one to her if she was arrow-shot.
There was nothing to be seen, for a long, quiet moment. We wasn’t even breathing. Then a bush shaked, when the ones on either side of it didn’t, and we knowed.
“Ursala—” I said.
Right as I said it, the first arrow went over my head. Not so far over, neither. I heard the air whistle. It didn’t come from out of that shaking bush, but from further ahead. From just exactly where we was going, in other words. That was bad news, without a doubt. The drudge was not going to be no use as cover if they charged down the slope on the two sides of us.
Some more arrows come. One of them hit the drudge’s tail end, only a hand’s span away from where Cup was standing, and another bit into the ground in between its legs. Them fighters had pretty good aim, seeing how far away they was.
They come out of cover now, which was a bold thing to do. It meant Cup had got to be right, that they had got the range of the drudge’s fire the night before, and knowed they was safe. They was still cautious though, and went at it it slow. They could take all the time they wanted now in setting up their shots, and they was a lot less likely to miss. Cup was right about the clothes they was wearing too: grey shirts on all of them, with a splash of red high on the chest. They was not shunned men after all, then. They was soldiers, like Cup said, soldiers being a name for people raised up to fight against other people when there’s a quarrel that can’t be settled no other way.
We was in a bad fix, with no easy path out of it, until of a sudden one of them towers of cloud edged itself across the face of the sun.
“Go!” Ursala said.
We knowed exactly where she meant. We run headlong, down the last ten or twenty yards of broken ground, with arrows flying beside us and past us like it was a race. I guess it was at that, and we won it, for we made it into the trees without nothing hitting us. Cup was hurt though. She was pulled off her feet by the drudge’s suddenly breaking into a gallop, and dragged along behind it through thick brambles and knotweed.
I hauled her up on her feet again, but I had got to do it on the move, for Ursala was still running and the drudge went where she led, like it always did.
I put on a fast sprint and drawed level with Ursala. “We’re safe now!” I yelled. I wanted us to slow down in case Cup tripped again. She could easily die if she did, hauled across that rough ground until she was flayed or got her neck broke.
“No, we’re not!” Ursala shouted back. I looked behind us and seen she was right. Every few seconds I got a glimpse of a man or a woman in the gaps between the trees, running so fast they was almost bent down to the ground. The Half-Ax soldiers had not give up.
They did not have an easy time of it though. This was the deep woods we was in now so they was hard put to keep track of us. If they was going to keep up the chase, they had got to come in a lot closer than they was before. Some of them come too close. The drudge’s gun swung round and spit out a bolt, almost too quick to see, and one of the fighters went down so hard he rolled. The rest fell back a little after that, and give us some leeway. I used the lull to run in close to the drudge and take a swipe with my knife at the rope that was tying Cup’s hands. I was not going to let her be brung down again, and maybe killed by the drudge in scaping from the other killers behind us.
I don’t know if I can say the knife was mine. I took it off someone named Sky after the drudge killed her. I don’t know if it’s right to call it a knife neither, for it was almost as long as a sword and had a curved blade that got wider at the tip. Cup called it a machete. Sky had kept it wicked sharp, so it was up to the job. It was only my aim that was lacking.
Cup seen what I was doing and helped me by hauling her arms up as high as she could, making the rope tight and giving me an easier target. Still, I could only swing and stab at it, not saw it through like I would of done if we was standing still. At first it seemed like I was doing no good at all. Then I managed to slash the same place two times, and I seen the strands of the rope start to fray and untwist. Then it give way all at once.
As soon as she was free, Cup started pumping her arms and legs so fast they was a blur. Though my legs was longer, she soon pulled away from me.
We come onto a hunters’ track, just square ahead of us. We could run a lot quicker now, on the flat and stamped-down earth where the weeds didn’t grow, and I gun to think we might get away after all.
Well, that thought was a tempt to the devil. I heard a deep sound from somewhere very close by, like a big-bellied man groaning in his throat. Another come, and then another. A tree in front of me shrugged and shaked, and another further off leaned over, sweeping its branches across the ground so we had got to jump to get over it.
Between one breath and the next, the whole forest was moving. And us in the midst of it, with nowhere to run to.
The sun had come out again.
And we was about to be et by the waked-up trees.
5
There’s a reason why trees wake and stretch when the sun comes out. It’s because when they first took it into their minds to move from their places, it was only the sun they was reaching for. But pretty soon, they went on from that to grabbing at anything that might be good to eat. They didn’t have no eyes, but they knowed warm from cold and moved ever towards it. They didn’t have no mouths either, but they didn’t need none. All that got mashed down into the dirt among their roots would feed them with its goodness by and by.
So now here we was, with the trees waking up all round us. Bright sunbeams was dropping through the high leaves on every side, and it was like they was the light from Stannabanna’s magic staff in the old story. Wherever the sunlight touched, the big trunks leaned down and the branches come round in a sweep to trip and hold us.
Hunters from Mythen Rood – me included – was trained in what to do if they was catched out like this. You was supposed to find a big trunk and hug it close. That tree’s own branches wouldn’t be able to bend back far enough to reach you, and maybe the bulk of the tree would be a shield for you against the branches of the other trees round about. I heard these words said often enough to sink them deep into my head, and though I never seen nobody saved by them, I might of tried it anyway if it was not for the Half-Ax fighters behind us.
They was still treading on our heels, and they was still firing. It wasn’t only arrows neither. Right after I seen the nearest branches commence to lean in on us, I heard a sound I never heard before. It was like the noise a set of pipes makes when the piper breathes real slow across the tops of them: a long whistle that got lower in tone and more drawed out even as it got louder.