The Starthorn Tree Read online

  Pedrin slapped his hand away. ‘Get outta here!’

  The wildkin tugged again but the knife was secure within its sheath and did not come loose. The wildkin gave a snarl of frustration, making Pedrin cringe back into the ground. As swift and supple as a deer, the wildkin leapt past him and seized Lisandre’s delicate necklace of diamonds in his hand. She screamed and slapped him. He slapped her back, so hard she fell to the ground. As she fell, the wildkin dragged the glittering necklace over her head, scratching her cheek and tearing the lobe of her ear. As Lisandre sobbed with pain, holding her ear, he vaulted over a mossy log and high into the trees, trilling with triumph, the long chain of diamonds in his hand catching the light like a fall of water.

  ‘They’ll be a-coming for us now,’ Briony whispered. ‘If we’re not careful they’ll steal everything. Let’s run and see if we can’t be a-shaking them off. They’re easily bored, wood-sprites.’

  She helped pull the sobbing Lisandre to her feet and began to run up the path, the starkin princess floundering along behind her, hampered by her heavy skirts. Pedrin and Durrik ran too, the crippled boy doing the best he could with his makeshift crutch. Wood-sprites swung through the trees after them, calling and jeering. One deftly swiped Durrik’s crutch away from him so he fell headlong. Another seized Lisandre’s skirt and tripped her up, hanging upside down from a branch so he could try to steal her bracelet. Pedrin dropped to one knee beside Durrik and swung his slingshot above his head. As his first stone found its mark, the wood-sprite yelped and bounded away. Pedrin sent stone after stone whizzing up into the canopy and although many of the wood-sprites threw down hard green fruit or seedpods in retaliation, it was not long before they were swinging away though the trees, their mocking laughter fading away.

  ‘Good shot!’ Durrik said approvingly, sitting up and rubbing his aching leg.

  ‘That filthy thieving wildkin stole my necklace!’ Lisandre cried, touching her ear then looking with horror at the blood on her hand. ‘I command you to pursue him and retrieve my necklace!’

  ‘I’m not retrieving aught,’ Pedrin said, stowing his slingshot back in his belt with a fond little pat. ‘You want your necklace, you go get it.’

  ‘I did warn you to take off your jewels, milady,’ Briony said, squatting next to Lisandre so she could examine her lacerated ear.

  ‘My father gave me that necklace for my birthday,’ Lisandre said, her voice very wobbly. ‘You must recover it for me.’

  ‘I’m sorry, milady. I’m afraid your necklace is gone for good. Wood-sprites are impossible to catch, that’s why you see them so close to the edge of the forest.’

  Lisandre looked appealingly at Durrik, who looked uncomfortable. ‘I’m sorry, milady, but Briony is right. Even if we were as good at tracking as your chief huntsman, I doubt we’d be able to find your necklace. The wood-sprites move so fast! Look, there’s no sign of them now.’

  Lisandre sat for a moment in silence, her jaw thrust out. ‘I am tired,’ she said disdainfully. ‘I wish to rest. If you will not retrieve my necklace for me, you can gather some firewood and kindle a fire so that Briony can prepare me a repast of some kind. I am very hungry.’

  Briony looked troubled. ‘Milady, those soldiers were close behind us. I don’t think we’d best stop yet. This is not a safe place, they could easily sneak up on us through all these trees. I’m sorry, but we must push on.’

  ‘I am tired,’ Lisandre said obstinately.

  ‘I know it,’ Briony said gently. ‘But really, we mustn’t stop yet, milady.’

  ‘Very well then,’ Lisandre said, holding her chin high. ‘I have no desire to lose all when we have come so far. Let us keep on walking until we find somewhere safer. You, goat-boy. Bring up the rear. Give us fair warning if the soldiers approach.’

  Gritting his teeth, Pedrin did as he was told. He was tired too, though. Try as he might he could not keep his mind from wandering into a miserable sort of daze. His thoughts went round and round, fretting about his mother and his sister, worrying about what Lord Zavion would do to him if he caught him, fuming about the starkin princess and her arrogance, and wondering with a truly acute anxiety what they were going to eat when their food ran out.

  If it had not been for Thundercloud, Pedrin would have had no warning at all. He was jerked out of his abstraction by the sudden swift bound of his billy-goat back past him, bleating a loud challenge. Pedrin spun on one heel, nearly overbalancing, and realised with a nauseating drop of his heart that the forest behind him was full of soldiers. Even in the soft drifting clouds of mist and rain, their silver armour looked bright and hard. Pedrin cried a despairing warning, both to his friends ahead of him, and to Thundercloud, who was charging straight at a line of soldiers that had their fusilliers raised to their shoulders and fully cocked.

  ‘Don’t fire! Lord Zavion wants them alive!’ the lieutenant cried.

  The soldiers dropped their weapons, parting ranks swiftly so that Thundercloud charged straight through them. One used the butt of his fusillier to whack the billy-goat hard on the head. With a yelp, Thundercloud was knocked sideways. He got to his feet, shaking his horns dazedly, and tried to charge again.

  ‘Nah, nah!’ Pedrin cried desperately and gave a long, melodious whistle. Again and again he whistled, and Thundercloud wheeled away and came bounding back to his side, his black lip lifted in irritation.

  The soldiers were all around Pedrin. His arms were seized and bent back cruelly, and he was cuffed on the side of his head so he fell to his knees, his arms almost pulled from their sockets. His head ringing, Pedrin looked up blearily, seeing his goats being seized by their collars and dragged back, Thundercloud struggling every step of the way. Blood was trickling down into Pedrin’s eye, making it hard for him to see. He bent his head, wiping his temple on his sleeve. His vision clear once more, he looked anxiously up the path. He saw Durrik being hauled along by the collar of his shirt, the crippled boy clutching his crutch with both arms and making no attempt to defend himself. Lisandre was stalking along proudly, holding up her skirt with both hands, her body held away from the soldier who had her arm in a hard grip.

  ‘How dare you lay hands upon me!’ she cried in a ringing voice. ‘Unhand me, I say!’

  ‘My lady,’ the lieutenant said with a low, sweeping bow. ‘My Lord Regent requires your presence back at the Castle of Estelliana. Your family has been most anxious about you. I have been given very strict instructions to escort you back to your home, at the very earliest convenience. We have our sisikas tethered in a clearing some distance from here. I must request that you accompany us without hindrance.’

  ‘I will not go,’ Lisandre said, her voice shaking. ‘What gives you the right to handle me with such discourtesy? Instruct your man to unhand me at once.’

  ‘I beg your pardon, my lady, we mean no discourtesy.’ There was a faint stress of sarcasm in his voice as he looked Lisandre up and down, noting her unevenly hacked hair, scratched face and muddied gown. ‘I must insist that you accompany us as the Lord Regent has commanded. Much as I would regret it, I have been given the authority to compel you, if necessary. If you would please come this way?’ He made a sweeping gesture with his hand.

  Lisandre was undecided. Although she clearly wished to defy the lieutenant, it was clear she could not possibly escape. The soldiers stood in close ranks on all sides, their armour glinting in a brief ray of sunlight that struck down through the columns of trees. Pedrin and Durrik were on their knees in the mud, their arms twisted back so hard both were sobbing in pain. There was no sign of Briony.

  Lisandre sighed, her shoulders slumping in defeat. She began to walk in the direction the lieutenant had directed, her face downcast.

  There was a wild shaking of branches right above their heads, and the soldiers were showered with leaves and nuts. Pedrin could not look up, for the soldier behind him had his weapon jammed so hard against the back of his head that his face was only a few inches from the forest floor. His heart jolted
, half with hope, half with trepidation. He heard a wild, melodious call and then there was another rattle of rain and leaves. Suddenly a great weight fell on him. His face was pushed deep into the mud. He tried to scream, thinking his arms were being dislocated. His mouth was full of leaves and dirt. Realising the pressure on his arms had been released, he tried to squirm away. He could not get away from the person lying so heavily on his back, though. Someone else trod on his hand. His face was squashed up against the hard chain-mail of someone’s leg. All he could hear was a great confusion of shouts and cries, and a few loud bangs as fusilliers were fired. The stench of smoke filled his nostrils. He coughed, his eyes streaming. Then there was a hard jerk and he was hauled into the air. Rope grazed his cheek and arm. He realised they were all trapped in a net, struggling as helplessly as herrings.

  Pedrin managed to wriggle through the mass of arms and legs so that he could see through the weave of the net, and then he wished that he had not. The net was being swung through the trees, bashing wildly against trunk and branch. Far below, the ground swung back and forth, back and forth. Occasionally the laden net swung right out through the branches and then there was only dizzying grey sky before once again the green-brown-grey lurch of the forest floor returned. Pedrin shut his eyes, the rope burning where it cut into his cheek, and tried not to vomit.

  Some time later the net was dumped unceremoniously onto a wide wooden platform. As the net collapsed, everyone within flopped about, groaning, retching. Pedrin managed to get to his knees, hanging his head down and waiting for the whirling sensation to pass. One or two of the soldiers tried to get to their feet, only to stagger ludicrously and fall. As his vision cleared, Pedrin saw a small bare foot, very grubby, right in front of his nose. He seized it.

  ‘Durrik,’ he hissed.

  His friend only groaned.

  Pedrin wriggled up so he was lying alongside Durrik, who smelt horribly of vomit. Durrik looked rather green and his shirt was stained with fresh blood where his half-healed welts had broken open. ‘Where are we?’ he asked weakly. ‘What happened?’

  ‘Wood-sprites,’ Pedrin whispered back. ‘I’d say they be a-wanting the soldiers’ armour and stuff. We’ve got naught much they’d want, though. If we lie low, we might be able to escape. Stick close by me.’

  Durrik nodded, and slowly followed Pedrin as he crept to the very edge of the platform, under an overhang of leaves. It was close on dusk. Beyond the spread of the tree’s branches was the great green carpet of the forest, still burnished here and there with light, but under the canopy of the enormous leafy branches, a twilight gloom hung.

  The wood-sprites were swiftly stripping the soldiers of their silver mail and breastplates. Some were leaping about with glee with silver helmets on their matted elflocks, others were squabbling over the long gleaming fusilliers with their glass barrels of thick, oily liquid. One broke, filling the air with a pungent stench that had the soldiers nearby trying desperately to crawl away and the wood-sprites wrinkling their pointed noses expressively. Then a loud bang filled the air, and there was an explosion of bright fire. Star kin and wildkin together screamed in agony as the spilt fuel ignited with a flash. As the seething crowd broke apart in confusion, Pedrin and Durrik carefully lowered themselves off the platform and into the shadows underneath.

  Cold, hungry, shivering with shock, they clung to a branch, peering over the edge of the platform, trying to see through the writhing shadows of flame and smoke. Everywhere wood-sprites were leaping about in agitation, trying to extinguish the fire with cloaks of green leaves or wooden buckets of water they dragged up on long ropes.

  Smoke billowed everywhere, but there was enough light left in the sky for the two boys to see that they were perched at the very top of a tremendously tall tree, hundreds of feet off the ground. All they could see when they looked down was the thick column of the trunk, with enormous branches radiating off in all directions, some of them as wide as a road.

  Platforms had been built all through the tree’s branches, and many vine-ropes hung down from one platform to another. There were ladders too, long flimsy structures of rope that could be rolled up and moved about as needed. Strangest of all were the hundreds of delicate ovoid nests that hung everywhere from the leafy tips of the branches. Taller than Pedrin, the nests had been woven from twigs, reeds and grass, and smoothed over with mud. Wood-sprites swung in and out of the nests, running along the broad grey branches with no hesitation or fear, or swinging nimbly down ropes, so quick and agile it was almost impossible to follow them with the eye.

  Hanging everywhere were long wind-chimes made from hundreds of different kinds of silver objects—swords, teapots, ladles, sugar bowls, tankards, candlesticks, spoons. As they swayed in the wind, they chimed eerily, filling the air with their sound.

  ‘Those wood-sprites are everywhere,’ Durrik said shakily, both his arms and legs wrapped tightly about their branch. ‘How are we meant to get down?’

  Pedrin could only shake his head numbly. He risked another look down and heard the roar of vertigo in his ears, upsetting his sense of balance so that he swayed. He grasped the branch tighter and put his forehead down on its smooth grey bark, his eyes clamped shut.

  ‘There’s Lady Lisandre,’ Durrik whispered, risking the lift of one arm so he could point. Almost immediately he clutched the branch again.

  Pedrin gingerly opened his eyes and raised his head over the edge of the platform, being very careful not to look down. He saw the distinctive billow of the starkin princess’s red skirts. She was sitting bolt upright in the midst of all the confusion, her hands folded tightly in her lap, her most disdainful expression on her face. Pedrin felt a prick of admiration for her courage. She must have been sick with fear, all alone, her friends gone, the edge of the platform on which she was sitting all charred and smoking, flames still smouldering only a few yards from her foot. There was no sign of it on her face or in her demeanour, however. She watched calmly as wood-sprites worked frantically to lash the platform securely to another branch, for one of the ropes that tied it to the tree had disintegrated in the fire. Others were prodding the soldiers into tall cages with their own weapons, all their malicious glee vanished in the face of the disaster. Quite a few lay moaning, their smooth brown skin blistering horribly.

  A tall wood-sprite dressed in a sweeping cloak of leaves, a crown of the same glossy green leaves on his head, was bending over the wounded, his face very grave. Although he had no beard, the smooth olive of his skin had hardened into lines about his eyes and mouth, and he moved with quiet deliberation. He straightened up and gave a series of swift orders to the wood-sprites clustering close about him, and they hurried to obey him. Some knelt by the wounded, trying to ease their pain and suffering with cool compresses and sips of water. Two more ran to the edge of the platform. They dragged on helmets made from giant nuts, then rolled out what looked like enormous, rough-hewn wheels. They knocked on the serrated side with a heavy hammer and the two sides of the wheel sprang apart. From within unfurled two fragile white wings, diaphanous as gossamer. The wood-sprites seized a little tuft at the centre of the seed-wings, ran towards the edge of the platform and launched themselves off into space. The seed twirled and danced, drifting down smoothly and swiftly, the two wood-sprites dangling beneath, steering the peculiar aircraft with lithe twists of their bodies.

  They don’t seem to have noticed we’re gone,’ Pedrin said, his eyes still on the starkin princess. A wood-sprite was now ordering her into another cage, gesturing menacingly with a long spear. Lisandre slowly stood up, shook out her skirts and, with great dignity, climbed into the cage. The door was slammed shut and fastened tightly, then her cage was swiftly lowered over the edge of the platform until it dangled in the breeze, nothing between her and the ground but four hundred feet of air. Each of the soldiers had been treated the same way, the wood-sprites obviously considering them dangerous indeed.

  ‘Mebbe we can climb down when ’tis dark,’ Pedrin said, laying
his face back on the branch. He felt an irresistible desire to cry or laugh, he did not know which.

  ‘What about milady? We can’t leave her here, surely?

  ‘Well, what else can we do?’

  ‘I don’t know,’ Durrik said unhappily. ‘There must be something we can do.’

  ‘I don’t know what.’

  ‘We can’t be a-leaving her here,’ a soft little voice said from right behind them. Durrik was so surprised he shrieked out loud, while Pedrin felt a shock run through him as if he had been lashed with a whip. Luckily their hold on the tree instinctively tightened rather than loosened, else they may well have fallen to their deaths.

  Briony was crouched on the branch behind them. In the deepening twilight, she was virtually invisible with her drab brown skirts and mass of tangled brown hair. Only her small, pointed face could be seen, a wedge of whiteness.

  ‘Tessula’s tears! How did you get here? What do you think you’re doing, a-sneaking up on us like that!’ A red wave of fury swept over Pedrin, so fierce that he was blinded and deafened by it.

  ‘I’m sorry,’ she whispered. ‘I didn’t mean to make you jump. I had to be quiet else the wood-sprites would’ve heard me.’

  ‘How in Liah’s sweet eyes did you get here?’

  ‘I caught a-hold of the net and got carried along too,’ Briony said quietly.

  ‘What?’ Pedrin said incredulously. ‘You must be tomfooling!’

  She shook her head. ‘Nah, I’m not. I waited till they were almost at the platform and then I let go. I almost didn’t catch a branch—’

  ‘What a cabbage-head!’ Pedrin said furiously. ‘You could’ve been killed.’

  She nodded, huddling her arms about her thin form. ‘Yeah, I know it. But if I hadn’t I’d have been left far behind and not known where you all were. I had to come along too.’

  Pedrin was so angry and astonished he could not find words.

  Durrik said wonderingly, ‘But why? The soldiers hadn’t found you. You were safe. You could’ve stayed hidden.’