by Trudi Jaye
It was the most disturbing forest Nate had ever seen. The blackened trees, the eerie mist that curled around them. A chill crawled up his spine more than once that afternoon as they rode closer to the dark forest looming before them. Even the ghosts that had been following him all day melted away as they came closer to the forest. It was the opposite of what he had expected. Surely, the Forest of Ghosts was crowded with the lost and lonely spirits who hid in the Edges?
As the sun was setting into the late afternoon behind them, Nate became aware of a high-pitched buzzing noise over the pounding hooves of their horses. It grated along his bones and Nate turned in his saddle, looking back up the steep hill they had just cleared. At the crest of the hill, he saw the outline of two strange-looking riders.
As he watched, the riders and their horses sped down toward them, too fast for natural methods. It wasn’t ordinary horses thundering in their direction.
“Argus–”
“I know. We must ride for the Forest of Ghosts.” Argus pulled his horse in close to Nate’s, and used a small sharp knife to cut Nate’s bindings. There was a spark of pain as the attachment spell was broken.
“But—” said Nate.
“Ride, Nate. It is our only hope.” Argus spurred his horse into action, slapping the rump of Nate’s horse and forcing it to do the same. Their pounding hoof beats almost drowned out the buzzing in his ears.
Leaning low over his horse’s neck, Nate dared to turn his head.
Behind them, two seething shapes in the form of men on horses followed, steadily gaining. The buzzing became louder, more excited. For an instant, their pursuers lost their shape, forming a sinister buzzing mass against the late afternoon sky.
Whatever they were, they were clearly after Nate and Argus.
The creatures settled back into their chosen form, and one heaving imitation-horse reared. There was no sound other than the heavy buzzing that filled Nate’s ears. The rest of nature seemed to have shrunk back in horror.
His heart beating hard in his chest, Nate urged his mare into a frantic gallop after Argus. He rode low and fast, and soon caught up with the big mercenary, pounding past him. Glancing back, Nate realized Argus had slowed down to allow him to pass. Argus slipped his powerful black stallion directly behind Nate, protecting him from behind.
Up ahead the Forest of Ghosts loomed, the lesser of two evils.
The world around him narrowed, until all Nate could see was the forest framed between his horse’s chestnut ears. He clung to her, urging her faster with his every thought. She was panting, foam leaking from her mouth, but didn’t stop her gut-wrenching sprint. She was as scared as he was of the riders behind him.
They were almost there.
The big blackened trees were so close Nate could feel their presence breathing across his cheek. It felt like cold fingers were slithering over his skin and goose pimples rose across his body. The mists shrouded the entrance to the forest, hanging heavy around the leafless trees, seeming to dare them to cross their portals. A feeling of still and silent death cloaked the forest and every instinct inside Nate told him to turn and get as far away as he could. Only the sound of the creatures thundering behind them, their insistent buzzing crawling into his ears and leaving a filthy feeling of dread, made Nate continue on to the forest.
They were almost there.
An arrow sliced past his head, landing in the earth ahead of his speeding horse. The grass and soil around the arrow turned a dirty, slimy black, spreading out in a deadly circle. His horse swerved, losing valuable speed, but managed to avoid stepping in the spreading blackness.
Behind him, he heard Argus following the same path.
Glancing back, Nate saw flies and maggots beginning to emerge from the black earth, forming a shape. Further back, with no visible means of steering or support, Nate saw one of their pursuers lift his bow again and aim, while the horse continued racing toward them.
“Argus, watch out!” yelled Nate.
The second arrow swooped past Argus, narrowly missing his shoulder.
“Faster, Nate, faster. You must not die!”
“I’ll not leave you behind now, Argus.” Nate urged his horse faster, knowing Argus would stay close to him.
CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE
“I don’t know what sisters are supposed to be like. How are we supposed to treat each other?” asked Jena. They were near the border of the forest again, the edges of the area marked by the darkened leafless trees she had seen when she first entered. A mist dragged itself around them, and Jena shivered. She looked up and saw the tiny silkworms coating the trees with their threads.
Bree shrugged. “We look after each other. Try not to take each other for granted.” She wandered along a path only she could see, leading Jena through the thick forest.
Jena nodded slowly. “Is that all? I can do that.” The forest arched around them, and she felt secure and at peace for the first time since she had left Thornal’s cottage. It was all to do with Bree.
Bree smiled. “I’ll let you know if there’s anything else you need to do.”
Jena cocked her head to one side. “Do you hear that?” she said. “The buzzing? Is it one of the protective spells?” The noise grated against her skin, and sent the fine hairs on her arms prickling.
Bree turned to Jena, frowning. “No. It’s not part of the forest.” She touched the bark of a tree close to her. “It’s a threat, something outside. We should—”
A chestnut horse burst through the trees in front of them, racing as if its life depended on it. It slowed down as it encountered the trees, but the poor animal was sweating and rolling its eyes and didn’t seem to notice where it was going. As they watched, the man riding the horse turned to look behind him. In the split second his back was turned, the horse raced under an old gnarled tree. The back of his head connected with a thick low-lying branch, and he was knocked to the ground with a solid thump. Jena winced.
His horse raced on deep into the forest, the trees moving aside to let the frightened creature pass.
Jena ducked behind a tree root, pulling Bree down with her. They didn’t know what this new threat might mean, and Jena had well-honed survival instincts.
Then, just past where the unconscious man lay, a massive black stallion breached the forest’s borders, foam at its mouth and wide, terrified eyes, just like the other horse. Its rider pulled on the reins, attempting to slow the frightened beast. It trampled a few more steps into the forest before the thick branches slowed it down and it came to a halt, stamping and dancing.
The rider slumped forward in the saddle, and his hold on the reins slackened. The horse fretted and circled around in the small space and then it reared up, knocking the big man to the ground. He landed with a heavy thud on his side, his face pushed into the forest floor. Free of its rider’s weight, the horse fled into the forest, following the path of the first animal. Again, the branches parted to allow the horse to flee.
Around them, the forest held its breath, silent and still as it assessed this latest intrusion. Jena leaned around the tree to get a better view. The motionless bodies of the two men who had hurtled into the forest were only a few steps away. The silk worms were moving in agitated patterns, spinning their webs closer and closer to the two bodies.
The closest man was dirty, his clothes rough. He had a jagged mage tattoo on his face and scratches on his arms. There didn’t seem to be any fresh blood, but a lump was already forming where he’d connected with the sturdy branch.
Farther down, the second man lay very still. He was travel stained and dirty, like his companion, but had evidence of an attack. The end of a wicked-looking black arrow stuck out of his shoulder.
Bree nudged Jena, pointing to the arrow. “He’s hurt. We should help him.”
Jena’s cocked her head to one side, listening as the thundering hooves of their pursuers became louder. “We need to see if their hunters are a threat to us first.”
Bree nodded, nervously glancing towa
rd the edge of the forest. “We usually wait for the forest to assess those entering, before we approach them. I don’t yet know if it has accepted these two. But, we can’t just leave them.” She peered at the two men, biting on her lip.
“How bad is it? Have you treated an arrow wound before?” she asked. The persistent buzzing began to affect Jena’s ears, and she twitched her head, pressing her fingers against her ears to unblock them.
Partially distracted by the noise, she tried to assess the man’s arrow wound from a distance: how badly he was hurt and how much blood he was losing. It took her a moment to realize something was wrong.
Around the arrow, instead of blood, a thick bubbling black liquid was eating into his flesh. White fleshy maggots curled in and out of the blackened ooze. A faint greasy smoke rose from the wound and hovered around the surrounding mists, turning their pure white into a dirty grey.
“His blood... Jena, his blood is black,” whispered Bree, her voice trembling.
“I don’t think it’s blood.” Jena swallowed hard. “This is bad, Bree.”
As they watched, the tiny silkworms dropped toward the body. They tried to spin their strands, but the oozing mess spat and hissed, and they were quickly driven away.
“Jena, what is it? How is it driving the silk worms away?”
Pages appeared inside Jena’s head, and the Book of Spells provided her with the answer to Bree’s horrified question. There was a full page devoted to the creatures that owned the arrow. It contained several warnings, and terrible predictions for those who crossed their path.
The Riders were coming.
Without thinking, Jena stood up from their hiding place and raced over to the man with the arrow. She glanced back; her sister was right behind her. “We don’t have much time. The arrows are deadly. He’ll die if I don’t help him,” she said. It would mean showing Bree more than she wanted of her mage skills, but she thought she could trust her sister. Bree had her own secrets to keep.
Bree nodded in reply from the opposite side of the large man where she was crouched. Her eyes were wide as she took in the black oozing liquid on the man’s shoulder. She put out her hand to touch the man’s skin, and Jena grabbed her.
“Don’t touch him. It can attach itself to you as well.”
Bree paled, and pulled her hand back.
“I’ll try to heal him, and then we need to get out of here. The creatures that did this... they’re not something we want to be around.” Crouching over the body, Jena held her hands directly above the untainted skin around the arrow, and closed her eyes, trying to block out the awful buzzing noise that now filled every space in the air around them.
She could see the page in the Book of Spells clearly, and began reciting the words under her breath, drawing on the energy of the earth around her. Her voice was unsteady. She had no idea if it would work; she’d never tried this specific piece of spell casting before.
But she had no choice. She had to try.
She repeated the chant, over and over, low and fast, concentrating on her hands where they hovered over his shoulder. She pictured the black liquid being forced back into the arrow, and the maggots curling up and dying, their puffy bodies turning a putrid yellow. She mentally poured cold water over the bubbling black mass, then turned it cold, freezing it so the mass couldn’t breathe.
Opening her eyes, she looked down at the wound. The ooze had stopped moving.
It had worked, at least for now.
But she could still feel it inside the man, fighting against the spell. Beside her Bree was staring with wide eyes, but she didn’t say a word.
The big man moved; he looked at her awkwardly over his shoulder. “Help the other. I’m not important. Help him survive,” he muttered, trying to push her away.
“He’ll be fine. He just hit his head.” Jena removed her hands from their position over his body.
“They’re right behind us. You must run. Take him with you.” Again, the man pushed at her, almost knocking her over from her crouched position.
“Hey, watch it,” said Jena. She glanced at Bree. “Do you think we can carry them?” she asked.
On his other side, Bree shook her head. “Creatures such as this, the forest knows they’re not welcome. It will not even allow them to enter. It’s a protection that’s been in place since...”
She didn’t need to continue for Jena to know what she meant.
Jena peered anxiously at the landscape beyond the forest. “How strong are these protections?” she said. “Will it hold against something stronger than wolvans?”
“I don’t know. Strong enough, I think,” answered Bree, but without conviction.
“You hope.”
Even as they spoke, the buzzing became louder, filling the air with a sickening taint. Jena’s body twitched and she gave an involuntary spasm. Squinting out through the trees, she tried to get a clear view.
The snorting of horses announced the arrival of two Riders; they pulled up their beasts at the border of the trees. The creatures paced up and down, their heads shaking and snorting, foam dripping from their mouths. One Rider tried to enter the forest; the horse reared up and turned away, screaming in pain. On the branches around them, the tiny silkworms anxiously moved about, reacting to the unwanted intrusion. The already dark trees seemed to grow denser and thicker, closing in until it was almost impossible to see out the forest.
Moving to one side to peer out through the branches, Jena had to stifle a gasp with her hand. Half-rotted scabs of meat clung to the decaying bones that made up the horses’ frames. Dull black eye sockets saw nothing and everything. Maggots crawled in and around the horses’ cavities, making their eyes and nostrils move with false animation.
Their tall, thin bodies pulsed in the afternoon heat, sometimes blurring out of focus. Jena narrowed her eyes and realized the horses were made of millions of tiny black flies swarming together, through the shell of the horses and up over their rumps, fleshing out the shape of the putrid creatures, and creating the riders on their backs. The buzzing that surrounded them stung her ears.
“What are they? How can they be real?” Bree said from just behind her, her voice rising in panic.
“They’re called Riders. They’re formed by dark mage work, and almost impossible to kill,” whispered Jena, pulling the information from the Book of Spells. It didn’t say how truly terrifying they were in real life.
The false horses stomped, paced, and reared, as they turned in agitated circles just outside the bounds of the forest. The Riders seemed to look through the branches directly at Jena and, although she knew they couldn’t see her, she shrank back under their gaze.
She hoped they couldn’t enter the forest. If they could have, surely they’d have done so already. Her hand shook as she pushed a strand of hair back off her face. Without thinking, Jena made a gypsy sign for protection and one of the Riders tilted back its head and laughed: a strange mix of screeching cackle and the underlying buzzing that set up the hairs on the back of her neck.
“Help the other man,” the large man lying beside her whispered again, his eyes closing. “Help the other man.”
CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO
The looming figures came closer and closer. Nate tried to move, but couldn’t lift his arms or legs. He yelled for help, but no sound emerged. Around him, the trees collapsed in on his body.
They were almost here. He could smell their fetid breath as they opened the gaping holes that passed for mouths. One reached out a skeletal hand to grab him. The hard fingers touched his arm and he screamed.
His eyes jerked open and he sat up straight, flinging his arm out to defend himself. Nate fell out of the small bed where he had been lying, and thumped onto the floor, almost vomiting from the pain in his head. He groaned, and hands pulled him back into the bed, clean white sheets and a soft pillow easing his pain. A hand gently stroked his forehead and soft words soothed his panic.
He fell into the blackness.
When Nate woke ag
ain, lamplight brightened the otherwise dark room. Eerie shadows flickered on the wall, moving with the flame hiding behind glass. A glass of water and a slice of bread and butter sat on a small table beside the bed. He reached up and felt his head, looking for the lump or cut that had caused him so much pain. There was nothing to mark his fall, but when he moved his head, he was hit by a wave of dizziness.
Lying back, he tried to remember what had happened. It was all blurry; he had been crouching low on the racing horse when they reached the trees. He’d looked back to check on Argus... then nothing.
He didn’t even know if Argus had made it into the forest after him.
Argus had believed the Forest of Ghosts would save them. But where was he now? He gazed around the small room. There were no windows, and the walls were made of stone, solid and thick. If he was a prisoner here, it was a solid cage.
He licked his lips; they were cracked and dry. Reaching over he managed to hook awkward fingers around the glass of water, and he leaned in to take a long sip. The cool water ran down his throat, and he immediately felt better.
He took a second slow sip. The rumbling of his stomach made him reach for the bread. He was chewing the soft doughy roll when the door opened.
A young woman appeared in the doorway. Long straight white-blonde hair framed a serious face with very blue eyes. A long robe in forest green completely covered her body. She seemed very young and fresh-faced.
She smiled. “Oh, you’re awake. How do you feel?”
“I’m better now that I’ve eaten,” said Nate, holding up the half-eaten roll. He hesitated. “I’d like to know where I am.”
“You’re in a safe place.” She stayed by the door, holding the handle with one hand. “My name is Breanna.”
“Nate,” he replied. “Did we make it into the forest?”
