The Redwood Rebel (The Redwood War Book 1) (11 page)

‘Long range weapons!’ she bellowed. ‘Fall back! Fall back!’

No one seemed to hear her, but the harpy looked up from the man whose skull she was crushing between her talons. Orange, aquiline eyes looked right at her, and its face pulled back, revealing its rows of jagged teeth in a horrific grin. She recognised it as the same one that had attacked her before. It screeched again, and Naomi scrabbled up to her feet, stepping unsteadily backwards and into Arun.

‘What in all hells are you doing?’ he shouted, trying to pull her back. She didn’t have time for his misplaced sense of concern, however, knowing that just one harpy in their midst could slaughter every single one of them if not handled properly. The hunting party had gone, so they were already ten soldiers down, along with their commanding officer. There was one of the soldiers who seemed to be trying to organise some kind of attack, but again with short range weapons.

‘Stay here!’ Arun ordered, a sword appearing in his hand as he shoved past her to go to his men. Instinct took over Naomi then, and grabbing his sword arm, she twisted it up behind his back and hooked her ankle around his, flooring him easily. He yelled in surprise, but she let go of him instantly and stepped away.

‘
You
stay here!’ she snapped, turning away and running by herself into the thick of the battle. Part of her registered that she only had a space of thirty paces before she got stuck again, but she knew it wouldn’t take Arun long to get back to his feet and follow her. She had a precious few moments to get their defence where it needed to be.

‘To the King!’ she yelled, shoving through the soldiers and skidding down to pick up an abandoned bow from the grass. The change in call got more attention, and she saw a few of the men at the back turning to see Arun trying to get to his feet. ‘Fall back! To the King!’

The retreat of the ranks in the back was almost instantaneous, unsure of their King’s injuries and rushing back to help him. As one of them passed her, she grabbed a handful of arrows from the quiver at his back and turned back to face the beast and the front ranks still fighting her. Naomi fell back too, knowing that the soldiers would likely try and drag Arun out of harm’s way, and her with him, then jabbed the arrows tip first into the ground. Nocking one as quickly as she could, she took a deep breath and aimed.

‘Long range weapons!’ she repeated, then fired the arrow into the face of the harpy. It screamed in agony and reared back as Naomi rolled her shoulders and picked up another arrow. She saw the soldiers start to heed her words, and not giving the harpy a chance to recover, fired the second shot into one of its great wings.

It shrieked again, swiping at the men at its feet, but the one who had seemed to be in charge was at last repeating her commands. ‘Fall back! Long range weapons!’

Naomi nocked another arrow, pulling the bowstring taut as she took aim, and was glad to see the Korenians retreating and notching their own bows. She fired again, but only grazed its shoulder as someone suddenly shouted in her ear.

‘You stupid woman!’

‘Aim for the eyes and wings,’ she called back to the men that had formed ranks around her, then spared Arun a quick glance. ‘Not now, Sire, I’m a little preoccupied. Either grab a bow or get back, please.’

Finally there was an organised volley that hit the now squawking creature, and as Arun snatched the bow out of her hands bad-temperedly, she allowed him his petty outburst. Stepping back out of the way, she watched as he took up her position and fired another volley. The Harpy had stopped moving, and she saw the Korenians hesitate, thinking it was dead.

‘One more,’ she ordered, forgetting herself until Arun again turned furious eyes on her. She shrugged. ‘Better to be safe than sorry.’

They were about to reload, when the harpy suddenly shrieked again, throwing its head back and making one last charge towards them. Naomi grabbed Arun’s arm and pulled him back with her instinctively, despite knowing it didn’t have the energy to reach them now. Its broken form all too quickly crumpled back onto the grass, blood pouring and pooling around it, then began to emit a high, ear-splitting note that made most of them cover their ears.

‘It’s calling for help,’ Naomi yelled above the din to Arun. ‘We need to get out of here!’

‘What about Rayan and the others?’ he shouted back. She could see the concern in his face, but had no answer for him and turned away. She found the soldier that had been leading the first attack.

‘Are you the ranking officer?’

‘I’m just a Sergeant. The Captain was the first to be killed by that thing!’

The noise subsided all at once and the Sergeant’s words echoed around the wrecked campsite. Other soldiers, some wounded, others just shaken, began to look between herself and Arun. She only nodded, knowing they had to get out of there as quickly as possible. She had no idea how many harpies were on their trail, but she knew that with their numbers so depleted, they were unlikely survive another attack.

‘Patch up the wounded who can’t wait as best you can, and get as many supplies together as possible,’ she ordered decisively. ‘The essentials only. Food, weapons, and bedrolls. Leave everything else.’

‘I’m not leaving without Rayan and Esta,’ Arun grabbed her shoulder, but she said nothing. ‘This isn’t your decision to make.’

‘No,’ she admitted. ‘But if we stay here, we will all perish. Lord Rayan would say the same. We don’t know what else is hunting us, you have less than fifteen soldiers left, and most of them are injured. We don’t have the time to wait for their return and we can’t withstand another attack.’

She saw him look around at the state they were now in and silently realise what she said was true. Putting her pride aside for a moment in the face of his dilemma, she touched his hand briefly.

‘Your cousin is clever and able. He’ll see what’s happened and continue to head towards Pearpetal where your ship is. The best we can do is the same and hope to meet them there.’

There was a tense moment of silence, then he looked to the Sergeant still hovering beside them and nodded once.

Chapter Eleven

Naomi was trying her best to be nice. She knew it had been a tough decision for Arun to abandon camp without waiting for Rayan, Esta, and the others, and he seemed to be holding her personally responsible for the whole thing. He had told her that using his dragon form sapped a lot of energy, and so using it to hunt for her previously made him unable to utilise now, and hadn’t spoken a word to her since. She could understand his anger, and said nothing to defend herself, knowing it would only make things worse.

They had taken the bare minimum of supplies they needed, leaving both the wagons and all the tents behind at her instructions. She hadn’t meant to just take over like that, but Arun was withdrawn and the Sergeant who was now highest ranking officer, Naseem, seemed completely bewildered by his sudden elevation. They had taken the horses they needed, setting the others free, and ridden through the forest as hard and for as long as possible. They had put a great deal of distance between themselves and the camp, and once they hit water, Naomi had ordered the now exhausted horses to be rested and fed, then set free as well.

It was only then that Arun had seemed to shake himself out of his dark silence and challenged her order, but once she explained that they would be harder to track on foot, he had again retreated. By then it was dark and late, and she had shown the remaining soldiers how to build small sleeping platforms high in the trees, where they were now spending the night.

She had allowed magic for the sake of healing those injured by the harpy attack, but had then forbidden all use unless absolutely necessary. Arun himself had done a great deal of the healing, and she was glad to see he was keeping himself busy instead of dwelling in dark places. She understood what he was experiencing, but knew better than to try and offer a comfort that wasn’t sought. Hope and logic were battling inside him, and the best she could do to help was keep them all moving and get as many safely out of Ffion as she could. He wasn’t stupid, and she knew he must realise as she did that Rayan and Esta hadn’t been gone from the camp long enough to not hear and respond to the noise of the attack. The only explanation was that they had been attacked themselves simultaneously.

Watching him sleep, keeping guard over the few trees that housed the sleeping Korenians, she couldn’t help but feel responsible. She had to get him back to his country alive. Esta and Rayan had been kind to her, and Naomi knew that it was the least she could do to make sure Arun, their cousin and King, was safe. It would be hard on him, and he seemed to be directing all of his anger for their loss at her personally, but she didn’t mind. She knew from experience that anger was easier to deal with than sorrow.

It wasn’t impossible that they had escaped whatever had kept them from returning, and she wasn’t about to give up hope, but even if they had, making their way through the forest wasn’t going to be easy. So far they had kept to the lesser roads, but with Cygnus’ monsters hunting them down the safest route was through the heavily wooded areas of Ffion. Arun and the remaining soldiers were going to struggle, and they had the benefit of a knowledgeable guide. She could only pray that Rayan had taken her warnings seriously and had some kind of basic idea of how dangerous the forest really was.

She was going to take them through the darkest parts of the woods, knowing it would make tracking them next to impossible for harpies or otherwise. The trees would be dense, making flight completely futile, and the denser the trees, the stronger the scent of damp and leaf-mould, which would hide a great deal of their trail even from noses as sensitive as she knew the harpies possessed. Depending on how quickly they moved, she guessed they could be at Pearpetal in about five days or so. Less if they didn’t run into trouble from the creatures that made their home in the deep forest.

Leaning back against the branch behind her, legs crossed and fingers lightly drumming against her knees, Naomi took a deep breath and closed her eyes. She was exhausted, but didn’t want to sleep. Unlike last night, it seemed Arun had forgotten to cut off her connection to his magic, leaving her active far longer than she would be otherwise. After the past few days, she could tell it wasn’t a healthy way to go on, but for now she was content to use any means at her disposal to keep going. For now all thoughts of escape were pushed to the back of her mind, surviving her only concern. If the magic, however much of an inconvenience before, was going to help her, then she wasn’t going to ignore it. She could already feel the Bond spell working its way through her body, healing the years of neglect, the wasted muscles and weakened bones; doing in days what nature would have taken weeks to accomplish.

Arun had very pointedly removed all weapons from her reach once again, and while she didn’t require his good opinion, if they were going to get out of Ffion in one piece she needed him to trust her. Still, with some of her own strength returning, and after the fight only hours before, she was desperate to get some sword practice and see how much she remembered. Her aim with the bow had been adequate, but not nearly as sharp as it had been before. It made her worry for the rest of her skills. Looking over the sleeping platform to the ground below, she tried to gauge the distance.

‘I hope you’re not thinking of escape.’ Arun’s voice interrupted her musings, and she turned to see he hadn’t moved at all. He was laying with his back to her, completely motionless, and she was both surprised and impressed that he had managed to make her think he had been sleeping deeply.

‘I was just wondering if I had enough room to get down and run through a few sword drills,’ she admitted, keeping her voice low. ‘I’m afraid I’ve become rusty.’

He rolled over onto his back and looked at her quizzically, disbelief apparent in his expression. ‘You consider yourself rusty?’

Naomi was secretly pleased by his reaction, a pride in herself she hadn’t felt in years coming to the fore. She supposed that to him any woman who could hold a weapon without injuring herself must be some kind of novelty, but she was still proud. It wasn’t that female knightss and soldiers in Ffion were in abundance, of course. She had fought hard for respect from the men in her regiment, and even then they still seemed only able to cope with it by treating her as “one of the boys” as opposed to a female doing a job just as well as a male. Some of them had only swallowed her presence because of her father, but she liked to think that she had proved herself enough that eventually even those that disapproved and disliked her still would do as she ordered without question.

There hadn’t been many women in the ranks back then, but as she had worked her way up and gained a reputation even at her young age, she knew more and more women were choosing to join the military. At least, they had been. She didn’t like to think about the state of things under Adrienne’s rule; the little she had heard about torture, execution and banishment was enough to make her shut it out.

‘Your thoughts wander in dark places, little Firefly,’ Arun sighed quietly. ‘You should sleep.’

‘You too,’ she responded, keeping it simple for fear of speaking sharply about his constant poking about in her mind. Instead, she simply took hold of the magic and raised her defences against him even higher. The corner of his mouth kicked up slightly at that, and despite the darkness, she could see faint amusement twinkle in his peculiar, luminous eyes. She wasn’t sure how good his eyesight was, knowing hers was keen from years of darkness in her underground cell, but he continued to lay on his back, staring up at the leafy canopy.

‘You were singing,’ he said suddenly, and she frowned.

‘No, I wasn’t.’

‘I heard you,’ he assured her, and she could tell he was being truthful. ‘Well, humming, at least. Not a tune I recognise.’

She hadn’t even realised she’d been making any noise at all, much less humming. Still, she did know she had been prone to it as a child, something Master Gerrard had often nudged her into noticing.

‘Your singing wasn’t what was keeping me awake,’ he quickly assured her, sounding contrite. ‘I just wondered what the tune was.’

‘I’m sorry. I didn’t realise I was doing it, so I wouldn’t know what the tune was,’ she admitted. ‘My teacher used to say I’d make them up, depending on what the forest sounded like at the time. It was probably just nonsense.’

He smiled again. ‘I see. So you were singing with the forest?’

‘I suppose you could say that, if you wanted to be overly romantic about it.’ Naomi shrugged. Master Gerrard had often joked with her about being a personification of the woods, and in truth she felt so at one with her home, the trees and the creatures, the beauty and danger of it, she found she didn’t mind. Still, it was strange to have a complete stranger begin to think that way.

‘You make it seem so much more beautiful than it truly is, then,’ he continued, sounding suddenly morose. ‘This was my first trip to Ffion, and people have always told me how lovely it is. I’m sorry to say that to me it feels only cold, dark, and harsh.’

It was Naomi’s turn to smile, feeling a little sorry for the dejected look on his face. ‘Well, you aren’t seeing it at its best.’

He didn’t look much like he believed her, and a crazy and potentially dangerous idea popped into her head. It shouldn’t matter to her what he thought of her home, but she knew that so far he really had only seen the very worst. Remembering the state of Chloris castle and the city surrounding it, there toll on the people, livestock, and the buildings had been devastating. The people he had met were all traitors, and even she, while refusing to try to justify her actions, had wronged him terribly for her own benefit. The forest had apparently taken his family from him, and now threatened his own life as well. She felt like he should know there was at least more to that than he believed, no matter the outcome of their fate.

Standing on the small platform, she held out her hand to him. ‘Come with me. I want to show you something.’

He sat up, but looked suspicious. Now filled with mischief and desperate to show him that there was beauty here alongside the danger, she lowered her mental defences enough for him to see that she meant him no harm. He seemed to consider it for a long while, then stood unsteadily beside her and taking her offered hand. She wrapped her fingers around his, and picking out a likely looking branch, led him over.

‘How is your eyesight? Can you see well enough to climb safely?’ she asked, unable to keep the excitement from her voice. He nodded mutely, and she let go of his hand. ‘Just tread where I tread.’

Careful not to go too quickly, and keeping as quiet as possible, she began to make her way up the tree from branch to branch. She stopped every now and again to look back and make sure Arun wasn’t struggling, but he seemed to be fine, if a little cautious. They would have to be quick, she noted mentally, but harpies slept by night, and so as long as they didn’t linger it would be fine. She was surprised by how much she wanted to share this with Arun, but put it down to a subtle attempt to cheer him up, and a long dormant pride in her home. She didn’t want anyone to think badly of her country, not if she could help it.

Climbing as high as possible before the branches became too weak to support their weight, she couldn’t stop herself from grinning as the view opened out before her. Her heart clenched tightly in her chest and she took a deep breath before moving aside to make room for Arun on the slightly sturdier branch. She reached down and offered her hand once again to help steady him, which he took, and watched his face change from the absorption of climbing to wonder at the sight that met his eyes.

The forest stretched out all around them, a blanket of lush green dusted by moonlight. It carpeted the land until it blended with the night sky in the distance, reaching in a never-ending sphere of velvet up and over their heads until it met back with the edges of the forest again. Stars glittered in the sky, mirroring other lights scattered throughout the woodlands. Keeping her voice barely above a whisper, she pointed to the brighter clusters in the distance.

‘Those are Questing Birds. They say the birds guide lost travellers through the forest sometimes, if your need is great and your heart is righteous,’ she saw the dubious look on his face again, but ignored it, too swept up by the beauty of the view. ‘The smaller lights are probably fairies and nymphs. And the ones that are moving, the greenish ones? Those are Leshii. Unlike the Questing Birds, they lead travellers off their paths, usually with deadly consequences.’

‘It seems that your forest spends an awful lot of time worrying about travellers.’ he muttered.

‘Well, that isn’t surprising,’ Naomi lifted one shoulder in a small shrug. ‘No one likes their privacy being invaded, do they? They don’t want people traipsing about, so it stands to reason there are those that take it upon themselves to get rid of outsiders as quickly as possible.’

Arun continued to look out at the forest and the various displays of light. ‘So it’s a defence mechanism. Whether your method is cruelty or kindness, the object is that I’m no longer a threat.’

He looked at her then, and the hard light in his eyes made her wonder if they were still talking about the forest or not. She frowned and looked back out to the treetops. How could anyone have access to such a view and still be so full of venom?

‘It’s like you want to find fault,’ she answered evasively. ‘Can’t you see that sometimes it takes both good and bad to make something remarkable? Respect peril while appreciating beauty?’