The Sliver - Part 1

            “Just admit it!”

            “No.”

            “Why do you always do this?”

            “Do what?”

            “Why can’t you just admit that you made a mistake.”

            “I will when I have made one.”

            “Arrggg, you are so frustrating!”

            He let the branch snap back.

            She uttered a few expletives as the thin twig cracked in her face, slapping thick green leaves still heavy with the recent rainfall. In annoyance, she ripped the branch from the tree and tossed it carelessly aside. Perhaps not the most befitting behaviour for a Defender of the Wild but right now wasn’t the time to care about posterity.

            “Alright then, if you know so much, where are we headed.”

            “Away from those things.”

            “And out of the woods?”

            “With any luck.”

            “Just say it already, we’re lost.”

            “No. I know exactly where we are.”

            “Oh?”

            “We’re right here.”

            She frowned.

            “Was that your attempt at humour?”

            “I’m a fighter, not a lover.”

            “So why did you run away from those bugs.”

            “Just trying to keep up with you.”

            There were days when she could just kill him. Today was shaping up to be one of those days.

            She sighed, shifting the weight of her quiver on her shoulder. The thin leather container wasn’t that heavy any more, not since most of the arrows had been loosed. She only had six left which her brother was forbidding her from using. He wanted them to have something to go hunting with and he kept saying she’d need all of them just to hit the broad side of a temple.

            Kait looked up to the forest canopy. It wasn’t the densest she’d ever seen, the sun still shone through large breaks in the leafy roof. Judging by it’s passage, they’d been walking for almost three hours. And her legs were starting to feel it.

            “Can we take a break yet?” she called.

            “Just a few more minutes.”

            “That’s what you said half an hour ago.”

            “Well, the longer we walk, the sooner we’ll get out.”

            “I can’t walk if I keel over from hunger and fatigued.”

            “You don’t hear Calos complaining.”

            “I don’t hear Calos say anything.”

            She turned back to make sure the third member of their little party was still keeping up. He was a short man, with curly hair and green eyes that looked like they had been stolen from the scenery around them. He gave her a weak smile once he realized she was watching him, picking up his pace to keep in step.

            “You make that sound like a bad thing,” her brother smiled.

            It is when someone doesn’t shout for help because of some misplaced piety towards a vow of silence, Kait frowned, thinking of the little encounter they just withdrew from.

            The scene had been pretty much the same. The three of them were marching through a trackless forest with each tree and bush looking like the last. She had been bickering with her brother mostly because his pig-headedness demanded that he refuse to acknowledge any mistake he’d made. And this mistake happened to be a detour through some forsaken brush ominously named The Forbidden Woods or Abandoned Forest or whatever Creshnalik was supposed to mean in the local tongue.

            For whatever reason, Keirn was under the impression that she should have been the one leading them: that somehow she was supposed to have some natural affinity for trail blazing foreign landscapes. The only landscape she was use to blazing was the single story, single room school with the tiny dirt path connecting it to the rest of the small hamlet the two of them came from. She had no familiarity with animal trails or a keen eye for identifying one type of scat from another. She was lucky if she could get through her own grammar lessons.

            And Calos wasn’t much of a help to their current circumstances. He had mentioned only a handful of words since he joined up with them. It was easy for Kait to sometimes forget that the young man was even with them. And it was during a particularly heated debate between herself and her brother that Calos decided exert his existence. It took a few seconds for Kait to identify the strange tugging sensation on her clothes and when she turned around, all irate and ready for a confrontation, she saw a looming ten foot insect descending from the branches and leaves towards them.

            With compound eyes brimming with bestial malice, this creature appeared intent on inserting the long, sabre like proboscis protruding from its face into their pale, soft flesh. Face with such a monstrosity, the three of them did what any common, decent individual would do.

            They ran as fast as their legs and packs would allow them.

            So, whatever intuitive path Keirn may have been following earlier had been abandoned in their hasty retreat. But would he stop and let them rest, gather their bearings and perhaps try to find a suitable way out of this endless wood? No, of course not. He was hellbent on getting them inextricably lost till they ran out of food and water and starved to death. Or worse, become some fertile host for these ravenous arthropods’ larvae, destined to be eaten alive in their early stage of maturity. Kait quietly wished Jeremiah or Derrek were still her to help argue some sense in him

            Kait’s stomach growled loudly and she raised a hand to quell it. She looked up at her brother, balancing on a rotted log with some cast off stick in his hands like an explorer’s staff. He looked at the underbrush with a discerning eye, as if he could pierce the foliage to find some hidden path beneath.

            “How about a rest for some food?”

            “I’m not sure, we don’t want to eat everything right away,” he cautioned.

            “Well, that’s all well and good, but I’m starving.”

            “Just think how bad you’ll feel in a few more days without any.”

            “We’re in a forest! Even if we don’t catch a rabbit, there will be some mushrooms or berries or something else we can eat.”

            “Really?” Keirn asked. He straightened, looking about the empty wood. “Aside from those gia-normous bugs, I haven’t seen anything that’s edible. Unless you like the taste of ferns.”

            “You obviously haven’t been paying attention then,” Kait scolded. “It’s a forest, obviously there’s going to be food.”

            “Have you seen any?”

            “Well, I haven’t been looking since I’ve got some perfectly edible food in my pack.”

            “For three people, for however long it takes for us to find civilization again?”

            “Look, there’s going to be something around here.”

            Kait turned, stomping into the undergrowth. She recognized some of these plants but most were useless ferns and grasses. Sure, she could probably do something with a few of the mosses if she had to, but there surely had to be some rabbit tracks or bush berries around here.

            But, after a few minutes, Kait hadn’t found anything.

            “Well?” her brother smugly pressed.

            “I haven’t given up yet!” Kait shot back.

            However, there was a disturbingly lack of edible life that she could see. In fact, as she stood still in the underbrush scanning the endless stretch of trees, she was struck by the unnatural stillness of the forest. She hadn’t noticed before because of the arguing and the enormous insect, but there was a shocking lack of life in these woods. There weren’t any chirping of birds, shaking undergrowth from frightened animals or buzzing of normal sized insects.

            “How peculiar,” Kait muttered.

            “Isn’t it?” Keirn asked, jumping from the log and stepping beside her. “I noticed it a while back and have been keeping an eye out for anything: a deer, boar or bear even. But there’s nothing.”

            “How is that possible? An environment cannot continue without a diverse ecosystem to support it.”

            “I’m sorry... what?”

            “There’s no way this forest could be here without animals.”

            “Ominous... still want your lunch break?”

            “Of course!” Kait exclaimed, making her way back to the rotted log, plopping down and removing some leaf wrapped bread. Calos and a reluctant Keirn joined her, and she broke off some pieces for them. She enjoyed the quiet moment, savouring the crusty and slightly mouldy taste of the bread and the lukewarm water kept in the water skins.

            As she munched away, she let her mind puzzle over the peculiar ecological phenomenon she was sitting squarely within. She may not have been a classically educated scholar, but she did enjoy reading. While she spent her days in the tiny school, filling the vacuous heads of those bratty merchant children with basic arithmetic and spelling, she filled her evenings pouring over the dusty journals and manuscripts she purchased from those same merchant families. These varied from the natural sciences and philosophies to advance algebra and medicine. While most of it she didn’t understand, her favourite books were those on the natural world and the tomes on rocks and animals shared the prestigious place above her hearth with her cherished childhood tales.

            None of the scholarly works, however, ever mentioned a forest or wood existing without any animal life to maintain the natural rot and fertilization of the plants. The only scholars she recalled mentioning anything remotely similar were those espousing the horrors of lumbering upon the inhabitants of the forests. Course, the absence of wildlife in those instances was caused by the clearing of the trees they nested in to build the massive navies kings seemed to crave nowadays.

            “Alright, let’s get going,” Keirn replied, stoppering his water skin and tying it to his belt.

            Kait wrapped the remainder of her bread and tucked it into her pack before following her brother.

            It was another good hour or so of quiet trekking as Kait mused over the strangeness of the forest with Keirn continuing his aimless wandering and Calos walking quietly behind them both. Kait once again turned her thoughts to their absent companions. Surely Derrek would have some strange anecdotal story or obscure fact to make sense of this situation. He was far better at dredging up seemingly useless information from the dark depths of his mind.

            But he, too, was not here to lend his unique abilities.

            Kait was so wrapped in thought that she failed to notice the soft tugging at her shirt at first.

            “What is it?!” she spun around, frantically scanning the trees.

            “Wait,” was the solemn reply.

            The curly haired youth then ducked around her, quietly tugging on her brother’s shirt to get his attention as well. Then all three of them stood, the Faden’s wondering what had caused their companion to stop their progress. Calos simply raised a finger to his lips, signalling for them to be quiet before crouching low to the ground. The others followed suit.

            They stayed as still as possible, not even breathing, straining to hear any telling sign of some danger approaching. Instead, they only heard the rustling of leaves in a gentle breeze.

            “This is stupid,” Keirn muttered, standing suddenly. Calos’ hand quickly reached up and pulled him down again, pointing a small finger into the distance of the woods. Keirn and Kait leaned forward squinting in an attempt to see what was causing so much consternation.

            Calos looked from one sibling to the other. He was greeted with silent looks of confusion. Slightly frustrated, he waved them forward, still keeping low to the ground. They trudged through the forest for a little, until they came over a small mossy mound and Keirn and Kait saw the thinning of trees with a stretching field beyond.

            “Damnations!” Keirn muttered, falling behind the grassy protrusion.

            “Why are you cursing?” Kait whispered, “we’re out of the woods!”

            “And right into Angallan territory,” Keirn whispered. “That’s clearly farmland. I thought we were going to emerge at the Ukalie Plains!”

            “And what’s so wrong with the Angallans?”

            “Other than their xenophobic nature and propensity for arresting foreigners? You think this little trek through the woods was for fun?”

            “We’re not wanted in Angalla, are we?”

            Keirn gave a hurt expression.

            “You make me sound like some irreputable scoundrel.”

            Kait frowned.

            “What did you do?”

            “Nothing, I swear.”

            “Keirn.”

            “It wasn’t my fault! Come on, let’s go,” he said, turning back from the field.

            “I’m not going back into the woods!” Kait declared. “Not with those monstrous things trying to eat us inside.”

            Keirn paused. He looked from Kait’s stern expression to Calos curious look. He nibbled his lower lip in thought, scrunching his face as he realized that there was little chance of persuading his sister.

            “Alright, how about we skirt the farmland? My guess is we just came out a little too east. If we head north, we should be able to follow the forest edge to the Plains. That way, we don’t get eaten and we don’t get captured.”

            Kait thought about it for a second, but failing to come up with a better plan, nodded slightly. Keirn walked around the mossy mound, Kait following closely behind. Only Calos took time to examine the mound with a curious look, noting its odd bulk and reminiscent shape of something completely different then a large pile of earth. However, he abandoned his observations in order to catch up with the others.