Ingo awoke to the rustling, thumping and clanking of the soldiers packing. He watched with interest as they went through the same motions as the previous morning. First, they passed the narrow blades over their faces and washed. Even though they no longer had the river nearby, they each poured some of their water into a pail, then the captain let a few drops from a small, glass bottle drip into it. As they splashed their hands into it in turn, it let off an aroma like lavender blossom.

  “Wash if you like,” Gavan invited Ingo to join the ritual. Ingo shook his head and looked away.

  “A bit of hygiene wouldn’t hurt your kind,” sneered the captain.

  When they had finished, they hauled the packs onto their backs, stamped out the embers of the fire and formed up to march again. The captain consulted Gavan and shouted to the rope soldier before they set off:

  “Keep an eye on the young man, Hesio.”

  The mountains to their right gradually changed from dull grey and green to a dusty, barren red. The forest’s edge neared. The caves appeared less frequently, though Ingo still spotted some entrances high up. He noticed the trees changing, too. His village was surrounded by silver fir and hornbeam but now he began to see maple trees, ash and even some oak. His curiosity was the first thing grown-ups had ever praised him for, as well as being what got him so frequently in trouble. He spotted a large, gnarly oak with bulbous, dormant branches and made a mental note of it. He memorised landmarks to plot his return.

  Concentrating on his surroundings and committing them to memory, Ingo only vaguely registered a sweet scent on the air that did not come from early Spring blossoms or the perfumed water of the soldiers. Looking up at the mountains, he did not pay attention to the ground beneath his feet until, tripping slightly and looking down, he saw the freshly turned soil. Alarmed, his eyes sped from right to left, and all around him the ground gave away the tell-tale signs. A trail of something dark and sticky, like treacle that had been stretched and hardened into filaments ran from one trunk to another. His nostrils flared, and he realised what he had been smelling.

  “Stop,” he gasped. No one heard him and the rope around his ankle pulled taut. Hesio turned to look back. He seemed about to chide Ingo then hesitated, his own face falling as though Ingo’s fear were so acute as to be contagious.

  “Stop!”

  The column halted. “What is it?” yelled the captain. The soldiers turned to look at him.

  Through trembling lips Ingo whispered: “Root sleepers.”

  Saying those words to any Sevener would freeze them like a pillar of ice. They knew that sudden movement was the most dangerous thing in a moment like this. These foreign soldiers did not.

  They erupted into action. Swords flashed in sunlight that filtered through the leaves. Ingo watched in disbelieving horror as they ran, jumped and stomped into their battle formation, each thunderous footfall vibrating into the ground. And yet, they tried to take formation with no sense of what direction the attack would come from. He closed his eyes and tried to summon the courage his father would have demanded. A warrior lives close to the next life. He did not want the next life, not yet. Not any more than he wanted to be a warrior. He felt Hesio grab his arm and yank him behind the soldiers but, since they could not agree on which direction to face, ‘behind’ kept shifting from one place to another.

  The captain shouted instructions to his men, but each one interpreted them through the prism of their own fear. One soldier backed around in circles with his sword pointing down shouting:

  “They come from the ground! They come from the ground!”

  “It came from the trees last time!” shouted Gavan, who spun one way, then another, trying to look in all directions at once. These soldiers, usually so organised and disciplined, fragmented into a confused crowd. Ingo realised that he was witnessing the distilled fear of men who had faced the same terror over and over and found it worse with each repetition.

  The ground beneath him rolled and he staggered away from it, struggling and failing to keep his balance. Then the earth exploded upward, and it emerged.

  First the smooth, grey dome of the body, the size of a large barrel, pushed itself out of the ground. From where Ingo stood, he could not yet see the head and jaw, but his heart stopped as the unmistakable hiss sounded through the clamour. The smell intensified. The body rose higher, and the creature pulled its legs free from the earth. Long, thick and smooth, with no obvious joints, they resembled the tangled roots of an elm tree. Ingo’s stomach lurched as the beast moved. It did not walk like a creature under its own volition. The body jerked hideously atop the slithering, winding limbs as though it were carried by eight grey serpents, each with a mind of its own. As it descended upon the panic-stricken Gavan, two soldiers screamed and slashed wildly at twisting legs which coiled around their knees. Others tried to step over the thick obstacles and attack the creature’s body. When they did so their swords scraped over it, leaving only thin marks on its bark-like hide.

  Ingo jumped behind Hesio, who raised his sword like a dagger and, with both hands, plunged it into the sleeper’s back. It made a dull thud, then a ripping sound like someone cutting leather with a rusty blade. When he withdrew the sword a slick, black liquid clung to it, stretching into threads which hung in the air between the wound and the blade. The sleeper reared back, crushing a trapped soldier under its weight. The legs flailed, whipping the air and the bodies of several men in a series of sharp cracks. He felt something warm splatter across the side of his face and into his eyes. He fell to the ground, shuffling back against the taut rope around his ankle.

  When Ingo rubbed the blood and soil from his eyes and looked up, he saw the sleeper bearing down on his captor. Or was Hesio now his defender? The soldier stood like a stone wall between Ingo and the creature’s path. He pulled his shield round and thrust it above his head to meet the gaping, hissing mouth, ringed with fangs that only needed to touch your skin to end everything.

  Some of the fallen soldiers leapt back up and those who could stabbed again at the body. The captain landed a daring blow beneath the sleeper’s mouth, and it recoiled and leapt back.

  Suddenly a dark vapour filled the air, obscuring Ingo’s vision. As quickly as it had blocked the light, it dissipated, and he found himself staring at an empty space where the sleeper had stood. It had fled under the cover of its inky mist.

  Everyone was still. A thin, slightly sticky film of moisture covered Ingo’s body. The blow near its mouth must have frightened it.

  “It’s gone,” announced the captain. “Only one, and it’s gone.” Some soldiers faced the direction in which the predator had retreated, poised with swords raised, whilst others began pulling their comrades to their feet. One man hollered as he tried to stand.

  “My leg, aaarrgh, my leg!” he yelled. Another commented: “It’s broken.”

  The man who had taken the weight of the creature could not be roused, and they quickly diagnosed a broken back and crushed rib cage. Another soldier, who appeared to be missing part of his neck, lay twisted on the floor with his eyes open and his mouth agape. Gavan, who had been the sleeper’s first target, stood up, surveyed the scene and dusted himself off.

  “Well,” he said, in the jocular voice of a man with a stomach full of wine, “I seem to have got away with that!”

  The rest of the troop stared at him. A sheen of sweat glistened on his pallid face. His eyes looked dark, sunken back into his skull. His lips spread into a broad, toothy grin.

  “Why the grim faces, men? We just fought off the mighty beast! Haha!” He waved his arm like a child play fighting. “Ha, sha, phwa... Like that... We fought it off!” Then, catching his foot on a root, he tripped and fell face first into the mud beside Ingo. Hesio fell hurriedly to his side and rolled him over. The captain removed a water pouch from his back and two other soldiers ran their hands under his clothes.

  “Here,” announced one. They undid his belt, unfastened his leg braces and pulled down his trousers. A ring of red punctures encircled an angrily inflamed thigh. Gavan glanced at the wound, then giggled and looked up.

  “Have you seen the leaves here? There are so many leaves. And the clouds are so bright! They’re so heavy in Dombarrow. I like the sky here.”

  “Carry him, Hesio. He’s delirious. Someone else tie the boy’s rope on,” the captain commanded, then looked at the two dead soldiers and bowed his head. “It could have been worse.”

  Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings.

  “It is worse,” said Ingo, pointing at Gavan. “He’s been wed!”

  All eyes turned to him.

  “He’s been what?” asked the captain.

  “You have to leave him. She’s marked him. She won’t let him go. She’ll come back - and others with her. We have to get as far as we can from him.”

  “The hell we do,” spat the captain. “We don’t leave our own to die in the woods.”

  “Then you’ll all die in the woods!” yelled Ingo, angry and desperate. “And why should I die with you? Idiots who don’t even keep to the paths! Let me go! Let me go!” he wailed, thumping the big soldier. Hesio did not stop him as he continued: “He’s been bitten by a sleeper. He’s dead already!”

  One of the men spoke up.

  “Let him go, Cap.”

  Ingo went quiet, his hopes suddenly rising. If they cut him loose, he could move swiftly and quietly away from the wed man and the sleepers wouldn’t even notice – not with all the noise the soldiers were making.

  “The general wants a captive, but the general’s not here. He hasn’t got to put up with this.” The soldier who had spoken waved his hand, encompassing the dead bodies and Gavan, who was now crawling in the dirt, marvelling at the shape of a small stone. “We’ll get out quicker if we don’t have to drag him with us.”

  The captain’s mouth formed a thin line, and he shut his eyes. Then he opened them, his face set in determination.

  “We haven’t lost ten, no twelve, of our troop to go back empty handed. Hesio.” He looked to the big man. Hesio untied the rope from his own wrist and passed it to someone else, then grabbed Gavan and hauled him up over one shoulder. “Let’s get out of here.” Two others picked up the soldier with a broken leg.

  Ingo resumed his protest: “You can’t outrun them! We can’t escape carrying him! There are more coming. Please, at least drop him if you’re taking me!”

  The captain stood in front of Ingo and placed a hand on his shoulder. For the first time, Ingo saw something like sympathy in his face.

  “I know, boy. You don’t want to come with us, and you don’t know why you must. The advocate general, a powerful man, wants one of you. He wants to ask questions about your people. That’s the only way to get free. Come to the general and answer his questions. So, if you know something that’ll help us get out of this forest, now would be a good time to share it. What are these paths? I don’t see any.”

  “You have to learn to see them, but I don’t know this far north.”

  “Then what about those sleepers? To me, they’re a myth I never believed in until I saw one. Your kind live here. How do you survive them?”

  Ingo took a deep breath. From the beginning, he had told these soldiers nothing about the forest. He’d watched as one of them ran his hand along a barrow needle bush, knowing the man would succumb to an agonising fever. He had watched them tramp off the paths he was familiar with, knowing all of them, he included, would soon be lost. But now they had disturbed a root sleeper, and one of them had been wed. If he wanted to survive, he had to help them survive. At least for today.

  “Fire. They’re afraid of fire. But if they’re coming after a marked man... they might even cross flames for him. And there’s no time to -”

  The captain spun round. “Hesio, one of you institute lads must have something. Come on, say you’ve got another cylinder.”

  Hesio had already lain Gavan down and was rifling through his backpack. He withdrew from the bottom a metal cylinder and a smaller metal box. Ingo stole a look into the trees. He saw no movement, yet. Hesio flipped open the box, which sprang back on hinges so small even Aimar would have been impressed. He poured a liquid from the cylinder onto a piece of cloth and began to spin a tiny wheel inside the metal cube with his thumb. Everyone watched. Ingo shuffled closer. Hesio grunted and muttered under his breath.

  “Damn thing... Come on... Too loose... Blasted heavens...Aha!”

  A spark flew from the box, like an ember spitting from charcoal or a shooting star appearing from nowhere. Hesio’s thumb worked furiously, and he held the cloth next to it. Suddenly, there was fire. Not just the delicate, tentative smouldering of kindling, as likely to blow out in the first gust of air as it was to take. The cloth burned as bright and hot as a tallow torch.

  Ingo had heard of fire summoned from thin air. It was said that priests of Hurean could call upon the lord of heaven to wreath a battlefield in flames. They said that King Brunulf used to light the iron braziers on the walls of the Godsroof with a special command; one that conveyed the authority of his heavenly master. This was different. These men had no gods to call upon, yet nonetheless they had summoned fire.

  Hesio threw the burning rag down and the other soldiers passed him branches. He took each one in turn, poured liquid from the cylinder onto one end, and held it over the rag. Each soldier soon held a burning piece of wood. The captain said in a level, forced calm:

  “It’s back. There are two.”

  The remaining soldiers formed a semi-circle of flame, held nervously out against the approaching threat. Ingo saw the legs first, writhing and creeping forward. Then the bodies came into view. The wounded sleeper held back. The new, lighter coloured beast moved in front. One of its legs whipped out and the soldiers jumped back.

  “Don’t back away!” shouted Ingo. “It wants to break the line!”

  “Listen to him,” thundered the captain. “Hold your ground!”

  Hesitantly, the soldiers inched forward brandishing their branches. Then someone stood up behind them. They had forgotten about Gavan.

  “There she is!” shouted the bitten soldier joyfully from beside Ingo, starting to his feet as though he intended to rush through the line toward an old friend. One of his comrades turned to restrain him. Others looked back over their shoulders. In the moment of distraction, the smaller sleeper rushed into the weakened chain.

  Ingo watched them scramble and knew, for the second time, that it was over. He heard the captain yell at his scattered men to reform, but it was too late. The wounded sleeper came from the side through another cloud of inky blackness and lashed one of the soldiers against a tree. He fell like a loose sack cloth. He heard another of the men scream in pain. A third creature emerged from the trees.

  Ingo looked for Hesio in the chaos. He stood waving the metal cylinder in front of himself in a circular motion, as though taking part in a ritual of some kind before his death. Something like water issued from the top of it. Then he threw his torch. An arc of fire flashed up between the remaining soldiers and the beasts, and a wave of heat forced Ingo to turn away. He looked back. One of the sleepers rolled through the undergrowth, wildly thrashing its legs. Fire raced up a narrow trunk before Ingo was on his feet. Some of the soldiers bellowed in triumph, others in fear, realising the fresh danger they were in. A tree two yards from the burning trunk caught fire. Ingo shielded his face and instantly felt the same intense heat on the back of his hand.

  He reached down to the rope and pulled at the knot. Hesio grabbed his arm and hauled him to his feet.

  “Make me a promise, boy. Stay with me.”

  “We have to go!” Ingo tried to move, but the hand on his arm might as well have been a fallen trunk. “We have to go while they’re still shocked!”

  “I can’t carry my friend as well as you. Don’t make me leave him. Swear on your gods that you’ll stay with me, and I’ll let you run freely.”

  The fire spread around them. Further away, he heard eager hissing through the flames. He looked up into his captor’s face and saw an almost calm determination. He could not believe it. Nothing would deter this man from his duty. Not even death by fire or the maws of a monster.

  “I swear on the Holy Seven!” Ingo shouted. What did it matter? Their chances of surviving this were already so slim, and he could not survive it now without Hesio.

  Hesio nodded. With a sword dripping the thick, black blood he cut the rope that bound Ingo. Then he hauled Gavan over his shoulder and said:

  “Run.”

  They ran.

  At times Ingo saw other soldiers to his right or left. Once, he thought he heard the captain shout ahead of them. At first, they seemed to be outrunning the growing inferno and the hissing of the sleepers returned. A scream resounded through the woods and a soldier who had been running not five yards from Ingo vanished. Ingo clung to Hesio as though the rope still connected them. Although he carried the marked prey, he carried also the magic pot of fire which waved to left and right as the fled. The fire spread fast. The wind behind them came in licking tongues of heat that ignited wood wherever they landed.

  As they ran, Ingo suddenly noticed his vision blur. To his right, the trees seemed to bend in toward one another. You could not trust a path you didn’t know, but right now they couldn’t do worse than this.

  “This way!” he cried, and Hesio followed as he diverted into the path.

  Ingo did not know how long he ran, but gradually the ground rose into a gentle incline and the trees thinned. The path broadened and dissipated like a river running into its estuary. Earth gave way to rock and the slope steepened until, suddenly, Ingo realised he was no longer inside the forest.

  Exhausted, he fell to his knees. He was so tired he did not care at that moment whether fire or sleepers followed on his heel. He regained his breath enough to lift his head and look round. He saw Hesio stagger up the slope and heave Gavan’s body to the ground. Both of their faces were coated in sweat, but Hesio was flushed pink, and Gavan looked a sickly grey.

  Ingo turned his attention to the forest from which they had fled. The fire had spread outward into an expanding ring, black at the centre, still bright at the edges. They watched it in silence, and it seemed at first like it would spread forever, consuming the whole of Saltleaf to the horizon. Then, a gentle drizzle began to fall, followed by a downpour. Ingo cupped his hands and slurped the cool water, letting it wash over his face and neck too. By the time the rain stopped the ring of flame was extinguished. He looked down at the poisoned soldier who lay motionless beside them and looked up at Hesio, whose huge body cast a long shadow on the ground before them and was framed behind by an orange sun, sinking down to the horizon.

  They stared at each other for a while, then Hesio growled:

  “It’ll be cold soon. I should start a fire.”

  Despite himself Ingo chuckled, and the chuckle turned into a laugh. They laughed together, spurring each other into hysterical, cathartic sobs. When they had subsided and the only sound was the wind moaning across the peaks behind them, Hesio said:

  “You could have slipped away. You made an oath on your gods, but you could have said ‘to hell with the gods,’ and slipped away from me.”

  Ingo thought for a long time. He had obligated himself to a godless man by making an oath on the gods themselves. It was true though, no rope attached him to Hesio now. He could run back into the forest and risk the sleepers. Even if he could quietly avoid them, though, that would mean running home as an oath breaker. To escape the heretics by falling into heresy himself. It would be better never to see his father again, than return in such a state. No, he had to meet this general of theirs and then return if they let him.

  “Where could I run to after turning from the gods?” he asked rhetorically.

  Hesio smiled, his wet face gentle and sad. The rain had plastered his curly red hair to the sides of his head. Did he want me to escape? thought Ingo.

  “What a question. Where do people run, who turn away from the gods? There’s only one place they can go.”