Page 148 of Into the Heartless Wood
OWEN
WE RIDE WEST,UNDER WRITHING CLOUDS,ALL THE KING’Sarmy at our heels.
The siren is bound by a length of cord to the king’s saddle, and she stumbles and trips as she tries to keep her feet and not be dragged.
I can’t look at her. I can’t keep my eyes off of her. In every line of her frame I see Seren. I’m sick and afraid.
And then we come, once more, to the wood.
It’s a great, dark mass, branches snarled and stirring. It stretches out of sight to the north and the south, in a place that, even yesterday perhaps, was nothing but a grassy plain.
The king unhooks a torch from his saddle. He glances at it. It flares to life.
Luned reaches for her torch, and behind her, officers shout for all the soldiers to do the same.
Light flares all down the brow of the hill.
The siren shrinks from the heat of the king’s torch, as if she fears he will burn her with it.
Instead, he kicks his horse into a run, and they plunge into the wood, jerking her behind.
Luned follows suit, and we lurch after the king, the Gwydden’s Wood closing around us.
The king flings his torch into the undergrowth. Luned sets hers to the spindly branches of a dead tree.
The vanguard reaches the border of the wood, and then there are more torches than I can count.
A wall of heat and light flares up. With it comes the sound of high, inhuman keening.
The trees are screaming.
The king leads us through the forest, racing into the flames, fanning them hotter, brighter.
The siren trips, choking after him, a helpless creature in the smoke.
The trees leer over us, grabbing at us with hanging branches, tripping horses with rapidly growing vines, dragging soldiers to the ground and strangling them with roots.
But they cannot fight against the flames.
“TAKE MY SWORD!” screams Luned.
I fumble to pull it from her saddle, but I cannot bring myself to attack the trees.
She curses, shoving the torch into my hand and claiming the sword for herself. She hacks off tree limbs and they crash to the ground.
The wood burns and the wood screams, and all is a rush of speed and heat.
The trees reach for me. Branches graze my shoulders, snag in my hair.
I fight them off and duck low, struggling to keep my seat.
Smoke burns my eyes. Soldiers scream and the wood howls. I can’t keep my eyes off the tree siren. I can’t help but think that Seren would mourn the death of the trees, if she were here. So part of me mourns, too.
Luned shouts as a branch grabs her, nearly shaking her from the horse. I fling her torch at the tree. It hisses and shrinks back, and Luned and I ride onward.
I hear their music before I see them, sudden and silver in the air. Their song twists through the noise of the screeching trees, creating a mad and horrible counterpoint.
The bound siren turns toward the music, and in her there is suddenly a hard, wild joy.
