After crying for what seemed way too long Fern got to her feet and with a face of determination grabbed her woven bag and sword, fastening the belt above her hips. She placed in the bag her blanket and noticed she was still out of melini tablets, mentally noted she’d pick them up and wrapped a rope carefully around her waist loosely tying it. After one last look around the room she left to restock her bag.
Whilst grabbing the tablets at the Culineers building she overheard conversations and picked up on snippets of them. The defenders had split into five groups; going north, south, east and west, Oak's group were following the Citans. There were ten defenders in each group and Elm was with Oak. She gave an internal cringe at that information but even though it made her worry, she understood why Oak kept Elm close. She would have to re-think what she was going to do and left the large building where so many people converged to get food.
Once she was at home she sat once more at her table. She had no other furnishings and felt no need for them. Abacus enjoyed being able to stretch out across the full expanse of the room with his tail outside the north door to the forest. He could face the south door watching people go by and make an exit if he needed should Willow, Oak or Elm appear.
Now, here she was trying to make some sort of plan. Rebelling against Oak was going to put her in trouble, but she didn’t care about that. It was forming mental images of how she was going to achieve her goal that was bothering her. In her mind's eye she could see herself in the group of Citans conversing with their leader explaining the Woodlanders concern over their presence.
“What was she thinking, idiot!” That was all very nice and how she wished it could be like that but reality was that Citans didn't trust anyone. This was one of the reasons the Woodlanders had formed this forest camp. It was to bring back all that had been lost, lost many years ago even before the Devastation. The Citans had chosen to stay in the surroundings of the oppressive city and chances were they thought no differently to the people that had lived there earlier.
She knew they were dangerous, she’d heard that many times. Why did she get these silly ideas where everything went perfect in the world? She wanted to slap herself when she did. The world was far from perfect. Outside of the Woodlander Camp was nothing but danger.
She was going to find the Citans but she must make sure she was out of sight of the Woodlander defenders. She’d watch the Citans for a while and wait for her opportunity, probably at night since she only wanted the Citan leader to know of her presence. She could escape him easily enough, he was big and clumsy no doubt like rest. She could handle one large boy. She would talk to the leader and find out why they were here. Oak wasn’t going to be happy with her going in search of the Citans; he wasn’t going to be happy at all.
Fern left the camp sneaking past the sentinel without him knowing. She quickly ran in the direction that the Citans had been heading toward. They had a whole day of travel on her, so she had to move fast and efficiently in order to catch them up. She knew that she could cut through the forest and connect with the path that they were on since they had taken a longer route parallel to their lines of defence and would be dropping south with the lay of the land.
Hills arose to the north making it difficult to traverse the trees and slopes and in order to travel west they would have to go south for a while to resume their westward journey. She would have to be careful not to collide with the paths of Oak's defenders and be as silent as possible. No-one was as quiet as her in the forest, her steps were light, and she almost glided along the ground, as if she wore skates on ice, she doubted anyone would know she was there.
Her thoughts took her back to a time when she tried skating with an old pair of skates that she’d found in with the antiquities building. All the Woodlanders spent many hours with the antiquities learning from old books, reading about inventors, painters, history and geography. Everything they learnt was from the books and the old pieces they had salvaged, showing them remnants from the world they had come from.
Spruce had been there teacher, he’d taught them to read and they had learned from the books. Some of the books told wonderful stories but she hadn’t understood some of the words and had pulled the huge dictionary to sit beside her whilst she read, quickly rummaging through to find a word so she could understand the writer's meaning. It had been quite the discovery the books.
Sequoia had found the antiquities with his search party of boys many years ago (at the age of twelve he’d shown more wisdom and good sense than anyone else). The books and antiquities had left them with knowledge and understanding of the people from the old world.
It was a strange building they’d gone into, he told them as they had all sat around him and eagerly listened.
It was practically unscathed by the Devastation because it stood low behind a hill into which the one storey building was built. The building was made of concrete. It had no windows and carried a forbidding air about it.
The fence and gates that had surrounded the building were strewn about in a mangle of steel. They carefully wandered onto the once prohibited property with fear in their hearts but curiosity in their heads. Once outside the building they studied it further to see if there was any immediate danger.
They walked around the building finding only one large open doorway. It held two huge doors that had been pushed wide, they were not broken or damaged but purposefully pushed ajar. Sequoia had wanted to turn and leave because his fear was rising to terror but his quest to know could not be squelched and he stepped through the open doors with his hammering heart hailing their arrival.
The quiet was oppressive within the concrete walls; the corridors were wide, so wide a vehicle could drive through. Their only light was from the door and the further they walked into the depth of the building the darker it became.
Their eyes adjusted to the oncoming darkness and with careful steps they arrived at another huge open door. They were surprised by what lay within. On entry to this new room they found it to be large, extremely large, the ceiling was high, probably twenty feet was Sequoia's guess but it may have been more. What was more arresting to them was the smell. Their noses twitched at the putrid aroma of rotting cells and as they walked further in they felt a soft squelch of matter under their feet.
The room was filled with dying vegetation, vegetation Sequoia had never seen before, enormous plants with leaves that probably spanned five to six feet were now shrivelling into lifelessness. Looking closer he noticed some plants were not dying but thriving from the death of the plants around them, growing out of the decay. They went no further, who knew what else lay deep within that room that stretched for hundreds of feet, a small world of its own. With the smell of dying cells still in their nostrils Sequoia led the boys away from the dank dark dungeon to walk to the door opposite to the one they’d been in.
This metal door was locked and Sequoia shook his head in frustration. He wanted to see what was behind it and he was going to find out. They all tried kicking at the door but the effect was only to give each of them sore feet. So they went back outside, glad of the air that was fresh and welcoming after the stench they had left. Sequoia sat down to think. It was what he liked to do when he was perplexed. He immediately squatted down into a form of repose. With his head resting upon the heels of his hands, his elbows resting upon his crossed legs he stared ahead, whilst the other boys looked down at him in expectancy. His eyes drifted around him until they finally settled upon the mangled steel fence at one side of them. His eyebrows came curiously together and he smiled. Leaping to his feet he yelled, “Come help me get a metal post.”
After managing to pull most of the wires off one of the steel posts (which they’d pounded off with a fallen branch of a tree) they carried it. It took at least six of them to lift it and take it into the building. Once there another six (since the others were tired from the carrying) with hands wrapped in their shirts to save their flesh pounded at the door with steel post. It took a while and a few changes of shifts of labour (Sequoia taking the most turns in his determination that what was behind the door was of importance) until the door lock started to give.
The door meanwhile was pummelled with dents and scratches from the post and the noise had been excessively loud making them cringe with each crash upon the steel. At times they stopped and looked into the huge room of decaying plants in fear that they had woken something that lingered there. All of them had the feeling that not only plants had been created in that room but creatures as well. They weren’t wrong and it was only weeks later that they came across them, luckily not yet fully grown and because of that they’d been able to fight them off.
When at last the door buckled at the lock and opened in one huge last crash, they stood looking into the darkness but not moving. Putting the steel down they slowly ventured inside to find it overflowing with boxes, some were to their delight on wheels. Pushing a wooden crate out into the corridor they opened it and found wind up flashlights inside (these had been confiscated so people would not venture out past the curfew of nine o-clock at night). They took the flashlights and the crate out into the sunlight.
Looking through the treasure they found pens, lighters, journals of blank pages, rulers, compasses and what seemed to be never ending delights for all the boys. Soon after they went back inside with the flashlights to fetch more crates and brought out the steel post to smash the tops off the locked crates to see what they contained.
They’d not been disappointed for the boxes were filled with books that excited them and brought their spirits up. They found boxes filled with various seeds of fruit and vegetables. In other boxes they found greater treasures of jewelry, watches, glasses, mirrors, crockery, cutlery, small shovels, large shovels and even small pot bellied stoves. When they came across relics of swords and daggers they were at the point of dancing about the crates in their happiness.
They took all the crates, the journeys had spanned many days of going back and forth but the reward had been more than they ever imagined. They’d been living from tins and boxes of food that they had found under the rubble of homes but this new find gave them much more than something to eat. It gave them knowledge, tools and a chance to live a life of self sustenance. They could provide for themselves rather than having to scavenge through the dirt and stones of the city.
Sequoia and his group returned to look in the large section of the building (taking flashlights with them) and found it to be a huge terrarium, a living area for the plants and animals that the scientists had created. Someone had released the animals and the plants had died without the fake sunlight that had originally been provided. Spores and seeds from the plants had been carried out on the animals and from gusts of wind playing in the corridor. The boys had found the room very creepy and didn’t venture into it very far.
Even the laboratory room that was filled with interesting microscopes and Petri dishes made their skin crawl too much to have them look for very long and they quite happily left it unexplored. The creatures made their appearance to them not long after and they had no doubt that they’d come from the very building they’d been in. They proved to be prolific and their numbers increased steadily within a short period of time but they were nocturnal and only a danger to them at night. All, except the terakian beasts who hunted day and night.
The discovery had changed their lives and the makeshift home that they had made from the dying branches of trees had been abandoned. With their new found treasure they had moved further into the forest where they found the strange insidious plants that had survived. They decided to use them as a line of defence assuming they were originally created in the building where the dying vegetation lay decomposing. Carefully they cleared the rapidly rotting dead trees and bushes, surprised at how everything was disintegrating faster than normal. They made their new home, a camp, one that they would stay in forever.
Flanked by the strange plants which they dared not go near, they made a life for themselves as a clan and the Woodlanders were born. The antiquities as Sequoia had called them were later placed in a huge building made from the fast growing plants that had sprouted at an amazing rate around them. They found that they were constantly having to weed (a term that Sequoia used) the plants from growing within the camp but enjoyed their resilience and rapid growth outside the camp to use for their buildings and furniture.
The books, tools, and other objects that had filled the boxes including the seeds, provided them with everything they needed. They learnt to build, farm and cook, the books giving them an education. They built a community, a self sustainable village much to the admiration of Sequoia whom they unequivocally made their leader. Sequoia named their forest “Elanclose”.
Fern was back to thinking of the skates once more as she ran on through the heat of the day. Such strange looking things, so uncomfortable and ridiculous she’d thought when she put them on. She was sure she would break her ankles as she walked through the antiquities building, wavering, until finally her ankles almost did go over to the side. When she found the pictures of women wearing them and skating on frozen ponds she decided she would do the same.
As soon as winter arrived and she knew the bay at the lake would be frozen, she went to the lake on her own. It was a long trek, two days in fact (spending one night in a tree listening to the creatures that came out at night). She was tired when she finally got there and sat to rest for a while.
However, her excitement at the idea of walking on ice succeeded in raising her energy level and she unfastened the skates that hung from the rope on her waist. Once the strange boots were strapped onto her feet she tottered toward the ice. Looking out to see where the ice stopped and became water once more, she was happy to see that she had a good stretch of solid ice that she could play upon. After reaching the ice she confidently stepped onto it and immediately, helplessly watched as her feet flew up into the air and she collapsed into a heap. Groaning in pain at the hard knock her bottom took from hitting the solid ice, she pushed herself up with her hands and gingerly placed her feet on the ice again, trying to get up only to thump the ice hard yet again.
Fern wouldn’t give up as it wasn't something she did, although she knew many wished that she sometimes would, especially Oak. He would impatiently shake his head at her and tell her to give up on her silly ideas. She wondered if her ideas were silly. A lot of times she’d been left in abject failure but it never stopped her from still trying something else. She’d watch everyone else look at her in disbelief as she continued to dream up more new ventures to try.
With her bottom getting cold on the ice she pushed herself up and tried again to move on the skates only to topple over and hurt her wrist trying to protect herself from the fall. She grimaced and become angry. Hoisting herself up once more she managed to get a few brief steps on the ice before falling again.
When she heard the laughter from the side of the lake she knew who it was. It only heightened her frustration, causing her to be more annoyed and making her more determined. He sat there leisurely watching her, amusement all over his face, a huge smile and eyes that twinkled brightly with tears of laughter.
Ignoring him she pushed herself up again, tottered along for a few steps, slid on one foot and crashed to the ice again. The roar of more laughter caused an eruption of words from under her breath–something in the line of “Oak is an obnoxious pig”. Then she changed her words because she liked the pictures of pigs. Even though they’d been unattractive she thought they were rather lovable looking and so he became “an obnoxious runt of a terakian beast with bow legs and squinty eyes” instead.
She was on her feet again and this time she didn’t try to move, she just concentrated on balancing. She took a few deep breaths, found her core, kept her body in alignment, head, shoulders, hips, knees and ankles, from which she slowly slid, softly feeling the ice beneath her like she was stroking a docile animal.
When she heard applause from the banks of the lake and a bravo yelled at her she knew she’d perfected it and her heart swelled. Knowing that she hadn’t failed and this was another victory to add to her very short list made her happy. Her senses soared with elation, her pleasure sensors activated, pulsing energy through her, quickening her responses and delivering a glow to her whole body.
She was grinning broadly as she traversed the frozen waters and when she turned around to go back she could see Oak standing at the edge of the ice, smiling broadly back at her. His face was filled with pride and her heart faltered at the sight of him openly admiring her. She felt a rush of heat travel through her and was embarrassed knowing her face shone bright red from the flush. That was one of the last times he had admired her, it had all been a downward slide from there; with disagreements, arguments and fractious conversations instead.
That was over a year ago and here she was in the forest wondering why their relationship had turned so bad. Slipping past a huge tree barely missing it by an inch as she ran, weaving and dexterously turning, her mind flooded with thoughts. The image of the lake glazed through her head and in an instant a new knowledge flashed through her brain. She realized that the Citans were heading toward that very lake. She quickly calculated their route and where it would take them. A short cut would take her to the same bay that she had skated upon. It was a closer section of the lake that would be quicker for her to reach. It was not where the Citans were going but it would give her a view of them, a view from which she would be provided safety and disclosure.
She knew that they were heading to the point, open land where she would easily see them from the confines of the bay and its vegetation. Her heart quickened and she spurted into a faster sprint as her adrenaline rushed and excitement engulfed her. She was almost a blur now as she ran, thoughts of Oak's defenders gone, only the thought that she needed to get to the lake as fast as possible.
Luck was with her, even though she was taking risks of being seen by Oak's defenders she wasn’t. As night began to fall she was within hours of the lake. She knew she couldn’t stop for the night and rest she had to keep going, she had to get there before they did and the only way she could do that was to travel through the night. It was dangerous; there were creatures that came out at night, bloodthirsty and hungry. She needed to listen carefully because they hid themselves well in the darkness waiting for their prey.
The Woodlanders had been lucky, although some of them had encountered the creatures they’d managed to escape with their lives and just been left with the scars from their wounds. It was decided that Woodlanders would never travel alone at night. They kept to groups so they could protect one another when attacked and had been able to save each other by their numbers. Mainly, they chose not to travel at night and slept safe within the camp (protected by the sentinels that would spear the straying creatures) or slept high up in the trees that the bulky creatures couldn’t climb.
Her pace was slower as the grey ebbed to black, her body thrummed with the beat of her heart in the quiet of the night. She felt its sound alone would alert the creatures to her whereabouts and glanced with darting eyes from side to side becoming fearful and nervous. After a while the silence became onerous and the sheet of darkness morphed from black satin to tar encompassing and smothering her. Her breathing began to falter becoming shallow and quick as an immense feeling of panic began to overwhelm her.
She'd always been high up in the trees where it was safe at night, she'd heard the creatures stir beneath her, even circle the tree that she was in but it hadn’t mattered because she was out of their reach. Now she wasn’t. On the ground she was an easy meal and she began to question why she was doing this? Why she was travelling in the dark amongst the danger, vulnerable, terrified?
There was so much going on in her mind that she thought the noise was just another part of her inner turmoil but when she stopped moving the noise continued for a second after. Unsure how far away the creature was she began to run again. It could be that it was quite a distance away and the quiet of night made it sound closer. Every snap of a branch beneath her feet sounded like explosions in her ears and her body throbbed with her heightened pulses.
She was using her peripheral vision to avoid bushes and trees as she ran. Was it nothing or did she see a movement beside her. She couldn’t be certain for the sound of her heartbeat and her feet hitting the ground were so loud to her ears that she was feeling almost insensible with fear. Overwhelmed, she had to make an escape to somewhere.
Slowing her stride she looked to the nearest tree and ran toward it, readying herself to climb. She lunged, stretching to the trunk grasping it beneath her fingers. It felt cold and its uneven texture stabbed into the tips, it was then she heard the loud snarl that erupted behind her and knew she was too late. The small hairs at the nape of her neck stood erect as her time stopped briefly until she quickly turned and stared at it. Her mistake was realized as she saw the creature ready itself to leap at her, its huge glowering eyes transfixed on hers .Its prey. Its mass of hair upright on a hovering, huge, hunched over body. She was immobile as she stared at the bared teeth that were before her, heard the claws ripping at the earth as it sought traction, solidity and smelt the soil that rose from the ground as it launched itself toward her.