Chapter 27 - The Fate of the Exiled (what became of Princess Evie)

The trek around the city wall was long, hard, and hot. The sun reflected off the wall. It dazzled them and hurt their eyes. It burnt their faces. The heat made them sweat and wish that they had brought more water. Sometimes coloured spots danced before them, but it was just their poor eyes playing tricks on them. Soon even Barney was reconsidering how much he cared that poor people were being forced out of the city by a greedy King. He was even wondering why he had been so worried about Evie. He’d only known her one day. Maybe she was a horrible person who would not appreciate a heroic rescue involving days of roasting and blisters, and possible encounters with vicious trees and poison thorns.

The wall all looked the same. It made it hard to judge where they were. In the distance there was the forest, looking deceptively innocent, like a kitten that has just been ferociously attacking a mouse and taking enormous pleasure in eating it, before lying down for a quick snooze. The mill was in silent motion, too far away for the sound to travel. They followed the wall for two days. The city was surprisingly large, considering its sole export was shoes. At night, they slept in the open, their heads on piles of spare clothing.

On the third day, the forest drew nearer and began to look menacing. Barney was sure he could hear vines slithering. Several times he noticed the woodmen, which seemed to have been frightened off by the forest last time, following him. He was frightened. He knew Celia was too, because she kept reminding them of the plan. Over and over, every few minutes, she reminded them to have the knives ready when they entered the forest. She walked very close to Sammy. Barney could not help feeling a little annoyed. Even though, if he really thought about it, Celia was a little annoying. People who are never wrong get a little tiresome after a while. Sammy did not seem to mind Celia invading his personal space. Barney suspected that he had been deliberately prolonging their mission in search of the shoe. He also suspected that Sammy was a little frightened of the forest too. After all, he had been attacked and poisoned by psychopathic vines and had nearly died. Sammy was not one to admit fear though.
By mid-afternoon, the forest had closed in to within a few metres of the wall. It was cold, now, in the shade of the twisted trees. The light was taking on the strange green quality again. They began to imagine the trees were whispering. Celia produced a strong length of rope from the big bag, and tied it about their waists to prevent separation. They all took out their knives and held them at the ready. They continued into the depths of the forest, sliding as close to the wall as possible.
As darkness fell, the undergrowth grew thicker. Vines clung to the smooth wall, dark green against the gold. Thorns the size of Celia’s nose, but sharper, protruded from tendrils as thick as her arm. They dripped luminescent blue, and seemed to have eaten into the solid metal of the wall, clinging like the jaws of a pitbull on a tasty leg.

Our intrepid travellers paused to confer. The way forward did not look pleasant. The undergrowth was waist-high and rustling ominously, and a net of vines criss-crossed the path. However, a heroic rescue is less heroic if incomplete. And so they decided to continue.

Sammy severed the nearest vine with his shiny, new, sharp, sharp knife.
It split with a satisfying thunk. Sammy stood still. A hissing, slithering sound was coming from the trees. It was getting louder.

Suddenly, all the vines across the path, all the vines on the wall, burst into motion. More rushed out of the trees, closing off the path behind them, snaking up behind them and over their heads. The more they struggled, the more they hacked at with their knives, the faster and more violently the vines came, until they were caged. The sides were thick and solid, with only a few places where the strange green light came through. The walls ran with poison. Barney, Sammy, and Evie huddled together in the middle of the cage, avoiding the blue fluid.

Suddenly, the cage was yanked sideways. As the cage lurched, they were thrown roughly to the side, falling over, and the poison splattered on them.
The luminous liquid burnt like acid where the droplets landed. Red blotches appeared on skin. Barney’s whole face was covered with it, when a huge glob splashed down from the roof of the cage. He shrieked in agony. Screamed and screamed until his voice ran out, and all he could do was moan and try to wash his face with tears. The pain subsided slightly when the warm, salty tears cut through the poison on his cheeks, but every time he felt a little better, another splash would fall on him. And so he moaned and cried, curled on the floor of a cage of poisoned thorns, and thought his mission was a complete failure.

Sammy curled protectively over Celia, shielding her from the rain of poison. His intentions were good, as they always were, but his weight pressed her into the floor of the cage, and the shark-tooth sharp thorns cut into her, leaking poison into her blood. She writhed and screamed. She convulsed uncontrollably, and frothed at the mouth. She fainted.

Sammy shook her. He was hardly affected at all by the poison. His recent brush with death appeared to have helped build up an immunity to it. He lifted Celia and sat her on his knee, away from the thorns. She whimpered, and he whispered to her that everything would be alright; he would make sure of it. He was having trouble believing his own words though. If only Barney would stop making that awful noise, maybe he could think up a plan.

Plans had never been Sammy’s strong suit. He was more of an action person. Bellow, and charge, that was his motto. It didn’t appear suited to this particular situation, though; he had tried it. He thought his hardest, until his brain began to hurt. Celia, who always made the plans, was incapacitated, as was Barney, who would be second choice of plan-maker out of the three. But although Sammy was not particularly good at plans, he was never one to lie back and watch while people were pulled through forests in cages of poisoned thorns, by psychopathic trees.
Just as his brain felt like it was about to explode from all the thinking, it came to him: he was almost a God. Surely he must have some special powers, even though his strength seemed to have deserted him after his last trek in the forest. He closed his eyes, and concentrated very hard, imagining the poison being sucked back into the thorns, and the thorns receding into the vines, the vines unwinding, so the cage no longer surrounded them.

The cage stopped moving. There was a slurping noise, then a rustling. Sammy kept his eyes closed for a few moments, just to be on the safe side. Then he opened them.
The cage was gone, it was true. Barney had stopped moaning and seemed to feel fine. Celia’s eyelids fluttered, and the slight blue tinge that had invaded her cheeks disappeared. When she looked up at him and smiled, Sammy almost burst with happiness. He had saved them all with his excellent plan. And then he looked up.
Twenty sharpened sticks were pointed at him. One had a red shoe with a sharpened stiletto heel on the end. Sammy reached for his knife.

An arrow whizzed past his hand, out of nowhere, severing his belt. Fortunately, his new pants were perfectly fitted and did not need a belt. He peered into the trees in the direction the arrow had come from. Not a leaf stirred. He put his hands up. Even at full strength, he had been killed in a fight with only seventeen men. Here were twenty, and an unspecified number of invisible archers. So Sammy, for the first time in his life, surrendered. He was feeling a little woozy from exercising his Godliness anyway.

People melted out of the trees. Not actually out of them, but from between them. Ten, twelve, twenty. But they weren’t people exactly. They were human height, slender, delicate, but seemed somehow translucent, which explained how they had blended in so well with the forest. Their clothes seemed woven from leaves, plant fibres, and small twigs. Each carried a bow with a perfectly taut string, and a quiver full of terrifyingly sharp arrows. Elves.

Sammy was suddenly very glad he had decided to go quietly. He did not like elves. They were sneaky.

The elves closed in. They were in a circle, arrows trained on Sammy and Barney. Mostly on Sammy, who, even at mortal size and swaying with the exertion of using his godly powers, was still more threatening than Barney. Celia still lay at Sammy’s feet.
If Sammy had realised what the elves intended, he would have drained his last drop of power, spent all his strength, and given up his life to prevent it. If Barney had realised, he would have thrown himself in their path, called up the woodmen he had spent his whole life in fear of, and destroyed them. But they did not realise, and the elves had picked up Celia and carried her away before her friends could move.
Sammy and Barney started to chase them, but the men with the pointed sticks barred their way. Sammy bellowed ferociously and waved his dagger, but had no strength left to call on his Godly powers. Barney bellowed too, and tried to draw his sharp new knife, but found he had lost it in all the commotion. And so Celia was taken away by the elves, and Barney and Sammy were herded in the opposite direction by a group of ragged men with sharp sticks.

The place they were taken was a clearing, with rustling trees around it, and a great many poison vines. There were huts built from old branches, and vine cages hanging empty in the trees. And there, in front of the central hut, stood Princess Evie, in a crowd of bedraggled, rough, and frightening people.

Chapter 26 - A Cunning Plan is Formed

Barney kept to the shadows. He was good at that. The sun had disappeared so all that remained was a purple tinge in the sky to the west. He could hear the sounds of the city as it prepared for the night. Guards in white uniforms marched purposefully to their posts on the corners of the streets. Order had to be maintained. Every time Barney heard the crisp slaps of their triple-reinforced, steel-trimmed, midnight-black boots (well-polished), his heart raced and he pressed himself into the wall and thought invisible. He followed the trail of progressively large shoe stores into the city centre.

At first, there were small, family stores, with homes above them. From the windows came smells of dinners cooking, and sounds of families – “DINNER!” “Harry stole my rabbit!” “It doesn’t have tentacles, Simon. It’s a piano.”

These streets led to boutiques, where shoes were custom-made. These were just closing, and the streets were full of well-dressed middle-aged people locking doors and exchanging polite goodnights. He had to wait until the guards were distracted by business people insisting on their stores being watched closely, before he could slip past – “You see, I have a very valuable order half-finished...”

After the boutiques, he found himself back in the centre of the city, where the enormous stores were still open. They never closed, and the citizens shopped tirelessly all day and night. Owners and workers of other stores came at night, to buy or just see the competition. It was loud and busy. Barney slipped in with the crowd and thought inconspicuous thoughts. He floated through the crowd to the store he had last seen Celia and Sammy.

It was a truly gigantic building. Not as large as the palace, of course, but larger than any building Barney had been inside. Golden light flooded out of the windows. It looked warm and inviting. Everyone inside was smiling. Even the doorman was smiling, although he looked like he was working hard at it. He waved Barney through, grinning widely and artificially. Barney walked across the foyer, admiring the fine stone floor and walls. Marble, he thought. Well-polished. There was a map on the far wall, depicting the many departments of the store. Barney examined it. Women’s, special occasion – that looked promising. 4th floor, back right section. Barney started up the stairs.

Barney’s first guess was wrong. Sammy and Celia had finished examining all the shoes in that section several hours before, and had moved on, via women’s formal, and were now resting in the comfortable chairs in the women’s casual – indoor section. It didn’t take Barney too long to find them though, following the logical progression through women’s shoes. When he found them, Sammy was sleeping peacefully with his head on Celia’s shoulder. She was holding his hand. Barney felt a slight pang of jealousy, but then remembered his mission.

“They took her away! They just took her! They were taking people away, and she tried to stop them, and they took her too, and I got away. We have to save her!” Barney said in a rush. Celia looked at him sleepily. Sammy did not stir.

“Let’s go!” Barney cried. Celia shook Sammy gently. He mumbled and opened his eyes slightly.

“What happened? Who’s in trouble?” Celia asked.
“Evie!”
“Who’s Evie?” mumbled Sammy, still half-asleep.
“The girl who was with us today. She’s a princess. The guards took her, and a whole lot of other people, and made them leave by the back door of the city. They tried to make me go too, but I escaped. We have to save them!”
“You escaped guards?” Sammy sounded sceptical.
“I saw them!” Barney insisted, louder than he had intended. Heads turned. He lowered his voice. “I saw them! And one grabbed me, but I escaped.”

Something in his voice must have told his friends he was telling the truth, because they leapt into action. Sammy yawned widely, stretched and stood up. Celia followed his example, suggesting retiring to an inn to formulate a plan.

Immediately upon finding an inn, they set about making a plan. This mostly fell to Celia, because Barney was quickly descending into a state of panic that was decidedly not conducive to cunning plan formation, and Sammy, for all his strength and bravery was, it must be admitted, slightly lacking in the cunning plan department. Celia’s plan was this:

Wait until morning. Buy food and clothing for an expedition into the wilderness beyond the city limits. Include in the shopping some large knives, or at the very least shoes with stiletto heels. Leave the city by the main entrance, because the back gate apparently could not be opened except by the guards. Follow the wall around to the back gate, staying out of the forest as far as possible. Search for the princess.

That was as far as she could get, having a very poor supply of information. In simple terms, they were going to take the ‘guess and hope’ approach. Nobody argued though. By the time Celia got to the end of the plan Sammy was asleep and Barney was sniffling to himself.

And so, the following morning, as soon as they woke up, the three friends went to buy supplies. They bought bread, cheese, apples, large canteens of water, and several sharp knives. These items went, along with spare clothing, into a large bag that Sammy was made to carry, because he was the biggest. Thus prepared, they began their mission.