The Second Moonrise Part 6: Broken Cages

The fibrous bar of the cage finally snapped, and with Ron's help I was able to wrench it out of position. A twinge of pain hit my senses as various splinters wedged into my hands. I had to get to Mom! Who knows what Soil was doing!   "How... Howie? What are you doing? Where's mom?" Karen's voice sounded from behind me as we pulled more of the plant cage down. I turned around and stumbled over to her to give a quick hug. Her eyes blinked sleepily, but she seemed fine. She tried to get to her feet but squeaked in pain. "Ow!" She looked down to her wounded knee. It had started bleeding again. "Ron... where's Soil? Where did mom go?" Looking around, she recognized the prison. "Why are we in a cage?"   Ron stepped back from the cage wall, brushing his hands together. "The forest creature went off to deal with... the thing that was borrowing your mom's voice." When Karen began to cry again, he shook his head and said, "Another trick of the Forest. You couldn't have known."   I helped her to her feet. "What now then? We can keep trying to break down the cage, but without Soil or the Ants around we're not going to last very long." I looked around. We were in a large and intricate cage made of greenery. Me and Ron has worked a small hole in it, but it would take considerably more time to break through. And beyond the hole, several wooden walls had risen to make it difficult for anything to get in or out. Soil had certainly done her best to make sure we were safe, even if that meant we couldn't go anywhere. Which, now that I'm telling this story, was probably the point.   "Howie? Karen? There's something I need to tell you." It wasn't like Ron to speak up unless he was telling a story. Even in this trip, he'd only reluctantly tried to get more information out of Soil.   "What is it?" Karen and I sat near him after he beckoned for privacy. "Is it something you didn't want Soil to hear?"   Ron nodded. "I don't trust her. I've seen her type before. Enough to know that she's doing this for someone else's sake, but doesn't really care if we live or die." He waved a trembling hand around the cage. "This Forest has secrets. I sat up in Lostling's Hope long enough to learn some of them." He paused, listening. In the distance, we could hear the splintering of wood, the sound of giant feet, of scales on bark. "This Forest doesn't just pull monsters out of thin air. They come from somewhere. These monsters? Every now and then I'd see one from my stories. Satyrs, giant wolves, dragons, spiders, redcaps. All of them! All from stories. So I had an idea."   "And?"   "I made my own story. Made it up completely. I told of a happy purple rock troll that was tending a garden. It sold poisonous plants to its neighbors, because it was immune. Eventually, a redcap stopped by to see it and bought three plants: A pink flower shaped like a bell, a star-shaped green melon, and a red and blue spotted weed. And then --"   "And then the redcap stuffed it down the troll's throat and choked him, as revenge for killing his wife." We turned. Unseen by us, a man had appeared outside the cage, leaning against the thick trunks of the tree-walls. "So you've seen it too. I wondered where that story came from."   "And who are you?"   He sighed and scanned the unnaturally formed greenery. "A man who's lost his cow." He pushed away from the trunk and began to scale it. "I'll get you out of there, give me a moment. And stay away from the walls." I marveled at how quickly the stranger scaled the trunk. He'd clearly been doing this for a long time.   Moments later, there was a roaring sound, and the footsteps we'd heard before were amplified. The trunk the man had scaled was split in two by a massive bear. It pushed the stunted thing aside and shoved its way through, only to be followed by a second bear with the man riding on top. "Vili! Claw!" The second bear's enormous claws made short work of the cage. "Ve! Kneel!" The first bear roared a complaint but sulkily got to its feet. He tossed it a salmon for its efforts. Looking back towards us, he simply pointed. "On."   Ron and I helped Karen onto the enormous bear's back. Up close it was easy to see that the bear was huge. I'd read about bears in books, and after we got out of the Forest I found other pictures of them, but these bears were colossal even by those standards. It seemed almost docile, but I couldn't help but notice that the salmon it was eating was also huge. Looking back at "Vili", I noticed the man had several similarly sized salmon tied to its back. I'm pretty sure that everything in the Dark Forest is just bigger.   Our rescuer met my eyes. "Lostlings?" When I nodded uncertainly, he grunted in approval. "Good to know that story was also true. Now come on. We have to find the cow."   And like that, we were off. Ron rode behind me and Karen, and we started following Soil's trail of Moonflowers.   As we traveled, I began to notice something was different about the air. It appeared hazy, and even when I tried to clear my eyes, the trees and ground seemed to swim in front of us. If it wasn't for the massive sea of fur in front of me, I'd think I was going blind. But Ve's fur was perfectly clear. It was hard to tell if it was just because of the gloom or if the trees actually were hazy.   "What do we call you?" Ron was asked the stranger.   "Bjorn."   "And where are we going?"   Bjorn didn't answer. He either hadn't heard or ignored it. Ron muttered something under his breath and didn't try a second time. It was during this exchange that I took a good look at Bjorn. He appeared to be a fairly thin, wiry man, but it was difficult to tell under all of his pelts. He had short beard, which had been braided, and much longer hair, which was similarly braided. His arms were bare, and covered in tatoos. Evidently he'd had a lot of experience at sea, as I saw many depictions of longboats and sea monsters. There were several symbols which I later identified as norse runes as well.   "We're nearly there." Even as Bjorn said it, I began to shiver. The air was cold enough that I could see my breath. When had it gotten that cold? Why hadn't I noticed? Bjorn himself seemed unaffected. Looking ahead of us, I saw the trail of moonflowers had come to and end. Until I looked up and realized they'd continued up into the trees. We rounded a tree trunk and found an area wreathed from ground to treetop in moonflowers. Soil was curled up at the base of one of the trees, unconscious.   Ahead of us, Bjorn muttered under his breath. He pulled an arrow from his quiver and aimed it at Soil. For a moment I thought he was going to shoot her, but then I noticed the rope tied to it. He took aim, sucked in his breath, and then let loose.   The arrow passed right through the tree Soil was leaning against, dissipating the smokey outline.