When the last of the thorn-throwing crannochs had been lopped, Samm sat down on a stump and allowed himself to be dethorned by the solicitous Cocoa and Mamakitty. With more flesh to penetrate, he had been at less risk of serious injury than his smaller companions. Not to mention the fact that his skin was, unsurprisingly, much tougher.
Meanwhile Oskar, Cezer, Taj, and the quartet of giddily ambulatory hardwoods caucused in the clearing and plotted strategy.
'It won't always be this easy.' Having been exiled as a rebellious stripling of a sapling by being passed from branch to inimical branch, the zealous maple knew whereof it spoke. 'Word of the carnage your hulking friend has wrought will spread quickly through the woods. Schemes will be devised to stop you.'
'And to return us to our border isolation,' the willow whimpered.
'No one and no thing is going to keep us from reaching the Kingdom of Blue.' Mamakitty's resolute words served to reassure, if not entirely convince, their tetrad of new guides. 'Just show us the path of least resistance.'
Oak and sycamore entwined branches. 'We store no such itinerary in our xylem, but we will find a way, sensing a path from tree to tree.'
'Inflexible trees,' declared the maple sturdily. 'Rooted trees. Trees incapable of movement unless they are dead and falling.' Half a dozen thick, strong roots rose from the ground and wiggled their tips. Cezer had to fight back the urge to jump on them. 'Such a wondrous feeling.' Bark lashes fluttered at Oskar. 'You had better hope it does not catch on. From what I can perceive, bipeds such as yourselves would not live so well if all the trees in your land suddenly took to walking about on their own.'
Cocoa nodded. 'It would certainly complicate certain activities. House building, for example. Not to mention the havoc such mobility would wreak in orchards.'
'Verbal cooperation might replace silent coercion,' Taj suggested. 'I, for one, wouldn't know how to survive in a world where trees rejected my presence. Where would I sleep? Where would I raise a family? I'm speaking as if I were occupying my normal physique, of course,' he hastened to add.
'We would all have difficulties,' Cezer agreed. 'Or at least, our human companions would.'
'You mean owners, don't you?' Oskar corrected him.
Cezer favored him with that look of unalloyed haughtiness only felines can muster. 'Speak for yourself. Dogs have owners. Cats have staff.' Turning, he started off into the woods, the light continuing to give him, as well as everything around him, a collective greenish cast. 'Let's begin. The sooner we reach the Kingdom of Blue, the sooner we'll be rid of this infernal foliage.' He nodded in the direction of their guides. 'Present timber excepted, of course.'
That much could not be denied, Oskar knew. And what awaited them in that next unknown, mysterious kingdom? If the pattern of rainbows held true, beyond it lay the Kingdom of Purple, where, the lecherous soldier- scholar Captain Covalt of the Red Dragoons had told them, they would have the best chance of finding the white light that contained all colors. Assuming they made it that far. As for himself, he was not nearly in so great a hurry to depart from the Kingdom of Green as were his companions.
He quite liked trees, and prior to arriving in this place, had been entirely convinced that, they liked him.
FOURTEEN
Its unrelieved hostility to trespassers aside, the amazingly dynamic forest that seemed to comprise the whole of the Kingdom of Green was an impressive place—far more so than its benign otherworld counterparts like the Fasna Wyzel. Instead of trees of a type, all flourished in the verdantly egalitarian domain. Evergreens grew side by side with tropical diderocarps, while the hardy dwarf brush of the near tundra snuggled close to mangroves, cypress, and other tropical water-loving trees. Palms shaded wild roses, while ginkgoes wrapped long, spreading branches around the trunks of exfoliating eucalypti. There was room for all, without rhyme or reason or regard for climate or soil. Aside from the natural competition for sunlight and sustenance, it was truly a magical place, Oskar marveled.
If only it wasn't trying so hard to kill them.
'I don't understand.' Ducking a flung, unrecognizable nut somewhere in size and shape between coco and filbert, he and his companions waited while Samm strode forward to chop down the offending growth. 'Doesn't this forest understand we mean it no harm?'
Their white maple guide strove to explain while simultaneously shielding Oskar with its trunk from attack by the surrounding vegetation. 'Most of the trees in this forest kingdom consider all nongrowing things a threat. Unlike my friends and I, the majority of them are only broad-leafed, not broad-minded. Mobiles dig up our roots, devour our seeds, rip off our bark to eat, or bore through it to lay their parasitic eggs in our heartwood. Those capable of thought like yourselves cut us up and use our bodies for shelter, or burn us to provide the additional heat their own bodies are not capable of producing.' Branches leaned in the direction of the perambulating sycamore.
'When but a sapling, Oppin there had a particularly close grove mate. They shared soil and the same access to sunlight. One night the other had a dream, of marching bipeds like yourselves armed with things called saws. Its screams upon awakening unnerved a whole section of forest. Poor thing was never the same after that. All his leaves fell out, he developed a severe scale infestation, and eventually he just withered.'
'I'm sorry about that,' Oskar responded, 'but it's no reason to fear my friends and I.'
'Well, not you, perhaps. But your companions are different.'
'We're all different. And we're not actually bipeds.'
'Ah, an enchantment! Ever since you roused us from our plots, I have been wondering about that. It does not matter. You are bipeds now, and will continue to be perceived as such by the forest.'
'It doesn't matter.' Cezer started forward as soon as Samm indicated that it was once more safe to proceed. 'With our serpentine friend to clear the way, we'll be through in no time.'
'His activities are certainly making an impression.' Ambling along on its strong, magically emancipated roots, the oak inspected the carcass of the fallen bousoun tree. No longer would it grow, or throw, potentially lethal bousoun nuts at wandering travelers. 'Each passing day sees a steady diminution in the frequency of these attacks.'
Mamakitty shuffled thick leaf litter with her feet, wishing she had the time and the anatomical structure to scamper through the crunchy, crackling ground cover on all fours. 'Hopefully, the trees that lie ahead of us will find out from others what is happening and let us pass without incident.' She nodded in the direction of their oversize companion. 'I worry that our large friend may be getting tired.'
The giant overheard her. 'Not at all,' he rumbled in response. Resting on his shoulder, the stone blade of the great axe was now stained with sap. 'I like cutting down trees.'
Off to the left, Oskar thought he saw a stand of sugar pines shudder. That was not surprising. Word of Samm's ongoing depredations on behalf of the advancing travelers had surely spread throughout this part of the kingdom by now. What was unsettling was that Oskar thought he could feel the trees shudder. No matter how dense their network of roots, they ought not to have been capable of disturbing the earth that forcefully.
There it was again: a distinct and unequivocal trembling underfoot. And then a third tremor, stronger still.
'What do you make of this quaking?' In the olivine-tinted light, Cocoa's striking green eyes appeared almost black.
'You feel it, too?' He shifted his attention to their sycamore. It had edged closer to the willow and the maple. The oak continued to stand off by itself, studying not the route ahead or the surrounding trees but the soil underfoot.
'I don't need a tree to tell me what's happening.' Wary and alert, Cezer had come to a halt. Though his sword remained in its scabbard, he scanned the surrounding woods uneasily. 'Something's coming.'
'Something big.' Samm unlimbered his implacable axe.
'There!' A startled Taj whistled as loudly as he could.
It came crashing through the dense woodland, its massive crown overawing the surrounding growths. The
