The undergrowth was so thick in parts that he had to do heavy work with the machete.
Steadily, he climbed higher.
After several hours, every arm and leg muscle was aching. There was another worsening ache, also—for Rosala. Perhaps rest and time would cure it, too. He was looking around for a likely clearing to camp in, when he came across some further Amaran phenomena.
There was a dead tree split neatly down the middle, its two halves leaning apart. Struck by lightning, he thought. But the split was unusually clean. It was as though some giant, seeking firewood, had taken a swipe at it with a razor-edge axe, then left it.
Then he noticed several other trees had been sliced, all cleanly but not all down the center. Some of the trees had fallen clear apart. Others merely had boughs lopped off. The giant hadn’t bothered to collect any of the kindling; the ground was cluttered with branches of all sizes.
Some of the cuts were obviously old and new twigs were sprouting from the stumps. Others were so recent that the oozing sap was still sticky. He shrugged, and continued his ever-slowing climb. Very soon he came upon what he was looking for—a wide clearing, open to the sky. He wasn’t going to sleep under any trees. He spread his waterproof and tried to get comfortable. It was chilly at this altitude. Moreover, a cold north wind was pouring steadily through the mountain pass and there was no escaping it.
He swore, trudged back down the slope, returned with a load of the smaller chopped branches. He built and lit a fire, rigged the waterproof on a couple of branches to form a screen against the wind, and settled down between it and the fire. He rested and ate. Life became tolerable. He yawned and lay back. Sleep came fast, and with it dreams.
Dreams of Earth, of deep space and the stars, of a garden crowded with statues of Rosala. The dreams took a nightmarish turn. The Melas trees were all around him again, and he had no strength to run and no breath to scream. Then, smashing among the trees, snapping off branches right and left, stamping with feet of steel, came a giant. A blood-drinking ogre from long ago, frightening nursery nights, all teeth, staring eyes, and black hair, crying as he came, ridiculously yet chillingly,
The ground shook under the nearing feet, and Sherret quivered with it, a terror-stricken child again.
Thump. Thump. THUMP.
At the last and heaviest thump, Sherret started awake and stared around, wild-eyed. Beneath a tree at the very edge of the clearing a massive branch was rocking gently on the scanty grass. It had just fallen, and had been amputated neatly at a crotch.
He sat rigid, watching it. It rocked itself to stillness. Now nothing was stirring anywhere. There was dead silence in the woods.
He must have slept long, for the light had changed and all things were blue-washed.
Cautious and trembling, he got to his feet, peering all around the clearing. He didn’t know what he was looking for, but he felt that something was there. Belatedly, it occurred to him that he’d seen neither animal nor bird in the woods. Did they shun the woods because they knew they were dangerous to life?
Was something hiding behind the trees, watching him covertly? Yet, if the something had sliced these trees as though they were carrots, it must be huge. Too huge to be able to conceal itself behind any tree.
Something invisible, then? A monstrous vandal, mutilating senselessly? But anything of that size must surely have left its tracks on the ground, even if it were itself invisible. He had noticed no tracks.
He stuck a B-stick between his teeth, gripped his machete and tip-toed over to the fallen branch. Beyond it, among the trees, he saw other newly severed branches, mostly large, recently fallen. His dreaming mind had interpreted the impacts of their landing as the thumps of approaching feet.
That realization was a relief. He began to clutch at straws. Probably the monster was all imagination. Could be the trees had some disease which caused them to rot and fall apart in this peculiar manner.
But could this happen to a number of individual trees almost simultaneously? The odds were against that.
Common sense told him to waste no more time in speculation, but to get to hell out of the woods. He went back to the still smoldering fire, gathered his things, shrugged on his rucksack. Then he quitted the clearing, intent on making for the pass.
He’d gone maybe fifty yards when from close behind him came Thump. Thump. Thump.
And the swishing of leafy boughs and the crackle of breaking twigs. He spun around.
