The True Confessions of a Nine-Tailed Fox

Chapter 105: South Serica's Vicious Trees

"Watch out!"

"Get away!"

"There's a second one!"

While Bobo gaped, another tree whipped its branches at the soldiers. The edges of its leaves sliced their skin like razor blades.

These trees weren't awakened. She was positive they weren't awakened. So what was going on here? What kind of trees did they grow in South Serica?!

The soldiers scattered, but one human was too slow. The tree wrapped its branches around him and started to squeeze. He wrenched his sword out of its scabbard and hacked at the bark, but no sooner did he slice through one branch than another would loop around his chest and neck.

Meanwhile, the first tree whumped its roots down around a group of soldiers like a cage. Bobo was just thinking that trapping them that way was clever – when the roots started to compress them into the earth. The soldiers shoved back or tried to squeeze free, and their comrades fired their crossbows, but nothing could stop the tree.

She curled herself up into a ball and buried her head in her coils, but she couldn't block out the sounds. Horrible pops from cracking ribs. High-pitched screams that turned into strangled gurgles that trailed off into a silence that was even worse.

Below, a new voice started yelling. Floridiana's. Bobo peeled back a coil just far enough to peek down.

The mage had yanked Dusty away from the trees in time, and now she was shouting at the pangolin leader, "Give me my seal back! I can help! But you have to give me my seal back!"

"Stay where you are!" he snarled.

"That one! I heard it move!" yelled a soldier, stabbing a finger at a third tree.

Bobo's heart stopped until she followed his hand and realized that it was too far away to get Floridiana and Dusty.

The pangolin leader spun. "Fire arrows!"

"Ready sir!" called a group of archers whom Bobo had missed.

They'd been huddling further back – hiding, like her, Floridiana, and Dusty, she thought, until she saw what they'd prepared. Their arrows had little cloth pouches strapped behind the arrowheads, and lengths of string dangled from the pouches, which was kind of weird for arrows. Even though Bobo had never shot a bow herself, she had a vague sense that a pouch and string like that would change the way the arrows flew.

"Get back!" the pangolin ordered the other soldiers. "Loose!"

As one, the archers set fire to the ends of the strings, aimed, and released. As the arrows whizzed through the air, the fires burned through the strings, getting closer and closer to the pouches.

The trees were still lashing their branches and thumping their roots even though there weren't any soldiers in range. A cluster of fruit knocked an arrow off course by chance, and it buried itself in the undergrowth. The rest struck the tree trunks or got caught in their leaves. Just like the crossbow bolts, they didn't seem to be doing anything –

KABOOM!

The world exploded. Heat blasted Bobo, searing her tongue. She shrieked and squinched her eyes shut and spun away, trying to shield her head and her belly. Shards of bark pelted her scales. Ow ow ow!

And then it was over.

Her ears were ringing. Her tongue was scorched. She opened her eyes slowly.