Talon the Black (Dragonwall Series # 1)

Chapter 26 - The Gable Forest

Koldis replied, "Only a mad man would."

She held her tongue.

They walked for what seemed like hours. She remained enamored by everything, finding each sight more enchanting than the last. The forest floor was no longer grassy, but covered in a blanket of foliage and moss. Creeping vines ejected from the bushes and shrubbery growing up around their tree hosts. The flora was home to firefly-like bugs, which blinked and flickered, making the undergrowth look possessed.

She gazed up at the vines in wonder, winding around the enormous tree trunks. They were twisted so tightly about their hosts they could be climbed like ladders. But to where? When she craned her neck back, their tendrils vanished, reaching up into the sky.

A little laugh escaped her lips, earning a glare from the others. She felt like Alice in Wonderland after drinking a shrinking potion. It was a different world.

So many sounds met her ears. Although she could not see the source of them, birds chirped, bugs buzzed, and even a faint trickling of water echoed. The cacophony created a lovely backdrop to the fairy-like world she now found herself in. A world she wanted to stay in forever.

"How much longer?" she asked, once the excitement of it all began to wear off. It wasn't that she was impatient, she was merely eager to see Esterpine.

"I do not know," Reyr replied. "I thought perhaps we might have arrived by now."

"You don't know?" she asked, eyebrows drawing together. "But don't you know where you're going?" They had been following Reyr the whole time.

"Hardly."

She faltered, turning to Jovari and Koldis. They looked just as lost.

"If you ask me," Koldis said pointing at a knobby trunk gnarled with age. "I would say we have seen that tree four times already and are simply traveling in circles."

"The rumors of travelers losing themselves in the Gable are well founded." Jovari stopped in his tracks as he spoke. "We should never have come here, Reyr."

"What does he mean?" she asked, turning to Reyr.

"The Sprites guard their secrets jealously," Reyr answered, his voice hushed. "It is said that the Gable Forest is bewitched. The trees themselves have minds of their own." She glanced around at the giants, wondering if it was true. Somehow, the concept wasn't impossible to believe. "The forest moves and reforms to ensnare its victims. They made it so outsiders cannot hope to navigate it. Few make it out alive. Those who do are babbling with madness by the time they emerge."

Babbling with madness? She frowned. "Why did we come here then?" she hissed into the silence. "Just because of my leg?"

Reyr sighed, his shoulders slumping. "We had to come regardless," he said. "Traveling around the forest would have left us exposed to the Vodar. They will not venture into the midst of the Gable."

"Well, now we may be lost in here forever," Jovari muttered.

"Cyrus found his way through, didn't—"

"Cyrus sent word to the Sprite queen before arriving." Koldis cut her off and she scowled back at him for it. "He was given emissaries to guide him, else he would have been just as lost as we are now."

"Oh...I—" She jumped as a monstrous crash echoed all round them.

"Quick, hide!" Reyr whispered. The others rushed away while she stood frozen, glancing about for the source of the sound. A hand closed around her forearm. Reyr pulled her away. The four of them rushed to a nearby tree, pushing themselves into the vines of its undergrowth. They retreated just in the nick of time.