The Necromancer Trilogy - Eachanstone

Chapter Seven - The Trees Bear Witness

Tala Swallow, twelve-year-old miracle, had spent a long time training her mind to be able to speak to the trees. She could listen to what they were saying and, after time, they had learnt to trust and respect the strange two-leg-no-wings that walked amongst them – the human girl.

 If anything happened, the trees whispered messages to one another that eventually reached Tala, and she was expected to deal with it. Not that she minded; she rather liked keeping her forest peaceful. But she did get bored of a half-hour walk for the sake of a crisp packet.

  The problem with trees was that they weren’t exactly very bright. They lived a long time and their thoughts were big and slow. They had long and complex words for the simplest of things. Tala had taught them sufficient language for a simple hello not to be a few hours long, but it had taken time.

  Trees didn’t think too much. If a message came, it came as slowly and simply as the trees could make it go. If Tala was told anything within less than a week of it happening, one of the younger trees must have been alarmed and forced the message on quicker.

  As it was, it took only three days for Tala to hear the voices calling to her.

Tala! Tala!

Tala looked round at a young birch tree as it twisted its branches in agitation. Only the young trees had learnt to call her by her name. The older ones still referred to her as two-leg-no-wings or human-tree.

 That was another interesting part about them. They knew what humans were. They knew what trees were. They knew themselves. They were aware. Until she had learnt to listen, Tala would never have guessed that trees were conscious.

Tala!

“What is it, bright-leaf?” Tala asked, and then asked it again, pushing her thoughts deep into the core of the tree. What is it, bright-leaf?

Disturbance! East, east, look to the east! Disturbance on the morning side!

“What happened?” Tala persisted.

It had been a long time since she’d felt the trees this afraid. They could sense things she couldn’t, and something was badly wrong.

Fallen human. Chopped down. Lies on floor. Air full of magic.

Except that bright-leaf didn’t actually say that, nor was it said so quickly. The language of the trees is complicated and the word for magic took a good few minutes to say. But, once it had been said, Tala looked up at the sky.

“Fallen human,” she whispered. “Magical murder. Oh, this really isn’t going to be my day.”

The body was lying near the edge of the woods, just where the trees began. The air was full of fear, panic, frustration. The trees wanted something done, and they couldn’t do it.

 The body itself was a gruesome mess. Tala’s stomach turned and she felt dizzy and, to her horror, unbalanced for just a moment. There was blood covering the clothes, soaked into the material. The front of the body was torn open, organs exposed to the skies.

  The body was lying straight as a plank, except for the arms perfectly out to either side. It clearly hadn’t fallen like this. It had been arranged. Tala felt a shudder of disgust for the things people did to one another.

  She advanced cautiously, and that disgust turned to outright hatred and bitterness.

“Oh no,” she whispered, tears beading in her eyes. “No, please, no!”

Zephyr Sylph’s empty eyes stared straight upwards, blankly meeting Tala’s gaze. The girl gave a little scream.

“Shut up, Tala, shut up,” she ordered herself. “No screaming like a little girl, Tally, no way. Calm, ordered and sensible. Ok.”