The Forest of Peldain

The appearance of the forest was changing once more. The overhead foliage had thinned, though rarely could one glimpse the sky, and the wagons rolled past new types of tree. Suddenly Octrago stopped, gripping Vorduthe’s arm.

“Look. We are in a grove of cage tigers.”

Throughout the journey so, Vorduthe had been seeing the striped black-and-white trees Octrago called cage tigers. They had all proved harmless. He was surprised, therefore, at Octrago’s sudden alarm.

True, the tigers were numerous here. Of all the plants so far encountered they were the most predatory-looking: bizarrely shaped, as though about to pounce like animals, even though they clearly consisted of timber of some kind. Their foliage was sparse, and they stood barely ten feet in height.

“Too late to think of going round,” Octrago rumbled. “Best to get through as quickly as we can. Order a speed-up.”

“We should form up in some order,” Vorduthe rumbled. “We are all over the place.”

“Later,” Octrago advised tersely. “Let’s get through the grove first.”

Vorduthe concurred. Those who could do so hurried ahead. The wagons too increased their pace as much as was possible, the men at the shafts sweating with the effort.

Octrago was stepping carefully, as though afraid his footfall would set off some trap, and was eyeing the striped boles which, now that Vorduthe thought of it, could almost have been carved by the hand of man, so smooth and strange were their misshapen forms.

“You seem afraid,” he murmured to Octrago. “Do you advise the use of fire?”

“No. We must conserve the fuel. The tigers cannot take us all. Aagh—it begins!”

His exclamation was in a tone of anxiety and resignation mixed. And now Vorduthe realized why he was so concerned.

The cage tigers were virtually impossible to avoid or to defend oneself against. The sight was incredible: the mangrab trees had been able to reach twice the length of a man, but these could pounce much farther—so far that there was no place in the grove where one could be safe. They seemed to leap, to spring, to bound like an animal, but with such suddenness that the eye was bedazzled to know what was really happening. In an instant the cage tiger regained its rooted spot—which it had not in fact left—and the reason for the first part of its name became apparent. The stripes had opened up, arranging themselves into the bars of a cage, roughly square in shape though with rounded corners.

Within the cage there crouched a man.

As if by some group instinct, a score of tigers had struck within seconds of one another. Vorduthe paused to study the scene. So far, those trapped seemed unharmed. They shook the bars or tried to pry them open. Some set to work with their swords.

“Kill them quickly, and let’s be on our way,” Octrago urged. “This is no place to linger.”

“We shall set them free,” Vorduthe insisted.

“There is nothing you can do for them. The wood of the cage tiger is harder than iron. It will not even burn. Come.”

Octrago loped to the nearest cage tiger that contained a victim. His sword thrust once, skillfully, between the bars of the cage, between struts of armor, into the breast of the caged warrior. The serpent harrier, who had looked on his approach as if expecting assistance, twisted his face in an expression of surprise and pain as the blade entered, gasping as he died.

Bleakly Vorduthe joined the Peldainian, looking into the cage at the slumped body of his follower. “What fate would have awaited him?” he said.

“Death in a fallpit is quick and easy compared with what a cage tiger holds in store. This tree makes a leisurely meal of what it catches. When some hours have passed, the cage starts to contract, until the bars hold the victim tightly without any power of movement. Then the inner surfaces seep digestive juice, very gradually, no more than a smear. First the skin is burned through in strips, then the inner tissues, then through to the inner organs. His suffering would not have ceased until he died of thirst.

“But we have one advantage now. Those caught give us a route through the grove. Pass the word around: a tiger will not strike twice, and other tigers will not come too close to another of their species. Come.”

Octrago was off, sprinting to the next victim, whom he dispatched, then looking around for another to give him safety.

Vorduthe looked after him in distaste. But soon, he found himself doing the same.

Chapter Five

“It will be dark soon,” said Octrago. “Make camp here. I don’t see any dart-thorns and it’s as good a place as any.”

Since the shock of the attack by the massed shoot tubes, the invading army had fought its way through the forest for another three hours. The men were exhausted, numbed by seeing their comrades being continually picked off, though the assaults lately had come singly rather than in droves.