Five: into the woods
.
.
.
Despite having absolute control over the situation, Blondie didn't put away the blaster. She kept it on Teela as one of the soldiers maneuvered their sky sled over to the cliff, as Teela's hands were manacled behind her back, as the soldier hauled her aboard the sky sled, and as they moved off.
Blondie was smart. Rats. Not a desirable attribute in villains.
Much to Teela's relief, they didn't return to the wasteland plateau and the fortress. Instead, they continued downward.
Her initial assessment had been right: the lowlands were covered with forest. What she hadn't noticed, however, until she was directly overhead (and not occupied with fleeing for her life) was that there were two forests. The one to the south had normal trees – green leaves, brown trunks. The far larger forest to the north looked like a giant's bowl of pastel candy run amuck: lavender, blue, pink, yellow, white. Every shade except green and brown, really.
It was such a contrast to the fortress that Teela had to look twice. What kind of a place was this, that you could find candy-floss treetops within a stone's throw of black bones and smokestacks?
They landed in a clearing between the two forests, closer to the normal side. The soldier on Teela's sky sled grabbed her upper arm and roughly dragged her from the vehicle. Her balance suffered, but she absolutely refused to fall on her face in front of Blondie. She kept her feet under her.
A second soldier came up and took her other arm. They held her in place while Blondie dismounted from her own sky sled and walked over.
Blondie stopped less than a foot away from Teela, hands clasped behind her back, spine straight. Deliberately close, to intimidate.
Also close enough that Teela could spit directly into her eye, if she wanted. She was thinking about it.
Razor-sharp and twice as cold, Blondie said, "One chance to keep this civil. Where is Weaver?"
Teela was genuinely taken aback. That was not the question she was expecting… but it was an interesting one. So the bat-wing crew had lost somebody. Somebody important, it sounded like.
She tried to look wide-eyed and innocent. And stupid. The latter was pretty easy, given that she had zero idea what was going on. "Who?"
Blondie stepped closer. "Shadow Weaver."
"Sorry," Teela said. "Doesn't ring a bell."
Blondie gave her a long, searching look. "Put her on the next transport to Beast Island," she ordered the soldier beside her, not taking her attention from Teela. "We'll interrogate her there."
The soldier saluted. "Yes, Force Captain."
The two soldiers holding onto Teela's arms began to march her forward. Not that being interrogated in a place called "Beast Island" didn't sound like oodles of fun, but she was getting ready to make a break for it when an arrow buried itself at Force Captain Blondie's feet.
"No!" Blondie shouted, or started to shout, because the arrow exploded in a blinding, deafening explosion of light and sound, and it cut her off mid-denial.
Chaos promptly ensued.
Suddenly the soldiers couldn't scramble away fast enough. One of the soldiers holding Teela let go; the other tightened his grip and started hauling her with him.
A second arrow, then a third and fourth, whistled past Teela's head, so close and so fast that she felt the breeze of their passing. These exploded into massive clouds of thick blue-gray smoke, further adding to the confusion. It was abruptly impossible to see more than an arm's length away.
Teela wrenched her arm free and laid the soldier out with a spinning kick to the head. She lost her balance in the process, but that was by design: she quickly drew her feet through the loop of the manacles so that her hands were in front again, then flipped herself into a standing position. That settled, she tried to remember where –
A hand closed over her shoulder and tugged. "This way!" a low voice urged.
Teela glanced around. Well, someone was trying to rescue her. And the person gesturing impatiently at her was wearing a hooded brown cloak, not gray armor. No red bat-wing in sight.
She'd done more reckless things in her life. Ha! She'd done more reckless things today.
So she followed the brown cloak out of the hazy cloud, away from the soldiers and into the multicolored shadows of the candy forest.
Teela glanced over her shoulder as they plunged in. The smoke was dissipating, the soldiers were milling around in a panic, and Blondie was standing perfectly motionless in the midst of the storm, looking directly at Teela.
There was an expression of absolute frustration on her face. Like Teela was already gone.
Which didn't make any sense. Teela had a head start, sure, but she and the brown cloak were running on a path, one well-traveled enough to have worn a groove into the forest floor (which was, reassuringly, a normal dirt color). Not exactly a difficult trail to follow.
"Shouldn't we – hide?" she asked.
The brown cloak turned ahead of her, slowing to a walk. It was a boy, she saw as he threw back the hood. Her age. Reddish-brown hair, and not bad-looking. He definitely had a winning smile – wide, dashing, and cocky. Walking backwards, he gestured with one hand at the surrounding forest, the other hand being full of a longbow. "Why, we are hiding, my lady! Look behind you."
Teela did. This time, there was no glimpse of the Force Captain or the soldiers. There was no well-traveled path. The only thing behind her was a solid mass of weird, pastel forest, as ancient and unmoving as Castle Grayskull.
Unease prickled at the back of her neck.
"Don't worry; the Horde can't bother us here. The Whispering Woods are enchanted," the boy confided. He winked. "Not nearly as enchanting as you, of course."
Great. Her unease evaporated, along with any positive feelings she'd had about her rescuer. She gave him the same dark look she'd give any of the oozingly flirtatious boys at court.
And just like them, he didn't notice or didn't care. "What's your name, milady?"
"What's yours?" she retorted.
He grinned, unfazed by her rudeness. "They call me Bow," he said, sweeping out his cloak and making a courtly leg right there in the middle of the forest path. He had on light armor beneath the cloak – battered and utilitarian, bronze in color, with an insignia on the chestpiece that she couldn't quite make out. A small quiver was slung on his belt, and the arrows rattled against one another with the movement. "For my superior marksmanship, naturally."
"Oh, naturally." She gave in: "I'm Teela."
Bow started walking again. Backwards. Grinning. "Lady Teela! A lovely name to match a lovely visage."
She wondered how lovely it would all be when she broke his nose. That had been a tremendously successful strategy with the court boys… though she'd always suspected Adam had been the one to finally warn off the most stubborn of the bunch. Hard to ignore a royal order. Or a royal punch.
The path skirted around the base of a truly immense tree – blue-and-pink striped trunk, pale blue leaves, big enough for a family of five to hollow out and live in – and on the other side of the curve, a saddled horse was grazing contentedly on some purple grass.
Teela checked behind them. The path was gone, and there was no sign of Force Captain Blondie or her soldiers.
Well, whether or not Teela had left the frying pan for the fire, at least she didn't have that to worry about anymore.
Bow looked up at the big tree's branches and whistled. "Kowl! I'm back!"
"It's about time!" an affronted voice exclaimed from the tree. A moment later, a large – something – flew down and landed on the horse's saddle. It looked a little bit like an bird, with big yellow eyes and a beak, but instead of wings it had gigantic multicolored ears, and it was covered in fur, not feathers. The creature crossed its arms over its chest and glared magnificently at Bow. " 'Stay here' indeed! When I was the one to pass along – oh! Who is this?"
"This," Bow said grandly, "is the lady Teela, a great beauty and fearless in battle. Milady, this is Kowl, who as you can see is all fluff and no manners."
"Most honored to make your acquaintance," Kowl said to Teela, bobbing his head in her direction. He added, dry, "Please ignore Bow. As you can see, he is all fluff and no brains."
Teela grinned. She was gonna like Kowl.
"Hey!" Bow said, indignant.
Kowl ignored Bow, instead hopping to the edge of the saddle and hooting softly at Teela. "Might I say, those are quite the pair of manacles, Lady Teela."
"Just Teela," she said. She made a token attempt to pull against the manacles; it failed, of course, and the metal dug into her skin. "And you're right. I wouldn't mind getting them off."
"That's no problem," Bow said, giving the creature a dark scowl. The expression he turned on Teela, however, was all charm. "It just so happens I'm an expert with locks, milady. I'll have you free in mere moments."
Kowl made a derisive noise, though he said nothing.
Teela was skeptical too, but held her arms out for Bow to inspect. It wasn't as though she could get the stupid things off, after all.
He fished around in a small pouch on his belt and, with the predictable flourish, produced a set of slender lockpicks. Then he took hold of the manacles in one hand and set to work on the locking mechanism, which was in between her wrists.
"They're magicked, you know," Kowl said to Bow.
"I can manage this alone," Bow said, voice irritated.
Another derisive hoot.
"You're not helping," Bow said, more irritated.
Suddenly, the manacles lit up with magical symbols, and Bow was knocked backwards by a soundless burst of light. He half-fell, half-staggered into the enormous tree, sending a shower of blue leaves fluttering down.
"Elders!" Teela exclaimed, at the same time Kowl cried, "My word!"
The horse pranced to one side, skittish, though it calmed quickly. Kowl flew from his perch on the saddle and landed on Bow's shoulder, peering worriedly at his face.
Teela crouched down beside him, too. "Are you okay?"
Bow groaned and put a hand to the back of his head. Kowl blinked his large eyes and said, wryly, "Not to worry, my dear. Only his pride is bruised."
"A few more things than that," Bow said, wincing. Teela felt a twinge of guilt – absurd, since she hadn't spelled the manacles. Still, she stuck out her hands and grasped his, helping to haul him to his feet. Kowl fluttered his ear-wings for balance and kept his perch.
Bow gave Teela a rueful half-grin. Some of his bravado seemed to have been knocked clear, because instead of sounding like a fawning courtier, he sounded like an ordinary archer: "Looks like this one is beyond me. Come on – Madame will want to meet you anyway."