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“Come on,” he said sharply, abruptly severing the connection they were so tentatively building. “We still have to make camp before nightfall.”
* * *
They pushed on in silence for another twenty minutes or so and as the shadows around them deepened Lily felt Rowan growing more irritable. His eyes kept scanning the ground anxiously. Some ancient part of Lily’s mind sensed that they were in danger.
“What is it?” she whispered. Her breath came out of her mouth in little puffs of steam.
“Woven tracks,” Rowan whispered back. His skin was bleached an ivory blue from the cold air and his black eyes gleamed in the moonlight. “Fresh ones.”
Lily looked down at the forest floor underfoot, but to her it was just a mess of leaves and sticks. How anyone could discern tracks from the general disorder of nature was beyond her, but she was grateful that Rowan could.
“And we’re out of wovensbane,” he added darkly. Lily recalled the pungent herbs he’d thrown on the fire that had smelled to her like citronella, guessing correctly that that’s what Rowan meant.
“What do we do?” she asked, her breath fluttering in her chest.
“We climb.” Rowan took her hand and led her to the trunk of a large conifer. “And hope they don’t have simians with them.”
Rowan gave her a boost up to the lowest branch, and then had to shove her hard so she could haul herself up on top of it. She peered over the side of the thick branch, wondering how Rowan was going to get himself up, and saw his willstone throb with that strange, oily light that seemed to call to her. He jumped easily up beside her on the branch, landing in a crouch on the balls of his feet with his fingers resting lightly in front of him.
“Climb quickly,” he urged, steadying Lily with his hands. “They’re drawn to magelight like moths.”
The gray-colored bark was rough but powdery under Lily’s tender palms. Her boots scraped it and sent clouds of lichen-laden dust showering down on Rowan. He took no notice and, despite the debris, didn’t let even a few inches of distance grow between them. More than once his quick hands shot out to help balance her as they rose over a hundred feet into the rapidly darkening sky.
“Keep close to the trunk!” he admonished when a branch bent dangerously underneath her.
“I’m trying,” Lily hissed back. “My arms are tired.”
“Then stop.” Rowan hauled himself up onto the branch just below hers. “We’ve gone as far as we should go anyway.”
Lily sat back against the trunk of the tree and rubbed the blackened tree sap off her scratched hands. Rowan’s shoulders suddenly tensed, and his volume dropped to nearly nothing.
“Hold still.”
Lily froze immediately. The thin sweat that had coated her as she climbed shrank back into her skin. Rowan tilted his head ever so slowly to peer around the branch under him. Lily copied his careful movements, barely moving, and looked down.
A man ran, staggering into view from the underbrush. He was reaching desperately for the tree. He didn’t make it.
From above, the thing that attacked the man looked like a giant bug. In the bright moonlight Lily could see a sectioned carapace that was covered in spikes and hair growing in between the large armor-like plates. The creature had to be at least nine feet tall and twice as long, and it picked its way at lightning speed toward the man on four spindly legs that ended in pointy barbs.
The man turned, saw the Woven moving in on him, and screamed. Rowan stood up on his branch without a sound. He unsheathed his knife and made a move to climb down. The front section of the creature was drawn up and hunched over like a praying mantis, but when its two front limbs shot out impossibly far to grab the hysterical man, it did so with human hands.
The man howled in pain as the Woven curled over him, its mouth pincers clacking together. Lily felt Rowan grip her forearm tightly as he melted back into the trunk of the tree. She looked down at him, her breath whistling in and out of her with panic.
“Shhh,” Rowan whispered almost silently. “It’s too late to help. Calm down, Lily.”
She swallowed and forced herself to slow her breathing. Sque
ezing her lips shut and pressing herself against the tree, Lily narrowed her world down to one thing—the sound of the Woven as it tore into the man again and again. She saw parts of the man flying up and falling back down to the forest floor, an arm, a leg, even his insides. Lily put a hand over her mouth.
The Woven ate the man down to nothing. Every bit of skin, muscle, bone, and all of the entrails were consumed. Nothing was left of the man except scraps of clothes. The Woven sifted carefully over every last bit of the killing ground and then moved on.
It was a long time before Lily found her voice.
“Are they all like that?” she whispered.
“No. There are many different breeds, each with many variations.” Rowan’s voice drifted up to Lily from the branch below hers. “The Woven come in all shapes and sizes.”
“Are they all dangerous?”
