“The hell’s wrong with him?” Elspeth asked.
Arthur dislodged the cat, struggled out of his seat, and slid down Calyx’s side awkwardly. He leaned against the plant creature, rubbing his chest; his heart and lungs strained. “The camp must’ve started working. He can feel it. Whatever they do to the forest, he can feel it.”
Ira’s eyes flashed white, filled with images of logging machinery. Arthur knelt before him, cupping his face in his hands.
“Stay with me.”
Ira’s eyes squeezed shut. With a moan, he leaned into Arthur’s chest. Arthur wrapped his arms around him, hugging him tight like that could squeeze the pain out.
“How close are we?” he asked.
Ira shuddered in his arms. “Close.”
“Just back that way,” Elspeth said.
“We have to get to that camp,” Arthur said. “We have to stop them uprooting the stump, or he’ll—”
Ira went rigid. Arthur gripped him tighter, certain he was about to transform and run off to murder woodsmen. “Stay with me, Ira.”
Ira shot to his feet. His eyes rolled; his nostrils flared. Arthur clung to him, repeating, “Stay with me—Ira, please—” but suddenly he was clinging to a stag’s mane.
Mostly a stag. The stag had a wolf’s tail, and fangs, and its pelt was shaggy with moss and lichens. Calyx’s tendrils waved in alarm. Freya hissed.
“Ira—”
The stag shoved him aside with its nose, tossed its head,and bounded away. Arthur staggered, heart pounding so hard he felt sick.
“Come on,” he rasped to Charlotte. “He said we were close. We can catch up to him. If he distracts the workers, we can—”
She nodded. “Stay here, children.”
“I want to come,” Sasha said immediately, but Elspeth lifted her onto Maurice’s back.
“Not this time, bug. Who’ll watch the horses if you come with us? Or the cat? Mind your mam and stay here. We’ll be back soon.”
The three adults climbed onto Calyx’s back with the help of its tendrils.
“Follow him, Calyx,” Charlotte said, and the plant creature slung itself through the trees. The humans ducked to avoid getting whacked in the face by branches.
Ahead of them, the stag bugled—but this camp seemed better prepared for the Lord of the Wood. Instead of screaming and the distant crunching that signaled the forest was doing away with survivors, orders were barked back and forth. Guns fired. Arthur bit his lip so hard he drew blood.
They broke through the trees and found chaos. Men ran back and forth with guns and powder, trampling recently erected tents.
“Get a net!” one of them roared, sprinting past Calyx without noticing.
In the midst of the camp, Ira stood snarling, a wolf now—mostly. His front legs ended in a deer’s hooves. A clump of woodsmen faced him, aiming with shaking hands, but no one seemed to want to take the first shot, and Arthur was struck, again, with the thought that these men were merely workers trying to get a paycheck in a world that demanded one.
But they were about to destroy the forest, too, and kill Ira, and he couldn’t let that happen.
“Ira!” he cried, but Elspeth sprang from Calyx’s back and dragged him with her. The second Charlotte had dismounted, too, Calyx threw itself at Ira. It lost its shape as it went, loosening into a mass of foliage. Vines shot toward the nearest woodsmen and dragged them away.
“Let the eldritch monster handle it,” Elspeth said. “It’s like you said. He’s keeping ’em busy. They’re not gonna bother about us with a shape-shifting beastie bent on killing ’em right in their midst.”
She was nearly right. Most of the workers surrounded Ira, but a handful were by the stump, working shovels and machines.
The stump was so massive it seemed impossible that anything could uproot it. Yet, reluctantly, its roots relinquished their grip on the soil. Tarnish spread across each one as it was loosed from the earth. Nearby leaves wilted and dropped with increasing speed as more roots emerged.
Elspeth swore and pulled a knife from her belt. One of the workers came at her, shovel raised, but she jerked it away from him.
