Birdie's Book - Andrea Burden [39]
“Put your back against mine!” Kerka said. “Use your cloak!”
I had a second to pull my cloak off before they were on us. Kerka and I stood back to back; she slashed at them with her Kalis stick, and I flung my cloak at them like a matador.
Whenever a light managed to land on me, it stung. The sting was strange, sending a stabbing, empty feeling into my heart. I was filled with pinpricks of sadness and fear and rage that echoed all the bad feelings I’d had in my life. I couldn’t tell if Kerka got stung the same way, because I couldn’t see her face, but it was probably the same for her. Maybe it was worse, because she had lost more than I had.
The small but powerful jabs came over and over. Kerka and I were being pushed through the maze by the lights—into the center of the maze.
Then the Shadow Tree was looming over us. As one, the stinging lights silently flew back to the tree’s branches, as if their job was done.
“Are you okay?” I asked Kerka, turning to face her.
“I guess so. Just sad,” she said, not looking at me but tugging at her braids that had loosened and fallen down her back. “I don’t know how you are going to fight the shadow, Birdie.”
Now that we weren’t being attacked, I looked up at the tree. It was even more menacing up close, despite being so near to death. It was dark in the center of the maze, the stinging lights and lightning giving the only illumination. Between these two light sources, one dim and constant, the other bright and occasional, I could make out several things. One was a large knothole on one side of the tree, seeping black lava. The other was a bank of lush ferns that was growing among the tree’s huge knotty roots.
The ferns had to be the last thriving things left in this dead realm of Aventurine. They were welcoming, and so green—the only real life I had felt in a long time.
I smiled. “Kerka,” I said. “Do you see those? Maybe there’s a chance—”
“Watch out!” Kerka cried, her Kalis stick flying out and nearly crashing into my skull. Instead, it met a bunch of fern fronds that seemed to have sprung away from the others. There was an intense scraping sound as stick met fern. Kerka and I both flung ourselves backward as the ferns reached for us.
Kerka held up her Kalis stick; in a flash of lightning, I saw a deep cut in the stick.
“Those ferns are sharp as knives,” Kerka said. Her gaze was focused on the ferns, her eyes narrowed.
I wanted to scream—how could the only live plants here be so vicious? Kerka and I backed up a little more. The stinging lights flew down, blocking the way out of the maze.
Just then came a rustling sound. Something was slithering on the ground, snaking toward us. It was hard to tell in the semidarkness which direction it was approaching from. Kerka took her battle stance, and I followed her lead, clueless as to what was coming.
We looked down finally; the rustling, slithering sounds came from spidery roots and thorny vines that were crawling from beneath the ferns. Kerka swung her Kalis stick, and bits of roots and vine flew. But Kerka didn’t stop there; she jumped into the air and came down hacking at the creepers with her Kalis stick.
Now the lights dove at us again, and I stood there, trying to hold them off with my cloak, which was getting more and more tattered. Kerka and I were completely under siege. The vines twisted and writhed, grabbing at our boots while the ferns waited to slash at us whenever we drew too close. Kerka was like a fighting acrobat, leaping and somersaulting, her braids flying. If I hadn’t been so terrified, I would have just watched her.
The roots finally got Kerka’s ankles and pulled her toward the ferns. I tried to tug her back, but she just shrugged me off. “Keep at the lights, Birdie,” she said through gritted teeth. “And think, think of what you can do.”
Kerka fought off the ferns with jabs and spiral swings of her Kalis stick while I scrambled desperately to find some other weapon. Then Kerka fell or was pulled over by the vines. The blades of the ferns rang shing-shing like metal as they swiftly slashed her boots,