216. Guardians of the Green

It was the age old story, the band of brave adventurers off to rescue the fair maidens in peril. The stuff of classic fairy tales.

This particular version had some slight variations from the traditional tropes, though.

The reluctant hero wasn’t usually as reluctant as I was, for a start. And the adventurers who set forth tended to have some kind of a chance of being victorious. Joshaya was like the guy in the Magnificent Seven going around collecting an assortment of sharpshooters and cutthroats, only all of them were out when he called, so he had to take us.

“What do you know about the priestess and her powers?” I asked.

“Not much,” said Joshaya. “There’s seven of them, and they’ll kill you first chance they get. About all you need to know.”

“Do you have a plan?”

“Kill them first.”

“How?”

He shrugged. “See when we get there. Never tried this before.”

Very reassuring.

“This is your fault,” I said to Maurice.

“Me? What did I do?”

“You put ideas in their heads. Made them think they should think for themselves. I know you taught them how to force me to do things I didn’t want to do. Now look where we are.”

“It was only for emergencies,” said Maurice. “And you don’t know that’s what this is about. It could be... It could be something else.”

He didn’t sound convincing. Or convinced. I stared out into the dark, pissed off. The feeling that I had been Shanghaied into this scheme hung heavily over me. It was like the girls had realised they couldn’t talk me into doing the right thing, so out of respect for my views, they hadn’t asked me and did it anyway. I brooded and sulked, the uneven cart floor poking at me as we trundled along the muddy track.

“Are you a Visitor?” Maurice asked Joshaya, trying to avoid meeting my accusing gaze.

“Visitor? Me? No, no. Do I look like one of them pasty, weedy little oiks? No offence.”

He was a heavyset man, although his build suggested he may have been quite a formidable fighter in his day. He was fat but he was solid.

“What about the man you call master? Was he a Visitor?”

“Wiz? Yes, he was one of your lot. A great man. He taught me everything I know, trained me from when I was a mere whelp.”

“Was that his special ability? To train people?” Maurice had his notebook out, ready to take down any vital clues to help us meet the next disaster quicker than the last.

“Ah, well, I wouldn’t call it a special ability, exactly. He could look at a person and know what it was they were meant to do, and then help them do it better. Born teacher. Nothing unnatural about that.”

I scoffed but no one paid any attention. Clearly this Wiz guy had the power to augment the abilities of others. Peter had mentioned his fellow Visitor who could do this. At least I now knew the guy really existed, I just had to find him. After this detour. Assuming we didn’t die. Or weren’t maimed, poisoned or imprisoned.

Maurice scribbled away as the horse plodded on. The horizon glowed with the first signs of dawn, and we trundled towards an encounter with seven priestesses and their One True God. At least there was only one of him.

There was a forest ahead and little else. The fields looked wild and overgrown. The sounds of a river nearby. The occasional unidentifiable animal call.

“And what is it you do?” asked Dudley, his voice strained with the effort of being polite while having every bone in his body rattled by the suspensionless cart.

“I kill monsters,” said Joshaya.

“Then why the fuck do you need us?” I said.

Joshaya pulled on the reins and the horse came to a stop, although we’d been going so slow it was hard to tell the difference.

“Look here, my lad, this wasn’t my idea. I’m retired. Leave well alone, I say. Two or three kids lost to witches ain’t so bad. Not like you wouldn’t lose a couple anyway. That’s kids for you, always wandering off and doing themselves a mischief. But they insisted. Said this was a special quest and I had to show you boys how it’s done. Pass on the torch, as it were.”

Joshaya wasn’t a young man. I could completely believe he had left his monster hunting days behind him, so why was he here? “When you say ‘they insisted,’ who do you mean? The three girls?”

“That’s right. Very persuasive, they were. Offered me a fine prize for my services.”

“And what was that?” I asked.

“My own bride to take home.”

“One of the witches?”

“No!” said Joshaya, appalled. “I wouldn’t want one of those hags in my bed. I’d never see another sunrise. No, one of your girls.”

There was a change in the atmosphere as the occupants to the rear of the vehicle shifted through the full spectrum of awkwardness.

“Which one?” asked Maurice, nervously.

“I get to choose,” Joshaya said grandly.

I had the strong feeling there had been some kind of misunderstanding. The girls had attempted to broker a deal and had somehow sold their magic beans for an old cow.

“Are you sure that was the deal?” I asked as gently as I could. I didn’t want to spook him with the realisation he wasn’t getting the pick of the litter. There was no way that’s what they had agreed with him. A man choosing a woman as his prize was a completely outdated and unacceptable way of doing business. In addition to which, the girls belonged to us and weren’t for sale. Not unless we got a much better offer.

“That was the deal,” said Joshaya. “One for me, you can keep the other two.”

I exchanged a look with Maurice and Dudley. They didn’t look worried, per se, just a little baffled. Neither of them believed the girls would make that kind of deal. Had they lied to trick Joshaya? That also seemed unlike them. Without needing to say anything, the three of us put aside our differences and came to the same conclusion. We would have to wait until we found the girls and then demand an explanation. Unless it wasn’t my girl he wanted, in which case I was open to negotiations. I am not an unreasonable person.

By the time the morning sun had risen to the height of the treetops, we had reached the edge of the forest. The mud track stopped at the treeline, either because the vegetation was too thick to take a cart through, or this was where everyone who came here died.

“The castle’s in there?” I asked, hoping the answer was no.

“It’s in the middle of the woods. Castle’s a grand word for it, really. More of an old ruin. Used to be quite a sight back when I was a boy, centre of attention in these parts. Then the One True God moved in, and we got this.”

He jumped down from the cart and kicked at a stone in the grass. The stone, about the size of a fist, flew towards the forest and then stopped in mid-air, hanging there.

We got down to get a better look. The stone looked like it was floating.

By angling my head and rocking back and forth I could see strange gleams in the air that grew into streaks. These streaks slanted from the ground up to the branches above. There were more shimmering gleams among the branches when you squinted and moved your head from side to side. They outlined a monstrous web covering the forest’s border.

Dudley reached out his hand and took hold of the suspended stone. He pulled and twisted in an effort to get it loose, but it remained where it was, swaying slightly. He stepped back. A rising breeze rustled the thick carpet of dead leaves and made the stone wobble wildly.

“How do we get through that?” Maurice asked.

Getting through the web didn’t seem like the most pressing issue. I was more concerned with what had made it.

“I don’t know,” said Joshaya. “Trial and error, I should think.”

He had taken a package from the tail of the cart — a leather roll bound with buckled straps. He laid it on the grass and unfurled it like a carpet. The insides were lined with an assortment of weapons. Swords and daggers and axes. Blades connected by chains. Balls covered in spikes. A blow pipe with a set of tiny darts.

It was very well organised and obviously lovingly cared for. We stood watching as he removed the equipment and methodically cleaned each piece with a rag he soaked in oil from a small flask. The oil smelled like flowers. Which flowers? How the fuck would I know? Flowery flowers.

He really went all out with the polishing and waxing, removing his cuirass and shirt to get some real elbow grease into it. I tried to watch how he worked on his weapons, sliding his hands around, really grinding down the edges to a brilliant sheen that you could tell was razor sharp just by looking, but I had to look away. Watching a sweaty man with an extremely hairy back is no easy thing before breakfast.

Maurice pointed at a small axe. “Can I borrow this?”

“It isn’t ready yet,” said Joshaya. “Killing monsters is all in the preparation.”

“Actually, I want to use it before you clean it.”

Joshaya handed it over. Maurice tested the weight like he knew what he was doing, and then gripped the handle with both hands and slammed the axe-blade into the ground. He repeated this a few times, hacking and slashing at the defenceless grass, and then handed the axe back. Joshaya looked baffled.

Then Maurice grabbed some of the grass and yanked, ripping the loosened turf free. The underside was a large block of earth and mud, attached to the roots, neatly cut out of the ground by Joshaya’s axe.

Maurice walked over to the web and shook the giant divot, sending dirt spraying into the air. Particles stuck to the web, revealing its shape and form.

It was very impressive, beautiful even. It spread in every direction. Being able to see it didn’t make it any easier to find a way past. Objects in nature, however, tend to have some common vulnerabilities. I reached out and lit a flame on the end of my finger. I touched it to the web.

Now, trees tend to be made of wood, which is flammable. Setting fire to the web risked setting the whole forest alight. I understood this was a bad thing, but on the other hand, somewhere in that forest was a giant fucking spider. Not giant like bigger than my hand, I mean giant like one of those SUVs mums pick up their kids in and fill up three parking spaces because no one showed them how to parallel park a tank.

The flame ran up the single thread I had lit, like it was running along a fuse to detonate a bomb, and then petered out somewhere above me. The web seemed undamaged, although the stone that had been stuck to it fell down.

“Interesting,” said Maurice, jotting down his observations in his book. “Not as sticky once it’s been exposed to heat.”

There was also another side effect of applying heat to the web. The web’s owner turned up.

It was, as advertised, a large spider, but not SUV-sized. It was much, much bigger.

It came over the treetops and climbed down until it reached halfway to the ground. It sat there staring at us.

The three of us were frozen, unable to move or speak. Joshaya was facing the other direction and I could hear him squeaking away with his rag, oblivious to his opponent’s early arrival. I didn’t want to make any loud noises in case I scared the giant arachnid into eating me.

“Can you shoot it in the eye?” I whispered at Dudley. If it was blind we might be able to get away.

“I don’t think I have enough arrows,” said Dudley. The spider had a ring of black eyes circling its head.

We started to back away, very light on our feet, but the horse, which had been frozen like us when the behemoth appeared, suddenly decided it was time to do its best Aguilera impression and screamed in three different octaves.

A stream of webbing shot out of the spider’s mouth. I dived out of the way, but it was aimed at the horse which got a full-body bukake. And then the horse was airborne as the webbing snapped back like elastic.

A horse’s belly flashed over my head as I lay on the ground, followed by the cart. I did the only thing I could think of, I threw a flame at it.

My flames weren’t great at setting things on fire, not deliberately in any case, but the cart was covered in straw. It caught fire immediately.

The spider had raised the first two legs on either side of its head, rearing up to reveal the fanged opening under its scythe-blade mandibles. The horse was sucked right into the spider’s hideous maw, followed by the flaming wagon.

In movies, things explode all the time. A car falls off a cliff, a plane hits the water, someone throws a snowball in a Michael Bay movie. Boom! In real life, it tends to take more than a collision to produce a mushroom cloud.

The cart exploded into a fireball. Not a very big one, but enough to engulf the spider’s head in flames. It screamed. At least, it made a very painful whistling sound, almost as painful as listening to someone actually whistling.

Its body was covered in thick black fur which glowed orange with the spreading flames and smelled like plastic melting. Like a barbecue with vegan sausages.

“Damn it,” said Joshaya, slamming his oily rag into the ground. “There was a month’s supply of lubricating oil in that cart.”

I assumed he had a barrel of the oil he used for his weapons attached to the underside of the cart. I certainly didn’t want to know what else he might want to lube up, so I didn’t ask him to confirm.

Flames streaked along the web lines and then faded away. The crispy remains of the spider fell to the ground with a crash, the back end of a horse sticking out of its mouth.

“I didn’t expect to defeat the first guardian so easily,” said Joshaya, scratching at his abundantly hairy shoulders. He should have covered them up in case a stray ember did the same to him as it had to the spider. And also because it was disgusting. I gagged like a cat with a hairball in the back of its throat.

“How many guardians are there?” asked Maurice.

“Two left,” said Joshaya. “They get bigger.”

The giant spider lay on its back, its legs curled up and burnt-to-a-crisp. The horse’s rear end was sticking out of the spider’s maw, the arsehole staring right at me. I didn’t like the way it kept following me when I moved. The whole thing was horrifying.

“What if it explodes and thousands of baby spiders come out?” said Maurice. Now it was even more horrifying.

Joshaya had wrapped up his arsenal of weapons and slung them over his back. He had various straps he used to attach the package to his waist and shoulders. He had the look of a tried and tested warrior off to find his next great battle. We had the look of three English kids messing about in the woods hoping to find a box of abandoned porn.

“You did well,” said Joshaya, surveying the scene. His eyes went from the dead spider, still smoking, to the web. It was easier to see now, its strands no longer invisible since it had been doused in flames. “I wouldn’t have thought to use fire, might have burned down the whole forest.”

He didn’t say it like a criticism, but I know passive-aggressive when I hear it.

“What are the other guardians like?” I asked him.

“I do not know,” said Joshaya. “There is little information on them, other than them being denizens of the forest and of huge size. They will kill us the first chance they get, so we need to be wary.”

“What was that?” I said, annoyed.

“What?” said Joshaya, bewildered.

“I ask what do you know, you say nothing, and then give me a list of the things I just asked you for.”

“No, I didn’t,” said Joshaya. “I barely gave you a hint of what’s to come, for that is all I have to give.”

“What about the castle?” said Maurice. “What can you tell us about it?”

“Nothing,” said Joshaya. “Save that it is four turrets joined by stone walls. It sits inside a moat filled with deadly creatures and—”

“You’re doing it again!” I said, preventing him telling us what else he knew about the castle, but honestly, he was irritating the shit out of me.

“We must go,” said Joshaya, like it wasn’t him we were waiting for.

“Okay. You take point.”

He looked at me like I was speaking a foreign language.

“You go first since you’re the best at spotting the enemy. Your knowledge of the forest and of what’s in there makes you the ideal point guy.”

“But I don’t—”

“Yes, yes, you know nothing. That’s still twice as much as us. Maurice go second, I’ll go third and Dudley’ll bring up the rear.”

They all gave me questioning looks.

“Dudley’s at the back because he needs distance to shoot stuff with his bow. I’m behind Maurice because he’s bound to be writing shit down and not looking where he’s going, so I need to tell him to watch his step when he’s about to fall down a hole. The big guy is obviously best at hitting things so he gets to take the lead.”

They all gave me a nod as though they understood now. Like fuck they did.

The big guy was up front because he was a nice big meat shield. Dudley was at the back because meat shields work for rear attacks, too. Maurice was in front of me because when the front shield got taken out, the enemy would be moving towards us and we’d be moving towards them, closing the gap. I’d need a buffer. Whereas, when the rear shield got taken we’d be moving away from the attacker so I’d have the natural buffer of already moving away.

“Is he really going to be able to handle the monsters in there?” asked Maurice out of the side of his mouth.

There was nothing wrong with Joshaya’s hearing. “My waist may be bigger than it used to be,” he bellowed, “but that just means I can fit more daggers on my belt.”

We all approached the web, which was still blocking our way forward. Beyond was a lush and verdant forest, more like a jungle. Late morning sunlight slanted through the leafy branches and twisted trunks of ancient trees.

Maurice threw a stone at the web and it bounced off. He touched it with a gloved hand and was able to let go without becoming stuck.

“Seems to have lost its adhesive properties,” he said.

We all began to touch, pat and prod the threads. They were still too dense to get past, but at least they wouldn’t hold us in place for monsters to feed on.

“Right, let’s try old Bessie.” Joshaya took out a curved sword that glinted like a mirror. He raised it over his head and brought it down on the webbing. It bounced off and flew out of Joshaya’s hands, over his head, landing point first in the spider’s abdomen. I held my breath, waiting for the baby spiders to jump out. Nothing happened.

“Couldn’t we try fire again?” asked Dudley, his hesitant tone suggesting even he didn’t think it was a good idea.

“We could climb it,” I said.

Everyone looked up. The trees were very tall and the web went all the way to the top, and then over them. There was no telling how far they went but we would be able to climb down at some point, presumably.

“What about going round the side?” said Joshaya, the least keen on the climb. His extra girth wouldn’t help him in the vertical direction. “It can only go so far.”

“It’ll take too long,” I said, grabbing the web with my fingers and inserting them through the gaps. The issue wouldn’t be the climb — there were plenty of holds as the whole things was structured like a mosaic of ladders — it was whether the spider’s silk would cut through our hands and feet. It was incredibly sturdy, and fine as wire.

I cautiously tried my luck, poking the toe of my shoes in between strands and climbing up. It was actually easier than expected. The way the strands were joined meant there was something to hold wherever you looked, no matter your height or reach. It was the perfect climbing structure. Within a few minutes I was near the top.

When I looked down, I realised no one was following. They had decided to see if I would fall to my death first, which was wise thinking. At least they had learned something from me.

The web ended once I reached the top, acting like a giant fence around the forest. I was sitting on top of the world, more treetops ahead of me like an endless field of green, and in the distance were four towers.

“Hey, it’s fine. Come up,” I shouted over my shoulder. Now I just had to find a way down.

The other three clambered up, even Joshaya with his large backpack. They stopped when they reached me and took in the view.

“That’s the castle,” said Joshaya, all informative now that we didn’t need his worldly wisdom.

We began working our way down through the branches, which wasn’t too bad for about three-quarters of the journey. Then the branches thinned out, and we were faced with a smooth trunk and a long fall.

“I believe I see some vines we could climb down over there,” said Dudley, pointing into the gloomy distance.

“Good eyes, lad,” said Joshaya. He took off his pack and let it drop. It landed with a distant thud. “That should be fine there for now.”

Branches from neighbouring trees overlapped, and we were able to shimmy across from tree to tree until we reached one with long vines trailing to the ground. It wasn’t clear what they were attached to.

Joshaya straddled a large branch and twisted a vine around himself so it formed a belt around his waist. “Right you are. Who’s first?”

As leader, I nominated Dudley. If it could take his weight, the rest of us should be fine. How Joshaya planned to make his way down after us, I had no idea.

Dudley slid down with plenty of oohs and ahs and ‘I say, that chafes.” He made it without falling to his death, which was the main thing.

I went next and then Maurice, all without incident. Then Joshaya stood up on the branch so the vine fell off him like baggy trousers. He made a loop which he hooked around his ankle and jumped head first.

His head-first dive didn’t seem to have any possible outcome other than his death. As he approached the area we had very quickly vacated, the vine went taut, then snapped. The momentary pause slowed his descent, and then he fell the last couple of metres to land in a heap.

“There we are.” He brushed himself off. His face was beetroot red, I assume from all the blood having been forced into his face by momentum. “Reminds me of the old days. Just need a sit down.”

He collapsed backwards and landed on his bum, his back against the tree. He did, in fact, only need a bit of a sit down before he was back up and raring to go. He put the three of us much younger men to shame. But then so did everyone else. We were very shame-friendly.

The first thing we did was find his backpack, which was exactly where we expected it to be.

“Still here, then,” I said. “Thought a giant squirrel might have pinched it.”

“I hope the next guardian isn’t a giant squirrel. Those things can be quite vicious.” Dudley seemed genuinely perturbed by the idea.

“I’m hoping for a giant snail,” said Maurice. “Nice and slow.”

“Yes,” said Dudley. “And delicious.”

As two city boys, our reactions were the appropriate ones.

“That’s sick.”

“What’s wrong with you posh people?”

“The boy’s right,” said Joshaya. “Excellent peasant food, the people’s oyster, if you know how to prepare them properly. Very salty, if you don’t rinse them well. Slips right down the throat.”

“Not if it’s the size of a house,” I said. “Which way?”

“Follow me.” Joshaya pulled on his pack and headed into the jungle like he knew exactly where to go. If he was bluffing, I was all for it. The last thing I needed was more doubt in my life.

We were unmolested for the most part. Some insects buzzed about, but we saw no other animals, of any size. There were ponds of water and some berries which kept us going through the day. Joshaya insisted he had never seen these varieties before, but somehow knew which were poisonous and which weren’t. His false modesty was grating.

The best part of a jungle, I’d say, are the abundant toilet facilities. Shit where you like, and plenty of large leaves to wipe yourself. When you live in a fantasy world, you get to relieve yourself in lots of new and interesting places.

Judging by what I’d seen from high up, the castle wasn’t super far. It would have taken a couple of hours across an empty field. But our path was densely populated with all sorts of obstructing vegetation.

We stopped for a break, covered in a slick of sweat and uncomfortable in our clothes. You couldn’t keep still, you had to wriggle where you stood.

“Is it much further?” I asked.

“Can’t say. Could be. Or maybe—”

“Fine. Forget I asked.” His ability to use polite conversation as a weapon was impressive.

“Um, what?” said Dudley.

I turned to him, and then to where he was looking. There was nothing there. Which was strange because Joshaya had been right there a moment ago.

“Where’d he go?” I said.

Dudley’s mouth was opening and closing but no words came out. I gave him a kick in the butt to knock him out of whatever loop he’d got stuck in.

“The jungle... it came alive and... took him.”

I felt like kicking him again, but what he said might literally be true. “Where?”

He pointed at nothing. I looked closer and realised Joshaya was standing right in front of me, wrapped in leaves and bark and other organic materials so that he was indistinguishable from his surroundings.

I slowly reached out a hand to touch his bindings.

“Ahem,” said a voice. I looked around but there was no one there apart from the other two.

“Yes?” I said. “Hello?”

Two eyes opened in the trunk of the tree next to me. Then a mouth.

“This is the end of your journey.” It was a fairly neutral voice, soft and soothing. Could have been male or female.

“Are you the guardian of the forest?” I asked.

“We are the forest,” it said. “The third and final guardian.”

Somehow we’d skipped a guardian.

“We’re a bit lost,” I said. “Can you direct us to the castle? Big stone thing with four towers?”

“We are here to prevent you reaching the castle of the One True God, not aid you.”

“What if we give you this one?” I pointed at Joshaya. “In trade for safe passage.”

“What would we do with him?”

I shrugged. “Use him for fertiliser?”

“No. You will go no further. We cannot allow it.”

“You keep saying ‘we’. Where’s everyone else?”

In answer more eyes opened all around us. “We are one under the soil,” they said together, which had a weird echoing effect.

“Do you think,” I began, my eyes looking for the best escape route, “we could delay this until we meet the second guardian? Only it plays hell with my OCD to do this out of order.”

There was a hesitant pause, whispering under the soil, perhaps. I kept looking for a way out. Not easy when you’re trying to run from a whole forest from the inside. I’ve seen The Evil Dead. I know what trees can do.

“Very well. After the second guardian. If you survive.”

It wasn’t exactly a plan, more of a delaying tactic. But the longer you spend not dead, the more time you have to figure out a way to stay alive. And you never know, we might stumble onto a magic twig or save a cute sapling, get the forest to owe us one.

The leaves and mud covering Joshaya crumbled and fell off him. He shook himself like a wet dog to get rid of whatever was left.

The tree trunk eyes closed around us and it was like they’d never been there, but it felt very different now. Like we were under close observation. We moved on.

“To encounter the Green,” said Joshaya. “It’s quite an honour. And to survive! Well, well.”

I ignored him as best I could. Which wasn’t easy when he spent most of his time getting right on  my tits.

After an hour of tramping through the jungle, Joshaya suddenly fell on the ground. He didn’t trip, he dived. We all followed suit.

“What?” I whispered.

“Second guardian,” he whispered and pointed.

I crawled forward and peeked through the underbrush. Up ahead was a pond. Actually, more like a lake. In the middle of it sat a huge frog. It was enormous, much bigger than the spider. And around it, swimming about, were frog people.

I stood up.

“Get down, you fool,” Joshaya hissed at me.

“Hey!” I called out. The frogmen stopped to look in my direction, including one smoking a pipe. “Hey, Nabbo! Got any weed?”