When Dark Roots Hunt by Zena Shapter

Author:Zena Shapter
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MidnightSun Publishing
Published: 2023-04-26T00:00:00+00:00

CHAPTER 18

The approaching Tillar migrants equal us in number, but the six of them have more muscles and height. Each one looks like they could plough a field before breakfast. Each one glares at us like we’re scraps to be cast aside. As they near, I have to take a step back just to understand their bulk. It throws itself over me like Itta’s stagnant air, soaked in the potential to smother any living creature. If swampers, Ittans and Tillars were all trees – these migrants would be hill-high wyann.

But while I move back, the twigs of a bush pricking into my back, Mum steps forward, hands on hips. Her head is barely level with their chests. I want to pull her away.

But these are her swamps, she’s a head councillor – she must have handled men like these before. She’s amazing.

‘This is not your tree.’ She blocks them. ‘You left everything you owned when you came here. These are our swamps, and everything in it belongs to swampers.’

A lofty migrant steps forward, his blue eyes bright against the smooth skin of his long forehead. A tattoo on his arm forms a vine twisted into a square, dotted with small flowers. ‘This wyann is protected.’ His voice is as deep as he is tall.

Mum huffs dramatically, then picks up our bags and tools like we’re packing up. She passes me Kater’s bag, and the bucksaw hidden beneath it. ‘Give this to Pohnt and Wintrow,’ she whispers of the saw.

I play along, swinging the bag on top of my own, while hiding the saw behind Aten’s ant mandible; then I quickly wade over to Pohnt and Wintrow, who have already pulled their broken saw out of the tree. ‘Spyke, stay,’ I tell him.

He follows anyway, sloshing into the water. The dank scent of old wet leaves burbles with the spray.

With my back to the migrants, I subtly hand Pohnt and Wintrow the sharper saw. ‘Here, Mum says to take this.’ As I head back to help Mum, who’s still pretending to pack up, Ennit exchanges nervous glances with me.

‘The Joint Council,’ Mum tells the migrants loudly, ‘protects all wyann. But after you’ve lived here a while, my dears, you’ll come to understand how utterly impractical that is, especially when Tillars sanction such contradictory things – such as an invincible ship that threatens the trade balance for all of us.’ She wafts a hand at the ship, sees that Pohnt and Wintrow have the new saw, then makes eye contact with Kater. ‘Carry on,’ she tells him, turning to block the migrants.

As Spyke and I reach the land strip, the thunk of axes start up again, as does the drag of sawing.

The lofty blue-eyed migrant marches forward.

Spyke jumps in front of me, raising his two front leg-spikes. He shifts his weight to his four haunches, ready to leap and defend me.

I bend to hold him. ‘Easy, boy.’

The migrant seems undeterred. ‘You’ll be telling them to stop,’ he demands of Mum, ‘or we’ll be making them stop.

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