Nissa Revine heard a rustle and a snap, and she knew Hiba was running toward her through the undergrowth. She moved carefully as an accipiter beetle perched on her hand, keeping a wary eye on its venom-tipped spike. As she watched, the insect unfolded its hairy, purple wings.
Come quick, Hiba said, bursting out of the foliage.
Nissa looked up and saw him freeze, his eyes on the fist-sized beetle. He took a step back, but it was too late. Sensing him, the beetle suddenly shot at his face. Hiba ducked and stumbled backward as the bug whizzed past his ear and away through the trees. Nissa watched it go.
Stealthy as always, she said, her eyes on the gap in the branches the beetle had flown through. A breeze rustled the leaves, and Nissa sighed.
One day, Hiba said. You ll stop saying that.
She watched as he brushed himself off. In the heat of the forest floor, the smells of moss, sweaty leather, and jurworrel-tree sap wafted off him.
We Tajuru don t spend our days sneaking around down here, he said, also glancing in the direction the beetle had flown. Doing whatever it is you do down here.
Nissa smiled inwardly as she took his measure. Like most Tajuru, Hiba was lightly armed and well tethered. Only a short sword dangled from his belt, clanking against his climbing hooks and rope. His torso and thighs were crisscrossed with complex waist-harness loops and shoulder slings of warthog leather and turntimber bark, the latter nearly indestructible. His arms were saddled with long muscles capable of sudden feats of quick strength. He could, in half the blink of an eye, find a grip on a sheer cliff face, and support three other elves with one finger. She d seen him do it more than once. He had saved her life in Teetering Stone Canyon when she d missed a toe hold. Unlike the Tajuru, her own Joraga elves weren t much good at climbing a failing more than made up for by their stealth, summoning ability, and combat prowess.
She shrugged the strap of the long staff slung over her shoulder back into place and followed Hiba.
The way back to the home tree took them shimming up a towering, corkscrew turntimber trunk and along moss-carpeted branchways wide enough for ten elves to walk shoulder to shoulder. They soon found the rope bridge hidden among the hanging lichens that always reminded Nissa of snakes moving in the breeze. Snakes, she thought, swallowing hard. Snakes teemed everywhere on Ondu in fact, there was one wrapped around the rope handrail as she approached. Snakes. Nissa tried not to shiver as she passed by the handrail. Only vampires are more disgusting than snakes. Hiba noticed her grimace. The young elf smiled as they walked.
Still afraid of snakes, he said, more of a statement than a question.
I think you meant, still afraid of snakes, Captain Leaf Talker? she corrected, using her official Tajuru ranger designation. Is that what you meant?
That is exactly what I meant, Captain Leaf Talker, Hiba said. He was teasing her she knew, but she did not mind too much. Hiba was as near to a friend as she had in this place among the weaker elves.
They were very near the tree she could tell by the smell of fires. But the tree was so well camouflaged that the forest seemed to extend in unbroken stillness until they were virtually at its trunk. Only the continuous creaking of the turntimber trees filled the close silence.
Silence was yet another odd aspect of the tribe that had adopted her. She did not understand their need for quiet. Her old home in Bala Ged had been a noisy place. But she certainly could not go back to the Joraga elves there. Not until she d completed her appointment with the Tajuru. It was something all great leaders of the Joraga did; to live abroad with another tribe for a time. But Nissa had done so much more. She d traveled out past the blind eternities to flat lands of endless of grass, to lands of alloy and fire, even to endless cities where people stood on each other s heads. But none of those planes were her place, and no plane had more mana or beauty than Zendikar, so she soon felt drawn back.
Nissa snapped out of her thoughts. Hiba had stopped walking and was standing stock still in the middle of the bridge, a long ear cocked upward. Far below she could hear air passing over the wings of a bird of prey circling the floor s duff. Above, the green tangle of corkscrew branches held strangely still. Then she heard it: a rhythmic scraping somewhere ahead and up. She knew better than to make any noise as she very carefully freed her staff from the strap slung over her shoulder.
It could be many things. The Turntimber was full of dangerous predators; simm cats that kicked with their sharp back claws; forest trolls with their swords made of chipped stone. Perhaps it was even the undead Tajuru from the kor tales that wandered the forest floor at night, waiting to suck the brains of the living out through their eye sockets.
Or it could be something else. Lately there had been whispers of a new threat in the forest. Something had been seen.
The scraping sound continued; the sound of long claws sharpened across the hard wood of a turntimber branch. Onduan baloth, her mind suddenly screamed. She d seen one, many times the size of an elf, hop casually from one trunk to another a jump of nearly fifty body lengths and swipe a Tajuru in half with its thick claws. They fought casually, and could eat whole families.
Nissa and Hiba stayed still and listened to the scraping and the creak of the trees until Hiba smiled and took a hook from his belt. He very carefully drew it across the nearest branch as a pass sign. Soon a whistle echoed through the boughs, and Hiba clipped the hook back on his belt and walked forward.
Two sentinels were perched above a ladder in a nest of moss. They were so well camouflaged that Nissa had to look at the nest for some seconds before the outlines of the elves revealed themselves. One nodded as they passed. The branch behind the two was wrought by clever enchantment into a long horn that could be blown to alert the home tree.
She had to give credit to the Tajuru architects as the full view of the home tree settlement opened before her. She d lived here only a month, and the sight still made the hairs on her arms stand up. Thousands of brightly colored wood-and-moss, hedron-shaped huts clung to huge belts of woven bark girded around the branches and trunk of a vast turntimber. Complex strut works of wood, rope suspension bridges, and planked walkways festooned the tree in arcing loops. The fact that the turntimber tree healed over any attempts to penetrate its bark only heightened her amazement the clever tribe had been able to make the marvel without even one nail.
The rope bridge joined into one of the plankways, and with creaking steps, Hiba led the way to the longhouse atop a massive branch. Other Tajuru were walking together in the same direction. Many were talking in whispers among themselves, and were fully outfitted in ornate harness systems and slender bladed weapons. None of the tall, fine Tajuru looked like the Joraga, who, ever-hard in Nissa s memory, hissed vows as they smeared the blood of fallen enemies along scars they d received in battle.
The longhouse was full to capacity when they arrived. Aggressively casual, some Tajuru were even sitting on the white jaddi wood windowsills and passing small bags of dried wolf berries back and forth. In the center of the room, standing on a slightly raised platform, Nissa saw two elves she s never seen before. She could tell by the hushed tones in the hall that the visitors were important.
Hiba leaned close to her ear.
Speaker Sutina, he said.
She had seen a couple of messengers and important visitors stop by the home tree in her time with the tribe. But even the tribe s large size didn t seem to constitute such visitors as the two that stood on the platform. Nissa looked carefully at the female that stood in the center of the room. Speaker Sutina was wearing a jerkin of simple green leather, and her advisor was similarly dressed: no ropes, no harnesses. Neither Sutina nor her assistant seemed to be armed in the least. Their lack of gear alone should have alerted Nissa to their stature. But the Tajuru didn t think in terms of importance and stature, and she had already started adopting their ways of seeing the world.
Nissa forgot about what Sutina was wearing when she put her arms out and started to speak.
Friends, Speaker Sutina said. The word seemed to hang shimmering in the air above their heads. Nobody spoke. One of the Tajuru dropped his bag of wolf berries on the wood floor. With the smallest trace of a smile, the Speaker s eyes cast around the room. When they met Nissa s eyes, her smile faded. Friends, she repeated in a voice suddenly louder. I won t mix words now that I have traveled so far to visit you. We have come to Ondu to alert others to a great rot in the roots of the forest.
Sutina s eyes fluttered for a moment. When she spoke her lips were dashed with green phosphorescence, and the words that came out of her mouth were guttural, rasping, and filled with chirps. Her eyes fluttered open, and the smile flitted across her lips again.
This is the language of the infection traveling in the forest right now. Do any of you recognize this talk?
Nissa didn t bother to look at the faces around her. She knew the language belonged to nothing from their plane It sounded like flint chips knocking together. Even mountain trolls spoke more pleasantly.
Sutina s eyes fluttered and went to their whites again as she channeled something else. What is that? a concerned male Tajuru s voice echoed out of her throat.
What are those holes? Stina, Rawli, give that thing a volley.
But the wind, this time a female voice. The wind.
A silence lasting nearly thirty heartbeats followed.
Nissa watched the muscles in Sutina s cheeks and around her eyes twitch and spasm. Her chin jerked side to side and up and down, and Nissa knew she was reliving the last moments of each of the scouting party s lives. Then the whites of Sutina s eyes blinked back into place, and she smiled. All around her the Tajuru had grown quiet. All the elves had bowed their heads. Their lips had all become slightly green, she noticed with a bit of unease. The elves did that sometimes at meetings.
A Joraga would never share consciousness with her tribesmen it would be a shameful action. But the Tajuru seemed to want to do it when even the smallest thing went wrong. Nissa waited. Through the windows of the longhouse she could see patches of sky through the trees.
Stina is my sister s name, a Tajuru said from the crowd. We haven t heard from her in a week.
Another spoke up. That was Leaf Talker Gloui s voice.
He patrolled the far west, someone else said, almost in a whisper.
Wind, Nissa thought. Where was there wind in a forest? Breeze, yes, but never wind. She still didn t know the topography of the Tajuru s lands as well as she would like, but she did know that wind would be something of a rarity in a forest.
Hiba leaned over. His lips weren t green, Nissa noticed.
The Binding Circle, he whispered. It s on a plateau.
Just then, in response to his thought, someone across the room said, The Binding Circle is in the west.
The Binding Circle, other elves repeated, almost in unison.
Nissa hated when they did that, speaking together like the undead.
Nissa, Speaker Sutina s voice said, suddenly speaking in her head. The Speaker s eyes were on her, and then she spoke aloud, You will take a force of Tajuru and your own significant abilities to find and eliminate this threat.
Nissa nodded. She d been a Leaf Talker for the Tajuru ever since her arrival in the Turntimber. The Tajuru always gave her the most difficult assignments. Many at the home tree were impressed with her abilities, she could tell; and many others thought she was a threat the first step to a Joraga invasion. But for whatever reason, Nissa liked taking the dangerous assignments. What was she leaving anyway? A cold room in the home tree with a slug oil lantern and the distrustful stares of the Tajuru.