out of the hut. In the dying light of last night’s fire she saw half a dozen Pretani waiting for them, hunters, the green-clad priest, gathered around the Root and Shade. The Pretani carried spears and light packs, and they all had their faces and arms dyed dark green. The new scar on Shade’s forehead, crudely stitched and stained black, was livid.
As soon as Zesi and the priest emerged, the Root set off without a word. The others followed, and Zesi and the priest had no choice but to jog after them.
At first the Root led them along one of the wide ways that led from the ceremonial centre, but he soon cut off onto a track which, if it existed at all, only the Pretani could see, and they pushed into the deeper forest.
The dawn sky was visible only in glimpses through the endless canopy, and the trees grew dense, their massive root systems sprawling, always ready to trip a careless foot. The Pretani moved silently, all but invisible in the homogenous gloom of the forest in their brown tunics and green and black faces, and Zesi had to concentrate hard to keep them in sight at all. She saw no animals - no deer, no boar, no sign of cattle. Evidently they knew to keep out of the way of Pretani hunters.
The light was brighter when the Root at last called a halt, at the base of yet another massive tree. Jurgi was breathing hard, but the Pretani didn’t look as if they had worked at all. Some of them glanced up at the canopy, wary, narrow-eyed.
The Root beckoned to the priest and Zesi. ‘So,’ he whispered. ‘What do you imagine we are hunting?’
Zesi said immediately, ‘Aurochs.’ The wild cattle, a huge and ferocious prey, had always been the target of the wildwood challenge.
‘Not today,’ the Root said.
Jurgi frowned. ‘The hunt is a custom. A way of binding our two peoples. And we always hunt aurochs. It is central to the meaning. Your own priest should advise you that to defy tradition is to court problems.’
But Zesi glanced at the Root’s priest, hunched over, grinning, showing green-dyed teeth. ‘He won’t help you, Jurgi. Look at him. He does what the Root tells him, not the other way round. If not aurochs, what are we to hunt?’
The Root glanced upwards. ‘Leafy Boys.’
Jurgi looked up, squinting. ‘And what are Leafy Boys? There is no Etxelur word—’
‘Of course not. Not all knowledge resides in salty Etxelur heads. It will be a new challenge for you, Zesi, daughter of Kirike.’ He pointed to the tree behind her. ‘Here’s how we will organise it. Each of us will climb a tree. You, Zesi, take this one. Priest, yours is over there—’
‘I’ve never climbed a tree,’ Jurgi moaned.
The Root sneered. ‘Then you can thank me for a new experience. If you see a Leafy Boy up there—’
‘What do they look like?’ Zesi asked.
‘You’ll know when you see them. If you find one, drive it out along a branch. In distress they call to each other, bring each other out of the foliage. And they leap from tree to tree - flit between the branches like birds. It’s a marvellous sight. We’ll soon see where they’re congregating, which tree. Then we’ll close in. Got that?’
It sounded simple enough to Zesi - just entirely unfamiliar.
The Root stalked away, and his hunters dispersed. Zesi saw Shade looking at her. He had an expression of confusion on his face, faint concern. But he trotted after his father. The priest, with an uneasy frown, jogged over to the tree that had been picked out for him.
Zesi was left alone with her tree. She was distracted by all those looks of disquiet. Something wasn’t right here. But she was in the hands of the Pretani. There was nothing for it but to climb.
She had spare rope around her waist. She took this now, tied either end to her spear, and slung the spear over her back, leaving her hands free.
Then she walked up to the tree, stepped on its roots, and stroked its bark, which was sagging and wrinkled. It really was a very old tree. ‘Forgive me,’ she whispered to it. She looked for her first foothold, and found it in a bulge in the bark - some infestation, perhaps. She stepped up, fingers probing at cracks in the bark. The lower branches weren’t much more than her own height off the ground. When she had hold of the