might help, and tried again, but it remained just a knife. Molly threw that away too, and pulled a leather pouch out of her pocket. She poured a purple powder out into her hand and scattered it on the air before her, but it didn’t glow, or scintillate, or do terrible things. It just fell harmlessly to the ground and lay there. The pouch fell from Molly’s trembling hand. She looked at me, and her eyes were full of frustrated tears she wouldn’t give in to.
“I can’t even command my armoury any more! What have they done to me?”
“Take it easy,” I said. “And stay back. I’ve got this.”
“Of course you have,” she said, smiling slightly. “You’re a Drood.”
I armoured up and went to meet the trees. Wrapped in my golden armour, I felt strong and fast and sharp, more than a match for a bunch of trees with bad attitude. I laughed aloud as they reached for me with their long, gnarled hands, because their woody strength was nothing compared to my armour. I snapped off branches and threw them aside, stamped on roots until they broke, punched great holes in tree trunks until they split from end to end. I kicked trees out of the way and pushed them over, tore them to pieces with my golden hands. Heavy branches closed around me, snapping tight with inhuman strength, crushing me. But they couldn’t hurt me, and they couldn’t hold me. I shrugged and the branches broke; I ripped them from me and threw the pieces away, and went on. I grabbed one tree with both hands, tore it out of the dead earth, and upended it, swinging it effortlessly like a great club, striking down all the other trees and smashing them apart, until I’d opened up a great clearing all around me.
Trees toppled silently, and thrashed helplessly on the ground. Branches broke and roots snapped, none of them of any use against me. I knocked over trees and shattered others, and when I finally stopped, not even breathing hard, I had opened up a great wound in the heart of the forest. I looked around and the remaining trees stood back. Afraid to approach me. I dropped the tree I was holding, and looked at Tarot Jones. Standing on his own.
“I knew it,” he said. His voice was flat and cold, not from lack of emotion but because what he was feeling was too big to put into words. “Just another Drood bully-boy. The despoilers of the forest, destroyers of the wild. But I have more than trees to set against you. I command the elements.”
He drew himself up and raised both hands to the heavens. He spoke Words I didn’t understand, older than any language I knew, and massive storm winds blasted into the clearing I’d made from a dozen different directions at once. They hit me hard, battering and bludgeoning me, but I stood my ground in my armour, and they couldn’t move me. Broken and fallen trees were lifted up and thrown around, and many of them slammed into me, but they couldn’t knock me off my feet. I didn’t even bother to slap or shoulder them aside; I just stood there and took it, staring implacably at Tarot Jones from behind my featureless golden mask. Molly crouched behind me, for shelter from the storm, both arms wrapped around my golden legs to keep her from being carried away.
The winds died down, and lightning struck. Long, jagged lines of elemental power, fierce and vivid, blasting sharp electric illumination through the forest gloom. Lightning bolts hit me again and again, but my armour just soaked them up. Scraps of lightning crawled over and around my armour, crackling and spitting, trying to force a way in, only to fall away, defeated. I glanced down, to make sure Molly had retreated out of range, and of course she had.
Tarot Jones actually danced on the dark earth, out of his mind with rage, and then he stopped abruptly and made a series of gestures. Heavy roots burst out of the dark earth, white as corpses, and wrapped themselves around me, trying to pull me down. I tore them apart with my golden hands and let the pieces fall back to the ground.
Tarot Jones turned his back on me to show off the stick figures that clung there. And one by one they turned their shapeless heads to look at me, before dropping down from his back and landing