From a Drood to a Kill - Simon R. Green Page 0,151

lightly on the forest floor. Strange twisted shapes, just twigs bound together into almost human things. Full of dark malignant passions. They scampered across the broken earth towards me, and then changed direction at the last moment and went for Molly. Because if they couldn’t hurt me, they could still hurt the thing I cared for most. They saw her as an easier target. They should have known better.

Molly grabbed up the stick figures and wrenched them apart with her bare hands, dismantling their knotted shapes, and scattering the pieces around her. She stamped them under her feet; smiling nastily all the while. Even without her magics, Molly Metcalf was still a very dangerous person. A few of the figures escaped her, and I ground them to pieces under my armoured feet. They broke easily.

I don’t know whether they were really alive, in any way. I hope not.

Rain slammed down, thick and cold and heavy, soaking Molly immediately. I moved quickly to stand over her, sheltering her as best I could. The ground beneath our feet was quickly waterlogged, becoming deep mud in moments. My armoured feet sank into it, but I had been there before. I visualised a solid surface underneath Molly and me, to hold us up, and it was there in a moment. And all the rain in the world couldn’t affect it.

The rain cut off. Molly crouched beside me, gasping for breath, soaked from top to bottom and looking like a drowned rat. I made the moisture disappear from her with a single hard thought, and she grinned at me, gave me a thumbs-up, and then glowered fiercely at Tarot Jones, who was still standing alone in his rags and tatters, among the ruins of his forest. I started towards him. I’d had enough of being reasonable and holding back. He really shouldn’t have attacked Molly. Tarot Jones held his ground as I advanced on him, and shot me his best arrogant grin.

“I am the Totem of the Travellers, and the Spirit of the Woods! I am the Green Man!”

“That’s nice,” I said. “I’m Eddie Drood, and I’m mad as hell.”

He reached out to two trees still somehow standing on either side of him. Their branches dropped down and wrapped around him again and again, like a cocoon, and then lifted him up into the air, until he was lost to view. The two trees slammed together, fusing themselves into one great living thing. A tree forty or fifty feet high, with a roughly human shape and powerful arms and legs. A face appeared in the wrinkled bark that was very like Tarot Jones. A massive tree with the face of a man and all the strength of the forest, driven on by one man’s fury. It stomped heavily towards me, and the ground jumped and shook under the weight and impact of every step.

I concentrated on my armour, and turned my golden gloves into buzz saws. The vicious blades roared loudly as they spun, and I walked forward to meet the Green Man. My howling blades dug deep into his wooden body, ripping and tearing, sending splinters flying. The great face in the bark screamed. The huge wooden hands beat at me, and I didn’t even feel them inside my armour. One hand tried to pick me up, and I cut it off with my saws. I dug deep into the wide trunk, splitting it open and carving it out, and all the ancient strength of the wood was nothing, set against my armour. I opened up the heart of the Green Man, and there was Tarot Jones, nestled within. I turned my saws back into gloves, and tore him out of the wood. I clubbed him down with a single blow, and he fell unconscious to the ground before me. The Green Man fell backwards, stiff and unwieldy, no longer animated by one man’s will, to ponderously measure its great length on the forest floor. The sound of the impact carried on and on, but the massive shape did not move again.

I armoured down, and stood over Tarot Jones’ motionless body. I looked at him for a while, and then I raised my head and addressed the unseen watching audience.

“I won’t kill him! Do you hear me, you Powers? I don’t kill! Not for you, or anyone!”

I waited, but there was no response. I didn’t think there would be. I just wanted to make a point. Presumably, as long as I was playing the