The Great Crimson Tree: Chapter Two

Part Two of a Christmas present story I'm writing for a ten-year-old girl. It stars her original characters in her original world, and I'm really enjoying sharing it here with my fellow bloggers. Love y'all!

Previously on The Great Crimson Tree, Una and Luhn have stumbled upon a quest to save the life of the forest from the wicked goblins. Only one of them seems to be taking this quite seriously, though...

“Those villagers were sooooo nice,” gushed Luhn for the trillionth time. “They took that poor man in without ever charging us! Thanks for paying them anyway, though.”

“Don’t mention it. Ever. Please. Seriously.”

She scowled at him. “Are you really cutting me off again?”

“I’m trying to read a map!” Una jabbed a finger at the weathered paper in his calloused hands. “It’s hard when you keep talking about how nice those villagers were, how cute their town was, how the children were so gentle with Spoony. Why don’t you just save us both some frustration and move there?”

“Hmph.” She folded her arms over her chest and turned away to study a thin willow tree. “Don’t mind me just adding some spark to an otherwise dull journey.”

Una ignored her and held the paper up to the light. Afternoon was beginning to creep into evening, the pure blue of the sky seeping into orange and gray edges. He glanced up to see a thin sliver of the moon between the gaps in the trees. Soon it would be dark and they would have to rely on lanterns to see, a sure target for any goblins expanding their borders.

“So that’s the tree, huh.” Luhn, apparently over her hurt, stood on her toes and peered over Una’s shoulder. He sighed and lowered it to let her see better.

She squinted. “It’s a bit unproportional, don’t you think? I mean surely it’s not that big. We would have seen it over the tops of the other trees.”

It was rather too big to be believable. The drawing of the tree stood out in dark crimson hues amid the ink and pencil markings sketching out the stubby little trees of the forest. Its roots and branches stretched like tentacles across the entire map. Even if it was half the size depicted it would still be a monstrosity of a tree. Una wondered if it were truly magical, and if so how would one tell?

Shoving the map back into his pocket, he shrugged and continued down the path in what was hopefully the right direction. The shadows were getting larger and making it harder to navigate. “Who cares how big it is as long as I can take out those goblins? I might have a tough fight on my hands if they’re as many as Mel said there were.”

“I? What’s this about I? How about we?”

“What are you gonna do, smack them upside their noses with Spoony?”

Luhn huffed again. She sounded like an angry cow when she did that, and the picture in his mind of a cow with Luhn’s head made Una have to suck his lips in and walk hurriedly down the path to keep from laughing.

Some kind and benevolent being must have been smiling upon Una that day, for Luhn kept her mouth shut for quite some time as the sunlit hours continued to tick away and the sky turned black, cold, and starlit. Una’s eyes remained on the map to guide them, but his thoughts turned towards the fairy walking at his heels. He wished she had never joined the mission, no matter how good she was at mending wounds and foraging. He worked better alone, that was for certain.

Maybe after this, he thought, I’ll split up at the next village and tell her it’s time to part ways. She probably wouldn’t be happy. No, there was no probably about it. Luhn would definitely cry while Spoony goggled at him. But maybe after that he would be free to make his own way without having to hear her voice or be tripped up by her annoying habits.

His mind was made up a few moments later when Luhn began speaking.

“You know, I think I spotted a blackberry bush back there!”

Una stifled a groan and dragged his fingers across his face. The other hand held high a flickering lantern, magical sparks of fire dancing within.

“We,” she continued, bouncing up beside him, “could totally take a detour and snag a few. I can make a pie after this little adventure is over.”

“Little adventure? Is that what you think it is? We’re fighting for the life of this forest, Luhn!”

“I know that, I’m just saying-”

Una chanced a glance at the ground and his breath caught in his throat. He stopped in his tracks, but Luhn kept going.

“Luhn,” he said in a strangled voice.

“...and it’s not as if starvation is likely, but one can never be too prepared. And I need to take a wink or two! It’s been too long since we-”

“Luhn.”

“See, now you’re the one interrupting. You always get so upset when I-”

“Luhn!”

“Una, are you seriously-”

“LUHN!” he roared, and the forest leaves trembled. He clapped a hand over his mouth and looked around for any flicker of a goblin torch or two glowing little yellow eyes. The only eyes he saw were Luhn’s glowering at him behind her glasses, and Spoony’s, round and lidless and staring at him with a dull expression that only a spoon could possess in such creepifying form.

Before Luhn could complain about how rude he was, Una quietly pointed to the ground. Luhn’s eyes followed, then widened, and she put her hands to her mouth and let out a mouse-like gasp.

A thick, twisting root the width of a young tree trunk jutted from the ground like a sea serpent breaking from a still body of water. It continued back into the ground after a couple of arches, but its form was still visible by the bumps and lumps in the path and deeper into the forest. But its size was not the most noticeable thing, for the color was as bright as a drip of paint from an artist’s brush. The tree root was a deep crimson red, beautiful and dark.

Luhn knelt and pressed her fingertips against it. Breathless, she gazed up at Una. “It’s alive. I can feel its power.”

Una stooped to touch it as well. It felt like a tree root to him, but then again he was not a full-blooded fairy as his companion, who might have been wingless but wasn’t lacking in the soul-deep knowledge of her kind.

Spoony stared at him, and he felt pressured to make a decision.

“We follow the root,” he declared, straightening. “It should take us to the tree, and then…”

“And then?”

He looked ahead into the shadows of the forest and steeled himself. “And then we see just how dangerous of a task I’ve gotten myself into.”

“There’s that I again.”

***

“So that’s what all the fuss is about,” Una said in a raspy whisper. He could hardly believe what he was seeing, even though his vision was obscured by thick clumps of grass. Perhaps standing up would have given him a better view of the majesty towering above him, but he had wormed his way up the hill on his belly to keep out of sight and he had no intention of ruining all that hard work.

Beside him, Luhn also lay hidden with her cloak covering her body. Her eyes were wide orbs as she stared up and then down at the Great Crimson Tree of Caldin.

It was taller than any tree in the forest, yet its top branches didn’t reach many of the others. The Crimson Tree was in a deep, bowl-like hole that could have housed an entire village or two. Ladders, bridges, and stairsteps leading down bore marks of vandalism from the destructive goblins.

The tree itself was the same red as the map depicted. It was covered in millions of purple-ish leaves ranging from the size of a man’s head to the head of a needle. Its bark was thick and knotted with age. Twisting branches twined in an embrace that spanned a network of miles around the other trees, a protective guardian that pulsed with life. Una could now feel it humming through his veins, and he envied Luhn and whatever she must be feeling at least tenfold.

All of this majesty, however, was rapidly coming to an end. The goblins had clearly come prepared. Machines with giant axes were hard at work on the base of the tree where hundreds of the wiry little creatures hopped around with hand hatchets of their own, chopping away at the bark. A deep gash like the wickedest of wounds showed in the tree which bled sticky, weeping sap.

“The beasts,” hissed Una, clenching his sword and gritting his teeth. He wanted to rush down there and send them all back to whatever dark hole they had crawled from, but years of self discipline restrained him.

“How- How horrible,” murmured Luhn with hot tears of anger shining in her normally gentle and smiling eyes. “How simply dreadful.”

“Mel was right. They’re trying to destroy it. And when they do-”

“The forest falls with it. It will be a barren wasteland.”

He hissed through his teeth. “Not if we can stop them.”

“But how?” She wiped a tear from her eye, rolling to her side to look at him. “I want to help as badly as you, but what are we against a hoard of those nasty little devils?”

“We’re- well, I’m a warrior. But we’re both travelers and good at sneaking. We can do it.” He allowed his raw emotions to slip into his voice as he peered over the edge to see more of the destruction being wrought by the goblins. It boiled his blood, and as he looked back he saw the same red-hot anger in Luhn’s eyes.

“What’s the plan?”

Una would have loved to roll down the hill and take the goblins on once and for all, but not only would that be incredibly stupid he would also have to take them on with fifteen broken bones and at least one ruptured organ. No, he was going to have to think…

He scanned the teeming mass of goblins and his eyes landed upon a set of clumsily erected grayish-green tents. They were tattered and tottering, but he recognized them well.

“See the kitchens?” he said, pointing.

Luhn wrinkled her nose. “Goblins have kitchens?”

“That’s the slang term for them. But yes, they do work as kitchens. They also work as latrines for the cooks-”

“Eeeew!”

“Infirmities, boxing rings, and storage. Maybe we can find something to sabotage there.”

Luhn gasped. She crawled beside Una and gestured wildly. “Wait a minute, what kind of things do they store?”

He didn’t understand where she was going, but the gleam in her eye was unusual.

He shrugged. “Tools. Food. Tunneling supplies and the like.”

“Any explosives?”

“Of course. They’re goblins; goblins always have explosives.”

Luhn stared at him. Una stared back. Then a sly grin broke across his face and he shook his head in awe.

“Not bad, Luhn,” he said, looking back over the edge. A goblin was getting flung out by an angry goblin-troll from the back flap of the kitchen. “Not bad. I don’t suppose they would mind if we, say, paid a visit to their explosives and took out the tents, the supplies, and their monstrous tunnels and axes while we’re at it?”

Luhn grinned. “Now you’re using we. I like it. But..” Her smile slipped. “We’re not murderers. We can’t blow up the tents even if they are goblins.’

He stroked his chin. “Hmm. We’ll have to get them out somehow. But I can’t find the explosives and ward them off at once. They all need to be out so I can slip in and get to work.”

“Well then…” The smile was back. “Maybe you can’t provide a distraction, but Spoony and I can. What do you say, Una?”

“I say that spoon of yours has no place in a decent sabotage plan.” He sighed as she held his gaze unwaveringly. “But if it can get me in there in one piece.. Then sure.”

“Let’s get cracking!”