One almost bonked me in the head, and another, as big around as a tire, flattened a fey. Arrows were also being loosed, but fortunately, the fey couldn’t seem to see any better than I could and were aiming above our heads, where we’d have been if we were still standing. But the arrows remained dangerous, as demonstrated when one slammed into the earth in front of me, having almost taken off the tip of my nose.

But then a lot of what little light there was blanked out, causing me to look around wildly. Only to realize that the roots of the surrounding trees had just knitted together, and closed protectively over our heads. They formed a tunnel with only a few gaps here and there, sending light down onto the ground in smokey beams.

I crawled faster, watching the battle taking place above us in glimpses, and wondered if I’d been channeling Mircea at Gertie’s, with that strange aversion to crawling. Because crawling was awesome. Crawling ruled.

And we were almost there!

The root tunnel let out at the edge of the forest, just at the tree line, and I felt a huge sense of relief wash over me. Which immediately made me paranoid, because relief was a liar. Relief got you killed.

And, right on cue, my eyes caught a flash of light above me, and a sword arcing down, too fast to dodge. But it never completed the stroke. Before I even had time to react, the fey holding the weapon turned gray, shriveled up, and face planted in the dirt, as lifeless as an empty soda can.

From somewhere behind me, Mircea made a gagging noise. “They taste terrible,” he said, and grabbed the guy’s sword.

And then something hit me in the head.

But this was soft, more or less, like somebody had tossed a chunky blanket over me. I fought my way free only to find myself holding an armful of forest material, of the kind that had formed the pathway through the trees that I’d been on earlier. And which I was currently holding the end of, I realized.

My eyes followed the flat, blackish substance upward to find that it formed a ragged and very unstable looking path through the trees. Unlike the one I’d been on before, which had mostly been supported by branches, this one had vines underneath it, causing it to sag significantly in between them, because they seemed to be spaced very irregularly. But its swinging support system also allowed it to climb at truly improbably angles, into the heights of a distant and very tall sequoia.

I assumed it kept on going beyond that, but couldn’t tell because a platform high in the tree blocked the view. And, hanging over the edge of said platform, who did I see? Son of a bitch.