Free Melforger (The Melforger Chronicles) by David Lundgren

Ottery is teaching us a new song and everything. It’ll be brilliant!” Rio nodded enthusiastically in agreement.
    “I hope so,” said Tarvil. “Tell me, do you know where your brother is? I didn’t see him at breakfast or lunch today.”
    “No, he was gone this morning when I got up,” said Rio.
    “Well, if you see him, can you send him to me? I’ll be over eastside at the new buildings with the Foreman.”
    Rio nodded, and Tarvil got to his feet. He wandered down towards the building sites where he could hear instructions being shouted out by Foreman Manyara. There was precious little time now to get ready and the Foreman was pushing hard to make sure everything was perfect. Not that he liked to bully people; he was one of the calmest people Tarvil knew. In fact, he had only ever broken his cool composure once, that Tarvil had seen, and that was some ten years ago when he had caught his own cousin, Bhothy, trying to light a fire in the middle of one of the plantations.
    Bhothy was a sad case. His birthright was to hold the official village Bard role, something which didn’t really exist anymore – which was probably the reason he had turned out so irresponsible and reckless. The man had been so drunk that he had dropped a cask of gin over the fire which had then set ablaze the trunk of a beech Ancient . If the Foreman hadn’t caught it in time, the consequences would have been too dreadful to imagine. Living up on their Forest platform held a few obvious, inherent dangers.
     
    .  .  .  .  .  .  .
     
    Raf woke up and looked around, rubbing his neck which ached from the odd angle he’d been slouched in. He hadn’t been able to get to sleep and left their home a few hours before dawn, walking around aimlessly until finally he succumbed to fatigue. He had made himself comfortable against the soft moss on some oak roots and fell soundly asleep.
    He wasn’t completely sure where he was; he’d taken no notice of where he was going other than heading in a generally south-west direction. His head was still spinning after the events of the night before and he couldn’t stop playing the scene over and over again in his mind.
    Stretching and yawning, he rolled onto his knees and stood up, squinting in the mottled sunlight. He’d found his way into the banyan grove, it seemed; it was much darker here. The banyans grew in a tangled mess that cut out much of the light. The ground and trees were also covered in moss. Every inch of every surface seemed to be caked in shades of green, from the dark green that carpeted the ground, to the streaks of bright moss and lichen that decorated the banyan branches.
    It used to be thick with olive and birch trees many years ago, but then the strangler figs, or banyans that flourished in the Forest set upon them rapidly. Vince talked about it as if it was quite gruesome and, in a way, Raf supposed it was. The strangler figs basically colonized the other trees - grew all over it and around them - destroying them. But because of the way vines grew, spiraling and crisscrossing their way upwards, the whole process left behind strange webs of ropy branches.
    Taking a deep breath of the fragrant air, he climbed over a steep mossy mound and moved deeper into the grove. For a while, he walked on, stopping occasionally to break a watervine open for a quick drink, or to pick a few mulberries to eat. It was quite soothing, and he found himself relaxing a bit. Until he heard a strange laughing sound from up ahead.
    He peered forwards. It was definitely a human voice. He couldn’t quite make out where it was exactly, but it seemed to emanate from the dark gap between two hanging curtains of banyan roots. Walking carefully, one foot in front of the other, he moved up to the gap and saw that the banyan roots had grown so thick that they seemed to form two gnarly walls. It was from somewhere down this natural passageway that the sound came.
    He walked forwards into the gap, opening his eyes