White Ghost and the Poison Arrow (6 page)

Each move is
calculated and looks well practised. Every strike is met with a
block and a counterstrike, which is in turn met with another block
and so on. Doahte and Mato fight with each other, a strange mix to
Arella’s eyes as Mato is so much bigger than Doahte, although not
as quick. While Mato has the clear strength, and looks like he
could life a full-grown bull without breaking a sweat, Doahte is
very quick on his feet and gets around Mato without much of an
issue. However entertaining watching these two is, Arella cannot
seem to take her eyes of Nashoba and Nootau. They are evenly
matched in size, strength and ability. There is a seriousness about
how they fight, but also playful. These two clearly know each other
well, anticipating moves before the other has even thought about
it.

Having a good
memory will serve Arella well here. As she watches closely, she
learns which moves to use against which others; different blocking
techniques; different attacks; and how to escape holds. She watches
for hours as the men practice their fighting. It’s a shame Arella
does not have anyone she could practice this with, but she will
make do and learn as much as she can solo.

Arella is so engrossed in watching Nashoba and Nootau fight
she does not realise they are getting closer to her. The sun
catches in Nashoba’s eyes, causing his to lose sight of Nootau. He
catches the green eyed boy under the chin with an upper cut,
causing him to fall backwards, hitting his head on the ground
beneath him. As he falls, almost in slow motion, He catches
Arella’s eyes in the bushes, seeing her pale face and hair. She
notes this and quickly pulls herself backwards into the forest.
“
I know I should have been in a tree from
the start, not on the ground where they might have seen me. Now he
saw me.”
Arella curses in her mind. She
retreats to one of the bushier trees for cover, knowing she would
not have time to hide further into the forest. “
I need to hear what they say, in case they come looking for me
or something.”
Arella tells herself,
although she really just wants to find out if Nashoba is
okay.

After a few
seconds Nashoba opens his eyes. Nootau, Mato and Doahte are
gathered around him with slight concern. Nootau extends a hand to
help Nashoba up. “Looks like you took quite a knock there my
friend.” Nootau says. “Told you you’d be the one on his arse.”

“A white
ghost!” Nashoba exclaims. Everyone looks at him puzzled and
Arella’s heart drops.

“What on earth
are you blabbering about?” Mato asks and Nashoba takes Nootau’s
hand and gets up.

“Did you hit
your head on a rock?” Nootau asks. “Must have hit you harder than I
thought.”

“No really I
saw a white ghost.” Nashoba insists. “What else could it have been.
It had a white face, white hair and like, purple eyes.” All but
Nashoba burst into laughter. “I mean it guys, I know what I saw.”
He sighs as the others laugh, getting agitated now. “It was there.”
Nashoba points towards the bush Arella was hiding in. “In that bush
staring at me.”

“Ooohhhh.”
Nootau mocks with ghostly noises. “The spirits will get you
Nashoba.”

Arella’s fear lifts slightly. “
Well at
least the others don’t think he saw anything. Maybe he’ll forget he
saw me and put it down to a bump on the head.”
She thinks hopefully.

“
I know what I saw. And it wasn’t
because I hit my head. I swear to the gods no one ever listens to
me.”
Nashoba thinks. “We’d better get going
back then. I think training’s over for today.” He says out loud,
defeated.

“Yeah, and
there’s roast hog tonight.” Mato breaths in. “I can almost smell it
cooking from here.” With that the men collect their belongings and
leave the black beach in the direction of their village.

Once Arella’s heart has stopped beating out of her chest, and
she is sure none of the young men will come back, she makes her way
back down the tree to the ground. “
That was
a close call.”
She thinks, and she was
right. Arella is lucky that only Nashoba saw her and not the
others. She gathers her nerves again and once she is stable in her
mind, she walks out onto the black sand and towards the reeds on
the other side of the beautiful beach. The reeds that grow here
grow very tall and thick. She uproots a dozen of them and bunches
them together. “
This should be enough for
now. And I can use the sproutlings to plant in the muddy banks next
to the lake near my new home, then I can grow my own grue roots and
bulbs.”

Arella heads
back through the edge of the forest, a little way in from the lake.
Still keeping the lake on her left hand side so she knows where she
is going, Arella is surveying the land around her, memorising the
different plants and trees that fill the new lands she calls her
home. Now Arella knows it is not far from the village she grew up
in, but this forest is home to her, and she feels happy living her.
She does not miss the sneers she gets from the other villagers, or
the looks they give her on a day to day basis. Nor does she miss
being last to eat anything when they cook food. Arella is at home
in the forest, and that is where she will stay as long as she
can.

Arella gets
back to the clutch of trees she calls home. The branches she has
stripped of their stray twigs are still piled up nicely by the base
of the tree, and nothing much here has changed. She takes the reeds
over to the black rocks she was sat on just the day before, and
using her nails, strips the reeds away from the strong string
inside. Because these reeds are larger than the one she used to
make her bow, they contain more strings. Each string is around two
meters long, and Arella can cut them smaller for binding the
branches together.

The task of turning a bunch of branches and reed strings into
a roof to cover her turns out to be a lot harder than Arella first
anticipated. First, she tried making a roof shaped board of wood
with the twigs and carrying it up into the tree, but the shape did
not fit. Then she tried taking a few of the branches up with her,
but they were not stable enough when fastened to the tree. It is
getting late by the time Arella realises what she needs to do
“
I need to make the supports from thicker
branches before trying to add them to the top.”
She almost slaps herself. “
Why did I
not think of this earlier?”
For this Arella
will need larger branches, as thick as her arm or bigger to hold
the weight of the roof structure she will build.

A few thick branches lie on the ground close to the clearing
next to Arella’s trees. She gathers them up. “
These branches are heavier than they look.”
She thinks to herself. “
Better make sure they’re secure before I add anything to them.
Wouldn’t want this dropping on my head.”
Arella’s arms and back hurt by the time she had lugged one of
the branches up the tree. She rests it in the bow of the tree and
descends again to gather reed strings.

Arella props
the branches she will use for structure against bows of other
branches attached to the tree for stability and one by one tires
them off with the strings. It is hard work but by the time the sun
begins to set, Arella has a structure ready for adding roofing to.
She climbs down from the tree, steps back and admires her work.
“That should work just fine.” She says to herself out loud. Arella
tilts her head back to look at the sky, her neck cracking as she
does so. “Please don’t rain though until I have a waterproof layer
on top.” For this Arella knows she will need dried animal skins.
Luckily there are plenty of these in the tent she used in the
village. No one else will use her tent. The tribe will believe that
this is cursed as well as her, so she will be free to take it,
under the cover of night of course.

Under the cover of darkness, Arella walks along the edge of
the lake, skirts around to the stream that joins the lake and
follows it to the village she used to call home. Everyone is sound
asleep, and snoring can be heard coming from some of the tents. The
fire pit in the centre of the village has all but burnt out, the
embers still glowing but the heat almost gone. The carcass of a
deer sits over the fire, the meat left on its bones now burnt and
inedible. This makes Arella hungry. “
I
can’t live on roots all my life.”
She
thinks to herself. “
I will have to learn
how to hunt game and catch fish soon or I will waste away.”
She looks down at her slowly shrinking
frame.

On the far side
of the village her small tent sits, untouched by any of the other
tribe members, just how she hoped it would be. Arella moves towards
it, careful not to make any noise or cause shadows to shift across
the other tents.

Inside the tent
are items Arella has never really paid much attention to. They
belonged to Nayleen, then her father before her. Arella takes the
deer skin bag from the back of the tent with these items in it then
wraps her fur bedding around it. There isn’t much inside the tent,
but that means it should be easier to take it all in one go rather
than having to come back for things. Arella then begins removing
the sticks and branches that hold the structure up and sets them
aside. She then folds up the outer bit of the tent and puts it
together with the bedding and deer skin bag. It is a rather large
pile of things, but not too heavy thankfully. Arella picks up the
pile of skins and her belongings and leave her old life behind.

Wispy clouds
float through the sky above Arella, the moonlight reflecting off
them lighting the ground under her feet. The walk back to her white
tree home seems to take longer than normal due to the heavy weight
under her arms. Arella stops by the side of the lake for a few
minutes to rest. She drops her belongings on the floor, and inside
the deerskin bag, a strange metallic ‘ting’ as it hits the floor.
Arella’s interest is peaked. She has never looked inside this bag,
never had a reason to. It did not belong to her, and even though
all of Nayleen’s belongings became hers when she died, Arella had
never thought to look inside the bag.

Arella unfolds
the deerskin, untying the strings that told it together, revealing
the contents within. Strange pinkish red glass like objects fill
the bag, all tied with black bindings to straight black branches.
“Weapons!” Arella exclaims as she examines them further. There is a
long dagger, the blade shines almost like soft blood. She touches
the edge and cuts her finger. She winces with the pain but makes no
noise. There is also a spear in this bag. The head small and
pointed. The last item in this bag is strange. It is almost like a
dagger, but has a long stick, then another blade on the other side.
“A double ended grathon?” Arella asks no one in particular. This is
an old weapon, not seen for hundreds of years. No on uses these
anymore as the balance is hard to get, and stone is too heavy.
Realisation grabs Arella. She gasps then catches her breath. “It’s
blood glass!” Blood glass is an ancient material, made when a
dragon dies and his body turns to ash under the light of a red
moon. It is hard as obsidian and sharp as the sharpest thing you
will ever touch, but lighter than a feather in comparison to other
weapon materials. Happiness comes over Arella as she realises she
now has everything she needs to learn how to hunt and fight. With
the spear she can hunt fish, and with the grathon she will be able
to fight and protect herself… Once she learns how to use it that
is. “Why had I not looked in that bag earlier?” She asks
herself.

With this a new energy washes over Arella and she picks up her
belongings again, setting out once again for her home. Following
the lake around the sides of the trees is not so easy with heavy
items under her arm, but Arella is keen to get back to her trees to
have a good night’s rest. Tomorrow will be spent finishing off the
roof of her house and making it water and wind proof. Just as she
rounds the corner to come to her little clearing by the lake, a
mighty gust of wind catches her off guard. She looks up at the sky,
clouds thickening. “
Looks like we might
need that roof sooner than I’d thought.”

Arella puts
down the pile of items she had been carrying on the floor beneath
the tree, unfolds the tent covering. She then climbs up the tree
with it and roughly places it on top of the scaffolding branches.
It will not be totally waterproof, as it is not spread tight or
tied down, but at least if it does rain, Arella won’t get too wet.
She then climbs down the tree and collects the rest of the items,
then takes them up into the tree with her. She unrolls her skin bed
and climbs inside it. It is warm and comfortable. Arella falls
asleep listening to the wind blow through the trees, and the sounds
of the crickets as the chirp in the bushes below her.

Chapter 4

The next few
days are spent completing her house in the tree. Arella starts by
taking the skins off the scaffolding from her old tent and spends a
long time strapping the other branches and sticks to it with the
reed strings, trying to make sure there are only small gaps and
that everything is tight. She has created a large area, using the
natural branches as support as well as her scaffolding branches,
and has made a structure that looks like a roof. This is now
covered with the skins from Arella’s tent, which have been
stretched out straight over the roofing and tied down to the main
branches of the tree, creating a night watertight roof.

Next Arella
worked on the flooring of her house. However comfortable the moss
covered bow of the tree where all of the branches met was, it
wasn’t a very big area. She had to collect more branches for this,
and shape them once again. This time Arella collected much thicker
branches, and used the blood glass dagger to split the wood, making
a smooth surface. She then laid the branches out one by one in the
tree, fitting them around the existing branches and tying them down
and to each other. She fell from the tree a few times doing this,
losing her footing and slipping on branches that were not tied down
correctly. The rain began to fall while she was on this stage of
the build, however the roof held up and Arella’s tree house stayed
dry.