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‘Ati?’ he said, coming down to him. ‘Ati? How are you?’

‘My shoulder,’ said Ati, in a dim voice. ‘My arm is numb and my shoulder hurts. And it hurts when I breathe.’

Tighe looked at the shoulder, but could see nothing wrong, except that when he took hold of it Ati screamed with pain.

Up above there was a ferocious rustling in the canopy of meshwood leaves.

‘Ati,’ he said, ‘we must climb up. Do you see? Come!’ He reached round to Ati’s good side and pulled him upright.

‘We can’t go up there,’ said Ati in a tight voice. ‘There are many claw-caterpils up there. They are all around up there – huge ones, hundreds of them.’

Tighe looked up. The motion in the canopy was becoming more and more agitated. A leg appeared, and then the whole of Ravielre’s body; part falling, part clutching to the branches as he struggled to slow his descent.

He collapsed into the network of branches that had broken Ati’s fall. Only then did the others see that a small claw-caterpil was fastened to the side of his head; the bandage was gone and the monster’s jaws were chewing at the wound.

Ravielre’s eyes were wide, stupid with terror. He struggled ineffectually, bringing his arms up and dropping them in spastic movements.

Despite its relatively small size, this claw-caterpil was a horrifying creature. Tighe blenched and forced himself forward. He reached out with both hands and circled the thing’s abdomen. The bristles stung his skin, and past them he had the sense of touching something unspeakable, something mucus-slippery but dry, something profoundly and physically repulsive. The claw-caterpil took its jaws from Ravielre’s head and swung them round with alarming speed to snap at Tighe’s hands.

Tighe let go with a yell and stepped back. The monster slipped, gripped at Ravielre’s body with its many legs and pulled itself back up.

Ati was howling now; he had fallen back over and was struggling to wriggle clear; each motion that banged his shoulder made him cry out louder.

The claw-caterpil began grazing again on the side of Ravielre’s head.

Tighe looked around for a branch or stick he could use to pry the ghastly
insect away from Ravielre, but all he saw was a weave of springy branches thick with leaves. There was no piece of meshwood he could rip free. In desperation he aimed a kick at the monster, but this involved standing on his bad foot and his ankle dissolved under his weight. He sprawled backwards, landing partly on Ati, who shouted with pain and surprise.

Something large dropped from the canopy above. A blur of legs and bristles. It landed on the cradle of branches, its tail falling across Ati and Tighe, its head near Ravielre.

This was a much larger claw-caterpil; twice as long as a man’s height, fat and taut around its midriff, its jaws glistening and black as plastic. It shimmied up to Ravielre, mounting his body and struggling on top of the other claw-caterpil. It began pinching its rival between its larger jaws. The smaller monster wriggled, turned and tried to bite back, but was so obviously outmatched that it gave up and rolled free.

Ravielre was staring directly into Tighe’s eyes, his hands fluttering. He might have been trying to push the beast away, but the only action he was managing was to slap weakly against its underbelly, where its many legs fluttered. Tighe moved his eyes a little and saw the enormous jaws close in the mess of blood that was the side of Ravielre’s head. Ravielre’s whole body jerked and twisted and then went stiff.

The smaller claw-caterpil curled and straightened like a finger, and then it lunged out at Tighe. Tighe strained backwards, trying to push himself away from the thing, with Ati beneath him howling and screaming. The beast paused, curled back round and latched on to Ravielre’s exposed midriff. It scraped at Ravielre’s belly, raising blood, and then gouged in.

Ravielre was still staring, unblinking, straight at Tighe and Ati. Tighe met his gaze again, and was held by the intensity of the look.

It was a physical effort to break the connection of eye to eye.

‘Come,’ Tighe said, gaspingly. He struggled upright, and tried to haul Ati upright too.

Another claw-caterpil was crawling down a trunk of meshwood in the direction of the feast.

‘We have to go now,’ said Tighe urgently. ‘We have to go now.’

‘Ravielre,’ said Ati, weakly. The colour had vanished from his face, and his lips were almost white.

‘We cannot help him,’ said Tighe. ‘We need to go. They smelt his blood. We’re not bleeding, so they will not smell our blood.’

Ati looked at him.

‘I’m bleeding,’ he said. ‘I’m bleeding, look.’

He used his good hand to hold up his numb one; it was cut deeply across the palm and blood was coming out.

Tighe looked deeply into Ati’s eyes. Ati’s head was trembling with pain and terror.

‘We must go anyway,’ said Tighe. ‘Come.’

They backed away from the tangle of claw-caterpils, Ravielre’s eyes following them the whole way. As the two of them retreated Ravielre swivelled his eyes to follow them. His body was entirely motionless now, stiff and straight. The smaller claw-caterpil had buried his jaws and eyes in a hole at Ravielre’s stomach. The skin around the wound was clean and torn; it looked like ripped cloth. The larger claw-caterpil lay alongside him like a shadow, its head almost exactly the same size as Ravielre’s, its jaws moving in a steady rhythm excavating the space.

‘Come,’ said Tighe, breaking the tether of Ravielre’s gaze by purposefully looking away. ‘This way.’

They started along the trunk and Tighe made the jump to a second. Ati followed, but cried out with pain on landing. ‘My shoulder!’ he called. ‘The pain is too much.’

‘You
must come
along,’ said Tighe. ‘Come now.’

‘You don’t know what it’s like,’ complained Ati, sobbing. ‘You don’t know what the
pain
is like.’

‘Come
now
,’ shouted Tighe. ‘There’s no time – think of the claw-caterpils.’

This was the wrong thing to say. Ati started shivering, a series of spluttering moans coming out of his mouth. Tighe gripped his good shoulder and hauled him onwards by sheer strength. Ati resisted every step.

Tighe was reaching out to grasp another branch of meshwood tree when he put his hand on something dry and squelchy. He whipped his hand back with a scream, pushing Ati backwards. Ati started screaming too. The two of them collapsed against the wall at the base of a tree trunk.

But it was only a grey-worm. It poked its stupid pin-eyed head round the branch to look at them.

Ati was screaming with enormous gusto. Tighe knew how he felt; the shock had been so terrible. Except that Ati was overdoing it a little. He was howling like a baby.

Tighe tried to calm him. ‘It’s only a fat-worm,’ he said. ‘Ati! Ati!’ He was having to shout, to be heard over Ati’s howling. ‘Ati, be quiet, it’s only a fat-worm, it’s harmless, it’s harmless. Ati!’

He gripped the sides of Ati’s head, and fixed his eyes upon the other boy’s, trying to will him not to panic, to calm himself, to stop screaming. ‘Ati,’ he said.

Ati stared back at him, screaming and screaming. He twisted his body, so that his limp hand dangled a little before him. Tighe looked down. A claw-caterpil had fastened on to the hand.

Tighe couldn’t control his first reaction, which was to let go of Ati and back away. Then he rebuked himself with a yell and launched back towards his friend. The claw-caterpil had fixed itself on Ati’s wrist with two crop-haired forelegs and its relentless jaws were chewing at Ati’s hand. Tighe watched as a finger loosened from the hand and dropped away.

Tighe grabbed Ati round the shoulders, so that the terrified boy’s screams howled directly into his ear. He put his own shoulder to the wall to balance himself and started kicking out with his good foot. He landed several blows against the beast’s back. It continued chewing placidly. Ati’s hand was a stump now, like a bloodied fist that was too small for the arm to which it was attached.

‘Get away with you,’ howled Tighe in his native tongue, ecstatic with fear and rage. ‘Foulness, foulness – get away, away!’

A second claw-caterpil head appeared over the rim of the meshwood trunk. Then a third.

Ati had screamed himself hoarse and was now breathing heavily and hard. Tighe shifted himself and let go his hold of Ati, thinking to free both his hands and find some weapon against the creatures. But Ati reached round with his good hand and gripped him, his face close to Tighe’s.

‘Don’t leave me,’ he rasped, straight into Tighe’s ear. ‘Don’t leave me like we left Ravielre. Please.’

‘Ati,’ barked Tighe, feeling sick and uncomfortable, feeling the fear chewing him, his mind racing. ‘Ati,’ he said again, when what he meant was,
Don’t distract me, I’m trying to think what to do
. But there was another part of him that thought,
I’m not bleeding as you are, I can get away even though you can’t
.

He shouted again, trying to drown out that voice inside him. They were close to the wall and Tighe pulled a wedge of turf from behind him. He stuffed the clump of soil and grass directly into the path of the first claw-caterpil’s jaws.

‘Don’t leave me,’ whimpered Ati. ‘Please don’t leave me.’

The other two claw-caterpils were clambering up the long body of the first one, their jaws clicking like scissors.

Ati hauled another lump of wall-turf free and rammed it between the jaws of the first monster. Its chewing clogged for an instant on the stodge of earth and grass-roots and Tighe gave a frantic kick with his right leg. The claw-caterpil slid backwards a little way. A second kick and, with its two snaky wriggling fellows, it toppled away and down.

Tighe hauled Ati up, reaching for a branch above their head. ‘Help me, Ati,’ he said. ‘Reach up with your good hand!’

But Ati had passed out.

Tighe was expecting a swarm of wriggling claw-caterpils to come out of
the foliage all around him at any moment. ‘Wake up, Ati!’ he called. ‘Wake up!’ He dropped Ati back to the trunk, his back against the wall. What to do?

‘Ati,’ he said, pleading, begging. On instinct he reached out and slapped Ati’s face, but that had no effect.

With a desperate malice, he grabbed Ati’s hurt arm, thinking that the pain might startle him awake. He even jostled it and it moved loosely within its sleeve. There was an audible click and it went stiffer in the joint. But Ati was still unconscious.

There was a rustling below him. Peering over the ledge of the tree, Tighe saw a terror of claw-caterpils, half a dozen or maybe more, twisting and wriggling along the lower branches and through the foliage. Their mouth parts were all snapping together. They could smell Ati’s blood. Tighe knew it; he could almost see it in their actions. They were smelling Ati’s blood.

Tighe was away, scrabbling up to the next meshwood tree before he even knew what he was doing. One step up and a handhold within easy reach to the next one, but he looked down. Ati looked calm, as if asleep; only the mess that had been his hand spoiled the picture.
Don’t leave me, like we left Ravielre
. Tighe shuddered. He was crying, the sobs so sudden and hard they felt like hiccoughs. He could not grip the branch tightly enough because his hand was trembling so much.

He looked up at the climb ahead of him; then he looked back down at Ati.

He jumped, landing on his bad foot which punched pain up through his leg. But there was no time for that. He backed against Ati, reaching round to draw the unconscious boy’s two limps arms forward and round his neck. Then he stood up, with Ati a limp backpack, and started forward. He could only hobble; the pressure on his bad foot was almost unbearable.

He could not climb with this weight on his back and it took both his hands to grip Ati’s arms and stop him falling back. Below to the right of the trunk was swarming with claw-caterpils. Below to the left there were more, but there was nothing else to be done.

Tighe leapt down, hoping for a good foothold. He landed on the back of one of the claw-caterpils, a large one; the bony plates on its back provided surprisingly good purchase. It whipped its head round and snapped its jaws, slicing through Tighe’s trouser-leg and scratching against his calf. But Tighe was away, leaping down to the next trunk, and down again to the next one.

Each leap was a terrifying tumble through space; he could easily have missed his footing, particularly with the added burden of Ati on his back. He had to land on his good foot, or he would have crumpled over. And without his hands free he could not steady himself. Stride followed stride
until his foot slipped and he slammed down painfully across the trunk. Somehow he managed to keep Ati on his back and with an enormous heave he deposited him over the body of the trunk.

It took him a while to calm his desperate sobbing, and his head twitched back and forth, checking every tremble of leaves for an emerging claw-caterpil. But he also knew that they couldn’t stay where they were. The monsters would come sooner or later. They were probably coming now.

‘No,’ he moaned to himself. ‘No.’

He could hear water shuddering through leaves a little way below him, and after checking his way carefully he dropped down and swigged a draft from the cold spring. Then, filling his mouth, he clambered back up and spat the stuff all over Ati’s face.

‘Wake up, Ati,’ he pleaded. ‘Wake up.’ He started rubbing Ati’s face, chafing the forehead, the cheeks. Ati’s eyes flickered and opened.

‘We cannot stay here,’ he said.

‘Oh,’ said Ati. ‘Oh, oh. My arm hurts. My shoulder and my hand.’ But he was at least moving his hand now, waving the wine-red stump in front of him. He started crying. ‘Look at my hand!’ he said, through chokes. ‘Look at it! Oh, it hurts.’

‘We have to go now,’ said Tighe. ‘Use your left hand to help you climb. All right, Ati?’

Ati’s crumpled face uncreased, and he looked straight at Tighe with an innocent openness. ‘Your face looks funny,’ he said in a childish voice. ‘Have you been crying?’

‘Yes Ati,’ said Tighe. ‘I have been crying.’

Ati nodded. ‘What about Ravielre?’ he asked. Then his face creased up again and the tears started. ‘Ravielre’s dead,’ he said with a strained voice, crying freely. ‘We’ll all die.’