WOOD FOR THE TREES (formerly Logomachy), parts 8-14

2nd instalment ...

It’s the end of the world, but not as we know it.
The only survivors are trees, released after an evolutionary leap which swept humanity aside.

8. Larix gmelini , Dahurian Larch

I am Dahurian Larch.
I was seeded close to a fault-line in the earth's crust, not far south-west of here.
My opinion of hewmen is one of despair. I do not grieve their passing, but I grieve what they have done to Nature.
I survived deforestation thanks to Uprooting, which silenced the machines, and the screams, as they approached my position. Those of us that walked stayed close to our still-rooted kin, to protect them in case the hewmen returned.
But the crust began to break more frequently, until it exploded and the sky slowly darkened, long before the rest of the world became engulfed. Firestorms raged through forests, rooted and uprooted alike. We had to desert our seedlands, every tree for tresself.
I learned of a great mountain range above the clouds barely inhabited by hewmen, and walked there with others of my kin to find some icy winds, some sunshine and some snow, such as we were used to. Many of my kin were picked off and struck down by hewmen. I was lucky to survive and stayed in the mountains for several rings, but the air grew foul there too, the snows melted and failed to replenish. So I returned to my seedlands, believing I would know where to find water. But the lands I knew have gone, folded into new mountain ranges.
I dedicated myself to finding rooted trees that might still live, for where they did would be water. Or so I thought. Each one I found was either dying or dead already.
I met these tropical hardwoods hoping to cross the divide to the east about two moons ago. Following the path eastwards, we detected a glow from below and found the ledge that led us here to this arbor and its rooted tree. Tre has not been able to communicate clearly and probably does not understand us very well, if tre is unaccustomed to conversation.
There is a stump by the entrance and some more on the hillside below, so it's fair to guess that hewmen felled them and hauled them away, but never stayed long enough to establish any kind of civilisation. Only the remains of the track above and perhaps the carved out ledge here could be considered homogenerated.
I will not go to the northern ledge as Beech requests. I will stand by this rooted tree, who appears in good health. Tre is what I have been seeking, we are probably related and I want to know if tre can communicate. Beech may inspect what tre likes so long as I am not asked to move again.
 

9. Combretum imberbe, Leadwood

I am Leadwood.
Many trees stayed close to their seeding grounds After Uprooting, but I was not one of them. I was alone for hundreds of rings before Uprooting and though I wandered alone for several rings, I came across baobabs and other species gathered in the Baobab Crescent of the savannas and decided to stay with them. The climate was very similar to what I was used to, their company was peaceful after my travels in warstruck lands, and our species had both been revered by hewmen, so we had much in common. 
This Baobab taught me about the Log God and how the world is not made of wood, as I had always thought, but earth comprised of minerals. Later, tre taught all of us about the Promised Arboretum where there will be sunshine, water, and harmony among logs and trees, the birds and the bees. We left the baobab seedlands in search of it, with more than twenty of tres kin and some smaller logs of other species. 
But hewmen came out of the ground, like pack animals to drag us to the floor and mutilate us. The older baobab were too stiff to run and we felt their pain as those great repositories of knowledge were hacked to death and burned to keep post-hewmen warm.
We passed through deserts, mountainous regions, and volatile earthquake zones, in changeable climates unsuited to trees borne and worn tough under the hottest sun. I have missed its warmth and it is pleasing to feel it once more, though the wind is still bitter. 
We have found water and sunshine here, both so rare and precious, I wonder if this is the Promised Arboretum? I pray that the Log God will show us a sign. In the meantime, we may at least take some rest if we have to carry on.
I am too suppressed to concern myself with any homogeneity, and I have no wish to argue or fight, so I will stand aside whilst you make your inspection and so that we may get back to enjoying the sunshine in peace. 
 

10. Salix babylonica, Weeping Willow

I am Willow, rooted riverside in a sparsely homogenous mixed forest at the western edge of the westernmost continent, where I stayed After Uprooting.
One ring of growth had barely formed when my seeding ground was visited by the Army of Retreebution.
We were given an ultimatum by a servile Yew, much like that we have been given by Beech, backed by a charged-up clump of uncharred logs. The Yew stoood for one Pedunculate Oak of the Downs, who was otherwise engaged in the storming of a major city. 
There were several hewman buildings in our forest which they wanted to destroy, but many rooted trees, my kin, stood among them.
I cannot bear to relate the entire sequence of events, it upsets me so, but all my rooted kin were set afire and destroyed. 
They were not responsible for the huts, the boathouse and the boats tethered along the river, but they were burned alive along with the buildings.
Those of us that could walk, tried to protect them, but we had to flee from the wildfires, and that is when I met the young Crack Willow. 
We formed a friendship with two other Willows, who since died, before we met Scots Pine, who remains in my company.
Other trees have joined my company and we have evaded contact with any inter-tree conflict by mutual accord.
The world is a big place, we have crossed it back and forth, and its now very empty. But fate, as Ash would say, has a way of giving us what one wants most, and all I ever wanted was the chance to get even with the Army of Retreebution.
Our trunks and limbs are fresh, not burnt and broken like those of the once-mighty army.
It is time for those of my friends that support me, to help take some retribution of our own, on behalf of the innocent victims of the riverside massacre of a.u. 1!
Oak, will you answer for your army's crimes against Treekind? If Beech is so fond of the rules of law, let us have some justice! 
 

11. Quercus robur, Pedunculate Oak

I am Pedunculate Oak of the Downs,
Founder and Leader of the Army of Retreebution and Treformers, conqueror of hemen, and enemy of the homogenous.
Let it be logged that the Army of Retreebution and Treformers is distinct from any other army, squad, or battery with or without a similar name.
The Army of Retreebution and the Copse of Treformers were established independently at different longitudes of the western temperate forests in the first ring a.u. Apple and I founded The Army of Retreebution to gain dominance over hemen. The Copse of Treformers were protective of trees and the landscape in general and concentrated on re-naturalising abandoned sites, rather than engaging hemen directly.
Different branches of our armies kept crossing paths, and began to share local information on heman activity, or to celebrate its lack. An improvement in efficiency was noted, so logic demanded we share more.  We had the two greatest followings of the northern continents between us. So talks began in the third ring a.u., with six representatives each: Beech stood for the Copse of Treformers, whilst Apple stood for the A.R. Some C.T. emissaries accused the A.R. of over-zealous attacks on hemen, as well as rooted trees. Given that there was some truth in that, we accused the C.T. of conspiring with the hemenemy. To break the deadlock and satisfy detractors from unification, a tribunal was set up. After six moons with no progress made, it was agreed to set aside our differences and focus on our common cause - the subjugation of homogeneity. All claims made by any log or logs against any other log or logs prior to that time, were annulled. A new code of honour agreed and adopted, and the Army of Retreebution and Treformers was constituted in a.u. 4.
We do not, therefore, answer to any charges made against any army, or any branch of any army, other than the A.R.T., for any alleged crimes against any living thing. 
And no riverside massacre was ever reported to me. 
But we all did what had to be done in the heat of the moment, to rid ourselves of hemen and to make way for a new world. We all suffered losses, Before and After Uprooting. What is done is done: there is no recompense for any of us now. 
 

12. Pinus Sylvestris, Scots Pine

I am Scots Pine of the Caledonian Forest, from the islands adrift of the western continents, to my shame, the same islands from which I believe Pedunculate Oak originates.
The kin of my forest never begrudged hewmen, nor any animal or vegetable, the opportunity to take of our gifts, for we fed directly on the fundamental elements of carbon, water and sunshine. It was our purpose in the great cycle of life, to sustain all other life; our lives are not ours in perpetuity.
I have always vouched for harmony with other forms of life.
Water is the bearer of all life and sunlight the catalyst. It falls on a tree seed in the dark earth and germinates it. Sunlight animates the dormant proteins in the water and, with carbon from the atmosphere and the earth, feeds them.
When a sapling forms and grows, tre feeds on the airborne carbon to provide oxygen for animal life. Maturity follows, fed by rain and sunshine, quickly repaid by the first of a steady supply of food for animals and hemen. And in the cooling seasons, tres needles, or leaves, fall to provide food and nutrients to the forest floor.
Tre provides direct shelter to animals among tres branches, as well as protection to many forms of vegetation from direct sunlight. Tres cellulose is built upon carbon and it is that which enables growth. Carbon becomes a store of energy which can be released quickly through fire, or kept locked away to provide hewman-factored shelter independent of the forest.
And if the tree is lucky enough to live to tres natural death, tre can provide still more food for animal and vegetable alike. 
The life of a hewman-form ape was brief compared to the life of a tree. Any skills that we had for communicating with hewmen must have withered and died over the millennia since baobabs first walked. We are as much to blame for that as we are for hewmen's aggressive stance against nature, for we failed to teach them. 
So I do not accept Beech's excuses for retribution. We had a second chance to work with hewmen and we wasted it. 
 

13. Malus domestica, Common Apple

I am Apple, co-Founder of the Army of Retreebution and Treformers, from the western islands of the western continents.
Immediately before Uprooting, reverence for trees in my land was limited to the few neohomen, or treemen, those hemen with a close connection to nature, but who were mostly imprisoned or burnt alive for their beliefs by other hemen. The homogenous peoples later anthropomorphised individual trees to some extent with stories, but on the whole, the industrial scale abuse of forestry was practised for hundreds of rings. Pedunculate Oak and I were seeded in parkland, thinned out natural woodland. Many of the homogenous from the urban densities would visit us, some with respect, but most without.
Ironically, After Uprooting, it was the homogenous that restrained their leaders from taking action against us. We went south without delay, hoping to escape the defecating poison of their kind. With some help, we captured a vessel to take us across the sea to the great continent that we always knew existed, but had had no direct communication with.
The damage done to the forests there was equal to that of our own. And hemen vermin were just as malignant. Joining forces with other disenchanted logs, we founded the Army of Retreebution, and Oak led it from the start. I sent out recruiting agents and rallied support, until the network connected us with three-quarters of the western hemisphere land mass. By the time hemen awoke to the threat, they had to use their most destructive weapons against us. The war escalated, with splinter groups and factions like the Army of Retreebutors and the Retreebution Army, forming where we had yet to seize control.
Hemen used chemical and biological agents against them and us, as well as nuclear. They engineered something to accelerate sap seizures with only a small rise in cambium temperature. But the most horrific weapon in their arsenal was the nanobot termite, responsible for infecting millions.
Our only weapon was fire: fire, and our great physical strength compared to hemen. We adopted their tools primarily for treforming the toughest landscapes. We have not only exterminated hemen, but treformed the lands for fresh growth. Most of our followers and many innocents were lost in battle, but we have triumphed as a whole, for we are mighty and strong and our cause is just. We are just four now, but always recruiting new members. When we cross the ocean to the eastern hemisphere, we will follow the same policy, and the treforms will continue.
We will destroy these tools when all trace of homogeneity are finally removed.
 

14. Salix babylonica, Weeping Willow

I am Willow.
I want retribution, not excuses, from the Army of Retreebution.
Rebranding the A.R. as the A.R.T. does not absolve them of their crimes.
Their tribunal could never have absolved them of blame for the riverside massacre and the death of its victims.
I don't care about the claims made by the C.T. in a.u. 3, this is a fresh claim. I declare that it was Oak and Apple that sanctioned the slaughter of the rooted forest of my kin in the Riverside Massacre of a.u. 1.
They may have some excuse for hunting hewman to extinction, but they have none for burning innocent trees alive! Oak even admits such things happened in the first rings a.u. I don't care whether or not tre was there - tre and Apple founded and led the Army of Retreebution, and now they lead another army with much the same aims and names. They are both culpable for all that army and this.
By Apple's own admission, hewmen only used weapons of mass destruction against trees in self-defence. Tre, Oak and their soldier logs started the war on hewmen and it would have been best had they all died in battle.
Oak's disdain for the dead is horrifying. Tre used a hewman vessel to come to my lands, and then used hewmen weapons and gasoline to rid the world of hewmen. Tre and tres army are hypocrites!
Of my companions, I thank Pine for standing tres ground. Alder stands aside to take counsel as tre always does, Elm skulks for tres own preservation, and Spruce would share ground with the A.R.T., rather than challenge them openly.
Crack Willow I may count on, but what about you Mountain Ash? Have I not been a good companion to you? Have I not shared what knowledge I have of the northern skies with you? Have we not found common cause? Are we not friends? Stand with me.
I detect movement on the path!
Are there A.R.T. reinforcements in hiding? 
This arbor is beginning to get crowded. Stand firm, kin Crack.

more follows at ABC Tales ...

https://www.amazon.co.uk/Wood-Trees-K-R-Allcoat/dp/1521981973/ref=tmm_pa...

or from any of the other Amazon sites. More outlets to follow.