Chapter 7
Chapter Seven
Brannoch Forest
Mayhem & the Road to Wedderlie
The forest erupted around them.
Dar pulled Elara hard by the arm, dragging her where the trees grew the thickest as the first thunder of hooves shattered the air. Shouts followed, harsh and commanding, the sound of Hunters closing fast.
Branches tore at her cloak. Mud splashed beneath her boots. The world narrowed to breath and pounding heartbeats and behind them, the women screamed.
Elara twisted, catching a glimpse of the frightened group of women scattering, their gray cloaks blurring into mist. The lass, no older than eight, tripped on a root and went down hard.
Elara tore free of Dar’s grip.
“Elara!” he shouted, his voice lost to the roar of hooves.
She reached the lass and got her to her feet with a quick tug. “You need to hide.” Stumbling toward a tangle of brambles thick as walls, she pushed the girl beneath them, heedless of the thorns that scratched at her hands. “Stay quiet. Don’t move.”
The lass’s wide eyes filled with tears, but she didn’t speak. She nodded once before curling into the hollow darkness.
A sound split the air, the heavy snap of reins, then the guttural call of a Hunter urging his mount.
Elara didn’t stop to see how close they might be, she kept running.
The ground turned uneven, roots and fallen branches snagging at her boots.
Yet she avoided them easily, as if the terrain was familiar to her.
Somewhere to the right, riders cut through the trees, their dark cloaks flashing like ravens’ wings.
“Elara!” Dar’s shout came from behind her, distant, broken by the crashing of brush.
She turned once, just once, and saw him. Then the mist rolled between them like a living thing. She went to call out to him, then locked her mouth tight. She would not have the Hunters hear her.
The forest closed in, silence returning as suddenly as the chaos had begun.
Elara stopped, chest heaving, straining to hear. Only the fading echo of hooves and the distant call of a Hunter lingered.
Suddenly, the trees around her faded, her vision blurred, and light flared behind her eyes. Shadows moved where there were none, flashes of dark hoods, horses snorting, and a hand clamping around her wrist like an iron shackle.
Unsteady, she reached out and was relieved when her palm felt the bark of a tree. The vision faded. But the fear it left did not. A tremor ran through her, and she swallowed hard. Was it a warning? Or had the vision shown what waited for her, a glimpse of her own capture?
She pressed a trembling hand to her throat, forcing herself to breathe, and whispered, “Nay. Not yet.”
Elara drew in the scent of moss and damp earth, listening. The mist thickened around her, curling low and silver across the ground. It moved with purpose, winding between trunks, veiling shapes and sound alike.
Though danger could lurk in the forest, she always felt safe among the towering pines and generous oaks. To her, they were guardians, protectors of those who dwelled in the forest.
She pressed her brow to the bark. “I need your help. Please protect me.”
The fog swirled around her, shielding her, and with a fortified breath, she moved carefully through it. A strange stillness hummed around her. Somewhere ahead, she heard faint sobs and worried it was one of the women, lost or hurt.
Elara walked cautiously toward the sound. The fog faded just enough for her to spot two of the older healers huddled together, terror stark on their faces. The mist shrouded her approach, muffling her steps.
“Shhh…quiet,” she murmured, leaning over them. “Follow me.”
They obeyed without question.
Elara led them through the thickest fog, toward a cluster of fallen trees covered in ivy. The trunks formed a low, hollowed shelter. “In there. Stay until the forest clears. Don’t answer any call but mine.”
One of the women caught her hand. “Bless you, lass.”
“Thank the forest, it helps,” she whispered.
A distant pounding of a drum split the air. The Hunters were near again, voices carried on the wind, sharp commands and the jingle of bridles.
Elara pressed a finger to her lips. “Not a sound.”
The women vanished into the hollow. Elara stepped back into the mist, her heartbeat matching the rhythm of the drumbeats she swore she could hear moving somewhere far off, steady, cold, and relentless.
The mist kept her cloaked as she moved to see if any others needed her help.
The forest had swallowed her whole.
One moment Elara was there, the flash of her cloak, the glint of her silver hair, and the next she was gone, lost to the sudden, rolling mist that coiled thick between the trees.
“Bloody hell,” Dar hissed under his breath.
“Halt there!” the shout came.
“Bloody hell,” he hissed again.
“Make yourself known,” the Hunter ordered.
Dar turned as another Hunter appeared.
His eyes turned wide as they met Dar’s and he hurriedly turned away. “He’s a wanderer, no use to us. We got two more women. We are done here. Time to move on.”
Dar watched them ride off until the pounding of the horses’ hooves faded.
He crouched, scanning the ground, his fingers brushing through wet leaves and scattered prints, and sniffing the air to see what scent he could pick up, anxious to find what Elara left behind.
He found her light footprints, as if she had skipped along the ground barely leaving a mark.
The fog suddenly crept in heavily across the soil, smothering the forest floor.
“Elara,” he called, firmly, but heard nothing in return.
The forest was silent, eerily so. He cursed again, quieter this time, his jaw tensing.
He wasn’t a man who lost things. Not a quarry, not a trail.
But he sensed a strangeness in the forest he’d never felt before.
He couldn’t say what it was and yet he could feel it.
The mist didn’t just hide the women… it guarded them.
He straightened slowly, eyes narrowing trying to see through the mist.
For the first time since he’d met Elara, unease slipped beneath his practiced calm. She wasn’t helpless, that much he’d already learned, but the thought of her alone, exposed to danger, unnerved him.
He started forward, every sense alert. Twice he thought he saw her, the shadow of movement between trees, a broken branch as if snapped by someone rushing past it, but when he reached for it to see if even a tiny shred of cloth clung to it, the mist swallowed it whole.
“Blast it, woman,” he muttered. “Where in the nine hells did you go?”
The only response was a raven’s cry.
“You’ll not stop me from finding her,” Dar muttered to the fog as if it were his foe and started walking. “I intend to see her safe.”
The fog began to dissipate as he walked and while he did not think his words were powerful enough to frighten off the fog, he did wonder over it. Some of Rathmor had once been part of Driochmor, the forbidden land, and many believed dark magic remained embedded in its roots, its soil.
It took a while, but he spotted her once the fog had faded enough for him to peer through it. She was helping two old women crawl out of the hollow of a fallen tree covered in ivy.
Dar approached, saying, “Has anyone been harmed?”
The two elderly women shook their heads, one speaking up, “We’re safe, thanks to Elara.”
“We must get the lass. She hides as well,” Elara said and turned, hurrying off, leaving Dar to help the elderly women.
Elara crouched down and peered in the hollow. “It is safe. You can come out.”
“Are you sure?” the lass asked, a tremor in her voice.
“It’s safe,” Dar confirmed, leaving the two elderly women to lean against each other as he joined Elara. “I heard two Hunters say they were finished here. It was time to move on.”
The young lass ran to the two older women, and they hugged her close.
“What of the others?” one of the old women asked.
“We’re here,” a voice called out, and two more women emerged from the woods.
“Two were captured,” Dar said, “or so I heard the Hunter say.”
The woman who recognized Elara huddled together with the other woman, tears pooling in their eyes.
One woman spoke the concern of them all. “What now?”
“With the Hunter saying they were finished here, I doubt they will return to Rathmor again,” Elara said. “At least for now.”
“You mean they will keep returning until the healer they search for is found,” one woman said what all thought.
“And if she is nothing more than a myth,” another woman asked.
“We all suffer,” an elderly woman said, her wrinkled cheeks wet with tears.
“The healer the king looks for shouldn’t hide. She should go to him,” the young lass said as if the solution was simple.
“It is not that simple, Cara,” one woman said.
“Why not?” Cara asked, scrunching her nose confused. “Healers heal. Healers help. Healers do not let anyone suffer.” Her young eyes spread wide. “Maybe she doesn’t know. We need to find her and tell her.”
The women stood silent, the solution sounding so simple and yet…
Cara turned to Elara. “You are brave. You can find her.”
“That is a good idea, Cara,” Elara said, making it seem that she placated the young lass. “I will search for this healer the king wishes to meet.”
Cara’s pretty but dirt-smudged face lit with a smile. “You will find her. I know you will and then all will be well.”
If only life could be as simple as a child sees it, Elara thought and the soft smiles on the women’s faces told her that they thought much the same.
“I will do my best,” Elara said.
The women lingered only long enough to thank Elara again before slipping back toward the village path. Their voices faded into the hush of the forest that was once again coming to life. Birds twittered, animals scurried, a soft wind poked at the branches and rustled the leaves of the many trees.
Once the last gray cloak disappeared. She turned to Dar and announced as she walked, “We go to Wedderlie.”