Chapter 7
CHAPTER SEVEN
We’d been walking downhill for several miles, the forest now eerily quiet, the creatures which had been chittering and scampering through its boughs notably absent in this part of the woods.
An uneasiness crept along my spine, the sensation only growing more potent with each step we took.
Brian was whistling to himself utterly out of tune, the sound grating on my last nerve.
I hadn’t slept well that first night or the three following it.
Whispers of my past kept rousing me since my talk with Colton, and between the cold and the hardness of the floor, I’d spent a long time staring up at the wooden beams above my bed, waiting for dawn to free us.
Today, we’d chosen to venture deeper into the trees and abandon the tavern in favour of finding a new place to shelter once dark approached.
I couldn’t deny the nerves which twisted in my gut at the uncertainty in that decision, but we’d made no progress in the woods surrounding the tavern and had no choice but to widen our hunting ground.
A lot of the food I’d brought with me had been lost when my pack had torn when I’d been dragged into these cursed woods and my stomach growled hungrily in protest to the meagre breakfast I’d afforded myself.
The Champions may have been willing to share in each other’s company but none of them shared supplies or provisions with one another.
They certainly wouldn’t be offering any to me.
I knew well enough how to forage for food, how to tell poison from sustenance, but that was out there. In here, I wasn’t inclined to trust the plump blackberries I spied at the edge of our trail nor the wild mushrooms which appeared so innocently recognisable.
This place was a curse in itself. But I knew hunger would drive me to eat from it sooner or later. I couldn’t survive forty days in here without turning to the bounty of the forest for nourishment. I just wasn’t going to take that risk until my other options were all spent.
Our group of seven seemed in lower spirits than the previous days. Perhaps the reality of so much death and corruption had caught up to us at last. Either way, we made for a sullen and silent pack of hunters.
More than once, a whisper urged me to step from the path the group trod, the trees twisting and leaning aside to present a trail for me to take a chance on.
I slowed at each offering, a vibrant stillness falling over me as I stared at the passages through the greenery, the sweet scent of a summer’s breeze urging me to take a fateful step.
But each time, I lifted my chin and turned away from the passage the forest presented me with.
I wouldn’t soon forget what had happened to Emmy and Tyson when they’d been tempted by these malevolent trees.
The sun passed overhead, its passage only marked by the direction the light spilled down to us from above, beams of sunlight punching holes in the otherwise impenetrable blanket of greenery.
There was no glimpse of the sky to be had down here.
Only green and brown and the endless stirring of the leaves.
I tried to think over all of the tales I’d studied about the Great Hunt, the forest, the spirits.
It didn’t seem right for us to be aimlessly wandering through these trees in our search.
Were we truly just supposed to hope that we stumbled across each of the spirits?
Yes, it seemed as though that had happened with the Raven, but had that simply been chance?
Didn’t there have to be some method to finding them?
Some rhyme or reason to their individual locations?
The Carp at least would have to be located in water. But aside from gurgling brooks and narrow streams, we’d come across nothing of a size capable of housing a powerful spirit such as it.
There was a puzzle here which tugged at the corners of my mind. Something we weren’t seeing. Some way in which we were failing at this game despite having barely begun.
“Look,” Esther hissed in a low voice which carried over our baleful silence.
We all stilled, moving closer to her where she stood at the base of one of the towering trees, its trunk at least ten paces wide.
Esther pointed and I couldn’t help the sharp breath I sucked in as I noticed what she had spotted.
Several feet above our heads a body was bound to the tree. No…not bound. The longer I looked, the harder it was to tear my gaze away. The man, whose features were rough and frozen in a look of agony, had been consumed by the bark itself.
His legs and feet were little more than uneven lumps on the roughness of the tree’s skin, but his chest and arms still protruded enough to hold their shape. One hand was yet to be claimed, the pale skin of his fingers tangled in lichen, reaching out towards us.
“You? Beware the slither of its belly,” he croaked, and I nearly fell back on my ass as I lurched away from him in horror.
Esther cursed colourfully and Colton drew his sword.
“What manner of beast are you?” Colton demanded, pointing the tip of his blade at the jagged bark coating the man’s chest.
“His ears,” I breathed, blinking to try and un-see it, but there was no denying the slight point at their tip. “He’s Fae.”
The rest of the Champions drew their weapons too, muttering curses and spitting on the ground.
“Do it,” the Fae rasped, his eyes pleading as he looked to the sharp tip of Colton’s blade like it was his salvation in the offering.
Colton hesitated, though I could see how tempted he was to comply.
The Fae were no friends to us. They hid behind their walls and scoffed when the Hollows came for us.
Not to mention what they’d done to Rissa, to my family, to so many innocents, all in the name of protecting their own.
We were the sacrifice they were willing to make and nothing more to them.
I stooped and marked an X in the soil at my feet before straightening again and taking a measured step forward.
“Answer our questions and we will reward you with death for them,” I said, my voice coming out far braver than I felt.
“Fuck that,” Helga growled. “Run him through or I will. The word of any Fae is worth shit to me.”
Colton seemed inclined to agree, but I placed my hand on his elbow to halt his advance, giving him a stern look.
“We’ve been wandering aimlessly through these trees for days. There’s something here we’re missing. We need all the help we can get if we want to end this curse. Just let me-”
“Why are we wasting time listening to the one person here who holds no authority at all?” Gunther demanded loudly, and someone gripped my shoulder, wrenching me backwards.
“Wait!” I protested, shoving Damon away from me as I fought against everyone’s arrogance, but it was to no avail.
Gunther swung his sword and severed the Fae’s head from his shoulders with a solid smack.
The head didn’t fall though, the bark in its hair still holding it to the tree, the wild eyes of the Fae who had been consumed by it flying wide in a look of ecstasy as if death was the one and only thing he had ever desired.
Rage consumed me as I began to yell at Gunther for being a pig-headed fool, but my voice was drowned out as the Fae male suddenly screamed.
The sound which poured from him defied all reason, scattering my thoughts as it tore into my skull with sharp claws and tried to pluck the pieces of me asunder.
Gunther still grasped the hilt of his sword where it had embedded itself in the bark of the tree, but he was screaming too, throwing his weight backwards and heaving on the blade like his life depended on freeing it from the roughened bark.
I backed away, hands clasped over my ears while Gunther screamed and screamed. And that was when I saw the reason for his continued wails: the bark had crept over his boots and crawled along the length of his sword to capture his hands in it too.
“Help me!” he bellowed while the Fae still wailed with a noise that rattled the trees and awoke every beast and spirit for miles, beckoning them to this feast of fear.
Daniel lunged for Gunther, wrapping his arms around his waist as he tried to haul him free of the tree. I yelled a warning at him which went unheard beneath the volume of the screams.
The bark came for him too, his shrieks of horror tangling with the song of dread that shook the branches all around us.
“We can’t stay here!“ I yelled, backing away, knowing it meant abandoning the two Champions to their fate. But the forest had already claimed them. Inch by inch, the bark encased more of their flesh and hauled them towards the hulking body of that giant tree.
I could feel the desperate hunger of this place, the cloying scent of magic heavy in the air, iron and soot souring my tongue. It was too late for them. I knew it like I knew my own name, like the trees were whispering that truth directly into my veins and pumping it through my body.
The Fae’s screams turned manic, his wild eyes meeting with mine in accusation, and I shook my head against the judgement he was passing on my soul. I had no part in his fate. I refused his condemnation.
Helga, Esther and Brian broke for the trees, sprinting away without a backwards glance, Damon yelling at them to wait for him as he broke into pursuit.
I backed away from the screaming men, apologies tumbling from my lips as their fate closed in on them without mercy.
My back struck a hard body and I turned, finding Colton with his sword still in hand, indecision lining his strong features.
“They’ll become just like that Fae!“ he shouted over the screams that almost deafened us. “They’ll be left here to suffer in the grip of the trees for the rest of time.”
I hadn’t been certain if the Fae was still suffering his fate due to the longevity of his kind’s lives, but with a sword cleanly severing his throat and his screams still ringing out endlessly, I had to agree with Colton.
Whatever dark power had captured him, it relished in his agony, it kept him here to suffer at its will, and both Daniel and Gunther were headed toward the same fate.
I took my slingshot from my belt and loaded a stone into the hold.
I’d never so much as shot a flea with it, had never wanted to use it to cause death.
But that was the only hope of mercy I could offer the Champions now.
Perhaps if death took them before the tree fully took root, they’d be able to escape into it.
I drew my slingshot taut and fired.
Gunther’s head snapped back as my stone struck him in the temple. He slumped to the ground soundlessly, his cries for release answered.
Daniel met my gaze as I loaded my next shot, tears tracking down his cheeks and a single word forming on his lips even though I couldn’t hear it over the screams of the Fae bound by that tree.
Please.
I gave him his wish in the next heartbeat, my pulse falling still as the weight of what I’d done struck me just like that stone. I’d killed him. I’d killed them both. For mercy or not, my hands were now stained with blood.
My horror had no time to hold me though, because even as the burn of that reality settled over me, the screams of the Fae turned wild with rage and a blast of energy exploded from the tree which held him.
It struck us like a force of wind, hurling us from our feet and into the trees, leaves and vines whipping at our skin as we were thrown away at great speed.
I hit the ground with a thump that echoed through my bones, pain exploding through my body as I rolled over in the dirt and spat leaves out of my mouth.
My limbs trembled at the shock of what I’d done, a breath catching in my throat and tears burning the backs of my eyes.
It was mercy. I repeated that truth to myself again and again until the words tumbled together and spilled from my lips – although most of them got lost along the way and only one spun itself free of my tongue.
“Mercy, mercy, mercy…”
A sob racked my chest, the scent of iron and soot clinging to me like a second skin, electricity dancing in the air itself like the magic of this place was reaching out for me, its power roaming over my body in gentle, frantic exploration.
I couldn’t stay here. We needed to run; I needed to get up.
With a shuddering breath, I managed to force my eyes open again, my pleas for deliverance falling silent, though my tears still burned a heated path down my cheeks.
I had to move. I had to find Colton.
I exhaled harshly, forcing the memory of Daniel and Gunther’s deaths from my mind.
But if I’d thought the forest was done with me there, then I’d have been a fool, because as I pushed to my hands and knees with thorns digging into my palms and mud staining the tattered hem of my dress, a low and menacing growl let me know that I was not alone and this place had only just begun to break me.