Welcome to installment #8 of my fantasy piece, The Forest Lord. Enjoy your read!
*
The group found a relatively safe place
and set up camp for the night, posting regular watches. In the morning they
rose and continued moving further into the Adintana Forest toward the location
where Smoke assured T’Riss the first of the thirteen murders took place.
As they traveled deeper into the forest,
the foliage never thickened, but the level of light remained a steady low
twilight. Ilztafay pranced nervously among the Mechans, tossing her cherry
mane. Zak kept one hand on the horse’s neck and glanced up at the canopy of
leafy branches above them.
“That makes no sense.”
T’Riss halted the column and turned back
to gaze at his mate. “Speak.”
“The sun is shining up above the trees,
but down here its gloaming.” Zak twisted around on Ilztafay’s back as if
searching for something. “It’s almost like… Yes! There!”
Zak dismounted and cautiously approached a
large mangrove tree that was half-dead. A glyph dominated the smooth trunk of
the wilting, dying tree, though whether it had been carved or burned into the
original tender living flesh Zak couldn’t tell. A raw wound, the glyph radiated
evil and malice.
“It’s definitely magical.” Closing his
eyes Zak whispered a quick spell to identify the glyph. “And it’s causing the
darkness, but I’m not getting any else.” He spun on his heel and came face to
face with Iym. Her ruby eyes flashed as she met his gaze.
“It emanates malevolence.”
“Have you ever seen anything like this
before?” Zak’s thin black brows drew together as he frowned at Iym, concentration
sharpening his small face.
“I’ve studied a great many runes and
glyphs, but I don’t remember that one.”
“And the humans thought this was one of
our symbols?” Zak directed his question over to Smoke. The human gunfighter had
put a fair amount of distance between himself and the decaying mangrove tree.
“Yep.” Smoke looked very uncomfortable.
“I can assure you it is not.” Iym drew her
hood closer about her face.
When Zak reached out as if to touch his
fingers to the scarred tree, Ilztafay snorted and whinnied, the sound ripping
through the air. She pawed at the ground and danced sideways, nervous and
clearly agitated. Her burgundy fur stood up in roughened tufts, white flecks of
saliva appearing at the edges of her mouth. Her distress was so obvious Zak
immediately returned to her side.
Sliding his arms around her thickly
muscled neck he embraced her, murmuring softly. His voice rose and fell in the
musical language of the wild elves. Zak expected the cadence to soothe his horse.
Instead she grew increasingly more distraught, fidgeting and struggling against
his hold to move away from everyone, off the path and deeper into the forest.
“What’s wrong with her?” Kala held her
scimitar in one hand, her face pinched as she stared at Ilztafay.
“I’m not sure.” Zak continued to pet,
stroke, and cuddle the animal. The others examined the glyph and the withering
mangrove tree. “This is the kind of thing she usually only does when she’s terrified,”
“Do your best controlling her,” T’Riss
said. “We need to move on.”
Zak
nodded, and after one last quick look in the direction of the unknown glyph, he
hopped up onto Ilztafay’s back. She shuddered under him, huddling like a child
who believed closing her eyes would prevent the monsters from seeing her.
As the group continued on toward the site
of the first murder, Iym pointed out several other trees in the distance, all
of which bore marks identical to the first tree. The strange shadow glyph, for
they had no other name to use for the pictograph, had been burned into each tree
at approximately the same height. Like the very first mangrove tree afflicted,
each and every other tree similarly marked was diminished, its life force
dwindling away.
At what would’ve been late afternoon if
they could’ve told based on the sun, Smoke led the party over a small hillock
and across a shallow stream. When they reached the other side, he plunged them
through multiflora rose bushes thick with brambles to emerge into a moderate
clearing.
“It happened – Holy shit…” Smoke’s breath
left on a whistled exhalation. Ilztafay screamed and bolted, taking Zak with
her. The war mage held on as his horse fled at a flat gallop.
The entire clearing was dead.
Every tree, flower, plant, leaf, thorn and
blade of grass had turned black and was rotting away, Jhul, who had been
exceptionally quiet all day as she nursed a headache from the treant battle
gasped, choking on her own breath. Iym prayed fervently aloud in an effort to
provide some kind of comfort, but there was little to be had. Whoever or
whatever they faced had turned an entire clearing into nothing more than putrefied
blackened mulch.
*
This picture was the inspiration for the Adintana Forest. I know, I know... it's as mysterious as it is sinister and I for one would want to walk through it. I'm funny like that.
Also, I've been playing around with my blog design. I'm taking part in a couple Blog Hops and wanted the site to have a new look. Let me know if anything looks off. Or, you know, if the new eye candy strikes a yummy note.
Thanks so much for reading! Comments are, as always, craved and appreciated.
Follow all your favorites and read the first 100 words on the group’s website:
Also, I've been playing around with my blog design. I'm taking part in a couple Blog Hops and wanted the site to have a new look. Let me know if anything looks off. Or, you know, if the new eye candy strikes a yummy note.
Thanks so much for reading! Comments are, as always, craved and appreciated.
Be Sure To Check Out The Other Stories:
Follow all your favorites and read the first 100 words on the group’s website:
Have an awesome weekend ~ Tux
My Beloved King,
ReplyDeleteMy imagination created very fascinating yet a little disturbing images and general dark atmosphere, trying to process the update and shaped in my head what you described. I really liked dets about Ilztafay. Her noises and prancing around added a lot of anxiety vibes into the chapter. I’m not sure if I can describe it like that, but as always, I hope you do understand my Engrish somehow :).
Speaking of Ilztafay, she was an absolutely amazing accent in the whole scene in the forest. I mean, on aesthetic level – everything was drown in twilight, everything I imagined was painted in dark, grim shades of grey, dirty green, brown, and blue. Around was dancing a lot of blackness too, of course, and there, in the center, was her bright cherry mane, almost glowing among shadowy colors around. Beautiful! And very well-thought-out from artistic point of view and considering meaning of red too. I’m curious if your readers tell you how much they love your plastic dets often – I mean, details that you deftly leave for us on different levels of reading a text – not only hints connected with plot/your characters, but also small details that stimulate our imagination on strictly artistic/plastic level. Personally, I love how you put “little somethings” on both plot and aesthetic levels, because those are two different things, yet harmonize with each other in your stories. So do your fan tell you often about colors or I’m a weirdo? Lol.
The glyph skyrockets my curiosity because if Iym that I see as a well-educated and experienced priestesses doesn’t know it, it may mean that the villain will be even more interesting and powerful than I originally thought. Which, obviously, excites me to no end! And I can’t stop thinking about the fact that glyphs were burned into each tree at approximately the same height. Hmm, I don’t even know why it bothers me that much, but I guess it’s a bit unusual information in general description of surroundings – seems like the one that you would give us for a reason. Even tho I have no idea what it means yet.
Thank you a lot for another delicious piece of your writing <3
I’m waiting on pins and needles for the next update!
Lots of love
Iza