The Supreme Warrior *2014 ABNA Contest 2nd Round*

CHAPTER 9.4: Into the Forest

Cal woke early the next morning. He lay in the middle of his companions, who sprawled with lethargic stupor caused by their drinking the night before. Captain Naedros seemed to take sadistic pleasure in their sluggishness and prodded them to move faster.

Groaning, the men lined up for their morning meal. Many still had mead in their cups from last night’s revelry; these lucky fellows drained the last drops in hopes that the drink would warm their morning. The merchant apprentices chirped with annoying cheer, laughing at the sluggish guardsmen as they secured the wagons for the day’s travel.

The caravan broke camp. The guardsmen grimly tried to appear as if their party the night before had left them unaffected. The motley assortment of men-at-arms lurched onto the road, the bright sunlight assailing their bleary minds.

As the caravan drew near forest, the terrain roughened. The land rose and fell in erratic jags. The road narrowed until the wagons traveled in a single file. The caravan strung out, now covering over six score yards from front to rear. The Mahdiren Wood loomed before them.

For a long while, the guardsmen paid no attention to the road ahead. They immersed themselves in the struggle to walk without clanking their armor (to spare their hung-over heads). As the caravan drew close to the forest, the guardsmen belatedly noticed the immense towers of living wood that soared above them, obliterating the sun. The men fell silent. The wind whipping through the dark leaves grew into an ominous roar. The men no longer felt as if they had mastered the world around them. Subdued, the caravan crept into the wood, as quiet as blasphemers snatching victuals from the banquet of the gods.

Inside the forest, the trees enveloped the caravan, consuming the sounds created by their passing. Immense dark elenium trees stood on either side of the road, each bearing canopies of deep green leaves. The highway was nothing more than a thin stream of civilization holding back the living land.

Rotting trunks lay fallen on the ground, conquered by the eleniam that still stood. Mounds of dead leaves choked the ground. Here and there, small green plants shot up in defiance of the underbrush, soaking up rebellious sunbeams that penetrated the forest canopy.

Timorous birds called out from their hiding places in the leaves, seeking others of their kind. Insects scraped their wings, adding an eerie chorus. The men spoke loudly among themselves. Their voices drowned out shrill cries from the creatures that surrounded them, allowing them to delude themselves that—for a time—they still inhabited the world of men. Their foolishness was nothing but false armor upon nature’s battlefield.

To shake off the gloom, Cal struck up a conversation with the black-haired guardsman. “Aubert, have you ever been in this wood before?”

“No, lad. ’Tis the first time the Trader’s been this way.”

“Have you heard much about it?”

“Aye. Some tell tales ’bout it. They sez that there are elfs that walk the woods at night, telln’ the trees how to grow and teachn’ em how to chase off human folk.”

“But, I hear there are men that live here.”

“Aye laddie, that there are. And bandits too. Me brother’s been through ‘ere once, and has two fewer fingers to show fer it. He says all them elf stories are hogwash. ‘Worry ’bout them that swing steel at you and ferget ’bout them other stories’, he told me.”

After a while, the guardsmen lost their apprehension of the oppressive forest that surrounded them, and remembered they were hung over and tired. No one bothered to survey their surroundings; the aches that came from the long march preoccupied them. The caravan made no more than miles on that day before the Trader called a halt.