Arjana and Oja could not stop Uma from proceeding to the Banjaran Mountains. She would have made the journey alone, even without them.
As they climbed the steep recesses of the mountain, it got colder. The air got thinner. Then they caught the foul smell of a rotten carcass, it smelled like something huge. As they moved nearer, they found the dead body of a Giant trapped in a poacher's net. A female, a mother. Parts of her body had decomposed to the bones. There were spears and arrows in her back and signs of a fierce battle surrounding the area, many trees were fallen and many footprints on the ground.
"Who would hunt for a Giant?" Uma asked, standing in front of the Giant's head. The head alone, lying on its side, was taller than Uma.
"The Shadow Kingdom," Arjana answered. "The Shamans used to eat them. They believed that the meat has regenerative qualities."
"There is a child." Oja pointed to a small set of footprints on the ground. "The Giant's young." The footprints trailed into the forest, leading to the south. "The Mother was trying to protect her child."
Arjana did not want to explain further the horror of the scene, so they kept moving.
As they reached the edge of the Dark Forest, the blackened leaves moved in rhythm, as though inviting them in. Arjana entered the cursed forest with a heavy heart. They searched the forest for a few hours, looking for a hidden cave under a giant tree. Even the eagle could not find it. The Dark Forest led them round and round, and they would always end up back at the same place.
They decided to camp in the middle of the Dark Forest that night. Arjana set up a campfire. He looked into the flames and memories flashed through his mind. He had hunted in the Banjaran but had never gone into the Dark Forest. He knew it was cursed. "Banjaran Mountains is a treacherous place. It was where the Shamans first practiced their dark arts. It was where the Shamans went mad."
"Derhagga and his cohorts hid in the mountains and practiced their dark arts on the creatures of the forest, turning them into all kinds of perversions," he added.
Uma couldn't sleep that night. She decided to position herself up in a tree to stand guard. But as she tried to keep her eyes opened, her mind slipped to half asleep.
Then she heard a low growl in the background.
She turned to see a strange shadow that moved on all fours and didn't seem to have a head. As it moved out from the shadows and turned, Uma realized that it was hiding its head between its four legs, like a hunched giant rat. It growled and moved out from the shadows one step at a time, with human fingers and sharp claws in its forearms and rat-like hindlegs. It slowly unfurled itself and lifted its head, revealing a human face with giant rat-ears. The sigbin gave out a strange cry, as though it was in deep pain.
It took a few steps out from the shadows within the branches then lunged. Uma turned and ran as fast as she could but realized that her speed was no match to the sigbin's, which ran on all fours with its head hunched and tucked in between its running legs. Uma jumped and ran vertical up the main tree-trunk. The sigbin ran up the trunk on its hindlegs just as easily. She ran further up the tree but the sigbin caught up and was just inches away from her.
As it swiped its razor-sharp claws, Uma drew her daggers and fought it but nearly had the daggers swiped away from her hand. She kicked the beast in the face, then blocked the claws coming up for her. She leaped across to the other tree and ran on the branch toward the trunk. When she reached higher up, she leaped to another tree. As she leaped from tree to tree, she tried to make the distance further, hoping that the sigbin would not be able to make the leap.
But the beast took one leap and landed on the trunk above Uma.
It crawled down and roared at her, revealing all its sharp teeth. It lunged at Uma and she stabbed at the neck and pushed away its biting mouth. The sigbin held onto her as it fell off the tree. She got caught in a roll with the beast's body. Dazed and disoriented, the sigbin bit her ankle and dragged her on the ground across the forest as the tree canopies passed above her. Before long, she was being dragged into a giant tree.
The sigbin itself was wounded and bleeding and she pulled the dagger from her waist as slowly as she could. Then she made a sudden move and made another stab on the sigbin's wounded neck. The Sigbin gave out a loud scream, like a rat in sharp pain. Uma stabbed it again and again until the monster stopped moving.
She took a glimpse at the face, it had dead human eyes.
There were torches bolted to the cave wall, but they were unlit. She knew she'd found the entrance. The Cave. The hidden cave inside the giant tree. After making sure that the sigbin was dead, she entered the cave, finding it was covered with bones. Then she heard shouting. It came from the mountainside, so she climbed up and scanned the area. The voices were calling her name and she looked out to see Arjana and Oja. She flagged them over to the entrance of the cave, which they looked at in astonishment.
"I'm surprised that you found this," Arjana said.
"That thing dragged me in here." Uma pointed at the dead sigbin.
"It's one of the cursed creatures I was telling you about. It was once human," Arjana explained. "The Shamans cursed every living thing in this forest."
Uma looked at Oja.
"Well, let's see where this leads to," Arjana said as he took out one of the torches and struck flint over it.
"This has to be it," Oja said. "It's a great place to hide."
"There is only one way to find out," Arjana said as he walked deeper into the cave.