Alora looked to the horizon, where a sunlit green plain at the edge of Anerock merged into the darkness of the Damzuari Woods. Trees with healthy brown trunks, and branches abundant with verdants leafs started the forest, innocent and inviting. Over the line of their lush peaks though, the forest ascended, growing thicker and wilder. Focusing her eyes to the distance, she could even see where the green gradually darken into a red, like a pool of blood seeping into the woods.
"The Blood Woods, where the Vineclaw, leader of the Eastern Tribe, resides, and where we are head." She said and pointed to Kaido and Sir. Joreh, the Paladin Roxwell sent with her. He had swarthy skin, thick, dark curls, and a square, bearded chin. Like all Paladins, he was built with muscle to support his black-plated, bronze-fringed armor. An Ebonsteel shield was strapped to his back, and a black sword to match scabbarded at his hip.
"Are you certain leaving the horses behind was wise? The town is not too far, we can still go back and get them." Sir. Joreh said.
"I am sure, the journey through the woods will be hard enough without the clumsiness of horses." She had mentioned it before, that's why the soldiers with them were footmen and archers. They were well trained and equipped, but meager at the number of two dozen. Roxwell may have given her more, but she was keen to get there faster than a larger force would.
"How long will it take to get there?"
"Another week if you follow my lead, if you don't, only Damuzar knows." Alora said, irked by how often the Paladin doubted her. Joreh scratched his beard and nodded, then went to exchange a couple words with the sergeant.
Kaido stood beside her, wind pushing his loose shirt against his muscular frame, brushing the black strands of hair from his face. He gazed to the forest, and she wondered how far he could see, enhanced with the dose of blood she gave him this morning.
"What should we expect, traveling through these woods?" He asked.
"What should you expect?" Alora looked to the woods, and smiled. One might've been bitter if he knew what's ahead, but she wasn't. The Damuzari Woods were her home. "Anything."
-
Starting in the Damuzari Woods, Kaido saw the soldier's anxiety. Their hands stayed close to their weapons, eyes shifting, searching. Strange stories of the forest must have dripped in their ears ever since they were children. In all of Aros, it was common belief that any man to stray in just a little too deep will never return. At least not the same as he was.
At first, the trees were real gentlemen. They parted a broad path between their deep brown trunks, cast a pleasant shade with a ceiling of flourishing branches, and coated the earth with grass so soft it just invited the next step. Some were fooled into a sigh of relief, but Kaido knew better, seeing how Alora pointed her gaze ahead.
Soon, the trees grew bigger and meaner, as they taught them trees could be. The roots bulged out, the branches swooped low, and vines lounged on them like snakes, tangling the way. As the soldiers lifted branches, staggered at roots, and cut angrily at vines, Alora glided through. She was gait as smooth as a feline's, ducking beneath and skipping over obstacles without even noticing.
Kaido watched her, her rounded backside clenching firm in her trousers, her slender hands spreading for balance, and her silver hair spilling behind her, silken and lustrous. He also liked when she turned to direct them, voice clear on lush pink lips, and eyes confident in verdant radiance.
Guilt tugged at him, trying to remind him of Siera. Under the blood trance, it was easy to shrug it off. Siera's spiteful words, icy eyes and sanguinary, naked body will return to haunt him once it fades.
A mossy vine, thick as a man's arm, swayed before him. Odd, Alora didn't touch it as she passed. Kaido stopped, and glued his eyes to the vine. It snapped towards him, its length rippling as its end lurched for Kaido's face. Soaring through the air, it gaped a maw with a sharp pair of pricks, curved as the fangs of a snake, and two slits opened as eyes, glowing green.
He threw himself aside, and heard a wooden slam as the maw clamped shut over his shoulder. The vine lashed against its momentum, lurching towards his back. Kaido whipped his blade out of the scabbard as he turned, an extension to the upward swing of the blood-enhanced arm, slicing off the snake-like head.
Outcries rose all around. Kaido glanced to the soldier beside him just as a snakevine's maw snapped shut on his head. The fangs fractured in the skull, and Kaido winced as the vine yanked, throwing the man off his feet, headfirst into the ground.
"Close a circle, back to back, don't let them separate you!" Alora shouted like a true commander. Kaido backpedaled into position when another snakevine coiled tight before him, preparing.
He waited still, knuckles white around the hilt of his sword. Then the snakevine uncoiled into a lunge, stretching for his face. Kaido thrust out his blade, sliding between the creature's fangs, and into the depth of its open maw. The snakevine swallowed almost a handspan of steel before the glow fainted from its eyes.
Kaido fell in the circle with the others, Sir Joreh at his side.
"Rise shields, they aim for the head and the neck!" The Paladin ordered, and swung his Ebonsteel shield before him, bashing against a snake-vine. His black sword came next, shearing the vine's headed portion clean off.
This Ebonsteel sure holds an edge. Kaido mused, then was jumped by two more snakevines, their maws gaping for his skull. Time seemed to slow through blood-enhanced vision. He descended his sword through the head of the first, ducked beneath the second, and decapitated it with a slash from below.
The soldier beside him dropped with a scream. A snake-vine caved the man's greave in its maw, and dragged him out of the circle. Kaido leapt from his position, but a second snakevine reached the soldier before him. It sunk its fangs in his gullet, writhed, and ripped it out of his neck.
"Velsair's cock." Kaido cursed, and stepped back in the circle. Dozens over dozens of snakevines slipped from the trees, surrounding them with hungry eyes. It looked like their next assault was going to be coordinated.
"Velsair's cock." Despite his belief in the One True God, Sir. Joreh had to agree. Kaido clutched on his sword with both hands and angled it before him. He searched the snakevines with darting eyes, waiting for the slightest movement.
Instead, Kaido noticed verdant tendrils, swirling and caressing the snakevines with translucent glow. They shifted away from tendrils, some shying away warily, and others snapping their fangs in the air. More tendrils appeared, their verdant glow blazing, gliding in spirals around the snakes, inspiring their animal fear.
Puzzled, Kaido shot a look back, and found Alora at the center of their circle. Her eyes were closed and her hands raised before her. She rotated her wrists, and tugged with her fingers in fluent, entrancing motions. Then she opened her eyes, their glow burning like green fire, and clenched her fists.
Kaido swung his gaze back around and saw the verdant tendrils absorbing into snakevines. All at once, the snakes fell into docility, unwinding across the trees. Their maws slacked shut, and their eyes flickered, glow fading. Once again, they looked like harmless vines, slung from the trees.
Alora breathed out, drained.
"What, by the One True God, were those things?" Sir. Joreh snapped her an accusing look.
"Isn't that obvious?" She asked in return, a slight smile curling her lip. "Snakevines."
Kaido laughed, then he remembered the soldiers were preparing to bury their two fallen comrades.
Well, He thought then, blood-trance chilling the furnace of old rage. At least they get to do so.
-
The soldiers were professional. Even in the root wired ground, they buried their dead with speed. As the little light the sun managed to slip in the forest began to dim, the men got out their torches. Alora stopped them.
"You'd have a better chance spotting predators getting your eyes used to the dark." She said.
"Shouldn't fire repel predators?" Sir. Joreh asked.
"Some of them. But these we can handle, it's the predators fire might attract..." Alora hesitated, the soldiers were shaken already, there was no need to nourish the seeds of their fear. "The best remain unattracted."
"You can't expect us to stagger around in the dark!" The sergeant barged in, his eyes hard, and gauntlets soiled with dirt and blood."You may feel at home here, elf, but we had seen what kind of dangers this forest holds."
"She will lead us to our deaths, blind and stupid!" A soldier stormed up to them from the recent graves, throwing a hand in the air.
"If you haven't noticed that she had just saved your lives, you already are blind and stupid." Kaido said. He sat against a nearby tree, smoking a cigarette and working a grindstone across his blade, scraping the dried sap off its edges. Alora smiled, it was nice to have his wit on her side, for once.
An argument broke between the soldiers, some claiming they should light torches, and others that they should follow her instructions. A clear command from their superior would've solved the issue, but Sir. Joreh stood aside, doubtful.
Irritation crawled under her skin, precious time was being wasted. Then she saw it, the solution to their troubles, blooming at the end of a flowery vine, as if the forest itself was trying to shut them up. She stepped over and reached out. Her fingertips brushed soft petals, found the solid, viridescent gleam between them, and she plucked it out. A shard slid out of the flower, clear as a crystal, with a tint of green.
"Gentleman," Alora cleared her throat, gaining their attention. "I believe there's a compromise at hand."
She held out the shard, and released an abrupt course of power through it. A verdant combustion struck within the shard, and it came alight, casting out soft green light thrice as far as a torch would have.
"Leafgem." Alora said. "Not only it lights the way, it also tends to have a soothing effect on the forest."
With that, the soldiers were satisfied, the ones who supported Alora in the first place a little more smug than the rest. They bunched together as they continued their journey, making the most of the Leaf-gem's illumination. A couple hours of walking went by peacefully, perhaps thanks to the soothing green light.
Alora stopped, and the soldiers did the same at the raise of her hand, reaching for their weapons. Silhouettes emerged from the shadows of the trees. She recognized the sound of stretching bowstrings, drawn in the silence around them.
"Don't bother to draw arms," One of the silhouettes stepped forward, standing tall right outside of the green light's reach. He had a deep voice, and the Velsarian was clumsy on his tongue, thick with an elven accent. "We have you surrounded."
"Wait," Said another voice, feminine, with a hiss like a viper's, and words of the elven tongue. "A Leafgem lights their way, only a Feral could ignite one."
"A Feral that forfeited his life, in his choice to lead Velsarians into our woods." Answered the deeper voice, also, in elven.
"What are they saying?" Sir. Joreh snarled beside her, gripping hard onto his sword. She signaled him patience, and spoke in Velsarian so the men could understand.
"I am Alora, daughter of chieftain Silverthorn, leader of the Western Tribes. These men are the Bladeweaver's, sent in the sake of his alliance with the Tribes."
Laughter rolled from the tall silhouette, its echo rich, dark as the night around them, and oddly familiar. "But the Western Tribes are no longer, Alora, and the Bladeweaver had proven himself a most incompetent alley as he stood idle by their slaughter. Perhaps you've come to believe the Velsarians' side shall fare better in the upcoming war?"
Shock struck Alora, and white-hot fury sizzled in its wake. This elf dismissed the death of her family and accused her for betrayal, all on the edge of a good laugh? She glanced at Kaido beside her. He had that almost smile twisted onto his lips, and she knew the ache for blood in his intent gaze.
His eyes shifted to hers, questioning, fingertips brushing the hilt of his sword as if it was the skin of a lover.
Alora counted over a dozen shadows, and there were probably twice as many, hidden up the trees.
The first volley of arrows will take half their men down, but perhaps they could take on the rest. She doubted they had a Feral on par with her, and there wasn't a chance they had themselves a Kaido Blackrose.
Blood could flow for that insult - the choice was whole hers. The words for Sir. Joreh was already on her tongue when she suppressed her anger. She felt sick for it, as if she had swallowed a mouthful of poison she was about to spit.
"The one whose tongue wiggles like a headless worm," Alora said, voice hot and sharp as a blade fresh out of the forge. "Identify yourself."
Again, laughter, a tone of it pricking at Alora's memory, and the tall silhouette stepped forward, shedding the shadows. He was built a predator, with lithe waist, broad shoulders, and long, agile limbs, all corded and wrapped in thick slabs of muscles. Green light spilled on his purple skin, covered less by clothes, and more by scars and ink. It blackened his flesh over taut sinews and pulsing veins, drawing dozens of runes that resembled claws.
"I am offended, Alora," He said, and his next step put his face in the light. "Have you forgotten me so soon?"
She knew him alright. The dusky hair slung in a loose tail over his shoulder, the ears long and pointed as blades, the slate green haze to his eyes, and the fine bones of his cheeks and jaw pressed tight to his skin. He was Asair Vineclaw, firstborn of Chieftain Vineclaw, peerless amongst hunters, heir to leadership of the Eastern Tribes.
Her former lover.