Eternal Forest: Savage Rising (2 page)

             
Boom!

             
The near-deafening crack of an explosion came from the distant north to Zehlyr’s right, but the rush that followed it came from the south. An invisible wall of force struck his side, causing him to lose balance and topple into the muddy brush. He dropped his knife as he fell, avoiding landing upon the blade only by Lady’s grace.

             
A quick but high whimper from the wolves was all he heard before they were toss through the air like pebbles thrown into Cloud Lake. For a moment, the air was filled with leaves, suddenly ripped from their branches as though autumn demanded an early entrance and summer had been given no warning. Zehlyr heard a thud and a crack as a wolf was flung against the side of a nearby tree, its spine breaking like a twig. Just as quickly as the strange and disorienting phenomenon began, it was over.

             
Bruised and out of breath, Zehlyr lifted up onto his elbows. He had no idea what to make of this. The trees around him were ripped bare. Some of the weaker, younger trees were uprooted and tossed away as the wolves had been. A quick check revealed that even he’d been tossed a good distance from where he originally stood. Silently he thanked the Lady that he hadn’t struck a tree as the wolf had. That was twice in a matter of moments now that he had cheated death.

             
Regaining his strength, Zehlyr returned to a standing position and glanced around the area. The wolves were gone and so was a great deal of the foliage. It was all so confusing. The force struck him from the south, but he’d clearly heard the explosion echoing from the north. Zehlyr was no tracker, but he could easily point out the direction of such a loud noise. It was like a thunderclap let loose from the ground.

             
His first instinct was run back home as fast as his legs could carry him. However, another feeling washed over him in the aftermath of his escape from death. So much of this situation was so unimaginable, so unexplainable. If the force had taken the wolves out of his path, surely any other predator in the area was either dead or fleeing.

The woods were clear, and his curious desire for answers was overwhelming his senses. Against all sound logic and instinct, Zehlyr retrieved his blade from the mud and headed through the Savage Lands towards the north. There was a strange sense
of wonder flowing through him that he hadn’t felt in years.

He had no doubt Cherin had heard the explosion, possibly even felt it, and would be worrying where he was. Nevertheless, he decided to push on. He would let Cherin worry. After how much mistreatment he’d suffered from his older brother, Cherin deserved to sit and fret about his safety for an hour or two. Perhaps it would teach him to appreciate his little brother.

Chapter 2

             
The wilds of the Savage Lands became stranger as Zehlyr continued northward through the trees. The mysterious explosion had truly taken its toll in this area, and the closer he got to the source of the blast, the worse things got. Half a mile from where he’d started, bare limbs became broken limbs. Those eventually gave way to split trunks and then, finally, toppled trees. The once mighty oaks, pines, and elms all lay on their sides, their roots ripped from the mud like tiny weeds pulled from a garden. The smells of tree sap and fresh earth filled the air.

             
Even more surreal than the devastation was the eerie order to it all. The fallen trees were all facing the same direction. The timbers lay in a perfect order with their tops all pointing towards a single spot. Nothing about this made any sense to Zehlyr. It was as if a stone had been thrown into Cloud Lake, but the ripples created had rolled in from the shore to the point of impact. Each new discovery added more fuel to the curiosity burning inside of him.

             
All fear had been pushed aside in his mind. There were too many questions to keep him from seeking the center of the phenomena. Of course, curiosity didn’t override his good sense. He was heading into the biggest unknown he’d ever experienced, and he was doing so greatly unequipped.

             
Zehlyr came upon the uprooted base of a once mighty oak. Dirt-covered roots crisscrossed into the air well above his head. Whatever force had the energy to pull these centuries-old trunks from the earth was truly beyond comprehension. There was no doubt in his mind that this wouldn’t remain just an issue for the humans of Meadowgold. No, this would certainly be discussed at the Tri-Leaf Council three moons from now. All tribes of the Lands of Order would be involved in the investigation of this, and he would be the first to lay eyes on it.

             
He looked towards the sky and walked along the fallen trunk of the tree. High above his head, a long branch extended out from the wind-ripped bark. Like all the others, its leaves were stripped bare. Several smaller twigs extended out from the main branch, but it looked to be roughly as tall as he was and straight as an arrow. If he could cut it off and remove the twigs, the end could be sharpened into a sturdy spear. His mind recalled how poorly matched he was against the wolves with just his little hunting knife. A spear would give him a weapon that could strike from a distance, and obtaining one would be well worth the effort.

             
Reaching for the lower branches of the fallen oak, Zehlyr began to climb up and around the trunk. He couldn’t help but imagine how useful all of this timber could be for his village. With such an expansion of land suddenly cleared by…whatever it was that had happened, Meadowgold could possibly expand northward. After all, the Savage Lands would be much less savage if they were no longer wild.

             
Zehlyr hoisted himself up from the last branch and stood on top of the fallen tree. The curved and uneven surface beneath his feat was easier to walk on than he expected, but he still took each step with great caution. Eventually, he made it to his prize and began to hack away at the base with his knife. After a few good whacks and a shower of pale-brown splinters, the branch was free from the trunk.

             
He broke a few of the smaller twigs away as he returned to his feet, but he stood this time facing the north and the journey still to take. The sight from this higher vantage point gave him pause. There were hundreds more trees, just like the one he stood upon, all of them lying on their sides and angled towards a single point, and they continued all around him in an enormous circle. The lack of foliage above left the blue of the afternoon sky clearly visible.

             
Pausing to take in the spectacle of it all, Zehlyr noticed the bark on the tops of the trees was mostly intact, whereas the sides were either shredded or bare. No impact had been made to push these trees over, the evidence made that clear. These trees had not been pushed, but rather pulled. Each discovery only yielded him more questions, fueling a greater sense in him to push on towards his answers.

             
He made quick work of his new weapon. With the twigs stripped away, he whittled off the bark until only a smooth rod of wood remained. He fashioned the smaller end into a sharp tip, patting his finger against it lightly to check its lethality. An uncomfortable twinge shooting through his finger confirmed the success of his craftsmanship.

             
For a moment, Zehlyr considered climbing back down and resuming his trek through the soft mud. However, the trees here were larger and had fallen much closer together, making it very likely that they would soon be overtop one another and leave no room to move between them. He glanced over at the next tree to his right. It was smaller, but with far fewer branches and not very far away. He could make the jump and then run north along the trunk to the next one. It seemed a much swifter way of making his journey with the best visibility possible.

             
It also seemed like more fun.

             
With a running leap and a childish smile, Zehlyr soared through the air and landed on the next fallen tree. His feet pivoted as soon as he landed, pointing him northward, and allowing him to bound away down the bark-covered wood. Only minutes ago, he had accepted his inevitable death. Now he was alive, full of curiosity, and off on an adventure he’d never expected when setting out that morning to watch the sheep and read his book.

             
Like a child at play, Zehlyr dashed down the fallen trunks, leaping from one tree to the next as he neared closer and closer to the center of the unnatural circle. He lost his footing only once, forcing him to reach out and grasp a nearby branch so as not to fall and become wedged between two trunks.

The moment gave him pause. Perhaps he shouldn’t move quite so fast. After all, there was no one to save him out here should something happen. Cherin was certainly well out of earshot by now. He wondered just how worried his older brother was, but not enough to feel sorry for him.

              He continued on, this time a bit slower and with more caution in his steps, but the journey soon reached its end. Suddenly finding himself with no more trees to jump to, Zehlyr reached the center of the phenomena.

Only here had the trees been pushed away from the center, leaving a wide, deep pit of dirt and debris.  Whatever strange event had occurred here, it had violently uprooted all that grew in this spot and left a deep crater in its wake. The soil had been upended and the plant life lay scattered about in a furious frenzy, but that wasn’t the only thing lying on the ground with deathly stillness.

              Even before Zehlyr hopped down from the fallen trees and into the pit, he had seen the bodies. They were human in shape, but each was completely covered in a large, red cloak hiding all of their features. The carcasses were sprawled out in a large circle around the outskirts of the pit, just ahead of where the fallen trees touched the ground. The way the cloaks clung to the bodies cast an impression of how each had fallen. Many were on their back. Some were on their side with heads turned away. One was flat on its back, but a thick mound of uprooted shrubbery lay next to its face, hiding its features. In all, he counted roughly fifteen bodies in the clearing wreckage.

             
Zehlyr held his makeshift spear out in front of him. His steps were slow and deliberate, each making a deep indentation in the soft, disturbed soil. He didn’t know what to expect when he reached the center of the center of the blast, but it certainly wasn’t this. He had no idea who these people were, or whether or not they were actually people. They certainly weren’t dwarves, elves, or centaurs; that much he could tell. He figured they must be human, but they seemed much larger than most humans did.

             
Cautiously, he approached the nearest body. His spear slowly lowered, the tip pointing towards the corpse as if it might suddenly return to life and attack him. There was no movement from beneath the dirt-covered red cloak, no signs of stirring or even breathing. Instinct told him to run away, but he’d come too far not to get the answers he craved. His trembling hand lowered down towards the corpse and gripped it by the shoulder. Its back was turned to him and it was curled up in the fetal position. Zehlyr took a deep breath and tugged, causing the body to roll onto its back and the hood to fall away from its face.

             
Zehlyr stumbled backward, landing on his behind with an uncomfortable thud. He dropped his spear, freeing his hands to let him scurry away from the body as fast as he could. It was a balisekt. He’d never seen one in person, but the features were unmistakable from the stories he’d heard all his life. It was human in shape, but significantly larger. Its body was covered in small, green scales. It had an elongated snout and large, reptilian eyes. Rows of long and narrow teeth filled its mouth and a forked tongue lay motionless between them. Its hands sported long, bony fingers, each with a claw as long as a small knife.

             
Zehlyr scrambled back to his feet, but his legs shook nearly too hard to hold him up. His breaths were fast and heavy and a cold sweat ran down his brow. What were the balisekts doing here? Why were they all wearing strange, red robes? The balisekts were a savage tribe that survived by scavenging and killing. They lived crudely in the Savage Lands with no clothing or possessions to speak of unless they were stolen from the Lands of Order.

             
The arrangement of these bodies, coupled with the fine—though now greatly soiled—robes suggested these creatures had been taking part in some strange manner of ritual. None of this made any sense. What had they been doing? Had it brought about the terrible force that destroyed more than a square mile of forest? The elves and the faeries had priests and priestesses that claimed to have magical powers, bestowed upon them by the Great Lady of the Forest. His fellow humans had even begun to delve into practices of Lady Worship ever since the Great Blight, but this was something far greater than anything he’d heard of before.

             
Zehlyr’s eyes scanned the fallen trees as he moved cautiously around the clearing. These balisekts were long dead, but that was no guarantee that more weren’t lurking in the wreckage. The forest was always full of noises, but never before had they all sounded so hostile, so sinister. The tales said balisekts spoke in hisses and clicks, and every sound in Zehlyr’s ears sounded exactly as such, at least to him.

             
He reached down into the mud to retrieve his spear, but his head was light from stress and the sudden shift caused him to lose his balance. Before his fingers could grasp the whittled wood, Zehlyr tumbled backwards down into the pit. Mud caked his clothes; small rocks tore at his flesh. End over end the young human tumbled before finally coming to a stop at the lowest point.

             
Zehlyr lifted his weary head off the ground and spat out a nauseating mouthful of mud. He rolled from his back to his side. Every muscle in his body ached, his head was pounding, and his heart was beating hard enough to hurt his ribs. Lying broken and beaten by an enemy as simple as gravity, he questioned the sanity of venturing into the woods alone. Could curiosity really have clouded his senses this much?

             
He rose to his feet again to begin the trek back to level ground, but he wasn’t able to make it one step. His foot caught something on the ground before his eyes could see it, sending him falling flat on his face. He groaned as he lifted his upper body out of the mud. His eyes looked back for the object that had sent him tumbling. It was then he noticed a human hand sticking out of the mud.

             
Discovering one of his own in need, Zehlyr found a much needed burst of energy. His appendages flailed wildly as he hurried over to the discovery. Splashing and sucking sounds filled the shallow pit. Mud splashed against his face with each slap of his hand, but it didn’t slow him down. Once closer, he could see a naked body lying face down in the crevasse. It was female and unmistakably human; no more savage tribe surprises here.

             
She was fair skinned with long, flowing hair of the most peculiar color. It was a very bright pink, like the blossoms on the cherry trees in the spring. It must have been exceptionally lovely when not soiled with fresh mud, but he’d never seen such hair on any creature before. Her head was turned to the side, facing away from Zehlyr, but he could see her back lifting up slowly and then falling again. She was alive. He quickly grasped her shoulder and tugged frantically. “Miss!” he shouted. “Miss, are you alright?!”

             
Before he could turn her onto her back, the young girl suddenly jumped into a fury of motion. She coughed and gagged as her body flailed in the mud. Her knees shot up to her chest and then pushed back down just as quickly. Her palms slapped down into the mud and she rose to her hands and knees. The coughing continued, but slowly transitioned to deep, full breaths. “What happened?!” she asked frantically. “Where am I?!”

             
“You’re deep in the Savage Lands, miss,” Zehlyr replied, remembering his manners despite the lack of necessity for them. “I don’t know how you got here, but thank the Lady I found you,”