B4 – Chapter 35: The Witchwood

The world exploded in a crimson light and the ground began to shake with a violent fury that threatened to toss people to the ground. Tristan stood firm, unwavering, as he watched bloody light surge from the seal and permeate the entire crevasse. The walls of the Daylight Dell began to push further away from each other, and rocky outcroppings became sharper; near razor points that would cut someone who made a single misstep.

Before Tristan, at the boundary of the Fey Realm, a crack appeared. A fissure. Not a new incursion, he knew instinctively. But something that had been there for a long time. That fissure grew, and increased in size until the entire area before him was naught but a ravine leading to a dark, murky forest. Not a healthy, vibrant one like those in the Fey Realm, but one that looked sinister and sick; with thick, almost bloated trees that oozed red sap, and had sharp, prickly leaves.

Tristan raised his voice and yelled out. “Form up! Krik, siege mode to block the ravine!” He glanced back and saw Krik place his heavy, wooden-gauntlet hand on two other spriggan, and they began to grow in size. Bigger and bigger, until their bulk completely blocked access to the Fey Realm on the ground. Only flight would allow someone to come and go. The second spriggan stepped out of the ravine and formed his body in an arch, preventing people from exiting by flight.

“Done, forest father!” Krik’s voice rumbled back. “Orders?”

“Zeltana. Advice?” Tristan whispered.

Her voice did not come to him.

Tristan’s blood ran cold. He was both-direction spinning his crucible but did not feel the ambient essence of the Fey Realm. “Matriarch!” Tristan shouted.

Her voice echoed from above. “Yes, Lord Tristan?”

Tristan looked up. “Why are you up there?”

The Matriarch’s voice was firm, and filled with a grim resolve tinged with sorrow. “The Daylight Dell . . . another realm grafted it onto theirs. When the sections of the Fey Realm were sealed away, they qualified as lost realms for the purpose of grafting. I could excise the entire ravine. Right now, technically, we are in this other realm. I cannot be down there.”

Tristan heard shrieks and manic laughs from the dark woods ahead. “Tell me what this realm is.”

The Matriarch reached her claw down from the heights of the chasm and the tips touched an invisible film that bounced, casting a prismatic light across its surface. “You’re in The Witchwood.”

“What do you advise?” Tristan shouted back as all of his forces finished forming up as best they could given the terrain.

“Either conquer, or retreat and excise.”

Tristan was torn. His innate desire to not be a conqueror was pushing him to retreat, pull back, and do what The Matriarch said they could do. But a deeper, more violent desire rose in his chest. That greed he had felt on many occasions. This Witchwood, this other realm, had invaded and grafted his rightful domain. The influence of the dragon essence crucibles, dormant for some time, came surging back in full force as desire took hold. Tristan stood at a precipice. Seek vengeance and conquer to reclaim or cut his losses and keep his moral high ground.

“Felicity,” Tristan muttered as the shrieks and cackling laughs became louder. “What do you advise?”

“Follow your heart. It’s not steered you wrong before.”

Those words struck a chord in Tristan’s mind. A peal that echoed through his thoughts and pushed back the driving greed from consumption of crucibles. “Fall back!” Tristan shouted. “Everyone, out of the ravine! Matriarch! When we’re out, seal it off!”

Everyone manifested wings and began to lift off, flying to the giant spriggan above, who moved his hand to allow for an opening to leave. Tristan willed his wings to emerge and joined them, flying up and past it. He felt the essence of the realm connect with him once more. He could see the tear in the fabric of reality from where he was hovering and saw the bloody gash in the side of the “wall” of the Fey Realm. A crimson gap that flickered with black sigils, butting up against the prismatic barrier of the realm’s exterior. “Krik, block that! Matriarch, seal it now!”

Krik moved with two other Spriggan, and he touched them. They grew to titanic stature and locked arms, covering the bloody gash in the wall of the realm. The Matriarch’s voice bellowed out from below. “I cannot! They are trying to graft our whole realm! Lord Tristan, their realm protector must stop for me to seal it!”

Zeltana’s voice came back to him. I watched your memories. The only way to stop this and protect the Fey Realm is to conquer theirs. I know you did not want to be a conqueror, but this must be done, or else all is lost.

Tristan swallowed the knot in his throat. “Okay,” he whispered. I’m sorry, Mother. I cannot live up to the morals you taught me. I can’t just be someone who fights threats to protect others and only kills when absolutely necessary . . . forgive me. He raised his voice and shouted. “We fight to save our realm!” He flew back down, through the gap the spriggan left open, past The Matriarch who was tucked up next to the top of the ravine, and down to the ground. He landed and let the wings dissipate.

Figures began emerging from the darkened forest. Tall, lanky figures with pitch-black skin, deep, red hair, huge canid teeth that extended past their lower and upper lips, and wooden piercings inscribed with words in an unfamiliar language all across their exposed skin. They were outfitted in light, leather armor with wooden plates grafted to protect vital areas. They all held bows, aimed right at Tristan, and loosed.

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He grabbed the hem of his cloak and brought it around to cover him. The entire barrage slammed into the scales and pinged off, either shattering or being flung aside. He swung the cloak away with a flourish, and pointed his sword at them. “For the Fey Realm!” His forces began to charge, and Onyx slowed slightly next to Tristan, allowing him to grab a handful of his braided mane and pull himself atop the mighty destrier. Onyx lowered his head, and his horn glowed with a shimmering, white light that bloomed into a barrier before them. The other unicorns and their riders got ahead of the fairy dragons in their medley of forms, and the spriggan who began to shift and grow to varying sizes.

Krik got up next to Tristan and his low voice rumbled out. “We get in, clear out some space, establish a foothold.” He looked at a nearby fairy dragon. “You! Go tell The Matriarch to set up forward camp in that ravine.” The fairy dragon took off, speeding back toward the Fey Realm.

More bowstrings twanged, and the arrows broke against the barricade of essence-fueled barriers that the unicorns’ charge. Shouting, screams of frustration, and mad cackles reached Tristan’s ears as they approached the tree line.

The trees surrounding them began to move. The bloated bodies uprooting themselves as branches spun and became scything blades that spun like tops; spinning toward the charge.

Krik let out a roar and his body surged with deep, green light. A bolt of green shot forward, slammed into one of the spinning trees, and immediately the wood calcified. The remaining momentum caused the thing to fling toward one of its allies, and both went down with one permanently out of commission.

The unicorn charge met the line of blades, and the barriers held; stopping the scything blades in their tracks. Tristan was in the second wave, and sliced deep into the wood. A deep, crimson sap spilled out that was instantly frozen. The electricity from the Elemental Imbuement seemed to do nothing, and with a thought and a little spin of essence, Tristan swapped the imbuement to fire.