Chapter: 104 – That Seems Bad

The second day of the venture to Makinaven was much like the first, excepting crystal entities and arcanes and Archons dropping through.

The guardsmen drove off more than a dozen arcanous creatures, varying from the quite common thunderbulls to a few massive reptiles. One of those seemed to have been stalking one of the thunderbull families and took exception to the guards having driven them off.

Rane took care of a half-dozen more minor threats to their progress.

Tala never left the wagon top.

Instead of begrudging her restriction, after all she could see that Mistress Odera was correct in every instance, Tala kept a ready watch on their surroundings, usually being among the first to notice any potential threat. All the while, she continued her study of Holly’s texts. She wanted her knowledge surrounding her inscribings to be as deep and thorough as possible.

They made camp late that afternoon, just more than two hundred yards from the close edge of the reaching canopy, far overhead. The hard part of the journey would start the next day, it seemed.

The forest was an interesting presence beside the camp; the trees, starting at almost a hard line, were taller than anything she had ever seen, short of a mountain. Their branches spread out wide, interlacing with those around them. Their shape seemed much more like maple trees than pine.

Even the somewhat shorter specimens, at the near edge, were tall enough that Tala thought they might be able to strike the wagons, should they fall their way.

Let’s hope that doesn’t happen… She could probably catch such with a Restrain, but she’d never attempted to affect something that large, before, and Restrain was a more complex working than Crush.

Yeah, I could Crush a tree no problem, but that wouldn’t help us if it were falling our way. She put it out of her mind, though, as it was quite unlikely in any event.

Rane and Tala sparred before dinner, to the great enjoyment of the passengers and off-duty guardsmen. Their display caused more to brave the cold for longer periods, many opting to eat their dinner while continuing to watch.

Eventually, however, night had truly fallen, and Tala had eaten a quadruple portion of dinner. Pasties never get old.

Tala was given the first part of the night-watch as Mage protector, and Rane and Mistress Odera bid her goodnight. Mistress Odera gave her several bits of advice and requested that she be roused if anything of note seemed to be happening.

Tala agreed with a smile.

That first part of the night passed with similar non-issue. Terry slew a night puma, a great cat that used shadow magic to stalk its prey.

He detected it, somehow, and slew it outside of the area between the wagons, near the edge of where she could see in the poor light.

He also ate it before Tala could notify the guards to log the encounter. When she checked with those on duty with her, none had seen the beast, to corroborate the kill. Ah, well. At least he got a meal out of it.

She still found it marginally intimidating when Terry swallowed things much larger than his standard form. The night puma had been more than eight feet in length, nose to rump, and Tala would have guessed it weighed more than she did, even accounting for her gravity enhancement.

Still, it was handled. No issue at all.

She hesitated at that. Is there no issue, because nothing has happened, or do I think there’s been no issue, because the arcane returned, and removed memory of such?

She shivered at the thought, causing Terry to shift on her shoulder, though he didn’t open his eyes.

Well, I suppose if it had returned, it would have manipulated me, causing me to not even consider its interference. Great, so she only had to worry about the arcane’s involvement when she didn’t consider that it could have been involved.

She felt her left eye twitching. “Tala… you are making yourself crazy. You cannot possibly allow that to be how you think of this…”

She shook her head. All I can do is keep on, and resist anything that I can.

It was small comfort, but it did seem to help.

When Rane took over the watch around midnight, Tala gratefully slipped into sleep atop her reinforced cot, happy to end an unremarkable day and happy that it had been just that.

* * *

The next morning, after her daily routine, a sparring session with Rane, and breakfast, Tala noticed Mistress Odera walking her way.

“Mistress?”

“Good morning, Mistress Tala. Walk with me, will you?”

“Sure.”

Tala fell into step beside the much older woman, moving towards the forest. “What do you know of this forest?”

She thought back to the information she’d read up on in preparation for this trip. Summarize, she doesn’t need a recitation of all of that. “It’s full of magic, though not specifically in the air. The trees have more power than those in other low-magic regions, and there are more arcanous creatures than on the open plains. I haven’t looked closely at the trees’ power-flow, though.” Her magesight had noted it at a great distance, and she hadn’t focused on it since.

“Go on.”

“It’ll be colder? Not much direct sunlight reaches the ground. There aren’t established roads through the trees, obviously, so the travel time is much less certain.”

“All true.”

“Almost no undergrowth? The trees deeper in grow massive and block even more of the sun, leaving the forest floor mostly bare of vegetation.” She looked up at the trees which literally scraped the sky, uplifting branches creating trailing crevices in the lowest clouds as they moved past.

Mistress Odera nodded. “So, you know the basics.”

“They are as big as I was warned.” Tala grunted. “Even yesterday, I thought I was just mis-seeing, somehow.”

“They truly are spectacular. The Mezzannis used to make their homes in these trees.”

“Mezzannis?”

“An arcane species. Never enslaved humanity, per se. They were one of the few to completely collapse when we gained our freedom.”

Tala frowned. “That’s terrible. We wiped out an entire race, which wasn’t doing us any harm?”

Mistress Odera quirked a small smile. “They didn’t enslave us, Mistress, because you don’t put your beef cows to work in the fields.”

Tala hesitated, narrowing her eyes at the older woman. “Wait…”

“The Mezzannis subsisted on ambient magic and human flesh.”

Tala shuddered. “I feel like you purposely led me astray, there.”

“Of course I did. I was curious how you would react to the elimination of a supposedly peaceful people.” She nodded, her smile growing. “I am glad of your response.”

“So… All gone?”

“Gone? No, but the decrease in magic, both natural, ages ago, and then that induced by our cities, caused the majority to wither away into lesser versions of themselves, all those that didn’t die outright.”

“So…most are not dead?”

“Some melded with the great trees, losing most of their sentience, and all of their sapience, in order to live on. It is because of them that these giants can move on occasion, though rarely while observed. That is one added difficulty in traversing this part of the human wilds.”

“…the trees move. Like an ending-tree? They’ll try to hit us? Or, do you mean…?”

Mistress Odera gave a small smile. “The trees can migrate. They move through the ground without truly disturbing it, and often reposition to hamper travel through the region using either trunk or roots as barriers. Though, they aren’t clever or inter-connected enough to block the route entirely. When humans aren’t around, those that can move tend to drift away from each other, making it less obstructive over time.”

And now the references to varying routes and lengths of travel make a lot more sense. She hesitated. Wait… “You said that some of them melded with the trees, but not all?”

“No, not even most. Most that still remain are no longer conscious beings. They are arcanous humanoids. We call them Leshkin.”

Leshkin? This is their original home? I knew that some were found here, but this is where they come from? She found herself giving an involuntary shiver. The Leshkin waged a mindless war on humanity every millennia, or so. Now that I think about it, wasn’t the last one almost that long ago? She thought through her memories of the various informational texts she tried to devour in the last week, adding them to stories from her youth. Maybe a hundred or a hundred and fifty years out if the pattern holds. “That isn’t great, is it.”

This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

Mistress Odera shook her head. “Pernicious creatures. From what we’ve learned, each has a heart of sorts, hidden well beyond human reach: a seed from which they will re-grow if killed. As such, they lack even animalistic instincts for survival. Any that catch wind of us will attack and will continue to do so until they are obliterated. They will not retreat and cannot be driven off.”

The two women stopped walking, a bit past half-way between the wagons and the forest edge.

“Their hatred of humanity is deeper than even the arcanous animals’ aggressive instincts.” Mistress Odera’s eyes flicked to Terry. “Your companion will have some trouble with them, as their form is nothing more than animated, magically altered vegetation. You will have trouble because that plant matter has a caustic sap flowing through it, under high pressure.”

Tala had read of that. “Wouldn’t that be an issue for anyone?”

“Of course, but most people are used to being wary, of being in danger. You are accustomed to being invulnerable.”

Tala found herself nodding. “Noted. Acid will definitely stress my inscriptions more than a sharp cut or blunt hit, but I should be able to endure, so long as I’m not submerged, or the like.”

Mistress Odera gave her a long-suffering look. “Funny you mention submersion.”

Tala did not like the woman’s tone. “Oh?”

“There are, on occasion, pit-traps filled with their sap, usually in hollows. A misstep will break through the thin layer of turf and drop the unlucky into wells of acid.”

“That’s just lovely.”

“Quite.”

Tala sighed. “I have been thinking about releasing my increased weight. It’s very useful in some few circumstances, but not many. In all others, it’s actually pretty irritating to deal with. Do you think that wise?”

Mistress Odera hesitated. “Possibly. There are creatures that will snatch a person up, and carry them up nearby trees, and they are more numerous than the pit-traps. Your weight would be an advantage against such foes.”