Chapter 83: Green Hell

The army waited nervously for an assault that never came. Talan spent a good fifteen minutes scrutinizing the underbrush, identifying every twig in front of him until his brain was about to burst. Nothing emerged from the edge of the trees except for the odd insect and fluttering birds. Eteia herself led a short patrol around and confirmed that it was, indeed, only a parting shot. An act of spite, no doubt. The men joked about the witch being only able to achieve so much but Talan did not laugh. She was no mere witch, but a Lost Heiress. A unique path for an outlander. Even Eteia, who was on her fourth step, had been concerned about her power over black mana.

He had felt it as well. Magic was with that woman, coiling amorously around her though she did not pay it any mind.

Finally, everyone packed the camp and Talan felt compelled to remind everyone that he had seen things. Bishop Ereon had not forgotten, but there was a protocol to follow and a junior questor had no say at a prince’s council. As soon as he was finished, however, he was dragged to the royal wagon where he found the rest of the elites deep in council.

“I will remain ready at all times to prevent another incident from occurring. There is no alternative,” Eteia declared.

“We have siege experts. They are hybrid casters but there are four of them, can they not take care of defending the convoy?” the prince asked, concern for Goodmother Eteia obvious on his handsome face.

The war mage shook her head.

“If we were static maybe, and that is a strong maybe, but we are moving and brown mana specialists are the slowest. They cannot contend with her. Black mana has unmatched penetrating power. It has to be me.”

“Then the champion will come with you to cover you from arrows, just in case.”

“That would be appreciated, Your Highness.”

The prince turned from his seat at the table and invited both newcomers to sit with a casual gesture. Talan felt flattered and buoyed to be in such hallowed company. He bowed smartly while the Bishop relayed his findings. The prince received the news with concern but no overall panic. Talan wished he could share in the man’s confidence. He had felt the entity Solfis’ mind and… there was no way to express what was in there.

“We already knew that the witch was dangerous so it does not change anything. The presence of a dragon is more troubling. Fortunately, the beasts are extremely hardy. It is always much easier to chase off a dragon than accidentally kill it, so our archers will be free to pepper it with arrows.”

“Will Goodmother Eteia’s help be needed as well?” the bishop asked.

“No,” the woman replied, “the beast is too young to cast spells, of this I am sure. Dragons are highly resistant to magic. My efforts would be better spent elsewhere.”

“As for the golem, reports of such constructs fill the historical archives, but they speak of metal statues as tall as four men. My best guess is that she transferred the consciousness of one into a necromantic construct.”

“This would be highly heretical,” the bishop observed.

“Would someone like her stop at such trifles? She would certainly stoop so low if it gave her an advantage.”

“You must be right.”

“In any case, dragonbone is also highly resistant to spells so the champion will be in charge of stopping it. Do you agree, sire?”

“It will be done, Your Highness. Bones are brittle when they are dead.”

Talan wished he shared their optimism, but he refrained from commenting. Even if they didn’t manage to kill the witch’s followers, it was enough to take Kazar and subdue the population. Unsupported elites could not achieve much when isolated. They were systematically hunted, flushed out, and killed. Talan was probably worrying for nothing, but it did not stop that sense of dread creeping up his spine like vines up the innumerable trees around.

The short council ended with no conclusion drawn besides ‘it is probably nothing’, which bothered the questor on a deeper level. The truth was that they had no tools to adapt to unexpected circumstances, and this was one such situation. He just had to do his best.

The army walked on with Talan and his squad placed at the front, on account of his inspection skill. He praised Maranor for her teaching that hard work was often rewarded in unexpected ways, such as not eating the dust from eight hundred soldiers. He and his men strutted happily for fifteen minutes with the sun at the back and the pleasant smell of trees not yet marred by old sweat until he found the first obstacle.

There in the middle of the way, the earth was having a nightmare.

That was the only way he could find to qualify those horrific walls of twisted geometry, spirals, and grasping limbs.

“What in the name of Enttiku is that thing?” one of the soldiers asked.

[Eldritch wall, earth raised by aspected black mana, an extremely rare spell use. Variable durability. Soaked with black mana.]

“It does not appear dangerous,” Talan admitted to Bishop Ereon once the man came to inquire. The older soldier grunted some surprisingly strong expletives.

“If it’s not dangerous then I’ll check it out myself!”

“No, allow me!” Talan begged. Fortunately, neither of them had to do anything because the Bridgers had siege experts. The four hybrid brown casters gathered and crumbled the strange walls at a slow pace.

“Those constructs are still saturated with black mana,” one of them said. “It takes a while to overcome it.”

Talan wondered how long it had taken the witch, because it was obviously her, to make those. He hoped it had taken hours because it certainly wasted their time.

“Perhaps this is why she destroyed the water cistern. She hopes that we will run out of water,” he hypothesized.

“Stupid of her. Everyone can create some water with a bit of practice and the forest always has moisture to draw. The men will be thirsty, but there is no way for us to suffer too much before we arrive at the lake,” Ereon replied.

Talan nodded. She was an outlander. Perhaps her knowledge of magic was still incomplete.

“Those delays are still annoying. Ah, it looks like they are done.”

One of the earth casters levelled the farthest earth until all that remained of the witch’s work was irregular earth. He walked confidently back to their line, then collapsed forward. His left foot disappeared into a hole, Talan could see. There was a dreadful snap and the man howled.

Talan rushed forward, but not as fast as Ereon. The wounded man snapped his fingers and the hole widened, revealing a simple trap lined with sharpened, downward facing stakes. Blood immediately poured from the wound in great gushes.

“Ah, you idiot,” Ereon roared. He kneeled by the wounded man and prayed. A reddish glow soon surrounded his form and the wounds closed. The earth caster sighed in relief as the torrent of blood turned to trickle, then stopped.

“Thank you.”

“You must not remove the stakes or you might bleed out,” the bishop scolded.

“Yeah easy to say it wasn’t your leg in that thing.”

“I’ve had plenty of sharp things in my body, boy, and I didn’t drain the healer’s mana because I couldn’t wait to get them out.”

“Sorry sir,” the man replied, chastised.

The army resumed its slow march and arrived at the next patch of strange earth not twenty minutes later. Talan volunteered to search for traps and found none, and neither did his squad. He also volunteered to flatten the strange earth, which he did without issue. By that time, it was already halfway to noon and the men were growing impatient.

“Better safe than skewered,” he moaned, but it didn’t look like the backline shared his common sense.

It soon turned out that a large amount of the path was covered in those strange constructs. The army took to just ignoring them after the third patch. Immediately after that, the first howls of pain sounded from the back. It turned out that the entire path was rife with surprisingly-well hidden traps.

“There is only one road. It makes it easy for them to use this kind of tactics,” Ereon said.

“A coward’s tool!” Talan fumed. “Isn’t Neriad supposed to be about righteous combat? Why would he favor them?”

“Yes, well, he is quite stern when it comes to causes yet much more lax when it comes to methods.”

“Tch.”

The morning went on. Talan made some real effort to watch his steps. He even found one by sheer repetition of his skill. Unfortunately, he had to look directly at it and the traps were quite small, so he could not use it systematically. The construct was so well-made and hidden that he suspected that a high-level skill was involved. Nevertheless, Taran did not give up. He never gave up. He would do what he could, as always, this time by focusing in front of him. Most shared this method and that was why they missed the tree traps.

Because the road was narrow and to move four persons abreast turned the army into a vulnerable snake, many soldiers walked among the small trees at the edge of the road, weaving between small trunks and rotting stumps left from previous deforestation efforts. Somehow, invisible wires escaped the eyes of even the keenest of them until the first of the pots exploded against shields raised in haste.

“It smells like… sap?” Talan wondered as he lifted his left vambrace. None of his skin had been exposed and Ormin, who had been hit full on, seemed to be alright.

“I mean it’s sticky and itchy but I don’t feel any pain.”

Unfortunately, they could not wash themselves so the front of the column soon took on a glistening appearance. The powerful perfume of sap soon overwhelmed that of sweat as regular cries of pain interrupted the procession. Ereon and the healers were running left and right, bringing assistance to every wounded. They had not lost anyone since the spell earlier that day, thank Maranor. It still felt bad.

“Can the Kazarans do ought but children’s tricks?” Corporal Regor complained.

Talan thought that he was happy with children’s tricks.

They stopped at noon for a very short break. The questor was already regretting the lack of water, which was being rationed. The woods could be suffocating with the added tension. A shiver ran through the length of the expedition as they stood back from where they had plopped down. Orders fused.

“You will not go out of formation to satisfy natural needs with less than five men.”

“I don’t need that many people to hold my dick,” one of the soldiers claimed, but the sergeant trotting up the line was unamused.

“You will if you want to stay alive. Sedrin didn’t come back and he’s not the only one.”

“Ah, shit.”

This put a damper on the already plummeting mood. The problem wasn’t just the disappearances, the stench and so on. The problem was that they were on the second day of a ten days trip. At this speed at least.

Talan wasn’t sure that they could do ten days of this.

Every new blossom of changed earth made him pray that it would be the last, but they were always there, lined up with the promise of more traps, more prepared ground. The witch and her flunkies must have spent fucking months turning this entire road into a gauntlet. And they were following it like obedient dogs. It frustrated him but he grit his teeth. The men were looking up to him.

More legs got skewered, more sap covered the armor of the men. Someone walked around a very large tree to take a dump and just… disappeared. Not ten paces away from the edge of the forest. And all that happened in silence. No war cries, no great charges. Just bird songs and the creaks of old wood. It made no sense.

It was almost a relief when they were attacked by a large bird monster. The creature attempted to pick on their backline, but its dive attack ended in a cone of fiery red. Eteia had taken no chance.

“Is monster fowl tasty?” A man asked with a laugh. “Guess we’ll find out!”

They arrived at the next designated campsite as the sun was dipping below the horizon. Talan inspected every square meter of empty ground and they did find a spell construct, which Eteia promptly dispelled. The witch looked down on them, it seemed.

The questor volunteered for night duty but he was denied.

“We will need you well-rested every time we move on. Let those with vigilance hold the line,” Bishop Ereon told him.

Talan thanked the veteran fighter for that nugget of wisdom. No man was able to do everything. That was why order was so important, so that those with the proper ability be used in the best role. He went to sleep with his heart at ease. He was not alone, and never would be.

The entire outer ring of sentries disappeared that night. It happened in a single sweep at the darkest of times. Some skills had to be involved.

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Talan breathed in the morning air, bemoaning to himself that the pleasant smell of spring was being overwhelmed by rancid sweat and syrupy sap. There was not enough water to clean oneself. All they could conjure was dedicated to themselves and the wounded.

He and his squad ate a quick breakfast. Thankfully, everyone had recovered enough mana to drink their fill, for now. The night disappearances had certainly impacted the morale, however, and he found himself listening to Corporal Regor’s scolding.

“This is war. Did you just expect the Kazarans to lay down belly up waiting for the slave collars? They know that when we reach the walls, it’s all over for them, so they face us here where they have the advantage. It’s a contest of will. Either we break and fall back, or we don’t. I expected more from people who fought in Regnos. What were you thinking? That this was a holiday?”

The men grumbled, and yet the tongue lashing reminded them of their duties. Talan took the lesson to heart while he fastened his armor. He stretched a bit to make sure everything was where it was supposed to be, and his left vambrace fell down. Ormin started swearing from the next tent.

“What the fuck?”

Talan checked the piece and realized that the strap had been completely eaten through.

“It’s the sap,” he realized as he walked out. Ormin was roaring in anger. Not only was his armor reduced to metal components, but even his sleeping bag was showing expanding holes as well.

“What manner of warfare is that?” he grumbled to himself.

Many soldiers were sharing the same problem. Leather had never been in large supply in the army, not with how durable it was. There was no way to repair all the armor, but Talan would be damned if he let Ormin go to battle in his underpants. He grabbed his cloak and tore a band from it.

“Help me out. Everyone, help out!”

It was shoddy work. The softer cloth didn’t fit well in the buckles and they tended to slip, but Talan would be damned if he let soldiers go to war unprepared.

“That will melt as well. Even faster than the leather,” a man said.

“Then we will use our spares and when we run out, we will use the tents. They don’t have an unlimited supply of sap either,” Talan replied with more aggression than necessary. The men were galvanized by his outburst and the most nimble helped with sewing things on.

“Thanks, everyone,” Ormin said. “I don’t know how to repay you.”

“It’s fine lad, I’ll take comfort in the fact that the cloth on your chin cradled my ass just last week.”

Poor Ormin turned red under the subsequent jeers. It was with determination, but slightly unfitting armor, that the men departed.

***