ial and Aman had hunted in this part of the forest for their whole lives. Their father and father’s father had proudly watched its borders and until recently so had the young bucks. They were not yet full stag-men, but their numbers were dwindling and food was scarce. Everyone had to hunt.
Ahead Aman stopped, stooping low to the ground on his haunches, hand closed to a fist – “stop”.
Tial notched an arrow to his bow and sniffed at the air. He knew every pine tree by the river, every oak and yew. They had, until the metal ones came, always spoken to him, not in words but in their own way, through the rustling of their leaves and the yawn of their bark.
Aman flattened his hand again, like a sheet to the ground – “slow”.
They moved side by side, deeper into the forest and away from the river.
“What did you see?” whispered Tial.
“Not see, brother. Smell.”
Tial drew in through his nostrils again. Nothing. Aman was always more heightened in his senses, though Tial faster of hoof and bow. The herd had once been powerful shamans, humans that took the form of their animals so they could run with them in the forests and green places of the world. They had forgotten how to change themselves back long ago, but magic still coursed through their veins.
“Magic?”
Aman shook his head.
“Different.”
Tial stopped by a yew tree, pushing the fingers of his still human hand into the earth by its roots. Cold and soft – too soft. It had started not long after the metal ones had come, not long after the fortress had been built in the heart of their forest. That land was protected by the wolf-pack and the weirs had grown more bold because of it. A sickness was spreading and even the herd’s old magic could not hold it. Tial took the tip of his arrow and stabbed it into the yew tree’s bark. Black sap seeped from the wound, pouring like rotten blood down the shaft of the arrow. A smell of iron and sulphur filled the air.
“Sickness. The sickness has spread even to here, brother!”
Ahead, something moved amongst the gloom of the trees. Not a weir or Darkling, but something else. The brothers stood now, ready for fight or flight. Their father had taught them well – always watch and listen. Too big or too many a beast and you must run – these days there was only running. Wordlessly, Tial and Aman paced backwards, but the gloom had started to thicken, to grow darker. Tial looked to the yew tree. From the small hole his arrowhead had made and from the ground where its roots tried to feed, a blackness started to grow. Oily and slick, reeking now of sulphur, the sickness flowed, till the tree in its entirety became an oozing, tarry mess of decay and illness. They had seen it before, where the wolf-pack roamed, but never so quick or sudden.
“Run!” spat Aman from deep in his chest.
And the two brothers flew, breaking now at a gallop of hoof on ground. Behind them the forest roared, with its darkening leaves and branches. It was the roar of a dying thing, a thing that is becoming something else. Over boulders, then crashing through the waters, the two brothers sped, behind them a rushing wall of black and angry branches. Vines had come alive and snared at their legs, with great thorns gouging at their skin.
“Tial!” shouted Aman.
And as Tial turned, he saw that his brother had been struck by a flailing branch. His arms and ribs were broken, the strength knocked from his chest. All around him, knotted roots laden with thorns the size of daggers grew up from the ground.
“Aman!” Tial leapt to his brother, drawing his flint knife from his side. He struck at the roots, again and again, till their thorns broke his skin and bruised the bones of his fingers.
“Get away, go to the mountain. Warn them – we’ve lost the forest …” cried Aman.
“Quiet, brother, all will be well.”
But Aman’s eyes grew wide, looking beyond his brother at something behind him. Tial turned to follow his gaze.
A great cage of razor-sharp thorns had grown up around them, trees bent forward to crush and skewer. There were no Demons, no Darklings or metal monsters. The Darkening King had found a new way to feed, and the forest was now his to control.