They didn’t stop this time around, simply giving a wild bearth and continuing to push ahead. A couple dozen meters ahead, they met another body, then another, and another. Soon it became clear that the invaders passage in the forest was a lot more eventful than the journeyof the ones who came after them.

Just as the thought crossed their minds, one of the columns came to an abrupt halt as someone just stopped walking. His eyes and mouth hung open, but in the rest of his body, the muscles contracted and refuse to relax. The one whose shoulder he was holding cried in pain as his fingers started to cut into flesh.

Everyone around it immediately noticed the disturbance, all being on edge as they were, and the intense fear spread through the soldiers. Quick as a worried parent, the two leaders were near to the affected individual in a second.

They all knew that the expeditious solution would be to abandon the captured orc and march onwards. They probably had enough members to be able to just cross the forest, besides, there were reinforcements on it’s way.

They weren’t dwarves, however. With the way every orc in a group shared their feelings, simply ignoring someone in such a terrible distress was impossible. All around, they could feel the despair of the ensnared orc, not yet completely lost. The idea of being left behind in such a moment was unbearable, and that made it so the idea of leaving someone behind in such a moment just as unbearable.

“Alright,” the Advisor said to the Prince “tell me your stupid idea.” As much as he hated how risky and propense to back firing his sibling’s “plans” (in the loosest definition of the word) tended to be, he also knew that there was always an idea coming up just at the moment anything required a quick and desperate solution.

“We share the stimuli. Maybe if it’s all of us, we can process it.” There was a LOT hanging on that maybe, and the consequences to failure would be the annihilation of the entire force, before they could even get to their main objective. Exactly the kind of thing that would come out of the Excited Prince’s mouth.

No one seemed very kin to the idea of purposefully exposing oneself to harm’s way like that, but they also knew that the next victim could very well be them. If they didn’t take a risk for someone now, how could they expect others to take a risk for them later?

It was with this line of thought that nearly three thousand orcs voluntarily immersed themselves in the trap of one of the most dangerous predators of the land. What met them was something beyond mortal comprehension.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.

EVERYTHING was connected. The roots underneath their feet spread and enlaced themselves to the roots of the nearby trees, and the fungus made for passes of informations that knitted the trees much closer than the orcs could ever hope to be.

Wind softly touching the leaves on the tallest branches, swaying in every direction at once, far too lightly for anyone but them to notice. Humidity penetrating the roots at the same time the roots penetrated the packed dirt, forcing open a way for themselves. The sunlight constantly showering upon them, absorbed down to the last lumen, processed and transformed into sap to be sent towards the rest of the tree.

Every single milimeter of bark, and trunk under it, creaking and moving and accomodating itself, and growing, and sometimes breaking apart, all at once. Every tiny bacteria, far far too small for those pesky flesh walkers to notice, crawling on their bodies, every single movement intensily noticed.

The years of preparation required for a single acorn to take form, all the way from a small concentration of sap, to the intial stages of a bud, up to the point it just falls down from the trees. The many more years it takes for it to develop a stem, a couple tiny leaves, for it’s frail roots to pierce the soil. The unending wait for something to eat. For flesh to willingly walk into their reach.

And above all, the hunger. The insuficience of the nutrients they could absorb from the soil. The awful slowness with which the sap moved in their trunks. The weavering sunlight, barely enough to justify being processed. And then, finally, those walking meals, so full of everything, using so little. None of what they had was enough. Everything was to be taken.

“Those are not your prey!” A circle of fire burst forth from thin air, surrounding the paralyzed victims and violently burning away all the poor little sapling that tried to end their suffering. Hateful flames screamed violently, carrying an even more intense sense of hunger. They starved for vengeance.

When the mesmerizing trap was burned away, all the orcs came back to reality with a violent shake, the first victim along. In the end, the thousands of flesh brains portrayed no challenge to the intrinsic connection of the forest. Hadn’t the Rationalized One joined in and shared the intense fire that burned deep within his heart, they would’ve become nothing more than fertilizer.

In his eyes, the bright orange shone strongly, overcoming the iris, giving the sense of slowly consuming everything inside of him. He seemed to stare into the eyes of thousands of orcs and the same time, and force them all to stare back. “Our target is getting away.” Without another word, he turned and started walking again.

For the rest of the march, they met many more dwarven bodies, all similarly frozen and entangled in roots. Even though they merely walked around them, the trees seemed wary, and the roots retreated an inch or two while the Fire Bringer could still be noticed. The orcs themselves weren’t bothered again, and after a couple hours of walk, the first signs of the end of the forest could finally be seen.