Chapter 21

I used my will to drag the flames forward with me. At first it was like trailing a reluctant dog on a leash, the fires digging in their metaphorical feet to refuse being pulled forward. After a few minutes of struggling with it at a walking pace, I realized that it was a matter of energy. It took a lot of energy for the fire to spread, first drying the wood enough to catch, then burning through the bark and into the heartwood. The bark burned quickly and flaked off in chunks, making it hard for the flames to ignite the heartwood and truly set the tree ablaze, and dragging the fires along with me left several burn-scarred but intact trees behind me. What flames I could call to me were paltry, flickering fitfully. I knew I could do better than that.

I reached out and infused some of my will and intention into the flames, turning the disorganized sprawl of flames into small concentrations, pushing them ahead of me as I walked through the woods. The flames now leapt greedily from tree to tree, latching onto the bark and burning into the wood like a plasma torch, planting a seed of flame within the core of the trees before leaping onward. Now the fires leapfrogged ahead of me, lashing out like arrows to ignite the bushes and brambles that barred my way. I laughed as I advanced, now at an easy jog, unimpeded by the thick forest before me. Despite the fire and smoke, I could see and breathe perfectly as animals fled from the fire, those too slow or too bold falling to leaping flames that assailed them like a pack of rats, embers digging into flesh and setting fur alight. I walked around a sinkhole that marked the death of another Hydra Bush, the flailing vines dead long before I ever entered their reach. Even as I fed the flames, I fed from them, drawing a steady exchange of power that filled me up with a raging heat. I threw my head back and laughed, exulting in the feeling of power, bathing in the aura of flame that surrounded me.

I knew this approach was not a subtle one, but I didn’t much care; anyone who wanted to fight would have to enter my domain to do it. Anyone who wanted to run would have plenty of warning. Anyone who thought they could fight me was welcome to try; anyone who ran wasn’t someone I cared to destroy anyway.

My flock of flames struck out, wrapping themselves around one of the giant boars I had faced when I was much weaker, and even its’ enraged charge was no match; it collapsed at my feet, already ablaze with my power.

Distantly, I felt something take notice of me; it was as if the ground beneath my feet leaned up toward me, my feet suddenly leaving heavier imprints in the soil. Trees began to list and lean, toppling themselves in front of me, encircling me in burning logs. I blasted my way through one edge of the ring and began to push onward, but still the trees slammed down, throwing themselves down to block my path. To slow me.

I realized abruptly that the trees were no longer burning as they had; while the bark would still catch easily enough, the wood beneath seemed to take on a verdant sheen, repelling the flames as if they had been made of iron. The next barricade resisted my attacks, firebolts spattering off of the metal-like wood near harmlessly.

The next instant, an enormous spike of danger swept up from below me, and I threw myself backward just in time to avoid the desperately suicidal lunge of a Hydra Bush, its’ vines exploding up from where it had concealed itself below, scattering up the dirt it used as a shield over its’ body. It didn’t last more than a handful of seconds before flames consumed it entirely, but it was enough for it to land several attacks against me, tearing up my skin with flaying branches and flensing thorns, cutting into my body in scattered attacks before it simply collapsed in on itself. I took a moment to catch my breath, wrong-footed by the strange way the forest behaved, as if it had somehow collectively declared me an enemy. Anathema.

I was struck from behind by an immense weight. While it wasn’t enough to throw me entirely off of my feet, the boar, already collapsing under the heap of flames that surrounded it, had struck me hard enough to rend flesh with its’ blade-like tusks. I stepped away from the cover of blazing foliage, only for another boarfiend to come crashing through. It didn’t seem inclined to attack me directly, instead charging in a straight line through the foliage, ripping up and tossing aside entire bushes as it passed. I stepped out of the way, and its’ reckless charge carried it into the pit the dying Hydra Bush had made. Confused by its’ suicidal charge, I looked toward the pit at the burning carcass.

A moment later, another frantically-squealing Boarfiend slammed into my legs, knocking me off of my feet. I tumbled over its’ back, falling hard to the ground. The next one that came charging out struck me full in the side with its’ tusks, penetrating wounds that drove the air from my lungs and sprayed a fine mist of crimson into the air. This time, the charge was enough; still impaled, we fell into the pit where the bush had died. It was deep enough that the impact of landing jarred me loose from the boarfiend’s tusks, driving fresh pain into the wounds. Bereft of my guiding will, the flames above became aimless, the barrier of fire that had slain the previous boars losing coherence until it was merely a raging inferno.

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More beasts came smashing into the pit, a rain of squealing muscle and meat, these ones injured little enough to require actually attacking them, flame-wreathed fists and firebolts taking them down one after another. They were individually too weak to be much of a threat, even weakened as I was from the previous strikes. I could already feel the penetrating wound in my side healing up, an unpleasant twisting sensation as my insides re-knit themselves. The pit was perhaps fifteen feet deep and about as wide around, and it rapidly began to fill up with bodies. Every step was a struggle as the soil seemed to grab at my ankles, as if trying to drag me beneath the ground.

The very forest itself warred with me, and shortly the pile of boarflesh reached high enough for me to climb the crackling mound and leap free of the pit, just barely keeping ahead of the sinking sensation that threatened to swallow me up. When I looked behind me, the ground had become like quicksand, and the boars sunk into the center of it; a gaping maw briefly became visible, teeth the length of my forearm encircling the seemingly endless pit of some horror’s mouth.

I began to run, jumping over the fallen trees now, unable to take the time to burn or break through them. Still Boarfiends pursued me, most of them dying without even managing to touch me, consumed by the tide of flames I dragged with me. One of the trees swiped at me with one limb like a club, and I felt my bones creak as it knocked me back, groaning with pain as I tried to gather myself to stand once more. These distractions, as numerous and threatening as they were, served a far more dangerous purpose. Drawn by some undefinable sense, I turned my gaze toward the center of the five towers and the writhing mountain-like mass of plants at the center of our imposed arena.

One huge vine was moving toward me, swimming through the earth like some kind of landbound leviathan. Trees rose like spines along its’ back as it dove in and out of the soil, sending plumes of dirt splashing into the air. The tip rose up for one long moment, lunging high into the air before plunging back down.

As it crested well over the tops of the trees, I could see a huge serpentine head with tumbling boulders for a mouth. As it held itself aloft, it revealed its’ first attack: A narrow sapling, stripped of bark and branches, crown shorn narrowing to a spear-like point, shot itself out from the monster’s mouth; the roots hung out behind it like the feathering on a dart, and it flew straight and true as a javelin. What had appeared to be a young sapling turned out to be a towering trunk, and the sixty foot long spear stuck into the ground nearby, sending up an explosion of dirt as it impacted. I staggered from the impact transmitted through the ground, stumbling away from it just far enough that when the roots started to reach for me, I was able to throw myself to the ground out of its’ reach.

I yelled in a mixture of fear and anger as the leviathan swam toward me, upturning a swathe of trees with every movement. I could feel the ground trembling under its’ advance, and when it leapt again, the boulders smashed together in a sound like an avalanche, a full-throated roar of earth and stone that seemed to echo from the distant mountains. It crossed the distance faster than I could’ve imagined, and launched another sapling at me, this time from much closer. I barely avoided being impaled by the enormous tree, my entire effort devoted to avoiding the thousand weapons an enraged forest could muster. A firebolt blew away another charging Boarfiend, a quick flame-wrapped punch breaking through a falling trunk that threatened to smash me flat. I scrambled away from a vine-filled sinkhole as another bush tried to drag me down, the insistent grabbing pinning me in place long enough for the Verdant Leviathan to rear up, and shower me with a hail of arm-length splinters which it spat like a shotgun blast, a tree shredded in an instant by its’ enormous, crushing simulacra of jaws.

I felt a couple of them strike me, punching through the hastily-erected barrier of flames to penetrate easily through my robes and cut deeply into my body. I groaned in pain, half-fleeing, half-fighting, trying to gain distance away from the incredibly massive creature.

My seemingly random flight was much less so than it seemed; I was zig-zagging my way back to the nearest tower, moving far faster at a run through already-burned land than I had on the way out. The trees and plants here were already well and truly dead, the air thick with cinders and ash; here, at least, the forest had a much harder time striking at me, the trees too weak to prove much obstacle when they tried to crash down in my path, and the bushes had already been burned to ashes long before.

Still the ground pulled at my feet, and the enormous avalanche sound of its’ roar chased me all the way into the base of the stones.

I had a plan; well, I had an idea. It wasn’t a lot, but I felt like, just maybe, it would be enough.

And right now, that’s all I had.