Chapter 46

I tugged at my robes, trying to settle my clothes, as if that would somehow make my outfit match better. I stood with the others, none aside from Cenna’s sidelong smirks seeming to acknowledge my discomfort.

I panned my gaze across our group, taking in the few that had visible changes, having clearly pushed their evolutions in the limited time available. Dima’s skin had turned even paler, and a pair of jagged fulgurite horns sprouted from his brow. His hair had turned cloud-white, his eyes a bright yellow. The greatsword-wielding knight now positively shone with light, literally clad in shining armor. Long golden hair hung from beneath his helm, falling like a cascade of molten metal over his royal blue cloak. Alex appeared nearly unchanged, except that their hair had shaded toward a mossy green, and their boots held a strange shape; it seemed their appearance was shifting more toward a satyr or fawn, feet turned into hooves. In truth, I didn’t pay enough attention to the various others scattered around to determine if they’d undergone any changes; only those three were visible enough to spot at a glance. I knew my eyes were my biggest giveaway, burning red like smoldering coals.

We all stared at the distant, mountainous form of the Greenwarden, his malformed body missing one arm and part of his chest from where two of the towers had been too badly damaged to contribute to forming his body. There was some rustling and creaking as others along the line seemed unwilling to be the first to step forward or volunteer an observation. Finally, one of the others – the plate-armored knight in shining cuirass from before – slowly slumped down to sitting, and heaved a sigh. “We almost died against the Guardians… Hell, a lot of us did die against them.” He paused, letting his words hang in the air. “We don’t… Have to kill this thing, right? We just get more rewards if we do? I mean, I’d love more stuff but… what’re the chances that we actually survive long enough to enjoy them if we take that on?”

There was a painful truth to his words. A ripple went through our assembled group. The remains of the other raids had all gathered together, forty or so of us in one place. We stood in a formless cloud along the edge of an invisible circle, none willing to step forward. Anyone who did was struck with such an immense pressure from the Greenwarden’s presence that it felt like carrying a mountain on their shoulders; only a handful had attempted, tumbling to the dirt within a couple of feet of the unseen border.

I chewed my lip, looking for some way to refute his words as glances passed up and down the line, each looking to see if their neighbor had any words of wisdom or encouragement. I saw even Marcus standing stoically at the edge as if pressing against the wall of force, head dipped slightly, the chin of his helm resting fully against his cuirass. I drew in a deep breath, and took a step forward.

I shuddered under the impact, knees bending to absorb the extra weight. My first step felt like it barely carried me anywhere, sinking an inch into the ground from the weight of the Greenwarden’s oppressive aura. “Fine,” I growled out, biting off the word to hide the strain I felt. “Then go. That hesitation-“ I paused, drawing in a deep breath as I forced myself to lift my foot and take a second step. “That hesitation will kill you. I won’t be holding back, and I won’t let anyone slow me down.”

My third step came at the same time as a handful of others, the startling unison like the beat of a drum. I realized that a drumbeat accompanied the next, and I looked behind me to see the drummer, looking worse for wear but determined, a couple of steps behind me. He rattled his sticks on the edges of his drum, and then struck again, and I took another step forward with it.

Marcus stood to my left, perhaps ten feet away. To my right, Lyrella, straining to keep pace with me, visibly trying to push ahead, with Cenna just a couple of steps behind. To my surprise, Dima seemed to struggle the least, though every step was ponderous and measured, eyes half-lidded in focus.

The rest stood back, watching the five of us forge the path forward. The fifth step felt like sliding out from beneath a collapsing ceiling, the immense weight fading down to something much more manageable. I gave a single harsh bark of laughter as the pressure faded, and I felt the Greenwarden’s regard for the first time.

It had been facing away from us, leaning heavily on its’ one intact right arm. All at once, the torso shifted, hunching over, and then bulging in the center. A moment later, its’ face had pushed out through its’ back, the body now facing toward us. Two baleful green orbs regarded us from the distance, glowing so vibrantly they almost seemed like verdant bonfires, their gaze a nearly physical attack. I felt the ground tremble beneath my feet as if the earth itself was answering our footsteps, weighing and measuring us, looking for any sign of weakness or hesitation. I paused there, at the inner border of the wall of pressure, and glanced back to the drummer. “What’s your name?”

“Why’s it matter?” He chirped back, his tone cheery. “We can get acquainted after. I don’t intend to die here, do you?” He shot me a bright smirk, eyes dancing as he rattled the edge of his drum, switching to a quicker pace, as if encouraging us to push onward.

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Ella stood a little straighter when she stepped out from under the edge of the oppressive aura, stretching as if she’d just run a marathon. Marcus was stoic as ever, the only sign of the increased pressure marked in the trail of six inch deep bootprints reaching out behind him.

The ground shuddered with a voice, stones grinding together beneath our feet, branches rustling and leaves hissing, the very forest itself given a hundred overlapping voices.

“I had wondered who dared come,” the voices greeted us, some of them laughing, some of them stern. They all went silent at once, and the quiet fell like a dense blanket over us as the ground began to seep forth a soft white fog, swallowing up the grass beneath our feet and rapidly rising upward. I glanced behind us to see that the fog struck up against the invisible border between us and the rest of the raid as if filling a transparent bowl. The voices rose again, this time seeming to crawl and lash around our feet through the fog. “Is this all of you? Is this all that the Scribe could muster against me? Pitiful. I will break your bodies and reform you into my new Disciples. Your world will be mine once I am free of this prison, and you will deliver it to me.” There was a smug edge to the voices, the laughter taking an extra moment to fade once it had stopped speaking. When the voice rose again, it was a single word, a single violent expulsion that rose up beneath us like tectonic plates crashing. “Kneel.”

The ground bucked beneath our feet and we struggled to remain standing, the damp, clinging fog around our knees hiding the thrashing form of vines and roots lurching upward, grabbing at us in an attempt to drag us down. Tree branches swiped at us like claws, even their sharp edges not enough to pierce our veteran defenses, though they were far more hardy than we would’ve expected, reinforced with a vivid emerald sheen.

A hydra bush tore itself up from the ground beneath me, the dirt sinking down as the monster rose up, a body formed of an immense root network topped with lashing vine-sprouting heads, the saw-like thorned branches curling into innumerable ugly mouths as it attacked me from every direction. I fought against the shifting ground and the entangling vines at once, struggling to split my attention so many ways, my agility strained to the limit just trying to keep my feet. The surging fog hid my allies from view, rising up to touch the tree canopies, trapping me in my own personal battle, surrounded by the ghost-like sounds of combat, distance and direction meaningless in the muffling white tide.

I thrust my hands forward, the flames spilling out only belatedly and weakly; the fog had a physical presence, dampening my magic. Pulling from the Cindervault felt like trying to squeeze water from a stone, and I found myself relying on the energy of my wand instead, pulling on that ready source of flame to try and drive back my attackers. One bush ignited from within, chomping down on my wand-wielding hand, the creepers wrapping around my forearm up to the elbow as it tried to simply saw the limb off of me. The quilled bracers repelled the attack, thorns slipping against the smooth keratin, unable to gain purchase on the flesh beneath. I pushed more fire into the hydra’s head, the branches only reluctantly igniting. I struck across with my right hand, dragging the flames with it into a short blade that I jammed into the mouth of another, frantically cutting into it before allowing the blade to dissipate into flames. The plant shrieked as it began to burn, the other heads striking at me like immense ensnaring cudgels, battering me side to side even as the ground sank beneath my feet. I pulled free long enough to send a pair of firebolts toward the gnarled main body of the hydra, the blazing light turning the fog around me blinding white, and revealing the true scale of the enemy: It was like facing down a house, clods of dirt tumbling from its’ edges as it dragged itself upward on four stumpy-looking legs made of woven branches. The hiss it gave sounded like a gale blowing through a forest, and it reared back for a moment before charging toward me.

I yanked myself aside, trying to avoid it, but three more of its’ heads wrapped themselves around me, battering me back into place as the body simply split open as if a zipper had come undone, an enormous maw large enough to swallow a sedan lined with thorns the length of my forearm. I barely had time to yank my limbs back toward my torso before it bit down, striking me from every direction with piercing thorns. If the crushing grip hadn’t forced the air from my lungs, I would’ve screamed, many thorns punching fully through me to emerge out the other side. Wholly wrapped in darkness and pain, I reached for any source of light and hope I could find, digging into the [Starfire Band] that encircled my right index finger. Yanking the energy from it to fuel my powers felt like the first sip of caffeine at the start of a long day, a surge of vitality that clawed through my veins and felt fit to ignite me from within; perhaps it did, as the thorns piercing me either withdrew or withered away under the sudden torrent of heat pouring from my body. I yanked inward, dragging against every enchantment on my body for every scrap of power I could muster. I felt the fog pressing against my skin like a physical presence, reminding me of the ice mage in the tower.

So I drew in a deep breath, flexing my muscles to push the wall of brambles apart around me, and then pushed. Fire exploded out of me like a bomb, incinerating the branches close enough to touch me and igniting the rest of the body, a torrent of flames so hot and swift that it forced back the fog itself, a brief spatter of steaming rain the only remains of it.

I looked around, realizing I couldn’t see or hear any of my companions; the ground was torn up for a huge area around me, the edges lost to sight in the lingering fog; it was clear I’d been dragged along as I fought the creature, but I couldn’t tell which direction or how far. The only thing that I could see clearly was the shape of the Greenwarden looming over the center of the tutorial, gnarled oaken crown scraping at the sky as it swept its’ gaze back and forth, before settling on me for a moment.

The forest came alive once more.