After I managed to get out of the jail, we rode for Pitzer. Well, that wasn’t exactly true. Noah, Alex, Silver, and I rode. Sam walked, there simply wasn’t a horse large enough to carry him and his gear at the same time and no carriage or wagon were willing to go so far north. The landscape had changed several times on our way northeast. When we had first exited the city gates, the surrounding area had been pure farmland. There wasn’t a single tree within miles of Rosegarden, only rolling hills and the odd village or market town.
Two days into our journey, we crossed into the Arcadia forest. Its name was rather fitting and for all intents and purposes, it was about as close to paradise as one could get. Towns and hunting cabins dotted the map that I had bought. The main road was one of brick and concrete comparable to any of the royal highways. Going so far as to even have demon wards embedded in the stone. Along the entire route, a river snaked in and out of view though never outside of a couple of hours' walk.
We spent an idyllic three days in the forest before exiting its northern reaches and onto a flat desolate strip of land less than a couple miles wide. From one side we could see another forest. Though this one looked less welcoming. The map called it the Thorntree forest and warned of demons being rampant in the area. Thinking nothing of it we entered.
Huge black tree trunks bristled with thorns and blocked out the sun. Nothing grew on the ground below and no natural animals dwelled in the underbrush. After the first couple of hours, even Noah, who was normally the face of calm and collected thinking, began to feel unease.
“I don’t like the way those trees are looking at me,” Alex declared.
“What do you mean?” Noah asked, “trees’ don’t have faces.”
“Well those ones do,” he said. I grunted, turning to the direction he was facing. Sure enough, the trees had faces on them. Gnarled knobs of wood shaped into faces contorted in silent screams with what I hoped was red sap running from the eye sockets. The trees with faces all had weird apple-looking fruits hanging from them and it looked like the other trees made an attempt to stay away as they were always spaced at least six feet from any other plant life.
“Keep your eyes sharp and weapons ready.” I said, “don’t know what we’ll find in this forest. But if caravans are going missing, it can’t be anything good.”
Silver snorted, “just as long as you don’t get drunk, we’ll be fine.”
That got a chuckle out of us that died after a few seconds, plunging the forest back into an uncomfortable silence.
“Ryze, I gotta ask. Who is Gigacat?” Noah said.
Alex and Sam turned to him in astonishment, “you don’t know who Gigacat is?”
“No.” he said defensively, “is there a problem with that?”
“I guess it’s only normal for a barbaric southerner like you.” Alex said with a grin, “Listen here young one, let your wise old master teach you about this world and its ways.”
I sighed, “if he’s going to do that Patch impression again, he can fuck right off. I finally get a couple of weeks away from him and his stupid stories just to listen to someone do an impression of him. I think the hell not.”
“Shut up and let him finish his story,” Sam said.
Alex tilted his head in thanks, “so, long ago before even the reign of the Sun King, before steel had even been discovered, a time before time-” I sighed and he pointedly ignored me, “a cat shagged another cat. Or it could have been a lion or a tiger. Or a panther.”
“What?”
“Doesn’t matter, all you got to know is that a cat was born. Gigacat. She was massive and she only got bigger as she got older, never stopping and never growing weak from old age. For thousands of years, she has dwelled in the lands of the north. Taking tributes of cream and catnip. They say she is the size of mountains and is the reason why no dragons live in the north anymore.”
Noah gave them an incredulous look, “that sounds like the stupidest mythological being I have ever heard of.”
Sam shook his head, “it’s not mythology, it’s a real thing.”
He narrowed his eyes, “you think I was born yesterday don’t you? I’m not falling for it. No way.”
“No, I’m being honest. Arya says she’s seen her in person.” Alex said sincerely. Noah turned to me and Silver.
I shrugged, “There are way too many accounts of her single-handedly sending trade-in kingdoms to a screeching halt for her not to be real.”
I saw movement flash across my peripheral vision and the hairs on my neck rose in an instant. In one smooth motion, I drew my sword and swung it over Sam’s head. The razor-sharp blade sliced a humongous spider clean in half. A little too clean in fact as the two halves stayed connected until they hit his head with a splat. Sam screamed as neon yellow goo squirted everywhere.
“AHH! What was that!” he roared in anger, “It slimed me!”
I looked around for where the dinner plate-sized bug had come from. A thunderclap boomed to my right and for a moment, it was like the dark forest had been lit by a bonfire. Then I felt wet, warm, goop spray across my neck. My head snapped up. The natural canopy had been replaced. Instead of sharp dark green pines, the forest ceiling was covered in thick, sickly yellow clouds of spider webs.
Half a dozen more spiders dropped the sixty feet from their nest, “they’re above us!” I shouted, pulling my pistol from its holster and shooting another one of the arachnids mid-fall. It exploded in a shower of legs and viscera.
“FUCKING HATE SPIDERS!!!” Sam shouted, terror evident in his voice. He held his longsword in one hand, shield in the other. After one of the spiders dropped onto the shield itself he realized that it would be of little use to him. He burned it to death with a quick beam from his eyes before throwing it like a frisbee and killing another one. The spiders began dropping faster, becoming a shower of arachnids that would haunt my dreams for years to come.
A small pile of spider parts had begun gathering around me and it was getting increasingly difficult to keep my horse from panicking. Eyes in the air I quickly scanned the canopy. More spiders were coming from the north, where the webs continued into the darkness. The opposite direction was empty, and clear of any webs. The choice was obvious, “Pull back, get away from their webs.” I shouted, wheeling my horse around.
The others followed, Sam stomping on one final one before sprinting away from the eight-legged horrors. We continued until we were certain that we weren’t being followed anymore before finally stopping. I dismounted with a sigh, “well that was awful.”
To my left, Alex leaned over, hands on knees, and threw up on a tree. To our horror, the tree began to move slowly, absorbing the puddle of vomit. In seconds, the puddle was gone. Noah groaned, “what is wrong with this forest?”
Sam sat down on the ground and got into the fetal position, “nope, nope, nope, nope, nope. I’m not going back, nope.”
“Are you good?” I asked, genuinely concerned for him. He didn’t answer, instead, he began to slowly rock back and forth shaking his head and repeating the same couple of words.
“Well, that went poorly.” Silver said. He uncorked his flask and took another long swig.
“You can say that again,” Noah said.
“You know, I’ve been in this business for a long time, but spiders still get to me,” he said offering the flask to Alex with a shake. Alex looked over and accepted it with a grimace.
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“Cheers.”
I kneeled down next to Sam, giving his shoulder a shake. He didn’t respond. I tried again, this time a little harder, “Sam!”
“Nope.”
“Samuel!”
“No way.”
“Samuel Bright!” I shouted, wincing at how my voice echoed into the darkness.
He looked up angrily, “Fuck off Varus, let me mope in peace.”
I grinned in relief, “ok so we haven’t broken him yet.”
Silver scoffed, “would have been disappointed if all it took was a couple of creepy crawlies to end the royal prince.”
We took a few minutes to rest and regather ourselves before Noah said, “I think that’s long enough. We need to make a plan.”
“Agreed,” I sighed, “I’ve already looked at the maps, the only other road to Pitzer adds more than a week to the journey.”
“That won’t do. These missions are only supposed to last a month at the most. Any longer and you’ll get docked points.” Silver warned. That, I thought was incredibly unfair. Leviathan was near the center of the Empire, a nation that spans thousands of miles and would take months to journey across. Hell, it had taken me several weeks to get there from ForestDeep and that was by wagon. Of course, the missions had been chosen at destinations close by, but that could still mean a week or two of travel time both ways. Leaving relatively little time to actually solve problems and complete objectives.
“We could try to push onwards and fight our way through the spiders,” Noah suggested. Out of the five of us, he seemed to be the most unfazed by them. Even while we’d been fighting them, he’d stayed calm and collected. Shooting or spearing any that came close to him while using his trait to blow attacking ones away.
Sam shook his head vehemently, “no way, we don’t know how deep those webs go, and from the looks of it. I feel like there’s gotta be some kind of nest inside.”
“Let’s think this out first.” I said, “I doubt those things can bite through metal armor or leather coats.” they nodded in agreement, “but we can’t just leave the horses here, nor can we take them in uncovered. All of our gear is still on them and if they die, we’re screwed..”
“And we’d need places to sleep, eat, rest, and the like.” Alex added, “that’s plenty of opportunities for those eight-legged bastards to whittle us down.”
Nodding in agreement Sam said, “we also don’t know if they’re poisonous. Because if they are, it wouldn’t take more than a bite to kill.”
“That is one thing we can test.” Silver said and we all turned to look at Alex. He glared back at us.
“Screw you guys,” he said, crossing his arms, “we already decided it was a bad idea. There’s no point in me wasting a copy on that.”
“He’s right,” I muttered and he let out a relieved sigh.
“That still doesn’t solve our problem though.” Noah said, “if we don’t go through, and we can't go back. Then our only option is around.”
Irritation flashed through me, “I already told you, there’s only one other road to Pitzer.”
“What about hunting trails?” he shot back, becoming equally irritated, “game trails, village paths, bush tracks? Didn’t you train with the rangers? There’s got to be hundreds of different ways through a forest of this size.”
“First of all, most of my training was in archery and fighting. Never really figured out unseen movement or tracking.” I said, more than a little embarrassed, “and second, what makes you think going off the main road is going to be any safer?”
Sam sighed, “We don’t know if it will be safer. But we do know that going on the road isn’t an option. At least this way we’ll have a chance.”
“Better the enemy you know than the one that you don’t,” Alex muttered. I nodded in agreement.
“If the enemy you know is undefeatable then I think the one you don’t might be a better option.” Silver said, gently urging us to make the obvious choice. When no one spoke for several minutes after that, his patience snapped, “holy shit, make up your mind already.”
“Right, I think we really only have one option,” Alex said, clapping his hands together. We muttered our agreement and began plotting out a course. The five of us squatted around a large map of the forest along the main road.
“Ryze, are you sure that this map is accurate?” Noah asked. I nodded, I’d gotten it from Delany herself and I trusted that she wouldn’t just keep any map.
“Yeah, Hightower told me that it was made by some kind of magical scanning, should be accurate down to the foot.”
Sam raised a brow, “that is if the map isn’t outdated already if it’s more than four or five years old then things could be drastically changed.”
“Didn’t know you knew anything about maps,” I said with mild surprise.
“I’ll have you know, I am still third in line for the throne. John’s the regent and isn’t supposed to fight, Dan’s his champion in battle, supposed to lead from the front. And I’m supposed to be his general, in charge of leading his army. Or at least that’s what our tutors told us.” he shrugged, “John’s really more of the fighting type though.”
“John?” Noah asked.
“The Royal Prince,” Alex explained, “that’s a capital ‘R’ in his name.”
Silver cleared his throat meaningfully and we returned our attention back to the map.
“As I was saying, if the map is as accurate as you say-” Noah began.
Sam cut him off, “And up to date.”
“Yes and that,” he said with a glare, “then we could take this game trail half a mile back.”
I looked at where his finger was. The trail was long and winding, but it stayed well clear of the main road for almost a hundred miles before curving back. However, it wouldn’t be a trail we could ride on and moving would become a lot slower for it.
“Let’s take a look at it first. If it’s any good then we can come to a decision then.” Alex said.
“Fuck that, I don’t give a rat's ass if that’s the only way. I’m not going.” I said crossing my arms, “that is how people disappear randomly.”
The ‘trail’ was nothing more than a thin strip of packed dirt that twisted and turned far too much to be natural. The trees crowded around it like walls with barely a foot of space between them. Roots stuck out of the ground at strange angles with sharp barbs at their ends.
“Quit being a little bitch Ryze,” Sam said. “It doesn’t even look that bad.”
I glared at him, “Not to you, that’s because the alternative route is through the spiders. And we all know how much those things scare you.”
“Shut up, both of you. This isn’t the time for your banter.” Silver said. I huffed before sliding off my horse.
“Looks like we’re going to be going single file down this trail.” Alex said reluctantly, “I’ll have a copy go in with a torch to light the way, that way if there’s an ambush in front of us we’ll know.”
“Good thinking,” I said with a nod, “Sam, get your armor on, you’re taking point for at least the first bit. You’ve got the best chance at stopping anything if it charges us from the front.”
“Sounds good,” he said, already half-dressed.
“I’ll be right behind him, I’m the only one here who can see over his shoulder,” I said.
“I assume, you’ll be giving us directions then?” Noah asked. I nodded and continued, “Noah, I’m going, to be honest with you. You’re the weakest melee fighter on the team. I’m putting you in the middle.”
“Makes sense.” He sighed, “shooting isn’t going to be very useful.”
Silver coughed, “guess that leaves Alex and me to bring up the rear.”
Alex snickered. “I’ll bring up your rear if you know what I mean.”
“Shut up.”
In the end, there hadn’t been any need for all the planning. Nothing attacked us once the entire trip. In fact, we didn’t see anything other than trees and each other for the three and a half days we spent trekking through the trail.
“Please tell me that’s sunlight,” I said hopefully. The continuous darkness of the forest had started to mess with my brain. It left everyone feeling constantly fatigued and sleepy all hours of the day. Which in turn meant that we all became even more moody and grumpy.
“Shut up, you’re going to jinx us.” Silver grunted, “fucking Mallory, giving me the shit tasks.”
“How are we the shit task?” Alex asked, slightly offended, “at least we’re all competent.”
“Oh?” he said, “and which team isn’t?”
“Tourel’s isn’t,” I muttered.
Silver gave me a sideways look, “Biased much?”
“Maybe,” I admitted to my dismay. As much as I hated the guy, he was an excellent fighter and honestly, a better team leader than I was.
The way out of the forest was a hill. The trees slowly became smaller and fewer as we climbed. I could hear Sam’s labored breathing from behind and the crunch of his boots. His suit had started to run out of power by the end of the fourth day in the forest since we didn’t have anywhere to trade our inert gems for full ones. A trade like that was rather hard to do away from the big cities and was something we hadn’t really put much thought into.
“Sam, you need some help?” Alex asked, concerned.
“No.” Sam strained, “just gotta get over the hill and we’ll be fine. It’s not that heavy.”
“Didn’t you say it was like six hundred pounds?” I asked.
He nodded, “yeah but it's got some load-bearing mechanisms built in to make it easier. So it feels more like two hundred pounds instead of the full six hundred.”
“That’s still too much. We might have to fight the minute we get into Pitzer. It won’t do if you’re too tired to swing a sword before then.” I said,
“I’ll be fine.” he huffed, “I normally train like this.”
I was going to say more but we crested the hill and we all went silent. The town of Pitzer wasn’t very impressive. It lay in the middle of a horseshoe bend, a large river maybe four feet wide flowing around it. A wall of mud-covered logs stood seven or eight feet high over crooked wood and thatch buildings. It was an ugly town, obviously suffering from overcrowding and poor hygiene. A single stone bridge spanned the length of the river. Twin brick towers stood on either side with half a dozen guards on each. By the standards of any town in Varus, it would have been considered a slum.
“Like I said, shit tasks.”