At the innermost point of this place, onyx and crimson wrestle according to the rhythm of cacophonous peals. Small skirmishes of colour around its spherical border blister into existence, growing fat on the pus of divinity. Eventually, they grow too heavy to cling to that hanging orb and fall off.
Some time ago, one such droplet fell on a shack. Most do not.
Most fall towards the broken tree.
A pale-white crack in the darkness; a wraith to match any ghost contained within these bounds. For it is dead – cracked under a force both more powerful and more brutish than itself – and left to list sideways, limp and accusatory. A monument to millennia, destroyed on a whim. Once alabaster bark is stained with dull brown lines where red and black have fought. Its boughs extend like the long shadows of an outstretched arm. Unsated by the blood that marks them.
Underlaying it is a stratum of hands and eyes. A plain of grass twisted, not into wood, but warm, clinging muscle and organs. Replete with capillaries and expanded pupils and measured patience. They twitch around the shade as if to anoint it; spreading across the earth widely. All the way to the edge of the pit.
When the amalgamate finally climbs out of that hole, they find this awaiting them. In every direction; an inescapable circle. The sudden stillness of the hands. The overbearing branches. The silent gravity that holds within the air, cold and infinitely patient. The pressure almost crushes them.
Those eyes. If only they would look away.
The huge carving moves carefully through the field of flesh – tugging their trailing roots away from the frozen fingers – towards the broken tree at its centre. Each moment awaits an inevitable impact, but one that flits torturously away from the present. Halfway across the plain, and it seems impossible that it hasn’t fallen yet. Still, nothing changes until they arrive beneath the shattered canopy, to where pale sticks litter the strange, shattered shapes that lay around its roots.
There is a twitch. The amalgamate goes still. Their surroundings stir.
The many scattered eyes begin to shake wildly. An invisible wind shakes the canopy above. Sediment begins to vibrate, as if some great beast far beneath were stirring. As hands begin to close around their legs, the huge figure waits patiently. Something twists their instincts, and they look up.
Hanging from the boughs above are three incomplete figures. Their boundaries blur into the ubiquitous gloom, which slithers across their faded forms in an insidious suggestion of shape: hinting at expressions and limbs and movements that may or not may not be true. Like a twisted mobile spinning above an infant’s crib, they slowly rotate around the tree.
Despite their liminal and undefined nature, each possess features wrought in startling clarity. The first has the upper torso of a man, a broken string of beads dangling around a thin cavity where a blade has perforated it. The second clenches ineffectual, phantom hands around its abdomen, which dangles ropey entrails into the gloom below. The third and final leers as its forearm – athletically lithe – clutches the hilt of a shattered sword, which it dares to point at the amalgamate below.
Well, well, well, it sneers, look what finally stopped playin’ pretend.
The figure allows the hands to crawl further up. A glance downwards reveals those hands are birthed of arms, and those arms of dancing, fragmented faces, bearing wounds of their own.
The first dangles disapprovingly. It would have wiser to stay in place, ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ declares. This all could have been avoided.
The second hangs its head – almost entirely shadow. Isn’t it clear? ⬛⬛⬛⬛ pleads. This won’t end well. It can’t.
That which initially spoke – the third – seems to scowl. Think a fool’s gonna listen to reason? ⬛⬛⬛ cackles hoarsely. Second-funniest thing said all day, an’ the first’s that joke standin’ down there.
The amalgamate speaks in defence. Yet the words never find purchase and simply slip into the shadows surrounding them. Here is not a place of answers.
As those ghouls sway above, the amalgamate’s wooden gaze burrows into the bodies beneath them. Their attention is returned many times over, by the layer of flickering eyes smeared across the ground beneath. An oppressive amount. Yet simply turning away from these ghosts will rob them of power. Blocking sight and sound renders them toothless. Here, ignorance is strength. Strength enough to simply move past.
They could also destroy them. Here lies mere mouthpieces, filling the air with empty words. The most solid of these tongues are little more than husks. Yet though they seem individually hollow, none are weak. The sheer, loathsome weight of that which surrounds the tree suggests one thing: this place is a locus for something far more dangerous than any of its fragments.
But obliterating these obstacles seems possible. The huge sculpture is an entity for whom every step requires the labour of a league, however that only means that its feet fall with the force of thousands. They’re capable of turning these ghosts to nothing; to less than nothing. Once more, ignorance is strength.
Is that the kind of strength the amalgamate searches for? The strength to turn away?
There is a third option. To bear the terrible burden of these eyes and their fragmented words. To acknowledge them, and let their efforts try to break them.
What kind of god lives in this space? What kind of god should leave it?
Above, the orb of blood thunders. A decision is made.
Ooh, ⬛⬛⬛ croons. You’ll regret that.
Without a shield of apathy, the hands beneath dig deeper. Fingernails carve new gouges and settle into extant grooves in their scrimshawed skin. Scratching ever deeper, and the amalgamate – foolishly; kindly; cruelly – allows it. Until their wooden form is stretched upon a rack of flesh, with the ghouls swaying above the judge for this vengeful spectacle.
How many people have you murdered? The first asks. Dozens? Over a hundred? The very least you could do was keep count of the slaughtered sons and daughters trailing behind you. Yet, atop that hill, you faltered. Despite your perfect memory, the bodies blurred together. A monumental failure. And not your first.
Once more, the amalgamate speaks. That was unintentional. Who could be expected to retain focus through such chaos?
None of the executioners seem to hear them. Ears do not adorn this desecrated tree: only a chorus of eyes demanding answers from one insufficient to the task.
No, not your first dereliction, ⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛⬛ idly continues. Would that be when your meddling singlehandedly left your family defenceless? When you lied to you mother for years in favour of self-preservation? Or was it when you forced her to suicide? Hm?
That’s not how it went.
Not your first, it muses, and not your last.
The hints of a body around its torso grow large, many-fanged, monstrous. Yet still human. Always human.
For the crime of doing what he thought was right, you have burned a man alive. In service of a murderous thug better dead than alive.
To stop dozens of others from dying.
You tried to prevent them from climbing that hill. You should have tried harder.
They weren’t listening.
And at the top, it took little for you to abandon your self-imposed restrictions. The mere promise of salvation was enough for you to damn countless others. If your self-restraint meant so little to you, why adopt it in the first place?
There were no other options.
A man dead in the Fox’s forest, for the crime of earning your disdain.
That was the Shrikeblood.
Then, in that crater, two people killed because, despite being the only one of your kind, you were too weak to rescue them.
No one could’ve helped them.
A father murdered, with his son in the next room over, because you lacked self-control.
He… He moved too fast. It was the Ravenblood.
Then the Fort. Piles of bodies: a gift for the beast who stuck his head in the sand. Who desired nothing more than to abandon responsibility.
It was meant to get rid of everything.
All the power of a god, and what did you do with it? You faded out of existence.
There are no better options.
And that’s only in this life.
You have manipulated your own friend into killing you.
You have slept through the pain of others. You have killed your own parents.
You have built a tower of corpses, uncaring of your own family.
You have poisoned a city to its death-bed for your cowardice.
You have manipulated a continent for a man weeks dead.
You have killed the people who trusted me for the crime of bleeding black; lied and resented the children who loved you.
…
A poor parent. Poor leader. Poor citizen. Poor spouse. Poor person. Poor human. Poor friend. Poor god.
All that power, and you have saved no one. Not even yourself.
A dog would do better. But you’re no dog, are you?
You’re a monster.
A breath. The amalgamate sucks back into themself; arrives beneath the broken tree and the relentless stares of those that dangle from it. Ineffability sinks into them; a lack of words commanded by the severity of the charges. Their wrought chest heaves in search of air their body has no need for, and cannot truly inhale besides.
Seemingly satisfied, the first vague remnant – stabbed clean through the chest – has gone quiet. The remaining hands churn around roots and legs in crawling fervour – excitement or mere overstimulation – yet the amalgamate does not tear themself from that seething mass. Instead, they turn their hollow gaze upwards.
The carrion tree waits: pale and streaked with lines of brown unnervingly akin to a warped, demented face.
Do you remember my name? the second solemnly asks, entrails spilling where an ivory spike once impale it. You know some of us. Dirk. Whip. Rita. Colin. Greta. Henrik. Ambrose. But what about the guards? The soldiers? Them common people, for whom violence was a necessity, and were too burdensome to be remembered? Some were failed. Others were murdered. None were saved.
There’re no kind deaths. And violent ends’re amongst the cruellest.
The amalgamate claims, That’s unfair. Those that live by violence can justly die by it. Who can rebut basic symmetry?
Of course, none of the broken tree’s creatures listen. They don’t care. They can’t care.
The power you have – this great, tidal wave of holy ebony – is enough to scratch out a thousand dreams. Bring to fruition countless impossible wishes. It pauses. So many people have cared for you. And with all that strength, and all that love, all you’ve done is hurt.
It was a mistake.
⬛⬛⬛⬛ seems to shake its head. Jackson. An uncle to you in all but blood. How do you think he tortures himself over what happened?
No one could have expected this.
Dash. Sash. They loved you; they wanted to grow up with you.
It was better that they didn’t.
The Face Bhan. He wanted an apprentice. Instead, he got you.
He understands.
Ronnie and the other Strains, who wanted nothing more than a place in the world. Is this the place they hoped for?
What else is there?
Head Maleen. Completely alone in this world, with the legacy of her family on her shoulders. You only added to that burden.
No one alive started that.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
Erin. An impossible dreamer. Just a few deaths; that’s all she asks for. You’ve died many times, but have yet to die in any way that matters.
Can’t die. Can never die.
And Kit. How much have you taken from her? How much will you take, if you make it where you’re going?
…
And where are you going? Where’re you taking us? Will it be to the places we dreamt of, in life? What’s our destination? Is it enough to daub over the wounds inflicted on us? The people you killed?
In life, we were temporal. In death, we’re timeless. Forever hungry. Forever yearning. Who’ll answer this tree of screams? Who’ll sate our agony?
No one can, it quietly concludes. Not even the end of that shell’s quest will heal these wounds. After all, healing requires a future, and there’s no future for the dead.
And you’re little more than a mound of corpses. You can’t change. So stay here.
It’s the safest place for monsters like you.
A beat. They return; the shadows and hands and eyes and gnarled, leering tree fading back into existence. Clammy fingers dig into their obsidian flesh: somehow warm, despite everything. Above, the orb of blood swirls according to its fell laws.
Their chest heaves. The hollow, wooden cavity that is their mouth gags and heaves, yet uproots no bile; only air and sound. ⬛⬛⬛⬛ has grown quiet. Not from lack of words, but the certainty that everything it could ever say has already been instilled in the amalgamate beneath.
They pant – immobilised by the flesh surrounding them – and turn their gaze back to the tree. Its ghostly skin is sombre in the gloom. The final body is not.
Oh wah, the third raises a single solid arm raised to mockingly rub at a nebulous eyeball, poor lil’ me! It’s so hard havin’ more power’n any other creature alive; it jus’ makes me so sad. Why, I might jus’ weep from the sheer sorrow of it!
‘In the darkness. In the darkness’ Doom an’ gloom. Gloom an’ doom. Aren’t you sick of it? Doesn’t it start to grate – just a little – after a while?
Shut up, it snaps. Gods, you never stop. It’s bloody relentless. Can’t have a moment t’think with you carryin’ all this damned garbage around. Bet you enjoy it, you self-servin’ sack o’ excrement; use it as an excuse. D’you think ‘feeling bad’ makes you a good person? Ain’t nothin’ like guilt to wipe yer hands clean. Oughta sell it as a soap – a few chits and all yer victims’ll smile at th’ bite of a knife.
Its voice sours; broken features contorting in rage real or imagined. Only th’ most shameless idiot alive’ll buy that.
These excuses. These self-indulgent little thoughts. Oh, look how pretty people are! An’ how sad their dyin’ is! Oh, look how pretty livin’ is! Why, I do declare such revoltingly saccharine tripe should be framed an’ hung on the wall!
It’s garbage; s’all mawkish trash. S'not like you actually believe it. You loathe as much as you love. Maybe more so. Jus’ as easy t’see beauty in pain, an’ ugliness in pleasure. If beauty an’ goodness align, it’s ‘cause either the mind tricked ‘em into accordance or sheer coincidence.
Bet you’re gonna come an’ try an’ devise some pithy, banal, one-word answer fer us, like that’s a balm for every malady under the sun. Ha!
What d’you know? What can you have learned? What wisdom have you gleaned, from sittin’ on yer arse an’ cryin’? Who are you to try an’ tell anyone, anything; even yerself? You’re nothin’ but a snake-oil salesmen mistakin’ insanity for insight; stupid and ultimately unthinking – a mute bastard too scared for legitimate human contact. Someone who’s internalised a sack of excuses so well he can barely articulate what they are anymore.
You useless sack o’ offal, ⬛⬛⬛ hisses, the offcuts; the stinkin’ guts no one wanted. Cram a victim in th’ skull of a violator an’ call it savin’ – what a laugh! You know what they thought o’ you. They were scared o’ you, an’ they were right to be. You’re nothin’ without a blade in your hand, and you’re nothin’ now that you’ve put it down. I hate you. From the moment your misbegotten, malformed foetus crawled outta some poor woman’s crevice, the world’s been made worse off.
We’re our worst moments, an’ our best ones, an’ every little heartbeat in-between. But are you delusional enough to think yer highest will ever be a match for yer lowest?
A monster’s all you are, and all you’ll ever be.
A gasp, the relentless drumming of the blood above, and they find themselves bound beneath the boughs once more.
That final, familiar ghoul pants, awaiting a reply that it cannot hear. Around the carrion tree is an area pruned of all conversation. Where it is trivial to slap down any retort. It is not a place where truth is sought, for despite people obsessing over it, telling truth from delusion is a rare skill uncommon amongst any species. Here is a place of pointed fingers and digging fingernails; words full of spittle and relentless stares. A place of accusations.
Yet, it’s somehow ironic. Despite their cruelty, the whorls in the pale tree and the blood drying upon it no longer seem an angry face, but one full of uncertainty. It seems to await a judgement of its own.
So, carefully, the amalgamate begins peeling the hands from its sculpted form: pulling fingertips from the divots they’ve carved. Immediately, the bodies that form the ground beneath writhe, flinging arms back up to cling to their form once more. If they wore only an unadorned blade at their waist, the gambit might have left them immobilised; sentenced to an eternity tied to a tree. But across the blade wait symbols enough to rebuff the ghoulish pieces above.
Eventually, they manage to drag themself a little forward. Then they lean down and reach into the morass below.
Some of it is fair. Some of it is nonsense. But it’s hard to parse the two. Just sentencing is often ducked and insidious untruths embraced. It’s a skill, and one that grows increasingly demanding with every nail sunk into flesh.
Down there is deception. Down there is insight. Most of all, down there is dust.
***
Before it can fully comprehend, its bark is broken, then its core ripped apart as the same force that impaled the man beneath touches it, and though the knowing will be slow eventually the tree’s death will catch up with-
***
Pulling out the weapon-
***
-her arm is gone-
***
-still feeling the rattle of the impact-
***
-his head flinches backwards as the spear’s haft blurs in Gale’s hands, and as he stumbles his lord and murderer brushes past. The trailing edge of a thought formed before his death-blow compels him to spin. Shapes move, yet the guard never manages to comprehend he’s watching his comrades die before his mind falters, leaving-
***
-running up the offending limb and into bone as the dying stare-
***
-the command to pass Henrik’s lips. He understands it’s a mistake that he must make, to curb this evil here. Gale – blind Gale, little Gale, kind Gale – will kill them all, but maybe they can destroy the Ravenblood as well. He’s still hoping when his decapitated head hits the ground, and-
***
-first in pain or confusion or simple rage, then slow, horrified comprehension-
***
-Greta asks, “What’d you call me for, Gale? Is it about what we’re making fer the delegation? Believe you me, I’m puttin’ me best foot forward,” and then her neck is twisted and she’s wondering who will care for Ambrose and why a child she cared for all his life would do this-
***
-and sometimes there’s a wet, sucking sound as the murder weapon is pulled from their body-
***
-Colin idly pokes at the furnace, pondering runes, and when he begins choking part of him is wondering who will finish the work as the rest discovers it does not want to die-
***
-strangely enough, the resistance of pulling a blade out feels heavier than initially pushing it in-
***
-she blinks stars away as she peeks over the rim of her shield to see the group – miraculously not dead – still sprinting towards their formation, and that horrible man howls with two voices and she feels herself lift off the ground and witnesses her own viscera and when she lands choking on her blood watches as her comrades are turned from people into paste-
***
-and as the rest reels, some small, jaded part is already inventorying the time and effort necessary to clean the viscera from the weapon-
***
-huge creature spinning through them like a nightmare with teeth of black and too many eyes and she screams in abject terror-
***
-wondering why whatever unimaginably transcendent intellect created humanity made them bleed so damned much-
***
-group of five – plus, bizarrely, a dog cradled in the giant’s arms – emerge from the fog like startled turkeys. The Baylarian soldier gapes at them. Neither he nor the warriors beside them expected to be the ones to encounter the group. He’s still trying to figure out what to do when a woman cuts down his partner and a man with far, far too many eyes swings a sword, then there’s shocking, impossible pain-
***
-because whetstones and oils and rags all have a monetary value, which means despite what most would believe, killing is often unprofitable-
***
-entrails spilling as the speartree grows higher and the Aching – exposed in all its bloody, alien, insane chaos – yawns-
***
-that’s discounting the various aches and pains – a pulled tendon or muscle – birthed by the exertion of the actual act which will linger well into the future. It’s a lot of work-
***
-clung to the warrior who had the misfortune of witnessing the existence of Shrikeblood, tightening her arms around his neck like a steel vice, when a force slams into her back and something crunches, then before she catches her bearings something hammers her head, and she’s confused and can’t grasp the blurred shapes around her and what’s happening-
***
-and those thoughts whisper petulantly even if vomit rises up, scalding the throat, and threatens to erupt upon those dying people as if they’re not disgusting enough, completely smeared in their own filth-
***
-impaled through the chest as the Ravenblood looks at me-
***
-and that disgust is a callous, terrifying thing, because they’re facing the greatest ordeal of their life and being robbed of the time needed to overcome it, or at the very least come to terms with it. The sheer indignity of being judged by a murderer-
***
-they surround the bloody Face staggering drunkenly downhill, having lost his grip on his halberd. They tremble. He’s killed so many. But that’s exactly why they must end him. We step forward, jab, and before one can register their spear has broken their chest is opened, then a scream, then a neck is snapped, and three become none-
***
-for the crime of not dying cleanly is unacceptable. Nevertheless, against all reason and kindness, that feeling endures. Except it’s not directed towards them anymore, is it? Because the contents of their defiled body doesn’t stay within them as they die. It spreads out-
***
-both hands around her neck and though she jabs her stiletto backwards it fails to find the bastard’s flesh. Meant to be an easy mark, but before she can think to gurgle ‘Don’t’ the others’re firing from the woods and the man is using her as a shield. An enormous pain in her abdomen knocks the wind out of her, and as she looks down and sees the arrow through her gut she attempts to persuade herself it won’t kill her. And then she’s hauled upwards, and an arrow’s coming, and he’s grinning-
***
-climbing from the body towards the boots, which grow wet and stained and offer no obstacle as they cling to feet. Then the pieces on the weapon – the bits of bone and hair, maybe – crawl up its blade or haft or skin to dismount onto the body; the wielder. Where that viscera begins to spread – like a pox or blister or disease except utterly unlike those things, because there’s a purity in the way it moves. A purity greater than the body it dwells upon, for that body is stinking and sweat-stained – covered in the grime of the day – yet despite that its touch does not cleanse, but desecrate. Now it infiltrates beneath clothes, creating a stain no amount of time or effort or whetstones or rags or oil can uproot, and it doesn’t stop there. It crawls deeper: through skin and bone and marrow until there is nowhere else to crawl. And that dead body it once lived in is empty; just staring-
***
-not gonna not gonna die not gonna die but the kid’s spear is falling oh please, please
***
-and in the reflection of their eyes, something can be seen.
***
Dust hangs over the Foot. Dead fill its streets. Jackson lays on the ground. Pat stands, hackles raised, body tensed. Beside him, Sash and Dash stare at their older brother, white hair daubed in ash. Orvi’s kindest lie hangs in the air.
There’s a body on the ground.
A single word is mouthed.
***
When Corvin wakes, everything is dark.
The young boy rubs sleep from his bleary eyes, hoping maybe this is temporary. That his lack of vision is due to his own failure, and not one of the adults forgetting to light the lanterns. Aspirants get confused a lot, especially the ones with the blackest veins. Sometimes that means they forget things. Yet all he succeeds at his rubbing some kind of dry grit off his hands and onto face.
They’re meant to be here, he realises. All of the kids were taken deeper into the mountain, because the Raven wanted to give them its blood, and then they were going to help their god beat all the bad monsters and save everyone in the world. He’d been scared, and hadn’t wanted to go, and he’d hid, and they’d found him quickly, and everyone was mad at him and made him go anyway.
Where are they now?
Corvin tries to sit up. But just as his vision is obstructed, so too is his movement weighed down by a lump on top of him. It’s not a blanket; too lumpy and damp and cold. There’s not just one of them, either. But the irregular shape of these objects makes them easy to wriggle out from, though their strange texture leaves him shuddering. When he breaches the top of the pile, the dark does not abate.
Once more, the boy blinks. “Hello?” he calls, childish voice echoing through the chamber. “Can someone help me please? Aunty? Uncle?”
There are no replies.
His mouth is gritty and dry; like he’d just spent the whole afternoon sucking his shirt. He stares into the black void, fiddling with his shirt.
“We’re nearly outta time. They’re already fightin’. You needa take them twins an’ get out o’ here.”
“You should light a lantern, Corvin.”
“I’m so sorry for what you must withstand.”
Corvin flinches at the sudden noise; a cacophony of different voices overlaying each in a chorus of reluctant, atonal singers. Some of them are familiar, but they’re really noisy and speak strangely; he can’t quite understand what they’re saying. Something about a lantern? However, even if the boy can get his hands on one, only adults can light them.
Regardless, he paws through the mishappen objects beneath in an attempt to find one. After a short time, his efforts are rewarded. At the touch of the dry grit flaking off his fingers, the lantern shines a light bright enough to send a stab of pain through his skull and force his eyes shut once more.
Upon cracking them open again, the first thing he discovers is that his hands are smeared with black gunk. He staggers upright, frantically wiping them on his pants, only to discover his entire body is drenched in the stuff. Every inch of him; it penetrates every crack and crevice. Eventually, he stops in favour of picking up the lantern and trying to penetrate the darkness. When he fails, Corvin looks down.
His mouth goes dry. “Uh.”
There’re these ugly, dark lumps underneath his feet.
“Uh.”
No. Not lumps.
“Uh.”
People.
Tears are leaking from his eyes. “Uh. Uh.”
They’re not moving.
“Uh.” Corvin can’t breathe. Can’t get air through his throat. How did he do it before?
They’re dead.
A scream rips from his throat and he’s stumbling down the mound of bodies, looking for someone to help but there’s no one around to help because everyone who isn’t dead is gone, gone, and he doesn’t want to look at them because anyone he sees right now will be someone he knows.
And then he trips over a splayed, clammy hand. The boy lands directly onto his forearms, scraping them across the rocky floor.
Behind his sobs, there’s the sound of babies crying. Corvin doesn’t know what to do.
“Help,” he croaks.
Earlier, someone had spoken. Wiping tears from his face, the boy picks the lantern back up and climbs to his feet to peer through the darkness in search of them. This time, he catches a glimpse of more than just shadow.
Thousands of eyes glint along one of the walls, stretching between nebulous, twisting darkness. Unrelentingly staring. The shadows hint at shapes: teeth; claws; hair; faces – the terrible nightmares of countless children made manifest. Those few concrete eyes he can see are no match for the infinite number of threats he can’t. His imagination fills those in.
In truth, he sees very little. But just enough for the pieces to click into place, and to understand what has just happened here.
“Monster,” Corvin breathes.
***
Bereft of the bodies, the ground surrounding the broken tree is mere bark and bone – much like any other stretch of wall that defines this place. The tree itself is made vulnerable without it. A tall, skinny thing; elegant yet infinitely fragile.
The amalgamate picks itself up. Then checks its waist for the onyx scabbard and the many mementos bound to it. There are none for this place. None are needed. The blade’s edge carries that memory better than anything else could.
They look up at the tree.
You are hated, it says. You deserve that much.
Fine.
Fine? Dismissing this is easy, then.
Not dismission. There is no weakness in any emotion. Only in what is done with them.
Another fine line, it quietly mocks. Go ahead, then. Tell that thing at the centre of this all that everything will be okay. Keep lying.
No, they reply.
…Then how are you going to deceive it, this time?
No deception.
Then what will you say?
That they’re strong enough for this. And they will decide for themself whether that’s the truth or fiction.
There is a pause.
Well. I suppose we’ll see where the cards land. But, its blood-stained bark continues, know that the deck is stacked my way.
The amalgamate does not reply. Instead, they turn.
Once more, the sculpture marches back into the darkness, scabbard and accoutrements tapping against their leg. That apparition moves sluggishly; their exhaustion manifest with each arduous movement of the roots forming their feet. It has been a long way.
Not much further, now.