The crack of a twig, on which Dike’s foot stepped, resounded so powerfully around while he and all those that remained alive after the fight with the Dirges were slowly advancing through what was left of the famous Forest of Mortor, which was only a ghost place at that moment.
„Be careful, Dike! I don’t think you want to wake the spirits of this forest,” Island said in a whisper, worriedly looking around while both he and Dike, as the rest of their army, were tightly holding the handle of their swords.
But… even if all of them were waiting for a jap, the forest around looked quiet enough and no weird sound or warning was heard around. But… everything was just a mirage. Or… maybe it was someone’s plan…
„Wait!” Himera told them, stopping and looking around only from the corner of her eyes while her hand moved to the left where she had a small hunting knife at her girdle.
The same did her fighters and, after tightly squeezing the handle of their knife, similar to the one Himera had in her hand, they approached her and, back-to-back, they formed a group as if looking to defend each other if necessary and their eyes started to analyze each branch, each hollow, each trunk or bush where a possible enemy could have been hidden.
Island’s soldiers instead looked amazed at each other and somehow scared, for, after yesterday's attack of the Dirges, they still had a bitter taste on their tongues and tingling on their backs, that made them coldly sweat from time to time.
„What?” Boor asked in a whisper, approaching his wife, and also looking in the same direction as she was looking.
Yet, he could only see the silence of the forest: the trees that seemed asleep, the leaves that weren’t moving, the animals that weren’t practically breathing even if they were clearly seen standing among the trees, the birds among the leaves, on branches, or other small animals exiting from the hollows. Their eyes instead weren’t calm but were somehow savagely blinking while staying in their place and, so suddenly that everybody winced, a hungry wolf’eyes have been seen from one of the bushes.
Then, they once again winced when they heard the sound of the burning wood, which had been heard very weak at first, like in a dream, to be later heard closer and closer.
„Watch out!” shouted Yarnna, one of Himera’s fighters, and, so suddenly, a line of hungry flames passed by her, flames that could get up to the shoulder of a 1.6 meters woman, making her rotate on her heels, to later jump to the side from the flames’way. And, thus, she got in the arms of her companions, who rushed toward her to pull her toward them and protect her.
The flames passed by Dike instead, who stood in place, only at the distance of a stretched arm toward them, and the heat of the flames powerfully blew toward the Titan’s face, but the same flames have been right away pushed back as if pushed by a current of cold air.
But even so, even if it could have hurt him, Dike didn’t move, as if looking to have a private meeting with those flames, which stopped their movement right in front of the Titan, gathered in a place, and formed a kind of screen on which only one image was seen - a big black wolf surrounded by flames and, even if its fur was also burning, the wolf made no sound: neither lamenting nor asking for mercy. Only at a moment, the wolf turned toward Dike, which had been seen from aside till that moment, from the left, and Dike recognized, in the wolf’s eyes, Fenrir’s glance.
A painful sigh came out of Dike’s mouth as if he kept the inhaled air for a long time inside him and now, releasing it, he felt a huge pain in his chest.
But… the image had been hidden by someone’s hand, who covered the Titan’s eyes with his palm. Thus, Dike closed his eyes for a moment, trying to recover his strength, and when he has been capable to face the world again, he opened his eyes and looked to his left, seeing Himera’s face, for she had been the one who covered his eyes.
„No one ever told you that the Forest of Mortor can be tricky, Titan Dike?” She told him in a whisper. „Here, one can see things that never existed.”
„Or things that existed in another life,” said Lodur, approaching them, and Himera and Dike, as the rest of their fellows, looked amazed at him.
Lodur remained calm instead and, approaching that curtain of flames, he touched it, managing to put his hand through them and, like in a charm, he could touch the wolf’s head, caressing it.
As if that caress was real, the wolf closed its eyes for a few moments, and when Lodur withdrew his hand, the wolf vanished in the form of burning ashes, till it was nothing left of him.
„What was that?” Island asked in amazement, approaching Lodur.
But who answered his question had been Gaea, who appeared to his left, so suddenly: „the image of another life. Fenrir’s soul isn’t at its first life, and, in the previous one, it seems that he died not in welcome circumstances.”
Dike looked at Ionas, which started to shine blue, even if it was in its scabbard. „Let’s go! The forest awakes because we stay for a long time in the same place,” and he took a few steps further.
Lodur followed his brother, followed by Boor, Himera, her fighters, and the rest of Island’s soldiers while Island and Gaea were slowly walking at the end of the group, side by side.
„Do you think Dike knew about this? That Fenrir lives not his first life.”
„I’m not sure about Dike, but Fenrir knows it for sure.”
Island stopped and stared in amazement at her: „He knows? Do you mean that…?”
Gaea also stopped, but she didn’t look at Island, but somewhere past him, behind the others: „…that the spirit that lives inside Fenrir is aware that it has a second chance to repair the evil he did or others did to him.”
„But… it’s insane what we saw. Ok, I’m not as old as you are, but as far as I know, such an event never happened.”
„It never happened on this earth, Island, but there are still a lot of unknown and undiscovered places in the Cosmos and it seems that somewhere there, hidden from our eyes and from our mind, there is another world, and Fenrir was part of that world. And it seems that he had been the king of that world. But… Life wasn’t by his side and neither the success if he had such cruel death,” Gaea added and continued to move behind the others.
Island stood in place for a few more moments. After that, he also followed the others, for what Dike said about the Forest of Mortor, that it could awake if someone had stood in the same place for long, was true and he wasn’t for sure that eager to measure noses with God knows what kind of hideous monster, hidden in that place.
Behind the Titan of Ice, the cracks intensified more and more, and their sound made the whole forest resound that even the stars of Ursa Minores heard those cracks and they started to shine even more powerfully than before.
***
„Fade Bayer’s light off,” Himera whispered to Lodur when they eventually got to the edge of a glade, that had been created even if nature never looked for it after many trees had been knocked down, and, instead of the towering trees that kissed the sky once, remained only logs and stumps about half a meter in height.
Lodur listened to Himera’s advice, for he understood that she passed through that forest before, even if only by using the power of her mind. Thus, to listen to someone’s advice, who was more experienced than he was, wasn’t something difficult for the Titan because he had the chance to learn from others thus, to learn about the human characteristics that were so unknown to him, for he had lived in the Cosmos since he had been born and he never had the chance to spend more time on earth.
„Hide the swords and the daggers,” Himera told her fighters and the soldiers, who were still squeezing the handles of their guns. „This part of the forest suffered a lot in the past and seeing the blades of your swords is like feeling the sharp blade of the axes that slaughtered their trunks once, and this can awaken the hatred that nature felt for millennia already and which it still keeps in the roots of the trees.”
„I must agree with you here,” Dike said, carefully looking around, after tapping for a few moments with the fingers on Ionas’s scabbard, making it fade its light off. „But… I don’t understand what kind of place is this. It seems deforested by someone unskilled or who simply wanted to hurt the forest.”
„And you’re right. Here’s seen Ian Gyar’s mercy for his people. Before Noea and the People of Noear fell, he sent his mercenaries to kill the soul of nature, only to make this forest and its creatures hate the Queen. That’s why Hiamstar, the Spirit of the Trees, who lived in that period, told Baradar to avoid Moirae’s hatred. And… Hiamstar also thought that Noea was guilty of their loss.”
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„But… as far as I know, the People of Noear was closely related to the Spirit of the Trees, for they…,” murmured Island, but he suddenly turned and looked back, just as the rest of his group did, when the scream of a soldier, that suddenly vanished, has been heard behind them, and none of them understood what happened to him.
After a few moments of carefully looking around, Gaea put the index finger of her right hand to the lips, motioning to the others to keep silent. Then, she headed toward the soldiers, where she felt that danger was approaching them from.
But… the Titanide didn’t manage to take not even a dozen steps in front when a part of the soldiers had been lifted in the air, hanging upside down, but no rope was seen tied to their legs, and neither the trees of which they were held. Then, moved by an extraordinary force that was spinning in circles with a dizzy speed, the soldiers started to disappear from here and there as if somewhere above them was a two arms crane that was grabbing the soldiers by their legs, clothes, and any other part it could grab, lifting them up, and giving them to the loss.
„Ionas, show up!” Gaea shouted and the sword suddenly illuminated blue, covering the soldiers with the famous bubble.
Thus, when the „crane" did the next round, it suddenly hit the hard wall of the bubble and a roar of pain has been heard piercing the horizon. Then, flashing fire, a few dozen meters from the edge of the bubble, the body of a giant has been seen outlining and, so soon after that giant, wooden body vanished and reappeared a few times, everybody could see the old Hiamstar in all his splendor.
But the tree didn’t look like that time when it had that heart-to-heart talk with Baradar: it was completely black and even its leaves were covered by thick ashes, making them seem grey. And his eyes… those eyes that blinked with kindness once, when he told Baradar the story of princess Curse, were burning at that moment because of hatred and suffered loss.
„Again! You came here to scorch our bodies again… to take our trunks out of their roots and dry our souls of the life-giving serum that kept us towering for millennia. Why? What did nature do wrong to you, humans and Titans, that you pour out the vials of your wrath on us?” Hiamstar madly shouted.
Gaea, at all bothered by the tree’s shout, lifted in the air at the height of his eyes and, staring into his eyes, confident, she told him: „each of us thinks about others according to the size of his mind.”
„Mind? Do you want to say that I’m so cruel that I think that you are able of such crimes when this is a lie?” Hiamstar hissed through his teeth, slowly bending his trunk in front.
„Otherwise, you wouldn’t have attacked those innocent souls without asking at least the reason for our visit here,” the Titanide answered, also with a hiss.
„I only defended my trees,” Hiamstar murmured with hatred and, when he finished talking, on the trees’trunks, all around him, eyes appeared, suddenly blinking from their bark eyelids. But the trees didn’t seem to understand why Hiamstar was so nervous.
„Just look at them!” Hiamstar demanded Gaea. „These are the dead trees. Those you killed as you wished, before also destroying the People of Noear.”
„Let’s not forget that you also had something to do in this,” said Dike, and this made Hiamstar angry, who furiously looked at Dike.
But… it seemed that Hiamstar didn’t know who Dike was. And… even if he felt a great power inside of the Titan, he had no clue if that person was real or he was just an illusion of his dead soul.
„Who are you?” Hiamstar finally asked in half a voice.
„Dike!”
„The Guardian of the Galaxy of Monsters!” Hiamstar told himself in a whisper. Then, he softly sighed as if trying to calm down. And when he finally felt better, his eyes reflected kindness again.
Yet, it lasted only for a few seconds, for he heard the noise of the swords inside of the bubble, for many soldiers, afraid of what happened, suddenly dropped their swords.
Outraged, Hiamstar started to powerfully hit the bubble’s wall with the branches that served him as hands and which so suddenly appeared on its trunk.
Seeing Hiamstar's madness, Himera’s fighters prepared for the attack, touching the handles of the daggers, hidden under their clothes. But Himera shook her head and they gave up on that idea.
„No one in this world does good things or bad things without an aim or reward,” Baradar’s voice has been suddenly heard floating around, making the others look everywhere, but none of them saw him coming.
The voice kept talking instead, but that time it was the Old Hiamstar’s voice talking to the boy Baradar: „and you definitely aren’t stupid, boy. You only didn’t live enough to make the difference between good and evil.”
Hiamstar shook his head as if trying to chase the confusion away and he also looked around, but he didn’t see Baradar.
„You know that I lived longer than any other creature in this forest and I know each blade of green grass and each moss that grows on my roots or around me, that I can feel the scent of nature and that I love till madness those little butterflies that are all the time touching my trunk and my branches with their thin and small wings, and this tingles me so much,” Hiamstar’s voice has been heard again, that old Hiamstar that had talked to Baradar in that fatal night.
Namely, these words made the tree deeply sigh and his eyes had a blink of kindness again. Then, Hiamstar bowed his head, as if regretting his behavior, but he raised it again and looked amazed in the distance like the others actually looked when they heard Baradar’s voice again.
But that time it was the voice of the wise Baradar, the Spirit of the Woods, who lead over the Rophion Forest for 7 thousand years already: „but, did you ever feel the burden of your years? …and you told me that you felt it, Hiamstar, that you also knew what pain means, what betrayal means, and that unhappiness can be our curse. Do you still think so, Hiamstar?”
„To think what?” Hiamstar said in half a voice, long-winded, like a real old man that thinks for a long time before saying something.
„That life is our burden and that each of us pays in this life for what we did,” said Baradar.
„That’s right, boy. I still think so, for if I had thought differently, I wouldn’t have been here, hoping that our past glory will revive someday.”
„The lost time never turns back, Hiamstar,” and Baradar’s silhouette has been finally seen, approaching them, among the trees. „What is gone is well gone and we should be grateful for what we have, and if we don’t like it then we should fight for a better future, not for turning old times back, tomes that had been so painful for us.”
„But we also had good times then,” said Hiamstar with nostalgia in his voice. „I would have liked to turn back time. Thus, I would have turned my brothers back to life, those old and wise trees that vanished because of the mad Spirits’mercy; I would have turned to life those fragrant flowers, grown on the soil next to my trunk; those playful squirrels; the musicians of the sky and… so many others, Baradar.”
The minikin instead passed by Dike first, without watching him. Then he passed by Island, who kindly smiled at him, happy to see him, and when he passed by Boor, the God made a wry face, for each time he was seeing the minikin, he was remembering unpleasant moments. But he said nothing, for it wasn’t the right moment for a fight. The minikin instead stopped in front of Sephir, kindly whispering to her: „we are always seeing each other deep in the forest’s soul. Is it the voice of the time?”
„It’s rather a coincidence, minikin,” whispered Sephir, motioning with her head toward Hiamstar. „First, take care of him. We’ll talk later about other things,” and Baradar nodded yes, for the idea of talking to Sephir again was something tempting to him.
„Is it because she’s the wolf’s wife?” wondered Baradar, but he hadn’t time to finish his thought, for Hiamstar stretched one of his branch-arm, and the minikin climbed on it, confidently walking on it as if it was hard soil, to later sit down on Hiamstar’s shoulder, next to the trunk. Then he said: „Let’s go!”
„Where?” The tree asked in amazement, raising his glance toward the minikin.
„To have a walk and stretch our numbed bodies, for you are a captive of your own beliefs for so long.”
The confident voice of the minikin made Hiamstar sigh. After that, Hiamstar lifted a leg, taking his roots out of the ground. Then, he took the roots of the second leg out of the ground, and, after he scratched his legs with the roots that served him as toes, he started to move toward the horizon.
Behind them, Ionas withdrew its bubble and faded its light off, at Dike’s order, who told the others in half a voice: „let’s have a rest till Hiamstar and Baradar are back. But be careful: none of you should do sudden movements. Even if this forest is dead, it isn’t gone and its power is something that can hurt us all eventually.” After that, the Titan took a few steps toward the trunk of a huge tree, whose bark had a dark-brown color, a hint that that fire that killed the forest only scorched it a little, but it also died because of its old age eventually.
The soldiers followed Dike’s example and each of them sat down where they could, trying to do the less possible noise, for even if they had been taught by Island to fight and they were very brave fighting, yet, the battle with the Dirges and what happened earlier in the forest was something beyond their comprehension.
And when things calmed a little bit, Lodur motioned Gaea to approach him and she descended on the ground, for she had floated in the air even after Baradar and Hiamstar left. Then, the two Titans, walking side by side, moved toward that glade of logs as if they wanted to tell each other a big secret that others shouldn’t have known.
Seeing the two Titans also leaving, Himera and her fighters looked at each other. But… because there wasn’t anything else better to do, they also sat down next to the trunks of the trees and, in silence, they waited for what was coming.
„Do you think that the Forest will eventually listen to Baradar?” Himera asked Boor, in a whisper.
„Even if I don’t like that dwarf, I must accept yet that he helped us to save Sephir from Ian Gyar’s claws. So… I think that he’s more than capable to make friends with Hiamstar again. Thus… like a spirit of the woods with the other.”
Suddenly, Sephir gleefully laughed, making the others stare in amazement at her and they saw how one of the trees, that was near the one she was sitting on his roots, bent a little bit and gave her an acorn.
„But… I’m not feeding with acorns, wise tree. Better give it to a squirrel. She’ll know better what to do with it.”
„I also gave it to them, but… I miss so much to share my fruits with the alive souls,” the tree said with melancholy, insisting that Sephir should take the acorn. But she was hesitating.
„Take it, Sephir,” she heard Island’s telepathic voice. „Make that tree happy by taking what it gives to you, for this is the only joy that it still has.” And Sephir listened to her grandfather’s advice and took the acorn from the tree’s hand, slowly bending toward it and showing her gratitude for the gift. After that, she put that acorn in her pocket.
The tree happily blinked: eh, he finally shared something his with an alive soul, but the most important - it liked the girl.