The game trail wandered through the brush parallel to a small stream that trickled over the rocks, making for easy traveling, at least for Dellromoz, who easily ducked underneath the branches and tree trunks that jutted across the track. Erasmus, being much taller and fond of elaborate hats, had a rougher go of it, but he used his balance to make good time, even if it resulted in some awkward shuffling here and there. Birds sang in the treetops as they passed, and they startled deer on the trail or drinking from the stream with regularity.

Dell and Erasmus had staggered down into the forest at the base of the mountain yesterday, washed the rock slider drool off in the stream, and then rested for the night when they were confident enough that they were too far into the trees for another of the giant, fish-like creatures to take them by surprise. This day had been better so far, but Dell reminded himself that yesterday had been fine as well, until it very suddenly was not. Still, the gnomish surgeon couldn’t bring himself to be grumpy with the sun shining brightly and meadowlarks making their warbling music above him.

As they came around a curve in the path, Dellromoz stopped and tilted his head.

“What is it?” Erasmus asked him.

“I’m not entirely sure, maybe some sort of sign?” Dell pointed at a sort of wreathe woven from green branches and vines, forming a circle with an unfamiliar symbol inside. It appeared to be tied to a stick driven into the ground underneath the branches of a blue spruce bush. The overhanging boughs made the artifact difficult to see unless you were looking at it from the right height, which was about three feet or less.

“I still can’t see it,” the skeletal adventurer said.

“What do you mean? It’s that ring with the rune-looking symbol in the middle!”

Erasmus squatted down next to Dell. “Oh, that’s interesting,” he said after a moment. “It’s not a single ring, but three branches that form one from this angle. The rune is the same way; the whole thing is only visible from this spot, at this angle. Normally, I wouldn’t have noticed it at all.”

Dell took a couple of steps down the footpath, and the sign disappeared as his point of view moved out of the proper alignment. He walked backwards, and it reappeared.

“You’re right,” he said, walking toward the strange object. On closer inspection, it became apparent the pieces of the symbol weren’t tied into the bush, they were part of it, as if someone had managed to arrange them that way without killing the shrub, and it had stayed that way.

“It avoids your ‘vision’, but also regular eyesight as well, unless you’re my height.”

“Some sort of a gnomish trail marker?” Erasmus asked.

“No,” Dell told him, “I don’t know how one of us would arrange the branches like that without killing them. Besides, gnomish villages are in caverns or underground tunnels, and the people who live in them work with stone. They wouldn’t leave a marker made of wood.”

“Some more distant cousins, perhaps?”

“Brownies don’t live out in the middle of nowhere, and drow live in burrows under rocky hilltops or mountainsides. Kerijen could make a marker like that, I suppose. I’ve never heard of a short one, though.”

“Any guesses?”

“Bramblejacks?”

“That’s a good guess,” someone said from behind them. They both whirled around to face the speaker, who was watching them from a few feet away.

He was just a little shorter than Dellromoz, but had a much stockier build. Proportionally, his head was wider than a human or a gnome, and as he grinned at them, they could see he had large, flat teeth set in a strong jaw, with dark, curly hair and skin the reddish-brown of cedar wood. He wore simple clothes under a green cloak, and held a gnarled wooden staff in one hand. A few verdant green leaves had sprouted along its length.

“You must be the ones who woke up Old Cannibal. He hasn’t come down the mountain since my grandfather’s time!”

“You saw that?” asked Dellromoz.

“A few of us saw, but all of us heard him. The storytellers say he always wakes up grumpy, and he lets the whole valley hear him grumble.” Dell remembered the feeling of his bones vibrating from the rock slider’s call with a shudder.

“So then,” the bramblejack continued, “what business have you in our valley, necromancer?”

It was at that moment Dellromoz noticed that Erasmus had been uncharacteristically quiet, as opposed to his usual gregarious self. He glanced up at his friend, who was regarding the forest-dweller carefully, and not making any movements.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Dell said, “I don’t do sorcery; I’m a surgeon, not a necromancer.”

“A surgeon?!” laughed the bramblejack, “You must not be very good at it! Your colorfully-dressed companion here is dead!” He pointed at Erasmus with a thick, hairy finger.

“Say something for yourself!” Dell hissed, as he prodded Erasmus with his elbow.

This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

“He snuck up on us. Nobody sneaks up on me unless they can hide themselves using magic, I can perceive behind me as easily as in front,” Erasmus whispered back, “We need to get out of here!”

“And it does speak! I wasn’t certain before; people who spend all their time hanging out in crypts and catacombs sometimes go a little bit crazy and start talking to themselves. Though, you still haven’t answered my question. I’ll ask again, but I’ll be cross if you make me ask a third time. What are you doing in our valley, necromancer?”

“Tell me rhos, have you ever heard the story of Gul Dahj and the Prince of Hammarrad?“ Erasmus asked suddenly.

The little man with the staff tilted his head in curiosity. “I can’t say that I have,” he replied cautiously.

“Well, it goes a bit like this,” Erasmus said. “The Twin Emperors of Stygia desired to rule over the whole of the world. To accomplish this, they worked dark and terrible magics to create a great army of the dead, and at the head of it they placed the most terrifying of their creations, Gul Dahj, who came to be called The Subjugator.

“Gul Dahj and his Grand Expeditionary Army sailed across the sea from Stygia, landing on the shore of the land we now call Ostrogoth. They swept across it and soon conquered the whole of the continent of Dahjirlund, though it wasn’t called as such in those days.

“Word spread of the designs of the Twin Emperors, and the might of their army, and the peoples of the world were afraid. Plans were hatched, warriors were trained, and armies mustered.

“In time, Gul Dahj and the Grand Expeditionary sailed again, this time south, to the shores of Pustinjala, where they besieged and conquered Kleris.

The Prince of Hammarrad, hearing this and knowing that Gul Dahj would likely sail his army up the River Arra and attack Hammarrad next, sent an envoy and requested a meeting. The Subjugator agreed, and went to the appointed place with his guards at the agreed-upon time.”

“Then what happened?” asked the bramblejack.

“Well,” said Erasmus, “the Prince put on his best riding clothes, saddled his finest horse, and then-” Without warning, or even another word, he grabbed Dellromoz by the back of his collar and took off running in the other direction, the surprised gnome looking over his shoulder as the stranger’s expression changed from surprise, to confusion, to something more akin to amusement.

The bramblejack held out his left hand as his right lifted the staff in his hand and thumped the heel of it against the ground. The green irises of his eyes seemed to shine with an inner light, and the forest came alive around them.

Branches lashed out at Erasmus as he abandoned all pretense of being a living human being, bending and twisting in ways muscle and sinew would never allow, as he ducked and dodged the attacking plant life. He leaped and even flipped over roots that rose from the soil to try to wrap around his boots. The thought fluttered through Dell’s mind that it would have made an incredible spectacle, were they not fleeing from a dangerous, unknown sorcerer.

Despite his best efforts, Erasmus’s luck ran out as they got too near a cluster of willows. There were too many branches, and Dell gave a shout as one lashed him across his back. The mistwalker reached for the backsword at his hip as he tried to keep his friend away from the enchanted brush, but a young pine tree behind them was able to bend over and wrap its green trunk around them both. Unable to flee any further, the two were quickly bound up, with wooden restraints wrapping themselves around their limbs to prevent any further tricks or attempts at escape.

The bramblejack walked up to them at a leisurely pace, looked Erasmus in the face, and asked, “Did the Prince of Hammarrad get farther than yourselves?”

“Well,” Erasmus told him, “he did have a very fine horse.”

Their assailant laughed. “I am Falco, Green Warden of the Clan of the Autumn Star. You are my prisoners.”

Erasmus sat with his back against the trunk of a spruce tree and tried not to worry. He wasn’t afraid of dying, that would be ridiculous, but he was concerned about what might happen to Dellromoz if he couldn’t convince their captors that he wasn’t a necromancer. Necromancy was actually legal in Ostrogoth, provided you did the required term of military service and applied for a license from the Crown. That didn’t always matter though; mobs of frightened villagers tended to destroy whatever was frightening them first, and worry about the legality of their actions later, if at all. On top of that, being captured and killed by a clan of bramblejacks wasn’t the sort of heroic death he wanted to conclude his career as an adventurer. He was hoping for a heroic last stand against impossible odds, buying his companions just enough time to escape. The bards loved that kind of thing, people would be singing songs about it for centuries.

He was still wrapped up in willow branches, Falco had bound them both up like that and then summoned a few others somehow to help carry the two fugitives back to the clan’s camp. The bramblejacks had proven much stronger than Erasmus would have guessed; one of them was more than strong enough to carry him, they’d only used two because his height made it awkward otherwise.

At the camp, they’d separated the two adventurers and Falco had instructed a few of the branches to wrap around the tree trunk and keep him in place. Erasmus was reasonably confident he could slip out if nobody was looking, but he needed to grab Dell and be long gone before anybody, especially Falco, noticed they were missing. He would just bide his time until he knew where they were keeping Dellromoz and then capitalize on any distractions that came along.

His captors had screened him off from the rest of the camp by hanging some canvas from wooden frames Falco had fashioned by bending a few saplings into suitable shapes. Erasmus could still feel what was happening on the other side of them, but he kept that detail to himself. If they thought he couldn’t observe what they were up to, it would make his eventual escape that much easier.

At the moment, a couple of them were crouching on the other side of the canvas, fiddling around with a bit of incense and a candle. Falco was with them, so Erasmus guessed these were the elders of the clan.

A stolid, stern-faced woman waved her hands through the smoke rising off the incense and muttered an incantation. Erasmus couldn’t make out the words, but he felt the magic in them. There was something familiar about it; a smell in the air, an echo of waves lapping on a distant shore...

The spirits coalesced from the smoke and glanced around. Erasmus could see them, but he could tell the bramblejacks didn’t. Still, the woman seemed to sense their presence, and she whispered something to them. At her words, they turned as one and stepped toward Erasmus, phasing effortlessly through the canvas screens. They were all bramblejacks, most of them old, but a couple appeared to be mages or warriors. They surrounded him, glaring and poking at him with stubby, incorporeal fingers.

Erasmus shrugged off his costume and the bones underneath it, then stood up, as much a spirit as the rest of them. The spirits regarded him with surprise as he crossed his spectral arms and glared back at them.

“What’s all this about?” he growled in the grave speech.