Phil

“Why in the fuck would you do that? The Captain was in charge of this mission, he was your leader and the one paying you!” Phil shouted at the mercenaries who were forming up. He had been against hiring them in the first place and never trusted them, this only served to prove their point. “If it’s a fight you want, you can get it. Just because you sellswords have murdered more than we have doesn’t mean you will win this battle.”

“Calm down, little man. I killed the captain because he was incompetent and lied to us. When we were hired, we were promised immunity so long as we succeeded, instead we were routed from behind,” purred Kyrel, the impromptu leader of the mercenaries, “We don’t want to fight you, we were only securing our safety. We’ve killed your leader and now we will bring his corpse back to whoever arrived behind us. We’ll tell them that we were here against our will, feared for our safety or something, and then pay reparations. You, however, will die here.”

The swarthy mercenary readied his crossbow at Phil, allowing his men and women to form up behind him and start heading back down the path toward the entrance of the forest. Although they said they were going to bring back the captain’s corpse, one of the sellswords simply stepped forward with a wicked looking messer and decapitated the deceased man. They settled the head back into the steel cap and grabbed his guard captain pin from inside his vest before returning to the rest of the group.

As much as Phil wished to launch an attack on the turncoats, they did not have the combat experience or the upper hand. Not only did the mercenaries have more experience, but their leadership was still alive, and they had practice fighting together. With the captain downed there was no guarantee anyone would listen to Phil if he said to attack them. Instead, Phil and the rest of the guard watched as the sellswords slowly backpedaled down the path they’d entered from. Each group had spells and crossbows trained on the other, waiting for somebody’s finger to get itchy.

Soon the traitors were out of sight and Phil pushed them out of mind, if they were going to survive in this forest, they needed to pay attention. It was time to take charge and take a headcount. How they were going to make it out of this without being captured or killed, Phil did not know yet, but that was secondary to not dying in the forest first.

“Group up everyone, we need to calm down and make a plan. You, you, and you, keep your eyes open for any more forest critters. Pass your torches off to someone behind you so that you don’t lose your night sight. It’s more important for you to see them before they are on us than to see what they are for now.”

After a moment of hesitation, the three men Phil designated stepped out of the torchlight to stand guard while the rest of the group figured things out. Phil was not their captain, or even secondary captain. To be fair, he was nowhere in the chain of command. With the death of their guard captain, the last of their leaders had fallen and it was up to someone to take charge. Many of the men here were hardened criminals, but not many were leaders, so they allowed Phil to step up and take charge.

There weren’t any further attacks on the group, so they formed up and got ready to move on. Phil stood toward the front of the pack along with all the sword wielders so that they could cut down brambles and branches that occasionally impeded progress. Healers were in the center along with their crossbowmen and the bashers were in the back, cudgels and clubs at the ready. All together there were 112 of them, a pitiful number compared to the 200 they’d attacked tonight with.

Not everyone had died, some had been injured severely and retreated to their forward outpost on the edge of town. Some had gathered slaves and loot and brought it back as well, rather than leave it in the houses while they burned down. Others still had run off when they realized that even without their guard at full manning, the entire town was not going to go down without exacting a price in blood first.

After a couple hundred feet there was a bend in the trail. The swordsmen led the way with the torch bearers a few feet behind them, ready for anything that came after them. Finally, it was Phil’s turn to ‘round the corner with his men and he was on alert. He took a step to the left around a tree that had grown onto the path and everything changed instantly.

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Whereas it was dark before, the trees had still been colored like trees in the torchlight. Now, the trees around where gnarled and black as if they’d been burnt to a husk. Branches hung lower into the path than before and the path was much tighter, scarcely fitting a single man across. In front of Phil were the swordsmen who looked equally shocked, eyes darting around their environment trying to figure out what just happened. Phil turned to look back and realized the path led in a straight line backwards as far as he could see, but it should have been a bent path considering he’d just taken a turn.

Even as he watched men seemed to step out of the forest itself onto the path, as if they’d been traveling through the brush rather than along a path. Torches slowly illuminated the path farther back as the torch bearers stepped out and cast even more light. Before long, their entire group had stepped out into this darker forest where the trees drank in their light and cast sinister shadows.

“Stay together, one man abreast. We need to continue forward, there is a way out, but we need to go through.” There wasn’t a single man or woman within the group that was okay with what had just happened but hearing Phil’s orders over the rising whispers of concern, they calmed themselves and forged forward. The reason they knew this was a possibility was because somebody had entered here themselves and survived, so if they had why couldn’t their group?

Slowly this confidence, no, this hope, spread throughout the ragtag group of guards and criminals. Never in their life of extorting their fellow townsmen of Ostlind did they even dream that they would one day end up inside of this dark forest, hunting fellow sapients. Although not everyone agreed with their mission, they’d all been promised prosperity and wealth upon completion.

So, it was like this that the group gathered their wits about them and reigned in their fear. The only way they would die is if they allowed their vigilance to take a backseat to their emotions. The group slowly trudged forward accompanied only by the sounds of flickering torches and crushed twigs and dead leaves underfoot. Every now and then one of the swordsmen would swing their blades into the thin air along the trail, convinced that they’d seen a specter.

“Something is out there, watching us.” Even after attempting to calm themselves, when faced with the appearing and disappearing forest specter their nerves were starting to get the better of them. When that was accompanied with the eyes that would reflect the torchlight but never be captured by the discharged crossbow bolts, they were convinced that this entire area was haunted. They were being led into a trap and there was nothing they could do about it.

Finally, the path started to widen, and Phil’s group was able to travel three abreast. The trees started to change in size, becoming larger and lower at the same time as if their branches were reaching down, ready to snatch anyone who ambled too closely. One particularly low hanging branch happened to rub against the back of Phil’s neck, causing him to yelp out in concern and step forward. Looking behind himself, he couldn’t spot the branch that had touched him but couldn’t help seeing the fear in his men’s eyes.

Finally, after what felt like hours of careful and nerve-wracking exploration, the group emerged into a clearing. The fire from their torches cast shadows around the glade, revealing several willow trees gathered around a serene looking lake. The grass underfoot was shorter than the rest of the forest, almost as if it was being maintained, and a colored a green so dark that it almost appeared as black as the trees that surrounded them.

“Captain, this seems like a good place to set up camp for the time being. We should at least take a break and calm our nerves.” A man a few years older than Phil spoke to him. Although he wasn’t a captain of the guard, he recognized right away that the man was lending him the authority that accompanied the title. As a career smuggler, Phil was in no way, shape, or form, qualified to be a captain or even a sergeant. He was, however, very experienced when it came to putting up a bravado and projecting his confidence.

In this moment, his men needed the confidence and safety that came from following orders and obeying authority. Humans were naturally pack animals who would look to their alpha when it came to decision making. They needed the reassurance that came from knowing somebody oversaw them.

“It’s as you said, we need to take a break. Near the lake looks as good a place as any.” Phil designated a few guards to stand watch and had another 10 collect firewood from the perimeter of the glade. Although they couldn’t stay long, there was no reason they couldn’t at least light a fire and warm up a bit in this chilly autumn night. Phil cast his gaze up to the nearly full moon overhead and sent a prayer out that they would make it out of this alive, if for no other reason that so that he could see his daughter again.