It was a truly beautiful morning, the kind that made the dilapidated buildings seem quaint and the normally ominous trees seem inviting. The few villagers they saw hobbling on their errands did not pay them mind. Barrow nodded to one respectably wrinkled woman and said, “Just doing a bit of questing. You know how it is. Heroism and such.”
“Mm,” she said.
Aside from a few centrally located essentials like the tavern and the smithy, the village was composed mostly of dirt paths that branched off into more remote areas. Gill avoided looking at the one that led to his farm. Fats’s gaze lingered on the one that led to the graveyard.
“So Barrow,” said Gill. “Seeing as our lives will soon be on the line, I could really use my cap back.”
“You still think I took it? I thought we’d sorted that out.”
“We didn’t sort anything! You agree, right Fats? He obviously took it.”
Fats shrugged. Whether or not Barrow had stolen from Gill, Fats did not much care. He had reached a point in his life where other people’s conflicts blended into a single monotonous buzz. All he knew was that Barrow would never steal from him. Whether that was out of respect for the tragic loss he had undergone or fear of the strength he could wield, Fats did not much care either.
“Come on, Gill,” said Barrow. “Enough dwelling on the past. I say it’s time to look towards the future! We’ll nip this evil quick enough, and then you can use your spoils to get a new cap made. An even luckier one!”
Gill’s eyes widened, but after a brief calculation he swallowed his response. While he in fact did want to dwell on the past, particularly where his property was concerned, he did not want to risk their current consensus until they were deep in the forest and a safe distance from his home.
The transition from village to wilderness started gradually. The moss-to-mortar ratio became increasingly lopsided, with weeds and vines taking on essential structural roles. While even the most central, well-kept cottages had a sunken feeling to them, the ones on the edge were fully concave. The few that were not abandoned had inhabitants known to be mad and generally proud of it. Then, as the trio traveled on, even the mad ones were left behind.
When Barrow, Fats, and Gill did finally arrive at the forest, the transition was not gradual. Very suddenly, it loomed. While there were trees surrounding all parts of the village, they were not the forest, just as a dog was not a wolf.
As they approached the towering wall of trunks, Barrow snapped his fingers. “Wait! Provisions!” Without breaking stride, Fats swung his pack around, pulled out two cloth-wrapped biscuits, and tossed them to his friends.
“Oh. Right then. Good man.”
They started down the path. The canopy closed in above them. The trio rounded the bend, and then they were in. Each felt the change.
Barrow noticed an extra energy in his steps, an easing of the aching in his joints. Gill noticed the isolation, the way the overgrown canopy blocked light and swallowed sound, to the point that one could forget the village existed altogether. Fats noticed only the shadows, all the concealed spots that twitched with what might have been the rustling of animals, but which could just as well have been whispers.
For a moment, the friends were silent. The forest seemed to demand it. Every noise felt like an intrusion: the clink of their equipment, the crunch of dead leaves beneath their boots, each heavy breath they took as they struggled past exposed roots and gnarled branches. The shafts of golden light that broke through the canopy seemed to be frozen in time.
Barrow let out a tremendous belch. “Hold on, hold on!” he said, spewing crumbs that tangled in his beard. “You sure this is the right way, Gill?”
Gill glanced at the map. “Isn’t it always? You just kind of, you know, follow the path?”
“Then what’s the map for?”
Gill studied the images: some menacing, some beautiful, all mysterious. “Foreshadowing?”
“Hm,” said Barrow. “So probably should be preparing ourselves. What do you reckon we can expect first?”
“Looks like some kind of fight.”
“Mm.” Barrow smiled and tapped the hilt of his sword.
“I thought you didn’t want to fight anymore,” said Gill.
“Didn’t want to adventure. But we’re already out here, and a fight beats walking any day.”
“Hrm,” said Gill, before lapsing into silence as he studied the images. He had seen his fair share of magical maps, and while much of this one felt familiar, something seemed off. He wasn’t sure why, but he believed there was something fundamental he did not understand.
With Gill engrossed in the map and Fats focused on the shifting shadows, Barrow was left with nothing to occupy himself besides his internal dialogue. He did not like it. “So how’s the family these days, Fats? They been writing you?”
“Last letter a month ago,” replied Fats. “Daughter had her second child. Still working at the tavern. Son just had his first. Still looking for another job.”
Gill chuckled. “Never could hold one down, could he? I’d say he should work the docks with my sons, but I’m not sure he has the stuff for it.”
“Is that so?”
Gill, still chuckling, said, “You know I’m kidding, Fats. I’m sure he’s trying. Though with all that trying he’s done, you’d think he’d have a little more to show for it.”
Fats shrugged. “He’s figuring it out.”
“Sure, sure,” laughed Gill. “Maybe he’ll figure out he just doesn’t like to work! Eh, Fats?”
Fats said nothing, deciding to keep his own figuring to himself. He let his silence speak accordingly.
Barrow, meanwhile, hummed happily through the tension. He had no children or grandchildren, and therefore only himself to be ashamed of.
Clang! The noise of metal striking metal sounded in the distance.
“Ha!” Barrow drew his sword and started stabbing the air. “Here we go!”
This story originates from Royal Road. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.
“Easy,” said Gill. “It might not be a fight.”
“What else could it be? Some kind of blacksmith?”
“Could be.”
Barrow laughed. “A blacksmith in the forest! What a ridiculous thought.”
“Where do you think the forest folk get their weapons from?”
“Well from …” Barrow frowned. “From magic, most likely. Anyways, stay sharp, could definitely be a fight. Don’t want to be caught unawares.”
Gill scowled, but as they drew closer he took an arrow from his quiver. The frenzied pace of the clangs and the crazed shouts that accompanied them seemed to support Barrow’s hypothesis. If it was a blacksmith, they enjoyed their work far too much.
One more bend, and they saw the source of the noise. In the center stood a circle of spirelves, their turquoise faces contorted in fear and desperation, their beautiful robes smeared with blood and dirt. They were surrounded by a chittering mass composed of what could politely be called creatures. The creatures were a mix of the most gastric shades of green and yellow, with faces that combined beaks and jaws and mandibles into a blend that emphasized the most disturbing parts of each. They carried short, curved blades with egregious numbers of spikes.
The spirelves had their own weapons—needle-point swords that shimmered like the stars themselves—but, based on body count, the creatures seemed to have the superior product. Outside the circle, spirelves lay wounded and dying. The creatures scuttled among them, pecking and gnawing and crunching, producing a horrific chorus of tearing flesh and agonizing screams.
“Oh dear,” said Gill.
Barrow charged ahead. “Haha! Let’s save some sparmelfs! Red sun dead sun! It’s a good day for blood, boys!” With a final exultant “Rikkahhh!” Barrow launched himself into the crowd. He swung his sword, and the creatures hissed as they darted away. Quickly recovering, they struck at Barrow, but he had already stumbled out of reach, carried by the momentum of his swing.
All in all, Barrow was good in a fight. While not good at ‘fighting’ in the literal sense, he had the uncanny ability of drawing the attention of every enemy at once. He and his sword were everywhere, and while he generally never hit anything, it was impossible for anyone—himself included—to predict where his sword would go. Enemies could not ignore him, which allowed for Gill to quietly put an arrow in them or for Fats to discreetly axe them from behind.
“Gazz! Piraahhh!” Barrow danced like an injured grasshopper, swinging his sword in wide and erratic arcs, perpetually off balance but never quite falling. Meanwhile, Gill quietly inserted an arrow into the center of a creature’s beak-jaws-mandibles, and Fats performed a discreet bisection of a creature’s twisted spine.
Gill’s eyes became pinpoints as he cycled through arrows. He was, in fact, quite skilled with a bow. Hunting was an acceptable reason to leave the house, and coincidentally Gill spent a lot of time hunting. These creatures were just marginally more unnerving prey.
Fats was also quite skilled at being Fats. This involved moving slowly and deliberately through the throng while his axe moved at an altogether different speed, swinging with a force that could instill a healthy sense of fear in inanimate objects and make anything animate quickly revert to the former state.
Together, the two were methodical. Blood splashed. Guts smelled. The chittering of the creatures reached a fever pitch while wounded spirelves stumbled and crawled to safety. Fats sighed as he lopped off a head. On top of the distraction from Barrow, these opponents were simply not good. Quite bad in fact, once one focused on their movements, which Fats was doing now. Almost as if …
Fats lowered his axe. “Wait! I think—”
“Hold that thought Fats, I’m in the zone!” said Gill. The small man smiled as he became the motion. Nock, draw, loose. There was nothing else. Twang baby twang.
“Stop!” yelled Fats, but Gill’s mind was lost in targets and trajectories, a world perfect and pure. Fats ran towards his friend, but before he could reach him, Gill had dispatched the rest of the creatures in a flurry of arrows. Bodies sprawled around him at grotesque angles.
“Hm,” said Gill, appreciating his handiwork. He smiled at Fats with glassy eyes. “What was that you were saying?”
“Hehehehehe!” The cackle came from high above them, and the three friends looked up. Perched on the branch of a tree was a silver, vaguely humanoid shape. It was laughing at them.
“Well done! Well done! I commend you! Exemplary effort by all!” Its voice was strange, both unfathomably deep and horrifically high-pitched. “Yes, quite admirable,” it continued. “And yet, hmm, you may find that not all is what it seems.”
The three watched as the shapes around them changed. All of the spirelves—the dead, the wounded, those struggling to their feet—disappeared. The stinking carcasses of the creatures, with their horrid chitin and bile, transformed into something else. They became dead spirelves, decorated with fresh axe-marks and arrows.
“Who is friend and who is foe, hmm? Sometimes it is difficult to say. Especially when you cannot trust your own senses! Human minds are trapped in the darkest of boxes, with only the most flawed of portals to filter in the light. Hehe! The ancients say that bestowing free will upon such blind creatures was a trick for the amusement of the gods, but the true trick was convincing mortals that it mattered, that any deed done ever matches its intent. No way to know, you see! Do you trust the ground you stand on, hmm? Or is it the tongue of a great beast, merely tasting you before it swallows? Mysteries, mysteries. What is love but a trick of the loins? What is faith but a trick of the soul? Gods fade and kingdoms fall, but the greatest lies will outlast them. Falseness is queen and despair is her king, can’t you see? The dwellers of this forest are learning. They will learn well. And then, mankind will be taught to see the truth of madness and the madness of truth. The lesson will be … transformative!”
Gill finally had the presence of mind to shoot an arrow at the shape, but it passed through and buried itself in a tree.
“Hehe! Well done! What spirit you have! I wish you the safest of travels. And I say that … sincerely.” The world grew dark for the three friends, as if all the light in the universe had been sucked away. Horrible shrieks sounded from beneath the earth.
Then it stopped. The sun shone and the forest returned to normal. The shape in the trees was gone, but the bodies of the spirelves remained.
Barrow fidgeted with the hilt of his sword. “You reckon that was the … you know.”
Gill stared into the distance. “I reckon so.”
“And on account of certain tricks from that individual, we may have …” Barrow glanced at the dead spirelves. “Done that.”
“Seems to look that way.”
“Well that’s just bad luck, that is. How were we supposed to know?”
“Couldn’t have known,” said Gill. “Did what we had to. Have to learn some things the bloody way.”
“That’s right.”
“You know, sometimes you have to break some eggs.”
“That’s for sure, hard not to break some eggs. Being so fragile and all.”
“You know what they say,” continued Gill. “If you’re going to save the forest, might lose a few residents along the way.”
“Yeah, I think I’ve heard that one.”
“I mean, the Tricker—it’s in his name. Probably had a lot of practice. No shame falling for a true professional.”
“Of course not. No shame at all.”
“And now we’ve learned our lesson and grown as people. Won’t trick us a second time, that’s for sure.”
There was a long pause.
“Hey Gill.”
“Yes Barrow?”
“I agree, of course, that we won’t get tricked again, because we’ve learned our lesson and grown as people. But just to make sure our strategies are synchronized and such, how were you planning to avoid getting the ol’ wool pulled over our eyes again?”
“That’s easy,” said Gill, giving a knowing smile. “With Intellect.”
“Ah. Right.”
There was a longer pause.
“You know, I did notice,” said Barrow. “Seems the Tricker likes to hear himself talk. That’s a weakness that is, something we can use.”
“Yeah, I noticed that too. Got to exploit those weaknesses.”
Fats, who had been staring at the bodies of the spirelves, removed a flask from his pack and took a long sip. He shuddered at the burn.
“So you think we should, um, bury them or something?” asked Barrow.
“Sure are a lot of them,” said Gill.
“Yeah. Would take us quite a while.”
“Not to mention we don’t have a proper shovel. Anyway, I’m pretty sure the forest takes care of this business. Claims its own, that kind of thing.”
“Makes sense to me.”
“Honestly, it would probably be disrespectful to bury them.”
“Don’t want to disrespect the forest, that’s for sure.”
“So I reckon the best thing we can do is leave them be.”
“I reckon you’re right.”
“Should probably see if I can salvage some arrows, though,” said Gill. “Don’t want to be wasteful.”
“Good thinking,” said Barrow, who sheathed his sword and stretched while Gill pulled arrows from bodies. “Well, onward it is then. Come on, Fats.”
While the other two started down the path, Fats continued to stare at the spirelves. Specifically, he stared at one whose angelic face he had split in half. There was something especially pitiful about the contrast. He wiped the blood off his axe, took another swig from his flask, and followed behind Barrow and Gill.