Darkness covered them as they crossed the treeline. The rays of sunlight streaming through the leaves would have created a beautiful effect, but the branches were so densely packed overhead it only got darker the further in they rode.
As they progressed, the darkness only thickened as the smaller, younger trees from the outer layer of the woods became taller and older. Their horses had to keep turning and winding around the trees and foliage of the woods.
None of them spoke. The silence over the forest was so complete he sound of the horses’ hooves crunching through the grass and dead branches was almost deafening. Kage could not hear any rustling of animals in the shrubbery, and no birds sang overhead.
Her head spun at the slightest sound of branches settling. Her fingers tapped erratically on the pommel of the saddle as her imagination ran through one horror scenario after another.
“No sign of calligriphics yet,” Shole said softly, as if his voice would wake the trees from their sleep.
“We might never see them, if they’re hidden beneath bark or on roots,” Sephria muttered back.
CRACK!
All five heads spun in the direction of the noise, but the forest was quiet. Nothing moved except the branches in the wind.
Kage breathed a sigh of relief. Maybe whatever curse placed on the forest really had eroded over time, or perhaps it was just a legend after all.
Suddenly, her horse’s front legs buckled, sending Kage flying over its head. The wind was knocked out of her as she hit the ground square on her back.
“Kage?!” Shole exclaimed, riding over and jumping down from his horse.
Kage gasped as the wind came back into her lungs, Shole helped her up and she looked over to her horse. One of its legs was caught in between the roots of a tree.
“Looks like he’s stuck.” Artlem commented, dismounting, and making his way over. He calmed Kage’s horse, who was whinnying and stomping around, trying to free itself.
Kage looked up to the tree. It seemed normal enough. Was that just an accident...?
Artlem knelt and started to pry the roots apart. He pulled, and twisted, but they would not budge. He stopped and rested for a second, giving the horse a reassuring pat. Looking up, he noticed a hollow in the tree, sitting just about shoulder level. Curiosity got the better of him, and he rose up, careful not to step on the same roots that had trapped Kage’s horse.
Did the branches shaking in the wind seem louder, or was that just him?
He peered into the hollow, seeing nothing at first until –
“Shole, get over here!” He said.
Shole ran over, and Artlem stepped to the side to let him see.
“What does that say?”
Shole’s eyes widened. Carved into the tree was a roughly-carved character, not eroded yet, though the tree had clearly made it more shallow.
“Repel.” He said.
In that instant, time seemed to stop. The root between Artlem and shole shot up, slamming into the tree trunk with a WHACK as they jumped backwards just in time.
Now freed, Kage’s horse took off with as much speed as it could muster with an injured leg.
All around them, the trees began to twist and turn, roots breaking through the ground and branches curving in twisted shapes towards them.
Artlem’s sword flew out of his sheath, slashing through the root that had attacked them.
Sephria vaulted from her horse, wings fluttering as a branch swung through the air where her head had been moments ago. From beneath her wings, she drew two metal batons that as she swung, extended into javelins.
Kage jumped aside as she felt the earth beginning to buckle underneath her, rolling away as a jagged net of roots burst out from beneath the ground, spraying a cloud of dirt into the air with it.
She barely had time to collect herself, the forest around them was beginning to move like a chain reaction, gaining more maneuverability with each movement of their branches.
One root shot up in front of Bard's horse, causing it to rear up. Bard had a better grip on his horse than Kage had and managed to keep his balance, drawing his broadsword and slashing the root. But as he tried to control the horse, more roots broke through the soil and caught its legs between them.
He jumped down, slashing the roots, and the horse took off, following the other mounts.
"Run!" Artlem shouted, "Let's get out of here!"
"Carve!" Shole exclaimed, carving a calligriphic into the ground with one fluid movement of his arm. The dirt buckled and swung up like two blades carving up the net of roots in front of them.
They took off down the beginning of the path carved by Shole.
"Shole, keep that path going!" Artlem shouted "Everyone else, keep those trees off of us!"
His sword flew through the air, hacking branches with trained ability Kage had never seen him fully utilize. This wasn't just a hobby of the past few years, his was something he had trained for his entire life.
Sephria's spears made short work of the smaller branches slipping through between the others.
Kage ducked back to avoiding a branch that swung past her head. "Cut," Kage thought, carving the character into the ground with her shoe. Copying Shole's intent from earlier, a blade of earth shot up, carving a straight arrow in front of her.
She felt the hit immediately, a mental drain from the "magic" side of her mind. Manipulating a material like dirt into something sharp that could cut through wood was no easy task; she knew she and Shole would not be able to keep this up for long.
Artlem slashed the branch that curved towards her.
"Come on!" He reached out his other hand to pull her up from the ground. Kage grabbed it let him help pull her up when-
"Look out!" She shouted, yanking him down with her as another cut through the air from behind his head, catching a few of his hairs on the way.
The moment they hit the ground, the roots were on top of them, bursting out of the ground and twisted into sharp points.
A swing from Bard's sword chopped through them, giving the two of the a moment to get back on their feet.
Sephria was doing her best to fend off the plants, her elytra acting like a shield for her back, but Shole was beginning to stagger, and right now they were just defending, not even moving forward.
"All of you, get down!" Bard shouted.
Shole and Sephria swung around and dropped to a crouch, as they saw Bard sucking in his breath.
Branches shooting towards them, Bard let his breath loose. Kage felt the intense heat as a stream of flame shot from his mouth, engulfing the branches and searing the ends to ash. The thicker branches burned as the fire ate through the bark, and the trees recoiled and shook their branches as if in pain.
"Could have used that earlier." Artlem remarked.
"Didn't think you wanted to get roasted along with the trees," Bard said, voice sounding a little hoarse. "I need enough space."
"No time to discuss, let's move while we can," Sephria cut in.
"I can't make a path with fire, we won't be able to get through either." Bard said as they started running again.
"We need another solution," Artlem said, "Kage and Shole are gonna run out of juice before we get out of here."
Bard let out another burst of flame, searing the branches stabbing towards them.
"What the hell is that?" Sephria exclaimed, pointing ahead of them towards the sky.
The trees were shaking, deafening sounds of branches breaking and leaves rustling as they fell. Something was shooting towards them at a breakneck speed.
"Can't be good," Artlem said grimly, slicing a root as he turned to look.
Kage's stomach turned at the thought. They were going to die, and this time she wouldn't just be watching.
Suddenly, something cut straight through a huge branch from, sending it plummeting it to the ground.
It burst through, a creature glinting in the sunlight from the path it had carved through the trees.
A metallic green creature, between eight and nine feet tall, more like what Kage would imagine when she normally heard the word "dragon." Claws, wings, and covered in scales, its proportions were still more human than a full dragon.
They all stared in awe as it chopped through the branches that charged it with a spinning motion, using his claws as well as the edges of his wings, which were sharp enough to cut straight through the wood.
"A steel dragon!" Shole breathed, as they all stared in awe.
"Hey!" The dragon called, landing roughly on the ground in front of them, "I'll help you carve a path, just stay behind me!" He took off, carving a path with his wings and claws ahead of them.
"Let's go!" Artlem shouted, readying his sword again and taking off after the dragon
"Nothing to lose!" Shole agreed, running after him.
The other three of them followed, all of them fighting or burning any straggling branches and roots that attacked them. The light began to shine stronger and stronger through the trees as the attacks became less frequent and powerful.
A stitch in Kage's side was burning, and her breath was short and ragged, but the sight got one last spurt of energy out of her.
They burst through the last layer of trees, tumbling over each other as they dropped to the safety of the grass outside the barrier of the woods.
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