"As the elevated one can see," said the old man, pointing his cane at the pine. "It was not fire."
Hrafn stared at the dried-out tree. The old man was right, the bark was peeling like dead and brittle skin, but there was not the slightest trace of soot or smell of smoke, that was something else.
"It could have been anything," Dagny shot back, folding her arms. "The night has many strange children, grandpa."
"It was not the night, child," the old man insisted, narrowing his eyes at the dead tree. "I have seen the night for longer than you have seen the Star and its absence put together."
"Experience," Hrafn pointed out. "You yourself told me to listen to experience." He reminded her of the very advice she had given him before they arrived there.
Dagny huffed, impatient. "There is nothing here, boy. Nothing has happened for a month, remember."
Hrafn did not answer. He understood her game, he would do the same in her place. Dagny wanted to discredit the story to justify turning around and leaving. The problem was that she had shown herself far too clever before to pretend to be this ignorant now. Besides, before that tree, Hrafn could not deny what the old man had said. It was not fire and it was not some spawn of the night either, he would know if it were, his blessing would bother him
"It is not of the night," he stated. "It is a thing of the day and I suspect I know what it is."
The declaration caught the group by surprise. "Oh yeah, boy? And what would that be?"
"Mandrakes."
The bearded man accompanying the gentleman raised a hand slightly. "Forgive me, elevated one. But I have seen mandrakes, I used them on my daughter when she caught iron-skin and it is excellent medicine, but I do not see how..." He hesitated, pointing to the dry trunk.
"But it is," Hrafn insisted. He bent one knee, and pressed his gauntlet flat against the cold earth. "And it is getting stronger."
He had felt it since he stepped into the woods, it was as if the forest's vital force were being drained, pulled toward a deeper point, far beyond where they were. To an ordinary observer, everything seemed normal, but to him reality unfolded, there was a network of roots, thin as pieces of twine stretching for meters on end beneath the earth, sucking the world's energy.
"Let us say it is a mandrake unlike any other then," said Dagny. "How do you expect to solve this? How do you expect to find it?"
"Today," Hrafn answered, rising. "Before it grows more."
"Why be in such a hurry?" the woman protested. "It is already the ninth hour of the Star and you want to drag us into dense brush? I say we come back tomorrow. More prudent."
"Tomorrow will be too late," Hrafn shot back, without taking his eyes off the shadows between the trees.
"And what would the approach be, elevated Hrafn?" asked the old man. with the interest of someone who thought he had already seen everything.
"There is no approach," Hrafn said, coldly. "It will know we are coming. It probably already does."
"And you still want to go?" Dagny growled.
"We were paid for this," Hrafn shot back, his patience with the mercenary running out. "You were paid."
"Half is a promise," she corrected, sharply. "A promise I only get if you come back alive. Just like me."
"We are going."
Dagny stared at him for a long moment. "Right boy, let me see if I understood. We are going into the woods, in the ninth hour of the Star, against something that is waiting for us, that made a crawler flee in fear and that apparently is getting stronger?"
"You got the idea," Hrafn answered, sarcasm dripping heavily through the slit of the helm.
With an unfriendly expression, Dagny looked at the voroir's back. She pulled the great axe, spun it in the air and drove it hard into the ground before turning to her band. "You heard the boy, we are going into the woods."
Most of the men were already ready and started checking their gear when they heard the call. Some grumbled, low enough not to be reprimanded, but loud enough to make their discontent clear.
"It will attack us well before we get there, it is spread through the forest," Hrafn explained.
"Wonderful, boy. One 'good' piece of news after another," Dagny mocked. "Anything else for me and my boys to celebrate?"
"Just one more," he said, gripping the mace. "Since it already knows, we are not going slowly, we are going to run."
"Through the woods?!"
"That is right, I know where it is, just follow me."
This time Dagny limited herself to nodding with her jaw locked. The warriors lined up, since the order was to run, they left much of the weight and unnecessary supplies behind.
"Ready?" Hrafn asked. With the affirmative nods, he was the first to bolt.
He surged forward like a battering ram, heavy steps marking the ground and crushing the undergrowth. The rest of the group came right behind, boots, iron and ragged breathing tearing through the forest in a single mass of noise and haste. But the mandrake did not let them run for long, before they had gone a minute into the woods, the grove reacted.
A thick branch came down diagonally, fast as a whip, aimed at his head. The mace had already been turning since the start of the run and Hrafn raised it in a brutal strike. Steel met wood with enough violence to break the branch in an explosion of splinters. Another came skimming at that same instant, low and going for his leg. Hrafn dropped the weight of his boots onto the branch, crushing the wood without losing rhythm.
Around him, the others were still doing well. Most of the warriors dodged with enough agility to keep advancing, while veterans like Dagny opened a path by brute force. But that did not last long, the farther they went, the less the forest looked like a forest. The branches came thicker and more determined. The run lost speed, just as the terrain began to beat them down by force.
That was when the bad blow came.
A branch as thick as Hrafn's leg came from the left, at belly height, at the exact second he was lifting the mace to shatter another attack coming from above. There was no time to reposition his body and the wood hit him squarely. Hrafn was torn off the ground and thrown aside. He flew a few meters before tumbling on the damp earth, opening a furrow among leaves and mud, the armor taking the blow. The same could not be said of what was inside it.
One broken rib, maybe two and the air fled his lungs
But there was no time to measure the damage, two branches plunged down from above like stakes. Hrafn rolled on instinct, feeling the pain throb inside his chest with every movement, forcing his body to obey he found an opening, planted his boot on the ground, tried to rise, but another thick branch was already sweeping through the air in his direction.
With no choice, Hrafn plunged into the blessing and the change came as always, useful as well as hateful. His perception deepened, but the price came with it. The pain in his fractured ribs multiplied at once, much sharper, as if the flesh itself had been forced awake to suffer better. He clenched his teeth until his jaw protested, holding the sensation before it split him apart from within.
The others were doing better than he was. That became clear because the attacks were not distributed equally, most of the branches came for him.
Where are you...
Another strike passed too close. Hrafn twisted his body by a thread, feeling the displacement of air brush the side of the helm.
Where are you...
Pain throbbed and his heart hammered, his muscles were already beginning to complain from the effort of sustaining the blessing for so long.
Found you.
The instant he sensed it, he dropped the state all at once. Reality seemed to give way beneath his feet for a second. His mind twisted in exhaustion, and his muscles screamed in protest, even so Hrafn turned his body and split in half a thick branch that was coming his way.
"It's there!" he roared, pointing the weapon toward a great tree. At the exact moment his intent closed over the mandrake, the entire forest seemed to understand and the branches around him turned with renewed fury.