Dark ice and petrified wood crack beneath his boots.
There is no faster route to take, and that knowledge claws at him. He has to hurry.
Because h e knows what the Shadow Lords are after.
He carries on without rest. His shadow body grows weary. He fades in and out. His blade is all that keeps him stable.
I’m turning less real. Soon, I’ll be just like them, like the natives.
Will I remember who I am? Will I remember why it’s so important that I succeed?
He can’t think about it for too long. He leans into wind filled with grit and debris and makes for the black forest in the distance.
He steps into a graveyard of trees. Dark filigree and necrotic ash drift at the perimeter of the forest and form a wall of ice shadows. The wind blows around the woods as if forbidden to enter.
T he air is dark red. The t rees are as pale as bones. Wind-felled trunks litter the forest floor like casualties. Tangled roots make the way treacherous. Witch’s hair hangs down from branches like petrified spider’s webs. Most of the trees are bare, as if some great fire ripped through the area without leaving any burns.
He follows a path bordered by twisted brambles and smooth stone. Shadows cling to everything like moss. Trees root inside one another. They grow inverted or thrust back into the ground like swimmers. Rocks split and bleed darkness that gathers in thick pools. Leaves hang petrified in the air.
He walks slowly, wary of upturned roots that pulsate and ooze a briny substance. His blade is ready, a dim shine in the forest corridor.
He knows these are forbidden w oods. Even the Shadow Lords don’ t come here, for they fear the rule r of this place. The Eidolos warned him, but even it could put no name to the master of the woods.
The n arrow earthen path gradually gives way to dark and dust-covered stone s that are flat and low and clustered together like teeth. Hoarfrost and petrified mushrooms push against his boots. The path widens into a creek bed, a low and elevated channel filled with shattered rock a nd derelict tree limbs. There’ s no way to determine if the ground is moist or not. Everything is too black.
Strange sounds call through the distant sky. He looks up and sees a storm of shadow just beyond the trees.
Enormous t oppled logs litter the ground in the forest, juggernauts of wood covered in dark growths and insects. Vines curl and unfold like languid snakes.
The air is cold and still. He hears the wind beyond the trees, but he doesn’t feel it. He can’t hear much besides the alien birds and the crack of forest growth beneath his boots.
He’ s covered in shadow. He loses his grip. He feels his mind slipping. He doesn’t re member his name.
The obelisk. Remember that.
The obelisk. The source of human magic. Its likeness was drawn on the wall of the dark shrine, surrounded by another image of six cloaked men reaching for it.
It was there, somehow. It had fallen through the Carrion Rift and wound up in the Whisperlands.
I should have realized it before now. I should have seen it coming.
The Shadow Lords are intruders in the Whisperlands. They rule by show of force, but to rule isn’t their goal. They don’t care at all what their presence does to the realm, or to those trapped inside it.
They know the way out. That’s why the Eidolos has sent him to find them, to challenge them. They aren’t from this world. They are here for a purpose.
They search for the obelisk.
I can’t let them have it. I don’t know what they want with it, but if the stone falls into their hands then the Southern Claw will be lost.
Remember the obelisk.
And Snow. Remember Snow.
He will not forget her. Not ever. She ’d died so he could succeed, so that their mission hadn’t end ed in vain. To fail now would be a desecration of her very memory.
He walks deeper into the night woods. He feels eyes on him.
The river bed opens to a wide beach on a black shore. Massive trees, some of them hundreds of feet long, lay toppled in a catastrophe of black wood. Roots dangle like melting blades. Stones shift into silt and sand beneath his feet. The ravine flows under the trees and empties in to a laggard flow of ebon waters covered in steam. The far shore is barren, and beyond it stands the rest of the shadow-smothered forest.
Something waits for him on the opposite shore.
At first he can’t make it out, as the large figure blends into the darkness. A grey disturbance surrounds it like a sullen cloak, a twist in the atmosphere, like the being wa s cut from somewhere else. It shimmer s like a heat haze. It is out of place, only temporarily present.
It is derelict. A refugee, just like he is.
Whatever it is, it watches, and it waits. It’ s twice as large as he is.
T entacles made of oil writhe just beneath the surface of the water. He hears a ripping sound, like a great wound has opened. The tendrils leap up and smother the ghost silhouette with thick necrotic unguent. Even from across the shore he smells the stench of hog’s blood and animal waste, of decay and dead sap.
Darkness creeps all over the master of the forest. It is a dread conflagration of nightmares that controls this wasteland of trees. It feed s on creatures who attempt to pass through its domain.
He hears the lost voices of scattered ghosts. The entire forest is filled with the remains of the lost. The dark smell of condemned souls burns in the wind.
This is the forest of a hunter.
The beast is humanoid. Its t hick arms end in curled claws. Forest topiary surrounds it like armor. Shattered antlers fuse to its head, and its torso is wrapped in a tapestry of bone blades. The spine of some slaughtered wilderness beast extends from the hunter’s arm and twists and sharpens to form a curved blade, a spear of shadow. The creature’s mass is blood and darkness held together by iron-hard sticks and forgotten bones.
Its body billows and expands. Smoke pours from the gap s in its grisly armor. Behind it, gutted animal remains an d hollow shells assemble into a host of beast soldiers.
He readies himself to face the hunter. Power surges through Soulrazor/Avenger. Chill energies course into his veins. Shadows fleck away from his body like dried mud. The light from his weapon pushes the darkness away.
The hunter’s a ssault is swift and brutal. The shadow creature is suddenly within arm’s reach. He d oes n’t see it cross the wate r, doesn’t see it move at all unt il it’ s on top of him.
Blood grease limbs thrust at him with the bone spear and Soulrazor/Avenger barely deflects the attack in time. His body falls to the ground, battered and bruised. There’ s blood on his face. F orest roots dig into his back. He rolls away from the next blow, which hits the earth and sends up clods of silt and stone.
It’s difficult to find his footing on the rocky shore. He swipes at the hunter, rips away root flesh and rot, and the beast howls with a voice like a horde of dying animals. His ears twist and bleed at the sound.
The bone blade knocks his weapon away. Pain shoots through his hands. The joined sword falls into the water. He chases after it.
A blow takes him in the back. He flies through the air and lands on top of a massive log. A branch cuts straight into his leg. Pain sears through the impaled limb. His scream carries into the sky.
The beast looms over him.
H e tears the branch away. It snaps like a bone, and the pain shoots up his leg and into his stomach. His vision blazes white. He falls. Up and down bleed together. Wood fragments spray onto his face as the shadow man strikes the tree where he’d been and nearly cleaves it in two.
He falls into the water, a blood broth filled with gristle and rotted meat. He tumbles head over heels. Mold fluid seeps into his lungs. He struggles to the surface, spits out muck and grime, falls back down. He bobs, weightless, along the surface. The fast-moving river carries him away.
The hunter beast is in the distance. Trails of smoke twist from its arms and into the sky. Flaming missiles bear down and scorch the skin of the river. He sees the waters burst and turn foamy where the small meteors strike.
He swims as best he can. Bone fish and slithering dead things push against him and threaten to drag him under. He can barely see as he tumbles through dingy waters.
He narrowly avoids jagged rocks. The waters become more violent. He feels himself going down. He sinks
