He had awoken, dazed, less than a full day earlier. Unlike past episodes of unconsciousness, his strength had returned with surprising rapidity. He recalled his recovery after Andr had fished him from the depths of the pool at Tabenville. His rehabilitation had taken moons. He was sure that his awakened alexen and the power that flowed through the woods were to thank for his present haleness. He suppressed a feeling of uneasiness as the knot in his stomach grew. He could ill afford to lose more time.
Much had happened, yet there was still far too much to do. He felt as if he’d missed far too much, even in the short time he was incapacitated. The Erlyn had provided a solution to the mounting problem with the Lei Guard. If Elias was able to revert, could the others as well?
Ryl had walked the grove with Andr as the last of the incapacitated Lei Guard had been brought to the trees. The mercenary had been emphatic upon his return, and his explanation, though unbelievable, had proven the most compassionate of solutions.
The woods offered a promise of safety, though the price was profound. Though likely the afflicted, those corrupted by the taint of the nexela, would prefer life over death, the process would permanently strip them of all power within their blood. Both alexen and nexela would be gone. They would be utterly and irreversibly normal.
Normalcy.
A plagued word to describe the result. The tributes corrupted into Lei Guard would live with the horrors of their treatments, both inside The Stocks and without. Ryl found fleeting hope that their memories of their processing and the life after would be clouded at best. Ultimately, it was yet another decision, none less meaningful, that was made for them without their consent.
Ryl shuddered as images of the grove flashed back to mind. The utter lifelessness of the clearing was obvious. It was a void in the vibrant, though weary expanse of the Erlyn. The images and senses were powerful and profound.
From each tree a body was suspended several hands from the ground. Even witnessing the act but a single time sent chills through his body, raising the gooseflesh on his arms.
The hungry tendrils had searched for the bodies that were propped in a seated position against the trees’ thin trunks. The vines moved with a sentient purpose, probing at the bodies as they sought purchase. They sluggishly coiled around the object of their attention. Stripped of their black cloaks and soiled, tattered clothing, a twist of vines wrapped them from their chests to their knees. The pointed, dull leaves of the tendrils stuck to their skin, covering much of the naked forms.
The terminus of the vine hung below the feet. Each swelled before issuing a single black drop. The sticky liquid more oozed than dripped, striking the mild divot underfoot with a muffled slap. The staccato rhythm was the only noise to disturb the silence of the grove.
Each wrapped figure swayed silently in a gentle breeze. Ryl recalled scrunching his nose as the rancid odor registered. It was a fetid stench of the Outland Horde. The blood. The nexela. Thankfully, the gentle gust dissipated the potency as it swirled upward and away.
The haunted, gaunt faces of those who only cycles past were tributes like himself stared outward into nothingness. Though their eyes were open, their fixed gazes were hollow. Their vision focused on something unseen, far in the distance. Their gaze bored through any who walked across their path.
The images conjured an eerie correlation to the haunting backdrop of the processing facility. As blood and the alexen leaked from their bodies then, now it was the nexela which was bled with sluggish precision. Would the result finally allow them a measure of peace? For the first time, they’d be free. Their faculties their own, no longer beholden to the twisted will of others.
Ryl loathed that he was unable to be there when they had been arranged before the trees. Though his presence would have likely gone unnoticed, his desire to have attempted to comfort them was undeniable. He poured a wave of calm from his core, washing over those gathered in the grove. None had issued the slightest flinch in response.
The images and scents were burning into his mind. Ryl squeezed his eyes shut, working to rid himself of the scene. He forced the imagery beneath the questions that still ran roughshod over his addled mind. His measured pace toward the gathering around the fire slowed, pausing for a moment as he collected his thoughts.
There was a definitive gap in the timeline of events that had occurred. The loss of time, of information, was again disconcerting. Like the tales of his travel through the wastes of the Outlands after the sickness had rendered him immobile, he was forced to relive the story through the words of others. It was an off-putting feeling living momentous sections of his life secondhand. How much truth was there to be gleaned from the overexaggerated, colorfully animated tales of his actions?
Fragmented images, emotions and feelings were all that remained. His encounter with the Lei Guard at the edge of the Erlyn had pushed him further beyond his brink yet again. The power that had forced itself from his arm, coalescing into a brilliant white orb, had sapped the strength from him. He’d felt the entirety of the host of alexen shifting through his body. A chill, an all-encompassing icy void, had remained in its wake as it converged in a single point. The lack of sensation that remained after its passing had been as confusing as it was undeniable.
He’d felt an icy numbness, yet simultaneously a scorching agony. It froze and burned until all his senses failed in unison.
He’d felt crushed by the weight.
It was a touch that has saved him.
