Chapter 11: Ambush

Despite their victory, the mood was somber as the remaining men cleared the Blighter bodies from the camp. It took them long into the night, but leaving the work until the following morning wasn’t an option due to the threat of the dead rising to continue their fight once more.

There were more bodies than could be piled atop a single pyre, so they were forced to make several, putting near eighty corpses to the torch. It was a scene that George had never expected to see when he had set out on this expedition, smoke from burning bodies rising into the sky in great plumes over a blighted forest. He dreaded to think what might have happened had they been in a less advantageous position, if this number of Blighters might have ambushed them in the forest rather than charging directly into their gunfire across open ground. If what Dawes had said was true, then they were learning, and the next battle might not go so favorably.

A hasty funeral was held for the four dead men and the two warriors who had fallen, their pyres built far away from those of the Blighters. The survivors attended the rites in quiet respect, all save for those who were still recovering from their injuries. Thanks to Daugherty’s quick thinking and the continued efforts of the warriors, it seemed as though no more men would succumb to their wounds, which was a small miracle after such a vicious fight. Under normal circumstances, injury and infection might have claimed many more lives, even weeks after the fact. There were less than thirty people left alive now, not including the scouts who were still out there scouring the wilderness, George counting them as their solemn faces were lit by the bright glow of the fires.

Dawes said a few words – nothing too elaborate, as he was just as tired as everyone else. Once their respects had been paid, the group returned to the camp, and the problem of what to do with the abomination became the chief topic of discussion. It was enormous, far larger than even ten men could hope to move. Perhaps they could have hitched it to their horses and dragged it through the breach that it had created in the wall, but the beasts had fled many days prior. The idea of chopping it up into more manageable parts was brought up, but nobody really fancied the job of doing the butchery, as the danger of being exposed to its pestilence was a real one.

Since it was already close to the campfire, they eventually decided to try dragging it into the flames. They built up the fire beforehand, making it large enough that it should be able to engulf the beast in its entirety, then they began planning how they should move it. Tying ropes around its limbs would probably just result in them being torn off, spilling its putrid contents all over the camp in the process. Sam suggested that they use one of the oilskin tents, securing lengths of rope through the tie-out loops and having it serve as a kind of net. With nine or ten men on each of the ropes, they were able to slowly drag it into the fire, where it soon began to burn. Whatever the dark tar that saturated the risen creatures was, it seemed to ignite rather readily. Perhaps they could use that fact to their advantage somehow.

With the lion’s share of the work done, all that remained was to repair the damaged wall and rebuild the defenses. With that finished, they were finally able to turn in, but not before reassembling some of the tents that had been knocked down during the battle. George had expected to be haunted by the sights he had seen that day, to be kept awake by vivid dreams of death and carnage, but exhaustion quickly carried him off into a deep sleep.

“Movement in the trees!”

George lunged for his rifle, dropping the strip of salted meat that he had been eating. Soup was off the menu today, as they couldn’t cook around the fire. It was now occupied by the charred corpse of the abomination.

He rushed to the wall along with the rest of the company as they came streaming in from the tents, the bow-wielding warriors leaping up onto the mound of earth as they peered out across the clearing. The pyres from the night before were still smoldering, but there was no mist this morning, and the sun was out. It would be impossible for anyone to approach the camp unseen.

The mounting tension soon evaporated as one of the scouts came striding out of the shadow of the forest, waving to the defenders. A wave of relief passed through the ranks, the men lowering their weapons, a few of them waving back in greeting. More of the scouts emerged behind the first, George’s heart sinking when he didn’t see Tia among them. He couldn’t see any of their faces beneath their hoods, but he had spent enough time with her that he’d recognize her figure and her agile gait anywhere.

It was his turn to breathe a quiet sigh of relief when he saw her emerge last, skipping across the muddy clearing on her long legs. It seemed that all six of the scouts had made it back unscathed.

They quickly crossed the distance, scaling the wall with their usual ease, the defenders waiting to welcome them back on the other side. The warriors greeted their companions warmly, embracing one another, George watching Tia’s horned head turn as she searched for him in the crowd. When she spotted him, she leapt into his arms, indifferent to the amused glances of his human companions.

George no longer cared if people knew they were lovers, lifting her off the ground as he hugged her tightly, feeling his anxiety melt away. Even being apart for such a short period of time had felt like an eternity, especially with her out of his reach, alone in that cursed forest. He hadn’t even allowed himself to consider what might have happened if she hadn’t returned.

“Are you alright?” she asked breathlessly as he set her back down. “We could see the plumes of smoke on the horizon. We guessed that there had been a battle.”

“I’m fine,” he replied, giving her a reassuring pat on the shoulder. “The Blighters came in force last night, and were repelled.”

“Where is Kuruk?” Tia asked, glancing around warily. “I do not see Taima or Sike, either.”

“Kuruk is alive,” he replied hesitantly, Tia cocking her head at him. The implication was obvious enough. Taima and Sike were not. “He overexerted himself during the battle and saved the camp in the process. He’s been unconscious for maybe twelve hours, but the rest of the war party assures us that he’ll be fine, he just needs time to rest.”

“If he called upon the spirits in this dark place, it must have taken a great toll on him,” she sighed. “One must raise his voice loudly to be heard when such evil muffles it. Without his leadership...”

“We have Dawes,” George said confidently. “I trust the man implicitly, and he discussed the plan at length with Kuruk. He’ll know what to do. Did you locate the Blighter camp?”

“We did,” she replied. “I am sure that your Dawes will want to hear of it.”

“A day’s march to the South lies the Blighter camp,” Tia said, standing atop the wall as she addressed the crowd below. Dawes was front and center, his arms crossed and his brow furrowed as he listened intently. “It is situated inside a circular perimeter of felled trees, the land cleared through fire and stone. Their camp is made up of loose clusters of conical tents, maybe two hundred in number, and there are many separate fires that are kept burning throughout the day and night where the inhabitants cook their food. Blighter war parties come and go frequently, and their magic is strong there. The camp is surrounded by effigies, which are kept ... fresh, the Blighters sacrificing their own to enhance the power of the rest. The blight sinks its roots deep there.”

“How many do they number?” Dawes asked. “Did you get a good look at their forces?”

“There were at least a hundred who remained there for the time we watched them,” Tia replied. “But, with so many smaller bands coming and going, it would be hard to give a confident estimate.”

“Then we should expect to face about as many as attacked the camp last night, if not more,” Dawes grumbled as he stroked his beard pensively.

“There is something more,” Tia added. “More than once, we witnessed the presence of a man, or perhaps a creature. He commanded the rest. They bowed to him in groveling respect, and they appeared to do his as he bade them. We watched him perform sacrificial rites, toy with dead flesh, and deliver what seemed to be sermons to the mob. He was not dressed like a warrior. He wore a long robe, and he seemed older, more frail than the younger Blighters.”

“Some kind of leader?” Dawes mused. “Spiritual or military, perhaps.”

“It would be unwise to underestimate them,” she added. “They may be a sorcerer or a shaman of some kind.”

“If we can kill them, we may be cutting the head off the snake,” Dawes replied.

Tia thought for a moment, the idiom foreign to her, but its meaning was obvious enough in context.

“We found a suitable location to mount our attack, as requested,” she continued. “A short distance from the Blighter camp is a hilly area strewn with large boulders. A dry riverbed runs down into the forest towards the camp, creating a clear path of approach where the trees do not grow. If the Blighters can be goaded into attacking from that direction, they will be caught out in the open, and they will have to climb the hill to reach us.”

“Excellent work,” Dawes said, nodding to the other scouts. “There’s no time to waste. We’ll set off first thing tomorrow and try to get to a defensible position by nightfall. We should be safer movin’ durin’ the day, they seem more active at night.”

That didn’t give them much time to prepare, but George understood why they had to move quickly. Waiting might give the Blighters time to send another force to assault the camp.

“There is another matter to attend to while we’re all here,” Dawes continued. “With Kuruk unable to carry out his duties, which of you will take his place? We need someone to lead the war party.”

Tia and her people exchanged glances. Everything had happened so quickly that they hadn’t had much time at all to discuss it, and they might not have had the inclination. Kuruk was well-liked, and he was only temporarily incapacitated, not dead. Even so, someone had to direct the war party in battle, as Dawes would be leading the defenders from the hill. They couldn’t wait around for Kuruk to recover his strength.

“It should be Tiaska,” one of them said, the others nodding their hooded heads as they murmured agreements.

Tia looked flustered, but George wasn’t too surprised. The Elders had described her as one of their most trusted scouts. It seemed that the decision was unanimous, Tia turning back to Dawes.

“I will accept this responsibility, at least until Kuruk wakes.”

“Let’s get movin’,” Dawes said, raising his voice so that the men could hear him better. “Make sure the scouts are well-fed and let them get a little rest. I want everyone else preparin’ to move. We need to pool our charges and count how many bullets we have left, then share them all out evenly. We’ll need food for the journey there and back, so someone make a list of the rations. We have four extra rifles,” he added, turning to the cloaked warriors. “Do any of you know how to shoot?”

“I do,” Tia replied.

“You’re welcome to them if you can teach the rest. I’ll leave it up to you whether you want to use them or not. I don’t know your tactics as well as you do. We’d have more if we’d been able to recover the guns from the men who fell when we tried to make it out of the forest, but we were in a hurry.”

The crowd began to disperse now that they had tasks to complete, Tia hopping down off the wall and making her way over to George’s side.

“It looks like you’ve been given a field promotion,” he said, Tia cocking her head at him. “It’s what we call it when someone is given a higher rank and more responsibility during a battle.”

“It seems that way,” she sighed. “I am a poor replacement for Kuruk, but I will do what I can.”

“Your people seem to trust you,” George replied as they made their way over to his tent. “They didn’t even hesitate to nominate you when Dawes asked who should lead.”

“Right now, I just want to rest,” she grumbled. “We have not had an opportunity to sleep since we left.”

He opened the tent flap for her, and she flopped down onto the blankets without even removing her cloak. She gave him a weary smile, which was all he really required to know that she was glad to be back, then she closed her eyes. George closed the flap. As much as he would have liked to join her, there was much work to be done.

“We have around eight left per man,” Marshall said as he dropped a fistful of paper charges into George’s outstretched hand. George opened the pouch on his belt and stowed them inside, Marshall moving down the line to distribute more bullets. Four of the warriors had taken up rifles, Tia included, each of them sporting a small pouch that had been tied to the leather bands that held up their loincloths.

“Make them count,” Dawes said, his rifle slung over his shoulder as he stood nearby.

The men had packed up all of the gear that they were going to need for the journey, the bullets and meat had been rationed, and they were ready to head out. Five men and five of Tia’s people had been chosen to remain behind to defend what remained of the camp, most of its tents now packed away. They couldn’t very well drag Kuruk with them, and he was still too weak to walk on his own. Hopefully, it would be enough people to deter another Blighter attack, but there was no ideal solution to their predicament. Manpower was not something they had in abundance right now.

That left eleven men and ten warriors for the assault on the Blighter camp. All of the wounded had been healed thanks to a blend of Daugherty’s expertise and a little magic. It wasn’t as much as they had hoped, but they would have to make do.

“Lead the way, Miss Tiaska,” Dawes said as he gestured to the forest beyond.

Tia set off with her warriors in tow, still looking out of her element as their new leader. They bounded along on their long legs, fanning out as they started to cross the clearing, just as they had during George’s journey through the forest with them. Even when they were out of sight of one another, their senses let them know where their comrades were, giving them a great deal of coordination.

The company followed behind, trudging through the mud as they made their way towards the shadowy woods beyond the camp, the smoke from the pyres still rising towards the sky.

At midday, the party stopped to eat by a river, a few of the scouts keeping watch from the bare branches of the trees while the rest ate and rested. Despite the proximity of the water, they dared not refill their canteens. There was a film of dark oil over the top of it, and it smelled just like the decaying foliage that surrounded them. It was probably contaminated with the black tar that seemed to be oozing from every tree in sight, bleeding from cracks in their bark like pus from an infected wound, saturating the soil.

The further South they headed, the worse things seemed to get. Not only were the plants here dying, they seemed to be warping in strange ways. More than once, George could have sworn that he had seen a face staring back at him from the trunk of a tree, only to realize upon closer inspection that it was merely a coincidental arrangement of knots. He might have told himself that the perpetual gloom created by the mist and the oppressive atmosphere were playing tricks on his eyes, but he knew better than to question his intuition now. Something beyond mere decay was happening here. Only now did he have a chance to ask Tia about it, as she had been at the head of the pack all day, scouting ahead out of sight of the company.

“Faces in the forest?” she asked, tearing off a strip of salted meat as they sat together in the roots of one of the blighted trees. It wasn’t an ideal place to rest, but they didn’t exactly have a wide choice of seating arrangements.

“Every time I looked more closely, it was proven to be an illusion,” he explained. He paused to take a draw from his canteen before he continued, wiping his mouth on his sleeve. “Have you ever stared at a stain on the ceiling or a shape in a rock until it started to form a face, as though you were willing one into existence?”

“I think I know what you mean,” she replied with a nod. “We saw ... things when we were out here. We would hear whispers in the trees, see shadowy figures out of the corners of our eyes, but it never amounted to anything when one of us investigated further. There is a darkness here that grows stronger the closer we get to the Blighter camp. There is malice in the very trees.”

George glanced up at the naked branches above him, watching the mist swirl around them, blotting out the sky. He could feel it too, like the weight in the air that he had remarked upon earlier, but somehow more directed.

“We’d call this place haunted back where I come from,” he muttered. “Spirits lingering after death, directing their hatred and confusion at the living.”

“That sounds apt,” Tia said, following his gaze. “Listen,” she added, shuffling a little closer to him on the forest floor. “There is something I want to teach you.”

“Teach me?” he asked.

“What magic you know will not work here, not without spirits to answer you. These woods are empty, vacant. There is nobody left to heed your call. Let me show you how to draw upon your own spirit in the same way that I did when I healed your finger back at your camp.”

“Is that something that I can do?” he asked.

“Yes, but keep in mind that it will take a great toll on you. It must only be used in desperate situations, but I have a feeling that we might find ourselves in just such a situation very soon.”

“I’ll try,” George said with a nod, Tia turning herself around to face him. The other men were nearby, but the raised roots of the dead trees gave George and Tia some small measure of privacy. Just like when she had taught him how to sense her aura beneath the giant mushroom, she extended her hands, joining them with his own. She closed her eyes, and he followed suit.

“You must look within yourself this time,” she whispered.

Where once George had been able to sense the thriving life that surrounded him, every bee and flower seeming to glow with its own radiance in his mind’s eye, he was alone now. The stark absence of life was jarring. He was engulfed by a black void, and when he opened himself up to the spirits, none were there to notice. Even Tia’s presence was faint, somehow distant, even though she was sitting in arm’s reach. Tia and her people were so much more attuned to the spirit world than he was. Did they experience this emptiness all the time they were here? No wonder they were so reluctant to enter the blighted forest. Not only did it suppress their magical abilities, severing their connection to nature, but it was a harrowing experience for a people so accustomed to warmth and life.

“Turn your gaze inward,” she repeated. “You are not the spirit that inhabits your vessel, nor are you that vessel. You are a duality, both are part of one whole. Call upon that spirit, and direct it to remember.”

George suddenly opened his eyes, withdrawing his hand reflexively as he felt a sharp pain in his palm. He watched blood well from a small cut, then glanced up at Tia with a questioning frown. She was sheathing the obsidian knife that he had just drawn.

“Remind your spirit how your body should be,” she insisted.

“I don’t know if your gibberish is starting to make some sense to me or if I’m just slowly losing my mind,” he grumbled as he closed his eyes again.

This was different from calling upon some outside force. It required a kind of introspection that he had never engaged in before. As he concentrated on the rhythms and energies of his own body – the beating of his heart and the coursing of his blood – he was suddenly aware of his own aura. Like a fish immersed in water, he would never have noticed it had it not been pointed out to him, but he couldn’t ignore it now. When he called to it, it didn’t answer. Of course, how could it? He was essentially talking to himself...

He tried to focus on the pain in his hand, which wasn’t difficult, conjuring images in his mind of what it was supposed to look like. Namely, without a painful cut in it. It was as though a door had opened to him when he had first become aware of the spirit world, one that he could no longer close, making each subsequent foray into magic a little more intuitive than the last.

He felt a tingling sensation in his hand, distinct from the dull throb of pain, and he opened his eyes once more to see motes of glowing dust dancing around his fingers. He blinked at them, realizing that he was finally replicating the process that had so transfixed him.

“You are doing it!” Tia hissed, watching intently as strands of silver light began to rise from his palm. They focused around the cut, knitting it back together, as though a healing process that would usually have taken days was playing out before his eyes in mere moments. George could do little more than sit there and watch in amazement. He wasn’t really doing anything. He wasn’t flexing a previously unknown muscle, he wasn’t commanding those strands with his mind, it was as natural and as automatic as the beating of his heart.

As the flesh scarred over, George began to feel woozy. Even if there was no athletic component to what he was doing, he could feel himself running out of steam, like a man stumbling to the finish line at the end of a marathon. The very abstract concept of vital energy was manifesting in a very real and tangible exhaustion.

He slumped against the tree, clenching his newly-healed fist, Tia reaching over to place a hand on his shoulder.

“Are you well, George?”

“I feel like I just did a lap around the forest,” he grumbled.

“It will pass,” she said, her tone reassuring. “Now you understand why Kuruk sleeps. He had to call upon so much of his own power to reach the spirits.”

“I guess it’s like ... shouting so loud that you pass out,” George sighed.

Tia reached beneath her cloak, producing a little parcel of flatbread that was wrapped in a leaf.

“Here,” she insisted, pushing it into his hand. “Eat. We will surely be moving again soon.”

“Is this ... going to work?” George asked as he began to unwrap the parcel, Tia picking up on the hesitation in his voice.

“It will help you regain your strength,” she replied, but he shook his head.

“No, I mean this venture. You’ve seen the Blighter camp, you know our odds far better than I do. Are we marching to our deaths?”

She paused, glancing out at the misty forest that surrounded them. Her forlorn expression turned determined, her brow furrowing with resolve.

“The odds have never been in our favor, but this time will be different,” she said as she reached behind her back. She gripped her rifle, the weapon unwieldy in her small hands, resting it in her lap as she played her green eyes and up and down its length. “This time, it is we who will strike at their heart, it is we who will bring to bear weapons from beyond the forest. We have to win, because losing is not an option.”

George nodded approvingly as he took a bite of the doughy bread, her enthusiasm infectious.

“There is something I wanted to ask you,” she continued, a little of her confidence slipping as she turned her eyes back to the rifle. “Your people seek only to leave the forest. Once they receive their payment, they intend to return to the East, is that not so?”

“That’s what Dawes says,” George replied.

“Will you ... be going with them? You have often spoken of your desire to bring back the knowledge that you have learned here to your homeland. I am sure that your people would hold you in high regard...”

“It’s true,” he replied with a nod, watching her ears droop. “If I were to take what I’ve learned back to Albion, I’d be turning the academic community on its head. I’d write books, books would be written about me, I’d receive both accolades and scorn for upsetting the status quo. There’s enough information in my journal to warrant a lifetime of study. It’s all I’ve ever wanted, really – to make new discoveries for myself, to be recognized as an explorer. Not to mention that the gold I’d be able to bring back would make me wealthy beyond the most unrealistic fantasies of the average man.”

“Then ... you must follow your dream,” Tia muttered as she slung her rifle back over her shoulder. Her disappointment was palpable, but she hadn’t given him time to finish yet.

“I have learned that there are other ways to be rich,” George added, her ears pricking up. “All of the wealth and prestige that I might find back home can’t come close to buying me what I’ve found here.”

“Does that mean you’ll stay?” she asked, her eyes bright. “With me?”

“If I left, I’d spend the rest of my life wondering about you. No amount of money or fame could fill the hole that your absence would leave in my heart.”

“B-but what of your work?” she asked, her freckled cheeks starting to warm.

“I’ll give my journal to Sam, and he can make sure that it reaches the right people,” he replied with a shrug. “It has all of my notes, all of my observations, enough to occupy a team of university fellows for years. In fact, I feel as though it’s missing an important entry...”

He reached into one of the pockets of the pack that was sitting on the ground beside him, producing the leather-bound book, then he retrieved a fountain pen from its protective pouch. He balanced the journal in one hand, beginning to draw with the other, glancing up occasionally at his curious companion.

“What are you doing?” she asked, still flustered from his prior declaration. She lifted her head to try to get a look at what he was writing, but she couldn’t see anything with George facing her.

“You’ll see,” he replied, relishing a chance to be the one making cryptic statements for a change. After maybe five or ten minutes, he was done, adding the finishing touches as Tia shifted her weight impatiently. She blushed redder as he passed the journal to her, her eyes fixed on the page.

“It’s ... me,” she whispered, reaching out to brush her fingertips against the paper. He hadn’t seen any mirrors in Tia’s home, so save for glimpsing her distorted reflection in the water, this portrait might be one of the first times that she had seen a representation of herself in such clarity. As he watched, she reached up to prod at her hair. “You drew me with flowers around my horns,” she said, glancing up at him. “I don’t have flowers in my horns.”

“I remember how they looked,” he replied, Tia turning her gaze back to the journal.

“What is this beneath it?” she asked.

“That’s your name, written in my language.”

“I think you have made me more beautiful than I really am,” she said, shuffling a little closer to him.

“That would be impossible,” he replied, Tia chuckling as he draped an arm around her shoulders.

“What the hell is this?” Sam wondered, pausing by one of the decaying trees. Dark sludge leaked from the cracks in its bark like corrupted sap. Dead moss clung to its pocked surface, covering it in a blackened carpet of rotting vegetation, the mushrooms that sprouted between its roots the color of carrion. Sam reached out with the barrel of his rifle, prodding the trunk with the point of his bayonet.

As George walked up beside him to take a closer look, he saw something out of place. There was what looked like the upper half of a human skeleton growing from it, or perhaps merged with the wood. The outline was quite faint, but unmistakable when seen up close, like a dead body that had been almost completely submerged in a bog. The ribs were clearly visible, as were the shoulders and the beginnings of a skull. The sockets were empty, the jaw agape, a few teeth visible. The arms seemed to sink beneath the surface, reaching up to reemerge above its head, the hands joined together in a way that bore an eerie resemblance to the bodies that were strung up on the Blighter effigies.

“It’s not bone,” Sam confirmed, driving the tip of the blade into one of the ribs. “It’s made of wood. Did the Blighters carve this as some kinda warnin’?”

“It doesn’t look like it was carved,” George muttered, reaching out a tentative hand to brush it against the skull. “It’s beneath the bark, look. It seems to be ... growing outwards, splitting it.”

Tia came bounding out of the trees to their right, surprising a couple of the other men who hadn’t heard her coming.

“Are you seeing this stuff further ahead?” George asked, stepping away from the tree.

“These were not here when last we passed through this area,” she replied, grimacing at the grisly sight. “The blight was more concentrated around the camp, yes, but there was nothing like this. There are more ahead, dead faces in the trees, bodies...”

“It’s holding its arms aloft in prayer,” George said, gesturing to its bony hands. “We’ve seen this before, on the effigies. The Blighters stake their victims in this position.”