The council of four had ended with no shouting, no laughter, no boasts. Just a shared heaviness. The kind that settles in the bones.
By the time the first light of dawn bled over the treetops, I had already strapped on my sword belt and checked my gear twice. Habit, drilled into me during my soldiering years. Habits that had kept me alive then… and I prayed would again now.
Sylvara was already waiting, bow across her back, eyes red-rimmed from sleeplessness but alert. She gave me a single nod when I stepped out of the hut.
"Good," she said. "We leave early. Their kind thrives on dusk and shadow. We'll move before they can weave the night around us."
Borgu grumbled as he emerged, armor clanking, axe across his shoulder. "Orc ready. Axe sharp. Blood wants spilling."
Lorian trailed after him, pale but determined, clutching a staff he rarely carried. His lips pressed into a thin line, the kind of resolve that was more brittle than steel but stronger than fear.
I took in each of them. The mismatched pieces of our band. And realized I trusted them more than I cared to admit.
"Stay close," I said. "The forest is theirs now, not ours. Don't forget that."
The trees swallowed us quickly.
Morning light struggled to pierce the canopy, and the deeper we went, the more it felt like stepping into another world. Shadows layered on shadows. Every twig snap underfoot echoed too loudly.
Sylvara moved like water, steps barely kissing the ground. Borgu stomped like a storm, though he tried to muffle it—an orc's attempt at stealth was still thunder compared to the elf. Lorian stumbled often but kept his head high.
Me? I listened. My training told me not to trust eyes alone. Forests deceive; sound betrays.
And I heard it.
The silence.
Too familiar now.
"Eyes up," I muttered.
Sylvara stopped dead, scanning the treeline. Borgu's grip tightened on his axe. Lorian swallowed hard.
Shapes flickered again. Not close, not too far. Just beyond reach. Always watching.
They didn't rush us this time. Didn't scream prayers to their false god. They shadowed us. Shepherding us deeper.
Sylvara's jaw set. "They want us to follow."
"And we're going to," I said.
Hours bled together. The ground sloped, the trees twisted, roots like claws grasping from the soil. And then, we found it.
The mark.
Not carved into a tree this time, but burned into stone. A crude spiral cross, black and blistered, reeking faintly of ash though no fire had touched the surrounding brush.
Lorian's voice trembled. "They… they're consecrating the land."
Borgu spat on the mark. "Ugly scratches. Orc spit stronger than their god."
But Sylvara's face was tight, voice low. "It's more than a mark. It's an anchor. A tether. They're claiming the forest piece by piece."
I crouched, brushing my fingers over the scorched grooves. Warm. Not fading—fresh.
"They're close," I said.
We moved slower after that. More deliberate. Every sense sharpened until even the wind through the branches felt like a hand brushing my neck.
Then, through the trees, we saw it.
A clearing.
And in the center, a stone altar blackened with soot and blood.
Around it, five figures knelt in silence. Hooded, cloaked. Hands pressed flat against the ground as though feeding something into the soil itself.
The air thrummed faintly, like the hum of a taut bowstring. My teeth buzzed against each other.
Sylvara's breath caught. "They're channeling."
I motioned us low, behind the brush. Borgu crouched reluctantly, muttering curses under his breath. Lorian trembled, but his eyes were fixed on the altar, wide with something between fear and recognition.
"They're not summoning yet," Sylvara whispered. "They're preparing. Feeding their master."
Lorian's voice cracked. "We should stop them."
"And announce ourselves to whoever else lurks in the trees?" I hissed. "No. Not yet."
But Borgu had already shifted forward, muscles coiled. "Five. Easy kill. Spill their guts, break their altar."
Sylvara's hand snapped to his arm. "You brute—think. Five here means more nearby. This is bait."
He snarled softly, tusks bared, but didn't move.
I forced my voice steady. "We're not here to win glory. We're here to learn. Look."
And look we did.
The cultists' chant rose slowly, like a whisper under the earth. The spiral symbol carved into the altar began to pulse with a faint, sickly light.
Then—shadows moved around them. Not the cultists. Not us. Something else.
Figures, tall and thin, with limbs too long. Faceless, but their bodies bent and flowed like smoke caught in flesh. They circled the altar, silent, unreal.
Sylvara's grip on her bow tightened until her knuckles whitened. "Not men. Not spirits. Something between."
My stomach dropped. I'd seen horrors in war. Men torn apart by machines of cruelty. Corpses left to rot on fields. But this—
This was wrong.
Lorian whispered, "Bound shades. They've tethered the dead to the ritual. They're feeding on souls."
The shades paused. Heads—or the semblance of them—turned toward the treeline. Toward us.
Sylvara cursed under her breath. Borgu's grin spread slow.
"Kael," she hissed. "Orders?"
The soldier in me screamed retreat. But my gut…
"We can't face them here. Not without the element of surprise," I said. "Fall back. Slow. Don't run."
Borgu growled but obeyed. Sylvara's bow stayed drawn, arrow notched but held. Lorian clutched his staff so tightly I thought it might snap.
Step by step, we withdrew into the brush. The shades did not follow. The cultists' chant rose again, steady as a heartbeat.
Only when the trees swallowed the clearing did I let out the breath I hadn't realized I was holding.
We didn't stop moving until the forest thinned, and the first hints of our camp came into sight.
The silence lingered between us, heavy, suffocating. Finally, Sylvara broke it.
"They're not fumbling zealots anymore. They're organized. They've bound the land. And those shades…" Her voice trembled with restrained fury. "That's necromancy tied to something fouler. Something older."
Borgu spat. "Orc not afraid. We smash altar, shades die."
"Not so simple," Lorian said quietly. His eyes had lost none of their fear. "Destroying one altar will not sever their hold. They've anchored the forest already. This is only one root of a spreading tree."
I stared into the campfire pit as we gathered again.
We had gone seeking knowledge, and found it. Too much of it. Enough to know the cult wasn't just testing us anymore. They were growing. Expanding. Feeding.
And if we didn't act soon, their roots would strangle this forest until nothing living remained.
I looked at my companions, each of them scarred by what we'd seen in their own way.
"This isn't a question of if anymore," I said. "It's a question of when. And whether we'll be ready when they finally come for us."
The fire pit sat cold and empty, but in my chest, it felt like something had already started to burn.