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Chapter - 15 "Betrayed"

Sunlight crested the distant Jagged Peaks as the morning was renewed once again giving pause to the shadow born terrors that haunt the night. Raku awoke to a cold fire and a thin veil of new snow blanketing the land. That early light causing the night's frost to shimmer in the trees like great veins of ice reaching for the dawn. He could feel the heat of the sun beginning to radiate through the bedroll against his back. Lalune grant me a few more minutes of peace. He thought with a yawn and a deep settling sigh. The windswept plains were quiet this morning save for the snoring dwarf. Raku nestled in determined to make the best of it when he realized he was not alone. The soothing scent of Lilac was clue enough as the small elven body shifted against his chest. Her hand caressed the thin fur on the back of his pressing it tight against her as a soft murmur escaped her lips. The brute lifted his head just a little to look down on the sleeping elf curled against him.

That unique flaming orange hair of hers a tangled mess on his left arm, a shared pillow of sorts. She must have snuck in with him last night. He wasn't the least surprised however, she was after all farther from her element than ever before. Despite this, he had to give her credit for her strength. He had put her through so much in just the last few days. The loss of her father, several brushes with death, several spats with his abrasive nature. Yet still, here she lies, cradled in his arms. He didn't want to admit it but it was certain now. That burning within him, it was small at first but every attempt he made to stop it only fueled it further. He had fallen for her, and that scared him. But he had promised himself to ride out this storm of emotion. He would not let her become another Skal. No, no matter what happened he would not let the burden of his past push this one away. Slowly he rested his head back down, his muzzle gently nuzzling against her jawline as he settled back into sleep. Another soft murr came from Reecie. Raku felt her hand reach up for a moment to stroke his cheek. His sense of ease was almost like a dream, one he hoped would never end. The beast didn't stir again until sometime later at the clattering of armor and whispering voices.

"You sure about this, I don't think ya understand the perils we'd be facing in there. Monsters that never tire, never bleed! Sorcerers and mages can't even reach the village that lies within. Whats a couple of arms swinging steel goin ta do?" Garrock protested as he shoveled snow into the fire pit with his boot before stamping it out. Despite the dwarfs logic, Reecie seemed adamant about the decision.

"I need to know Garrock. There's more to this than just the amulet any more. I think...I think my family might be a part of all this somehow."

"I thought your family was dead? No offense." Garrock added. Reecie looked to the ground, both hands on the amulet.

"I know but...after the last few days, I'm not entirely sure what's real anymore. Just don't tell Raku about the dream... I don't want him to worry." They both went quiet as Raku stirred throwing his bedroll open as he sat up and yawned.

" Yet again you underestimated my hearing ability Reecie." Raku got up, stretching his shoulders as he did.

"H-how long have you been listening?" she stammered. Garrock looked back and forth between them.

"Long enough, so you're still bent on goin into those trees then?" Seeing he was the last up and the last to be dressed he promptly started packing his bed and putting his armor back on.

"What's the story about this dream?" he asked, bucking his greaves.

"It was just a dream it probably means nothing I'm sure."

"probably?" He raised a curious brow at her.

"As you said before just a fever dream," she reassured him. Raku didn't push it further as he looked to Garrock who shook his head. His lips were sealed it seemed but he figured if it was important enough the dwarf wouldn't hold out on him. This was in every sense of the term a suicide mission after all. After putting on the last of his gear and packing his bedroll. Raku went through his gear making sure his crossbow was loaded with spare bolts at the ready, His trusty old soldier's sword at his hip. The brute then took an uncharacteristic knee and began to mutter something in the beast tongue. A language that was known to and shared by all anthro races, Wolfkin, Katts, and the Scale Born alike. One of the few languages also primarily limited to those same species due to the vocal intricacies required to produces some of the guttural growls, whines, and hisses that came with it.

For the same reasons it was rarely if ever used around non-Beast folk as it was often considered primitive and lesser to other more versatile dialects. In some cultures and places, it is even considered rude or vulgar. Hearing some of these strange sounds come from the brute Reecie turned with a puzzled look as Raku appeared to snarl and bark at the ground before letting out a throaty hiss of a wheezing sound.

"What-" She stopped as Garrock tapped her arm and leaned in a bit.

"Its what some warriors do before going into a battle they don't expect to win. Heys praying to his people's goddess. If I were you I'd pray to whatever deity you worship as well." Garrock smiled before taking a knee himself setting the head of his hammer onto the ground, crossing his hands over it and resting his forehead against them and started his own mumble of a prayer. _ Father said mother used to pray... also said it never did her any good either..._ The idea of prayer took her back to the days of her childhood. Alarune would tell her about the forest god that brought them good crops, rain, and pretty much anything they needed at the time. He always told her they were mostly silly stories for superstitious people. Reecie gripped her amulet looking out towards the cancerous mass of white trees in the distance. She never prayed for her father when he died, or ever really it wasn't something they ever practiced. It saddened her that she had never once prayed. Perhaps one day she would return to the farm and pray over Alarunes grave. He deserved that at least.

Raku stood having finished his prayer and drew one of the daggers from his belt, the same dagger he gave Reecie to practice with the night before.

"Reecie" He turned to her holding out the blade.

"I want you to have this. You are probably going to use everything I've taught you thus far in these woods so you'll need it." Reecie took the dagger gently from the brute, looking up to him as he did. She was starting to second guess her decision now, but still, she swallowed her fear and stuck the blade down the side of her boot. They had come this far and it would all be for naught if they turned back now.

"We ready ta do this?" Garrock asked sliding his hammer back into its loop. Raku nodded to the dwarf as he mounted his horse. Reecie and Garrock followed his lead mounting together. Shouldering her bow and quiver they set off towards the plagued land. Just getting close to the woods filled them all with a sense of dread. While the snow that blanketed the plains was largely undisturbed. Random tracks in the surface began to show> they seemed to have no real direction and varied widely in shape and spacing. Reecie was, of course, no tracker but evens he could tell the tracks were as numerous as they were varied.

"Are those from...monsters?" she asked looking around at the different tracks. Raku grunted.

"Where are they all then?"

"Probably only come out at night. Might be our saving grace that we enter in the morning. Gives us time to flee before it gets dark." Garrock added. The thought of being stuck anywhere near these woods quickened her pulse. Even the horses were getting tense and cautious. They knew better than to walk into the maw of a predator and Reecie could feel it in them both.

"I don't think the horses will be able to accompany us any further," she said as they were now only a hundred yards or so from the tree line.

"Smart animals." Garrock joke dryly. Begrudgingly the three of them dismounted the rather skittish mounts. They calmed slightly as they went about grazing the bits of grass poking through the snow. Still, they would constantly stop and look to the woods as if they saw something in the trees and then go back to grazing. Neither creature would turn its back on the tree line strangely. Raku and Garrock started to slowly make their way to the tree line as Reecie comforted the animals for a moment. A soft wailing called to them from the woods like the dying moans of a tortured soul. Raku drew his sword, Garrock followed suit with his hammer. This is...exactly like the dream Reecie thought as she caught up with the two inching towards the woods. In a strange way, this gave her some confidence with the thought that she had been here before. Raku ears perked up and rotated, his snout twitching as it jerked a little from side to side his eyes catching the slightest movements in the distance.

"We are being watched," he muttered. Garrock swallowed hard and took a deep breath.

"What are ya seeing dog?"

"I can't tell, the trees are too dense, combat will be difficult."

Reecie moved ahead of them crossing the visible threshold of snowed plains to Scorched earth. Raku hesitated as he set foot on the ash caked ground. The others would have never noticed due to they're footwear but Raku didn't wear boots.

"It's warm" He looked down to paw prints he left in the ash as he took another step further. The paw prints behind him disappeared a few seconds after each step. It was like the woods were frozen in a moment in time just after the ground had flash burned fast enough to not consume the trees but hot enough to leave strange ashen visages of foliage on the ground that turned to dust when disturbed. This was it. They had fully entered the woods surrounding Meesari. The fur on Rakus neck raised as the dwarf grumbled.

"Can't get any sense of direction in these damned skeleton trees, place reeks of fire and magic."

Deeper still the trio went until the plains were no longer visible behind them. They were fully engulfed in the white woods now. Up until now all of the odd misshapen trees were solid white, stripped of bark and with only a few branches at most on all of them. Stranger still any with broken branches or split trunks were emitting a thin red vapor that settled on the ground.

"What is that?" Garrock asked Raku shook his head sneering a little as he sniffed.

"Smells like death, try not to breath it, who knows what it does."

"Easy for you to say!" The dwarf huffed. Suddenly the sound of scraping wood rang out around them. Looking every which way the trio could see thin heavily thorned vines spiraling up the trees in the vicinity tearing into the wood as they moved. Each little nick, every gouge began to bleed a thick crimson sap-like liquid as if the trees were living breathing creatures. The trio back into a circle ready for what was to come next. Or so they thought.

The thick blood-like sap began to bubble and splatter on the surface of the trees until something emerged from one large coated are like stepping out from under waterfall. A set of antlers drenched in the stuff protruded first followed by baren skull they were fixed too. A tortured wail emanated from the skull as it thrashed its way free of the blood sap followed by one drenched arm, then the other. A wendigo birthing itself from the side of a tree. Desperate to be free it wailed again clawing at the ground as it continued to emerge. Before it could complete its arrival Garrock brought his hammer down on the things head, decimating it with a wet crunch.Its body slumped to the bottom of where the sap had reached on the tree as another set of partially fleshed hands emerged and began the same process. Garrock wound up waiting for another head to come through. On one of the other trees, several bones started falling out of the sap and compiling as they rose some sort of skeletal creature. Raku chopped though the bones breaking several and sending, even more, flying across the ground. Incomplete the remains of it collapsed into a heap. Reecie sent an arrow sailing into the sap of one tree that was still only starting to bubble. Her arrow vanished into the sap. Keeping whatever was trying to emerge at bay. All the while the red fog on the ground was starting to rise unbeknownst to them. At this rate, they could combat the flow of monsters but tree after tree was being swallowed in vines and began to bleed creating new sap covered portals.

"Were outnumbered!" Reecie cried as she launched another arrow at a partially emerged corpse. The arrow sinking into an eye socket staggering the monster but only momentarily.

"Move before we are overwhelmed!" Raku shouted firing a bolt into fully formed wendigos exposed heart. The beast clutched at the organ for a moment before falling into the fog. With an ax in one hand and hammer in the other Garrock severed some of the vines on one tree as he passed by it lumbering his way through. Reecie and Raku followed behind him. As the three ran deeper into the woods more vines violently erupted around trees as they went chasing them with the monster spewing blood sap portals.

"Ah...hah ah cant... Ah cant keep this up!" Garrock gasped trying to wave the fog from his face.

"When did the mist get so high! I can't see!" It wasn't until Garrock called it out and the fact he was swallowed by it now. That they realized it was rising.

"Just keep moving!" Raku shouted and grabbed the dwarf by the back of his armor dragging him along now With Reecie on his heels firing a blind arrow behind them every so often. It looked as if they might outrun the vines for a moment. Reecie Spotted the pointed steeple of a structure Just above the tops of the trees. _The church...from my dream!" _

"There!" She called pointing at the barely visible sloped roof. In that same moment though Raku tripped falling into the fog, losing his grip on the dwarf as he was sent sprawling. His sword skipping across the ground. The mist was thick now like a heavy fog and made the brute cough as it filled his lungs.

"Try not to breathe this shit!" He coughed again getting to his feet. The fog was it his waist now meaning Reecie would soon succumb to it as well.

"Garrock!?" He shouted and tried to wave some of the fog away to see the ground. _He should be right here! Where could have gone, he was right here! _ Raku panicked looking for the dwarf at his feet.

"Raku..." Reecie called softly. Just as the brute looked up to see her staring him down with a warm smile. Before he could even react she sank an arrow into his chest. The brute's eyes went wide, falling to the shaft jutting out of his armor. Blood seeped around the shaft. Raku smeared it with two fingers still in shock and disbelief.

As he looked up she fired another. This arrow his the softer flexible armor of his belly sinking in deep. Raku staggered, his back hitting a tree.

"R-reecie?" he stammered as he gripped the shaft in his belly He could hear the bow strain as she drew it back as far as it would go slamming a third through the steel pauldron pinning it to his shoulder.

"Gah!..hah w-w-what are you doing!?" he pleaded. Without pause, she walked over to him drawing the dagger from her boot.

"Please...Reecie..." He begged as she roughly grabbed him by the collar of his chest piece. She yanked him down painfully to her level and kissed his cheek.

"Its been to long Aku..." At the same moment, the very blade he had entrusted to her was buried into his side up to the hilt as he yelped and leaned on her.

"Your..not really her...are you?" he muttered. Leaving the dagger in his side Reecie stepped back.

"I can't allow you to leave these woods, not again. This is where you belong, with the rest of the monsters of this world." Struggling to stay on his feet the only thing keeping him up was putting his weight against the tree. He watched as she slowly backed away into the fog until she was gone altogether. Was the mist playing tricks on his mind?

"Reecie?...Garrock?" he called but was met only with silence. The brutes breathing was starting to come in slow heavy gasps. The arrow in his chest must have punctured a lung. He was on borrowed time now. For a moment he caught a glimpse of his sword. He stumbled over to it dropping to his knees with a pained grunt he retrieved the weapon using it to help support him as he struggled to his feet again. Looking up he saw the steeple she had called out. Maybe they made it. He thought as he stumbled in the direction of the village.