Death in the Dark Forest

by Jessica Judd

Retlets, an ancient tree gnome, hovered over the queen of the Eprie, his hooked blades raised. Her speckled fur stood on end and she let out a whimper while keeping her yellow eyes on his blades.

“Please!” the Eprie queen begged, “Can’t you see what you are doing? Magic is leaving the trees. O ur magic, yours and mine, is growing weaker. Can’t you feel it?”

Retlets tentatively lowered his blades.

“Here,” she said, “feel a tree.” She stumbled over to a tree and placed her paws on it.

Retlets followed her and touched the same tree’s bark. He jumped back in shock. It was cold. The magic in it had died. He rubbed his hands all over the tree. He tried to find a warm spot where magic still lingered, but there was nothing.

“We noticed it in the canopy first,” she told him. “It started in the high branches. Whenever there was a massive killing of either Eprie or gnomes the cooling spread. If we keep killing each other I think the forest’s magic will leave forever.”

“What do you propose we do?” he asked, unsure if he should trust an enemy.

“Tell the other tree gnomes we offer peace,” she said.

Retlets could not imagine doing such a thing. “How should I put it? Let them know an Eprie convinced me there should be no more killing or the forest’s magic will die?”

“Yes,” she answered simply.

“If the killing does stop the only magic either of us will possess is what the trees give us.”

“That will have to be enough.”

#

The Eprie queen returned home to the forest’s canopy.

Ralli, her most trusted advisor, sat on a branch, waiting for her to return. “How did it go?” he asked, his tail the only part of him that moved. “Better than I expected. He at least listened to me.” “Do you think it will work?” “I hope so. He is a renowned warrior and has enough pull with the other tree gnomes. I think he should be able to convince them to stop their hunts.”

Ralli sighed. “We have been stealing each other’s magic for a long time. I think the forest is making us pay for our bloodlust.”

“Do you have no hope at all, Ralli?”

“You have enough for both of us,” he answered. “I hope Retlets heeds your words.”

“I think the coldness of the tree I showed him convinced him enough.”

#

Retlets’s village lay hidden in a labyrinth of tunnels where only the most magical trees were rooted. These old, foreboding trees were still warm with lingering magic.

Retlets kept thinking about what the Eprie queen had told him. He thought of what his world would be like without magic and a depressing sense of hopelessness began to wrap itself around his chest. The tree gnomes depended on magic to light their tunnels and keep them healthy and strong. Magic gave the old hope to age proudly, and the ill and injured strength to survive when they otherwise would not. While they were capable of surviving without magic, how many would die if it did disappear?

The longer he thought about it the more he found himself trying to forget the whole thing. Perhaps the Eprie had tricked him, he mused. Yet, despite his desire to forget what she had told him, the dead coldness of the tree he had touched lingered in Retlets’s memory.

He ventured out of the village burrow every day for weeks in search of a place in the forest where magic wasn’t dying, but every time he went out the trees grew colder. He racked his brain to think of some sort of explanation besides what the Eprie queen had told him, but her reasoning seemed to be the most plausible answer.

Retlets went to the village’s temple in the central core of the burrows. The temple was the only part of the burrows made from stone instead of earth. Its main room was large and round with narrow hallways branching off from it. The walls of the round main room were lit by thousands of small candles made with Eprie blood. A handful of worshipers were kneeling in the candlelight and bowing their potato-like heads, asking to be blessed by the magic in the candles. Retlets stood amongst them, awkward and silent.

A priest tending to the melting candles approached him.

“Brave Retlets,” he said with a smile, his dark robes dragging on the dirt packed floor, “what brings you here?”

Retlets’s eyes locked with the priest’s and the holy man’s happy expression turned concerned.

“Perhaps it would be best if we convened elsewhere?” he offered.

Retlets followed the priest down one of the narrow hallways into a small meeting room meant for counseling. The only furniture in the room was some small, hard chairs and a table. The priest settled himself in a chair.

Retlets closed the door. Consumed by his worried thoughts, he had no idea of how to begin telling the priest of the dying magic.

“Please, sit down, Retlets,” urged the priest. “Whatever you have to say will stay within these walls, I promise you. I have noticed for some time something seems to be concerning you. I can’t help you unless you tell me.”

“I think magic is leaving the trees,” Retlets blurted out.

To Retlets’s astonishment the priest had the gall to smile.

“Is that what is troubling you?” the priest asked him, “Truly? Magic leaving the trees? That is impossible, Retlets. The trees are magic. Magic is the trees. They are infused with it, bound with it.”

“But isn’t our magic connected with the tree’s magic?” pressed Retlets.

The priest nodded, “Well, the trees are the keepers of magic. By living in the trees we’ve absorbed some magic. The Eprie, too, each in our own way. But magic is born in the trees. Magic could no sooner leave the trees than . . .”

“We have been sharing magic with the trees for so long,” insisted Retlets, “magic must depend on us just as much as it does the trees by now.”

“Listen Retlets, I don’t know how you got this idea into your head, but trust me, it is impossible.” The priest smiled broadly, “I know what would get your mind off such things! I hear Vlad Gorshnik is planning a hunt in a few weeks. I am sure he and his party would be thrilled to have a warrior of your caliber with them!”

The priest seemed to think he was offering Retlets a fine treat. Retlets, however, felt nothing but a great sense of dread. Despite himself he held his tongue, and didn’t say a word when the priest insisted he would inform Vlad himself that Retlets would be joining the hunting party.

#

“I fear Retlets has done nothing, Your Majesty.”

The queen said nothing. She sat perched high in the trees watching as a large hunting party of tree gnomes gathered below. Retlets was among them. Every one of them had the same wrinkled, brown skin.

“We have no choice,” she said. “We will be no match for them once magic has left us. We will have to sacrifice magic for survival.”

“Without magic our minds will be lost,” said Ralli, “We will lose our speech. We will lose ourselves, our way of life.”

“But there will still be life.”

“What use will it be without a voice? You are sure you have Retlets’s trust?”

“If I don’t have his trust now I will by the end of this.”

“I don’t like this plan of yours.”

#

The tree gnomes were gathered at the Eprie border where the forest was dominated by huge clumps of thorny bushes. Vlad stood up in front of the group.

“Remember, we’re in pairs,” Vlad told them, and he began rattling off their names. Retlets didn’t pay attention. He was consumed with worry over the gradual cooling of the trees. What did the Eprie queen have to gain by trying to end their wars? Was she trying to get an upper hand or was it a genuine desire to end all the death?

“Retlets!” called Vlad, “You’re with me. Are you ready?”

Retlets sighed and did his best to appear enthused.

Vlad led the way through the forest and prickly brush, carrying on about his hunting skills. Retlets was still consumed with the coldness of the forest around him.

When Eprie began to appear from the brush in front of them it was far too late for them to retreat.

“Retlets,” Vlad whispered, “what do we do?”

Retlets firmly held his blades in his hands and raised them above his head. After everything the Eprie queen had told him these Eprie were willing to kill him! She must have lied to him! Although, Retlets reasoned, the Eprie were simply defending themselves from a hunting party. He suddenly realized he couldn’t remember when the last unprovoked Eprie attack was. Retlets felt a hesitation creep inside him.

As Retlets hesitated, Vlad charged, but the Eprie were too many. They covered the two warriors like a swarm of locusts, until a voice rang out.

“Stop!” it ordered, “Don’t kill them!”

The Eprie stopped immediately. Retlets looked in the direction of the voice and saw the Eprie queen standing on a branch. She gracefully climbed down, keeping her eyes on Retlets.

Eprie had backed away from Retlets, but were keeping a tight half circle around him. Vlad had to be restrained. He struggled against the many strong arms holding him down as he tried to reach his axe, which lay on the ground just beyond his reach. He bit the paw of an Eprie to free himself. The injured Eprie released its grip on his shoulder, giving Vlad enough room to wrestle away from the others. He wasted no time in grabbing his axe and charging at the Eprie queen.

Retlets ran to block Vlad. They rammed into each other and collided with the queen. The Eprie came to their queen’s aid. The bedlam of the battle summoned the other members of Vlad’s hunting party, who soon joined the fray. After a short skirmish the Eprie retreated into the canopy, leaving behind their dead.

Vlad lay still on the ground. Retlets’s chest tightened in guilt. No one in their party was without a wound. A few looked as though they could be fatal. Even Retlets had a gash at his shoulder and was badly bruised.

Also amidst the corpses was the still body of the Eprie queen. Her fur was covered in blood from a nasty wound deep in her side. Retlets caressed her head. At his touch her chest moved and her eyes fluttered open. Retlets looked up to see if any of the other hunting party had noticed, but they all surrounded Vlad. He quickly bound the queen’s wound the best he could. When he was finished he joined the others.

“What happened, Retlets?” asked one.

“We were ambushed,” Retlets answered sadly, hoping the pain of his guilt did not show too clearly on his face.

#

The village was distracted by the loss of Vlad and the worry over the survival of those gravely injured, Retlets was able to sneak the Eprie queen into his home in the burrow.

His house was a small den consisting of one room where he slept, bathed, and ate his meals. He settled her into his bed and took care to clean her wound and stitch her up.

Laying on his bed the Eprie queen stroked the wall.

“It’s warm,” she murmured.

He stayed at her bedside, watching over her as she slept.

After a day and a half she developed a fever and Retlets could not deny the signs of her worsening condition. In the dead of the night he knocked on the door of the only healer he knew. She never seemed to be in anything less than a bubbly temperament and Retlets found her annoying to no end.

True to her form she answered her door with a jovial smile despite the late hour.

“Hello, Willa,” Retlets greeted, gritting his teeth as she began to speak.

“Good evening, Retlets! What brings you here at this hour? All is well, I hope. Although, I must say it is a bit late to be on a social call!” She let out a squeaky giggle and Retlets tried not to wince. “Come in, come in!”

He stepped over her threshold and went right to business. “I have a friend who has a fever,” he explained. “I think it’s been brought on by a recent bad wound.”

“Oh dear, is someone else from that hunting party falling ill?” asked Willa, still keeping her cheery disposition. “Horrible tragedy. It’s amazing you escaped with your life, Retlets.”

“So, what can I do for my friend?” he asked.

“You should have just brought your friend to me. I can take care of him here.”

“No, that’s impossible.”

“Very well,” said Willa. “Then take me to your friend.”

“Out of the question,” answered Retlets.

Willa eyed him curiously. “I can give him the best treatment if I am able to see him,”

“Can’t you just give me something for the fever? Anything?”

Willa stood with her hands on her hips. Finally, she turned on her heel and went to her cupboards. She brought back a jar of cream and bag of powder.

“Place the cream on his wound. A little will do, don’t put too much on,” Willa’s cheery disposition seemed to have melted away. Retlets never would have suspected her capable of such seriousness. She was obviously concerned about relying on someone else to administer her medicines.

“One application should do,” she continued, “if you must put more on wait two full days before you reapply. Steep the powder in a quart of water for three minutes. Discard the wet bag of powder and give him a cup at a time. Wait one hour between the first and second cup and one more hour after each additional cup.” Her usual sweet, gentle eyes bore into his. “Can you follow those directions?”

Retlets nodded, “Thank you, Willa.”

#

Retlets did just as Willa instructed and the Eprie queen slowly regained her strength. On the morning of the third day she was able to sit up in bed, feed herself, and carry on a conversation with enthusiasm.

“The magic here is so warm,” the Eprie queen purred as she stroked the wall alongside the bed.

Retlets nodded. He was exhausted. He didn’t have the strength to notice how greedily the Eprie queen touched the walls of his home or how sad her eyes became when she looked at him.

“Have you told your people about the trees dying?” she asked him.

“Hm?” asked Retlets, he had been dosing off in his chair.

“Your people,” she repeated, “have you told them about the magic dying?”

“I,” Retlets sat up in his chair and his eyes darted about the room, “tried.”

“Why have you not told them?” The Eprie queen closed her eyes and took a deep breath. “We will need a plan. Tomorrow at midnight meet me at the tree I showed you when we first met.” Her eyes were moist with fresh tears. “I am trusting you, Retlets.”

She fiddled with the bed’s blankets. “Thank you for looking after me.”

She crawled from his bed. Retlets stood from his chair to help her, but she brushed him away. Making her way toward his front door she opened it a crack. In the early morning hours the tunnels of the village burrow were deserted. Not bothering to look back at him she slid out the door.

#

The following night Retlets waited for the Eprie queen at their tree. Leaning against the tree’s trunk, he closed his eyes in meditation while he waited.

His eyes popped open as his body shivered. A great amount of magic had just been sucked from the trees around him. What has happened? he wondered. How long have I been waiting? There was nothing but the chill of death. It was an unmistakable sensation.

Retlets raced back to the burrows. Who was it that had died? Eprie or gnomes? The burrow couldn’t be destroyed, he reasoned. The entrances were too well hidden.

Then a thought hit him. The Eprie queen knew how to get in and out of the burrow now. But she didn’t want anymore killing to happen, Retlets reasoned with himself. She was trying to save magic.

#

Bodies of tree gnomes littered the ground around the burrow entrances. Only a few Eprie remained outside. The sound of their fierce battle screeches echoed from the tunnels below.

Anger licked Retlets’s innards as he cut down the Eprie outside. They screeched in warning for others to save them, but he killed them and moved on before any Eprie reinforcements had time to arrive.

Retlets made his way through the burrow tunnels. Since the main part of their ambush was over the Eprie were careless, and Retlets could easily hear them coming.

As he was edging around a corner near his home a pair of hands suddenly grabbed his shoulders and Retlets spun around to face his enemy, ready to slash his blades into them, but he didn’t come face to face with an Eprie. There was no fangs or fur or large, yellow eyes. Instead, he found himself looking into the kind, beady eyes of Willa. He had hesitated just in time, holding one of his blades up against her cheek.

Willa grabbed his wrist and dragged him along into his own house, shutting the door behind them.

Retlets stood inside his home facing her as she shut the door. He opened him mouth to ask her what she was doing, but when she turned around and faced him her complexion went pale and her eyes stared over his shoulder.

Retlets turned and saw the Eprie queen standing behind him. She awkwardly held a stolen, short sword in her little paws.

“Retlets, listen to me!” she blurted. Her voice sounded savage, like it had a bit of a growl behind it.

Retlets didn’t want to listen to anything she had to say. He attacked.

As they fought the queen tried to speak, but all she was able to get out were muffled squawks and screeches. Sweat poured down her face as she tried to fight Retlets off, but his blades were too fast for her.

With a skillful swipe of his blade her warm blood splattered across his face, and she fell to the ground.

Retlets turned to Willa. “We need to get out of here,” he demanded.

“We should go to the temple,” said Willa. “There are secret passages that can lead us out.”

#

The two of them navigated the burrow tunnels with Retlets in the lead. When they were in the dark opening of a tunnel just outside of the temple, they laid in the shadows with their backs to the wall, trying to discern the situation playing out in front of them.

About twenty priests knelt in front of the temple with their heads bowed in fear. Eprie paced behind them, taunting them and poking at them. The Eprie invasion was done. Now the Eprie were just “having fun” with the remaining tree gnomes.

Suddenly, a priest leapt from the temple’s shadows with a staff in his hands. He catapulted himself into two Eprie, and brandished his staff at the others.

“Run, my brothers!” he yelled to the other priests.

The priests got to their feet and fled the scene, but none made it very far.

Before Willa could stop him Retlets joined the fray. Death came quickly to the Eprie then. The smart ones managed to escape, but Retlets knew they would be returning with renewed numbers.

“Brother Ksyree,” chirped Willa, her beady eyes locked on the staff-wielding priest, “can you lead us to the passages?”

The priest’s eyes glistened. “Follow me,” he ordered.

#

The fighting inside the temple appeared to be over, but there were still Eprie around. Most of them were looting for magical objects.

In the main room prayer candles lay scattered amidst corpses of worshippers. Only three Eprie guarded the room. Ksyree and Willa hide in the shadows while Retlets waited in the dark entranceway for an Eprie to pass. When one did, he quickly placed his hand over its muzzle and twisted its neck in the safety of the shadows.

For the other two, Retlets was glad he had his blades. Only one of the Eprie saw him coming, but it hadn’t had enough time to register what was happening before the hook’s blade split its skull.

They were able to use the turns and corners of the temple’s hallways to their advantage. Retlets led while Ksyree whispered directions into his ear. Occasionally, Retlets had to disregard Ksyree’s directions in order to go around a band of Eprie. The Eprie Retlets did kill were done quickly and silently. There were no satisfying splashes of blood, only the soft crack of broken necks.

Ksyree finally led them into what seemed to be a random counseling room.

“What are we doing here, Ksyree?” Retlets asked. He saw no escape route in the room.

The priest did not answer Retlets’s question. Instead, he approached a far wall and placed the palms of his hands against it. Retlets and Willa watched the priest’s hands sink into the surface of the wall.

Ksyree’s face was contorted in concentration. “Grab onto my shoulders,” he ordered in a horse whisper as beads of sweat began to form on his forehead.

Retlets and Willa wrapped their arms around the priest and held on for dear life.

They sank into the mud wall. Retlets’s heart pounded in fear as his body became entombed in darkness. It was impossible to breathe, but just as Retlets started to panic his lungs filled with fresh air.

The three of them were sitting on the forest floor far from the death of the burrow. Retlets and Willa were still gripping Ksyree’s body. Retlets let go once he realized they were through the wall and safe at last.

“Where are we?” he asked, getting to his feet.

“We are on the edge of the forest,” answered Ksyree.

Retlets walked forward, moving thick brush out of his way until he saw a sight he never thought he would ever see: a flat open plain. Not a tree in sight. It took his breath away.

“Where are we going to go?” squeaked Willa.

Retlets tore his eyes away from the plain and looked at the priest, but he had no more answers than Retlets.

“I don’t know,” Retlets answered, “but we can’t stay here.”

#

Ralli, the great Eprie advisor, sat on a high branch. Below him Eprie were dragging gnome bodies from the burrows and ripping out their bones. Fights broke out everywhere as they each tried to taste the magic left in them.

Ralli opened his mouth in an attempt to speak, but only whimpered. He tried again, but only a primitive whine came out. Tears gathered in his eyes and his whine grew into a mournful bay that echoed through the trees. It rose over the racket of his fellow Eprie. They stopped their fighting to listen to him grieve the loss of his voice, and the loss of magic. Soon they joined him until the forest was filled with their waiils.

[end]