The weight of the forest could be measured in silence. It was the sort of quiet that was loud enough to disquiet thinking. Natal and company made a plodding pace west away from the clearing where the Chaplain had plucked the Vulk Pup from its mother. Their numbers had dwindled to a mere eleven, their lost scattered near where they entered this pressing forest. They had lost Alaen, the Chaplain had not made mention of him, but he no longer lead them. Instead Natal had her most experienced tracker finding their way west through the forest where they should make their way to it's edge.
The Chaplain stayed near the back of the company, walking with a hesitant pace and keeping a protective eye on the small white Vulk. There had been a commotion when the two had first rejoined the knights, The Chaplain quickly checking for wounds before ushering the child forward. Natal took up a rearguard position, keeping an eye on the unnatural darkness of the forest, but also on the pair. The child didn't seem like something divine, it hardly looked like a Vulk at all. The hostility replaced with an apathy, more like a Kych with her wide eyes as it peered at the passing trees broader than any of the tents from the clearing they'd come from.
Natal spun suddenly to the groups left, scanning the floor of the forest between colossal trunks. She shook her head resuming the trek. "Thought I heard something, probably a Behem."
"Are you sure it's not a Guardian," asked Jhal? The young knight looked at each trunk as he came near them.
"You wouldn't hear a Guardian," said Devlin, "we'd be long dead before you even knew there were any in the forest."
"That's not true," said Gregg from up ahead.
"What, you think you could hear a Guardian old man," challenged Devlin.
"No, you would not hear them, but they leave signs in the forests they tend." The older knight nodded to himself as he walked underneath the bows of a particularly large tree without needing to hunch.
Devlin made a rude noise, shaking his head. "Ain't never heard of no keeper leaving no signs."
"I. I have." said Jhal. "Priest Uban once said that all the living woods had Keepers and that if you saw a living tree then you knew you were in a protected place."
Natal smiled, it was good to hear them talking even if it was about something as nonsensical as Keepers of the Forest, a child's tale told to frighten children away from getting lost in the woods, just as they spoke of shadows in the night to bring them home before dark. They were an honest lot, even the cynical Devlin.
"That's not even a sign," he said as if in response to her.
Gregg shook his head while passing under another limb. "There are others for those who know to look, for example the moss always grows on the south side of a Guardian's wood."
"South side? Where does moss typically grow." posed Ben who had slowed to match Gregg's pace.
There was laughter from a nearby bush up along the general direction they were heading which caused the lot of them to start and hold hilts.
"The north side of course," said Halfast in response.
Halfast, the company's acting scout parted from the bushes starring at the group of them with their hands on weapons. He cocked an eyebrow before glancing towards Natal.
Natal shook her head. "They got themselves worked up over talk of Guardians, children the lot of them. Especially you Gregg, I haven't heard a Priest whisper telling of Guardians since before I left for the Academy."
The wizened knight looked at the floor and kicked lazily at large deep blue domed mushroom. "My father, birth father that it were, was a woodsmen in the Keepers' eldest forest Captain. He was allowed to worship Mori as it where and he'd tell me about the Guardians and the Children of the Forrest, the living woods and the dead woods. That's all Captain, suppose I shouldn't have tried to pass them off as true to another, not my place to preach." He gestured divinity as he looked to the Chaplain's feet.
She frowned then, glancing at the Chaplain who was too preoccupied with the child to note Gregg's blasphemy. She shrugged at him. "Haven't heard you speak about your father before Gregg, didn't even know you still thought on him."
"Can't say I often do Cap'n, but we've never been in the Eternal Wood before either."
"Speaking of this forest," said Halfast, "I'm sure we're headed in the right direction but the tree's are growing larger not smaller as if we were headed deeper into it." He gestured apologies towards Gregg who merely shrugged.
Natal glanced up into the canopy of stark red leaves to glimpse the sun, but here they wove too tight to rely on Sol for guidance. "Perhaps we headed further in than we thought when tracking their camp, keep us pointed west and we'll arrive."
"You sure Halfast's our best guide?" asked Vik. "Betsol enlighten me I've seen that tree before."
Devlin sniggered. "Of course you've seen that tree before, there's hundreds of them in this wood. Each one a tower shrouded in blood red leaves! Foreboding if you asked me, no wonder no one lives here."
"It is not some other tree," Vik retorted, "It has the same bearded face pattern in it's bark."
Vik waved her hand towards a tree off to her right. Natal furrowed her brow and glanced to Halfast who merely shrugged gesturing apologies.
"We'll keep to the west, Halfast will guide us right." she said with more confidence than she felt.
The knights nodded and started following Halfast once he started forward again. She noticed they seemed to be watching the forest more intently than they had before which would be a boon worth the delay. She wasn't afraid of the forest, nor what might lurk within, but of coming across a group of fleeing Vulk.
"We've quite the journey ahead of us," said Chaplain Oran.
Natal's neck craned as Chaplain Oran spoke just behind her. She gestured divinity to the Chaplain, the true leader of the company. She spared a glance for the child trailing slightly behind her with silent strides.
"Betsol has yet to answer my prayers for enlightenment. I was sure once we'd found the pup she'd give further guidance to our quest," said Chaplain Oran while looking askance.
Natal had been a part of her fair share of this sort of conversations and kept quite, merely gesturing divinity as she watched the Chaplain and the child.
"We'll need to make haste to the Temple of Dawn. Once Jhev learns of our desertion, especially if he learns of our quest, he'll send what immortal's he still has sway over after us. Without Alaen we can only run," the Chaplain said. She looked away from the canvas of leaves above them and caught Natal glancing at the child. "No, no matter how powerful the pup might be, we cannot risk fighting around it. Betsol made it sound most pressing."
The child turned its head away from the two of them. Its shoulders slumped. The Chaplains speaking brought Natal's eyes back to her.
"Have you ever been in a living wood before? I had always thought they would feel different. More... well, alive."
Natal's breath caught, she stared hard at the Chaplain's face looking for a hint of humor from the woman. "You don't, this forest is a living wood?"
"Yes, well, of course," said the Chaplain. She took her eyes off the wood and looked at Natal for a moment. "The Eternal Wood is one of the oldest living woods on the material plane. Its why there was no real risk of it catching fire despite our Dawnbringers continuous singeing of its edges."
She glanced over her shoulder to the child and said, "I wonder if their plan was to lose us in its depths. It is said that you could spend a lifetime searching for the center of a living wood and never find it, as it's apt to avoid those seeking it."
Natal gaped, shaking her head at the Chaplain. "It's said? by who?"
"The priests of Mori, but of course," the Chaplain said as if the answer should have been obvious.
Natal looked at the forest slowly and breathed in. The air crisp and light, the ground was a blanket of fallen flowers in shades of red from pale pink to a rich crimson that was mirrored above. The trees, if they were really of the same family, had trunks as round as towers and limbs that began sprouting from it high above the floor and sloping up towards the hidden sky. Now she heard the insects droning underneath the silence.
"I imagine we're quiet safe," said the Chaplain, "The Mori taught that as long as you meant no harm to the wood the Guardian's would allow you on your way."
"The Guardians!" exclaimed Natal. "You're telling me you believe in the Guardians too?"
"Of course I do Captain, it is my position in life to believe. I listen to the Divinities and they give me truths. Who am I to question a divinity?" the Chaplain posed.
Natal gestured apologies then divinity. "I suppose I just... well they're feytales, begging your pardon Chaplain. One's families tell to children to keep them behaving."
"No, I'm afraid not Natal," the Chaplain said gently while cupping one of Natal's hands with her own. "There are a great many divinities in this world, lesser of the Divinities of course, but still sharing the mortal realm with us." The Chaplain looked behind her, at the Vulk child who had been listening to the two talk, eyes wide and head cocked.
"I fear the mortal realm is about to face a change it is not well prepared for, an echoing of sorts," said the Chaplain.
She began to walk in the direction the knights were making headway in, Vik just passing through a heady bit of underbrush, a blooming bush of white flowers with purple edges.
Natal started up again, finding herself in pace with the child. The child held her gaze then, its head down and tale tucked behind it. This wasn't something divine, this was something to be protected a child that needed a guardian.
"I'm Natal," she said putting on her biggest smile.
The child merely looked away, hurrying its steps to fall in behind the Chaplain.
Shrugging, Natal quickened her pace passing through the white flowered bush. She heard it then, the sound of creaking wood and rustled peddles, the one that had first caused her to peer out into the forest expectantly. The wind, perhaps, though there wasn't any wind that she could feel.
"They come." the child said.
Natal's had snapped around to find the child staring up at her with large ice blue eyes. She absently rubbed at the back of her neck.
"Who?" Natal asked.
"The ones who'd keep me from your mother."
"My mother?"
"Cap'n!" came the warning from Gregg up ahead.
Natal's blade was drawn before she'd found Gregg. He and the others had their rifles bared, each finding air to aim at beyond the trees. The Chaplain bounded up beside them, her own blade out and a firm hand on the back of the child's shoulders.
"It's the Guardians!" cried Jhal.
"I swear I saw it move Cap'n," said Gregg.
"It did, I saw it too Captain" said Sarah.
"You can relax my Knights," said the Chaplain in a voice that reminded Natal of prayers.
The rifles lowered, and they stood taller. The 9 of them looked to the Chaplain for enlightenment, her Solet shining brightly in the gloom as if the Radiance her self was with them.
"We travel through the Eternal Wood, you can expect a great deal of it's denizens to be spirits of. Though I do not know what you may have done to provoke them into spending the energy to move."
"They have done nothing child of the light, it is you who has forced us to action," said a voice that resonated like air through a reed. Sharp and shrill, but with hint of possible melody.
There was a crack, Jhal's rifle discharging into the drapes of flowers above them, causing a cascade of petals over their heads. The company of knights tightened, forming a ring against the pressing forest, the Chaplain in it's center shielding the child.
"Reveal yourself spirit!" Commanded the Chaplain.
"Ahh, but we are so much more even if you children have forgotten," the voice almost whistled.
A long bough descended from among the drapery, landing lithely and being joined by a second that was attached to a torso of sorts from which extended eight arms and a representation of a face though it lacked any discernible features other than being a flat slant of wood extended away from the torso between appendages.
"A Kodoma," whispered Gregg.
"So you do not all walk blinded," said the Kodoma.
It loomed over them, head crowned by flowers, its six branch like arms extended to each side as if in a welcoming embrace. It bent along the long boughs that carried much of its height allowing its head to fall level with that of the Chaplains, it's body leaning easily over the ring of knights.
"We have come for the child," it said. "While we won't say we expect the rhythm of your kind to allow us to have her, we are prepared for your dance."
"What's it on about?" asked Devlin.
"The divinity is in my care! It has been divined and so it shall be done,"said the Chaplain while staring unblinkingly at it's flat face.
The creature rose some, giving ground the the ring of Knights. "So you have. Yet so have we, thus our roots entwine. We must say we expected for your dance to start in much more earnest. Perhaps you are a different beast than we first thought."
It's branch like arms folded around itself save the top most limb which reached up and plucked a flower from above it and brought I before its face.
The Knights stood at alert, the Chaplain at its center still stared in silent challenge at the creature.
"We will give you a fork, you may continue to flow freely, or we can guide you. One will bring you certain doom, the other shall be left to the divinity," said the Kodoma.
The company looked to the chaplain, Natal was glad they hadn't looked to her. It wasn't her place in the world to mettle with the divine, she was a simple woman.
"Guide us, out of the forest you mean?" said the Chaplain.
"We must follow the flow regardless, but it will be best to have a guide. Yes that much we are sure. We are not the only ones sent to find the child. She is the latest seed and the divinities squabble over who gets to watch it grow," said the Kodoma.
The Chaplain looked out into the forest, it's expanse of flowering towers extended before them in foreboding. She then met eyes with Natal, her eyes searching for... Natal nodded and the Chaplain nodded firmly back to her.
"We will allow you to guide us then, but I remain firm that the divinity is in our care," said the Chaplain.
The Kodoma stopped holding the flower in front of them and leaned back over the group, it's own flat face a mere breath from the Chaplain's. "A keeper for the keepers, very well."
The Kodoma stood straight, reaching into the lowest boughs above them. It then began to grow, or rather it did so in reverse. It seemed as if she was watching a trees life in reverse, as if a priest had drawn them out and then flipped the pages backwards. Soon the creature shared a height with them, it's body and limbs were lanky but very similar to their own. It's flat face had stayed much the same but now she could look at it evenly. It's six branch like limbs were now clearly arms and its trunk like body ended in two legs. It tilted it's head at the group and then proffered two arms in the direction from which they had come.
"We must head west," said the Chaplain.
"Then you should follow us," said the Kodoma as it began walking the way it had directed. "The wood seeks to claim you, Mori's children no longer grow to his will.
"Excuse me... Master Kodoma, but are you not a child of Mori?" asked Gregg.
"No more than an apple is the child of the tree who bore it. Though, we have not fallen far from him."
They walked in silence then passing back the way they had come but not seeing the tree with the face in its bark again. A running stream could be heard and the crashing of falls, they came along side it and followed its winding path through the forest. They followed the wooden creature without another word until they reached the edge of the falls and looked beyond them. The river fell before them, the land giving way to air in a large circular crevice into which the water poured. Inside were rings of terraces where the water collected into gentle pools where trees with flowers of bright colors gave bloom. Among them lumbered a great many Kodomo, some tended to trees, others to pools, some to behems or skyeels, fewer still seemed to be working on a giant weaving that cascaded down the terraces towards the pool at its very center where a cluster of Kodoma knelt silently.
"This isn't the edge of the wood," said the Chaplain.
"No it is the center, but fastest way out of a forest is to climb the nearest tree," said the Kodoma.
"You shall not have the child," said the Chaplain her hand finding her hilt.
"That has yet to be decided, we must follow the flow of the river. It is the decider of all things," said the Kodoma. "Come, we've been expecting you."
The Kodoma lead them down a path that traversed each terrace. It's fellows merely continued about as if they didn't notice the procession. The trees and ponds each bore fruit, dull in color compared to their leaves. Natal felt her stomach rumble and thought she heard another's, but they did not dare disturb the serenity of the crevice. When they reached the center, situated at the bottom they were forced to wade through ankle high water. Their passing causing ripples to cross its gentile surface. These wakes caused the gathered Kodoma to finally stir towards the company. Each standing and turning as if to regard the Knights with their flat faces. Their was a breeze that rippled across the surface of the water and caused the leaves to shake on their branches.
As one the Kodoma spoke. "We did not mean to bring them all, merely the divinity. We cannot tend for them all, we need not tend to any of them. We are not the keepers of the divine. We do not grow to the will of them. But we must follow the flow of the river, the flow of the river is the path. The path flows here, the eternal wood the eternal pool."
"Excuse me," said the Chaplain. "Who is it that I can address. I am here by the will of Betsol, I am charged with her quest. Do you seek to stop me?"
The Kodoma turned their flat faces towards the Chaplain, their innumerable limbs writhing in odd patterns. "They speak here in the sacred pool! We speak for the Kodoma, we are the Kodoma, we brought them here. We will let the flow of the river decide, we are not tenders of the divine. We do not grow to their will."
"The Flow of the River?" asked the Chaplain.
"The speak of fate Chaplain," said Gregg. "It is one of their tenets. They're suppose to be forbidden from changing fate, but to know how it will flow."
"Then why have they brought us here?" asked Devlin who was keeping his spear leveled at the nearest Kodoma.
"Fate," said Natal through a smile.
Would you like to continue reading? Find chapter 7 here.
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