The Rise of Greg

by Chris Rylander

  Doh!

  Typical for a Dwarf, me trying to use Billiam to convince Reginald to change his vote had just completely backfired. Now I was twice as far from getting us admittance as I had been before I’d tried anything at all.

  “Now, now, don’t be so quick to change your mind, Billiam,” Reginald said. “We’ve talked about this: Be resolute in your convictions, yeah? Besides, it’s like you been telling me before: It is pretty boring not to let anyone in, yeah? In fact, I’m convinced: I’m changing my vote to yes!”

  “Great!” I said, barely able to believe what had just happened. “So we can go in?”

  “Well, not exactly, lad,” Billiam said. “The vote is still a one-to-one tie. I’m still saying no, in spite of Reginald changing his mind.”

  “But you just voted yes a few minutes before,” I pleaded.

  “Is a tree not allowed to change his mind, then, bruv?” Billiam snapped. “Is that it? Is that a right reserved only for you special Dwarves with workin’ arms and legs and such? Huh?”

  “No, no, I didn’t mean that,” I said. “No offense was intended.”

  “Well, it never is,” Billiam said. “But that still don’t take the sting out of them words now, do it?”

  I shook my head, feeling helpless and alone as my friends watched me argue with the wind (from their perspective).

  “So the vote is still one to one, but now just switched?” I asked.

  “That’s right, mate,” Reginald said. “Sorry about that. If it were up to me, we’d let you in, yeah? But Billiam over here . . .”

  “Hey now,” Billiam said. “Don’t be puttin’ this all on me, bruv! After all, I’m the one who convinced you to let that tall fellow and his friends pass just a day ago, remember?”

  “Oh, right, I almost forgot about that chap!” Reginald said. “A polite little mug, that one!”

  “What?” I asked, panic rising in my throat. “You mean, you let someone into the Hidden Forest just yesterday?”

  “Yeah, mate, a tall boy,” Reginald said. “Very handsome.”

  “And quite polite!” Billiam added. “For an Elf.”

  I knew immediately it was Edwin. It had to be. What other tall, handsome Elf might be in the middle of a Siberian forest? Which meant he was already at least a day ahead of us.

  I had to do something to get past these trees, and quickly.

  But what?

  The trees were so fickle, I was afraid if I even sneezed, they might suddenly both be voting no again. I turned around and faced my traveling companions, who looked even more distressed and confused than before, having watched me engage in a bizarre, lengthy argument with seemingly nobody.

  “I don’t know what to do,” I told them. “I just found out that Edwin is already inside the Hidden Forest. Ahead of us by at least a day.”

  “I told you this would happen if you didn’t put me in charge!” Sentry Two yelled at the others, which immediately set off another round of arguing.

  “I wish we could hear the trees as well,” Ari said, ignoring them. “Then maybe we could help somehow . . .”

  “Maybe that’s it,” Froggy said.

  We looked at him, waiting for an explanation. When he saw we weren’t following, he sighed and took a deep breath.

  “Why can only Greg hear the trees?” he asked.

  “Tis surely be’est thy disposition for ye trees,” Lake said.

  “Right, but that’s not what I’m getting at,” Froggy said. “The why doesn’t matter; it’s the point of my theory itself that matters: Greg likes trees.”

  It was clear we still weren’t getting it. Froggy sighed and took another deep breath, as if talking this much was like asking him to sprint a mile.

  “Have you used any of that knowledge yet?” Froggy asked me. “What kind of trees are they?”

  “Picea ajanensis,” I replied, finally starting to see what he was saying. “More commonly referred to as the Ajan spruce, also commonly classified as the Jezo spruce. But either way, I’ve never come across a talking spruce at all, Ajan or otherwise!”

  “Talking or not, they’re still trees in the end, right?” Froggy asked. “What sets this type of spruce apart?”

  I nodded, seeing now what he wanted me to do. I still wasn’t sure how knowing that Ajan spruce trees can grow up to 150 feet tall or that a musical instrument named the tonkori is made from its wood, could possibly make a difference in convincing them to let us into the Hidden Forest. But at this point, literally anything was worth a try.

  “Okay, I’ll give it a whirl,” I said, turning back around.

  As I took a few steps toward the forest, I heard the trees whispering.

  “Shh, ssshhhhh, he’s coming back,” one of them said.

  “Won’t take no for an answer, then, bruv?” Billiam asked.

  “No, I’m just curious,” I started, taking a deep breath. “How does it feel to have light brown cones with flexible scales, rather than orange-brown cones with rigid scales like your close relatives to the south?”

  The trees seemed stunned into a momentary silence.

  “Well, what do you know?” Reginald finally said. “We got ourselves a right little tree expert here, yeah?”

  “Thinks he knows everything about trees, he does,” Billiam added.

  “He does seem to know a lot, mate.”

  “I know he does,” Billiam agreed. “I wasn’t being sarcastic, bruv.”

  They seemed so impressed that they didn’t even bother answering my question. I had their attention now and so I ran with it.

  “I mean,” I said, “I bet there are all kinds of trees in the forest behind you that I’ve never seen before. That nobody who loves trees as much as I do has seen in thousands of years.”

  “Aye, I suppose so,” Reginald agreed.

  “I suppose you’d like to go see for yourself, then?” Billiam asked.

  “It would be pretty amazing,” I said. “I’m curious if there are more firs or spruce. How much pine? Any hints of a Daurian broad-leaved forest?”

  “Oh, now I’m curious meself!” Reginald said. “I been wondering that for eons, I have!”

  “’Course we can’t never go look for ourselves, seein’ as we ain’t got feet that move and such,” Billiam added.

  “I can go look and then come back and tell you,” I suggested.

  A pretty long silence followed as they considered this.

  “You promise you’ll come back and tell us what you find, tree-wise and the like?” Reginald asked. “You won’t be skipping out on us now, yeah?”

  “I promise,” I said. “Unless I die in the forest, I’ll be back eventually.”

  “Well, bruv,” Billiam said, “it’s pretty bloody likely you will die, seein’ as nobody we let in has ever come back out in one piece. But I’m willing to take that chance. So I vote yes. Reginald?”

  “Indeed, he and his friends will likely perish,” Reginald said. “But I’d also be curious to hear the ratios of birchwood to dark conifers within our realm. So yeah, mate, I agree.”

  “Okay, Greggdroule Stormbelly,” Billiam announced. “You and your chums may enter!”

  I spun around and motioned at my companions to follow me.

  “Come on, we can enter!” I said to them excitedly. “Hurry up before they change their minds.”

  Glam, Lake, Ari, Froggy, Stoney, Tiki, and the five Sentry quickly collected their things and joined me at the edge of the forest.

  The Hidden Forest.

  “Well, what you waitin’ for, bruv?” Billiam cried impatiently. “A welcoming committee?”

  “A marching band perhaps?” Reginald added.

  I shook my head and took several steps forward. Nothing stopped me or turned me around or interfered in any way. My companions followed, and we walked right past the fir
st line of trees and into the enchanted realm of the Hidden Forest.

  And hopefully that much closer to the amulet.

  CHAPTER 13

  A Pack of Squirrels Eat a Reindeer

  The Hidden Forest was a little underwhelming.

  I mean, of course there was an initial moment of wonder and shock when we all realized the mountains that had loomed in the distance on either side of the forest were suddenly gone, as was the glacial lake behind us. Suddenly everything had been replaced by a seemingly endless, dense world of trees.

  But beyond that, it simply felt like we were standing in any old normal forest. The trees looked like trees. The ground still appeared to be made of soil littered with leaves and branches and rocks. Regular sunlight still shone through the foliage above, streaking in rays like flashlight beams.

  Everything looked mostly, well, normal.

  Of course this would all change when we encountered the Rocnar, a massive beast so savage and bloodthirsty that I wouldn’t wish a meeting with one on even my worst enemy.

  But I’ll get back to that in a bit.

  Because the first matter of business, now that we’d finally entered the Hidden Forest, was to get our bearings straight. Edwin and his party had entered the day before, which meant we had a lot of ground to make up.

  “Okay, Stoney,” I said, once we’d all come to grips with being in a forest untouched by the modern world—a place that for all intents and purposes was a slice of the past, an actual living remnant of Separate Earth. “Where to now?”

  Stoney looked around, spinning 720 degrees. For a second, I thought he had no clue and was now just as lost as the rest of us. There were no directional markers here, no way to know which direction we were facing or which way we needed to go, just endless rows of trees.

  But as Dwarves tended to do historically, I once again completely underestimated the Rock Troll.

  “PROGRESS,” he said confidently, pointing in a direction (east, west, north—did any of those even exist here?) with an obscenely huge finger. “ROCK ONE.”

  “Okay, let’s go!” I announced. “We have no time to waste.”

  Surprisingly everyone listened. Moments later we were carefully picking our way forward through the trees. Unlike the forest back in Russia, which had been bizarrely quiet and seemingly devoid of animal life, this forest was teeming with noises: birds cawing, bugs buzzing annoyingly in our ears, and then, of course, there were the giant squirrels.

  I mean, probably they weren’t squirrels at all, but that’s the easiest way to describe them. We noticed their presence right away, seeing several scurry past as they darted up into the trees.

  The animals resembled squirrels in that they had brown-and-gray furry bodies, scampered around on four little limbs, had bushy tails, and could climb trees as easily as they ran on the ground. But did I also mention they were giant? At least, by squirrel standards. Most were roughly the size of a small dog, perhaps a pug or a corgi. But others were nearly as large as a Saint Bernard.

  The tree trunks here were thicker than those in the Russian forest (and were of a species I couldn’t quite place). When the Giant Squirrels climbed the trees, the large trunks masked the creatures’ size. But the squirrels also seemed relatively harmless. More wary of our presence than threatened by it. In fact, we noticed rather quickly that unlike animals back in the real world, these Giant Squirrels seemed to have no desire to savagely attack Dwarves without rhyme or reason. They mostly ignored us, only occasionally glancing over cautiously as we passed.

  After about two hours of uneventful hiking through this new forest, we came upon a clearing. A huge animal carcass sat in the middle. It appeared to be some sort of furry deer. Like a reindeer, but even larger and without antlers. Surrounding the carcass were roughly two dozen Giant Squirrels savagely tearing into the flesh of the fallen beast. They had razor-sharp teeth, and their eyes glowed red as they stopped feasting long enough to determine if we were there to encroach on their dinner.

  We carefully backed away and went around the clearing instead of through it.

  In conclusion: Giant Squirrels were definitely not squirrels.

  Conversation was pretty limited the first few hours of our journey into the Hidden Forest. Which was fine by me, since I was too distracted searching the forest floor for any sign of the three ingredients I needed for the serum that could cure my dad’s ailment. Now that I was actually inside the Hidden Forest, seeing creatures and plants that nobody had laid eyes on for eons, my hope that I might be able to someday cure him was at an all-time high.

  The problem was, I still didn’t quite know exactly what tafroogmash root and nidiocory flowers (two of the three ingredients) looked like. I mean, I had seen drawings from old texts, but ancient ink drawings were a far cry from an actual color photograph. Especially when dealing with things like flowers and roots, which can look similar to one another even with color. That’s not even mentioning how I was supposed to get a wing from an Asrai Fairy (the third ingredient), given that Fairies were the one creature not expected to ever come back, even now, after the return of magic.

  So despite carefully keeping an eye out for all three items, I didn’t spot anything that resembled the drawings I had studied over the past few weeks on board the Powerham. But I would keep trying anyway. I owed it to my dad to never give up.

  That first evening of hiking was surprisingly uneventful—aside from seeing a pack of Giant Squirrels with glowing eyes and razor-sharp teeth eating a reindeer carcass, that is. We eventually set up camp in a small cluster of clearings, large enough to hold all three of our tents. The decision was made not to start a campfire that night. We were still unfamiliar with the Hidden Forest and any dangers that might lurk there. So it was better not to draw any unnecessary attention.

  It ended up being a peaceful night.

  After a quiet dinner, we were all so exhausted from the trek that Froggy, Glam, Ari, Lake, Tiki, and I retired to our two tents and promptly passed out. Stoney slept curled up near a pile of rocks at the edge of the clearing, and the five Sentry slept in their tent three at a time, with the other two on rotating guard duty.

  As far as I knew, we peacefully dreamed of flowers and sunshine.

  But then, early the next morning, the Rocnar struck.

  Remember the Rocnar? The one I mentioned earlier?

  Yeah, well, any fanciful hopes of the mission getting easier inside the Hidden Forest were violently dashed with the blood-chilling, deafening roar of the Rocnar, and the sight of the horrible, lumpy beast easily bashing a Sentry warrior onto some nearby rocks like it was spiking a football.

  One Rocnar would have been bad enough.

  But the roar of a second, as it charged through the forest behind me and into the morning light of our clearing, immediately doubled the trouble and tripled my panic.

  Did I forget to say that earlier?

  That there were actually two Rocnars?

  Well, silly me.

  CHAPTER 14

  Glam-Smash Boulders Undergo Some Modifications

  Rocnars are about as ugly as a pile of horse dung.

  They’re massive lizardy beasts with scaly brown skin covered in huge warts and oozing pustules. They stand on two legs like a T. rex, but they don’t have a tail and their arms are much longer. They have huge hands that could crush a pickup truck like a paper cup, and big, knobby knees. Their heads are stout and grotesque, with four cavernous nostrils and a gaping mouth full of gore-stained teeth. They roar a lot, have extremely bad breath, and also breathe jets of white-hot fire when they get really angry.

  So even though it was technically two against twelve, we were, in reality, severely outmatched.

  As I scrambled from my tent, I realized that the Sentry tent was already completely engulfed in flames. I didn’t know if any of the three warriors inside had escaped, but I didn’t have time to stop and lo
ok.

  The second Rocnar bounded toward me, a massive, knuckly, clawed hand already reaching to snatch me up.

  I quickly pulled Blackout from its scabbard and held it up.

  All light suddenly disappeared, casting the whole clearing in total darkness.

  Both Rocnars roared savagely, their ferocious bellows sounding even scarier in the dark. Someone screamed. The sound of a Rocnar’s feet slamming onto the ground continued thudding toward me.

  I rolled out of the way just as a burst of white flame erupted from the pitch-black darkness in front of me. It was so hot I could feel my arm hairs basically evaporate. In that momentary flash of light, as the Rocnar rained down hot fire, I saw the following:

  The Rocnar’s uneven teeth and huge nostrils

  The feet of several of my companions nearby, some scampering away, others running toward me

  The other Rocnar literally eating one of the Sentry in two quick bites

  My stomach lurched as the flames went out and we returned to total darkness. The Rocnar roared again as someone hauled me back to my feet by my armpits.

  “Come on, Greg, run!” Ari said into my ear.

  “Which way?”

  She grabbed my hand and pulled me away from where the Rocnar stood. I didn’t know how she could see in the dark, but I trusted her and willed my feet to move in unison with the sound of her running.

  To our right and farther away, the other Rocnar, having finished its Sentry meal, let loose another barrage of white flames. Several forms dove out of the way into the shadows as two entire trees caught fire.

  Ari finally stopped, and we both crouched near the edge of the clearing.

  “We need a plan,” Ari said. “We can’t end this way.”

  Before I got a chance to respond, Blackout stopped suppressing light and the natural morning sunlight returned. Ari and I were now fully privy to the chaos at hand and were both rendered momentarily speechless.