by Dante King
Faryn held out a hand.
“Quiet now,” she whispered. “It’s time to hunt.”
We crept through the trees, Faryn clutching her staff in one hand, my sword in both of mine. Now that we were here, I was surprised that we hadn’t brought bows or snares, something more suited to hunting wild beasts. I had to assume that Faryn had a way to deal with them.
Crouching in a stand of ferns, she pointed to a shape amid the trees. “That’s our prey,” she whispered. “An emerald wisp.”
I watched as the shape moved and tilted its head from side to side. It was a creature of wood, around five feet tall, with a head that seemed to be composed of leaves. Four root-shaped legs ran down from a body like the smooth bark of a silver birch.
Faryn gestured for me to move around to the left while she circled to the right. I crept through the undergrowth, setting my straw sandals down carefully with each step, trying not to frighten the beast. Every crack of a twig sounded like a thunderclap in my ears, and I was sure the wisp would see me at any moment. But I was within six feet of it before it reared its head and swung its foliaged snout around to point at me.
I leapt with my sword swinging straight at it. The wisp reared, twisted, and dashed away. I swung my weapon and sliced off one of its root legs. There was a spray of sap as the wisp let out a screech, but it kept running. I raced after it, but it was faster than I was, and I was losing ground.
Suddenly, Faryn sprang up from the bushes ahead. The wisp twisted to avoid her, and then, I was on it. My blade cut apart its bark-like armor and penetrated the soft flesh beneath. With an overhead cut, I sundered the beast in two. Sap spilled out from the severed halves and coated the ground in thick, green goo.
“Well done.” Faryn smiled at me. “We’ll make a woodsman of you yet.”
She crouched over the body, peeled back its wooden skin, and removed what looked like a cage made of tiny bones.
“A skeletal corral,” she said as she displayed the item. “Most Augmentors prefer the term ‘bone-cage.’”
Inside the bone-cage was a shard no larger than a cell phone, glowing with an eerie green light.
“The core,” Faryn explained. “Take it.”
I reached down between her hands and broke the skeletal corral before I removed the core. It tingled in my hand, much like the electrifying feeling of channeling practice.
“You use these for potions?” I asked.
“No,” Faryn siad. “That’s for you. You can absorb it to gain power over the element of wood.”
“Absorb it how?”
She leaned forward, opened the front of my robes, and ran a trail down my skin with her fingertips. Then, she took my hand that held the core and pressed it against my chest.
The tingling grew and spread across my skin, into my muscles, and through to my heart. The glow of the core spread, seeped into me, and faded from sight. At the end, I crouched, empty-handed, and grinned at the feeling of power within me. I was a little dizzy, and my body swayed.
“Augmentor’s Sickness,” Faryn said. “You have to be careful not to absorb too many cores while there is still fighting to be done.”
“So, now I have the power for wood technique?” I asked, all eagerness despite my lightheadedness.
“Try it.” Faryn leaned back.
I raised my hand and opened a path within me, a way for the power to flow. Something trembled in my fingers, but there was no great magic, no burst of light or darkness.
“It’s doing nothing,” I protested. “Can you give me a few tips to make it work?”
“Lessons are learned through failures,” Faryn said. “And your failure was trying to run before you could crawl. You’ll need more cores before you can master even the simplest arts.”
“Then, let’s get hunting.” I rose to my feet. Now that I’d had a taste of this power, I was eager for more.
Over the next hour, we caught four more wisps. Three of them I was able to cut down after Faryn helped me corner them. The fourth would have got away if not for Faryn’s arts. It turned suddenly as I was chasing it and caught me by surprise. As it raced past, I swung and missed with my sword, but Faryn raised her hands, and roots shot from the ground, ensnaring the beast. It struggled but was brought down, ready for me to finish it off.
“That was the Strangling Roots technique,” Faryn explained as we extracted the core. “One day, maybe you’ll master it.”
“One day like today?” I pressed the core to my chest.
Faryn shook her head and smiled.
“So very young,” she said. “So very keen.”
“So, what can I learn today?” I asked.
She stretched out her hands and pointed them at a tree. Thorns shot from her palms before burying themselves in the bark.
“Stinging Palm technique,” she said. “One of the simplest wood techniques. At low levels, it is little more than an annoyance. With experience, you can fire larger projectiles, poison them, or make them splinter into shards to do real damage to your foes.”
“And I can learn that now?”
“Not until you’ve absorbed another 20 wisp cores.”
“Twenty? But it’s taken us this long to catch five!”
“Then, you’d better get back to hunting.”
We kept heading through the thick undergrowth and sun-dappled clearings of Danibo Forest. Faryn kept us from the dark interior of the forest so that we stuck instead to the thinner woods close to the city. When I asked about going further, a troubled look crossed her face. I wanted to know what lay behind it but sensed that pushing now would only drive her away.
Hour after hour, we stalked the wisps, bringing them down with sword, staff, and spells. Every time I absorbed a core, I could feel the power growing inside me, the wisp’s Vigor adding to my own. It was a rush that grew stronger with each new hit. I’d never been into drugs, but I imagined that this must have been what the good ones felt like.
As the light faded, Faryn found us a place to camp for the night. She had gathered wood for a fire, along with berries and rabbits to eat. As she prepared to roast the rabbits, I marveled at her ability to thrive out here.
“When did you find all that stuff?” I asked.
“While you were catching the last few emerald wisps,” she said. “You were doing so well, you didn’t need me anymore.”
I smiled with pride, particularly pleased to hear those words from her.
“I’m just one short now,” I said. “If I can get it, I can learn Stinging Palm.”
“Then, go.” She waved me away. “I’ll call for you when the food is ready.”
I stalked away from the fire, sword in hand while I watched for movement amid the deepening shadows. Soon, I was far from Faryn, alone in the woods.
Then, I saw it, that final wisp I needed, standing beneath the outstretched arms of a vast oak. I crept toward it, one silent footfall at a time, all of my attention on my prey.
I was so focused that I almost didn’t see the monster approach. At the last moment, I heard the thud of a footfall and turned to see it towering over me. A vast beast, like a bear made out of wood.
Claws raised, teeth bared, it let out a terrible growl and advanced.
Chapter Five
The beast towered over me, a shape of darkness looming out of the twilight gloom.
It flung its head back and let out a ferocious, rattling roar. I felt as though I was caught beneath the flight path of a jet airliner as the the ground shook beneath my feet and made my body tremble. It was like a physical blow hitting me, and I took a step back to keep my balance.
I drew my sword. Even in the gloom, there was a brightness to the blade, the edge glinting as if with some internal light. Though it had only been a month, the grip had become a comforting, familiar thing. Holding it steadied me, grounded me, reminded me of everything I had learned since I came to the Seven Realms.
The beast lunged at me with a claw like the shovel of a JCB tractor, but I dived out of t
he way, rolled as I landed, and flung one arm out against the ground to break my fall. Then, I was on my feet again, sword raised to deflect the other claw.
The beast hit my blade and knocked me back but left a deep gouge in its own flesh. I expected blood to pour from the wound, but instead, there came a thick ooze of sap that pattered slowly onto the rotting detritus of the forest floor. It smelled of falling leaves and damp earth, making me think of dark evenings and bonfires.
The creature howled and pulled its injured arm back, but it wasn’t going to be deterred. A moment later, it was advancing once more with its footfalls pounding the ground, claws swinging at me in swift succession.
As I raised my sword again, I remembered what Tolin had taught me about the art of swordsmanship, including how to turn away the force of an opponent’s blow. But even with that knowledge, I found myself retreating until my back was against the rough bark of a tree.
A slender figure appeared behind the monster, a staff in her hand. Rather than help me, she ran to a nearby tree and scrambled up. It was amazing to see her in action as she climbed with one hand and held her staff in the other. Fingers and toes found purchase on the tiniest knots in the wood, giving her the holds she needed to shoot up the tree, as lithe as a snake. Twelve feet up, she swung out onto a branch above the monster’s head, a perfect place from which to strike.
Then, she sat down, the staff across her lap.
“Fancy getting in on the action?” I shouted, splinters flying as I fended off more attacks.
“I’d rather see how you fare alone.”
The next time it swung at me, I flung myself forward and down. I scored a gash along the underside of its arm and kept moving, sticky sap bleeding across my back. As my blade came down, it hit the bear in the hip, at a place around the joint where its bark was thinner. This time, the blade cut deeply and splintered woody flesh.
The beast howled again and reared. I rolled forward between its legs and twisted as I landed so that I came up facing its back. I swung the sword and struck the same hip from behind. There was a creak, a groan of strained timber, and the leg gave way before snapping off in a shower of splinters.
The bark bear fell onto its side with one arm flailing as it yowled in pain.
“Sorry,” I said, as I stood over its head. “But you did start it.”
I raised my sword high, then brought it down with all my strength. My blade severed the bark bear’s head in a spray of wood and sap.
“You’re quite the swordsman,” Faryn said. “I must say, I’m impressed.”
She dropped from the branch and landed on the forest floor as casually as if she were stepping off a curb. She bent over and closed the bark bear’s eyes.
“Goodbye, fellow of the forest,” she said. “You fought well.”
From the corner of my eye, I caught a movement like the swaying of branches in the wind, but moving out of sync with the rest of the forest. I turned my gaze to see a wisp, then another, and another. A whole herd of them, their heads bowed as they watched us. One, bolder than the rest, was sniffing at the spot where the bark bear had first attacked me.
“The sap,” Faryn said. “It calls out to them.”
I kept my blade lowered but held out in front of me as I walked slowly toward the wisps. The herd made rustling sounds, and a few backed off around the edges. But the bolder creature looked up from the forest floor, its leafed face twitching as it approached the sap-coated blade.
I kept my calm, walking slowly so as not to scare it off. It took a step toward me, then another, lured in by my “bloody” bait. I waited until it was sniffing at the tip of the sword, then lunged forward, thrusting the blade through its head and into its body.
The rest of the herd ran, footfalls pattering like rain. I didn’t care about them. I dragged my sword out through the chest of the dead creature, revealing the glowing core within.
“Twenty-five.” I turned to Faryn with a grin. “Time for some Augmenting.”
We made a campfire in a clearing and settled down on either side of the flames. Faryn guided me as I absorbed first the final wisp orb into my chest and then, the core of the bark bear. The fire’s light gave Faryn’s face a warm, orange glow that accentuated the beauty of her emerald eyes. They sparkled as she sat beside me and watched me absorb the final wisp core into my chest.
“Now comes the hard part,” she said.
“Chasing down all those wisps wasn’t the hard part?” I asked.
“Time-consuming,” she said. “But not difficult. Not for someone with your skills.”
“And the bark bear?”
She laughed. “That, at least, offered you a challenge.”
“You could have helped.”
“How will you learn anything if others do it for you?”
“How will I learn anything if I get disemboweled by a monster?”
“That was never going to happen.” She smiled and laid a hand on my knee. “I believed in you.”
“So, this hard part…”
“Close your eyes,” she said. “Now, it’s time for me to teach.”
I did as she said. Without sight, I was more aware of the other sensations filling my world: the roughness of the log I was sitting on, the chitter of bats swooping through the treetops, the smell of wood smoke.
Faryn laid a fingertip gently against the center of my chest.
“Tolin has taught you to carve simple pathways through your spirit,” she said, “but to access the arts and techniques of Augmentation, you must forge far more challenging paths. The wood magic you have taken from the wisps will allow you to learn the Stinging Palm technique, but for that you must make the first of these paths.
“Imagine all that energy in one place, here, where I’m touching you. Now, imagine it growing, spreading out through your body.” She spread her finger and ran them across my skin until her open hand was planted there. “Imagine it growing further and you growing with it, expanding not just in the physical space around you but in that of the spirits.”
As she spoke, I could feel it happening. The energy flowed through me like roots wriggling through the earth. It became a part of me, like a second skeleton, and as it spread, so did I. I was an ancient oak, always growing, driven by the slow but unstoppable strength of the wood spirit.
“Steady your breathing.” Faryn’s voice came as if from a great distance. “Let the world drift away from you. Then, you’ll see what you must do.”
The scents of the forest, the sound of her voice, even the touch of her hand against my chest faded away. At last, I found myself standing in another forest, a shimmering place that glowed with a ghostly blue light. When I looked down, my body was the same, a bright thing of spirit, the edges trailing off into the air like the edges of clouds. I was naked, clothes and weapons left behind in the physical world.
A figure emerged from between the trees. It was as tall as I was, elegant and leanly muscled, its skin the pale smooth bark of a silver birch. I couldn’t tell if it was male, female, or something in between, but I could sense that it had come for me.
A dryad. A protective spirit of the forest, like I’d heard about in stories. And I knew, without knowing how, that I must master it if I was going to open the pathways within me.
I bowed to the dryad, and it returned the gesture. It raised its hands, and I did the same.
The hands were a feint. I realized it a moment too late as the dryad’s foot slammed into the side of my body. I bent double in pain but forced myself to stand upright. I wouldn’t be surprised twice, and I focused on blocking the attacks. Except it was much faster than any other opponent I’d ever faced. It flowed smoothly from one strike to the next without any hint of slowing down.
I managed to block a few strikes, but the other dozen hit home with all the force of a sledgehammer. In what the dryad intended as a final move, it brought a knee up into my face and sent me staggering. Its other leg lashed out, and I fell onto my back.
It had me at a dis
advantage, and I couldn’t see any way to win. But I wouldn’t lose. Not when beating this dryad meant learning how to channel wood magic.
I rolled aside as the dryad leapt, so that it landed on the misty ground where I had been a moment before. This time, it was my turn to kick, and I caught it in the side and knocked it over.
I scrambled forward, arms flung out to catch the dryad around its torso, but it caught my wrist. My opponent slammed its other hand against my chest and flung me over it, using my own momentum against me. The air exploded from my lungs as I hit the ground.
I twisted my trapped hand around, grabbed hold of the dryad’s wrist, and yanked at it. It was falling onto me as I slammed my fist up into its stomach. It had no breath to let out, gave no sound of pain, but I felt its grip weaken. I dragged my hand free, grabbed the dryad by the arm, and wrestled for the advantage.
The dryad was still on top, and its strength was a match for mine. It writhed around until its knees were planted on either side of my chest. Both hands went to my throat and gripped it as tightly as any vice. I could feel the breath being squeezed out of me, thoughts coming harder with each passing moment. I battered at its arms, but they were as sturdy as pine trees, unyielding against my attacks.
One last chance. I flicked my legs up, then slammed them down as I arched my back. The movement flung the dryad off me. As it landed, I twisted on top of it. I pressed my chest against its body, shot one arm around a leg and the other around its neck, pinning it to the ground with my weight.
The dryad flailed its legs and battered at me with its fist, but it couldn’t get the leverage to have any real impact. It writhed and twisted, but I clung on tight. At last, its strength gave out and it went limp before tapping a hand against the ground in a final sign of surrender.
The ghost wood faded. I opened my eyes and found myself beside the fire again.
“Can you feel it?” Faryn asked.
I nodded. The wood path was now carved inside my body.
Morning sunlight spilled across the clearing as Faryn set up a doll woven from long grass and fallen twigs.