by J. Stone
“I think this place could use a bit more color.”
The horned demon looked about the pond and forest with something of a scowl. “I think it’s got too much color as it is.”
Ruby’s grin widened, as she looked over to her demonic companion. “I was thinking something a bit darker.”
Scarlett understood her master’s intent and returned her own wicked little smile.
The princess leaned forward over the water and twisted the poison lever situated in her chest. The toxic sludge poured out and slopped into the pond, quickly spreading and corrupting the waters. She turned the lever back off and then sat down in the grass, watching the dark purple take over the blue-green pond. Scarlett joined Ruby, sitting beside her and leaning her head on her master’s shoulder. They sat there and watched like a young couple enjoying a romantic sunset, having no real concern for the life and nature they were destroying.
The purple poison glided along the water’s surface, quickly covering the entire pond. Just as when she had corrupted the river near Gloomport, the fish that had been swimming in the water floated to the surface and hung there, suspended upside down. Any ducks unfortunate enough to have stayed in the pond were similarly infected, the dark ooze covering their feathers. Some tried to fly off, as the venom touched them only to come crashing back down and splashing into the water. After the poison spread through the pond, it didn’t stop. Though moving much slower out of water, the toxin began to creep up through vines to the grass and trees of the forest. The vivid colors of the wood soon began to fade, being replaced by dark purples, blacks, and sickening greens. Ruby leaned back, lying on the ground, and her demon joined her, cuddling up against her.
“You’re right,” Scarlett said. “A little color makes all the difference.”
“I’m glad you like it,” the princess replied.
The horned demon was more than a little aroused by the much-needed change in scenery and by seeing her princess’ darkness manifest in such a way. Lying on her side, facing Ruby, Scarlett’s hand began to caress her companion’s midsection. When she had ascertained that her princess was in the mood, she began to hike up the dress and move her hand father down.
Interrupting them, however, a voice called from behind. “What has happened to the pond?”
Ruby groaned at the interruption, and they both turned to see a spirit of the wood rush out from the line of trees surrounding the pond. The spirit’s skin was light green, and she wore strewn together brown leaves as clothing over most of her body. Her hair fell down over her shoulders nearly to her waist, but it wasn’t the hair of a human. These were thick, green vines, and pink flowers grew along their length. Despite her strange appearance, the spirit was quite lovely. The skin of her face was a slightly paler green and was offset by vivid red lips. Her eyes were deep brown, and the lashes hanging over them looked like little twigs, curling upward toward her mossy green eyebrows. Her lightly furred ears jutted out some distance from her head in sharp triangles, giving her the appearance of a fox or similar beast. Protruding out from her vine hair was a pair of great antlers reaching far above her and branching out into a dozen different tines of varying length. At her back was a pair of wooden colored wings comprised of large brown feathers. Through her legs, Ruby and Scarlett could see the end of a long, furry tail that transitioned from the same dark brown color of her ears to a clean white tip at the end. Rather than humanoid feet, the forest spirit had wide, cleft brown hooves that were speckled with little white spots. In one hand, she held a long, gnarled walking staff tipped with a jagged rock with white symbols painted onto its surface.
“Do you mind?” Ruby said, looking up. “We were in the middle of something.”
“What are you talking about?” the spirit asked. “We must cleanse the pond.”
“We think it’s better like this,” the princess replied, looking from her nodding horned demon up to the horrified agent of the woods.
The spirit then looked under the princess and Scarlett to see that the very grass they laid on had died and turned a darker color. “It is you! You have defiled the forest! You corrupt these woods with your mere presence!”
“That may be,” Ruby said. “But what do you intend to do about it?”
The guardian of the wood seemed taken off guard. She stared into the princess’ dark eyes, inspected her pale skin, and saw the poison hidden inside. “You are infected. You must be cleansed as well. I will help you.” She raised her gnarled wooden staff, pointing the stone end toward Ruby. The painted symbols on the stone began to glow, as she channeled her power through it.
The princess, however, sat fully upright and knocked the stone out of her face, glowering. “I don’t need your help.”
“You don’t know what you’re saying. The corruption is clouding your mind.” She pointed her staff back toward Ruby and continued her spell.
Again, the princess knocked the staff out of her face.
Scarlett agreed with her master’s assertion. “My princess doesn’t need your help.”
“A demon?” The spirit asked. “How have you fallen so far to bond yourself with such a dark thing? You must accept my help before this beast destroys your soul forever.”
“Beast?” Scarlett repeated, furrowing her brow. The horned demon raised her hand, palm forward and pushed the forest warden away, knocking her into the trunk of a tree, where she fell to the grassy ground.
Ruby stood up, surprise washing over her face. “You just attacked a nature spirit.”
“Is that a bad thing?” Scarlett asked, joining her master.
“I’m not sure I mind exactly,” the princess replied. Pointing a finger toward the tree line, she continued, “But they might.”
Behind where the forest spirit landed, a handful of other guardians of the wood came out to join her. They varied a great deal from the first one that the women had met, but each wore fragments of the forest as part of their body. One had a pair of wings on her back that was made of the webs of spiders. A large red mushroom with little yellow speckles covering its surface like barnacles covered another’s head. A pair of the spirits looked to be composed almost entirely of wood, appearing as human-shaped skeletons made from bark. Some stood upright on two feet, while others were down like wild beasts. The wood wardens that emerged from the trees, saw the poison infesting the forest, and glared at Ruby and Scarlett. They all carried with them some form of weapon, carved from the ingredients the forest had supplied them.
“Has your magic recovered?” Ruby asked her demon.
“To an extent. I suppose it depends on what you need me to do.”
“Grab my hammer and a poison cocktail. I don’t think these wood spirits are going to be as friendly as they could be.”
Scarlett reached into the void and pulled out the poison first, handing it to her master. While Ruby uncorked the vial of murky black liquid, the horned demon reached back in again, this time with both hands. One retrieved the war hammer that the princess had requested, while the other grabbed her own scythe with which she had accustomed herself. After Ruby had finished the poisonous flask, she dropped the glass to the ground and took the hammer from her servant.
The fresh venom flowing inside her body invigorated the princess. She felt as powerful as she ever had, but that didn’t mean she was ready to try generating another maelstrom. No, this incursion with the forest would require a bit more finesse. The spirits of the wood were plentiful, and she knew this. Ruby would have to preserve her strength to deal with their threat.
The first spirit stood with the aid of another. Her face was full of sadness. “It doesn’t have to be like this,” she said. “Allow me to cleanse the evil from you. We can still save you.”
Ruby glared at the well-meaning spirit with disgust. She needed no one’s help. Her retort was simple. The princess turned the lever in her chest and spit the poison out to the grass at her feet. The green blades turned to a pale purple hue, and the venom began to spread like veins in the grou
nd, infecting the nearby patches of grass in an expanding pattern. The purple toxin zig zagged its way toward the forest wardens, but was stopped when the first spirit raised and quickly lowered her staff, so the base of the wood plunged into the loose earth at her feet. A restorative energy pushed back the decay but was not of sufficient strength to halt it altogether. Rather than continuing toward them, the infection was routed and spread around them in a circular pattern, where it made it to the line of the trees surrounding the clearing.
The first spirit looked on the verge of tears at this act, but the others were simply angry, harsh expressions covering their faces. Several rushed forward and attacked the pair of women.
Scarlett was the first to act, not willing to let the green things make the first move. She raised her hand, aiming it toward one of the spirits that looked particularly composed of wood and leaves. The warden burst into flames, its wooden voice howling, as the fire consumed it. Perhaps the choice of spell was opportunistic given the nature of the spirit, but that was a word that the horned demon didn’t mind being labeled. In response, the vines from nearby trees lurched forward, snatching Scarlett’s leg and wrapping around her ankle. The force by which the forest had grabbed her took the horned demon off guard, and she toppled to the ground, nearly dropping her scythe. The vines then dragged her off toward the trees where another set of spirits lay in wait for her.
Ruby, however, was too preoccupied with her own wood wardens to assist her demon. As Scarlett caused flames to envelop the spirit, the princess had moved forward to meet another wielding what looked to be a crude blade made from a sharpened stone. Though, when she swung her war hammer and he his blade, the sword held up just fine. The lithe wooden creature was stronger than she would have suspected, managing to push her back. One of the four-legged spirits jumped at her, pushing her to the ground, and the pair rolled some distance away. It bit at her with its teeth made from little rocks, but she used the shaft of her weapon to keep it at bay, jutting the pole into the dog-like spirit’s neck. After they finished their roll, the warden had won the top spot, continuing to snarl and snap its rock-like teeth toward her face. It chomped down on the shaft of her hammer, but Ruby waited until it opened its jaws once more. She spit her poison into its mouth, causing it to roll off her and go into something of a sneezing fit, as it tried to dislodge the filth from its tongue. The dog spirit rubbed its face into the grass and scraped its wooden paws along its snout, but the venom was persistent. The princess noted burn marks along her ankle, realizing that the pain was coming from her demon. As she looked over, she saw Scarlett swiping her scythe along a vine, removing its grip from around her ankle.
The horned demon attempted to stand, only to be attacked by a pair of mossy spirits with mushrooms sprouting all over their body. They each carried a spear-like weapon made from fallen branches, and they began to lunge toward Scarlett. In response, she rolled away from them, dodging the thrust of their sharpened implements. The demon managed to get onto her knees while simultaneously swiping her scythe back toward the pair of forest guardians. Their spears severed at the tip, and they looked to one another, fear in their eyes. Scarlett showed them no mercy, using her magic to summon another flame to ignite inside their wooden and moss covered frames.
All the while, the first spirit knelt on her knees, holding her staff into the dirt of the ground. Her eyes closed, as she channeled a spell with all of her effort, attempting to stop the corruption from spreading through the forest. Her attempt at saving the Willow’s Wood seemed to be largely in vain, as the purple poison continued to plague the grass, the trees, and the wildlife. The fire, meanwhile, torched everything it touched, turning into a blaze through the forest. All around her, she could hear the sounds of metal crashing harshly against wood, the fierce crackling of the flames, the dripping of poison from the infected leaves overhead, and the horrible screams of her brethren. Much time passed, as she fought the internal battle using her own natural source of power to combat the spreading filth. Finally, however, she gave up in her efforts to save the forest, as her connection to the wood had faded to almost nothing at all. Opening her eyes once more, the spirit surveyed the violence in the clearing and in her woods as a whole. Only Ruby and Scarlett remained. All of the other wardens of the forest had perished to poison, magic, or the brutality of the women’s weapons.
Bright blue tears rolled down the spirit’s cheeks. “Why?”
Ruby walked toward the crying guardian with her poisoned war hammer and stopped just in front of her. “Why what?”
“You’ve destroyed the forest… Our home… Why? Why would you do this?”
The princess said nothing (probably because she herself couldn’t think of a logical reason), but she smiled at the wood spirit, exposing her poison covered teeth. Then without blinking, she raised and swung the heavy hammer, connecting with the warden’s head. The impact made a sickening crunch sound, splattering sap and bark, as the spirit’s neck snapped. Her body fell limply to the ground, as the poison spread over her body as well, coloring her purple to match the rest of the forest and her fallen spirits. The flames crackled all around her, as it spread along with the poison through the forest. Ruby felt outside her own body. She didn’t feel like what she had just done had been her. Someone had taken control of her and killed all those forest spirits. She would never do such a thing. That’s what she told herself anyway. The princess tried to ignore what she had done and the look in the spirit’s eyes, as her hammer crashed into the warden’s face.
The rest of the path through the Willow’s Wood was less eventful. The venomous sludge eventually put out the fires, as it traveled throughout the forest. Ever spreading, the excess ooze dripped off the limbs of trees and killed the creatures of the woods with its noxious nature. Ruby and Scarlett seemed not to even notice. They just continued on through the forest, with the singular focus of getting to Lavidia. The bright colors and chirping birds no longer bothered them though.
Chapter 36. Home Sweet Home
Being back home reminded Ruby of how sheltered an existence she had once had. Her adventures of the past decade had illuminated that point quite clearly, and retuning home made her feel a certain resentment for that naive child she had once been. This place she had left, however, was no longer what Ruby remembered.
The skies were grey and depressing despite the warmth of summer, and a pall had been cast across the land. Passing through the small farming villages and communities at the outer reaches of the kingdom, she saw the misery of her people. They all looked poor, weak, and undernourished. Their livestock seemed to fare no better, and their crops looked to be of insufficient quantities. They all seemed pathetic to her eyes, and she felt almost nothing for them. At one point, her goal had been to save not only her sister, but also her kingdom as a whole. That thought simply didn’t occur to her now. She noted their misery but had no desire to help them as she once would have. She was an entirely separate woman from the one she had been eleven years prior.
Vicious looking armed guards roamed the dirt roads, and the pair of women chose to avoid them in case Leina and the craggy hand demon had warned them of their arrival. The men wore ebony black armor that had almost no reflection off its dull and cloudy surface. Little, jagged pieces jutted out from various sections of the armor making them look dangerous to the touch. The shoulders had spikes sticking up nearly to the men’s ears, which were hidden under a thick black helmet. Each of their visors were down, shielding their eyes and managing to make them appear as more (or perhaps less) than human. They were somehow a different entity inside those suits of armor - some foreign, horrible creature to be feared. This was their purpose after all.
Scarlett leaned over to her master, as they walked. “They’re possessed by magic.”
“I know,” Ruby replied. “Same as they were when I was last here.”
Given the nature of their journey, the princess had her demon generate and wear a cloak and hood like the one she’d taken from Slip. The
horns made the hood a bit more awkward but not enough to attract attention. Ruby and Scarlett stuck to the side roads wherever possible, concealing themselves under their hoods. They sought to avoid the guards’ sight above all else. Getting the magical bracelets on the craggy hand demon and killing him seemed an impossible enough task; they didn’t want to make their job more difficult by incorporating all of the kingdom’s guards.
The dark, grey skies helped conceal them, and they were lucky to have arrived at dusk. The majority of the guards retired to bars, homes, or other quarters, leaving only a handful to patrol the streets in their place. Those that remained seemed to care little for the concealed women walking through the street, mistaking them for simple villagers.
Given the impoverished nature of the outer farms, Ruby began to wonder what the castle and surrounding area looked like after her time away. In their shared dream, Leina had told her sister of excessive torture of random people of the kingdom. She imagined rows upon rows of spikes with people impaled and sliding down as time passed. She had to see what her sister had done to the people closest to the castle to keep them all so afraid of her.
Ruby and Scarlett continued onward and made it through the outer village along the path to the castle with no real confrontation. They slipped past the guards and continued along the road. As they got nearer to the castle, the road slowly began to widen and the dirt was replaced with cobbled stones. As the sun rose, the city surrounding the castle came into view. In a way, the city and castle both looked the same. The structures remained intact, the roads navigated the same paths they always had, and people congregated in the usual places. There were additions, however. Dozens of cages were hanging from poles planted in the ground or were lined up along the side of the road. Sick and bloody people, some alive, some dead, stood or sat inside them. Those lucky enough to be outside the cages minded them no attention, clearly too afraid that they would soon be put inside one. The spikes that Leina had mentioned in the nightmare were not idle talk. Disgusting metal jutted out from the ground at various places and naked rotting corpses were impaled through them, their guts and bodily fluids dribbling down to the ground beneath them.