The Valdari were pragmatic people and while they might be many things, they were not wasteful.Whoever had done this had acted out of spite.
Boundary stones marked the edge of the tree line, placed every ten paces or so.From their weathered etchings, Brynn guessed those boundary stones had been there long before these trees had been planted.
Between them,kaformed a boundary of some sort strung between the stones.The boundary was weakening, but still present.Loose tendrils connected the barrier to the ring that ran between the stones.
Were the dead trees what felt wrong?
Thekaof this place felt…sick.Brynn had never felt anything like it.Though she could feel the plants, the moss, and some sense of healthy life nearby, she could sense no animals.There were no moles or rabbits or foxes to be felt, not anywhere in this clearing.
Guin growled low in Brynn’s arms, her little puppy voice struggling to sound ferocious.Her whole body stiffened, and her ears flicked up, looking ahead.
If Brynn focused, she could sense a band ofkarunning through the boundary stones, connecting them.It was faint, but it seemed to be connected to the dead trees somehow.This was some spell that had been kept in place by the life force of the grove.
Brynn glanced right and left.She couldn’t see anything, but her sorceress senses told her something was very, very wrong.
Was the air poison?No, that couldn’t be it.How would the trees have been cut down, then?Men would have had to work here.
Horses whinnied at her back.Hróarr was not waiting.From the sound, they had her retreat into the forest blocked.
Brynn took off at a run across the open clearing, clambering over fallen branches and jutting roots.Up ahead, she could see a small ravine, a riverbed, and another line of trees on the far side.If she could just reach the far tree line, the river could help her lose the men.
These dead trees were yew, not the spruce, ash, and pine Brynn had seen in the rest of the forest.The farther into the clearing Brynn went, the more she noticed connecting roots and entwined branches webbed over the ground like veins in a body.There had not been dozens of yew trees, but a single tree with dozens of offshoots.
Brynn had never seen anything like this before.This tree must have been ancient.Yew trees could live for millennia.This one must have been putting down roots before or shortly after mortal feet had trod these islands.
Yet someone had desecrated it—or something.
As she scrambled up a fallen trunk, Brynn’s hands slid over gashes in the wood, four parallel lines.She paused, fear seizing in her chest.Had those been claws?Not even the claws on the giant bear pelt had been large enough for that.
Guin snarled and growled at Brynn’s side, making angry puppy noises.
The horses squealed at her back.
Brynn dared to look over her should and spied Hróarr with four other men aboard horses.Their animals reared and stomped, refusing to cross into the clearing.
Strange.
Hróarr and several of the men shouted.They gestured wildly at the clearing and one of them let off something akin to a shriek, clapping a hand over his mouth in horror.Even from a distance, Brynn caught their shock at the sight of the desecrated yew tree.
The men dismounted.Two of them held the reins of their horses while the others took off after her on foot.
“Brynn!”Hróarr bellowed.“You know you can’t escape us!”
No, she couldn’t.She glanced over her shoulder, counting— Hróarr and two other men.Only three armed men, but unarmored.She could deal with three unarmored men.But she didn’t want to.
A stench seeped into Brynn’s nostrils.Something cracked underfoot and Brynn realized that bones littered the ground.There were the remains of sheep, pigs, a few dogs, and at least one horse in varying stages of decay.
The choking stench threatened to make Brynn gag.Nothing about this place made sense.What was it?
Hróarr and his men were catching up, but the sickening sensation of wrongness coupled with the stench was enough to bring Brynn to a stop.In her arms, Guin snarled and howled, her whole body stiff with fury.
Brynn shouldn’t have come here.From this spot, she could sense that the yew tree had been connected to that barrier ofka,used to strengthen that spell, whatever it was.Now that the tree was dying, and the spell was no longer being fed, it was weakening.
Brynn squeezed the puppy tighter.At least Guin could sense the wrongness, too, and she wasn’t insane.
“Brynn!”Hróarr gestured for his men to slow, fanning around her in a semicircle.He had seen Brynn rip a man’s head off with her bare hands and was apparently trying to be cautious.
“What is this?”Brynn demanded, gesturing wildly around them.“Where are we?”
