You do not need to fear

[Lief Erikson]

“We do not need to fear,” Pevari Kiish told his son. “The forest of Kimron is a forest, not an animal.”

Vajunt Kiish looked into his father’s eyes, his own shining with uncontrolled fear. The two men were sitting side by side at a table in Vajunt’s house, near the eastern border of the region called Southern Alflick. The region Southern Alflick was part of the larger country Alflick, one of three regions bound together by alliances that made up the whole of the country. The region called Northern Alflick had to also deal with the forest of Kimron also. Northern Alflick once had fought a mighty, ongoing war against the forest of Kimron. It could only be called a war. Many of the nations surrounding Kimron had fought such wars against the woods. The great country called Katchar had used its full resources to fight the forest of Kimron when the wood had advanced into their country, and Katchar had been victorious. Many had died in the endeavor to cut back the forest and force it outside Katcharian borders. Northern Alflick had not been so successful. The forest of Kimron had advanced into its borders, dense foliage and dark trees rising within Northern Alflick from the direction of the forest outward. The native Alflickians that lived in those parts had fought the trees, resisting their advance with axe and torch. Those that cut the trees were frequently found killed. The number of murders of loggers and carpenters in Alflick had grown wildly, out of control. Wild animals from within Kimron killed some of the men. Evil elves within the woods killed others. Many more were found with twigs, bark or leaves in their wounds. Many of the bodies of people killed were found violently torn apart, but not eaten. Some had been ripped apart, others crushed by ferocious blows. Some suspected trolls of having committed these crimes. Others suspected the trees themselves. The trees had advanced a great distance into the region of Northern Alflick and filled the land they occupied with densely packed dark trees. The part of Northern Alflick they had conquered became known as “Risen Kimron”, a place that all civilized people of Alflick abandoned. Those that did not abandon it were absorbed into the forest and became part of the menace it presented. Since its invasion into Northern Alflick, Kimron had not expanded further. Many people of Northern Alflick believed the forest was a living entity, a spirit of hatred and murder. They were terrified of the place and those living on its borders lived in fear. Some of them even offered sacrifices to the woods, in the hope that these would prevent it from exerting its wrath upon them again.

Southern Alflickians had heard the stories, but none except some of those that lived on the forest’s border had felt the reality.

Vajunt was a short human man, only five foot four in height. His father was shorter still. Both were dressed in hide clothing, garments made from the skins of animals they’d caught and killed for a living. Vajunt placed his bow on his bow and quiver of arrows on his shoulder hesitantly, and his father grabbed a short axe.

“Dangerous folk live in many parts of the woods, I know,” Pevari said, scratching the gray hair on his scruffy chin. “No use in not going prepared.”

Vajunt was thirty years old, and his father thirty-five years older. Pevari had not lived on the borders of Kimron as Vajunt had. The old man had come to visit Vajunt’s house, only to find his son out of his mind with fear for his daughter. Ekeska had vanished while at play in the shadows of Kimron. Vajunt had not allowed her to play there, but her curiosity had gotten the better of her. While Vajunt was hunting, she and one of her friends had gone down to near the forest and Ekeska had decided to go in. Her friend, a young girl who lived near here, had objected and Ekeska ran in without her. Vajunt, meanwhile, had encountered his father while out trapping. This meeting had caused Vajunt’s walk home to be slower then usual. When they reached their home, Ekeska’s friend had told them everything. Ekeska had already been inside the Kimron for seven hours, at that point.

“Come on then,” Pevari said, standing up and stomping out the door into the fading sunlight.

Vajunt hurried after him.

It was late afternoon. The sky was red, peeking through the leaves of the thin group of trees surrounding Vajunt’s lonely house. There were few villages on this border and no towns; most people lived on their own or in small clusters, looking after their own affairs. No one talked readily with strangers. All went about armed and on their guard. Here there was a great deal of superstition about the forest, and a great deal of truth. Everyone knew it was fact that wild animals and dangerous folk from all the races of the world lived in the woods. What was less certain was the spirit said to rule there, the demon of the dark lord Dowails that had haunted the place and ruled it as his kingdom since before the large continent Diwonderion had ever been inhabited.

[Lief Erikson]

The two men raced through the gathering darkness, racing against time and a growing feeling of foreboding, a dread of the unknown and of what was to come. Squirrels and birds scampered away from them as they raced through the more friendly and natural woodland about them toward the dark, implacable forest that all sane folk fled from rather then approached.

Twisted, gnarled branches of the wood came into view. The leaves of the trees were a dusky, dark gray with only the barest tint of green in them. Kimron seemed to possess a thousand eyes, all looking upon the two as they raced up to its dark face. The fair elms and pines of the natural wood, near Kimron were dark and sinister in appearance. The trees of the Kimron itself could be seen like a wall. Brambles and trackless meandering seas of bushes, roots and vines intermingling with one another engulfed the forest in an appearance of mayhem. Trees grew over one another, sprawled and zig-zagged along the ground in strange directions. Vines were wrapped from one tree about another, as though tied there by some strange will. Bushes dug into the flesh of the nearby trees themselves, and formed on top of the branches holding up the roof of black leaves that buried the interior of the forest in darkness.

Even Pevari in his careless skepticism seemed to grow perplexed and newly concerned at the sight of the strange, bizarre and cruel wood before them. It defied the laws of nature and reason that held in other forests and parts of the world. How could they hope to find Vajunt’s daughter in this trackless expanse? How could they hope to find their way out of the forest themselves, once lost therein?

Without hesitating any longer, the couple plunged into the woods. They were leaving their region of Southern Alflick behind briefly.

“Hold, for a moment,” Pevari grunted as he stumbled over a root, not more then a few feet in.

Reaching down with his axe, he began chopping into a short, stubby branch. The thin branch of black wood was almost iron-hard under Pevari’s axe. He continued hacking at it determinedly nonetheless. Thin white marks appeared in the black wood. Vajunt applied his wait to the tree branch, and together they managed to snap it free of the tree it came from. Pushing some dead leaves up against it, Vajunt hurriedly struck a piece of flint against Pevari’s axe blade. The kindling struck, and a thin flame appeared on the end of their makeshift torch.

Pevari carried the torch ahead of them, using it for what light they could. Vajunt feared the creatures that might be attracted to a light thrust into this place, but there was no choice. They had to be able to find their way out of the wood again, and no other option presented itself.

Smashing their way through bushes, crawling between the branches of twisted, entwined trees, they called out Ekeska’s name to the night.

“Ekeska!”

“EKESKA!”

“Ekeska . . . !”

The darkness could deepen no further. It was not quite night yet outside Kimron, but under the leaves of its trees, it was always night.

Vajunt had his arrow to his bowstring, but his eyes sought in vain to pierce the secrets of the night. They had only been going for three minutes, but already he could see that the search was useless. Their voices were almost completely muffled, as though sucked into the nearby foliage, vines, brambles, leaves and trees without remorse. The forest’s will was set against them and seemed to be mocking them.

Vajunt and Pevari’s bodies were scratched and bloody, and filthy, covered with dirt and cobwebs.

A small fragment of clothing briefly caught the torch’s light.

“Hold!” Vajunt said, abruptly.

Pevari, a few paces ahead of him, turned around, breathing hard. He raised the torch in the direction Vajunt had indicated, and they saw the edge of a dress. The rest of the person was hidden behind a nearby log.

The forest seemed to be snickering at them.

Heart filled with dread at the same time as a desperate surge of hope, Vajunt plunged down upon the place he had seen the dress. His hands clutched to the fabric, trembling desperately, his bow and arrow laid down nearby. It was the hem of his daughter’s pale green dress. Vajunt reached down desperately behind the log, but found himself cramped by two logs blocking his path. His daughter lay between them on the ground. He could feel her down there, and something wet, sticky. Blood.

“The torch!” Vajunt yelled hoarsely.

Pevari stumbled toward him.

“AUGH!”

Pevari fell beside Vajunt, his foot snared on a low hanging vine. His old head smashed against a nearby root, and blood spattered Vajunt’s face. The torch toppled away beneath them through the coarse branches of the tree and lay sputtering in the grass out of reach, along with Pevari’s axe. The light illuminated the shadowed face of Vajunt’s daughter. It was definitely Ekeska, her eyes staring up in shock, her mouth twisted agape in horror.

Vajunt looked to his father, torn by disbelief and astonishment. He turned the man’s body over and found that he was certainly dead, half of his face caved in. Blood was pouring down onto the tree bark beneath them.

Leaping to his feet, Vajunt kicked the nearest tree. He howled at it and beat at it with both fists, unheedingly ripping what skin remained from his knuckles. He felt the forest laughing at him. He felt that it had intentionally shown him where Ekeska was, and then snatched his father from him at the same moment out of fiendish delight.

[Lief Erikson]

“Father! Ekeska! My child, my father!”

His screams were heard. The fire in the wet grass was waning. Ekeska appeared to have been mauled, her torso ripped apart by some creature that had acted in savage pleasure, and had not eaten her after destroying her.

The hate and agony would burn Vajunt’s heart away. He could barely see in the blackness. Lying on the logs beside his dead father, he looked down between them on his daughter’s face for a few seconds longer. Unable to bear it, he turned away from them, weeping.

He reached down for the torch but could not reach it. It was five feet below him in a patch of wet grass, sputtering, waning, dying . . .

A sudden thought for his own safety entered Vajunt. Agony was tearing his heart in half, but he had to move, had to carry on. He could not reach his daughter’s body or the torch.

Reaching down, he seized his dead father around the middle and hoisted the man up over his shoulders. He began to stagger out again, to stagger through the woods and squeeze through the branches. He tripped almost every time. Near every footstep on wood was treacherous. The wood was wet underfoot and he slipped, nearly breaking his legs. Vines seemed to appear out of nowhere to grasp him around the ankles. He was blundering on in complete darkness, feeling his way out of the woods. He had lost his bow and arrows too, had accidentally left it in the woods far away.

He could feel the forest laughing at him.

Vajunt fell. The branch supporting one of Vajunt’s feet had snapped and he toppled down into open space.

Bushes surrounded him the next instant, and he was entombed in them. They held him like a hundred claws and tore into his flesh, ripping even the firm deer hide clothing to tatters. His father was gone from him too, having slipped off and been left up wherever Vajunt had fallen from.

Vajunt lay where he was for several minutes, doing nothing but weeping. His heart was near broken. His father and precious daughter were gone, and the wood would not let him live. Without light, there was no chance that he could survive, and his family, his family was gone.

The forest was quiet about him, listening to and absorbing his sobs thirstily. Then a pale light appeared on Vajunt’s left and shone on his head.

“Fear,” whispered a voice, not far from him.

Vajunt looked about him swiftly, hate surging in him. He grasped about in the bush for a branch and snapped a slender one off with sheer muscle power. Pain seared him abruptly, as the branches about him dug in harder then ever. Blood spurted from his many wounds as the bush tore into him. Screaming and thrashing, Vajunt struggled backward. The pale light was shining on his face, a ray of light focused on him as he fought.

He was out of the bush, more then half naked and leaving much of his flesh behind. He lay panting, spattered in his own gore, on a nearby tree trunk. He looked up, half crazed at the light before his eyes.

“They shall be afraid,” the voice whispered again, in the night.

Vajunt staggered to his feet, raising hard won branch weapon.

“You shall make them afraid.”

Vajunt slowly lowered his weapon. The light continued to focus on his face. His mind was twisted and running down insane paths of loops and bends, scrambling up trunks and over bushes, leaping through and amongst the vines as though they were his home and always had been. Who or what was Vajunt? What had he been? He did not know or care, for he knew what he was now. He was another part of a great tree, the leaf on the end of a twig of violence, spiraling onward in insanity to fulfill the will of the mind that directed him.







Vajunt walked into the house that had been his own. His eyes were black, his body thick with matted, overgrown hair. A long beard and hair hung from his face. He was naked and drenched in sweat. Twigs were burrowed into him here and there, and a coil of vine for a rope hung from his shoulder. Seizing a bow and arrows from his back, he ran toward the nearest village. He wanted to fight, to kill. He hungered to kill. He had a second stomach; he did not know where, but it could not be filled with hunger—only with violence. When he saw the first household, he smashed into it and killed its inhabitants. When he saw the second household, he smashed into it and killed its inhabitants. He ran through the light forests of Southern Alflick on the border of Kimron, running back into his new home when the need took him, fulfilling the will of the relentless purpose that drove him.

[Lief Erikson]

*So ends this story. A grim picture of what this particular forest is like. Any comments would be appreciated .*

[Earniel]

Grim and rather disturbing too. I'm not really a fan of horror stories.

I don't think a trip and smashing one's head against a tree root can account for having one's face half caved in.

Does this takes place in the world of that book you're writing?

[Lief Erikson]

Ah no. No, this and the other story take place in Atharon. Nubidis, the country on the eastern border of Southern Alflick, was described in the other story. Kimron is the western border. I'm drawing a portrait of Southern Alflick. On the south is Central Katchar, while on the north is the region of Northern Alflick.