Minutes later, the three Templars entered the ruined orphanage courtyard.
The ground was littered with broken bones and shredded corpses both undead and human alike. The coppery smell of blood was thick enough to taste.
Gavran knelt beside Rick's mangled remains, his gloved fingers brushing the tattered cloth of the man's jacket. "One of the fugitives," he muttered.
Inquisitor Maeven moved among the dead, her sword dragging across the ground with a harsh rasp. "They fled into Jal'gan." she said, her voice a low snarl as she faced the forest.
Silar kicked the shattered skull of an undead aside and spat. "The forest will kill them if we don't"
Gavran rose slowly, his expression unreadable behind the helm shaped like a sneering angel. "Perhaps, but the child must not reach maturity." he said as he turned toward the black wall of the trees looming in the distance.
As he gazed into the forest a dark gleam of uncertainty would of been seen in his eyes if it were not for his mask as he motions towards his companions "Into the forest, the hunt continues." The templars moved forward not at a run, but at the relentless, pace of a executioners. behind them, the ruin of the orphanage steamed under the grim moonlight a silent monument to the price of failure.
Underneath the ancient, gnarled trees, the world was a suffocating twilight even though the blood moon still hung heavy in the sky beyond the tangled branches. The group pushed deeper until the sounds of the undead faded behind them, replaced only by the creaking of unseen things in the trees and the distant eerie howl of something that was not a wolf.
Alfred signaled a stop near a collapsed shrine a weathered statue of a weeping woman, her stone face half consumed by creeping moss. "Here, we'll rest. Only for a few minutes." he commanded as Alice sank to her knees, cradling her child, whose small face peeked out, eyes wide and unblinking.
Hansen leaned heavily against a root thicker than a man's body, his face a mask of grim determination fore the forest seemed to breathe around them as the smell of damp earth and rot filled the air, along with something faintly metallic carried on the wind.
Alice looked up at Alfred, her voice shaking. "Why here?" she asked "Why this forest? Why not try to flee along the roads or rivers?" Alfred crouched beside the dying fire he'd hastily conjured with a bit of magic. His face was drawn almost skeletal under the wavering firelight. "Because, this forest is feared even by the empire's hounds. Even the Holy See treads carefully here." he said in a low voice.
Alfred fed a few brittle branches into the fire, sending up a hiss of sparks. "The forest was once normal even a holy site at one point. However long ago, a thing came crawling out of the void. Not a demon, not a god. Something else. It died....or atleast pretended to in this forest. Its body rotted into the soil, poisoned the rivers, cursed the seeds. The trees grew twisted from its bones. The animals fed on its blood and became monsters."
He paused. The firelight flickered in his hollow eyes. "Even now, the earth remembers. Even now, it hungers."
Hansen spoke up from where he was resting. "The woods will not kill you quick. Rather it waits, it starves you. It twists your mind 'till you don't know the shape of your own shadow." he said as he pointed deeper into the blackness. "We go in further, we're dead. But if we stay here, the templars will catch us by sunrise."
Alfred looked at Alice grimly. "We move soon. No more fires. No Trails. No Sound." he said as he unsheathed a battered dagger and drove it into the dirt between them with a hollow thunk. "Make peace with whatever gods you have left princess."
The Forest was alive. Not with birdsong or the rustle of harmless animals.. but with the wet sucking sounds of unseen things crawling through the undergrowth, and the low bone deep hum of a malevolent will. Every step deeper into the forest felt like sinking into a grave that had been waiting just for them. The lantern had long since been snuffed out. They moved in darkness, guided by instinct and desperation.
Hansen led the way, hacking through thorn thick vines and low hanging branches that oozed sap the color of pus. Alice clutched her infant carefully, while Alfred stayed close sword drawn and eyes constantly scanning the perimeter. They made it perhaps two miles before the first horror of the forest struck.
At first, it was subtle the creak of branches overhead, the tremble of ancient roots below the soil. Then the trees began to move. Figures peeled away from the surrounding forest, their forms grotesque parodies of humanity. Gnarled limbs twisted into arms and legs, bark splitting to reveal gaping maws full of splintered teeth.
TreeEnts once the protectors of the woods now reduced to predators, corrupted by centuries of blood and blight. Hansen saw them first. "Run!" he screamed with a voice hoarse with horror. The Ents moved faster than their size should have allowed crashing through the undergrowth with earth shaking force. One lashed out with a branch thick arm gouging a trench in the soil where Alice has stood a moment before.
Alfred stood his ground barely parrying away a branch knowing that these are enemies he should not take on upfront in his current condition. The group fled crashing through thorny undergrowth, scraping skin and ripping clothes in desperation.
One Ent surged forward, faster than the others. It seized Hansen its root like fingers wrapping around his torso with crushing strength. Hansen screamed once a terrible, wet sound before the Ent squeezed. Bones shattered like dry twigs. Blood sprayed in a sick arc across the forest floor. Hansen's body was lifted high and then hurled aside like a broken doll. The twisted guardians of the forest fell upon Hansen's ruined body, tearing it apart in a frenzy of snapping wood and grinding bark. Buying the others a slim, yet desperate chance at escape.
The remaining members of the group did not look back, rather they didn't dare to look back. Hours later they collapsed into a ravine slick with mud and rot. But there was no safety there either. A growl rolled through the choking mist, low, guttural, vibrating deep in their marrow. From the shadows it emerged a tiger, but twisted, warped beyond nature's bounds. It's spine bulged unnaturally, splitting in places to reveal ribs sharpened into spears. It's eyes glowed with a hateful, unnatural light.
Alfred stepped between Alice and the beast, sword raised, blood still dripping from his wounds. He met the monster's charge with a snarl of his own, steel flashing in the gloom. "Run!" he barked.
Alice holding tight to her infant child started running but she was slow, bleeding, and half conscious. The fight was brutal Alfred was fast, but the tiger was faster, heavier, and crueler. His blade bit deep into its flank, but the tiger barely noticed. Still Alfred fought for every second he held it at bay was another second for the princes to flee.
Fate however ever a cruel mistress, had more blood to spill.
Inquisitor Maeven stood alone in the clearing the infant prince cradled against her armored chest. Moonlight, pale, red, and brittle, spilled down over the carnage. Fallen knights, a mangled woman's corpse and a grotesque corpse of a corrupted tiger could be seen in plain view as the blood soaked into the roots of ancient and gnarled trees.
Alice was dead. The paladins were dead. Only Maeven and the whimpering bundle in her arms remained, except for a heavily battered, bloodied, and dying Alfred. The old knight was on one knee, sword broken and buried in the ground before him, using it to hold himself upright. His chest heaved with ragged, shallow breath. His armor was in tatters, Broken bones and torn flesh could be seen under the red tinted moonlight.
Inquisitor Maeven did not bother to finish him immediately, he was already dead he simply hadn't fallen. She turned, preparing to leave the cursed forest behind, when a low, mocking whistle cut through the silence. From the shadows stepped a figure cloaked in black leathers, his armor a patchwork of monster scales and rusted steel. An old battered mask covered his face one half carved like a beast the other like a man.
Maeven narrowed her eyes. "You dare intrude upon the business of the holy see?" she spoke summoning a burning glyph into her hand. The Hunter merely tilted his head, a glint of amusement flickering in his mismatched eyes.
The hunter moved impossibly fast.. A flash of silver was all Maeven could see before her burning glyph sputtered out as her body lurched forward for a dagger was buried deep within her back through her armor. She stumbled, clutching the infant tighter, trying to complete a curse, an incantation, anything but her lips moved sluggishly.
Poison.
The hunter stepped closer, watching with a detatched curiosity of a man watching a snake die. "You smell of rot." he said, voice low. "Not fit to carry a child." with a flick, he severed the Inquisitor's spine. Maeven collapsed to the forest floor, her body twitching once, twice, then falling still. The infant rolling from her limp arms, crying weakly.
The hunter knelt, studying the child with keen, unsettling eyes. "So small," he mumbled, scooping up the child. "And yet the stink of destiny is all over you." Behind him, Alfred gave one last, shuddering groan. The old knight's hands slipped from the broken sword, his body finally surrendering to death.
The forest accepted him without ceremony vines creeping toward his corpse with slow, hungry purpose. The hunter rose, the child in his arms, and for a long moment he simply stood there listening to the night. The Forest, vast and endless, stirred around him.
Smiling behind his mask, the hunter vanished into the gloom, his footsteps swallowed by the mist.