Cataclysm – Chapter Two

Brick and Skorplar arrived at the Elmsmund farm half an hour later, their boots covered in the dirt from Lillywood Lane. From the road, they could see where the barn use to be. In its stead, stood the blackened skeleton of collapsed ceiling beams and charred wall posts. The entire field was one big scorch mark, seemingly pointing to the forest behind it. The treeline at the back of the farm’s property had that same uneasy feeling the forest had at Hadley’s Horse Rentals.

“What the hell happened here?” Skorplar wondered as they approached the main house.

The officers stopped at the closed gate that momentarily barred entrance to the stone path that led to the Elmsmund family home. What looked to have been a modest, well kept house, had been turned into an oversized pin cushion. Every exterior wall of the house was peppered with dozens of the same hollow wooden spikes that Brick had pulled out of Hadley’s skull. The windows had been smashed in and they could see piles of furniture stacked in front of them. Clearly an attempt to barricade the fragile entry points and keep out however many assailants took part in the assault.

The front door had been torn from its hinges, shattered plates and splinters of wood from smashed cabinets littered the entryway. Weapons drawn, the officers did their best to remain silent as they crossed the threshold of the house, the porcelain pieces crunching underfoot. They quickly explored the first floor, Brick leading the way as they checked every room for any signs of life, with Skorplar covering their rear from potential attack.

The back entrance to the house had also been smashed open. More furniture, meant to barricade, had been shoved aside to allow entry. The officers continued their search, moving to the second floor.

“Nothing but empty rooms up here Sed’Stym,” Brick sheathed his greatsword as he exited the last bedroom. “Looks like Mrs. Elmsmund did her damndest to make this place a fortress.”

Skorplar slung his axe back into its holster at his side and he and Brick descended the stairs. “I don’t see a drop of blood anywhere, sir. Why would they have taken Mrs. Elmsmund alive, but kill Ms. Hadley?”

Brick crouched down at the end of the hallway leading from the main room to the back of the house. A long woven rug ran the length of it, each short edge ending in a three inch long fringe. “I don’t think they took anybody. Look at this.”

The rug had been kicked askew by whoever had smashed their way into the house, but one end had held in place. A clump of the fringe at the top left corner of the rug seemed to be growing out of the floorboard beneath it. Brick grabbed the opposite corner and lifted the rug to reveal the outline of a trap door with an inset round handle. He grabbed the metal circle and lifted the door, its old hinges creaking, to reveal an unconscious, frail looking woman. Beside her lay a sickle and empty water jug.

“Oh hell.” Brick lowered himself into the hole, careful not to step on the woman. “She’s still  breathing! Looks like she was able to get into this crawl space before they got in the house. They couldn’t have been too bright if they missed the rug stuck in the trap door.” Brick got both arms under the woman and lifted her out of the crawl space, handing her to Skorplar.

“Ellie. . . my family. . .where’s my family?” the woman stirred in Skorplar’s arms and managed a haggard whisper before falling unconscious once more.

“Keep a hold of her Sed’Stym, while I make us a stretcher so we can get her out of here. We’ll take her back to the monastery to get patched up. We need to find out what she knows.” Brick scanned the debris for a suitable length of wood that would hold Mrs. Elmsmund. Eyeing the already shredded curtains covering the windows on either side of the front door, he pulled the curtain rods from their secured positions on the wall.

Skorplar watched in amazement at his partner’s speed and efficiency as Brick tore off long lengths of curtain and tied an end to each rod. Years of battle having brought ample opportunity to hone Brick’s battlefield medic skills. Skills that Skorplar had only read about and practiced in controlled training exercises.

In less than three minutes, Brick had constructed a stretcher, throwing the rug from the hallway over the curtain strips, parallel with the rods, to make a solid surface for Mrs. Elmsmund. Skorplar gently placed her on the stretcher as Brick held one end. He bent down to grab the other end when Brick stopped him.

“They could still be out there, watching us from the trees. You’ll need to stay at the ready while I pull the stretcher.” He paused for a brief second, a slight hesitation, before continuing, “I’m counting on you Sed’Stym.” Skorplar gave him a quick nod and led them through the front door, axe in both hands. Eyes continually scanning the trees that seemed to swell and grow high above Lillywood Lane to cast shadows that frayed nerves and caused frenzied heart beats.

                                                                   

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BANG! BANG! BANG! BANG! “Lulseem! Open up, NOW!” Brick bellowed over Skorplar’s shoulder as the deurgar pounded his fist on the monastery’s front entrance. A few seconds later, the now familiar sound of the gate being unbarred could be heard, the doors swinging inward.

“What in Aloka is going on?!” Lulseem asked as Skorplar pushed past him, clearing a path for Brick and the stretcher that carried a very still Mrs. Elmsmund. “Magdela! What happened to her?”

“Found her passed out in a crawl space. Where can I put her?” Brick was huffing from their trek back to the monastery.

Quickly locking the gate behind them, Lulseem pointed to the back room on the right. “There. Put her on any one of the beds, I’ll call Eldana to tend to her.”

Once Magdela was in bed and under the care of Eldana, the officers and Lulseem retreated to the main hall. “You know Mrs. Elmsmund? You called her by name when you first saw her,” Brick inquired to Lulseem.

“Everybody knows the Elmsmunds. Especially after Victor and her children disappeared,” explained Lulseem.

Skorplar was quickly flipping through his small notebook. “The latest batch of disappearances, sir. Two weeks ago now. It’s all i-”

“In the report, yeah, I got it.” Speaking to Lulseem again, Brick asked, “Know what happened to her family that night?”

“Most of it, yes. It was the night of the town meeting, the one MAP organized. That was the same night her little girl was abducted. Happened right in front of their oldest, Shane. Magdela’s husband, Shane and Jaylen Jolsby went into the woods to chase after whoever took her.”

Brick grumbled under his breath at the mention of Jaylen’s name, “Gods damnit.”

Skorplar interjected Brick’s intolerant mutterings, “Why did she come here? What was she expecting a bunch of monks to do for her?”

“This is a place of guidance and fulfillment, Officer Sed’Stym, she could have been looking for any number of things that we can offer the bereft or destitute. But in this case, she said her husband instructed her to come here at daybreak looking for a man named Oliver Oxenfurt if they had not returned by then.”

Notebook still in hand, Skorplar said, “Oxenfurt. A member of the royal guard. Sent here to find the missing children. High priority to find him and return him to Jaipul.”

Lulseem looked wide eyed with surprise, “He was royal guard? He was such a nice fellow. If there’s anybody the people around here hate more than the ASF, it’s the royal family. Can’t believe they actually sent somebody to help.”

“What was Oxenfurt doing at the monastery? I doubt he was bereft or destitute,” Brick asked snidely.

Lulseem ignored his comment. “He came here to warn us. He had apparently been marking sightings of the abductors all over Balkana. He had a hand drawn map with a bunch of X’s marked on it. The majority of them seemed to be marked in the wooded areas. He told us that the forest wasn’t safe. That anybody close to the treeline was vulnerable.”

“Well he got that part right. Hadley’s ranch was attacked. They killed her and all of her horses. And we found the Elmsmund house in shambles. The windows and doors were barricaded with every damn piece of furniture in the house and somebody still smashed their way in. Luckily Mrs. Elmsmund was able to hide.”

Lulseem continued, “He should’ve taken his own advice about staying away from the woods. As far as I know, Oliver hasn’t been heard from since that night.” He motioned towards the northern wall of the monastery to his right. “He saw something in the woods from the window. Said it was torchlight. He immediately went to investigate its source. I tried to follow him, but he yelled at me to get back inside and just ran into the forest.”

Walking over to the windows, Brick looked out into the woods, noticing for the first time just how sickly the trees looked. “Did you see the light too?”

Lulseem shook his head. “Oliver didn’t even have a light of his own. I couldn’t even follow him.”

“We’ve got about six hours of daylight left, Sed’Stym. This is the best lead we’ve found so far. I’m not going to waste time waiting around for Mrs. Elmsmund to recover enough to tell us what happened. We’re going to search for any trace of Oliver. Or whoever he saw out there.” Brick joined Lulseem and Skorplar between the large stone pillars of the hall.

“I’m coming with you,” Lulseem announced quickly. Adding, “Another set of eyes couldn’t hurt searching for a trail.”

Skorplar responded to Lulseem’s perceptible eagerness to join the search. “It is strictly against ASF regulations allowing civilians to be privy to investigation details and practices.”

“Relax Sed’Stym, he’s right.” Brick began walking towards to main gate. “Extra eyes out there do more good than harm. Besides, we have no idea how many of who, or what, is out there.” He looked back with a smirk. “Only helps us having one more target for them to aim for.”

                                                                   

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Fifty feet into the woods from the treeline that bordered the monastery’s grounds, the officers and Lulseem found a trail. It had been cut into the dense undergrowth, leaving a fresh dirt path. They could clearly make out a set of footprints that lead away from the monastery.

“That was easy! Let’s see where Oliver’s tracks go,” Lulseem took a step forward before Brick put a hand on his shoulder to stop him. Then he dropped to one knee to study the impressions, grabbing a handful of the dirt and letting it slowly drain from his loosely formed fist.

“It’s been almost two weeks since Oliver would have come through here. And this soil is loose, as if something has recently been uprooted. Probably by whoever made this path. These aren’t Oliver’s tracks, somebody else has been here recently.”

“Can you account for the whereabouts of your monks for the past week?” Skorplar immediately started to interrogate Lulseem.

Lulseem looked at him incredulously, “Are you kidding me? Why would any of them be coming into the woods, let alone spend gods knows how long clearing this path? We don’t even know how far in it goes. I’d have noticed if Eldana had been gone for hours at a time. Tim only leaves the monastery at night to get drunk at the Leaky Giant, and Alden’s lived in that monastery all of his life. I’ve never seen him step foot more than thirty feet outside the main gate!”

Brick rose to his full height, dusting off his hands. “Could’ve been anybody out here Sed’Stym: one of the monks, a MAP sympathizer from this morning, or some parent dumb and desperate enough to try searching for their missing kid on their own. Let’s deal with one question at a time and see where this path leads.”

The deeper they traveled into the forest, the more prominent the overgrown brambles and choking weeds became. The trees looked to have no substance to them. Where proud and aged redwoods had once loomed high above the forest floor, now stood decrepit shells with rotted insides.

Ahead of them, the path’s opening suddenly widened, expelling them into a clearing roughly eighty feet in diameter.

Mimicking his superior, Skorplar bent down and grabbed some dirt a few steps into the clearing. “The dirt here has had more time to settle. The footprints aren’t sunk down as deeply as they are on the path.”

“Look at this.” Brick had stepped off the path and into the undergrowth. He came back with a broken arrow shaft fletched with red and black feathers. “More of them stuck into some of the trees.”

“Those look familiar.” Lulseem took it from Brick and studied it for a moment. “I think these belong to Oliver. He had a bow and quiver full of these arrows the night he visited the monastery. I remember them because of the colouring. They’re from a bird native to Lagalos. Don’t ever see them this far north.”

Skorplar continued into the clearing, following the footprints, and stopped near the center of it. They led to a large tangle of dark green vines. The soil from which it grew was discoloured and stained. “Sir! There are more arrows here, tangled up in some vegetation!” As he reached for the arrows, a twisted length of vine shot out from its resting place in the darkened soil and wrapped itself around Skorplar’s right wrist.

He let out a surprised yell, followed by a strained grunt, as he instinctively began to pull against the constriction. His free hand struggled to awkwardly get the axe from its holster at his left hip. Before he could, another grasping tendril reached out and wrapped around his left forearm. Knees bent, Skorplar’s heels dug into the soil as he engaged in a tug of war with the now swirling mass of vines.

SLICE. Brick swung his two handed greatsword in a vertical arc, cleaving the vines in half, sending Skorplar sprawling backwards. The mass swelled and reared up, retracting the severed vines into itself. Brick took a step forward to strike again, but more vines lashed out, flailing in every direction. Brick brought up his greatsword, twisting it in his hands so the broad side of the blade took the brunt of the hits. The vines that missed their mark cracked the air around him like whips.

Skorplar ignored Lulseem’s outstretched hand and rose to his feet. He reached across his body, pulling out his battle axe. The intense stare of his white eyes could have pierced the hardest of substances as he set his sights on the malicious plant. “What the hell is this thing sir?”

Before Brick could respond, the writhing central mass began to shape itself. Vines wove themselves back and forth to form a torso. A human sized head, already formed and covered in some kind of moss, pushed its way out the top of it. Darkened sockets that should have housed eyeballs, two small nostril holes and a deep frown made up its facial features. Appendages appeared to sprout out from the new shape, the tendrils twisting around each other to create thickly braided arms.

At the same time, the chaotic coil that was the bottom half of the newly formed humanoid also began to twist and interlace. Two sinuous legs took shape, still rooted in the soil. Brick didn’t hesitate as he charged forward, their roles reversed now, as the vine monster brought up its arms to shield itself from Brick’s biting blade.

“Get up here Sed’Stym! Time to pop your cherry!” A maniacal smile crept across Brick’s face as he continued to hack at the monster. “Tactics assessment, now!”

Skorplar approached the vine monster, falling in at Brick’s left. He swung his axe low at the creature, his swipe aimed for what served as its legs. A vine arm slapped the axe blade down and forcefully extended into Skorplar’s chest like a punch. Brick had stepped back to watch Skorplar’s interaction and now had a hand on Lulseem’s chest to prevent him from interfering.

Recovering from the blow to the chest, Skorplar quickly took three steps back from the vine creature. It’s arms extended even further to strike the duergar, pummeling his chest again. He retreated once more, axe held defensively in front of him. The monster’s arms protracted even further, its strikes missing a now out of reach Skorplar. The thing’s thickly braided legs tottered forward, tearing itself loose from the soil in which it was planted.

“Sir! The creature appears to have limited mobility, relying on its superior reach to gain combat advantage.”

Brick began to circle the monster, strafing to his right. “Good, Sed’Stym. Now circle up and flank it. Cut this thing to shreds!” The creature’s head swiveled one hundred eighty degrees to stare at Brick, who had moved to put the monster directly between Skorplar and himself. Slightly tilting its head to the side, it seemed to study Brick with the voids in its face before retracting an arm and sprouting it from its back to entangle Brick. It continued to swipe at Skorplar with its other, keeping him from striking distance of its body.

Every attack from the monster was met by Brick’s greatsword, severing a section from the end of its arm. Smaller tendrils slithered out from the vine monster’s legs, gathering the severed pieces and pulling them back into itself, feeding the continuous length of its arms.

Skorplar repeatedly charged forward, only for a corded vine to land more jabs, hitting his chest, shoulder or the handle of his axe when he managed to block an attack, driving him back once more. “This isn’t working, it’s body just keeps reforming!” he shouted between heavy swings of his axe.

“Just keep it distracted!” Lulseem yelled as he took three quick steps before launching into the air, right leg extended in front of him with his left leg tucked underneath. At the sound of his voice, the monster’s head jerked to its right, away from Brick, to stare directly at Lulseem.

Its chest unfurled in a wriggling maw of grasping vines just in time for Lulseem’s flying kick to make contact. The vines snapped shut on his right leg and pulled Lulseem towards itself, engulfing his lower half.

“Ttttaaaaccctiiccsss assesssmennnttt,” hissed the creature. Its voice was a callous mockery of human speech emitted from a snarled orifice of a mouth.

Lulseem’s lightning fast fists beat at his chlorophyllous bindings to no effect. The vines twisted further and further up his body as the monster just stared at him through its empty eye sockets and repeated its newfound mantra.

“Fuck!” Brick yelled at Lulseem’s stupidity. The monster gave one last powerful swipe at Brick before retracting it’s arm to aid itself in swallowing Lulseem. Brick could see its other arm do the same to Skorplar, abandoning the fight and retracting.

“RRRAAAAAHHHHHH!!!!” Lulseem had the monster’s head in his hands, thumbs hooked into its eye sockets, as he let out an exerted grunt trying to rip it right from the creature’s shoulders. Its neck had become elongated as the smaller connecting vines struggled to keep the head attached to its body. Both strong vine arms wrapped around each of Lulseem’s, like it had done to Skorplar a mere minute ago.

Lulseem let out another grunt, his fingernails scraping away long streaks of moss as his hands were pulled away from its head. Just as his grip was wrenched away, Skorplar bounded up, axe high over his shoulder, one step, two step, three step. The axe blade WHOOSHED through the air, connecting with the creature’s stretched neck. The decapitated head fell to the ground, more grasping tendrils immediately spread out to search for the severed body part. More noise from Lulseem escaped his lips, this time an exasperated gasp as the vine arms continued to wrap around him, squeezing the life from his body.

Axe raised high again, Skorplar brought it down on the severed head, splitting it in two. A putrid stench escaped as a black sludge leaked out of it. THUD. The mass of vines collapsed lifelessly to the ground, along with Lulseem. He gasped as he sat up, sucking in as much air as he could get into his deprived lungs.

“What the hell is wrong with you?!” Brick grabbed Lulseem by the front of his robe with both hands and hauled him to his feet, his sword now sheathed. “You in a hurry to die?!”

His breathing returning to normal, Lulseem responded, “I was just trying to knock it off balance! Did that thing understand us?”

Brick let go of Lulseem, shaking his head. “I don’t know Lulseem! We don’t know what the hell we’re dealing with out here. So for now on you don’t make a move unless I say so.” Brick turned away from the monk to address Skorplar, who was knelt at the vine creature’s split head, examining it. “What is it Sed’Stym?”

Skorplar had picked up one half of the split skull, letting the black ooze slide out of it and onto the soil. “Look at this, sir. I think it’s human.” He scraped off the layer of furry moss that coated the outside of the skull, revealing stained green bone beneath it.

“Did that thing use to be a person?” Lulseem asked incredulously.

“Or just parts of one,” Brick responded grimly.

Lulseem’s face went pale as he asked, “Is. . . is that what happened to the kids?”

“Doubtful, this is too big for a child’s skull.” Skorplar tossed the fractured piece to the ground.

“But we got it, right? This has to be what’s been taking the kids.”

Brick kicked aside some of the vines, clearing a patch of the discoloured soil. “Maybe. But there’s still something else in these woods. This isn’t what killed Ms. Hadley and attacked the Elmsmund farm. No hollow spikes anywhere on this thing. Someone did get attacked here though, smell the soil Sed’Stym.”

“Smells metallic. Blood?”

Brick nodded. “The ground where that thing was rooted is saturated with it. Oxenfurt might have found some trouble, or the aftermath of whatever happened to the Elmsmund family.”

“Those footprints continue over here,” Lulseem pointed to the indentations in the soil. They led to the only exit from the clearing, further into the tainted forest.

Brick drew his sword again. “I’ll take lead, Lulseem behind me. Sed’Stym, cover our asses. We could be walking right into an ambush.”

They moved silently, following the footprints once again. This far into the forest, even the air seemed to be affected by whatever malignant force had drained the life from the surrounding vegetation. It felt heavy and thick in their lungs, becoming an oppressive necessity of life. The sound of creaking, swaying branches in the wind broke their tense silence as they marched, despite no detectable breeze.

This path ended as abruptly as the last one had, leading them to another clearing that was nearly twice as large as the first. As the path ended, so did the trail of footprints. The floor of the second clearing was littered with the dried and crumbled husks of felled trees amidst tangles of unnaturally thorny brambles.

In the middle of the sickly and perverse vegetation stood a sinister looking tree, no more than fifteen feet in height, but with a trunk almost as wide as it was tall. It seemed to be thriving despite the dead trees and choking weeds that grew around it.

It’s bark, a strangely coloured dark green, was almost black in the shade cast from it’s own foliage. Long, creeping shadows across knots and gnarls in its trunk gave the impression of a hideously twisted face, dissuading the monk and officers from coming any closer.

“Now what officers? This may as well be a dead end.”

Still staring at the central tree, Brick responded, “Whoever we’re following came this way for a reason. And we just found it.” Greatsword still drawn and at the ready, he continued into the clearing. “Form up, same configuration as on the path.” Marching in single file, they slowly progressed over the detritus of the once healthy forest.

“There must be another path on the other side of the clearing, there were only footprints going in one direction. Even if somebody did come to see the tree, where ar-” Lulseem’s question was cut off by a shrill whistle as something hurtled through the air from the treeline ahead of them. It fell short, a wooden spike piercing the debris of a dropped tree at Brick’s feet.

“Cover! NOW!” As they charged forward, more whistles pierced the air, followed by the THUNK of the spikes missing their targets and hitting the ground around them. Sprinting the last thirty feet to the tree, the trio threw themselves at the wide trunk. Backs pressed flat against the rough bark, the shadows from the foliage now fell across their own faces. The THUNK of the projectiles turned into a CRACK as the whistling spikes hit the other side of the tree, splintering into pieces on impact, unable to pierce the tree’s thick integument.

“Now what the hell do we do?!” Lulseem yelled over the sound of impact.

“Sir! There’s something under the tree!” Skorplar had dropped to his knees, scooping handfuls of dirt away from the base of the tree. A soft, blue light emanating from beneath the soil grew brighter by the handful. The ground beneath their feet softened, their feet sinking into the soil, before it crumbled away entirely.

Brick was able to turn and attempt to drive his sword into the trunk of the tree as the ground disappeared beneath his feet, trying to create something to hold onto and stop his descent. The sharp point of his greatsword ricocheted off of the trunk like it was stone. He and Skorplar plummeted into the blue unknown below.

At the same time, Lulseem nimbly jumped away from his position on the unstable terra firma, landing on solid ground no longer in the cover provided by the broad tree trunk. The immediate THUNK THUNK THUNK of the airborne skewers all around him almost drowned out the audible SPLASH that came from the newly formed five foot hole at the base of the tree.

“Gods damnit!” Lulseem leaped at the tree trunk as another barrage of whistling spikes pelted the place he previously occupied. He hit the tree trunk right above the hole, instinctively scrambling for something to hold onto as he followed the officers into whatever dangers were below. The blue light briefly grew brighter as Lulseem fell past the edge of the hole. SPLASH. The light is snuffed out as his falling body penetrates the surface of a thick, syrupy liquid, becoming completely submerged. His feet touched bottom and he pushed off, finding he could stand in the dark pool.

“Help me get him Sed’Stym!” The officers each grabbed one of Lulseem’s hands and pulled him onto dry land.

He spat into the dirt, the familiar taste of metal in his mouth. “Oh Gods, is this blood?!” He wiped the gore from his eyes and looked at a stained Brick and Skorplar who grimly nodded. The reds of the blood were a deep black under the blue light. The dark green roots of the tree above looked like giant spider legs, thick and bowed, rising from the center of the blood pool to the surface twenty feet above.

They had fallen into an underground chamber that was nearly as large as the clearing it was hidden under. Clusters of glowing fungi that clung to the ceiling proved to be the source of the curious blue light that illuminated the chamber. Darkened passageways at either end of the chamber, one to their left and two to their right, were nearly obscured by a circle of small, leafless trees. Roughly four feet tall, dozens of the saprolings lined the perimeter of the chamber. Skorplar cautiously approached one of the trees, battleaxe at the ready.

“Sed’Stym stand down!” Brick forcefully whispered. “I lost my weapon in the fall. Wait for me to retrieve it before engaging.” He turned from Skorplar and jumped back into the blood pool, tentatively feeling around the bottom for his sword.

Skorplar stopped short of the tree at his superior’s command, eyes transfixed on the shrubbery, studying every detail. The base of their trunks were the same dark green colour of the blood tree, which gave way to a more natural, dull brown bark. As if the small trees had sprouted from the roots of the blood tree like a flower. To his left, Skorplar heard the same faint, wooden creak they heard on the path  walking through the forest.

Without hesitation, Skorplar swung. CHOP. His axe stuck in the top of the tree and made a split down the middle of it. Brick and Lulseem looked up, the echo of metal on wood fading in the chamber.

“Maybe they’re just trees,” Lulseem said hopefully. The branches of the tree started to violently shake. Skorplar leaned heavily on the tacky handle of his axe, the layer of blood from the pool already starting to dry. He drove the axe blade further down in an effort to silence the tree, easily cleaving it in two. His blade only coming to a stop once it hit the dark green root of the blood tree.

The branches ceased their movement as the two halves fell to the ground, but the tree’s warning had done its job. The saprolings to the immediate left and right of it burst to life, their branches shaking violently. One by one, the next tree began to shake, then the next one, and the next one, spreading through the circular grove like wildfire until every tree was frantically convulsing. The smack and groan of naked branches was deafening in the underground chamber.

Then, all at once, the trees became perfectly still. The alarmed breathing of the officers and monk the only audible sound for one tense second. The creak of moving wood broke the silence again, as the tree branches began slowly twisting around each other. A sharp CRACK reverberated around the chamber as tree trunks split. For the second time in as many hours, they witnessed a transformation of flora into a haunting facsimile of humanoid proportions.

The split trunks that had now become legs let out another CRACK as the small brown trees broke away from the dark green roots and stepped onto soil for the first time. A long, fibrous tubule still connected the blood tree roots to the walking saprolings, like a botanical umbilical cord. As the tree nearest Skorplar moved toward him, the tubule became stretched and taut. It snapped under the pressure, spurting a rivulet of black blood behind it.

Skorplar swung at the approaching tree, easily cutting it down, for it to be replaced by three more that had detached themselves. They lashed out at him with woven, wooden arms tipped with sharpened claws, forcing him to back away defensively and rejoin Brick and Lulseem.

“You had better find that weapon quickly, Officer Decklard. I’d really prefer not to be added to the pit of liquid fertilizer!” Lulseem stood next to Skorplar, taking a defensive stance with raised fists clenched tightly, wringing out the saturated wrappings on his hands. Left foot slightly in front of his right, blood dripped onto the soil at his feet. The creatures stumbled and stuttered on their newly formed legs, the circle of walking trees slowly closed in on them, offering no escape.

L.