Chương 51: The Tears of the Forest

"The vemons… are retreating?" At first, no one at Widow's Wall truly understood what they were seeing. The creatures had stopped moving after the forest spun and the black silhouette rose beyond the fog and above the trees, but now… the vemons were crawling backward. Some turned and fled into the fog, while others dragged themselves away even with arrows buried in their sides.

"They… they are retreating!" And of course, the soldiers did not waste the chance.

"Loose!"

"W-we do not have any more arrows!"

"T-then we charge! Join the duke's men!" Men and women all rushed down the wall, grabbing whatever they could to join the knights and soldiers killing the retreating vemons. One of them drove her hoe through a venom's back, then her husband kicked it away before it could even twitch.

"They… they truly are running!" Slowly, the panicked screams changed. The fear from their voices was still quite obvious, but there was a sense of disbelief slowly surfacing—disbelief that they were actually winning.

"Did… did we win?!"

"Widow's Wall stands!"

"Aahh!" Some still gave chase, but most were already swallowing their breaths and slowly raising their weapons up in the air to cheer. But Robert, however, stood quietly near the broken gate. He stared at the Dark Forest, as if trying to see through the fog. But perhaps more so than the fog, he stared at the field before him. It was covered in corpses, vemons mostly, but people, too. But all of them just looked the same in the mud, like the tears of the men under the rain.

What he could not deny, however, was the laughter coming out of their mouths, with some wailing at the same time as they fell to their knees, grabbing and holding themselves, asking how they were even still alive.

"Lord Robert." Duke Gawen stood beside him. His sword fell from his hand, falling between them. The wrinkles on his face made a path for the rain to travel down his fading smile, and he stood still there for a moment. He glanced at Gawen, shock completely drowning his eyes.

"I was wrong," he said. Robert slowly looked at him.

"Your Grace?"

"I thought I could guide your son. Use him against the Crown."

"Your Grace…" Robert's eyes turned wide.

"That is treason."

"No. It is obligation." Gawen turned his eyes back to the forest.

"But I was wrong. No one can use that." Robert's grip tightened around the spear." That?" Gawen glanced at him, then back at the forest again.

"That is my son," Robert said.

"I know." Gawen did not smile, and instead motioned around them.

"That is the problem." The cheers grew louder. A few soldiers had started chanting a moniker, and then more joined them.

"Oathrunner!" They roared.

"Oathrunner!"

"Oathrunner!" Robert closed his eyes.

"He… is my son."

"After today…" Gawen looked toward the people.

"He is not just your son, Lord Blackwood."

Inside the Dark Forest, Enel was still on Blakwud's head. His fist remained raised, but it no longer moved. He still stared at himself from the bright, clear sap from Blakwud's eye—and even now, as the black sap slowly swallowed the green, Enel could see it. The smoke from his eyes, the rage in his face… and his teeth. He was still him, nothing had actually changed, and yet… he looked feral.

"I…" His hand trembled. He was still angry, so much so. Of course he was. The growl still tried to escape his chest, crawling beneath his ribs and wanting to be let out.

"I…" Blakwud subtly shifted beneath him. Roots rose from the Great Spirit's head, reaching once more for Enel's ankles. The forest around them groaned, as if pained and struggling to move. Enel looked down at the roots, then roared as he raised his fist higher.

"AAAHH!" He brought his fist down, and the sound cracked through the forest, shattering the air itself. All the mud rippled outward, the withering leaves were all blown away… but it was alive. The forest was still alive, and so was Blakwud. This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Enel had struck his own palm.

"Grah!" Enel screamed through the pain. But pain was good—his mother had once told him that it was proof that he was alive. Proof… that he was one of them. That he was still here.

"Ha… ha…" He slowly lowered his fist, while his other one flew to the inside of his mouth. He brushed his thumb along his teeth, but nothing was really out of the ordinary.

"You… you just imagined that, Enel," he whispered to himself. He shook his head, wiping the black sap from his cheek, then looked down at Blakwud.

"I know you can understand me." Enel's fist lightly curled again.

"A Great Spirit talked to me on one of my travels. You have been corrupted by the Veil, but I know you can understand me." But the Great Spirit did not answer. It only stared at him, and the forest trembled around them, all the trees and the wind groaning.

"I will take that as a yes," Enel whispered, his breath still too heavy, and yet he found the strength to still straighten his back.

"You will not step beyond the Dark Forest again. Do you hear me? You will not send vemons beyond it, and you will not lure the people of Widow's Wall, nor harm them through your forest. I do not know if there are really people in here, but if there are, you will release them." Blakwud's skull shifted beneath him, and the trees around them bent and creaked. Enel frowned at this.

"I do not understand." The forest answered again, louder this time. The sound came from everywhere. From the roots under his feet, from the bark beneath his hand, from the antlers above him, from the burned path behind them and the flowers slowly dying around Blakwud's legs. Perhaps, that was its voice fighting through the corruption— perhaps.

"I said I do not understand," Enel whispered.

"I—" Enel looked around the shifting forest, then back at Blakwud's eye. He stared at it for a moment, then sat down right there and then. And the forest went still. Enel rested one hand on the hard bark that served as Blakwud's fur beneath him. At first, he only felt the rough surface, the black sap oozing out, and the faint trembling of the Great Spirit's body. But then he closed his eyes and listened. Truly listened. He heard roots, thousands of them inside the spirit.

He heard dirt, mud, and he could even hear tiny ants moving inside it. And then, he heard it. He did not know why, but he was sure of it. Just the disgusting sound it made as it squelched and dug its way into Blakwud's body—the rot. It was quiet, patient… slowly eating away at the Great Spirit. But beneath all of that, he heard something… small. Something familiar.

"You…" It reminded Enel of the little deer spirit by the lake. The tiny thing that had asked for his help, tugging away at his cloth. It was small, gentle, curious, innocent… and so, so alive. Enel opened his eyes and looked at the gigantic skull beneath him.

"Were you… were you once like that, too?" he whispered, and Blakwud did not move.

"Small," Enel said, brushing his fingers across the bark.

"Were you small once, like… like me?" A drop of black sap slid down Blakwud's eye.

"Y-you…" Enel's lips quivered at the sight, and his throat tightened.

"And no one… no one tried to save you?" Enel gasped as the words left his mouth, and perhaps… the anger inside his chest left, too. He lowered his head, his fingers still resting and listening to the Great Spirit.

"For hundreds of years..." His voice trembled.

"You were alone and suffering for hundreds of years?" The forest trembled beneath him.

"No wonder you are angry," Enel whispered.

"No wonder you hurt everyone. If all I knew was pain... I think… I think I would want the world to hurt too. I…" Tears ran down his face, cutting lines through the ash and black sap on his cheeks. He tried to wipe them away, but more came, and so… he only sat there on the head of the King of the Dark Forest and cried.

"You… you could not even ask for help. I am… I am so sorry." Enel did not cry for himself, but for the Great Spirit beneath him that had once perhaps been small enough for someone to hold. And that… was the only thing Enel could see now. A small, frightened, little deer.

"Okay…" Enel nodded several times to himself. He sniffled, then wiped his face with his sleeve, smearing all the dirt across his face. But he did not care.

"How about this?" he whispered, slowly standing up, then gently leaping down from Blakwud's head. He landed in the mud before the Great Spirit's eye, his feet sinking slightly into the wet earth. And Blakwud did nothing but watch him. Watch him as he lifted his hand to his mouth and bit his finger. Blood welled up from the bite, bright red against the ash on his hand. Enel held it out, and a single drop fell from his finger into the mud."

I, Enel of House Blackwood," he said, his voice carrying through the still forest,"... swear beneath the Sovereign of the Seven Laws, and beneath the Urtmother who carries this earth." The blood spread. At first, it only crawled through the mud around his feet, forming a thin crimson line. Then another line branched from it, then another, each one moving like roots. It formed a large circle, large enough to surround him and Blakwud.

It was turning dark at first, almost black, as if the corruption inside the forest wished to enter the oath as well. Enel looked at the darkening lines, but before he could do anything… a whisper came from above. Enel felt all the air disappear, the whisper strong enough to wash away everything around them. And then, for that single moment, the forest was gone. All that remained was him, the Great Spirit, and the whisper that had turned everything white around them.

"The gods…" Enel muttered. But he quickly turned his focus back to Blakwud.

"I will free you from the Veil. Not just you. This forest, the spirits, the animals within it. I do not know how long it will take, and I do not know how I will do it, but I swear it." The circle glowed brighter.

"And until I do," he continued, looking straight into Blakwud's hollow eye,"You will keep your oath as well. You will not leave the Dark Forest. You will not send vemons to Widow's Wall. You will not take my people." Blakwud stared at him, and for a moment, nothing happened. Enel stood there, finger bleeding, face wet with tears, waiting for an answer from a creature that had been corrupted to the point it could no longer speak. But then, Blakwud blinked, and red sap slid from its eye.

It rolled down the bark of its face, over roots and moss, then dropped into the mud inside the circle. The moment Blakwud's blood touched Enel's, the World answered. And the circle exploded outward. It rushed through the mud, across roots, beneath trees, and over stones. Crimson lines crawled through the Dark Forest faster than any horse could run, branching into symbols, rings, and shapes that folded into one another as they spread.

The ground shook beneath them, the fog split, and every root in the forest seemed to light from within, each one seemingly carrying the oath farther and farther away.

"Kh!" And as this happened, Enel gasped as a sudden heat struck his chest. He gazed down, and something was also being written on him. On the left side of his collarbone, where his burned tunic had been torn away, a mark began to form. It was black at first, then crimson at the edges, like a deer's head with antlers spreading toward his shoulder. It burned into his skin, and Enel gritted his teeth, but he did not move away from it. Outside the Dark Forest, the cheering stopped. Everyone felt the ground quake.

"What…" Robert saw the mud beneath his boots tremble, but more so than that… the rain that had been dropping endlessly on them had stopped—no. It froze. They could see it, each individual droplet of water, frozen in the air around them. But before any of them could dare touch the water, a crimson light appeared at the edge of the forest. At first, it looked like fire, then the line curved.

It moved along the border of the Dark Forest, crawling through the fog in both directions, faster and faster until the entire forest seemed to be surrounded by a circle of blood-red light. Symbols formed within it, too large for anyone on the wall to understand, and each one pulsed. Duke Gawen stared at the circle, his face pale beneath the frozen rain. The soldiers stared, the villagers stared, even the injured lifted their heads from where they lay.

Robert narrowed his eyes, then quickly rushed back and climbed the wall. His steps slowed upon reaching the top, and he walked forward until his hand touched the broken stone of the ledge.

"That…" He looked at the crimson circle surrounding the Dark Forest, at the symbols crawling through the fog, and at the light that had stretched toward the sky. And then, he closed his eyes.

"What have you done now, son?"