Chương 85: Aelfwine's Heart

I turned around. From the voice's volume, I had been expecting it to be closer. But on the ridge where we left our four original trebuchets, four men in emerald-green cloaks stood, nearly five hundred paces away. They carried no visible weapons, and they wore light leather armour beneath their cloaks. It was layered in strips, almost like a wicker basket, but with swooping, elegant shapes.

I would've said they were elves, given their long, perfect hair, or their pristine and fair skin, but they didn't have pointed ears. I knew enough about this world to know that their elves still had pointed ears, even if I hadn't seen one myself yet. Most importantly, how had none of our watchmen noticed them arriving? The green-cloaked men approached. They weren't mounted, but despite them only jogging, they seemed to cross the distance in half the time it took us.

They shimmered, cloaks almost hiding them as they ran. So that was how they moved relatively stealthily.

"Who is in charge here?" one of the men demanded. He seemed to be the one in charge—there was nothing unique about him, save for his blond hair (where the others had brown hair). All the other Dupes turned their heads toward me. I stepped forward, trying to put on an air of confidence. These four men exerted a faint, invisible pressure on me, and a light headache built behind my nose. I winced.

"You," said the blond man.

"Who are you?"

"Sergeant Levi, sir." I was trying to be polite. These men were certainly Path-walkers, but I had no idea if they were thegns, and I wasn't taking any chances.

"Not 'sir,' " said the blond man. He narrowed his eyes with irritation. Fuck.

"What were you doing to Aelfwine's Birch?" the man demanded.

"Killing orcs," I said.

"Killing orcs." He put his hands on his hips, as if in disbelief.

"You and twenty men killed this many orcs?"

"The tree helped." The man snorted, then motioned to the gash the orcs had torn in the tree.

"That was their doing, you'll tell me?"

"Yes." I turned my head.

"Pardon my asking, but are you all Greencloaks?"

"Correct," the man said.

"What gave it away?" a different Greencloak joked. The blond Greencloak motioned three quarters of the way up the tree, where we'd hit it with our trebuchets. There was only a small scar now, when all the dust had settled.

"And that was the orcs' doing too?"

"No," I replied.

"A small price to pay for preventing a cataclysm."

"You must leave, now," the blond Greencloak insisted." Now." My heart raced, in the same way it would if someone told me the grades for an exam had been published.

"Is there—" The tree groaned. The branches trembled, and if there had been any snow left on them, it would've fallen off. Its roots trembled and snaked through the ground, creating waves of dirt. Some were a few feet thick, others were so wide I couldn't wrap my arms around. All had tiny tubers and other roots branching off them, trying to grasp us. Tiny hands made of white fibre reached up from the ground. We leapt back. Some of the Dupes hacked at them with weapons. Others, like me, stepped back.

"Don't strike them!" the blond Greencloak shouted.

"You will only anger Aelfwine's Heart more!"

"It's alive?" I gasped.

"It is a living remnant of the king who planted it," the Greencloak said.

"We're not the ones who chopped a massive gash in its side," I replied, taking another step back. A wooden hand reached up, trying to grab my ankle. My first instinct was to stab it, but I resisted, following the Greencloak's advice.

"You are the ones who woke it up. Your trebuchets and mechanical nightmares blasted those holes in its sides, far closer to its true heart. It doesn't make any distinctions. Your best bet is to run. It cannot reach you on the ridge." The author's content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.

"We need those catapults and those wagons," I said, motioning toward the seven siege weapons we'd rescued and the wagons full of scrap—which we'd started rigging the horses up to.

"If we're going to turn the tide, we need to get them to the 294th—""Sergeant!" someone yelled. A thick root, about a half-foot wide, hoisted up a Dupe by the midsection. A Dupe whose name I didn't know, but he was one under my command nonetheless.

"Cut him free!" I shouted. It may have angered the spirit or whatever was causing this, but I wasn't just going to let him die. The branch slammed him down into the ground, and his legs crunched. It didn't matter. We could fix that. He screamed as the branch kept pulling, trying to drag him below the surface. I fought back, pulling him the other way with a reversed swell of gravity, holding him up above the ground while the other dupes circled around, chopping at the branches and trying to free him.

One Dupe with an axe used a resonance Skill, breaking the branch and freeing him from the tree's hold.

"Carry him away!" I shouted, and a pair of Dupes snatched up their injured comrade, despite his protests and pained gasps.

"You're only making it worse…" the blond Greencloak warned.

"Then help us! Do something to stop the tree from fighting back."

"We cannot. The harder you fight, the harder the tree will resist. And Aefwine's Heart is an Emerald-tier Slumberer. Even we would struggle to harm it. You must leave and let it heal itself." I scowled, then said, "Then help us save some catapults and loot."

"Those Pillarless machines?"

"Those 'Pillarless machines' are going to save Dupe lives! And the lives of hundreds of other civilians." The Greencloak sighed, then clicked his tongue, and the others around him jumped to action. My men were urging the horses to begin trotting, but the Greencloak shifted forward with their Arts, crossing the distance between us and the siege weapons in a blur. One of them triggered a druid Art.

His flesh rippled, his bones cracked, and he hissed in pain as layers upon layers of flesh wrapped over his limbs and circled around him, bulking out his shoulders, increasing his height until he was twice as tall, and causing him to fall forward onto all fours. His skull grew into the shape of a bear's, and brown fur sprouted from his entire body in a well-kept coat. In his grizzly bear form, he gripped onto the catapult and pulled, dragging it away from the tree faster than the horses ever could.

The second Greencloak must have been a sorcerer. He reached out, summoned a staff into his hand from the empty air, and used a wind Art to lift three of the catapults. The horses raced away, carrying the weapons with no resistance. The third Greencloak, I figured, was a wicca, because he simply gripped a trebuchet with his bare hands and pushed it from behind. His muscles rippled, and his Presence surged, but he moved the weapon with ease. That left two other siege weapons and the wagons.

At first, the blond Greencloak seemed more ready to abandon the weapons. I cast him a skeptical glance. Then he said, "Two. I suppose I can move two, but only two. Not because I am incapable, but because these machines have been soaked with the Dark Lord's spirit. They disgust me."

"We will take whatever we can get," I replied. The man rushed forward, using a movement Art, like the others, then gripped the last two trebuchets from behind. He rolled down his sleeves, revealing forearms covered in knot-like tattoos. They swelled, moving on their own, and when he pushed the heavy weapons, they gave him far greater strength. I figured that made him a wicca as well.

"Everybody, out!" I yelled.

"We can handle the wagons ourselves. Follow them, and get as far away from the tree as we can! No man left behind!" We rushed away from the tree's base, scrambling through the thick, wet snow until we caught up with the Greencloaks. The wagons were lighter than the catapults, and the horses we'd tied to them trotted away faster on their own. A few more branches tried to stop us, and against the Greencloaks' wishes, I had to stab one of the root-hands away.

A giant root surfaced beside us and tried to slam down atop our army like a kraken's tentacle, but I shouted, "Brawl! Now would be a good time for your Art!" As the root fell toward our heads, Brawl triggered his Art, creating a pulse of force away from him. All the impact he'd built up over the past day released, creating a pulse that blasted the root up and away and prevented it from landing on us.

"Almost there…" I breathed.

"How far does this thing's roots go?"

"Farther than you think," Sage said, using Morph to stick close to me. The forest golem stayed in its humanoid form, carrying her with one arm as he kept pace with us. A few branches snaked up from the dirt toward us, and she held out a hand. Morph extended his free arm, sending branches snaking out toward it. They collided with the root-hands, blocking them before they could reach Sage—or me.

"Thanks," I told her. She looked down sheepishly, then said, "You can look after yourself." I rolled my eyes as I ran." Thanks, Sage. How would a proper noble lady reply to that?"

"A proper noble lady wouldn't be running from a giant birch tree imbued with the spirit of an ancient king, nor would she be aiding a soulstealer."

"The answer is 'you're welcome, but alright," I said.

"Having fun, you two?" Romance chided from far ahead.

"Just taking our minds off the impending doom," I countered.

"They're already slowing down," Anchor commented as we scaled the hill back toward our original four trebuchets. When we reached the ridge, we stopped, panting to catch our breath. At some point, we'd outpaced the Greencloaks, but they caught up soon enough, depositing our new siege weapons and old horses at the top of the hill.

"You have some explaining to do, sergeant," the blond Greencloak said, facing me. His hands were empty, but he ran his thumb over a ring on his pointer finger.

"And you'd best start now." I crossed my arms.

"I could say the same to you. Who are you?"