Chapter 20: Hunt
When the morning sun finally scattered the last tendrils of fog, Vi stepped out of the town head’s house, adjusting the woolen cloak around her shoulders.
Almost immediately, she noticed something strange, people were running. Not in panic, but with urgency and purpose, their faces bright with excitement. Dozens of townsfolk passed by her, some carrying tools, others simply heading in the same direction: toward the town gates.
Curiosity piqued, Vi followed.
As she drew closer, the growing murmur of voices, loud and layered, rose into the air like the hum of a great festival. She passed through the narrow streets, turned a corner, and paused as the full view of the outer gate came into sight.
Her silver brows lifted.
Before her stood a gate unlike anything she had ever seen.
Thick, unnaturally thick, its two towering doors looked as though they had been woven from massive roots. Each root twisted and coiled around the other, layered in thick, knot-like bands until they formed a solid, immovable wall of bark and timber. Even the hinges weren’t metal, but large loops of entwined roots that flexed slightly as the gate moved.
At first, Vi suspected some clever artisan had constructed it with aesthetic flair, perhaps hoping to impress. But that thought vanished quickly. No backward town fighting for survival would waste time on beauty.
This wasn’t art.
Her eyes widened. It wasn’t just the gate. The entire palisade had changed.
The wall stretched in both directions, one continuous barricade of gnarled roots and fused bark. There were no gaps. No seams. Just one immense structure, a meter thick in most places, formed of tightly packed, living wood. She approached, pressed her hand against the surface, and blinked.