Arc 4: Chapter 17: The Forest of Heads
I stumbled through the woods, and they called out to me. The ones I’d killed.
They grew from the trees like cancerous fruit. Some sprouted from hanging branches, others clustered in tumorous masses from the trunks themselves. Some rose up from the ground with bulging eyes and gnashing teeth.
The heads my axe had taken filled the sickened forest. They whispered, laughed, shouted as my unsteady feet navigated the tangled undergrowth. They snapped at the hem of my red cloak, sobbed, begged.
“Where are you going?” They mocked.
I’d lost something. My eyes searched the tangled trees. Beyond them, I could see a light. It was pale and cold, featureless, and everywhere. Any way I turned, the light spilled like a moon’s blood. Even still, wherever I walked, the shadows pooled deep.
“This is all there is!” The heads told me, glee and despair intermingling in their joined voices.
Can't be, I thought. Only, I couldn't see anything else.
From a low branch, a wizened face turned and opened rheumy eyes. The distant light caught on the golden circlet on his brow, outlining its woven design.
“I served the gods too,” Leonis Chancer told me. Blood dripped beneath his chin, falling from a viscous, nearly solid mass hanging down like a beard. “Do they love you more than I, you think?”
I spun away from the ghastly face, searching, searching…
What had I lost?