Dark Oak

by Sannox, Jacob

  Linwood looked down over the incline of the slope and knew, finally, that he had made a mistake.

  Behind a tract of bare black poles shrouded in smoke, the forest was ablaze but the flames, moving faster than a man can run, were the least of it. Towers of grey smoke reached hundreds of feet up into the air, glowing orange deep within the body of the cloud, its outer edges curling back towards the armies of mankind with the wind. The smoke blotted out the sky all across the continent. Linwood looked at the sheer scale of what he had done and was overawed by it. He marvelled at the power of the fire and was afraid, knowing that it was far beyond his control.

  And yet he had not seen what concerned his castellan, not until the man seized him by the shoulder and pointed.

  ‘In the cloud!’

  Linwood looked and narrowed his eyes, unsure of what he was seeing. High above the trees, just visible in the moonlight and the glow of the fire, the smoke was beginning to whirl and funnel as though it were forming an unsupported river flowing across the sky. Then, his mind finally adjusting, he saw that like the images he had imagined in clouds as a child, the smoke had in many places taken on the form of gargantuan figures, dancing high above them and it was the grace of their movements that guided the smoke into the suspended river.

  Linwood said nothing, his mouth hanging open.

  ‘What are they?’ asked Willard, but Linwood could give no answer and before he could think of anything to say, as though his appearance on the hillside had been noted by faraway watchers, the onslaught began.

  The river of smoke changed its course and with all the speed of a hurricane, the Sylphs cast it down upon Linwood’s armies so that the men were as pebbles pinned by the weight of a waterfall. The hillside was choked, and all about him cries and shouts changed to retching coughs and spluttering. Linwood could see nothing and blundered with arms outstretched this way and that as he hacked his lungs up. His foot caught and someone shouldered into him so that Linwood crashed down upon his side, his feet still ensnared between the legs of a dead man.

  He tried to call out, but he could not breathe let alone make a coherent sound.

  Then as quick as it came upon them, the smoke wheeled away up into the sky forming a churning grey mountain that retained its shape and yet continued to flow upward thousands of feet in the air where at its peak a great cloud erupted and spread across the skies far above. Linwood coughed until his lungs were raw and scrabbled to his feet, as did his men. Many had succumbed to the smoke, and Linwood looked upon the fallen in horror.

  They had yet to draw their weapons and yet men were dying.

  He stared up at the cloud, unfeasibly high above him then his eyes fell upon the forest.

  It was no longer aflame.

  Blackened skeletons of trees, partially burned trunks and the unhurt woods beyond were now islands in a shallow lake which seemed to be washing outwards and towards him. Distant though they were, Linwood was certain that he could see the shape of women moving in the water, seemingly urging it onwards like mothers following behind young children taking their first steps.

  ‘Rally the men,’ Linwood said. The words were husky and choked so he cleared his throat and called again.

  ‘RALLY THE MEN!’

  About him his army came to some semblance of order as they heeded the orders of the captains that remained, and discipline returned to their ranks. The lessened army reformed either side of him and waited.

  Dawn approached, but a great storm was gathering overhead which limited the light. Linwood saw the first of the Dryads emerged from the smouldering forest under the darkening sky. Rain began to fall as the Dryads charged.

  They burst forth from the treeline as thunder boomed in the clouds above. The Dryads came on in their thousands; the raging elm and the flash of the lancing silver birch. The marauding willows swept their cat-o’-nine-tail manes and lashed leafy tendrils in a mad frenzy. These and many besides.

  The line of men did not quite falter, but it wavered – a ripple ran down it. Lightning shimmered across their armour and Linwood was reminded, absurdly in such a moment, of fish darting just below the surface of the little rivers of his homeland.

  Beneath Mount Greenwood all was quiet.

  Callum sat in Riark’s bower in the shade of the Mother Tree. Dark Oak peered at him and Callum thought his father was weighing something up. Callum looked back in return. In his father he saw none of the beauty of Riark or the other Dryads who had wandered the woods while Callum had awaited his father’s awakening. Instead he saw the gnarled, blackened woods of horror-filled fairy tales when he looked at what Morrick had become, this Dark Oak.

  ‘You look cold,’ said Dark Oak, and Callum jumped at the sound. He laughed and flashed a humourless smile, nodding fast. Cold sweat beaded on the skin of his brow.

  ‘I am cold,’ he said.

  ‘We should build a fire,’ said Whiteflow, and Dark Oak shot her a look then returned his gaze to Callum, the white stars of his eyes fixing him with their cold stare.

  Callum shivered, and shadows seemed to draw in around them.

  ‘A fire? But…’

  ‘I won’t take offence,’ Dark Oak creaked.

  So Callum nodded and set about gathering fallen wood and kindling. Dark Oak began to build the fire and beckoned Callum to come and sit by him.

  ‘Archers! The archers! Now!’ called Willard and along the line the many archers set flaming arrows to their strings. Needing no order, they began to fire high into the air so that the flames arced upwards and fell amongst the horde of Dryads as it rampaged towards them. The arrows found their marks but with no nerves to feel the impact or brain to process the pain, the Dryads did not hesitate for a second.

  Still the archers fired arrow after arrow, but Linwood’s spirits sank when he saw that his preparations had been for nothing. The Dryads burned and yet they did not die, for what ran at the army of men was but tree shaped in form by spirit and only the death of a Mother Tree could end its Dryad. Now the Dryads who had been hit were flaming brands come to life.

  The distance closed, and Linwood knew that his time had come. He called for his horse and sitting proud and high upon it, he called out to his captains and his men alike, though he had no words with which to kindle their courage.

  ‘Throw down your bows and stand your ground!’ he roared, and he rode back behind the lines. Men took up their tall shields and interlocked them so that they formed a long wall, their swords held high in readiness.

  The Dryads hit the shield wall like a herd of buffalo hits a grass plain. Men were trampled beneath their weight or hurled high into the air as the Dryads careered on through the ranks. The men roared and screamed as they fought, but their enemies moved swiftly and silently amongst them as though they were roots slowly cracking the earth or outstretched branches gradually depriving a flower of light. They overwhelmed Linwood’s armies, and it seemed to him that they were moving in a wedge towards him, driving a path through his men. Most of the Stragglers stood their ground, but those who did were turned aside or killed. Where swords and axes struck home they broke against the solid wood or stuck fast in it.

  Linwood had seen many a battle in his day and had never led from the rear, and yet he could not bring himself to spur his horse onwards to take the fight to his foe. He sat high above the heads of his army, and he saw Riark, king of the Dryads bear down upon him. The Dryad had grown in size to twice the height of a man and rode a steed which resembled a great horse, and yet seemed to be composed only of living roots and thorns. His attire was a mockery of Linwood’s own armour, matching it in shape and style, yet of wood not steel. The vines which flowed from the crown of Riark’s head flowed out behind him and yet, like a ring of standing stones emerging from dense undergrowth, a tall crown rose up from his head. There was no emotion in the Dryad’s face as its eyes fell upon Linwood, but the steed wheeled without a sound and set its head down as it galloped towards him.

  Linwood’s body shook all over, b
ut he cried out and dug his spurs into his mount’s flank. The beast sprang forward and the two kings hurtled straight for one another.

  Between them, the Dryads swept a channel through the army of men, no longer making any attempt to kill them, only to restrain them and hold them back. Their efforts left a channel of bare ground between Linwood and Riark as they closed the distance. Linwood drew his sword and held it aloft, ready to strike out as they met and then, as though he was not bound by the laws of the earth as man understands them, Riark and his steed stopped dead, their forms merging until finally there was only Riark standing straight and tall before him. All this transpired in the split second before Linwood reached him and, as it had before in Riark’s presence, Linwood’s horse reared and threw its rider.

  Linwood fell heavily and was coated in thick mud, his bones broken and his mind utterly aghast with fear. He had provoked this spectacle, it seemed, only so that he could be thrown down in dismay. Linwood wept as he raised his face from the filth and though he tried to roll onto his back or stand, he could not. Root tentacles burst from the ground and seized him around the wrists, ankles and neck, pulling him deeper into the mud. He writhed and kicked as Morrick had done while he hung by the neck, nearing death.

  Riark did not seem to move as he looked down upon Linwood’s contorting, drowning form. Linwood’s eyes were wide but saw nothing as he sank deeper, pulled ever downward, inch by inch, while the mud of his kingdom filled his lungs. Riark was a towering elm, the dark sky all around him and lightning forking down from the great cloud of smoke above. The Sylphs loomed in the air above him, crowding round and the Naiads swam up out of the mud sending a little wave all about them so that Linwood’s form bobbed upon it like driftwood on the seashore. They flowed over the burning Dryads to extinguish the flames, leaving them to guard their king even as their charred forms steamed.

  Finally Riark’s tentacle roots released their grip, and Linwood lay dead and drowned with Stragglers’ Drift filling his lungs.

  Riark surveyed the balking army that by now had all turned to face him, swords still in their hands and yet rooted to the spot, their many voices enmeshed and indistinguishable as they cried out in fear.

  ‘Silence,’ Riark roared. ‘Here lies your dead duke. Gone is your allegiance to him. He has led you on a path of folly, and he has paid dearly, as have many of your comrades. Throw down your arms now and seek your homes. Enter not my realm again, and do not dare make war with us lest you all end your days lying face-down in the very earth itself,’ he concluded. His voice was terrible and when he was done the words echoed up and down the slopes competing with the furious storm.

  The Sylphs dissipated into the air, and the Naiads drained back into the soil, as did the waters which had welled up from within the forest.

  Riark began to diminish in stature as he was left alone in the centre of a ring his Dryads were still maintaining, though the men all about were sheathing their weapons and made no move against them.

  His approximation of Linwood’s armour melded back into his body and the tall crown receded. The men looked on as the armoured giant dwindled into the form of an old man, cloaked in leaves with a beard of moss. He began to walk slowly back towards the forest and one by one the Dryads fell in behind him.

  Riark was satisfied that his aim had been met and his oath fulfilled. He knew that none of the men there present would ever dare stand against his kind nor enter the forest.

  But as he walked, a curious sensation began to resonate throughout him; a sensation he could not register and yet, it was vaguely familiar from his previous life. In a moment of blind panic, he realised that somehow he was in pain and that the sensation was heat; ever growing, scorching, burning heat.

  Callum looked on in horror as Dark Oak stepped into the fire, but his father seemed not to be in pain. Soon he was all ablaze, and Callum shrank back, calling out to Whiteflow.

  ‘Put him out! Put him out!’

  The Naiad stepped to Callum’s side and wrapped a cold, watery arm about his shoulders.

  ‘Fear not,’ she said.

  Dark Oak stepped down from the fire and looked to Callum’s eyes to be a man aflame. He bowed low to his son, turned and ran towards Riark’s Mother Tree. He thrust his arms towards the ancient and beautiful elm, and scores of flaming tendrils were flung around it; they stretched up into the branches setting the leaves aflame. They seized the tree and, like a burning boa constrictor, Dark Oak wrapped his form around the trunk. The tree kindled, and the flames turned white as the heat intensified. The elm burned as the fire leaped up all over the tree. Dark Oak drew back his right arm, and Callum saw that his hand shifted form into that of the head of a monstrous axe. Dark Oak hewed at the trunk of Riark’s Mother Tree and the ground shook beneath Callum’s feet. Dark Oak struck again and again and again, carving a great rent in the trunk of the elm. Dark Oak squeezed his burning head and torso inside and the elm was aflame inside and out.

  Callum shrank back from the Naiad as Dark Oak melded into the wood of the Mother Tree, taking the fire inside its very being, and there he strove with Riark’s spirit, blasting it with heat and enraging the molecules of the tree so that fire ripped up and down the blackened elm.

  Hundreds of miles north, Riark threw out his arms, looking down at his form as it glowed like a coal within a fire. The Dryads about him looked on, and all present realised what was happening too late. They set off at a terrible pace towards the forest, and Riark was left wheeling and shrieking amidst the terrified army of men who looked on at him, uncomprehending.

  Riark’s body burst into an intense white flame that rippled over and engulfed him. He thrust deep roots down into the ground, and his legs melded together into a narrow trunk which widened and grew so that he appeared to be a burning hybrid of man and tree. The flames inside his very soul drove him insane as he burned and the vines of his mane whipped out in all directions like whips of lava. The bark of his skin blackened and he screamed so hard that his pit of a mouth split right round his head. He blackened and shrivelled, glowing deep inside as the flames began to shrink and there upon the hillside, Riark fell to ash, which dispersed in the dying winds of the storm.

  The men of Stragglers’ Drift knew not what to think. They were leaderless and without purpose, but all felt a keen desire to put distance between themselves and the forest. So without a word of direction they turned towards their homes and hurried away. Where all had been noise and light, blood and death, now all was silent. The storm clouds drew back and the smoke billowed ever upwards until it was lost in the heavens. The waters receded and all was still.

  Deep in the heart of Mount Greenwood, Dark Oak turned his back on the flaming pyre that had been Riark’s Mother Tree. Smoke poured up and out the living mountain, as though it were a volcano and the slopes began to crack and fall.

  Callum shrunk away.

  ‘I…’ He could not find the words to express his confusion and with Dark Oak looming towards him with a curious motion reminiscent of a sidewinder, he gave up - merely rooting to the spot and awaiting his fate.

  Dying wood crashed down through the smoke and shards of debris cut his face. Callum fell to the ground and cried out when a branch crushed his lower leg.

  The cry was so high and pained that Dark Oak paused as he moved, remembering the cries of his children when they were but new-born. He looked down upon one of them now, writhing in agony, and felt his father’s duty.

  ‘Fear not, Son,’ he said and reached down to pick up the boy and cradle him in his arms. He marched on towards his own Mother Tree as Greenwood smashed to the left and right of him, before and behind. His gaze was unwaveringly forward and Callum looked up at his father’s face, fearful and not knowing whether it should be so.

  Once they were clear of the falling debris, Dark Oak laid Callum upon the grass and the Naiad that was his sister dripped from Dark Oak’s fingers and took form, reposed on the grass beside him.

  Dark Oak crouched to one knee and car
essed his face. The touch was ragged and left splinters as would new, shorn timber and Callum winced, but Dark Oak did not react.

  ‘All will be well now,’ the Dryad soothed and with that he raised his right arm. Callum had only an instant to register that he was in danger before Dark Oak thrust it forward. The Dryad’s wooden fingers splayed and smashed through Callum’s chest with terrible force. Callum’s eyes widened, and the blood vessels in them popped as the shock of the impact drove him into the ground. His limbs flailed as Dark Oak used both hands to prise back and snap ribs so that they jutted painfully up through his chest. Callum lapsed into unconsciousness and Dark Oak took gentle but firm hold of his heart until the boy was dead. His fingers became one with the flesh and his sap oozed into the veins.

  The blood was slick on the black timber of Dark Oak’s body as he hauled the carcass onto his shoulder, and he marched on towards the glade where his Mother Tree grew. Beside it and yet just far enough away that the leaves did not block out the light, grew a magnificent red maple. Dark Oak came to a standstill, lowered his head and stared out from under his furrowed brow. The soles of his feet drove deep into the soil as roots and entangled with those of the maple. Dark Oak imagined his desire and it was so.

  With a rending crash the wide trunk of the young maple ripped open vertically down the centre exposing a newly formed void within. He walked slowly forward and as though he were the orchestrator of a new ceremony, he forced Callum’s ruined body into the trunk of the tree, and the wood closed in around his son.