Chương 27: Big and Bigger

Regarding the illegal felling of a mature fragus pine near Karsk Road: Damage observed: one collapsed hillside, three ruined fences, two dead oxen, twelve displaced graves, one cracked shrine, and approximately forty-seven ordinary pines crushed beneath the primary fall. Cause of incident: local youth attempted to impress a girl. Recommendation: hang signs explaining that fragus pines are not trees in the usual sense, but rather wooden anchors placed vertically by nature.

Secondary recommendation: forbid local youth from owning more than three axes. —'Incident Record 44-B', Filed by Deputy Forester Stepan Gurov Eastern of the Ostravian Forestry Guild Four hours later—well past midnight—Orland, Kazimir, Miriyela, and Sharsana stood at the edge of Zimnerudik and stared into the storm. As the eye of the storm, Zimnerudik was spared from the worst of the astral lead flakes, but venturing away from the town meant they'd be cut all over by the sharp, swirling flakes.

Miriyela and Sharsana would be fine because they were basically armored head to toe in molescale, and Kazimir would be fine because he was Kazimir, but in order to keep himself protected, Orland had decided he'd ride on Miriyela's back and wrap himself in her molescale cape. She definitely didn't mind it when he'd suggested it, so here they all were, getting ready to leave the town. Everyone else had woken up to send them off.

Alongside the soldiers, the townsfolk were gathered in clusters behind them, bundled in cloaks, scarves, miner caps, and all sorts of protective clothing. Orland had told them not to come, but when one of them had heard he was going to leave, the rest of them woke up almost immediately to bless his journey. Honestly, it was a little flattering.

"Here's the stardial communicator, sir!" Nikolai shouted over the storm, trudging forward and handing Kazimir the little crystal-needle compass. Then he looked at all of them nervously, lanternlight moving all over his shifting face.

"But… are you sure you want to do this? Forgive me for questioning your judgement, but it seems so… very, very dangerous!"

"Riding on the back of a mole-drake?" Kazimir said, grunting as he hauled himself stomach-first onto Sharsana's scaly back. They'd fashioned a makeshift saddle for Sharsana out of normal saddles the local soldiers used for their mares, and it wasn't going to be comfortable for Kazimir since he was almost as large as Sharsana was. Having to share a saddle with Miriyela's giant warhammer couldn't be comfortable either, but it'd have to do. Even if he did look stupid.

"Can't say I've ever even seen a mole-drake before this, no, but I think I'll manage."

"Not that, sir! I meant… whatever!" Nikolai pulled his face covering tighter as the wind threw lead flakes against the crowd, looking at all of them sternly.

"We've received word from the Rift Sealing Corps in Sibinski that they've stabilized the rift in their town square, and that they're currently preparing for your arrival! By the time the three of you—" Sharsana growled at him." —the four of you reach them in about thirty minutes, they should have the rift approach cleared and all the necessary supplies prepared for you!" Then Nikolai looked at Orland specifically.

"The rest of the Rift Sealing Corps in the region have also received your command! They're removing as many metallic objects as possible from around their rifts!" In response, Orland gave Nikolai a thumbs-up while clinging to Miriyela's back.

"Thanks a lot, soldier! I… uh, am honored to have fought by your side!"

'Good day, Your Majesty' didn't seem like the right line to use here, so he'd said that instead. He didn't expect Nikolai to take such a liking to it, though, because the Captain of the Rift Sealing Corps immediately widened his eyes and straightened, giving Orland a strong salute.

"It… It is my honor to have served you!" Nikolai shouted, voice cracking a little.

"May the gods bless you evermore, Great Hero!" The rest of the dozen soldiers behind him saluted as well, fists striking breastplates and padded coats. The sound wasn't huge, but it carried through the storm, making Orland's throat tighten for half a second before he shoved the feeling down. He faced forward and pointed at the storm.

"To Sibinski!" he shouted. With that, Miriyela and Sharsana took off running, launching themselves into the storm while Orland and Kazimir rode on for dear life. Within seconds, visibility dropped to near zero. Zimnerudik had lit up every brazier and torch and lantern in town just to send them off, but the moment they dashed into the woods and began towards the nearest other town with a growing rift, the storm swallowed the light behind them.

Wind slammed into Orland's face, and the lead flakes scratched across his mask, his molescale cape, and his arms wrapped around Miriyela's neck. If not for the cape covering the rest of his body, he'd be completely shredded and bleeding all over. And if not for Miriyela and Sharsana's speed, there was no way they could get to Sibinski within thirty minutes.

But first, there was a checkpoint they had to reach: that giant hill in the distance with the even giant-er pine tree on top, stretching towards the sky like some dead giant's finger.

"I sure hope this great beast of yours exists, brat!" Kazimir shouted, grimacing as he kept his face as low to his saddle as possible.

"Because if we're galloping through this storm for some medium-sized mutt that can't even take down this mole-drake, I'll throw you into a rift myself!"

"It exists!" Orland shouted back, raising his voice over the storm.

"I've heard its footsteps around the forest for an entire week! You heard them, too! No way it's not still around somewhere, so just… get me to that tree first!" While they neared the base of the hill, Orland glanced at the new songiron bands he'd borrowed from Nikolai. He had two of them around his wrists for a total cost of one mana regeneration per hour. Not the best, but not the worst. For how vital they were going to be for his plan to work, the cost was nothing at all. Just gotta get to the tree first!

Before long, Miriyela and Sharsana had bounded up the hill, pushed through the woods, and emerged at the very base of the giant pine. Even through the storm, it was obvious as hell it wasn't a normal pine. Its trunk was five times the size of a normal pine, its roots were spread incredibly wide and far, and its bare branches held themselves against the wind, completely indifferent towards the lead-infested storm. Kazimir had pointed it out on the map when he'd asked for the nearest lookout of the entire area.

Climbing to the top of it would definitely give him a good view of the entire forest. So the moment Miriyela screeched to a halt at the base of the tree, he sprang off her back and began clambering up the tree at record speed.

"Be careful up there, Great Hero!" Miriyela shouted up at him.

"If you fall, I shall catch you, but I would prefer not to have to catch you!" This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings.

"I know how to climb!" he shouted back. That much was true. He'd climbed plenty of trees before to steal bird eggs, hunt hornrabbits, and escape predators who thought he looked easy to eat. A super giant pine in a lead storm was just another thing with handholds, and he trusted handholds more than he trusted more people. He dug his fingers into the bark and climbed. The first few meters were easy.

The bark was rough and ridged, the branches were thick enough to support his weight, and his sylph shoes helped him push from foothold to foothold with little bursts of air. The storm tried to slap him off. Lead flakes bounced off his mask, scraped over his skin, and hissed against the tree around him, but the adrenaline kept him going. He kept himself going. Higher. Higher. Past the first spread of branches, then the second, then up onto thinner limbs that swayed beneath his weight.

Halfway up, his stomach began to notice the ground was becoming distant, but he ignored it. Fear of heights was for people who could afford heights, and Orland had always lived on the ground. There was nothing to fear. … Was there? Near the very top of the tree, he hooked one arm around a branch, branched his shoes against the trunk, and—just for one, short moment—accidentally looked back. His heart skipped a beat.

He was at least thirty meters above the hill and maybe forty above the low forest floor, which meant the whole world had opened beneath him in a way that made his muscles feel soft. The forest stretched out in every direction, black treetops drowning under a storm of shimmering silver flakes.

He saw Zimnerudik's lanterns and braziers glowing far away like little coals buried in ash, and even further on the opposite side of the forest were the lights of Sibinski, bright as he'd instructed the soldiers there to make them bright so Miriyela and Sharsana could locate the town easier. He clenched his jaw and swallowed an anxious gulp. Don't think about falling, don't think about falling, don't think about falling… Just. Look.

He was more than high enough to see everything he needed to see, so he squinted across the dark canopy. He searched for broken treetops, moving shadows—anything big enough to be the thing whose footsteps had followed them through half the region, really—and at first, he saw nothing but even canopies and swirling lead flakes. Moonlight wasn't particularly bright in the storm, and he had no night vision.

If he had higher clarity levels, then maybe, but even as he stayed up there for a minute, then two minutes, and then three minutes, he saw nothing. As time passed and his party started shouting up at him from all the way down, a sour thought crawled into his head. … What if I'm wrong? What if it's not here? What if— A section of the canopy suddenly shifted in the corner of his eye, and his eyes snapped over. It wasn't wind.

The trees in that section were bowing and snapping in series, as though something massive was forcing its way through the woods with no regards to how much collateral damage it was causing. His grin returned so quickly it almost hurt. Whoa. I'm lucky as well. The shifting section of the canopy wasn't too far away from the giant pine he was on. In fact, it was almost at the bottom of the hill.

His original plan had been to locate it, then go towards it and poke it with a stick or two, but if it was this close to him… Well, now he could poke it with a really big stick.

"Miriyela!" he shouted, forcing his stomach to stay calm as he looked down at the distant princess and pointed out.

"I need you to smash this tree down and make it fall that way!" A pause. Then Miriyela placed her hands over her veil where her eyebrows would be, shouting back.

"What?"

"What?"

"I can't hear you!" What?" She cupped her hands over her mouth.

"I said I can't! Hear! You!"

"I said break the tree and make it fall that way!" Orland shouted, raising his voice.

"It's over there! We can save time this way, and this big-ass tree is definitely gonna make it pissed off!" But Kazimir also looked up then, and Orland swore he saw a scowl on the man's face.

"Have you lost every scrap of your mind?" Kazimir shouted.

"This is a fragus pine! One only grows to this size after at least fifty years, and its roots hold half the damned forest's soil in place! If you cut it down—""I don't give a shit!" Orland shouted back, girpping the branches as a sudden gust of wind threatened to knock him off.

"I'll cut down every tree in this forest if that's what gets me to the Tyrant!"

"Fucking brat! Get down here and—" Miriyela sudden belted a hearty laugh, and both Orland and Kazimir looked as she picked up her giant hammer from Sharsana's saddle, gripped it in both hands, and charged it back with her feet parting. Orland knew that stance. He didn't like it.

"Wait, wait, wait! Let me get down first! I didn't mean—""The Hero is a warrior, after all!" Miriyela laughed.

"Very well! I shall fell this great pine with a single swing!" And before he could say anything to that, she swung. Her hammer struck the trunk with a sound that punched through the entire hill. The tree immediately lurched so violently that Orland's boots slipped from their holds, and he slammed shoulder-first against the bark, both arms tightening around the branch. Fuck. A crack split up the trunk beneath him, and the whole tree groaned, deep and old and absolutely furious. Oh fuck. The tree began to topple.

Sucking in a breath, he scrambled down as fast as his hands and feet would move. As the tree tilted—slowly at first, then faster, and the entire forest seemed to rotate around him in a sickening arc—he stopped climbing down and started running up the side of the falling tree, sylph shoes bursting air beneath him whenever he lost his balance. The ground rushed closer. The hilltop tilted into view. Once he was near enough to the bottom of the tree, he kicked off the bark and leapt.

For one breath, he flew through the storm. Then he released a hard burst of wind beneath him, softening the landing just enough that he hit the ground beside Miriyela with both knees bending instead of snapping. He stumbled, caught himself, and whirled on her with his gauntlet clenched.

"Could you not have waited—""What a glorious descent!" Miriyela planted her hammer into the ground, clasping her hands together.

"Truly, you are the Hero! You ran down a falling tree as though it had become your personal stairway!" He would snap at her again, but then the giant pine crashed into the forest below the hill, smashing through the canopy with a long, ripping roar of collapsing trees. The entire hill shook, and clouds of lead flakes burst up from the impact, making all of them whirl and look down at the destruction they'd carved.

The thirty-meter-tall tree had utterly annihilated an entire swathe of the forest, and—mere seconds after the cloud of lead flakes began to disperse—something roared back at them. Miriyela's hands tightened around her hammer. Sharsana shivered from snout to tail and dug her claws into the earth. Even Kazimir couldn't help but scowl down at the fallen tree, one hand reaching for the handle of his blade.

"What the fuck is that?" he muttered.

"That roar… is like nothing I've—" For his part, Orland immediately hopped onto Miriyela's back and pointed towards the distant lights of Sibinski.

"We got our backup! Now go! To the rift!" This time, even Miriyela was too shocked at the sheer strength of that war to move, but Sharsana—driven by the beastly instinct to flee—turned tail and ran down the other side of the hill with Kazimir shouting in surprise. Miriyela snapped back into her right mind a few seconds later, and then they were off again, charging through the woods with wind and lead flakes scraping past them. … And this time, they were going to Sibinski as a group of five.

Neither Miriyela, Sharsana, nor Kazimir dared turn around to look, but Orland glanced over his shoulder as the sounds of trees breaking and canopies falling grew closer. The glimmer of gold even in the dead of night was unmistakable, and the giant lion's three crimson eyes were fixed on him with pure fury.

"Hey there," he whispered, forcing himself to grin from ear to ear.

"Wanna eat something again?"