Day Two

  The army that stumbled into a clearing at dawn was very different from the one that had set out with such confidence.

  Fifteen thousand warriors had become fourteen thousand two hundred. Eight hundred dead in a single night of marching through hostile territory. Not from grand battles or heroic last stands, but from coordinated ambushes using traps, toxins, predators, and the forest itself.

  The survivors were exhausted. Despite the divine blessing removing physical fatigue, mental exhaustion was taking its toll. Warriors jumped at shadows. Archers loosed arrows at movements that turned out to be wind-blown leaves. Squad cohesion was fraying as units lost members to attacks that came from nowhere and vanished just as quickly.

  "We need to rest," Raze said quietly, appearing beside Toko as the alpha surveyed the clearing. "The warriors need time to reorganize. The shamans need to treat the wounded properly. We need to regroup."

  "We need to PUSH FORWARD!" His voice cracked with divine fury mixed with growing frustration. "Every moment we delay, the demon prepares! Every hour we waste, more corruption spreads!"

  "Nephew." Raze's ruined face showed rare emotion: concern and fear both. "Look at the army. Really look. They're green-eyed and fearless, yes, but they're sloppy. Units are scattered. Communication is breaking down. If we hit a real defensive position right now, we'd be slaughtered despite our numbers."

  Toko's blazing green eyes fixed on his uncle. For a moment, genuine rage flickered there before it passed, replaced by cold calculation.

  "How long?"

  "Four hours to let them eat, let the shamans work, and let the commanders reorganize their units. Then we'll be an army again instead of a mob."

  He stared into the forest ahead, where the Darkwealde waited with infinite patience. DeathGlade was still a day's hard march away. A day through terrain that kept getting worse the deeper they went.

  "Four hours," he agreed finally. "The moment that's up, we march. No delays. No excuses."

  The four hours passed too quickly.

  Warriors wolfed down rations without tasting them. Shamans worked frantically on wounds that would have killed normal soldiers. Commanders reorganized units, filling gaps left by the dead with warriors who'd never fought beside each other before.

  Raze moved through the camp. His one good eye took in details others missed. The way veterans clutched their weapons even while eating. The hollow stares of warriors who'd watched friends disappear into the darkness. The shamans whose hands trembled as they cast healing magic.

  We're breaking, he thought. Not broken yet, but the cracks are showing. Another night like the last one and we'll shatter.

  He found Toko standing at the forest's edge. Divine power crackled around him in barely controlled waves.

  "Nephew," Raze said carefully. "You need to understand something about this enemy."

  "I understand they're cowards who strike from shadows."

  "They're not cowards. They're smart." Raze gestured at the forest ahead. "Look at what they've done. They've bled us, demoralized us, scattered our formations. All without committing to a single stand-up fight. That takes coordination. Planning. Intelligence."

  Toko's expression darkened. "What are you saying?"

  "I'm saying this isn't random. Someone's coordinating the defense. Someone tactical enough to use the forest itself as a weapon." His ruined face twisted into something like worry. "The tactics feel... familiar."

  "Familiar how?"

  Raze hesitated. He'd thought about this all night while trying to dismiss the possibility: the way the ambushes were coordinated, the precision of the timing, the ruthless efficiency of each attack.

  "There's an Arachnae queen in the deep forest," he said finally. "She's never left her territory before, never worked with other species. I've crossed paths with her hunters over the years. They're good, but this..." He shook his head. "This feels different. More organized. More strategic."

  "You think she's coordinating the defense?"

  "I think it's possible." Raze met his nephew's blazing gaze. "If it is her, we're dealing with something more dangerous than a demon. We're dealing with a tactician who knows this forest better than we ever could."

  Toko was silent for a long moment. When he spoke, his voice carried absolute certainty. "Then we'll crush her forces and drag her before Ursus himself. Divine power trumps mortal cunning."

  Raze wanted to argue. To point out that cunning had killed eight hundred of their warriors without divine power stopping it. Instead, he simply nodded.

  You're so certain the blessing makes you invincible. You don't see that every attack is testing our response. Learning our capabilities. Preparing for something worse.

  The march resumed at exactly four hours.

  The formation was tighter now, more organized. Warriors moved with renewed purpose. The brief rest restored some measure of discipline. Shamans positioned themselves throughout the column, ready to respond to attacks.

  For two hours, they marched unopposed.

  The silence was worse than the attacks. Every warrior knew something was coming. The waiting ground at their nerves. The forest pressed close on all sides, thick with shadows and hidden dangers.

  Then they reached the river.

  It wasn't marked on any map the scouts had provided. The water ran deep and dark, flowing from somewhere in the Darkwealde's heart. The current was strong enough to make crossing difficult.

  "We go around," Raze said immediately.

  Enjoying this book? Seek out the original to ensure the author gets credit.

  "Around adds hours to our march." Toko stared at the water with calculation in his blazing eyes. "We ford it here. The blessing will protect us from anything in the water."

  "Nephew, this is exactly the kind of chokepoint they..."

  "We. Ford. Here." Divine authority made the words final. "I'm tired of letting them dictate our path. We go straight through."

  The vanguard entered the water first. Weapons ready. Divine blessing blazed bright enough to turn the dark river green. For the first hundred warriors, nothing happened.

  Then the crocodile struck.

  The creature was massive, corrupted by decades in the Darkwealde's depths. Its jaws could swallow a horse whole. When it surged out of the water, warriors had exactly seconds to react.

  The divine protection helped. It prevented the creature's corruption-tainted bite from spreading. What it didn't prevent was warriors being torn in half by jaws that could snap trees.

  "FORMATION!" Raze's voice cut through the screams. "GET OUT OF THE WATER! DON'T LET IT SEPARATE US!"

  The river was deep enough that smaller warriors struggled to move quickly. The current was stronger than it looked. Warriors were swept downstream, separated from their units, easy prey for a predator that lived in these waters.

  The creature's tail swept through a group trying to reach shore. It crushed them against rocks. Its jaws clamped down on an entire squad, armor and all, and dragged them beneath the surface.

  Then the poison clouds hit.

  Purple spores erupted from plants along the riverbank. Not the Purple Plague, but something else. Something that made the divine protection flare as it tried to neutralize the toxin. The blessing held, barely. Warriors found themselves choking on air that felt like breathing fire.

  "AMBUSH!" someone screamed. "IT'S A COORDINATED ATTACK!"

  It was coordinated: the creature attacking from the water, the spores from the plants, and now Arachnae dropping from the canopy to web and drag stragglers.

  Beautiful, coordinated chaos designed to maximize casualties.

  Toko arrived like a green comet. He dove into the water with divine fury radiating from every pore. His enhanced strength let him grapple the creature directly. Claws punched through scales, tearing at flesh beneath.

  The beast thrashed, trying to dislodge him or drag him to the depths. Toko's divine blessing included the ability to breathe underwater, one of Ursus' gifts to his chosen. He held on, tore deeper, found the spine.

  His blade, blazing with green fire, severed the creature's spinal column.

  It went limp and began to sink. He rode it down, making sure it was truly dead before releasing it to the river's current.

  When he emerged, dripping and glowing with divine power, the Arachnae had already retreated. The poison spores were dissipating. The riverbank was littered with corpses.

  "Count," he commanded. His voice was flat with barely controlled rage.

  Raze coordinated the grim task. When he returned, his ruined face was grave.

  "One hundred forty-three dead. Another sixty-two wounded badly enough they'll slow the march. The crocodile got eighty. The Arachnae took forty. The poison killed twenty-three."

  Fourteen thousand two hundred had become fourteen thousand fifty-seven. Nearly a thousand casualties in less than two days of marching.

  They hadn't even reached DeathGlade's outer defenses yet.

  Toko stared at the river, watching corpses float downstream. Good warriors and loyal warriors, dead because the forest itself fought them.

  "How long to the village?" he asked quietly.

  "At current pace? Twenty-six hours. If we can maintain formation and avoid... this." Raze gestured at the carnage.

  "Then we move faster. We're not giving them another night to bleed us."

  "Nephew, the warriors need..."

  "The warriors will have all the rest they need after we cleanse the corruption." Toko's voice carried absolute conviction. "We push through. No stops except for absolute necessity. We hit DeathGlade before they can prepare another ambush like this."

  Raze wanted to argue. Wanted to point out that exhausted warriors made mistakes. That rushing into unknown territory was exactly what the enemy wanted. Instead, he simply nodded.

  You're doing exactly what they want you to do. Pushing forward in anger instead of caution. Every move calculated to make you react instead of think.

  He looked at the forest ahead, where more traps surely waited. Somewhere in those shadows, someone was watching, planning, and coordinating attacks with ruthless precision.

  If it is her, if the queen I'm thinking of is behind this, we're walking into something far worse than we imagine. She doesn't just defend. She hunts. And we're making so much noise they all know we're here.

  The march continued through the day and into the evening. Warriors stumbled forward, following their blessed leader through terrain that grew increasingly hostile.

  More traps. More ambushes. Smaller this time, as if the enemy was content to simply harry them, pick off stragglers, and keep them bleeding.

  By nightfall, they'd lost another hundred warriors to a dozen different attacks.

  Toko called a halt only when darkness made navigation impossible even for Beast Lord eyes. The camp they made was tight, defensive, with guards posted in overlapping shifts.

  Raze found his nephew standing at the camp's edge. He stared into the darkness where DeathGlade waited.

  "One more day," Toko said quietly. "Tomorrow we reach the village. Tomorrow we face the demon. Tomorrow we end this."

  Raze said nothing. In the darkness ahead, eyes watched, waited, and prepared.

  Tomorrow would indeed be the end. The question was, whose end would it be?

  Day Three

  The third dawn found them less than eight hours from DeathGlade.

  Toko stood before his army. Divine power blazed bright enough to hurt unprotected eyes. Thirteen thousand nine hundred fifty-seven warriors looked back at him, exhausted despite the blessing that kept their bodies moving.

  "WARRIORS OF BEASTHOLME!" His voice carried supernatural authority. "TWO DAYS WE'VE MARCHED THROUGH HELL! TWO DAYS THE CORRUPTED HAVE THROWN EVERYTHING THEY HAVE AT US! AND YET WE STAND!"

  The army roared, though the sound was thinner than it had been three days ago.

  "NOW WE MARCH ON DEATHGLADE! WE WILL CLEANSE THE CORRUPTION! WE WILL RESTORE THE NATURAL ORDER! WE WILL SHOW THE DEMON THAT NO POWER, NO MATTER HOW DARK, CAN STAND AGAINST URSUS' CHOSEN!"

  Another roar, stronger this time. The promise of battle, of finally facing their enemy instead of dying to invisible traps, reinvigorated warriors who'd been bleeding morale with every lost comrade.

  "FORWARD! FOR URSUS! FOR BEASTHOLME! FOR GLORY!"

  The army surged forward. Green eyes blazed. Convinced that the worst was behind them.

  Raze watched from the shadows. His one good eye was troubled.

  They think the march was the test. They don't realize it was just the approach. The real battle hasn't even started.

  He looked ahead, toward where DeathGlade waited. Somewhere in that village was the demon his nephew had been blessed to kill. The corrupted one that had twisted the natural order.

  Somewhere, probably coordinating the entire defense, was an Arachnae queen tactical enough to have orchestrated everything they'd suffered over the last three days.

  The tactics feel familiar, coordinated and precise.

  He shook his head, dismissing the thought. It couldn't be. She'd never left the deep forest, never worked with other species, and never showed this level of strategic thinking.

  The doubt lingered as he slipped through shadows to follow his nephew toward whatever waited in DeathGlade.

  The Outer Settlement

  The first settlement they reached was abandoned. Buildings stood empty. Fields lay untended. Not a single defender in sight.

  "It's a trap," Raze said immediately. "They want us to spread out searching buildings."

  "Then we won't," Toko decided. "Burn it. All of it. We'll smoke them out if they're hiding."

  His one good eye widened slightly. "Nephew, burning the forest could..."

  "Could what? Make them angry?" His green eyes blazed with divine fury and mounting frustration. "They've killed over a thousand of our warriors with traps and ambushes! They hide in shadows and strike from trees! Well, let's see how well they hide when there are no more shadows to lurk in!"

  The torches were lit. The first buildings caught. Flames spread quickly and hungrily, consuming dried wood and thatched roofs. Smoke rose in black columns toward the canopy.

  Toko stood watching the settlement burn. Divine power crackled around him. He was convinced he'd finally found the solution to this nightmare forest.

  Raze watched from the shadows. His ruined face was troubled.

  You've just made a terrible mistake, nephew. You've stopped fighting the defenders and started fighting the Darkwealde itself.

  Deep in the forest, trees that had stood for thousands of years felt the flames' heat.

  Something ancient began to wake.