FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

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CHAPTER 14

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As we approached the tree line of the Dark Forest, the tall trees got all the more imposing the closer we got to them. They were extremely tall, anywhere from thirty feet to fifty feet, and probably even taller further into the forest itself. I had heard many rumours about the Dark Forest growing up. It was the source of many horror stories from those who had braved its depths and managed to survive. How many of the stories were true I couldn't be sure. But one truth which was undoubted by any of us, was the danger we faced by entering

.

The canopy was said to be so thick, that it in the deepest depths of the forest it was as dark as the night, even in the middle of the day. That it was nearly impossible to navigate since you could never see the sun or stars. Travelling North or South would take two full days to traverse the forest, but if you got turned around and started travelling East or West, it could take you weeks to find your way out. The forest was hundred of miles long, and stretched over half of the width of the Tribal lands, creating a natural barrier between the North and South.

My time in Aaru had given me experience in navigating my way through deep forests, but my skills might not be sufficient to navigate this forest successfully. But I was the one who had the best chance of leading our group out safely. The others were smart and capable, but had spent most of their lives in the mountains, and were almost entirely unfamiliar with a forest environment.

"Are you sure you're all right Young Master? Perhaps you should rest before we head into the forest? Fighting against that wolven k'tan..."

"I'm fine Jovani!" I cut him off. "A few cuts and bruises, that's all. I'm perfectly fit to continue."

My fight against Khaine had been quite intense, but it was nothing I wasn't already used to. I used to suffer far more injuries during training and kept going in spite of them. I would be sore for a day or two as a result of that fight, but I would heal. I had learned how to heal myself while meditating, drastically reducing the amount of time needed for injuries and wounds to heal. I would do so when we stopped to rest, but I wanted to create some distance between us and the wolves.

"Does anyone else need to rest before continue?" I asked. "Did anyone suffer any injuries? I'd rather know now, before you end up slowing us down! Once we get so far into the forest it will be more difficult to treat them."

"No I'm fine!" Loire assured me.

"Me too!" Mantou declared.

"We are all fine to continue." Malnark assured me. "I wouldn't have allowed anyone to enter there if they were injured."

Of course he wouldn't. Malnark was an experienced leader, I had only just considered everyone else's well being just now. But he would have made sure no one was hiding any injuries before we had left Banuke. This was why father had chosen him to lead our group. In terms of ability I was stronger and faster than anyone here, but I was not an experienced leader. I had been given lessons on how to lead furs into battle. Learnt formations and battle strategies. I knew what was needed in order to survive, and had the skills to support others when it came to it. But my training had always been focused on me, and me alone. As a result I always tried to do everything myself. I acknowledge that as one of my biggest failings, and habits are hard to change.

To the East the sky was starting to brighten as morning quickly approached. We had been up most of the night testing the village of Banukes inhabitants for the taint. But we couldn't rest yet. We were deep in wolven territory and we were still being watched. They weren't trying to conceal themselves but they were keeping their distance.

"It's already morning, but we needed to create some distance between us and the wolves before we rest." I declared.

"Agreed." Malnark nodded. "According to the map your Uncle provided, the site the hunting party were killed is a short distance from a camp-site wolven hunting parties frequent. I doubt many hunting parties will be going near that area for a while we should be able to set up camp there."

"He told you were there was a camp-site?" I asked with disbelief.

"I find that highly suspicious as well." Jovani added.

"I asked him for its location." Malnark countered. "I told him we needed to investigate it for clues to track down the curi'nakra. That wasn't a lie." He smiled. "But there is nothing to say that we also can't use the camp site ourselves."

"Clever." Loire clapped his paws.

"Thank you. The forest gets quite dense about a mile in, we will need to ditch the wagon at that point if we want to make any progress."

"Why don't we just ditch the wagon now?" Mantou asked. "I'm sure it will be faster if we did."

"That's true, but we won't be able to take all of our supplies with us. I would rather leave it in a place the wolves won't find it so we can come back and retrieve it if possible."

"Makes sense." Mantou yawned.

I yawned myself after seeing him do so. We had been up all night, I could go three days without rest but that didn't mean I wouldn't feel tired. The others would as well. We would rest in a few hours. Going without rest would just slow us down in the long run. We don't know where the curi'nakra had gone to, but they hadn't returned to Banuke. And if they did my Uncle would likely detain them and get Khaine to ascertain whether or not they were a threat. I would need to find a trail of some sort that we could use to find them, but after this long any trail left by them would be cold. Even Callen, the Guardian Deity who taught me how to track would struggle to follow a trail after this length of time.

We made our way through the trees. The wagon did slow us down since there were no trails for us to follow. But as I suspected the wolves following us didn't follow into the forest. If they had I couldn't sense them, a feat that doubted anyone but Khaine would be able to do.

Eventually the forest became so dense we were forced to abandon the wagon just as Malnark had said. We unhitched the dandos from the wagon. There was enough dandos for everyone to ride, and one spare we could use for transporting the majority of our supplies. Once we had loaded as many supplies as we could carry we continued our way into forest following Malnark's lead. We found the river marked on the map my Uncle had provided and followed it down stream.

"That looks like the rock formation your Uncle described." Malnark pointed at a formation of rocks.

The rocks were supposedly meant to look like a wolfs head. It vaguely looked like a wolfs head I suppose... but that was a bit of stretch. If you squinted at it I suppose it looked a little like the head of a wolf. We headed away from the river and a short distance later came across the remains of a camp site. There were a few discarded bed rolls and the charred remains of a fire in the center of the camp. This was a decent spot to set up camp. It was large enough for three dozen furs to settle down here comfortably. That meant that the spot where the wolves had been killed was not far away.

While the others looked around the camp I closed my eyes and extended my senses. I allowed myself to fall into an extremely light meditative state and used my nen to enhance my senses. It was faint, but I could sense demonic taint. It was unmistakeable. I came out of the meditation and I could no longer sense the taint, but I knew which direction to head in now.

"Loire and Mantou will set up camp while we go investigate the site where the hunting party died." Malnark said as he approached pulling out the map. "According to the map it should be..."

"In that direction." I said pointing.

"Well... yes. How did you know?"

"I sensed demonic taint from there."

"So the curi'nakra was most definitely there." He sighed. "What about the camp site?"

"I can't sense anything. If there was taint here it's already faded."

We walked in the direction of the taint. About fifty yards from the site I could strongly sense the taint now, but I couldn't see any evidence of it yet. The forest was just too dense here. It was no where near the overall strength of the taint in Rengilar. But here it covered a far smaller area and the intensity of the taint was far stronger. That meant the curi'nakra was growing stronger!

A short while later we entered a clearing and we all knew that this was the where the hunting party had met its fate. The smell of blood and death was still lingering in the air. On the far side of the clearing the ground was blackened and the plants around it rotted and dead, just like Rengilar, in the area surrounding the spot where the portal had opened. The leaves of the trees and bushes around that spot were black, and crumbling. Dead and rotting. Lifeless husks of their former selves.

The blackened ground was only two foot across. Not big enough for a portal. The blackened ground in Rengilar had been over ten foot across to form a portal large enough for an average fur to be able to walk through. So what had happened here? If it wasn't a portal then what?

I walked around the area, searching for signs and clues as to what had happened. It was going to be difficult enough after the length of time that had passed, but the pack of wolves who had come to recover the bodies of their lost brethren had corrupted the area with their own tracks, making it nearly impossible for me to be able to discern anything definitive.

There were a few patches of dried blood, a badly crushed bush where it looked like a body had lain atop of for a period of time. But beyond that I couldn't work out what had happened here. I did find several tracks leading away from the area. I followed them, but all of them eventually started leading back towards the camp-site The only set of tracks I found that made me suspicious were the ones which led South, towards the river.

There were paw prints from at least five different furs along the trail. I suspected that some of the search party had also followed these tracks in an attempt to find the missing bodies. But that made it impossible to tell if the curi'nakra left by themselves, or if the other two missing furs left with them. The lack of tracks on the other side of the river told me that they had walked down stream to lose any potential pursuers. Smart. The river would cover their tracks, and they could have come out any where. The only thing I could discern from this was that they had headed South. And that's where we would go.

"I don't think we will find much more here." Malnark said. "We should head back to camp, rest up and head out first thing in the morning."

"Agreed." I said.

As we walked back Jovani asked an interesting question. I was so focused on catching up with the curi'nakra I hadn't even considered it. But now that we had lost track of where they went it was certainly relevant.

"What is their aim?" He asked. "If they simply wanted a village of furs to infect with the taint, why wouldn't they stay in Banuke?"

"Good point." Malnark said. "If that was all they wanted they could have returned to the village with the other survivors. There was no way for them to know that we were pursuing them. So why head deeper into the forest?"

"They increase their power by infecting others and feeding off the energy as it grows." I said. "But their aim is to release a horde of demons into our world. We saw in Rengilar that they have the ability to open portals."

"That portal was only open for a few seconds though." Malnark countered. "They must require sacrifices. A lot of them. More than Banuke and Rengilar could provide."

"I believe there are many settlements South of the forest." Jovani added. "You spent some time travelling there did you not?"

"I did yes." Malnark responded. "There are just as many villages in the South of the Tribal Lands as there are in the North. All of them packed into a much small area. It's been a number of years since I was last down that way, but very few of those settlements would be bigger than Rengilar."

"So perhaps one of those larger settlements would be their target? Infect the locals with the taint, and then use them as sacrifices to open a portal to the Underworld!" Jovani exclaimed.

"A horrifying thought." Malnark shuddered.

"What if they are after something more than just sacrifices?" I suggested. "Kunsel told me that there are many areas in the world where the barrier between our world and the Underworld is weaker. Most of those sites are on the grounds where large battles took place, the land forever tainted by the demon blood soaked into the land."

"I seem to remember something about that." Malnark mused. "I read it in an old tomb from the Valelor family library. For decades after the war ended there was a group of furs, I can't remember the name of the group... but they went around cleansing and purifying the battle grounds so that the land could be used to grow crops."

"That does sound familiar." Jovani agreed. "But after all these centuries I doubt there is a list of locations where battles had been fought and those which had been purified."

"And if there was such a record I doubt we would find it quickly." Malnark sighed. "The capital city would be the most likely place to look, but documents that old and that obscure... we would be lucky to find them."

"Then we have no idea where they might have gone!" I growled.

"But how would they know about them?" Jovani asked. "The curi'nakra would have to find out about these places somehow!"

"In order to make a pact with a Demon lord, they would have had to make a spiritual connection with them during a ritual." I explained, "I doubt they were able to converse in words, but perhaps a series of visions or images came to them during the ritual."

I had experienced something similar to this in Aaru. The oracle who had preordained the coming of the curi'nakra had shown me visions of what could come to pass if I failed in my mission. They had also shown me images of Yanzomien, Rengilar, New Zangar and the Zangarian Mountains as well. This was what had determined where I needed to look in order to find the curi'nakra.

"Seems far fetched, but considering everything we have seen so far I'm not going to doubt the possibility." Malnark said. "We're all tired and hungry. We should discuss we've all had time to rest and think."

It wasn't a bad idea. I may be able to stay awake for three days and nights without much trouble, but fatigue affects you in surprising ways. You stay awake for long enough and you will eventually lose your mind to madness. The trail was already cold, there was no point in rushing after them blindly. This forest was dangerous. I would need the others at their best in order for all of us to make it out of here safely. With any luck the curi'nakra would meet their fate in these woods to one of the many predators that lurked in them. I don't think I was going to be that fortunate though.