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The Eternal Forest

Chapter II

2022 by Zorha

Tapetum lucidum imminente morte

Silva Marciana

41 AD

Garin Odermahn of Tribe Chatti stopped dead in his tracks as a bloodthirsty howl erupted from somewhere out of the inky darkness of the Black Forest. The single file formation of fifty men in front and behind stopped as one. He swept his torch in a slow arc around him, glancing at the other members of his raiding party with a questioning look. The encroaching night around them danced with flickering shadow. The misty forest stood deathly still.

It wasn't unusual to hear a howl in these mountain wilds, but something just seemed off about it. They had been traveling for days now, alongside the Rhenus river, and under cover of the Black Forest, staying just out of sight from the Roman watchtowers dotting the far western banks. Once they reached the thin strip of land between the Rhenus and the Danubius, they would cross into Roman lands and sack the unprotected farms behind the watchtowers and forts of the Limes Germanicus.

They would have forgone the use of torches, but the unending canopy above them swallowed up the silvery light from the Full Moon.

Another howl, this time closer and somehow in the other direction, made the party swivel, the chain mail many of them wore giving off a chorus of soft chinks. On instinct they reached for the weapons hanging off their studded leather belts. Garin readied his hand ax, hand trembling with adrenaline.

Wolves traveled in packs, yes, but these howls seemed coordinated somehow. Someone near Garin cursed and blamed this trick on one of the local tribes. Garin frowned. Despite the Tricoci, Nemeti, and the Vangioni tribes suing for peace with the Roman invaders several generations ago, he had never heard of them using trained wolves in such a dishonorable way.

Someone farther ahead in formation let out a blood curdling scream, but the tangle of hardwoods blocked any sight of his assailant. The torch he carried fell in place. The raiders at the front of the formation lurched forward, but the man was simply gone.

Garin heard a commotion behind him, and those at the formation's end started calling out. Something had happened. Someone had gone missing. But who? He started his way back to help the search when he heard a hard thud. Garin turned. The man who was just behind him laid face down on the ground at the very edge of his torchlight.

He looked up, half dazed, blood oozing from his slack mouth. His green eyes however, were wide in terror.

"Mæn?n Hunðaz!" He spat out. A second later he screamed as something dragged him into the endless dark of the Black Forest, fingers clawing at the earth. A bloody smear coated the leaves of the forest floor; bits of entrails and chunks of visera scraped off on small rocks.

Garin stood there dumbly in shock, mind slow to realize that his party had just been split up.

"Hre?azzz!" One of the elder warriors screamed out. Three groups of ten men understood and immediately made circles, backs to each other. They threw their torches out, drawing the bucklers off their backs and making ready to repel whatever Night Terrors came for them.

The Terrors came for the others first. Fast. Lethal. And without Mercy. Picking off the stragglers, the weak, two at a time. Garin found himself alone, and put his back up against a trunk, ax still at the ready. The forest grew silent aside from the soft hush falling over the three small circles of men. Garin's lungs sucked in anxious air.

They froze as his torch caught the eyeshine of imminent death.It lurched at him, closing the distance with supernatural speed. Garin gave out a warcry and swung, and in the split second the beast was in the torch's pool of radiance, the warrior caught a flurry of sand and stone colored fur, huge claws, and terrible fangs. His fracturing, terrified mind couldnt process anything more.

A terrible jolt rocked him, and his warcry cut off abruptly when he realized he wasn't holding his ax anymore, the ragged stump of his upper wrist spurting blood. He fell to his knees as a black furred Terror barreled into one of the circles some distance away. Garin licked his lips, thirsty all the sudden, and blankly watched in half numb shock and terrified disbelief as the Black Terror tore apart his tribe. It ripped limbs, sometimes entire heads clean away from their shoulders in its huge, terrible jaws.

There was so much blood. So much high pitched screaming. So much death.

The warriors hacked at the beast, and despite its pained yelps, continued its assault. When it was clear that the Sand Terror had started to tear into one of the other bands of men, Garin shakily got to his feet, dropped his torch, and ran to what he hoped was the direction of the Rhenus.

He slipped a few times downhill. Even fell head over heels once or twice in a flurry of leaves and spun dirt. His lungs sucked in desperate air. Garin could only hope that the reckless crash through the forest somehow drew less attention to the dying screams of the doomed men he left far behind. A terrible few minutes later the Full Moon above greeted Garin as he smashed his way through the high vegetation marking the end of the Black forest.

He could see the Roman watchtowers in the distance, their torches rippling in the reflecting waters of the shallow Rhenus. Garin stumbled, fell again, but his panicked mind forced his limp legs onward. Halfway to the river, the maimed man heard a large animal crash through the edge of the forest behind him. He ran. Harder. Lungs seizing now, sides aching.He heard the terrible feet of the beast pounding the hard packed earth now; the almost ecstatic pants of this hunt.

Just as he neared the rushing rivers, the top of his left foot caught a large rock, and Garin fell for the last time, skidding in the sandy shore of the river's bank. He dared a look back. In the silvery light of the Full Moon above, the Sandy Terror stalked him. Slow. Methodical. Savoring this dreadful moment. The unearthly growl it gave tore at Garin's broken mind. Its horrible eyes burned red in the darkest night, following its orders without a shred of mercy.

Without a warning a massive doe ... with horns ... ran between them. Then a huge black wolf. The Sandy Terror stopped, and Garin realized in that moment that the Sandy one that took his hand was also a wolf, just somehow even more massive. In the clear moonlight, the doe stood still, there was no mistake. The doe lacked the essential parts of a buck.The three peculiar animals looked at each other, lingering on for a long, almost otherworldly moonlit moment.

Garin blinked. He used the distraction to claw his way up and into the waist high, chilly water. The sudden splashes broke the mystical parley between the three, and the doe took off with the black wolf just behind. Garin looked back, and the sandy wolf trotted to the edge of the swift current. It paced, as if barred from entering the running water somehow.

Garin heard a shout call out from the closest watchtower, and a moment later an arrow impaled him right through the heart. He froze in the middle of the river, hand dumbly clutching the wooden shaft. He felt his legs give under him, and the churning, dark Rhenus swallowed him.

There were no witnesses. And the Black Forest claimed another secret ...