The Forest of Kalneria

The scorching midday sun beat down on the exposed dirt roads. In that heat, the multiple layers of clothing required beneath armour seemed to weigh twice as much with every step she took under the sun.

Sweat streamed down her forehead and neck and ran along her back, soaking through her clothes. The young elf was tired, thirsty, and overheated, but she still had not found anywhere to rest.

Throughout all the miles she had travelled, she had encountered nothing but sun, dirt, and young trees whose meagre shade offered little chance of relief.

Leyade took out her map and compass and checked the direction she was heading.

“It doesn't look like I've got much farther to go,” she said with a nod. “Unfortunately, once I reach the forest, I won't be able to use the map. Kalneria has never been properly mapped... I wonder why.”

Once she had confirmed her bearings, she continued along the path.

About an hour later, through the blinding sunlight, she finally saw an enormous forest spreading across the plain in the distance.

“There it is!” she exclaimed, her spirits lifting. “The forest of Kalneria!”

Relieved, she quickened her pace as much as she could until she finally stepped beneath the trees.

The change in temperature was immediate.

The great branches overhead, thick with leaves, blocked out the sun. A gentle breeze stirred Leyade's hair and slipped beneath her clothes, gradually drying the sweat from her skin. The air was cool and slightly damp.

She closed her eyes and breathed deeply.

The fresh, humid air filled her lungs, bringing relief from the dry, oppressive heat of the road.

Slowly, she followed the soft paths of fine sand and grass winding through the forest. With renewed energy, she began looking for somewhere comfortable to rest.

The farther she walked, the thicker the vegetation became.

Brightly coloured flowers crowded the edges of the paths. She recognised some of them—foamflowers, poppies, irises—but many others were completely unfamiliar or known to her only from illustrations in books.

Some had broad iridescent petals that gleamed beneath the sunlight. Others, black as night, nestled in hollows between the roots, while snow-white blossoms grew high among the branches. There were transparent flowers visible only when the light shone through them, and even others that floated above the paths.

Fascinated, Leyade stopped from time to time to study the unfamiliar flowers, sketching them and noting everything she could discover about them.

Then she continued onwards, carefully brushing aside the vegetation in her path.

Among a cluster of dark green bushes, she spotted several healthy-looking medicinal plants. Taking advantage of the discovery, she stopped to gather some for the journey.

She never knew when she might need them.

To Leyade, the forest was unlike anything she had ever seen.

“How strange...” she murmured, pulling her cloak more tightly around her neck. “The temperature has dropped so much...”

Leyade looked up.

Without realising it, she had wandered beneath a canopy so dense that the sky had disappeared entirely.

The leaves had become longer and broader, and the thick branches stretching from tree to tree had gradually covered the sky and plunged the forest into shadow, lowering the temperature along with it.

She looked around.

The trees were now far thicker and taller than before, their crowns much denser. She would have guessed that many of them easily stood more than twenty metres high.

She had no idea when the landscape had changed so dramatically.

It had happened so gradually that she had barely noticed.

She leaned against a trunk covered in damp moss.

After gathering some fallen leaves and small branches from the ground, she dug a shallow hole, placed stones around its edge, and put the dry material inside. Then she used her flint to light the tinder and started a small fire.

“I think I'll rest here before I keep going,” she said to herself as she removed her backpack and leaned it against a moss-covered rock.

Leyade sat down and rested her back against what looked like one of the tree trunks. She turned her head to make sure there was no resin that might stick to her clothes.

Then she looked more closely.

Her eyes widened.

It was not a trunk.

It was an enormous root.

For a few seconds, she stared at it in confusion.

Then she glanced at the gigantic trees surrounding her and decided it actually made perfect sense.

Trees that large needed roots to match.

Still, she could not help finding it funny that everything around her had somehow grown to enormous proportions without her even noticing.

It almost felt as though the forest itself were laughing at her.

The young elf carefully unhooked Kalindra from her belt and studied it for a few moments.

The firelight glimmered across the metal of the hilt, tinting the leaves of the vines carved into it a deep, fiery red.

Leyade gripped the sword firmly in both hands, nodded to herself, then laid it across her legs.

She leaned forward, reached into her backpack, and pulled out a piece of cloth the people of her village had given her to barter with if necessary.

Using it, she carefully wrapped the sword's blade and secured the fabric with a leather strip and a safety pin to keep it protected.

Once she was satisfied it was firmly in place, she set Kalindra beside her and prepared something to eat.

After resting for a while, she smothered the fire with dirt and filled in the small hole she had dug, taking care to leave the place as she had found it.

Then she picked up Kalindra, fastened it to her belt again, put on her backpack, and continued on her way.

Leyade took out her compass to get her bearings among the trees.

The sky was still completely hidden, so she could no longer use the sun's position as a guide. She estimated the time of day and tried to remember where she had last seen the sun before checking the compass.

The needle spun for several moments before pointing north.

“Hmm?”

Leyade tilted her head.

“I could have sworn I came in from the north...”

She looked around, then checked the compass again.

The needle insisted that north lay in the opposite direction.

Leyade searched her surroundings for some sign that she had made a mistake.

“Did I lose track of where I was while studying the flowers...?” she murmured, turning around.

The floating flowers drifted gently nearby.

Leyade followed the path in the direction indicated by the compass. It twisted through narrow spaces between the immense trunks, and more than once she had to remove her backpack just to squeeze between them.

The farther she went, the more unsettling the forest began to feel.

There was no sound except the soft breeze through the leaves, her own footsteps, and the rustle of her clothes as she squeezed through the narrow gaps.

“How strange... I haven't seen a single animal,” she said.

Still thinking about it, she jumped over one of the roots.

When she landed on the other side, she looked down.

The path was gone.

Leyade walked into the centre of the small clearing ahead and stopped to consider her options.

She examined the ground and the spaces between the trees for signs of wildlife: tracks, disturbed soil, crushed leaves... Nothing.

Puzzled, she looked up towards the canopy.

“With trees this tall and foliage this thick... climbing probably wouldn't let me see much.”

She rested one hand against her chin and checked the compass again.

Her brow furrowed.

“What is going on...? I'm facing the wrong direction again. Now I'm facing west.”

Frustrated, she put the compass away.

“I'll have to do this the old-fashioned way.”

She took out a small knife and carved a mark into the nearest tree.

Then she stood completely still.

Leyade brushed her hair away from her ears and listened. She needed to hear the forest.

The absence of animals could mean that a large predator had driven them away, perhaps even disturbing the normal habits of the rest of the wildlife.

She heard the breeze brushing past her ears and tugging at her clothes. She heard it whistle between the branches and stir the leaves until they scraped softly against one another.

She could even hear the beating of her own heart and the sound of her breathing.

But despite her sharp elven senses, she could detect nothing else.

Leyade carefully scanned her surroundings.

Nothing appeared disturbed.

No branches broken by heavy footsteps.

No claw marks in the bark.

No scraps of fur caught against the wood.

She sighed and shook her head.

“I don't know what's happening, but I'd better keep moving before night falls,” she thought.

Leyade studied the different routes ahead.

One was almost completely covered in roots, which would make walking difficult.

Another seemed straighter, but farther ahead she could make out a steep drop.

Finally, a gentle slope rose from the clearing.

It seemed easy enough to climb.

She chose that one.

Yet the farther she went, the steeper it became.

“For goodness' sake... I should have taken the path with the roots.”

Soon the incline grew so sharp that Leyade had to grab one of the rocks jutting from the surface and pull herself upwards.

It no longer felt like climbing a hill.

It felt like scaling the side of a mountain.

She looked up.

The wall stretched beyond what she could see.

Then she looked down.

She had not climbed so high that turning back would be impossible.

“I think I'd better go down a little and get my climbing gear out...”

Suddenly, the stones beneath her hands began to vibrate.

“An earthquake?”

Leyade looked around.

The trembling intensified.

The ground shook, and stones and branches began sliding down from above.

She pressed herself tightly against the surface to avoid being struck.

“What's happening?!”

The earth suddenly cracked around her.

Part of the surface broke loose and, before Leyade's eyes, the hill began to move.

“I-it's moving...?”

The ground beneath her continued rising.

“NO! THE HILL IS GETTING UP!”

The entire slope trembled.

Dirt and small stones rained down around Leyade, striking her backpack, head, and hands.

“I have to get out of here!”

Cracks spread rapidly across the surface towards her.

The rocks she clung to began coming loose as everything shook beneath her.

“I have to hurry. I'm running out of time.”

Leyade wedged the toe of one boot into a crack forming beneath her.

She bent her other leg towards her chest and tightened her grip on the rock above, searching for somewhere she could move.

“There!”

She pushed with all her strength and jumped.

Her hands caught a root protruding higher up just as the place where she had been standing moments earlier disappeared into one of the widening cracks.

“That was close!”

She hauled herself onto the root, escaping much of the falling dirt and debris.

Once she had steadied herself, she sat down and tried to understand what the hell was happening.

“Kalindra!”

Alarmed, she immediately reached for her belt.

The sword was still there.

Undamaged.

Leyade let out the breath she had been holding.

“What the hell is going on?” she gasped. “There aren't supposed to be earthquakes in this area!”

She looked around.

Carefully, she shuffled along the root until she reached the end where it emerged directly from the wall.

She placed one hand against the surface and looked down.

The ground was moving farther and farther away.

Now genuinely frightened, Leyade quickly looked upwards again.

The enormous leaves above parted in front of her like a beaded curtain, revealing flashes of orange light beyond.

Some of the branches supporting those leaves snapped and fell onto the rising hill.

Leyade jerked backwards, narrowly avoiding being dragged away with them—or worse, losing her balance and becoming part of the landslide herself.

“What the hell is this?!”

Nervous, she tried to stand on the root and peer farther ahead.

Her hands searched along the wall until they found a small opening.

“All right... I think I can fit.”

She pushed one hand through.

Then her head.

“Damn it! I can't fit properly with the backpack,” she complained while trying to pull herself through.

“No, I'm stuck... Maybe if I do this...”

Leyade planted both feet against the root and pushed hard.

“Aaah!”

With one final effort, she shot forward far enough to get her head through the opening...

A completely different landscape stretched before her.

The treetops were almost level with her, and from there she could finally see part of the sky, already stained with the purple and blue shades of evening.

Then she looked down.

She regretted it immediately.

She was so high above the ground that she could not even see it beyond the dense web of leaves and branches beneath her.

Leyade quickly looked away, trying not to think about the fact that she was more than 65 feet above the forest floor.

She wriggled awkwardly until she managed to free one arm from the opening.

Blindly, she grabbed onto a nearby protrusion.

It was soft.

And strangely textured.

Almost like the fine filaments that covered certain types of mould.

Fighting back a shiver of disgust and refusing to look at it, Leyade pulled herself farther out.

Below her was another, longer protrusion that seemed wide enough to stand on.

She freed her other arm, grabbed the same surface, and pushed with her legs until she finally managed to squeeze through the opening and climb onto it.

It felt exactly like whatever she had grabbed earlier.

Leyade edged forward, keeping one hand against the wall for balance.

The entire surface was covered in the same strange little hairs.

She let go for a moment, visibly disgusted, and looked at her glove.

Nothing.

Then she turned back towards the wall and leaned closer.

“What is this...?”

She studied it for a few seconds.

“Is it mould...? No... mould isn't this colour.”

Leyade hesitantly touched it again with her gloved hand.

“With the glove on, I should be fine...” she murmured, thinking about the possibility that it might be poisonous.

She covered her mouth and nose with her cloak and slowly brushed her hand across the surface.

“No spores... It doesn't leave anything behind except dirt, and... does it look tousled?”

Confused, Leyade grabbed a handful of the strange fibres.

They were covered in dirt, moss, and tiny stones.

They were also firmly rooted.

She pulled harder.

Eventually, several strands came free.

“This is...”

A deafening sound thundered around her.

The surface beneath her feet suddenly lurched, making Leyade stumble and nearly fall.

“Aaah!”

She grabbed tightly onto the strange fibres.

Then she noticed something enormous moving towards her.

Startled, she stumbled backwards and squeezed into a tunnel-like opening behind her.

From there, she watched it approach.

“But what...?”

An enormous claw suddenly slammed down onto the ledge where she had been standing moments earlier.

It dug into the surface and dragged back and forth several times as though scratching an itch.

Then it withdrew.

Leyade stared open-mouthed as the gigantic limb moved away.

When she finally reacted, she rushed out of the tunnel and leaned around the wall to follow it with her eyes.

Then she saw it.

The claw belonged to a gigantic arm that rose towards an enormous shoulder coated in dirt and rocks that were gradually falling away.

Beyond the shoulder, the body continued upwards into a thick, powerful neck covered in branches, moss, and earth.

And that neck ended precisely where Leyade was standing.

“It can't be...” she whispered.

She looked down at what she had pulled free moments earlier, still clutched between her gloved fingers.

To her dismay, she finally understood what it was.

It was fur.