CHPT 276: The Touch of the Desert, It Starts from Within....

After Rollan's ominous message of things needing to be shown before being told, their journey began without interruption and without pause.

The traversed the vast forest under the setting sun with Rollan spear-heading the journey, moving as if he knew the directions to their location like the back of his hand. Claude wasn't even surprised anymore. After seeing the burning wooden sacrificial sculpture Rollan made, he was sure he'd seen enough to extinguish the feeling of shock from his mind.

And as if the man's sacrifice to the "Queen of Fire and Healing" worked, Claude's back and leg wounds felt like mere scratches compared to the pulsing beacons of agony they once felt like. A good thing too, since the hibernating Berserker he held over his shoulder felt heavier by the day. She was growing....just as he once had.

The realization was both calming and horrifying on a number of levels. Luckily, he didn't have much time to sit within his own mind. The terrain was changing for the first time in miles.

What was once the usual beautiful and vibrant forest full of life and brimming with power had dimmed significantly. The trees darkened, the flowers paled-- even the grass under his pawed feet felt dry-- reminding him of the desert terrain outside. The small change brought new smells along with it that hit his senses soon after.

Scents of old blood, rotting flesh and something burnt. So many other natural scents were missing he felt like his nose was somewhere his eyes weren't. Something was already off, causing him to stop the journey.

"Wait."

Rollan stopped, not bothered with turning and or even responding. He just stood calmly, sniffing and twisting his head while he listened to the forest.

"[Weird...]" Arne commented as Claude crouched down to the floor, setting his steel spear beside him before letting his palms sink into the dry grass beneath this feet. As soon as his eyes shut, the world of natural energy flickered to life like a world of green lanterns under an infinite sea of shadows.

He could've sworn it was his imagination for the most part, but sometimes, the world of green was different to what he expected. Now, it was brighter-- at least in some places. The flames flickered and churned like verdant lava pits of power, pulsing through the ground...up into the blades of grass and monolithic trees or fluffing bushes behind him.

As beautiful as the forest was to his naked eye. Most of what he envisioned was that same way. But up ahead of him, past Rollan and deeper into the changing terrain, it got ugly.

The green fire of nature dimmed, its flames were doused in blacks and purples tendrils that slithered and nipped at everything like the hellish limbs of a squid. Further ahead, there was no green at all. Just black.

He'd seen something similar before....and every fiber of his being recognized that familiarity as well.

"Interesting..."

He was startled out of his green world by Rollan's voice, causing him to open his eyes and find the man turned to face him, looking from his face to his palm in the ground as if he could see.

"I take it you know we're here." Rollan added before straightening himself out with his sword/cane and heading deeper into the tainted forest.

"Where is here?" Claude followed.

"That is for you to discover...and me to clarify. Now, take it all in and tell me what you find..tell me what the forest tells you, Monsieur."

With that, Claude had nothing to do but enter the center of the dark and tainted forest. The trees and grass continued to weaken, the scents of blood and decay grew until he felt like he'd trip over a corpse. But, he kept onward.

He knew it was time to stop when the forest opened up to a clearing, leaving the remains of what looked to be a long gone battle complete with left weapons, tent-like structures and old rotting reserves of partially eaten food. Despite the silence of the area, the Wolves and Gil were on high alert. They felt it as well.

The absolute wrongness of the place.

Claude felt it run along his skin and make his hackles raise to sharp points.

The sight of the first corpse only solidified his thoughts that whatever happened here was truly, truly malicious.

***

He followed Rollan's instruction, cautiously entering the lifeless remains of what was once a grisly battle. Now it was only remnants. Rotting, scorched and ruined remnants.

Straight ahead, the thickest oak tree he'd ever seen exploded from the grass-less ground. It's leafless wooden limbs twisted and snaked overhead, reminded him of the black limbs he saw nipping away at the green flames of nature he imagined within his mind. Only these were worse. Long pink ropes of guts and innards hung and tied around the branches like horrifyingly twisted tree ornaments.

He was at the center.

If he wasn't sure of it already, then he was now due to the rotting body that was pinned to the oak tree by a rusted broadsword, fifteen or so feet above ground. It was man- or humanoid. Too large to be man. At it's back, the bark was scorched to a charred blackness making the body pop more than usual.

At the top of it's head, the pelt of a brown furred feline with inscicors like daggers cast shadows over the patches of missing flesh on it's face that shone a dull shade of red littered with flesh eating bugs and old puss under the setting sun. The same old and infested injuries ran across it's chest and the clean cuts/slices than ran through tanned skin and light fur.

"The work of bladed weapons..." He announced before taking in the fact the only other Centaur he'd seen wearing the pelt of a predator was the Chieftain of the last group he faced. Maybe this one was once a leader of sorts. That only made matters more confusing for one simple fact.

"[Yes, the work of bladed weapons. Yet there's no human footprints.]" Arne added.

"Keep looking.." Rollan said from behind him.

"[Not just with your eyes...]"

Claude let the focus of his sight fade and focused on his strongest sense. He sniffed and inhaled, letting his nose guide his eyes...to the floor.

Below the pinned humanoid Monster, the body of a Horse laid at the base of the tree under the cover of leaves, more bodies circled the tree like a gruesome necklace. Causing him to circle the giant oak and find more pinned upper bodies, dripping old blood down the bark and infested with flies as if they'd been left to rot for weeks.

"Centaurs." A chill ran over his leathery flesh.

"What does the scene tell you, Monsieur? Look elsewhere."

Claude forced himself to turn from the tree lined with corpses and focused on the rest of the clearing.

Tent-like structures were ripped and caved in, smashing the supplies inside to rubble and dying the animal skin walls in blood.

Arne's previous instructions hit him again, leading him over to the closest tent to scent it in better detail.

Behind the almost dizzying cover of blood, other scents came in clearly. Dirt....sweat...fear...and red hot rage made different by the matching scent of something cold and dull-- like sorrow.

"What the hell is that?" He whispered while Frosty and the Phantom Wolves copied him, Gil stayed by the tree growling suspiciously.

"[Rage and grief-- or sorrow. Often scents that combine when someone feels a sense of betrayal.]"

Suddenly many things made sense. The lack of human footprints....the unmoved yet damaged look of the tents.

With his nose painting a picture his eyes couldn't see, his imagination filled in the visual blanks. He could almost see the other Centaurs approaching their sleeping comrades, and ripping into them under the light of the midnight Moon. All the victims could do was recognize that their own flesh and blood had turned on them. At least thats how it looked. But he had no idea why Centaur's would have such grisly internal conflicts.

Rollan's words were beginning to make more sense than ever.

"You know what's happened. Tell me what your superior senses have told you." Rollan announced as he circled the clearing.

Claude looked up from the tents, "They were betrayed by their own..."

"Oui!...They were betrayed. Good, very good."

Rollan's response did nothing for Claude, he had a very different question, "But why? Why aren't they completely united behind the fact that they need to grow in power, increase their numbers and kill humans?"

Rollan chuckled, "You speak as if you read human schoolbooks, Monsieur. Why is that?"

Claude didn't respond.

"The beings of the wild are more than simple directives. I've told you this. But you are partially right....oui, you are. They are lead by the chase for power. But there are many means of attaining power, hm? You question why they turned on each-other. I think you got your answer long before your paws landed in this clearing....."

Claude snarled in anger, hoping his guess was incorrect. But something told him, Frosty and Gil's agitated state wasn't for nothing. They all felt it.

As his mind spun and his anxiety climbed, Rollan continued circling them-- making him feel like his world was actually spinning.

"Come on, Monsieur! Tell me what this is the work of! Tell me so I know I chose the right guardian for my home and the forest...."

His words faded to the back of Claude's mind as his brain worked away at solving the gruesome puzzle laid out before him.

"Many ways to obtain power.....the Centaurs became aware of this. Groups split as different leaders suggested different routes to reaching more power. Tensions rose until they'd made enemies of each-other and betrayed their own. All in search of a power they'd gained in a way in this clearing. A power that drenched nature in dark malice and caused them to rip away at their own family."

His heartbeat hammered in his ears like repeated explosions as Gil snarled and bellowed at the clearing in anger and violent instinct.

"Tell me, Monsieur! Why is it that when if first met you, you smelled of Acrid flames..brimstone and blood. Tell me what it is you saw when you shut your eyes and felt the grass beneath your hands and feet. Tell me what made these Centaurs rip each-other to pieces....and what is the touch of the desert?" When he finished speaking, he landed in front of Claude and looked him straight in the eyes as if he could see. He knew-- just as Claude now did.

"...Demons."