Chapter 3: Shadows in the Wood

Within the mist-cloaked forest, shadows seemed to stir at every turn. Leif's wary eyes scanned his surroundings as he walked, his hands resting lightly on the hilts of his daggers.

A snapping twig drew his attention. He froze, listening intently for any sign of an approach. At first, there was only silence. Then, rustling drew nearer through the underbrush. Leif slowly drew his blades, crouching into a defensive stance.

A doe emerged into a small clearing, nibbling idly on foliage. Leif exhaled softly, slipping his daggers back into their sheaths. Yet unease still clung to him like the morning mist. This forest seemed to harbor nameless threats beneath its boughs.

A glint among the trees suddenly caught his eye. He crept closer, his senses on high alert. Through the mist, specters seemed to float between the trunks. Their shapes twisted and reformed in the gloom, at times resembling known spirits, others something terribly...

As Leif watched, the apparitions drew closer to one another, wispy hands gesturing as if in speech. Their faces, mere shrouds of fog, turned toward him. Flickers within the mist seemed to form the barest mockery of eyes, which bored into his own. A hissing whisper stole through the clearing like a cold draft, raising the hairs on Leif's neck.

He had found no answers here. Only deeper mysteries lurk in the shadows of this unfamiliar wood. Leif prowled after the glimpsed movement, feet soundless on the forest floor. As a hunter served him well, now unseen, swirling whispers stirred the mist.

His quarry slipped between the trees like a darting moonglow, now nearer yet always eluding the eye. Leif followed their darting flight, senses straining for any clue amid the enshrouding fog.

The specters vanished into a denser patch of wood. Leif crept forward, one hand on his hilt. Then a frenzied rustling erupted ahead, closer than expected. He dove aside just as a pale shape burst from the undergrowth, raking empty air with ragged claws.

More ghostly forms swarmed from the brush with shrill cries, pouncing at some threat unseen. Their wild flailing revealed gnarled limbs and tattered hides that seemed like no creature of flesh. Fighting the urge to withdraw his blade, Leif watched their panic with cool eyes, noting each unnatural detail.

Some unseen presence drew nearer, and the phantoms scattered before it, keening in a voice like knives on bone. Their flocking flight receded into silence, leaving Leif alone once more amid the riddle of this veiled forest and its nightmarish hidden truths. Leif turned slowly, hackles rising at the encircling laughter. Through the mist stepped familiar faces from Odin's Fjord, neighbors dead years past in raids or winter's bite.

They grinned with rotting jaws as fires once more lit their homes, none hindered by the wounds that had felled them. Children chased, shrieking through the fog, vanishing where broken limbs should bar their play.

"Leif, come join the feast!" called old Bjorn, brandishing an axe that had cloven his skull. "Drink and be merry with us once more!"

Dark mirth shook the circle as Leif recoiled, hands falling to absent weapons. These were no draugrs stumbling from barrows; their false lives crackled with malign will.

A wail rose from the apparitions, faces twisting into mockery of the living. Black flames engulfed them, swallowing flesh and bone till nothing remained but echoing laughter in the wind.

Silence fell slowly in the wake of that dark mirth, yet still its memory lingered as Leif turned once more into the shrouded depths of this drear wood, and deeper mysteries yet to be unveiled. Leif emerged silently from the forest's edge, finding Brother Tomas and a handful of monks leaning on staves around the campsite. At his approach, they turned alert eyes upon him.

Without preamble, Leif recounted all that he had witnessed in those haunted woods—the wraithlike forms, their panicked flight, the village risen as a foul mockery. The monks listened gravely, exchanging troubled glances.

"These are no mere spirits you have disturbed," said Tomas when Leif had finished. "Demons stalk these lands, appearing like dead people to serve their dark designs."

The others nodded solemnly. "We have sensed their taint spreading and feared what form it might take. Now it seems they have grown bold, posing as ancestral guides to mislead defenders of the old faith."

"We must go forth at once and counter this evil," declared Tomas, rising. "If left unchecked, these demons will sow madness and violence as they have elsewhere."

The monks took up their staves and symbols of office. At their lead, Leif re-entered the wood, eyes and senses keen once more for any sign of the phantoms or the greater threat behind their guise. The small fire cracked merrily in the forest clearing. Leif's comrades sat close, sharing tales of home to lift weary spirits.

A sudden snarl pierced the easy talk. All turned as one of the men, Erik, leapt upon his friend Haldor with eyes gone mad. Erik's fingers found Haldor's throat, throttling with savage fury.

Leif sprang to aid, but a steely grip seized his wrist—Friar Tomas, calm despite the fury before them. The monk interposed his wood-carved staff between the attackers.

At its touch, Erik shrieked as if burned, clawing at his face. His features warped like melting wax, twisting into a rictus hardly human. Foul words bubbled from his contorting mouth.

With a feral howl, Erik broke free of Tomas's ward and fled, screeching into the dark forest. An silence followed, broken only by Haldor's rasping coughs as he clutched his bruised neck, wide eyes fixed on the spot where his friend had stood altered. , "This shadow has spread far," said Tomas grimly. "The demons infect men's souls to spread havoc and theft."

He turned to Leif and the others with a flinty gaze. "We must seek the root of this malice before all are corrupted. Their works sow fear and division; we must plant the seeds of fellowship and bravery instead."

One of the monks nodded. "Only by understanding the demons' aims can we defeat them. What purpose drives their possession of the living?"

"They wish to claim this land and people," Tomas replied. "By twisting memory and relationship, hope and resolve break down until none are left to stand against the darkness. We shall track their movements on the morrow to discern their designs and means of attack."

He turned to Leif. "Your skills as a hunter may prove vital to our mission. Will you aid us in this work and protect your fellow men from the snares of the unseen?"After a moment, Leif met the guide's steady gaze and nodded once in resolve. The fight to save these souls had begun. Leif stepped into the mist-wreathed clearing at daybreak, alone, as planned. He fashioned signs with stones and runes to draw evil eyes, then waited with a bare blade in hand. Unease coiled in his gut but was released with a warrior's breath.

The forest held its breath. Leif listened, watched, and became one with the wood. Then...voices crawling over skin, sibilant whispers in dead tongues, promising blood sacrifice. Dark forms materialized between tree trunks, ghosting nearer on skeletal legs. Malevolent glee emanated from their drifting shapes.

Leif stood fast, observing. A towering specter appeared, seemingly made of living shadows, and beckoned with a clawed hand. He felt nameless terror latch onto his bones, yet, through force of will, he resisted its hold. The demon's form rippled, contorting with alien wrath.

It lunged to snare his mind's defenses in its clutches. Leif whipped the dagger forth, and the demon reeled howling from the cold iron's touch, but others closed in from the tree line. Facing an army of nightmares, Leif at last grasped the true power of these foes. Whether the blade alone could vanquish them remained to be seen.