Chapter Fourteen: The Forest of the Dead

The land spoke in murmurs.

Long before the trees thickened and the light dimmed, the ground beneath Ethan's boots changed. It no longer felt like soil, but something older—packed with centuries of rot, grief, and blood. Even the wind refused to blow here. It hovered still, like a breath held too long.

The Forest of the Dead.

The name had been whispered for generations. A place not merely abandoned,but warned against. Once a holy glade for druids and old witches, it had been cursed during the Blood Night Wars, when something unspeakable had been buried beneath its roots.

And now, Ethan needed to enter it.

Rufik walked beside him, already half-shifted, his eyes gold and wary. Behind them, three wolves from his own pack stalked silently, their ears twitching at every creak of bark and shuffle of dead leaves.

Helena moved just behind them, her cloak tattered, her breath rattling. She hadn't fully recovered since the battle in Narnish. Still, she came. "The blade lies beyond the Obsidian Hollow," she whispered, voice rough. "But if you feel something watching you… don't stop walking."

Ethan didn't reply. His jaw was tight. He had no intention of stopping.

But they never made it to the Hollow.

----

It started with the birds.

A sudden flurry of wings erupted from the trees ahead. Black shapes screeched skyward, forming a ragged spiral, before vanishing into the colorless sky. The pack froze, instinct drawing claws and shifting spines.

"Something's close," Rufik growled.

A new smell rose,sharp, coppery, wrong.

Blood.

Then the scream.

It didn't sound human. It didn't sound animal either. It rang through the trees, vibrating the very marrow in their bones. Helena dropped to her knees, clutching her head. The youngest of the wolves, Karo, whimpered, half-fallen behind a dead log.

And then the fog rolled in.

Not mist. Not smoke.

But fog,thick, oily, greenish, coiling like serpents around their ankles.

"Back to back!" Ethan barked, claws forming from his hands, even as he stayed in his human shape. His vampire blood pulsed, lending speed to his limbs. He didn't need full form now,he just needed precision.

The trees moved.

No… not the trees.

The things that hung from them.

Figures—dozens—suspended by vines or sinew or something worse. Corpses, eyeless and twisted, their mouths stitched with black wire. They began to twitch, as if hearing a music none of the living could perceive.

Karo broke formation.

"Don't!" Rufik shouted, too late.

The boy ran toward one of the hanging bodies—his sister.

Or what looked like her.

Ethan darted after him, vampire speed blurring his body. He leapt just as the corpse opened its mouth,revealing rows of thorn-like teeth and a tongue like black moss.

Karo screamed.

Ethan grabbed him mid-lunge, twisted, and landed hard,but safely—on the dirt. Behind them, the false corpse shrieked and burst into ash.

Illusions. Crafted by something ancient.

"What are we dealing with?" Rufik demanded, slashing at the fog.

Helena was pale, trembling. "They guard the blade. The dead that never died. Souls bound by Strahen's hand during the war. He made deals in the underworld… and they live on as his heralds."

A new sound came then.

A heartbeat.

Loud. Slow. Like the forest itself had a pulse.

From between two trees stepped something… immense.

It had no face. No eyes. Just an antlered skull floating above a mass of shadow and stretched limbs. Chains hung from its shoulders, rattling as it moved. In its chest burned a dim red glow,something imprisoned inside.

"The Harbinger," Helena said, nearly choking. "It guards the Hollow."

Ethan stepped forward, half-turned. His claws glinted. His muscles rippled beneath skin. His eyes burned with silver-red fire. "We fight."

And the forest erupted.

The corpses descended from the trees,clawing, biting, howling like the damned. The fog thickened. Shapes ran through it—some humanoid, others not.

Ethan didn't shift fully—he didn't need to.

He was faster this way.

He moved like lightning,claws raking through flesh and bone, leaping from one foe to the next. He ducked, spun, dragged Karo away from a creature with no head, then drove his claws into its back and pulled out what passed for a spine.

Rufik roared, now a towering wolf-beast. He ripped one of the tree-bound horrors clean in half.

But it reformed.

"We can't kill them all!" he barked.

"I'm not trying to kill them," Ethan said. "I'm trying to get us through!"

Helena's voice rose in chant. The ground shimmered with glyphs. But the Harbinger was already moving.

It stepped into the circle of their battle—and all sound died.

Ethan couldn't breathe.

Its presence pressed down on him like a hundred hands.

He lunged anyway.

Claws met shadow.

Pain shot through his arm. The Harbinger's chains whipped out, seizing Rufik and flinging him like a ragdoll into a tree. Ethan leapt again, this time faster—using vampire speed to circle the monster, slashing at its limbs. He struck its burning chest,his claws glanced off metal.

No effect.

It turned.

A whisper entered Ethan's mind.

"You are not yet worthy."

The chains came again.

Ethan caught one mid-air. Its weight like iron forged in hell. It yanked him off his feet and slammed him into the ground.

Darkness flickered at the edges of his sight.

They were losing.

Helena's voice shattered the stillness. "I summon the seal of flame!"

The glyph beneath them blazed white.

A shockwave burst outward,blinding.

The Harbinger reeled.

The pack scrambled to their feet, dragging each other out of the circle.

The forest screamed in pain.

But the Hollow was still distant.

The blade was still beyond reach.

Ethan looked back once,as the Harbinger disappeared into the mists again, chains dragging behind like funeral bells.

Helena collapsed in his arms.

"We can't go on," Rufik said, limping.

Ethan nodded grimly. "We regroup. We find another way. The blade isn't for us. Not yet."

Thunder cracked overhead.

And the trees whispered:

"Not yet. But soon."