The Evil Thing of The Forest

If It Were Only A Dragon [Chapter 17]

By the time I advised the others of our chore, twilight was already upon us. Eriques, Farvin, and I moved to the north edge of town where the farmland ended and the deep dark of the forest took over. The old man had pointed us in this direction, following the signs of fallen paddock walls and animal prints in the mud.

The torches burned bright with an oily odor. They cast strange shadows through the underbrush and trees. The moon showed itself occasionally through the canopies above, but it was up to the artificial light itself to guide our feet forward.

“Do not think anything of this question, but…” Eriques drew out his words. I was already thinking many things before his question came to light. “If these animals are really getting… messed with… What is it about animals that… people would dare to… I don’t know… try…to…”

“We shall not entertain anything you are imagining, nor try to think of it,” I rebuked.

I could see Farvin’s face in the torchlight, undoubtedly agreeing with me. “All I can say is, don’t try anything with a horse. They can kick hard, even when you’re trying something completely innocent.”

The silence of the night took over once again, luckily. It almost allowed me to concentrate on my footing in the dark and to look for any signs of animal tracks there in the soft soil.

“A hen is too light to leave footprints, but it should be easy to recognize the foot of a pig or cow, I assume?” I glanced back at Farvin, nodding.

“Aye. They have cloven feet. Two long hoof prints.”

Our torches danced about, dodging the low vines and scraggly bushes and avoiding setting each other on fire.

“Mushrooms,” Eriques noted as we passed an old tree stump growing with deep-colored fungus.

“Not what we’re looking for,” I hissed back.

“No, but think of them,” he insisted, catching up little by little. “Some are poisonous, no?”

“Ones growing out here maybe,” Farvin said with a bit of warning in his voice.

“Yes, but how would one know?” My squire insisted. “Did someone dare to try every single mushroom? Maybe trick their friends into consuming an unknown one?”

“You could… eat just a bit and see if it makes ya’ upchuck,” Farvin suggested.

“Animals, people,” I jerked back, waving the hot torch in their faces. “We are looking for signs of animals out here.”

“Ah, animals,” Eriques nodded. “You could see which ones animals like to eat.”

The cold night and thrilling conversation were interrupted by a shriek, freezing us in place and leaving our ears buzzing.

Eriques nearly dropped his torch and hissed lowly. “What in the heavens was that?”

“An animal suffering at the hands of a fiend!” Farvin mumbled back.

I turned back and held my finger to my mouth. “We must be near. Eriques, let us practice keeping our voices within our heads. We do not wish to alert whatever awaits us.”

Before we could proceed, a shrill voice traveled throughout the forest, seemingly from everywhere but also nowhere.

“Who dares enter this forest? And dirty, filthy, precocious humans at that!”

“Show yourself!” I called out to the nothingness.

Eriques tugged on my cuff. “We should come back with more of the others. Or even in the morning.”

I shook him off. “Leave the others to rest. After all, if we are to take on a dragon, anything else should pale in comparison. This is no more than trickery to frighten us off! Come!”

I shifted the torch into my other hand and extracted my sword from its sheath. We traveled onward together, torches forward. Eriques watched our back, constantly jumping at every little sound.

“Leave this place!” The voice shrieked again. The wind blew through the trees, rattling the vines and threatening to extinguish the torches.

“Never!” I shouted back. I leaned into the wind, but it was blowing even harder than ever. I began to fall. I prioritized not landing on my sword and threw the sputtering torch to the side. I ended up on my knees, the other two clinging to nearby trees. The light of the flames was dying.

The wind suddenly ceased. My hair fell back across my forehead.

“We need to pull back,” Eriques begged, nose turned up to the wind. “What is that stench, though?”

The odor of something sweet had come our way across the wind, finding its way into my nostrils. I tried to stand but my body was suddenly heavy. My eyelids too. I tried to crawl toward the smoldering torch, but my consciousness failed.

---

When I opened my eyes once more, the early morning light had come upon the forest. It had been too dark to figure out if we were heading the correct way. My sword, too, was nowhere within my reach. And with that realization, I noticed that neither of my allies were nowhere to be seen.

I forced myself up. My body felt like thousands of pounds, and my knees could barely bend. My feet sank into the soft soil. I trudged forward, steadying myself on my two front hoofs. I tried to call out for my squire.

“Moo! Moo!”

No response.

The lingering mosquitos buzzed around my face. I let out a low, moist huff with my nose and swatted with my tail, thin and lithe and perfect for keeping the bugs at bay. The hunger pains from not eating the night before caught up with me.

The grass was far too sparse and dull to entice me, as much as I hungered. But I remembered the other bounty of the forest, its mushrooms. They grew around the bases and up the sides of trees, spreading open to take in the morning dew.

I lowered my head and munched at the nearest tender fungi, moving my jaw back and forth little by little until what remained was a thin paste. Guided by my hunger, I trudged forward, biting off what I could.

Then the uneasy sensation came, like a strike of lightning to my stomach. I retched forward, expelling any remains of the earthy, slimy meal and onto the ground. I found myself not on hoofs, but on my curled-up hands, grabbing at the soil. I leaned into a tree trunk and forced myself up, wiping my mouth.

A delighted squeal sounded off in the distance. It had a clear source, unlike the voice from the night before. I ran off after it, working through the fatigue. “Get back here! It is just an illusion.”

I noticed the flash of clothing through the trees and heard the cracking of branches. I lowered myself and crept forward. Sure enough, Eriques was on all fours, rear-end to the sky, snuffling at the dirt at the base of a tree. Whatever instincts he had were clearly heightened.

He perked his head up suddenly, jerking his head back my way. I made eye contact with him through the underbrush. Before I could say something to knock him out of the daze, he sprinted off, faster than any human on four limbs should have been able. I ran and scrambled the best I could after him, calling his name.

I soon caught up with him on a cramped path that was probably used by actual animals. He kept glancing back, continually pouncing up and down on all fours. I stumbled but was able to keep up, slowly gaining. He began to squeal, a frightened, determined screech. His final glance back was his downfall, causing him to run head-first into a tree and flip over himself forward.

I knelt on his chest with my knee in case he wasn’t knocked out of it.

“No, no, no!” He voiced with his human words and animalistic terror in his eyes. “Don’t you dare! Keep it in your pants! Don’t get any ideas!”

I slapped him across the face for good measure. “Knock it off! It’s over! Get a hold of yourself!”

“Gladius?” He said, finally relaxing, arms held tight to my knee.

I huffed and breathed hard and wiped my mushroom vomit-stained face once more. “Who else would be running after you here in the woods? I mean, probably lots of things.”

“Oh, Glad, I had the worst dream,” he said, dramatically draping his hand over his face. “I dreamt… that I was a little piggy with little piggy paws and snout, just enjoying the mushrooms of the forest. But then you showed up and… and… you were chasing me and… you were going to do unmentionable things to me! To my little piggy behind!”

“Yes, well, it seems we were hit with some sort of illusion,” I said, lifting myself up and off my squire.

“An illusion? What sorcery—“

“Don’t say it,” I interrupted, patting the dirt off the both of us. “We have to still find Farvin. And then find out whatever created this livestock illusion.”

Somehow I managed to retrace our steps. I found my sword first, not far from the collection of long burned-out torches. The squire and I patrolled the immediate area for our comrade. Eriques eventually called out to me.

“I have him here!”

When I arrived at my squire’s side, there was nobody else to be seen, at least until he pointed a finger up to a nearby tree. I hoisted Eriques up until he could grab Farvin’s legs up on the horizontal branch and dislodge him from his perch.

The easterner tumbled into some brush, squawking for a little while before sitting up, rubbing at the back of his head. “Oh dear.”

“You’re fine?” I asked, crouched down before him.

“What a… freeing experience.”

“Perfect, great,” I said with a sigh. “Well, now that we’re back in our right minds, let’s find out who or what did this.”

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