CHAPTER 341: THE ROAR BENEATH THE TREES

The Roar Beneath the Trees

The sky in the morning was a living canvas.

It oozed orange and gold into pale rose, the colors unfolding broad as if by the hand of a gentle god. At the horizon, fires of light seethed, the initial edge of the sun pushing into the world of waking. Its light crept slumberously over the earth like fire creeping over stone, driving out the lingering sigh of night. A crown of light pushed above the ground, strewing long shadows across the western frontiers of the Starlight Duchy.

Under that shining tapestry, the duchy’s untamed border was still bathed in shadow. An endless forest stretched out of sight, consuming the horizon like a dark sea. Its canopy swept up and unbroken, thickly woven from ancient oaks and black-wood pines with trunks as wide as city towers. Their crowns entwined, a living roof that stifled the light, only letting the thinnest splinters fall through. Moss hung from the branches like tired banners, and air had the keen smell of sap blended with wet earth.

This was no softwood. It was a savage wilderness, raw and unrepentant, leagues in all directions. Thorned bushes clung to the unsuspecting. Dangling vines stretched in coils from the half-light like ambushes of snakes. Dead trees, their corpses abandoned to rot, strewed the ground—each hollowed trunk infested with beetles the size of a man’s hand. From somewhere far within, the unseen creatures’ bellowed calls vibrated, low and deep, too close for comfort. The air stalked of wild rot and damp earth, a location where life and death had long ago mastered sharing the same bed.

Then, the quiet broke.

Crunch.

A strange sound to the rhythm of the forest pierced the darkness. The crunch of metal boots into dead leaves, twigs snapping beneath them, and wood grinding into the earth. The rhythm was determined, metal—a beat that bore the presence of men armed to fight.

They emerged from a wall of vines and brambles. A blackened plate-clad battalion, the steel crested with the silver crescent of the Moonstone Kingdom, half-hidden in a passing cloud. Their armor engulfed the light, dulled and battered for war in the forest. Each soldier advanced with cold deliberation, blades out, the steel whispering softly as it rubbed against their armor with each carefully placed step. Chap leaves crackle under iron heels, the brittle snap of snapped branches ringing off the giant pillars of the trees as the forest itself seemed to shrink back from their approach.

Leading the way was their commander—a giant of a man with the face that war had roughed out and left incomplete. A jagged scar ran from his temple down across his cheek, a souvenir of some fight that hadn’t murdered him but had obviously tried. His face was as unforgiving as the steel he bore, but something restive moved in his eyes. His eyes were keen, scanning the edge of the trees as if he thought the woods themselves were about to attack them.

This was the same general who had just last night stood before the king, challenging the burden of his orders. Here he was now, however, on the kingdom’s eastern border, marching to oversee those same commands being fulfilled. Duty held him more securely than chains ever could.

Behind him, soldiers moved in disciplined cadence. Longswords flashed at their belts, some wore curved sabers, and each step was in perfect rhythm—the march of men who had practiced this step until it was second nature. The cages followed at the end of the column, heavy iron beasts that rattled with each spasmodic lunge from within. The creatures inside snarled, claws scrabbling on bars that rocked under the pressure. War-born beasts, barbarous creatures bred to shed blood, their appetites unmindful if it was soldier or civilian who stood before them.

"Stay formation. Eyes open. The forest listens." His tone was low, but it rode over the whole column, constant as a principle.

The commander moved on, his boots sinking into the wet forest floor. The deeper they traveled, the more the world changed. Shadows fell themselves over the path, wrapping a cloak of half-dusk around the battalion. The soldiers held close in their lines, armor whispering with every movement. Behind them, the beasts became increasingly agitated, guttural growls mounting into savage rattles of metal. Sunshine at last poured above the canopy, shafts of amber light piercing the leaves, striking the armor of the men and bathing them in fire that flashed and was gone.

And then, with one swift motion, the commander lifted his hand.

"Hold," he commanded, the word cutting through the air.

The battalion halted. Metal sounded softly as arms came still and armor settled. He stood at their head in silence, his eyes scanning the trees unflinching. His breath went out of him slow and hard, a quiet that did not quite cover the truth. To anyone who examined him closely, the minute stiffness in his jaw betrayed him—the fleeting, unwilling flick of reluctance that crossed his eyes.

The general’s task was easy on paper, but impossible in the heart: send the beasts of the border into madness—mad enough to crash against enemy lines like a living wave. The brutality of it was that such waves never decided whom they drowned.

He gritted his teeth at the weight of that reality bearing down on him. He desired the enemy crushed, yes, but not at the cost of unleashing savage horrors on villages where simple families resided. The plan wasn’t war; it was strategy masquerading as massacre. He had protested it, begged even, but the king’s seal had drowned out every complaint. His hands were tied by obligation, and on the field of battle, obligation did not concern itself with conscience.

From far back in the woods, the screams of beasts became more keen, nearer. A roar ripped through the silence—a raw, chattering growl that shook the overlying canopy. The sun rising cast shattered light among the leaves, illuminating the moss in molten gold, lovely and deadly at the same time.

The commander leaned his head, listening. The forest was alive, but its beat was off—too quick, too shallow, like something very old had been jarred. His eyes scanned the line of trees, searching for the something that had awakened.

Without turning, he called back over his shoulder to his men. "Has Beta taken position in the city?"

One of the soldiers advanced with silent deference. "Yes, Commander. Beta’s in position. He’s monitoring for Vellore troop movements on the border. He tells us their troops are gathering—they’re lining up for a full advance."

The general nodded once. Beta was his best scout, and if he said the enemy was moving, then it was fact. "Good. Stay here. We wait for the signal, then move in quickly.

He motioned one man closer, speaking softly so the others would not be able to hear. "Stay back. Keep an eye for Beta’s cue on Vellore’s action. The instant it arrives, we go with the plan."

The man nodded, crisp and firm. "Understood."

The soldiers around them adjusted—loosening shoulders, double-checking straps, clutching weapons in fidgety hands. The general moved away, standing at the broad trunk of an oak. He leaned against the bark, his body feeling the spiky roughness push into his spine, and shut his eyes—not in repose, but in seeking. Deep in the dark recesses of his mind, he attempted to cut a course that left the innocents alone. A method of obeying orders without turning into the beast his foes already made him out to be.

The forest did not offer him advice. It replied only through bloodshed.

Then—BOOM.

The noise tore apart the morning air like the heavens themselves were splitting open. The blast echoed through the forest, grim and earsplitting, crashing over the ground with the force of a cannon shot. Birds fled wildly, screaming as they beat upward in a tempest of wings. The shafts of sun that stabbed through the canopy were devoured whole by the sea of flapping wings.

The general’s eyes flew open. Everywhere he looked, soldiers sprang to life, hands clinched around metal, swords in hand and shields raised as reflex propelled them into ranks. The silent camp was no more—eroded by a forest seething with movement, disorder, and fear.

And then came something stranger yet.