Inheritance

Month 1- Week 3

The Horde – Hive Territory

If he was going to have to make a decision of whether to struggle onward or back the way he had come, the choice seemed clear to Kron. His orders were to find things that were strange, out of the ordinary. This certainly seemed to meet those criteria. Straining past crystalline ice-encrusted branches, Kron forged on, twigs scratching his face, brambles jumping out from empty air to gouge at his eyes, vines and roots sprung newly to life to trip his feet and clutch at his ankles.

Kron pushed on the forest, and the forest pushed back. When he realized he was struggling with the living trees as if they were an opponent, the large Orc experienced a moment of temporary shock. His whole body turned still and numb. And with his cessation of struggle, so too did the…thicket…or whatever it was he was caught in, cease its efforts. The gentle swaying of the trees and brush in the breeze returned to its completely ordinary appearance.

This was new. How was he to get free if every movement he made was countered? Was it only if he moved forward? Experimentally he leaned back against the wall of vegetation behind him. No, there was no give there. It was all movement at this point. Some enchanted or magical thing had caught him securely in its grasp. Stories from his childhood sprang to mind that such things could be good, or malign, or neither; but they always punished those who did not respect their territory. Feeling like an idiot but seeing no other way out he hung his head and sighed.

“I don’t suppose you’d let me go if I asked nicely and assured you that I mean you and this place no harm?” It seemed so natural, yet as he watched there was a shift in the slowly moving greenery before him, the undulations caused by the wind gradually showed that there was an opening now where there had been none before. A path leading down to the streambank and dappled sunlight.

The bank was strewn with rocks, varying in size from the larger boulders just upstream which formed a mini waterfall to pebbles smaller than the pad of his thumb. At the water’s edge, coarse sand of tinier pebbles whorled along the clay soil that lined the watercourse. And just before the little waterfall the clay arced charmingly over the stream capped by a bright green carpet of some moss-like growth that dropped trailing tendrils into the stream below. Said tendrils waved lazily at him from the slow-flowing clear liquid while small fish darted among them.

Despite the…interesting nature of how he had arrived here, Kron didn’t want to just trust this water from an unknown source. Upstream then. It would have to be as there was no path back the way he had come, and the endless dark tunnel of trees framing the downstream direction and surrounded by impenetrable walls of forest seemed uninviting somehow. Quirking his lips into a wry grin over his tusks, the Orc turned upstream toward the brighter light of open sunshine.

There was a clearing ahead…and flowers, he could smell them now, the faint honey scent that underlaid their sweet nectar and powdery pollen wafting toward him. And water. The stream was quieter up ahead so it must be near the source, or at least slowing flowing, less likely to have debris. No one liked grit in their drinking water, did they? And it seemed whatever entity had led him to this place agreed. Why else would the way to the source be so much more inviting?

With the fatalistic unconcern of one who knows that his right to life could be revoked any day, Kron took the offered path toward the rivulet’s source. After all, it wasn’t like he had any magic. He didn’t possess any kind of magic. And it was his job to patrol this area. Might as well do it on a lovely path.

The water’s source was a large pool surrounded by a small meadow full of wildflowers. Clear as glass and reflecting the blue of the sky it was equally appealing for a swim as for nourishment. Kneeling, he filled his waterskin, keeping his attention on the surrounding woods. There was no way out of this lovely place other than what it permitted.

Standing back, he took a drink and replaced the water skin on his belt to unroll the map he’d been given. Kron was fairly certain he was still within Orc territory. If his memory served, he hadn’t passed any of the landmarks which delineated the end of his designated area of surveillance. Spreading the leather roll out, he smoothed the edges of the map against a rock and tilted his head out of the way to get direct light on his map.

It should be relatively easy to determine where he was since he had such a significant landmark to locate himself with. He’d also taken a fairly straight path from his Hive so it shouldn’t be terribly difficult. It was as he reviewed the map that he figured out exactly what the wrongness was that he had been sensing since finding the stream. There was no stream on the map. A map which he had been assured was completely accurate as of the day before.

“I see.” So. The map wouldn’t be able to help him find a way out of this. Could it perhaps be a trick played on him by Krol? Some well-known nature spirit that he’d been sent into the clutches of as a test or perhaps a lesson. No. No matter his generally ridiculous behavior, the patrol leader wouldn’t do something like that.

There was only one way out of this predicament that Kron knew of, to continue the unsettling course of the mystery stream through the forest. “Alright,” Kron spoke out loud to whatever was controlling his fate. “Clearly, I’m supposed to go somewhere or see something. Lead the way.” Even though nothing really changed around him, the path seemed to, he wasn’t sure…be brighter…now that he had decided to follow it.

It seemed more well-trodden than he had thought it originally to be. Possibly even the remnants of paving stones scattered here and there. As if this was once a much-visited place that had been abandoned long ago. Perhaps when the Orcs had taken this land from the humans?

The trees continued packed tightly together yet with enough openings among the high branches that it allowed a dim green light to filter through the needles. There was no ice or snow though and it was warmer than it should have been this time of year. His path wandered on meandering, and with the unchanging light, it was difficult to say how long he’d been walking. It wasn’t getting dark yet so it must have still been early. Maybe mid-day at the latest. The trees thinned and the path became at the same time both more and less distinct as it wound among the growth.

There were more than just evergreens now and the leafless skeletons of seasonal trees now made larger patches of light with brambles and bushes, most of them also leafless, running rampant with the brighter conditions here. Still, the path went on, always near the little stream. Over the sound of the water, a new sound drifted to him.