As I hobbled my way toward the tree., my weakness caught up to me. Fighting was busy work alright, and that flame-breathing had eaten away at my reserves.

By the time I reached the tree, I had to lean against its trunk. Thankfully, the woman didn't need me calling her: she was already climbing down, swift as a squirrel.

I could swear that a small wave of delight ruffled the grass as she lightly touched the ground, but maybe it was how tired I felt. I couldn't mistake the soothing sensation her presence gave off, though.

"Are you okay?" She asked, concerned but a bit hesitant. There was carefulness in her gem-like eyes.

I shrugged, trying to look dismissive, but a new wave of weakness washed over me. Forget it. I needed a moment.

"Oh, I see". The woman blinked, seeming to understand. She frowned. "Let me…" Fine eyebrows furrowed in concentration, she pointed her hands toward me.

I'm not gonna lie. The gesture gave me half of a scare and I made to step back. Still, just then a wave of relief washed over me, soothing some of the weakness. It didn't put me back in action but it was something alright.

Astonished, I blinked at her. She smiled brightly.

"I am Arielle", she presented herself, gently.

And that was how I met my first real friend in that strange new world.

I didn't forget mama and the babies, but those couldn't speak. You know that I mean. Back to the point.

Arielle was a nymph.

Beloved by the forest, caretakers and guardians of the wilds, the members of her race resided in places of natural beauty, living in harmony with their surroundings while working to make them flourish and protect them. They weren't warriors, not really. A nymph lacked real physical strength and toughness, but you still didn't want to anger a nymph in her home, especially if she had lived in it for a long time. Nymphs were like roots in a fashion: the longer they bonded with their land, the more their connection with it grew and the harder they became to root out. Once the bonding was complete, the strength of their land was theirs to command and they could become quite pissy when someone tried to ruin it.

Usually, they lived in small communities composed of a few nymphs and a bunch of woodland creatures: treants, dryads, pixies, satyrs and more. Nymphs were the head honchos in these communities; they took decisions, managed roles, assigned work and worked to keep the peace, inside and toward the outside. Nobody complained: it was a natural order, like a flower always searching for the sun, and formed on its own. In it, everybody worked to keep the harmony of the land, protect it, make it flourish and live out their strange, woodland lives.

I'd lie if I say I wasn't fascinated. That sounded like the fairy tales from my old memories.

Still, that begetted my question.

"Why are you here then?" I asked. "Alone, and with a band of zombies chasing you?" Maybe my suspicious tone was unwarranted, but honestly, I don't think I can be blamed given the circumstances. There was that good vibe she gave off as well. Call me unfriendly, but unnatural sensations like those only made me suspicious.

"Well…" The girl - I was wrong to call her a woman. She was younger than the first impression given off - kneeled on the ground, the grass looking barely disturbed by her weight. She stared down for a moment, before turning eyes filled with determination to me. "I want to rebuild the Athimei Court. I want to show Malik that the Ein Fer is not his to do as he pleases!"

Judging from the passionate way she said that, it had to be some big declaration. But to me, it was only gibberish and all it got from me was a blank look.

The girl watched me expectantly, like I was supposed to say something. When i wasn't forthcoming, she turned uncertain.

"Are you… are you sure you're a treant?" She asked.

I narrowed my eyes. I didn't even know what a treant was.

"I may or may not be", I replied, playing it cool. "What's to you?"

"Well…"

And that's how I learned another thing about the woodland creatures and how they worked together.

You see, Treants were a bit like the drones of the woods - "a bit slow", as Arielle put it -. Hard-working, strong, of few words, and they usually did what they were told - or rather, what the nymphs told them to do -. On the other side, nymphs were used to be obeyed, especially by the treants, that acted as their muscle. It wasn't out of malice. It was just how things were: the sun shone, the birds chirped, nymphs ordered and treants obeyed.

What threw her off was that I wasn't acting like your average treant, even if I resembled one.

"A small one", she added, watching me thoughtfully. "There were much bigger treants back home. But I never saw one speak like you. Or spit out white flames…" She eyed me with a bit of apprehension at that.

So I was a small treant. Good to know. To think of all the work I put into my body…

Grumbling, I took my roots out of the ground. My reserves were far from being replenished, but it would have to do for now.

"Where are you going?" Arielle stood up, a bit alarmed.

"Home", I replied. "And you better come with me. I don't think here is safe".

She opened her mouth, maybe to protest, but since I was already walking away, she hurried to follow, looking almost stunned.

I heard her lithe steps behind me, her feet barely making any sound.

I huffed. Well, I officially had a hot potato in my hands now.

I didn't trust Arielle enough to bring her to my home, but it wasn't like i could leave her out, in case more zombies were shuffling about. So I grudgingly escorted her to my house.

"You work like a human", she commented, blinking at the worked terrain and the half-done palisade.

I grunted and said nothing.

Once inside the palisade, I breathed a bit more calmly. My defenses could be incomplete yet, but I was confident I could take on twice the crowd of zombies I already defeated from there.

And speaking of zombies…

"You sure there weren't more of those?" I asked. I couldn't get the images of that mass of vacant eyes and grasping hands out of my head.

Arielle nodded. "There were more, but those were stopped by the Horns". She paused, shaking her head. "I am not sure if others came after though".

The Horns. As the horned rabbits. Right. I all but forgot about them.

I watched the nymph. She tried to put up a brave front, but I could see that she was deadly tired.

"You stay here and rest", I ordered. Then, after a pause. "What do you guys eat? Do you need me to bring you anything?"

The nymph put up an offended expression. "Us guys", she emphasized the expression, "eat only what the Land offers us. A healthy environment is all that we need".

I rolled my eyes. "Good. Then you can stay here and rest while I go out and see if there are more corpses shuffling about".

She flinched a bit at that, fear gleaming in her eyes. Couldn't blame her there.

I watched her. "I'll be back soon", I promised. "I'll be out just the time to make sure the area is safe".

She bit her lip, then nodded quickly.

I smiled. Brave girl, this one.

"Then you can talk to me about that Atomei thing and all the rest", I said, patting her on the head.

She looked absolutely flabbergasted at that, so much that I heard her "It's Athimei!" only when I was halfway down the decline.

I grinned, then turned serious. The idea of going back there didn't appeal to me, but if there were undead walking around, I wanted to be sure, and to be rid of them if I could. The last thing I wanted was a danger like that in my turf.

And the horned rabbits. I needed to see if they were okay. With how many undead I saw, there was no saying what danger they could be in.

The forest felt dark and foreboding as I returned to it, but I wasn't scared. I felt the trees' anger around me, their grim determination, and it wasn't directed at me. There were things under the boughs that weren't welcome, and the forest made me know that.

We were of the same mind there. Undead. Puah! Without the rush of danger coursing through me, I could see them once again, feel their aura push against my senses like a slimy slug. Those things were wrong, an offense toward the world and everything that was good and whole.

Something grim and dark surged inside of me, the same filling the air around me.

Undead, zombies and whatever. I would crush them all with my maul, send them back to the grave they had crawled from. All of them.

I met a few at the Waters. They shuffled about aimlessly, moaning and clawing at the air. These I crushed, smashing their heads with my maul and then piling their bodies on a mound.

The wind had picked up the ash, painting the grass in white or sending it billowing it in the air. Soon, I too was stained in white, a ghostly tree walking in the shade.

Walking toward the rabbits' nesting grounds, I was relieved to find a band of grunting males stopping my path.

My relief was quickly cut short: many of the males showed some kind of wounds, and there was no need to get close to me to see that they had been left by nails and teeth.

The rabbits were very agitated, so I quickly took my leave. I could only hope that whatever damage their colony had felt didn't spread too far, or reach their nests. With some luck, the majority of the undead had made a beeline for the wellspring.

Undead. Part of me, the one still attached to my old life, still balked at the notion. But there was no mistaking the truth and I wasn't going to lose myself over it.

I kept patrolling the area, using the marks I made previously, climbing on the trees and watching for any sign of undead, be it the sounds of their steps, their moaning, or their traces.

I found a ton of the latter. Not surprising, considering how many undead had breached the meadow. Of those still shuffling about, I found only a few. They all wandered aimlessly, barely noticing me as I crushed their skulls.

It was strange. It was like they had lost their reason to be or something like that. Whatever it was, I didn't feel remorse for putting them down. Nasty things.

The traces were concentrated around a single path, probably the way used by the main group.

I was inspecting the trampled undergrowth when something grabbed my attention. It was a ragged piece of cloth, hanging from a thorny bush. It wasn't strange: the undead had left a bunch of pieces there and then; pieces of armor, ripped cloth, even body parts. What made this noticeable was that it didn't show the dusty ruggedness of the clothes of the undead.

Grabbing it, I watched it. It was all black on one side, the color of onyx. On the other side, there was a strange symbol: a chain, warped in such a way to look like it was made of bone; it twisted around itself in a dizzying way that played with your eyes, like some abstract drawing.

Frowning, I pocketed the piece of cloth. That deserved some more investigation, later.

Walking toward the edge of the forest, I found a stretch of undergrowth trampled and dotted with zombie corpses. They all showed deep stabbing and slashing wounds, with some of them having been completely ripped apart. One didn't need to be a genius to understand who had done all of that. That had to be the place where the horned rabbits gave battle.

I left, shaking my head. There was a whole bunch of undead there, at least as many as the ones I burned. I was once again in debt to the rabbits: I wasn't sure I would have been able to win against those numbers all by myself.

I didn't see dead rabbits, but honestly, I didn't hold many illusions. With all those damn corpses, there had to be some victims.

I kept walking until the forest started to thin out, then I turned back.

The traces didn't lie: the undead had come from the landscape of hills and plains i saw. So much for a milder world in that direction.

Goddammit.

Feeling glum, I trudged back home.

I found it empty of shambling dead, thankfully. The traps were untouched: nobody passed through there.

This time, as I walked the safe path, I made sure to erase my traces. One couldn't ever be too prudent.

I found Arielle asleep. The poor girl had to be exhausted: she had fallen asleep on the grass in front of my cavern, with only the palisade to cover her from the breeze.

Or not. Looking better, I saw hair-thin filaments of light snake their way from the earth and into her body.

The sight gave me pause. It looked like she was replenishing, but… who told me that she wasn't lying to me? That she wouldn't become a danger once she was rested?

I hesitated, wondering if I should tie her up or something, just to be sure.

With a sigh, I let go of the idea. She wouldn't like it, and I wasn't fond of it either. Here's hoping it wouldn't get back to bite me in the ass…

Looking toward the sun, I saw that it was about time for lunch. Yikes. Time sure flies when you spend it smashing zombies.

And in all the ruckus, I didn't even get to replenish my water supply.

Deciding that, since there seemed to be no immediate danger and I needed to wait for Arielle to wake up, I might as well do something productive, I grabbed a couple of my bark bags and left the house. Just to be sure, I brought a small bag of stones alongside my maul.

The forest welcomed me with a brooding air, like the one left after a lightning strike, charged and fuzzy.

It felt appropriate, but I decided to remain on guard all the same. Honestly, I should have wondered by then how the forest seemed to "speak" to me, but it felt so appropriate, so right and obvious, that I couldn't bring myself to, at least not at that time.

As I stepped into the glade, I was welcomed for the second time by a surprising sight.

There was a human by the wellspring. All swathed in black, it stooped over the water.

I was instantly on alert. First a nymph and a bunch of zombies, now this?

At first, I thought the man was just drinking, but then a sallow hand came into vision, holding a glass vial. There was greenish liquid inside, and it was enough for me to see it to know that it was bad stuff. Real bad.

"Yo!" I shouted. "What the fuck are you doing?"

The man jumped with a yelp, the vial flying over his hand. He turned at me and I saw sallow features twisted in fear.

He took me in, then frantically scrambled back, turned and scampered away.

"Stop!" I ordered, letting go of my bark bags. I grabbed one of my stones and lifted it. "Stop or you're dead meat!"

The man stumbled and yelped in fear. Stopping, he turned and, pointing eyes wide with fright at me, he lifted a hand, a greenish light enveloping his fingers.

I moved out of instinct. A pus-colored projectile pierced the air where I had been just a moment later, impacting against a tree with a slashing sound. I had a flash of fizzling and smoking bark, but I didn't stop to look. My arm flew out and the stone smashed against the dark figure's head.

The man went down with a whimper and stood still.

Panting, I glanced toward the tree. A piece of bark as large as my hand had melted off, sloughing down the trunk.

"The fuck was that supposed to mean?" I growled. If that hit me, it was going to hurt for sure.

Grabbing my maul, I stomped toward the fallen figure. Thankfully, he didn't move, so I kneeled by his side to examine whoever this new headache was.

First of all, I was mistaken: it wasn't a man, it was a woman. With sallow features that ran taut over her bones, she looked like she hadn't eaten in months. She was smaller than her shaggy cloak gave off, almost disappearing into it.

Not like it would ever be a problem anymore: my stone had busted her head open.

Grimacing, I turned away from the body. My gaze fell on a shining object in the grass.

I walked to it and picked it up: it was the vial I saw before.

Holding it up, I watched the liquid inside. It was a noxious green and looking at it was enough to send shivers of disgust running through my bark. It reminded me far too much of the poison I had seen inside of mama rabbit.

I frowned at the body. "Were you trying to poison the wellspring?" I mumbled. But that was barely a thimble of the stuff. It shouldn't have been able to do anything to a flowing torrent. Still, part of me told me that, little or not, it would still be able to do damage.

I spat. "Asshole".

Without much regard now, I searched the body. I didn't find much: a few pieces of hard bread, a half-filled leather canteen, a rough map filled with scribbles I couldn't read, a compass, a clay lamp, needles, a bundle of thread, a pendant she wore around her neck and a strange charm made of little bones. This one gave me the creeps, but I kept it. I bundled everything in a strip of cloth I ripped from her cloak. As I did so, I noticed that on the inside of the cloak, there was a drawing. White chains, warped to resemble bones. Looking further, I saw that there was a missing piece, more or less the length of the strip I found.

Looked like I found the rest.

Grumbling, I filled my bags, then I threw the body on my shoulder and returned home.

Arielle was awake when I arrived. The girl blinked blearily at me, then turned at the body and her eyes grew wide.

"I caught her by the wellspring", I said, throwing the body on the grass. "She was trying to pour this in the water". I showed her the vial.

Seeing it, Arielle jumped at her feet. "The Plague!" She watched me, alarmed. "Did it get into the Waters?!"

I frowned at her reaction. "No. I got her before she could pour it. And the vial is still closed and full. No idea if she had more, though", I added carefully.

Relief flooded her expression. "No no", she said, sitting back down. "No necromancer of this power could carry more than one vial of the Plague. If this is still unopened, then the Waters haven't been befouled". She put a hand on her chest, sighing in relief.

I held the vial up, watching it like it was a scorpion. "Is it so bad?"

"Yes. A single vial of the Plague would have befouled the Waters for days, with all the death that it would have brought". She glared hard at the corpse.

I flinched, watching the vial with newfound disgust. Thank the bark I was passing by at the time I did! I couldn't imagine the destruction otherwise!

"How do we take care of it?" I asked, not wanting to keep the vial but not daring to put it down.

Arielle shook her head. "I don't know", she said. "The Woolak Sages could know of a way to get rid of the Plague, but it's a knowledge beyond us nymphs". She frowned down at her lap, clearly frustrated.

"Right". I wasn't very happy with that. "Can I at least store it safely?"

"Yes", she admitted grudgingly. Something told me that she didn't like that to be the only thing she could do. "As long as the seal is not broken by dark sorcery, that vial will hold, even if a boulder falls on it".

That relieved me, a little bit, and I hurried to stash the damn thing in the cavern, away from anything alive it could contaminate.

"I met a horned rabbit", I said as I walked back out. "She had inside of her a black thing that looked like that stuff".

Arielle looked surprised for a moment, before turning thoughtful. "The Horns have been fighting the undead for some time", she said. "A diluted version of the Plague must have been passed to the rabbit from a powerful undead". She looked concerned. "Did she live?"

A dash of pride sparked as I told her.

"A strong mother", she said, smiling gently.

I grinned, agreeing far too much.

But enough of that. It was time to get down to business.

"Do you mind start explaining what the heck is going on?" I began, folding my arms on my chest. "First I get a bunch of undead on my back yard, then a gal trying to poison the stream. What is going on here?" I gave her a pointed look, just to include her presence in the general headache.

Arielle shifted, gathering her knees to her chest and circling them with her arms. She watched me, a mix of curiosity and disbelief gleaming in her gem-like eyes.

"You really don't know anything?"

I shrugged. "I was born yesterday", I said. "I know jack shit". In a way, it was the truth. Especially the knowing jack shit part.

Amusement shimmered in her expression for a moment, before she turned serious once more. "It's a long story".

I sat down. "We got time".

She sighed and started her story.

And what story it was.

Arielle told me that the land where we were was called Minathil. It was a large stretch of land comprising of a series of valleys, plains, small forests and the northern reaches of the Ein Fer, the Death Forest. Apparently, the land wasn't very populated. There was a bunch of human cities up to the north, but only a few made the mark above simple villages. The rest was untamed wilderness, with communities of more or less violent fey creatures making their home in the forests and into the rivers. The biggest of these were called Courts and they were supposed to be big centers for the inhabitants of the wilderness, with their chiefs being very respected figures across the land.

The Court was the largest thing Minathil saw, alongside the human towns. There was no nation and no king to speak of. Every community looked to its own business and made its own rules. Once upon a time, there had to be some great civilization growing there, but now it belonged to the past, the only remnants of its existence old stone roads and ruins covered by moss.

Today, Minathil was mostly a lawless land, with whatever rules there were stopping at the palisade of a village or the borders of a Court.

As it turned out, it wasn't the best moment for someone to seek a life in Minathil. There was a plague of undeath on the rise, the blasted things clawing their way from old and new cemeteries to roam the countryside and prey on travelers. Thanks to them, it wasn't safe to travel and there and then they even bunched together enough to assault a village or harass the woodland communities.

And the problem only seemed to grow bigger every day, with necromancers pulling the strings of the growing hordes of undead and nobody strong enough to deal with it. Used as they were to deal with their own problems, and not to trust outsiders, both humans and fey didn't care to band together and, according to Arielle, they were going straight toward disaster with that attitude. Given time, the undead would become such a menace that nobody would be able to stand against them. But nobody seemed able to truly see it, busy as they were with their everyday concern and their old rivalries.

If things continued like that, dark times were on the horizon for Minathil.

"Right", I said slowly, struggling to catch all the implications. And I thought it was going to be smooth sailing for me for a while.

I eyed her intently. "What about you then?" I asked. "Why are you out here alone?". From what she told me, nymphs were supposed to be magnets for other fey.

She glanced at me briefly, before turning away.

"You don't know what the Athimei Court was, don't you?" She murmured.

I shook my head. Like all the rest, the name meant little to me.

Arielle's gaze turned distant. "The Blooming Court of Athimei was the greatest of all courts to ever grace Minathil. It was so great that it covered the entire northern reaches of the Ein Fer and so mighty that not even the Night Kingdom dared to arouse its wrath. The Athimei folk were wise and wrought great works. They could grow flowers that sang and their trees shone with gold. Theirs was the land of summer and spring, and their waters ran true with the Land's blessing, being able to heal even the grievous wound". She threw me an amused glance at that.

I barely held myself from flinching. Welp, that explained the wellspring. A bit, at least.

"Nice story", I said, trying to mask my disquiet. "Did you train at night to tell it?"

She giggled. "My elder sisters always told me stories. This was my favorite". Sadness washed over her expression, and she hid her face against her knees.

I shifted, trying to ignore the small stab of guilt I felt at reminding her of obviously bad memories. "That's great and everything. But what has to do with you being here?"

She tensed slightly, before turning to me her eyes. There was a strange intensity in them now.

"My Court leaves Minathil", she said grimly. "They decided that this land is doomed. The others will follow soon". She lifted her chin defiantly. "I will not. I refuse to. This is my land and I will not hand it over to the undead. I will fight, alone if I must, and I'll do it here, where the Athimei have flourished. They were the best the fey can aspire to and with the Land's blessing, I'll see us return to those days of glory. I'll build my own Court and there will be no undead that will be able to pull it down".

The sheer conviction in her words took me off guard.

I watched her, looked in her eyes, filled with angry defiance. There was no lovely creature of the woods in front of me then, but a woman possessed by absolute determination to see her dream come true. Her light, just a gentle glow before, now shone brightly.

I opened my mouth, but no words came out. What could I say after that?

Lamely, I returned on more concrete matters.

"What about those undead?" I asked.

Arielle blinked, her passion sliding off her features. "The Healing Waters are forbidden land", she admitted, turning away with a sneer. "The undead don't allow for any fey to establish themselves close to it. They must have spotted me while I was making my way here and guessed my intentions". She looked angry, but if to herself for allowing them to follow her or to them, I couldn't say.

What I could say, though, was that we suddenly stepped into dangerous territory.

"Forbidden…!" I repeated, alarmed.

She glanced at me, something that could have been pity flashing in her eyes. "Yes", she said, nodding. "As long as you dwell here, the undead will come to try and destroy you".

I jumped at my feet, starting to quickly pace back and forth. Gotta admit, it was a big effort not to start to swear there and then.

"Can't they be reasoned with?" I blurted after a while. That someone would just come waltzing out of the blue to drive me out of my house, without rhyme or reason, felt impossible.

Arielle shook her head. "We tried, for years".

This time, I didn't bother keeping the curse inside.

"But why?" I asked in frustration.

Arielle shrugged. "They seem to fear the powers of the Waters".

Her casual question only managed to make me angrier. It was my damn home we were talking about there, dammit!

I kept pacing, fury dancing inside of me. I thought I found a good home and now a bunch of zombies came and…!

"You wait here", I blurted. "I'll be back soon".

Without waiting for her reply, I stormed away, dragging the body of the necromancer after me.

I got thrown too much my way, all at once. I needed time to think and cool down.