“Don’t take too long, Tharn. I know how much you love your forest, but you can’t miss your own birthday.”

“I’m on duty, Sara. I should be back in four days, but we never know what will happen. But, yeah, I’ll try to be there in time for my anniversary…”

“You better be! It’s your fiftieth anniversary!”

“Yeah, yeah, whatever...”

Tharn tried to hide his impatience to go back in the forest, but his beautiful wife knew him too much not to notice it. She sighed and flashed the same beautiful smile he had fallen for decades ago.

“Just go then.” She waved him off with a pout.

Damn woman.

Tharn grabbed her by the waist and pulled her into his embrace. The woman laughed out loud, but she let herself fall into his arms. Tharn kissed his wife for half a minute before she pushed him away with blushing cheeks.

He let go of her and grabbed his backpack while she arranged her hair. He kissed her again and finally left, a happy smile lingering on his face. He walked into the clean streets while adjusting his hat on his head, and he had barely walked a hundred meters in the village that they came running for him.

“Uncle Tharn! Uncle Tharn!”

“You’re going into the forest again?”

Tharn eyed affectionately the group of children jogging at his side with visible enthusiasm. They were between five and seven years old, and Tharn always had a soft spot for such children.

“Yeah, I’ll join other rangers to go in.”

“When I’m an adult, I’ll also monitor the forest like uncle Tharn!” One of the younger ones said with a cute, high-pitched voice.

Tharn laughed and patted the child on his head.

“Sure, but you’ll have to train hard to go there. It’s not easy to become a ranger. You have time before it happens, though. For now, your duty is to enjoy being a child. Go back to playing!” He said to the whole group.

“You will tell us another story when you come back?” One of the older children asked.

“Only if you don’t cause any trouble while I’m not here. Now, shoo.”

The group scattered away, running and laughing, and Tharn continued alone. He passed the small bakery where some people of the village were chatting between themselves and they waved at him as he passed.

As one of the oldest people, he knew all of his fellows by their name and waved back at them. He moved past the center of the village and took the visible trail going up the little hill reigning over the houses. In minutes, he had reached its top, and he turned back to observe the village, almost a town now, laying in front of him.

He looked at the almost hundred wooden houses packed together along the main road. He had seen such a view almost every day since he became a ranger, but the patchwork of colored roofs never ceased to amaze him. And given he had helped build at least two-thirds of them in the last half century, it added to the feeling of belonging and satisfaction.

With a last look, he turned back to the more stern house behind him and pushed the door open. Inside, two men and one woman were waiting for him. They were all younger than he was, and they greeted him warmly as he put his backpack on the ground.

“Morning, rangers. You’re ready to go?”

“Yes, Tharn.” A slim man with short brown hair and a small beard answered him. “We’ve just finished inventorying everything we’ll need.” He gestured to the nearby tables that had multiple items neatly prepared and sorted on them.

“Very good, Artur. We can check together while packing, then.”

“I’ve got the list right there.” The second man chimed in. He was almost the opposite of Artur, with an imposing stature and chiseled biceps the size of Tharn’s legs.

“Don’t you know it by heart, Tomas?” The last person interrupted as she stole the paper from him with a grin. The big man tried to take it back, but the agile woman dodged his telegraphed attempts with ease.

“Easy, children.” Tharn stopped them while taking off his hat and threw a warning look at his daughter, who simply smiled back at him with an innocent face. She even dared to play with her ginger curvy hair while showing the same pleading look she used on him when she was just a child.

She’s just like her mother.

Tharn only cared about two things in the world, and that was his family and the forest. That Meriel, his daughter, had insisted on becoming a ranger and followed him on his tracks had been his greatest pride, even if she abused her situation to tease the two other rangers and get off it without trouble.

The old ranger didn’t let the thought get him off track, and he went back to his business mode. The forest wasn’t a place where one could afford to be negligent.

“Ok, let’s check this list.” He ordered, and the other rangers also switched to a more serious demeanor.

“Bows and arrows.” Tomas read the first item on the list.

“They’re all there.” Artur gestured to four bows and quivers neatly placed on the table.

Meriel and Tharn went and checked the material’s quality, making sure they hadn’t become defective since the last time they used them. After a couple of minutes of probing, they nodded to each other, and Tharn showed a satisfied smile.

“Next.”

“Five jars of water per person.”

The group of four rangers spent almost one hour double checking they had everything they needed for their trip before they split and packed everything in their respective bags. Tharn placed his bow over his shoulder, took back his large red hat and left the barrack.

He then led the group towards the forest, a few hundred meters away from the village. The boundary was quite visible as immense trees with large green leafs marked its beginning. A few birds could be heard singing, and the dense foliage let the sunrays pass through in a welcoming invite to enter the forest.

Alas, every person living in Barcombe, even young children, knew better than to enter the forbidden area. The forest was beautiful, but deadly.

For unknown reasons, the entire forest was poisonous. From the appetizing fruits that hung at hand’s reach to the herbs and moss, everything was poisonous. The wildlife was no exception, and given nobody was hunting the animals to eat them, they weren’t afraid of humans at all. And there was nothing worse than to die poisoned by a gentle, cute rabbit coming closer out of curiosity and rubbing his fur against one’s skin.

Not everything was deadly poisonous, but they were all fast acting, and a simple diarrhea or hallucination could escalate quickly into something worse in a poisonous environment. The area was deemed forbidden, and only trained rangers were allowed in. Poisonous substances were often going hand in hand with medications after all, and the forest was a gold mine in that aspect.

Rangers were in charge of educating people not to go into the forest and enforce it in case they wouldn’t listen. Such cases were extremely rare though, as people going in would die quickly, and it was a good enough deterrent on its own. Rangers’s missions weren’t limited to this, however, and they were also responsible for harvesting materials when it was needed as well as documenting the forest.

One of their initial efforts was to find a way to make the forest less poisonous, but with the ages and the unsuccessful attempts, the mission had been abandoned. Nowadays, they just had to make sure it wasn’t growing. So all in all, rangers were now essentially monitoring and harvesting the forbidden forest.

With the passing of time, lots of small villages had grown along the forest edges from what were initially simple ranger’s outposts. Such was the case with Barcombe, who was now one of the most flourishing villages nearby the forest. Every worthy merchant's caravan stopped at Barcombe on their journey on the edge to trade whatever they had against medical supplies.

It was in anticipation of such a caravan that Tharn had left with his rangers. They had to harvest one of the rarest plants that only lived deep into the forest, and only well-trained rangers could survive this long inside.

The outskirts of the forest were dangerous, but it was still an easy journey for watchful and prepared rangers. As such, the first day of their journey was uneventful. Sleeping at night in the forest, however, was a harder task, even for a trained team.

They had to find a spot where they could avoid any curious nocturnal animals. Building a fire to keep them away was out of the question, as burning anything from the forest would release poisonous substances in the air and kill anyone in the vicinity.

The ranger’s strategy laid in specialized hermetic tents with someone always up to make sure nothing happened to their only breathing hole. It wasn’t the most comfortable nights, all stacked in a small tent with a sentry, but it was the most effective method they had found, and they were used to it. Tharn had made sure of it.

“Time to wake up.” The head ranger gently kicked the three sleeping silhouettes wrapped up in their sleeping bags after their short night.

Tharn had always been an early riser, and the privilege of age ensured he always got the last watch. He checked the bag containing their breakfast for any sign of effraction as their food bags were especially made so that they were hermetically protected.

He broke the tag ensuring it hadn’t been opened before, and distributed the sandwiches to his teammates. Without wasting any time, they ate their food in the secured tent and then dressed themselves for the day to come, with extra-fit clothes that covered their whole body. The closer the clothes were to their skin, the less chance they would tug on a branch and rip as they moved through the forest. And this deep inside, touching anything with bare skin was equivalent to a death sentence.

When they finished dressing up, they all had red scarfs tightly coiled around their faces and only their eyes could be seen under their also red hats. Tharn put on his gloves last and carefully opened the door of the tent. He walked outside, the other rangers in tow, and they meticulously toured the tent to remove any lingering slugs or snails that were still stuck on their tent.

They packed the tent inside out and rolled it carefully in Artur’s backpack after putting in a hermetic bag. One night, one tent, such was the rule.

“Good job.” Tharn commented from the side. He had purposely done very few during the whole procedure to check if his rangers were ready for the more difficult coming task. Finding no faults in their doings, he pointed deeper into the forest. “Let’s go.”

The group walked carefully through the forest, arcs drawn. There weren’t any dangerous animals, strictly speaking, but the rangers were used to shooting any curious animals bigger than a mouse from coming too close to them. They were usually the ones with the deadliest poisons, and the rangers weren’t taking any chance.

Tharn led the way, following a path his grandfather had followed before him, and his own grandfather even before and that for many generations. It was the only safe way into deeper parts of the forest, and Tharn was careful to maintain it in decent conditions. Every few steps, he checked that brambles and their deadly thorns hadn’t grown back too close.

“Mark this one on the map, Mariel.” He once ordered his daughter while pointing to a nearby tree. “We would need to come back before winter to cut his branches before they become a hindrance. Artur? Would you?”

The woman nodded and wrote it down on the map while the thin man very cautiously moved two steps out of the path and marked the tree with a large red chalk. The other rangers waited patiently while Artur took two steps back and re-entered the path. It had only been four steps in total, but it lasted five minutes, as each step out of the path was made with extra precautions. When a single scratch could cost one’s life, the rangers had long learned to be patient and cautious in their exploration.

Satisfied by his ranger’s work, Tharn turned back and led the group further inside. The vigilant process continued for a long part of the day, and in order to train his rangers, Tharn switched his position with Artur while he stayed just behind his second. He made sure the man made no mistake in observing his surroundings and walked along the path as carefully as the situation needed it.

Tharn was extremely satisfied with Artur’s work. The man was the son of the leading elder of the council, but he had shown no interest in developing the village or learning about business. Instead, he had only been attracted by the forest, and although Tharn had accepted with hesitation to train him almost ten years ago, Artur had never disappointed him.

It wouldn’t be soon, but Tharn knew his succession was assured with Arthur. And maybe Artur would in turn pass his knowledge to Mariel when the time came, and she would once lead Barcombe’s ranger division like he did.

Tharn was suddenly pulled out of his thoughts as Artur stopped dead in his tracks without warning, and he almost jolted him.

“What are you doing?! We could have died if I…” Tharn’s rebuking died down as he looked above Artur’s shoulder and saw what had blocked him.

Coming in the opposite direction of his group, two young men were jogging along the trail. But they were no rangers.

Their clothes were in tatters, closer to rags holding on by miracle than real clothes, actually. At least half of their skin could be seen, and it was all bruised and cut. Tharn blinked a few times and even pinched himself to make sure he wasn’t dreaming. How could people even hope to survive in this forest without perfect equipment and incredible caution?

The two men stopped a few meters away and seemed as surprised to find anyone there as Tharn and his rangers were.

The first one had beautiful blue and green eyes, and they shone with a strange energy that made Tharn freeze for another half second before he got his bearings back. In the meantime, the young lad had reached for the long spear hanging from his back with such slow motions that it seemed he tried not to scare them or wasn’t sure yet if they were hostile.

Tharn couldn’t hold himself anymore in front of such an absurd situation. His brain was still processing by which miracle the two men could even be alive and standing in the forest, given their conditions.

“Who the fuck are you?! What are you even doing here?!”

The first man waved back at him timidly, although the look in his eyes showed nothing of that shyness, and Tharn had the sudden feeling he could kill them all in a single breath without even breaking a sweat if he ever wanted.

“Hi! My name’s Mahon.”