On a hill there sits a tree, black as night with leaves as red as blood. It has a gash in it, a terrible gash that looks like some horrible wound on flesh rather than on wood, and out of the gash seeps sap which is blacker, even, than the bark on which it drips. Once this tree was surrounded by a whole forest of other trees but they are all dead and gone now. Once, it was surrounded by the houses and buildings of a town, with great plans to someday turn that town into a city, stretching up the hill and over the tree. Chopping it down to make space for roads and houses like so many other trees. But the tree is still there, and the town is a broken ruin. It’s people dead or gone and it’s houses falling into decay and disrepair. The tree still stands, gazing out over the hill. Its bark black as night and its leaves red as blood.

This story starts with a group of pilgrims called the Rangals. They had run out of land and resources for their growing population back at home and had set out to find newer and fresher pastures to build upon. The group had travelled over the rocky mountains along crumbling goat trails and through choking forests to finally arrive in a valley on the other side. They’d brought with them horses and carts full of all the things they might need to establish their new town on the other side of the mountains and despite the tough road they’d managed to get most of them through. They were ready to begin building their little town in their little valley and they set to work at once, clearing out the forest around and ploughing up the land to grow crops to sustain them.

One man, Ardy, was in charge of chopping down the trees for he was strong and powerful and able to fell even the mightiest trees with his axe. He set about the valley clearing all the trees away with his team of men and soon they had taken down every tree in the valley. They relaxed that night by the big fire that had been built in the centre of town and talked with the other men and women who were building houses and planting crops. Ardy talked with an old woman, Henna, who had come with them over the mountains wrapped in her fluffy colourful quilt. She was old and thin and many believed she wouldn’t survive the crossing with what little food they had. But she had made it and was now here to lend her old wisdom and clever hands to the building of their new village.

“What news does little Ardy bring old Henna today?” she asked him chuckling. “What does he find in the valley?”

Ardy stroked his chin and thought about it. It was best to think about things when answering Henna, else she was likely to make fun of you. “I found a lot of trees, all green and happy-like. I found some flowers and lots of grass. I found a brook over to the west where the ground is all muddy but the brook has many flowers and is very pretty. I found a rock,” he said, indicating a large rock that was easy to see now that the trees had been cleared away.

Henna raised her eyebrow at that, looking at him in a demeaning way.

“It was a big rock,” Ardy argued, he gestured with his hands somewhat hopelessly.

Henna chuckled some more. “Did little Ardy find any animals. Any rabbits or rats, any birds or bugs, any deer or pigs or spiders or flies or squirrels or fish in his very pretty brook?”

Ardy thought about it. He hadn’t noticed with all the noise and commotion of the new village being built but he hadn’t seen any animals. There had been animals all through the trip to the valley, all through the mountains and forests. There were always birds and beetles and spiders and often rabbits or foxes too. But here he hadn’t seen anything.

“No I didn’t,” he said slowly. “Maybe they’re all hiding from the village being built.”

Henna chuckled some more and Ardy suspected he might have said something wrong. “Wherever old Henna goes, all throughout her long life, there are animals everywhere. Under every leaf, under every branch, under every old rotten log, there are animals. Bugs and beetles and worms, there are always worms. But there are no worms here, there are no bugs and beetles and spiders, no flies or frogs or foxes. There are nothing except Rangals and what Rangals have brought with them.” Henna pointed over at a packhorse that was grazing away from the fire. “That is Muffins, Muffins is old and wise, like Henna. And Muffins is an animal so Henna thought he might know what was going on.” Henna shook her head sadly. “Muffins knows nothing more than we do.”

Ardy was feeling both Henna and Muffins knew more than he did at the moment. “Did you talk to the horse?”

Henna chuckled. “Old Henna has talked to many things and many things have talked to old Henna. Muffins is not one of those things, he does not talk to old Henna no matter how much old Henna talks to him. No no no, old Henna follows him about. Sees what he does. And he doesn’t do anything strange. Only grazes.”

Ardy nodded. That made slightly more sense. Slightly.

“I’ll look for animals tomorrow,” he said. “Me and the others are going up that hill, maybe there will be animals up there.”

“Yes yes yes,” Henna muttered. “Little Ardy and old Henna will get to the bottom of this. Even if Muffins will not help.”

Muffins whinied in agreement. He would not help.

The next day Ardy took his men and they went up the hill all the while on the lookout for animals. But they found no animals at all. In fact after Ardy told them about this one of the men revealed he had in fact seen a single lonely eagle flying high overhead yesterday as they cleared the last trees out of the valley. But today they saw nothing, not even the eagle.

They examined the hill, looking for which trees would be best to clear out. Most of the trees were happy and healthy just like the ones in the valley had been. But right at the centre of the hill. Crowded out by all the other trees was a shrunken ugly dead black tree. It had no leaves and few branches that hadn’t fallen away. Ardy didn’t think it would take much to clear away that tree at all. So they left it for last. It was in the middle of the hill and far away from the town so they didn’t need to chop it down for a long while yet.

First they cleared away the trees at the bottom of the hill. Getting plenty of wood and space for the new buildings. This took a few days and they found that working on the hill seemed a lot harder and more exhausting than working on the flat had been. This was something that was fairly understandable. The hill was steep and climbing up and down it carrying heavy axes and then heavy trees was much harder than in the valley. The workers found themselves famished and ready to eat as much as possible when they came home each night to the fire. They would devour all the food everyone had made for them as quickly as possible and then ask for more, leaving little time to converse with old ladies.

But old Henna would not be ignored for long. After all the trees at the bottom of the hill had been cleared she came up to Ardy as he was polishing off a vegetable pie. There were no animals and so they had no meat but they had what they had brought with them as well as all the natural vegetables and fruits they had found in the valley.

“Ardy!” Henna snapped and he looked up from his pie. Henna was not looking well. Even after just a few days he could see she was thinner and more frail than when they’d last talked. He supposed she was old and these things happened to old people.

“Yes,” he said, his mouth still full of pie.

“Little Ardy doesn’t tell me what he found up on the hill? Were there animals? Were there people? Was there a castle made of gingerbread? Old Henna will never know because little Ardy has been spending too much of his time eating pies!”

Ardy swallowed his pie guiltily. “I’m sorry Henna, it’s a hard time working on the hill. We get back and all we want to do is have a bite to eat and then go to bed before we have to do it all again the next day.”

Henna shook her head. “Even now little Ardy still won’t tell old Henna what he finds on the hill. What can old Henna possibly do to get her message through his thick skull? Muffins tells her more these days.”

“I’m sorry. Um... We found trees mostly, and a few rocks but no animals. Technically less animals than in the valley because Mord saw an eagle then. We found an old dead tree at the top of the hill. But we won’t get to that for a long time. We’ve got to clear away the rest of them first.”

Henna nodded. “Thank you Ardy. Now wipe your face, there’s pie all over it.” She began to stride away from the fire and the half constructed village.

“Where are you going?” Ardy asked as he wiped pie from his lips.

“To see this tree of course. Don’t worry Henna is assured there is nothing out there, no animals, no people.”

“Yes but-”

“Go to bed Ardy. You have lots more trees to clear tomorrow.” She strolled off up the hill, wrapped in her colourful quilt.

Ardy watched her go and considered following her but he was too tired. Every muscle in his body was sore from dragging trees all about and the thought of walking all the way up that hill just made him more exhausted. So instead he trusted old Henna knew what she was doing and went to bed where his worry did little to keep him awake, as tired as he was.

In the morning Henna had apparently returned but Ardy didn’t have much time to see her before he was off again, clearing trees. They were making good progress, despite the steepness of the hill. In a few days they would reach the top and that dead black tree Henna had seemed so curious about.

They returned and although he was hungrier than ever Ardy went looking for Henna instead. Unfortunately she wasn’t at the fire with everyone else, she was in her bed, wrapped in her quilt, pale and asleep. Ardy asked her daughter about it and she looked at him with a sorrowful look in her eyes.

“She is old and tired. She made it all the way here and I think she will be happy to have seen the place we will build our new village. But I do not think she will live very long anymore.”

Ardy nodded sadly. It seemed strange to him though, she had seemed fine when they first got here, despite everyone doubting her.

The next day was a holy day for the Rangals and so there was no work. Instead Ardy decided to investigate the top of the hill himself. He walked up to where the dead tree was and on it was a leaf. A single leaf, red as blood. He frowned to himself, he was sure it had had no leaves on it before. He shrugged, he must not have seen that one last time.

He returned to the village and tried to spend the rest of his day relaxing before he went back to work. But he worried about Henna and about the dead tree with its single red leaf.

Henna died the next day and they burned her on a pyre as they did with all their dead. There was plenty of spare wood around and many were suggesting they stop cutting down trees and get the workers who’d been doing that to help build houses before the rains came. Ardy disagreed though. He wanted to chop down every tree on that hill, starting with the dead one at the top. His men would never agree to that though, why should they go that far when there were trees at the bottom still. They’d have to work their way up.

So they did. Despite how hungry they all were, Ardy made them work. He did not like that black tree and he wanted it chopped down. They worked all through the day, chopping and hacking away at the trees and tossing them down the hill. By midday the men were starving and all stopped to eat lunch but Ardy carried on. He hacked away at trees all through the day although sweat began to pour down his body and his arms began to shake with the effort. He began to grow hungry. So very hungry. He could feel a hole gnawing away at his stomach, but he didn’t stop. He knew there would be food when he returned to the village and he knew he could hold out till then. So he chopped and hacked away and his men followed suit around him. One by one they chopped down every tree on the hill until they reached the black one. It was dark now, the sun had set long ago and his men had been protesting for a long time now. They could all see the fire at the bottom of the hill, now cleared of trees, and all had rumbling stomachs at the thought of all the food waiting there. But the black tree was right there.

Ardy walked toward it, his legs shaking and struggling to hold him aloft with how hungry he was. His axe dragging in the dirt, his arms too weak to carry it properly. It was hard to see in the fading light but it looked like the tree had more leaves. More blood red spots in the darkness, lit only by the dim firelight below, staring down at him. But that wasn’t possible. The tree was dead, and he knew it had only had one leaf before. He knew it. Just like he knew it had once had none.

He fell on his face in the dirt. Still metres from the tree. He tried to rise, tried to struggle when his men carried him away. But he couldn’t do it anymore. He was too weak and his heart wasn’t in it. He waited to be carried to the warm fire below with all the warm inviting food.

Ardy didn’t remember much of that night, it was just a blur as he was carried down to the fire. As he tried to eat but was barely strong enough to chew. As he collapsed multiple times and eventually was put to bed. The only thing he did remember was the gnawing pain on his insides. That roar of starvation, true starvation. But he was too tired and woozy to realise it. He shouldn’t have been starving, even after working all day. But he was starving nonetheless, the food he ate feeding the Famine Tree.

He woke up in a cart. Being slowly transported back to the old Rangal lands. He felt much better, able to think, able to talk, able to eat. There was still that gnawing away in his stomach but it was less now, he could ignore it. They fed him soft foods, soups and porridge, but eventually he could eat other things too. Fruit and vegetables and meat, it was good to eat meat again, they hadn’t had any of that in the valley with no animals to hunt. People were talking about sending herds of animals there to be farmed but there wasn’t much space with all the hills, and transporting a herd through the mountains would be no easy feat. No those living in the valley might have to make do with what they had for now. They wouldn’t mind, it would be an adventure.

One night Ardy had a dream. He’d eaten some excellent chicken that night and the gnawing in his stomach had almost ceased to exist. He was almost content in a way he hadn’t been since he’d entered the valley, all those months ago.

In the dream he was drowning. He flailed and thrashed about, his arms and legs moving through something that was thicker than water. He struggled and struggled and then his hand found a handhold and he pulled himself out onto white dead sand. The water dripped in his eyes, in his nose, in his mouth, but of course, it wasn’t water. It was blood. He looked up and saw a sea of blood. Stretching out as far as the eye could see, under a sky that was choked with red red clouds. He coughed and spluttered and tried to look up, to stand up, but the blood just poured from his hair into his eyes. He tried to wipe it away but his hand was drenched in blood as well. Eventually he looked around anyway, ignoring the sting as fresh blood poured into his eyes. Then he saw it. The handhold he had grabbed was a root coming out of the sand. A black root that branched off a larger root that branched off a larger one still. For over him, towering high as big as a mountain, was an enormous black tree. With a canopy of red red leaves that stretched out all across the sky. Crushing him in loss and fear and utter despair. But more importantly, crushing him with hunger.

He woke up because the gnawing in his stomach was too great to bear. He leapt from his bed and crouched, trembling on the ground. That tree was evil. He didn’t know what it was. He didn’t know what it could do. But he knew he had to chop it down. He packed up his things and left the land of the Rangals.

There weren’t many carts or horses going to the valley but when Ardy told them he needed them to go with the rage of his gnawing belly fueling him on they agreed to change course to something that was miles upon miles out of the way. He found a caravan belonging to a young couple who sold woolen rugs and they agreed to take him to the valley. Reasoning that it would be nice to see it for themselves while it was still under construction.

So they set off through the mountains and despite the roads now being all mapped out and known, it was the longest trip of Ardy’s life. Through the day his hands grew white as he gripped his axe in fear and frustration. Through the night he tossed and turned on a bed of woolen rugs while his stomach gnawed at him no matter how much he ate. He felt that eating actually did nothing to help him. He felt that he was dying of starvation no matter what he did. It wasn’t him he was feeding, it was the tree.

So he didn’t eat. He barely drank and he never slept. He gave up all those things for his mission. He knew what it was, and he knew he was not coming back. He didn’t need to survive it, he just needed to survive long enough, and for that he had nothing but his drive to succeed. He hoped that would be enough.

They arrived in the valley after three weeks of travelling. That was much faster than the road normally took with a caravan but Ardy had made the couple take some unconventional routes to get there faster. Luckily nothing had gone wrong.

The village was a wreck. Despite months passing, none of the buildings had been finished. Most lay in ruin and disrepair, vines and creepers already crawling up the walls. The people were all thin and haggard. They had created great farms and worked them day and night, producing far more than they could possibly need but no matter how much they ate they were never satisfied. And at the top of the hill, looking down at the whole scene was the tree. It was no longer dead, it was no longer shrunken and weak with only a few leaves. Now it was a magnificent tree, a full canopy of blood red leaves stretching out into the sky, covering the hill and the town in its shadow for much of the day.

The young couple were shocked at the sight. This wasn’t the new haven for the Rangal people they had been led to believe it would be. This was a hellish nightmare where people were actually dying. Many of the old and young and sick had died since Ardy had left, and soon it would be more than just them dying.

Ardy told the young couple what they had to do. They had to get everyone out of there as soon as possible. Bring them all back through the mountains and to safety on the other side. The couple asked him how they could move people as sick as these ones and Ardy gave no answer, simply took up his axe and strode toward the hill.

He walked through the town and saw all the villagers he’d hoped to build a new future with. They were all so sick and frail, worn down to the bones while the tree grew fat on their food. He saw Mord, one of his men who’d seen the eagle. He saw Sennie, a young woman he’d long had a fancy for. He saw Muffins who, true to his word, had not helped.

They were all so thin and sickly. Hardly the strong people of the next generation of Rangals that had set out from their homeland. Hunger gnawed at his stomach but he began to climb the hill anyway, axe in hand.

As he climbed the gnawing hole grew bigger. It tore him up until he felt like there was nothing left of him but that terrible gnawing. An endless black void biting and scratching at his body, desperate for food, pleading for food, willing to kill him for food. But still he climbed.

His legs and arms grew weak and cold sweat began to pour from him, dripping into his eyes as the blood had in his dream. His hands grew clammy on the axe handle and the axe began to grow heavier and heavier. The axe head drooping closer and closer to the ground as he climbed. But still he climbed.

His head began to pound as the gnawing worked its way up there. His legs shook as he slowly put one in front of the other. It was such a big hill. It never seemed to end. The tree was still so far away.

But Ardy was not going to give up. He had come this far. He was not going to stop now.

So even though his heart struggled to beat and his brain struggled to think and his lungs struggled to breathe. Still his legs moved, and still he climbed.

Until, finally, he reached the tree. And even though a wave of furious hunger and lethargy swept over him as he lifted his axe he chopped at the tree anyway. Cutting a terrible gash deep into the wood. Then he did it again. And again. He could barely see, he could barely breathe, he couldn’t think at all. But he was a woodchopper and he could still chop wood.

As he chopped a voice whispered through his head, a strange voice. Strange in that it had no words. Only thoughts, only ideas. It told him he would die. That as the tree died it would suck all the life out of him and leave him little more than a husk. Then when that didn’t work it told him everyone in the village would die. That it would do the same to them. It showed him pictures, pictures of Mord and Sennie and Muffins and even Henna who was already dead.

That worked. That and his dying body made him stop. The axe was embedded deep in the Famine Tree and sap blacker than night was trickling out. Ardy leaned on the axe and his muscles tightened around it as he prepared to pull it out. He couldn’t talk but he could think and the tree understood him when he did.

He said he would stop. He said he would let the tree live if it let everyone in the village go. The tree was silent for a moment and then it agreed. But he would die, because in a way he already had. There was no medicine that could save him now.

Ardy nodded and yanked the axe from the tree. Sap and splinters spraying over the hill. He still stood. On legs that were almost dead he stood next to the tree and looked out over the valley. Already people were finding their strength. Strength they hadn’t had before. Whether it was from watching him or from the tree fulfilling its promise he wasn’t sure but they were leaving. The young couple were rounding everyone up and getting them all to leave. To escape this nightmare. To escape the Famine Tree.

Ardy looked back at the gash he’d rent through the tree. It was a significant gash, he doubted the tree would recover from that anytime soon. But it wasn’t enough to kill it. And he knew now he didn’t have the strength to kill it. He just had to hope it would keep its word.

He slumped to his knees.

“Why did you send me that dream?” he asked. “It just made me come back and stop you.”

The tree was silent for a moment then it replied with its thoughts and feelings way of speaking. “I wanted to hurt you for trying to hurt me. I thought you were far enough away to be no real threat.”

Ardy grinned. “Stupid little tree.”

The tree seemed put out by that.

Ardy grinned all the more.

The tree stands atop its hill looking out across its empty valley. There is a skeleton next to it. Picked clean by maggots and flies that soon starved to death no matter how much they ate. Some might think the skeleton is a part of the tree’s evil magic but it is not. The skeleton is the hero who stopped it. He never received a proper Rangal pyre. But his skull grins up at the tree to this day. It wishes he would stop grinning.