Arwin

Arwin and Yaz camped that night in the now otherwise unoccupied nymph tree circle. The next morning they returned to the road and resumed their quest to find the princess. Next stop: the home of the Dark Enchantress.

Eventually, Yaz brought them to a halt. The proper path turned south, and a brown wooden signpost crookedly stood at a fork. The main sign on the post was large, with clear, neat writing in white paint. It was obviously well-maintained.

The Esteemed Magicist Beers

Hero of the People

Travellers Welcome! :)

—>

A second sign hung below it, faded and worn, the wood very old and weathered. The original lettering, just a name and an arrow, was in black paint that had partially faded to gray over the years. Other writing had been added in fresher, pink paint, much of it all in capitals.

!!!BEWARE!!!

EVIL!! Dark Enchantress

Iff you value yer lifes KEEP OUT

Arwin looked at the second sign with a raised brow. “Who uses pink for a warning label? Well, admittedly, the pink does go well with the black, but still.” He looked at Yaz and pointed left toward the Dark Enchantress. “So…this way?”

“Looks like it.”

“Lead on then, my friend.” Arwin waved for Yaz to go first.

The forest continued, vast and deep, no doubt hiding a world within a world. But the path carved through it like a narrow hallway and they saw little other than the trees and bushes immediately around them.

Arwin really enjoyed the nature around them. “It’s too bad the forest is so thick that we can’t see much. I’ll bet it holds all kinds of mysteries, creatures that I’ve never before seen or even imagined. I’d love to see them all.”

“Some of those creatures would no doubt be predators,” Yaz pointed out.

“Uh, well, then I’d love to see them from afar. Maybe just the cute ones up close.”

The trail here was no more than a pair of faint, old wagon-wheel ruts winding their way through crudely hacked vegetation that was once again becoming overgrown. The non-magical path did not look regularly maintained or used. Here and there, branches and even whole trees had fallen across the way.

Arwin wondered if maybe the Dark Enchantress didn’t use the road much. Did she rarely leave her castle? Or did she have other ways of travelling? Perhaps she had a cadre of flying monkeys to carry a palanquin. Or maybe she could teleport.

He hoped the rumours of her vile nature were greatly exaggerated. Or that she wasn’t home, and they could quickly and quietly sneak around and then flee. Not that that would happen. He doubted she went for long walks in the swamp and left her castle unlocked behind her. Lacking a better plan, however, they would just have to take their chances.

“You know,” Arwin said as they walked, “you were right about the nymphs?”

Yaz looked over with curiosity. “Oh? How so?”

“I was pretty down after what happened with my ex. But after some experiences in the Blue Region and then all that fun with the nymphs, it feels like I’ve put some distance between me and the past. And I don’t hate myself as much as I did.”

Yaz grinned. “Being with someone new gave you some of your self-confidence back, huh?”

“Yeah. I feel a little more like myself. Thanks for that.”

“Anytime, my new friend.”

*

Yaz

Looking around as they walked, Yaz heard a rustle to the right and turned his head to see a tree wave slightly. The wind? But the other trees were all still. Odd.

The lone tree moved again.

Yaz frowned and walked closer to the edge of the path. He peered up into the shadows between the branches, trying to see into the gloom created by the mass of green leaves and brown trunks.

Something shiny reflected in the branches high above.

Curious, he stopped, then stepped to the side to get a better look at whatever had caught his attention up there.

A rather large orb looked back at him, several meters off the ground. The iris was dark orange and surrounded by heavily creased and folded gray skin. Long black lashes hung over the eye, and it looked back at him with great intelligence.

Yaz blankly stared for a moment. Then he realized what he was seeing. Then he realized just how far up from the ground that eye was, and he knew exactly what was watching him. He immediately looked down at the ground, breaking eye contact, and felt a rush of panic. He very slowly and cautiously backed up. He turned his head over his shoulder and opened his mouth to warn his new friend. But he lurched to a halt at what he saw.

Arwin had continued walking and was now some twenty meters further down the way, happily admiring an animal that had wandered onto the path in front of them. The beast, a little over two meters tall, was innocently chewing on a branch full of leaves while Arwin petted it on the side. It snorted and gave a short, cute trumpet, apparently enjoying the attention.

Arwin grinned. “Yaz! Look at this. You’ve got elephants here. But like no elephant I’ve ever seen. Not even an oliphant. It’s fascinating! Two trunks! But smaller tusks than elephants in my world.”

“Arwin!” Yaz hissed, trying to get the man’s attention.

Arwin didn’t appear to hear. “Look at the bone plate jutting out from the back of the head to protect its neck, like a fan. Can you believe it? Some dinosaurs had these and those same horns on the forehead, just like triceratops. It’s like an elephant and triceratops combined. But that’s so weird. Dinos had those frills and horns to protect themselves against taller predators like tyrannosaurus rex and allosaurus. What use would they have for them here? Man, you don’t have t-rexes here, do you?” He laughed, visibly enjoying the impressive young animal.

“Arwin!” Yaz hissed more loudly, still backing up and moving toward the man.

Arwin looked over at Yaz, his hand still petting one of the creature’s trunks. “Yeah?”

“Get away from the baby!”

Arwin frowned and looked at the animal next to him. “Baby? It’s the size of a fully grown elephant.”

Yaz fought the urge to run. He turned to face Arwin, putting his back to the creature behind him and walked faster. “That’s not an elephant; it’s a ceraphant. And that’s not an adult—“

Trees and brush cracked and tore behind Yaz. The huge animal he had glimpsed now pushed its way through the foliage, effortlessly pushing it aside and toppling trees as thick as a man as easily as if they were long grass.

“That’s an adult!” Yaz cried out in alarm.

The adult ceraphant stood easily twice as tall as the baby, maybe more. There were no front tusks under the twin trunks, indicating it was female, and Yaz guessed that it was likely the mother of the juvenile that Arwin was foolishly petting. The huge beast was as big as a two-story house yet moved with surprising grace. Thick, gray skin hung loose in folds. The bony frill sticking out of the back of her skull looked like an open fan, with small bony spikes on the rim. Two huge horns jutted out of the ceraphant’s forehead, longer and thicker than any knight’s lance. The added weight from frill and horns meant that the ceraphant was front-heavy, with forward shoulders and legs thicker and stronger than the rear. It looked as if it could batter its way right through the stone wall of a castle without any trouble at all.

Four, angry eyes locked onto Arwin: one on each side of the ceraphant’s head, as one might expect, and then two more, stacked vertically, in the center of its forehead. These were below the horns, protected by a slightly protruding mass of bone. The eyes on the side gave the animal excellent range of peripheral vision to each side, helping detect predators lurking in the forest around it. The eyes in the center gave it superior depth of vision straight ahead as well.

Arwin’s face paled when he saw the mother. He slowly withdrew his hand from the baby ceraphant. “Nice mommy?” He gulped.

*

Arwin

Arwin felt his pulse pick up. Goblins had been scary. This? This was even more terrifying.

Yaz waved him away. “Go around the baby. Slowly. And don’t look the adult in the eyes. They find it challenging.”

Arwin did as instructed, looking down and backing away around the baby.

Yaz, also keeping his eyes low, glanced at the huge feet of the approaching mother ceraphant, walking just fast enough to keep ahead of it. The ceraphant hadn’t charged yet, but she was still coming, and from the way she was snorting and huffing, she was definitely in protective momma mode.

Then someone else joined the scene from further up the path.

Arwin halted mid-step and hesitantly called out.“Uh, Yaz?”

“Yeah?”

He could hear the awe in his own voice. “Can’t go this way. There’s another one on this side too. And it’s even bigger than yours.”

A ceraphant even bigger than the mother emerged from the forest and strolled onto the path. This one had a pair of long, curved tusks; wicked things. The old male stood over Arwin and raised both aged trunks to give a massive trumpet that shook the forest and sent Arwin stumbling backwards.

Nearby animals in the forest shrieked in fear, and clouds of birds scattered to the skies.

Arwin hurriedly rose and backed up. Unfortunately, that put him closer and closer to the juvenile ceraphant.

Yaz joined him there.

The baby glanced back and forth at its parents, picking up on their distress and becoming nervous.

Mother and father glared with terrible, orange eyes, dual trunks waving threateningly. The mother trumpeted, and the forest seem to shake with the force of her rage.

The young ceraphant became alarmed at last. It reared up and squealed in fright, front legs pawing the air close to the heads of Arwin and Yaz.

Mother, unable to contain her protective urges any longer, snorted and charged, her eyes fixed on them, trunks lashing.

“Run!” Yaz shouted.

They each bolted towards the forest. Unfortunately, they went in opposite directions.

Arwin made it just inside the edge of the forest, plowing through underbrush before he belatedly realized that Yaz wasn’t next to him. He skidded to a halt, wildly looking around for his companion.

Instead, all he saw was the furious face of the momma ceraphant as she bore down on him, ready to trample him underfoot.

Arwin quailed. He knew there was no way to outrun the beast.

A fierce roar came from above. The momma ceraphant slowed and looked up.

From out of the pale blue sky, on vast, soaring wings, came a monstrous, ancient black dragon, swooping down on them all. Like a giant bird of prey, it aimed itself for the baby ceraphant, extending its rear legs and talons as it prepared to snatch the prey up.

Immediately, both ceraphant parents forgot about Arwin and Yaz and ran towards their child. The mother threw herself in front of the dragon. The dragon’s talons scored her head plate, but she prevented the dragon from reaching the baby.

The father lunged with its great horns but missed as the dragon passed by out of reach.

The dragon turned in the air, hovered, and opened its mouth, emitting a spray of foul-smelling acid.

The father stepped in front of the others, pushing the baby and momma out of the way. But while much of the acid hit the ground, some hit the male ceraphant’s flank, and he lurched and trumpeted in pain from the acid’s toxic bite.

The mother wrapped her trunks around the baby and hustled it into the forest, right in Arwin’s direction.

Arwin guessed they were heading towards the nearby swamp and river, where the water would neutralize the black dragon’s acid breath and give them some protection. He scrambled out of the way as best he could in the heavy underbrush.

The father ceraphant helplessly lashed out at the out-of-reach dragon with its horns one last time and then charged after its family.

The dragon, unwilling to let prey escape, dropped from the sky and dug its talons into the father ceraphant’s hindquarters. Normally, they would have pierced skin and shredded it like paper. But the ceraphant’s skin was very thick and tough, and it was also loose, just for situations like these. Where tight skin would have been easily sliced through, the loose skin absorbed the blow.

The ceraphant spun, long trunks battering the dragon aside and knocking it to the ground.

The dragon crashed through the trees, wings spread wide for balance, and then clawed its way back into the fight with a growl.

The father ceraphant backed away into the forest, keeping horns and neck plate facing its foe, a wall the dragon ferociously tried to attack. The two roared and trumpeted. Acid sprayed, burning through skin and nearby trees. Then the two locked together, viciously trying to wrest the other to the ground.

Underbrush crackled, and Arwin turned to see Yaz run up.

“Let’s go! Let’s go!” the skeleton shouted.

Together, the two ran off down the trail, the battle between giants tearing up the forest behind them.

The trail opened up slightly, and the forest turned to swamp with surprising speed. The way appeared to venture directly into the swamp, with wood and stone bridges connecting to various islands. Unfortunately, the first such bridge was a dilapidated wreck, with the wood rotted through and most of it below muck and water.

The pair slowed and stopped at the edge of the trail.

Arwin bent over, breathing hard. “Seeing that dragon…was something else… But I'm glad…that's over. Now…what?” he panted.

"We're not out of the woods yet."

Arwin snorted and straightened up. "Out of the woods? Because we're surrounded by trees? Really, you're as pun-happy as—“ Arwin's words cut off as he saw Yaz back up a couple of steps, the other’s gaze locked on something behind Arwin. Arwin whipped around, and his voice tightened with dread. "No way. I prefer the dragon. Let's go back to the dragon!”

Four massive, deadly-looking spiders headed their way. Each stood as tall as a man's waist with legs at least three meters long. Their hard skin glistened black. Long, thin legs as hard and pointed as any spear stealthily crept between the trees. Blood red and neon yellow streaks, the kind of markings that poisonous arachnids often have, laced their smooth abdomens. Dozens of eyes emotionlessly bore down on their prey, and many-fanged mouths hungrily worked as the terrifying beasts drew closer.

Creatures rode atop two of the spiders. Yaz muttered, "Black gremlins,” and looked around for a way to escape. “Rumour is they’re servants of the Dark Enchantress.”

Arwin felt the piercing red eyes of the gremlins on his skin like prickly bugs crawling all over him. The monsters were short humanoids with gray-black skin, big pointed ears and wide mouths filled with short, sharp, pointed teeth. Four-fingered hands with hooked claws grasped leather reins, and they smiled with malicious intent. Arwin shuddered. “Aw, man. Where’s Rambo Gizmo when you need him?”

When Yaz turned to run, one of the riderless spiders sprang towards him, clearing almost twenty meters in a heartbeat. The needle-sharp spines of its legs punched into the ground around the skeleton, and the arachnid's hard body slammed its victim to the earth.

Arwin snatched up a branch from the grass, but before he could move more than two paces in Yaz’s direction to help, another giant spider came sailing through the air. Arwin was thrown to the ground.

The spider deftly picked him up and then spun him wildly about as it wove a thick, sticky webbing all around him. The spider silk even covered his face and head, encasing him in a cocoon.

He struggled to breathe and move, thrashing about before a brutally sharp pincer jabbed his ankle. Then he went still.

Well, so much for sneaking into the Dark Enchantress’s castle.