1. The Forsaken Woods

The ferryman’s name was Dek, and he had made this crossing eleven times. He had mentioned this fact twice already, both times with the careful emphasis that suggested eleven was a number worth respecting.

Amos sat at the stern, silently watching the riverbanks. His hand rested in its most natural position — on the hilt of his sword.

The name of the nobleman who’d hired them, he had already forgotten. The man sat midship beneath a makeshift canvas shade that Dek had rigged up for him. He wore fine travelling clothes which appeared to have done very little travelling. And he never stopped talking since they left the North River-port.

He talked about the shrouded men who roamed the streets of the capital at night. He talked about each of the merchants and minor nobles who had vanished within the past year. Then he shared a rumour about a farmer in the Hanto Valley who found his entire flock dead one morning, with no visible marks. Amos filed that detail away for his notes. Though he’d like to hear it again from someone more reliable.

“They say the rebel king Lysander will march on the capital before first frost,” the nobleman said, spilling tobacco on his lap as he filled his pipe. “His army grows by the week. Half of Dolimir is already behind him. Won’t be long before those Kaguitay filth are finally driven from our land.” He glanced at Amos with the bright expression of someone who had never deigned to read a room. “You have the bearing of a military man. Have you considered joining his cause?”

Amos gave him a flat look.

The nobleman turned, finding something interesting to examine on the opposite bank as he struggled to light his pipe.

Ahead, the river bent south, and the treeline rose into view. A wall of darkness in the bright summer’s day.

The Forsaken Woods. Only the oldest generation could remember a time when they didn’t exist. War fables say they sprang up overnight. Saplings growing into ancient giants in a matter of days.

No one had a good explanation for how or why. But the forest completely blocked the pass between East Dolimir and the rest of Satchea to the north. Because of this, some believed it was a blessing. The land’s way of fighting back against the Kaguitay invaders that landed on Dolimir’s shores. It was difficult to think of something so dark as being a blessing.

As the first shadows of the forest touched the ferry, Dek shipped the oars and picked up a ferry pole, making small, precise adjustments to centre them in the current.

“Quiet now,” Dek said. It was not a request. Even the nobleman understood that. He folded his hands in his lap, pressed his lips together, and watched the treeline as shadows enveloped the boat.

The world fell silent as the forest canopy closed above them. It wasn’t a gradual fading as they left the grasslands behind, but an abrupt quiet. Like being closed in a cellar. No birdsong, or chirr of insects, not even the leaves rustling in the wind. Only the soft movement of water against the hill and the careful dip of Dek’s ferry pole, diligently keeping them centred between the banks, and the nobleman’s breathing, which was already faster than it should have been.

What little light reached them through the canopy diffused in mist, giving the forest an even silver glow. The trees on each bank stretched infinitely into the dark above them, their trunks thicker than a man’s shoulders, roots in great arching tangles burst through the ground and down into the water.

Amos watched the banks. There was something moving between the trees, following them from the shore. He would glimpse something at the edge of his vision, a figure tall and dark, but when he turned, there was nothing there. Just the forest casting twisted, shifting shadows. He kept his hand on his sword.

As the last light of the grasslands faded from sight behind them, the nobleman began to him. A thin, nervous sound, barely audible, the kind a man makes without knowing he’s making it. Amos fixed him with another flat look, and the nobleman flinched. The man quieted, and his knee bounced.

Amos looked at Dek. The man’s eyes remained fixed on the water, his jaw set, the line of his shoulders tightened. His breathing was shallow and controlled, barely moving his chest.

The nobleman began humming again, louder this time. Dek rebuked him with a wordless hiss. But the damage may have already been done. Something stirred in the branches.

Amos had already drawn his sword when the ravens hit the ferry like a plough wind. Not one or two, but dozens in an indiscernible mass. They consumed the ferry in a storm of feather and talon. He struck down three of the beasts before his sword became caught in the mass of them like thick brambles.

Somewhere the nobleman screamed and Dek swore as the pole clattered against the hull. The ferry lurched and tilted, then slammed into the eastern bank with a sound of splintering timber. Throwing them all forward.

Amos’ head struck the hull, and for a moment, the world was all white light and ringing. As his head cleared, the silence had returned, broken only by the creak of the grounded hull and the water running past it.

Amos’ sword lay next to him. Light’s grace that he had not fallen on it. He picked it up and stood to take stock of their situation. The canvas shade was torn to shreds, and pieces of fine noble wear were strewn across the ferry. Dek was recovering himself at the bow. The nobleman was nowhere to be seen.

Amos was over the edge of the boat and on the bank in one fluid motion. Sword raised, he searched the treeline. A trail of broken undergrowth led into the forest. Not a clean trail but path of a desperate flight littered with black feathers.

He looked back at Dek, who had recovered his pole and was already working the hill free from the bank. The ferryman met his eyes and his dark expression said all it needed to. Even a nobleman’s gold only pressed a man so far.

Amos turned, and followed the broken trail.

If the river had been silent, the forest was something else. Without even the noise of the current, the only sound in the world was Amos’ steps, causing him to cringe each time they announced his presence.

The nobleman’s trail was clear, and Amos stayed true to it. Not that he had much choice. With each step he took, the trees seemed to draw closer in. Not moving, they never moved when he watched them, but the gaps between them narrowed all the same.

Through the spaces between trees, Amos caught glimpses of the same dark figure he had seen on the banks. Again, each time he turned, there was nothing but gnarled trees.

He kept moving regardless. He had learned not to let his mind run ahead of his feet. The trail continued, ever clear in the forest. Moving further from the river than any wise man would follow. The ravens had left stripped bark and scattered feathers. Branches broken at heights that could not have been the nobleman. It wasn’t clear if they were chasing or dragging him through the forest.

The air was getting colder; perhaps the sun was setting. Amos had lost all sense of time. Light still broke through gaps in the forest canopy to diffuse in the mist. The pale glow could have been sun or moon, all the same.

He shivered and sheathed his sword so he could pull his cloak tight around himself. The garment had begun to look as tattered as he felt. The money from this job might have finally bought him a new one. Though he didn’t think there was much chance of being paid at this point.

A foul smell hit Amos in the back of his throat. Rot. Cold earth. Something underneath, older and somehow worse. A low, wet, clicking sound came from the branches overhead, and Amos got the sense that his arrival was being announced. He slowed his step, drew his sword and raised it.

The path he’d been following opened up into a clearing. A small circle, barely a gap in the canopy for a single shaft of pale moonlight. The trees around the edges were stained black with ravens on every branch. Each of them sat still and silent, watching the centre of the clearing where the crumpled nobleman lay illuminated. He didn’t appear to be breathing.

Amos took a step into the clearing, and every raven turned to face him in quiet unison. At the far side of the clearing, a figure stepped to the edge of the light. Still cloaked in shadows, he could just make out its form. It was the same he’d been seeing in the shadows from the corner of his eye. Shaped like a man, but poorly. Taller than any man, arms too long, fingers like a raven’s talons. Its hunched shoulders rose and fell with slow, deliberate breath. It stood unmoving, turned towards Amos. He could not see its face, but he felt when their eyes met as icy dread washed over him. His hands shook on his raised sword, and his knees trembled. He had never feared to face a man in battle, but this… this was something else.

From somewhere in the silence he heard a woman’s whisper: “run, Amos”. And he ran.

Roots caught at his boots and branches clawed at his cloak. The ravens rose into a clamour of screams and beating wings as he burst through the brush. The trail he’d followed in had been swallowed by the forest, but a new path had opened. Trees parted just enough for a man to pass through. The trail didn’t lead back toward the river, but it led away from the ravens, and in that moment, that seemed like his best option, so he followed.

The sound of ravens faded as Amos ran, but he did not slow. The trees visibly parted before him, and he followed. He didn’t know where the forest was taking him, but he couldn’t imagine any place more terrible than where he had just been.

As he ran, the chaos of the clearing faded to silence until the only sounds he could hear were his beating heart and the thud of his boots on the hard dirt of the forest floor. He kept up his pace for a few moments longer before he allowed himself to slow to a walk, then come to a stop.

Amos’ whole body shook with adrenaline and his heart pounded in his ears as he fought to slow his ragged breathing. Sword in hand, he turned to look behind him and started as his blade rang out against a tree trunk less than half a pace behind him, directly in the middle of the path he had just run down. The forest had been closing in behind him.

As his breathing returned to a normal rhythm, he took a moment to arrange his thoughts. Was the forest protecting him or swallowing him? He had lost all sense of direction in his flight, trusting to the path that opened before him. Had he been moving deeper into the forest or out of it?

He turned to look down the path ahead of him once more. The trees that had seemed like impenetrable walls as he ran had plenty of space for him to slip out into the forest — the path laid out for him was clear, but the way was open for him to leave it. Was he being led somewhere? By who?When he had heard that whisper in the clearing, he instinctively trusted it.

The image came to his mind again of the crumpled nobleman in the clearing. Whatever the man lacked in self-awareness, he did not deserve that fate.

“Amos?” whispered the woman’s voice.

He set his shoulders, tightened his grip on his sword, and continued down the path.

The light appeared like a sunrise, amber bleeding into the silver-grey of the forest. Amos’ first instinct was that it was the light of a campfire; a thought that brought him both hope and trepidation. He slowed his approach and held his sword at the ready. But as the source of the light came into view he stopped walking entirely.

The path into resolved to a clearing. That part was easy to grasp. But where the treeline stopped, so did the darkness. While every moment since the river had been spent in shades of grey, before him the night lived in colour.

He took another cautious step and felt the warmth touch his face like the sun breaking through the clouds. He stood for a moment on that threshold, then stepped through.

His boot landed on a bed of thick grass from which crickets chirred their evening song. A horned owl hooted in protest at Amos’ trespass. A gentle breeze stirred his cloak and rustled the branches overhead. At the centre of the clearing stood a two-story building of weathered timber. Warm amber light poured from its arched windows, and a steady column of smoke rose into a night sky of stars and moonlight. The air was thick with the smells of wet grass, pine needles, woodfire, and roasting meat.

For a long moment, Amos stood looking at the building. A wooden sign hung above the door swung gentle in the breeze. The Wayward Inn.

He looked back at the forest behind him, and the Forsaken Woods waited there. Cold and dark as ever. His mind raced with questions. All the research he had done for this job, nothing ever spoke of an inn. Turning away from the forest, he crossed the grass to the inn’s door, sword still in hand. He lifted his free hand to knock, and the door cracked open with a gentle squeak of its hinges. Amos unclenched his fist and pushed the door open. Warmth and light washed over him, the new brightness causing him to squint.

“Ah, good, Amos,” a woman’s voice called from inside. “You finally made it.”