Death's End

Chapter 35 - Heart

The grey-haired man had trekked for more than half a day in the forest called the Heart of Elaria, but failed to make headway in his search for the Strange Village. The air was hot and humid, carrying a strange stench of the earth. It was overlaid with the rusty tang of blood, the only layer he could discern. For someone as well travelled as him, he was riled by his inability to identify the rest.

In his brown-and-green garment made for a ranger, the man prowled the forest, meandering under the bushy undergrowth and passing through protective foliage. The trees rustled, as the light above slowly died away till all he knew was a cold blue in an eerily silent forest.

Once in a while, that silence would be punctuated by odd growls echoing through the forest but they sounded nothing like the animals or beasts he was familiar with. He did kill a Bryi Lion when he first came in through the portal called the Strange Door from near the Tahoa region, but the starved lion looked like it was fleeing from something rather than an apex predator out to hunt.

The Forest that Eats...His mind whisked off to The Lore of the Heart of Elaria: the Strange and Mysterious Incidents. In it, it recounted the Strange Door–an ancient portal built eons ago by unknown hands and means–as the only safe way to traverse the Heart of Elaria into the Strange Village. It was also said that there was once another path into the Strange Village, through an underground passage from when the late city of Kefla was around. But with the city's destruction by the bloodlusted Noxarian king, Vladimos, the passage collapsed, leaving the Strange Door as the sole option.

The Strange Door was as strange as the nestled land within the Heart of Elaria it brought. The site it was hidden in was said to be a realm unto itself, where their understanding of the normal laws of the world did not apply. It was also said to appear differently to different people. Given the capriciousness of its location, which was never set in one place, most could only find it through paying the Warden, a supernatural guide that roamed the southwest part of the Tahoa river.

He had their guidance, making it possible for me to circumvent the Warden. But that took him three weeks. Through the trials, which acted as Warden's payments, he could find the Strange Door in less time, but with more risk to himself.

He thought back to Bolam's Sons, mercenaries whose reputations rivalled the Black Viper Company as well as the Half Brother Company that Ceil hired. They sought jobs near Tahoa and Jeopall, often doing the dirty, shadowy work for the highest bidders in both cities. These violent rogues and casual killers would sail the Southern Sea, staring down Bildale's raiding ships of marauders without fear. But none dared to venture a step into the Heart of Elaria through the Strange Door.

They spoke of past tales of now-dead comrades who vanished into the Heart of Elaria, never to return; of terrifying man-eating, soul-sucking plants; of violent apes thrice the size of the largest man; and more perils. He could not tell how many were true and how many exaggerated, as such tales often were. But as the growls deepened, he knew he would soon find out.

But he was above such primal fears.

His only fear was the failure of his goal.

The peculiar smell remained a constant companion, but it no longer bothered him. After walking for an indeterminable amount of time, he looked down at the enchanted lodestone he held in his hand, realising it was not vibrating.

Cursing under his breath, the man spun around as he unsheathed his sigils-carved blade that still dripped with the drying blood of the slain lion. Then he noticed a familiar scent had replaced the peculiar smell. With growing awareness, he forsook stealth as he dashed in the direction of the scent; the smell of lavender mixed with cedarwood.