“Well, this certainly looks familiar.” Sheilah offered drily as she surveyed the area. On one side of the pass that led up to the short box canyon that led to the spring she’d recovered with Fialla some months before was the skeleton of a dragonling. Scavengers had been at it, leaving nothing behind but the bones.
On the other side of the box canyon was a gnarled and twisted tree with leafless branches and a somewhat desiccated, sooty look.
“You were very busy.” Fialla complimented, drawing a scowl from Sheilah.
“I don’t know if that’s a compliment or a curse.” She replied. “I was barely in my own mind most of the time.”
“Are you now?” Fialla asked as she used the toe of her boot to prod the bones.
“Very funny. Wasn’t the cave with the pool somewhere around here? You led me there before. We might be able to rest for a bit.” Sheilah asked.
It had been a month and a half since they left Olin to whatever fate he faced, a little more than two since they’d left the steppes of the Dragon Clan.
Fialla eyed the sky, cupping her hand to shade her face. “We can try. It might make food difficult.”
Sheilah frowned. “What are we expected to eat in the Burning Lands?” She complained. “We were only expected to take as much food as we could carry.”
Fialla glanced at Sheilah. “We’ve hunted enough to eat here... it’s probably the same past the passes.”
Sheilah took a step towards the narrow entrance of the canyon, but Fialla reached out, super-quick, snatched her collar, and dragged her back. “Wait.”
Sheilah gave the half-elven girl a confused look. “Wait? Why? Don’t you want a hot bath?”
“I do, but wait. I need to think.” the smaller girl muttered with a frown.
“Okay, but while you think, I’m going to go-” Sheilah began, but Fialla hooked her foot around Sheilah’s, dropping the taller girl to her knees.
“I’ll follow you anywhere, even to the Lands of the Traitorous Dead in the heart of the High Elf territory Sheilah, but please, I just want you to wait a little bit.” Fialla urged.
Sheilah looked back at the half-elven girl, and recognized the studious frown on her face.
“Fine, fine, I’ll wait, but I will remind you that there’s a hot bath in that canyon.” Sheilah argued, pulling herself to her feet.
“I know. I’d like a bath, myself. But something seems off.”
“What seems off?” Sheilah demanded truculently.
“I don’t think that tree was there before.” Fialla finally replied reluctantly.
Sheilah eyed the thing. It looked like a dead tree, with gray, fissured bark and a few leafless limbs. It wasn’t particularly tall, only about twelve feet in height.
Plants were important things to be aware of in the Redstone. Which were helpful, which were harmful, which could keep you alive, and which could kill you.
Trees only existed in the lands that belonged to the land of the Mountain Cat, and they didn’t look at all like this one, Sheilah reasoned, and took a couple of steps away from it.
“You think it’s dangerous?” Sheilah asked Fialla.
“It hasn’t even been a year since we were here last.” Fialla offered by way of explanation. “Look how thick it is; if the tree just started growing before we left, it’d be tiny.” She paused. “I think it’s dangerous.”
Sheilah nodded. There were carnivorous plants here and there that ate insects and small animals, there were constricting vines with poisonous thorns that would kill you; it would feed on your decaying remains. There was even a kind of flower that would shoot its seeds out like darts. The seeds were barbed so that they would pierce skin and flesh and work their way inwards, where they would germinate inside, gaining nourishment from your blood. Once that happened, death was certain, as they were impossible to cut out of the flesh without killing the victim.
If you didn’t know what a particular plant was, It made sense to steer clear of it.
“So what’s the plan?” Sheilah asked curiously.
“Fire seems like the best idea.” Fialla replied. “I have a few branches, we can start a small fire and toss them at the tree and see what happens.”
Sheilah nodded, and helped Fialla kindle a small fire.
They tossed the burning bits of wood at the base of the tree, and stumbled backwards as the thing swelled, balloonlike, the bark losing its gray tones, turning a brilliant, vibrant red, as if suffused with blood. The trunk split open in a vertical gash, peeling back to reveal sharp, hooked teeth. Tendrils slithered out from the mouth, probing, seeking.
This story has been stolen from Royal Road. If you read it on Amazon, please report it
The branches at the top of the trunk likewise had swollen along with the rest of the body, sprouting eyes that swiveled and swung about, blinking wetly and searching for a target.
“I’ve heard of this!” Sheilah blurted, stepping further back and nocking an arrow. “Father told me about them when I was a child- this is a Blood Tree!” She explained as Fialla scooped up her spear and leveled it at the creature.
“Did he tell you how to kill it?” Fialla yelled as it started pulling its roots from the ground and started lurching towards them.
“They’re hard to kill.” Sheilah panted as she backed up, head on a swivel. She spotted a boulder; that might be a good spot to climb up on if things got serious. She drew the arrow she’d nocked and searched for a specific spot she’d try to use to gain an advantage.
“Beware the Blood Tree." Her father offered as they ate their dinner meal. “It looks like a dry, withered tree, but it’s not a tree at all. When you get near it, the beast splits open and tentacles will spit out of its mouth and stab themselves into you. It’ll inject its young into you, and they’ll feed on you from the inside, planting themselves through your feet and into the ground... and then there will be two trees, lurking and waiting for someone to get close.”
“How do you kill them?” Sheilah had asked curiously, all nine years of age.
“It’s hard. It’s damn hard. They’re smart, and the thing has layers of bone armor under the skin. If you injure them, they’ll heal up right away. You stab them through the heart and it’ll die, but it’ll inject some of its young into the ground, and they’ll stick up like little hooks like this” he hooked his index finger to demonstrate, “perfect for slicing through the feet of the next sorry bastard-”
“Language.” Ladria called from her spot, working on a bit of embroidery in the firelight.
“- well, you get the idea.” He offered with a roll of his eyes and a half smile. “The key is to find the brain. I found the brain at the base of the Blood Tree. There was a sort of a ...white- gray spot in the skin. The brain is right there. No bone there at all. It’s a small spot, though. Until you’re an adult, the best thing for you to do is run away and tell an adult.” He paused in thought. “The only one I know of that ever successfully managed to kill one on his own was Adlan... and that was so long ago it may as well have been just a story.”
“Okay.” Sheilah announced to Fialla. “We’re fucked, but... maybe not that bad. I don’t know.” she added.
The Half-elven girl gave her a dubious look and kept backing away.
“You can’t attack with the spear. It’s got a longer reach than you, so get behind me and act as my eyes so I don’t step into something worse.”
The Blood tree surged towards them, its myriad root-like tentacles spidering across the ground, digging into the gravelly purchase of the Redstone Valley in chase after the two girls. The tentacles from its mouth squirmed and writhed as the branchlike eyestalks that sprouted from the top of it glared at them in mute, insensate hatred. A number of holes along its sides opened and closed in rhythmic breathing, sucking air in whistling gasps and letting it out.
Sheilah kept eying the base of the monster, looking for that one spot her father had mentioned, but the thing twisted and pulsated so much that she couldn’t spot it.
“Higher ground ahead!” Fialla warned, and Sheilah hazarded a quick glance. There was a low stone shelf that she was only a few steps from tripping over. She stepped up on it and kept backing up.
“Maybe it won’t climb up here-” Sheilah began and just as quickly cut herself up as the tentacle-roots squirmed up onto the rocky shelf and heaved it up onto the stony shelf. The gaping mouth opened and closed, the spiracles hooting, a viscous liquid dribbling from all of its orifices.
“We’re fucked!” Fialla shouted nervously. “We’ve got nowhere to back up to, now!” Sheilah glanced back, and realized that they’d arrived at the boulder she’d spotted earlier.
“Climb up!” Sheilah urged. She heard Fialla scaling the boulder behind her, and wondered if the thing that squirmed and wriggled its way towards them would give her time to make the same climb.
“I... can’t make the climb, Fialla. It’ll get me if I try.” Sheilah realized aloud. “I think I’m fucked.”
Fialla’s spear cut across the air and slashed one of the eyestalk-branches, chopping into it, splashing blood everywhere. It let out a weird, bleating scream at this, and its mouth-tentacles surged out straight for Sheilah.
Sheilah herself launched herself off the stone shelf onto the gravelly floor of the Redstone Valley that led to the passes. The Blood Tree squealed in frustration as it missed its target.
Sheilah rolled, her quiver spraying her arrows everywhere, even as Fialla chopped at the eyestalks with her spear safely from atop the boulder, where its tentacles couldn’t reach. Sheilah grabbed an arrow, her clawlike nails scraping in the gravel, striking sparks.
As the thing probed the side of the boulder with its tongues to try and find a way up to get the half-elf girl that was hurting it so much, Sheilah nocked- and spotting the pale gray-white blotch of its brain bulging beneath the membrane of its flesh- loosed her fearsome bolt.
The whole thing seized up, every limb shivering for a moment before it slumped over.
Fialla peeked over the boulder.
“Is it dead?” She asked.
“I don’t know. Don’t fuck with it.” Sheilah replied, scooping up her fallen arrows. “Can you jump down from there?”
The lithe girl jumped down nimbly from the boulder and helped Sheilah pick up her arrows.
“That thing is... disgusting.” She observed, and then added, “You’re all bloody.”
“You’re the one that made it bleed all over me.” Sheilah complained, and then hugged the smaller girl. “Thank you for... thank you for everything.” Sheilah finished, exhausted.
Fialla nodded. “I think we need that bath now.” She decided, and Sheilah nodded with a dry chuckle.
The path that led to the cave was a short winding trail into a box canyon that passed through a thriving meadow and terminated in the entrance to the cave. How the meadow came to be, how it was able to flourish in a desolate land like the Redstone was a complete mystery.
Since there was only one river that fed into a lake in the heart of the Redstone, and since the area itself around the river flourished, perhaps the springs that Fialla had found so long ago also nourished the land in some way.
Sheilah was barely coherent when Fialla had led her into and out of the narrow canyon, so she didn’t remember anything of it before.
What occupied her attention, however, were the giants that had set up camp in it. Red-skinned and titanic, the smallest at least twice as tall as her father, they ambled through the clearing, and grouped up around a somewhat large campfire in front of a large-ish tent that could have housed several families.
The sight of the double dozen of them was enough to make the two girls sigh in frustration.