Find Part 1 here.

The sun shining without obstruction was a reassuring feeling after the shadows of the woods.  The thrumming silence still clung to her and Keto paused with her face upturned for a moment.  She reveled in its feeling of warmth, taking a slow breath before opening her eyes and jumping forward a few steps.  Quartes had not stopped and was getting ahead of her.

“So, we encountered the Fey but didn’t see it,” she picked back up their conversation as she caught up.  “Is that usual?”

“Depends on the nature of their aggression,” Quartes answered, turning to face her for a moment.  “Often they’re very forthright.  They comes bursting out of the brush or mountainside and charge.  It makes it easy to find them.”

“And to end them,” she offered.  The Landian nodded.  “Killing them is enough to stop them from coming back?”

“I don’t know anything that comes back from death.”  His answer was dry, overly so and Keto caught the hint of a smile as he looked at her.

“Funny,” she teased, “but another one doesn’t just come to take its place?”

“It might in time if someone starts the story anew, but then they will have more confidence that it can be stopped.”  They had made a camp not far from the edge of the woods, leaving some of their gear there after their visit  in the village.

“They’ll just believe you?” Keto asked, an idea tickling her mind.

“I’ll bring a piece of it if I can, but yes, my word is usually enough,” the Landian had set his pack down and had moved on to removing his bracers.

Keto opened her mouth to note that they could just go and tell the village they had taken care of it but she realized the problem before she had spoken.  Quartes would know that they had not taken care of it.  A Landian’s memory was it’s own problem to deal with.  “There’s not a more permanent method?”

“Not that I know,” bracers freed the Landian sat down on a moldering log.  “Telling them it’s them making it hasn’t worked.”  His eyes squinted before he continued,  “I do wonder if I made a mistake,” Keto looked to him and waited for Quartes to continue.  “Scaring it with the Shard may make it wary.  I am known for this and that may mean it won’t rise to meet me again.”

Keto crossed her arms, lost in her own thought.  “We’ll need to draw it out, give it something that matches it’s story.”  

Quartes nodded, “I’ll think about it, find something to try tomorrow.”

*****

She reached for the tankard and took another sip.  After the confrontation at the village’s square, the leaders had been eager to see Quartes away from the town.  Which had made for an easy compromise to get Keto what she wanted.  The simple side of it was a table at the village’s wayhouse and a bottle of wine which served to ease her parched throat now.  The more complex bit was an agreement to send every villager who had claimed to have encountered the Fey to talk to her.

Keto had talked to more than a half-dozen of the villagers, mostly farmers that she had waited on to be reached and to be brought into town.  Each had been travelling what passed for the trail that led to Koric and all agreed that they had encountered something.  Keto had taken down their tales, making notes on what they had seen, what had happened, and when it had occurred.  Most of the tales were similar, the travellers had paused on the trail, a mule had thrown a shoe or they had needed a brake, and then something had settled in around them.  All of them spoke of a feeling foreboding or malice and all had run without getting a good look.

Which Keto couldn’t argue with, but it was frustrating nonetheless to have so few details.  It seemed to here that the locals were just scared of the woods but no one had a story that seemed to speak to the core of that.  Maybe a Fey would come to just fill a feeling of unease but she felt like it had to be something more than that.

She sighed and took another sip of the wine.  Which was when the elderly Humai entered the hall.  The man leaned on a cane, the Humai from the square earlier guiding him.  The younger pointed towards Keto and with a shake of his head and a wave of his hand the older man made his way to her table.  She gave him a smile and made to stand as he neared but the man waved her off, taking a moment to drag his chair out and then lower himself into the seat.  His gaze was on the bottle of wine before anything else and Keto filled a second tankard and pushed it his way.

The man took a long drink and smacked his lips, returning her smile in full.  “Sorry for the delay in getting her, don’t get around like I used to.”

“If I had known, I could’ve come out and found you.”

The man waved away her statement in a motion she was beginning to assume was commonplace.  “And miss an opportunity to go out for a drink, bah.”

“Well, I hope they told you what it is I’m looking for.”

“You and that old legend are out here to take care of our Fey problem,” Keto nodded as the man leaned forward, “Well, I’m the first one that saw it.”  Keto raised an eyebrow as the man paused to take a drink.  “Yup, was coming back from market, still could travel when it was with my wagon.  A storm had slowed me down and it was dark when I passed through the woods.”

Keto topped off the man’s tankard before her fingers took up her graphite once more, “Do tell.”

“Yup, creature done set a root up, broke my wagon’s axle clean in.  So there I am, in the dark, hobbled as I am, realizing something dark out there was out to get me, when I see it, a pair of orange eyes.  Wasn’t like I could run so I…”

*****

Quartes awoke, it was not with a start but his pulse was racing, something was wrong.  Pupil-less eyes scanned the camp.  The fire had burnt out, no surprise.  His belt with sword and Hilt-Shard was still held in one hand.  Shards were scattered around the camp.  His pack was serving as mattress and pillow.  Keid was leaned against a rock.  Things didn’t seem to be amiss.

Keto was gone.

His feet were under him, his belt coming about his waist, as he scanned the camp for causes of her departure.  There was no sign of struggle, something the Shards or Keid would’ve dealt with.  Her pack and harp were gone, items she would’ve chosen to not be parted with.  He looked again, noted their boot falls from the day before.  Marked off each set against his memory of their coming and goings, found the set that were just the smaller marks of her soles.  Grabbing Keid, he slung the shield across his back and followed after the trail.

One he noted that were heading in all too regular of a stride back into the woods.

The predawn light quickly faded as he  entered the forest.  His pace slowed, Quartes’ pupil-less eyes scanning for signs as the underbrush ate up the easy trail and gave him ruffled bushes and broken branches to follow.

“Quartes!” the shout brought the Landian’s gaze up and there, coming out from behind a large tree, was Keto.  He noted her limp first, the oddity of her harp tucked under her arm and freed from its satchel second.  She was moving towards him, her form dipping with each step.  “I rolled my ankle and…”

“Just stay there,” he shouted as he pushed through the undergrowth towards her.  Mind cycled through questions, but settled for getting her out of the woods before anything else happened.  Which was when he felt it.  The silencing of the dawn songs of the birds, the heaviness settling in.  He looked to Keto as her faced blanched and the Landian pushed into a run.  Eyes splitting between finding his next few steps and keeping an eye on her, he caught sight of the root as it lifted up into her path.  Foot caught, Keto stumbled and fell and Quartes noted the movement besides her.

The large was shifting, the shifting of its branches bringing a shafting array of mottled patterns to the underbrush.  With creeks and cracks that sounded like thunderclaps in the silence, it was turning to face them.  A rooted limp was lifted, dirt and detritus falling it as as it squared with Keto.

“Keid!” the Landian shouted as he hefted the shield over his shoulder and flung it forward.  It righted itself in its flight, as if caught by invisible hand,s and continued forward in a rush.  With a ring that echoed throughout the dark woods, the shield collided with the trunk of the tree.  A splinters of wood scattered int he air and the tree tilted, lifted root crashing back down into underbrush as regained her feet and rushed away.  The tree twisted again, turning now to face the Landian.  At the base of the boughs sat two orange lights, a split in the bark of the trunk opened in a yell that came a the furious din of shaking leaves and branches.  A bough descended upon Quartes but Keid had already moved to intercept.  The sound of the wood on steel rang out again as the forest floor heaved.

Quartes kicked to the side as the dirt and bushes split and a root erupted from the ground.  Landing, the Landian deftly drew and planted the Hilt-Shard in the exposed wood.  Once more the crack of thunder erupted through the forest.  From the pouch on his belt, Quartes flung forward a pair of blue grey shards.  Their thunk into the wood of the Tree Fey barely registered as the creature thrashed in the after effects of the first attack from the Shards of Lehn.  As the root roiled about him, Quartes withdrew the Hilt-Shard.  Keid warded after another strike as the Landian pushed on to the trunk.

One slash connected hilt with one shard, a second cut back across touched hilt to the second .  Each boomed in thunder and lightning, each strike blasting away whole chunks of the trunk in a spray of splinters and burning kindling.

Quartes had withdrawn, Keid hovering nearby, ready for another strike.  The Tree Fey had grown still and after a breath a series of cracks and pops accompanied the final splinter of its trunk.  A low moan escaped the tree, branches and leaves fell and broke upon the ground.  Quartes straightened, pale eyes noting that the glowing pair had gone out on the tree.  His gaze then turned about, looking and finding Keto as she walked easily towards him, harp tucked in the nook of one arm as she strummed notes with her free hand.

The Landian sheathed the Hilt-Shard, hands moving to cross over his chest.

Keto shrugged, her steady steps bringing her closer as she looked to the fallen tree and back.  “The stories implied it liked to go after hurt prey.”

“So you made me believe you were hurt,” Quartes filled in, his lips a thin line.

Keto gestured to the defeated Fey.  Quartes took a breath, arms uncrossing as he reached for grabbed Keid out of the air.  Keto meandered towards the fallen tree.  “So how do you bring a tree back as proof of what you did?”

Quartes sighed.