But it had not all gone well, had it.

I was defeated.

The feline raised its hackles and extended its claws. Those such as the man who now fed on grubs had defeated the armies of the empire. The feline crouched, ready to leap on the man and disembowel him. The sentience hadn’t felt such rage for an eternity. It would sink the feline’s claws into his flesh and rip at muscle and sinew; feed on the soft underbelly of the enemy.

As the feline poised to strike, the entire forest tautened, a reflection of the sentience’s emotions. Far-off, the guardians of the wall screamed.

Alton spat out the carapace of a beetle, sensing a dramatic change in the posture of the forest. The mist wafted down as usual, but the forest itself had gone stone cold and silent.

Somewhere off to his right came the threatening, low-rumbling growl of a large wildcat. Trembling, Alton rose to his feet and backed away. He could use his ability to shield himself from attack, but he felt the malevolence of the forest beneath his feet, quivering in every tree around him in the very air he breathed. He could shield himself from the attack of a wildcat, yes, but from the entire forest?

Panic gripped him. He had to find the wall. He half ran, half loped in a random direction as though taken by sudden insanity. He slid on damp undergrowth and pushed branches out of his face, the running sending stabs of pain through his hip. Something pursued, the watchfulness rippling through the forest alongside him.

It occurred to him to simply give up, to lay down and surrender, but his D’Yer pride wouldn’t permit it. He’d keep running until the end. Maybe he was running deeper into the forest, maybe he was running all the way to Ullem Bay, but he’d keep running no matter where his feet led him.

He sloshed through a black pool and creatures snapped at his heels. He fell to his knees, but rose painfully and set off again. Something screeched in the canopy above his head, but he kept on.

Over his own harsh breaths, he heard the miraculous voices of the wall calling to him, as they once used to. They were unclear, stuttered as though a barrier prevented them from fully reaching him, but all that mattered was that he heard them, and they gave him a sense of direction.

His lungs burned as he lunged through the forest, adjusting his direction toward the voices. He leaped a downed log and rushed through hip-high brambles. He howled as thorns ripped through his trousers and flesh.

He stumbled from the brambles and fell to the ground, air forced from his lungs. Slowly he looked up and found himself nose to nose with a huge feline, its glimmering gold eyes embodying intelligence and all the menace and evil the forest represented.

The feline was much like a catamount in shape and coloring, but it was at least twice as large as the average catamount male, and there were other not-so-subtle differences. Its whiskers were thick, barbed spines. Its extended claws, the color of blood, were like curved knives. Alton thought he saw venom sacs at the base of each claw.

The feline’s back was arched, the hair along its spine standing on end. When it growled, Alton thought, I’m going to die.

They stared at one another, eyes locked, one assessing the other.

The very human regard of the feline fascinated Alton. It looked to be turning something over in its mind, struggling over baser instincts and emotions.

“What are you?” he murmured.

The creature cocked its ears forward in surprise. It paused, Alton was sure, to consider his words. It narrowed its eyes to slits, then turned tail and bounded silently off into the undergrowth and disappeared.

The malevolence still surrounded him, but the power of the forest held it at bay once again. He rose on shaking legs. His trousers were shredded and blotched with blood. He hoped the thorns weren’t poisonous, but it might be too much to expect from Blackveil.

The feline was gone, and so were the voices. Still, Alton had his life, and he had a direction in which to travel. He picked through the forest, judiciously avoiding brambles.

After a long time of walking, it became clear he traveled upon an open path that was not an accident of nature. He bent down and ripped moss off the ground, and found sea-rounded cobbles beneath that must have once served as the paving of a road.

Long time ago, he thought.

He had never considered people once living here, but then again, Mornhavon had made this place his stronghold. He might have constructed the road, or perhaps the people who lived here before him had. Blackveil hadn’t always been an evil place, but what it was before Mornhavon arrived, Alton could only guess.

As he walked, a human face peering out at him from the foliage along the road took several years off his life. Heart throbbing, he threw a rock at the figure. Rock clacked on rock.

Statue.

He drew closer, and saw better the texture of carved stone. Weathered eyes stared blankly back at him. The statue’s arms were uplifted, but her hands were missing. Perhaps if he knelt in the duff and searched beneath moss and undergrowth, he might find them.

The figure was draped in intricately carved twining leaves. She must have been beautiful once, but now her edges and details were ravaged by weather and time, and blotched by lichens.

He continued along the road, some of the paving stones jutting out of the moss, making for a topsy-turvy walking surface. When he stumbled over an upheaved cobble, he could only hope he wouldn’t break a limb, adding to his miseries.

The roadway rose ahead, and only as he mounted the rise did he realize he stood upon a bridge. From beneath came the sluggish gurgle of a stream. What civilization had this been before it was overcome by Blackveil? When something large and glistening slurped in the stream, he hastened on, leaving it far behind.