“Hold,” I said in a hush.
The horse steadied long enough for me to focus. A tail of wind slithered through the trunks. The temperature dipped to an eerie degree. Restlessness stirred among the undergrowth.
“Nicu,” I muttered slowly while scanning the forest. “Do not move.”
My liege had already stalled his antsy mount. Like Aspen, he couldn’t have noticed the disturbance prior, but he did comprehend the tension in my voice.
Steel hissed as Aspen drew the axe from her garter. “Aire.”
My eyes swerved, following her trajectory. That solitary leaf fluttered, a translucent swatch of wind scooping it from the earth. Unlike my companions, I discerned this clearly, as if this zephyr was a tangible thing.
The breeze kicked up speed, pushing through our clothes, a sharp whistle reverberating across the woods. In its wake, the dark red leaf spiraled high, leveling with our gazes like a drop of crimson blood.
Fuck. Paved roads served as fair passage amid nature, but straying too far off the beaten path provoked the elements to react instinctively and protect itself against potential invaders. Much like sap drizzling down a branch to trap unwanted pests from feeding on its resources, nature targeted those who felled lumber out of greed instead of survival, harmed roaming fauna for sport, or ventured onto consecrated ground.
“The roots are communicating,” Aspen whispered.
Reaching backward, I withdrew my broadswords and leaned in, murmuring against her ear, “It is not the roots.”
Those could be a crushing hazard in some territories of Autumn. But here, we had traveled into a different peril.
Aspen must have heard the tales, because she sucked in oxygen. “The leaves.”
Indeed. Riding through wouldn’t be an option. Attempting such a thing would shred us to filaments, excluding the fauna.
Shifting in the saddle, Aspen and I mouthed to Nicu,“Get off the horse.”
The Royal’s bulging eyes signified confusion. He would not understand what dismounting had to do with impending danger. I opened my mouth to recite a line that had been established by Poet, but Aspen got there first.
Leaping off the seat and bracing her axe, she quoted silently,“What does hide mean?”
Those green eyes flickered in recognition. Nodding, Nicu patted the animal’s mane to soothe the creature, then hopped to the ground.
The second he landed, I was off the stallion and hurling myself in front of Nicu and Aspen. At the same moment, the wind lashed, scattering more leaves into an airborne vortex wrought from Autumn lore. Animating into motion, their bristling edges sharpened like spikes, and they surged toward us.
With a growl, I spun my weapons and skewered through the cyclone. The leaves broke apart like shards of glass, then circled before gathering additional momentum. Sweeping more foliage from the branches and understory, the mass split into a larger pair.
Only now they changed form. The leaves formed wraith-like silhouettes, the figures slicing our way. They diced past the brambles, shearing through thick branches, hedges, and rocks as if those impediments were made of paper.
A cluster flew past my throat, the honed rims slashing my flesh like the teeth of a saw. Fluid dribbled down the side of my neck, the pain trapping a bellow in my lungs.
I slammed my broadswords into the fray, but the shattered wraiths reshaped themselves, multiplying with every thrust of the weapons. Aspen screeched in fury, her axe tearing a rift into one of the abominable figments, then she pivoted in the opposite direction to block another from Nicu.
These creatures would not touch them. Not as I lived and breathed.
I leaped into the scrimmage while Nicu and Aspen screamed my name. Like a flock of beasts, the apparitions closed in, shearing through my coat. I ducked and thrust,windmilling the swords and dismantling the largest specter with a crisscrossing swipe of both weapons.
Again, the move backfired. Instead of crumbling, the gruesome thing divided into two wraiths.
Then steel flashed, spearing into the leaves, followed by another blade hacking apart a second figure. The funnel shuddered, its belly opening. I plowed through, my shoulders ramming past the apparitions.
On the outside, Nicu wielded his dagger. Lines of red sketched his cheekbones and wrists, but he was alive.
Alive and as valiant as any warrior. Somehow, he’d ascertained my presence inside the quagmire and minced through the figures while Aspen chopped away as his side.
And yet. These macabre figments had injured him and targeted Aspen. A feral roar carved from my lungs, and my weapons speared into the cyclone.
Our trio whirled toward the leaves, placing our backs to one another. Aspen raised the axe, Nicu gripped his blade, and I balanced my swords. Together, we hewed through the wraiths, chiseling them down only to produce a vaster number.
