Remember me… Remember this moment, she sings, as the forest begins to scream. She can hear the wails of the dryads and the agonised bellow of one of the ancients. The great song falters, interrupted. Its last notes hang suspended, quavering, on the air. Her song matches the echo and drives it to flight. Hers is the only melody now, whatever the Everqueen intended. You have called, and I have come. I am here… I hunt… I slay… Remember.
The Outcast laughs and the forest falls silent, abashed. Then, a sigh of noise fills the emptiness, like a soft black whisper. The broken ones. They have found her trail, and follow her now, snuffling at her heels. They slash past her, broken bat-like shapes and gaunt, loping shades, chittering and shrieking. The reaper-kin, the reavers and outcast-kind. They have heard her song, and found it to their liking. They fly at her command, laughing in mad joy. They will hunt the forest, and harry the foe, and drive them back towards her.
She does not slow as she reaches the glade where the heartstones thud in fear. The pounding of the stones calls out to her, drawing her on as Alarielle knew it would. Fully awake now, the Outcast feels the weight of the world’s pain and she desires nothing more than to punish those who would dare set foot in the holy places of the sylvaneth. The glade glows with warm light as she enters its circle in a skirl of leaves.
She sees the defilers, the rotten ones, the grub-men, through the eyes of every tree and blade of grass, all at once and from a thousand directions. They are small, compared to her, and their souls are weak things, flickering on the edge of awareness. Like her, they are deaf to the song, though they lack even the knowledge of their handicap. But she will show them.
The Outcast tears through the veil of worlds. They are slow to react, slow to understand. She lunges towards the closest of them, and fills the air with sour blood. Trees bend towards her as she attacks, uprooted and added to her mass, despite their protests. She reaches out, crushing the head of another of the would-be defilers as easily as she might snatch a worm from the soil. They are so fragile, the Outcast thinks, these piles of meat and muscle. They are ephemeral things, bundles of scattered moments soon forgotten. But dangerous… so dangerous.
They have wounded the realm. The sky weeps poison and the rivers are stagnant. She feels it all with every breath, and tears of sap run down her cheeks. But it is rage she feels, not sadness. The Outcast is not the Everqueen. I will not run… I will not hide, she thinks. I will hunt… I will slay… I will kill until the trees grow fat on red water.
She kills two more before they see her fully, for she is cloaked in a storm of leaves and splintered branches. The forest seeks to hide her monstrousness, ashamed. It needs her and hates her for that need, though she does not understand why. Animals squeal and stamp as she ravages among them, snapping their greenstick bones and tearing their filthy flesh. They are half-dead already, these things, as are their riders. So much mulch, for the hungry soil. A heavyset warrior, clad in boils and barnacled iron, heaves himself towards her, spewing the high-pitched bird noises which pass for words among his kind.
The Outcast cannot stand the shrill screams of the meat. They do not sing. They squeak and scream, too fast, too high. She desires their silence. A foul blade bites into her hives, eliciting shrieks of outrage from her spites. Flitterfuries pour from the honeycombs in her arms and shoulders and swirl about the warrior in a glittering, stinging cloud. The spites drive him back as the Outcast advances. She tears the blade from his hands and catches his flabby face in her talons. He hammers at her bark with ineffectual fists, still squeaking.
Why do they talk so much, she wonders. Why do they clog the air with words and the sound of meat slapping against meat? Fragile… so fragile, she thinks, as she pulls the sour one’s head apart, stripping flesh and muscle from bone, one red blossom at a time. His squeals fall silent, and she sighs in relief. Bits of his flesh dangle from her claws, but the Outcast loses interest as a ring of iron and fire surrounds her. She hisses and her spites hiss with her. They stream from her hives and launch themselves at the enemy. The ring of iron and fire comes apart as she strides through the glen, stalking and killing.
Some flee, rather than face her. These, the Outcast ignores as she continues her butchery. The forest will take them. The broken ones will drag them into the dark. That is their pleasure. Like her, they are hidden beneath the canopy, forgotten and ignored until the reaping comes and the war-wind blows.
When the last of the defilers dangles ruined from her claws, she stops. The song of the heartstones has caught her attention and for an instant, just an instant, the song of the reaping gives way to the blooming and war is drowned out by peace. The Outcast sways in place, listening, and in that moment, she is outcast no longer. She is Drycha Hamadreth, first daughter of the sylvaneth, auspicious and honoured. She hears the song of her kin for the first time in a long time, and feels the tears of Isha upon her cheeks. See me… hear me… she croons, reaching out with one monstrous talon.
She wishes to touch them, just for a moment. To feel again the warmth of the blooming and the suns. To taste the sweet waters, so long denied her. She wishes…
A sour one moans at her feet. The moment is broken. She lifts a foot and stomps down, turning bones to powder and flesh to jelly. No… do not touch me… fear me, the Outcast hisses, glaring at the trembling heartstones. For an instant, she almost forgot… no. She will never forget and never remember. For her, there is no song. There is only the now. There is only the reaping and the wind.
The Outcast throws back her head and screams.
The treelord was gone.
A trail of golden sap marked its stumbling flight. The trees sought to hide it, but Uctor’s hounds found it and followed it regardless. They led Goral and the others on a yelping chase, away from the glade and the hateful light of the stones. Golden handprints and smears led them deeper into the dark and the quiet of the forest, until the only light was that of their torches and the only sound was the susurrus of the leaves.
But their quarry was nowhere to be found. Even Uctor’s hounds seemed to have lost the trail, and they now circled and yelped in apparent confusion. Goral cursed and smacked a fist on his saddle horn. Some part of him had expected as much. ‘Where is that cursed thing? It can’t have gotten far, not with the wounds I gave it,’ he said. He glared down at Uctor, wanting an answer, though he knew the hound-master would not know.
Before Uctor could reply, a monstrous shriek echoed through the forest. The yelping Chaos hounds fell silent and slunk back towards their master, tails tucked between their legs. The shriek seemed to grow in strength, reverberating in the dark, before finally fading away. Goral gripped Lifebiter more tightly. ‘What is that blasted thing? Why does it not come out, if it wishes to challenge us?’ he said. He straightened in his saddle and peered into the dark. He thought he saw something moving beneath the shroud of roots, but dismissed the idea. A serpent, he thought. Or some weak spirit, seeking to hide from them.