Death's Mistress

CHAPTER 61

After seeing the burgeoning area of growth at the heart of the Scar, a curious and awestruck Simon led another expedition from Cliffwall, rushing out to see what had happened. The people were guardedly optimistic. Life was returning to the great valley.

Simon made his best effort to find Victoria and invite her to join them, but when no one could find her, he heaved a sigh. “We cannot wait. Let us go see this miracle.”

As the group descended the plateau wall and headed out across the still-barren landscape, the glimpse of green in the distance made Thistle chatter with excitement. She walked close beside Nicci. “Maybe it won’t take so long! Maybe the valley will be green again, just like I dreamed, and I’ll have a chance to see it in my lifetime.”

“The sorceress gave you all a second chance.” Nathan tossed his straight white hair and strode along beside Bannon, who kept his hand near the pommel of his sword, pretending to be alert for dangers.

Nicci glanced back to Nathan. “I helped kill the evil wizard, but do not credit me with this rebirth. It was not my doing.”

Nathan said, “Perhaps the Eldertree still had a remnant of energy that the Lifedrinker did not quench after all. That might have triggered this reawakening.”

Nicci regarded the verdant haze of forest that had already spread across the desolation. Even from a distance, she could hear a stir of plants and branches, the buzz of life. “So much growth…” She frowned at the swell of green ahead of them. “I am concerned unless I understand it.”

Nathan raised an eyebrow. “You find fault in an overabundance of life, Sorceress? After so much desolation, this is a good thing, is it not?”

Her eyes narrowed. “Is it?”

Sooner than expected, they reached the edge of the lush vegetation, as if the swath of growth had moved outward at great speed to meet them. The air was humid with vegetation, thick with the smell of grasses, leaves, pollen, and the sickly sweet odor of explosive blossoms.

Thistle gaped. “I’ve never seen anything like this.”

Simon stretched his arms outward to welcome the furiously insistent jungle. “It’s marvelous!” Towering ferns unfurled, and trees stretched and cracked, rising impossibly high in such a short period, as if time itself had accelerated to let the forest catch up for all that had been lost to the Lifedrinker.

Branches stretched and strained, unfurling countless leaves. Twigs rustled as they proliferated. Vines swirled back and forth like twitching tentacles. To Nicci’s ears, the stir of rampant fertility sounded sinister, restless … even dangerous.

The tree trunks enlarged as they grew at a manic pace, groaning with the agony of too much life. The stirring branches sounded like slashing blades. The plants spread a blur of pollen throughout the air. Shrubs and flowers spat seeds, and mushrooms flung spores in all directions. Grasses rose up whispering and hissing.

As the group from Cliffwall stood marveling at the unexpected sight, more shoots sprang up, grasses and weeds extending from the perimeter to reclaim more of the parched desolation. This primeval jungle expanded at a tremendous pace.

“Sweet Sea Mother!” At first, Bannon grinned in amazement, but the awestruck wonder on his face shifted to an expression of concern. “Isn’t that a little too fast?”

Bees and beetles hummed and whirred through the air. A dark mist of gnats rose up like a wave.

Simon shouted into the forest, as if he could summon a greater presence. “Thank you! We are grateful for the return of life.”

A stirring occurred among the trees and branches, and larger shapes flitted through the green angled shadows: human figures, female figures—naked, shapely women whose mottled skin provided perfect camouflage among the leaves. The branches and vines parted to reveal the three women standing before the gathered scholars.

The young women were as lush as the forest itself, their breasts and hips swollen with life, their hair a tangle of matted leaves and moss. They looked alien, their transformed bodies more forest than human. Their features were still recognizable, still familiar.

Bannon gasped. His lips curled in an uncertain smile. “Laurel? Audrey? Sage?”

When the three figures moved forward, the undergrowth flowed along with them. Their eyes flashed an iridescent green. Victoria’s acolytes throbbed with fertility, the essence of the forest and life itself. They exuded a wafting and irresistible pull of attractive scent, like an animal in heat. Even Nathan seemed affected by their presence, along with Simon and all the other men in the group. The sexual shimmer pervaded the air.

Bannon breathed heavily. Perspiration covered his skin, and he flushed with longing. The look on his face was one of yearning and impossible separation. “You were gone,” he said. “I didn’t know where you went. I looked for you.”

Laurel said with a vibrant giggle, “We waited for you, Bannon.” The other two young women echoed her sentiment.

“We wanted you here.”

“With us.”

Simon was even more insistent. His mouth was drawn back with male need, his eyes shining, even glazed. At the front of the group, he pushed forward, blocking the others. “So much life, so much hope,” he said. “We want you. I want you!”

“Yes, come closer,” said Sage, fixing her attention on him. “We want you too. We want you all.”

Bannon tried to join him, but the scholar-archivist pushed him aside, raising his hands. He didn’t even seem aware of what he was doing. “You brought back the forest,” Simon cried. “You counteracted the Lifedrinker’s curse. It is wondrous!”

The three green forest women reached out to welcome him. “There is enough, enough for all,” said Audrey. Their soft and yearning fingers suddenly transformed into pointed wooden spikes. Their nails curved and became the sharpest of thorns.

Drunk on the thick, seductive scent in the air, Simon didn’t notice. His eyes were heavy-lidded, his mouth open in a gasp of a smile. When the forest women tore him apart, he didn’t even have time to scream. They stabbed him with wooden-spike fingers, raked him open with thorn claws. They sliced and unwrapped his flesh, peeling it away as if stripping the bark from a fallen tree.

Several scholars screamed as they scrambled back. Some let out moans of disbelief. “Simon!” cried Mia.

Releasing a burst of defensive magic, Nicci knocked the rest of her companions away, sweeping them out of reach of the grasping, deadly women.

Bannon shouted in dismay. “Laurel, no! Audrey, Sage!”

Astonishingly, when the forest women tossed Simon’s butchered corpse onto the barren ground beyond the fringe of the expanding forest, his blood was like a magical elixir, a potent life-giving spell. As the red droplets soaked into the dead soil, new roots writhed about like earthworms. Shoots of green grass and unfurling leaves lifted upward to form a carpet in the fading shape of a man.

When the young women laughed, it came as the sound of a storm in thick trees.

Nathan and Bannon drew their swords. Nicci stood ready to release her magic if the vicious women lunged after them. “Beware, the attack could come from anywhere.” But the three acolytes did not step beyond the edge of the growing forest.

Even Nicci did not expect what they all saw next. Weeds, vines, and thorny brambles continued to erupt from the spilled blood in the pattern of Simon’s body, but in the thicker jungle, trees rustled, and the undergrowth backed away as if bowing to a powerful lord. The three deadly forest women respectfully moved apart as a larger form emerged from the forest: a throbbing female titan with skin like bark, leaves, and moss, a naked body with enormous swaying breasts, the broad waist and hips of a gigantic oak, and hair made of vines and ferns. Her face no longer carried even a hint of matronly kindness.

Victoria … or, what had once been Victoria.

The fearsome forest woman towered above the gathered people from Cliffwall, and her voice boomed out. “This is my forest, and you are no longer welcome here—nor in this world.” She focused her startling, burning eyes on Nicci, who returned the gaze defiantly, not backing down. Victoria added in a mocking tone, “For I am Life’s Mistress.”

Branches cracked. Leaves and branches swelled, and the explosive outpouring of growth continued to spread.