The Revenge of Rondhol
Trouble on the Falls
Briars in the Rapids
They all felt the music in their heartwood.
Her form is hunched over, as she clambers forwards on all fours, talons and roots digging into the mud, desperately clinging on, fighting the torrents of water which continuously hammer her thin form, threatening to fling her away and dash her against the rocks, breaking her brittle body like a twig. She has already watched one of her sisters meet such a fate.
This is not a good place. Wetter than even the mangrove swamps. It is not a place where flora can thrive. Yet she must press on, for this is where the prey are to be found.
It was not the spirit-song of Alarielle, yet it called to them nonetheless.
She claws her way forwards, towards the centre of the river, getting into position. She is an ambush predator, accustomed to awaiting her prey’s arrival in an optimal spot, rather than chasing them down. At her side, her sisters do likewise. Their presence gives her courage, makes her fierce. Alone, even the greatest of them would be easy prey for any of the rampaging behemoths which dominate their homeland. But together, they can overcome any beast.
The song called for blood and battle, for death and for destruction.
Always, she has had her sisters. Now, she has other siblings besides. They are not bark-brown, but lichen-green. She does not judge them for that, though. The siblings make the music which unerringly leads the sisters to fresh meat. That is more than enough.
She is in the right spot now. The prey is closing in. She straightens somewhat — still hunched, to better resist the rapids’ pull — but rising to stand bipedal, to get her head above the waves, to lay eyes upon her foes. By her side, her sisters do likewise.
It is a risk to stand, though, to entrust her roots alone to oppose the raging currents. Another dryad is swept away, is slammed against a boulder downstream, is instantly reduced to kindling. She pays her sister’s fate no mind. Such is the nature of Ghur. Everything here is a predator. Even the waterways.
It was just a tuneless thumping of bone on bone, yet the beat coursed through their bodies, lending them strength, driving them wild.
A wooden construct — ridden by hairy, muscled creatures of flesh — races downriver. All around her, sisters hiss and howl with fury at this desecration of fallen trees. The fleshy beings jeer back, clanging weapons against their shields.
She trusts her instincts, leaping as soon as her body tells her it is time, that it has come within reach. By her sides, her sisters do likewise. The river is rough, though, it clutches at her, almost succeeds in tossing her aside, but with one taloned hand, she manages to latch on to the longship’s gunnel. Her talons dig in, the solid wood much easier to find purchase on than the muddy riverbed.
Not all of her sisters are so fortunate. Even having lived all their lives in Ghur, the dryads’ instincts are not infallible. Some leap too early, some too late. Those sisters are swept away by the currents. Perhaps they will manage to find purchase before the waters break them upon the rocks, perhaps not. Either way, they have missed their chance. They will play no further part in this hunt.
The river subtly shifts its course, and instead of straining to pull her from the boat, it slams her bodily into the hull instead. The tremendous, crushing impact almost breaks her. Had she any lungs, the air would certainly have been knocked from them by that mighty blow.
She flails, manages to latch her other hand onto the gunnel, and heaves her head up above the crashing rapids. The moment she does, she spots a sister dryad, a couple feet to her left.
The sister howls as she fights to scale the hull, managing to get one leg hooked over the side before a marauder slams an axe into her cranium. The sister wails, and reaches for the brawny human with one talon, determined to at least take him with her when she dies. But the man lands a solid kick to her chest, and the sister is knocked back, seized by the currents. She vanishes from sight in an instant.
Grief is for the weak, the discordant instrumental seemed to wordlessly proclaim. No predator cared for the lives of its kin. Only the hunt mattered.
She has not wasted those precious moments that her sister’s death bought. Scrabbling up, onto the boat, she lands on all fours.
She can barely hear over the deluge, and water spray clouds her vision, yet even so, she can see that the prey are no longer jeering. They rush to and fro, roaring battlecries which are snatched away by the wind, as they hastily hack at the spindly, wooden forms clambering onto their vessel.
She screeches, and lunges upon the nearest marauder, still off-balance after booting away her sister. She bears him down onto the deck. He curses, tries to interpose a small, round shield between them, but the long talons of her right hand curl around it, and she yanks the wood-and-metal plate from his arm, tosses it away.
Kill. Maim. Rend. Tear. Claw. Bite. The crude melody had no lyrics, yet still it somehow spoke to the sylvaneth.
She obeys her Ghur-honed instincts, and heeds the song’s call for carnage. The human’s bare chest is muscular, but mere muscle is no impediment. Her vicious, thorn-like claws tear his torso open almost without effort. Empowered by the primal beat, she even finds the strength to crack the rib bones, exposing the juicy flesh beneath.
She does not realise that — being a plant-based lifeform — she has no need to consume meat to sustain herself. She is a creature of Ghur. A predator. And as far as she is concerned, predators eat their prey. With gusto, she tears into the feast laid out before her.
All around, her sisters are doing likewise, having swiftly overcome the boat’s small crew, once they’d managed to scramble aboard.
None of them are steering, though.
None of them know how.
The longship boldly challenges a rock jutting up from the river in its path. The wooden vessel rams the sturdy boulder. The boulder wins. Wooden planks, dryads, and mortally wounded humans are all tossed wildly through the air in an explosion of debris.
Rather than terror, she feels only indignant rage, fury at the rapids for robbing her of her prize. She crashes down, instantly submerged beneath the waves, slammed against the muddy riverbed, sent tumbling end over end. She manages to grasp onto a smaller rock, finding purchase, then slowly rising to stand upright, thrusting her head above the surface.
Even when the raging waters drowned out all other sounds, it called to them, demanding that they add their voices to its brutal song.
Together with a dozen or more sisters who have also managed to find their feet, she throws back her head to sing, letting loose a triumphant, “Waaagh!”
