Titanneedle stood in rooted amongst the rotted bodies on the wasteland of a battlefield. The emergence of the Shadow Dragon had stunned the wargrove. Few things brought dread to those without the Spirit-Song, but this incarnation seemed to cast out waves across all of Drakengrad. The Stinging Rain reported in hushed signs that every faction across the small nation was scrambling their forces in response to it. His spite revenants kept a constant patrol of the outer forests surrounding Mila and scratched out much of the same.
If this was not the work of that fool cult that wished for a cleansing purge, it must be the work of that Fae thing. It worked shadows like clay and misery like song, both of which seethed forth from the Shadow Dragon like spites from a hive. If anything was to be saved, those things must be brought low.
Titanneedle ground his trunks into the dirt and his staff creaked under the pressure of his grip. He had not forgotten the events that unfolded here recently. The macabre dance, the veiled mention, and the taunting of using his own voice against him. Icy malice seeped into his soulpod, he would wring the creature’s neck and claim his voice for him once more.
The Ancient sent Blanched Spruce to retrieve the Stifled Matron and her Gladewyrm for the coming battle. The arch revenant’s speed made him the only choice, taking flight with his silent winterspite towards Mila. He had little interaction with the youngling, the events that unfolded had taken all of his attention from fully understanding his warriors. The mere fact that the younger sylvaneth made no argument to the Ancient’s orders told him that he was either afraid or respected him deeply. Either was fine with Titanneedle for now, deciphering his inclinations could wait till after the conflict.
Titanneedle turned his attention to the darkened skies. The Shadow Dragon power dulling Hysh’s light and bathing Drakengrad in twilight. The horizons around the battlefield were clear towards the mountains and Drakheim. His turned his canopy to the woods and felt the bark on his body shiver. He beheld the full form of the dragon, a titanic monster of purest shadow that blocked the entire horizon. Even at this distance he could see move its mountain sized head scanning the forest below for new prey. It ceased its swaying, and from somewhere below something belted forth a challenge. A sharp chattering cry that shook with life and power.
NO, the Treelord Ancient seethed within, IT FOUND THEM.
Tearing free from the fledgling roots that sought the dried blood on the field, Titanneedle breaks into a lumbering sprint. Clearing the field with stomps that could flatten a steam tank, the Treelord crashes into dense treeline. Shattering canopies and stripping trees of summer green leaves, he feels their frightened cries within his soul. The shadowy calamity shrunk the very soul of these lands, overwhelming the stifling effect the Hollowpine had on it. Every stride shattered stone beneath him and sent the hidden beasts scurrying for new shelter.
He couldn’t conjure the wyldwood, the damned dragon was exuding too much malice to depend on the whims of the woods. Keeping the darkest horizon as his guiding direction, Titanneedle kept a steady earthshaking sprint, letting hope enter his lamentiri that he may be in time to save his wargrove from the Shadow Dragon’s ire.
Titanneedle almost tripped over the bodies of his Kurnoth Hunters.
Piled one atop the other, The Stinging Rain laid in a heap at the base of an old elm. Their antlered branches shattered against one another. Tendrils of shadow leaked from their hollowed frames. Each had their barked face scratched from their forms and their lamentiri crushed pulp within them. Titaneedle raked his gnarled claw through the rooted earth, their was nothing to rebirth these warriors. Their stories and memories removed from the sylvaneth cycle of rebirth. As such the least the Ancient could do was return their bodies to the earth, to become of use to the cycle once last time.
A moment of silence is all he could afford, even then broken once more by the sound of the Gladewyrm’s cry. Flattening the earth once more beneath his titanic trunk, Titanneedle charge off once more towards the spells call.
He reached the cry’s source in what felt like hours. A small clearing, the grass blighted away, blackened but not charred. At the center, wrapped in a throne of vine was the Stifled Matron. The branchwraith was focusing all her might towards keeping the towering Gladewyrm from barreling out of control. It thrashed against her will, trying to flee from the true threat to Drakengrad.
No more then ten meters away, the Fae stood among the splintered remains of the Void Choir. A roiling fog of shadows billowed out from it’s small feminine body into the husks of the spite revenants. It had Blanched Spruce by his throat, and when Titanneedle’s gaze met with the Fae’s it’s face cracked in a dead smile of malice and void.
“How kind of you to finally join us,” It said, plunging its unused hand elbow deep into the arch-revenant’s chest. Rotating her arm with a sickening twist, and tore his soulpod free of his chest. It dropped his body to join the mulched bodies of the Void Choir.
Grinding its fingers through the lamentiri, like a child with a ball of dough, it cocked its head to the side. “Its hardly any fun to kill things that don’t make even a whisper on the wind.”
The branchwraith strained under the pressure of the Gladewyrm’s power, Titanneedle could see that. Her body coursed with the winds of life, seeking to fill her soul to burst. She looked to him, blame filling the space between them. He felt it dearly, he had been the one to reincarnate her under the Hollowpine’s accursed existence. Her pain to be cursed with no voice and the need to scream ruled her mind every day since her return.
Here in the end, she wanted Titanneedle to feel it too.
“Oh do not fret,” the Fae cooed walking out from behind the branchwraith,” you’ll both get your chance to scream.”
A wisp of shadow cast out from the Fae’s sap stained hand, slithering its way down her throat. The Stifled Matron coughed as it did, and a mix of terror and excitement returned as the action issued forth her true voice. Taking several heavy breaths she smiled for a moment. It quickly faded away as a draconian shadow shifted quickly beneath her. A moment later, the entire clearing is bathed in cloying shadowflame, cold to the touch but burning soul and body alike.
The branchwraith scream harmonized with that of the Gladewyrm, who was caught in the inky inferno as well. Grating screeches of anguish echoed of the trees of the forest as their spirits’ burned away.
Titanneedle was brought to his knotted knees by the display of power. They never had a chance to face these creatures as their wargrove alone. What was he to do? If his enclave’s song and voice was at the behest of a being that could burn away an endless spell, what more could he do.
A thunderous impact against his barked chest sent him sprawling, felling half a dozen maples under his weight. He attempted to rise back to his feet, but the powerful pressure of the Fae creature standing atop him made such an attempt moot. It strode up his trunk to his gnarled face, graceful steps creaking the wood beneath.
It smiled at him with no mirth to its name. It was plain to see it brimmed with power, now utterly confident that it had overpowered Titannedle.
“Now,” it spoke covering his mouth with a shadow wreathed hand, “Scream for me.”
The shadow seeped past his needle toothed mouth and down into his lamentiri. His body shook from the intrusion of the magic forcing its way into his soul. Sap streamed from his eyes as the pain wracked him, needles dropping off in droves. He heard them, the needles. Like pins hitting a wooden floor. He wept, knowing how useless having it all back meant.
Then he heard it.
A note, then two, then the chorus.
The Song. Not the spirit song of Alarielle, no it was the song of Mila. It echoed within him, even at the whisper of a note it was. He felt the connection bud within like the first flower of spring.
He stared back into the void black eyes of the Fae creature, and made his choice.
Swiftly, he dropped his tendril staff to the ground. At this range, it could do nothing to help him. Slamming his colossal wooden talons to impale the Fae to his trunk. He took a moment of pleasure as shock crossed the creature’s face for the first time. The blows struck home and he grunted as the entered his body. He did not think he could harm it truly, but the wooden cage that he made of his own body may hold.
He drew in the cold air, hearing the rasp of it against his bark once more.
DEEP IN THE WYLDS
The lyric thundered out from him, shaking the earth and blowing trees from their roots.
BEYOND THE GAZE OF THUNDER
It try to snarl and curse at Titanneedle, but it was drowned underneath his bellows. The force carries the call to the walls of Drakheim.
LIES THE LANDS OF MILA
The Fae caught on quickly to his plan, and slammed a fist against his chest. The bark cracked underneath the force, but did not break. The leaves upon the Great Tree of Mila shake from his call.
DRAGON OF EMERALD
Its first cracked once more against his body, piercing a small hole in his reinforced body. Titanneedle’s voice echoes back and forth of every Sentinel Bone in Drakengrad, as if the dragons themselves echoed his voice.
WHOSE BONES TEND OUR LAND
The Fae claws away, tearing free chunks of his wooden body seeking the pulsing soulpod within. Spotting it within his inner form, it plunges both hand into his body and wraps its hands around his old yew heart.
AND WE TEND IN TURN
Shattering its wooden cage and tearing free Titanneedle’s lamentiri in the same explosive motion, the bellowing stops abruptly. The Fae doesn’t think twice about the idea of dragging it with for him to suffer and tears the soulpod in half in a flash of jade magics smothered by shadow. Even in suffering his final death, Titanneedle died with his needled mouth curled in a joyous grin.
It hops of his now lifeless husk, tearing free the wooden talons from its body. Such wounds were trivial, but the damnable tree may have just taken its chance to consume the people of Drakengrad faction by panicked faction.
By the sounds of approaching thunder and the smell of sorcery on the air, it assumed so.
