Christabel's guide to necromancy and world domination

Where should we go now?

" The trees! They are awake!", shouted the elf, jumping back. Her staff made impact on another branch, sending it back, but more and more of them were moving, and roots were emerging from the ground.

A jolt of adrenaline helped me jump on my feet, narrowly avoiding a root that was going to grip my ankle. I crouched to avoid a branch coming for my head, and then jumped back again, roots erupting from the ground where I was standing.

I saw the elf had started running, and I followed her, zigzagging like crazy between the trunks, that were now turning in my direction. She was fast, but I was panicking, and that helped beat every personal record. I could see the sound of wood creaking behind me. Something hissed just next to my head, and I felt a scratch on my cheek, but I had no time for that.

Everywhere around us, the forest was coming alive, slow but inexorable. A branch hit my back, and I tripped on a root propelling itself towards me, but miraculously kept my balance. I had to keep going.

In front of me, the elf yelped when something snatched her staff from her hands. She stopped for a second, trying to get it back, and it that moment a shadow of wooden tentacles engulfed her, and she disappeared from my sight.

I had to keep running. I could not help her. And she was undead, she had been living (or not living) in this forest for a very long time, she could survive it, right? I really hoped so. I kept going on in the direction she had been running to, hoping that she had had a plan.

The forest was brighter now, and the trees in front of me scarcer. They were still swinging at me and trying to take me down, but there were fewer of them. The noise behind me was getting stronger, though I did not risk turning around to check it out. Breathing was getting difficult, my chest was aching, and my head was dizzy. I stumbled on something and managed to keep going.

And then I saw it. Light, in front of me, a clear space, no trees. I made a dash for it, willing all the energy I had left to keep my legs going, zigzagging and jumping more for poor luck and instinct than anything.

I launched myself between two trees, and found myself outside. I kept stumbling forward for another fifteen seconds before realizing that nothing was swinging and groping at me anymore, and another ten before my legs finally admitted defeat, and I fell on the ground on my knees.

I half-turned behind me, and realized that the trees had stopped following me. That was good. That was very good. That was great.

Then why did I have the feeling that it was not over yet?

I stood up and stared at the forest: the trees had stopped, but I could see their branches moving on the edge. If they had faces, they would look disappointed at my narrow escape. By the way, I was getting really good at this "reading emotions in beings without a facial expression", wasn't I?

I turned again, and faced the vast plains in front of me. They were gray and dead, stone and scarce yellowish grass wherever I watched, with some boulders here and there casting long ominous shadows in the soft light of the sunset. I could see a glimmer very far on the horizon line that may or may not have been water, but I was paying more attention to the large black spot that looked suspiciously like a building. Well, more like a tower. Well, more like a standard evil overlord's dark tower, with a burning red flame on top.

I could not see a volcano anywhere, so probably there was no room for a lawsuit for plagiarism from Tolkien's heirs, or Peter Jackson. But still, so. Cliched. Right?

Now, if I were a dark lord I would put sentinels all around the edge of the forest with killer trees and undead elves in it, which meant I had already been spotted and I was in trouble. On the other hand, it was a big forest, and maybe the sentinels were not everywhere, and I was lucky enough to find a blind spot... yeah, lucky. That was not me. Or, judging from the kind of architecture he seemed to prefer, the dark lord had not read the Evil overlord's list and there were no sentinels, which was fine to me.