Horizons

15 Seen

Raider's fingers slid quietly through the lowest foliage, gently probing over the loam and debris that sought its final transformation, the decay that would recover their bodies into their ancient elements and return them to the carbon cycle. This is the place where most life starts and where most life is returned before it takes part in the abstract reincarnation that is the circle of life. This place is unique in the natural world, completely different from the arboreal canopy that towered high above. This is the darkly shaded home fungi, it is where seeds sprout and bury their roots, and where many insects and rodents find their lively-hood. Down here a mouse could look up and see the slivers of sunlight make their way through the moss laden foliage, creating a green and brown kaleidoscope high above that shifts between blinding illumination and textured darkness. An ant searching for food would feel those sudden, warming rays of sunlight glance over its back as the sun moves through its cycle, caressing the ground in small comforting swaths, slowly travelling over this small world with the days passage. This was a quiet paradise, a place few adults knew, a place that only some children were curious enough to discover. It is cool, it is dim, and it is filled with the vary essence of life. He was engrossed in this place, a part of it. Only the slightest shred of his conscience was aware of the army that was passing just in sight of his immersed presence.

A Scout's greatest skill lies in their ability to blend in, to become a part of their environment. This is what the master did now, in spite of his exhaustion, in spite of any of the fear he should be experiencing being this close to the hoard. His conscience was lost among the ferns, insects, and mice, almost becoming them. The Scout's mud camouflaged body was laced through stumps and ferns, seeming to melt into the landscape. He was completely engrossed in the moment, and the area had accepted him as a part of itself. The fauna had no knowledge of the woodsman, as if he had always been there, he simply was. It was because of this complete connection with the environment that the army was totally ignorant of his presence. He himself was not very aware of their passing, only fifty feet downhill from his location, he had as much interest in them as an insect would as it was going about its daily routine of eating and hiding. His observation of them was akin to a coma patient mildly coming out of their slumber. He knew something was present, that things were happening, but his focus was vague and intermittent. His trained mind was organised enough to glean the relevant information that he needed, but it was just a distant haze of stimuli. This was as close to true invisibility as the master could get. This was the safest way that he could reconnoiter this vast and dangerous enemy.

Shambling forward with a mixed gate that shifted between four and two legged strides, the beasts hurried to their prey. Their unorganized and clumsy movements caused the army to move like an oozing slime through the woods. There was no road or trail in this forgotten wilderness, so the hoard weaved through trees, hopped over logs, and ducked bellow low branches. Each member finding their own way to their quarry through these dense woods. None of them knew exactly what they were chasing, only that the god did, and it said the prey was this way. This was good because they were hungry. Hungrier than they had ever been. At least hungrier than they could remember. This land did not have enough pray for them to feed on, so they subsisted on the odd bit of meat they were able to hunt on the way. After weeks of near empty stomachs their nerves were frayed and they snapped and snarled at one another every time there was an accidental collision, or a forerunner tried to halt during their harried travel. It didn't take much for a bloody fight to break out in this under fed army. The only reason why the individual members of this group still marched was because of their unrelenting fear of the god. It was because of the golden maned god they denied their stomachs, but they did not deny the rage they felt due to the starvation. This army was ready to frenzy. When it found its prey it would swarm and feed like a shoal of piranhas. In his deep meditation the scout could almost taste their sanity robbing hunger and he knew the impact it would have when they met with civilization.