Fool's Bargain

The light of day faded, the final rays at last overcome by encroaching twilight, but I knew with a cold certainty darkness offered me no sanctuary this night. I stood with my back to a tree, heart racing, breath coming in gasps, while behind me the hurried movements of the hunters grew ever louder. I knew to stay still any longer was suicide, that my only hope lay in panicked flight and the off chance I might somehow outdistance my pursuers. Yet my traitorous, exhausted legs paid no heed to the urgency of my thoughts.

I could see them now, as I turned back from my resting place. Six men and winded all, but I noted the gleaming whites of their teeth as a grim smile was passed from one man to the next. I sagged back against the tree trunk once more, and muttered a few choice curses to myself. Huntsmen, as I had feared. There were few others who could have managed such a pursuit. From the look of it, they knew their quarry was close at hand, and the long chase was at an end. I spared a glance to the sword at my hip. I could manage one, tired as I was...perhaps two, if luck was with me. Six was death, plain as you please. Fighting down a bout of fatalistic laughter, I collected myself. With a resolved sigh, I turned to face the men pacing towards me, and did what I've always done when the situation grows too desperate for either blade or brains to handle. I screamed for help.

I didn't waste my breath begging for mercy from the merciless men now only yards away. Nor did I cry out for aid from any benevolent unknown who might lie in hiding among the surrounding greenery. Nor, even, did I cry out in words. Instead, my mind soundlessly screamed a desperate plea to the forest itself. This was not quite so strange as it may sound, as I had always had some small skill in magic, and a particular affinity for manipulating natural forces. Enough to be useful in a pinch. But never before had I sensed anything like I did now in response to my cry for help, as the will of the forest itself manifested inside my skull in the form of a booming, inhuman voice.

“You would look to us for help, human? We are no allies of men. Nonetheless, we will grant your boon. In exchange, you will grant us a favor. We shall ask nothing more than a common thing, of little weight.”

My shock at the voice in my head was quickly and thoroughly overridden by panic as the huntsmen, only feet away now, moved in for the kill. “Yes, anything, just help me!”

“So be it.”

As I watched for some instant sign of salvation, I came to the sickening realization that it wasn't likely to come fast enough. My own sword now forgotten, I watched as the huntsmen loosed weapons from their sheaths. I could feel my death approach as those blades were upraised, could see it in the glinting reflections of moonlight off polished steel, could taste it in the bile at the back of my throat. I watched in a fascinated sort of horror as six blades descended on me as one. And, as one, struck themselves fast into the massive, outstretched limb of a nearby tree come suddenly to life. As the huntsmen futilely attempted to wrest their weapons free, the forest around them burst into violent action. A dozen trees surrounded them, while below them the ground seemed to boil as roots sprang free and began to wrap themselves around ankles and legs.

Of the men present, I alone was spared from the carnage which followed. I was no stranger to violence; indeed, I had partaken of my fair share, but never before had I witnessed anything resembling the wanton slaughter the forest wrought upon those men. Almost, I felt sorry for them. There was no anger, no hatred behind the attack, only a mechanical, passionless will to destroy. Roots wrapped around arms and legs and squeezed until bone broke, and kept squeezing until the appendages simply fell off. Tree limbs became huge clubs wielded with inhuman strength, and the rain of blows did not cease until a glistening wet pulp on the forest floor was the only evidence the huntsmen had ever been there at all.

Finally the forest seemed satisfied, and the trees once more became simply trees. All, that is, save one, which came flowing toward me on a flood of writhing roots. Its features were strange and undefined, nothing more than a hint of eyes and mouth scarcely visible in the night's darkness, but its voice rang clear in my head once more as it approached.

“Have we not kept our bargain, human? You survive. Your enemies lie dead.”

I swallowed and spoke aloud, “I am indeed in your debt. How may I reward you? Gold? Jewels? I am not a poor man, and I am grateful. Name your desire, and you shall have it. I owe you my life.”

The creature stopped in front of me, and a single branch descended from overheard, to rest itself gently on my shoulder.

“What use such things to the forest? No, it is our will to keep to the bargain as struck. A common thing of little weight. Indeed, there is not one among you humans who does not possess one. And weight? It weighs nothing at all.”

I gazed up at the creature curiously. “What would you have of me, then?”

“What the forest desires, human, is your soul.”

Pain flooded through me as the gentle wooden grip around my shoulder turned suddenly iron.