Chapter 12
The little creature was fast, and seemed to know where it was going. It continuously dodged between the trees, sometimes climbing up them and leaping from branch to branch, but the horses were just as fast, despite the dense vegetation. Merlin and Arthur managed to keep up with it until they found themselves leaving the thick trees and going up a steady slope. Finally they broke out of the trees and were galloping up a steep hill covered in long grass. As they reached the top of the hill, both of them came to a stop.
The Dark Forest seemed to glare down upon them as if it had eyes, but you yourself could see nothing but a thick blanket of dark trees. It completely surrounded you on all sides; nothing else stood in front of you apart from a wall of dense mystery and chaos. Even the sun itself seemed be blocked out by the forest, casting Merlin and Arthur into shadows. Merlin suddenly realised how cold it was, as an involuntary shiver ran down his spine. The forest seemed to bleed out darkness and fear. The atmosphere seemed to drip with silence.
How could anything live in such a dark place? Especially something that was not tainted by such evil that seemed to linger in every leaf. The creature they were chasing did not seem alarmed by the forest's terrible presence; it dived straight between the trees without hesitation, and disappeared in a moment. But neither Arthur nor Merlin made any move to go after it and try and catch it.
They seemed to stand there for hours. For a moment even Arthur thought perhaps it would be a better idea if they turned back. Even a blind man could tell that this forest was dangerous, you could almost smell it, and that was before you had even stepped into the trees. But Merlin and Arthur had come all this way, if they turned back now, there might be nothing else anyone can do for Camelot, the creature was unstoppable, and the city would simply crumble away.
If it hadn't already.
No, the city was still there, the people were still fighting, still surviving. It would have to take more than a bird to destroy Camelot. But this did not get rid of Arthur's feeling of dread; he tried not to think about it, and instead tried to feel determined once more about what he was about to do. He turned to look at Merlin, who seemed to have frozen into a statue.
"Come on then, what are you waiting for?" Arthur asked, his tone was meant to sound loud and demanding, to shake Merlin out of his frozen position, but his voice was unusually quiet and timid. He couldn't hide his own fear.
"N, n, nothing," Merlin stammered, tearing his eyes away from the forest and looking at the ground instead as if he hoped the forest wouldn't exist if he didn't look at it. Merlin didn't make any movement towards the Dark Forest.
Minutes passed of nervous silence.
"Well we can't stand here forever." Arthur pointed out, and kicked the side of his horse to try and make it go into the forest.
But the horse refused to move, it was if it too felt the fear from the forest. It knew exactly what Arthur wanted to do, but really didn't want to do it. Merlin tried to do the same with his, but it too refused to go anywhere, apart from backwards a little, shaking its head vigorously and snorting.
"This is ridiculous," Arthur grumbled, jumping off his horse, taking it by the reigns and trying to lead it forward. But the horse reacted badly, trying to bite his hand and digging its hooves into the soft earth.
"I think the horse has a point, we shouldn't go in there," Merlin mumbled.
"Saying that isn't going to help anything. Don't just stand there, Merlin, help me get these horses moving, we're going to need them." Arthur was right when he said this, the horses had most of their supplies, and the journey would be made twice as long without them.
Merlin reluctantly got off his horse, which was beginning to panic, its eyes were wide and its head was tossing from side to side. He tried to lead it into the forest but it refused point blank. In fact the horse reared up on its hind legs, almost kicking Merlin in the head, turned and then pelted in the opposite direction to the Dark Forest, back towards the mountains. Arthur's horse immediately followed, he was forced to let go of the reins as he was almost dragged along with it.
"Well done Merlin!" Arthur yelled, irritated.
"It wasn't my fault!" Merlin argued back. "That horse has never liked me!"
"We've lost everything, food, water, weapons, medicine, everything but what we're standing in. We don't have much to defend ourselves any more, most things in there are going to be poisonous or deadly, or both!"
"Do you want me to go and chase after them then? They've gone back to the mountains, we'll never find them." Merlin tried to calm himself down, there was no point descending into a childish argument. "There's nothing we can do Arthur, we either keep going or we turn back."
"We can't go back," Arthur sighed, realisation settling in, there really was nothing they could do. "We have to go into that forest, we have no choice. We'll be fine just as long as we keep quiet, I don't know what monsters might be lurking in there, but don't let anything attract their attention. Don't fall into any obvious traps and stay close to me this time, we find this Feu as quickly as we can and then we get out."
Arthur took a step forward, and gazed into the dark trees, the trees seemed to stare back at him, almost daring him to enter the forest, to begin the game where it was impossible to win. Arthur felt like he had more power on his horse, but now he was just standing on his own two feet, despite having Merlin with him, he felt terribly alone. Cold blood bumped steadily through his veins by his nervous heart.
"No going back." Arthur murmured, before stepping through.
Merlin stood there, a foolish thing to do after Arthur had told him to stay close, but all the same he remained motionless, staring up at the blackness of the Dark Forest. He thought that as soon as they reached the Dark Forest everything would be simple, go in, collect this Feu and get out, just don't get eaten by everything on the way. But now the true task of what he had to do was finally settling in, and froze his blood with fear and dread as it went. They wouldn't know where they were going, what they would be facing, what they should do when it got dark, they had very little to defend themselves and they didn't know how long they would be wandering in the forest. They didn't even know what this Feu looked like.
But Arthur was right, no going back.
Merlin took a deep breath and stepped into the depths of the forest. Hoping against hope he would see the end of the forest soon and the journey through the forest would be over.
The outcome of his journey however, would surprise Merlin more than he ever thought.
Sorry it's a bit of a short chapter, and I'm aware it is dragging on a little bit, but they couldn't teleport to the Dark Forest now could they?
I saw a fanfic the other day that only had five chapters posted but had over fifty reviews…50 reviews! How do they do it? Probably being good at writing helps! Haha, but I do love reviews, so if you have a spare 30 seconds or something, I really would like to know what you think of the fic so far (:
