Nora kept Magnhild in a tight grip as she moved through the trees, keeping her eyes straight ahead. The Emerald Forest was dark, with only starlight peeking through the canopy and the beams from their scrolls illuminating the area. It took only about twenty minutes of walking for a noticeable smell to begin dominating the surrounding air- it was the unmistakable stench of smoke and ash. Just like Qrow had said, there was a fire in the forest… but by the time Nora, Ren, and the older huntsman had reached the area, the flames had mysteriously died out. Somehow, the disaster had seemed to spread only to a specific radius and then fizzled out, almost as though it had a specific target. The sight unsettled Nora to no end, especially as she entered a clearing almost totally void of foliage that hadn't been there previously. It was enough to cause all three of them to come to a stop and survey the damage in a quiet sort of awe.
Across a wide swath of land, there was nothing left but charred husks of trees with glowing embers in their bark, fallen logs, ash, and lingering smoke. What scant few trees remained standing were snapped jaggedly along their trunks and badly burned, leaving a maze of spiky wood leading forward amongst the devastation. Scattered silhouettes of branches barely clinging to life shifted within the unnatural fog hanging over the clearing… though some of the shadows seemed to be moving. Nora's stomach was churning and every fiber of her being screamed at her that they were walking into a trap… but they had to know what awaited them deeper in the forest.
"Shit," Qrow cursed as he cracked his neck and rolled the shoulder of his sword-arm. "Looks like a goddamned bomb went off here. When I flew overhead, I thought it was still burning from the smoke, but down here, it looks like it's been out for a while…"
"It looks like the flames may have been magical in nature," Ren said quietly. "I believe we are likely to be dealing with Astrid herself…"
Nora swallowed hard, adjusting her grip upon her weapon as she began to sweat in the elevated temperatures.
"If she was here… she did this a while ago," Nora pointed out. "Hours before meeting with Glynda. I… I'm worried. I have a bad feeling we're already too late to find Hazel. Hopefully he got out if he was the target…"
A sudden, deafeningly loud crack rang out behind the party and they whirled to find a massive creature making its way through the forest. Trees fell away to a grimm goliath as it walked straight ahead, paying the trio no mind at all as it continued to trundle forward. The elephantine creature seemed to have its gazed fixed upon something as it walked straight for Ren, and the boy trained his weapons upward at the face of the beast as he leapt aside. There was no response, as though the beast was programmed to ignore him as it continued to move along. A pair of beowulfs soon followed, neither paying any attention to the hunters as they passed, walking forward into the smoke and nearly disappearing from sight almost immediately.
"I…" Nora began, watching as the grimm elephant faded from view into the whirls of ash and fog. "Do we… attack? Would Salem and Astrid even know…?"
"Don't risk it," Ren advised. "If they truly are leaving peacefully… I don't know what to think, either. All we can do is move forward and keep our guard up. I do not trust this."
"Neither do I," Qrow agreed. "I've never seen anything like this. To think that they have this level of control of the gr-"
Another unexpected noise rang out within the forest, though it was deafening by comparison to the goliath. The source of the droning sound was skyward, and upon looking up, the group of hunters found themselves in utter disbelief at what they were seeing. A giant, incredibly familiar looking grimm dragon soared overhead, momentarily darkening the clearing with its massive wingspan. The monster let out a resounding roar as it passed over the forest, adding to the already overwhelming sound from the shifting of air around its body and wings. It was gone almost as quickly as it came, becoming a black speck over the tree line in the night sky.
"Was that…" Nora began, feeling herself beginning to nearly hyperventilate. "W-was that… the dragon from Beacon? O-on the central tower?"
"…yes," Ren said quietly. "Yes, it was. This entire time, it could have just… broken out of its stone prison? Or perhaps… perhaps Astrid's presence here managed to free it, or…"
"No use speculating," Qrow muttered. "It's loose, and we're going to have to deal with it at some point. Let's move, before we run into any more grimm that might not be feeling so passive."
Nora took a step forward to force herself out of her state of panic. Somehow, if she just kept moving, if she was doing something, she felt a little bit better. Though she had no actual idea of where she was going, she could feel a sort of odd pull dead ahead, deeper into the clearing. Whatever awaited her there, Nora had a distinct feeling that it would only make her feel worse… but she needed to see it for herself.
"Hazel?" the girl called, raising her voice to carry through the open area. "Are you out here?"
"Is that wise?" Ren asked, sticking close to his partner.
"Grimm have seen us," Nora reminded, her tone carrying more venom than she had intended. "If Astrid's waiting for us, she knows we're here already. I just want this over with."
"What about Tyrian?" Qrow asked. "Don't forget that we have more enemies here in Vale. Given the fact that Astrid just came out of the woodwork, it's entirely possible that there are more of Salem's henchmen just waiting to jump us. I've been taken by surprise before. Rather not have it happen again."
"…sorry," Nora offered quietly as Qrow took the lead at the head of the pack. "I really, really just want to leave…"
"We do not owe Hazel anything," Ren offered. "We could leave. Perhaps not the heroic move, but it is a practical one. I will defer to you."
Nora took a deep inhale through her nose, immediately regretting it as the nauseating smell of smoke filled her lungs. She blew it out rather quickly and covered her mouth and nose with her elbow.
"We're not leaving without seeing him. Keep moving."
Nothing more was said as the group continued on, walking in silence for over a full minute. Just as Nora began to realize how much area had been cleared by the explosion, conflagration, or whatever else had occurred, a new unpleasant smell registered within her nose. She knew it well, and it made her stomach drop even farther.
It was the unmistakable stench of burnt flesh.
"Please tell me that isn't…" Nora started, raising a hand to pinch her nose closed.
Her quiet question was interrupted with an unpleasant squish, and upon looking down at her feet, she nearly screamed.
Down in the blackened leaf litter and sticks of the forest floor, Nora's sneaker had landed upon a pale pink length of something splotched with sections of white and black charred material. The substance was clearly organic, and the girl quickly lifted her foot and stepped off to the side, crunching through the leaves as her eyes followed the squishy tube forward. It seemed to lead to a massive tree that was miraculously still standing a good ten feet away. Dust crystals stained with blood were scattered around the area… though none of them seemed to be of the element of fire. Nora took a step forward, beginning to follow the curving trail toward the shrouded tree. A firm hand gripped her shoulder, arresting her momentum and snapping her attention back to Qrow. The older huntsman's face was pale… and he looked almost afraid.
"Don't," Qrow ordered, his tone incredibly serious. "Do you even know what you're looking at? This isn't something either of you should see."
Nora didn't breathe as she held Qrow's gaze. Without a word, she jerked her shoulder free of the man's grip and walked forward to where the tree was visible.
She immediately wished she hadn't.
A large, masculine corpse, almost completely unrecognizable, was pinned to the tree by several lances of bone several feet off the ground. The man was impaled through multiple key locations, the spears plunging deep into the tree behind him at odd angles with enough force to splinter the wood. One of the organic weapons was protruding straight through the man's throat, while another three held up his shoulders and the left side of his chest. Yet another was plunged straight through his groin at a sharp angle, while one more had embedded itself deep in the man's left thigh, just above where his lower leg had been torn off at the knee. One more spear was jutting out from within the victim's stomach, with his intestines hanging over the weapon in messy loops trailing from a wide cavity clawed out within the flesh of his abdomen. The guts trailed off from the spear and out into the clearing… where Nora had stepped on them only seconds before.
Though the majority of the corpse's stomach had been torn out and his organs scattered over the spear and the surrounding area, that was hardly the extent of the damage done to him. His clothing was in tatters, with wide, raking gouges crossing his chest, shoulders, legs, and throat. The man's right arm, being held up at an unnatural angle by a spear, had been split in two and the burned flesh was hanging precariously by a single tendon. Several puncture wounds dotted the body in seemingly random places, suggesting that he had been stabbed repeatedly before being stuck into the tree… but the damage to his face was anything but random.
Both of the body's eyes had been torn out before the entire upper half of his face had had its flesh burned away, revealing parts of the skull. What at first looked to be a frozen, agonized scream was instead something worse- the man's entire lower jaw had been ripped off and left hanging to one side, the bone almost entirely black with scraps of singed flesh clinging to it. There was almost nothing left to suggest who it was that had been killed, why, or even how… but Nora knew immediately. So did Ren, and Qrow. The overall shape of the body was enough to glean exactly what had happened, given what they knew.
Hazel Rainart had been slaughtered in an act of absolute hatred, and clearly tortured throughout the process… and not even his Semblance of near invincibility when charged up with dust could save him.
Nora wasn't sure when the last time she had taken a breath was, but she couldn't stop staring. The absolute state of the body told her everything she needed to know about their enemy and what was at stake. Seeing the desecrated corpse made it all so much more real… and she was momentarily afraid that she was going to pass out from shock.
Instead, Nora turned away and threw up, splattering the ground with the contents of her stomach as she doubled over. Ren was quick to drop his weapons and help to hold her up as she continued to be sick. He did his part to help turn her from the gruesome display, though his own eyes were locked on those missing from Hazel's face. He, too, was feeling sick, though he refused to let that get in the way of his support for Nora.
"Please don't look," Ren advised as he held Nora closely and Qrow stepped in between them and the body. "There's nothing we can do…"
"We should go," Qrow emphasized, keeping his back to Hazel's body. "This isn't helping anyone…"
Nora let out a few coughs and then spit on the ground. Despite Ren trying to hold her back, she turned her gaze up to Hazel once again, feeling something new. While the panic and nausea were still there, she was also starting to feel rage.
"How can we possibly treat her as reasonable?" Nora asked. "Trusting Astrid at all to uphold her end of the bargain, when she's capable of something like this? It has to have been her. She's a monster…"
Neither of the other hunters had anything else to say. Nora simply wrenched free of Ren's grasp and stared, taking in every detail she could of the body pinned to the tree. It was a sight she was committed to never forgetting.
Author's Note:
Shit's getting incredibly real… and also only just getting started.
-RD