The Day the Forest of Rosemary Began to Grow in the Sea

The end had come, it seemed. But it would not stay without a fight. The scorched forest, my fallen, beloved people would never forgive me if I squandered their memory.

Ash tarnished the broad, white sails, Smoke blanketed the blue and white fabric in the queen’s banner, concealing the emblem of her majesty’s bear. Cannons and mages, armored in leather jerkins, hurled as much fire and ice as they could at the attacking ships. But three steel frigates were too many for one, undermanned galleon made of wood.

“Hold fast, knights! The fleet is coming!” Erick shouted.

He stood by the edge, tying a small scroll to the foot of a small, yellow bird. I recognized it. My people called them stormfinches. Sparks surged between its flapping feathers, eager to flee. Erick tossed the little bird into the air and with a rumble, like muffled thunder, it flew away south toward Armadan.

“For the queen!” He cried. His coiled, silver horns emboldened by the afternoon light. The caramel fur once delicately groomed for the voyage to the royal city now disheveled and marred with wounds. With his steel broadsword, dripping with gray blood, he parried the iron blade of a broken human.

Erick glanced at me. “Gabriel! Get back to the quarters!”

The corrupted soldier—pain in his ruby eyes—re-captured Erick’s attention. He didn't see the other stalking toward him, sword poised to lobe off his head.

My staff caught the jagged sword. Chalk-white branches coiled, slithering down the blade, and pierced the graymen’s skin. He weeped like a man who had more to do and be, and he crumbled like a boneless house. His life should not have ended this way. I’m sure he was a good man before…no one speaks of Dol Gath.

The captain killed his foe and turned to me.

“I can’t keep you safe. Please go back,” he said. His trembling hand came to my cheek. His brown eyes usually softened my anger, but not today.

Did he still see me as the same mangled wood elf he had found lost in the streets of Armadan four years ago? I was not the same person. The rage brewed inside me for long enough. The greyman who invaded and burned my home to the ground would find no peace so long as I lived.

“Fine,” he groaned. “But stay close. This war has cost me enough. I can’t lose you too.”

Brave warriors in steel hauberks rushed to the edges, but there were too many planks to remove in time. The graymen overwhelmed the knights. Many crawled over them. The mages tried to keep the enemy at bay, but there were too many. We had to hold the line.

I had a spell in mind, one the last spirits of the forest gave me. I didn’t dare touch the power before the time was right. It held too much pain. But I knew I could lay the groundwork before it was too late.

From my pocket, I plucked out a sprig of rosemary and tossed it before the horde. The cutting rooted into the wood. Its thin leaves hardened into spines. Its arms grew long and sprawled like the krakens the old stories depicted. It fought the graymen, knocking them back into the sea, impaling them with bunches of leafy shards. I promised the great bushes, which once had grown so high they rivaled the forest pines, their revenge.

“Where the hell is the navy?” Erick grunted as he sliced through another graymen. “Is there no end to these things? We have to fall back!”

The captain rallied the remaining knights into a phalanx before the wooden doors of the storage rooms. The last of the battlemages and I took their backs. The rosemary bush rushed and rooted beside me. The graymen scampered toward us. We were trapped. This was our last stand.

What was I waiting for? I could have cast the spell then. Maybe I should have, but I didn’t want to take us all down. It wasn’t time yet. Was it?

“So, one yet still lives.” The voice rumbled from the ground, jingled the steel armor around me, and the horde parted. A broad-framed man appeared. He was taller than his comrades. His skin bleached bone white. In his hand, he held a scythe, its snath seemed made from the femur of a giant–one from Gongoran plains likely–and the iron blade was wider than a human torso. He seemed familiar.

He was in the forest. Could it be Erenth?

Erick stepped forward, slender sword before him and said, “Go back to Dol Gath, Erenth. The queen’s fleet will be here soon. We’ll have your head for this.” His tone was squeaky compared to the booming laughter of the graymen general.

Erenth stepped closer and the horde followed. “No fleet is coming. Your queen is weak, her navy occupied by our forces. We will take Armadan soon. But do not be afraid. I do not bring you death today. I need more troops.”

The fear of the knights hit me hard. One seemed to wonder if he could make it to the edge and leave his fate to the sea–it was better than the twisting he would face in Dol Gath; no one wanted to become a graymen. Erenth lifted his great sword, pointed it at me.

“You will not stop the cleansing fires. It is foolish to try. My masters will end our misery; we will finally be perfect. But I offer an exchange. In lieu of a painless redemption in Dol Gath, one not guaranteed by my masters, give me the Druid and I will spare you all.”

I felt Erick’s hand reach back and grab my arm. It was not the end we had hoped for. It was one I had to give for these humans who fought so bravely. If I gave myself up, no one would have to do it; I could save them all. But Erick didn’t let me move.

“No one here is going to help a graymen. We’ll fight to the end,” said Erick.

And the storage doors behind me flung open. Women and children, with anything they could find to use as weapons, came to my side. I knew they weren’t fighting to save me, they hardly knew me. They were fighting for themselves, for the realm, for a better future. I had something to fight for too.

“I will kill you for what you did, Erenth,” I said. It was almost time for the spell. It would go to the general.

“So be it,” Erenth growled. “Take as many as you can to Dol Gath. Kill the rest. The Druid is mine.”

The graymen charged the phalanx. Several were impaled, but the rest used the corpses to toss the spears aside and press on to the swords. Iron clashed with steel. The battlemages hurdled crushing boulders of water and air. The rosemary bush swatted away any graymen that managed to break through the defenses. Erick stayed close to me. Together, we kept the enemy at bay, and saved a few lives. All fought valiantly, but there were too many. Some of the children were taken, as were some of the women and men, and more were cut down or separated from the group. It was what Erenth wanted. He did it before in the forest.

A breeze came over the ship. The deep sting of rosemary surrounded me, and the spirits of my people came to me. I felt them and all their rage. I was naive then, too weak to stand against him. This time I would not watch the slaughter. I would fight on behalf of my people. Erenth had to be stopped. It would end all this trouble. It would save us all.

The general saved his strength for us. Erick and I had maneuvered away from Erenth, drawing him away from others and leading him up to the quarterdeck. I commanded the breath of the sea to shroud Erenth in a mist. I placed the air under Erenth steps so he could move with the grace of an elf. I blasted Erenth with gales when I could to throw him off balance and give Erick a chance to land an attack, but he was getting tired. Erenth struck slowly, but the blows came down hard and strategic. Nothing we did was enough. Erenth was too strong.

Erenth pinned Erick against the wooden railing. A diagonal slash came down on Erick. He had no choice. He maneuvered toward the general and once he did, Erenth knocked him back hard against the bars with the end of his snath. Erick didn’t move. I wanted to rush to his side, to tend to him and make sure he was still alive–I prayed so hard he hadn’t been killed. Erenth turned to me with a smirk.

“Alas, we are alone Druid. The last of your kind, the only thing standing in my masters’ dreams of a perfect world. I will right this wrong. I will usher in an age of perfection.”

Erenth prowled toward me. I backed away, keeping my distance should he reach and strike. It was time for the spell. Of course it was, but I needed the chance to cast it. And my anger was replaced by fear. I wouldn’t work without anger.

I misstepped and was too close to Erenth. He brought down the scythe hard and fast. I commanded a gust between us, pushing us both back. It hardly moved him, but it sent me against the wooden wall below the poop deck. Fire burned along my back. I couldn’t pay any attention to it. Erenth was rushing to me. I stood and lumbered away as fast I could. Nothing was working. I couldn’t run forever. I had been running away for long enough. It was time to take a stand. Erenth was big and strong, further than me or anything I ever imagined, but I could be stronger.

I focused on my memories. Each one I kept stored away in the darkness. I remembered the burning sting of the pine and rosemary, the visions of slaughtered friends and family. The powerlessness I felt came to me. Cowering in a hollowed tree, waiting for the enemy to leave and praying they would never find me was all I could do then. I was so young. But it was not all I could do now. I ran to Erick’s side. I was relieved to see him force his head up, recovering from his daze. He was my future. Erenth had taken my past. I would not let him have anything else.

I swung my staff and with all my will commanded the air into a gust. It threw off Erenth’s advance enough, staggering him for a moment. It was all I needed. One moment. One chance. I held out the staff, setting the base in a groove of the wooden planks.

“It’s time, old friend,” I said to the tree as it rooted into the ship and its branches grew tall. “Be strong for our people, for our home.”

Rage swelled through my body. It sent my hands and stomach into a hard quiver. Memories I never had came into my mind. None were mine. They were of last moments before iron struck them down, or of intimate moments with lost loved ones. All carried dreams of vengeance. Their hope tingled my fingertips. They drew me to touch the staff.

Its body engorged, wide like the pines of the forest. Its branches sprouted thin, spikey leaves like the beloved rosemary bushes, and the staff grew tall to rival Erenth. The general brought down his scythe with a strike that could sunder any ordinary tree, but the blade recoiled from the golden bark. An arm knocked back Erenth into a mast post. Roots erupted from under the planks and coiled around Erenth’s chest, arms, and legs, binding the squirming general.

“The fire!” Erenth cried. His voice echoed over the sea.

I heard the squeal of the guns.

“The fires of redemption!”

But before any could fire, the ships were bombarded with cannon fire. Clean, glistening banners with the queen’s emblem bellowed in the smoke and wind. Dozens of galleons and frigates surrounded the enemy ships, drowning them in fire and ash.

“You will not stop the fires, Druid,” Erenth grumbled, the roots slowly creeping into his skin. It was the will of my people, their revenge. “My death means nothing. My masters will come for you. Redemption…is…inevitable.” Tendrils sprouted from his mouth and eyes, and silenced the general.

Erick came to my side. I threw my arms around him. He lived. I cried. I didn’t know what my future held, if he would be there for all of it, but I had possibilities now. Erenth had not taken anything else away from me.

“What do we do about the tree?” Erick nodded to my staff, which was still growing toward the heavens. I heard the cracking of wood below the deck.

“Let it live here in the sea,” I replied. “Let it stand in our memory.”

The end had come indeed. The end of suffering, of revenge, of Erenth. Perhaps in time their power would remake the forest here. Only time would tell what my people wanted. I boarded a new ship with Erick by my side. He held me close as we drifted away, watching the galleon be devoured by a growing pine tree. I would come back some day to see what became of this place. It was what I promised myself.

***

Kevin Casin (he/they) is a gay, Latine fiction writer, and cardiovascular research scientist. His fiction work appears (or forthcoming) in Idle Ink, Medusa Tales Magazine, Pyre Magazine, and more. He is Editor-in-Chief of Tree And Stone, an HWA/SFWA/Codex member, and First Reader for Diabolical Plots and Interstellar Flight Press. For more about him, please see his website: www.kevinmcasin.wordpress.com. Please follow his Twitter: @kevinthedruid.