Dead Mans Forest

“ It’s bloody freezing out here!” said Olivious for the third time. We

were about twenty minutes into our march . Olivious had made a show of

being the first one to walk out of the tavern into the increasingly

severe blizzard, but soon regretted it after a couple of minutes.  We

were walking through the forest now. We had left  London about ten

minutes ago and I savored every minute of it. It wasn’t often I left

the city, and even under such circumstances it was still quite a treat.

 “ How long do you figure until we arrive?” Olivious asked me.

“At this pace? Probably another twenty minutes”

Olivious murmured his disapproval. Just then the whole march came to a

stop. It appeared as though a man was missing.

“Leave him” Olivious called out “we’ll all die if we go looking for him

in this!”

            Crispin’s second in command came running down the line of men, telling

the first half of us to go into the woods to look for the man, while

the others would stay on the path. Ironically , Olivious represented

the other half of men, so he got to stay while I had to venture into

the woods. My bow was just dead weight in such a condensed forest, so I

left It with Olivious and took the short-sword I had been issued out.

The forest was dark, and I was fearful venturing into it. I had never

been in a forest before. The darkness engulfed my group as we entered.

I had joined with a small group of three men, as there was no point in

walking through the forest alone. The men were named , Cuthbert,

Bernard and Philip.

“I think I hear something!” exclaimed Cuthbert

“What you hear” said Bernard “is the wind” . Cuthbert shook his head

sadly, while Phlilip remained silent. Suddenly a cry pierced the

darkness. It came from a different group.

“That sounded like Edward!” Cuthbert cried.

“Sounded like a bird” replied Bernard anxiously.

“I say we return to the rest of the men” piped Philip nervously.

“ And what if it was just a bird? Do you want the whole army to think

you got scared of a bird?” Bernard said.

“lets keep looking for five more minutes” I said. We continued walking

into the dark forest. We heard two more cries, which Bernard said were

wild boars. We stopped once we heard twigs snapping. Something was

approaching us.

“Do you see that!” cried Cuthbert. I turned and saw a black figure,

approaching us quickly.

“Ready yourselves” said Philip. Once the figure got closer we were able

to identify that it was one of our men. He had seen us and was now

running towards us as quickly as he could.

“Thomas!” Bernard exclaimed as the man reached us.

            Thomas was a short man, he had two short swords in either hand and was

panting heavily.

“Arabs �" attacking, get to Crispin” Thomas wheezed.  Cuthbert wasted no

time. Immediately he took off sprinting into the night. I glanced at

the men around me. “good luck to you” I called and sprinted after

Cuthbert.

 

            The forest was dead and alive at the same time. I soon realized I

didn’t know what direction the rest of the men were at. I should have

stayed with Bernard and Thomas and Philip.  Too late for that now. I

was alone and for now, I was alive. The forest was thick and

entangling, and it wasn’t long before I found Cuthbert’s dead body

slumped against a tree, an arrow through his chest. I said a quick

prayer over his body and moved on. I looked around to make sure I

wasn’t being followed every couple steps. I knew that I was lost. What

a fool I had been, now I would die in the forest, like Cuthbert. It was

a fire that saved me. I had been walking in the wrong direction,

looking for signs of allies, when a large fired started. It wasn’t a

forest fire, just a brief large fire. It was either the enemy burning

my dead men or it was my allies trying to guide the men in the forest

back to the convoy. I prayed it was the latter and took off for the

fire.

            Low hanging branches made it difficult to keep your eyes raised at all

times, but I tried my best to get to the fire as quickly as I could. I

could still hear screams in the forest, but they were less frequent and

sounded further away. Finally I broke from the forest and laid eyes on

the convoy. Dead men littered the ground, but they weren’t of Crispin’s

army. Cheers followed my exiting of the forest. I was the last to do

so. Bernard had exited with Thomas, they said that Philip was separated

form them when the fire started. About seven other men had made It out

, which meant our force of sixty was now a force of thirty-nine.

            Crispin proposed that we stay where we were and waited for the enemy

to come to us, but everyone soon pointed out to him that not only were

we in no condition to fight, but we would surely freeze to death if we

didn’t get to the ship soon. In the end Crispin was swayed and we made

our way to the docks without incident. The woods were later named dead

mans forest.

Reviews

[ScarlettTheDreamer]

This chapter is written in a fantastic way. Great description, no visible mistakes and all. Very good indeed.