The jet-black acorn pulsed faintly in the snow, its crimson veins a grim counterpoint to the pale tendrils already seeking purchase in the frost. Varnok’s gaze fixed on the twitching roots, then snapped back to Jorik. The hunter was still on his knees, chest heaving, a thin stream of blood tracing a path from his lip to his stubbled chin. “To Torvak’s compound,” Varnok said, his voice a low grind against the biting wind. “Now. If that’s what’s growing inside you, I want to see what festering rot he’s nurturing.” Jorik looked up, red veining the whites of his eyes, his mouth trembling. “He… he promised us warmth, Varnok. Fuel. He said the wood was… clean.” The words dissolved into a wet cough, and Jorik clutched at his chest, his gloved fingers digging into the heavy fabric. “He promised you what you begged for, hunter. You took a pact with the deep-frost, then slaughtered its heart. You don’t get to claim ignorance now.” Varnok gestured with the iron spud towards the distant, hulking silhouette of Torvak’s manor, barely visible through the swirling snow. “Lead the way, unless you want to root right here in the street.” Jorik struggled to his feet, his movements stiff and disjointed. He kept his right hand clenched in a fist, pressing it tight against his thigh, as if to contain the burgeoning horror within. The snow fell thicker now, a relentless white shroud muffling the few sounds of the dying settlement. No hounds bayed, no children cried. Only the howl of the wind and the crunch of their boots on the packed ice. As they moved deeper into Osk-Vallen, the air grew heavy, thick with the sickening sweetness of smoldering pine and something else – a musk overlaid with the copper bite of fresh blood. The sickly pale-green smoke, visible even through the blizzard, coiled from every chimney. The houses they passed were dark, their windows shuttered like vacant eyes. Varnok noted the tell-tale gouges on several cabin doors, where frantic attempts had been made to force them open or chop them down, leaving fractured lintels and discarded, frozen axes. Jorik stumbled often, his left hand reaching out to steady himself against frozen walls. His breathing grew shallow, punctuated by a rasping sound that seemed to emanate from deep within his chest. Varnok kept a wary distance, his gaze flicking between the hunter’s hunched form and the looming manor. Torvak’s stronghold was a monstrous thing of interlocking logs, a fortress against the elements, built with wood torn from the living forest itself. Even now, through the thick snowfall, Varnok could see the faint green glow from its numerous chimneys. They reached the heavy, ornate gates of the compound. The thick timber was gouged in places, as if something immense had tried to claw its way out. Jorik fumbled with a heavy iron latch, his gloved fingers clumsy. As he pushed the gate inward, a low groan, wet and strained, echoed from within. It was a sound that made the hairs on Varnok’s neck prickle, a noise of profound, unwilling agony. Inside, the courtyard was a chaos of felled timber, scattered axes, and dark, slick stains on the snow that were not merely mud. A hulking, unlit firepit in the center of the yard contained a pile of ash and charred, grotesquely twisted timber. The main doors of the manor stood ajar, spilling a plume of thick, emerald smoke into the frigid air. “They’re inside,” Jorik rasped, shrinking back against the gate. “He’s… he’s always feeding it.” Varnok pushed past him, weapon ready. The manor interior was stifling, heat pressing against Varnok's skin like wool soaked in brine. The air carried the reek of charcoal alongside something raw, like offal rotting across a fresh cedar stump. The main hall was a cavernous space, its high ceiling lost in shadows. A massive stone fire-grate roared, spitting green-tinged flames across the timber walls. And then Varnok saw it. In the center of the room, where a grand dining table might have once stood, the very floorboards buckled and erupted. Baron Torvak, or what remained of him, was fused to the manor’s foundation. His legs, thick as old growth trunks, were plunged deep into the floor, a web of dark, gnarled roots spiderwebbing across the polished timber. His torso was an eruption of swollen flesh and rough timber hide, arms twisted into thick boughs that spread upwards, their tips clustered with dark shoots that pulsed with faint light. His head, still recognizable in its fleshy horror, was tilted back, mouth agape in a silent, eternal scream. Spikes of ironwood, thin as needles, pierced his eyelids, his cheeks, even his tongue. Three figures, Torvak’s personal guards, their faces gaunt and smeared with soot, moved around the rooted Baron. They hacked at his lower limbs with axes, rhythmic and frantic. Each blow echoed with a wet thud, and a thick, viscous sap, dark as crude oil, oozed from the wounds, steaming faintly in the heat. As a particularly thick limb sheared free, one guard grunted, dragged it across the flagstones, and shoved it into the grate. The flames curled hungrily over the fresh sapwood. A sickening hiss filled the room, and the green smoke intensified, billowing upwards, carrying with it a faint, sweet smell that made Varnok’s stomach clench. Torvak’s head jerked, a low, guttural moan ripping from his throat, a sound of profound, conscious agony that transcended mere pain. He was alive, utterly aware, as they butchered him for fuel. Varnok watched from the shadows of a grand archway, a cold disgust churning in his gut. This was it. The source. The burning of living, infected flesh and wood. This was the fuel Torvak had promised. The furnace had to die. One of the thugs, a burly man with a scarred cheek, straightened, wiping sweat from his brow. His eyes, bleary from smoke and exhaustion, swept across the room and snagged on the movement in the archway. “Who’s there?” he bellowed, his voice hoarse. The other two thugs spun, axes raised. Varnok didn’t move, but Jorik, who had followed him into the manor, let out a choked cry. His left hand snapped up, and with a shrill crack, the leather tore open. Beneath it, his entire forearm had hardened into knotted timber, already thickening and lengthening. The branches, tipped with blunt, crude points, were still growing, stretching further than his original limb. The scarred guard charged with a guttural bellow, swinging his axe in a wide, reckless arc. Jorik screamed, a sound of terror and pain, and instinctively threw up his now-wooden arm. The limb met the descending steel head with a hollow crack. The impact jolted through Jorik, but the axe bounced off, leaving only a shallow gouge in the hardened wood. Before the thug could recover, Jorik’s arm, acting with a horrifying life of its own, lashed out. The wooden fingers, now thick as saplings, plunged into the thug’s chest with a wet, ripping sound. The man gasped, mouth working soundlessly as a jagged bough erupted through his spine, slick with marrow and wood shards. He crumpled, a dead weight, as Jorik stared at his own monstrous limb, trembling. The other two thugs hesitated, fear mingling with their exhaustion. Varnok stepped out of the shadows, the iron spud held loosely in his hand. His eyes, however, were not on the remaining thugs or even the horrified Jorik. They were fixed on the roaring, emerald-glowing hearth, where the severed branch of Torvak’s body hissed and bled into the flames. The smoke, he now understood, was not just poison. It was a seed. A continuous, atmospheric sowing of the Yul-Gorek’s agony, ensuring that every lung that drew it in would become a new forest for its curse to take root.

Roots of the Baron