The columns marched through the forest with their commander's colors flying brazenly in the lead. Their heavy steps crushed the vegetation sprouting from the cracks in the cobblestone path laid daring out many years before, when this rout was established with the founding of a neighboring province. The regiment was two halberd blocks strong, supported with train and a few marksmen. The general marched steadily towards the almost ruined fort where this group of reserves were to make camp on their journey to meeting the full strength of the expeditionary force preparing to make a counter offensive against a WAAG which had suddenly sprung from the forest near the primary logging camps for the Elector Count's home city. The gathering forces were to meet a fortress first built to hold back a tide of rampant Beast horrors who were marauding the lands many generations before, so the archaic building had fallen into disrepair.
The soldiers were in their homeland, near their very own fortified city. They felt secure in the knowledge that this province had received very little in the way of any confrontations for almost a century. The lands were well populated with homesteads and farms, the forests were small and well hunted. There was a certain peacefulness to this land not found anywhere else in the Empire for all their combined knowledge. The Elector Count had long since ceased hiring Battlewizards to accompanying his armies as their had been little need for such extravagances when crushing the small hordes of goblins which occasionally poked their spears from the crags several leagues from his territory. These orcs were the first to step in the realm since before the memory of the oldest living man in the province.
The march was impeccably quiet. No birds sounded on the horizons as the sound of the marching boots echoed deep into the forest scaring off all the remaining wildlife for miles. No signs of raiding were seen within the breath of the road, nor had any of the nearby homesteads been ravaged as well. A more suspicious general may have been more wary, but being mostly removed from the horrors of the north this garrison force made way with little hesitation. When the ruined fortress appeared over the horizon, the soldiers were relieved. They had march the entire day away, feet sore and stomachs emptied. Even the general was patting his breastplate in anticipation for a hearty meal before they arrived into the yard of the ancient fort. The columns discovered the fortress deserted and foreboding. It had appeared that they were the first to enter and set up camp. Night was fast approaching so they set up a perimeter and prepared for the oncoming battles. Tents were pitched, meals were prepared but no fires were started.
As groups of soldiers foraged for essentials, clean water or sufficient burning wood, few of the the teams returned at all. The general wore his great displeasure upon his face with a very distinguished scowl. He gathered together his officers to hunt down the insubordinate recruits evading their duties. With his standard in tow, the general plowed into the fields to find his missing soldiers as he did not trust the unsullied officers to do such on their own. In the foraging zone, no signs of any of his soldiers were to be found among'st the feral lands surrounding the fort. It was as though they were spirited into the wilderness without a fight and with all of their spoils. Normally, a deserter would abandon his colors to better hide among the mob. No a scratch of cloth could be dug from the dirt. The only tracks he seemed to come upon where those of his own making. Confused, he returned to his camp to find it all but emptied.
Of the two hundred men he had marched with, nothing but empty tents and fire pits remainded of his force. He looked at his officers with lingering rage at the thought of his entire force going rogue, but his fears somewhat subsided when his standard bearer fell to his knees with an arrow through his chest. The shaft had found its way through the under-sleeve, trough his shoulder and poking out from his back through a new crack in the field plate. The general drew his sword and shouted commands but his officers seemed unable to hear them. As if the camp itself was alive, they were quickly overrun. To the general's disdain, they were mostly captured alive.
Sacks were used to cover the survivors heads as they were stripped of their heavy armor and weapons. The general struggled as much as he could, but his body was too fatigued to issue much of a fight. In minutes the lot of them were pushed and forced marched through a forest, and only the grunts and growls of his officers allowed the general to guess how many had even survived the ambush. He was not even aware what had ambushed his force, even though he recalled raising his arms against it. It was as though twilight itself fell upon his regiment, and left them vulnerable to the sands of time. His legs grew heavy through the night, and when they finally stopped he was beyond surprised.
With the bag removed from his head, the general looked upon a glowing fae. His eyes the color of winter ice, and his hair like strands of sunlight delicately washing over his shoulders. The fae's armor was black as night, with elongated thorns decorating the various facets. In his right hand was a sword, half as tall as a man but glowing with an endless ethereal light. The wind whispered with the cries of a thousand ghosts trying to escape that blade. The creature looked upon the general with little more concern than a butcher might look upon a sow unable to produce milk. The general found himself unable to hold his bowls.
A second fae, clad entirely from green silks walked to each officer in turn offering them a vial of wine. The smell of the fermented berries was pungent with a otherworldly sweetness that the general's grandmother would have warned about. The officers each drank in turn from the vial, not carry about the strangeness of their predicament. The general refused to drink. The second fae smiled at him with pity. The first fae turned away from the officers, and looked into the wilderness beyond. Within moments, the officers began to cry out in pain, as their bodies contorted and twisted in the most unnatural ways. From their mouths, the general watched, sticks and branched twisted to break free from their fleshy prisons. The men fell to the earth, their bodies torn asunder from within being replaced by unnaturally large oaken behemoths. Towering over the general with the remnants of the officers in their boughs stood mighty tree spirits, howling with pleasure upon their birth. The general could not bear his own weight, his eyes sunk into his skull and his beard became white with fright.
The general struggled to stay on his knees, alone in the woods surrounded by the darkest of magics he could dare to dream in his most untamed nightmares. He tried to scream in defiance, but only a shrill shriek of terror escaped his lips. The first fae knelt near the general with a very absent expression. The general's presence meant nothing for the elf standing before him. Two underling fae picked the general from ground and dragged him further into the forest. His ankles dug into the soil and the underbrush made way around his body. The world grew darker each passing moment as the trees became more alive. Their expressions of horror etched deeply into the general's heart as he was forced to look upon them. Each one more terrifying than the last. The general's moral broke and he panicked for freedom.
A sudden blunt impact left the general sprawled out on the forest floor, staring into the trees where giant man sized pods hung from the branched of a very old tree. The pods glowed with a mystifying light which comforted the general for a brief moment, until the largest walking tree imaginable plucked the general from the ground and held him aloft. Soiled and emotionally spent, the general looked into the eyes of his impending doom with glee. The end of his nightmare, but he was not consumed. The tree put the general close to a pod, where in the mystifying light he could clearly see the body of a fae dressed in armor. The general was pushed up against a tree where a root grew from a branch and entwined around his limbs. Thorns dug into his flesh and the general could barely comprehend how his body was literally being absorbed into the thorns. As he wasted away, he watched as a new pod took shape next to the one he had seen.
An army of Elves, made from the woods using the Empire soldiers as fuel.
{And that is where Wood Elves come from}
Seeds of War
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