Free Mrythdom: Game of Time by Jasper T. Scott

the forest. Even before they passed the tree line, Aurelius caught a whiff of the sharp, fresh scent of evergreen needles. The stars and moon were abruptly snuffed out by the branches overhead, but another, dimmer form of illumination remained to light the forest floor. Here, there and everywhere fluorescent lichen and moss began appearing, growing on the gargantuan tree trunks and branches, casting the forest and the snowy, needle-covered ground in an eerie mixture of blue, red, and green light. Glistening icicles were hanging down from branches overhead and refracting the light in their crystalline depths. It was an ethereal but menacing beauty that seemed somehow fitting for a forest completely devoid of natural light. Jagged shadows danced everywhere, revealing the hunters to any creature with eyes to see them. Worse, no matter how quiet they tried to be, the hunters’ footsteps were like an orderly stampede, disrupting the icy silence between the conifers. Once again, Aurelius wondered what type of prey they could possibly be hunting with such conspicuous force.
    The deeper they went into the forest, the more prolific the lichen and moss became, until they could see almost perfectly. Deep, unyielding shadows remained behind every fallen log and looming boulder, but Aurelius felt better to be able to see most of their surroundings. He cast a quick look toward the distant canopy overhead and found his gaze lingering even as his jaw dropped. The trees went on forever above them. The branches spiraled higher and higher in a skeletal web of brown and gray that was almost entirely dead from the lack of penetrating sunlight. The fluorescent lichen and moss grew where leaves could not, and spiraled ever higher until their subtle illumination blurred into a dim mass of color and blotted out the canopy. Gigantic, hanging icicles glistened like a never-ending series of crystal chandeliers, all of them refracting cool shades of blue and green with an occasional splash of bloody red. Aurelius imagined one of those icicles falling on someone, and realized with a prickle of dread that one of those icicles would easily kill whoever it landed on, helmet or not. Even without predators, the forest held a deadly threat for all who walked the labyrinthine trails between the trees.
    They’d been stalking through the forest for barely five minutes when he heard it. At first he thought it was an earthquake because the sound vibrated underfoot even before it shuddered through the air. Without a word of warning, phalanxes halted their march and Aurelius almost piled into the man in front of him. The ranks went incredibly still and quiet, and then the sound came again: a deep thrumming roar, accompanied by a steady plod of vibrations underfoot and the occasional cracking of branches. Then a much louder crack! sounded and Aurelius’s gaze snapped up in time to see a giant icicle come crashing down between the branches. He watched in slow-motion horror as it fell toward the foremost phalanx. The men in its path didn’t even shuffle their feet. Aurelius winced. Then it hit the ground and there came a sound like a whole case of wine shattering; the formation was sprayed with jagged shards of ice as the icicle shattered barely an arm’s length from their feet. Again, they didn’t move a muscle.
    When Aurelius recovered from his shock enough to see, he realized why they were so stolid. There, not far from the foremost phalanx, moving through the hazy blue-green glow of the lichen and moss was a massive shadow. With every plodding step the ground shook and rumbled. Aurelius meandered out of line with the formation on wobbly legs to get a better look. It was hard to judge size against the gargantuan trees, but the way the ground was shaking with its footsteps, Aurelius knew the creature had to be monstrously large. It had a long, fat tail and walked on two legs, though its arms looked suspiciously like another pair of legs, since they were at least