“I thought Belak was ostracised from his circle because his comrades thought him immoral, evil and mad. I don’t know about you, but to me, this bunch seems even worse than he was,” I grumbled.

“Druids are all immoral, evil and mad,” shrugged Jim. “At least where I’m from. I don’t think the Outcast was any worse than his friends. He just lost one of their political games, probably.”

Our prisoners stumbled before us with bound hands and a leash on his neck, but hearing these words, he turned back his head and shot a hateful glance to the tiefling.

“We are not mad,” he mumbled. “The weak have to serve the stronger with its blood. That’s the law of Nature.”

Jim jerked on the man’s leash, then smiled on him without an ounce of mirth. “Should I take your blood now then? Just so that we can stay in accordance with Nature’s laws.”

The druid didn’t answer that.

“This reminds me,” Jim continued, “you still haven’t told us how many of you are there.”

“There is only three of us,” answered the druid reluctantly. “Because you, outsiders, never leave peace for us! You harass us and send soldiers to cut down our trees, even though we…”

“Yes, yes, you only act in accordance with Nature’s laws and kill the weak you can your hands on,” sighed Jim. “I thought I explained well just a minute ago why this isn’t the best time for you to bring it up.”

“Where is that third druid?” inquired Beldrak.

“She went to close the path behind you and then deal with those who you left behind on the glade.”

We looked at each other with Trueanvil, then shrugged. They will have to hold out alone. We knew that it might come to that when we left them behind.

It was already night, and the stars came up by the time we reached the beech that the druids used to rule over the woods.

“Is that the one you had seen when you looked into the future?” I asked Beldrak.

The dwarf just nodded, not taking his eyes down from the giant tree.

Usually, in a forest, the big trees kill the small ones under their crown. This is especially true for beeches, which have thick foliage so that in beech forests, one can barely see any bush.

This beech, however, grew in the middle of several smaller trees, mostly oaks and other beeches. Also, thick shrubbery sprawled everywhere around the magical plant.

The tree itself was giant. I had never seen a beech before that was half as tall, and as for the diameter; I didn’t even think a tree. Any tree can be so thick. If there had been daylight, I could have measured the giant plant’s height by its shadow. But it was night, and I had to be content with a simple guess.

“I would say it’s a hundred paces tall,” I whistled.

“This tree is more than a thousand years old,” the druid said with pride. “My order has been protecting it for hundreds of years already.”

“And now this comes to an end,” said Beldrak firmly. “Arnold, I want you to help me collect some kindling.”

“Wait!” shouted our prisoner, panicked. “You never said you want to hurt the tree!”

How could these idiots have organised a trap so lethal against our caravan, I wondered.

“What have you thought, why are we coming here?” asked Jim with genuine curiosity.

“For the golds and the jewels?” the man stammered.

I left the tiefling and our prisoner and went to help Beldrak.

“Something is very wrong with these druids,” I voiced my opinion. “They set us a perfect trap, and yet they are idiots. Furthermore, why is there only three of them? Assuming the man did not lie.”

“They are the servants of the tree, and the tree is about to go to sleep,” Trueanvil answered.

I looked back towards the giant tree, followed the smooth, silver bark upwards with my eyes, and watched the gold-crimson crown with sudden understanding.

“So it’s the tree that gives the orders?”

“I think so. You have seen the bush too, and the mushrooms that grow around the tree, right? The berries on those bushes take you on a journey to Dreamland, and your mind never quite makes it back. Same with the mushrooms. Do you want to know what I think? I think that these druids were abducted as children, and they were brainwashed. The tree killed those whom it could not tame and kept the rest around as servants. We are lucky that the tree is old and went to sleep this early in the autumn.”

“As for your other observation”, Beldrak continued, “the trap set against our caravan wasn’t particularly clever. Our scouts should have seen it coming. I think this damned beech was using its last slivers of consciousness against them before winter hibernation. It is all extrapolation on my part, but I am reasonably sure this tree can manipulate the human mind.”

“So it blinded our scouts, or simply put them to sleep until the squirrels sneaked up on the poor bastards, and then, in turn, the beasts could sneak up on us,” I finished the thought. “This seems plausible.”

We continued collecting dry wood for a while, the heap growing on the floating disk Beldrak conjured.

“Do you think this will be enough to hurt the beech?” I asked. “Even if it already started its winter sleep, wood is usually not very dry this early in the autumn.”

“This will be enough to start a fire, and we will see the rest.”

We got back to Jim and our prisoner. The druid was gagged and tied to a smaller tree so thoroughly he couldn’t even move a limb.

“Squirrels are here,” said the tiefling as he saw us. “I see them stealing through the night. I told the bastard that I will cut his throat if he tries anything, but it would be for the best if you put him to sleep, Beldrak. Just to be sure.”

“Did you get him to tell you where the treasure was?”

“Yes, but you aren’t going to like it. The damned tree is hollow. The druids kept their valuables in it.”

Jim was right: we didn’t like this at all.

“On one hand, it’s money,” I said. “On the other hand, I have a scant desire to go inside.”

“Well,” mused Beldrak, “if it’s hollow, I bet it’s really dry inside. If we start a fire there, hopefully, it will spread.”

“What do we do with the idiot?”

“Cut his throat most likely,” shrugged Beldrak. “We can hardly leave him out here. The squirrels would set him free in no time. I know we promised him freedom, but this would be too much of a risk.”

Jim and Trueanvil both looked at me.

“What?!” I snapped at them. “Just because I killed Yustradil in its sleep, it doesn’t mean I like killing defenceless prisoners in general! And he is human too! I don’t mind killing kobolds, but killing your own kind is entirely different!” Though I have killed enough humans back in Italia, I admitted to myself. But the Misty Hills were not Italia, and though I would have killed the druid had he not yielded, I felt queasy about killing him now.

“Fine,” sighed Beldrak in resignation. “It was my idea. It is only fair I do it.” He turned towards the prisoner and started forming a mote of fire in his hand. The captive’s eyes widened in primal fear. He tried to change back into bear form, but Jim bound the druid well, and the ropes cut deep into his flesh as he started to grow. Then Trueanvil’s fire has set his fur aflame, and the change stopped.

The magician tried to scream, but his gags didn’t allow him to. He was still struggling against his bindings even while burning but to no avail.

Then he disappeared into the tree that he was bound to.

“Son of a…!” shouted Jim, leaping forward, but too late.

I was standing a little to aside, so I could see when the druid emerged on the other side of the tree, stark naked but unrestricted and not burning at all. He didn’t waste his time. He started running towards his holy beech.