The streets gave way to a forest, and the transition was violent. Huge slabs of paving cement were suspended among black tree limbs, roots cracking the streets as they burrowed into the earth beneath. A midnight jungle had torn its way up through stone and steel to impose itself upon the city, vines crawling through broken windows, flowers sprouting from the ruins.

The forest was dark as pitch, the alien trees dripping with a black oil that pooled among their roots, reflecting the fading daylight across dark surfaces.

Despite all this, Bayler Shrike followed as the white stag pranced its way among the broken cityscape and midnight trees.

He knew he was heading into danger. But the light emanating from the ghostly stag gave him such a calm, peaceful feeling. Even if it might be luring him into a trap, Bayler couldn’t bring himself to turn away, to abandon the hope he felt following the stag.

Soon he couldn’t even see the city behind him. All trace of what had been was lost among the creeping vines and roots.

As he trekked through the forest, hurrying to keep sight of his quarry as it vaulted between the trees, he caught his first glimpse of wildlife within the forest.

A huge lizard lurked above a pool of black oil. It had a broad, flattened triangular head, and palid white skin. From the underside of its throat, dozens of squirming pink tentacles descended into the black pools and fished out squirming eel-like fish.

It was eyeless, blind, but something about Bayler’s movement nearby caused it raise its head and face him, circular pink mouth opening and closing, revealing rows of sharp teeth within.

Bayler froze.

It didn’t seem to care about him, though. Its head twisted left and right, mouth gulping in heavy, wet gurgles of air. It must smell with its tongue, Bayler realized.

And then he started to wonder, if not him, what had drawn its attention.

There was a hard knot of tension in his gut as he turned.

Fat, bloated insects crawled up the trees behind him, their waxy yellow flesh bright against the black bark. They were ticks, giant ticks the size of a clenched fist, nothing but legs and mouth attached to an enormous stomach. He shifted his weight slightly, and they seemed to read his fear, sense he had seent hem and was about to run.

They swarmed.

The foremost ticks could simply fall of the trees, raining down on his head as reinforcements surged up the branches and lobbed themselves down, dozens splashing into the oily pools underfoot in exchange for a single one landing atop him.

He swung his fist out, and a tick was reduced to a gory, wet splat, exploding like a waterballoon under his knuckles. Another landed on his shoulder and bit down, serrated jaws sinking into his neck, piercing the jugular. He could see the ribbon of pulsing hot blood being siphoned out of him and filling the creature's belly.

With a snarl, he tore it away, but the creature’s head ripped off as he grabbed hold of the body, leaving its pincers stuck in his neck as he threw the rest down and stomped on it.

By the time he’d done that, three more had latched on to his shoulders, two to his arm; their weight dragged at him as he struggled to fight against the next wave. Howling, he smashed himself back against a treetrunk, crushing the ones that had bitten into his back.

Pulped bug and his own blood were pasted to him. Their weight was threatening to pull him down and overwhelm him, and still the trees were crawling with bodies; they poured in rivers along the branches and rained down onto him. He stumbled forward as he was drowned under a tide of bodies, his feet splashing through pools of oil.

This entire place was a tinderbox.

He’d be at point blank of the blaze.

He wasn’t sure he had another choice.

“Kesslith!”

A beam of flame erupted into the trees, nearly a hundred ticks hissing and exploding as the water and blood within them heated to bursts of steam, ripping them apart. The fire hit the oil-slicked branches, and the entire tree went up in a roaring pillar of flame that towered into the sky. The flame poured down the trunk and hit the roots, the pockets of oil built among their tangles. A dozen licking tongues of flame popped up ahead of the rushing main of the blaze.

Bayler was swept up in a cataclysmic burst of heat. The ticks died in multitudes and he staggered, nearly tripped, barely held himself up. He felt his lungs bake and crack in his chest, coughing up blood that sizzled and turned to smoke. Fire danced upon his skin, eating him alive.

The lizard let out a happy, blissful croak.

His eyes starting to cloud - starting to bake - he stared at the placid creature, at how the flames turned blue and calm as they ran across the mucus membranes on its slimy skin.

With a howl, Bayler became a wolf, a hound with no skin on its head. Covered in fire he pounced towards the beast.

Kill or be killed. He had seconds to eat this thing and take its powers for his own before his heart started to roast inside him.

Sensing his aggression, the creature’s radial mouth opened and it spat out its club-like tongue, the wet appendage whipping through the air to smack against his head and send him stumbling. It drew back in a spray of slime.

He lunged again, and the beast slashed its tongue out, but this time he was ready, rising from all fours into the shape of a man and catching the slimy muscle. On instinct it pulled back, retracting its tongue at whip-crack speed, and Bayler borrowed the momentum to plant a skull-denting kick into the top of its head as he was dragged along. It reared up and he dropped into the form of a wolf again, lunging into the soft underside of its throat.

His fangs sunk into flesh covered in flame, but the wet burst of blood extinguished them. Raw, bloody meat filled his mouth. The fire was beginning to cripple his limbs, cook his muscle. It hurt so damn bad. But he was alive, and his enemies were dead.

All around him, the trees shuddered. One by one their black bark cracked open under the heat, and from beneath, blue flowers rose into the air. They were delicate, dandelion-seed things, puffs of blue thistle that caught the warm air and rose, tiny parachutes that would drift across the city as their progenitors crumbled into ash. The violence of the blaze ensured they would float far.

From this one forest, a hundred would be born.