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Chapter 52
Robb Stark
Robb blinked, unphased.
Thorns laughed, believing his silence to be from shock. "She befell pregnant by her lover, fearing retribution from the father's enemies, she fled here, despite any misgivings she may have had." He took a sip from his tea, smacking his teeth after doing so. "Now she and her son live, here. With me!"
The woman simply stares ahead, her expression as blank as it ever was.
"Won't you drink your tea?" Thorns says. "It is very delicious, I assure you."
Robb just stared at his eyes.
"Well, it doesn't matter." His smile finally turns genuine, a sharp thing that seemed to split his face in two and turning his eyes into slits. "The smell should be enough."
It was then that all hell went loose.
Alys Rivers stood frozen to the side, her hand extended to her side in an attempt to grab a bronze dagger at her side. Blood spilled as Greywind wrenched her throat out with his fangs, growling menacingly as he threw her trachea to the sky and swallowed it when it dropped down.
Robb and Thorns were second to act, as he swiftly unsheathed Ice from his back and cut down a sharp wooden tendril aiming to snap his leg, jumped over the other, and used it as platform to propel himself toward him.
Ice's edge was less than an inch away from cutting Thorns' head, if not for the bronze chains that propelled him backward.
Robb threw off the blood like sap off his sword with a swing, knees bending ever so slightly to continue his charge. But a warning in the force pings off on his head, and suddenly he is up in the air, his body in parallel with the ground and his body twisting around itself as he cuts a green man jumping toward him with an overhead strike, finally landing on the back of another who went for his leg, immobilizing him under his weight.
With a slash, he cuts his head, pushes with his legs so hard the man's ribcage cracks, and jumps toward Thorns who stood under the tree's trunk, his feet submerged under the rosy water of the creek, a twisted expression on his face.
On the background, Greywind was happy with the carnage, as he twisted around the increasing amount of enemies, tearing throats with his jaw, cutting through their armors and chest with his claws, and crushing skulls under his feet.
But something nagged at Robb's head, over the time he has spent here, he was able to finally attune his force empathy to look through the veil of the Weirwood Network and finally into the happenings behind it, or rather, the orders going through it.
And he could tell without a doubt, that the only reason he and Greywind had such an easy time with the green men is that they had no intention to deliver lethal harm, something that is undoubtedly at the hand of the Child of the Forest in front of him.
After what felt like an eternity, Robb had finally reached his destination, and was about to cut the old monster down to size.
But Thorns acted swiftly, with veins showing on his temples and a great deal of effort, roots surged out of the ground in a great number, each one was as thick as Robb's waist, and they all surrounded the old crone like a cocoon.
Robb thrusts, but even as Ice's sharp side cut into the bark like a knife on butter, the roots simply grew back, pushing his sword away.
"I thought it was strange when it was you who came, and not the blue haired mummer." Thorns' sinister voice echoed from the center of his cage. "I should have known you were not a normal human. Starks… I swear you bunch are always the bane to my plans."
Robb was familiar with darksider grandstanding.
Trusting Greywind to have his back, he puts Ice back in his sheathe.
He brought both hands together before him, palms nearly touching. The air between his fingers shimmered with pressure. Then, with a guttural exhale, Robb wrenched his arms apart—slowly, forcefully, his arms not moving an inch as they trembled with exertion.
Then all at once, his arms were spread all the way, and with it, the roots keeping his opponent safe burst in half in an explosion of force, sudden and quick.
Thorns' eyes widened in surprise, and both he and Robb felt the climax of their meeting approach, as if the world had slowed down around them.
The telekinetic feat was one that Robb couldn't replicate instantly, so without wasting time by using his sword once again, he just allowed his body to be submerged in the force, and flew at blistering speed.
Thorns, for his sake, already began closing his shell back, and yet, just before it could finally do so, Robb managed to cross through.
He held the child of the forest by the head, and slammed him into the ground with blistering speed.
The bark cracked under his strength, and blackish blood spilt out of Thorns' mouth and into his hand.
The sound of battle had already stopped from outside, and Robb felt apprehension from his force link with Greywind, and a sense of caution. It seemed the fighting had stopped not because his direwolf killed them all, but that the green men were no longer attacking.
Despite his loss, Thorns laughed through the pain.
"Heh heh heh…." Logic dictated that he kill him, yet a jolt in the force, a prediction that said 'This is not the time.' Held his hand. "It must be hitting you now."
All of a sudden, Robb felt his vision go fuzzy.
"You didn't drink it, but a scent is all I needed."
'Poison.' He stumbled forward a step.
A light surged through his insides, a bright, purifying force that washed through his body and rid him of the dizzying feeling.
However, that single moment of weakness was all Thorns needed, as a veritable ocean of sap drifted from the cracks in the floor of bark.
The substance was sticky and sweet, with a metallic tinge to it, and as Thorns laughed maniacally at the prospect of a plan well done, Robb simply stood and stared at him blankly.
He sent emotions of safety and reassurance through his bond with Greywind, after all, the force had warned him of danger, but it also promised an opportunity.
This was all going according to the Force's design.
*-*-*
When Robb woke, he stood in a landscape of endless white.
'A mindscape' He thought.
Behind him came a familiar laugh--- cackling mad. He turned, and as he did, a familiar gnarled tree slowly emerged from the nothingness behind the figure.
"Finally!" the child of the forest cried. "I will finally get my due!"
His voice cracked with fury. "Thousands of years—imprisoned! They built a cursed island at the center of the world, mocking me with their lies of peace and unity. All because I dared—dared—to collar our enemies. To make them our puppets!"
"You wanted to enslave humanity?" Robb asked.
"No!" Black spit spewed from his teeth, dissolving into the air like smoke. "I wanted to fight back! Against you savage monkeys—mangling nature, twisting it like a toy made for your pleasure!"
He paced now, hands flailing, as if the truth would pour faster if he moved.
"We were losing the war," he muttered. "So, we made the Green Men. But they weren't enough—ageless puppets, strong but too few. Too costly. They kept dying faster than we could make more."
He stopped, clutching his head.
"So, I took matters into my own hands. I… I…"
Robb exhaled, already dreading the answer. "You made the Others."
Thorns spun toward him with manic speed. His mouth foamed; his eyes gleamed with a fractured madness.
"No! No no no!" he shrieked. "They interrupted me! They ruined it! The ritual—stopped before it finished!"
"I was crafting a perfect army," he hissed. "One that grew stronger with every death—ours or theirs! But then that damned man—Stark, Stark, Stark! He drove his bloody blade into my ribs, and my masterpiece, our salvation, turned into a nightmare!"
"They chained me to that island," he growled. "Cursed me with the same magic as the Green Men—forced me to rot in that hollow shell for years!"
His arm shot forward, finger jabbing at Robb like a spear.
"But once I seize your shell, I'll storm that cursed castle. I'll lead my army into your world—and show them all I was right." His sharp teeth gleamed with a manic light. "And then, you! Stark. You will inherit my chains, watch as I burn your world through my old frame, as I use your youth, name, and all the hidden secrets you hide from me to put the world into their knees."
The colossal heart tree suddenly duplicated, turning this whole dreamworld into a cursed forest full of giant trees—tools for his enemy to bring his end.
"I see," Robb said. "This explains much."
He extended his hand forward, fingers curling into a near fist—as if gripping the hilt of a sword.
With a subtle shift, he stepped to the side, turning his body sideways with refined grace. His lead hand rose, shaped around something slender and unseen, poised like a practiced duelist. His off-hand drifted behind him, fingers relaxed, his stance narrow and elegant.
A classic Makashi stance.
Then, as if conjured by instinct, the distant yet familiar metallic hue of a hilt shimmered into his hand—solid, snug, and perfectly natural.
With the ever-familiar bzzt, a pale blue blade—matching the color of Robb's eyes—flared to life, forming the unmistakable shape of a lightsaber.
"May the Force be with you, then." Robb said. "For no one else will."