The Rangal Forest greeted them with silence.
The vanguard — nine hundred riders, the elite warriors of the Horde — halted at the edge of the forest, having barely passed the first few trees. They did not dare venture deeper beneath the canopy of the ancient giants. The horses nervously twitched their ears, sensing something the men could not understand.
“Why have we stopped?” Commander Urkal the Butcher’s voice rang out sharply, yet even in it there was no longer the old confidence.
“Horkaz isn’t answering,” one of the scouts replied. “We sent three men. None came back.”
Urkal spat on the ground. He did not believe in forest spirits or curses. He believed in steel, speed, and the terror his men sowed across the south. But now, staring at the dark trunks that stretched into infinity, he felt something he could not explain.
“Nonsense,” he snapped, even as his hand instinctively settled on the hilt of his sword. “It’s just a forest. Move forward.”
He gave the signal. The first dozen riders advanced, and the silence swallowed them whole.
Inside the forest, it was worse.
The sun, which had been blinding them only a minute earlier, vanished, shattered into rare, trembling patches among the branches. The air grew thick and damp; every breath required effort.
“Spread out!” Urkal commanded once the column had pushed deeper. “Maintain distance!”
He himself did not know why he had given the order. Usually they rode in a tight wall — so no enemy could strike from the flank. But here, among the trees, a dense formation felt like a trap. Too little space. Too many shadows.
The riders obeyed. The column stretched into a long serpent, and the chain broke into separate links, separated by dozens of paces.
That was exactly what she had been waiting for.
The first disappearance went unnoticed.
The rearguard — a young warrior named Burk, who had taken part in only three raids — simply stopped answering calls. The rider in front of him glanced back when the silence behind grew too heavy. An empty saddle. The horse stood with its head lowered, calmly chewing some grass.
“Burk?” he called, but there was no answer.
He dismissed it as cowardice. Maybe the man had dismounted to relieve himself. Maybe he had gotten scared and fallen behind. It had happened before.
He had no idea that Burk no longer existed in this forest.
A hundred paces later, another vanished. Then another. Always from the rear. Always in complete silence.
When it finally dawned on Urkal that they were missing seven men from the tail of the column, he halted the detachment.
“Where did they go?”
No one knew. No one had heard screams. No one had seen a struggle. The men had simply… ceased to be.
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“Search for tracks!” Urkal barked, feeling something cold and viscous rising inside him.
A dozen warriors dismounted and moved back along the route. They found the horses. They found discarded weapons. But there were no signs of struggle, no blood, no bodies.
“Look!” one of the scouts pointed at the ground.
Beneath a thick layer of leaves, they discovered drag marks. Someone had dragged the men off the path and into the thicket. Yet around the marks there was not a single footprint. Only crushed foliage trailing away into the darkness.
“There’s no one there,” said one warrior, peering into the gloom between the trunks.
“Then who dragged them away?” Urkal’s voice cracked into a hoarse rasp.
There was no answer.
At that moment, the forest spoke.
At first it was only a whisper. Soft, indistinct, drifting now from the right, now from the left, now from above. The warriors twisted their heads, gripping their weapons, but there were only trees around them.
“Who’s there?” someone shouted.
The whisper turned into voices. The voices of the dead. Those they had lost in this forest. Those they had lost long before.
“Urkal…” the whisper called, and the commander shuddered, recognizing the voice of his brother, killed five years ago in a skirmish with the southern clans.
“This can’t be,” he whispered, backing away.
A branch fell from above, landing right in front of his horse’s muzzle. The animal reared, nearly throwing its rider.
Then, from the other side, an entire tree crashed down, blocking the path.
“It’s an ambush!” someone screamed.
The horses went mad. Riders fought to control them, but in the crush, amid falling branches and nonexistent enemies, the formation shattered.
“Forward!” Urkal roared, realizing that if they stayed in place, they would lose everyone. “Forward — out of this trap!”
He spurred his horse, crashing through the underbrush. The others who could still move followed. The forest met them with screams, cracking wood, and shadows flickering between the trunks.
No one saw the invisible figures moving silently through the darkness. No one heard how, behind them, people continued to vanish — one by one, two by two, from the rear ranks.
When the forest finally parted, releasing them onto the northern edge, Urkal counted barely seven hundred. Two hundred men had disappeared inside Rangal Forest.
Without a battle. Without blood. Without a single arrow fired.
Urkal sat on his horse, breathing heavily, and stared at the dark wall of trees. His men — hardened warriors who had survived dozens of battles — were trembling. He saw it. He felt it.
“What was that?” someone asked.
Urkal did not answer. He knew what Gul-Nadar would say when they returned empty-handed and spoke of a forest that devoured men. He knew the khan would not believe in spirits or curses.
But he also knew that he himself would never enter this forest again. Not for any treasure. Not under any order.
“We must not disturb the great forest,” he said. “We’re turning back.”
He wheeled his horse around and rode away without looking back.
The Rangal Forest watched him go, and in its silence there was no triumph.
Only patience.
Amanda stood on a branch of the old oak, watching the remnants of the squad vanish among the hills. Her invisible cloak rippled in the wind, blending her seamlessly into the night.
“Two hundred,” Torglin said quietly from the neighboring bough. “I counted two hundred.”
“Not enough,” Amanda replied. “But it will do. They’ll tell the others. And those who come tomorrow will know: this forest means death.”
“What if Gul-Nadar sends a thousand?”
“Then we’ll repeat it. Again and again. Until every one of his warriors understands: you can enter this forest, but you leave only with our permission.”
She slipped down from the tree, melting into the darkness. Leo was already waiting below, holding a sack filled with trophies — weapons and amulets stripped from the “vanished” soldiers.
“Did they believe it?” he asked, a note of something close to exhilaration in his voice.
“They believed,” Amanda nodded. “But these were only scouts, even if they were elite. The real wolves will come soon. Only they’ll arrive somewhere else.”
She looked up at the sky, where the stars were already beginning to fade before the approaching dawn.
“We have a few hours to prepare for the next act. We’re leaving this forest. We need to rejoin the main forces.”
“By tomorrow evening, Gul-Nadar must learn: the Rangal Forest is not territory. It’s a trap. And everyone who steps into it will pay the price.”
She stepped into the darkness, and her figure dissolved between the trunks, becoming one with the very nightmare she had created with her own hands.
The forest waited for the new day. And a new legend was already being born in its shadows.