43
It was happening again.
The Guardian sat alone on his throne, all senses tuned to the low murmur of the trees gaining in volume, becoming a groan, until the animals themselves sensed it, a sudden scattershot of birds taking flight in the face of the coming storm.
Wilt. It must be. Something has happened.
The next moment even a human could have heard it, the groan becoming a shaking creak as a thousand trees shifted in place, their roots suddenly pulling free, some withering, others reaching ever deeper in a desperate search for sustenance.
A crack echoed across the forest as an elder finally succumbed, its centuries-old trunk shuddering and ripping itself in two, pulling itself up and out of the soil as it fell, laying waste to an entire swathe of forest as it came crashing down.
