Even during the day, the forest tended to be grim and forbidding this late in the year, gloomy and colourless save for the sickly browns and yellows of decomposing foliage. It was an agonizingly slow process, but patience was key, and so they took their time, merging with the shadows of the forest in their dark garbs, their faces concealed and protected against the cold of the coming winter by deep-drawn hoods.īeneath an overcast sky, the surrounding forest rose with black wooden pillars into the air, reaching out to form a canopy of claw-like, barren branches that ached hauntingly beneath the howling wind. At every step, they probed the ground thoroughly for sticks and branches, before putting weight on the extended foot. They were careful men, wary of the forest ground even with their eyes long adjusted to the dark and years of experience to fall back on. T he three shadows moved through the night like ghosts.
