The stair that clung the face of the lichen-splotched cliff was designed, ’twas evident, to instil an initial unease and doubt in the intruder, for the wood whereof it was constructed creaked under his feet on a note and with a rhythm most suggestive of thin and mocking laughter. Midway he paused and heard the creaking run up the stair ahead of him, as though infected from tread to tread, inviting him on to his doom. He muttered a cantrip and clomb on, finding at the head of the stair that a sun-arch waited wherebeyond he saw a roofless passage lead west, from whose mossy floor three trees sprang at regular intervals, leafless and black-boughed. Beside each tree on left and right, gripped by iron claws from the wall, a sword-in-scabbard waited whereof, as the winter sun sank to shaft the passage with early rays, the bosses flashed green and red like draconic eyes oping to examine their prey. He downswung his casque, fitted with a visor of light-mellowing crystal, drew his own sword, and advanced down the passage, learning the depth and softness of the moss whereover he trod and feeling, through the interstices of his armor, a cold wind begin to blow down the passage against him, wherein, most strangely, the branches of the first tree alone began to tremble and shake, as though agitated and angered at his advance.
And dead leaves he had unnoticed, clinging here and there to the black boughs, lisped and spluttered with the shaking thereof, seeming to whisper in menace and monition as he advanced. Two boughs most particularly of the tree were active, swirling and threshing the air to left and right, in gradual arrhythmia with their fellows, as though directed by sterner blasts of an uncannier wind. And for all his forewarning he could not restrain a grunt as now left bough, now right, plucked a sword from its scabbard and addressed his advance, sweeping steely arcs that hummed through the leaf-whisper and called sweat from his skin at thought of severed limbs and head. But the tree was blind, blading the air haphazard, and ’twas easy enough to choose his moment and lunge, striking now left sword, now right, from the woody grip. The swords landed blade-down in the deep moss, gashing its green like great strange seeds, and he bypassed the harmless tree, armor struck and rattled a moment by its twigs, to advance on the second, in whose black boughs and dead leaves, as those of the first settled to rest and silence, the witch-wind began to work. Five paces short, he saw the swords, left and right, plucked from their scabbards for sweeping.
Again he watched to learn their rhythm, but ’twas as though the tree had learnt somewhat from the errors of the first and swung more cleverly, more cunningly. Almost his own sword was flicked from his hand as he lunged, to spear the moss out of reach, but he contrived to unsword his opponent, once, twice, and bypass it for the third. Hereto, he could not mistake it, some faculty of vision or anticipation had been granted, for its dead leaves rattled on a note of triumph as he advanced to meet its out-plucked swords, swung with sureness and precision. And so the battle was bitter, joined with clash and spark in the levelling light of the decadent sun, and for the first time he was forced to employ his shield, warding off blows from the left branch as he sought to unsword the right, or from the right as he sought to unsword the left. But, though, he thought, he could tire and the tree could not, it had not his swiftness and skill, and left and right swords gashed the green moss as twice before. Then he bypassed it, armor rattled by its defeated twigs, for the second sun-arch and the descendant wooden stair therebeyond of a further cliff.