Naekit’s train of thought was halted with silence. His little feet no longer crunched in the moon-silver snow. Instead, he found himself quietly standing in a disc of dirt, stiff with coldness. Along the disc of dirt was a ring of holes, about as deep as his entire arm. A different kind of chill gnawed at Naekit’s entire body. This disk of dirt, this ring of holes in the ground. They were a sign of grave danger. The kind of danger one never imagines themselves to ever be in. Naekit was thankful to have only just heard terrible stories about the creature that made these holes in the ground, but now there existed a very real possibility that he would have to meet a Root Beast face to face.

But there was no way it could be a Root Beast. Root Beasts were far, far to the north, where the woods of the Snowed were thickest and darkest. Naekit whipped his head around, searching for hopeful signs that it was some other creature that bore those holes in the ground. Maybe some kind of cruel-hearted trickster that wanted to see him frightened. Maybe even the silhouetted man, out to teach a twisted lesson to a clumsy child. Anything but a Root Beast. The rows and rows of trees offered nothing. No comfort. No horror. Nothing.

There was nothing but trees.

Naekit started breathing again, he hadn’t noticed that his heart had been pounding so hard his entire body was quaking until he realized he had dropped a sleeping bolt from his bundle. This time the bolt didn’t wake up. His eyes darted around one more time before he reached down to pick it up.

He stood up and heard it. An awful sound. A sound he was not prepared to hear. A sound no one had ever told him would exist. Like a twice-beating heart; a deep, guttural rhythm of soft, hollow thumps.

One of the trees fell over, its loud crash spraying snow dust across the glen. The hollow heartbeat didn’t stop, it only got louder as the snow glittered to the ground. It would be beautiful if that horrible hollow heartbeat wasn’t thumping through the air. But it was getting louder and louder. And then, the tree that fell started moving. Its roots pried out of the dirt one at a time, sharp as a knife. Its branches started rustling and it began to rise into the air.

Naekit was now in the presence of a Root Beast. As long as it was tall when it was an ordinary tree, covered in bristling needles that obscured its poised limbs, and a gaping wooden maw, with sharpened roots for teeth. No one had ever been able to study it long enough to find out if it was a plant or an animal. All anyone knew was that it could eat anything it caught, 

and it caught everything.