Stalk Greenvein's Arc

Chapter 1 of 1

Stalk Greenvein crouched low in the reeds and counted forager tracks again. Six clearings scouted since dawn. Six failures. Their leafy stalks trembled, not from cold, but from the weight of what waited back home — small green sprouts who could not yet feed themselves. The grove needed new ground. Every patch of good soil in Siltworm Fen already wore the prints of hungry feet. They climbed the latticed watchtower hidden in vines and pressed close to the slats. From up there, the fen showed its secrets. Mud trails braided through every clearing below. One looked promising — until Stalk saw the broken wooden frames and trampled rows of a ruined garden bed, its soil churned and stripped bare. Foragers had been there too. Stalk's chest tightened. Every safe place was already lost. Then they saw it: a thin strip of moss beside the tower's own sunken foundation. No tracks. No paths. The foragers avoided the tower because they feared it was watched. Stalk climbed down slowly, hands shaking. The grove had a new home — directly beneath the eyes that guarded it. But now the sprouts would have to be moved, root by fragile root, before the next forager passed.