Chapter 1153: Story 1153: The Lantern Stag
There were stories told by hunters and drunkards about a creature that road the deepest thickets of the Moonwood, where no path dared remain and no bird sang after dusk.
They called it The Lantern Stag.
A beast made of bone and bark, its towering antlers tangled with glowing lanterns—so tal, so bone, so fashioned from the skulls of children. Its hooves never touched the earth. It moved in silence, its presence heralded only by the flickering lights swaying in the dark like fireflies drifting on a breeze from nowhere.
The stag did not eat flesh. It did not chase or maul or roar.
It rembered.
And when it looked into you with its burning eyes—eyes like twin hearths in the cold of death—it judged the weight of your sins.
Few ever saw it. Fewer survived.
And yet, Daren Holt, a poacher with blood on his boots and trophies in his cellar, set out to find it.
He had killed every beast in Moonwood—wolves, owls, even the last pale bear. But the tale of the Lantern Stag called to his pride.
He went alone, dragging chains lined with silver hooks, and a crossbow carved from heartwood. He wore a hunter’s grin and the arrogance of one who believed the forest was his.
The deeper he walked, the more the woods rejected him.
Twigs cracked where none should. Trees bent subtly to block his path. His compass spun wildly. Still, he pressed on, humming a tune his father once sang before skinning rabbits.
And then he saw it.
The Lantern Stag stood upon a ridge above a blackened glade. It was massive—taller than any elk, its body veined with glowing cracks, its antlers reaching into the canopy. The lanterns clinked as if chattering to one another.
Its gaze turned toward Daren.
No rage. No fear.
Just… knowing.
Daren raised his crossbow, aid between its eyes, and fired.
The bolt stopped mid-air.
Frozen.
It hovered a mont—then burst into fla.
Daren stumbled back as the glade ca alive with light—not the warm kind, but the cold, flickering blue of will-o’-the-wisps. They danced in the fog, and in their light, he saw them—
Faces in the trees. Dozens. All the beasts he’d killed. Their spirits woven into bark, eyes wide, watching.
The stag stepped closer. Its hoof touched the ground—and the earth hissed like boiling blood.
“Please,” Daren whispered.
The lanterns dimd.
A final judgnt.
And then—
Silence.
When the searchers found him days later, Daren stood in the glade, alive but unmoving. His skin pale, his mouth sealed by moss. His eyes glowed faintly, two blue flas flickering in sockets hollowed by grief.
He never spoke again.
But on certain nights, villagers see a new lantern swinging among the stag’s antlers—iron-bound, with silver hooks—and the wind carries a voice that once boasted of trophies.
Now, it only whispers warnings.
The forest keeps its saints.
And its sinners burn forever.
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