The Influence of Trees on Landscape in “Daughter Of Blood”
Recently, I’ve been reflecting on how trees not only influence human creativity in terms of art and literature, but play an important part in defining the fantasy landscapes in my books.
In the follow-up post, I focused on Thornspell. In turn, I next focused on The Heir of Night and The Gathering of the Lost, Books One and Two respectively in The Wall Of Night quartet.
Today it’s the turn of Daughter Of Blood (The Wall Of Night, Book Two.)
Unsurprisingly, given the nature of the Wall of Night as discussed in relation to HEIR, trees mainly appear in the Southern Realms sections of the book. In those sections, however, they more than play their part.
The first excerpt features the importance of trees in providing shelter for travellers in the wild:
“Malian let her mind follow the secondary route, leaping over huddled villages with their sheep pens and rocky fields, to settle on a pine grove near the crest of the road’s first long ascent into the foothills. She had camped a night in the dry earthy hollow beneath the trees, which grew so close together that only the very heaviest rain fell between the branches. Now, it was the best shelter she could recall along the secondary route’s wild terrain.”
~ from Daughter Of Blood, Chapter 15, The Night Fair
In some cases, the trees in a landscape conceal:
“Her campsite was a ruined chapel to Seruth, situated amidst heavily wooded terrain and so well concealed behind creepers and close-growing trees that she had nearly missed it the previous day… The interior was more complete than it had appeared from the outside, with thick vines creating a secondary roof and much of the walls and floor remaining, despite thickly layered leaves underfoot.”
~ from Daughter Of Blood, Chapter 35, Dissonance
And in others reveal:
“When she reached a high point on the road and saw nothing but trees interspersed with water courses and bog country, Malian knew that the River truly had given way to wilderness.”
~ from Daughter Of Blood, Chapter 35, Dissonance
Whatever the circumstances, however, trees are always integral to the worldbuilding in the fantasy world of Haarth.