V

“Last night,” I said, “I saw something. It was like a series of bonfires.”

My breath came in ragged gasps between every second word. I had hurried to catch up with the ranger, an hour after sun up. We had risen with the dawn, tended to our self relief and then briefly breakfasted on the remains of the previous nights meat. In truth I couldn’t stomach it. Under the dawning light the colour looked disconcerting and I recalled with vividly what the creatures had appeared to me like before and during their roasting. I tentatively took a bite, felt my gorge rising, and tossed it back into the woods wence it came. 

Wordlessly we had set off, he once more ahead by some distance, me keeping apace as best I could. We followed the break in the trees. There seemed to be no geographical reason for it, and I could easily espy the rotted remains of trunk and branch. There had been a felling here, presumably to provide a firebreak. The trunks were stained black and I surmised some concoction had been spread upon each one to kill the tree off and discourage more growth. It had been effective enough, and nothing had grown in it’s place. The grass here was as curled and dead as it had been in the clearing, but I wasn’t sure if that was due to the same agent or some other thing that had seen to that. 

The break was approximately ten horses wide, the trees reaching up either side like an old woman’s fingers. I could see only two or three trees deep either side before it gave way to darkness, the evergreens so densely packed as to block out the light - what little there was burning through clouds pregnant with the threat of rain. The break was clear of those twisted briars that harboured the bad berries, but I could see them snarled around the base of the trees and deeper into the forest. 

I trudged on, the thought of the firebreak prompting my question. I decided that I could no longer bear the silence.

He did not answer me, instead continuing his descent of the hillside. As I drew close to him, my own ungainly body crashing through the broken undergrowth, I noticed then that he barely made a sound at all. His movement was almost silent, save for the light sound of his laboured breathing - brought about by age over exertion. Despite him being of similar stature to myself, there was no mark of his passing over that twisted ground. By comparison I left a trail of absolute devastation. I think it was this point I guessed exactly why he had been so insistent to put so much distance between us. 

Still no answer, and I gazed at the side of his face as he walked, hoping I might prompt him to turn. His grey skin was taut and I could see the tension in his jaw. His eyes constantly looked to the horizon. 

“I said,” I began, before he stopped suddenly, raised fist up to my face. 

I jerked my head back, wincing as I prepared for the blow. 

Yet it wasn’t assault. It was to cease my sound and movement. He flattened his hand and then was down on his haunches, low behind a fallen trunk that was spotted with lichen and bark like flayed skin. 

I followed him down, almost visibly seeing him wince as I crashed into the wood, unable to slow my descent in time. My backpack landed beside me. 

“What is it?” I whispered. 

“Shine yer gawp fer a wine an’ see,” he hissed in return, his gaze not turning to meet mine.

I peered ahead and below, along one side of the tree line, then the other. We were perhaps halfway down the hillside and ahead of me beyond the trees the ground opened up into what must have once been farm land. I could see the remains of fences, the outlines of fields. Running perpendicular to the foot of the hill was another narrow trail, overgrown mostly but still discernable. 

Spots of rain pitted against my skin. I kept myself still, urgently scanning ahead, straining to see. 

“I don’t see -”

“Shhhh yer gawp a sen’”, the ranger hissed again. 

Then I did see. Emerging from where the trees on the right hand side obfuscated the trail. The overcast sky meant it was as constant dusk, yet I could see them now. 

Shapes. Making their way along the trail.

At first I thought they were as I and the ranger, bipedal, upright beings. Though their movement was erratic even from this great distance. They were too large to be men. Too misshapen. They skulked and lurched along the trail, heads merging with shoulders and torsos. There were mayhap four, five. A row of creatures that for the life of me I could not identify. I knew some of what lay beyond my walls you understand, for I am not a complete babe with terror at the sight of leaves in the wind. Yet I could not recall being told of anything such as this. Not in any schooling, not in any text books. We were led to believe that man was the most dangerous thing beyond the wall. Untamed and wild, man that would skin you and eat your flesh, but man nonetheless. 

These were not men. I was chilled.

The rain stayed a spitter spatter, threatening to deluge but never breaking. We watched these beings to the far side of the trail and out of sight. Ten, nay twenty minutes passed until he bid me rise. 

“What were they?” I asked. 

“Nuffin’ right. Southr’n thar’ve strayed. Naw seen ‘em here most like afore now. We best careful go, now more’n ever if ye wish us to both have meat on ar bones.”

I didn’t press him more. HIs voice had a slight tremor to it that I didn’t much like. Whatever these things were, he was afraid of them. If he was afraid, then I had good reason to be, better than him. 

I asked him my question again, whilst he was vulnerable, before we set off down the hillside again. I didn’t press the creatures. I still wished to know about the fires. These things may be responsible.

I phrased it the same. 

He turned to me, and for the first time there was a softness to him. Fear had connected him with his nascent humanity perverse as it was, I was thankful for it. I had with me a man then, instead of an enigma. 

“The fire y’saw burns aw night and aw night still.” He reached into his jacket and took out a dark mossy lump, breaking a bit off any placing it into his mouth, beginning to chew slowly. He seemed to weigh up what to tell me, if anything at all, before he continued in a low voice, as though talking to himself. “If’n ye are good fer coin ye awt tae naw mir. Ah ken.” He shook his head slowly. “Ah ken.”

“Please. I won’t ask about those…things,” I said, gesturing ahead, “save I will watch my step and heed your words lest we meet them again. But the fires. Of them I am most curious.”

“Witchfire,” he replied, hawking a large dark globule of saliva and whatever he had been chewing on to the side of the fallen tree. My attention was drawn to it and I watched as it slowly drooled down the flayed bark. “Ye’ll need to naw mir in time. Fer we’re heading’ tha.”

He composed himself, pulling his own pack tighter and drawing the rope that held it tighter around his waist. With no further word, he climbed over the trunk and continued fleet footed beyond and down, leaving me now choice but to follow. 

Not for the first time, I doubted my course of action, yet only briefly. I surprised even myself. Since I had left my home, I had adapted quickly and - I felt - shown little sign of fear. It turned out the I was every inch may father’s son, despite Ashe and Bryln. I was no “feckless runt”, else I wouldn’t be where I was now. Whilst they cowered and moaned in their fear of her, I begged and followed her. Even after all she’d done, I was not to be shying from her and if I was the only one true of heart to stop our flame was being snuffed out in the dark, then so be it. They may cower and wait until their miserable ends, but not I. Although I did not know then if I did what I did for them, for myself, or for her. There could only be one true cause and I would know soon enough. If she id me entry, and that was a lesser certainty than that of my own demise en route to her. 

The ranger had left me far, and I took urgent hold of my bag and hurried after. The trees in the break soon narrowing to four or five horses, just as I had gathered with the speed at which I had lost sight of the low walking troupe. 

Rain continued to fall grudgingly, and with the trees closer I could hear it. Beyond that and the sounds of my ungainly descent, there was nothing. No birdsong at the least, yet being so close to the edge of the trees I could see why. More briar and small carcasses littered the roots that burst from the stony ground. Some larger corpses amongst them. A deer or two. 

I diverted my eyes, watched my own uneven feet. I did not wish to fall nor did I wish to slow and lose sight of the ranger. 

Something fell, heavy, a noise from the darkness within. A branch perhaps, dead and finally succumbing to gravity. Nonetheless it made me look, back towards those white eyed rodents and carrion birds. 

Bigger. 

Bigger still. 

He sat there, fat and distended fingers around his bloated and discoloured belly. Died in pain. His teeth in a rictus grin, eyes gone from his head through rot or one of the crows that lay dead next to him. I couldn’t tell how he had been in life, so distorted was he in death. 

A forager perhaps, an inept adventurer such as me. 

I thought about calling to Pagailon, yet he had held up ahead and I had no need. He knew I had stopped and watched me, hunkered low to the ground, I could barely see him. 

I recognised the king’s colours on the corpse, our royal seal. I crept closer to see if my suspicions were correct. 

People left the kingdom, it was true. Rare though it was, they were permitted to go as they pleased. With myself as a rare exception. Most didn’t for the fear and the lack of reason. Whoever this unfortunate had been, either his fear wasn’t great enough or his reason was. The rot and moss covered a lot of his colours, but I could make out enough. Pagentry guard by the look. Yes, I could see it thee beside him. His pike, rusted and broken. There was an open wound on his leg, the flesh dried and rotted back to expose yellow bone. Something had gnawed at it. A fight had ensued. What he had encountered I didn’t know. Yet that hadn’t ended him. His teeth were blue. He had been injured perhaps, crawled or staggered, leaning on his pike until he had come to rest here. Starved or delirious he had partaken the berries and that had been him. Dead and forgotten now. 

Pagailon stayed still. I could feel his eyes on me. 

I crept closer to the corpse, didn’t know if what I was going to attempt would work, yet I tried anyway. 

I extended my hand and touched his leg. Closed my eyes. 

I concentrated.

Nothing. 

Silence. 

And then.

I screamed. Such pain had I never known. I couldn’t hold it behind my teeth. Something was disturbed behind me, a crazed commotion of wings. Dark shapes to the sky. Nesting birds I hadn’t seen. 

Such pain. 

I closed my eyes, Pagailon was rushing towards me. I could feel him without seeing him. 

I tried to take a breath. 

None came. The fire in my gut was life ending. 

I took my hand away, the pain subsided. I took a breath, sharply, then another. 

I had never attempted a scrape on the deceased before. I didn’t think I’d be in a rush again. Yet I had caught a little from the man. Before his death, the wounding of his leg and what had caused it. 

I exhaled, sat back on my pack. The ranger was beside me, was that concern etched on his face? Or frustration?

Something else?

“I’m fine,” I said. “It’s just pain from those berries mayhap.” I stood and attempted a smile that must have looked more at home on a lunatic. 

He said nothing and set off again. Nothing more than a cursory glance at the corpse. 

I knew he cared not for the man. It wasn’t the first time the ranger had seen him.