by J. G. Cuff
John rested on his knees beside the puddle and looked back toward the mace waiting for him in the muddy snow. He stood and walked over to it. When he bent down to grip the handle with his huge right hand, he remembered the voice.
“You shall be rabid in his name. Rabid...”
John looked up to the clouds and narrowed his eyes.
John The Rabid, he thought to himself. A thin smile crept across his broad face and he latched the mace's grip to a ring-clamp on the side of his thick belt where his scabbard had once hung. He began walking up and out of the ravine. When he reached the top and looked down at his formal grave, he wondered about his missing brethren.
Where are the others? Their bodies?
After a short search of the surrounding brush, he located the clearing where they had camped. A pile of burnt logs lay wet in a heap, near the center of the small field. But the men were gone, and there was no sign of any battle in the woods. Everything he remembered except the fire was gone. No armor, no weapons and no dead men. John did not know who or what had come upon and attacked them so efficiently and quietly.
He turned away and walked along the ravine's edge; heading west toward the open fields that he knew lay beyond the trees. Tonight, he would walk to the next village and revive himself with food and sleep. He did not yet truly understand his task. But he knew damn well what a mace was for.
CARVED
12
T was nightfall, as Atticus and his beloved son turned the wagon out onto the road after a fine meal at The Wanderer's Rest in Solarium. Atticus had foolishly forgotten to bring a lamp with them. If it weren't for the bright stars, they would have had a difficult time staying on the cart road that night. Marcus soon fell asleep under the large quilt with his small head gently rocking against his father's lap, as Autumn walked along, pulling their wagon south. Atticus was deep in thought, reviewing his conversation with Ferran Grayling. He wondered now more than ever if that old wooden box was still resting—waiting quietly in the darkness for him.
After all the adventure his grandfather had seen, he would have been ecstatic to know that his grandson had perhaps found one of the greatest treasures that he himself had sought after for so many years. Another wagon approached them from the south, heading toward Solarium with an oil lantern lit and hung on its post. The driver and his young female passenger gave him strange looks when they passed and saw his rig unlit, traveling in the moonlight. It was considered bad etiquette to run a wagon in the darkness. As Autumn rounded a long bend beside a forested glen, a woman's scream snapped the cold air in half. Atticus tensed and immediately pulled the reigns, stopping the cart. He searched the trees to his right. All was silent. There were no lights and no houses nearby. He heard it again, louder this time, to his right-side, from beyond the darkness of the trees. He did not want to leave Marcus, but he had to see who was in trouble. The boy was sound asleep; still dreaming peacefully under the warm, heavy quilt. Atticus placed his hands on the sleeping boy's shoulder and whispered,
"Marcus, wake-up!" The boy sat up quickly from the urgent tone in his father's voice. "Stay here. I'll be back in a moment. You stay here, no matter what you hear, you understand me?"
Marcus nodded sleepily, uncomprehending the potential gravity of the situation. Atticus climbed down from the seat and slid his hand over the small lump in his coat pocket, re-affirming the location of his small folding knife. It was never intended as a defensive tool, but it was the only weapon he had.
He left the road for the trees and made his way cautiously through the branches, trying to move in relative silence. The near-full moon gave him long shadows and partial sight. After nearly a minute of navigating through the large trees, he saw a girl in a small clearing, on her back, struggling with a man who was sitting on her stomach and pinning arms over her head. She wore a white dress and the man on top of her was dressed in black. A cloak, Atticus thought, as he watched from the shadows, no more than 30 feet away. She was fighting hard against him. It looked as though he had stuffed something into her mouth. A long dark shape, like a cloth rag, hung down from her lips and over her left cheek. A horse suddenly neighed to his left, startling Atticus. The animal had been so quiet and so well hidden in the trees. Atticus reached inside his coat and swiftly pulled the cherry-handled carving knife from his pocket. He flipped the small blade open with his thumb and held his breath. When he took a step forward, a dry stick broke underneath his boot with a loud 'crack'. Atticus instinctively stopped.
The man looked up in his direction and saw only trees and a wall of black. Atticus knelt down low. He watched the man quickly move off of the girl, stand and draw his sword out from under his cloak. He was big and so was his blade. The man growled loudly at the wall of trees where the sound had come from.
"Who's there!?"
All was still. Even the girl dared not move upon seeing her attacker's sword.
Atticus did not want to fight. Even if he had a sword of his own, he would really have no idea how to use it well.
The man called out to the trees again,
"Come out here where I can see you! Come! Let us see who is fool enough to interrupt me."
The girl tried to get up and escape, but the man turned and kicked her hard in the stomach, knocking her to the ground, gasping in pain.
Atticus had seen enough. He took a death breath and then ran, hard and fast, out of the protective shadows, and into the moonlight with just enough time to catch the man off guard. He let out a yell, as he slammed into the man's chest with his right shoulder. As big as the man was, Atticus easily knocked him off balance and onto the ground, while he remained standing and then glanced quickly to the young girl in the moonlight beside him. She looked to be no more than 17. He saw no blood on her, but she was breathing hard and struggling to stand.
The man was fast back on his feet, swinging his sword wildly. Atticus jumped to the left, just as the attacking blade swung low and nearly sliced his leg. The sword hit the dirt and the man nearly fell over.
He's drunk, Atticus observed. I may have the upper hand after all....
But the sword came back quickly with the tip pointed at Atticus' throat, just a few inches away from his skin. He froze still.
The man squinted and beamed at Atticus, trying to make out his features in the obscured light that was seeping through the surrounding tree branches.
A grin crept across his face when he saw that there was nothing in Atticus' hand but a little knife. He knew this would be an easy slaughter.
"Are you stupid?" the man asked him with a cruel smile.
Even if he was drunk, he was obviously sober enough to fight.
Atticus thought that his only chance was to run fast and draw the man away from the girl, just long enough for her to escape. He stepped backwards and turned in a flash, sprinting back into the trees, hoping to gain ground and some impossible advantage. The man chased after him yelling,
"Run! You're already dead!"
Atticus had to avoid leading him back to the road where Marcus was. He turned right and deeper into woods, trying to lose his attacker. But as he did, he tripped on a fallen log and fell forward, dropping the knife in the grass beside him. When he whirled around and attempted to stand, the man's voice boomed from right behind him, warning him to keep to the ground.
"Stay down or I'll cleave your spine!"
Atticus was on his back with nowhere to run. Even if he did get up, the blade would surely slice him open before he could flee. Standing above him, the large, cloaked man held his long, shining blade, hoisted up above his head with the stars behind him. Atticus looked frantically for anything to use as a weapon. There was nothing around him but twigs and long grass. He was trapped and he knew that he was going to die.
"The wolves will feed on you now!" roared the man.
Atticus watched the sword rise higher, and then he heard a loud thud. The man paused with his sword wavering above his head, and then he fell forward, crashing down limp on top of Atticu
s.
Atticus frantically worked his way out from under the man's limp body, and looked up to see the girl in the white dress, standing with a heavy stick gripped in both of her hands. She had whacked the rapist hard in the back of his head.
Atticus fell in love instantly.
"We'd best leave before he awakens!" Atticus said, "I doubt if he's dead and I don't want to touch him to find out."
But the terrified girl had other plans. She looked down to the grass at the shimmering little knife blade reflecting the moonlight. Before he could see what she did, the girl bend down and picked up his knife from the grass. She dropped to her knees beside the man she had just clubbed, and began stabbing him in the neck, over and over in a mad rage. She screamed, as her hair flew back and forth with each stab and blood sprayed up out of the man's neck and shoulders, covering her arms and her face.
"No!" Atticus cried, backing away from the carnage.
"Over there! She's over there!" a man's voice yelled out from the beyond the trees toward the clearing from which they had come. The girl looked up and saw flickering torch lights through the branches. She stood and ran into the woods, leaving Atticus stunned, sitting on the ground beside a dead man and a pool of blood.
Marcus! Atticus jumped to his feet and ran, crashing through the bush as fast as he could, back to the road. When he emerged near the wagon, he was beyond relived to see no one else there but his son, sitting up under the quilt on the seat, and their faithful horse ready to take them home. Atticus was on that seat and holding the reigns faster than a cat fleeing a bath.
"What is it Father?" Marcus asked sleepily. But Atticus only had one thought.
Autumn ran forward. Atticus had never been so glad to be traveling in the darkness with no lantern. After a few miles, he relaxed a little and reached a hand out to pat Marcus' back; reassuring him that all was fine. The girl was lucky that he had heard her screams. She had been walking home only minutes earlier from a neighboring house of a childhood friend, just a few miles south. She had stayed later than planned and when she left for home it was already dark. After only a few minutes, a horse and rider approached her from the front and rode past. They then turned around and came back toward her. The drunken man said disgusting things to her, as she continued to walk, ignoring him. When she refused his offensive offers to get on his horse, he kicked her hard in the back, right between her shoulder blades. The blow knocked her down and hurt her enough for him to put her on his horse and ride them into the clearing where he tried to force her dress up.
After an hour's ride in the dark, Atticus put Marcus to bed that night and kissed him on the forehead. He thought of how close Marcus had come to losing him. He swore to him that he would never leave him again; not ever. He was reminded of his own father, and how close Darius and Aunna had come to losing them both. He decided that he would tell them about the day Tiberius died, and how it happened. It was time to let out all secrets. He would also tell them what he had found that spring, almost 16 years earlier at the edge of the Void. Perhaps if anything valuable was still there, he could build a large house where Darius and Aunna could live together with him and Marcus. He made his way to bed, and under one of Aunna's old, warm quilts, he tossed and turned, worried to hell about the bloody knife with his name on it. For all of their sakes, he hoped that the girl kept the knife and made it safely away from whoever was coming through the trees with the lantern.
THE OLD WEST ROAD
13
HE bright, silver light of the moon gave him cheer, as he walked down the old West Road toward Otium. At his pace, he would be there within a couple of hours. The cold, still night had settled into the Sparrow Vale, and after a warm meal and good night's rest, he would be refreshed. John could see a long ways down the winding dirt road ahead of him. Far in the distance, two small specks of light were slowly approaching. After a few moments, he could make out the silhouette of a large wagon with a four-horse team.
He could hear the horse’s hooves, pulling their load behind them. A dark figure seated at the bench spoke to the animals as they came upon the large stranger in the road.
“Whoa, halt.” The wagon came to a stop. John reached under his heavy coat, feeling for the mace handle.
The driver looked down at John from his seat and greeted him kindly.
“Well met friend. Are you in need of any assistance?”
Surprised by and suspicious of the man's friendliness, John answered him cautiously.
“No.”
The driver bowed his head to John and cheerily said,
“Very well then, a good night to you sir, and may the Father's light shine for you.”
The wagon pulled away and continued east. It was a relief to see a living soul again; a happy soul at that. John took a deep breath of cold air and began to walk again. His right hand began to feel strangely warm. A light burning sensation pulsed through his fingers and he stopped walking to look around the dark countryside. He was alone, standing in the middle of the road. The breeze that had accompanied him thus far was gone now and all was very still. He felt something very peculiar beginning to take him over.
A raven cawed from somewhere in the trees beside him, and as he turned to look, its dark silhouette flew away, deeper into the shadowy branches. When he returned his gaze to the road ahead, something caught his eye. To the left of the road, a tiny, dull light in the distance, tucked away in a forest was glowing softly yellow. It was no different than any of the other lights dotting the valley ahead of him, except that this particular glow seemed to compel him; drawing him in like a moth to a flame.
John turned and walked from the road, straight into a field and toward the little speck of light. His large, heavy footsteps pressed down the long brown grass with a soft, mushing sound, and into the dark woods he stepped.
FIRST BLOOD
14
IRELIGHT filled the small sitting room where a man with a strong build and long, greasy, black hair, was knelt down poking at a hot bed of coals underneath the flames with a short iron rod. A monster's den; that's what it was to them. He had brought the girls there to please him. Two large, black dogs rested on the floor to his right. He set the rod deeper into the coals and waited; watching it slowly turn a brighter orange. Behind him, on a sweat-soiled bed, a 14-year-old girl squirmed against thin rope restraints. Strands of her long, chestnut hair were tightly shoved into her mouth, twisted in against a filthy cloth rag. Bits of straw and smeared clumps of dried blood decorated her face and hair—smatterings that had flown out from the beating he had given her older sister's face earlier.
Her sister was almost 16. They would pay tonight for their pretty faces. The man had tied the little one well this time. He would not make the same mistake again. He had taken them in the night, from their father; a poor, widowed rancher, who had fallen sick and was nearly bed-ridden. His stroke had left him incoherent. It was all too easy.
The monster had first seen them in Otium the previous fall. They were too perfect, too happy, and too damned beautiful to live any longer. He watched them laughing and leaning into one another the way sisters do, as they walked slowly through the farmer's market, holding hands and smiling at the eager vendors with their tables covered in food-filled woven baskets, and hand-made clothing. He followed them back to their home; stalking them along the cart-road, keeping his distance and his head down. He waited until dark, and crept to their windows where he watched them undress. In his twisted thoughts, he found a jealous anger. It enraged him that they would reveal so much to him, that they would bare their skin to taunt him. Even though they had no idea that he was there, he would have to kill them for the whores they were. As the sisters loved one another so deeply, he knew that he could use that love, and their fear to control them. Entering their house late in the night, he took them together. He had put a long knife to the little one's throat and then woke her sister.
He forced them to tie each other’s hands, and then he led them to their father's covere
d wagon outside.
When they reached the road near his cabin, he stopped the old horse and marched them into the woods. He tied them to the bed beside one another on their backs. He then left them alone and rode the wagon a mile down the road to the Mead River, where he untied the horse and then shoved the old cart down the embankment into the deep water below. On the walk back, his knees were shaking with anticipation, and he couldn't wipe the impossible smile from his lips.
The young captive, now in his bed, was exhausted and thirsty beyond words. Her throat was completely dry and hoarse from screaming. The eldest girl had been sent out for water, to a nearby creek in a low ditch, not far in the woods behind the cabin. He had made sure that she knew better than to run away; warning her that he would chop her sister into pieces and deliver her home in a basket. He had left her absolutely no reason to doubt him. He had already broken her nose and raped her right beside her younger sister, as she lay tied-up and muzzled, forced to watch and listen. While his thrusting tore her, and he shouted appalling names at her, she buried her face into her little sister's hair and cried.
The youngest one was going to get her turn now. He would make them wash one another with the cold water, in front of the fire, while he watched from the bed. He thought himself oh so clever and careful; never getting greedy—until now. He had never taken two before.
A log in the fire suddenly burst with a loud 'pop' and startled the dogs. They lifted their heads and then soon went back to their napping. Their master was looking down at his bare forearm, in the firelight. The bite had bruised, bluish-purple. Moments earlier, he had tried to mount the youngest. He overtook her from behind, and in his excitement, he had carelessly failed to gag her. When he set his arm beside her face, she turned her head and bit down hard. He showed his wound to the two large dogs on the floor beside him.
