Dark Age

by Felix O. Hartmann

  Chapter 18

  The woods were magical. Never in my life had I witnessed nature so wild and living as I had during my years in the Guard. Small animals rushed through the thicket and birds sang lighthearted songs into the midday. A certain duality captured the forest as the sun began to fall. The joyous tranquility slowly seeped away and was replaced by an ominous darkness that held so many dangers and mysteries.

  With quiet feet I stalked a small rabbit that was napping in the day’s last sunrays. With the bow tight in my hand, I slowly extended the string just far enough to kill the creature, without waking it from its slumber. My eyes focused and my breath came to a complete halt until the arrow was in line with the animal’s neck. I released the string, provoking a frightful squeak that was quickly drowned in the silence of death.

  Excitedly I grabbed my dinner, cleaned off the arrow and headed back towards the camp. While our camps were spread throughout the woods to cover different zones, we all reported back to the central warehouse that was located just off the road to the Guard settlement. There we could grab new seeds and store our chopped wood.

  By the time I returned to the circular campsite, most of my group had already arrived and was relaxing on the forest floor. Nigel was dangling from a tree with his feet locked around a branch, “Even upside down that snack looks delicious. Ya got yaself a nice dinner there,” he said swinging from side to side. With a quick spin he pulled himself up and sat upright on the branch.

  Peter sat below him with his back against the tree trunk, sharpening his blade, “Don’t give that bum any more food. He’s been scrounging off my breakfast anytime I don’t look.”

  “Survival of the fittest my friend,” I said with a chuckle as I climbed up the tree and dropped down next to Nigel. “Catch,” I ordered, letting the rabbit fall into Peter’s lab.

  “What a beautiful little thing”, he commented quietly, taking out his small knife. With the dexterity of a barber, Peter skinned the rabbit without letting a piece of meat go to waste. “I can make a fine set of gloves out of these,” he said looking at the bloody skin of the rabbit.

  “Listen up Guardsmen,” announced Jacob our camp leader. “Let’s see if we finished today’s tasks. Marc, John, Nigel, how many trees did you cut?”

  “One big ol’ one,” replied Nigel instantly. “Stole all the light from the others. Makes plenty of tough wood though.”

  “Igor and Peter, what did you collect?” continued the leader.

  “We got two baskets of berries, sir. Edible,” Peter ensured, “and four bundles of dead wood, good for fire. We also got a handful of these tasty mushrooms.”

  “Alright, alright, good work. Adam and I sowed the new seeds at the eastern end, and set up this month’s plan. Well done comrades. Let’s head back to the settlement.”

  With a playful shove in the back Nigel pushed me off the branch. Falling face down I barely caught myself on my hands, while he jumped with ease onto his feet.

  Traveling through the woods, over the plain, to the settlement, we made it back in time to devour our nightly supper in the common-hall. Most of the time we sat with our camp, but sometimes the old group reunited when Stephan and James joined us at our former table, where we used to sit every morning and every night.

  “Have you heard, some of those bastards ripped up the Northeastern camp,” reported Jacob excitedly. “Apparently the guards went too deep into the woods and harassed some of their savage children. Supposedly they even killed one of those monsters. Few days later they got ambushed on their regular tracks.”

  “What’d they look like?” I asked curiously, trying to find some validation of the information I read in Smith’s diary.

  “It’s hard to pinpoint actually,” said Jacob, “I’ve seen really ugly ones; huge statures with misshaped features. Just like the Final Testament describes the demons. Others look relatively normal, but those are the real devils. They try to trick you into trusting them by looking like us. But it is simple to avoid. When you see one, kill it,” he told us as if he were the most experienced Guardsman to ever walk this settlement, “Cheers!”

  He bumped his mug of stimulant herbal tea against John’s who had been sitting there nodding his head in silent confirmation like one of the bobble head figures I had made in the past and sold to James’ father. “Kill first, ask questions later,” John said with a big smile on his lips.

  I knew of the savage nature of the ‘monsters’, as they had called them, but the unknown fact that they were former Aristocrats and Escapists, fellow human beings, turned the tables and made Jacob and the guards look like the real monsters. Most guards felt excited, even refreshed by the thought of getting to slay a few of the cripples. They tried to make the act seem more heroic by calling them ‘demons’, but all I felt was pity. Pity for their ignorance, and pity for those poor creatures that were doomed by their ancestors’ choices.

  But doomed we all were… doomed we were.

  Passively my hands reached for the eagle necklace to fiddle around with, except it was not there. Immediately I began searching my pockets and shirt, but it was nowhere to be found.

  “Have you seen my necklace?” I whispered to Peter who had been sitting next to me.

  Surprised he looked around, “No, why?”

  “It’s gone. I think I dropped it when Nigel pushed me off the tree,” I said worriedly. “I’m going to head back there and pick it up,”

  “I’m coming with you, I can’t let you go out there alone,” Peter insisted.

  “No, I will be fine. I need you here. If anyone asks just make up some story… tell them my stomach hurt and I decided to go for a walk.”

  Slowly I rose from the table with my palm holding my stomach. Everyone looked up at me expecting an explanation why I was already leaving their company. With a painful grimace I told them that I did not feel well. They wished me a good night, and I left the common-hall. The moment I was out of their sight I charged towards the outer wall gate. I made it outside just in time before they would not let anybody leave for the night without proper reason.

  The sun had begun to set on the horizon, as I walked across the wide shining green plains that separated the settlement from the forest. The grasses grew taller and the bushes thicker the closer I came to the woods, until the smooth natural transition left me surrounded by trees taller than most houses in the city. From there on I knew my track towards the camp by following the flat trail that was created by our daily footprints.

  I knelt down in front of the tree, putting my head on the ground to see anything lying in the grass. Carefully I brushed my fingers through the soft blades. Moving my head I saw the silver chain reflect in the moonlight. Relieved, my breath slowed as I put it safely around my neck.

  A rustling sound caught my ears. My head darted towards its origin, finding nothing but the bushes and vast darkness.

  There it was again, this time a few feet to the right. I spun around, catching a pair of innocent eyes. “Come and show yourself,” I shouted to the creature, which shrugged at the sound of my voice, “I won’t hurt you. I promise,” I added with a softer tone.

  I expected an ambush. I expected a monster. Oh, even a demon. But that moment a fine hand pushed aside the leaves, and the elegant head of a young woman popped out of the bushes.

  With careful steps the girl came out of the thicket onto the clearing. Her silky black hair framed her light brown skin that stood out distinctly like no other with its fine and clear lineament. She appeared so tall yet stood one head short of me. One step at a time she came closer.

  Her clothes were ragged and mostly improvised. A skirt sewn together from different dark fabrics was fit tightly around her thin waist and hung just a little below her knees, while her chest was wrapped up by a piece of cloth. In the cooling night she appeared so vulnerable and yet so strong with all her skin, while I was hiding behind my thick armor.

  She had not said a word yet, nor was I certain whether she even spoke my language, but
some curiosity within me drove me closer to her. The moment I stepped towards her she took a step back like a timid deer. I stood still and dropped my sword in its sheath from my belt to the floor. She observed me for a moment, and finally stepped closer, no longer fearing my presence. Our steps shortened when we were at arm’s length. Her gleaming eyes looked up and down, as if she had never seen something like me this close. It seemed odd to think that I was a strange appearance… that maybe I was the savage in her mind.

  To me however she looked nothing like a savage, monster, or demon. And if she were, she must have been the devil’s magnum opus. Quite contrary she reminded me of an angel.

  When our toes almost touched, both of us suddenly stood still, observing one another with big eyes. She lifted her hand, and softly touched my cheek; and with that touch, all the tales of fear and slaughter had been dispelled.

  Carefully I raised my hand and copied her behavior. Her light brown skin was tender like a newborn’s, yet thin and defined by her high cheekbones. She grabbed my hand and pressed it against her chest. With a strange soft accent, and light voice, she uttered what I perceived as her name, “Janari.”

  I repeated the ritual and took her small hand, pressing it against my chest which was covered in metal.

  “Adam,” she said trying to imitate my voice and subsequently started laughing. For a moment she tilted her head and looked at me with a crooked smile as if a million thoughts were running through her mind. Her big dark eyes focused on mine, searching for answers or mere words to say.

  My hand was still holding hers on my chest. She pulled it back and laid it with spread fingers upon mine. I interlocked my fingers with hers and pointed upwards, “Sky.”

  She repeated after me with her odd but sweet accent. As I looked up at the stars I saw Orion, the knight that had accompanied me ever since my early childhood. “Orion,” I said next and wished I could have told her the story about Elias. For a while this game of ours continued and through learning the words I felt as if I got to know her better.

  The perfect silence of the lonely forest was broken when some crackling sounds came from within the trees. “Adam!” screamed Peter worriedly from deeper within the woods.

  Janari grew alarmed like a scared deer again. She shrugged together and frantically looked around. I held her by the shoulders to calm her down, upon which she pressed her head against my chest, hiding from whatever was coming. For a second I cherished the embrace, as a warm feeling emerged in my heart. When Peter came closer I had to push her off. She gave me a sad confused look. I signaled her to run back into the bushes, so that Peter would not mistake her for a brute.

  Understanding, she ran off. As she reached the end of the clearing, she slowed a last time. She turned around and looked longingly after me, uncertain whether we would ever meet again, or be tossed at one another in a moment of enmity.

  Chapter 19

  “I was worried,” Peter said as he stepped onto the clearing, “what have you been doing all this time?”

  “Oh nothing, I was just watching the night sky.”

  “Are you mad? Those monsters could be out here,” he said walking around the clearing with his sword drawn. At every sound he threw suspicious glances into the bushes.

  “You have never even seen one of them.”

  “I’m glad I haven’t. Many of our brothers have been slaughtered by those beasts.”

  “You are right,” I said. “Sometimes I just wonder if they are not as bad as we portray them to be. What if we started this century old vendetta? What if they are creatures that feel love and pain like we do?”

  “You know that they started it. You’ve read the Final Testament. They are demons Adam,” he said, putting his sword away.

  “That’s what the Inquisition tells you,” I said slowly shaking my head. “I think we will never really know the truth. I just wish we could end this violence. That is all I want.”

  “That is what we all want,” Peter said. “But I don’t think it ever came to actual diplomacy. Every time I hear of encounters it ends with the city bell striking thrice. Talking to them would be a good start.”

  “Maybe we could. I think the real problem is that we never tried,” I wanted to tell him about her, feeling the unbearable secret weigh down on me, just like the diary I had found. But it was too premature. I could not risk putting her in danger. I trusted Peter with my life, but only few of the other guards. The more people knew about her, the more likely it became that something would happen. “Let’s save this talk for another night. It’s late and not safe here.”

  Leaving the clearing I heard rustling. She had waited in the bushes the entire time.

  The following night I returned to the clearing. By the time I arrived she had already been waiting for me. It became our nightly ritual to meet up and teach each other our language, culture and history. The daytime seemed too dangerous to see one another, until one morning…

  After breakfast in the common-hall Peter, Nigel and I headed out for the woods. A cool breeze refreshed the hot summer air, creating a lively dance among the trees, whose branches were moving from side to side like arms. Once we reached the camp, Jacob assigned us our daily duties. “Adam, you and Peter will go out and collect firewood from the forest floor for the first half of the day. In the afternoon I want you to mark dead and sick trees. Take blue chalk for the sick and red for the dead.”

  Picking up wood was the easiest of all duties. Usually we were able to talk the whole time and still collect enough wood. We always finished quickly, allowing us to take luxuriously long naps in the shade.

  “I have only been out here for a year,” remarked Peter, “but it is already boring the sanity out of me.” He picked up a dead branch and put it on a pile under his left arm, “If I would run things, I would save money on those silly celebrations and install a brothel and a tavern next to the cottages. That, my friend, would instill real spirit in this lonely bunch.”

  “It would also distract us so much, that we would be overrun on opening night. Do you ever not think of girls?” I asked, bowing down to pick up a branch.

  “No, not really,” he answered with a laugh.

  As I looked across the floor for more wood, something rushed behind a tree. Slowly I walked towards it. “I think we should split, I can hardly find any more here,” I told Peter.

  “Eh, alright, I think we got enough anyway. You can find me under the big ash tree,” he said, slowly walking off. “This summer heat is making me more tired than I usually am.”

  When Peter was out of sight, I quickly looked behind the tree and found Janari standing there with a big grin. She waved at me excitedly.

  “What are you doing here?” I said, pronouncing my words slowly with supporting gestures. “It is not safe.”

  “I wanted to see you,” she said excitedly as if she had been planning to say it for a few hours. She seized my hand, “Look, I listened to you.” She put my hand on the tree and named it. Then she picked up a piece of wood and said, “Branch.”

  “Well done!” I said happily. It was so simple, yet so impressive.

  She tilted her head, “What is ‘brothel’?”

  I could hardly keep myself from laughing and just shook my head, ensuring her that she misheard.

  “Come,” she said and thought about her next words, “I want to show you my home.”

  I was hesitant. I tried to describe my concern with the few words she knew. ‘Not safe’ was becoming repetitive. Before I could say anything she ran off. All I could do was follow her.

  With quick and skilled feet she seemed to float in between the trees without tripping a single time. Janari was surprisingly fast for a girl that even I had trouble keeping up. For at least half an hour we ran northeast, slowed by the many Guard camps we had to avoid on our way.

  Finally she slowed and signaled me to stop. Taking me by the hand she knelt down behind a bush. She pushed the leaves out of our sight, putting into view a small rural village that was i
ntegrated into the forest.

  “Home,” she said.

  The stories and Winston’s diary were right. Some of the people like Janari, looked exactly like us. Usually they were even more beautiful than the people that lived in the city. It must have been the superior genetic coding of the Aristocrats that granted them such perfection. Others however were the polar opposite. Cripples and maimed men and women, could not be held apart from the monsters that legendary heroes would slay in the stories we were told as children. Their arms were gigantic or missing, their faces deformed, and their statures hunched, evoking in me both disgust and pity. It was impressive that these creatures of perfection and imperfection lived side by side, like equals.

  Some of their faces looked dreary, plagued by loss even more than the people of the city. You could see in their eyes that they saw little to no purpose in their existence, moving idly about uncertain of what to do with themselves. Others were radiating joviality and warmth. A little boy with shoulder long hair had been running in circles, wearing a smile as big as the forest itself. It looked as if it had been the best day of his life. Spinning out of his circles he ran towards his father, who picked him up and held him high in the air like a trophy he could not be prouder of.

  Their houses were simple, even simpler than the houses in the settlement or the shabbiest barracks in the Industrial District. Everything was based on wood; no monuments of stone, no marble mansion, no vast space like the city square. Janari seemed like a rose misplaced in a bucket of charcoal.

  She pointed towards a bulky, aged man with short grey hair and beard, “Father,” she said. The man was sharpening his blade as he stood leaning against the entrance of one of the houses. Two of the monsters came stepping out. They were one or even two heads taller than him. One of them had a mere lump of flesh for a hand, while the other only had one eye.

  “Little brothers,” she said quietly. It was hard keeping an unaffected expression. I thought that it must have been a practical joke, since those demonic creatures shared not a single feature with the angelic appearance of Janari. But then her father put his hand on one of their shoulders. From his behavior you could see that he was their father; a true father, loving his sons despite their abominable appearance.