by Kai Widdeson
As we near, the large heap of branches has an opening, which the hunter stoops to disappear through. Hesitant and unwilling to let Guy out of sight, I follow him in.
It is dimly lit inside and surprisingly spacious with a small sleeping area at the far end and a pile of hunting gear and other equipment nearer the entrance. The hunter gently lays Guy down with an odd look resembling reverence. He brushes past me with a grunt and ducks once more to leave myself and Guy alone in the den.
I bend low to check on my friend. Friend? Is that what this boy is to me now? The cut has stopped bleeding, the red now sticking encrusted to the side of his face. His breathing is quick and shallow, but I know nothing of remedial plants and would have no idea where to start. I would likely end up poisoning him before I did any good. I am not my mother; I can only hope that the hunter can help him.
I do not know how far we are from Avlym now, we walked for perhaps an hour from the stream before arriving at the den. Even if the colony men are after us, we should be safe for a while. It would take a lot of luck on their behalf to find us here and hopefully the stream should have masked our trail in case they bring in their dogs to look for us. Of course, Rhys could lead them to the stream, which would give them a small head start. Perhaps they will even assume we are already dead, it is entirely possible that Rhys and Harvey mistook the hunter for a forest demon. Then again, who am I to say he isn’t? Even now that I’m standing in what I assume is his home I’ve learnt nothing about the man.
Guy is on a thin bed of straw, beside him sits a tiny food store and some animal hide. Upon seeing the food after such a long walk in the heat, I longingly remember the loaves I left back downstream.
I check the pile by the entrance, a few loops of vines that have been weaved into ropes and fishing traps form much of the collection. There are also a few wicked looking hunting knives, another couple of bows and arrows thrown to one side, and spears. Spears with runes carved into the side.
The same runes on the spear that killed my dad.
I’m drowning. Overcome with horror and overwhelming panic. I need to get out of here, I head straight for the opening, my shoulders banging against the sides and tearing down a little of the structure.
The return to daylight blinds me and behind from the direction of the stream there’s a cry, but I don’t stop and head into the trees. In my panic I realise I’ve left Guy, but we wouldn’t be able to get away from here in his state. My people all know what the hunter is capable of, the damage those spears can inflict, the number of people who have gone missing over the years.
Thundering footfalls follow me. Low hanging branches whip against my face, and my bare shins continue onwards, bloody and scratched. I am no longer human, simply the personification of some primal flight instinct. I am a fleeing rabbit, desperate to reach the safety of a burrow as I am pursued by the six foot, bald, tattoo-decorated fox.
Through the last few remaining trees, mountains begin to loom above, preceded by a vast pool of sapphire. The crystal waters reflect the snow-capped tips with perfect clarity. I curse. Going into the depths is out of the question, it also looks shallow for several steps at least and I don’t know if I’d be able to disappear before the hunter spotted me. Even if I did escape, with no shelter, dry clothes, or fire to dry off in, there’s no chance that I would survive the cold.
My other option is to make some distance down the rocky shore, but I’d be out in the open and the hunt would only continue. From the sounds behind me, the hunter is quick and would catch me on an open plain, that was even if he bothered to continue pursuing. He may still have his bow with him and I’m not willing to risk my life on a hunter being a bad shot.
I am about to look for some bushy undergrowth to dive into when distant movement catches my eye. Someone is out at the far side of the lake, fishing perhaps, but the water is expansive enough that I doubt my voice would reach them even if I could guarantee their help. No, they couldn’t come to my aid even if they wanted to. I am on my own.
It is then that rough, scarred hands clamp over my mouth. I bite at them and taste blood in my mouth, but they only clamp down further. I do everything in my power to wrestle free. I kick, fight, drop to the floor and twist sharply, but the hunter easily overpowers me. He had approached me without my noticing, of course he had. I can hear him grit his teeth every time one of my attacks makes contact, but he simply moves to restrict me from doing the same thing again. Eventually I have become immobilised in his arms, completely at his mercy, a trapped animal awaiting the inevitable.
I know I have reached the end now, I can only hope that it is over quickly, praying that I don’t have to endure the long hours of suffering my father was condemned to before the mercy of death claimed him.
My lungs are starved of air, my vision fades to black, the floor rushes up to greet me.
CHAPTER FIVE
A gentle breeze tickles my face, bringing me back into the world. I must have been out for hours, the sky is already a gentle purple, a slowly drifting wave consuming the last few patches of sunset orange as evening approaches. It is cooler now and the nightly symphony of clicks and hissing has already begun. It surrounds me. I am about five meters from the opening of the den. Inside, hushed unfamiliar voices converse excitedly from inside.
Still sleep-ridden, I attempt to rise to my feet before finding my hands and feet bound and promptly slump back to the ground. The action hasn’t gone unnoticed however and the people inside have silenced, I sense movement.
Moments later, a conscious Guy accompanies the hunter into the dusk. I am slashed by the cold blade of betrayal, whilst the hunter clearly hasn’t hurt Guy, the man had knocked me out. Not even mentioning that he’s been the evil in the shadows all these years, the reason why Alice will never know her father. They’re together, Guy and this man, they’re the demons of the forest.
“Untie him.” So, Guy can speak. His voice is slightly deeper than mine and he utters the words with a commanding tone that I have never possessed. Without hesitation, the hunter obediently bends low and cuts my restraints.
“Dale, I’m so sor-” his words fall on deaf ears as I jump up and drive my fist into his stomach, proceeding to rain fury on any part of him within reach, issuing a violent stream of curses with each contact. I aim for any bruising or partially healed cut I can get my hands on, aiming to undo all of Ida’s and my mother’s work. After barely a second of vicious, targeted connections, thick arms encase me. Not again, I wait for the coming unconsciousness as the hunter holds me. His arms wrench mine into my tailbone and pin me there to face the boy I had begun to consider a friend. I glare at him trying to convey the extent of my hatred.
“Stop,” Guy wheezes, struggling for breath. Immediately my captor relinquishes his grip. Had he been alone or had fought back at all during my onslaught, perhaps I would have taken another shot at Guy, as it is, I rise in silence, fuming.
“You’re one of them,” I accuse venomously.
“We didn’t know,” Guy responds, predicting what I’m about to say next.
“YOU KILLED MY FATHER!” I scream.
Tears sting my eyes and all the blood has been squeezed from my clenched fists. I see Guy through a red haze, waiting for him to give me any excuse to tear him apart. He has the dignity to refuse to meet my eyes, inspecting the leaves at his feet slowly getting splattered from his gushing nose before raising his head to look past my shoulder.
“Please give us a moment Edwyn,” Guy requests, wiping himself on his sleeve. I don’t turn as the hunter makes himself scarce. Once the rustle of disturbed leaves has faded into the distance, Guy resumes, “My people didn’t mean your dad any harm-”
“Your people?! What do you mean your people?!”
Guy looks sheepish and hesitates, the urge to cause him as much pain as humanly possible strengthens for him daring not to answer my question immediately.
“My dad, King Theodluin… he’s… he led our-”
“King?!” I interr
upt. He can’t be, Breyden is the only king.
“Yes. King.”
“So, you’re a-”, the realisation strikes me like a hammer to the gut. Fresh tears wet my cheeks, “You’re all murderers,” I whisper.
Guy, the boy we had healed, the boy we had fed, washed, clothed… he is a killer. All this time, we had treated him as one of our own, and yet he had known that the people his father commands, the people that he commands, had torn our family apart.
I stand silently, for what seems like hours, as my blood begins to boil once again, as the depth of this treachery truly dawns in my comprehension. I stare at Guy’s beaten face, showing my infinite pain at his betrayal.
“Dale… Dale I am so sorry-”
“Why?” my voice cracks with emotion, “Why did he die? Why did you kill him?” I don’t care about his apologies; his words mean nothing to me.
“My people, we lived deep in the forest. We didn’t know Avlym existed… but we knew outsiders.” Guy’s expression noticeably darkened, his fingers idly fiddle with the pendant around his neck. “The men you call the colony, they’ve been hunting us for years.”
I say nothing.
“My father… they told us to start giving them our supplies, but he refused. We were deep in the forest and most of us lived above ground in the trees, we outnumbered the men that came that day and yes, they had armour, but any of our greatest fighters would have taken the lot of them.
So, my father refused their demands, and they never came back. We almost forgot all about them, they were just tales whispered to the wind on dull evenings. The Halpians who had threatened us and my dad, the defiant king who saw them off.” I have no idea what a Halpian is but he’s finally talking, and quickly, so I let him continue.
“It was a few months later that people started getting anxious, whilst before my father’s rule over the forest had been undisputed, now there were rumours of foreigners stealing our prey and invading our land. On several occasions, hunters would return to their partners bloodied. Sometimes they would be carrying a beaten body back to lay at the feet of my father accompanied with tales of fierce battles with strange men.
The Halpians, we thought they were trying to pick us off one by one, making good on their threats for us refusing to provide for them, and perhaps they were. The encounters grew more and more frequent, each week resulting in more casualties. For months they were just light injuries, a small payment for the foreign bodies that were presented at the foot of my father’s throne. They made their warnings, but none of us felt any real threat.
We underestimated how many of them they were, they started flooding the forest, not daring to take on the kingdom in its entirety, but ready to hunt in packs to take down our fighters and hunters. The death toll started rising, on both sides, and then the unthinkable happened, they slaughtered one of my family.
My uncle, my dad’s younger brother, never returned from one of his hunts, tracks were found leading far away from the kingdom, but the treads and blood splatters disappeared quickly come rainfall. My dad and uncle had been the closest pair I’d ever known, it was my uncle who had helped him take the throne.
Our people used to be ruled by King Nylian, a dictator who used the power of the forest gods to instil fear and spread distrust among us, he would have all threats to his reign assassinated before they could properly develop.
Until my father.
He was young and the best hunter in the kingdom and people were starting to notice, so as was Nylian’s style, he ordered a small group to follow my father into the trees one day. They would have killed him as well, if my uncle hadn’t stalked the lot of them from a distance and alerted my father before they could strike. Between the two of them they dismantled all of Nylian’s men.
Without his fiercest warriors to protect him, nobody stepped up for Nylian when my ancestors returned to our home to challenge the king for his throne.
There was a duel, my father won.
My father reigned for years, good years, our people finally knew happiness, and his little brother stood by his side, until that incident. Nobody could stop my father then. He left his throne to hunt down the men that had murdered his kin, and for months that’s exactly what he did. He roamed the forest day and night, hunting every last foreigner that strayed too close to our home.” Guy finally looked me in the eye, my anger dissipating at the genuine sadness in his eyes, I could guess what had happened to my father, “I’m so sorry Dale. When Bennie said how your father had died, I realised what must’ve happened. We didn’t know about Avlym, and my father wasn’t a cruel man. I am so sorry.”
At some point during Guy’s story, I don’t remember when, I must’ve moved because I find myself sat against the log outside Edwyn’s den. We stay like that for a long time, neither of us saying anything, an emptiness has begun to come over me.
“Your father, where is he now? Why did you come to Avlym?” I need to know everything, I can’t move on if I don’t have my head wrapped around the whole story.
Guy sighed, and clear emotion floods him.
“Eventually the Halpians must’ve realised that they couldn’t pick off our warriors with my dad roaming the forest anymore, so they came in force. Clearly, we weren’t going to provide them with anything, and they couldn’t get near my father whilst he was hunting, nobody could move through the trees more stealthily than him, so they attacked us in the only other way they could. They took our home.” Guy’s voice quivered with that last part. “They decided they weren’t going to get anything from us, and they couldn’t live with the knowledge of the threat that we posed to them. So, one day they sent an army, a group of a couple hundred soldiers all clad in armour marched into our home in the middle of the night.”
A single tear rolls down Guy’s cheek.
“They set fire to everything, they couldn’t reach us in the trees, so they just set the entire place alight. We tried to jump down to escape and that was when the slaughter began, men, women, children. Everyone. My people lost everything that night. My parents woke me to the flames and immediately joined the fight. I watched as my parents each took down half a dozen men with them, until they were overwhelmed next to each other.”
With a jolt I realise that was the smoke that we had smelled that day picking the berries. From all that way away, the fire had even left its mark in Avlym, a part of me wondered if some of the greenery still smoulders somewhere out there. Starting a fire like that in the forest, if it had spread properly, they could’ve taken us all out.
“Who are the Halpians?” I ask, needing confirmation.
“The ones in the armour. The ones that also set fire to that farmhouse,” he reveals.
The colony men. The Halpians are the colony men, it all makes so much sense. That’s why Becker had been looking for Guy, it had been the colony that had attacked his home in the first place.
“I ran, and a couple of the Halpians followed. I took one of them down and lost the other in the. There was no way they could keep up with me when weighed down like that with all their armour. I left my home and my people behind me Dale. I ran for the rest of the night and the following day, and then well, I found your hunters and then I woke up to you and your family.”
So that’s why he had stumbled into Avlym half-dead. I’m amazed he made it as far as he did, a day and a night of running in his state, a smart man wouldn’t have gambled on him surviving the journey. My anger and resentment towards his treachery is still in the back of my mind, but looking at the now fragile vulnerable boy, or prince I suppose, in front of me, my heart softens slightly. Despite who he may be, we are around the same age and I doubt I would have been able to survive the ordeal that he was put through.
Dusk has properly set now, and I can no longer make out the details of Guy’s face, which is probably for the best. I haven’t forgiven Guy, I’m not sure I ever will, but he’s all I have for now. I consider heading for the opening of the den, no matter how much I distrust my companions it would be
foolish to try and sleep in the open, bare to the creatures of the forest.
“I thought they were all dead.” Guy’s statement roots me to my seat, “I left my people because I thought all was lost, but no I just abandoned them. Edwyn is a fine warrior who had been first to support my father, he would always go with him on hunts to protect him. If I had joined him, joined my parents, maybe I could’ve helped.” Shame fills the air taking me by surprise, how am I to comfort the boy who just admitted to be the son of the man who killed my father?
“My people needed me,” Guy’s voice cracks, “and I just ran away, and now they’re dead.” Gentle sobs rocked the log besides me.
“Not all of them,” Edwyn has returned without our noticing, he stands behind us with a hand on Guy’s shoulder.
The young prince startles and rises to meet the hunter’s gaze. His eyes search desperately for a glimmer of hope.
“No?” for the first time today Guy sounds his own age, without any commanding tone conveying power and authority. He sounds childish almost.
“No, I found you whilst hunting for survivors. A few of us managed to escape, they’re hidden away in the mountains, where the Halpians can’t find them,” Edwyn assures the young royal, who looks moved beyond words. Fresh tears reach the dirt below as Guy’s shoulders shake with uncontrolled relief.
“We have been looking for you since the attack,” Edwyn reveals, “when I heard the splashes in the stream, I couldn’t believe my luck. I need to take you to see your people, they’re less than a day’s travelling from here and we can set off at first light.”
Guy turns to me in the moonlight, even in the shadows his eyes seem to radiate with a new light, a fierce hope accompanying barely contained optimism, “They’re waiting for me. I know we’ve hurt you, but you took me in. I don’t want to leave you to die in this place by yourself. I can’t make you come with us… but I hope you do,” with that he disappears inside the den, Edwyn gives me a searching look before following.
