Of the Shadows Own Accord (The Green and Pleasant Land, Volume 3)

by Oliver Kennedy

  Chapter 9, Fates

  Branches whip at my face. They lacerate, they claw. Roots trip me, mounds of heaving earth try to bring me down to meet them. Rocks twist my ankles. Yet there are worse enemies waiting for me. And all the while, the daylight fades. You all know, you all know how much worse the world seems in the dark. Why , why, why, why, why? Did he hypnotise me? Did my mind wander? Did I forget them? I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm so, so sorry.

  Scream into the forest. See what screams back. Cry into the dirt. Feel the first drops of rain upon my neck. “Raaaaaajjjjj”. “Luuccccyyyyyyyyyy”. I don't know how to track. I don't know what to look for. One broken twig is just like any other to me. The forest is a maze without uniformity, it is a damned canopy where all the monsters live. Thus has it begun, so I am mired by the long shadows being cast over the land.

  The dirt gets under my fingernails. The odd leaf clings to me. I can feel the book under my coat. The corners jab at me, adding to my discomfort as I run. Where were you in my hour of need Atticus Faraday, where was this in your predictions?

  I stop for breath and for life. I look around. The gloom is sweeping in. The west is the east and the north is the south. The branches and the boughs are carbon copies of each other and the dirt is the dirt is the dirt, dirt, dirt. “Nooooooooooooo”. More screams, nothing back, not even an evil chuckle.

  Maybe he was lying. The thought stops me in my tracks for only a moment, the cloud of calm lucidity dissipates, he was not lying. He was cruel, and frightening, but he did not lie to me, the man I was told I could trust. She lied though. She lied.

  I keep on running. I may be worlds away from them by now. Who took them? Who took them? Come here, come here and I will claw your eyes out. Blind fate, blind fate, who took your eyes so long ago? Who made it so that you can't see what you are doing? That is why, that blindness, that must be why you cause such destruction.

  The shadows embrace me. They wrap their arms around me. I feel no warmth from their embrace, just cold whispers. I look up. And there it is. The beacon, the dancing flame, far away, but still on a horizon that I can see, a skyline that I can run to.

  Nerves, they make me shake as I stumble through the darkness. Every twig that cracks beneath my boots is like a firework. The fire is coming closer, though I doubt each footstep that takes me there, I step through them and on to the next. As I clamber through the undergrowth the fire breaks apart, one becomes many, twinkling stars set low to the ground, what wishes I make upon you, please let them be okay...please.

  I creep closer, close enough to hear voices, close enough to hear cries of pain. I have heard plenty of those before, in London during the fall, but these are worse, these aren't strangers, these are my saviours, and now I have to save them.

  The bushes are cruel while they are kind. They do not rustle and crackle as I climb through them. But they do prick me with their thorns, I pay for my silent passage with blood.

  Raj is tied to a tree. They have beaten the smile from him. Blood, swellings and thumping bruises are his makeup. He is weeping. Like a child, like a man reduced to one, he weeps for all that is lost, for all I lost for him. I squeeze closer to the edge of the bush. I freeze in horror, one of them sits right in front of it. How I wish I could hurt you, how I wish I could watch you reduced to the bile and ash that you are.

  I peer over his shoulder. I snatch my eyes away. I can see what they are doing to Lucy. I don't want to watch. I can't see that, I can't. They grunt like dogs, they are dogs, and parasites and worms and demons and worse. I squeeze shut my eyes. I close them to the world, I close them to Raj's weeping, to Lucy's pained cries of protest. I close them to unhelpful ghosts and harsh old men who feign friendship. I close them to London, and Britain and all the people who don't live in her anymore.

  I shake like a leaf, I cry quietly and I wait. Deeper darkness stirs. Fires burn low as does the raging vileness of the evil men. They cease their deeds. They retire to the ground, to the leaves, drunk on their own corruption. They may sleep other nights after this one, but I vow, their dawns are numbered. But thoughts of vengeance must wait. Rescue is the recipe I must cook this hour.

  I make my way back through the bushes. I circle their camp, tiptoeing over the worms, gliding softly through the ferns. They have left my friend Lucy in a heap. A discarded thing they have cast down into the mud. I crawl through the dark to her. My eyes are bright, they see by night. They see the vicious marks on her legs and body. I must be strong. I must be swift.

  I put my mouth so close to her ears that even the angels could not have heard my whispering. “Lucy, it's me Annabel, we have to go, please wake up.” As I bring my face around to hers I see that she is already awake. And the look of terror on her face is indescribable. It hurts as her hand clamps around the back of my neck and pulls me in. Her whisper is as quiet, though it is filled with fear. “Annabel, my god, please, please run away.” Even now her concern is for me, she is afraid for me.

  I ignore her. I grab at her arms, imploring her with my touch to follow me, to escape. She can do it. And then I will come back for him, we will all run off into the night, and be safe, and carry on the adventure. I half carry Lucy to the edge of the clearing, we stagger between a few trees. Then I am face to face with a pair of eyes. And a row of shiny white teeth. “Well hello there” says the demon, before he strikes me into darkness.

  Rough ropes bind me. They are wrapped tightly all the way around, they hold me upright against the rough bark of a tree. I was not a good rescuer. And now there is a sorry spectacle before me. A mockery of good. Hope teased me, it drew me back into the world, now I am cursed. I squeeze my eyes shut again.

  A calloused hand grabs me by the hair and almost yanks out a handful, I feel something sharp prick at my skin.

  “Open your eyes” I open them. His is a dirty face, cruel lines, dark eyes and boils.

  “Close them again, and I will cut them out, do you understand?” I nod and he withdraws the blade. And I am forced to watch. The fires are burning brightly once more.

  Lucy is hanging by her neck from a branch. Her feet brush the floor, just enough to keep her alive, just enough to keep her struggling for breath. Her hands are bound in front of her. A number of the demons lurk in the darkness around her, they beat at her with whips, over and over again.

  The demons look like men. Stripped to the waist with the image of their lord daubed upon their chests in dirt and dark green slim. They look like men. But surely the worst of mankind was not capable of what I see now.

  The whips are tipped with metal, they bite into her each time they hit. Blood sprays off of her. Soon enough more of her skin is lacerated than whole. She stops struggling against the noose, she stops fighting for air. She chokes herself, she hangs there. Raj's wailing is non stop. Where one cry ends another begins, and so does his song go on, as the demons beat his lady love.

  Then one of them walks forward. The others stop with their assault, not that there is a great deal left to attack. The whips go silent, the air remains whole. This one, he is wearing military fatigues. He is wearing what the soldiers in London were wearing, but he is not like them, he is not interested in reclamation or preservation, he is only interested in death and his own desire.

  The fire dances ever so briefly on his blade before he plunges it into her, then the serrated edge feasts on blood. Those gathered dance and hoot and holler. Except Raj, who gives one last howl before his head sinks.

  I am numb. I can't hold my bladder or my tears. Lucy's dead eyes are looking at me. They do not accuse or plead. They do nothing, they are lifeless. The only emotion left in them is that which I imagine.

  “Bring him” says the ringleader, the army man. The man with the boils on his face, who so elegantly swore to rob me of my sight moves to Raj with several of his other demons. The cut loose my protector who struggles meekly against them. I wait for the martial artist to appear. I wait for him to disarm them and beat the living crap out of them. It doesn't happen. Instead he
is dragged to the middle of the clearing and they begin to bind him.

  “Do you understand what is happening?” he makes me jump out my skin. The army man is right next to me, he moved so silently. I shake my head. Questions, how can he ask me questions, how can he utter words, those are real things, the kinds of things that people say, not that demons say to people.

  “He will show you, he will, I promise, tomorrow. We're going to get a boat, and we'll take you to him. He will explain it to you in a way you will understand. He will share his vision with you and then you'll see the world through his eyes.” I turn away from him. I turn away from his mad sentences.

  “Little girl, little girl, the future may be theirs for now, but today, today is ours.” He moves away from me, laughing quietly to himself.

  The man with the boils comes over and grabs my hair again. It used to be so soft, I brushed it twice a day, I would stare at it in the mirror and imagine it to be the hair of someone else, some princess that I desired to be.

  “Watch this, you little bitch” says the boils man. And so I do.

  I see that Raj has been tied to the floor by four stakes. One to bind each of his wrists, one to bind each of his ankles. They have hauled Lucy's body up into the trees above him and left her tied off there. Her blood drips down upon him, but he does not seem to notice, his open eyes are vacant, beyond the sky they gaze, I envy his apparent absence.

  Then I hear the growling. I hear the clinking of chains, I see the demons lead their dogs from the forest. A half dozen of them are there. Big, well muscled brutes. They snap at each other and claw at the floor. They are awash with scars and their dull, snout faces are awash with drawl. These are not friendly dogs, these are the kind of dogs that were banned in the old world; hidden, in outhouses, and basements, and fighting dens. There is nothing monstrous about these monsters, they are very man made indeed, and they are very angry.

  “Raj” my voice is a croak. “Raj, please forgive me, please.” My vacant eyed friend looks my way. His head turns, his brown eyes lock on to mine, they were once so soft, once so full of love. His mouth opens and out it comes “Nooooooooooooo, noooooooooo” he shouts at me.

  The sound of it drives the dogs wild. The pull furiously at their chains. Then the army man shouts out “To know darkness, become the dark”. The chains let fly. Raj screams. I vomit. Canine fury unleashed, teeth sink through clothes, and skin, and flesh and bone. They tear and they growl, they make shreds of my friend, they make scraps of him, and then proceed to fight over them. Devouring and gnawing, the sounds and sights follow me all the way into the pit where I lose it all, down into the abyss, down into the haunted dream.