"A harrowing tale!" the frog commented as the cage bumped up against a hissing ferret-like beast. Bright steel interrupted its response. "But you are not running! Why must you be the only Coward not worthy of his name?!"
"We caught the traveller before he could make off with Sally's life or innocence. Thank the gods of all lands...but I couldn't even pull the gallows lever, you know?" Jacob huffed as he sliced through two cold, shadowy wolves threatening to overtake his rush forward. "Little Sally was the only one who didn't think I was a coward. The town got the butcher to hang the traveller, and while I got many pitying looks, it was Sally's concerned smile and her warm tea the next morning that I remember banishing the shakes. I kept asking myself how a little girl, barely past her eleventh birthday, had more bravery in the face of the world's horrors than a hundred knights. I resolved to become useful, even with my vow never to see another thing die by my hand."
The sickening crunch of Woodfolk blood and bone punctuated the chapter and must have been enough for the shadows to decide their tactics weren't working. The tiny eyes, flashing silver needles, and growing beastly noises suddenly pulled back a few yards, leaving the path forward relatively unguarded.
Breathing heavily, the frog nodded and pointed towards the path. "Now, Coward, while we may still survive this mess!"
Sir Jacob raised his blindfold just enough to verify it had not been a trick and began advancing through the gap in the trees, never letting his sword drop. "So I begged her mother to let her help me practice. It was an easy thing to obtain now that she saw just how close trouble would come snapping at her daughter's virtue. Every morning she would wake me with the smell of tea in my kitchen, and every afternoon, she would tie that yellow ribbon around my eyes and I would practice with my blade."
"I suppose there are less wise things a mortal coward could do," the frog admitted, trying not to show too much relief as they left the scattered corpses of the sprites and fairies behind. "But I also suppose the tale is not over?"
"Trouble...of course, kept coming." Sir Jacob frowned as the shadows began to gather in front. "And when she turned twelve, a drought in the fields forced the wild boars through the farmland. I got to prove my usefulness, I suppose, and with the yellow ribbon around my eyes, I could –"
A magpie laughed and dove at the knight's face. Sir Jacob easily batted it away with the flat of his blade, but the distraction had been sufficient for a brave little sprite to strike true at the knight's rear. It was crushed under heel a moment later, but the tiny silver needle stuck out from his thigh, shimmering with unearthly light.
Howling in pain, Sir Jacob pulled the needle free and threw it into the woods. Even so, he never stopped the tale. "The boars surrounded the village," he gasped. "Rampaging through the fields and ruining crops faster than every able body could dispatch them."
"Coward, what are you –" the frog gasped as the old knight pulled the cage free from his belt and jammed it against the stung flesh of his leg.
Rancid smoke billowed up out of the wound as the cold iron reacted with the fairy poison, bubbling like lava and burning the flesh in a similar manner.
"I slew three dozen boars that day!" he howled in partial anguish and partial triumph. "My rusty old sword sang again! No shakes claimed shame upon my hands or soul, and I was doing good! Doing good for my people! For farmers instead of a blasted king too far away to remember even the name of our towns! Little Sally made me a hero, you see. Not a father or a husband, nor a knight...but finally a hero. Something that nobody in ten wars had been able to do; this little girl made me feel like a hero at last!"
The wound stopped bubbling, and the shadows fluctuated apprehensively as the knight lumbered back to his feet, sword raised. He breathed hot and heavy, but he was not as dead as he should have been by their estimates. What should have been a calculated round of second strikes to ensure victory became a frantic, disorganized, frightened charge out of the trees.
"At last, I was whole again!" Sir Jacob announced, pulling back down his blindfold and filling the air with the whistling song of his sword. "Better than whole! I was healed. Healed and saved from a lifetime of meaninglessness. Of battles without end and tired old honour. And it was in those moments as we sang and danced and joked about the great feasts of ham and bacon and pork that would carry us all through the rest of the famine, I knew I would gladly give my life and my soul for Little Sally Kino, if only to protect her from the trouble I knew beautiful little girls with trusting hearts would attract."
With the cage forgotten on the forest floor, the frog might have used the time to engineer a handy twig or thorn to escape the lock, but he was too busy watching the knight dance between the trees, swinging his sword and using his bulk and strength to flatten the army of sprites against him.
Another silver pin struck the knight as he crushed three of the little soldiers, but so energized by his tale was he...well, he brushed it out of the flesh of his neck as some might swat a fly just before it bit.
"By the time the wild boars had been eaten and the pantries became lean, I was so busy worried about her upcoming thirteenth birthday and the numerous suitors that had been knocking on her door...well... I didn't think anything at all of her plan to trade song with the King of the Wood for the bounty within these trees," Jacob huffed, reaching down with a bloody glove to retrieve the cage.
Awestruck at the carnage, and more than a little afraid, the frog said nothing as the knight pressed the metal up against his neck and again on his left shoulder, sealing the latest wounds received and boiling away the magic poison.
"I only made her promise not to go alone," Jacob chuckled. "Go with the Thompson boy, I begged. He had eyes for another and was a capable trail-guide. So she took the boy and her three best friends. They seemed safe enough to go into the woods alone and wore whistles should animals attack. I knew only that we had a treaty with your kind. With the King of the Wood. I knew you had honour, and thus, I did not fear trouble would follow her to your valley."
The frog cleared its throat with a croak as the knight sat down in the clearing and caught his breath. "I –"
"Interrupt again, and I will split you in half," Sir Jacob warned it, pointing at the tiny bodies littered around in the grass and stumps. "There were tales, of course, of how you Woodfolk lived. How you tempted the vile of heart into your cages to die...a kind of justice albeit an alien one to most of us. I was unafraid of Little Sally's heart being dirty with sin."
He raised the cage up to his face, looking into the very soul of the frog he had captured.
"I didn't realize...none of us in the town did...that should a human's soul be pure enough, they were seen as a valuable prize. Some of us knew the tales. Some of us remembered. But by the time any of us realized what had happened, it was too late."
The frog could only croak a feeble agreement.
"Would I still have trusted you Woodfolk had I known the truth?" the knight wondered out loud, reaching into the pouch on his side to free a canteen. "That those loyal to the old King of the Wood had tried to warn us with songs and berries and nuts left at our doorjambs that the treaties were no longer honoured?" he drank for a long time until the vessel was empty.
"We still honoured the treaty," the frog mumbled softly. "At least, I did."
"Yes, you did, and while it wasn't you, I remember others of your clan whispering the songs into the night that praised the old king. Songs like the one I sang for the First Toll, that spoke of your honour and our friendship that was now souring without our knowledge. Every time Sally and her friends came back with honey and truffles, they also wore the covetous gaze of more of your new king's desires, did they not?" Jacob growled. "How foolish we were," he laughed sadly. "How foolish I was, on guard only for a greedy little brat stealing my sunrise away with a devil's smile and quick kisses."
Slowly, with a painful grunt and release of breath, Sir Jacob stood again, hooking the cage to his belt.
"When Little Sally came back o
ne day without her yellow ribbon, I suspected trouble had finally found her," he said, leaning on a tree for a bit of extra stability. "The others too...they seemed fine at first glance, but their smiles seemed strange and their words were few and carefully chosen, as if trying not to give away a secret. I spoke to her mother endlessly about it, but she laughed me off at first, explaining a hero protector must see imagined foes in everything. Then, her laughing became angry as she deduced my frantic worry must be some ploy to get closer to her bedroom. She forbade Sally from visiting me anymore, and I'll never forget her simple nod and smile at the order. Yes, Mother, of course, Mother, she said. And then she closed the door on me."
"And then I stumbled into the door brace," the frog said out loud.
Ignoring his previous promise to slay on the next interruption, the knight nodded and began walking the path again. "You howled like a demon possessed as you chanced upon some old coal-iron that had been worked into the house for decoration. The illusion faded and finally her mother saw you for what you were," he paused to glance down at the cage, "a toad masquerading as her beloved daughter."
The path ended at the foot of a curious stone, three times as tall as Sir Jacob, but as flat and plain as any skipping rock at the edge of a lake.
"The other children were found out quickly enough. You were the only one we were able to capture alive, as you know. Even with your refusal to speak, the clues and stories were easy enough to learn. We already had the books detailing the Three Tolls needed to meet the King of the Wood. The books also detailed the rest of the truth we forgot out of ignorance and happy convenience. That you take human children. That you take them and never give them back."
"She's not dead," the frog promised with careful words. "Your stories are wrong, I can assure you! She will be living as one of us now and as royalty! Don't you see that we were not given to you as a deception but as payment for the new life given to us! A fair trade in good faith!"
But even as the words tumbled from the frantic little amphibian's mouth, it realized it had only succeeded in igniting the knight's anger.
"A fair trade?" he whispered to the near-silent wood. "You stole my town's children and replaced them with a handful of rodents playing pretend! You stole away the one person who made me glad I had survived all those blades and arrows and fangs and fire. Is she whole? Is she still Little Sally Kino? Is she still the tiny, smiling sunrise I woke up to every day, and the one that made every soul in that damned pig shit smelling town feel alive!?”
It wasn't until the pain set in that the frog remembered the bars burning at its back. It had tried to get as far away from Sir Jacob's eyes as it could. Slowly, it peeled itself off the hissing and smoking iron and prepared itself for the end. "I do not know," it said. "The process depends on many things, and I cannot tell you more for I have no mortal words for it."
"Try."
It had been more threat than request, as if such a thing was even necessary at this point. "She will be stripped of her mortal shell. Her soul, and the souls of the others, will be judged, and they will be placed into new vessels like the one I inhabit. Some, like I, become shape-shifters. Animals. Others form spirits and wraiths. Those pure enough will become as royalty and change into the beautiful and light ones." A testing, hopeful grin appeared on the frog's wide, wet lips. "She'll be beyond your mortal beauty, I'm sure of this. You will forget all memory of her as she was. It is truly a kindness to give someone so pure to the King of the Wood. A kindness and a treasure for both mortals and the Woodfolk. Is not the loss of the sunrise worth a sun at high noon?"
The knight nodded slowly with a tear rolling away from his eye before he could stop it. "Then you already have your answer, Coward."
It was not until much later that the frog learned the words were not for it.
A thunderous crack filled the air, startling both of them. The massive stone split in half along a hidden seam, spilling golden light out into the misty air of the grove.
Looking to the knight, the frog cleared its throat. "My apologies, Sir Coward," it said. "I do not pretend to know of the mortal heart beating in your chest, but your story is worthy."
Wordlessly, the knight and the frog moved into the light.
Time stopped meaning anything as they travelled together through the light. A few more tears fell from Sir Jacob's eyes, but even those stopped after a while. "Was that the Third Toll? Am I here?"
"No, the toll is still ahead," the frog said. "You've paid with Song. You've paid with Story. The final Toll is paid in Blood."
"It always is," Sir Jacob said, mostly to himself.
Timidly, the frog croaked, "I suppose it will be my neck that will supply the final toll."
"That had been my plan," the knight said.
The bright, unending light faded into a strange twilight with only a pinprick of silver in the distance to provide a place to aim his footfalls. But as far off as it was, time mattered not and his feet did their duty without complaint. The frog was rattled whenever the knight would laugh under his breath or sigh sadly about whatever memories were plaguing him about his sunny young saviour. Distance was eaten as the memories moved from one island of his memory to another. When the light grew a physical form, they both looked up and witnessed the next gate at last.
An arch wreathed in roses and thorns stood finally in front of them. The stems wove together in a natural barrier so thick that even the beaming silver light beyond could not fully slip through.
"Have mercy upon us," the frog said suddenly. "I see now you are no coward but the good and noble knight. The hero you claim she helped you be! You've bested our soldiers, and while I've yet to see a Royal fall in battle, I little doubt the strength of your vengeance!"
"Do you now?" Sir Jacob mused out loud as he pulled out his blindfold once more.
"But it is already exacted!" the frog cried. "For we will be so diminished from this war...even if we took each child from your lands for the next hundred years our numbers would never recover. Sue for peace and the king will accept. He must accept! Sue for peace and feast upon our bounty, but only let this be the last of the blood that waters the ground! Let me die knowing I am delivering to my king a new, strong treaty and not our clan's downfall!"
"Those are far nobler words than I thought you possessed." Jacob knelt down and unhooked the cage from his belt, putting it between himself and the rose gate. "You've taken my joy, and now you take the fire of my vengeance, little demon."
Wide-eyed, the frog croaked excitedly. "Then...peace? You'll sue for peace? My death will be the last?"
"In another life," Sir Jacob sighed, pulling a hunting knife from a strap on his side. "You and I could have fought on the same side. Two hapless souls at the mercy of what our kings thought right."
"I would like that," the tiny frog said. "I believe I would like that very much."
"Then I want you to tell them. The villagers. Tell them of what Sir Jacob the Coward does here today. Vow to me you will be my witness, and I will vow not to harm you."
"Yes! Yes! I vow! I vow!" the tiny frog screamed, eyes firmly locked on the point of the knife. Soft words and pleading were all lost in the panic of survival.
Sir Jacob laughed out loud into the void and with the tip of the blade unlocked the cage. Risking one final sting from the iron, the frog jumped against the door and tumbled free into the twilight.
"Oh, Sir Jacob, the Wise! The Worthy! The Hero!" the frog bowed its head over and over. "I will sing songs of your mercy, I will share your tale and pledge not to rest until the King of the Wood gives you the treaty you deserve! Shall we return to the grove to –"
"You misunderstood me, demon," Sir Jacob interrupted. "It's true, you've turned the fire of my vengeance. But this has not been the only vow I've made. I also promised vengeance for the five families your king destroyed when they stole away our children."
The frog stopped and looked up at the human towering over it, knife ready. "But, your vow...you said I would be unha
rmed?"
"And I will keep my vow." He frowned, closing his eyes. "Will you?"
When the gate opened, the first thing that came through was the frog's mad cries, followed shortly by the crazed, frantic little animal itself. "It is the end! It is the end! Damn the King of the Wood! He comes! The Coward comes!"
The king looked like a tiny boy, no taller than a cat. He sat upon a throne made of oak-tree roots twisted by magic at the end of the court, matching the white-oak walls and delicate flower chandeliers falling from the ceiling. His sleepy gaze turned wild and furious as the mortal knight hunched through the shimmering wall of the gate and raised himself to full height.
Along the walls were five great beds. Coffins of intricate vines and flower, where magic could focus inward upon tiny bodies, each about the size and shape of a human child. Upon each were fairy folk of all kinds, gossiping and chatting and dancing as if each were a playground. Some wore the bodies of animals, some more regally of tiny people with wings, or extra legs and arms.
Author's Torment Page 2
