by Mark Lucek
From the dark the thing bellowed as it tried to steady itself, the hooked claw cutting through the air, but Iwa was quick and ducked as it sliced over her. Fear gave her energy as she scrabbled between the thing’s legs and out into the night. Behind her it struggled; the great claw caught on a strip of leather.
Outside all was noise and confusion. Thick clouds of acrid smoke stung her eyes. ‘Yaroslav!’ Iwa screamed for her father, but it was no use – the world closed in on her in fire and flame, blocking out all thought, all vision. She could hardly make anything out, only shadows and the gnarled forms of men that flickered between the flames. In her arms Tomaz wailed, angry that his sleep had been broken and afraid because he felt Iwa’s fear. People were running without aim or reason, everyone shouting, shrieking, or crying.
She too was running. Still squealing, Tomaz reached out as if longing for the warmth of his reindeer skins and the safety of his dreams. ‘What’s going on?’ Iwa tried to grab one of the hunters as he fled past, but, without a thought, he brushed her aside. Behind her, a tent collapsed in a shower of flame and fire as she caught sight of a group of girls huddled together, their faces ashen and their eyes filled with tears.
‘Irana,’ she recognised the oldest, ‘what’s happening? Has Jezi Baba, the night hag, come to kill us all?’ But there was no answer. Frantically she gripped Irana’s shoulder and began to shake her but the girl stood mute, her eyes blank as boiled fish. ‘We have to find the hunters!’ Iwa shouted, but the other girls huddled closer and began to cry. With a final tug Iwa let her hand fall, her fingers trembling uncontrollably. And maybe she too would have been overcome with shock, but Tomaz had begun to cry.
Yaroslav. She had to find her father. Blindly she stumbled further into the camp, but the smoke wrapped around her, making it almost impossible to breathe. Suddenly a figure charged out of the smoke. She didn’t recognise the face and there were no clan marks on his clothes. Something told her that she should run but her legs wouldn’t move. Coming closer, the man drew out a spiked club and swung it wildly over his head as he screamed, and then he was gone. Dumbly she blinked; her feet were splattered with blood.
‘What do you think you’re doing?’ a voice said. Rough hands gripped her. It was Godek, the hunt master. He was in his night tunic, the long white hairs of his beard matted with blood and ash. ‘The camp is under attack. Run, you fool. Head for the old path; you’ll be safe in the forest. Make for the autumn camp by the falls, tell everyone to meet there.’ She felt his grip on her shoulders and tried to heed what he was saying, but it was no use: his words floated all around and made no sense.
‘Yaroslav,’ she mumbled through trembling lips, ‘I’ve got to find my father.’
‘He’ll make for the autumn camp too, if he lives still.’ Behind them there was an almighty crack as another tent collapsed in a blaze of flame, the beams splitting like broken ribs.
But Godek didn’t notice. Iwa followed his gaze to the heart of the camp. At first it was hard to see what he was looking at, and then she noticed the man. There was an unnatural calm about him, as if he stood apart from the confusion. Gold glinted from the crest of his great battle helm and the firelight shimmered across his armour: not mail, but made of tiny plates of overlapping metal joined together like the scales of a fish. Above him a banner fluttered: two goats’ heads, one blue, the other green, faced each other across a field of red. A knotted silver pattern ran round the edges and in each corner there was a rune – the red sun wheel.
The man motioned with his sword, the firelight dripping red across a blade as long as a man’s arm. A group of spearmen ran to where the sword pointed. By his side a boy crouched, dwarfed by a huge round shield that trembled in his arms. If anything it was more impressive than the banner; it too bore goat’s heads, this time on a white field, but it was rimmed with gold and the runes were etched in silver.
Some of the hunters must have gathered their bows because a few arrows flew towards the man. But the shield-bearer’s eyes were sharp and, even as the bows were drawn, the shield was turned so that the arrows thudded harmlessly against it. One managed to find its mark and rattled along the scales, like fast water over rock: the figure appeared not to notice.
Iwa gulped. Godek was no longer with her; without a sound he had begun to run, his feet steady as if stalking deer. Distracted by the archers, the shield-bearer didn’t move as Godek charged, careful to keep to the bearer’s blind side. And the hunt master was almost upon them before anybody noticed. The shield boy tried to swing round, but it was too late.
As he closed, Godek let out a savage cry to give himself strength and unsettle his opponent as, at the last moment, the spear tip flicked up to catch the man in the neck at the weak point where the helm met the mail. And perhaps he thought that he could already feel the blow land and the spear tip push through warm flesh and up into the brain pan, but the figure had turned in time so that the spear glanced away.
Carried forward by his own momentum, Godek tried to turn. But his opponent had already stepped back. The tip of the sword whipped through the air in a swift arc that caught the hunt master in the neck. There was a terrible simplicity to the motion, an economy of movement as the blade sliced clean through skin and bone and Godek’s body tumbled forward, his head falling from his shoulders, face frozen in a look of shock and surprise.
Iwa opened her mouth, but the scream stuck in her throat. The shield-bearer was looking directly at her. His words were lost in the din, but there was no mistaking his intention. Suddenly she was running, panic lending strength to her limbs as she scurried past the bodies of the dead and the blackened remnants of tents.
In her panic and terror, she’d gone the wrong way and found herself by the river’s edge. Tomaz was crying, his legs beating against her chest. She was on the shingle now, her feet slippery across the stones. All was still. The sound of battle had dimmed.
Clutching the baby to her she looked about, but there was nowhere to run. Even in summer the water would be freezing and there was no way she’d ever make it across, let alone carry the baby with her. Jezi Baba mistress of the night. The prayer formed silently on her lips. Look down upon your child and guide her steps. Iwa searched for a means of escape, but it was no use. Before her the far shore stretched into the darkness, a vast impenetrable morass of thickets. A mist had begun to settle across the waters, making it hard to see. I’ll give myself to the river. The thought came as a great calm settled over her. Now she walked as if in a dream, hardly noticing as Tomaz kicked against her.
The water lapped cold around her ankles, numbing her feet as she stumbled over wet rock. In her arms Tomaz grew quiet, his sobs stilled as she waded further in. What else was there for her to do but offer herself to the tides and let the waters sweep her downriver, so that her soul would become one with the river folk and sleep forever amongst the reeds? Better to die in the arms of the river goddess. I’ll become one of the Rusalka and my voice will sing in the water’s swell. And may it draw these raiders to their doom and their clawed demon with them. In her arms baby Tomaz began to cry again, his voice stifled by the cold. ‘Hush.’ Iwa rocked him gently. ‘Not long now and all your pain will end.’
A surge of current caught her off guard so that she almost lost her footing. ‘Father, I’m sorry,’ she mumbled. ‘I’ll be sure to tell Mother what kind of a man you are – if you have not already entered the ancestor world before me.’
She drew a deep breath and prepared to give herself to the river. How peaceful it looked, as if the events on the shore were left far away. Ribbons of blood trailed serenely about the current. She saw nothing, heard nothing; there was only the lap of the water and the cold numbing stillness.
Suddenly a torch flared and, on the far shore, a figure swayed. Iwa paused, the sight so unexpected that she almost lost her footing. A second torch blazed in the darkness as, between them, the figure began to dance. She wasn’t sure but she thought she could hear the beat of a distant drum.
/> Slowly the figure turned. It wore a long black cloak trimmed with gold and she fancied that she could see the body of a woman beneath. Around the figure, the torches flared as the drumbeat picked up. The woman’s hips swayed to the tune. Iwa opened her mouth, the scream dry on her lips; the woman had the face of a pig! At first Iwa thought that it might be a mask, but then the light picked across the bristles of its forehead and the rough edges of its ears; no mask could ever be so real.
She tried to move deeper into the river, the current thick about her. Now the thing was looking directly at her, tiny eyes burning as its breath misted through its teeth.
Now she couldn’t go. Nothing could make her come closer to that thing, not even the soft call of the river goddess. Iwa took a backwards step, almost tripping as the water swelled around her thighs. Please, she silently begged. But already the night had been too much for her.
On the far shore the air seemed to crackle as, slowly, the thing raised an arm which ended in a cloven hoof and, as it pointed to Iwa, the gown fell away to reveal the bare bleached bones of a wrist from which all flesh had been stripped clean away.
Iwa stumbled, her feet slippery across the pebbles as she tried again to throw herself into the arms of the river goddess, but her legs wouldn’t let her. A solid ball of fear rose from her stomach as, almost without thinking, she began to wade back towards the shore, her feet striking awkwardly against the stones. She had to get away: anything was better than having to face that pig-faced demon. As she reached the bank once more she stopped, almost dropping Tomaz as she stood panting on the shore. She was on the shale, her skin dripping with sweat. Before her the shoreline lay covered in a thick pall of smoke, through which the dislocated forms of men ran blindly.
An arrow skidded along the rocks at her feet. Not that it had been meant for her; a stray shot, nothing more, but it was enough to galvanise her frozen limbs into action. She ran blindly, the baby clutched in her arms, now too cold and confused even to cry.
Finally Iwa fell to the ground and lay there, too tired and disoriented to even think. She’d no idea of how far she’d come or how long she’d been running. The sounds of slaughter had faded, though there was no way to tell if the butchery had finished.
She dragged herself and Tomaz upright and sat pressed against some ancient tree. Who knew where this place was, or how friendly the Leszy who guarded it would be? Not all the spirits of leaf and briar took well to strangers. She’d come up one of the backwoods paths but had no idea which one, her eyes blinded by fear as she’d run wildly through the trees with no thought to notice any of the landmarks.
Up above, the wind feathered through the branches. How long since she’d strayed from the track? Almost without thinking she pressed her back against the tree as if for comfort. Of course there were trees in the deep forest that could swallow a man whole, let alone someone like her. Even closer to the paths, when the women were gathering berries or out hunting for roots, one of the older ones would sometimes stop and begin to cry.
‘In the bark, see it there, a face,’ she’d say. Sometimes they would recognise it, one of the old hunters who’d strayed into the forest never to be seen again, or some long-lost lover. Sometimes the face could not be recognised at all.
Somewhere there was a crack, a fallen branch, Iwa hoped. She should have moved away, but her aching limbs wouldn’t let her. Shivering she looked around and felt the night close in around her, grim shadows pressing in as her eyes begun to shut. Just a few moments, some rest, just enough to bring back the feeling into those tired limbs of hers. But that way lay death.
Carefully she reached out, her fingers tracing the lines of the bark, hard against her palm. There didn’t seem to be a face in there. But, in this light, it was hard to tell.
She closed her eyes, ears strained to catch the slightest sound, but there was nothing except the distant lap of the waters. So she hadn’t strayed far from the river – that was something, at least. Maybe she’d taken one of the paths which skirted round the reeds and thickets down to where the fish gathered in a series of tiny inlets dotted around a bend in the river.
Not that she knew this place well, but it’d be vaguely familiar come dawn and the Leszy would be used to the tread of the clan. If that was where she was. Suddenly she was gripped by fear again, her skin clammy as her clothes pressed damply against her skin.
Only now did she realise how cold she was, her teeth starting to chatter. There was no way to last out the night, not without a fire and some shelter. Here the moon was careful to tread, her light picking its way through the branches that threatened to blot her out altogether. Over to her left, Iwa could just about make out where a few heads of fungus poked about the roots.
Not that they’d catch light easily. She still kept her bag round her waist. All the clan wore them, even the children, for who knows when they would be in need of a knife or some tinder? She didn’t need to feel for it to realise that the cloth would be sodden and the scraps of dried fungus ruined.
At least her flints would have survived. Carefully she cats-pawed her way across to the fungus. Cursing the fact that her own supply was useless, she picked at an outcrop, her blade trembling as she muttered the ritual words of gathering. At least it wasn’t too wet. Maybe it would catch light, and there were plenty of leaves and twigs about.
Now that her eyes had become more used to the dark, she began to make out the landscape. She was closer to the river than she’d realised. Nor was the forest as thick as she’d imagined. She must be close to the bend and she couldn’t be that far from the camp, either. Iwa turned and eyed the line of broken twigs which marked her passing. She shouldn’t have been so careless, no matter her haste. Cursing her stupidity, she made the sign of ritual supplication and hoped the Leszy would forgive her for disturbing them so.
‘Matka Ziemia,’ she prayed to moist Mother Earth as she plucked at a head of fungi, ‘look down upon your child and guide her steps.’
Maybe moist Mother Earth listened, because as Iwa stumbled forward she recognised the outline of a rock. She was very close to the riverbank now, where last year’s floods had worn away a section of the earth. Here a copse of trees, linden and aspen, hugged the water’s edge. She’d often been here after wormwood or meadowsweet, which grew freely around the trees.
Nearby the forest opened out into a narrow glade, but the edges were thickly lined with bushes. And, by a willow which reached over the water, the bracken pushed up to form a half-hidden hollow.
Placing the baby in the centre, she started to gather up leaves and a few twigs. Anything which might catch light. She didn’t like the idea of a fire so close to the camp, but at least the glade was shielded by a thick wall of trees. Unless you followed the path there was little chance of stumbling into this place and little reason she could see for anybody to come here.
I must have run for ages, she thought grimly as she began to make the fire. No wonder my legs ache so. But it was not only with fatigue that she ached. With trembling hands she tried to strike the flints. It was no good. Blowing hard over her fingers she tried to bring some of the life back into them.
Then she remembered the moss that grew by the river. Maybe some of that would help. She thought of taking Tomaz with her, but the baby was asleep now. And if I don’t come back he will never know the pain of the death which carried him to the ancestor world.
Besides which, they were only a short distance from the river. She could even see it from here, the moonlight rippling across the waters, half lost in the mist. How could it be so still?
Breath held, she peered out of the thicket, but there was nothing, only the lap of the water. Perhaps by morning the raiders would be gone, and taken their pig-faced demon with them, but somehow she doubted that. At least there was more mist now, rising with an almost unnatural thickness from the river.
Maybe she could slip away into the forest now whilst it was dark. She peered round; the shadows of trees pressed in all around. The clan often tr
avelled deep into the forest, but they were careful to keep to well-trodden paths that Karnobog had given to them so that they might follow the herds through the forest. Even Iwa, who was braver than most, never strayed too far. For her the deep forest was a place of evil, where wicked spirits sucked out the souls of the living or grew trees which fed on human blood. Then there were all sorts of thickets and bogs where evil Leszy waited to pull you down into the mud.
No, far better to wait till morning. Then she could pick her way along the river. So long as she kept close to the water she’d be bound to come across one of the other clans sooner or later. They’d be sure to take her in and give her a cup of hot broth. Then they could come and hunt the raiders. Who knows, some of the Bison Grass clan could have survived. The raiders couldn’t have killed them all. She remembered Godek’s dismembered body and pushed further into the hollows.
There was a sound on the water. She caught her breath; maybe it was the pig-faced demon come to eat her soul. There it was again. Iwa shivered and sank into the bank as far as she could, her legs curled to her chest in an effort to make herself as small as possible. Even so, she couldn’t help but look out, her breath coming in shallow frozen gasps, but there was nothing, only a ripple on the water.
Just an otter, probably. She relaxed and closed her eyes. There it was again, a hushed plop as if a stone had been thrown into the river. The sound was so quiet this time that she hardly heard it. Around her the mist closed in… and then she saw it, a dark shape gliding towards her.
Slowly it came through the water. Iwa gasped and drew back. She could see the thing more clearly now, a slender neck curled high above the waters to end in the head of a savage beast, its mouth twisted into a snarl. She’d never seen a smok before, but the old ones often talked about such creatures, the great fire snakes of the east who flew through the air on giant wings.
Perhaps they could swim as well, like their smaller cousins. Too tired even to make the sign to ward off evil, she watched the creature pass. It was larger than she’d ever imagined. Even in the legends of the traders such a thing had never existed. Rows of sharpened teeth gaped in its open mouth, silhouetted darkly through the mists.
