There had been no mention of the trespassers at dinner. He was sure Father hadn’t found them today. The tithe collector’s visit would have kept Father close to the cabin, if indeed he had gone outside at all.
As Gareth filtered through the woods toward the camp, hope and nervousness warred within him. Yes, he had been late and in trouble this morning when he fled the boys’ camp; but in truth, he had run away as much because of the happiness, tightness, and shame that overcame him when he saw Evin naked and joyful. What a baby, to run away from seeing a villager piss! But something was different this time. With Evin, it was different.
Gareth didn’t know what he might see tonight, but he couldn’t keep from smiling as he imagined the possibility of seeing Evin happy again. Of being close enough to hear Evin’s laughter. Of sharing Evin’s carefree joy, just for another moment.
This time he wouldn’t flee.
He traveled silently through the forest without slowing down but remained alert in case Evin or any of the others were nearby in the woods. They were his friends, as close as any friend would ever be, but they could never know or see him.
At the tree line, he paused to look out before stepping into the open, searching for any potential observers. But there were none.
The boys’ camp by the river was gone. They had returned to the village.
Chapter Two
The next evening, the thump of the trapdoor woke Gareth as usual. He didn’t realize anything was amiss as he pulled off his nightshirt and dressed, but when he climbed up into the cabin, he found his father preparing a collection of traps to carry out. Father was going to work with him tonight. He wouldn’t get to see any villagers.
Father handed Gareth a trap meant to catch a kenzul hound—one of the creatures whose fur would sell for a good sum—then loaded into it a couple of smaller traps meant for minks and raccoons. This work would be easy enough for Father to do during daylight hours, but it would be faster at night when Gareth could be there to help. Tonight they would walk together to various spots on the mountain to place traps and hopefully discover prey in some of the existing ones. It would be Gareth’s job to snap the neck of any captured creature, as it had been since his earliest memories. He hadn’t known what it meant to kill when he was that young, but he did know Father would be terribly angry if he accidentally tore or tried to eat the prey.
In a way he felt guilty about trapping and killing the animals. It seemed somehow a dirty trick to end a creature’s life if you weren’t hungry and going to eat it. It was true that the carcasses sometimes put a bit of meat on the table and the money from selling their hides paid for the rest, so he killed without complaint, without ripping the tiny things in two, and without taking even a little bite. But he didn’t want to be cruel to the animals, and trapping was a cruel occupation at best, no matter how it might be justified or how merciful he might try to be. If the time ever arrived when he could stop hiding in his parents’ home, his days as a trapper would be over for good.
Gareth and his father set out into the dark. They marched in silence through woods leading around the mountain. Father carried a lantern, hooded so light would shine in a beam ahead of them yet Gareth would remain hidden in the night.
At lower elevations, they set small traps along game trails and near sources of water. Most of the traps were like little coops that would close up on small animals. Others were more cruel, with metal jaws to catch an animal’s leg. Higher up on the mountain were the traps Gareth liked least of all: deadfall traps meant to crush the heads or spines of bears by dropping heavy logs on them. Gareth and his father usually took just a few bears each season, but the thought of killing the mighty creatures in such a cowardly way made him unhappy.
The thing they had to be most careful about was scent. If they carried or mounted a trap using their bare hands, animals would detect their personal odors and be sure to stay away. Therefore, they wore gloves and smeared traps with animal fat to mask other smells. Ashes and certain kinds of dung were useful for covering up anything else they might touch in a spot where they hoped to catch prey. On the other hand, some scents were good. They often mounted a chicken head covered in oil on the end of a stick and used it to brush the ground in various directions leading to a trap. Then they hung the head inside as bait.
After collecting a few animals and resetting some snares, they found that a kenzul trap was missing from the place it had been just last night. The trap consisted of a set of metal jaws chained to a heavy log, called a drag, which would slow down any kenzul with the strength to move it but would not resist enough that the animal might tear its leg free to escape. The trap had evidently caught a kenzul able to pull the drag for some distance before tiring, but it left a trail of broken vegetation Gareth and his father could follow.
Gareth put down the cages he carried and helped his father search.
After only a few minutes of pursuit, they were close enough to hear the animal thrashing about, trying to free itself from the trap. It had not got far, both because of the weight of the drag and because it had changed direction several times as it tried to escape the metal jaws.
Crack!
Such a loud noise from the direction of the struggling creature startled Gareth. Vegetation rustled as something tumbled through it. A series of receding, muffled thumps ended with a heavy impact.
Gareth and his father came to an area where their path dropped off an embankment into thick undergrowth. Plants were broken or crushed where the kenzul had fallen off the path and pulled the drag along behind. Father picked his way down first, but something was wrong. Gareth remained on the trail, turning this way and that, sniffing. It wasn’t right. It smelled—
Something tore through the forest behind him, hidden by the vegetation but coming on fast. Something big.
“Father!” Gareth leaped down the embankment. He caught up with his father just as the other man reached their quarry. Gareth saw and understood instantly. Not a kenzul, but a bear cub. It lay unconscious or dead from falling down the hill and having the drag land on it. The beam of Father’s lantern was just touching its body when something else came crashing down the hill: its mother.
Gareth had made a terrible mistake. He had hoped to reach Father, push him to the ground, and protect him, but everything was happening too fast. By running, Gareth had only led the danger to him.
A brown bear, looming larger than Gareth thought possible, exploded from the vegetation. It kept its head low, its face a mask of rage as it knocked Father aside and barreled into Gareth.
Gareth threw an arm up to protect his face. The bear’s jaws closed over his elbow, and the world turned over. As he hit the ground, a snap, more felt than heard, traveled through him. Crushing weight pressed him down.
Claws tore into his belly as he struggled to get free so he could fight back. The bear began to worry his body, shaking him by the arm locked in her jaws, and all he could do was thrash. The meat of his upper arm gave way, tore open in a spray of blood. No no no! The bear’s weight smothered his screams. She pulled at his arm, tearing it like cloth until it ripped away. The ragged stump jetted blood over both of them. She let the arm fall and lowered her dripping jaws toward his throat.
A sword flashed, cutting into the bear and rising away in a new spray of blood. The bear shuddered, turned, and stepped away from him.
He could breathe!
Father shouted at him, words he couldn’t make out as he gasped for air and tried to get off the ground. He had to get up, protect his father. He rolled to get purchase with his remaining hand.
The bear roared, threatening Father, who seemed small as a child before her. With one hand, he held his sword up; with the other, he shone the lantern’s beam into her eyes as if to confuse her and keep her at bay.
Gareth struggled to stand up, fighting to do what he must despite all the torn places in his body. The combat was only a few paces away, but as he tried to run, he lost his balance and fell again, jarring the stub of
his right arm. Molten agony poured into him from that wound and from shredded places all over his body.
This time he had the breath to scream.
His mind went white from the pain, but still something inside shrieked at him: Get up! Get up!
Gareth got unsteadily to his feet as the bear took a swipe at Father and knocked the sword away. Can’t run right. He jumped, covering the remaining distance all at once, intending to grab and distract the bear. He managed to get a handful of her fur and flesh but lost his grip when his hand tore through and ripped her side open.
The bear turned on him, bellowing and lashing out. Gareth leaped back. He saw that his left hand had changed. Instead of their normal, blunt-square shape, his fingers were long, wickedly tapered, sharp—and wet with the bear’s blood. They had sliced clean through both his glove and the animal’s flesh.
I am a monster.
The bear roared again and closed in enough that her hot, spittle-flecked breath washed over Gareth. He slashed at her, cutting deep into a foreleg. Rampant, she stood twice his size. She crowded him, swiping at him with her claws. They struck at one another several times, but he kept having to stumble back to avoid her onslaught.
The bear stopped advancing on him to stay close to her cub. She and Gareth eyed each other warily as his wounded arm drained his blood, his life and strength, to the forest floor. She still threatened him but didn’t sweep in to attack. She had to guard the cub. It was over, if only Father would get away before Gareth fell.
As he fought his own body just to get breath and stay on his feet, Gareth willed his father to sneak away, and willed himself to live just long enough. Slowly, Father! Don’t let her see!
In that moment, while Gareth and the bear faced one another down, he was unable to resist covering the stump of his arm. His palm touched severed flesh and the splintered tip of cracked bone. Redoubled pain seared him, and he cried out. Blood wet his palm, washed over his hand. The edges of his vision went gray and closed in until he couldn’t see at all. He was falling.
His knees hit the ground. The impact jarred him back into the moment and cleared his vision enough to see the bear lunge. Gaping jaws and fangs filled his sight, and he knew he had lost.
Die now, he thought. Himself or the bear, he didn’t know which.
With the last of his strength, he jammed his left hand into the onrushing maw. The animal’s weight and momentum carried her forward even after his claw tore through her skull.
* * *
Gareth came to his senses in agony from both arms now. The bear’s body held him pinned once more. He kicked and struggled to free himself; then Father was there, pulling the dead weight away.
When Gareth finally got free, he lay looking up at the trees and taking ragged gulps of air. It hurt too much to move. Father knelt over him, playing the lantern’s beam over his body, examining the wounds, saying something, but Gareth still couldn’t concentrate enough to hear above the torment of his injuries and the pounding of his heart.
I am a monster. He closed his eyes. Die now.
Father grasped his left hand and—
“Aaaaaaaaah!” Pieces of bone ground together, shattering his senses again. He recovered, gasping for breath and unable to understand why Father would hurt him so. He stared in bewilderment.
“You broke your arm. Had to set the bone.” Father was still breathing heavily. He used the back of his gloved hand to wipe sweat from his face, unaware of the streak of blood it left behind.
“I’m not dying?”
“Well, your arm’s not bleeding anymore. You’re a right mess, but if you’re not dead yet…” He shrugged and pulled the gloves off.
Gareth looked at the torn place where his right arm should have been and saw that the bleeding had indeed stopped. The bone that had been splintered when he touched it still protruded from raw meat, but it was now smooth. “What’s happening?”
Father’s fingers brushed the skin of his thigh. “Your clothes are torn, but the blood just wipes off. Can’t find no wounds.” Father pulled up the shreds of Gareth’s chemise and ran a hand over his belly. “Nothing!”
Gareth raised his head to look down at himself. “No, she clawed me all over! I felt it.” But when he touched himself on the stomach and leg, he could find none of the deep gouges he expected. No gashes or scratches or scrapes.
He realized Father was staring at his hand, and he remembered the claw. But when he brought the hand to his face, he saw that the fingers were normal again, not the great, thornlike talons they had been while he was fighting. His hand was coated with blood and slime, but it was his hand once again. He looked at Father in confusion.
“Don’t that hurt?” Father asked.
“No, my fingers are…like always.”
“I’m talking about your broke arm.”
“Oh!” Gareth rested his head back on the ground and lifted his left arm over his face to look at it. It seemed perfectly normal. He shook it like a bird flapping its wing. Solid.
“Well, if that arm works, let’s do something with these bears. You can’t lie around all night.” Father left the lantern on the ground for a moment and began putting his gloves on even as he stood. As if he had already forgotten Gareth’s suffering.
Gareth opened his mouth to protest, then closed it. What was there to say? Is he crazy? Am I? How could Father pretend nothing strange was happening? He used his remaining arm to lever himself up and stood.
The pain had gone, leaving not so much as an ache in its place. Except for his lost right arm, all the torn places were whole again. Gareth’s clothes were ruined—Mother would be furious—but he felt normal as long as he didn’t touch the exposed meat of the severed arm.
He and most of the surrounding vegetation were slick with blood. Most of it had come from his own body. That should have been frightening, but it was the least terrible of all he had seen and done in the past few moments.
An arm, all saints, his arm, lay dead on the forest floor. Seeing it made him sick in his stomach. How would he do his work now or even climb out of the cellar? What use was he now?
Father shone the lamp into his eyes, making him squint. “Are you coming?”
Gareth took a few tentative steps. His legs worked normally again, but because of the missing arm, he had to move deliberately in order to keep his balance.
He helped his father work for a little while in silence and tried not to worry. When next he looked at the stub of his missing arm, he saw that the wound was covered with fresh, green skin, from which protruded five rubbery little nubs.
Seeing them gave him hope. A crazy, stupid hope that proved to be true. Long before they reached home that night, the arm had grown back.
Chapter Three
Evin was pleased by the day’s progress. He’d been asked to collect a particular fungus that grew on the soggy trunks of fallen trees. Today was a perfect day of the season for finding it. He would be returning early with more good specimens than Madame Tabeau, the village apothecary and his master, perhaps expected.
Picking fungi was a tedious task, so his mind often wandered. The thought of Madame Tabeau’s wizened face brightening with pleasure when she saw today’s harvest had barely faded from his mind before his thoughts returned to a lewd memory he had been enjoying in the few days since his last “hunting trip” with some friends.
The outing had actually been fun, a rare thing these days. Tyber had almost been kind, because he wanted Evin to cooperate in learning a new way to serve him and Johan at the same time. And the new trick had felt glorious, the way Evin held them both inside. Maybe it made him look forward, at least a little, to the next time.
It was easier when Tyber only brought one friend to share him with. More than that and the others would sometimes compete to see who could best debase him. Serving several in one night could be unpleasant. And the things they required of him could be very unpleasant if someone decided not to wash properly. Because of its proximity to water, the riverside
campsite they had chosen was an excellent place for their revels. He hoped they would return to it.
Evin realized that once again he was reminiscing instead of working. It was nice to have a good memory every once in a while, but he needed to stop indulging it. He should finish up and get back to the shop. He picked the last few shelves of fungus from the tree he was working on, placed them into his sack, and started back to the village.
His village was called Laforet. It had started long ago as a small, palisaded fort and had grown to boast several cabins and work buildings all constructed with the thick trunks of oak that grew in the region. The village’s major buildings—aside from the mayor’s cabin—were a wood mill, a workshop, and the fort that served mostly as a warehouse. Tyber’s father, the mayor, said Laforet was well-known for the fine furniture the villagers produced.
The mill and workshop were occasional trysting spots for Tyber, his friends, and Evin, because they stood dark and empty at night. The villagers zealously protected the warehouse, where they stored all the valuable, finished pieces, but the mill and workshop were patrolled by a single guard. These days, they were guarded by Nicolas, one of Tyber’s friends. Tyber simply traded Evin’s favors for access.
Evin entered town. In front of the mayor’s cabin, a group of men talked excitedly to an unfamiliar horseman. Tyber stood with them, taking an animated part in the discussion. He didn’t spare a glance as Evin walked by. Evin always grew uncomfortable when unexpected strangers arrived, so he was curious to know the man’s business. But he knew from experience that Tyber wouldn’t like it if he tried to join the group.
Johan also sometimes worked at the apothecary shop. Evin found him there and asked what was happening.
“Where have you been? The news is all over town already!”
“Working, of course.” Evin hefted his bag of fungus onto a high worktable. “I’ve been in the woods. Now tell me.”
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