Box of Runes An Epic Fantasy Collection

by J. Thorn

  “He’s going to die,” said Kelsun.

  “It is out of my hands,” replied Jaithe.

  “Maybe. But his blood is on them.”

  The three men of the darkest night stepped towards Anas. The first gagged him with black fabric, the second blindfolded him. His muffled cries broke through and rang in the ears of Jaithe, Kelsun, and Aiden. The men cut the binds holding him to the tree and dragged him to the sacred oak. The drumming resumed, somehow resonating over the din of the hysteric villagers. The werowance raised a hand and silenced all. He spoke several words. The drummer picked up the cadence when the werowance finished.

  The executioners raised the objects over their heads again, the finest and sharpest sea shells. They used the shells to cut Anas’ clothes from his body, leaving his bonds intact. Anas shuddered, his body convulsing from the cold and fear, and his white skin turned red, a contrast to the snow. Several other men started a fire next to the sacred oak. The men of black tossed his tattered clothes into it, and the flames leapt and devoured the garments, casting off a pall of black smoke.

  Their black hands held the white shells with a firm grip. They dropped to the ground, scrambling about at Anas’ feet, and the first to stand held his bloody toe. The crowd roared to life and pushed closer to the oak without crossing the spiritual threshold. Aiden vomited, and Jaithe pinned his chin to his chest.

  The other two executioners stood, holding their prized cuts. Each detachment brought a new fervor from the villagers. The men would pause after each one, tossing the severed flesh into the fire. The gag kept Anas’ screams trapped in his mouth until the shells stripped the skin off his legs. His head lolled to one side. The princess attempted to step behind the werowance, but each attempt was met by his firm hand, forcing her back to witness the ritual.

  Once they removed Anas’ skin, the black surgeons worked to sever his limbs in various places. Each hunk of flesh, piece of bone, or strand of cartilage found the fire, which cast black smoke and the wretched aroma of roasting flesh. One cut Anas from his pubic region to the top of his chest, spilling his vitals. The man’s organs slithered and smoked when the cold air made contact. Before dismembering his torso, they removed his blindfold and gag. The surgeons of the ceremony proceeded to skin his face, taking the cuts of the shells down to the bone. They removed his hair and handed it to the werowance, who pinned the scalp to his chest and returned to the litter. The escorts carried him away, and the maidens ushered the princess in line behind him.

  When the executioners had finished the ceremony, no identifiable form of Anas remained. The villagers turned, one at a time, and headed back to the biting cold of the Dark Time. Anas’ blood smeared the black paint, giving the men with shells a sinister look. They cut the binds on Aiden, Jaithe, and Kelsun and motioned them towards the hut of the werowance.

  Jaithe led his men away from the vile scene, pulling them along and past the crackling fire. A pack of dogs rushed to the sacred oak, where they descended on the carved flesh.

  Chapter 8

  “They did skin him alive.”

  “The soul of Anas is with Him now. He feels no more pain.”

  Aiden and Kelsun tossed twigs into the flame, the fire snapping them like the bites of a land tortoise. Jaithe stood behind the two men with a hand on each of their shoulders.

  Kelsun turned and looked up at Jaithe. “Why did they not do the same to us?”

  Jaithe shook his head. Aiden’s gaze never left the tickling blue root of the blaze, though he walked around the fire and sat opposite the man and the boy. Their forms wavered through the heat, the light from the flames casting their faces in hues of red and orange. The tent’s sides pulsed in and out with the force of the gale blowing through the village. The aroma of cooked animal flesh and roasted maize clung to the air, reminding the inhabitants of the empty rumblings in their stomachs. The fire pit sat low in the floor, and the smoke raced for the opening at the top of the tent. Jaithe listened to the padded silence of the snow-covered land, punctuated by an occasional bark of the Naturals.

  “It is time I relay my knowledge of the werowance and his means of securing rule over the dominion. You must hold what I tell you with the same grip as you would a flask of water in the desert. It may save your life in the same manner.”

  Kelsun nodded and looked at Aiden, who rolled his eyes and pursed his lips.

  “Their ceremonies are bestial. No record of past occurrences will speak to future tendencies,” said Aiden.

  “True. However, having even a sliver of an understanding of the cult of the Natural may save the Commonwealth.”

  Aiden raised an arm and balled his fist, deferring to Jaithe. He reached into his cloak and opened a satchel of herb. Kelsun’s eyes lit up and his tongue dangled over an open lip.

  “May I partake?” he asked.

  Jaithe looked at Aiden, who nodded in return.

  “I believe the events of this day warrant your first taste of smoke. If Aiden cares to share his stash . . . ”

  Aiden nodded again at Jaithe, and Kelsun sidled up to him and reached for the pipe.

  “It must glow before you can inhale,” said Aiden.

  Kelsun put the pipe to his mouth and drew breath. His eyes opened wide, and the color fell from his face. A mumbled mixture of smoke and spittle flew off his lips as he turned the violent cough towards the flap of the tent. Kelsun stumbled through the opening, continuing to expel the tainted air from his lungs. Jaithe chuckled and took the pipe from Aiden. The two men smoked the remainder of the herb, waiting for Kelsun to rejoin them.

  “It is wretched,” said Kelsun upon his return to the fire.

  “Herb is an acquired taste,” replied Aiden.

  Jaithe sighed and crossed his legs underneath himself. He shoved another log into the fire pit and stoked the embers to an angry glow. Kelsun and Aiden straightened their backs, while Jaithe removed a battered journal. The stained leather cover protected yellowing, dog-eared pages of fine ink. Jaithe turned the pages with a lover’s touch, caressing each corner as his eyes drank of the script.

  “This werowance is one of many. He is the most powerful one on our charted maps, but one of many nonetheless. It is a term used as we would ‘commander.’

  “They all know their several lands and habitations, and their limits to fish, fowl, or hunt in, but they hold all of the great werowance, unto whom they pay tribute of skins, beads, copper, pearl, deer, turkeys, wild beasts, and corn. What he commandeth they dare not disobey in the least thing. It is strange to see with what great fear and adoration all these people do obey this werowance. For at his feet they present whatsoever he commandeth, and at the least frown of his brow their greatest spirits will tremble with fear. And no marvel, for he is very terrible and tyrannous in punishing such as offend him.

  “For example, he caused certain malefactors to be bound hand and foot, then having of many fires gathered great store of burning coals, they rake these coals round in the form of a cockpit, and in the midst they cast the offenders to broil to death. Sometimes he calls for the heads of them that offend him to be laid upon the altar or sacrificing stone, and one with clubs beats out their brains. When he would punish any notorious enemy or malefactor, he causes him to be tied to a tree, and with sea shells or reeds, the executioner cuts off his joints, one after another, ever casting what they cut off into the fire.”

  Aiden hitched and coughed, masking the edges of a solemn whimper. He looked at Jaithe and shook a tear from his face.

  “Then doth he proceed with shells and reeds to case the skin from his head and face; then do they rip his belly and so burn him.

  “Their ordinary correction is to beat them with cudgels. I have seen a man kneeling on his knees, and at the werowance’s command two men have beat him on the bare skin till he hath fallen senseless in a sound, and yet never cry nor complained. And he made a woman, for playing the whore, sit upon a great stone on her bare bottom twenty four hours, only with corn and water every three days, t
ill nine days were past and yet he loved her exceedingly. Notwithstanding, there are common whores by profession.

  “His minions tell a story of retribution on a rival werowance. First he sent diverse of his men as to lodge against them that night, then the ambuscades environed their houses, and at the hour appointed they all fell to the spoils. Twenty-four men they slew; the long hair of the one side of their heads, with the skin cased off with shells or reeds, they brought away. They surprised also the women, and the children, and the rival werowance. All these they presented to the werowance. The rival, women, and children became his prisoners and do him service.

  “The locks of hair with their skins he hanged on a line betwixt two trees. And thus he made ostentation of his triumphant vengeance.”

  Aiden packed another pipe. Kelsun placed a hand over his mouth and looked away.

  “The werowance has fastened the terrors on your mind’s eye. Do you know his motivations?” asked Aiden.

  Jaithe drew a deep breath, as if drawing courage to create the words flowing off his lips. “They have diverse conjurations. One they made when I was their prisoner. They have also certain altar stones they call pawcorances, but these stand from their temples, some by their houses, others in the woods and wildernesses, where they have had any extraordinary accident or encounter. And as you travel, at those stones they will tell you the cause why they were erected, which from age to age they instruct their children, as their best records of antiquities. Upon these they offer blood, deer suet, and herb. This they do when they return from the wars, from hunting, and upon many other occasions.

  “Then they have also another superstition that they use in storms, when the waters are rough in the river and seacoasts. Their conjurers run to the water sides, or passing in their boats, after many hellish outcries and invocations they cast herb, copper, puccoon, or such trash into the water to pacify that god whom they think to be very angry in those storms.

  “Before their dinners and suppers the better sort will take the first bite and cast it in the fire, which is all the grace they are known to use. In some distant part of the country they have yearly a sacrifice of children, which has been thus performed: Fifteen of the properest boys, between ten and fifteen years of age, they painted white. Having brought them forth, the people spent the forenoon in dancing and singing about them with rattles.

  “In the afternoon they put those children to the root of a tree. By them all the men stood in a guard, everyone having a bastinado in his hand made of reeds bundled together. This made a lane between them all along, through which there were appointed five young men to fetch these children. So every one of the five went through the guard to fetch a child, each after other by turns, the guard fiercely beating them with their bastinadoes and they patiently enduring and receiving all, defending the children with their naked bodies from the unmerciful blows that pay on them soundly, though the children escape. All this while the women weep and cry out very passionately, providing mats, skins, moss, and dry wood, as things fitting their children’s funerals.

  “After the children were thus past the guard, the guard tore down the trees, branches, and boughs with such violence that they rent the body, and made wreaths for their heads, or bedecked their hair with leaves. What else was done with the children I did not see, but they were all cast on a heap in a valley as dead, where they made a great feast for all the company.

  “The werowance, being demanded the meaning of this sacrifice, answered that the children were not dead, but that the Okine did suck the blood from the left breasts of those who chanced to be his by lot, till they were dead. The rest were kept in the wilderness by the young men till nine months were expired, during which time they must not converse with any; and of these were made their priests and conjurers.

  “The Naturals believe that their werowances and priests, when they are dead, go beyond the mountains towards the setting of the sun, and ever remain there in the form of Okine, with their heads pained with oil and puccoon, finely trimmed with feathers, and shall have beads, hatchets, copper, and herb, doing nothing but dance and sing with all their predecessors. The common folk suppose that they shall not live after death, and thus rot in their graves like dead dogs.”

  Kelsun shivered and shook his head. He waited to make sure Jaithe had completed his thought. “You have seen this with your own eyes?” he asked.

  Jaithe nodded.

  Aiden shifted and peered into his empty satchel. He tossed it to the floor and shook the ash from his vest. “It is time to rally swords with the werowance, to save the Commonwealth,” he said.

  Jaithe added, “And for the preservation of the Ways.”

  Kelsun sat, picking the bothersome flakes of herb from his teeth.

  Chapter 9

  “Sit,” said the werowance, using one of the few words of the pales that he knew. Jaithe nodded and sat next to Aiden, Kelsun following suit on his right. Jaithe moved his eyes from one guard to another, fifteen in all. He blinked at Aiden, instructing him to placate the whims of the werowance.

  The werowance spoke his language with an even, steady rhythm. A conjurer on his left injected a string of words, some of which made sense to Jaithe, while others tumbled and fell from the old man’s lips as discarded chunks of failed translation. Jaithe waited for the werowance to finish before speaking to Aiden and Kelsun.

  “He demands an alignment, a truce between the Commonwealth and the Naturals. If we promise to stunt the flow of colonists, he will protect us from the attacks of other werowances.”

  Kelsun huffed and looked at Aiden. “What’s to stop him from backstabbing us, selling our souls to another werowance?”

  “Nothing,” replied Jaithe, before Aiden could speak. “We are in no position to barter. The werowance holds the power of this summit, which is not a state of affairs that we can alter at the moment.”

  Aiden tossed a twig on the fire and faced Jaithe. “We can’t stop the company from sending more vessels, weighted down with eager eyes gazing at the vast lands of the Naturals. What happens when the werowance sees this?”

  “War,” Jaithe replied.

  The word excited the conjurer, pushing him into a frenzied dance. He shouted at the werowance, spittle flying from his lips. The leader sat, never flinching or removing his eyes from Jaithe.

  “One which you shall lose.”

  Jaithe froze, tossing his head at Kelsun and then Aiden. “You have earned your title through strength and intelligence,” he said to the werowance.

  “As have you, Captain of the Pale.” The werowance waved an arm at the guards standing inside the tent. They scurried for the flap, leaving two to guard the entrance. The conjurer collapsed in a corner, mumbling and groaning into his lap. Within a few moments, two young women entered carrying pipes and leather satchels full of herb. Their loose hides swung low as they placed the pipes at the feet of the werowance, revealing the pleasant curves of youth. Kelsun sat with his mouth agape, watching the girls spin and leave. The scent of crushed petals lingered in the tent before the smoke of the fire swallowed it.

  Jaithe watched the werowance pack four pipes with the herb, each identical in shape but painted differently. The werowance handed a white one to Jaithe, the bowl of the pipe imprinted with a red hand.

  “We have customs by which we must abide, even though you are not of us.”

  Jaithe nodded and lifted the pipe to his lips. Kelsun and Aiden did the same. The conjurer lifted his head, saw the sharing of herb, and wailed with his arms outstretched to the sky. The werowance looked at one guard, who grabbed the conjurer by an arm and dragged him from the tent.

  “The old one does not approve,” said Jaithe.

  “He fears for us, as do I,” replied the werowance.

  ***

  The Journal of Edward Jaithe, 28 December

  The leader of the Naturals honored his ancestors by following customs dictated for tribal settlements. In a fair, plain field they made a fire, and amongst the woods came such
a hideous noise and shrieking that we supposed the werowance with all his power had come to slay us. Thirty young women came naked out of the woods, covered with only a few green leaves, their bodies painted with different colors. One woman wore a pair of buck’s horns on her head, and an otter’s skin at her girdle. The next carried a sword, another a club, another a pot stick, all with horns upon their heads. These fiends, with most hellish shouts and cries, rushed from among the trees and cast themselves in a ring about the fire, singing and dancing with bestial passion. Having spent nearly an hour in this masquerade, they entered and began whispering into the ears of our men, using the temptation of skin in their wicked ways.

  Being a man of the Commonwealth and sworn to the sacred union of marriage under its terms, I did not partake in the flesh offering of the Naturals. However, it did require the bulk of my willpower to decline the most salacious offerings. I have no confirmation that Aiden held to the same bond, but do know that Kelsun, tied to no such contract, partook in the temptations presented.

  The conversation with the werowance resumed the next day, presumably softened by the events described hereto. Under consultation from Aiden, the Commonwealth entered into a pact with the Naturals, under the leadership of the werowance. The contract stipulated the ceasing of exploration by the Commonwealth, being thus satisfied with the lands seized presently. In addition, the Commonwealth would provide a safe trade haven for Naturals wishing to exchange their goods for those crafted in or imported to the Commonwealth. The werowance assured us that the Naturals would not provoke a member of the Commonwealth through the use of antagonistic gestures or threatening violence. The Naturals, under this leader, would stand shoulder to shoulder with us in defense of the Commonwealth from attacks by other tribes.

  At the conclusion of our conversation with the werowance, the Naturals provided us with fine steeds and three days’ sustenance to ensure a safe and successful journey back to the Commonwealth. We did not speak of the murder of Anas with the werowance, being under the assumption that the sacrifice was necessary for the werowance to retain his face and that it would save the rest of the Commonwealth. Aiden, Kelsun, and I traveled back home, neither talking nor debating the terms of our contract with the werowance and his peoples.