The Redwoods

by Ross Turner

  Lifting her heavy arms slowly to her chest, Vivian wrapped her hands around the broad blade yet even still protruding from between her ribs. Grunting as she did so, she pulled hard, and with the terrible sound of steel grinding against bone, she forced the thick sword from her body. She cut her hands dreadfully as she did so, though they did not bleed much, and nor did the gaping chasm of a wound at her chest as the blade was removed, for there was little blood left for her to lose.

  She dropped the heavy weapon to the floor and it clattered against the stone with a high pitched steely ring. The sound reverberated around the still city ceaselessly, sounding something of a warning bell to all those that heard it.

  The Featherstones would not be defeated so easily.

  Not this time.

  Vivian once again looked down at her massive open wounds, gaping and awful, unsure at first exactly how her body was still functioning. But then of course, the answer became all too clear, and she began to use the very same power that was keeping her alive to repair herself.

  Focusing in on her gaping chest first, the Greystones looking on in disbelief, she began to sew and fuse the broken fragments of flesh and skin and muscle and bone back together. It was a long and arduous process, and indeed not one entirely free from pain, but nonetheless, no one was going anywhere: Vivian made certain of that.

  Sure enough, when any of the Greystones tried to move, they soon discovered that the muscles in their legs were completely useless, frozen into place by Vivian’s sorcery, and no amount of effort they could muster would undo the spell she had placed upon them, for her power was simply too great. Spreading out all around her, sealing them all in their place, they were helpless to resist Vivian’s monstrous hold.

  Instead they could only watch, looking on with a mixture of awe, disbelief and sheer terror, as their lifelong enemy stitched herself back together, recovering her own body in only a matter of minutes, seemingly from the dead.

  Finally Vivian sighed and relaxed her concentration, twisting her torso and stretching it this way and that, ensuring that she had fixed everything. It felt fine, albeit a little strange, and so she turned her attention then to the deep gashes on her hands.

  Those took less time to repair, for the damage was not as extensive. Soon she was finished, pleased with her work and, after casting a quick glance at Red’s body, something she could not help but do, she turned her attention once again back to her terrible enemies: the Greystones.

  23

  “I will never let you hurt an innocent soul ever again - human or animal alike.” Vivian’s words were spoken coldly, and with a bitter resentment that left nothing about her intentions uncertain or to question.

  She stepped forward, her first stride towards the elder both bold and meaningful, full of threat. Her menace was all too obvious, and those Greystones immediately before her moved to intercept the young woman, all of a sudden able to move again.

  Grabbing Vivian roughly by her shoulders, two burly men attempted to hurl her to the ground, but they could not budge her, no matter how hard they tried. They grunted and heaved, pushing and pulling Vivian this way and that, tearing at her arms and legs, but they could not move her, not even an inch. Her face remained expressionless like stone, and her body was not even tensed in resistance. It was simply immovable.

  “What the…!?” One of the men attempting to move her gasped. But before he could finish his sentence, before he even had chance to try, a gruesome cracking and breaking sound interrupted him, and what followed were unified screams of sheer agony.

  The two men attempting to restrain Vivian, powerful and strong though they may have been, crumpled to the floor in complete anguish. One by one, slowly and very forcefully, the bones in their feet and legs and hands and arms began to splinter and snap and break, jutting out at terrible angles beneath their skin, breaking the surface here and there, spurting and oozing thick, red blood.

  They squirmed and writhed on the floor for a few minutes whilst Vivian and the other Greystones still remaining watched, looking on sternly and fearfully.

  Finally, the two men quieted and stilled as the bones in their backs began to break and crumble, rendering the two brutes paralysed and immobile, but not quite dead, not yet. That would come later. Much, much later. Or at least that was what Vivian intended.

  As she continued forward, though it was clear what fate awaited them, the final remaining Greystones standing between Vivian and the elder all spurred forward to stop her. Whether they were driven by some sense of duty, revenge, or fear of the old man they were protecting, Vivian wasn’t sure, and she really didn’t care. She broke them just as slowly and just as painfully as she had broken the first two, and she had no intention of ending any of their suffering any time soon either.

  It wasn’t long before the plague that was creeping and spreading from Red’s cold, dead carcass reached them too, only adding to the pain of their shattered and broken bodies.

  Vivian ignored the scene unfolding behind her and at her feet. She knew what the plague felt like. She didn’t need to see it again. Now her attention was focused wholly on the elder standing before her. His old, wearied eyes bored into hers, with at least several lifetime’s worth of hatred built up behind them.

  Nonetheless, Vivian’s disgust and lust for vengeance more than matched his own, and the loathing emanating between them could clearly be felt building all around, resonating through the very stone itself.

  “Why?”

  That was all Vivian said at first. Her voice was cold and almost entirely emotionless, though quite how she was bottling up her anger she wasn’t sure.

  The old man just scoffed at her, the faint glimmer of a smile touching his chapped and faded lips. His lips were just as cracked and crease lined as the rest of his face, worn so harshly by the heavy hand of time, and his hair was long and grey, unkempt and matted.

  “Because your parents stood in our way. Because your whole family has always stood in our way!” He retorted, his anger rising along with his tone, shaping it into something of a crescendo. “All their decisions! All their so called power and leadership! All they ever did was hold us back! We could have been so much more!”

  The old man caught his tongue there, managing to stop himself before he tipped over the edge. Fear was evident in the whites of his eyes. He knew if he lost himself Vivian would retaliate, and he wouldn’t stand a chance. This was a losing battle he was fighting, and he was growing evermore desperate.

  But Vivian shook her head then, slowly and firmly.

  “That wasn’t what I meant.” She said steadily, controlling herself still. “Why did you create the plague? Why would anyone ever create something like that!?” This time Vivian struggled to restrain herself, but she managed to do so, waiting for the old man’s answer furiously, thinking of all that she had lost - all that had been taken from her.

  “You left me no choice!” Was the elder’s immediate reply. “We would never have been free to rule while a Featherstone was still alive! I had to flush you out!”

  Vivian raised her hand sharply then, silencing him suddenly, shaking her head.

  “Just to find me!?” She asked angrily. “I would have stayed in the Redwoods forever if you hadn’t created it!” She raged, her voice rising frighteningly. “I would never have come back! I had nothing to come back to! THANKS TO YOU!” She screamed, her voice peaking ferociously.

  They elder held his tongue anxiously. Vivian was dangerously close to the edge, and he could see it. His life was hanging by a thread.

  But she continued.

  “And now you’re going to kill everyone!” She screamed again, waving her arms madly at the blackness still spreading behind her, creeping closer by the second. “YOU HAVE TO STOP IT!”

  Now it was the old man’s turn to shake his head.

  “It can’t be stopped now.” He told her quietly, his voice heavy, though it was without resentment. He sounded almost proud, and that sickened Vivian to the stomach.
She looked around, seeing the plague spreading still from her dear Red’s body and etching its way closer and closer to them both, threatening to kill them just as it had killed Clover.

  She turned back to face the elder, still standing fast, and she clutched him fiercely by the front of his ragged robes.

  “Stop it, now!” She whispered viciously. “Stop it, or I will…”

  The old man simply scoffed again and smiled, knowing he had Vivian backed into a corner.

  “I’ve already created it.” He almost laughed, his ribs heaving. “Kill me! I don’t care! It doesn’t matter now! You’ll still lose!”

  “There aren’t any of you left.” Vivian replied, hoping to sway the old man. But he only smirked.

  “There aren’t any of you left either.” He pointed out coolly. “It’s just the two of us. I don’t care if we don’t win anymore.” He admitted then. “Just as long as you lose…”

  This was utter madness.

  “EVERYONE IS GOING TO DIE!!!” Vivian screamed, shrieking her words at the old man through gritted teeth, frustrated and furious.

  He leant forwards slowly, pressing his face right up against Vivian’s, his eyes fierce.

  “I don’t care.” He whispered slowly and quietly, emphasising every word, not with even a hint of falsity in his voice - not a trace. “I don’t care, just as long as you die along with them…”

  “It doesn’t matter if I die.” Vivian responded, spitting her words like venom. “But I am not going to let you kill anyone else!”

  “Try and stop me.” He replied menacingly, tauntingly even. Vivian set her jaw, grinding her teeth in both frustration and determination.

  The old man’s smile cut through to her heart most cruelly.

  “Who are you?” She asked, her voice dropping to a whisper again. He laughed coldly and rubbed his pointed chin wistfully.

  “I gave my name up many lifetimes ago.” He replied almost sorrowfully, his words most definitely pensive. “They just call me The Grey now.” He explained. “Or they did at least.” He added with a weak laugh, glancing round at his fallen kin.

  “Don’t you care about them at all!?” Vivian asked, at least some of her feeble human emotion showing through now, exasperated.

  “They don’t matter.” He said indifferently, shrugging his shoulders slightly. “All that matters is the task. And you can’t stop me now. Even if you kill me. There’s nothing you can do.”

  But Vivian shook her head, closing her eyes both in disbelief at the old man’s cruelty and in defiance of his words.

  “You’re wrong Grey.” She said resolutely, her voice quiet with white hot anger. “Just watch me.”

  24

  Over the many years she had spent running and hiding and trying to forget, Vivian had compiled quite the list of memories she would much rather have elapsed, or better yet never have experienced. Some of those memories were old, though definitely not on their way to being erased from her thoughts, and some were so recent she could still smell them lingering in the air.

  All of them however, no matter how upsetting or emotive, joined together to make up the person she had become.

  There was one memory in particular, embedded so deeply in Vivian’s subconscious, that it had plagued her dreams ever since she was a girl. In fact, it had tormented her the whole time she had lived with Red and Clover in the Redwoods.

  It was this memory that she dug from the deepest recesses of her mind and conjured up then, and cast herself into it in a way that she had never imagined she would ever want to do, for she had spent the last six years running and hiding from it.

  Vivian had translocated herself before - teleported herself through space - though when she had done it she hadn’t even been aware of it: many years ago, in the Redwoods, when she had been hunting with Red and Clover.

  She remembered it very clearly.

  It had been yet another day when Vivian had been convinced that she was going to die. The wolf had exploded from the undergrowth, eyes set upon the deer, and Vivian had found herself right in its path. Though, of course, she hadn’t really been in its path, she had translocated herself out of her body. Out of space even.

  Afterwards she hadn’t really known what to think. But the more and more she had dwelled on it, playing the strange events of that day over in her mind, the clearer it became. She knew what had happened. She knew what she had done, and now she needed to do it again.

  This time, however, just translocating herself out of space wouldn’t be enough.

  Just as The Grey had told her, Vivian knew that killing him here would make no difference, the plague already had a foothold, and there was only one other place she knew for absolute certain he would be.

  A place from long ago.

  So, instead, she would have to find him there.

  And to do that, she needed yet again to do something she’d never done before. She would have to translocate herself out of both time and space.

  So that was exactly what she did.

  Within moments the ruined surroundings all about them vanished, only to be replaced by solid stone walls: tall and strong and sturdy, warm to the touch, which was a refreshing change to the cold, harshness of Virtus. The walls were then lined with flickering torches, and the ground beneath their feet levelled out and the encroaching blackness vanished, disappearing along with the bodies of their fallen comrades, replaced by long, stretching corridors with stone walls of dancing firelight.

  To begin with the long hallways were quiet, too quiet in fact, and Vivian and The Grey stood there alone, still facing off against each other. At first there was little to suggest anything had changed at all. But after not too long faint voices could be heard, shouting, and the once familiar smell of a roasting spit caught Vivian’s nostrils.

  The old man’s smirk soon faded as his attention wandered to his changing surroundings, and his face filled with a look of dread and terror.

  “What have you done?” He managed to croak. But before Vivian could answer his all too obvious question, they were both interrupted by shouting and screaming echoing from down the corridor, and they spun their heads to look.

  Suddenly, another hauntingly familiar sight came darting round the corner and down the hallway towards them.

  “This way!” Dorian Featherstone shouted as he parried a Greystone swing and lunged forward, driving his blade through the man’s chest. He continued to lead his wife and young daughter down the corridor, protecting them every step of the way, Greystone warriors appearing and disappearing all the while. Many attempts to kill the three of them were made, but all failed miserably, falling either to the sword or sorcery of Dorian Featherstone, it didn’t matter which.

  Vivian watched her father lead her and her mother down the corridor, and followed him down the staircase towards the main entrance, the whole experience as fresh in her memory as Red’s so recent death, as if her mother and father too had been killed only moments ago.

  The corridors and stairways were lit with the dancing fires of lighted torches, hung at even spaces along the walls. With each torch that her long lost family passed, the light flickered and twitched, but when she and The Grey passed them, as she dragged him in tow, they made not even a slight change, for neither of them were really there.

  This was little more than a memory. Vivian was imposing herself upon the past, and, admittedly, she wasn’t even sure if what she wanted to do would work.

  But she had no choice. She had no other plan.

  It had to work.

  Before she knew it, her younger self and her mother and father burst out of the main doors of the Keep, her father opening them effortlessly with his sorcery. That was something that had confused Vivian when she was younger, but she fully understood now, watching it happen all over again.

  Immediately, just as before, they were faced by the three guards.

  “And where do you think you’re going?” The man to the left asked, not for the first time, and the chilling mem
ory set Vivian on edge.

  “Out of my way.” Vivian’s father growled, somehow even more fiercely than she remembered, before the short battle began.

  The swings and strikes of that particular duel between the four of them Vivian had replayed in her mind over and over again for years, and each one was ingrained so perfectly in her memory that now she was watching it for the second time, she knew exactly how it would play out. She pre-empted who would attack, and precisely when they would do so, and she was not wrong even once.

  Partway through the exchange, when Vivian no longer wished to watch, her gaze flickered to her much younger self, stood wide eyed and full of fear at her mother’s side. It was at that moment that she felt an almost overwhelming urge to rush forwards and clutch the two of them, and hold them close, her father too. She wanted to embrace them and tell them everything would be fine.

  But of course she couldn’t, because it was then that the inevitable happened once again.

  Vivian and The Grey turned their heads sharply as a scuffling to their left, further down the corridor, caught their attention. They saw a figure emerge from the shadows, and in the flickering torchlight Vivian picked up many details about the man that she had not noticed before, back when she was only a girl.

  His face was scarred and burned and his eyes were narrow like slits, as if seeing too much at once would hurt them. He paused for a moment, spying the three Featherstones before him, and fingered a blade loosely in his right hand.

  Without another moment’s pause, he let fly the knife, and struck Vivian’s mother square in the back. Vivian’s stomach churned horribly at the sight, but what was worst of all was the slight grin that the man let slip across his face when he saw Miranda’s suffering.

  She had not seen that before.

  “MOTHER!”

  “MIRANDA!”

  Though Vivian heard her younger self and her father scream, she barely registered their words, nor did she look at them. Her anger was too keenly focused at that point.