Tremors of fear shook me, hunched my shoulders.
Turn back. Go home.
What dangers lay waiting in the world beyond? How long had I been dead? Did I still have living enemies, or were they long gone? I had no way of knowing. What if they came looking and found me cowering in my hut?
Tears ran free and hot. My eyes burned.
“I’m scared,” I said. I didn’t even know what language I spoke.
I was terrified. The path ahead was too much. Too strange, too different from my lonely shack.
I looked south. Something drew me there.
If I stayed here, what was I? A shaggy wild man waiting to die.
If I left…
Would I let fear define me? Was that the kind of man I was?
I walked south.
CHAPTER THREE
On the second day, I finished what remained of my cured meat and lived off insects and leaves. On the fourth day, I shot a rabbit and ate it raw. This being early spring, the little beast was still scrawny. A starved rabbit is a thousand times better than a plump maggot.
On the fifth day, I smelled smoke and cooking meat.
My fear returned. I wanted to run and hide. The familiar security of my shack called to me: Come home, you’ll be safe. Hide here forever.
Lies and false promises. Someone broke me. I had enemies, powerful enemies. I didn’t know who or where, but they were out there. I would not cower.
Nocking one of my arrows, I crept into the brush, staying low and moving slow. Each footstep taken with care. I was in no rush. If it took half a day to reach the fire unseen, that was fine. I’d done enough hunting over the years to know that stealth lay in patience. The eye often failed to track something moving slowly enough. If you were careful, willing to take your time, you could sneak up on just about anything.
The wind was with me, carrying smoke past. It would hide my scent, carrying it away from the fire.
I found a youth, straight dark hair falling past his shoulders. His skin, a pale brown, was darker than the trapper’s, but much lighter than my own. He crouched by the fire, turning a spit with three impaled rabbits. These were fatter than the one I killed. I watched as grease dripped into the fire, heard it sizzling. My mouth watered at the smell. Stabbed into the earth, a spear stood at his side. A shortbow and quiver of arrows leaned against the spear. A long knife, curved and vicious, hung in a soft leather scabbard at his hip. He wore deerskin pants and no shirt. I guessed his age at twelve.
One boy. Three rabbits.
While confident I could eat all three, I doubted this youth planned to do so. There had to be others.
I waited.
The youth fussed with the fire, prodding at it and adding small twigs just to see them burn. I watched him raise a tent made of hides stretched on a wood frame. The tent was large enough for several men.
Where were they?
I took the morning to work myself around the camp. I found no footprints and no sign of anyone other than this lone youth. He seemed unconcerned, and not at all impatient. He gave no hint that he awaited the arrival of others. Did that mean he didn’t expect anyone for some time?
Deciding I’d rather face this boy than a group of unknown numbers, I slung my bow over my shoulder and slipped from the trees. Hopefully he’d be friendly. Or at least not immediately murderous. Somehow, I knew he had no stone in his heart, and I had no pressing drive to kill him. I figured, however, it would be best to get close enough before he saw me so he couldn’t shoot me with his bow.
I took my time approaching the boy, moving slow, examining the ground before placing each foot, all the while keeping an eye on him as he puttered about the camp. Lost in his chores, he failed to notice me.
When I stood a stride away, I said “Hello,” my voice cracking.
I was ready for him to spin in surprise. I was even ready for him to go for the long knife hanging at his belt or to scream or make a mad dash for the trees. What I wasn’t ready for was what happened.
The boy hurled himself at me, teeth bared in a feral snarl. He slammed into me, toppling me backward. Stumbling, I fell. He landed atop me, driving two fast and hard punches into my left eye. The pure animal savagery startled me, but I’d been an animal myself for too long not to react in kind. When he tried to hit me again I caught his arm and threw him off me. He rolled, coming back to his feet, knife drawn, and hurled himself upon me once again. He caught me as I struggled to regain my feet and we rolled, growling and snarling, in the mud, fighting for possession of the knife.
He was strong for a boy, but I had several years on him. In spite of my state of near-starvation, I was the stronger.
The fight left him as I drove the knife into his belly. Dragging the blade free, I rose to stand over him as he curled about his wound, keening like a savaged animal.
I was somehow sure it wasn’t a mortal wound. If I stopped the bleeding he’d likely live. At least assuming infection didn’t get him. These thoughts felt strange to me, distant.
What then? What if I bandaged his wounds?
At some point, whoever he shared this camp with would return. Would they be grateful for me stabbing, but not murdering the boy?
That seemed unlikely. I struggled to see this from their perspective, and failed. The boy attacked me; he brought this on himself.
Should I leave him here to bleed out, head for the trees? I wanted to be moving, to continue my path south. Maybe the others would return before he died. They could save him. That bothered me, the idea of leaving an enemy—even a wounded child—behind me. At the least, he’d be able to point out which direction I went.
What was I, that this made sense?
He was just a boy, not even in his teens.
Reaching down I took his hair in my fist. He whimpered in fear and pain. Pulling his head back I cut his throat. It felt no different than killing a rabbit.
Standing over the boy I had turned into a corpse, I wondered who I was. I hadn’t wanted to kill him, but now that I had, I felt no regret.
“Am I a murderer?”
Was that why they killed me—whoever they were—and scattered the stone of my heart?
Kneeling by the boy, I touched the smooth skin of his chest. There was no stone in there. If I cut him open, all I’d find was the heart of a child. No compulsion moved me to split him wide.
I took his curved knife and leather scabbard. Grabbing the three spitted rabbits, I fled south into the forest like a coyote stealing a wolf’s kill.
CHAPTER FOUR
I ate the first rabbit as I walked, fat dripping down my chin. I cracked its bones and sucked out the marrow, denuded them of meat and sinew, and tossed them aside. It was the best meal I’d eaten in a week.
I ate the second rabbit as the sun fell and the sounds of the night grew in volume. The third rabbit, I ate while sitting on a rock. Sated, belly full, I scraped together a pile of leaves and twigs and crawled in, burying myself. They were dry and served to both shelter me from the cool of night, and hide me from sight. The scriiiitch scriiiiiitch of crickets filled the air and for once I wasn’t using the sound to track and devour their bitter little bodies.
I woke to silence, the forest dark, the stars occluded by heavy cloud. The air tasted of rain, a dank damp.
Remaining still, I listened.
Nothing.
Squinting into the night I searched for even a hint of movement, some clue as to what silenced the crickets. There were two possibilities. Either some animal was nearby, or someone had tracked me from the camp. I realized then that I was unaccustomed to being prey. I’d walked south, thoughtless of the spoor I left behind. I’d tossed rabbit bones aside as I walked, made no attempt to hide my tracks.
If it was an animal, I might be able to startle it, scare it away. With luck, it might even be something I could kill and eat. If it was human, I needed to be a lot more careful.
Burying myself in leaves seemed clever when contemplating the night’s chill. Now, however,
it looked foolish. Even the slightest movement caused a loud rustling. I couldn’t move without giving away my location. Though my bow lay nearby, I dared not reach for it.
A slice of something, a sliver, a shadow in the night. Details grew as it moved closer, the rounded shoulders, hunched gait of a man with a bow stalking prey. He made no sound. I saw his path would bring him within a stride of me. I could do nothing without him hearing me. I couldn’t reach to ready a weapon, couldn’t gather my legs under me in preparation of an attack. Even drawing breath rustled the leaves. When he got close enough, would he hear me?
Six strides away, he paused, hesitating, head moving side to side, as he listened. Lifting the bow, he drew back on an arrow. It was too dark, I couldn’t tell if he aimed at me or merely near me.
I couldn’t chance it.
Rolling from my hiding place, I came to my feet and charged, screaming, hoping the noise and shock would spoil his aim. An arrow hit me from behind, punching into the meat of my thigh, changing my battle-cry from a deep roar to a wail of agony. I hit him, shoved him sprawling to the dirt, and continued past. Fear drove me through the pain. I’d misjudged, there was more than one.
An arrow hissed past my ear, an evil sound. A hand-span to the right and it would have embedded itself in the back of my skull. Ducking, I ran in a staggering zig zag. If they loosed another arrow. I didn’t hear it.
I stumbled through the dark for what felt like hours, falling often, cursing and crying at the pain. The arrow juddered in my leg with every step but terror kept me moving.
I considered stopping, trying to ambush whoever chased me, but I’d left the shortbow and quiver behind when I fled my sleeping place. Raw animal fear drove me on.
When I finally stumbled to a halt, I heard no signs of pursuit over my own wheezing. Light-headed, I stood shaking until I had my breath back. The forest heaved and sighed about me as the wind picked up. It sounded like the laboured inhalations of a great beast. I had this image of a colossal dragon towering over me, glaring down with wise eyes of gold and fire. It flinched away as I raised my hand toward it, and was gone, just a figment of my imagination.
A drop of icy water made it through the canopy above to land on the back of my neck and trickle down my spine. In a score of heartbeats, the drip drip of rain grew to a steady patter and then to a roaring deluge. The sky cracked harsh blue-white with lightning and, for an instant, I saw the forest in brutal detail. Purple after images haunted the ensuing black.
In moments I was soaked through, shivering. Though my breathing calmed, I heard nothing over the torrential downpour. In that instant of light, I saw no sign of pursuit. Had I lost them in the forest? How many were there?
Gritting my teeth, I reached back and touched the arrow still lodged in my leg. Pain staggered me to my knees and I found myself on all fours in the mud. Whimpering, I felt around the wound. I tried not to think about how dirty my hands were. Running hadn’t done me any favours and it felt like a gaping chasm in my flesh. My hand came away sticky and hot and another flash of lightning showed it splashed in blood and filth.
I had to keep moving. My pursuers were out there. Leaving this arrow lodged in my leg, however, was not an option. I had to get it out and stop the bleeding before I lost consciousness. Gripping the shaft, I clenched my jaw against the pain and dragged it from my leg. The arrow came free. Too dark to see much, I felt the arrow shaft and found the blunt end of wood. Shreds of the sinew that once attached the arrowhead to the wood, hung loose. I groaned in pain. Had the arrowhead fallen in the mud, or did it remain within my leg? Was it stuck in the muscle, or lodged in bone? Praying for an illuminating bolt of lightning, I turned and squinted awkwardly at the wound in the back of my thigh. The lightning didn’t cooperate and I saw only black. A wave of nausea doubled me over and I retched partially digested rabbit into the mud.
The arrowhead. I had to get it out. It would fester. I’d be dead in days if whoever hunted me didn’t find me first.
Drawing the knife I took from the boy, I sat back, my ass soaked as silty rainwater swirled around me. Bone-shaking shivers rocked me and left my hands twitching. I felt like all my body’s warmth leaked out the hole in my leg.
Feeling about in the dark, I found a stick and jammed it in my mouth. I bit down hard. It tasted like dirt and worms, flavours I was all too familiar with. Gripping the blade near the tip, I used it to dig about within the wound. I worked by feel, waiting for the sensation of steel on stone.
Lightning slashed the sky, tore the world a bright wound of its own, and I screamed in agony as I fumbled the blade, dropping it into the muck. Cursing the gods, the sky, and the earth below me, I fetched the knife from the dirt. Wiping it on my shirt, I returned to searching for the arrowhead.
I dug at my flesh.
The stick in my mouth crumbled, shedding rough bark, and I thought I’d chew through it. I felt the arrowhead, steel on stone! Clenching my eyes shut, useless in the dark, I levered it free, screaming past the wood. The stone plopped into the water running past me as I fell backward with relief, sighing, and spitting out the branch.
Rain fell on my face and I opened my mouth, letting it fill with water.
Time to get up, I told myself. You have to keep moving.
I couldn’t. I was tired, weak from blood loss. The cold of the water faded, became a distant discomfort. After digging about in my thigh with a knife, everything felt good.
I woke, hollowed and frozen, shivering uncontrollably in the dawn light. To the east the clouds shone red, lit by the rising sun.
“Red sky in morning,” I said. I couldn’t remember the rest.
The sky above, free of clouds and making that imperceptible transition from the black of night to the blue of day, promised warmth. The wound had crusted closed, the damp cotton of my pants having dried over it like a filthy bandage. Clambering to my feet pulled the material from the wound, and blood ran.
What were the chances I got the entire arrowhead free? What were the odds some threads of cotton or clods of dirt remained in the wound?
I was a dead man. Infection would kill me.
An owl hooted to the north, and then another further to the east. I realized infection might not get the chance to end me. Those were no owls.
Setting off into the trees, I set the fastest pace I was capable of. My leg ached, numb and leaden, and I limped badly, falling often.
The owls followed, their calls growing ever closer.
Glancing behind me I saw the scuffed trail of a wounded man stumbling through the bush. It wasn’t subtle. A blind child could follow me.
Dying of infection or no, I didn’t want to take another arrow. I pushed myself faster.
Some part of me woke to the realization that these were likely the parents of the boy I killed. If they caught me, my death would be neither pleasant nor quick. Again, I wondered at myself, at my casual murder of a child.
Never leave an enemy behind you. How could such obvious wisdom be wrong? It felt like an ancient lesson learned the hard way.
I pushed myself faster, sobbing at the pain, opening the wound and leaving a trail of blood as if the marks of my passing weren’t already easy enough to follow.
One of the owls hooted, its call so close I spun, expecting to see someone. I was alone in the forest. Instead of an answering owl call, a man screamed, a wet tearing gurgle cut short. I froze in indecision. That lone owl hooted again.
Nothing answered.
Again, a plaintive hoot.
Listening, I heard nothing, the unnatural quiet of the forest. That decided me. Praying the scream came from one of my hunters, I set off toward the sound. Hopefully whatever killed him wasn’t still there and I could loot the body for weapons. If whoever it was had a bow, maybe I could even kill the one still tracking me.
I found where my pursuer died, the dirt scuffed and kicked by a brief struggle. Sprayed blood spattered leaves for several strides and the gory trail in the dirt said his corpse had been dragged
away. His weapons must have been taken along with him. I found nothing.
The taint of rot tickled my nose. I’d seen wolves and predators roll on the corpses of their victims to disguise their scent, and whatever this beast rolled on had been ripe indeed.
The other parent would come to investigate.
I scrambled up the nearest large tree and settled in to wait. If they saw me, I’d be an easy target. Hopefully they’d be more focussed on the ground and finding their friend.
I didn’t have to wait long before a woman slipped from the trees. She wore skins like the boy, a shortbow held ready with an arrow nocked. She prowled like an animal, making no sound and leaving no track. Straight black hair hung to her waist. I couldn’t begin to guess her age.
Her path would bring her near enough. I could drop on her with a bit of a leap. I didn’t relish the prospect of landing with my leg in this condition, but anything was better than suffering another arrow wound. I watched her slow, studying the trail left by whatever dragged her partner away. She tested the air, sniffing. Turning, she raised her head and I knew she’d see me.
I jumped, and the shortbow came up, the arrow drawn, her eyes widening in surprise even as she acted to kill me. Crashing into her, I sent us both slamming to the dirt. We scuffled, punching and clawing, and she rolled away, coming to her feet, long knife drawn. I rose more slowly, groaning, and drawing the knife I took from the boy. She recognized it and a look of purest hatred, utter animal rage, crossed her features. She bared teeth, spitting strange words I couldn’t understand.
The shortbow lay shattered between us. I’d broken it when I landed on her. The arrows with their evil sharpened flint heads lay scattered in the dirt, having spilled from the quiver.
We circled each other, measuring, but also alert in case whatever took her partner returned. The forest remained eerily silent, our breathing, her staccato spat hate, the only sounds. What could kill an armed man and drag him away so quickly? Why had it taken him instead of eating him right then and there? It was like the creature had fled, though I couldn’t imagine whatever it was had much to fear from me.
Black Stone Heart (The Obsidian Path Book 1) Page 2
