by Scott Bury
“Good evening, gentle folk,” the stranger said with a heavy accent. “Can you tell me the name of this village?”
“Holody,” said Roslaw, the headman. They actually called the village Nastasiu. Holody meant simply “fort”—they did not trust outsiders. Best to give away as little as possible. The holody was a small log palisade around one of the hills beside the village.
“What a charming little hamlet.” As if he were a native, the old man sat on a stone among the villagers. “And would you kind people have a bit of water for a thirsty traveller?” Someone passed him a clay cup and he gulped it down, then held it out for more and got it. Would they give me water if I just held out a cup? Javor wondered.
All the villagers stared at the old man without saying anything. Finally, Roslaw demanded “And who might you be, stranger?”
“My name is Photius.” A Greek!
“And where do you come from, and where are you going?” Roslaw asked.
“I come from Constantinople, but by way of long journeys through many troubled lands, and I am headed north.”
“What are you looking for?” Roslaw continued, but he was drowned out by an excited babble as the village’s entire adult male population forgot their caution and marvelled at this rarest of sights, a stranger.
“Constantinople! Have you seen Constantinople?” “Are its walls really made of gold?” “Were they built by a god?” “Is the war with the Persians over?” “Is Justinian still the emperor?”
The stranger was laughing. “So many questions! I’ll answer them all, of course, but first you must answer a question or two of mine. Is there somewhere I can spend the night? And can I get a little something to eat here?”
Looking at Photius’ wrinkled face, Javor had a horrifying thought. “What do you know about this?” he demanded, his voice a hoarse whisper.
The old man shook his head, his long beard waving. “Less than you, my boy. Please, sit by the fire.” He pulled out a wineskin from under his cloak and gave Javor a drink. Then he gave him a small piece of cake. Somehow the cake was nourishing. He felt stronger, calmer.
The sun had set and the sky was nearly black. In the firelight, the Greek traveller appeared strange, different from anyone Javor knew in some way that he could not define.
“I’m terribly sorry about your parents, boy,” said Photius in a gentle, yet hoarse voice. “About your whole village. First raiders, now this—it’s too much in two days.”
“I’m not a boy anymore. I’m 15 now.”
“Ah. Well, that may be fortunate.” The old man took a drink of wine.
“Who did this? Did you see?”
Photius nodded. “Oh, yes. A monster.”
“Don’t tell me stories ...”
“No story, Javor. It was a monster, twice the size of a man. It swept into the village like a whirlwind, knocking down houses and killing to inflict terror. It was looking for something, something it found in your house.”
“In my house?”
“It came straight toward your hut. Your father tried to bar it, threatened it with his scythe, but the monster knocked him down in a heartbeat. Your mother didn’t even have time to scream. At least, for them, it was quick.”
“But why?”
“Think, Javor. What did your family have that no one else in this village has?”
The answer hit Javor like a bucket of cold water. The amulet! He sprang to his feet, stepped gingerly past his father’s body again—someone had pulled Swat to one side and arranged his arms and legs so he did not look quite as horrifying. Inside, he tried not to look at his mother, but saw that someone had straightened her neck and arranged her hands across her chest.
Her hands: he could see her delicate, clever hands taking out a wooden box from somewhere in the hut—her hiding spot. He could see her hand brushing her long hair over her shoulder, then lifting the wooden lid with an air of reverence and expectation. It was evening, and it was dark in the hut. Ketia lit one candle, so Javor knew she thought was she was about to show him was important. She looked into his eyes, and he knew that she expected Javor to be thrilled about whatever was in the box.
Javor remembered hearing the neighbours, Borys and Mara, gossiping with Javor’s father outside. “Can you imagine!” Mara was saying. “Right in front of everyone, she takes a stranger into her house!”
“He’s an old man. I hope Vorona doesn’t wear him out tonight!” Borys laughed. Mara and Swat laughed along.
Swat spoke up. “It will be good for Vorona, to have a man in her bed—” Borys and Mara laughed loudly at that.
“Mama, why am I so different from both you and Papa?” Javor asked suddenly.
Ketia was used to Javor’s sudden shifts in focus. “We’re all a little different from our parents, Javor.”
“Yes, but Hrech looks like his mother, and a little like his father. So does Elli. But I’m so much taller than you and Papa.”
“My grandfather was a very tall man, taller than you,” she answered. “You’ll still grow a little, so you could reach his height. And I want to show you something he gave to me. He told me to give it to my most deserving son. Now hush.
“Grandfather Medvediu was the biggest man in the town—the family lived in a real town in those days, far to the south of here. Not only was he big, he was the most handsome. All the ladies of the town said so. His golden hair gleamed in the sun. Like yours, Javor.
“Grandfather was a hero. He was in the Emperor’s army, and when he was young he went to fight against the Persians.” This was Javor’s favourite story. He had heard it regularly since he could remember and never tired of it.
“Grandfather Medvediu was a very brave man, and in the wars he won some treasures. Some he sold on his way home, but some he kept.”
“Did he really kill a giant, Mama?” Javor asked as he always did at this point in the story.
“Oh, yes. He was the bravest soldier in the army. One day, Grandfather Medvediu’s group found themselves in the mighty Caucasus Mountains.” Ketia’s voice always took on a dreamy quality at this point. “A giant had been harassing the people of the Caucasus. It was a huge ogre who stole sheep and killed shepherds. It would come into the villages and demand food."
“All the Emperor’s soldiers were afraid to face the giant, but not your great-grandfather. He took a sword and his armour and he climbed up the mountain to the giant’s cave. He challenged the giant: ‘Hey, ugly! Come and fight someone who knows how to fight,’ he said. And the giant came out. It was twice as tall as Grandfather, and it carried an enormous club. It swung that club right at Grandfather’s head, but your great-grandfather ducked and drew his sword."
“Their fight went on for a day and a night, but finally your tireless great-grandfather dealt a killing blow. He almost cut the giant’s head completely off, and when its body fell off that mountainside into a deep canyon, no one could find it.
“The giant’s cave was filled with treasures, but most of them were slick with the ogre’s slimy touch. Grandfather Medvediu did find two things that were fit for human touch.”
This was new—an element in the story that Ketia had never told him before. She pulled out a bundle wrapped in a soft white cloth from the box. Javor leaned forward for a closer look until he could feel the heat from the candle against his cheek. He held his breath while Ketia opened the cloth to reveal a long dagger with a whitish handle carved to resemble a fish. Javor took it in his hand and carefully felt the edge; it was sharper than any blade he had ever seen and glinted in the candlelight. The side of the blade was engraved with a spiral pattern and many small markings. “Runes,” said his mother. “They’re magical.” But that was all she knew.
There was a second item in the cloth: a flat piece of grey metal, about the size of Javor’s fist, but with an odd shape: ovoid, but with a flat side. It looks like a fish’s scale. Or a snake’s. It had a chain attached to a loop on top. Its centre was depressed and carved into a strange pattern. Around the
edge were small figures, more runes; Javor had never seen writing, had never even heard of it. “These are magical, Javor. And since you will be a man tomorrow, I am showing them to you for the first time. They are my heirlooms, and when I die they will be yours. My grandfather told me that together, they would protect me against evil. And that is why the three of us are alive today, Javor, in such an evil world.” She took the dagger and the amulet, wrapped them carefully in the cloth and replaced them in the little wooden box.
Protect us from evil? Some magic. It’s protected this family so well, most of its children are dead.
The box was nothing but splinters. The cloth that had wrapped the amulet and the dagger was ripped. The monster had been after the amulet. Javor’s hand went to his rope belt and felt the dagger, covered with a fold of his tunic. It felt reassuring, somehow.
The magic is real. I took the dagger away, and the monster came and killed them.
Mama, Papa, I am sorry! I did not know!
He staggered outside and poured out his story to Photius: everything his mother had ever told him about her grandfather Medvediu, the amulet and the dagger, how he had taken the dagger to rescue the girls, how the Avars had been killed and dismembered. “And now, my father, my mother …” His voice dried into a croak. He reached for Photius’ wine-skin and drank, but did not taste it.
His uncle and aunt came up; they were unhurt. The killer had passed them by. His aunt led him to her house, put him to bed on a pallet of straw. After two days of trauma and chase, Javor quickly fell into exhausted sleep.
And when the rising sun woke him again, he knew what he had to do.
Chapter 4: The hunt
By mid-morning, when Javor was expecting the air to get hot, low, dark clouds came out of the north, growling. A north wind, dry and chill, carried a strange odour too faint to really identify. Javor felt annoyed because he could not quite identify it before it blew away. He stopped to shift the heavy pack on his shoulders.
Photius looked back over his shoulder.“Are you tired, my boy? Or have you recovered from yesterday?” he asked.
“I’ll never recover.” His voice sounded strange to him: hoarse, deeper than before. He hiked the pack higher on his back and stepped past Photius.
They had been walking since just past sunrise, heading north by northeast. The killer’s trail wasn’t hard to find: a path of trampled grass and broken bushes and trees, scattered with debris. It led across the pastures and then into the forest beyond, and then up into the higher hills. Along the way lay mementos of the killer’s passage: footprints, broken trees, and several times, parts of human bodies. Javor gagged the first time he had seen a woman’s leg, bloody and twisted, lying lost in tall grass.
“I want revenge,” Javor had said in the village under the morning’s first light.
“Revenge?” Roslaw had said. Most of the headman’s face was a bruise. There was a nasty red scar under one eye and he was even gruffer than normal. “Javor, you’re brave, no one would deny that. But there’s a difference between bringing back two girls whose kidnappers have been killed for you, and facing that thing. You would not stand a chance.”
“I’m going. Who’s coming with me?”
Only the Greek traveler, Photius, answered. “I’ll come with you, young man. I, too, want this monster dead. Its destruction is part of my mission.” Javor had wondered what he meant by that, but did not ask. He focused on gathering what he needed.
With barely a word, the villagers had helped him pack. His uncle, Swat’s older brother, gave him fresh trousers, a tunic, boots and a cloak. His aunt brought bread, fruit and other food, enough for him and Photius for two days, three if they stretched it.
Javor had tucked his great-grandfather’s dagger into his rope-belt and tugged on it to make sure it would stay. He had taken his father’s small axe, the same one that Hrech had taken, in what felt like a different life. To remember him when I kill that murderer. When he had walked out of the village, Photius had walked in step beside him. Javor had taken one last look behind him, to see his people gathered at the edge of the village; Roslaw had waved, and so had his uncle; his aunt had wrung her hands and cried. And he had seen Elli, who had just looked at him, her fist in front of her mouth, her eyes wide.
But no one had said anything.
Javor had looked at the sky. Clouds moving from the west. It’ll be a nice day.
Good day for hunting.
Javor had shrugged to adjust the pack, and had walked north-east without saying goodbye.
“Do you want to take a rest?” Photius was saying. He was having no trouble keeping up with Javor’s long strides. It was the first time they had spoken since leaving the village.
“I want revenge,” Javor repeated. “Now tell me the truth: who killed my parents?”
“Your people told you: it was a monster,” Photius said seriously.
“Look, I know everyone was terrified,” Javor snarled. “So if it was man who was so terrible, he was a monster, I understand. Now tell me about him. Was he alone? How was he armed? How big was he? What did he look like? I’m going to track him down and do to him what he did … he did to my …” Javor choked. He could not breathe. All he could see was his father, his dark hair soaked with blood. He could feel his mother’s little body in his arms. He choked and wheezed and his whole body shook. The pack slipped off his shoulders and pulled him backward, until he was lying awkwardly on the pack, his knees bent painfully.
Photius knelt beside him and brushed his fingertips over Javor’s temples and eyes, murmuring low. Javor took a great, shuddering breath and stood. He blinked, shook his head, then picked up his pack and strode ahead again.
“It was a monster, Javor,” said Photius, walking just behind him. “Really. Not a man. It was enormous, man-shaped but twice as high. Scaly grey skin. Massive arms and legs, with sharp claws as long as your hand. A mouth like a boar’s, but filled with fangs like an enormous lizard. It suddenly appeared in the town just after dawn, and no one even saw it coming. It broke heavy timbers like you would break a piece of kindling.”
The wanderer’s words filled Javor with a creeping horror, a loathing somehow coupled with familiarity. He felt he could imagine the creature, not only how it looked but what its voice, its roar sounded like, how the thing smelled.
“It knocked down a hut, and the people inside ran screaming. The fiend hit the woman there with its fist and broke her back as she ran. Your headman, Roslaw, tried to throw a hunting spear at it, and it just bounced off its skin. The monster slashed at him, and Roslaw was lucky to keep his head on his shoulders.
“But the monster had a purpose. It went straight toward your hut. Your father tried to stop it—he stood in front with his heavy scythe, and he hit the monster with a blow that would have sliced an ox. But the fiend barely felt it. It slashed and pulled down half the roof and then hit your father on the head. For what it’s worth, my boy, I think your father’s end was swift.”
“Please, don’t tell me what it did to my mother,” Javor interrupted. “I know enough, already.”
At sunset they camped beneath a stand of stunted trees. Photius built a fire while Javor looked for some wild fruit or berries, but they ate most of the food that Javor’s aunt had given them. Javor stared into the fire, but all he could see was his father.
He saw Swat standing in front of his house, swinging the heavy scythe. Behind him, his mother in the doorway, crying, pulling her husband. Swat swung the scythe again, but a monstrous claw swept down. Swat dodged and the claw hit the thatch, bringing it down on Swat’s legs. The man stumbled and the claw hit him, hard, on the head. Swat fell flat onto the ground and did not move.
Javor saw the doorway torn apart, saw his mother fall back…he squeezed his eyes tight, then looked into the darkness around him. At anything but his mother.
Photius came close and raised his hand. Javor flinched back, but the old man shook his head. Tentatively, he reached closer again until his fingertips to
uched Javor’s eyelids. “Sleep now, son,” said the old man. “Tomorrow, we enter the monster’s own territory.”
The sun rose behind murky clouds and a northern breeze chilled Javor. They broke their fast with clear water from a spring, a few berries and two of Photius’ mysteriously sustaining cakes.
They followed the faint path through the grass. As they went on, the grass became shorter, the ground stonier and the killer’s trail fainter. Soon, Javor couldn’t even distinguish it, but Photius forged ahead, confident.
Past a small rise, the thin grass disappeared into a loosely-packed scrabble. A few bent, withered trees with hardly any leaves clung weakly to the hillside. Ahead, a brackish creek wandered sluggishly to the east. At the bank, Photius said “Take care now, son. Don’t touch the water,” and they hopped carefully from stone to stone across a natural ford. Javor could see craggy mountains ahead; surprisingly, they had no snow on their tops. The whole vista seemed dead and repellent. Javor gagged on the reek of rotting animal carcasses.
“Take care, I say,” Photius repeated. “This is no place to quail.” Photius gave Javor a sip from his wineskin. Javor had drunk ale, even the heavy wodova the villagers brewed, but he had never known anything like this liquor. A heat he never felt before spread throughout his body, to the tips of his fingers and toes. “That should sustain you. Take heart now, lad. The test is soon.”
“What test?” asked Javor. But the old man just smiled grimly and tucked the wineskin back into the folds of his cloak. And Javor knew what he meant.
The sun rose higher but cast no more light. The path started to rise again through dusty hills while the sky seemed to get lower. All morning, the old man told stories that Javor barely heard. All he could think of was his mother’s broken body, his father’s crushed skull.
