Crack!
She winks at me.
Crack! Crack!
It’s over.
But it’s not.
The two guards move forward again, unshackling my hands, only to force me to my knees and twist them behind my back. My back sizzles with serrated bones and torn flesh, blood leaving a trail behind me as the guards drag me towards a burning cauldron of coals deposited on the edge of the podium. Flurries of sparks flutter into the air. The strap of my tunic is pulled aside, exposing the bare flesh of my left shoulder.
Celectate Wood takes his time pulling a brown leather glove onto his arm. He jerks the iron brand from the cauldron, its end blazing orange with heat and the symbol of banished: the ostracized symbol. He comes towards me.
Memories of watching others being branded assail me. I close my eyes. I don’t want to see the brand. I imagine a similar moment – when I was fifteen and ostracizing had been at the height of its acceptance.
Everything around me swirls and pressurizes. I struggle to push the feeling away, recognizing its familiar embrace as it edges against my skin, poking the scars on my neck to life. The pressure explodes inside my head, stabbing my ears with needles. I open my eyes at the sensation.
I don’t see the crowd. The brand. Celectate Wood. Instead, I’m watching a different punishment. I’m standing at the bottom of the platform in the city Square, watching a different person receive the scar. He screams in pain as the brand is placed against his skin. Searing flesh makes a crackling sound beneath the heat of the dreadful iron. Sizzling flesh burns my nostrils. I turn my face away and hide it in the familiar leather shoulder of my brother. His arm wraps around me. My neck pulses and everything cracks – loudly!
All is white – white and gray – white and black in front of my eyes. I open them again when the vibrating closeness of heat kisses my cheeks. The brand floats before my eyes – the curved symbol of “ostracizement” grinning at me. Celectate Wood smiles with it, the tilt of his lips masked by the tendrils of hair around his face.
Now I know fear.
The brand presses against my shoulder. It sizzles, burning a layer of skin, before pressing against flesh. Then bone.
Celectate Wood grins from ear-to-ear.
And I scream – and scream – and scream.
I blink in the darkness that I awake in – broken only by the small tendrils of light through the barred window on my right. The carriage lurches beneath me on creaky wheels. Outside, horses neigh and a whip snaps. The flesh of my back prickles, recognizing the sound, and pain numbs my sense. The carriage hits a rut and I slam into the wall, shoulder first.
I see my shoulder – my perfect, beautiful shoulder that had been a graceful picture of elegance and softness – and horror slithers through me. Skin has withered back into disgusting folds, dry and crusty, and the blackened markings over the reddened flesh glare up at me in the perfect shape of the ostracized symbol. There isn’t even any blood, so hot was the iron, so swift the plunge, so hard the application. Celectate Wood made sure to push it strong and deep – this scar will not heal well.
I lift a finger to touch it – it can’t be my shoulder. It has to be a horrible dream. The skin burns beneath my touch. I cry out and remove the touch. It is real. Everything is real.
“Lower the gates!” a hoarse voice cries from outside.
I stumble to the window, grabbing the bars for support, and struggle to see. All I see is stone: crags of deep rock, full of weeds and hardened plants. I tremble. I know where we are.
The Gorge, built deep into the rut of the mountains, is the gateway to the Wall surrounding Kelba. It is a narrow, thirty foot-wide channel between the otherwise two hundred foot high rocks: a major geographical point in all noble history books.
The creak of old iron rings in my ears. We are at the gates. Which means . . .
The Wall.
Darkness swallows me up. We are in the Tunnel: the thin chasm inside the Wall – the only way to get to the other side of it. There are no outer stairwells or ladders. No ropes or pulleys. No one, in their right mind, wishes to go into the Wilds.
The carriage stops and the doors of the prison carriage open. Light blinds me temporarily and by the time I’ve regained my bearings, two Celect Knights are hauling me towards the end of the Tunnel . . . to the ledge overlooking the Wilds. They are not gentle and my shoulder suffers their ill-use.
My first look at the Wilds was always in my imaginations or from books. I pictured it as a green mist lying atop a barren swampland. However, that’s not what I see before me. Instead, there’s a drop-off from the ledge. A fifteen hundred foot slope that dips downwards into a meadow of yellow, swaying grass. Beyond it, about a mile from the slope’s bottom, a black forest dots my vision. No green. No brown branches. Just black jagged trees, the color of smoking death. The remains of a deadly poison which life could not challenge.
Celectate Wood and Aspen stand off to the side of the ledge, a good distance from me. Though I am in a weakened state and an attack would be childish, they are not foolishly optimistic that I will feign from physical violence. They do not say a word to me. Nevertheless, they stare patronizingly, gazes stiff as marble.
Aspen glares back at me. You’ll pay for it.
I shiver but don’t flinch beneath his gaze.
Behind me, the Community is present to watch the final display of my punishment. Lord Singh wipes fresh blood from his lip and looks at me.
Father and Mother are beside him, held back by the Celect Knights barring their path. Father’s eyes still shine with the replaying of my whipping. My branding. He looks aged beyond his years and so tired. He seems weak and unable to stand on his own feet. Mother offers him her arm, which he takes.
She appears calm, but when our eyes meet, a spark of fire ignites in them. If I didn’t recognize it, I might not have noticed, but that spark lights a flame in my heart. She turns her frigid stare, the one that used to freeze Landor and me in place when we got into mischief, on Celectate Wood. He pretends not to notice, tilting his nose in the other direction. However, his eyes flutter at the corners. Mother smiles and flips him the finger. Every fear for the family safety disappears. Mother is strong. Mother will help Father. She will not let him fall.
She looks at me again. She places a hand over her heart and pats it gently several times with her fingers, her lips tilting up in a smug expression. There’s so much pride in the way she squares her shoulders – the way she lifts her head – the way she glares at the Community elders beside her. I’ve a feeling she knows who asserted me guilty.
“I want my daughter to be one of the finest, greatest, strongest, smartest girls Kelba has ever seen.”
Slowly, she turns that pride-filled gaze on me, the spark glistening in the corners of her eyes. She looks radiant – beautiful – the strong woman I can never match. She curls her thumb and forefinger together and splays another finger beside them, pressing it to her heart. It’s a symbol I’ve never seen – not the Bone family vigil or the Kelban vigil of strength. She nods at me with that mysterious smile I’ve never understood.
I don’t understand.
And there’s no time.
“I love you both!” It comes out a harsh whisper, but I know they hear it.
The guards jerk me towards the edge of the slope. The tallest one steps close. He hands me a pouch. It’s heavy and swishes when I move it to my right shoulder. Water. The pouch holds at least two gallons, barely enough to last two days in this heat. One if I tend my wounds properly to prevent infection. He presses a glass vial into my hand too. A white pill rests inside.
“To ease your suffering,” he explains, not even looking at me.
Hot anger beckons me to throw it in Celectate Wood’s face and spit on it. I don’t need such a gift. I won’t be so weak as to take my own life. I won’t be such a coward! Yet . . . I squeeze the vial close.
I step to the edge, my feet teetering on the corner between Kelba and hell. The fifteen hundre
d foot slope stares up at me menacingly. There are rocks and jagged underbrush dotting its surface.
“Either you go down yourself . . . or we push you,” the protocol man says matter-of-factly and looks at the sun. “It’s getting late. Five seconds, or I shove you.”
“Five . . .”
I try to find Landor in the crowd. I don’t see him.
“Four . . .”
Father and Mother stare at me, their eyes refusing to look away.
“Three . . .”
Father mouths something. “I love you.”
“Two . . .”
Mother spreads her thumb and fingers over her chest in that strange little symbol I don’t recognize. Whispers something I can’t piece together.
“One . . .”
I jump.
Air gives me the freedom of weightlessness, and then gravity regains and I begin to fall. My feet meet with the slope first, buckling my knees on impact. I roll. My black slices against the rock of the slope. Underbrush scratches along my arms. My legs. I tuck my body around the pouch of water, protecting it. If it breaks – I will die! The vial remains clutches in my palm. Everything around me spins and spins and spins.
Soft grass brushes against my face. The world stops spinning and my body slows to a stop. Dirt crumbles beneath my hands. I jump up quickly, regretting it the moment I do. Pain spreads all over my body. Bruises will dot my skin before the hour is through. Scratches line my arms and legs and my hair is wrapped around my neck, thick with knots and underbrush particles. I stare at the dirt on my hands, expecting it to eat away at my hands until only bone remains. But nothing happens. If the poison is here, it’s not effective immediately.
Above me, people are shouting. Loudly. Angrily. I hear Celectate Wood bark orders at someone. A woman screams. A man roars.
“KYLA!” I look up. The sun glares at me. I shield it with a hand.
“KYLA!” It’s Landor. His head peeks over the edge of the ledge, trying to search for me. I wave an arm at him. His eyes flood with relief. Someone grabs him from behind. He grunts and punches whatever – no, whoever – it is. Then . . .
“HERE!” He lets something drop from his hand and disappears from sight. It catches the glint of the sun a million times, as it twists and turns on its descent, getting closer. I see its sharpness. I gasp and jump away. It falls directly where I would have been standing.
A dagger!
He stayed true to his word.
I pick up the blade and examine the sheath he threw it in. It’s a simple brown affair. Sturdy. Shock rolls through me when I see the hilt. It’s his blade. Lan threw me his blade!
Celectate Wood publicly presented the honed dagger to him on the day of his knighthood – on the day of his graduation as a Celect Knight. By wearing it, Landor proclaimed to Kelba that he served its ruler. That he protected him. By giving this blade, this symbol of loyalty, to me, he has done the unspeakable. He has publicly resigned from knighthood.
Above me, the gates creak. They are closing. I will be alone.
Ahead of me, a mile away, the blackened trees glare at me. The Burnt Forest, my knowledge of Kelban folklore recollects. Beyond those black trees and this plain, no one knows what awaits me. All I have to guide me are the myths and legends surrounding this strange land. I know not what monsters lurk in the shadows. What men grovel to taste my flesh. What death I will meet.
Breathing deeply, shoulder stinging and raw from the brand that now adorns my skin; I leave the slope behind. I leave the Wall behind. I leave everything behind.
I face my nightmares.
I face the myths.
I face the Wilds.
PART TWO
The Wilds
Chapter XI
My body is so stiff it takes me nearly an hour to reach the jagged trees dotting the meadow’s end. My sandals crunch into the ground: a combination of scattered black roots, earth – and bones! Looking closer, the bones are of the animal category. At least, that’s what I tell myself as the trees surround me – and darkness. I peer over my shoulder but the meadow is gone. In its place are black branches, stumps, and roots striking out of the ground like mangled claws. The forest is thick – so thick I might as well have been swallowed.
The Burnt Forest has no leaves, I recall from textbooks, but I hadn’t quite believed such stories. How could a forest have no leaves? Now as I look around me, I can’t see a single one. Just brambles, overgrown roots, and vines. They knot along the floor, so close together, I feel skin peeling from my legs as I struggle to avoid their presence.
And though there are no leaves, I cannot see the sky. There’s only a thick mass of curling tree branches and vines towering thirty – fifty – feet above my head. Like a maze. A web. The trees grow so close together I have to squeeze between them. Their roots cannot find enough soil, and their fight for supremacy leaves decaying roots and bark to the darkness. My feet bleed as the underbrush snags them. I don’t cry out. Too well do I remember all the tales written by the great authors, like “Goldbrow.” I do not want a “mythical” creature feasting on my flesh.
Something scurries in front of me, and I lean back against the tree, my burning backside connecting with rotten bark and gnarled wood. I bite my lip so hard I taste blood. The scurrying flees, followed by a small chipping noise.
Just a small animal. Just a small animal.
I edge away from the tree.
I walk straight into a a bush and thorns pierce my flesh and snag my hair. I tear away from them, only to fall to my knees against a rotten stump. My skin explodes in pain. My screams sound foreign to my ears.
Something else scampers near my head. When I look up, it’s gone. I hear numerous other scampers and scramble to my feet, running for all I’m worth. All around the noises increase; in the trees above my head, on the ground beneath my feet, in the trees to my right, my left! My lungs scream for air, but I don’t dare pause long enough to quell their spastic complaint. I cannot even see four feet in front of me – and I think these creatures know it.
Faster! Faster! Run!
A branch whips me across the face – blood, warm and thick, runs down my skin. I wipe desperately at it. These creatures feast on flesh – there is no greenery in the woods to sustain them – and the smell of my blood will only fuel their ravaging hunger.
Indeed, the noises around me grow harsher – more guttural. They smell the blood. They smell me!
A set of harsh nails lash out and snag the skin on my neck, ripping it into tiny, shredded gashes. I propel a fist in its direction, bone cracks, a creature wails, and I trip backwards over a rotten stump. The ground bites into my spine and I’m rolling again. Down, down, down until I stop fighting the drop and roll my body protectively around my water pouch. Above me, the scampers fade, the guttural growls cease, and blessed silence falls over me. The ground comes to a smooth halt – I see the slope that caused my escape and it goes up, up, up so high I don’t believe I’ll see the top.
My eyes have adjusted to the dark! It’s as if a ghostly light shines before me, illuminating everything in different colors of gray and black. The creatures that hurry away from me are no bigger than my hand, with scaly tails, claws, and long snouts. They hide beneath brambles – beneath trees – beneath vines – and stare at me with beady, black eyes. At least they fear me.
My shoulder burns like wildfire as I stand and struggle with the heavy water pouch. My lips taste like blood and sweat and dry skin. I rub the pouch longingly beneath my hand, forcing the claws of dehydration back down my throat. I must save the water. No one – not even famed historians – know how vast the Burnt Forest is. Perhaps it is all the Wilds is. Perhaps I am doomed to eternal darkness.
The creatures slither backwards as I draw closer, pulling so deep into their hiding places that I lose sight of their eyes. They chip to one another quietly between their lairs. I entertain the notion that they are either laughing at my demise or wondering how long it will be before they can taste me too. They must
be starving and –
Water! These creatures have to have some source of fluid to quench their thirst. That would mean this place had to have a stream of some sort.
My energy rises. Yes. There has to be water nearby.
I press on.
I find what I’m looking for – the stones of a dry creek bed – and lurch forward, already tasting the fresh water in my mouth, the cool liquid on my skin.
My relief is short-lived. The bed is dry – and has been for ages, so it seems. A disgusting, gooey substance coats the bottom of it, squelching beneath my feet. Sticking between my toes. Thrusting my disappointment into the farthest part of my mind, I shoulder the pouch again, eager to get to the other side. This forest cannot go on forever. The creatures must have some source of life-giving substance somewhere, be it in or outside this hell.
Something sharp cuts into the bottom of my sandal. I scream and trip over a large, mud-covered rock and fall on my knees. My hands sink elbow deep into the dirt. Hardened sticks encased beneath the filth grind against my fingers.
My stomach rolls with nausea and bile. It feels wrong. It looks wrong. It smells wrong. The creek doesn’t smell like decaying dirt or animal feces.
I pick out one of the sticks beneath my hand, holding it close to my face. The dirt covering it is hard, but pliable. I scrape it away with my fingernails. In hazy gray vision, I recognize the pale white color. It’s a bone! I toss it away, watching it twist through the air and thud into the dry dirt of the creek twenty feet away. My vision adjusts again, this time in blurring conversions of white, gray, and black. As far as the eye can see, down the trench, bones jut into the air, sink into the ground, claw at the sides of the creek-bed, as if struggling for their last breaths. Human bodies. All of them. All suffering. All struggling. All dead.
Bile rises in my throat and a sickening realization rolls over me. I shift my attention to the mud-covered rock I tripped over. It lies there, six feet long and half-buried. Ignoring the instinct to leave this place – to put it behind me – I lean down and scrape at the dirt. It peels away beneath my fingers and the stench of decaying flesh fills my nose. I convulse at the smell but press on. I have to know. Have to be sure before I let this moment torture my nightmares. The dirt crumbles easily beneath my hands, revealing the body of a man, the flesh black and receding. Flesh peels from the skull, but I lean closer. Closer. Look inside the open jaws of the unfortunate victim – I draw back, screaming.
Ostracized (The Ostracized Saga Book 1) Page 13
