The Will and the Wilds

by Holmberg, Charlie N.

  What does matter is the scar on my hand, smooth and slightly pink. Healed, for now. There’s a bit of a stitch embedded at the base of it, and I pull it free with my teeth.

  My father goes down to work with the mushrooms and some hides he’d hung earlier. I don’t make an excuse to leave. If he’s busy, I’m free, so I take my basket and fill it with my silver dagger, breakfast leftovers, some bread, and my book, more for the purpose of taking notes than from the hope of finding an easy answer. Flint and steel and a candle, just in case. Then out to my garden for lavender, rabbit’s ear, oon berry, tusk nettle, blue thistle, aster leaf, and tapis root. I harvest all of it before venturing back into the wildwood.

  I don’t see Maekallus at first, only his cloak hanging high in a tree. But he isn’t hard to find, even if he did wish to hide. The string of red light remains rooted in the earth, and it points to the heavy branches of a tree.

  The Telling Stone throbs as I stare at it, and curiosity drives me to unhook the clasp of my bracelet and let it slide from my wrist into my basket. The light vanishes. When I touch the Telling Stone, it reappears. I feel a sliver of relief, knowing that my secret is unlikely to be discovered by passersby. Fortunately, there will be few in this area, only hunters, and unless they have a charm like mine, they will not see the binding spell. According to the narval, they’re unlikely to see him, either.

  After securing the bracelet, I walk toward the spot where the spell skewers the ground and set down my basket. “Are you trying to hide?” I ask.

  “I’m exploring,” his voice replies, and it has almost a metallic ring to it, like a heavy bell swaying in the breeze. He falls to the earth in a blur, graceful and swift, landing on two hooves, his other hand skimming the dirt. His reddish hair falls over his shoulder, tied with a long piece of grass. The binding spell shifts with his movements as he comes near, menacing horn leading the way, tail swishing behind him . . . and maybe it’s a trick of the light, but the asymmetrical end of that tail no longer looks sharp as a blade. I wonder if I should modify my sketch.

  “My cage is complete.” Maekallus doesn’t look at me, but into the wildwood, toward the town. A stupid part of me marks the spectacle of his half-naked indecency, now much more notable in the daylight. His shoulders are just as broad and well sculpted as Tennith’s. His waist is narrow. A body that, by the standards of my world, hasn’t seen a bottle of mead or many lazy days.

  But that tail twitches, driving the foolish thoughts away. I grab the silver dagger and let my basket drop to the earth.

  The sound brings his attention back to me. He smirks like I’ve told a good joke. “You mean to kill me? Even if you had the skill, you’d be authoring your own—”

  “Oh be quiet.” The words are hard, and I let them be. “We must be allies in this.”

  I crouch next to the spot where his glowing leash pierces the earth.

  Maekallus snorts as I try again to cut it with the silver dagger. “You’ve tried that.”

  I pause long enough to glare at him. “Do you want my help or not?”

  He hesitates, then folds his arms. The light of the binding gleams right through them. He consents with a small nod, but in his eyes I see desperation. I imagine a creature of his make is not used to being trapped, especially in a place that threatens to destroy his very being.

  I dig, trying to cut the string where it anchors to earth. Dig deeper, try again. Each time my dagger, though made of silver, does nothing. My father’s sword is enchanted against mystings. Would its edge do any better?

  Needless to say, the earth is ruining the soft metal of my mother’s dagger. I stand, brush off my skirt, and try to cut the glowing strand again. Step along its length, closer to Maekallus, and swipe out with the blade. Again and again, until I reach him. He’s taller than I remember, but perhaps that’s because I last saw him as a bubbling heap of refuse.

  “It will stretch about thirty paces in any given direction,” Maekallus says. His tone isn’t friendly, but it lacks malice. “Pierces through stone and tree. Unaffected by blood. At least hart blood.”

  I pause on my way back to my basket. “Hart blood?” I scan the clearing. “Where . . . ?”

  He glances up to the tree. I see a smear of blood on two of its branches; the rest is hidden by foliage.

  I sigh and drop the dagger into the basket. “At least you’ll be fed. I trust you eat food.”

  He snorts. “What other reason have we to come here? The selection is far better. You know little of us.”

  I wait for him to say, We prefer souls, but he doesn’t. Wise of him. “What do I eat? For how many meals? And do tell me my favorite leisure activities, Maekallus.”

  He cocks his head.

  I snatch lavender and tusk nettle from the basket. “You don’t know all there is to know about humankind, either.” I approach him, leaves in hand. His face wrinkles, and he steps back. “Let’s see if we can break this spell so that we won’t have to learn, hm? Put this in your mouth.”

  He cringes at the lavender. “It smells terrible.”

  At least my herbs still affect him. “Good. I grow these to keep away your kind. Perhaps they can break the spell your kind created. Open your mouth.”

  He doesn’t, but opens his hand—his perfectly human hand. I put a sprig of lavender in it, and he immediately drops it, hissing through his teeth.

  “Vile,” he spits.

  “Better than tar.”

  Growling deep in his throat, he takes the tusk nettle from my hand and puts it in his mouth. I watch the binding light as he chews, hoping it will fizzle or darken, but it holds strong, and soon Maekallus gags and spits the nettle out. I hope the thorns caught in his gums.

  I pick up the lavender. “Again.”

  That herb makes him dry heave, with no effect on the spell. None of the herbs work. They all pass through the light just as the dagger did, and even when I bunch them up around the hole I made trying to dig the spell up, there is no alteration whatsoever.

  I kneel by my basket, one hand pressed to the ground as I steady my breathing. My efforts have exhausted me, more so than they normally would. My chest aches for its missing soul. I pull free my heavy book and turn to the next blank page, where I diagram the binding spell and recount my failed attempts to break it.

  Maekallus regards me silently. Something about his gaze infuriates me, and once I’ve recorded my thoughts, I unleash myself on him.

  “You knew you’d take my soul. From the beginning you did, before the binding. You tried to barter it from me.”

  “Only a piece.” He looks me over. I tug my sleeve over my bracelet.

  “Only a piece! What if you’d taken my leg? It’s only a piece of my body!”

  He steps toward me—the press of his footsteps equine, the pace of them human. His horn hovers high like the ax of an executioner. “Would you hate me for surviving? You’re narrow minded, Enna. You mortals pity the songbird clutched in the fox’s jaws, yet you possess no remorse for the kit whose fur hangs around your neck?”

  I force myself to stand, to be less small. “Do you see fur on me?”

  “You would don it.” His yellow eyes narrow.

  I take a few breaths. “You’re very cunning in your speech, I’ll cede that.”

  “I’ve had a long time to improve it.”

  “How long?”

  He hesitates. Turns toward the deepest part of the wildwood. For a moment, his eyes lose focus. “I’m not sure.”

  Despite my desperation, my uncertainty, and my hate, his answer intrigues me. What is Maekallus, to not know his own age?

  I eye my tome. Formed from the spilled blood of bastards. Human bastards, of course. Where the human ends and the magic begins, I haven’t a clue, and I imagine Maekallus doesn’t, either.

  “Then tell me,” I say, turning back to my growing entry on narvals, “how long do your kind live?”

  He glances down at my book and frowns. “Until something kills us.”

  Consti
tutionally immortal? I write. But I am tired, and Maekallus is ornery, so I close my notes and set the breakfast leftovers and bread on the ground. Straighten and lift my basket. “Eat this if the hart isn’t enough. I’m going to get a sword and see if that helps. I’ll return.”

  He bids me no farewell.

  My father’s sword is heavier than it looks.

  I knew this, of course, but I have not tried to heft it for several years, and it reminds me of its weight as I carry it, wrapped in linen, through the wildwood. I want to be swift. Even with his faulty mind, my father will notice his sword gone. Before leaving, I wrote down a list of chores that need to be done and things that need fixing (which I may have broken myself for this purpose) to keep his eye away from the mantel. So long as he doesn’t misplace the list, I should be successful in my ruse.

  I’m exhausted when I reach the clearing. Again, too exhausted for the effort I’ve expended. Something is wrong with me, and I know precisely what. If I let myself focus on it, if I wait for my breath to calm so I can listen with something other than my ears, I can hear that sliver of my soul burning inside the mysting with the great horn. I try to beckon it back to me, silently, but it doesn’t heed the call.

  I note that the food I left is still there, save the fried pork. Solely carnivorous? More study needed.

  “And this will work when the dagger didn’t?” Maekallus asks, but the remark only has an edge of cynicism. He’s curious, and he looms close when I set the scabbard against the earth and, with both hands and some effort, pull the blade free.

  He instantly steps back. “Ah. Clever Enna.”

  The blade is carved with runes and flecked with silver—a sword forged for the battling of mystings. Specifically, for that brief war two decades ago. Hefting the blade, I swing it through the gleaming thread—only for it to pass through, just as the dagger did.

  I don’t give up. There are half a dozen runes on this blade. I cut through the binding spell, or try to, six times—each time aligning the cut with a different rune on the sword. Alas, this blade has no effect, and I’m soon wheezing from the effort.

  Planting the sword’s tip in the soil, I lean against it, trying to summon more energy.

  “Cut it out of me.”

  I look up at his words. “What?”

  “Cut it out of me,” he repeats, and points to the center of his chest, just below his heart, where the red line of light pierces him.

  I straighten. Blood rushes from me so quickly I sway on my feet. “You’re joking.”

  “I heal faster than a human.” His tail flicks. “Try cutting it out of me.”

  My stomach squeezes. “If you die, I’ll go with you.”

  “I won’t die from this. Even so, I’d risk it. So should you.” He shakes his head, as though the trees surrounding us whisper to him. “I can’t stay here. I’ll do anything.”

  Though I tote about my mother’s dagger, I’ve never actually stabbed a living thing before. I’ve flayed, and I’ve butchered . . . but the thought of pushing this heavy sword through a body where blood readily flows, feeling the resistance of flesh . . .

  I press the back of my hand to my mouth and try not to retch.

  Maekallus emits a sound somewhere between a sigh and a groan and grabs the hilt of the sword, picking my fingers from it. The humanness of his touch is unnerving, and it strikes me that he feels warmer than I remember.

  He looks over the workmanship and turns the blade about. “Unwieldly. But there’s not enough silver to kill me.” His arms are just long enough to point the blade at his chest.

  I realize with cold mortification that he’s actually going to attempt to cut it out, and I turn away, covering my ears. My imagination, however, betrays me, and I see it all in my mind’s eye—the gaping wound, the blood—

  My hand stings, and I lower it enough to look at the cut. The scar has reopened.

  A thud of the sword hitting the grass pulls my attention behind me.

  Maekallus sucks in a shaky breath. “That . . . didn’t work.”

  Bile climbs up my throat at the sight of the deep wound, like a mouth, staring at me from his chest. It bleeds readily from torn muscle. All the while, the thread of the binding shines through it.

  Maekallus drops to one knee, and I come to myself, urgency pushing past my revulsion. I look around and spot his cloak hanging from its branch. My strength returned, I grab it and run to Maekallus, pressing the fabric against the wound.

  He coughs, and a thin line of blood dribbles down from the corner of his mouth.

  “Oh gods in heaven,” I mumble, gathering the fabric and pushing.

  He winces, and suddenly his weight presses against me, knocking me to my knees as I try to hold him up while keeping the cloak in place. He mutters, “Not . . . healing as fast . . . as I thought.”

  My stinging palm openly bleeds against its bandaging, reacting to Maekallus’s self-inflicted wound.

  “Lie down,” I urge him, and help him onto his back. Looking around the clearing, I search for any witnesses, but we are alone. I lift the cloak just a bit to look at the wound. Blood bubbles up, and I press down with both my hands.

  I focus on my own breathing to keep my thoughts clear. “How long does it take you to heal, normally?”

  “Not . . . long,” he wheezes, but the sound is not as bad as when he was a sludgy mess, so perhaps there’s hope. “Even here . . . faster, in the Deep. The immortal waters are swift . . .”

  I’ve never heard of “immortal waters,” but I assume the “Deep” is his name for the monster realm. Were I not staunching the flow of blood from a very large and stupid wound, I would hasten to write down the information in my book. “Perhaps the binding spell is preventing you from healing.”

  “Obviously.”

  I push harder against the wound, and he cringes. “But there is something,” I go on, “for I think a normal man would be dead by now. Or closer to it.”

  He manages to grin. I stare at it a moment, surprised. How can he grin when his chest has been cut open?

  I should probably inspect the wound, but I don’t want to disturb any clotting, if mystings clot. “I need to go home, get some supplies.” The thought of the journey fatigues my body, but the sting in my hand reminds me of worse fates.

  “A soul . . . will help.”

  “I will not kiss you.”

  “Doesn’t have to be yours.”

  “And you think I’d lure some unsuspecting person here for you to feast on?” I shift my hands slightly and increase the pressure, almost enjoying the grimace the pressure elicits.

  “For your own well-being? Yes.”

  “No. And even if I did, I’d make it the ugliest, oldest man I could find.”

  Maekallus frowns, winces.

  I sigh. “Perhaps I can catch a hare—”

  He coughs. “Do I look like a hare to you?” When I don’t answer, he explains, “We . . . consume human souls . . . because we’re of human make.”

  The blood of bastards. “Here.” I take his hand and put it atop the cloak. “I’m going to get supplies. I’ll move quickly.”

  “See that you do.”

  I leave my father’s sword in the clearing—if anything will slow me down, it’s that, and the blade is smeared with mysting blood, which may result in questions I can’t honestly answer. Papa is not home when I arrive, or he’s in the cellar. I collect whatever I can and drag my weary body back to the glade, wrapping my own bleeding hand as I go.

  Maekallus is where I left him. “Has anyone seen you?” I ask.

  “If they did”—he wheezes—“they failed to introduce themselves.”

  I drop my basket of supplies at his shoulder and ready a bottle of antiseptic, a jar of salve, and my father’s thread and needle. I’ve never stitched skin before, but having recently watched my father do so, I have some confidence that I can manage.

  Though this wound is more serious than a surface cut.

  Except it’s not quite as bad
as I recall—perhaps Maekallus is healing. Either way, it’s a terrible sight, illuminated by that blasted spell. I pour on antiseptic, and Maekallus seizes like I’ve dropped a cannonball on his gut. New blood spurts from the wound.

  “Lie down!” I push his shoulders back. “Gods, it will help you heal faster!” Or perhaps I’m wrong. What little knowledge I have about healing is specific to humans. Although it won’t help him to say so. If my own life weren’t inextricably tied to his, I might jump at the chance to learn more of mysting physiology.

  Maekallus lies down, but his limbs remain taut and strained, and vile-sounding words from what I assume to be the tongue of monsters sputter from his lips. I’m somewhere outside myself when I stitch him closed and smear on green-tinted salve. The sun is beginning to set, and a well-trained part of my mind reminds me that it’s not safe to be in the wildwood after dark.

  If only I’d avoided it entirely.

  He sits up of his own accord, and I press gauze to the wound—I’ll need to buy more after this—and wrap it. I have to get very close to him to do this, and loop my arms around his chest. He watches me as I do, silent. Perhaps, were he a man, this moment might possess a flare of intimacy. But he is not, and so it doesn’t.

  I tuck the end of the bandage in. My hands and fingers are stained red. Blood coagulates under my nails. My bandage is wet, but I don’t know if it’s from my blood or his.

  I am a sight, and so I wait until the sun barely peeks above the horizon to return home, all the while clutching the Telling Stone in my hand, my book under my arm, and my father’s sword to my chest. The stone whispers of mystings at the perimeter of its reach, but none come searching for me.

  Perhaps the greatest deterrent to them is the blood of their own.