The Beast and the Village

 

The village hunches in the centre of a tiny valley. I say hunches because it does everything it can to remain unobtrusive. The houses are low, single storeyed with peaked roofs for sleeping in. The church steeple barely tops the trees that crowd the perimeter and the collection of tilled fields surrounding it are barely worthy of the name. In fact, someone journeying through the mountains could quite easily pass by without giving it a second glance.

This subtlety has been carefully and unconsciously cultivated over decades. Were you to ask any of its few hundred inhabitants why, they would give you blank looks and grumble in thick, thorny accents that they ‘din’t have clue nor idee what you talking of.’

And it would, in part, be true. Because stories are just stories and the howling deep in the month when the moon lights the mountains an eerie white, is as commonplace as the sound of children rough-tumbling in the village green and just as innocuous. To most. There are a few in the village who still remember the last time they fought back, and for them, the sound wakes them sweating and panicked, reaching for swords that still lean against their bed heads. Those swords bear silver on their edges and despite the long years, they will remain there until it is time to pass the swords down.

But no one wants to do that. No one wants to pass on a curse, not even to sons fallen far from the nest or daughters who find pleasure behind the stables long before their time to be wed. So the elders keep their swords and their secrets and the howling means nothing. The bodies are the unfortunate victims of wild animals and nothing more.

As with all good villages in stories, this one has its mysterious old woman. She lives on the side of the mountain in a tidy cottage surrounded by forest and guarded by gardens containing all sorts of strange plants and herbs. We’ll start with her, just as we’ll end with her. For it is with her that things began.

 

Scalia wonders every morning whether she will try to rise and find herself defeated. This morning, more than any previously, she thinks it might happen. Every joint feels like sand had been poured in and her head thumps like the wind-driven branches against her back wall. It is a sound that lulls her to sleep, but transplanted inside her head, is anything but comforting.

She takes a slow deep breath, and another, and then she moves. Her feet slip from beneath her sheets and find the smooth wooden floorboards. Her arms escape those same sheets and she stands, swaying for a moment before the world rights itself. She feels heavy. The world feels heavy. She takes slow steps and pushes open the front door, breathing in the chill morning air. She sniffs.

Goosebumps arrive on her arms, unwelcome but as inevitable as the wind that carries the scent of fires and sweat and a hundred other things from the village through her house. Today is the day. Being downwind of the village has its disadvantages, but for days like today, it is invaluable. She lets out a long breath, the heaviness weighing on her shoulders and forcing her head to her chest.

She needs tea.

With the pot warmed and her cup and saucer set out, she settles herself on the veranda and watches. The forest speaks to her in a thousand different ways, but today it is uncommunicative, which is as she expects. Why speak when you can talk only of tragedy?

Her spoon idles round her cup, matching her thoughts. They are memories though, truth be told. She has been here a good long while and will miss this place more than most. Though she misses them all. Fallhaven, Tethil, Astil, the Far Lands, even R’acik Island, bitter bleak place that it is. They’ve all been good to her, one way or another. But just like lovers, they’ve all betrayed her as well.

She sips her tea and drifts through her memories. As she so often does at this time, she ponders on the folly of man. And woman. They are often the loudest to shout, and the quickest. She won’t watch though, not this time. There are children in the village she helped bring into the world and for their parent’s failings this will be their last morning. She will prepare, and shed, and move on. Which leads her to the same question as always. Where will the bearer lead her next?

 

We’ll move on now, race down the valley to the edge of the village, where a young man is performing his usual morning ritual of trying to get into a certain girl’s underthings. Whether she’ll let him is based upon the usual, capricious whims of her fancies. But of course, he knows that and pursues her anyway. And as we draw closer, perhaps you can understand why.

Lalis stands out not for her face, which is, to be fair, fine to look upon. She has full lips and a fine, soft nose and long hair the colour of trees in autumn. Any man could gaze upon it quite happily and be content. But they would struggle to keep their attention there, for her best feature would draw them away, no matter how hard they tried to remain focused upon her deep brown eyes. No, their gaze would travel down and find her figure and then all thoughts of beauty or otherwise would be wrenched from them and replaced with a lust all men struggle to explain and would never speak of to their jealous wives.

She has hips and breasts that have no place existing above and below such a fine waist and the wind that whips her skirts about and presses her blouse to her curves plays the tease almost as much as she does. It is a figure that could start wars, and frequently has in the few years since she flowered. But for the last summer and autumn the battles have ceased, for Harth has been her sole suitor.

Word in the village is they are already betrothed and neither have bothered deny it. Lalis’s parents are pleased with the match and Harth’s father isn’t seen enough for anyone to know what he thinks. Harth’s mother hasn’t been around in fifteen years and the reasons for that, both rumoured and true, are too legion to go into here.

‘Aren’t you supposed to be in the fields by now?’

‘This is a field of a sort, a field of battle. It is a tourney, a joust if you will, in which the only pr–‘

‘You can dream of jousting all you like, so long as your lance remains contained.’

‘I can contain nothing when I am in your presence. My lance longs for you, just as my heart and hands.’

‘You can keep them to yourself as well. I’ve felt their press a little too often in recent times. I bear bruises–‘

‘Bruises? I hang my head in shame, though in truth, those bruises are only further proof of my love for you. Perhaps were you to show them to me I could soothe them with kisses and caresses–‘

‘And for a third time, I warn you to keep all such antics to yourself. Besides, I am busy today.’

 

You may have noticed that for mountain-dwelling farmers, our young couple doth speak in pretty tongues. The truth is, a wandering minstrel came through the town a few months previous, bringing with him a few precious books. Harth’s father had taught him to read and he has since discovered the language of far-away cities. Now he uses it to his great pleasure and the rest of the villagers’ great bemusement. But Lalis enjoys it and he knows that very well.

 

‘Busy you say? What have you to be about that is more important than the pleasures of love?’

‘What is less important? The pleasures of love, as you call it, mean nothing when spring fades. My mother has taught me that time and again and I fear she is right. I see the lust in your eyes as you stare at me. Your lust will wilt just as your lance does when the tourney goes un-won.’

‘So let us end the tourney post haste and move straight to the celebrations.’

He reaches for her and she dances away, spinning her skirts with a laugh and holding her arms above her head, the better to tease. Harth almost doesn’t follow. He knows from her tone the battle will be lost today. Everyone is busy at this time of year and the winter ahead promises to be a tough one. Jobs are numerous and when they are finished there are always more.

But if he doesn’t follow, she will sulk and there will be no battle of any sort tomorrow. So he runs across the field and catches her and settles for a kiss. It is the sort of kiss that goes on for longer than most and makes him long for the joust. But she slips free of his arms and skips away across the field and he watches until she is lost in the trees.

He’s taken not three steps toward father’s field when he hears the scream. He races back toward Lalis, heart thumping and hands clenched in fists. He knows what he will find and his stomach threatens to give up his breakfast as he charges into the clearing. Lalis is frozen, hands squeezed together over her breasts as she stares at what lies before her.

It is Clask. Or what is left of him. His guts are spilled across the clearing, but as with the three they found yesterday morning, his chest is open and empty. Harth puts a hand over his mouth and tries to take shallow breaths. Despite that, he can still taste the blood on the air and the tang of shit from where the old man fouled himself.

He was an old man, older than most in the village. What he’d been doing out here at night was anyone’s guess, but he will be regretting it now, assuming he was in Eltha. Harth doesn’t know enough about him to know if he was a good man, but he shared food with Harth’s father when mother went away so that counted for something.

A glint of steel draws him from the corpse. He lifts the sword from where it lies in the brambles and bracken and stares at it. For the first time that morning his mind drifts away from the physical perfection shaking on the other side of the clearing. Down both sides of the blade run silver, shining as though it has been put on just that morning. That in itself isn’t remarkable. What has him staring in amazement is that the sword is a replica of the one hanging on father’s bedroom wall. It is a sword he’d believed unique. And father has done nothing to dissuade him of the notion.

Lalis’s whimpering cuts through his reverie and he turns from the corpse to hold her. She shakes in his arms like a snared rabbit and a thought flashes through his mind. It is as clear as the sunlight and just as mysterious in its origin. He could snap her neck, just like a rabbit. And if he does, the killings will stop.

 

We’ll leave our loving couple for a moment, pulling back from the rapidly-filling clearing and Harth’s disturbing thoughts. The villagers coming from every direction know just as he did what they will find. It’s in their blood, just as is the knowledge of remaining unobtrusive and innocuous to the world outside. And they know, somewhere deep inside, that if they just wait out the full moon and stay in their houses, it will leave again.

They know this. But not all want to believe it. Some want to blame someone, find a reason for something that has no reason. Or certainly none the villagers are aware of. One person is all too aware of the reason, but she is capable of lying to herself just as well as the sheep that flock to the clearing to mourn and send up thanks that it was someone else.

We move into the village. We pass the Longhall where loud voices will be soon be raised and decisions will be made. We pass through the tiny town square, where Bishal – and was there ever a better name for a blacksmith – is pounding silver onto the blade of his axe. He doesn’t know why, only that a dream made it seem like the right thing to do when he awoke. The villagers listen to dreams. In that they are both rare and wise. They don’t, however, know which ones to listen to.

Further into the town, past houses clinging like rats to the ground and on to the mansion houses. People living in Tethil would laugh at the name and be justified in doing so. In the village, adding a couple of rooms out the back turns your house into a mansion and there is no one with the knowledge to argue.

In one of these houses resides a man, shorter than most but possessing of a temper to make him stand taller than he should. His face carries the temper like a woman bears a child, thrusting out into the world without room for debate or doubt. Dark heavy brows and sharp eyes, flat lips and a nose that tweaks just at the end, and a body shaped like a barrel, all add up to make Lesta an entirely unpleasant man to look at. Fortunately, you won’t have to look at him long.

He is arguing, which is neither remarkable nor interesting by itself. But the subject of the argument makes it quite relevant to our story, so we shall listen in and perhaps learn a little of what Scalia already knows.

 

‘It’s the beast.’

‘You’ve already said that, Drom, but what the devil does it mean? Stop prating on and give me something useful. Goth damn it man, why did I invite you here? It wasn’t to scare me with meaningless ghost stories and drink my beer.’

Lesta leans forward in his seat and plucks the drink from Drom’s hand, thumping it down on the table in emphasis. Drom raises a grey eyebrow and nods slowly.

‘Ain’t many facts ’bout the beast. It’s all hearsay, but that’s plenty in these parts.’

‘Perhaps in these parts it is, but I come from the city and up there we need more than hearsay.’

It may be worth mentioning at this point that Lesta doesn’t come from the city. His father came from the city some thirty years ago and settled in the village. He knew an easy lay when he saw one and was village leader within five years of his arrival. The role wasn’t quite passed from father to son, but with the necessary degree of bullying and blackmail, Lesta soon took the reins. His visits to the city have been short and not particularly sweet and he returns home even more bitter and angry than before.

Drom smiles, slow and lazy like the late morning sunlight. ‘Only way you gonna get facts is by seeing the thing for yourself.’

Lesta sits back and crosses his hands over his belly. ‘Maybe I’ll just do that. Save me from listening to your fairytales. How long’s it been here?’

‘Generations. Longer than my grandpappy remembered and that was many years.’

‘Your grandpappy couldn’t remember shit. He was dribbling in his soup the day I was born. It’s all stories, damned stories. Get out. Go and find me someone who knows more than stories.’

Drom stops smiling, nods sharply and rises with a grunt from his chair. He reaches the door and stops, one hand on the wood. ‘You might go ask Scalia, she ‘members more than most.’

Lesta hisses and waves a hand to dismiss the man. He’d visit Scalia as soon as parade naked through the village. The wizened old goat is just as skinny as a nettle and twice as bitter and will tell him more stories than Drom. She’d been old when his father came here. How she is still alive is the matter of much discussion in the village and rightly so. The word witchcraft has been bandied around more than once and perhaps there is something in that.

He stares into middle distance, absently draining Drom’s beer. Perhaps there is. When had she arrived here? Longer, perhaps, than Drom’s grandpappy’s memories? Unlikely, but if she is a witch it is all too possible. Is she the beast?

The village leader nods to himself, seeing birds and stones and chuckling into an empty beer glass. This is too good a chance to pass up. And perhaps she is the beast in truth. The foul thing follows the cycles of the moon, just like a woman. And while Scalia can scarce be called a woman, she has teats and surely something approaching a women’s parts down there.

Lesta shudders and looks forlornly into his beer glass. He will need a little support to get the village on side. Perhaps some of the young ones; they believe the stories no more than he does. He pushes himself from his chair, not as steady as two beers should have made him, and tromps to the door. He sticks his head out and hollers ‘IST!’ and a young boy jumps up from where he’s been dozing beneath the steps at the front of the house.

 

We’ll leave the unpleasant and devious machinations of Lesta and look elsewhere in the village. You can imagine it, anyway. He’ll ask the hapless Ist to find the younger, more aggressive men in the village and ask just the right questions about the witch until they reach the same conclusion as him. Lesta is a dullish tool who thinks himself sharp, but the young men of the village are hammers, without an edge in sight. Their conclusions, though they wouldn’t call them that, will rapidly become beliefs. And those beliefs will be bolstered by beer taken from the still Lesta keeps in his spare bedroom, until they explode from within the ‘mansion’, rowdy and ready.

 

But that hasn’t happened yet. Right now, Drom is strolling slowly down the main street, scratching his arse and wondering just how Lesta ever got anywhere close to village head. His grandpappy would be turning in his grave if he knew the son of a city born was ruling the village, let alone one as entirely loathsome as Lesta.

But the sun is warm and feels good on his skin and at his age, half a glass of beer of a morning is enough to leave him buzzing and smiling. So the noisome business is soon forgotten. Rashil comes running past and he starts, not quite believing the old man is running.

‘Found ‘nother one, Drom, out near the fields.’

He jogs on, leaving Drom chasing his buzz even as it departs. With a grunt and a groan, he sets off in pursuit. He doesn’t need to see the body. He’s seen plenty in his time, more than anyone should. But he might be needed. He isn’t needed much by anyone anymore, so it’d be nice to be useful.

A full fifteen minutes later, his beer buzz is gone completely and his head’s thumping from the run he broke into halfway here. There’s a crowd, always is, and he pushes his way through. The young uns still stand aside to let the elders through and after seeing Lesta it comes as a relief. The respect isn’t entirely gone.

Drom takes a couple of steps into the space around the body before he sees who it is. Tears, as unexpected as the autumn rains, prick the corners of his eyes. Clask. Drom is at the sort of age when burying friends becomes something close to normal. But this friend is better than most and younger than some and nowhere near the grave. At least, not until his entrails were spread across the ground by the beast. It only takes a moment to take in the empty rib cage and teeth marks to clarify what did this.

Drom turns away and blinks hard. They’re watching him, all the young ones, waiting for a reaction. Everyone knew they were friends and more than a couple guessed how deep the friendship went. It was one of those things that went unmentioned in the village and that was one of the reasons they were both still there. Didn’t matter how many beast attacks came, go to the city and loving another man became a hangable offence.

But there is an unspoken agreement to stay silent, and then there is acceptance, and the two lie valleys apart. And Drom didn’t kid himself as to which it was, so he nodded and grit his teeth and rejoined the crowd, feeling the collective out breath as one of their eldest stayed calm and didn’t make this worse than it already was. He thought he might cry later, but the truth was he probably wouldn’t. In the event, there was no later, but Drom knew that no more than the others who stood around, gaping at the destruction in the clearing and exchanging the same worried looks.

It was into the clearing a few moments later that Ist stepped, hands shaking and eyes downcast. He was a small boy, which was unusual in a village filled with woodsmen and farmers, and carried himself with the sort of manner normally reserved for certain young girls and sheep. His father would have been embarrassed had he been there, but a woman with a roving eye and large breasts had stolen him away to the city, leaving the young boy alone.

There had been plenty of merriment among the elders the night Ist’s father left. Lesta’s duties, one of the more obscure of which he’d been unaware when he took the role, was the guardianship of orphans. Since the village hadn’t had one in more moons than anyone remembered, it had come as a great surprise to Lesta. But to his credit, he took Ist in, gave him duties and fed him, and if he beat him then he left no marks, which was as good as not doing it in the first place.

Now, shaking and pale after seeing the corpse, Ist clears his throat and speaks in his best not-village voice.

‘The village leader requests the presence of all men capable of bearing weapons to the village hall by end of the working day today.’

Drom turns and stares, a hundred possibilities jumping into his head. There had been hunting parties before, but not for many a year and none had ever been successful. Another of the elders shouts. It might have been Rashid.

‘What’s ee wants us for?’

‘You’re to go hunting, he–‘

‘You’re? You mean you ain’t coming, shame on you.’

This was from another, one of the younger ones and is met with a chorus of hisses from the assembled throng. Ist was liked by most and pitied by the rest and shaming him was no honour to anyone. Drom glares about trying to spot the source of the shout. ‘Go on, Ist.’

‘He believes the old woman at the north end might be responsible for the beast. He thinks you should go get answers.’

His official tone slips a bit at the end and the barrage of noise that strikes him following the pronouncement bows his head and he rushes from the circle. Drom can’t blame him in the least. Conversations spring up everywhere and Drom listens to a few as he trudges through the crowd back toward poor Clask. He meets Rashid in the space and they confer.

‘Think ‘eel get anyone?’

Drom shrugs. ‘A few. The young uns’ll go for it. Don’t know what ee thinks they’ll find though.’

‘You seen ‘er lately? She’s old, older’n usual.’

‘So?’

‘So attacks getting worse, ain’t they?’

Drom blinks and stares at the man he’s spent more than fifty years working and living beside. ‘Don’t tell me you buying it? You know it ain’t her.’

‘I know, I know, just saying. She might be gettin desperate.’

‘How long she been ‘ere, Rash?’

‘Longer’n I know.’

‘How long’s beast been here?’

”Bout the same.’

‘Rubbish. Beast always been ‘ere. She ain’t always been ‘ere, she couldn’t have been.’

Rashid nods as though that’s solved it, but there’s something in the way the old timer stomps away that makes him doubt. Rashid wants answers same as the rest of them. Scalia didn’t do herself any favours, neither. Kept herself to herself and, on the rare occasions she did come into town, didn’t talk to anyone.

Drom realised his head was sunk into his chest and straightened, bending until his back cracked. He got like this more and more these days.

 

We could go on, but best perhaps to leave Drom to his grief for what little time he has left. Instead we’ll follow someone else in the crowd, someone with bigger dreams than the others. Though his dreams are ruled, as so many young men’s are, by what lies within his trousers. Despite the blood lying sticky across the clearing, his mind is already returning to it.

“Lalis, come away now. There’s nothing to be gained by staying.’

Harth pulls her away from the clearing and down one of the many deer tracks that run through the thick forest. They are soon away from the grumblings and arguments, surrounded instead by the peace of the forest. Peace is an erroneous term, with the bird song that seems far louder following the terrible find and the steady cracking of sticks and swish of dust as Harth and Lalis make their way.

Harth transitions smoothly, his arm now around her waist and cupping one of those fabulous hips we spoke of earlier. She’s eager for the comfort now, tucking herself beneath his shoulder and snuggling in. The press of her breast against his chest is all it takes for his breathing to quicken and he works hard to keep his hand from trailing onto her arse.

He is, in fact, only moments away from pressing his lips to hers, when a different sound disturbs them. Lalis freezes and despite his blood running cold and his lance behaving much as though a far greater knight has just unseated him, he pushes her behind him and steps forward, hand reaching for his sword. It is, he realises with relief, the silver-edged one he retrieved from the body of poor Clask.

The old woman steps from the woods and stops, her eyes burning into them. Harth heaves a great sigh and releases the sword handle, relaxing.

‘Are you sure it’s safe to let your guard down around me? Your leader doesn’t seem to think so.’

‘My ruler is something of an ass. Or so my father says. But it isn’t that. The beast only hunts at night and there is most of the day still to go, so we have nothing to fear from you, my lady.’

The old lady, whom he remembers now is called Scalia, raises her eyebrows and gives him a half smile. It’s the first time he’s ever looked at her properly and, despite the deep lines in her forehead and wrinkles that cover every visible inch of her, with a smile she’s pretty. Prettier, perhaps, than… He catches himself, tries to imagine the old woman naked and shudders. A pretty smile does not a conquest make.

Harth glances over his shoulder and sees Lalis staring with undisguised fear and malevolence at the old lady. He puts his hands on her shoulders. ‘Lal, it’s fine, really it’s alright.’

Lalis reluctantly turns her eyes from Scalia to him and nods, biting her lip in a way that makes his loins stir. ‘I’m sorry, it’s just, after what Ist said…’

‘Really, there’s nothing to worry about.’

He turns back but Scalia is already on the far side of the trail, digging into the dirt there with a bit of old wood. She finds something and bends, pulling out what looks like an old root from the soil, murmuring to herself. She folds it and pushes it into a bag she’s got slung over one shoulder.

‘It isn’t you, is it?’

She glances up as though she’d forgotten he was there. Which she probably had. How old was she? He’d love to ask but father had taught him certain things were rude. She cackles, a genuinely witchy sound and shakes her head. ‘I haven’t killed anyone in many years, young man, many years.’

‘So you have killed someone?’

‘You’re quick. Your father’s Tensin, isn’t he?’

‘He is indeed.’

‘Hmm. You’re smarter than him.’

Harth blinked a few times, not entirely sure how best to answer that. Scalia saved him the trouble. ‘I think some people might come looking for me later. They’ll come after sundown, because guilty faces are always easier to hide in the dark. They won’t find me. You’d do well to leave also.’

‘What, leave where?’

‘Leave the village, young man. There are better places than here to spend your life.’ She leans forward, beckoning with one boney, mud-caked finger. He leans in but still barely hears her hiss in his ear. ‘And go alone.’

He jumps at the intensity in her voice and starts upright. He glances behind him, but Lalis has returned to glaring at Scalia and pays no attention to the flush that reaches his cheeks. He remembered the flash he’d had at the murder site, of snapping her neck. He shivers and turns back to Scalia but she’s gone into the woods, fading into the dim light beneath the trees.

Harth has about three seconds in which to contemplate all the witch has told him. Then Lalis grabs his arm and drags him further down the trail, to a clearing they know well. The grass is already flattened in places and his clothes come off like skin from a corpse as her mouth and tongue steal any words or questions he might have had.

 

We’ll leave them at it. It’s rare that watching such a thing can replicate the feelings that course through them. Though such feelings are different today. Lalis is almost desperate beneath him, thrusting as though with each movement she can take away the doubt that has taken seed in his mind and is already throwing out shoots. Not that she knows about the doubts, but she can read people and she feels the hesitance. And mother has warned her about the hesitance.

Instead we’ll travel back to the village, though in a roundabout route that brings us past Scalia’s hut. She’s home far faster than she should have been following her brief and confusing conversation with young Harth, but there is none to note it save the raven atop the front eaves of her cottage. He followed her in both directions and knows well the speed at which she can travel when the need arises. He’s aware, in a vague and uninterested way, that her travel is unusual and not at all like the other earth dwellers. But he doesn’t care. She puts food out and listens to him sing and makes no attempt to chase him away.

Scalia steps into her cottage and lets out a long sigh, dumping her bag to the floor with a thud. The ingredients are soon spread across the floor as she checks and double checks one more time that she’s got everything she needs. She eyes the sun through the dusty window and nods. She’ll have time. As she begins the preparation, she ponders on what she’s just done.

She’s been in this situation a hundred times before and never once has she warned someone. It isn’t within her remit, nor is it wise. She doesn’t know Harth and has no reason to trust him. But there is something about him, a light she hasn’t seen in such a long time. And he was with Her. That had to mean something, surely?

She sucks spit in through her teeth and winces at the sound. There are some bad habits to be broken on the road to Tethil.

Preparations complete, she rids her mind of the actions of foolish young men and dangerous young women to focus on the casting. An hour later, it’s done and as the sun reaches the yard arm a peace settles over the cottage. The raven tucks its nose under its wing and the animals in the surrounding woods fall silent or leave. Inside, Scalia lies in the centre of the room beneath a glowing dome the colour of a beech wood in spring. If we stayed to watch we might see the wrinkles disappear. We’d also see something that looks like black dust rising from her skin to be sucked into the light.

 

But we’ll leave Scalia and travel for the last time back into the village. On the way we pass Drom’s house and find him there, alone in his chair. His fire burns hot tonight and his sword, silver running down both sides of the blade, lies across his lap. For all the good it’ll do him. From him we come to Lalis’s parent’s house. Inside all is quiet. Beside her bed up in the loft, Lalis prays, though whether to Goth, the local’s favourite, or one of the other gods, we don’t know.

In the main room, her mother and father sit with hands clasped, tears streaming down her face to match the frown on his. They feel it, just as Drom does. And they have no answers. They only know they are leaving, as they have done so many times before. The curse travels through the female line and despite the three tiny graves that lie out back, still girls were all they had. The fourth was one too many, too many without guilt stripping away everything they were.

And they are plenty experienced at dealing with guilt. So we’ll leave them with their wallowing and move onward. The next house we reach is Harth’s, but he isn’t there. His parents are though and between them on the tiny table that forms their dining area lies a pack. Within the pack are Harth’s best – read only – clothes, his three books and a knife. There’s enough food for a couple of days which is all the evidence his parents need to know he’s running away. The decision they are struggling to make is whether to go and speak to Lalis’s parents, or to simply unpack the things, put them back in the drawers, and go to bed.

In the end, it won’t matter. They are pragmatic people and smart enough to know when something’s worth fighting over. So the likelihood is that Harth will return to a dark house and go to his hiding place to find it empty and his parents abed. But we shall see. Let us search for Harth now. There is only one place he can be and that is at the Longhall.

The sun burns the tops of the houses, rough thatch and makeshift tiles glowing as it dips behind the western mountains. The wind has dropped and there’s a stillness in the valley. No bird song carries through the late summer air, nor cries of the wolves from way up above the snow line. None of the usual sounds in fact. Not that anyone notices.

We reach the Longhall and are assaulted by sounds not heard in the village for many a year, longer perhaps, than even Drom can remember. They are the sounds of people rising up and getting angry. Lesta has just finished his speech and stands behind his podium with his hands resting in the tops of his trousers and his skinny lips twisted in a grimace of a smile.

He’s feeling full satisfied with himself and well he should. A few minutes ago he stood before nearly a hundred men, only a handful of which he could rely on. Now a hundred voices are raised all singing the same song. It is a song that stirs his veins. It is, in truth, the song of short-sighted anger and narrow-minded fear. It is a song heard a million times in towns and villages all over the world, whenever something inexplicable is made real and given form. For fear is only too eager to become anger when given a target.

Lesta knows this. Somewhere inside his ratty little mind is the knowledge of how to move men and stir hearts. Why someone like him gets such a gift is one of the great mysteries of the worlds and one we have not the time to delve into. Suffice it to say, he has it and has used it and so the people of the village spill out into the gathering gloom, weapons raised high.

Harth comes last, following but not joining. It suits him. He has felt this way most of his life and even more so since he began reading. There is an absence in the village and it’s not one he can put words to. But the feeling that resides in his breast at this moment, what we might call a disconnect, is as close to a distillation of it as he has ever experienced. He wants to feel it. He wants the fire to ignite in him as it has done in the hearts and stomach of his companions. But he watches them rage and feels only sadness, as well as a faint fear for the woman he met in the woods only hours ago.

The fear is faint because he knows, somehow, that he need not fear for her. Indeed, his fear would be better placed on those he now follows down main street, but he cannot find it in him. They are on a path of their own choosing and only his regret travels with them. He goes as far as the edge of the houses, where the fields take over, then stops and watches as the glinting blades and burning lanterns disappear into the evening dark.

Harth turns and walks slowly back through the silent town. He stops before the Longhall and takes a look around. He was right to pack. But first he must visit Lalis, as all sane men would do. He dreams of her body as he wanders through the town and a smile lifts his melancholy and sends it drifting up into the night sky. We’ll leave him to find the empty house and the confusion that comes with it, and follow the feeling that wisps and wafts through the twilight.

It drifts high into the trees, past the outer boundaries of the village into the forest proper. The men don’t stray up here. The forest lies as it has for thousands of years, the floor a bed of pine needles feet thick and the trees inches thick in moss. There’s a smell here, of damp the sun can never reach to burn away, and a world of which those living in the valley below could never dream. There are spirits and sprites, just as ignorant of those below, for whom the few square feet in which they live their short existences is the entire world.

There are others, too. Creatures who walk on two legs but run far faster on four. They growl as they prowl back and forth behind a barrier unseen by all, but felt strongly by them. They feel it like the scent of another pack and cross it only as a last resort. Their prey lives higher, the goats and bulls of the upper reaches with thick fur and horns the size of a man’s arm.

One crosses the barrier now as he has done for years. His craving is too strong.

He walks with a limp, his leg unhealed from his last fight all those years ago. He was the leader once, but his mind is blurred and his body old and so he goes down into the village to search for weak prey. His pack mates watch with sadness and scorn in their eyes. But tonight feels different. Tonight the barrier is weakening and they wonder just how weak it will become.

They hear the shouts and cries, coming louder through the trees. And they see the flames from the torches and slink back into the darkness.

 

Scalia finishes brushing her hair, running her old brush through the long golden locks exactly fifty times. She reflects, as she often does, on how quickly old habits return. Her hair hasn’t warranted this careful attention in decades, yet the brush glides through it like she’s been doing it for years. She glances in the mirror and lets her vanity off the leash for a moment.

Decades of age makes this moment even sweeter. Her cheek bones are high and firm and covered in smooth soft skin that would turn any man’s head. Her lustrous hair frames a face shaped like a heart and lips that promise with only a smile. Almost a century since last she saw this in the mirror and she wonders why she waited so long.

She knows why, though. Life has been easy and quiet and after the last affair, she craved a quiet life. Perhaps things will change. Her head snaps round to watch the door. She can hear the shouts, they’ve been getting gradually louder for the last few minutes. But it’s not them she watches. It’s the girl, the bearer. She’s leaving the village, following in the wake of her parents. They won’t have told her. But she knows. Blood speaks.

Someone else as well. She closes her eyes and finds him. He’s at the bearer’s house, finding it empty. Now he’s stumbling home but it isn’t home anymore and he’ll be leaving too. He’s a new addition, a twist to an old story. Perhaps the next century will make up for the peace of the last. She sniffs and opens her eyes.

Her pack is ready and her mount is saddled. She walks slowly around the room, taking down the five shields. Such a shame they won’t work in the next place. But the bearer will change with her journey and so the wards must also. The shouting is drawing closer and she can hear the hatred hidden within the words. It isn’t hatred, not truly. It’s fear and frustration, but these things are details. Once it’s aimed at someone, it matters little why the crossbow is drawn and who loaded it.

The pack can feel the wards and feel their power draining as the bearer leaves the village. They will follow her, but not before they’ve fed. Scalia kneels beside the shields and lets out a long breath. Her body moves as she commands, supple and ready and she can’t help the smile that breaks over her soft lips. Then one by one, she takes the wards and smashes them on the floor.

Before the dust from the last is settled, she slips from the back door, mounts her horse, and climbs up the narrow path to the brow of the mountain. The pack draw near and she mutters, a net of power enveloping her. They know better than to chance it and slink away. Besides, there’s plenty of prey below.

She trots for a while, through the starlit woods high above the village. When she reaches the high road, she drives her heels into her horse and charges into the night.

 

Down in the village, Drom hears the growl and readies himself. He cracks open the front door and there it stands. He saw it once before, as a child, but even with all the years since, he recognises the beast. He sees the tufts of white fur that pepper its neck and flanks. And he sees the eyes that swim, yellowing and milky.

Drom slips from his cottage and stands in the street, sword held out proud before him. He has dreamed of this more times than he remembers and he knows how it must end. The beast is old and tired and so is he. But the time has come for change. He takes a step and it spots him, dropping its nose to the earth as it slinks forward.

Drom settles into a stance he hasn’t found in years. Unfamiliar aches set in. ‘Come on then, ye foul beast, and make amends for the death of my love.’

He’s thought of those words before and they feel just as good coming from his mouth as they did rattling around his mind. The beast moves, so fast, and Drom barely gets the sword in front of him. He feels its teeth as the creature howls, a sound that carries to every house in the village. Women snuggle closer to their children and wrap them in their arms.

The blood spilling over his hand is warm, hot. It’s heart’s blood and he tries to feel the triumph he felt sure would come. But the beast’s eyes are yellow and old and there is no victory here. It plants its feet and Drom releases the sword. In a blink, in a heartbeat of someone far younger than him, the beast’s jaws open and close around his face and the night goes silent and black.

Lesta’s crusade reaches the cottage and, to his credit, he is first through the door. Perhaps he already knows what they’ll find. The floor is covered in clay fragments. He sifts through them, trying to make sense of the letters and pictures he finds. The others spread out, moving through the empty cottage. Outside, the wall has fallen and the pack close in. The bearer has moved on taking the curse with her. But the beasts have waited through more moons than even the eldest can remember and they will eat before they follow her.

‘She’s gone, the old hag’s gone.’

‘Hush. Did anyone else hear that?’