Grimenna

by N. K. Blazevic

  “Grand,” she mused as she casually stepped out of the way of a frantically wriggling leech that was making an attempt to return back to the water. “What else is there out here?” she asked.

  “Oh, there’s lots,” Ulrig said as he stuffed his feet back into his boots. “There’s Foxbells, a pretty flower which when crushed beneath a man’s fingertips can cause his heart to stop. Crampwort, which will colic him to death. Blisterberry, Weepwort, Strixbane… A great number of botanicals a wanderer of the Wilderlands must be cautious of. Ironically, as deadly as these plants may be they also have the capacity to be used as medicines, if prepared by the right hands.”

  “Like Jekka’s.”

  “Indeed.” He smiled and got to his feet. She saw a gleam of pride flash through his eyes before he turned back for his horse. “It can be that Crampwort can act as a vermifuge if its oils are mixed with a binding compound like clay. Foxbells can make a faltering heart beat stronger if the poison is boiled out of it first. There’s no reason to be afraid of nature, for it is not evil. You simply must understand it.”

  He finished with warning her to untie her dress and keep her legs protected from the underbrush, then led the procession on after securing Felder’s saddlebags. He stopped a ways up to point out Spiteweed to her, but did not seemed concerned for her legs. They burned and bothered her but she did not complain, mostly because Renn followed closely behind her and she had an urgent desire to prove her strong will to him. She wanted more than anything to earn his respect and not to feel like the blundering fool she was. Her dress chafed at her legs but she ignored it and gritted her teeth, stepping tenderly while she coaxed Jakbur behind her.

  When they stopped to rest at midday she collapsed wearily on a fallen log and poured her waterskin over her legs to cool the lingering burning sensation. She was already exhausted and the small meal that Renn brought her did little to strengthen her.

  “I hate to sound like a whiny Wilder-whelp,” she said as he sat down to eat next to her. “But how long do you think it’s going to take us to get to the Vale?”

  He smiled, and though it wasn’t much of a smile it was the most reassuring thing she’d seen all day. “I can’t say,” he mused. “If it were a straight march to the Highpeaks we’d be lucky enough to make it in five days. However it is not a straight march; there are mountains and valleys and other obstacles in the way. We’ll be lucky if we make it out of the bog by nightfall.”

  “The bog?” she asked, wondering if that was what they called the treacherous Spiteweed-filled swamp.

  “The marshlands run from the bog, but it’s a little tricky because the bog floats, or so Ulrig says. It always changes, never stays in one spot. He says if the bog’s hungry, it will make it harder for us to pass, but he also thinks the Stones walk around at night.”

  “They do,” Ulrig said in passing as he trampled down a spot for himself to sit in the bracken across from them. “When I first came to the woods there was a big rock in the Far Fall valley that had a little birch tree growing from it. Thirty years later that same rock sits on top of the Snowy Crags and has a great big birch tree growing from it.”

  “There are lots of rocks that have trees growing on them,” Renn reminded him.

  “There are no birch trees in the Crags,” Ulrig said smartly and stuffed his mouth with a handful of dried berries.

  “Do all the stones move?” she asked curiously.

  “No,” Ulrig replied. “Only the enchanted ones.”

  “Is the bog enchanted?”

  “I don’t really think so,” he said. “I think it is more of a living thing then an enchanted thing. But don’t worry, the Bergs will guide us through it. They were called Bog Horses before it got shortened to Berg.”

  “Why were they called Bog Horses?” Paiva asked as Renn rolled his eyes at another of her endless questions.

  “Because when you try to catch a wild Berg they run into a bog and hide. Was a very clever Wildermen who caught the first one.”

  — «» —

  They were back on their feet again shortly after, leading the horses by hand up the last length of the swamp. Mervig was sent up ahead to scout and look for signs of this infamous bog, but they went a good ways before Ulrig muttered that the bog must have had a good meal and he hoped it was of Folka and not of Wildermen. They were making good ground when of a sudden Mervig’s horse threw its head and whinnied, stamping its feet firmly into the ground and looking about the thick trees in alarm. Its nostrils flared and its mane bristling. Every Wilderman in the party reached for their weapons and took a guarded stance, peering cautiously into the trees and listening for any noise. Yulin and Renn were instantly by Paiva’s side.

  Mervig looked back to Ulrig and shrugged.

  “I see naught,” he said, and took one step forward before disappearing into the earth. A black curse flew out of Ulrig’s mouth as Mervig’s horse reared and threw itself backwards. Ulrig went for the horse while Yulin and Renn bolted to the spot where Mervig had disappeared. The ground looked deceptively firm, but they both stuck their hands into it like it was no more than soup. Beneath the dead leaves and calmly growing ferns was nothing but a soft, brown clay. Their hands grasped at nothing and Yulin was the first to lay on his belly and plunge his whole upper body down into it while Renn held fast to his belt. In seconds the other Wildermen had swarmed them and by the time Yulin began kicking his feet there were four men to help pull him back. There was an immense amount of suction. Yulin’s head broke the surface with a sickening slurp. Mervig emerged a second later, his hands clinging tightly to Yulin’s.

  They were both pulled safely to firmer ground where they collapsed in shock and panted lungful’s of burning fresh air. Yulin was covered in mud to his waist while Mervig was entirely covered. He spat filth from his mouth and scooped mud from his eyes, blinking frantically and choking.

  “Warden,” he choked when he made out his rescuer. “The Warden saved me.”

  “I did what I could,” Yulin sniffed. Mervig extended his hand to Yulin in thanks, the branded hand clasping the one that had branded it. Ulrig, who had managed to subdue Mervig’s horse, bent and patted him on the shoulder.

  “Best we listen to our Bergs,” he said. “Another wrong step and who knows how deep you’ll sink.”

  Despite the incident they pressed on in relative good humor. Ginver struck up a tune and the other men exchanged dry jokes. Paiva found herself admiring them, for when faced with treachery the Wildermen seemed to adopt an airy nonchalance, as if being swallowed by a bog were no more than a part of daily routine. Renn returned and threw her up on Jakbur and they pressed on atop their horses, who seemed to have a sixth sense instilled in them as to where to put their feet. Felder took the lead, and as Ulrig was the wisest of the Wildermen, Felder seemed to be the wisest and most trusted of the Bergs. Renn towed Jakbur behind him and sat atop Runa like he was made of stone. Paiva on the other hand grappled with arm and leg to keep her seat as the horses lurched, jumped, and shimmied themselves between trees. She fell once, sliding down Jakbur’s neck with a helpless yell before plummeting to the ground where she sunk up to her waist. Renn pulled her out before she had time to blink.

  She wearily hauled herself back atop Jakbur and tried to scrape the mud from her dress. Renn looked defeated and at a loss of what to do with her so she proclaimed aloud that the bog mud soothed her Spiteweed burns. The mud didn’t help her to keep her seat, though, and Jakbur became all the more slippery. This caused her to slow their progress and eventually a chorus of muffled curses began being directed at her.

  Even Renn grew impatient when she lost her seat again and he drew her up onto Runa behind him. At a loss for what to do she wrapped her arms about his waist and held fast. Only then did she manage to travail the bog without mishap. She pressed herself into the hard lines of his back and felt the strain of his muscles that kept them both anchored in the
ir seats.

  She found herself imagining a different scenario, one wherein he was neither a Lord’s son nor a Wilderman but a simple village boy. She wondered what he would have been like, who he would have been if shaped by a different life. Would he know that love could exist within a family, that fathers were not always disappointed in their sons; that friendship could be true and not forced? She thought of how horribly alone and afraid she would be without him, and how horrible it must have been for him to face these woods by himself.

  She gripped him tighter. “Thank you,” she said.

  Renn said nothing, but she felt his calloused hand close over hers looped about his waist. Then it moved away, pulling at Jakbur’s lead line to keep from falling behind as they struggled through the bog.

  — «» —

  They made it through the bog by late afternoon and decided to make camp early, for the whole party was bone-weary. Ulrig led them to a creek where they washed themselves, their horses and gear. He then started a roaring fire and staked most of his clothing out over it on a hooked branch to dry, then muttered around the camp bare foot in a scrappy pair of jerkins sorting through their wares to make supper. Paiva went into the creek fully clothed and washed the caked mud and grime from herself out of sight of the Wildermen. She returned to the fire and stood before it in her soaked attire to dry, watching curiously as the Wildermen came back from their baths and hung their clothes up in tree limbs. She was quite used to field boys and farm workers who under the heat of the summer sun worked without shirts and their pant cuffs rolled up, but standing amidst a gang of half-bared Wildermen was disconcerting. She found their appearances to be almost alien, for without their great bulk of furs and tattered leathers they looked less like animals and more like men — except Mervig, who was quite as hairy as an animal and who probably didn’t need to wear clothes at all to keep himself warm in the cool woods.

  She realized how Ennig had earned his name, for across his massive back were whipping scars. In a small way it made her sympathetic towards him for she had seen good horses ruined and turned wicked under the hands of a cruel master. She did not believe men were born wicked, but she did believe some men could not come back from wickedness. She suspected Ennig was one of those. Whoever had broken him had done their job well and he bore the marks to prove it.

  Renn sat across the fire from her shirtless and barefoot, and it pained her to look at him as well. He was far too lean. Every muscle and cord of sinew showed in his taut frame. Again she wished she had the means to make him whole. Ginver, who she had by now learned had in fact been a minstrel before being branded, still had a softness to his physique that bespoke of an easy life. He had probably spent most of it in taverns and halls eating and drinking his fill in exchange for his talents. He made up some lyrics and a lively tune about the bog, which swallowed men and spat them out naked. It caused a few chuckles from the others before Mervig clouted him over the head.

  “I’d rather Paiva fell into the bog and it took her clothes than mine,” Mervig jeered. He winked at her, but she was not entirely sure how harmless a joke it was.

  “If that ever did happen, Mervig, I could spin myself a yard of wool from the hair on your chest and make myself a pretty frock,” she retorted.

  Mervig’s eyes bulged and for a second she thought he was going to clout her as well before all at once the entire gang burst into choking laughter.

  “It would itch worse than Spiteweed,” Ulrig wheezed, slapping his knee. Mervig protectively caressed his chest hair.

  “No one’s going to turn my gleaming mane into a lady’s dress.”

  “Probably could, there’s enough of it,” Ginver sniggered. “Mervig Hairy Shirt, wears his beard like a skirt.”

  “That name better not stick,” Mervig hissed. He uttered a slew of curses at Ginver and swung his arm to clout him again, but Ginver was far too quick and rolled out of the way, holding his ribs with laughter.

  “You could always call him Bog Mouth,” Ulrig noted at the colorful language that erupted from the enraged Wilderman.

  “Bog Beard!” Ginver cried. It was readily agreed by the whole party he would from this day forever be called Bog Beard Mervig, and Ginver promised to spread his story far and wide into Grimenna with gales of laughter at how his name had been earned.

  Chapter 15

  The next day they headed into a rocky pass that lead up to Next Mountain. Paiva, of all people, spotted a figure hunched on a ledge above them. She whirled to Renn and pointed to it in alarm.

  “Good eyes,” he murmured, then called up to Ulrig. She was momentarily pleased with herself and thought to inform Renn her good eyes were on account of years of watchful shepherding, when she saw the look on Ulrig’s face that filled her with unease. He squinted up to the ledge and waved hello. The figure watched them for a moment, then rose from the ledge and disappeared.

  “Who was that?” she asked Renn. “Is it Maggra’s gang?”

  “No,” he replied, scanning the trees. “We call him the Spook.”

  “The Spook?”

  “No one knows his name.”

  “Is he dangerous?”

  “He is self-serving. At times that can be dangerous. But never mind, he has no quarrels with us.”

  They made it halfway up the mountain by nightfall and camped in the thick trees that grew there. The men were unusually quiet as they sat around the fire and Paiva couldn’t help but feel like they were being watched.

  It was Ulrig who lifted his head to the shadows and called out: “You can come to the fire.”

  A moment later a shape materialized, silent as a wraith. A tall man garbed in tattered clothes, he stepped into the firelight and gazed about the camp with colorless eyes. He found a lone rock to perch on and sat across from them, dropping his eyes into the fire and spreading his hands to warm them. He was young enough, strangely beardless as Renn was, his hair an ash-colored blond jutting about his face in sharp strands. His clothes were strange for a Wilderman, for instead of wearing furs and leathers he wore wool and cotton. He looked like a woodsman, not a Wilderman, who had somehow gotten lost on his way home from cutting timber.

  Ulrig offered him a bowl of hot broth and some ash cake which he took silently.

  “We are just passing through,” Urlig said. “We’re headed to Maggra’s.”

  The Spook nodded and sniffed at the bowl of broth, his eyes lifting to land directly on Paiva with an intensity that sent a chill through her. Everything about him was gray and washed out, and she was sure if she blinked he would disappear into the smoke, which seemed to her the very substance of his being.

  “We’re going to Morinvere,” Ulrig said into the silence of the stranger. The Spook lowered his bowl and looked to Ulrig. Paiva could make out no questioning in his face, but Ulrig seemed to understand him like he did the Stones. Slowly, the Spook shook his head, then looked beyond into the woods, sweeping his gaze through the dark trees.

  The Spook’s faded eyes grew somber as he looked back to the Wildermen. His eyes were like gravestones, cold and lifeless. “They are coming,” he said. Suddenly the fire crackled, spitting sparks into the air with a loud crack that startled them all.

  When the smoke cleared the Spook was vanished, his meal lying untouched at the foot of the stone he had been sitting on. Paiva looked anxiously to Renn for an explanation.

  “What was that? Who is coming?’

  “I don’t know,” he said and looked across to Ulrig, whose eyes were lost in the fire.

  “Who is he?” Paiva asked again.

  “A ghost,” Renn shrugged. “No one knows. We think he lives in the old vanished village beyond the pass. He comes and he goes, never stays long. He’s been here forever, never changed, never aged. No one knows if he is even a Wilderman.”

  “If he is,” Yulin sniffed, “it was not I who branded him.”

  “Who is
coming? What did he mean?” she asked worriedly.

  “The Folka,” Ulrig answered as the fire crackled its light across his quiet face. He sighed and lay down, huddling beneath his furs to turn in for the night. Paiva stared across the way at the bowl of broth and the ash cake. She shivered as Renn rose and emptied them into the fire, as if they had truly been touched by the unliving.

  “Don’t worry,” Renn said. “That is why we call him the Spook. No one knows if he comes to warn or to scare.”

  “Some stories say he was cursed by the Strix many, many moons ago; that he is from the Old Settlers’ time,” Ginver added. “No one knows why. Only that we don’t go into the ruins of the vanished villages because of ghosts like him.”

  “I thought he was a Wilderman who died out here. He never got his pardon so his soul could never rest,” Mervig said.

  “Leave him be,” Renn said. “Ghosts can’t hurt the living. They can only haunt.”

  “My father says that ghosts are souls that could not leave this world because their loved ones would not let them go,” Paiva said. It seemed every time she opened her mouth she said something bothersome, for they all turned to look at her in grave silence.

  “What do you mean?” Ginver asked.

  “The same as how our prayers birthed spirits into this world. When someone we love dies and we cannot accept it, we do more harm to their soul by wishing them back into this world than letting them go. They remain trapped here, unable to move on. The living bring them back.” She felt a sudden chill sweep over her and she looked into the trees, somehow sure the Spook was still listening.

  The men quietly turned in for the night after that and she found it hard to lie down and find her own rest. Though her body was sore and weary, her mind wandered out into vast spaces. Her father said that all of life was a circle, that all living bodies took their nourishment from the earth and when their bodies failed they were returned to the earth. He said it was the same for the soul, but he himself was too humble to say he knew what souls were truly made of and where they returned. He simply said they were eternal, as life was eternal, and existence was just a means through which it acted. A ghost was neither here nor there.