Grimenna

by N. K. Blazevic

  She thought this man most definitely was the Mad Maggra that they had to surpass and swallowed an icy lump of fear. He did not look like a man that could be easily pleased, nor did he look like he would barter.

  Ulrig came forwards then, hands upraised in a signal of peace, giving the man a quick nodding bow. Paiva could see the painted man’s eyes snap over Ulrig, assessing him, judging him.

  “We’re here to speak with Maggra,” Ulrig said. “I have brought gifts.”

  “What do you want from Maggra?” the painted man asked in a deep voice. Paiva was surprised that this man was not in fact the infamous leader. The man’s eyes snapped up to the packhorse laden with Ulrig’s gifts, then over the rest of the gang and stopped on her. His eyes were unreadable, the same dark blue of the ink swirling across his cheeks and nose.

  “Have you come to trade her?” he asked. She could not tell from the hardness of his voice if he was angry or contented.

  “No, no,” Ulrig spluttered. “Not exactly. It is important. It is most urgent I speak with Maggra. We are on a pilgrimage.”

  The painted man’s piercing eyes did not leave Paiva. Only when Renn urged his horse forward to block his view did he return his attention to Ulrig.

  “A pilgrimage?” the man smiled, his mouth twisting grotesquely. “Follow closely.”

  Ulrig ran back to his horse and ordered for the gang to lay down their weapons. With some residual resentment, they all did as they were asked.

  “Mad badgers,” she heard Jerrik mutter as the painted riders made quick work of cleaving apart the Folka creature. They pulled it apart like ants would a dead insect. The painted man grabbed the head by a tusked tooth and swung up on his horse. Holding the head in his hand as it dripped blood down his leg and his horse’s belly, he trotted ahead of the Far Reach Wilderman and led the way through the woods without a word.

  Paiva watched with a mixture of disgust and awe as the other riders picked up their own respective pieces of the kill and followed the painted man into the trees. Ulrig started the procession after them, casting a pale glance over his shoulder to his men. Even Ennig looked taken aback, his eyes unsettled and nervous. Ginver was shaking uncontrollably and looked as if he was about to be sick, and Jerrik threw hateful, mistrustful glances at the painted riders. Yulin held a mixture of disgust and disbelief in his own eyes, and though his sword was sheathed he kept his hand over its pommel in a tight grip.

  She heard Renn sigh dejectedly and she turned to look at him. He gave her a withering stare.

  “I am really not going to enjoy this at all,” he said.

  — «» —

  They travelled well into the dark before they reached the Northwoods camp. Flickering lights appeared through the trees and Paiva caught the smell of woodsmoke and roasting meats. As they drew nearer she saw figures move through the lights, heard muffled voices. She noticed the trees were painted, their trunks swirling with intricate designs. In their branches were hung bones and antlers that rattled together when the limbs moved.

  They followed the painted man into the camp which consisted of wattle huts woven into the trees. There were fires smoldering before almost every hut, men hunched over them with dark faces in the smoke, eating the meat off of dripping bones and sucking the marrow from them. There was a fowl stench masked beneath the woodsmoke of bodily decay and waste. The tableau reminded Paiva vaguely of Mummers-eve, for the men appeared deformed under their painted, naked faces with their bodies covered in furs.

  The painted riders drew their horses to a halt in front of a hut and Paiva gaped at it, for it was woven more of bones and antlers than wood. The painted man slipped off his horse and pushed aside a flap of stitched leather that served to protect the doorway. It, too, was stained with the peculiar, swirling patterns. He disappeared inside the hut with his Folka head while the Far Reach gang dismounted and peered cautiously about the camp. It had fallen silent, predatory eyes watched them through smoky fires.

  The painted man reappeared again, his hands glistening darkly from the Folka blood.

  “Bring the girl,” he said to Ulrig, then returned inside the hut. Paiva looked fearfully towards Ulrig who motioned for her to come forwards. Renn lifted his hood over his eyes and followed her without invitation.

  The hut was lit with the low light of small lamps burning fat that smelled strongly of something animal. A fire burned low in a crude stone hearth. There were animal skins covering the floor in a carpet, while carved bones and antlers and dried bird wings hung from the ceiling and wall. There were chairs and a bed like a bird’s nest, a round frame woven from saplings and filled with furs. Her eyes snapped up to a figure standing over a wooden table on which bled the freshly killed Folka head. The painted man stood off in a shadowy corner and she felt his eyes burn into her.

  The figure at the table wore a crown of spiked antlers, its shoulders covered in a thick fur pelt. When it raised its head to peer at them Paiva blinked. She looked up to meet the eyes that stared at her from a hairless face obscured with spirals and intricate patterns. It was a woman.

  She was perhaps Paiva’s mother’s age, her face wide and deep with strength. Her dark eyes dropped from Paiva’s stare down to the Folka head, and she reached out a thick hand riddled with sinew and veins to touch it. Gently, she pressed her hands over its eyes and closed them.

  “Maggra,” Ulrig said. “Good … good to see you again.”

  She said nothing and raised her eyes to him, then they raked over Renn and landed again on Paiva. Paiva could not quite understand her look. Her eyes were sunk deep in her head above vaulted cheekbones, and the feeling they gave her was raw and cold. There was a ruthlessness in them, a subdued savagery, a hidden, dangerous rage.

  “What do you want, Tinker?” she asked, her voice deep and earthy.

  “We are on a strange pilgrimage. We come to ask your permission to cross your lands into the Vale of the Spirits, and to ask for your help.”

  “The Vale? It is across the Highpeaks, it is beyond the reach of men.”

  “That is only a fable,” Ulrig waved dismissively. “The Vale can be crossed, of course it can.”

  “And how should you return?” she asked decisively, her eyes skirting back to Paiva. A tendril of oily smoke curled past Maggra’s face as she stared at Paiva and for a minute it appeared her inked skin was more a part of the air than her body.

  “You are no pilgrim,” she smiled with yellow teeth, and Paiva knew she was being coy. “There are only two reasons to be mad enough to cross into the Vale. The first is that you are a pilgrim, but there have been no pilgrimages to Morinvere since the Wildermen were thrown out here. The second is that you are after the pilgrims’ treasures, left there long ago. But you do not have the air of greed about you. I feel your desperation, but it is not greed that has brought you here.”

  Ulrig looked from Maggra to Paiva nervously and realized he and Renn were not of obvious interest to her. Ulrig looked about to intercede, but a look from Maggra’s painted man silenced him.

  “I am not a pilgrim, nor have I ever heard of pilgrim treasure,” Paiva said quietly.

  “Who are you then? What madness has brought you out here? Why do the Folka gather behind you?” Maggra asked, stepping closer.

  Renn stepped closer to Paiva; she could feel him bristling.

  “My father has been driven into the Vale by the Folka,” Paiva said firmly. “I want to bring him back. Along with the others.”

  “The others?” Maggra’s eyes widened almost imperceptibly. “Who is this man you call a father?” she asked, her voice deepening.

  “The Wolf,” Ulrig said.

  Maggra blinked. Renn stiffened. Ulrig picked at his beard.

  “Hope,” she breathed, and then Paiva saw a glimmer of savage anger well deep in her eyes. “Where have you been?”

  Paiva blinked up at her, not understanding.
>
  “My mother spoke of you. She said Hope would save us from here. Have Hope, keep Hope, hold it fast. But you never came for us, you never saved us, and I became … this. I was as beautiful as you once, I was just as pure.” A tremor ran through her jaw. A look of self-disgust entered those deep eyes and mixed with her anger.

  “I’m … I’m sorry,” Paiva said helplessly.

  Maggra’s lips trembled with rage, her eyes burning with self-hate. Her hand suddenly flew out and the Folka head went flying into the fire where it hissed and bubbled in the heat.

  “Where have you been?!” Maggra roared. “You are too late!” She stormed towards Paiva, pinning her with her fiery gaze.

  Renn quickly stepped in front of Paiva and Maggra came to a grinding halt inches from his face. Her nostrils flared and she breathed hard.

  “You dare stand in my way?” she breathed. “Let me see her, or I shall maim you beyond repair.”

  Paiva touched Renn’s arm, imploring him to obey. He stood fast, so Paiva crept around and stood before him, shielding him with her small body and facing Maggra who stared at her with her deep, tortured eyes.

  Paiva could think of nothing else to do but to reach and close her hand over those eyes, to block out what she saw as if she could somehow diminish it. Just like Maggra had done to the Folka head. She could feel the tremors of anger beneath her hand still and gently she pushed her eyes closed.

  “I’m sorry,” Paiva said. “I am here now.”

  Ulrig and Renn watched the exchange with wide eyes, hardly daring to breathe. From beneath Paiva’s little hand Maggra’s tears spilled, hot as the anger that ate at her soul.

  “My father is trapped in the Vale of the spirits,” Paiva said. “Trapped there by Folka. I need to set him free.”

  Paiva lowered her hands and stared into this woman’s face. For a long moment she was quiet, her eyes remaining closed, her nostrils flaring. Then Paiva saw the intricate designs appear on her face as she smiled. Paiva touched a finger to a wolf where it was drawn, its shape folded into the swirls and contours of ink lines on Maggra’s cheek. Maggra’s eyes opened and returned her gaze. She reached and ran a strand of Paiva’s hair between her dyed fingertips.

  “There is no greater treasure,” she whispered, “than a pure heart and a clean conscience.”

  “Please let me cross,” Paiva said. “I need to find my father.”

  She nodded her head sagely. “Can they forgive a creature like me? Can they truly banish pain? Can they return to me the name my Mother gave me?”

  “The good spirits? I hope so. I hope they can right all wrongs.”

  “Then I shall help you.” Her eyes turned from the fire and bore into Paiva’s. “I shall cut off Varloga’s head myself.”

  — «» —

  Maggra led Paiva to an empty hut wherein she found one of those rounded, bird’s nest beds filled with furs. Renn followed, as the painted man followed Maggra. Maggra set a small lamp from the ceiling to cast light about the hut, then she peered warily at Renn.

  “Are you her guardian?” she asked.

  “Yes,” Paiva said before Renn could answer. She did not want to be left alone in this camp.

  “Rest then. In the morning we shall talk, for you must be weary and frightened.”

  “Thank you Maggra.”

  When Maggra and her painted man left, Paiva sat heavily on the bed and breathed out a deep sigh of relief.

  “That was very, very frightening,” she said. Renn said nothing, but she heard him also release a low breath. The rest of the gang were sleeping out with the horses in the trees, rather happy to keep their distance from Maggra’s men.

  “I don’t understand,” she said. “How is there a woman leading a gang of Wildermen?”

  “I think she might be more of an animal than a woman,” Renn said. “I told you once how there were some Wildermen who steal women away to the mountains. The story I know is that Maggra’s mother was one of those women. Maggra grew up in the wild of Grimenna. She became stronger, crueler, and smarter than the men around her and therefore their leader. They learned not to touch her, because she could invoke curses on their heads.”

  “It’s sad, her eyes are so … sad.”

  “They call her the queen of the damned,” Renn almost whispered. “She’s not sad, she’s mad. She is rage, she is anger, wrapped in painted skin and fur.”

  “Anger is a dark humor,” Paiva whispered back. “She knows you. You two are familiar, aren’t you?”

  “Ah,” he sighed. “I am a murderer after all. I flitted through here some years ago trying to find a place for myself in the woods. Maggra offered me sanctuary and for a while I stayed. She would not paint me, so I left.”

  “Why?” she asked.

  “Because when you come to Maggra it is because you know you will never be pardoned and you surrender your cause of ever returning to the lowlands. When she paints you it is a symbol of just that, a symbol that you are truly damned and belong to the woods forever.” She saw him thumb his scar unconsciously, his eyes growing stern at the thought.

  “She wouldn’t paint you?” Paiva asked. “She wouldn’t damn you?”

  This caused him to sigh. “No, she sent me away.”

  “Why?”

  “Well,” he said. “It seems even the worst wretches believe in something good. This is where the darkest, most unloved, most hated men gather in the woods and still… the Old Stories are remembered. Maggra, of all people, believes in you. And she must have believed in me as well.” He began to rummage through the furs, his face hard and angular in the low light.

  “What if I’m making a horrible mistake? What if I’m leading you all to your deaths?” She looked to a patch of stars from a small window that blew in the night air and the smell of smoke.

  “All men die, Paiva,” he said. “Whether it’s now or later. All these men lead damned lives, lives not even worth living. But you have given them something worth dying for.”

  “But I couldn’t bear the guilt, I couldn’t.”

  “You don’t have to. It’s not you who promised them Varloga’s head. I did. You were simply…” he waved his hand dismissively. “The inspiration.”

  “Renn, that’s not true. I convinced you. You can’t forever carry all the world’s blame on your shoulders.”

  “Let me rephrase. It’s not that you gave them something worth dying for; you gave them something to live for. You are just trying to do something good, and if we should perish it is because I chose to believe that. You cannot be blamed.”

  He found a fur and threw it down at the door, then peered about the camp. The Far Reach gang gathered in trees across from the hut, warming themselves over a smoky fire and tending to the horses.

  “I don’t want you to die,” she echoed, feeling her chest grow tight.

  “I don’t want you to die either,” he returned insolently.

  She laughed, a broken little laugh that stung her eyes with tears. She lay back into the nest with exhaustion and stared out to the little patch of stars while he slumped down to the ground wearily, guarding the door. Her mind spun to her life before all of this had started, to her quiet little village with friendly faces where everything had been safe and familiar. She remembered when the worst feeling in the world had been when she had discovered that Ramsi Lier, who turned out to be all pride and bluster, had no real interest in her.

  She had said Ramsi was the most beautiful man she had ever seen. What did she know of beauty then? She had not known the true majesty of the Forest, or that a Wilderman could have more honor then a ranger, or that shadows were made from light. Even in the darkest part of the woods the unforgivable and the unloved still sought to keep light in a world that had thrown them away.

  She realized in that moment that what the Strix had said of how it was light that shaped shadows, the opposite
was also true. Renn had been thrown into the shadows, and beneath the grime and dirt of shame and guilt, a bright and steady light had been forged.

  Renn rummaged with his sleeping arrangements then strode back to her, fumbling with the lamp above their heads.

  “Renn,” she said. He lowered the lamp, his face softened in its glow. “You are a beautiful soul.” She meant it. He blinked at her in surprise, his eyes searching hers. He frowned, opened his mouth as if to say something, then blew out the lamp and vanished into shadow.

  Chapter 16

  Maggra sat astride a painted Berg horse the next day and led the full numbers of her gang and Paiva’s up the mountain. Scores of painted bodies flanked them through the trees and Paiva felt a surge of confidence that they might have a chance to withstand the Folka. There were other women in Maggra’s camp, wives or mothers of her Wildermen who were as lethal and dangerous as their male counterparts. She noticed that there were many men who did not carry brands, and she learned that many were born in the forest as Maggra was. Maggra allowed many transparencies within her gang, but she did not allow for women to be stolen. The women that were there came willingly, some rescued from the pit, some the great, great granddaughters of the first people who had not been swallowed by the forest when the Folka rose.

  Some joined them in their march towards the Highpeaks, others that were unable to stayed behind to pray. Maggra was resolute and firm with her men, forcing them onwards and upwards for days and for nights until they stood at the top of the Highpeaks on their tired horses and were looking into the valley below.