Eyes of the Woods

by Eden Fierce

  Mother appeared with a tired expression, and she kissed my head. “I’m going to have Maven work on your dress again tonight. It’s going to be stunning.” She gathered the dishes, but Ursula arrived and shooed her away.

  “I’ll just say good-bye to your father then,” Mother said, disappearing out the back door.

  “Good evenin’, loves,” Ursula said. “Be havin’ a safe night.”

  “Thank you,” Lukas, Jonathan, and I said in unison.

  I turned to my brothers. “We should get downstairs.”

  The boys followed me, mimicking my movements as I sidestepped the glass cases filled with vials of Vileon. Colorless, odorless, and tasteless, it had been our family’s lifeblood for generations. The wealthy would pay ten thousand chits for just one tiny bottle, but that was all they would ever need.

  Vileon was lauded as a sort of fountain of youth. Found by our ancestors to possess ingredients that facilitated health and a youthful appearance like the nightwalkers had, it was worth every penny we charged to harvest it, but few knew exactly what had to be done.

  When a human was bitten by a nightwalker and turned, their bodily fluids didn’t immediately leave the body. We had seen some bleed if they were downed just after turning. It took the acids in the stomach decades to absorb. While keeping the population of the nightwalkers thinned, the Priory had also learned those fermented stomach acids could be manufactured into Vileon.

  The cousins guarded it carefully while we were asleep and hunting. Besides the twelve-foot-tall stone wall surrounding our property, our home had been fortified further with every generation. Iron gates, dogs, and dozens of bow-carrying cousins who took shifts walking the wall lines made up the Helgren compound, and it had yet to be penetrated.

  On the north side, between the house and the stone wall, Mother had grown a vast, vibrant garden to contrast with our fortress. The boys and I used to play hide-and-seek in that garden, but as I grew, and hunting replaced our childhood, the garden reminded me of what was lost.

  Separating the garden from the wall was a path that had been ground down by hundreds of cycles of patrols that went around the entire circumference of the wall. Two gates marked the front and back of the compound. Ladders were posted every fifty yards so the cousins could climb up and walk the wall.

  The front gate was iron, attached to the front door by a wide, dirt path. Our great-great-grandfather had made the door tall, heavy, and intimidating on purpose.

  Anyone who wished to enter must have courage, or strong motive, or both, Father used to say.

  The precautions were necessary. Processing Vileon took weeks. When Father and I weren’t sleeping in the daytime hours, we were processing the serum. Without taking great care to follow the exact method, those who ingested a substandard batch of Vileon would experience sickness and sometimes death. In worst cases a buyer would turn, and it was never good business to have to down a buyer. Our Vileon was the most trusted in all the territories. My late grandfather and Father spent many hours in the lower level of our home perfecting the manufacturing process, so every year our Vileon was even more pure, with quicker, more flawless results.

  “Eris!” Lukas screamed, grabbing my shoulders from behind.

  “What?” I asked, jumping at the same time.

  Lukas grinned, satisfied he’d caught me off guard. Surprising me used to be impossible, but I had more on my mind these days.

  “C’mere. I want to show you something.”

  As I followed him, a whiff of the rancid mixture we dipped our arrows in mixed with the dank smell of the cellar and filled my nose. Eitr was the opposite of Vileon. Vileon was the death of death. Eitr was death to those who couldn’t die.

  As inhumane as hunting and harvesting nightwalkers felt, gathering the blood of the dead for the Eitr was my least favorite part of the process. While Vileon came from nightwalkers, Eitr came from humans.

  As leader of the Priory, Father had many responsibilities: hunter, protector, scientist, businessman, and the person to summon when a death was about to occur. When someone from our territory was about to die, they called upon my father.

  Long ago, just after the Fall, the gathering of the dead was done so the freshly deceased wouldn’t attract nightwalkers. One night in his youth, my father’s father witnessed a starving nightwalker drink blood that was too far away from the last heartbeat, and then watched that nightwalker die. The Priory gained invaluable information that night. Deoxygenated blood was poison to nightwalkers, and so my family began harvesting it for hunting.

  “Eris!” Clemens called from upstairs.

  “Oh, it’s going to be one of those nights,” I said, startled again.

  “But I have something to show you,” Lukas said. He tugged on me again, and although I looked up once to show I was needed upstairs, I gave in to Lukas’s sweet smile.

  He squeezed my hand when we reached a corner of the room. He pulled out my beloved dagger. Father had given it to me on my thirteenth birthday. It had been missing for over a week, but I had kept it to myself, ashamed that I had misplaced such a special gift. Beautiful script was engraved into the blade, and I ran my finger over the sharp metal. It looked different than the last time I saw it, and I leaned in to get a closer look. A small attachment sat at the bottom of the grip. Lukas shook it twice, and liquid swished inside.

  “What did you do?” I asked.

  Lukas grinned. “See this little black button on the side?” he asked, turning the grip to the side. “Press it, and it will push the Eitr through the engravings.” He pressed the button, and the clear liquid ran through the lettering and dripped from the edge. “In case you run into an elder.”

  “We haven’t seen one of those yet. Father has only seen one, when he was Clemens’s age.”

  The light in Lukas’s eyes vanished. “Just in case. Things seem different now. I can’t figure it out, but it’s a feeling I have, and it won’t let me go.”

  I swallowed. He didn’t sound like a teenage boy, and his voice was quiet and low. I tried to play off Lukas’s words with a smirk. “Are you worrying about me again?”

  “Always,” Lukas said without humor.

  I wiped the blade on my pants and then hugged my brother. “I made it out just fine.”

  “Barely. They’re getting older and stronger, Eris. You need to be more careful.”

  “You worry about you. I can handle myself.”

  Lukas pressed his lips together in a hard line.

  “Eris!” Clemens called again from the upper level.

  Familiar loud footsteps sounded on the stairs, and I turned to greet my father with a smile.

  “What?” Father asked.

  “I just find it funny that you can walk through the woods without being detected, but I always know when you’re coming downstairs.”

  He ignored my jab.

  “Lukas, do you have everything ready?”

  He nodded. “Yes sir. Everything is ready to go.”

  Clemens trotted down the steps to join us. “I’ve been calling for you. Emelen wanted to see you before we left.”

  “Me? Why?”

  He smiled. “Your birthday. She just wanted to talk with you. Make sure you didn’t have any questions.”

  “Only if she knows a way to skip it.”

  Father’s deep laughter bellowed throughout the house. He looked upon me, cupping my chin and smiling. “There will come a day when you won’t mind these things.”

  “I disagree,” I said, my chin set.

  He laughed again. “Well then. We’re off into the night.”

  We followed him upstairs.

  “Cursed moon,” he said, looking up to the perfectly round, silver light in the sky. It was harder to hide during a full moon. “We’ll probably just be patrolling tonight, kids.”

  I didn’t say aloud the relief I felt. Every time we downed a nightwalker, I felt a little closer to death myself. Father explained that one day it would get better, that I would understand, bu
t that day had yet to arrive, and I worried it never would.

  WE DIDN’T GO STRAIGHT TO THE WOODS. Father had been called upon to collect Ireck Sumner, one of Ona’s councilmen.

  The house didn’t look much different than the ones in the village. Made of wood, and the roof covered in grass, the only difference was the seal on the door that signified Ireck’s place on the council.

  His wife, Cala, was donned in a black dress. She stood with a candle in her hand as we arrived. Her breath puffed out in a white mist, glowing against the candle she held in her wrinkled hands. Her white hair, once dark as night, was pinned back in a tight bun, covered by a thin black lace. She had kind eyes, albeit sad.

  “Dyre,” she said, her voice weary. “It’s good to see you, boy.”

  Father simply nodded and then touched her shoulder.

  She led us down a hall to their bedroom, where Ireck lay, his hands folded over his belly, and his eyes closed. He was finally at peace.

  “It’s been a long fight for him,” Father said, bending down to kiss the man on the forehead. Ireck had been his close friend for some time, but he had always suffered poor health. He had always refused the Vileon.

  Cala’s deep wrinkles and tired eyes proved she had the same feelings about the serum as her husband. It wasn’t often that the wealthy turned down what we had to offer. That was probably why Father cherished his friendship with Ireck so deeply, because although he’d never admit to it, he felt the same.

  Father comforted Cala while Clemens, Lukas, and I went about the ritual, covering Ireck in cheesecloth, and then a thicker hide, secured with long, leather straps. I touched the old man’s forehead gently with my palm while Clemens’s quietly recited the Final Prayer.

  Quiet and careful, we removed Ireck from his home and placed him in our wagon while his wife and their servants watched. Cala put her hand over her mouth as we climbed into our seats.

  When Father jerked the reins and the horses moved forward, he breathed out a deep sigh.

  “I respect the laws,” he said. The creaking of the wooden wheels and the crunching of the rocks beneath them were the background melody to his low, sad voice.

  I touched his arm. “I know you do, Father.”

  “But nights like tonight, I’m not proud to carry them out.”

  I nodded, looking back one last time. Ireck’s home was shadowed by the night. Only the few lit windows and the smoke that billowed from the chimney glowing in the moonlight signaled to the average passerby that a house was nestled along the tree line—even during a full moon.

  Father and Mother never understood why Ireck built his home so close to the woods, or why they decided to stay after their only son, Daniel, was taken. Ireck and Cala never had another child; instead, Ireck took Father under his wing.

  After Father began the process of pulling Ireck’s blood for the Eitr, we trekked outside toward the trees. It had been weeks since we’d patrolled the woods close to our home.

  Before we crossed into the thicket, I kissed my brothers on the cheek and hugged them. The boys weren’t as careful as I when we hunted, and it felt off if I didn’t show that small act of love before we walked into danger.

  I sheathed my dagger, careful not to press the black button Lukas had fashioned to release the Eitr. I thought about his ominous feeling about the elders.

  “Eris,” Father said.

  I nodded and moved quietly to the front, scanning every tree, every leaf. Listening beyond the birds and insects for signs that we were being hunted instead of the other way around. My eyes were trained to watch for broken branches in the shrubs, or tracks on the forest floor, even though nightwalkers never made it that easy.

  Silence was vital during a hunt, but the trees protected the nightwalkers, shielding them with their branches. The forest alerted them to our presence with its carpet of sticks and dried vegetation, and it hindered our advance with its thorns and vines. Nightwalkers were graceful; they moved, lithe and soundless, through the highest limbs, or scurried just beyond the fog.

  We were taught from a young age to walk along the forest floor without making a sound and not to leave an obvious trail, even to hold our breaths while we waited in the shadows so our warm breath couldn’t be seen against the cold night air.

  Father’s large frame and thick boots somehow changed once we stepped into the thicket. I never heard his footsteps when in the woods, and it took over a year for me to emulate his movements and stealth.

  Father was strict when it came to our training, but he was a loving man. We had heard the stories of his childhood, and how he lost his father to a nightwalker elder when he was no bigger than Jonathan. I always appreciated the patience and kindness he showed us, even though he was capable of beheading a nightwalker with an ax from thirty feet.

  From my peripheral I saw Clemens pause and then climb a tree. He scuttled up like an animal, making it look much easier than it would be for the average person. In unison Father, Lukas, and I backed into shadows, listening, waiting for a signal from Clemens. A faint crack echoed. It wasn’t in our immediate area, but close enough to be on alert. I reached down and touched my dagger lightly with my fingertips, and then relaxed my shoulders.

  A nearly silent whoosh hissed from the same direction as the broken branch. I looked up at Clemens, who shook his head, then back at Lukas—the only one with a bow.

  Lukas shook his head too. Father moved from his station, and we followed him. The sound of an arrow at night could only mean one thing: someone else was hunting.

  Our Priory families wouldn’t poach our lands any more than we would theirs. Our own territories kept us so busy, at times we had trouble keeping the nightwalker population down.

  We walked along Hopper’s Tree, a gigantic, ancient trunk that was just a dead shell of itself. It had toppled a hundred years before, and now formed a bridge across the expansive opening of Hopper’s Ravine. Narrow, built-in paths spiraled down along the moss-covered walls, all the way to the forest floor below, but following them down and then back up took hours, as did walking around the top ledge to get to the other side.

  Father told me as a child that no one had used that path since he could remember, and any rope bridges that had been attempted were always torn down by the nightwalkers. Hopper’s Tree was why we had six territories instead of three. For the first time, our ancestors had an indelible connection to new lands on the other side. The Priory and the villagers we protected regarded Hopper’s Tree as an important landmark in our history.

  Father stopped at the edge of the tree trunk and held up his fist, a signal for us to stop. My feet didn’t move, but I leaned around him to see more clearly. A man was crouched over a young nightwalker. Its body jerked upward when the man yanked his arrow from the young one’s chest. When the barb finally came loose, the creature fell to the ground and then began to convulse. I looked away. That was my least favorite thing about the hunt. The Eitr was a brutal killer. Less than a teaspoon under a nightwalker’s skin, and the fight was over.

  Father looked around, carefully surveying the area. It was uncommon for such a young nightwalker to be left alone. It couldn’t have been more than seven or eight as a human.

  Deciding it was safe, Father cleared his throat. The hunter startled and pointed his bow at us. Father took a protective stance in front of me.

  “I wouldn’t do that if I were you.”

  The man was thin, his eyes sunken and highlighted by purple half-moons darkening the skin beneath them. His thinning white hair was wiry to match his beard. The hair hanging from his jaw reminded me of the way Father’s might look if Mother didn’t insist he keep it trimmed. I used to play absent-mindedly in the red tuft on his face in the early mornings just before he retreated to the bedroom.

  The hunter’s expression did not remind me of my father. He was smiling, and it was frightening. He turned, pulled a long knife from a holder fastened to his thigh, and began chopping at the nightwalker’s neck. Once the head was cut free from
its body, the hunter grabbed the young one by his black hair and tossed it to the ridge we stood on.

  I jumped back. The lids were still closed, and even with spattered blood on his face, he was beautiful. Flawless. His shaggy hair was dark, his lips plush and bloodstained.

  Father frowned. “Who are you? What is your business in these woods?”

  The hunter stood upright, now covered in dark blood from waist to forehead.

  “I am Chesek. I was sent by the Gungans of Trou. I’ve been tracking this one for three cycles. It fed on their daughter, Moira. Turned her. I’m looking for her too.”

  “You should leave,” I said before thinking.

  Father shot me an irritated glance, and then waited for Chesek’s response.

  He nodded quickly, the few brown teeth still in his head visible when he smiled. “I will. Just need to find the girl.”

  Father looked down at the severed head next to his foot. “These hunting grounds are ours to patrol. If we come across her, we’ll take care of it.”

  Chesek frowned. “You Priory?”

  “Indeed,” Father said.

  “Then I’ll be on my way.”

  “Be sure that you are.”

  As we walked away, Chesek climbed the hill and put the nightwalker’s head in a burlap sack and cinched it before heading in the opposite direction.

  “Father,” I said.

  “Yes?”

  “Trou is in the opposite direction of where he’s walking.”

  “I know.”

  “Will you say something to him?”

  “I’d rather he walk the long way around than with us, wouldn’t you?”

  I agreed.

  Father seemed as troubled as I felt about what we’d just seen. When he had downed the young ones the night before, it was very quick, and he didn’t enjoy it. Father knew a nightwalker’s mind belonged to the thirst. His purpose came from compassion, unlike so many who killed the nightwalkers out of fear.

  One night, when I was very young, I asked Father if he was afraid.

  “No, darling,” he had said. “I choose not to be.”