by Scott Bury
“I have put us under a cloak of shadow,” he said when he lowered his arms. “It should afford us some measure of protection, of hiding from evil eyes that are borne aloft, at least during the day.” That night, they hid under the bole of a huge oak amid a thick stand of trees.
Photius sat up, staring into their small campfire while Javor tried to get comfortable. He couldn’t keep his eyes shut. Are monsters sneaking up on us? Javor wondered. I never used to believe in monsters. Now I suppose I have to.
He tried to distinguish the shadows beyond their campfire, tried to identify every sound in the night while Photius seemed oblivious to anything except the campfire.
All at once, he bolted upright, heart racing. Long howls echoed under the lopsided moon. “Wolves!” He realized he had been asleep, after all.
Photius was still awake, listening intently. “They will not bother us,” he said, turning his eyes to the fire again. “They are simply natural wolves, nighttime hunters as we men are daytime hunters.”
“Natural wolves? What other kind of wolves are there?” Javor asked, but Photius wouldn’t say anymore. It took Javor a long time to fall asleep.
He woke to Photius gently shaking his shoulder. Behind his wrinkled face, the sky was dark gray. It was just dawn. “We had best get going,” the old man said. He gave Javor some of the bread from his village and let him take a sip of his fortifying wine.
The bread was getting stale. Chewing, Javor looked up at the sky. The east was gold, tinged with red. The clouds were thin and high. Javor watched one like a horse’s tail drift from west to east as sunlight changed from orange to yellow to white.
“Javor? Come on, the day is slipping away. Let’s go,” Photius said impatiently. He was ready to go, wearing his cloak, hat and pack and holding his long walking staff.
Javor stuffed the rest of the bread in his mouth, took a swig of water from a skin and wished he hadn’t as the bread dissolved into a paste in his mouth. He watched the sky as it became high and blue with white tendrils. It’s going to be a beautiful day.
“Come on, Javor,” Photius said again. Javor picked up his pack and followed him.
“Wait,” he replied. He looked at a tall tree, took two fast steps and sprang up to catch a branch well over his head. Photius watched astonished as Javor practically leaped up the tree until he was sure the branch would break under the tall boy’s weight.
Javor enjoyed the tree’s swaying as he took a good look around. North, he saw the hills, but could not see his home village. No longer my home.
Southward, meadows and forests covering gently rising hills. No sign of villages or people, but there was a slight smudge in the sky that may have been smoke. Eastward was the same to the shadow of the distant mountains.
Westward were meadows and forests under clear blue skies decorated with thin clouds like feathers. No rain for a couple of days.
He climbed, then jumped to the ground. Photius was impatient, but there was another look on his face that Javor could not interpret. He picked up his pack and followed the old man without a word.
They walked southward along streams or animal tracks through forests, across meadows and fields; they didn’t see any other signs of human habitation. “This whole area was depopulated after the collapse of Rome and the incursions of wave after wave of barbarian raiders,” Photius explained.
“Where are the Empire’s borders from here?” Javor asked the next day.
“I intend to reach the Empire by moving southward as directly as possible,” said Photius. “This region is poorly mapped, and since the barbarian incursions, knowledge of the land has deteriorated as travel here is not safe for merchants or other travellers. I expect we should reach the river Danuvius in some weeks.”
At another point, Javor asked “Why are we going to Cons – Constalid ...”
“Constantinople, Javor. You must learn to pronounce it. In fact, it would be good if you learned to speak Greek like a civilized person.” That stung, although Javor wasn’t sure what he meant. “Constantinople is the centre, the capital of the Empire, the home of learning and culture, and the home of my order. There, scholars can help me decipher the meaning of the runes on your amulet and dagger, and perhaps give us a clue about the reason for the calamities affecting the world today.”
So they kept heading south as best they could, occasionally diverted by a river or steep hill. They fell into a pattern: in the morning, they breakfasted on dried bread or grain meal from the villagers, and then Photius trained Javor for an hour or so in fighting with sword, knife and dagger. Then, Photius would tell Javor to pack up to start walking south. Before they left, Javor would climb a tree for a look ahead. He was anxious about seeing mounted men or something against the sky that he did not recognize, but he never saw anything but birds.
Photius soon got used to having to continually prompt Javor to get ready and start moving—the boy often seemed to get stuck in the middle of dressing, and Photius would see him staring either at the sky or at the ground, or at nothing at all.
They’d walk until the sun grew too hot to travel under, then rest in the shade. Javor wanted to sleep at these times, but Photius insisted on instructing him. Sometimes, he taught Javor to speak Greek. At other times, he gave long lectures about the history of the Roman Empire: how the Empire had been divided into East and West halves, and how the Emperor Constantine had moved the capital to the old city of Byzantium, on the straits that separated Europe from Asia, and renamed it New Rome. “But the people insisted on calling it Constantinople, after the Emperor.”
Photius told Javor that barbarians had swept out of the trackless wildernesses of Asia to destroy the Western Empire, swarming in wave after wave for two centuries. “But the Eastern Empire, its capital in Constantinople, has fought off the invaders and maintained the splendour of Rome and the light of civilization.”
Most of this talk of different races and distant countries only made Javor even more anxious; this was the first time in his fifteen years that he had been so far from his home.
After a rest, they would resume walking until they started to get hungry again, or until the sun started to get lower. They’d scout out a camping spot and gather branches and boughs and grasses to make beds. Javor would gather firewood and make a fire, and sometimes Photius would shoot a rabbit or other small game with his bow.
When it rained, they hid under the trees and made rough tents out of their cloaks. And as the sun set, Javor would fall into an exhausted sleep.
Still, he had lived his whole life working on a farm, and he was used to rising with the sun. Gradually, he grew used to the new pattern: rise, eat, walk, train, then walk some more. Photius was very pleased with the training. “You have a natural gift for the sword, Javor!” he would exclaim frequently. And so it seemed to Javor, too. Parries, blocks, jabs and other moves seemed perfectly natural, like there was no other way to move. Soon, their sparring sessions were heavy workouts for both men. The main drawback for Javor was that the rough peasant’s tunic he wore wasn’t suited as clothing under a warrior’s weapons, and the leather straps and metal buckles chafed him.
But at night, Javor had to fight to keep down the memories of his parents, of his lost brothers and sisters. He would concentrate on the sounds of the night, listening for the sound of anything approaching.
“Tell me, Javor, did your people ever say you were ... different?” Photius asked one day as they crossed a meadow.
Not him, too. Javor had to stop. He looked at the sky and took a deep breath. “Different. Weird. Touched. Crazy, stupid.” The last two were the same word in Javor’s language. “Now you think so, too.”
“No, no!” Photius protested. “No, you are not crazy, Javor. But you are unusual.”
“Is it crazy to notice how clouds move? Stupid to figure out what the weather will be tomorrow? Mrost couldn’t understand how I did that, so he said I was stupid!” Javor shouted. He was no longer in the wilderness with Photius; he was in th
e village, surrounded by laughing, taunting children. Mrost was leading them, pointing at Javor, encouraging derision. It took Javor some time to come back to the present.
As they continued southward, the terrain became hillier. Cliffs rose sheer out of the forests, which were also thinning, replaced by broad, rolling meadows and grasslands. They heard no more wolves howling after that first night.
As they walked, Photius told Javor about the monsters that had come on the heels of the barbarians, adding to Europe’s misery, and about the theories of his “order” of scholars in Constantinople. He also talked about the stories of the gods, about a new God of an obscure people in the eastern parts of the Empire, about how the Emperor Constantine had come to worship this new God and had made its religion, Christianity, the official religion of the Empire (Javor thought Photius sounded sceptical about it, himself). Once, he said that other, older gods and demons were fighting a war around the edges of the world.
How does this have anything to do with me, Javor wondered, more than once. And How does he keep talking?
“Photius,” he interrupted one day. “Why did you come up here? Why did you come looking for my great-grandfather’s amulet?”
Photius laughed. “Oh, I wasn’t looking for that—or, rather, I was, but I didn’t know it at the time. No, Javor, I was sent by my order to find some answers. We had heard of the ravages of Ghastog in Dacia and the regions north, and it appeared he was looking for something. So the order sent five of us to find out why. We spread through the area these past three years. Only now have I caught up with the beast.”
“There were five of you? Where are the others?”
Photius picked up his staff and strode ahead. “They’re all dead.” And for the first time that Javor could remember, Photius was silent.
On their seventh day out, close to noon, they found the first village they had seen since leaving Nastaciu. It was built within its holody, a stockade of thin logs. As they got closer, Javor and Photius could see thin, black smoke trailing skyward. There were no people in the fields around, which struck Javor as strange for a hot summer’s day.
A large brown dog ran toward them, barking furiously. More dogs joined it in a barking phalanx, blocking their way to the village.
They stood, not knowing what to do—run from the dogs? “They’ll chase us down,” Javor realized. But they couldn’t go forward. And they needed to talk to somebody: their food was getting low, and they wanted to find out where they were in relation to the borders of the Empire.
The dogs didn’t come closer but did not draw back, either. The gate of the stockade opened just enough for a man to squeeze through. One by one, seven men came out, all carrying a spear, tool, or anything that could be a weapon—one had an old, rusty sword. “What do you want?” demanded the foremost, a short, stocky man with a blunt face. He had a fresh scar across one cheek.
Between the gates, Javor and Photius could see smoking, blackened huts, the carcass of a pig and women kneeling, weeping in the dirt.
Photius held his empty hands out toward the villagers, palms up. “Oh, we are merely travellers, seeking shelter for the night ...”
“Seek elsewhere!” spat the scarred man. “We have no need of any more travellers here!”
“Bandits, more like,” said a gaunt man holding a heavy stick. He glowered at the interlopers.
Photius asked “Dear people, what happened here? Why do you fear us so? We are only two poor men ...”
“Mind your own business!” said the scarred man. But another one said, almost at the same time, “Raiders. On horses. Dozens of them.”
Photius looked at Javor, then back at the villagers. “I am sorry. We did not know. These are evil times. We have had experience with armed, evil men—”
“In Nastasciu, my village,” Javor interrupted. “They killed several of my people, and as if that weren’t enough ...”
“Perhaps we can help,” Photius interrupted. “I am skilled in the arts of healing.” He took a step closer, but the villagers lifted their weapons nervously.
“Can you bring men back from the dead?” the leader growled. “Can you give a woman back her leg, or an eye? No, old man. Leave us alone! We don’t want any more strangers!” He stepped forward, threatening with his shovel. Behind them, Javor and Photius could hear the village dogs growling again.
Photius bowed politely. “Very well, good people. May the gods protect you from further calamity. Come, Javor. We will respect these people’s wishes in their time of sorrow.” Slowly, the two backed away from the villagers until they felt safe enough to turn their backs on the group. “Let’s not alarm them by running,” Photius said. “They’ll think we are up to something.”
Javor risked a glance backwards, to see the seven men still guarding their gate. “Photius, they can’t have been attacked by the same raiders that we were—Ghastog ripped them apart the next day. That was more than ten days ago!”
Photius nodded. “There are many evil men about, Javor. The Avars are trying to establish their domination in this area. But even among themselves, there are rival factions.”
“Do you think it was raiders who did that, or another monster like Ghastog? Or maybe a dragon—maybe the dragon that attacked us also burned the village?”
“Perhaps, Javor. But I don’t know. I couldn’t take a closer look.”
Javor thought again of something that he realized should have occurred to him long ago. Now he thought it curious that Photius hadn’t mentioned it. “That dragon that attacked me on the mountain and then in the village. Does it have a name?”
“All these fiends have names. But I don’t know this one’s, not yet.”
They slept that night out in the country again. They were careful that at least one of them was awake at all times. In the morning, they hid their weapons under their cloaks or disguised them in their packs. By late afternoon, they reached the bottom of a hill, which was broken off by a sharp cliff on one side. Javor thought it looked like half a loaf of bread, sliced at one end. A stream leaped off the cliff, then broke into a miniature rapids before disappearing back into the forest. The top of the hill had been cleared of trees, and they could see the wooden palisade of another holody.
Photius and Javor hid their largest weapons under rocks by the swift-flowing stream before approaching the village. This time, the villagers were returning from their fields, driving their few animals back inside the protection of the stockade. But they still drew together warily when they saw the strangers approaching.
“Good evening, gentle people,” said Photius as they drew closer. “May the blessings of the gods be upon you.” The villagers said nothing, but just stared at them. “Might I enquire as to the name of your village?”
“Bilavod,” said one of the villagers, a short man with thick dark eyebrows.
“Whitewater,” said Javor, in Greek, in a low voice.
“Ah. And how fares the village of Bilavod this fine summer’s eve?”
“What do you want?” asked the man with the eyebrows.
“Oh, very little for ourselves,” Photius answered. “Perhaps a place to spend the night, and if you have any to spare, a little food to eat. In return, my friend here can sing a song or two.” Javor turned, shocked, at Photius’ claim. I can’t sing! “I can also tell you some news of the Empire and offer you some of my skills as a healer.” At that, one young woman looked, wide-eyed at another and whispered something.
“We don’t have any extra food,” said the man with the eyebrows, but at the urging of the others, they let the two travellers into the stockade, where they found the villagers gathered around a fire burning in the centre of the holody. There was a strange silence, a lack of activity about the place. Immediately, they were confronted by the village elders.
“Who are these two?” demanded the obvious chief of the village, a grizzled man with a thick beard and blazing dark eyes.
“My name is Photius, and this is my companion, Javor. We are travellin
g from the north to the borders of the Empire, and seek only a night’s sustenance.”
The chief scowled and Javor knew he as about to throw them out, when one of the young woman who had come in from the fields said quickly “He said he’s a healer, Papa! A healer.” The chief still looked doubtful, but the young woman ran across the holody to a small hut. She gestured to Photius, then disappeared inside.
Photius and Javor followed her, Javor with an eye on the glowering village chief. Inside the gloomy hut, a man and a woman lay on straw beds. A bloody cloth was wound around the man’s chest, and the woman was curled into a foetal position, weeping quietly; her clothes were blood-stained as well.
“Raiders,” said the woman who had led them in. “They killed six of our people three days ago. They hit Bereh, here, with an axe and raped Alia, four of them, one after the other. She’s hardly moved since, and Bereh hasn’t woken, either.” Javor noticed that the chief had followed them in.
Photius knelt between the two straw beds. He gently cut the bandage off Bereh to reveal a huge, ugly gash across the man’s chest. Photius touched the wound very lightly with his fingertips. “Boil some water and put some clean rags into it. Then bring me some garlic cloves and as many small bowls and cups as you can—clean mind you!” The woman disappeared and the chief bent closer to see what Photius was doing.
Photius arranged some pouches from his pack around himself. “Where are those bowls?” he demanded, glaring at the chief, who opened and closed his mouth, grunted and left the hut.
“What are you doing?” Javor asked.