Fargoer

by Hannila, Petteri

  “I-I think so.”

  “Then go. But tell my people that I killed Aure and escaped, and they’ll let you back, to be with your own.”

  “Where will you go then?”

  “I don’t know. But you haven’t seen the last of me yet.”

  ***

  Bjorn’s tribe had gone to sleep after a hard day of work. A light summer wind blew silently, and the birds that had returned to the land of the Kainu chirped in chorus at the joy of a new, sunny season. The summer’s hut-camp had been built near the swidden, away from their log houses which they would return to again for the winter in the struggle against the cold.

  The slaves slept in a large, roughly made lean-to. The women were tied up - a precaution for as long as they were entertaining hopes of escape and freedom. The children were free and slept close to the sides of their mothers, looking for at least a moment’s comfort from the cold world. The Kainu didn’t guard the slaves as their dogs would foil any attempt at escape.

  Yet, in the dead of night, a figure, silent as a shadow emerged from the forest. It was as if the forest had conjured it out of its depths, for it moved so quietly that even the dogs didn’t wake to bark at the intruder. One by one she went to every sleeping dog, and left behind a carcass. So skillfully she did her work of death that neither the camp’s inhabitants, nor those dogs that were still alive, woke to it. When even those dogs lay dead, the figure sneaked into the slaves’ lean-to. Once again a knife flashed in the night, and the leather leashes that held the women were severed. They didn’t need any words, and in complete silence the group sneaked out of the camp and into the dark forest, carrying their children with them.

  The shadowy figure led the group on through the forest to where she had stashed food for their journey home.

  “This will be enough to get you south, back to your homeland.”

  “Aren’t you coming with us?” one of the women asked.

  “No, I still have to go back north.” The stranger touched a necklace on her neck, which was made of countless different bones.

  “Who are you, and why do you help us?”

  The stranger stroked her black hair, which was tied back, smiled sternly and replied:

  “I am someone who knows the curse of slavery. Keep going and do not stop, for the night is waning.”

  Pathfinders

  The red-haired prisoner

  The early autumn’s sweltering day was the summer’s last breath against the cold face of the approaching winter. The leaves, already bitten by a few freezing nights, had started to change their color, and there was a damp whiff of the cool night dew lingering in the air. An exceptionally warm southern wind smiled together with the sun, making the travelers walking between great pines sweat.

  The rugged men didn’t fit to the surrounding scenery. Their clothes, gait and movement told of clumsiness and foreignness. One could see from their faces that they felt the same hatred and rejection toward the forest that it seemed to emanate toward them.

  The first one was a large, fat man. His bald head shined with sweat, and the strain made him pant. His limbs were like tree trunks and it was apparently arduous to move them. His thin beard proved that hair, long gone from his crown didn’t grow much better under his chin either. The forest, growing with large trees, was easy to traverse, but still he stumbled over roots and branches now and then. None of the others made fun about his clumsiness, though.

  If one of the men was at home in the forest, it was the young man who walked behind the first. He was a head taller than the man ahead of him, although he was also slighter in all ways possible. His sand-colored hair had been combed back and his beard, even lighter in color, was groomed and cut.

  “Starkhand, when will we reach the shore?” he asked the bald man before him.

  “Tomorrow morning. We’d be there already if they hadn’t broken the boat,” the fat man snorted and pointed to the brothers that walked behind them. They denied the act as if with one voice.

  They could have been twins as they were almost indistinguishable. Both had slouched shoulders and sand-brown hair that was an untidy mess of curls. They wore leather clothes that had seen better days and spoke to each other quietly, without pause.

  Between them walked a bound woman, who was different from them like a fox from a pack of rabid dogs. Her rich red hair was knotted and smeared with soot and her pretty, round face was covered in streaks of dirt and tears. There was a dirty piece of cloth rammed in her mouth and held in place by a leather strap that was tightly tied around her head. Her leather clothes, which were decorated with elaborate patterns and hung with pieces of bone and small stones, suffered tears and rips from her having been manhandled and dragged through the forest.

  “Shall we eat for a change?” yelled one of the brothers to the duo that walked before them.

  The large man stopped and turned.

  “We won’t get to the shore by eating,” he snorted, but sat on the ground anyway and leaned back onto a sturdy pine. “Take the rag off its mouth and give it food. They don’t pay us for dead ones in the slave market.”

  The large man directed his words toward the young man, who walked cautiously over to the red-haired woman.

  “Try to bewitch me, and I’ll cut off your tongue,” the young man hissed. He removed the leather strap and the woman immediately spat the rag out of her mouth. She twisted her jaws, which had numbed under the squeeze of the gag.

  Pitiful scraps of dried food were eaten in silence, except for the brothers who continued with their meaningless babble. A raven croaked somewhere high above, in the tall pines.

  The group continued their journey. When the afternoon started to turn into evening, the pine forest started to give room to other trees. At first the pine trees just grew smaller, but soon thin birches and other leaved trees pushed themselves amid them. Ahead of them the terrain grew higher and formed a hill, the slopes of which were completely covered in birches. The croaking of the raven was continuous now, and made the men stare into the trees, searching for the bird.

  “Show yourself, and I’ll stop your screeching,” the young man stated while fiddling with his bow. He was the only one in the group to carry one.

  They heard the swish too late. An arrow with goose-feather fletching struck the young man’s thigh, sticking from it like a crooked feather. The man cried out, gasped and grabbed convulsively the arrow that had appeared in his leg. The others threw themselves to the ground, looking wildly in the direction the arrow had come from.

  Their eyes only met the calm forest of the afternoon. Not even a rustle of a twig betrayed the location of the shooter. Starkhand yelled from the ground to the brothers:

  “Find the fiend and kill it!”

  The brothers looked at each other without moving. Starkhand pulled a rusty shortsword from his belt.

  “Now.”

  The men got up reluctantly and looked around, scared. As no more arrows came their way, they started to cautiously walk toward the forest, to the direction where the arrow had come from.

  “Show me that arrow,” Starkhand growled as he got up arduously. He walked to the young man who held his leg in agony. The large man felt around the wound for a moment with rough and experienced hands.

  “A notched head. I can’t get it out without cutting it. When we reach the shore, I can dig it out, but after that you won’t be able to walk for a long time. Now I’ll just cut the shaft and you’ll have to try...”

  The sentence was interrupted by a muffled cry of pain from the forest. It was followed by a scream of rage that ended in a croak. In a split second the silent forest had become filled with brooding shadows. Amid the trees, a silent and merciless death waited for them.

  Starkhand and the wounded looked at each other for a moment. Starkhand grabbed the red-haired woman by the arm and dragged her to her feet. He half carried and half dragged the woman along with him as they started to flee through the woods without looking back.

  Despite his b
urden, Starkhand soon outdistanced the wounded man. The slower man wept and gnashed his teeth while he tried to keep up with Starkhand, but it was futile. Soon the large man heard the familiar scream of death behind him.

  Sweat burst off Starkhand’s brow and hands in streams, and he stopped running. Shaking, he turned around and waited with the red-haired prisoner under his arm, for what was to follow. He didn’t have to wait for long.

  A black-haired woman stepped out of the woods. A few beads of sweat sparkled on her forehead, but no other signs of fatigue were visible. Breathing evenly she sang, with an effortless and clear voice.

  Death by my hand for you stranger

  Wretched scoundrel goes to ground

  Writhe there with worms of the earth

  Until no more flesh is found

  The words were carried along with a hunting bow that was ready to fire, the arrowhead pointed straight and unwavering toward the large man’s chest. The woman watched Starkhand along the shaft of the arrow.

  It wasn’t the first time Starkhand met death eye to eye. Licking his lips, he pushed his red-haired prisoner aside.

  “Let’s settle this with these.” He tapped the shortsword on his belt. “It seems like you have a blade of your own on your belt.”

  She responded with laughter. Starkhand rushed forward, drawing his weapon. He never got to a distance he could have used it from.

  Old friends

  A campfire that burned in the evening dark flared warmth to the faces of the silent women who sat by it.

  The usually talkative Rika was silent following the enthusiastic gratitude she bestowed on the black-haired woman for saving her life. Her hands shook as she put pieces of the fish, caught and cooked by Vierra, in her mouth.

  “Who were those men?” Rika finally asked with a trembling voice.

  “Slavers. They follow the rivers inland, looking for people to grab and sell as slaves either beyond the sea or to Turian witches,” said Vierra looking up from whittling a piece of wood. “What on earth are you doing here, so far from home?”

  Rika’s dark stare and squeezed fists told Vierra that she shouldn’t ask more. They were silent for a moment.

  “Vierra,” Rika started wary, which was not common for her. “Is it true what they say? The ones that came back from the war?”

  “Well, what did they tell?”

  “That you killed Aure.”

  Vierra threw pieces of wood she had whittled into the fire and was silent for a moment. She nodded. Rika’s anguished expression told her that this was not what she had wanted to hear.

  “Why?”

  “I had no choice. It wasn’t Aure that I killed. It was something else, something dark.”

  “What do you mean, an evil spirit? Why didn’t I notice anything different about her?”

  “How should I know,” Vierra answered with an involuntary snap. “Maybe you had something else on your mind.”

  Rika’s angst flamed quickly to anger.

  “So you mean that I don’t have what it takes to be a witch, is that it?”

  “Even witches make mistakes.”

  “You’ve been named as a traitor of the tribe. I should try to kill you with my bare hands for what you did.”

  Vierra smiled a stern, cold smile.

  “The men who captured you tried, they each had a turn.”

  Rika shuddered, and she huffed audibly.

  “Could you try to explain?”

  Vierra shook her head. “I couldn’t even if I wanted to, and I don’t want to go back there even in my mind.”

  “But then you can’t return to the tribe anymore.”

  “True, I can’t.”

  “Then why did you come?”

  “Because of this,” Vierra said and lifted up the necklace that she’d been carrying under her moose skin jacket. It was skillfully made of countless claws and teeth of different animals, and wearing it Vierra looked like a chieftain. She took the necklace slowly from her neck, remembering briefly something that had happened a long time ago. “I know how important it is to you.”

  Vierra presented the necklace to Rika. In the campfire, the resinous wood crackled and sent clouds of sparks up into the dark evening every now and then. Rika reluctantly took the necklace from Vierra’s hands.

  “Thank you.”

  She put the necklace around her neck distractedly as she gazed silently at the fire.

  “Where will you go?”

  “I will take you back to our tribe’s lands. After that who knows.” Vierra looked at the treetops, barely distinguishable in the dark. “Let’s go to sleep, tomorrow will be a long day.”

  Without saying anything more she wrapped herself in her furs and lay down beside the fire. Rika remained sitting by the campfire eating the remainder of her fish. She had always been a slow eater when it came to fish, as she was afraid she’d get bones stuck in her throat. For a moment she looked at her friend who was already twitching in her sleep.

  Rika was about to say something, but then just sighed and lay down on her side of the fire. She turned around many times before falling asleep.

  The morning sun glimmered in the trees and slowly dried the rich dew that the autumn night had given. Vierra and Rika were doing their chores, huffing with the cold of the night. They rubbed their hands, stiff and cold because of the damp, together over the embers of last night’s campfire, and got ready to leave.

  Vierra tried the traps she had left around their camp. One small hare had strayed into one of the traps, providing a little food for the speedy return home. Rika watched from the side as Vierra handled the animal with confident hands.

  “Always a hunter,” Rika blurted silently to herself. Not silently enough, though.

  “You’re still punishing yourself over that?” Vierra asked.

  “How could I forget?” And Rika sang:

  Forest is the place for Kainu

  Blessed be the use of bow

  Flesh of game, the sweetest reward

  Fishes fatty make us grow

  “How about this one,” Vierra replied with her own song.

  Best of luck is witches’ council

  Theirs to know is birth and name

  May their spirits grow old mellow

  Source of our tribe’s flame

  “Yes,” Rika admitted with a sigh. She fiddled with the necklace that hung from her neck, not noticing she was doing it. “Shall we?”

  They traveled as fast as Rika, the much slower of the two, could manage. They were traversing the same path back that the men had used the day before, with Rika as their prisoner.

  The sunny and warm autumn weather made their trip pleasant, and late in the afternoon they stopped by a small creek, to eat the hare they had caught in the morning. They roasted the meat on sticks in a fire while looking at the pleasant creek view. The trees on the riverbank had already dropped the first of their leaves, which floated on the surface of the water, slowly moving toward the sea that waited downstream.

  “Tomorrow we’ll reach Kainu lands,” Rika said while gnawing on a piece of meat on the stick.

  Vierra looked at the river.

  “Could you go alone from here to our people?”

  “Come at least a bit further.” Rika’s gaze followed leaves that swam away from them. “Where will you go?”

  Vierra was silent for a long time.

  “I don’t know, but I’ve known for a long time that I would have to leave some day.”

  Rika wiped her eyes so that her companion, deep in her thoughts, didn’t notice.

  “Shall we continue?” Rika asked and got up unnecessarily fast.

  Their route now left the path Rika and the men had come through before. The orienteer in Vierra said that by doing that, they would reach their tribe faster.

  The pathless wilderness took them toward a grand esker, which slopes were completely covered with a dark spruce forest. They approached it diagonally and soon started to go up the brae, shaded with those evergreen t
rees.

  After reaching the summit they took a moment to catch their breath. Up there the forest was sparse and the earth rocky. Wherever they turned their eyes they could see wilderness, tinted by eskers, valleys and lakes, bordered in one direction by the billowing sea.

  Vierra took a deep breath, as if trying to draw it all inside her, to store everything she could see, hear, smell or feel in her heart. The thought of leaving it all pressed heavily on her shoulders. Rika walked beside her and wrapped her arms around her friend. They stood there for a long time without saying a word, just looking into the distance.

  “Remember how we used to climb eskers and hills?” Rika finally said, breaking the silence. Vierra smiled for a moment, and for the first time in a long while without any bitterness.

  “Those were good times,” Rika continued without waiting for Vierra’s answer. “When nobody mocked me.”

  “You weren’t mocked. At least not after a few of them had been given black eyes,” Vierra said.

  “Maybe not out loud, but I knew what they all thought. Red-haired orphan stranger, who can’t hunt and who the old witch took in because she felt pity for her.”

  Vierra didn’t answer. She was a bad liar.

  “Have I ever asked why you didn’t join in with the other bullies?”

  “We were both strangers, in our own way. But when Eera leaves, you’ll be a witch and you won’t be a stranger anymore. Of that I can be happy. Let’s continue.”

  Vierra started to walk down from the top of the esker. Behind her Rika sighed deeply, but the wind, roaming up in the hilltop, consumed the sound.

  Under the slope, an oval lake surrounded by a fair grove opened before the travelers. The sun, moving toward evening, threw its last rays upon the lake’s surface, and the travelers descended rapidly along the slope and toward the shore. The forest was so thick along the shore that they had to work really hard in order to reach the water. Here and there, large mushrooms grew in the forest like red-white bobbles.

  “Snake mushrooms,” Rika stated and tried her best to avoid the branches which Vierra, who walked before her, bent and released toward her without meaning to.