by K M McGuire
“I’m going to go look around,” Voden said suddenly, throwing himself to his feet.
Annoyance pushed his jaw together, unable to handle much more of Andar’s nonsense. Sometimes he was too much. He made his way through some trees and started to pace, blaming much of his feelings on his nervousness. He could find no beauty sculpted in the gnarled trees, wishing the subtle ounce of hope Andar spoke of could be true. He ran the conversation through his head. The words still rattled through his thoughts, and he felt them breaking him apart, knowing even if Andar was wrong, he had meant only to be helpful. Voden needed to make this right. He looked back but could not see Andar. He hadn’t thought he had wandered that far, so he turned back and tried to retrace his steps. But the longer he walked, a sinking in his stomach kept reminding him he should have found his friend by now.
“Andar? Are you ready to go?” he called, but all that came back to him was distorted echoes of his words, jeering from the knotted mouths of the trees. He cursed to himself.
He wasn’t that far off, he thought, but as he looked around, he found nothing familiar. He stopped, trying to calm himself and called out again, “Andar!”
The distortions bounced around him with an eerie carol, turning his echo to chortles. He huffed anxiously and figured he had gone in the wrong direction. He turned back, but soon found he recognized only the lack of color that pervaded the entire forest. He pressed on, even though he could sense he was being watched, so he kept his screaming to a minimum, but the longer his panic set in the more he forgot his composure, strengthening his call, cracking to his worry.
The trees rustled in the distance, stopping only when he turned his attention to it, sweat now dripping off his brow. It was nearly quiet enough for him to hear it trickle down his cheek and lose it from the trail it had cut along his face. But his eyes had found an anomaly. There, behind the distant trees, glowed a hazy muted pink, shaped crudely like a sentient, and though he could not make out its features, it was increasingly obvious how hard the featureless being stared at him. His breath could not settle the fear pumping through his heart. His eyes had him locked in a mire of visual horror.
The mass of lustrous pink moved, fazing in strands of mist as it shifted from tree to tree. Voden’s legs refused him, neither towards the trepidatious being or away from it. Indecision only brought the light cloud of pink closer into focus. It moved freely through the trees, slinking as if it was made of liquid, retaining the solidity of stone. It moved as though trying not to be seen by anyone other than Voden, not that there should be a worry of anyone else nearby. It had shifted now behind a tree. It couldn’t have been more than twenty feet away, wrapping what looked like faceted fingers on the trunk, cracking as they bent along the bark. He could see the faceless head of the being, geometric and semi-transparent. Its hard-edged face had no eyes and no mouth beyond the inlay of surfaces that dove into the head shape. Yet, through the lack of eyes, it seemed able to stare, with a curiosity that was truly disconcerting. Voden could just make out a faint, thin cloud of ink drifting through the crystalline face, running through the head in an odd pattern as if it were blood traveling through invisible veins.
This was no longer a pursuit Voden wished to explore. Fear screamed frantically in his head, begging him to escape. He looked back again, but it had vanished. The petition fear had offered became much more reasonable than a mere second ago.
So, he ran.
Black shapes shifted between grays. He weaved between the decrepit monoliths that loomed over him, each staring in greedy anticipation of Voden’s demise. They rustled with a tempest, and Voden looked back, where he could still see the dim glow of pink, flashing behind the trees. Onward he rushed, with his heart lurching as if to drag him when his legs felt they could not. He longed to call for Andar, but he dared not risk the breath. He ran through his exhaustion. The woods mimicked his memories, projecting the trees and vegetation with similarities that made his body feel the journey went in circles.
The horror spiraled down on him. He could not help that his pace now slowed, and time began to steal pieces of his faltering hope, convincing him there was no leaving this place. As his mind solidified the thought, he began to break.
Please, he begged, desperate not to lose his hope as his foot caught a bent root.
And it only gave him a moment, a moment for him to see the root wrapped around his foot, and the nervous sensation of falling, and a flash that he swore was a pink glow. His head hit hard against the dirt, and shards of rock tore at his skin. There was no consolation from the fear holding him tight when his vision turned blank, in a limbo where everything was no longer.
∞ ∞ ∞
“Voden!”
The echo was so familiar, prodding at his stirring mind. How many times had it called? He tried lifting himself up, gingerly holding his battered hand against his pulsating head. He spread his legs to stabilize himself. The woods spun, trying to find the source of the yelling. He finally stabilized himself and turned to see a cliff just a few paces away from him. Curious, he stepped toward the edge and peered down. He was rather high up, a drop he was glad he had not taken, but it led down out of the terrible wood he was in.
“Voden!” the voice called again, louder than before.
He peeled his eyes from the cliff and looked behind him, preparing for whoever called him. He slid the knife into his hand, white knuckles shaking, thinking of the pink creature that had followed him. The bushes and trees scratched and creaked around him, whispering of an approaching creature. Voden braced himself. He surveyed his options. Hard steps punched against the surface of the earth, hitting heavier with each step.
Finally, relief filled Voden’s heart when he saw Andar stumble out of the bramble. “Voden!” He exclaimed, smiling at his friend. He scurried over to him, “Thank Beyond! Where did you go?”
“I sort of…wandered off,” Voden muttered. “I tried to find you, but I couldn’t find my way back.”
“This place is terrible,” Andar agreed. He stood next to Voden on the rock overlooking the cliff. “So, you think this is the way out?” He smiled as he pointed down the cliff.
“I suppose.” Voden sighed. “I’m still trying to—” Without warning, the rock broke loose from the soil and careened down the cliff. Andar and Voden were unfortunate enough to travel with it.
Dust and stone cascaded from the side of the cliff, streaking behind Voden and Andar in a tidal wave of earth. Voden felt each impact as one solid pain while rock and debris rained down around him, cracking against his head and arms. At last, the descent concluded with Voden sliding across the firm soil and was abruptly vilified by a stubborn shrub, rejecting him to go further. Surprise had started to form on his tongue, but the force of the shrub against his body crushed the air from his lungs before he had a chance to express his pain. Andar slid next to him, seeming to have fared no better. The plume of dust and rock chattered behind them, abating the calamity to a hush of drifting stillness, and the haze of rioting loam settled back among its new surroundings, revealing the intermittent furrows gouged by uncontrolled limbs and stone.
Voden coughed, expecting to find blood on his swollen lips. He gingerly held his ribs as he rose, sucking in a sharp breath, hoping it was just a bruise. “Andar?” he hissed through his shaky breath as he stood up.
Andar groaned and rolled over to face him. “Should have taken the stairs,” he muttered, pulling his hand from his head, looking at the blood from the gash that had split his forehead. He groaned as he, too, rose to his feet.
The wind brushed through Voden’s cloak, and he pulled it tighter to his body. The sun was in the air, and it brought a small sense of relief, hanging barely above the horizon. It was nice to finally see it, but it meant they had been stuck in the woods for nearly a day or perhaps more. Voden yawned, staring off through the naked trees at the splattered grey clouds that filled the sky where its edges were burnt dusky pink. The evening was nigh. It was then the wind heaved across hi
m, and it dawned on him they had nowhere to go, no shelter or fire to keep the night at bay. And it would only get colder.
“Andar, we need to find some shelter.”
“Yeah,” he agreed, scanning the forest of scattered conifers. He sifted through his bag a moment and sighed heavily. “Let’s get going. We need to figure something out quickly.”
They stumbled through the organic pillars, following the gentle wave of the earth, stepping over fallen logs, and trying not to slide on mossy-covered stones. The wind began to bite harder, as if becoming more excited the darker it became, awakening a primal, blunt aggression, bringing dark masses of clouds further over their heads. The sun was now gone, leaving them in the dark velvet of twilight and freezing winds, chattering their teeth in frantic spasms. Voden could not feel his toes other than the sharp, abrasive pain penetrating down into his marrow where he could not produce heat to fend it off. He urged himself to press on, even though each step made his toes feel brittle, as if they were made of glass, shattering when his boots pressed against the earth.
He felt a clump of moisture drop against his cheek, melting against his raw skin. “Not now,” Andar cried, as he hefted himself over a fallen tree. “Of course, it would start snowing!”
And that, it did. It started with playful specks that slapped against them, which they had hoped would pass rather quickly, but the weather refused them sympathy. Soon, it opened the sky, releasing driving spears of snow, whipped around in torrents of eddies that crashed the blustering sheets of crystalized water vigorously against them, and it clutched their clothes. The wind held them back, along with the cold, making their progress a thousand times more difficult. With no remission, they felt the fear thicken with the maelstrom of white, like a war-crazed barbarian hungry for blood. They still pressed on, even as the snow mounded around them, rising quickly above their ankles, soaking their feet to an even worse chill than before. The moon was hardly visible, hiding behind the frost that shielded the sky, and the time they had spent searching for shelter was now wearing Voden down.
“Voden!” Andar called from in front of him, his face cherry. Frozen snot and tears glistened on his face. “There’s a cave! Just over there!”
Voden looked to where he pointed, barely able to see the jagged entrance. A small wave of relief revitalized him enough to urge him forward. Maybe fifty feet or so to go, and then they could rest. Voden laughed weakly at the sentiment, placing his hand excitedly on Andar’s shoulder. They scuttled through the snow, racing down the valley the best they could, finally slipping into the cave, where the wind could only howl as it searched for them.
“Thank Beyond!” Voden chattered, pressing his back against the cave wall. He could feel the rocks through his cloak, slightly warmer than out beyond the mouth, and ribbons of moisture wept from lonely crags, claustrophobically stuck between the decayed stone. Tiny vortexes of snow particles wisped just inside the mouth but were warded off as if by some arcane principle. Voden struggled to think, as though the chemicals in his brain were unable to spark thoughts, stuck in tremors of unruly shivers that now oppressed his body. His eyes scanned the dark space, glancing at the clumps of hairy tangles of roots desperately stretching for warm, soft earth, but abandoning the pursuit when they found sufficiency in the damp shelter.
“Hopefully, we can find some dry kindling,” Andar muttered through his chattering teeth. “I’m going to pass out if I don’t get some heat.”
Voden nodded, holding himself, only able to utter the sound of his clattering teeth. He bent down, feeling the ground for anything that could be helpful. His fingers pressed on a puff of soft fur that felt relatively dry. He plucked the cluster from the ground, holding the knotted bundle for Andar to take.
“It won’t smell very good,” said Voden, but Andar shrugged and took it. Andar began to gather a few things of his own, grabbing some sticks he had in his bag and piling them together. He took the fur and shoved it under his sad stack of branches.
“Okay,” he said, rubbing his hands together and setting his bag down on the ground. He dug around in it and pulled out his flint. “I hope to the Beyond this works.”
Andar smacked the stones together, trying to spray the sparks towards the batch of hair. His first strike hardly sparked. He clashed them again. The adolescent sparks flashed across their faces then went back to the darkness. He hit them again. And then again. Voden felt his heart rise with the sudden vibrance of each spark, but it dropped as the sparks vanished. Finally, he struck true, and the hair smoldered to life. Excitedly, Andar began to breath on it, hoping to pump life into the tiny bundle, praying they were not too wet. The hair turned to chars, and the tiny flame faded with it, unable to light the damp wood. Andar sighed heavily, cupping his face with his hands.
And with the light now gone, so were their ideas. All that spoke for the next few minutes was the terrible storm cutting through the world outside. They became doleful as the cold burrowed deeper inside them, reluctantly giving into the frost. Voden opened his mouth to speak, when a low grumble rolled through the cave, igniting another fearful realization.
“Please be your stomach,” Voden whimpered.
“I was hoping it was yours,” Andar responded. The growl warned again, now harmonized with another, then another. “We should go!”
They quickly rose to their feet. Voden unsheathed his dagger and stumbled out into the raging storm. They leaped through the snow, digging deep trenches in the white fluff, begging to swallow them, building for them a rising tomb. The cave had only just vanished from the hazy landscape when the growls turned to deep howls. Voden turned back in horror to see piercing, yellow eyes splitting through the haze, three sets of them with bloodlust glossy in their reflections.
Thinking gave into survival. They dashed, nearly falling over with each step, and the eyes scattered, preparing to flank them. Still, the boys pressed on, legs throbbing. Their breath, the only warmth present, quickly swept away by the wintry blizzard. The snow became javelins of ice, raining stones of white, and quiet tears stuck to their skin like the precession of a final goodbye. They broke through bushes, hoping the branches wouldn’t snag them with their jagged grip, and the snow made it nearly impossible to see even the shadows of trees ahead. It had become like parchment, bleached white with frozen particles, and the trees were barely a smudge of ink that bled through the onslaught of precipitation. Andar huffed painfully, and he stopped in a clearing.
“What are you doing?” Voden screamed through the slashes of wind.
“We can’t run!” he called back. A blue haze of light bled from his arm, the gray pieces of metal uncoiled and clicked into the familiar sword, where embers of blazing blue light turned the clearing into their vigil. “We either take them down or die! We need that shelter! We have no choice!”
Voden felt the knife in his hand, trembling from more than just the cold. The howls were synchronized with the wind; all around them, the creatures lingered. Voden breathed, searching his mind for a calm corner. He breathed out, trying to shake his consternation, his anxiety. He knew death was through the whitewash, waiting; his fear was their power. The thoughts pelted his mind worse than the wind attacking his body, not knowing where the threat was going to come from, and not knowing when it would strike. He breathed in; he searched for that calm corner. He breathed out; he needed to be at peace.
The wind subsided a bit, and the air grew silent. The air was void of comfort, damp with anticipation. The trees were no longer friendly, eagerly waiting to taste their blood that would surely soak their roots. Voden intently listened. He knew his vision would betray him. Off to his right, the bushes rustled. He gripped the dagger tighter, pressing the acrimonious color of his raw knuckles to a senseless white.
The first wolf burst from the shrubs, snarling with a zealous hunger Its jaws bore teeth like a quiver of arrows, firing straight for the softness of Voden’s throat. The wolf was huge, surprising Voden enough to forget his footing. It slammed against him, t
hrowing his body to the ground, nearly burying him in the snow. His muscles ached, holding the monsters throat. Its yellowed teeth splashed strings of spit, and they inched closer to his skin. It writhed fervidly, eyes begging Voden to die. He struggled to bring the knife up, the hot saliva spattering across his face, expelling foul air from the inundation of snarls, swirling vaporous fumes of death still caught between the creature’s incisors. Voden finally freed his hand from the scratching paws and jabbed the beast in its dirty, gray skull, pressing the point through its cortex. It spasmed a few times while snapping its teeth, and blood seeped across its face before collapsing firmly on Voden’s chest.
Voden almost welcomed the warmth of the fur but felt the waxy blood drip on his lip. He frantically pushed the wolf off him. He felt the dagger firm in the skull, as if fused to the gore inside, but he yanked until it produced a squelching noise that turned his stomach in knots, as if the cranium wished it to stay. The blood almost sizzled in the snow, steaming as it sunk further into the white blankets. Voden stood, trying to forget the noise his knife had just made, and his attention turned to the snarls and barks of another wolf that readied itself to strike Andar. It leapt at him, and he ducked, dragging the blade along the wolf’s stomach, spilling its innards in a grotesque cascade of gore, tainting the innocent snow, leaving the wolf clumped on the ground, writhing in throbs that were timed with its failing heart.