An unexpected story
May. 21st, 2007 09:04 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eveglassLast night, I was bored and restless. And my friend Eric, who happened to be online and chatting with me on MSN, was also bored and restless. We started reminiscing about some old roleplaying forums we used to be on, 'way back in '98-'99. These forums were, essentially, round robin storytelling venues, and we both enjoyed them a lot.
I put forward the idea, "why not try something like that now?" At least as far back as high school, I have always admired Eric's writing, and he says he admires mine, so we knew we were in good company. We started writing, each one adding a new paragraph as we went. We didn't know where the story was going. More than once, we each had to think, "what the heck do I write now?" But somehow, our muses carried us through. Two and a half hours later, we had a 4000 word story.
I really enjoyed the experience, and I think this is something we're going to do again. If anyone wants to join us, you're welcome to do so.
The story itself (all 4000 words of it) is behind the cut. I've colour-coded the text, one colour for my sections and one for Eric's. You are welcome to try to guess who is who.
Red Star
It was cold, but winters always were. The boy sat huddled in warm furs, his back to the fire crackling behind him, his eyes to the darkness of the forest beyond. The woods were still, unbearably so. The boy expected to hear chirps, hoots, even howls from far-distant and unwelcome creatures, but there was nothing at all, nothing but darkness and silence.
A shiver -- whether in response to the cold or something else, the boy couldn't say. Swathed in the furs, he hardly looked like a boy at all, as much as a pile of clothes some animal-skinner had been dissatisfied with and left at the side of the road. The furs kept the winter cold at bay, for the most part, but the unnatural stillness and impenetrable darkness could not be held back by fur or firelight. Another shiver, and a nervous sweep of his gaze across the edge of the woody clearing. In the stillness, the boy knew, he'd hear any animal coming near him long before he saw it, and he heard not so much as the rustling of a leaf. Safe and alone, his mind told him, but his imagination whispered far different and far less pleasant messages to him.
Not for the first time, he cursed that he had been chosen for this task. He cursed his friends, sitting at home with tankards in their hands and women in their laps. But custom had spoken, and he had drawn the lot marked with the red star, and there was no arguing. Perhaps, he thought, there was nothing to worry about. Perhaps the old wives' tales were merely fancy told to keep children at bay, and he would soon be home with his own tankard, and his own woman.
But he eyed the crossbow beside him with wary eyes nonetheless.
A crossbow... it almost made him want to laugh. The bow was large and cumbersome, unwieldy, too easy to fire and too difficult to reload. To be sure, one good shot would send the steel-tipped bolt right through a man, but against a group of bandits... or, for that matter, the things that the old women whispered lived in these woods... the crossbow was merely to make him feel better, and they had all known it.
"The red star," the boy whispered under his breath. He didn't feel particularly bitter, nor angry. Someone had to have the fool's luck to draw the red star, after all, and it was merely he who was the fool this time. He could be angry, for all the good it would do him if those trees parted and something came out, but no. His energy was better spent keeping warm, staying awake.
And perhaps imagining himself in the tavern with his friends, remembering what it was he wanted dearly to live long enough to return to.
His left hand, the one not staying near the crossbow, clenched around the small token which had doomed him.
He thought desperately of those who had gone before him, last year and the one before, every midwinter as far back as there were tales and legends of such things. Every year, another was sent out into the dark to keep watch, to guard the village against the darkness.
Some years, the watchmen returned with nothing more scarring than a jumble of frayed nerves and bags under their eyes. But those years were rare. More often, they returned with bloodied flesh and torn limbs. Sometimes they returned with wild eyes and lips that would speak nothing but ravings. Some years, they would not return at all.
The cold pressed in tighter, and the boy shivered.
A sound off to the side brought his head around sharply, and the crossbow was raised and aimed before he knew he had touched it. For a heartbeat, the leaves had rustled in the wind, and now returned to their perfect stillness. The boy sat still, watching that space, for better than sixty heartbeats -- not long at all, he thought, from the way he felt his pulse racing. The boughs stopped moving and the breeze vanished, as though it had never been. No great beast leaped from the trees, and no evil spirit slunk forward slowly to drink his life. Slowly, he lowered the bow again, and tried to calm his nerves. One night... if he could endure this one night, he would have nothing else to fear. It seemed, though, that the very trees themselves had conspired to make it a very, very long night.
He let his grip loosen on the crossbow's trigger. If he fired it carelessly, he knew, he would not have another chance. Reloading would take too long to fire a second bolt. He forced himself to put it down and place it within easy reach. His heart raced, his eyes shone, but nothing moved. The night was perfectly still. He allowed himself a long breath and one fleeting glance up at the sliver of a crescent moon.
When he looked down, he was not alone.
The boy's scream ripped the night and echoed off the trees. Cold bit into his fingertips as he scabbled away, nearly sending himself into his own campire in his panic. The crowssbow came up and his finger tightened on the trigger, but he held his fire. Crouched in the snow next to where the boy had sat was an elderly woman, half his size and surely thrice his age. How she had snuck up on him without so much as the crunch of snow, he could not say. A dozen white clouds of his own rapid breath passed before his eyes, and the crone did nothing more ominous than cock her head to one side and look at him. When the boy began to feel confident that she was not about to pounce upon him, he lowered the crossbow a few inches.
"Who are you?" the old woman asked quietly. "We don't see many young men in our forest, but beneath this moon we find your brothers before and now you. Who are you?"
The boy swallowed twice, thrice, before trusting his voice to answer. When he did, it cracked as it had when he first gained his manhood, near four years ago. "I am Devan," he said, using the name he won for himself, the name of his adulthood. "I guard the forest."
The old woman cackled, a soft laugh, but harsh as the winter. "Do you now? A brave and mighty warrior, you must be. How many battles have you fought? How many foes lie slain before you, their teeth on your necklace?"
Devan was more perplexed than offended at her gentle mockery. Of all the horrors which he imagined awaited him in the woods, this was not what he had imagined. This woman could have been one of the wisewomen of his village, and indeed, her humour and her laugh reminded him of lessons learned at the hems of the those old women. She could have been sister to Devan's own grandmother, for how alike they looked... alike, save for this woman's teeth, of which she still had a very complete set which gleamed pearlescent in the firelight in a manner Devan suspected his -- nor those of any other of his village -- would not.
"I have fought battles," Devan responded, a slight quake to his voice. "I have helped defend my village from raiders, and once I helped fight off a wolf pack in the snows. No teeth adorn my neck, though... I have never taken a life." Nor, he hoped, would he this night. Still, the crossbow pointed near enough the old woman's midriff that he could aim and shoot faster than she could cast any spell, or so he hoped.
The hag snorted in derision. "Mighty warrior indeed," she muttered, almost to herself. "A wolf pack and a few bands of raiders. Why they choose to send their unbloodied children year after year, I will never know." Devan stared, not willing to interrupt, not willing to put down the crossbow. At length, the crone seemed to remember she was not alone. "If that is the way of it, that is the way of it," she said softly, then fixed her emerald eyes on Devan's.
"Devan, guardian of the forest," she said, and her voice was steady, "on this darkest of nights, I will tell you three true things, and then I will leave, and you will never see me again. Do you understand?"
Devan, transfixed, nodded his head once.
Slowly, painfully, the old woman rose to her feet. Old bones creaked and popped -- or perhaps the sounds came from the crackling fire, and Devan could not tell. A sense of unreality enfolded him like the furs he wore.
"First," the old woman said, and raised one gnarled finger to point at the moon. "When the moon casts its glow on the forest, these woods belong to me and mine. You are no more the guardian of this forest than your small fire is the sun. When this forest needs to be guarded, it takes care of itself, often no thanks to you and your kin."
Devan nodded once but said nothing. A true thing indeed... faced with this apparition, his claim to guard this land, these trees, even this one small clearing rang so hollow in his ears that he felt the king of vilage idiots for having spoken the words to the old woman. Whether she more rightly bore that title, Devan could not say, and he was not sure he wished to know if she would guard him in the forest or guard the forest from him. He was quite sure, in that moment, that the boy who had drawn the red sign last year had been deemed no friend of the woods, and the whole of his body never had been found.
The woman did not pause to let Devan ponder overlong. "Second," she said, and she seemed to stand a little straighter, "the bearer of the red star will not be harmed by me or mine. It is the emblem of our compact with the children of the village, and we honour our bargains." She stared at him, hard, eyes burning, as though they reflected more than just firelight, "Do not lose it. We do not distinguish you by face, but by your token."
Devan nodded again, and clutched the small clay tablet harder in his left hand.
"You listen well, little guardian. Understand everything I tell you, and you may yet see the sun rise with both of your eyes. The third true thing is this."
Slowly, almost elegantly, the old woman swept back her arms to encompass the woods. Devan had spent the night watching those trees and listening for any sign of life, and ten minutes ago, he would have sworn upon his life that no animal was around him for miles. Now, though, at the crone's gesture, the forest came alive with tiny lights. At the edge of the trees, hidden in the inky darkness but with just enough definition to give Devan a suggestion of shape and size, points of light illuminated in pairs. With a cold feeling, Devan realised that each pair of lights was a set of eyes, his firelight reflecting off of them. A dozen...a hundred... some number too large for Devan to count, pairs of eyes gazing at him.
Devan dropped the crossbow from nerveless fingers, and by some miracle the impact failed to trigger it.
"So..." the woman croaked, chuckling. "You understand the third truth as well, it seems."
Devan stared at the woman, at the shapes in the darkness, and a pit rose from his stomach to his throat. In the time it took him to blink, the woman was gone, as though she had never been. No footsteps marked the snow where she had crouched.
He knew now that his crossbow would not help him, knew it with a certainty as sure as fire behind him would consume his flesh if he were foolish enough to place his hand within it. The eyes in the forest moved and shifted, but ever it seemed to Devan that they were looking at him, and that they were hungry. Desperately, he thought back to the years where the guardians had returned safe and unharmed. Surely, there was a way to make it through this night. There must be.
The clay tablet with the red star bit into his flesh. It was almost comforting, one less thing to worry about, if the crone could be trusted in her soothsaying. Devan wished, desperately, that he could believe her.
The fire crackled behind him, and with an impulse he could not name, he grasped a flaming brand in his right hand and held it between himself and the waiting beasts.
The wind rustled the branches of the trees ahead of him, and for the briefest of instants, Devan was quite sure that something, somewhere, was laughing at his show of defiance. He waved the brand ahead of and behind him threateningly, and then cursed his own foolishness for having eliminated what little night vision he had with the waving light.
He thought then, again, of the red star. If his life depended on his understanding what the old woman had said, then so be it. She had told him he was protected, and if this had been false, little else would matter by sunrise. Hesitantly at first and then with bolder steps, Devan walked right up to the tree line, burning brand held in front of him. The firelight somehow failed to penetrate the trees, and even as he came within ten, then five, then two feet of one yellow pair of eyes, he could still see nothing of the body of whatever animal -- or spirit -- the eyes were attached to.
They wanted blooded warriors, did they? Devan was no warrior, but he could at least prove he had a warrior's heart, and face the eyes unafraid.
Or so he told himself. He was a warrior and a man, he wore his hair braided, as a man, and he had the string about his neck as a man, hungry for teeth. He was a boy no longer; he was not afraid. So he told himself.
His pounding heart betrayed him.
As he stepped further into the forest, further away from the fire's warmth and the open clearing, his heart beat faster and his pulse quicken. It seemed now that he could see not only eyes, but teeth, long and sharp, beneath them. The trees pressed closer, and the eyes pressed closer, and he felt on the verge of screaming.
At last he could stand it no longer. His brand sputtered in the darkness of the forest, and Devan raised his voice in challenge. "I am Devan, guardian of the forest!" The words rang hollow as he said them, but he forced himself to continue, as much to reassure himself as to threaten the creatures. "None shall bring harm to my village while I yet live!"
Somewhere far away, Devan thought he heard soft, disappointed cackling.
Devan did not actually see the paw which swept out of the forest, and if not for the wind which marked its passing and a flash of gray blur he would have thought he imagined it. As it was, he screamed in fear and stumbled back. His flight was arrested by something holding his shirt, and then with the sound of tearing fabric, he fell to land on his back in the snow.
The air was still and quiet again save for Devan's desperate gasping. His right hand flew to his chest and patted at it, and he could feel exposed skin where a patch of his tunic had been torn right off of his chest by... something. The skin itself was untouched, but Devan had no clue if this was by the design of the beast which had struck at him, or by its mistake.
In his hand, Devan felt the red sign tablet pulse, once, warmly, as though devan had lain his hand on his love's chest when she breathed in, and then felt only cold clay again. Devan could not hear the crone's laugh now, but he imagined it vivdly enough.
Muttering, he stood up, annoyed at his own bravado. The crone had said clearly enough that he was not the guardian of the forest, and he had listened and believed. What foolishness had prompted him to shout it out to the waiting creatures? It would not do to dwell. Grasping the tablet hard in his left hand, and the brand in his right, Devan continued his march through the darkness, slower this time.
A pair of eyes loomed near to him. Devan stared at them. Mustering his courage, he took a step forward, another. The light of his brand seemed feeble here, and he saw little more than the beast's yellow eyes and white teeth. Another step, until he was perhaps three paces away.
His makeshift torch traced the outline of a beast, black against the black forest. To Devan, it seemed to have the shape of a wolf, but twice again as large as any he had ever laid eyes on. It crouched low on its haunches, and Devan could almost trace the line of its body facing him. Devan could feel his heart beat strong against his chest, almost to the point of bursting. For long seconds, the woods were still. Then, all at once, the tablet burned hot in his hand, and the wolf leapt upon him.
The last beast, perhaps, had been playing with Devan, and not trying to touch him, but this one clearly had no such inhibitions. Its great weight hit the youth and brought him down to the ground with enough force to drive his breath from his body. Two great paws landed on Devan's shoulders, and another landed to either side of his waist. Devan gazed up, more in awe than fear, at the animal which crouched atop him, snarling. The people of his vilage feared wolves, seeing them as the perfect hunters. If wolves in turn feared another animal, Devan thought, it would be this monster. Wolflike in shape and large as a horse, perfect black fur covered the creature's body save for its yellow, luminescent eyes and its white, white teeh framing a blood-red mouth.
Devan had the sense that the creature was not merely looking at him, but conciously meeting an holding his gaze. It had not yet leaned in to take a bite out of his with those immense, perfect jaws, and perhaps it could not so long as he held the red sign, but Devan was clearly the beast's prey and both knew it.
The red star burned in Devan's hand, as hot as the fire he had so recently sat beside. It seared through his thin glove and into his flesh. He faintly smelled it charring, like the pork his family would roast on spits during the summer festivals. It took all his strength not to cry out, and he knew it was only a matter of time until he could no longer bear to hold it.
With the beast atop him, Devan was powerless to stand up, powerless even to roll onto his side, to give the beast less of a target. He could flex his legs, but to what end?
He felt his hand burning, and his arm flailed. He realized, suddenly, that he *could* move his arm, though it was pinned at the shoulder. Making a last desperate effort, he raised it as high as it would go and thrust it, tablet and all, at the belly of the beast.
Devan had not known what striking the beast would feel like. He imagined that it would be soft and warm, not unlike the furs which still covered him, or perhaps hard and unyielding, feeling more like a century-old tree than flesh and muscle. He felt nothing, though, as his hand hit and swung unimpeded through the beast's belly, emerging from the other side of it and trailing black smoke.
The red sign glowed so brightly now that Devan could see the outlines of his own bones through the skin of his hand. He imagined he should hear the burning and crackling of his hand getting even louder, but over the beast's howl, he could hear nothing at all. The great weight lifted off of him suddenly and Devan sat bolt upright. No sign remained of the beast now, save lingering traces of smoke vanishing back into the trees and merging, seamlessly, with the darkness from which it had come. Looking about, Devan imagined that he could see fewer sets of eyes watching him now.
Still grounded, Devan stared at his hand, and at the tablet within. It was quite cool now, but the damage had been done. His hand was charred, and he felt the lightening pain of it all the way up his arm.
He set down his brand in the snow, careful not to extinguish it, and carefully took the tablet in his right hand. It showed no signs of ever having burned at all. Devan thrust his left hand into the snow, feeling the cold against his burnt flesh. There must be an easier way, he thought to himself, a safer way. The tablet had saved his life, true, but at such a cost. He would never be able to use that hand again, he knew.
Devan looked up at the eyes remaining. Tradition said that if he made it through the night, he was free to return home, never to be troubled again. When the woman had visited him, the night was already half over. By now, he guessed, he must only have a few hours left before dawn. He gazed down at his useless left hand. He was not sure how many more body parts he was willing to sacrifice.
Slowly and deliberately, Devan inched back towards his campfire. He hardly dared rise to his feet, so unsteady did his legs feel, and he pushed himself instead through the snow on hands and knees. The campire had burned low, and he carefully added a few new pieces of wood to the flame, using only his uninjured right hand and careful not to drop the red sign. Whatever else might be true, the center of the clearing had seemed to be safe, and nothing had attacked him while he remained more than an arm's length from the trees. He was not, after all, the guardian of the woods, but merely a young man, a boy, huddling against the cold. He did not have to live in mortal terror of the things in the trees, but neither did he still feel even a hint of desire to show them his bravery. Better, he thought, to live out the night in this small island of civilization.
It had taken him the better part of an hour to return to the clearing, and Devan was sure that sunrise could not be long in coming. He stared into the woods, seeing the bright eyes watching him hungrily. He grasped the tablet tight in his uninjured right hand.
The waiting stretched the time. Though he hoped, Devan was not sure that his gambit, of staying in the open space beyond the trees, would work. The forest was near, and the beasts had legs powerful enough to bridge the distance in a single bound. But none burst forth from the treeline. Though he stared, and knew that they stared back, the minutes passed. The fire burned behind him as the sky turned from black to indigo to violet.
The sun rose. It happened slowly, almost hesitantly, and Devan was absurdly reminded of how the old woman -- or whatever she had been -- had been so slow to rise from where she sat. Then, almost all at once, the sun's golden light broke fully over the trees and warmth bathed Devan's face. The darkness within the trees had been banished, and only the forest remained... deep, impenetrable, but a normal forest just the same.
For a short time, Devan simply sat next to the remains of his fire, basking in the light, too exhausted to move, but the promise of the warmth of the tavern, and the rich mead there, and the arms of his love gave him the strength to stand up and begin to walk back to the village. As Devan walked along the path, between the oaks, he felt as though, from a distance, he was being watched by the forest itself, but he ignored it. Let the forest keep its truths for one more year.
I put forward the idea, "why not try something like that now?" At least as far back as high school, I have always admired Eric's writing, and he says he admires mine, so we knew we were in good company. We started writing, each one adding a new paragraph as we went. We didn't know where the story was going. More than once, we each had to think, "what the heck do I write now?" But somehow, our muses carried us through. Two and a half hours later, we had a 4000 word story.
I really enjoyed the experience, and I think this is something we're going to do again. If anyone wants to join us, you're welcome to do so.
The story itself (all 4000 words of it) is behind the cut. I've colour-coded the text, one colour for my sections and one for Eric's. You are welcome to try to guess who is who.
It was cold, but winters always were. The boy sat huddled in warm furs, his back to the fire crackling behind him, his eyes to the darkness of the forest beyond. The woods were still, unbearably so. The boy expected to hear chirps, hoots, even howls from far-distant and unwelcome creatures, but there was nothing at all, nothing but darkness and silence.
A shiver -- whether in response to the cold or something else, the boy couldn't say. Swathed in the furs, he hardly looked like a boy at all, as much as a pile of clothes some animal-skinner had been dissatisfied with and left at the side of the road. The furs kept the winter cold at bay, for the most part, but the unnatural stillness and impenetrable darkness could not be held back by fur or firelight. Another shiver, and a nervous sweep of his gaze across the edge of the woody clearing. In the stillness, the boy knew, he'd hear any animal coming near him long before he saw it, and he heard not so much as the rustling of a leaf. Safe and alone, his mind told him, but his imagination whispered far different and far less pleasant messages to him.
Not for the first time, he cursed that he had been chosen for this task. He cursed his friends, sitting at home with tankards in their hands and women in their laps. But custom had spoken, and he had drawn the lot marked with the red star, and there was no arguing. Perhaps, he thought, there was nothing to worry about. Perhaps the old wives' tales were merely fancy told to keep children at bay, and he would soon be home with his own tankard, and his own woman.
But he eyed the crossbow beside him with wary eyes nonetheless.
A crossbow... it almost made him want to laugh. The bow was large and cumbersome, unwieldy, too easy to fire and too difficult to reload. To be sure, one good shot would send the steel-tipped bolt right through a man, but against a group of bandits... or, for that matter, the things that the old women whispered lived in these woods... the crossbow was merely to make him feel better, and they had all known it.
"The red star," the boy whispered under his breath. He didn't feel particularly bitter, nor angry. Someone had to have the fool's luck to draw the red star, after all, and it was merely he who was the fool this time. He could be angry, for all the good it would do him if those trees parted and something came out, but no. His energy was better spent keeping warm, staying awake.
And perhaps imagining himself in the tavern with his friends, remembering what it was he wanted dearly to live long enough to return to.
His left hand, the one not staying near the crossbow, clenched around the small token which had doomed him.
He thought desperately of those who had gone before him, last year and the one before, every midwinter as far back as there were tales and legends of such things. Every year, another was sent out into the dark to keep watch, to guard the village against the darkness.
Some years, the watchmen returned with nothing more scarring than a jumble of frayed nerves and bags under their eyes. But those years were rare. More often, they returned with bloodied flesh and torn limbs. Sometimes they returned with wild eyes and lips that would speak nothing but ravings. Some years, they would not return at all.
The cold pressed in tighter, and the boy shivered.
A sound off to the side brought his head around sharply, and the crossbow was raised and aimed before he knew he had touched it. For a heartbeat, the leaves had rustled in the wind, and now returned to their perfect stillness. The boy sat still, watching that space, for better than sixty heartbeats -- not long at all, he thought, from the way he felt his pulse racing. The boughs stopped moving and the breeze vanished, as though it had never been. No great beast leaped from the trees, and no evil spirit slunk forward slowly to drink his life. Slowly, he lowered the bow again, and tried to calm his nerves. One night... if he could endure this one night, he would have nothing else to fear. It seemed, though, that the very trees themselves had conspired to make it a very, very long night.
He let his grip loosen on the crossbow's trigger. If he fired it carelessly, he knew, he would not have another chance. Reloading would take too long to fire a second bolt. He forced himself to put it down and place it within easy reach. His heart raced, his eyes shone, but nothing moved. The night was perfectly still. He allowed himself a long breath and one fleeting glance up at the sliver of a crescent moon.
When he looked down, he was not alone.
The boy's scream ripped the night and echoed off the trees. Cold bit into his fingertips as he scabbled away, nearly sending himself into his own campire in his panic. The crowssbow came up and his finger tightened on the trigger, but he held his fire. Crouched in the snow next to where the boy had sat was an elderly woman, half his size and surely thrice his age. How she had snuck up on him without so much as the crunch of snow, he could not say. A dozen white clouds of his own rapid breath passed before his eyes, and the crone did nothing more ominous than cock her head to one side and look at him. When the boy began to feel confident that she was not about to pounce upon him, he lowered the crossbow a few inches.
"Who are you?" the old woman asked quietly. "We don't see many young men in our forest, but beneath this moon we find your brothers before and now you. Who are you?"
The boy swallowed twice, thrice, before trusting his voice to answer. When he did, it cracked as it had when he first gained his manhood, near four years ago. "I am Devan," he said, using the name he won for himself, the name of his adulthood. "I guard the forest."
The old woman cackled, a soft laugh, but harsh as the winter. "Do you now? A brave and mighty warrior, you must be. How many battles have you fought? How many foes lie slain before you, their teeth on your necklace?"
Devan was more perplexed than offended at her gentle mockery. Of all the horrors which he imagined awaited him in the woods, this was not what he had imagined. This woman could have been one of the wisewomen of his village, and indeed, her humour and her laugh reminded him of lessons learned at the hems of the those old women. She could have been sister to Devan's own grandmother, for how alike they looked... alike, save for this woman's teeth, of which she still had a very complete set which gleamed pearlescent in the firelight in a manner Devan suspected his -- nor those of any other of his village -- would not.
"I have fought battles," Devan responded, a slight quake to his voice. "I have helped defend my village from raiders, and once I helped fight off a wolf pack in the snows. No teeth adorn my neck, though... I have never taken a life." Nor, he hoped, would he this night. Still, the crossbow pointed near enough the old woman's midriff that he could aim and shoot faster than she could cast any spell, or so he hoped.
The hag snorted in derision. "Mighty warrior indeed," she muttered, almost to herself. "A wolf pack and a few bands of raiders. Why they choose to send their unbloodied children year after year, I will never know." Devan stared, not willing to interrupt, not willing to put down the crossbow. At length, the crone seemed to remember she was not alone. "If that is the way of it, that is the way of it," she said softly, then fixed her emerald eyes on Devan's.
"Devan, guardian of the forest," she said, and her voice was steady, "on this darkest of nights, I will tell you three true things, and then I will leave, and you will never see me again. Do you understand?"
Devan, transfixed, nodded his head once.
Slowly, painfully, the old woman rose to her feet. Old bones creaked and popped -- or perhaps the sounds came from the crackling fire, and Devan could not tell. A sense of unreality enfolded him like the furs he wore.
"First," the old woman said, and raised one gnarled finger to point at the moon. "When the moon casts its glow on the forest, these woods belong to me and mine. You are no more the guardian of this forest than your small fire is the sun. When this forest needs to be guarded, it takes care of itself, often no thanks to you and your kin."
Devan nodded once but said nothing. A true thing indeed... faced with this apparition, his claim to guard this land, these trees, even this one small clearing rang so hollow in his ears that he felt the king of vilage idiots for having spoken the words to the old woman. Whether she more rightly bore that title, Devan could not say, and he was not sure he wished to know if she would guard him in the forest or guard the forest from him. He was quite sure, in that moment, that the boy who had drawn the red sign last year had been deemed no friend of the woods, and the whole of his body never had been found.
The woman did not pause to let Devan ponder overlong. "Second," she said, and she seemed to stand a little straighter, "the bearer of the red star will not be harmed by me or mine. It is the emblem of our compact with the children of the village, and we honour our bargains." She stared at him, hard, eyes burning, as though they reflected more than just firelight, "Do not lose it. We do not distinguish you by face, but by your token."
Devan nodded again, and clutched the small clay tablet harder in his left hand.
"You listen well, little guardian. Understand everything I tell you, and you may yet see the sun rise with both of your eyes. The third true thing is this."
Slowly, almost elegantly, the old woman swept back her arms to encompass the woods. Devan had spent the night watching those trees and listening for any sign of life, and ten minutes ago, he would have sworn upon his life that no animal was around him for miles. Now, though, at the crone's gesture, the forest came alive with tiny lights. At the edge of the trees, hidden in the inky darkness but with just enough definition to give Devan a suggestion of shape and size, points of light illuminated in pairs. With a cold feeling, Devan realised that each pair of lights was a set of eyes, his firelight reflecting off of them. A dozen...a hundred... some number too large for Devan to count, pairs of eyes gazing at him.
Devan dropped the crossbow from nerveless fingers, and by some miracle the impact failed to trigger it.
"So..." the woman croaked, chuckling. "You understand the third truth as well, it seems."
Devan stared at the woman, at the shapes in the darkness, and a pit rose from his stomach to his throat. In the time it took him to blink, the woman was gone, as though she had never been. No footsteps marked the snow where she had crouched.
He knew now that his crossbow would not help him, knew it with a certainty as sure as fire behind him would consume his flesh if he were foolish enough to place his hand within it. The eyes in the forest moved and shifted, but ever it seemed to Devan that they were looking at him, and that they were hungry. Desperately, he thought back to the years where the guardians had returned safe and unharmed. Surely, there was a way to make it through this night. There must be.
The clay tablet with the red star bit into his flesh. It was almost comforting, one less thing to worry about, if the crone could be trusted in her soothsaying. Devan wished, desperately, that he could believe her.
The fire crackled behind him, and with an impulse he could not name, he grasped a flaming brand in his right hand and held it between himself and the waiting beasts.
The wind rustled the branches of the trees ahead of him, and for the briefest of instants, Devan was quite sure that something, somewhere, was laughing at his show of defiance. He waved the brand ahead of and behind him threateningly, and then cursed his own foolishness for having eliminated what little night vision he had with the waving light.
He thought then, again, of the red star. If his life depended on his understanding what the old woman had said, then so be it. She had told him he was protected, and if this had been false, little else would matter by sunrise. Hesitantly at first and then with bolder steps, Devan walked right up to the tree line, burning brand held in front of him. The firelight somehow failed to penetrate the trees, and even as he came within ten, then five, then two feet of one yellow pair of eyes, he could still see nothing of the body of whatever animal -- or spirit -- the eyes were attached to.
They wanted blooded warriors, did they? Devan was no warrior, but he could at least prove he had a warrior's heart, and face the eyes unafraid.
Or so he told himself. He was a warrior and a man, he wore his hair braided, as a man, and he had the string about his neck as a man, hungry for teeth. He was a boy no longer; he was not afraid. So he told himself.
His pounding heart betrayed him.
As he stepped further into the forest, further away from the fire's warmth and the open clearing, his heart beat faster and his pulse quicken. It seemed now that he could see not only eyes, but teeth, long and sharp, beneath them. The trees pressed closer, and the eyes pressed closer, and he felt on the verge of screaming.
At last he could stand it no longer. His brand sputtered in the darkness of the forest, and Devan raised his voice in challenge. "I am Devan, guardian of the forest!" The words rang hollow as he said them, but he forced himself to continue, as much to reassure himself as to threaten the creatures. "None shall bring harm to my village while I yet live!"
Somewhere far away, Devan thought he heard soft, disappointed cackling.
Devan did not actually see the paw which swept out of the forest, and if not for the wind which marked its passing and a flash of gray blur he would have thought he imagined it. As it was, he screamed in fear and stumbled back. His flight was arrested by something holding his shirt, and then with the sound of tearing fabric, he fell to land on his back in the snow.
The air was still and quiet again save for Devan's desperate gasping. His right hand flew to his chest and patted at it, and he could feel exposed skin where a patch of his tunic had been torn right off of his chest by... something. The skin itself was untouched, but Devan had no clue if this was by the design of the beast which had struck at him, or by its mistake.
In his hand, Devan felt the red sign tablet pulse, once, warmly, as though devan had lain his hand on his love's chest when she breathed in, and then felt only cold clay again. Devan could not hear the crone's laugh now, but he imagined it vivdly enough.
Muttering, he stood up, annoyed at his own bravado. The crone had said clearly enough that he was not the guardian of the forest, and he had listened and believed. What foolishness had prompted him to shout it out to the waiting creatures? It would not do to dwell. Grasping the tablet hard in his left hand, and the brand in his right, Devan continued his march through the darkness, slower this time.
A pair of eyes loomed near to him. Devan stared at them. Mustering his courage, he took a step forward, another. The light of his brand seemed feeble here, and he saw little more than the beast's yellow eyes and white teeth. Another step, until he was perhaps three paces away.
His makeshift torch traced the outline of a beast, black against the black forest. To Devan, it seemed to have the shape of a wolf, but twice again as large as any he had ever laid eyes on. It crouched low on its haunches, and Devan could almost trace the line of its body facing him. Devan could feel his heart beat strong against his chest, almost to the point of bursting. For long seconds, the woods were still. Then, all at once, the tablet burned hot in his hand, and the wolf leapt upon him.
The last beast, perhaps, had been playing with Devan, and not trying to touch him, but this one clearly had no such inhibitions. Its great weight hit the youth and brought him down to the ground with enough force to drive his breath from his body. Two great paws landed on Devan's shoulders, and another landed to either side of his waist. Devan gazed up, more in awe than fear, at the animal which crouched atop him, snarling. The people of his vilage feared wolves, seeing them as the perfect hunters. If wolves in turn feared another animal, Devan thought, it would be this monster. Wolflike in shape and large as a horse, perfect black fur covered the creature's body save for its yellow, luminescent eyes and its white, white teeh framing a blood-red mouth.
Devan had the sense that the creature was not merely looking at him, but conciously meeting an holding his gaze. It had not yet leaned in to take a bite out of his with those immense, perfect jaws, and perhaps it could not so long as he held the red sign, but Devan was clearly the beast's prey and both knew it.
The red star burned in Devan's hand, as hot as the fire he had so recently sat beside. It seared through his thin glove and into his flesh. He faintly smelled it charring, like the pork his family would roast on spits during the summer festivals. It took all his strength not to cry out, and he knew it was only a matter of time until he could no longer bear to hold it.
With the beast atop him, Devan was powerless to stand up, powerless even to roll onto his side, to give the beast less of a target. He could flex his legs, but to what end?
He felt his hand burning, and his arm flailed. He realized, suddenly, that he *could* move his arm, though it was pinned at the shoulder. Making a last desperate effort, he raised it as high as it would go and thrust it, tablet and all, at the belly of the beast.
Devan had not known what striking the beast would feel like. He imagined that it would be soft and warm, not unlike the furs which still covered him, or perhaps hard and unyielding, feeling more like a century-old tree than flesh and muscle. He felt nothing, though, as his hand hit and swung unimpeded through the beast's belly, emerging from the other side of it and trailing black smoke.
The red sign glowed so brightly now that Devan could see the outlines of his own bones through the skin of his hand. He imagined he should hear the burning and crackling of his hand getting even louder, but over the beast's howl, he could hear nothing at all. The great weight lifted off of him suddenly and Devan sat bolt upright. No sign remained of the beast now, save lingering traces of smoke vanishing back into the trees and merging, seamlessly, with the darkness from which it had come. Looking about, Devan imagined that he could see fewer sets of eyes watching him now.
Still grounded, Devan stared at his hand, and at the tablet within. It was quite cool now, but the damage had been done. His hand was charred, and he felt the lightening pain of it all the way up his arm.
He set down his brand in the snow, careful not to extinguish it, and carefully took the tablet in his right hand. It showed no signs of ever having burned at all. Devan thrust his left hand into the snow, feeling the cold against his burnt flesh. There must be an easier way, he thought to himself, a safer way. The tablet had saved his life, true, but at such a cost. He would never be able to use that hand again, he knew.
Devan looked up at the eyes remaining. Tradition said that if he made it through the night, he was free to return home, never to be troubled again. When the woman had visited him, the night was already half over. By now, he guessed, he must only have a few hours left before dawn. He gazed down at his useless left hand. He was not sure how many more body parts he was willing to sacrifice.
Slowly and deliberately, Devan inched back towards his campfire. He hardly dared rise to his feet, so unsteady did his legs feel, and he pushed himself instead through the snow on hands and knees. The campire had burned low, and he carefully added a few new pieces of wood to the flame, using only his uninjured right hand and careful not to drop the red sign. Whatever else might be true, the center of the clearing had seemed to be safe, and nothing had attacked him while he remained more than an arm's length from the trees. He was not, after all, the guardian of the woods, but merely a young man, a boy, huddling against the cold. He did not have to live in mortal terror of the things in the trees, but neither did he still feel even a hint of desire to show them his bravery. Better, he thought, to live out the night in this small island of civilization.
It had taken him the better part of an hour to return to the clearing, and Devan was sure that sunrise could not be long in coming. He stared into the woods, seeing the bright eyes watching him hungrily. He grasped the tablet tight in his uninjured right hand.
The waiting stretched the time. Though he hoped, Devan was not sure that his gambit, of staying in the open space beyond the trees, would work. The forest was near, and the beasts had legs powerful enough to bridge the distance in a single bound. But none burst forth from the treeline. Though he stared, and knew that they stared back, the minutes passed. The fire burned behind him as the sky turned from black to indigo to violet.
The sun rose. It happened slowly, almost hesitantly, and Devan was absurdly reminded of how the old woman -- or whatever she had been -- had been so slow to rise from where she sat. Then, almost all at once, the sun's golden light broke fully over the trees and warmth bathed Devan's face. The darkness within the trees had been banished, and only the forest remained... deep, impenetrable, but a normal forest just the same.
For a short time, Devan simply sat next to the remains of his fire, basking in the light, too exhausted to move, but the promise of the warmth of the tavern, and the rich mead there, and the arms of his love gave him the strength to stand up and begin to walk back to the village. As Devan walked along the path, between the oaks, he felt as though, from a distance, he was being watched by the forest itself, but he ignored it. Let the forest keep its truths for one more year.
