concentration from the slow flames, from the strange terror held within them. From that cruel light, and ugly heat. From the pain.
The old man appeared startled at first by the interruption, but then gave a dry smile which faded slowly after what he said next: “I've seen plenty of battles in my day.”
“Where did they take the survivors?”
“ What does it matter?”
“Where?”
“Boy, watch your tongue.”
Vincent glanced over to the sword. The parts of it that weren’t covered in mud reflected pieces of the fire. He imagined himself taking it and unleashing his anger on the old man.
“You’re not one of them,” the old man said, “don’t deserve to be.”
He stood up, pulled the sword from the ground, and then stuck the tip of the blade in the coals of the fire.
“You think you know me?”
The old man chuckled. “I’ve known plenty like you. Plenty in my day. Some are easy to read and some aren‘t, but I know you alright. Know you well, boy.”
“Let me free. Help me find the survivors, and you’ll be rewarded.”
The old man smiled, and the world once again went black.
4
There was a door. Old, battered, and overgrown in moss and tiny ferns. It was a large wooden door standing against a dirty brick wall. The bricks appeared chiselled in a sloppy manner, and had an emptiness to the way they were stacked one after the other. Lifeless. Like the vacant faces of dead slaves who had refused to work, they had a way of expressing uselessness and pointlessness in a way that said I hide nothing without having to do or say anything.
Not that walls could speak.
But dreams never did make sense. Always emerged in twisted riddles, and spoke in strange tongues. Therefore, in a dream perhaps walls could really speak, could perhaps dream themselves and live lives within their own. Could verbally express uselessness.
And that door.
That large, expressionless door.
What did it hide?
It had no need to speak, no need to say anything at all. A door without a handle or keyhole had no need to do anything. A door without visible hinges spoke for itself.
And then it opened.
And there stood the old man, up to his knees in black water, crows circling a grey sky above him in a broad fluttering halo. The medicine man’s wrinkles seemed deeper than they had before, but at the same time there was a presence to the old hermit which radiated youthfulness in a dry, dirty light: the colour of the sun falling through a dusty window on a cold day. He seemed ancient beyond all else, but still he was a young man. Even the tattoos crawling over his body had a boldness to them, had an arid freshness. And his eyes. His wide unblinking eyes stared in an odd sadness, but had no tears. It was the look of pity. And within his large hands he held a key. A large rusted key spattered in blood.
He spoke.
But there was no sound.
So instead, he smiled.
5
Vincent awoke the next morning with the arrow removed, and his shoulder bandaged. The weathered black steel which was his shoulder guard lay before him like a dark, childish spectator, its worn leather straps sprawled over the mud awkwardly like limp, broken arms, the hole where the arrow had pierced through gawking up at him like a small eye. It was aggravating, the way it stared like that. An eye with no thoughts. No accusations. No worries. It reflected the way he felt now: Hollow and thoughtless. Empty. Used up.
He forced himself to close his eyes. Anger was pumping through his veins again. A dark, dull frustration, turning the blackness in his thoughts to a strange red. A pointless anger. A useless one. There were strands of paranoia mixed in as well, splashing the real in with the unreal, curdling what sanity was left. Slow and deadly. Remorseless.
Single eye, the notion lingered. Even though his eyes were closed he could feel that hollow little eye upon him, watching like a silent ghost. Knowing. Accusing. Why was this such a nuisance? Why did it bother him so much? If felt as if the eye had something to say. It made him dizzy, anger digging in deeper, opening dark doors, scurrying in and out of shadow-drenched chambers, places thought to be empty, meant to be empty.
Only armour. Only–
Single arrow.
It was prominent. Overpowering.
He glanced back down at the shoulder guard.
“A single arrow,” he said slowly, throat dry. There was something off about this comment, but his thoughts were still too disoriented to think straight. Possibly from the blows to the head. Muddying his perception. Damaging the way he thought.
He tried to think of other things. Slowly, he glanced around with bloodshot eyes, the world spinning, moving in and out, distorting.
(Single arrow.)
“Stubborn,” he coughed.
The notion refused to let go, and he began to understand why suddenly, the sane part of him creeping back up from the shadows, replacing the disorientation.
“Don’t use arrows,” he muttered.
Archery is for the weak. For cowards. Backlanton law. Blacklanton proverb. Backlanton way of life.
The barbarians from the mountains never use such weaponry.
He glanced around, checking to see if the arrow was nearby, vision still unsteady. It wasn’t, and the uncertainty was aggravating. He thought of how the arrow had knocked him off his horse. Where it had come from. Remembering was like pulling a mangled shape out from muddy ashes, or a disfigured figurine out of the half-rotted mouth of a dead man; he could see it in his thoughts, sneaking up from the Vellonian frontlines, a single arrow. He didn‘t know what to think–what to believe. He didn’t trust himself right now.
Why would a single arrow emerge out from his comrades?
Had it been directed at him, and if so why? It must have been Vellonian. The barbarians would never use such a weapon.
Had to be.
The notion lingered for awhile. Like the little eye, watching.
Had to be…
Everything was so foggy in his head. He felt far away from himself, as if he were watching the happenings of his sight through a long hallway. There was a cold weight in his gut, and the back of his skull throbbed as well, pounding silently like a soft hammer against an old table.
The short dream of the door and the old man was in the back of his mind, and had its face turned away from him–and so, he didn’t remember he even had the dream. Just felt it back there like another page in the end chapters of a crumpled story never completed. Smoke rose up from the remainder of the fire’s coals like visible whispers, small delicate things which seemed lost. There were very few clouds in the sky now, explaining why the morning was so cold.
Of course, the old medicine man was gone again. So was the sword. The strange walking stick was still present however. It stood in the frozen mud like some sort of brainwashed guard; some sort of scrawny, hungry man with no limbs or face. It watched him in an eerie stillness. A depraved evil too ancient to have a name, and to obscure to be real. It reminded Vincent of a door he had once seen, so many years ago. A door that had changed him.
“I’m losing my mind,” Vincent said, looking up, feeling the paranoia slip in deeper and take hold.
You already have. The voice in his head was dry and cold, just like the sky: clear, cloudless, and empty. Something missing.
He began to cough again, his breath visible and creeping, just like the smoke.
His armour was cold.
Colder than it had ever felt before.
And the crows had come down from the dismal sky, black little things with curious eyes. Eyes which seemed as if they had come from the those dark waters, the waters he had seen the–
“Not now.” The two words left his mouth in a slow mutter.
There were wolves, sitting off in the far distance like stragglers of a crowd that had watched a circus gone wrong, static expressions stretched coldly across long faces. They watched as if enjoying the view, a ravenous aura coming f
rom behind those calm features. Unlike the crows, their eyes were not curious. They were piercing and blazing yellow, like crystal suns reflecting midnight fires. Unreadable, unpredictable, and undeniably fierce. Eyes like the door, things which spoke for themselves.
And where was the old man? Had the wolves gotten to him already? Was that why they weren’t coming for the man tied to the tree? Full already?
Vincent closed his eyes again, tried to think, and felt nothing stir through his thoughts. Completely blank, like trying to study a painting without light, or attempting to see the detail of a coin at the bottom of an empty well on a cloudy night.
Snoring, he heard snoring suddenly.
His eyes opened without him meaning them to, his breath becoming heavy.
He hadn’t heard it earlier, but it was there.
Above him.
He looked up, and saw feet dangling from the high branches, bare feet peering from the tree’s dead arms.
He looked back at the wolves, just sitting with their long calm expressions. How many of them were there? Eight? No, there were ten–two were off to the side, near the cliff’s edge. Ten grey wolves with yellow eyes. Vincent imagined that they were large ones, as most wolves in this side of the world were. Half the size of horses perhaps. Maybe larger.
“Hey,” Vincent whispered up to the dangling feet.
“They were there yesterday,” the old man replied quietly, with a cheerful tone, “and the day before. Been comin closer everyday now. Testin us.”
“There’s a woman out there somewhere, alone.”
The medicine man snorted and spat, the yellow glob landing a few feet away. He didn’t answer.
“Useless,” Vincent muttered.
He had given up on trying to reason with the old man. There was no reasoning; Vincent was after all the prisoner here, and the old man had something twisted in his head. A prisoner couldn’t grasp the mind of insanity, let alone get close enough to sway it. No, if he were going to get out of this, he could only rely upon himself and his ability to think under pressure, his ability to focus. He just needed to remember how to relight that ability.
Vincent tried to stand up, and found that he could; only his arms were bound after all.
Why hadn’t I tried before? he thought.
His legs were slightly numb from not moving them, but seemed to work fine. He was still dizzy, but standing up was refreshing, the disorientation curdling his thoughts beginning to dissipate. His hands were the ones which worried him; they were already aching and numb. He did his best to move his fingers in and out of his palms to circulate some feeling back into them. It helped a little.
“Why’d you pull the arrow out if you were just going to let the wolves at me?” Vincent asked, not meaning to.
“We have a few days yet.”
Vincent looked out at the sea, trying to get a glimpse of the beach. Nothing but water. Reflecting nothing.
Who was the woman?
Where is she?
The old man hopped down from the tree, his bare feet making crunching sounds as they broke through the thin layer of ice covering the mud. There were little frozen ponds everywhere from the downpour, little patches of ice littering the ground in uneven patches, as if trying to disguise themselves as more dead bodies. Of course that didn’t work, only made the corpses stand out more than ever. Made them too definable, too real. The bodies would not bloat in weather this cold. That was one thing in their favour–but then again it wasn’t. Perhaps if the corpses weren’t overcome and turned blue by the cold, the wolves would feed on them instead. The smell wouldn’t be so bad. Would be bearable, a fair trade for life.
The thought was ridicules though. He knew full well it didn’t matter whether the bodies were frozen or not. It they wanted to eat the dead they would. He felt like a naïve–
“Like I said, boy,” the old man said, “they’re measuring our courage. We have a few days still.”
“Why do you keep calling me boy?”
The medicine man laughed a low chuckle.
“I’m past forty, and have probably seen more than even you.”
The old man moved towards him with eyes which seemed to be unbelieving and insulted. He strode right up close to the soldier’s face, and stared with great intensity. He was taller than Vincent had realized, much taller. Vincent was six one–taller than most of his kind–and this man looked down on him.
“You think you know so much,” the medicine man whispered, his voice getting louder with every word. “You think you can stand up to the likes of me? Who says? You?”
Before Vincent could respond, the old man slung more rope around Vincent’s neck and threw a line over a branch. It was a fast, flashing movement, like a snake lunging forward with great precision. Vincent didn’t even get a chance to take in a breath before the noose took hold of his throat. Barely had the time to blink. The medicine man climbed the tree in a youthful agility, tied a knot around one of the thicker black branches, and pulled the rope tight enough to make Vincent choke. The soldier had to stand on his toes to breath, and even that was hard. It was like trying to take in air from a straw clogged with sand. He choked again.
“You want to stand, then stand! Next time you want to do something without my blessing you need to ask my dear boy!” the old man wailed up into the sky.
“I’ll kill you,” Vincent grunted, his tired eyes lashing out raggedly. The cold rope against his throat burned. “I’ll butcher you and leave you for the wolves,” he tried to yell, but only managed a foggy hiss, riddled in choking sounds.
“Look!” The medicine man screamed, jumping down from the gnarled branches, and pointing out to the wolves. “What do they care of your savage ways? What do they care of what you have seen? Of what you have done? They will tear the meat from your bones regardless of how old, or young you are–or how cruel you are! It makes no difference here!”
“What do you want from me!”
“Everything!” The old man threw his arms up into the sky, his voice shrieking. “The only way we’re getting out of here alive! The sky will swallow the day, and save us from ourselves, our journey to manhood! We shall venture further through fear, and break through to the light of a new day, a new world!” He looked down, his voice lowering, and a smile spreading across his face. “We will face the within.”
Panic swept through Vincent. It felt as if his blood had been flushed out, and replaced with cold air. Did the old man even realize where they were? The two of them were by a dead tree on a hill overlooking the after affects of a gruesome battle scene; without food, water, or shelter they would surely die from the climate alone; wolves waited and watched like patient monsters, waited for them to let down their guard so that they could proceed with what they did best; and an army of crows was already beginning to descend on the bodies below them. Who knew how soon it would take for the black birds to realize where the two of them were, where the half-hung soldier and the old man waited to be slaughtered. And this was all speculation of course–the old man could very well decide to cut his throat with that rusty dagger he kept in his–
The dagger.
The rusty little blade.
In his dream the old man had a key, a rusty key spattered in blood. Yes, it was a key, not a dagger. The memories of the dream tumbled in on him suddenly like a sack of rotted fruit, startling him. What did it mean? Did it mean anything? Was the only way out of this hell death, the smiling old man washing the bloodied weapon off in poisoned waters? Was death the key?
As if the old man were reading his mind again, he pulled out the dagger. The katana was nowhere to be seen.
“I’ve seen you before,” Vincent blurted out in a choked whisper.
The old man lowered the dagger a little, and smiled.
“I’ve seen you.”
“Where?”
“You said we shall face the within.” Vincent sucked in a breath, and then continued: “We’re in this together. It’s your turn.” The words felt strange,
but he let them out anyways. He’d say anything now, anything to sway the old man from finishing him, anything to give him a little more time to think. A little more time to figure out how he would get out of this. He’d been in bad situations before, and was still alive. Why should this be any different? The crazy hermit before him was just another obstacle out of a thousand others. He just had to calm down. Had to think.
“You see boy, you’re learning.” The old man climbed back up the tree, slower this time, but still full of that youthful energy, and untied the rope.
Vincent gasped, but didn’t sit.
“Don’t make me regret it, boy.”
There was a short silence. Vincent hesitated, but then sat down after all, the half rotted, partially frozen bark scratching his wrists and hands. It was still morning, yet it felt like evening. It felt like day should be fading instead of rising. He felt so tired. So used up.
The old man lit another fire with more wood taken from behind the tree, again not needing the wood, only using the finely split pieces as a sort of decoration. Some sort of trick. It was a bigger fire than before, but seemed not as fierce. The coldness of bitter morning pushing the fire away slightly, dampening the affect.
“Why are you on this side of the world?” Vincent asked in a foggy voice, his lips sore and dry. “What are you doing so far from home?” The questions sounded pleasant enough, considering the old man just tried hanging him, but also sounded fatigued and emotionless. Sounded like a monologue at the funeral of a man no one liked very much.
The old man didn’t answer, seemed preoccupied in other thoughts.
The gnarled walking stick still stood in the mud, still possessing a strangeness to it, still harbouring an evil. Fog had begun settling along the battlefield, hiding the corpses slightly, making them appear ghostly–and Vincent found himself wondering whether or not this field would be one day haunted. It had, after all, witnessed the end of an empire. The shattering of one final attempt at hope, one final battle. If the barbarians really had prevailed, Vellanon would never be the same, no longer the leading kingdom of the modern world. The Backlantons would be free to sweep into Vellanon from the west and the north, seeking revenge for the foul deeds bestowed upon their homeland. Also, The Hackoran religious fanatics would emerge from the smooth Betien mountains dividing Vellanon from Fellekose, pushing up from the south, and taking back the many provinces which were once theirs. To survive, the Vellonian Empire would be forced to shrink east, towards the unexplored forests of Bahnn.
Bahnn, Vincent thought.
Did those woods really go on forever, just like the poisoned sea outlining Fellekose? He looked ahead at the old man sitting there, deranged eyes gawking out towards the ocean.
The notion of the Backlanton soldiers prevailing didn’t make sense, the soldier decided. The Vellonian infantry had trampled far into the barbarian frontlines before he was knocked out–clearly dominating. Backlantons were not known for traps or trickery. Their wars were very straightforward. Very little plotting or planning. Was the hermit lying–or mistaken–or had