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Madman in the Woods
By Richard Lawrence
Merlin was enjoying the sunshine. He was sitting on a crude bench outside of a village bar, a simple, if well-constructed, wood and stone hut with a plank set on some barrels for a bar with crude, homemade tables and stools inside and out. The sun was gentle with enough of a breeze to take the edge off the heat; he’d removed his cloak and was relaxing with a decent, if slightly green, beer. It could have done with another week or so maturing, but it was cool and refreshing.
He enjoyed watching the locals going about their daily business; the blacksmith was stripped to his waist and was hammering at a piece of metal, singing to give himself a rhythm. He couldn’t hold a tune but he was obviously having fun and it was infectious. A group of old men were sitting in the shade, chatting, playing bones and enjoying their beer and there were children running around, doing the incomprehensible things that children do to amuse themselves.
It was a small, prosperous village with productive farms and close to the trade routes so that there were some small luxuries to make their lives better, after all, they could afford a bar and a blacksmith, their clothing looked a bit better than the normal peasant and they all looked well fed.
It was idyllic and Merlin was feeling at peace with himself. He was travelling back to continue his training after his meeting with Bran and he still had a lot to think about. Watching the blacksmith was triggering some vague ideas about enchanting objects, giving them extra strength or special abilities.
Strange? Merlin cocked his head. The day was lovely, no clouds in the sky, so why was he hearing thunder? Then he realised, he snapped his head over to the road leading into the village and saw a plume of dust. He knew what this was.
He jumped up, spilling his beer and yelled “RAIDERS” as loud as he could. The villagers stopped what they were doing and looked at the dust. Then everyone ran. The old men disappeared into the bar, the children running after them. Merlin could hear the sound of a lock-bar being dropped across the door. Very soon there was only Merlin and the smith, holding a massive hammer, in the open.
Eight men rode into the village, wearing plundered Roman armour and captured horses. The horses were much better cared for than the armour, which was splotchy with rust and encrusted with filth.
The smith spat on his hands and gripped his massive hammer, cocking it over his head. He looked at Merlin “You all right to help? You’ve no weapons.”
Merlin smiled at him and nodded, remembering his time with Bran and deciding that fire, lots of it, would do the trick. “Watch for flankers,” he said to the smith and unleashed a massive wave of flame. The three riders in the front were instantly immolated, blackened bones clattering to the ground. The smith stared at him, then grinned, gripping his hammer harder.
The other five were milling around, unsure of what had just happened, the smith stepped forward and slammed his hammer into the back of one of raiders, the man’s spine cracking with a sound like a breaking branch. “Try and save the horses,” yelled the smith, “They’re valuable”. Merlin just nodded. The smith stalked forward, breaking the skull of another raider.
The remaining three horsemen were looking panicked now, things had gone badly wrong, so quickly, their horses were dancing, trying to escape and getting tangled up in each other. Merlin had another thought and grinned, he raised his hands a three thin, very hot, streams of flame shot out, catching each of the remaining raiders in the chest, the screams blended into a horrible song, brief and violent, before they fell from the horses, dead.
Merlin was riding an adrenaline high, he grinned at the smith who was laughing, suddenly Merlin heard the crackling of a branch behind him, he called fire to his mind, span and loosed a gout of flame at the enemy. The six year old boy screamed and died, Merlin just stood and watched, in shock.
He didn’t hear the smith come up behind him, didn’t hear him scream for his son, didn’t feel the hammer as it struck his head. All he knew was, suddenly, everything went black.
Dark.
Darkness and Pain.
Pain and darkness.
The smell, burned, rotting corpses.
Pain.
Pain.
Pain.
Burned corpses.
Rotting.
“My father has me,” a thought screamed through his mind.
“What?” followed quickly, “My father? Who is that?”
“What?”
“Where?”
“Who?”
A bedraggled figure, covered in ash and filth dragged himself from the pit, a pit full of corpses, horses and men, some burned, some just broken. His clothes were filthy; he looked down, just a pair of ragged trews, the tartan buried under layers of grime. He reached up to his head, the pain was intense, there was a soft spot on his skull, just behind his ear. His matted hair had created a poultice and stopped the bleeding. But it was still tender. He left it alone.
He looked around, there was a small village not too far away, candles burning in some of the windows, but it felt wrong, he didn’t want to go there, he felt pain and anguish and guilt when he looked at it.
Another direction, open fields, no, not there either, further around, a wood, deep and dark.
Yes, that will do. Trees, food, shelter.
He staggered across to the woods, it was slow going, he had no balance and kept falling over, bright lights kept flashing in front of his eyes. He needed to take it slowly. He slowed down and, eventually, finally, made it to the edges of the trees. Seeing a vague path through the haze in his mind, he followed it and, what seemed days later, found himself outside a small cave, just jutting rocks but offering cover. He staggered over and slumped down, the dark of the night settling in. He fell to sleep curled up with his back pressing against granite.
The nightmare came almost immediately, a small child burning, writhing in pain, a beautiful, inhuman creature standing behind it, laughing hysterically. He woke up screaming. Screams so loud they could be heard in the village, nearly a mile away. Screams so loud the villagers shuttered their doors and looked at each other in fear, of such things myths and legends are born.
Exhausted, he dropped off to sleep only to be awoken by the dream and the scream. He slept and dreamed, screamed and awoke. Slept and dreamed, awoke and screamed. Again and again and again.
Eventually, dawn arrived and the man staggered out of the cave, pale and drawn, exhausted and in pain, palsied and confused. He heard a stream and stumbled over to it. Kneeling carefully he slurped water into his empty stomach, hunger temporarily sated, he lay down in the water and let it wash over him. The filth washed away, cleaning his body and clothes. His long, matted hair was washed clean and reopened the injury. It bled for a few moments and then stopped.
“Merlin,” the name skittered across his mind like an insect “Merlin?” realisation struck him. “That’s me, I’m Merlin!” The memories came flooding back and guilt crashed down on him, he vomited all the water he had just drunk. “No, no,” he moaned to himself. He had to get back to the cave. He had to hide, had to think.
Stronger, still shaking from the after-effects of the shock, but stronger, guilt hanging around his shoulders like a heavy blanket, he sat in the mouth of the cave, watching the world. The birds were flitting between the trees, yelling their hearts out. At first it was tweets and caws, barks and squeals, but imperceptibly, slowly creeping into his conscious mind, he found that he was beginning to understand what they were singing.
The crow at the top of the tree “My nest, my nest,” the bullfinch “mate, mate, mate,” even the sparrow wanted “food, where food?”
Suddenly the world was full of voices, annoying, repetitive but, even so, voices. He didn’t feel quite so alone. He wondered whether he could understand other animals as well.
Merlin had lost track of time, he wasn’t really sure whether he had been here only a week or longer. He
couldn’t eat for the first few days and slept too much in his cave, time passed without him noticing, but he started to come round and started fishing with his hands. Fish he could eat raw, but when he caught a jack-rabbit he needed to start a fire. Looking at the pile of wood, he wondered if he could ever use it again, but hunger drove him to desperation and he gave in. He nervously started the fire with his magic and, surprisingly, a small part of his guilt lifted.
A few days later he was sitting in the mouth of the cave, being bombarded with the screams of the birds when he saw a small fox walking along, a kitten held in its mouth. The kitten was a small, scruffy tabby, nothing special, just some farm cat. But it was still alive and mewling piteously, “It hurts, I want to be home, I want my hugs, it hurts, it hurts.”
Merlin looked at the fox, which stopped and looked back at him, inquisitively. He dropped the kitten and held it down with his paw, pressing the kitten into the grass outside the cave. The fox looked at Merlin, “Well, what kind of thing are you?”
“I am a man,” replied Merlin
“A man thing, your speech is terrible, what are you here for?”
“I am resting in this den,” Merlin found that actually talking with an animal required a profound shift in his thinking; the levels of courtesy required were inbuilt into the language, “Why do you have the little cat?”
“I and my cubs are hungry,” the fox looked at the kitten with contempt “it is not much, but I have to feed my young.”
The kitten looked up, pathetic and bedraggled, “Help me please, I want my man-sister.”
Merlin looked at the fox, “Would you trade information for the kitten?”
“What do you know, man?”
“How about a den of rabbits in exchange for the cat?”
“Can they be caught?”
“The buck was killed and the doe is weak from birth, you should be able to feed your family,”
The fox thought, briefly, “Done man, where?”
Merlin pointed to a small thicket of thorn bushes, “Under the bushes.”
The fox sniffed and caught the scent, “Agreed, thanks man, better rabbits than cat.”
He stalked off to the bush after dropping the kitten at Merlin’s feet.
The kitten looked at Merlin and sniffed, “You are a man thing, like my man-sister, yes?”
“That’s right.”
“Will you feed me?”
“I can do that.”
“And can I stay in your man-nest with the yellow burn?”
“If you like.”
“Good. Now, food please man-brother.”
Merlin looked around the cave, no food, not even for him. He looked at the kitten, who looked back, expectation in its eyes. Merlin looked over at the stream and saw the splashes of fish on the surface.
“Will you eat fish?”
“Yes man, cat-person likes fish, very much”
“Good, wait here.”
In the village not far away, Sarah, a pretty little seven year old, was in despair. She had been frightened when the raiders came, hiding with her grandfather in the bar, her kitten clasped in her arms. She had hated the sounds and smells of the men dying. Then she heard that Alex, her friend, was also dead, the only thing that gave her comfort was Cat, her kitten. Now she was gone. Sarah had to find her.
A day ago she had crept out of the village, calling for Cat. Following the path toward the woods she remembered the screams from a week ago, the old ones were saying that there was a ghost in the woods, something that screamed and ate children. But Sarah was brave, she had to find Cat, she might be in trouble. The woods were the best place to find her.
She found the trail and followed the vague path deeper into the woods. Clutching her cross against the daemon, the screaming thing, she prayed that it hadn’t got Cat. As she reached a tree she heard the crackling of a fire and what sounded like two cats talking, her curiosity aroused she poked her head around the tree and saw the small cave, a bright fire burned just outside and there was Cat just inside, her face buried in a fish and next to her, a man, big, ugly, matted hair and strange tattoos, but he was talking to Cat, in cat! How could this be?
Cat raised her head and sniffed the air and started meowing at the man, the man looked up at her “Would you like some fish?” Sarah, trembling, walked into the small clearing. “Your sister was telling me how much she missed you.” said the man
“You can speak cat?”
“It seems I can speak to all the animals,” said the man, still unsure of how it happened, “Please stay, the fire is warm, I have some fish and your kitten misses you.”
Sarah walked to the cave and sat opposite the fire, Merlin presented her with a fish on a leaf and Cat dragged her fish over to finish her meal sitting next to her mistress. The next hour was simply taken up with eating and staying warm. Cat sat herself in Sarah’s lap and started to wash herself.
Sarah looked up at Merlin, “Why are you here?”
“I hurt someone I shouldn’t have, with anger and passion, I need to learn to control my emotions and the animals help.”
“Oh, all right, I will go now,” She stood up, carrying Cat, who looked happy at the prospect, “Bye.”
Merlin waved, and mewed at Cat. Sarah grinned and walked home.
The tale spread around the village quickly, how there was a wild man in the cave, a man who spoke to animals, but who was kind. He had obviously driven off the daemon and was now guarding the village, protecting them from the evil things.
The blacksmith heard the story and recognised the description of Merlin, the man who had stood beside him. He decided to go and confirm his ideas; he needed to see this strange mage again. There were things that needed to be said.
The trip that had taken Sarah many hours of fear and anguish and had taken Merlin days of pain, took the blacksmith twenty minutes. Where Sarah had hidden and checked, looked and, finally, gathered her courage to rescue her friend, the blacksmith strode straight in, seeing Merlin sitting in his cave, chatting to a badger!
This stopped the blacksmith for a second, but Merlin looked up and saw him, pain, anguish and guilt crossed his face. He bent down to the badger and said his goodbyes. He then looked back at the smith. “Come in and sit by the fire,” he said.
The smith nodded and walked into the cave, there were a couple of stools, a cot with blankets and the beginnings of a carved staff standing in the corner. He sat down, Merlin followed suit, they looked at each other over the fire.
“Where did this stuff come from,” asked the smith
“I created it.”
The smith just grunted, not really surprised.
“So, you are a witch?”
“No,” said Merlin, “a magician, not a witch, I don’t have that link to nature.”
“I see, why are you here?”
“I need to come to terms with what I have done, to try and atone, even though I don’t know how to.”
The smith nodded “That was my son,” he said quietly “my youngest.”
Merlin had gone pale.
“Always a wild one, never doing what he was told, he had been hurt so many times.”
“I’m sorry,” said Merlin
“Do you mean that?”
Merlin nodded “I would give anything to take it back.”
“He is dead now, nothing you can do about that, but I see you didn’t mean to do it.”
“I didn’t.”
“If you had, I would kill you here and now. But bad things happen.”
Merlin simply nodded at this
“You must make amends.”
Again, Merlin nodded “What did you have in mind?”
The smith thought for a few moments. “For a year and a day you will protect this village.”
“All right.”
“You will help and advise any villager who needs it, without pay or succour.”
“Yes.”
“Finally, if you hurt anyone in the vill
age, even in the smallest way, I will kill you.”
“That is fair,” said Merlin.
The smith nodded and stood up, “Nice place, you can stay here,” he turned and walked back to the village.
Thus started the legend of the madman in the woods.