Into the Deep Wood

The four descended into the tunnel, Ivan walking in front and Yaro bringing up the rear. The draft whistling between the walls bit deeply at their skin, far colder than it had been up top.

A strange feeling fell over them when they emerged on the other side. It came from the silence of the canyon; no birds chirped here, and no wind disturbed the trees.

The plan had been for Val and Marat to lead them ahead until the Wound began making them sick. There, the two men would remain behind as Marat took Val toward the gut-twisting pain.

The Wound would not be far from what the two recalled. This way, they would have sentries to watch for the serpent’s coming, and everyone still in possession of their soul could hold on to it a little longer.

When they reached the point of the pull, Yaro and Ivan remained, dispursing among the trees.

Val was surprised that she felt nothing. When the men’s faces changed, their stomachs cramping and muscles growing tense, she did not even so much as flinch. Next to her, Marat coughed, the heavy, vibrating air restricting his lungs.

“You do not have to go further.” She told him. They were far into the forest now. “I will be fine.”

“I won’t die.” He coughed again.

“Then do not stay through it all when it begins. I cannot say how long it will take. The first was only minutes, but the Impundulu took almost a week.” She urged him, but he only waved her off.

They went a little further until light shone through the trees ahead. It was the clearing where the empty chasm had been. Marat knew it would be tougher there, the poison so intense it was possible he would not be able to speak.

“Val,” He stopped, turning toward her. He tried to hide the pain on his face as the Wound twisted at his insides. “Just stand. I want to look at you.”

She smiled.

“You mean one last time?”

“If you are to perish, I will jump into that hole after you,” Marat said. “Where you go, I go.”

“Do not make me cry now, Marat.” Her smile faltered for a moment. She took in the whole of him—her Marat. His wide shoulders, unruly dark hair, the vein on his forehead that bulged whenever he became annoyed. His eyes. His scars. His confident stance. The one hair on his left eyebrow that refused to point in the same direction as the rest.

It seemed he had done the same.

“I love you.” He whispered.

“And I love you. I will see you when I am done.” She gave him another smile, but a tremble in her voice gave her away.

The clearing was just as they remembered, although the black serpent was nowhere to be seen. The Wound radiated darkness, the strange shadows evaporating into the midday.

She turned to him, motioning for him to stay in the tree line. He did not fight her on this. She would be visible to him from there.

Val stepped forward carefully, feeling the ground beneath her feet first with the toe of her boot, as if afraid it would give way. The chasm took shape ahead, the steep drop of the walls overgrown with plants holding onto stones.

She felt her heart beat harder. She had lied to all of them for so much of this journey. She had to. They had to think she could do this if she came.

The truth was that Val had lost any faith the closer they got. The louder she heard the whispers. She was unsure, but more than that –she was afraid.

Kneeling at its edge, as she had done at the Dormant Wound, she took a few deep breaths and closed her eyes. The heat rose from within her body as before. Gods willing, she would find a thread.

She felt for them. They were there, but they were stretched tight and hard as steel. She tugged at one, and it did not so much as tremble.

It did not matter. First, she had to weave the trap. But with what?

Val felt her consciousness shift as if a quake had gone through it, blurring the lines between the real world and the threads. Something suddenly and violently forced into the cracks it had created, filling them with an oily, viscous void.

She panicked, but it was far, far too late.

He watched her as she fell to her knees, her hands limp in front of her. From where he stood, she looked so small. So fragile. The Wound was vast, and her little frame was swallowed up by its darkness beyond.

Her shoulders slumped, and he tensed.

A sudden wave of thunder came from beyond the clearing, but no clouds were in the sky. Marat reached for Kladenets at his back as the sound reverberated from somewhere near the ground.

“Fuck…” Marat saw the slithery, shiny scales before he saw the rest of the serpent. It moved with no concern for the forest vegetation, barging through it with cracks and snaps of trees.

It was not headed for the Wound, but if it kept going, it would come close. Too close to Val.

He ran. The air in his lungs felt like heavy stones, and still, he ran. They had to call it away. They had to distract it from its path.

He was near the beast, so near that when he shouted, he saw the muscles clench and relax. He was heard. Marat changed direction, away from the Wound, continuing to call out. This had attracted more than the creature as the red-bearded man appeared ahead. There was no surprise on his face, although he looked considerably more annoyed as he took off in the opposite direction.

“Ivan?” Marat huffed out as they leveled.

“By the–cave.” Yaro wheezed.

Behind them, the roar of a blazing furnace fragmented into a guttural hiss as tree branches ripped off and got pushed aside.

“It-s the s-erpent!” Yaro yelled as the third man appeared ahead.

At first, Ivan looked to be at a loss, but quickly gathering himself, he dashed for the rocky rise above the cave. Hoisting himself up and grabbing for the sturdier stones, he was atop the treeline and a bow drawn before the two men made it over.

“I don’t think that i-s going to do much!” Yaro huffed, stopping and swinging Anushka from behind his back.

Marat grabbed the rope from his pack and tossed one end to Yaro.

“Get the trees!” He commanded, already on his way to the other side.

It was unlikely that rope would deter the beast. It was not like anything would, but anything that kept it distracted would do.

The serpent would not fit through the narrow opening of the cave. If they could keep it occupied for long enough, Val would eventually return, and they could make their escape.

“Where do I aim?” Ivan looked to Marat, his bow lowered, but he was met with a half-hearted frown.

“I don’t know. I’ve never seen one. Yaro?”

“Z-mei are legend-s, I don’t know.” Yaro shouted up at them.

“Shit…” Ivan raised his bow, gauging how high he would need to aim once the serpent appeared out of the trees.

“Ivan.”

He looked, and Marat was leaned over, Kladenets held out toward him.

“You can deliver a hit harder than I.” He said. “I’m a marksman, not a swordsman.”

Ivan stared at it, dumbfounded, before grabbing it by the hilt. The eastern Nothing-touched sword fit in his hand, light as if it has been half the size.

“I thought it was too heavy for anyone but its master to wield?” He asked.

“It’s nonsense. It doesn’t like some people so it’s heavy to them. If it finds something it prefers, it will yield to you. People like making a big legend out of a temperamental trinket.” Marat said.

The ground trembled, and trees just beyond the shadows were thrown to the side. The low rumble shook the stone, and all three snapped their heads to the tree line.

“Give me your bow I’m not fist-fighting it.”

Embarrassed at how enamored he had been with the sword, Ivan handed the bow over to Marat. The thought crossed his mind that perhaps the man was giving him the melee weapon and himself the ranged for a reason.

He looked again, but no sign of damaged pride had colored Marat’s expression.

A thousand hands gripped her, and a thousand more reached inside. They burned, or perhaps she did? She could feel it envelop and suffocate her veins.

It was faster than falling. The air in her lungs was heavy, but when she opened her mouth to gasp for a breath, only the flowing darkness filled her mouth.

Val felt a tug; it came from somewhere else. The thousands of hands let go, retreating away from her senses. She recognized the binding. She recognized the Hag.

It brought her forward and pulled her out of the void. It left her collapsed on the ground that wasn’t ground. Her muscles shook as she tried to prop herself up. Her arms buckled under her and her face hit the grass that wasn’t grass.

Again, Val tried to take a breath. This time, cold air seared her lungs, bringing violent coughs. It had done nothing to cool the heat that raged inside.

She tried to stand again, getting to her feet as shakily as a baby calf. Around her was a forest… but it was not a forest. The sky was not the sky. It was littered with stars in formations she did not recognize, and among them shone a bright crimson sun.

A bright flash of light appeared somewhere behind her, casting shadows from everything around her. She did not want to look for fear that she would burn her eyes, but something compelled her to turn.

Across the horizon rose a shape brighter than the sun. It unfolded a pair of large, widespread wings. They spanned the length of mountains in the distance, and in them burned every color of flame - and every color of the skies.

It overtook the stars, creeping across the sky in the soft glow of dawn. It left behind it tracks of reds and yellows. As it flew over the sun, the sun’s brightness came to life.

The fire bird passed over her, leaving morning behind its wings.

She felt the tug of the binding. It was tied to her heart, threatening to pull it right out of her chest, forcing her to follow.

As she got closer to the trees, she began to see that they were dying… and then coming back to life again. The colors changed so rapidly that they were just flashing across the leaves like flickers of light.

Bud, thrive, wither, disappear.

Val kept walking through the trees that did not stop their cycle of life and death. The girl in the forest was inconsequential to them.

The binding grew taut, and it pulled her forward so hard that she tripped and cried out as her heart jumped, sending a sharp flash of pain through her chest.

It forced her to run, and so she did.

Right into the Glade.

But it was not the Glade.

It was wider. There was no hut. There was no bog. There was no dirt pit.

There were only impossibly large winding roots standing as tall as a house. Beneath them, the earth crumbled into a dark abyss.

In front of it stood three figures. One had been tall and thin, another almost translucent as a waif, the third small and hunched.

The Hag stepped away from the roots, giving space as something grabbed at the earth and crawled up from beneath them.

The monster that emerged was larger than a bear, his back legs ending in black, shiny hoofs. A rack, like a deer, twisted atop its head.

It bellowed, cowering away from the sun. Val felt its fear of the unknown. She felt its confusion.

The Hag beckoned it toward her. Hesitantly, the beast obeyed, flinching in pain as the sunlight brushed its pitch-black fur. The old woman laid a hand on the creature’s head, then stepped closer and reached with the other for its chest. Out of it she drew a black thread.

The monster seemed to calm, but it still strained against the light.

Carefully pulling more and more out, the Hag began to weave. She created patterns and knots; she brought one piece of the thread over another gingerly. And then, she took it - and she tied it to a shadow of a single blade of grass. The creature sighed with relief and took a single step toward it, shrinking down until it was no bigger than the plants.

Next came a chort, afraid of the vastness of the world. She bound it to the darkness of the forest, where its limbs blended into the trees.

Then, a slippery creature screamed before it even reached the top.

The figure with the wet hair dropped on its knees, reaching out, and a part of the glade collapsed into the earth, filling with dirty, muddy water. The Hag bound the creature to its depths.

The kikimora was bound to dreams, and to her, was bound the domovoi. The Leshy to the woods. The thunder bird to the storms of the deserts.

Each had a thread pulled from their chest, each had it woven into a pattern, each had it safely bound.

Mother… mother…. Mother….

They all whispered the Hag’s name. Grateful, hungry, scared, alive, awake. A thousand voices.

Mother…

The Hag turned to her sisters. She was fast, so fast that neither had time to react before a thread was pulled from their own chests.

The Rusalka turned and tried to run. She fell as the thread tightened, and the Hag yanked it back. The Legho lunged to attack, but the Hag gripped it hard and forced it to its knees. But these, she did not weave. She tied them to the roots of the tree. Where the threads touched, the root wrapped around it tightly and sank back down the void.

The Hag stood before them, and pulled a second thread from their chests. These she tied simply and without care.

The Rusalka she bound to the waters, the thread fraying and splitting into a thousand frail ends.

The Legho she bound to the roads, the thread running down each one and then circling back around to the first.

Val could feel the hate that came from each of the Sisters as they clawed at the Hag, being pulled away from her, away from the Glade. Behind them, they left defiled, scorched earth.

When there were no more creatures to set forth, the Hag’s sightless face turned to Val.

Val could not move. She could not look away. The crone took a few steps forward and was immediately in front of Val.

“Do you hear them? Do you hear their whispers?” The Hag asked her, but Val could not answer. “I did it for them. They speak to me still; they cry for their mother. And I will hear them for a thousand years. May you pray to your gods that I do not grow mad.”

She held up her hand. In it lay a small sewing needle.

“There is but one that I could not weave. Could not bind. He came after. After all of them. He challenged me in my right and declared himself King.” She reached to give the needle to Val.

“And he is the hungriest of all.”