Into the Deep Wood

The winding and twisting of the Great Oak’s branches seemed to weave and braid themselves upwards, hungry for the skies. It was ancient, the bark darkened and thick, moss growing throughout its grooves and fissures.

They approached slowly, cautiously, expecting a horror behind every root and hole that darkened the ground beneath them.

“How do you feel?” Val asked, her head tilted upward toward the canopy stretching out above the widespread branches.

“Immesurably uncomfortable…” Ivan answered, his eyes on the same, “but physically, I feel nothing out of the ordinary.”

At the very base of the trunk was a root hollow, one wide enough that a small person could fit. They stood before it, neither daring to say out loud what both were thinking.

“You’re not going to fit.” Val finally voiced.

“Maybe I can cut through them and widen the passage.” He muttered, sizing up the thickness of the roots.

“We both know that is impossible.” She shook her head.

His face slowly turned to a frown.

“How can we be sure it’s down there?”

“Where else would it be?”

“I don’t know, tucked atop a branch?”

“Ivan.”

Sighing, he threw his pack on the ground.

“There has to be another way.” He said, sitting down on the curve of a large protruding root.

“There isn’t. It will be alright.” She smiled, reassuring him. “The worst that can be down there will soon be me. You cannot see in the dark, I can, for now. I need you to stay, and I need you to stand watch. In case more of the northern men come looking for us.”

He looked up at her with sad, unsure eyes.

“You want me to trust you.” He said before she could.

“I do.”

“And so I will, Val.” He sighed again, scratching the back of his head. “Against every instinct, I will trust you once again.”

Kneeling before him, she took his face in her hands and lifted his chin to look at her.

“I owe you a great debt, Ivan. I had no right to ask any of this of you. You did not have to do anything you have done. And I will be grateful as long as I live and beyond for the sacrifices you have made.”

“These sound like parting words, and you quickly dissuade me from staying.” He said.

“They are parting words. I cannot know what will meet me down there, but I know I must go, and I know that I cannot without letting you know.” Her smile got wider, but behind it was sadness. “Letting you know that I have great love for you, for my champion, for my dearest friend.”

“I appreciate your words, Val.” His voice was quiet. “Can’t we camp before you go, just the night?”

“No,” She shook her head, “It is the third day. Today, Marat will go to Korschey, and I must make sure that he can deliver what I set free today.”

“His death.”

“Yes.”

“Then I will be here and await your return.” He did not sound confident, but he raised his hands to take hers off his face, holding on.

She stood up and stepped toward the opening.

“Wait, just like that?” He called after her, “You will not take anything with you?”

“No. I have everything I need.”

The group rode out under cover of night, only taking their horses halfway, then leaving them tied behind a tall wooden barrier meant to deter ox-pulled weaponry.

The fog across the fields outside the city was heavy and strange. The closer they got, the more the air stung. The men began rubbing it, their faces becoming flushed. Where the skin was exposed, it raised and burned, as did their lungs.

“We will be through soon.” Marat told them, “It’s his corruption.”

A corruption, he was afraid, that stripped him of divinity, like it had in the woods.

The night was thick, and they made it to the walls unnoticed. Everything was unusually still there. No noise from beyond the wall or soldiers talking atop it disturbed the silence. Each rustle of their clothes and step of their boots sounded loud as shouts.

As they crept away from the gates, Marat raised his head and saw the bodies. They hung by their feet, their corpses dark against the stone. Even in such a short amount of time, even from so far below and in the darkness, he could see their open, gaping mouths and swollen faces as blood rushed downward upon their death. Their dress was that of peasants.

The wall below them was colored in dark, creeping stains.

.” All-Father’s grace…” the man next to him whispered, his eyes cast upward.

Marat said nothing, increasing his pace.

It took hours; the wall was long, and guard towers stood tall above the battlements. Shadows of men would appear atop them, but Marat and his men remained pressed to the wall and silent. The men poured oil on the ground among the dry brush as they went, enough that once the time came, the whole of the wall would be surrounded in flames –the signal.

To the north of the city, facing the frozen desert, was where they began seeing less and less soldiers. The walls weren’t as tall here; clearly recently repaired as well. Behind them were the slums. This is where the child would have lived.

Underneath their feet began appearing broken bricks and cracked stones. They’d fallen where the people had pulled some to mend their homes.

The ruined section of the wall appeared ahead—the gap, where a map could easily pass over.

Clearly, no soldiers came this deep into the poverty-stricken district, as it had not been repaired twice.

No fires were lit inside the homes, no torches or lamps in the streets. It smelled of feces and rotting trash, the very same that they quickly felt slip beneath their boots.

“They await a signal,” Marat instructed the captain, splitting the men up. “I will light the fire. You are to open the gates.”

He looked down the line.

“Whatever it takes.”

He could not see their faces in the dark but could feel their apprehension.

Five had been eastern berserkers, two were Western men, and the other three had gone to Nashtuun with Marat. He could count on them to die with him, but by gods, he hoped they wouldn’t have to.

Splitting into three parties, one immediately climbed the wall and onto the battlements. Another went further into the city to stop any guards behind the gates from shooting them down.

Marat led the third close to the wall, toward the gates. They stopped when the sound of a sentry’s boots sounded above, and blended into the shadows when a five-man patrol came through in the wake of the light from their torches.

It was so quiet that any crunch of a stone beneath their feet felt like it may as well have been the beat of a drum.

When the gate towers appeared ahead, they stopped.

Marat counted five men that he could see below. At least one was in each tower, but he could not see the battlements. They’d heard no signs of a struggle, and chances were good that the men who took the high route would arrive soon after.

“Bows.” He whispered. “When the first man falls, set them loose. Start from the ones closest to the gate towers.”

He split off from them, the All-Father’s Reach in his hands. Remaining low, he circled the courtyard before the gates to get a better look.

The gates were tall, with thick wooden doors barred with massive wooden bars attached to a chain system. In front of it was a thick, iron portcullis.

“Pigshit…” Marat whispered to himself. The portcullis would have a lever at the top of the gatehouse, but the wooden barrier was not meant for man to lift. There would be a counterweight system somewhere. Perhaps the iron was not exposed to the elements inside a guard tower.

He didn’t have enough men. There would be a sliver of time between them shooting down the men at the gates and being able to open them. Those on the walls would have to keep watch for soldiers that would come running…

When he looked up at the battlements again, there were two less men than a moment ago.

The berserkers had made it.

A lantern was lit inside both the guard towers to each side of the gate. He could see that two men remained in one and only one in the other. The counterweight would have to take more than one to operate.

He continued around until he could see the faces of the men standing below. His bow raised, he only paused for a moment, for one heartbeat, knowing that the second he let go, it would begin.

The whistle of wind tracking the arrow was sharp but quiet. The visceral thunk of it going through a man’s skull was followed quickly by three more loosed from the other side of the yard.

Each hit their target, the only remaining man looking at the death before him in surprised shock. As he raised his eyes, another arrow from the All-Father’s Reach met the space between them.

The sounds of the bodies hitting the ground drew the attention of those in the guard towers, and two disappeared out of sight.

His feet pushed off the rough paved ground, and he ran toward the gate.

Behind him shouts rose as the alarm was sounded.

The first man to appear in the opening to the guard tower stairs raised his sword, but too late, as the hunter's knife came slicing horizontally through his throat.

Narrow stairs, so narrow that a man’s foot did not fit fully on each tread.

A man waited at the top, his sword held up at chest level, ready for Marat.

The kick delivered to him just above the knee sent a cry of pain echoing among the stone walls, the man crumpling to the ground, hand still on his sword as the hunter’s knife was driven into his back right behind the heart.

Marat glanced out of the opening toward the other tower. The lamp illuminated the colors of the South as the men inside released the portcullis gate, and the sound of grinding metal screeched.

Men were coming. He could hear their steps, armor rubbing together, and the commander’s shouts. He could hear his men’s arrows and the guttural sounds of the barbed metal meeting its mark.

He looked at the mechanism. The heavy chains would have to be released so the iron weight would lift the bar off the latches.

A large, thick lock was fastened to the top.

“Fuck!” Marat hurried to check in the dead man’s pockets.

Nothing.

He nearly flew down the stairs, missing several steps and steadying himself against the walls. He fell on his knees at the body of the other guard he had slain.

Ahead were the sounds of fighting. He did not have to look up to know it would not last.

Ten men with him were worth thirty, but they were still ten men inside the enemy’s walls.

The key, gods, the key.

Nothing.

“No…”

Back up, he tried to wedge the dead soldier’s sword between the lock and the chain, but the lock was too thick.

Marat grabbed the lamp and the reserves of oil. There was no more time.

He pulled apart the chair in the corner and took both the wood and the northern flag stored by it. He piled them up, throwing open the window facing south.

Please, gods, let Yaro understand. Let him know to fire.

Across the bridge and to the other tower, behind the three southern men drawing their arrows, out onto the battlement, past the ropes that held the corpses against the stones below, he ran with the lamp, covering it with a cloak so that the archers below could not use it for target practice.

He threw it beyond the wall, where it met the oil they spilled on their way there.

The fire roared to life in the brush, quickly crawling along.

Immediately, as if in response, off in the distance under cover of the fog, lit torches.

Row by row, crawling backward, hundreds and hundreds of them went ablaze.

And then, they lurched forward.

The West was coming.

Marat looked back to where the fire caught the tower housing the counterweight mechanism. It wasn’t an agreed-upon signal. They could think it was an accident and find the gates closed upon arrival.

The soldiers circled the handful of men he had brought in. Three lay dead, one up high where an arrow went through his eye, rupturing the eyesocket and sending a waterfall of blood down his face as he fell back.

Marat drew the bow, knowing they wouldn’t last much longer.

Gods, please understand what I’m trying to tell you.

The grinding of metal and creaking of wood quickly turned into a powerful whoosh and a soaring whistle. The sound momentarily stopped his heart. In that very moment, relief cooled his veins, and in the next, the flaming tower came crumbling down with the iron projectile's violent, booming impact. The mangonel had fired, and the counterweight controlling the gate came crashing down within the tower’s enclosure.

Yaro understood.