Into the Deep Wood

The smell of damp earth overwhelmed the senses, its cold, mushy texture underneath her fingers making the roots slippery as she climbed down.

Thrice she lost her footing and her chest heaved as she held on and tried to find something to brace herself.

Thrice she yelped as earthworms fell on her from above where the roots shook them loose with the dirt.

Thrice she considered saying the devils with it and going home.

Val descended deeper and deeper inside. What started as a small opening at the base of the tree turned into a vast cavern with steep walls lined with roots and stones. When she looked around, the distorted vision only gave her a vague idea of where she was.

But now she understood. She understood how the Nothing-touched had navigated the night, the dreams, the deep murky waters. Each curve of vine and boulder held an outline of smoke, each living thing a pulsing glow –a world that seemed ethereal to her.

When her foot touched solid ground she took a breath she’d held for a long, long time. By the gods, she made it down. But when her eyes ran across where she was standing, all she could see was thick, black fog. It covered everything waist-high; she could not even see down to her feet.

Somewhere, there was running water.

The ground was all stones washed smooth by rainfloods. Covered in moss, her steps had to be slow as not to slip.

Forward, only forward.

The top of the cavern wasn’t visible. As if black skies, only the thick, ancient roots of the Great Oak came twisting down from its abyss. Val glanced around, and a hundred cave openings met her gaze, hidden beneath vines and hanging moss, disappearing into the black of the murk. She felt the things that hid inside, watching her with eyes that could not see. They crawled out as she passed, remaining hidden, remaining in the shadows.

Their curiosity, their panic, their pleading for acknowledgment, Val could feel it all. These creatures had not left the Great Oak yet. They hadn’t fed.

They were newborns.

Motherrr… motheeeer… motherrrr….

They followed her.

Ahead, a column of what looked like light broke the fog, but it was light that did not reach the heights of the cave.

Her heart skipped, and her breath caught.

She did not know what she was looking for, but she knew this had been it.

A deafening screech of metal, and he could feel the disturbance of the thick air filled with smoke as a part of the southern wall came down. The stones and wooden reinforcement beams were launched into the courtyard, crushing men and horses as both rushed about in the chaos.

The mounted soldiers below moved to stop the Northern men from being able to approach the opening, but the tide after tide of them still came.

Yaro’s heart pounded.

He’d never wanted to be there, in battle, in war. To kill a man was not to kill a beast. To breathe in the smoke, the death, the bodily fluids emptied as men met their end. Even with the rain, the smell of hot blood pouring from the dead and dying wafted about.

He left the gates when the first of the siege weapons fired. If he were to depart this life, he would do so with Anushka in hand, not a coward upon the battlements. Besides, his sight was far too questionable to man a crossbow anymore.

The swings did not even aim for a man, but he knew the mace would find its mark. He could only pray that it was not his own men he hit –the dark of the night, rain, screams, and rushing bodies made it impossible to tell. Whatever light had remained below the walls was snuffed out, and the battle plunged into complete and utter chaos.

A horse’s body fell, and its dying rider flew into Yaro, pinning him to the ground. By the time he rolled the man off, another was stumbling into him, but his sword was held too far above, and Yaro pushed the mace up with all his might, crushing the lower jaw and knocking the man back.

In the distance, the catapults were being loaded with oil-soaked flaming logs. Their glow revealed the outlines of tall ladders. They’d knocked too many holes, they’d destroyed the gates, and Typhonos’ army was not enough to hold them off. Not for much longer and not spread across a distance so great as that.

“Fuck-sake…” Yaro groaned as he nearly escaped having his belly skewered by a pike.

“Where the fuck-s Marat?!”

The rain pommeling the glass disturbed the silence, accentuating the empty halls. His steps tracked mud and dirty water along the floor's mosaics as Marat crept past the tightly shut apartment doors.

No lamps were lit here as if the western wing had been abandoned. Somewhere, there would be more guards. Somewhere there were patrols. Somewhere, there was Korschey.

And somewhere across the city, his men would die if he did not find him.

Carefully, past the ornate doors and the statues that looked like pale ghasts in the dark, he gripped the hunter’s knife in tense anticipation. His heart thumped violently against his chest with every turn of the corner, with every open doorway passed. It beat because he was as likely to find his death here as defeat. He would, if Val did not find Korschey’s.

Val.

Where was she? Was she alive?

His stomach clenched at the memory of her words. But it was Dimos’ prophecy, and the god-child was dead.

Marat wondered if Dimos had foreseen his own death.

Another corner. The pattern on the walls had changed and became richer, the golden frames of the paintings thicker –the canvas stretching floor to the ceiling now. He was nearing something. Something important.

The sound of men and the clink of their chainlink armor told him what. There were too many for it to be anything less than the great room.

Behind him, somewhere down the corridor, he heard approaching steps.

Fuck.

Marat dashed past, pressing himself against an alcove, against the statue of a nude man reaching up toward the gods. He shut his eyes, steadying his breathing, focusing on listening to the sound of them getting further and further away.

He rushed past side doors, his steps getting more and more desperate, and prayers in his mind louder that they did not notice the muddy bootprints. The doors were nailed shut and, without a doubt, barred from the inside. There was only one way in.

The guards at the main doors held pikes and swords, their commander’s face too cruel to allow them to have their weapons at rest. They watched the doors beyond.

Marat looked to where a decorative shield was framed on the wall. He knew that it would be of quality a little more than a child’s toy. But Dimos’ promise was that no shield would shatter in his hands, and that would have to be put to the test. He could only hope that Korschey’s influence remained in the fog outside.

Thunder rolled through, forcing the glass to shudder, and somewhere beyond the windows, lightning struck.

He did not wait for it to strike again.

It was just a blur of motion and clangs of steel. The men shouted something, but the thunder throbbed through the walls, and its might muffled their voices. The guards were fresh, they slept and ate, and Marat was exhausted and his muscles stiff from the cold. But he threw his body behind the shield, which did not crumple. He struck out with the hunter’s knife, and it met its mark.

The splatters of blood landed across his face, his chest, and his arms. It spilled onto the floor, both theirs and his own. Until, only one man was left at the tip of the hunter's knife, his panicked eyes on Marat.

Like the one in the steppes, in the abandoned home, it was just a boy.

His young face was framed with hair stuck together with blood. He had a cut across his forehead.

It gave Marat pause.

A pause to consider the man he had become.

"Bar the door." He said, motioning to the great doors. "So they do not come."

He allowed the youth to scramble to his feet.

Marat ripped one of the men's cloaks, stuffing pieces of fabric between the lock mechanism so that the click of it going in place would not be audible from the outside.

The youth slid the bar across it, never taking his wild eyes off Marat.

"Where are the rest?"

"They just came around... they come around every ten minutes..." The youth said.

Thunder crashed outside again.

There was no hiding the dead men. He was lucky to have five minutes still.

"Where is the key?"

"He has it, commander Hes.... the commander." The boy hurried over to one of the bodies, feverishly searching through the pockets. When he produced a key, Marat took it from him.

“What time is it?”

“What…” The boy looked confused and a little bit like he was going to piss himself.

“Time.”

“It passed midnight a couple of hours ago; we just came on post…”

"Where is your family?"

"In the district below... by the cobbler just past the well..."

"Go out the western entrance. Do not venture into the fog. Stay out of view lest you be accused of leaving your post." Marat said, nodding in the direction of the hallway. "Should you come across anyone, walk proud. Say you left to take a shit –it doesn't matter. Leave. Because your king will not."

The third day had passed.

He was not quiet when he threw the doors open. The lock slid into place, an iron bar securing it from being opened, even if there was another key.

The great room was lit with oil lamps, and a giant fireplace blazed closer to the throne. The stained glass windows outlined the silhouette of a man standing with his back to Marat, facing the web of chains suspended above them.

When the lightning flashed, Marat saw that only bones remained tangled in it now.

Without a word, he took a few steps forward, drawing an arrow. His entire body was tensed, eyes focused on the tall man on the other side of the room.

The man turned, the black fur and velvet of the cloak around his shoulders brushing against the floor.

“The Hunter comes.” the Northern King said, his tone fit to honor a dinner guest.

Marat did not answer, three fingers already under the arrow nock, the bow drawn.

Korschey did not smile. He did not try to run. He only stepped into the light.

Marat unconsciously lowered the All-Father’s Reach.

The man did not look as he did before, if one could even call him a man. Although the unmistakable silhouette remained the same, the face that looked out upon Marat had changed.

His skin wrapped tight around the skull; whatever fullness it held completely gone. His cheekbones were just that - sharp bone remaining behind, stretching down to where it met the upper gums, the teeth exposed, the lips having receded. His lower jaw hung loosely, the muscles withered, and only the joints remained. His eyes were only hollows, and in them remained the reflective blue-gray jewels held in place by an inner golden mounting.

“This is what happens when you wait so long to feed, Hunter,” Korschey said, his voice sounding like a thunderous echo from deep inside the furs and fine cloth. “When you spare the world too long. When you feed the ego instead.”

Marat’s mouth thinned in a frown, his hands still keeping the bowstring taut.

“This, too, is how you would end up should you wait long enough.” The King’s jaws clicked in what Marat perceived to be laughter. “A bag of bones held together with parchment-thin skin. They do not see me this way. But this is what I am.”

“How do you feed,” Marat said.

“You’ve waited so long to ask that question.” Korschey’s open maw widened. “I truly expected better of someone who’d stolen what was mine. Even if unknowingly so.”

“You feed on gods…”

“A temporary solution to a bigger hunger.” Korschey took another step forward. “You eat a god, or you eat the world. The mortal souls, they satisfy, but not for long. I wanted both. But the gods that stray from me come too close. Like you are now, they come too close, so I burned where the meat animals were born. It was time to make sure. You slipped through, but no better than I, devouring your own son.”

The movement was quick, and an arrow's whistle pierced Korschey’s throat.

But he did not fall.

He did not even waver.

“Don’t you know?” The hole through which the arrow struck distorted his voice now, an airy wheeze behind every word. “Time nor death see me. I have conquered both. And because of that, today, I will still eat you. And now, you’ve brought them all to my door too, like I said you would. Like I told you the last time you were here. A meal fit for a king.”

The jaws of the giant serpent closed around Ivan, snapping at the heels of his boots, the entirety of him disappearing within. The throat pulsed as the angled teeth pushed him into its depths.

The first spasm came suddenly, sending the coils of its body whipping to the side.

With the second, it tried to discolate its jaw further to spit him out.

On the third, Kladenets came ripping through the scales from the inside, a sweeping motion separating the head from its body and leaving a gore-covered man falling to the ground. He landed on his back next to the still-moving head, its coils twisting nearby. The jaws opened and snapped shut –and he was on his feet in seconds, driving the sword in through the eye until the motion stopped.

Ivan slumped against it, bracing himself with his arm. His entire body was covered in the beast’s blue-green blood, his breaths coming fast from deep within his heaving chest.

The brushstrokes against the gold etchings and jewel-encrusted patterns glowed even in the very darkness of the cave. She held it with both hands, the dirt from her fingers smearing across the polished, flawless surface.

Val’s fingers found the latch at the bottom, a small, intricate mechanism keeping it shut. A small key slot made her heart drop.

“No…” She whispered. “No, gods no…”

She tried to pry it open to no avail.

Falling on her knees, she covered her mouth, the golden egg in her other hand. Not now. Not when they were so close.

They gathered all around her. Circling with curiosity, shades, watching.

Desperate, she picked up a rock and set the egg against another. With all the strength she had in the world, she brought it down.

A crack, a snap, and the two pieces fell apart.

She drew her breath, and her hand shot out to grab the thin sewing needle from the velvet folds. The needle was no different than any she had ever seen, yet she did not breathe as she pressed it between her fingers and snapped it in half.

Her heart raced—the ornate egg.

Had it been made of stronger metal, it would not have broken.

But kings must have all that is golden.

Something had changed.

It was as if the flame of the fireplace grew hotter, its light coming brighter and banishing the shadows. A second arrow stuck out of the Northern King’s shoulder, and Marat held the third nocked.

Whatever happened, the tall man shook as if awake, and his hand flew to draw the fine sword at his hip from its sheath. He unfastened the heavy cloak, letting it fall, and lunged.

The bow lowered, and the hunter’s knife in hand, Marat met the movements, and the small sword clinked against that of the King.

“You cannot win. Here, you are just a man. You think that I would let you near otherwise?” Korschey hissed.

“Conceited; to insist on listening to your own voice,” Marat grunted, forcing the creature with his shoulder and sending him stumbling back.

The King recovered quickly; the heavy sword swung with just one arm, and Marat’s failed parry knocked him to the ground instead. The sword came crashing down with force that shattered the mosaics where Marat’s head had been a heartbeat ago.

Scrambling to his feet, he grabbed for the hunter’s knife, but it was too close to the corpse-of-a-man advancing toward him.

Pigshit.

He turned, and he ran to the fireplace, the heavy steps following suit. As Marat came past the heavy discarded cloak, he grabbed it off the ground, tossing it behind him. As the velvet and fine furs tangled with steel and flesh, Marat stepped atop the throne, turning, All-Father’s Reach in hand.

The creature dropped the mantle, sword raised.

The third arrow loosed, and the point struck Korschey in the heart.

His body lost momentum, his sword dropping as the long, bony fingers let go. He fell to his knees, the skull’s expression unchanging, but dread filled the room, snuffing the fire out before the body slumped and fell forward to the ground.