Into the Deep Wood

The account of the beast had cast an eerie, mournful feeling over them.

To have his brother back for a matter of hours just to have him ripped away so fast - had devastated Marat. He drank Sylvan, a strong, clear spirit, throughout the night. He sat on the floor against the bed, quiet.

Val stayed by him, a hand on his.

It was a horrifying, ghastly thought that Erlan was out there - but it was not Erlan; it was a creature, and it wore his flesh. She tried not to allow her thoughts to bring her there. It made her sick to her stomach, and she could only imagine what Marat had felt.

He had forbidden Val to leave the house at night if the Beis was coming for her as promised. He did not have to convince her, though.

It was late. He got up, and Val watched him strap the hunter's knife to his belt. Above it, he threw on a second shirt to conceal it when walking through the royal’s apartments. He stood for a minute, facing the door. She saw him sway slightly, the consequence of the drink combined with the broken mechanism of the leg.

Surely, he did not mean to go and kill it…

But before he could take another step, Marat turned and collapsed back on the bed, his hands covering his face. Rapid breaths escaped between his fingers. Val laid down next to him silently and put an arm around him, placing her head on his chest. He smelled of spirits, and he was shaking.

She realized that he was weeping.

With a forceful gasp for air, his chest quivered, then stilled as he steadied his breath. But, he did not lower his hands. Val remained quiet.

“I can’t do it.” He said finally, his voice hoarse and raspy in a way she had never heard before. “I cannot kill him. He is not Erlan, but it is my brother’s blood. My father’s blood. My mother’s blood. My blood. I cannot do it.”

She stroked his chest, her heart breaking for him with every word.

“It has his memories, the whole of what Erlan was, and it holds it suspended, void of the mortal soul. It defiles it with every breath it takes. And I cannot stop it.” He continued, with those words, the sobs beginning anew.

“Leave it, please; we will leave here - never see him again.” She tried, knowing the words were meaningless.

It was not what was in front of his eyes that tormented him. It was the infected, corrupted foulness that held Erlan now. It was every memory of his brother, everything that his brother was, the legacy he left behind.

Erlan had died saving Marat, the way Marat had spent his life saving him. There was not meant to be a continuation of the story.

At that moment, she pitied Erlan. Where there should have been peace and rest, there was instead… this. Even though he was not in there, Erlan had still been alive through Marat's eyes. His memory would always be alive with Marat.

And the beis was taking it away.

She hugged him tighter, and she felt him lower his arms, one slinging heavily over her. She glanced up. His eyes were red, his face wet, and his look to the ceiling was devoid of emotion.

“Marat?” She asked softly.

Instead of an answer, he sat up slightly, catching her face in his hand and kissing her. There was something desperate to his movements, an urgency, a cry for help. He pulled off her shirt and then his own, the quickness of the motions only spurring them on.

“I need you.” He said quietly, pausing to hold her face. They only slowed for that moment in time. Face to face, she saw the agony and the pain that was written across it.

And so, she kissed him because her heart hurt as much as his own.

There was a oneness that emerged from this, the pain becoming theirs. A pain manifested in unrestrained handling of one another, caution abandoned, his movements against her growing tougher, desperate, less cautious.

At moments, despite his eyes being on her, she noticed, he did not see her --only his grief. And in those moments, she wanted nothing more than to be his thread of hope.

Need drove it through them in every movement, greedy, taking, ever hungry. It ripped through them as they consumed each other whole. It took from them until they were so utterly exhausted that nothing else remained, not even thoughts.

There was an undeniable gratefulness in the silence, and neither spoke.

And in that, it felt as if they were closer than they had ever been before.

Marat lay on his side, his eyes closed, the night leaving little in its wake. His breathing steadied.

I need you.

Beyond those three words, he did not say anything else. Val looked at him in the dark; the one candle lit had burned out sometime in the night. She thought, even in the darkness, he was beautiful.

She watched him like this until his breathing changed again. A deeper, slower pace of breaths where she could see his chest rise and fall. Rhythmic, calm.

Val sat up, letting the blankets drop away from her. The coolness of the night and the cold wooden floor had been a striking change from the warmth next to him.

She quietly pulled on her shirt and picked up his pants from the floor. They were too large, but she tightened the belt, and the short sword scabbard brushed against her leg. She paused, feeling the weight of the weapon. It was a hunter’s knife, although a knife was just a name. A hunter’s knife was a short sword forged to rip through the branches and shrubs in the wilderness and cleave and tear into living flesh all the same. Near the hilt was a deep notch meant to stop the potentially toxic blood from touching its wielder.

It was not heavy, but not light. In her room, under her mattress, she had one of her own now. But they weren’t in her room, and time was short.

Tip-toeing, she crept out of the room and gently closed the door behind her. There was no way to know how late it was, but not a single person stirred across the house. Not a single wooden board creaked under their shifting weight or steps.

“I’m sorry.” She whispered into the air, seeking forgiveness for breaking her promise to remain inside. A guard stood there and nodded, and she smiled back.

She did not know where to go, so she went toward the Cathedral.

Val did not make it far before approaching footsteps stopped her in her tracks. In her heart, she already knew who it was.

“And so, here you are, Owlet, as promised. You’d made me wait, wonder why.” He stepped out of a shadowed alleyway.

His smile was still frozen on his face, but the rest of him was not smiling. Now, she looked at him with different eyes. He was not Erlan any longer, and she hated that at the core of her, she felt some semblance of relief.

Straightening her posture, she meant to stand tall and not allow him to see the fear she felt.

“You asked, and here I am. What do you want?” She tried to sound confident, but it was clear by his face that he was not fooled.

“Do you not know?” He walked to her, standing only a foot away, looking down at her. The man was even taller than Marat and twice as large as Val. “We are to run away together, as we once planned.”

He was laughing at her.

“We never planned that.” She shook her head.

“My memory is not what it used to be, but tell me, I recall that my brother had such an indifference toward you - wouldn’t you say? Well I recall that you were not yet in his bed then, were you?” He laughed. Even his laugh did not sound right. “But what poetic justice that I should plunge to my death into a river saving you both, and he would bed you the second that my body had grown cold! After he cast me out for trying to do the same! Ha!”

The house was silent until light feet on sturdy wood, barely creaking, disturbed it. The steps were not hurried, their stride not long. They walked a while and down the stairs, stopping in front of Marat’s room. The lock did not have to click, but it would have if Val had thought to lock it after herself. But it swung open silently, revealing the sleeping man’s shape in the moonlight. The smaller figure stepped in.

She tried to ignore the sound of blood pounding in her ears. His choice words echoed in her mind.

He said that his body had grown cold…

His hand reached for her chin as he took another step toward her and lifted it higher to see the light from the streetlamps reflect in her eyes.

“Do you know what it feels like to drown?” He whispered, mere inches from her face. She felt her heart threaten to rip out of her chest, and he laughed again. “You come here wanting to trick me, Owlet? As if you didn’t know? I know your secrets; she whispers them to me at night. I know you inside and out. As she knew you, she’s given it to me, once I persuaded her.”

He bent even lower, where his lips nearly brushed hers.

“Because I forced her, Owlet. Because I took that bitch, I held her down, and I forced it out of her.”

She jerked away, rage burning in her chest, her stomach, her throat.

He picked his words carefully.

Marat did not stir, deep asleep, when someone appeared beside the bed, their shadow crawling up the wall opposite the window. Dimos stood, his face dark. Although a child - at that moment, he towered above Marat as if a giant among men.

“You’ve lost your faith, templar.” He said, without the need to hush.

Erlan had her by the wrist, his cackling laughter getting more maniacal with every word.

“It was such a lovely surprise to find this treat among the muck and soil on the riverbank. I thought - what joy! But little could I have known how palatable his mind was and how much he knew –wasted on the likes of him. It was an appetizing thought to chew and spit him out. It would be hard work to bring the bloated corpse back to a fleshy form that would not chase people away with its bloated face.”

She pushed against him, trying to escape his grasp; he held her by the wrist, stretching her arm above her head, and deflected every one of her attempted blows with his other.

“And how could I have predicted that such a succulent brain would hold such secrets that I may use? But, he knew so much. So much! Of creatures big and small, of potions and herbs - but do you know what my favorite of his knowledge was?” He grabbed her other arm, bringing its wrist up by the first.

“It was that a Golden had crossed his path, and he knew where she was headed.”

Dimos raised a hand; it hovered above Marat. The man’s breathing slowed, then stopped, his body suspended in time. The boy laid a hand on his leg at the knee, tracing the contraption to the foot. Where his hand touched, flesh crawled and grew, swallowing up the metal, rubber, and wood.

“You will have a chance to prove your faith yet, Templar.”

“Pigshit!” She kicked at him, and any fear she felt was gone. He toyed with her, his strength so obviously greater.

“Just you wait. I have such a delightful arrangement with our sovereign; soon, he will have yet another golden trinket under his belt. Oh, but you will not like it, Owlet. I hear nothing about Korschey being a gentle lover. I am sure very unlike my brother.” He laughed still. It was maddening, never-ending. Between words, it was an inhuman cackle as if coming from the very depths of his throat. A stranger's voice echoed within the one she had briefly known.

He grew tired of holding her hands above her head and dropped them to his other one, spinning her around and locking her into himself with a forearm. He leaned down to her ear, whispering something that was only known to him and her.

At his words, her eyes grew wide, wild, scared. She turned to bite him, his face so near hers, but he pushed her off, laughing again.

“If you thought that I had wanted it rough, just wait until it is a god on the line - you will beg to have my hands on you again instead of Korschey’s! But maybe there is room enough for two. What do you say, Owlet?”

All the rage, all the hurt, everything that she had learned to keep inside and gingerly pushed to the back of her mind, it all came rushing back, boiling, every bit of her blood igniting.

She screamed so loud it ripped through the night and through the streets, taking him by surprise. He loosened his grip on her momentarily. As she felt his arm give, Val yanked hers out, grabbing for the hunter's knife. Her grip on it was poor - unpracticed, clumsy. But, even so, she brought it up, blindly stabbing at his face behind her.

Dimos was gone. Marat’s heart returned to its rhythmic beating, his breath catching in a deep, disturbing cough. He sat up, wheezing. The space beside him where Valeria had been was empty, and the second he made sense of it he raced out of bed, the linens getting caught and falling to the floor. He scrambled for his clothes but found only his shirt.

“Fuck!”

Flying to his pack, he dumped the contents out onto the floor - all sorts of things spilling around him and rolling under the bed. As fortune would have it, he had a whole other pair for the most special of occasions.

Where was his belt? His hunter’s knife..?

The realization dawned on him that she was not only gone, but she had left with a purpose.

An animal-like scream vibrated from Erlan, the hot blood raining down on her.

Whatever she had struck, she pushed on it, twisting her wrist in pain.

He let go of her, and as he did she thrust it inside again. He fell back, grabbing for the cobblestones as if the beis was desperately trying to escape the body that trapped it now.

He bled where the short sword had struck clean through his eyes, and he twisted on the ground, no longer aware of her presence; he flailed to flee in a growing pool of Erlan’s blood.

She breathed hard and felt faint, standing over him.

As his movements completely stilled, the rush began to dissipate within Val. All of a sudden, she became very, very tired.

Running footsteps approached, and, with horror, she realized how loud she had screamed and people likely heard.

Val could not be found with a dead man, much less one of Korschey’s men, in the middle of the street at night. But, she could not drag him to the side; he was far too heavy.

She quickly covered his face, pulling his hood down and over it.

Marat ran up, expecting the figure he saw standing alone in the distance to be Erlan over Val’s body. When he approached and her small frame became visible, he breathed relief. For a second he saw her hesitate, disoriented, and lost. All he could do was pull her into a desperate embrace.

“Stupid girl!” He felt her shaking. He had seen the body, the pool of blood, dark against the stones and slowly crawling between them. “Why did you go…”

He felt her begin to cry.

“Why, why did you go…” He repeated, his face buried in her hair.

“Because you couldn’t…” She squeezed out, her voice coming from somewhere she’d been crushed against his chest. They stood like that for a moment longer before he let go, dreading a look at the body.

It was a kindness that she had covered his face.

“What do we do…” She asked quietly, disbelief settling on her as she realized that she had taken a life. But, had she? He was already a dead man. He had been for a long, long time.

Marat stood, looking down, considering.

“We hide him…”

“What?”

“We hide him.” He repeated. “It has been a long time, Val. My brother has been dead for a long time.”

A sadness so deep and piercing had come upon her, seeing this disfigured shape being taken into the shadows. She knew that Marat felt it, too. But there was something else. Parting words from the dead man whispered into her ears.

He knew her secret, and now she knew it too.