Trail to Sacramn

[CyBeR]

Chapter II: Faces of the night

Shadows in the night play strange tricks on the eye and the mind. Many times did I feel the urge to look over my shoulder, to check some blacker darkness as it ghostly trembled and swayed. I felt the pull of sleep as well, but I could not settle my mind for it. The wolves had quieted down, yet Matei would not relax his vigil. With his back turned to the fire, the wine by his side, untouched for some time, he was silent and would not answer me again, absorbed in thought.

Which was well; I confess I had no wish to hear any more of what haunted my ailing homeland.

It was a fell night, I felt. The wind had a bite to it and the fire couldn’t seem to warm me up enough for sleep. I tossed a few more sticks to the embers and held myself tight, my face to the heat, wishing all my senses be taken from me at such damned hours. The oxen shuffled in their sleep and swiped their tails at imaginary flies. Even old man Joac was snoring peacefully, wrapped in fleece covers, close to the cart. But for me, there would be no rest that night.

I cursed the armoured man for filling my head with such stories. Wolves that walked as men in a land ravaged by plague and ill tidings!? I cursed at myself for believing him and imagining them all walking just outside the protective circle of light. In my young naiveté I thought that surely I would have known of such things, that surely there would be word of mouth spreading like wildfire if such things of lore would ever roam our fields and roads.

The embers crackled, filling the chilled night air with their sparks. The corn stalks rustled in the cold breeze. And they kept on rustling even when the wind died and I could not feel its chilling breath on my back anymore. Yet chills I felt.

Matei grabbed my sleeve, pulling me to my feet.

“Wake the old man and keep the oxen calm.” His eyes looked past me, searching the night. I felt my muscles ache and protest, yet I stumbled over to Joac and rustled him to alertness. He muttered his curses and ambled over to the cart, stretching and snapping, his age showing.

Swords in hand, Andrew and Matei closed in to the wall of stalks, banging from time to time on their battered shields.

“Come out mutts!” Their voices were horse and angry, and I swore I could hear their words returning; a distorted echo, from a throat not meant for words. Daniel tossed wood on the fire from their satchels and sprayed it well with oil, the flames rising high, shattering the shadows of early dawn.

The bulls heaved and got up, almost knocking us over, fear in their big, dumb eyes. We held fast to their reins and spoke calming words, rubbing their foreheads. Had Joac not broken them into submission over so many years, they would have trampled us there and then.

“Mongrels, come out, come out!” Matei sounded amused, strangling down his laughter as he poked his sword through the stalks, Andrew holding up a torch behind him. “We’ll burn the field down, mongrels; and the one next to it, and the one after. It’ll reek of burnt hair and dog meat for days round these parts.”

In the blink of an eye Matei had disappeared into the field, his head visible for nary a moment as he went in further and further. Yelps resounded and the night exploded with shapes, scattering from the corn. No taller than a man, yet gaunt and shrivelled, even as shadows, they scattered on all sides, only to pause as Gabriev and Andrew barred their way further, shield and sword at the ready, the fire behind them.

Matei strode out, holding a slender, agitated figure by the neck. It was yelping and thrashing about, clawing at his armoured glove, kicking up the dust. He ran in through and tossed it aside as if it were nothing more than a wooden doll.

“One for the fire…” he bellowed and laughed, joined by his brothers in arms. There was something manic in their laughter, inhumane.

I watched the figures spread out, twitching at every sound now, ready to flee. Gaunt bodies dressed in nothing but rags, their limbs long and clawed, these were people I realised, starved and transformed worse than even the plague would manage. Their faces were melted and crudely rebuilt in short muzzles, their eyes dark and small, their ears sharpened and elongated as well. Hair showed in tuffs on these deformed bastards of nature, here and there, sickly. Had the times been different I may have found them disturbing or frightening. But at that time there was nothing in me for them except pity.

They ran, scattering in the field as sheep would. There was something desperate in their flight, despite there being more than a dozen of them, while the soldiers were three. Some mongrels attacked them, most tried to run back into the covers of the night.

The first arrow that struck a beast’s skull reminded me of Daniel, whom Matei had posted to guard the road for any night time wanderers. The creature tumbled over head first, its dying sounds muffled by the din of the massacre behind. Another paused for just a moment and fell as well, the arrow sticking out of its back. It thrashed on the ground, howling and whining in a feral tongue.

Matei and the others had taken to the fight in a quiet, precise manner, swinging their weapons in wide arcs, slicing limbs and throats with ease. Their shields were discarded as the extra protection was unneeded. They did not taunt, did not laugh, did not even seem to notice one another as each enveloped himself in the gore of his work. There was a clockwork precision to the way they fought, something born of practice. Born of maybe too much practice, I thought.

The oxen bawled and drew away. One of the creatures had jumped into the cart, pulling savagely at a sack, ripping it open. It held a small pouch to it and looked around nervously, watching the slaughter with twitching eyes. Joac noticed before me, picking up his whip and lounging at it, swearing loudly. It tried to fight him off, but I was behind it – my reaction was not bravery but pure instinct after years of chasing stray wolves off my father’s farm in the dead of night – , pulling it off the wheat, straight to the ground. I heard a bone crack and felt sickened by the dry sound. The old man didn’t care and came over, whipping it hard, yelling to the soldiers for help.

It held out a clawed hand towards us, trying to shield itself from the whip. “P…phlease” it whined in our tongue, trying to get to its feet. “Children…” it said again, but the word sounded wrong, more a growl in that deformed form. It reached for the pouch as we watched it, even Joac at a loss for cussing. We did not notice Daniel next to us until it picked up the pathetic thing and smashed its head against the strong wooden frame of the cart.

He turned a sly smile, his moustache speckled with blood. “Now they won’t get near you on the road.”

Light mercifully erupted from the East soon after. It trickled at first, creeping across the moors, and soon rolled over us in a golden tide. The thick, choking smoke rising from our freshly lit pyres did little to stop it. It rose to meet it in the sky and was easily shattered and scattered to the winds, carrying with it the miasma of charred flesh and bone, and the faint fragrance of death. Not one beast escaped the cull, not a single one was spared or even questioned. The soldiers had been ruthless and efficient, both in hunting down the stragglers and in lighting the great fires to consume them.

Joac had taken care of harnessing the bulls as I helped carry the bodies to the fire, a simple courtesy to their efforts, and fine exercise to shake off the morning chills. Matei and Daniel were talking by the embers of our camp site, merry and tired. This had meant nothing for them, just a purge of the unclean.

“Why?” I asked Andrew by the pyre, my shirt raised to cover my mouth. “Why come among us? Why go for grain? There are villages all over; there is live stock out there, granaries. Hell, we’re in the middle of a stinking corn field…” My voice was getting away from me, rising higher as if I were a dumb child, ignorant of the world.

To his credit Andrew did not mock me, nor laugh at me for my compassion. He wrapped his arm around my shoulder and led me away from the fire, offering me a sip of his own wine flask. It was sour and warm, but it still calmed my skittering nerves.

“Ever wondered why these things are usually so feared?” His voice was almost fatherly, though he did not seem a day over twenty. After seeing the night’s massacre I really wonder how such pathetic things had become such terrors of the night for the people.

“Outside of the full moon, any other food aside from bread will give a mongrel the shits of his miserable life. Theirs is an amusing curse.” He did not believe this, yet he smiled all the same. ”The only time of the month when they can actually feed is the night of the full moon, when their transformation takes hold for real. You’ve seen, I’m sure, how starved animals will take your arm off in moments if given the chance. Add some really big claws and teeth to those bastards, and you get a very good image of a werewolf on full moon nights. Enough of them starve to death before even getting there, but one is all you need to get a village full of them next month.”

He had led me to the cart and patted my shoulder. “Take care and keep to the road. They’ll hardly bother you with blood smeared like that.”

We waved our goodbyes and our thanks and were back on our way. Somehow, I was missing home. And it would not be for the last time.