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THROUGH THE OPENED window, they heard the rumble of hooves and wheels. The speed was so fast neither of them could stomach looking at any of the letters, maps, or notes. They couldn’t even manage a conversation. They felt like they were in a terrible dream.
“I’m glad we missed this last night,” Mothy groaned. Wolflock could only nod.
Every corner they swerved around pushed them back and forth along their seats, and they held on for dear life. White knuckled and wide eyed, they tried looking around inside the carriage, but they just felt nauseous. They tried looking out, but the smudge of trees racing by them did the same. The only solution was to close their eyes and hope it ended soon.
Wolflock didn’t remember feeling sleepy, let alone falling asleep, but he remembered waking with a start from a nightmare that slipped past him. Mothy jerked awake with a gasp only a few seconds later.
“We’ve stopped?”
“Seems so.”
“Fantastic. I was looking forward to getting to this inn. Maybe they’ll have a nice pot pie or some fresh bread. I think living off that seed bread for a year has made me relish soft ground grain breads.” Mothy stretched his shoulders as he got to his feet.
Wolflock took up the wineglass with the bone match in it, lifting it to shine the grey light across Khra, who looked as if he hadn’t moved throughout their terrifying journey.
“Wait here for us. We shouldn’t be more than an hour or so.”
Khra nodded as the horse shifted enough to rock the carriage and remained silent.
“Good conversation. See you soon, Khra.” Mothy waved as he backed up towards an open gate leading up a hill through overgrown woods.
It wasn’t much of a gate. Just a thick, roughly cut log stretched between two X brackets on either side of the dirt lane. Beside them hung an old sign with one person giving another a bowl of food and the Shirth letters for “Eksynmatkal Hengähd”. Deep trenches showed where carriages had frequently rolled up and down the hill to the inn.
Wolflock kept the wine glass high to shine as much light as possible. The overcast sky left them in total darkness except for the flickering light they had. Mothy wrapped his arm through Wolflock’s as they trudged up over the hard dirt.
“It must be a pretty far lane to the inn. Why would it be so far back?” Mothy whispered.
A small whoosh of wind like someone running with a cape made them both jump, stumbling over the wheel trench.
“What was that?”
Wolflock’s heart drummed in his chest, and his jaw clenched. He felt Mothy shiver beside him. He had to be brave for his friend. If he showed he was frightened, there was no hope.
“Just the wind from an animal running from us. We must have startled it. Let’s keep going.”
He pulled Mothy along the road, expecting, at any moment, to hear people and music, but nothing besides the icy wind tearing through the trees came to them. The light cast shadows through the trees, creating spectres that Wolflock tried to avoid seeing.
They weren’t equipped to handle ghosts. They had no salt or iron or amulets. No priestly words off the top of his head came to keep them safe. It took all the courage he could muster to not just turn tail and run back to the carriage. But he pressed on.
“How much further do you think it is?” Mothy whispered again.
Wolflock yelped as a sign creaked overhead, then coughed to mask it. “Ahem. The trees look thinner just over the ridge. It should be there.”
The boys continued walking until a twig snapped behind them, and they broke into a sprint to the top of the hill. A large clearing opened before them in a fenced-in field. The wind rustled the grass and a nearby owl let out a long, low ‘hoooo’. But, as the clouds split and the moon shone across them, they both breathed a sigh of relief. The evening felt much safer in the light of the moon.
Panting to catch their breath, they looked at one another and burst out laughing, cutting through the nervousness the darkness had laid on them. As they finished their bout of laughter, Wolflock looked around. He saw the inn about thirty feet away, realising why there was no light emanating from it.
The burnt-out shell of the Eksynmatkal Hengähd Inn stood in all its brittle glory before them. Only the old stone chimney remained.
“This wasn’t in Runar’s notes,” Wolflock said slowly, his shoes crunching on blackened charcoal. How were they meant to find out any information now?
“Do you think it was an accident? Kitchen gone wrong? Oil lamp spill?” Mothy began kicking pieces of timber to clear a path through the middle of the inn.
“The kitchen is over there,” Wolflock waved his hand to the chimney and the stone benches around it. “This fire was old. You can see by the smoothing and wear on the burnt wood. A lot of the charcoal has been washed off the top, but if we move these planks...” He walked through the rubble and, lifting a half-burnt rafter, he heaved it to the side. “Thank goodness the roof was thatch, otherwise we’d be shifting tiles for days.”
“What do your fae eyes see, oh wise one?” Mothy snickered, rolling an armful of planks out of the way.
“That this is strange. This wasn’t a multistorey building. We can tell by the shell leftover. It’s like a longhouse. The fire must have started somewhere here. This is where the most damage was done, but there is no starting point for this V shaped burn marks inside the building,” Wolflock huffed, stepping out of the debris, and sat on an old burnt stump. “Fires spread from a V shaped point and flare out like a triangle.”
“How did you know that?” Mothy laughed and stepped out after him.
“I used to burn lots of things so I could tell if Myna was putting my toys in the fire.”
Mothy frowned sceptically, “And was she?”
Wolflock sneered. “This is Myna we’re talking about. Of course she was.”
“Of course she was... Umm.. Lockie?”
“Why have so many pieces not been making any sense?” He wrapped his long, thin fingers through his black hair.
“Lockie, look.”
“I got us lumped in this mess because I couldn’t tell the old woman was so conniving. I couldn’t tell who tore our room to shreds, I can’t tell what’s wrong with that driver and I couldn’t-”
“Lockie!” Mothy clapped in front of his face. “You’re possibly sitting on our origin point.”
Wolflock leaped to his feet and shone the wine torch over the stump. He’d never seen a cleaner cut and the entire tree had been charred. As he lifted the light higher, he saw the distinct black V stemming from the tree stump.
“How does someone set fire to a stump and then it catches onto a whole building?” Mothy tilted his head from side to side.
“Because it wasn’t just the stump.” Wolflock looked out across the building and saw one rafter that looked much larger than the others. “It was the whole tree. Someone set the tree on fire and then cut it so it would fall on the inn. And I bet you it has something to do with Runar’s notes. This area is filled with tiny villages and hamlets. Nothing someone would destroy an entire inn for, surely. Runar kept secrets and hid things away, even from the people closest to him. There has to be something else here.”
Wolflock walked over the burnt down inn, looking for anything that hadn’t been destroyed.
“Lockie? Lockie!” Mothy pointed out into the field next to the inn. Wolflock looked up and saw a post with something blowing in the breeze around it, only visible as the waning full moon lit the field. “I swear that scarecrow wasn’t there before.”
A chill ran through Wolflock’s spine. “Mothy. Come here to me. We need to go.”
“It’s just a scarecrow, Lockie. Don’t try to spook me now.”
Wolflock kept his eyes fixed on the scarecrow. “Mothy. Now. Get over here.”
“You’re not going to frighten me, Lockie. No way, no, sir.”
“Mothy, this isn’t a joke. That is a bare field. It’s not a crop field.”
Mothy tensed. “What are you saying?”
“There shouldn’t be a scarecrow in it.”
The scarecrow’s pumpkin head turned, staring directly at them with a maniacal grin. Wolflock pounced forward, grabbing Mothy’s shirt and hauling him around the wreckage towards the lane. The sound of the twigs breaking and straw clipping from the scarecrow monster racing towards them mixed with the night’s wind and Wolflock had one thought.
Get back to the carriage.
A black shape leaped over them, and the scarecrow cut through the treeline, leaving deep gashes in the bark of the pine trees. Wolflock pulled Mothy to a stop before the lane, realising they were easy prey. Sticks snapped and leaves shook just inside the treeline wherever they looked.
He didn’t know which was worse. Staying in the clearing like a sitting duck or risking being snatched into the foliage like a pigeon in a fox den. Wolflock stepped back, clutching Mothy. He wouldn’t let his friend be hurt.
“Lockie, what was that?” Mothy breathed as the wind grew quiet again.
“I don’t know.”
“How do we get back to Khra?”
“I don’t know!”
Panic rose in his throat and his voice cracked, just as sticks on either side of the laneway snapped. From the right-hand side grew long sticks, winding into a jagged archway above them. The boys backed up into the burnt inn as the sticks took shape and the despicably carved pumpkin found its way to the middle of the spider shaped creature.
“Mothy, run!” Wolflock shouted, pushing his friend behind him. Mothy grabbed his wrist and pulled him through after him.
The scarecrow pounced forward, but the burnt floor under them gave out and they both fell through into a dusty basement. Wolflock saw Mothy knock his head on the upper floor as he fell and laid still. The dark-haired boy fell onto his stomach, winding him and sending a nasty shock through to his back. He couldn’t breathe and he curled into a ball to protect himself from more falling debris. The room spun, but, once he could draw breath, he scrambled over and saw Mothy’s back rising and falling. He was only unconscious. The floor above them creaked, and he heard the creature making low, whining noises, like a baby. At one point he could have sworn it called out “Lockie”.
He’d dropped the wine glass holding his match and he could see the match still burning amongst the shattered glass. The flame was dimmed on the cold stone ground.
Please stay lit. Wolflock prayed silently, his eyes darting from the light to the roof above them. Please stay lit.
Just as it died out, the scarecrow above them scurried away, frightened by heavy steps approaching. A deep snarling noise rumbled over them, but, after a few moments, disappeared. What could have been more frightening than that thing?
“Lockie?” Mothy mumbled, opening his eyes in the dim light. “Lockie, what happened?”
Wolflock grasped Mothy’s hand, squeezing it as hard as he could. “Thank goodness.”
“Were you worried?”
“Worried I’d have to carry your heavy lump of a head back to the carriage,” he snorted. “The floor gave way. Our search hasn’t been for naught, though. Something bigger scared off that monster and we’ve found a secret basement. It looks untouched by the fire.”
“The scarecrow? I’m not sure I like Shiriling at night.”
Wolflock chuckled in agreement. “Can you stand?”
“Let me try.” His friend wobbled to his feet, rubbing sore places over his head and chest. “Am I bleeding? No, it’s you. Lockie. Your hand.”
Wolflock lifted his right hand to find a deep cut down on the pink side. “I must have fallen on a nail. Let me get my light and make sure it wasn’t anything rusty.”
The little streams of moonlight that trickled through the burnt holes in the floor above let him find the match with relative ease, and he struck it into full life again.
“Where are we?” Mothy asked, but he gasped as the light touched the edges of the room.
From the stony floor to the battered ceiling were monstrous heads mounted on the walls, racks of weapons, and cabinets filled with sharpened stakes tipped with silver. In the middle of the wide table in the centre of the room lay a map littered with holes from the thin daggers pinning it to the wood. Everything was branded with the symbol of the five Vs with the line through them.
“This must have been why Runar and the other hunters came here so often. Maybe they had this space because they kept the tavern safe.” Wolflock looked over the large map and found holes in the locations corresponding to the diary. Someone had stabbed one knife into Restöfundsjúkum hamlet. The last place Runar had logged in his journal.
“This is a pretty scary space. What are all these things?” Mothy picked up a mace and dropped it on his toe as soon as it was free from the rack.
“Weapons for hunting monsters and dangerous animals. The Hunters’ Guild in any region keeps the people safe from aberrations and act as stewards of the forest. Like Dorbi in Creast.”
“Oh, aye? And what’s an aberration?” Mothy drew a sword he struggled to hold up, pretending to swing it like a knight.
“You didn’t learn any of this? I thought they taught it everywhere; how to manage relations with fae, spirits, gods and other creatures.”
“I may have learned it by other means and names. You never know. Aberration is a big word. You can fit a lot into it.”
Wolflock chuckled, searching for books and registers to give him a better idea of what had transpired here. “Aberrations are typically made by magical means. They consume negative energies and, sometimes, are able to take enough to replicate themselves.”
“Oh, of course. A simple as that then. Whoops.” Mothy swung the sword with too much confidence and it sank into the head of a roaring yeti behind him.
“They’re creatures made by magic. Sometimes the magic a wizard or a witch uses, sometimes the magic a being naturally generates. This produces a single focused monster like that scarecrow, and it develops into,” Wolflock waved his hand to the ceiling, “whatever that scarecrow thing was.”
“So, it didn’t start out that way?”
“No. It has incorporated too many human items into itself to have been made like that. It probably started out as a spider looking thing or a spiky plant. Then, as it fed off the negativity around it, it grew stronger. Some of them never make more of themselves, others make a lot.”
“Like a disease?”
“Very similar. Just bigger. We could see that, but we can’t see a disease.”
“What does that one feed off, then?” Mothy picked up a hand axe and nodded approvingly.
“I’m not sure. Fear? Pain? Suffering? Grief? The screams of children? Could be anything.” Wolflock laid his hands on the only bookshelf in the entire room. Far dustier than anything in the room, he took out the only book that seemed to be frequently used. It was a binder of legal agreements, contracts and other things the higher guild members had officiated.
“Everything in here is used to kill monsters, then?” Mothy put the axe on his belt and took up a recurve bow and quiver, aiming at the yeti head he had left the sword in.
“No. These things will work just as well on humans, werewolves, vampires, and more peaceful creatures. I even saw some well-crafted iron things to harm fae. This guild was hunting everything.”
“Werewolves and vampires are peaceful where you come from? They sure aren’t in Chalongesh. I used to hear all kinds of terrible stories about them and what they’d do to people. Some folks from Ulusai’il would pass through with missing bits because of werewolf encounters.”
As Wolflock skimmed through the register, he found multiple cases where the same families that had sought the Hunters Guild’s assistance would later sue for damage to their properties, injury to family members, and harassment. The guild paid off the patrolling Guard to stay out of their way and had experimental alchemical contracts with local potion brewers. He frowned as he read on, seeing that the guild had many dirty dealings, and, after Runar’s disappearance forty years ago, the issues had only increased. Intimidation seemed to be their most effective marketing method.
The last record came from thirty years ago. A baby’s naming ceremony had been conducted right where Wolflock stood.
As the Great Mother Pelaia gives soul to our life, we name this child Blandt Oviru in health of heart and mind.
By the strength of the mother, Oviru, Maret’Anna, we lay this blessing of guidance to all things compassionate.
Maret had signed her name separately in a pre-written naming ceremony certificate. Wolflock noticed her surname wasn’t Slatra. She had fused her first and second names when she married, but it wasn’t Slatra. Had they both changed their names to hide their indiscretions?
By the care of the father, Oviru,... we lay this blessing of longevity to live a life fulfilling.
The edge was burnt off and he couldn’t read anymore of the name.
“Lockie? Did I upset you?”
“Huh?” Wolflock blinked out of his thoughts as Mothy touched his shoulder. “Oh. No. Sorry. I think I’ve found something.”
“What is it?”
“Look at this naming certificate. Maret is the mother.”
Mothy sighed. “I guess old Finnes’Anna was right then. Her husband ran off with her sister.”
“No. No, he didn’t. His surname isn’t Oviru, and this isn’t his handwriting.”
“Then why did he say he was going to marry her?”
Wolflock pinched his chin and strained. The words were right there. He married Maret... But he didn’t get married to her.
“That’s it Mothy! He married her. To her husband. He officiated the wedding! That’s why he said Finnes’Anna would be mad. She didn’t get to attend her sister’s wedding. People always get worked up about silly things like that.”
“But then why didn’t he come home afterwards? And why hasn’t her sister contacted her since?”
“And why did they have to marry in secret? And did the monster that dropped the flaming tree on the inn intend to kill them?” Wolflock exhaled, looking around the room for more clues.
Before he could search for more information, the boards above them creaked again with an even, slow tread, sending trickles of dust and ash cascading to the floor. The boys held their breath. They hoped whatever it was would just pass, but, as they shrank back to the wall, they weren’t hopeful.
Then they saw a pair of worn black leather boots as they descended the stairs, bringing down a dark mist. The man of sinew and darkness spotted them and raised a gleaming sword, pointed directly at them.
“And what have we here?” he smirked, and Wolflock couldn’t help but see the pointed canines and flash of red eyes.