4. Chapter 4:
Chapter 4:
The next day, my entire body ached. I went to live with my friend Derr, who was now a blacksmith. his house was large enough for all of us to live together, and - though I rarely found the strength to speak to him or his family, especially about what had just happened - not too far from where my home used to be and where the burnt remains still were.
Having grown up in a tanner's house, I had grown up at the fringes of the village, and specifically the side closer to the woods. I came to find that the woods provide samblance of solace. They asked no questions of me, demanded no answers, and I saw it as a way to remember Sew. If only I could ask the trees what they remembered.
I found my self walking further and further around woods daily, going farther and farther from the villaghe. but never once entering the forest. "No," I told myself, "too dangerous." I was wary of the danger, but yet I found the woods alluring. The darkness they presented to me a welcome distraction from the tornado whirring in my chest, and the subtle burning I experienced in my eyes whenever I was left to think for myself.
I walked just too far one day, and came across a large path that ran along the forest. It was quite busy, with Paraceratherium and Paleoxodon dragging or carrying people in both directions. At some point, while admiring these travellers, A thief of the guild must have seen me.
She walked up behind me and tried to strangle me with a cloth bag she had on her. She called to some of her fellow thieves, and two others came and tried to help her in the process. I managed to break free before they arrived, and ran as fast as my legs would carry me far from the group. i looked back for juse a moment and noticed that the thiefs who had tried to kill me were the other members of my team, wirth Quell leading the assault. I felt as if I should feel a sense of betrayal or a seething rage for them having forgotten all I had done for them, but I had never truly seen them to be my friends, their facades were too obvious to ignore. I could never have truly trusted them. As These thoughts were whirring around my head, I realised that I was running instictively towards my village. I soon realised that this would be a terrible idea, especially with the thieves in quick pursuit. I turned sharply to the left, and began to run alongside the busy highway I had been admiring. They changed direction too. I would not lead them back to where I was. I got tired quickly, however, having walked sunce the crack of dawn and not having eaten anything since the previous night. I realised that I could purely rely on my strength to get me all the way to some sort of safety. I had to use my wits.
I looked around frantically, as the triad approached every second. I bolted towards a large pack of four paracerathereiums dragging a massive vehicle with trade supplies in it. I ran in between their feet and hoped that my purseuers had not seen me. It worked for a while.
I managed to calm my breathing down for a while, my only worry being attempting not to get crushed by the feet of these gargantuan beasts. Everything else left my mind, the thrill of the chase filling it with fear and calcuation. After a while, however, they noticed, and I was forced to find another place to hide. I weaved my way in and out of the feet of the creatures, the triad doing the same behind me. I tried to climb up into the wangon contyaining the supplies, but it wass too high for me to reach. I ran to the nearest other thing I could - a large Paleoxodon which I would try and convince to lift me onto its head. I had seen it done once, in a circus I had attended as a child, and I hoped the same trick would work here.
I walked in front of the massive beast, its massive tusks and trunk looking almost like trees that moved, and its pensieve eyes conveying the sense that it was not afraid of me. It was confident in the power its size gave it. I kneeled down, and put down my head, holding up a hand just like the circus performer had. The elephant used the manipulating tip of its trunk to wrap around my body, and hoist me up to its head, where it placed me next to the driver. "What do you think you are doing young man!" The driver exclained indignantly, looking at me like I was some sort of rubbish he had forgotten to dispose of. "I am very sorry, but I just need to stay here for a while, would tht be fine?" I asked him tentatively. "Umm... Well... You would need to pay, and I doubt a freeloading rapscallion such as you..." "Have these." I shoved a few copper coins in his hands to keep him satisfied, and I looked carefully over the ears of the Paleoxodon to look down and see the thieves I had once called my team looking for me desperately. Eventually, they gave up, and left in the opposite direction.
I let myself breath a sigh of relief. The experience cemented something in my mind. I needed to do something. I could not stay in my village. Any more time I spent in the village would make life for the villiagers - the only other people I had left - harder, and I did not want ot be a burden, or cause any more pain and suffering than I already had.
Once I got back to the village, I went to discuss a plan which had been brewing in my mind with Derr. "I think I want to go explore the woods." I said, determined that I would not back down if he refused. "Are you sure that's a good idea. Nobody but Sew and you have been able to get out once you enter, at least as far As I can remember." He told me. He seemed worried for me, as if I had something wrong with me he wanted to fix, but did not quite know how to do it, or whether he even could. "Well, I've managed it once, and I think there's a good chance I can manage it again." I replied. "Do you want any help? I could get one of my cousins to go with you..." Derr looked worried. he did not believe in me. "No. I do not need anybody else, I should be enough. I do not want to put anybody's life in danger, nor rely on another person." I said, with a bit too much emotion, and I quietened down afterwards. "Well. It is your choice. I can't stop you. Do you want me to help with the preparations, at least?" He offered. "Yes, thank you." I said, "I would appreciate that."
A few hours later, we were on the floor of his front room, laying out things I would take on my jounrey into the woods. I had brought a pack that Sew had made from me out of the finest leather he had ever made to carry it all in. I had also brought some dry food, a water skin so that I could store enough water to drink for as along as I needed. It ws known that the woods did have some streams and rivers running through it, as they led out of the woods to the West and south, so I dod not really need to worry about running out of water.
Derr suggested that I should also take a few weapons, to make sure that I could fend off any dangerous creatures or people I would come across in the woods (though he joked that He never really expected me to come out victorious in these battles). He gave me two small daggers, wrapped in hide at the handles and double-edged to make them better for stabbing, and then also a shortsword, as I would need something for slightly more close-range interactions. I dearly hoped that I would never have to use any of them in my journey, but I was reassured by their mere prescence, if slightly spooked by the fact Derr thought such things requiring fighting resided in the forest, between thise trees that seemed to talk to me when I looked at them, only I could never hear their words. It all seemed so conforting. yet, if you examined it for just too long, it all of a sudden looked much much more insidious. The woods had two faces, and I did not know which one to trust.
Once I had stuffed all of this into my bag, along with my sleeping bag attatched on top, I went over what I shoudl do once inside of the forest with Derr. He suggested that I should stay on any paths I found - though he doubted that I would find any - because they would lead me to some sort of civilisation, and civilisation meant safety, or at least food. I knew that I would essentially be lost for my entire journey through the forest as there was no known path through, and so I was advised by Derr to keep a small pot of white paint with me while I walked, marking trees if I found them to be near important points, so that I could find my way back to these points more easily.
I then remembered that I would likely need a journal to note down anything interesting I found, and so stuffed one in my pocket. This made evident the fact that I was not in the correct attire to be exploring the woods at this time of the year. i got long, waterproof boots from the cobbler, and a traveller's cloak from the tailor, and Derr thought that I was prepared. I was not so sure, but had enough trust in him, and no new knowledge of my own to use, to decide to go into the forest the next morning.
All of a sudden, A scream.
It was a fleshy, organic scream, nothing like mine a few days earlier. it carried a more human, more emotional pain, though very evidently of loss. Derr and I ruswhed out of the house, walking towards where the scream had come from. We now heard a steady wailing, a crying that seemed never to end. We eventually arrived at the Butchers, and saw Kleh weeping uncontrollably by the door of her house. "Kleh, what's happened?" I asked, terrified that the thiefs had hurt somebody else i cared about. Kleh's husband walked out of the shop, just as terrified as she was. He seemed to be unable to speak. Shaking and barely able to form the words, Kleh whimpered, "She's been taken." I looked confused. Who could she mean? Derr began to look increasingly worried. "It's her daughter, she was born a few weeks ago." Kleh nodded slowly. I began to fret. Was it because of me? Was I the reason that this poor little girl had ben kidnapped? My mind swirled with thoughts, and I did not know what to do or what to say. "It was a Witch." Kleh said, barely able to believe her own words. "Witches don't exist, Kleh. Whoever it was, they cannot have gone far. I'll call the village to help." Derr sprinted to the centre of the village, out of my vision. A few seconds later, I heart the bell ringing, calling all the villiagers to attention. Derr then went and told them about the presumed kidnapping, and everyone began searching for Kleh's daughter.
I stayed with her and her husband, trying to comfort them. "We'll find her." I told her, scarcely believing it myself. "No you won't. The Witches will eat her." she said, beginning to curb her crying now. "I'm sure it was not the Witches, those are just stories, remember?" I was beginning to question my own preconceptions. The conviction with which Kleh told me what had happened almost convinced me that she might have been right. Kleh was never the sort to believe in fairy-stories, but she had now, and that meant something.
I went into their house, to look for any signs we could use to find out what might have happened to the child who I soon found out to be named Wea. As I entered, a putrid stink filled the air. I had to close my eyes and use a handerchief to cover my mouth just to bear to get in. I walked over to the cot where the baby had been lying, and saw a mass of rotting meat, covered in maggots and their brethren, so raw in its bloody form that for a moment I feared that it was the baby herself. But I soon realised to be the torso of a lamb, rotting for somewhere around two or three days, the odour filling the room with an overpowering atmosphere of death. It seemed too close ot be real, and I scarcely believed what I was saying.
In the stories we had ben told, Once a child had been taken for the Witches to consume, they left a lump of rotting meat in its place to signal who had done the vile deed. I was now convinced that it had been a Witch. I knew that no amount of searching in the village was going to help find Wea now. The only hope we could have was somewhere deep in the woods, where the Witches lived, according to the fairy-stories I had once so disregarded, I wondered what other storied would turn out to be true.
Determined to find Wea, I quickly pulled on my boots, hoisted up my backpack, and said my hasty goodbyes.
The journey could not wait until tomorrow. I would have to start it tonight.
I grit my teeth, and tried ot make out shapes in the darkness the best I could with my weedy lantern that burned tree wax, as I walked up to the threshold between the village and the woods. I looked back one last time, and I stepped into the woods.
I was quickly enveloped by a shroud of darkness so absolute that I could barely see my hands in front of my face.
I was here.