1097 Ed’fette

Deep in the Middling, the second ring of Sheltered Lands outside the influence of the Silent Peak, a lone cabin nestled within the Free Woodlands of Albiur. Snow fell without pause, burying the rich red soil and nearly a third of the sturdy lodging.

The tall trees swayed noiselessly; perhaps their whispers were frozen into silence. Often, it was said the Free Woodlands had trees that would tell stories for a price. Some desired to have chunks of their thick bark scraped off and others preferred to be made into lumber, and then they would speak without end the whole way back to the village, the men claimed.

However false these fables must have been, the trees in the Free Woodlands might have been observing silence to better listen to what was happening inside the cabin they knew so well.

Within it, several tapestries hung against the windows and door, their gorgeous gold and red patterns reflecting the flickering light from dozens of candles standing on both sides of the bed.

Layers of felt blankets covered a wheezing man who quivered like a reed, sweating profusely. He panted and pulled the blankets closer to his skin, hoping to merge with their warmth. The sight of him made the gangly blonde by the bedside sob and squeeze his hand; it had been a war in itself to have even an inch of him outside the layers, but she insisted. For this might be the last time she could feel the warmth from his body.

Tears flowed freely from the woman’s satin grey eyes, and only a third of the cause belonged to the choking smoke coming from the fire only a few paces away. It was almost ironic how the chimney had chosen to clog at this hour.

“Did I not say for you to not let out a peep, woman? I would bless your silence. At least let me hear your words, not your groans, otherwise, I would sooner go into the forest and find me a moose to disembowel alive.” The man’s voice came in shudders and stammer but was strangely focused.

The woman wiped away her tears.

“Yes, my love,” she said obediently and caressed her husband’s head. It had once housed thick brown locks of hair that had cascaded down his temples. Now, it was no different from a moss-covered boulder. Patches of pure baldness ran across it, giving the man an odd look of madness and revealing the frightening scars on his scalp. Lengthy, healed tears also featured on his jaw, where a faint stubble grew, and on his neck.

The man sucked in a deep breath. It was all he could do to not succumb to the pain coming from his right eye.

It was an odd eye. Blood oozed from it, staining the right side of his face and the bed.

Voices called from deep within it, prickling at his brain malevolently. He turned to his wife.

The sight of her pained him. Despite how thin she was, she had made for a thrilling bed. She had ridden him and he had ridden her, but he was always the one left short of breath and grinning like a fool. Even looking at her now in her wolven fur scarf and abundant bear hide blanket, his manhood tingled, recalling her softness. He would miss it.

Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon.

His eyes then settled on the bulge of her belly. After so many years, he had finally managed to leave a thriving seed in his wife.

“Why do you mourn me when I have given you what you’ve always sought from me? A son grows in your womb. You should be fleeing to the Innling by now to keep him safe and leaving me to my fate,” the man said.

“Whatever child is growing within me... I...”

“It’s a boy! The Gander never inhabits a female, nor does it allow one to be born from men like me!”

The woman shuddered but continued to speak from where she had been cut off.

“I’ll raise the child... the boy... in the very same lands that birthed you, my love. I’llhonorr you through him. I give you my word.”

“I neither deserve nor need honor! And I could care less for the whelp you’ll suffer to bring into this world. Yet...” The man paused, and his voice softened. “It would be cruel even for me to not pass on this message. Perhaps, the final good I can do in this world is have him find what the Gander had me seek all these years.”

The woman was bewildered.

In all her years, she had never heard her husband speak of this. He was never open about his affliction. She had only learned about it by reading the subtle meaning in his words when he mumbled to himself in agony on those rare bitter days.

But this was not a mark of distrust, she had judged. She was loved, but she knew no man enjoyed admitting weakness, even with ale or after humping in the bed.

He suddenly gripped her hand tight.

“Do not ever cease. Let not a day pass by without you telling the boy to find it. Even as you cradle him as a limbed worm, fresh from your womb, let your words be the first thing he hears,” he said with a mix of warmth and frost.

The woman shuddered but heeded. She saw her husband’s right eye bleed all the more, spurting blood furiously from the socket and she ground her teeth and howled in sorrow.

Why did his passing have to be the worst agony?

She leaped on him and grabbed him as tightly as she could, hoping that would trap his ghost.

But her beloved only continued to shriek the words while tumbling under the blankets.

“Tell him, woman! Tell him every day! Tell him that he must find it! Tell him to find the Bringing! If he fails, he will die a pathetic death, following after me into the depths of the Gander’s maw! TELL HIM FOR ME!”

The blonde-haired woman screamed. She couldn’t be bothered to nod and confirm that she would indeed do as he said. From the deepest wells of her heart, fear said her last words to him in her place – what she knew to be her truth right then.

“Please...please... don’t leave me.... please...take me...take us... with you....”

A look of sympathy flashed on the man’s face before unspeakable agony devoured him.

…And then blood flooded out his right eye socket. His odd eye dug itself out but held dearly to its stems. The man shrieked inhumanely. He might have been a squawking crow or a bellowing bull.

His wife dived back in fright, screaming. Sorrow proved weaker than the terror that suddenly grabbed hold of her.

She watched as a three-finger hand, fat and yellow emerged from her husband’s empty, bleeding socket and grabbed his face, pulling at the skin. Her husband’s howls of pain died immediately.

Another hand emerged from the eye socket, then another and another. All of them reached in, long and free, and pulled on the flesh of his body to the toe until nothing but blood soaked through the bed, half the cabin, and its sole living dweller.

She was left to stare horror-struck at the skeleton that had once been her husband.