The interior of the wood was dark and cold, Stephans ragged breath came out in a barely visible fine mist. He could hear them milling about below the oak tree he had climbed up three minutes ago. Fire should get rid of them, but his satchel with the firestarter was long gone. Why was he in this situation?
His journey started out trouble free. After leaving the valley he made it to Targins Forge before nightfall. Targins Forge was the closest town to the valley, and was still inside the influence of Ranerions spring,outside the valley it was called Ranerions protection. It and the land around it was protected from the more dangerous predators, and the forest was too thick and grew too fast for any bandits to set up camp anywhere inside its influence. They had a lodging house that miners used when they came back from the Vares MountainsM. Pine Valley residents often stayed there the rare times they traveled, usually only to Targins Forge and back.
Targins Forge and the valley shared a kinship that went back to their founding ancestors, and intermarriage wasn't uncommon. Stephans grandparents from his Pa's side were from here, so he got a rather warm welcome from the village chief, Castor, and many cousins he had no idea he had.
After an uncomfortably long and social meal, Stephan finally managed to get to the bed they lent him. It was quite a lot nicer than the beds they usually gave Valley residents, in one of his cousins houses, but despite the comfortable feather mattress he couldn't get any better than a restless sleep.
Sleeping in a new place proved more difficult than Stephan first assumed. That didn't bode well for the next three days. That morning he groggily got his stuff together. His newfound cousins were at the gate, and they gave him a large bag of rations. He really had no room, so they just tied it to the back of his pack, making it a bit lopsided.
“Just head due east from here, and you'll run across Heiteron, it's the rest stop on the way to Cliffgate for most of us western folk” said Reta, his middle aged cousin he had stayed by. She reminded him a lot of his grandma when she was alive. “Be careful tonight, you'll probably leave Ranerions protection around midday. We've heard due to the mass conscriptions the main roads are brimming with folks on their way to Cliffgate” she stood pensive for a moment. “and folks running away from it. That's a recipe from disaster I tell ya.”
After profusely thanking Reta and her relatives for their hospitality,Stephan quickly got on the road again. The Vares road wound next to the Vares river, which flowed perpendicular to the foot of the Vares Mountains.
Out here, where Ranerions protection was weak, the pine forest was thin, and it only got thinner as he got further away from his home. It was a fairly uneventful early morning, travelers rarely took this side of the Vares mountains. There were more on the more habitable and fertile northern side of the mountain range.
Stephan made good, if painful, progress. He made it to the end of Ranerions protection with only a quarter of the day gone. The difference was stark. While in the protection the land had become little more than a plain with only small outcroppings of Pine trees here and there, but on the other side the grass was a dry brown. The oak trees were even more sparse than the pines, and visibly thirsting for water.
The line separating the limits of his home from the wilds was clear as black letters on a yellowing page. The dark green grass came to an abrupt sharp line, and the brown dry grass mingled within that line, but was clearly too weak to invade with any degree of success.
Stephan walked past that line without stopping. He was past hesitation after leaving Pine Valley, and wanted to confront his current problems post haste.
Travel until midday wasn't much different, albeit drier and more depressing. The only event of note was Stephan running into the rotting remains of a plains ibex. While Stephan knew what the decomposition process was, he had never experienced it first hand. Ranerions protection completely degraded any discarded biological matter in a matter of hours, skipping most of the decomposition in the process.
Despite the smell, which was unbearable at first, Stephan stopped to study it. He had of course seen a dissected ibex before, when his father managed to nab one for meat now and then. He had even helped once removing all the organs, it was an eye opening experience. The decaying animal was rather an eye watering experience. He was determined to study it thoroughly.
After an uncomfortable 15 minutes he was satisfied. He reckoned he could stand it now, and wasn't as turned away from it as before. He'd need to get used to all sorts of experiences if he wanted to make it anywhere outside Pine Valley.
After that distraction, the road was quiet and uneventful until midday, when he made it to the split in Vares road. To the left the road followed next to the river and curved towards the west, making q turn to follow the north feet of the Vares range. Straight ahead the road became slightly wider and more maintained. This was Vares Way. The road that lead from the mountain range towards Heiteron.
This road was more traveled, and as Stephan continued on, he began to see other travelers. Most people he passed were friendly, but many kept their heads down or gave him a dirty look when he tried to politely smile at them. One mother even put herself between Stephan and his daughter. Stephan was quite hurt by this, as not only was that clearly not his intentions, the child didn't even seem to be ten yet.
Carts passed by him every once in a while. One merchant he stopped and traded some of the admittedly delicious looking rations he got from Targins Forge for some coin, to lighten his load a bit.
“Be careful out there young man” the merchant told him, “there are supposedly wolves about in the Heiter forest.” He thanked the merchant before letting her and her guards pass him.
Hearing about the wolves got him a bit worried. At the edge of the Heiter Wood, which he got to in latter day, he began to make some preparations. This might cause him to lose some time, but better safe than sorry, his Pa always said. Several people passed him while he made his preparation, almost all of them heading into the forest, and almost none of them alone. The only lone person he saw was a ragged man coming out of the forest.
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The man gave him an uncomfortably predatory look before flicking his eyes down at his dagger Stephan was using to prepare, then quickly scampered off down the road. Stephan mentally thanked his dad's advice. After almost two days of constant use, he was starting to look like he could actually handle the knife, and he was close to being proficient with it, he was almost done with his preparations, which he thought would take another twenty minutes, at least.
He realized that he'd probably have to spend the night inside the wood due to the time loss and chided himself for not preparing sooner. Putting everything back on, he stepped into the wood as some other travelers were entering, two men and a strong looking woman.
They weren't very friendly, but he managed to convince them to ignore him, as more people meant more safety from any would-be vulpine stalkers. They traveled in silence for a good two hours, and Stephan was perfectly comfortable with that.
When they came around one of the many bends in the forest road, they came across an upsetting scene. There were three children, the oldest not being any more than fourteen, standing around the body of an elderly man on the side of the road. They all stopped and stared for a moment.
“Come on” said the smaller man “we have to hurry if we want to make it out of the woods by midnight” the other two nodded, frowns on their faces, and started after him.
“Your not coming?” The woman asked Stephan.
“No,” he replied “I wasn't planning on making it out of the forest tonight anyway.”
“Your funeral” replied the bigger man, and the group turned and didn't look back.
Stephan pondered for a moment how to approach this situation. He decided and loudly walked up to the children. They turned and looked at him with hopeless eyes. They were all skinny, the youngest girl looked almost starving. They all had extremely fair skin and light hair. He turned to the eldest, a young boy that he guessed to be fourteen.
"Soske san tu, sa chiro mange?" The boy asked warily, meeting stephans gaze with dead eyes.
“Do you speak Serican?” Asked Stephan, as gently as he could, after backing up a step.
“I speak.. little” said the other girl, who must've been the boy's sister, hesitantly, she must've been roughly the boys age, but she was significantly smaller. After she answered him, the boy protectively stood in front of her.
"Soskay rokkeres leske, ni janas so leske mang?" Said rhe boy sharply to his sister.
"Mangav te putrav les." She answered curtly.
“My.. family want.. what you want?” She questioned hesitantly.
Taking it to be asking what he wants, he put down his pack and took out the rest of the rations form Targins Forge and splayed them out a little ways away from the body. “Well,” he said, “I want to give you food” he said. Miming eating, then taking a bite of bread and holding it out to them.
hesitantly the girl walked forward. The boy out up a arm to stop her, but she pushed it aside. She took the bread from him and took a bite, tears coming to her eyes. She quickly went back and gave it to the small girl, who only ate after the sister almost force fed her.
After that the children lost their wariness and came and ate their fill. Through broken Serican, pictures, and gestures Stephan got the gist of what had happened to these children. Raddo, Liora and Sariyana, the children, were traveling to cliffgate with their grandfather Tivan with a package from their home in the far west. He couldn't quite figure out what the package was, but in the forest road a man had confronted them, demanding the package. The grandfather refused, and after a scuffle he had collapsed and the thief got away with the package.
After they ate, Sariyana, the youngest, fell asleep on Stephans pack, Liora, the girl who knew a tiny bit of Sarican, was busy holding Sariyana tight, softly crying. Raddo, the boy had walked back to Tivans body, silently staring at the old man. Stephan walked up behind the boy.
"Me kának ná manglóm te ashundár o dóm." He said helplessly as Stephan came up beside him. Although Stephan couldnt understand, he didnt need to to hear the hopelessness in the boys words.
The old man's body had no visible wound, but he was covered in thick furs, so it might've been hidden somewhere inside them. Stephan stood silently with the boy for a while.
It was silent in the wood, his group must've been the last ones in, as noone had passed then since Stephan had stopped. The quiet sounds of crickets started drifting in from somewhere far away from the road, indicating the sun was going to set soon.
Stephan tapped the boys shoulder.
“We need to bury him” he said as he mimed the action of digging.
“Na!” Shouted Raddo incredulously. Well, Stephen didn't need to translate that one.
“We.. bury not” said Liora coming back, her tears spent. She turned to Raddo and said "Ava, te bazarav les."
The boy looked at her, his face breaking from its dead look into large tears, and nodded.
The two children quickly stripped the body to its skin, much to the suprise of Stephan, then just as quickly wrapped it in the thick furs and began to tie it up, leaving the face exposed.
“That was quick.” Commented Stephan, but quickly apologized. “Sorry, I didn't mean to put it that plainly”
“Did for mother, siblings” replied Liora through her work, seemingly unbothered with Stephans lack of propriety. Grunting with effort she and Raddo tried to lift the now bundled body. Stephan stepped in to help, but Raddo pushed him away weakly.
"Kava ni si buti e famílijakri." He said, straining
“Must.. be of mother” Liora translated.
Stephan took a step back and let the children work. They, with much effort, they propped the body against a tree a little into the wood. Stephan made sure to not lose sight of his pack and Sariyana while they did. They then tied the bundle so it was upright against the thick oak. Raddo took out a knife from somewhere in the bundle and started cutting chunks of hair out. After the old man's body was almost bald, they took the hair and mixed it in with the dirt at the base of the tree.
They began to say some rites in their language. Satisfied with what he saw, Stephan wen back to look over Sariyana and get the plates and forks together with his ration bag. He also wanted to leave the children to stay goodbye to their grandfather in private.
After a couple of minutes the children came back.
“it Is.. done, He is nymphs.” said Liora as they got back. “Can you…stay?” She asked. Hope, fear amd sadness reflecting in her eyes.
Stephan looked at the ragged kids. There's no way he could leave them now.
“Tonight yes.” He said with a sigh, as he prepared for a sign sleepless night as a watchdog.
"Palikerav tut." She said gratefully, as she fell asleep almost instantly beside Sariyana. Stephan assumed that was some form of thanks.
Raddo stayed up with Stephan for a while. Scanning the forest, sometimes looking at him suspiciously. After some time the boy succumbed to sleep next to his sisters.
All that was left was Stephan and the sounds of the wood. He was quite content with what he accomplished today. While he was absolutely exhausted, he couldn't help but feel proud of himself and living up to his parents standards. He wasn't aware of the danger tomorrow would bring.