Valentin ran aimlessly in front of him. He was not sure which direction he was going in. The trees all looked too similar to him and he had no idea what landmarks he could use. He swore he could hear the sounds of hooves that drove him to move quicker and more recklessly through the underbrush and brambles. He looked over his shoulder to locate his pursuers, but their phantom approach remained hallucinations within his mind.
The forest stretched out endlessly in front of him. Unable to maintain his frenetic pace, Valentin finally calmed down enough to cease his running. But he didn’t stop. Instead, he continued to trudge along at a brisk walk.
Wild animals scurried through the underbrush but the boy paid them no heed. He ripped off the clean part of his bread and chewed on it, tossing the soiled remains to the ground for the creatures to feast upon. His fish was also lightly coated in dirt but he steeled his resolve and swallowed half the earthy fish, choosing to save the pies and unspoiled ingredients for later.
As the time dragged on and his mind was no longer frozen by the need to survive the moment, Valentin started to experience thoughts of paranoia. Was he headed in the right direction? Where had Marigold been running? How far had she run? Had he passed through this area already? Should he make a radical change in direction and follow that way for a bit?
He fought those thoughts and decided the best course would be to decisively move in the same direction and quell his rising doubts.
However, moving in a straight line was impossible. Each tree, rock, and change in elevation, caused Valentin to move in unknown directions; his true bearing a mystery. Ridges and switchbacks forced him to rapidly move east to west, sometimes circling southwards before randomly finding his way north again.
To Valentin, he was moving in the same direction the entire time. To any else, he was hopelessly lost.
Darkness started to fall upon the forest but what difference did that make to the exhausted and directionless boy? Light or dark, his bearing of the region would be the same. His feet moved forwards, his steps countless, his distance unknown. If any mortal eyes were to spot the boy in this moment, they would assume him to be a spirit that had not been freed of his worldly desires and haunted the land as a specter.
He would continue to wander in the blackness of night, colliding with tree trunks and stomping through bushes.
The terrain climbed and fell constantly in unpredictable directions. His legs screamed for relief as he traversed a growing incline. It spread on impossibly forward and, step by mindless step. Valentin worked his way upwards ceaselessly. After an unknown amount of time, he reached the peak of the rise. Despite the chill of the night air, the boy was slick with the sweat of exertion.
He was overcome with a wave of exhaustion and collapsed to the ground. He did not bother finding a more advantageous position and adjusted his body minimally. To him, it didn't matter where he stopped. When he awoke, he would continue and he would do so day after day until he reached his destination.
Valentin finished the pie that he started earlier that day. Devoid of all heat, the meal had gone soggy and turned into a chunky meat slurry. While it tasted dreadful, he found it nourishing enough to force himself to fight down each bite. He did not know how far away he was from his destination, so he stopped after the first pie and stored the rest inside his coat.
Now that his body finally came to rest, the thoughts that constant action relegated to the recesses of his mind began to bubble back up to the surface. He hoped that, despite all that was stacked against him, Gilles would pull through. The warrior he portrayed himself to be in his stories was more than capable to dispatching just two enemies. However, the Gilles from the stories hasn’t fought in cycles while their pursuers are skilled enough to make the elite troops around Steward Tressavie seem unreliable.
And Valentin abandoned him. It was his fault that they were overtaken. Despite Gilles taking responsibility, Valentin knew that, as he rode away to safety, his uncle resented him. His death would be for a foolish reason.
Valentin shook his head, he was not yet willing to readily accept that Gilles was truly dead. He would have faith that his uncle won the battle and was looking for him. Until he got any proof, he would not yet give up.
Indecipherable dreams washed through the boy’s mind. Formless faces called out to him in words that did not reach his ears. His mind was full of wool and his reactions to the stimuli were sluggish and dispirited. Hands of smoke reached around him and pulled him to his feet but the world just shifted again and he found himself on the ground once more. He felt himself pulled to the right and a sound that he could not identify rushed into his ears. His body jolted involuntarily and the world was ripped to pieces by the light that came pouring in.
Valentin awoke inside of a cloud that covered the copse atop the peak that he had slept within. He took a drink from his dwindling waterskin to abate the dryness that had invaded his mouth during his slumber.
Once his thirst was sated, he continued down the slope in the direction that his resting head had faced. Unsurprisingly, the forest seemed no more decipherable than the day before. That mattered little to the boy whose only true concern was to avoid his attackers. Most crucially of all, he had survived the night. As long as he kept doing so, then he was still well.
Shortly into his morning march, the sky opened up and water streamed from above. Valentin held his mouth open and tried to collect the rain that pattered down from the trees overhead. He swallowed a paltry amount but he was grateful nonetheless. He chewed on a dried fish and an intact loaf of bread.
An unknown time passed and the rain remained a ceaseless curtain. Valentin attempted to navigate between the larger coniferous trees to gain more cover and avoid the rain, however, it was impossible to prevent him from becoming drenched over the course of the day. Sounds of water colliding with branches, soil, and Valentin drowned out the ambient sounds of the forest. Visibility was poor and Valentin still had no indication that his pursuers were near. He hoped that the rains had destroyed any trace of him.
Valentin tried to find any landmark or indicator that he was near civilization. He knew that there were tribes that lived in the region, but where were they? He found no roads or trails that would lead him to a settlement. The coins that Cecile’s father gave him still rattled within his jacket. He would give all of it away gladly to eat a warm meal and sleep in a dry bed.
However, thoughts of Bothair waiting for him in those villagers made Valentin wary. Unlike his home, there was no one that he knew or could trust in the wilderness. For the right price or under enough threat, he would be given up quickly.
As night once again blanketed the world in darkness, Valentin bundled himself by the trunk of a large tree. The innumerable branches helped prevent the rain from streaming down upon him. He ate another of his precious pies and quickly succumbed to the stillness of sleep amongst the angry sounds of rain.
To such a person, sleep came easily. To an outsider, they would determine the boy to be of an iron will to live. In truth, he was terrified and dazed, aimlessly walking in the hopes that he may yet live.
The following day and day after melted into a deluge of intermittent showers and gray skies. He restricted his consumption for the day’s meal, eating only a pie and nothing else. The rationing made him feel wholly dissatisfied when he had slept again to face similar dreams.
There had been no signs of human life in these waterlogged days and Valentin could not be certain whether or not he was heading in the correct direction at all. Gilles had not told him the name of the village they were traveling to, all he had was the name of the man he needed to find.
Valentin’s posture lowered further as his body and mind slowly wore down against the vast ambivalence of the wildlands. His initial instincts to survive eroded from the constant rain. Optimism towards his uncle’s survival dwindled further and further the longer that he forced himself to endure the conditions. Cold temperatures and starvation gave birth to a deep, unyielding pessimism.
However, he was not yet prepared to surrender his life to the elements or his pursuers. Whether it was stubborn vestiges of hope left inside him, a guilt of wasting his uncle’s life, or the forming embers of spite, Valentin could not rightly say. All of those feelings swirled inside of him, each took turns dragging him further beyond his own limits.
He finished his last meat pie. Soaked with water and carried around for four days, this meal was by far the worse of them. All that remained were the various ingredients that he managed to reclaim from Marigold. Without the pot or any fire starter, Valentin would need to subsist on the raw ingredients
The next day offered something new to assure the boy that time had, in fact, moved forwards. A gushing river halted his progress, the fast moving waters carried all sorts of debris down from the water source and down to some hidden destination. A massive log was carried past Valentin at high speeds like a toy boat along the tides. Attempting to traverse the water would only result in his death and spite his uncle’s efforts. The boy stood on an unconfident footing. He wasn’t truly certain that he must cross the river to reach his destination though he refused to turn around at risk of meeting his pursuers.
While he deliberated on what to do, a massive creaking noise followed by a bone rattling crash boomed from upriver. He quickly moved his way up the riverbank to investigate the source of the sound.
As Valentin rounded the river bends, he saw the culprit. Ahead of him, a massive coniferous tree lay toppled over the rushing waters. Its roots upturned and reached towards the sky with mud-caked fingers. The trunk creaked and swayed with each gust of wind and collision with any large debris swept downriver.
He touched the tree with trepidation. Could he cross the river on the back of this fallen behemoth? The trunk groaned its death throes under the pressure that it was subjected to. His fingers scraped against the coarse skin and an inexplicable reassurance traveled up his fingertips. He placed both of his hands on the bark and pulled himself atop the remains of the tree. A gust of wind and rain iced his body and fear pitted his stomach leaving a gaping hole where it had traveled through.
“Oh spirit of the river who I do not know, please grant me passage over your domain and spare me the rage that you inflict upon this land.” He emptied half the remains of the bag into the coursing water. “A paltry offering for your protection.”
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
All the courage that Valentin had was expended on an exploratory step forward. The spirit spared him for his trespass over the vicious water. Each footstep was a trial. The trunk swayed, logs crashed and clattered beneath Valentin’s feet. The wind attempted to throw him into the frigid torrent below. However, with each step, the boy found himself on his feet. With a clarity that he himself found baffling, he made his way across the bridge and dismounted safely on the other side.
Boots pressed into the mud and he felt an absence he could not pinpoint. The spirits of the wind tore through his clothing with more vigor as if they felt spited by the lack of offering towards them. His teeth chattered and his drenched cloak offered little respite from the elements. He quickly hurried into the trees on the other side for protection from the angry wind that screamed over the water’s surface.
Though he safely reached the other side safely, he found that the entire area slowly sloped upwards towards a destination he could not see above the treetops. He mindless spent the rest of the day navigating the set of complex switchbacks over a craggy ridgeline. The river disappeared and the sounds were drowned out by the ever constant downpours that dominated the days.
By the time that Ortus began his descent, Valentin found himself atop the ridge he had been climbing. A massive lake that was bordered on all sides by cliffs and peaks stretched out in front of him through the gray streaks of the storms. Large wooded islands sat inside of the oddly torpid waters. A stone arm pointed mightily at the storm above it from a decapitated torso. Expanding from all sides of the ridgeline that bordered the lake stood impenetrable green.
It was only then that Valentin exhaled deeply. How could his pursuers possibly track him inside of this suffocating immensity? How could his uncle? They were more likely content to let Valentin die in this unfamiliar domain. His eyes strained to see signs of civilization in the environs around the lake but failed to spot any signs of people in the vicinity.
His body wanted to unravel but he forced the tension back into his muscles. To relax now would be to die in a different way. However, the inevitable march of exhaustion beat a tune of pain across his muscles and his mind. He retreated down the ridgeline towards the forest below to find another place to collapse out of the full wrath of the elements that watched over him.
The following day felt hollow without the impending danger to spur Valentin forwards. He followed the winding descent down towards the lake. Despite the boy’s best efforts, he could not muster urgency back into his bones. Valentin refilled his waterskin in the lake but he was uncertain where to travel next. He had no intuition and no spirits deigned to guide him on the proper path.
He spotted the missing head of the goliath in the lake. The surviving eye of the crumbling visage stared to the northwest with a look of condemnation at whatever lived beyond the steep cliffside. The crown atop the stone man’s head was cracked in half and worn away by the aggressive rains that pelted it. Valentin looked into the eye of the forgotten man for a time that he could not begin to guess.
He turned in the direction of the eye and followed the gaze of the forsaken titan back into the ridgeline and into the woods. It was a decision devoid of consideration, an arbitrary decision that formed when he could procure no other. The scenery offered nothing new, no signs that could inspire hope or ward off fears. However, there was no guarantee that the other directions could provide anything different. This way was just as good as all the others and he would walk dutifully until he would be required to make a new decision.
His efforts were echoed within his stomach. The price of his travel needed to be paid, but there was little that he could offer to repay the debt. His stomach, a cruel collector, covered Valentin’s insides in the pain of a body that begun to eat itself after it melted through paltry offerings of dried fish and raw potatoes. He picked at some of the contents inside of the bag to continue to fuel himself, but the uncooked food, now thoroughly dampened by the storms, proved to be unpleasant.
There was nothing that the boy could do to change the situation. The impending cold months left the area picked clean of potential morsels by the animals looking to hide away from the elements. He marched forwards. However, ignorance of the clawing that collapsed his insides in pain would not work for long. His entire body felt as though it was rapidly weakening. The frequency and length of breaks that he had to take had only grown over the days since the beginning of his journey into the forests.
Valentin found a rocky overhang that kept the ground below dry and was bade to sit down by his hunger. He reached into the bag to find something to abate his pain, if just for a little longer, however, all he found was disappointment. Valentin believed that he had been frugal with his measly rations but the remaining contents of the bag were now empty. He sighed into the bag and tucked it into his cloak before an unplanned sleep ended his day’s journey.
He woke up and immediately continued walking. His stomach clawed at his insides and screamed in protest. There was nothing left but his own body to fuel himself forward.
In desperation, he ripped of bark and tried to chew on it. The sap and wood emulsified into a sticky paste that would be nearly impossible to swallow without chewing for several minutes. After three bites, his jaw ached and he gave up on his meal.
Further and further he traveled. Until he heard a distant sound that could compete with the downpours that had burrowed deep into his brain over the days. He changed his bearing slightly to move in the direction of the sound and followed it for a short time before the forest started opening up.
Valentin found himself on a rocky outcropping overlooking the ocean. This water was completely foreign to the waters of the bay that Valentin grew up on. The bay was calm and would gently lap the sands of the beaches that surrounded it. This water was violent like almost all the water that he encountered in this sequestered part of the country. The ocean would crash at force into the rocks below and launch massive sprays into the air before retreating into the endless depth below. The water foamed and roared as though there were a massive beast just below the surface.
Storm clouds unleashed thunderous wrath over the tumultuous seas. A curtain of rain descended down, drowning water with water. Valentin stood transfixed for a moment watching the storm, the moniker of his promised power, unleash its full force upon everything around it. If he could have been able to manifest even one of those bolts of blinding light or shaking sounds, he knew he’d have made a difference. He could have changed things.
“I’ve reached the far seas,” Valentin said to no one in particular. His achievement was hollow compared to how he had envisioned it.
The storm drifted inland to share the effects of its rage upon those that walked the land. His day would be cut short while he waited out the danger.
He looked up the coast and saw wooden structures in the distance. A village. Valentin returned to the woods to regain cover from the rain and followed the coastline northwards. A visible goal helped return some purpose to the boy’s traveling. Would the village help him? Had his pursuers reached it first? It mattered little at this moment to the starved and soaked boy. He had no money but would gladly rip the buttons on his jacket for a dry mattress and food to eat.
He hastened his pace with the thoughts of reaching relief. In his mind his stomach had already been filled and his freezing fingers were already dried and warmed. The boy thought that these were such meager desires but who could dare judge someone for possessing them? Is it not natural for all humanity to need these things to feel alive? Valentin found it futile to deny that he had been feeling empty for many days now.
A smell of subdued smoke filled Valentin’s nostrils and awakened his stomach. Was it pork? It had a similar odor. Valentin could see the outlines of the buildings growing larger through the cover of the rain. Visions of warm fires filled Valentin’s mind. His family huddled around the hearth during the especially cold days of Faur. The feeling of hot soup warming his hands through the bowl and the taste of herbs from the windowsill, collected and dried months before. He longed for that comfort that he would have experienced in his home and marched towards the meal that he could obtain.
However it seemed that for Valentin, all blessings were poisoned. The comfortable meal that enticed Valentin was the village itself. Interiors of hovels slowly burned under the oppressive storm. Boats were shattered and pieces still moored to the dock bobbed in the sea. The rain had failed to fully wash away the deep divots in the ground that all stretched into the longhouse. The roof was partially burned but had been put out by the rain. Tendrils of smoke rose from the opening.
Valentin crept through the village. The pillagers may still be nearby. He listened for voices but only the rain and the sea spoke their language of rage. He poked his head into the longhouse. The only thing that disturbed the stillness was the boy and the flickering embers that remained on some of the cloth tapestries and straw stuffed cushions.
A large pile of corpses stacked under the torched hole in the roof. The fires set on them had long since been doused by the rain leaving behind partially scorched bodies. Blood from countless wounds pooled around the pile, unable to be fully washed away by the rain or drank by the earthen ground below. The allure of the smell of the meal brought Valentin to these butchered villagers. The boy leaned against a wall and tried to retch but there were no contents in his stomach to expel as his memories and dreams touched reality.
The incomplete cremation of the bodies meant that the spirits inside were still trapped and tortured by the actions performed against them. Instead, like their blood and other fluids, their souls will ooze into the ground below them and poison the area with their attachments and negative feelings. He could feel their spirits press their faces against the worn skin of the prisons that kept them trapped in this plane. Their screams for release are stifled by rotting meat.
This place will soon be cursed.
He stood before the corpse pile and clasped his hands together. He closed his eyes and recited the death ritual words the best that he could.
“Great Spirit, the souls that you have given are returned to you. Please offer them the peace and justice that they were not given here.” There was more but Valentin could not remember it well enough for it to make a difference.
Valentin’s stomach did not possess the same morals that he had. It protested and growled over the promised meal that hadn’t been delivered. He looked upon the grotesque arrangement in front of him and salivated involuntarily. He shook his head and quickly retreated from the pile, he was still a person and he refused to stoop lower than the base dignity that all were gifted by the Mother.
The boy scoured the longhouse for some surviving morsels of food. He found stew pots that had toppled over, the contents spilled and mostly dissolved into the earth beneath it. There was some liquid that remained in one of them, it had mixed with the rainwater and splashed around inside. He stuck his hand in and sampled a small taste of the remains but it felt vaguely spoiled. He decided would come back to it if he had no other option but he decided to expand his search further.
Braving the nearby strikes of lightning, Valentin slipped from the longhouse to investigate the hovels and shelters that surrounded it. The wind kicked rain and pine needles at Valentin and he covered his eyes with a sleeve.
Many of the hovels were severely damaged by fires outside of the ones that were quickly put out by the weather. There was nothing that served much use to the boy in these hovels as most appeared to be looted by whoever attacked the village. Instead of meticulously pawing his way through the rubble, he continued on his search until he reached a large shed on the backside of the longhouse.
Much of the contents within had been taken from inside. Shelves and racks that would have kept the village alive throughout the cold season of Faur had been stripped bare. All that remained was some sacks of flour and whatever food fell out of the bags and onto the ground. Valentin found a couple raw potatoes on the ground. He left the shed and scurried back to the hovel. He stuck his arm out of the doorway to rinse the food before eating it. The flavor and texture was mealy and dirty as he crunched the vegetable between his teeth.
Now that he was out of the rain, his drenched clothes began to freeze him. Against his better sensibilities and amid the chattering of his teeth, Valentin returned to the small, lingering fires of the longhouse. He took all the flammable and dry items that he could find and stacked it in a pile around a smoldering cushion. He blew on the embers to bring the fire back to life. All the remaining possessions of the village now burned in front of Valentin. He disrobed before the flames and propped up his clothes before the flames to dry them off.
He stood close to the fire and allowed the heat to warm his frozen extremities. His arms and legs, his hands and feet, then finally, his fingers and toes. Eventually, his clothes went from wet to damp to cool to the touch.
He dressed himself and let his clothing warm up on his body. He curled up on the ground alongside the fire, keeping a cushion to the side to use as a pillow. Exhaustion began to claim the boy and he drifted to sleep under the warmth of the fire and thanked the village as well as asked the spirits of the bodies near him for forgiveness.