Brittle and Rochelle traveled along the stream for hours. Gray early morning light seeped between the gaps in the trees, chasing the unrelenting darkness away. A dense blanket of fog rolled in shortly after. Sometime during the night Brittle and Rochelle had switched positions. The bog log beast led with his once brazen human companion following at a deteriorating pace. Each time Brittle glanced worriedly over his shoulder, he found Rochelle falling further and further behind.
“Rochelle?” Brittle slowed his pace to a crawl. Not a full stop, as the fast-moving current would have swept his numb legs out from beneath him had he tried. Concerned she hadn’t heard him, Brittle called her name once more. “Rochelle.”
The teenager slogged forward with stiff steps, her arms wrapped protectively around her midsection. What had first started as innocuous shivers were now full body trembles.
“Rochelle!”
Rochelle’s head snapped up at him with a startled jerk. “Huh?”
“Something’s wrong. You’re freezing, aren’t you?”
Rochelle stubbornly pressed forward, teeth chattering together. “I’m fine.”
“You’re not. We need to stop and get you warm.” Brittle would have offered her his moss and lichen coat had he thought it would have helped. Given his size, it would have been like offering a washcloth in place of a blanket. Didn’t help that it was completely soaked through from the fog, either.
Rochelle shook her head. “I can’t.”
“You’re–”
“I can’t,” she repeated. “If I stop now, I stop for good. We have to reach the edge of the forest first. It’ll be daylight soon. I can warm up then.”
“We could at least get out of the water,” Brittle said. “It wouldn’t hurt to walk along it for a while. Give you a chance to get dry.”
“The water’s the only thing keeping the dogs off our trail.”
“What dogs?” Brittle challenged. He stopped looking over his shoulder and spun around, placing his balled up fists at his sides. The current bowled into him, nearly sweeping him away with it. Brittle adjusted his weight between his legs and kept his balance. “The dogs went quiet, Rochelle. You heard the same thing I did.”
Shuddering, Brittle recalled the thundering howl of the pack the moment they’d reached the stream. Their barks and brays grew more frenzied as they worked up and down the bank, lost the scent, and then circled back to the start all over again. This went on for some time until, one by one, the dogs each fell eerily silent.
“Whatever Sprig did,” Brittle continued, fighting the sudden churn in his stomach. There wasn’t anything left in it to upend, but that didn’t stop the constant waves of nausea that came and went without warning. “I think it was enough. I…I don’t think there’s anything left to follow us.”
“You don’t know Rodrick,” Rochelle replied through clenched, chattering teeth. “He won’t stop. Not until Granddad and I are dead.”
“He’s not following us.”
“You don’t know that.”
“You know what? You’re right. I don’t. But it doesn’t matter, does it? Because you’re doing the job for him anyway, aren’t you?” Brittle shot back. Too mean, he realized, seeing the way Rochelle’s expression collapsed in on itself. He softened his tone to something more pleading. “Humans aren’t meant to stay in the water this long, Rochelle. Keep pushing yourself like this, and Rodrick gets his wish regardless of whether or not he’s still out there.”
Rochelle wanted to argue. Her dark eyes said as much. But, whereas her spirit was willing, her flesh was weak. Too weak to do little more than glare.
Couldn’t hurt to use his manners, Brittle supposed. That and the saddest voice he could muster. “Please?”
With a feeble shake of her head, Rochelle slogged through the icy current to the edge of the stream and clambered up onto the embankment. Brittle hurried after, knowing better than to mention it. Scrambling for footholds, Brittle hoisted his hollow trunk up onto the grassy bank and assumed to lead once more.
While warmer, the going wasn’t any easier. Brittle picked his way around the broken stumps, bottomless pits of mud, and gnarled sticker bushes that lined the embankment. Rochelle merely followed, too spent to complain each time they had to backtrack and find another way around an unforeseen obstacle. The cool air gradually warmed around them as the light shifted from gray to yellow. The mist thinned, as did the trees, allowing Brittle to catch glimpses of the nearing mountains from time to time.
Brittle’s hopes burned hot, swelling within his chest. They were nearly there. They’d made it!
Enjoying the story? Show your support by reading it on the official site.
The early morning light spread, glowing like blankets of gold across the cold, gray ground. The edge of the forest ended up ahead. Brittle seized Rochelle by the arm and pulled for all he was worth. It was like lugging a stubborn boulder. He persisted, intent on getting her out from under the forest canopy and into the sun. Caught up in what felt like an impossible task, Brittle didn’t realize he and Rochelle weren’t alone until it was too late.
The haggard shape of a man slipped out from behind the final line of trees and staggered into their path.
“Thought you got away, didn’t you?” Sheriff Rodrick’s hacking cough reverberated along the trees. He staggered closer, one leg dragging slightly behind the other. The skin on his face was singed black with smoke and his greasy hair was peppered white with bits of cooled ash, but it was his eyes that frightened Brittle the most. Both weepy, bloodshot eyes were wide and lit with the rabid gleam of an animal gone mad.
“Your demon may have run off my dogs, but not me. Didn’t need them once I reached the stream anyway,” Rodrick said between wet, sputtering coughs. “Figured you were following it out.”
Brittle spun around. “Run!”
Rochelle tried, bless her. But her legs gave out mid-turn and she collapsed into a shivering heap. Brittle pulled, urging her to get up, but it was to no avail. Rochelle’s trembling legs refused to bear weight.
Sheriff Rodrick staggered forward, drawing the sword strapped to his side. “It ends now.” His rabid stare was fixed on Rochelle as though he couldn’t see anything else. Unlike his words, which didn’t seem directed at anyone at all. “I took care of the old man and now I’ll take care of you. I’ll break the curse if it’s the last thing I do.”
With Brittle’s help, Rochelle managed to drag her unwilling body several yards. She might have kept going too, if it had not been for the stream of consciousness spilling from the sheriff’s mouth. “Took care of the old man?” Rochelle repeated. She gazed up at Brittle as pain flooded her face. “What does he mean?”
“Rochelle!” Brittle pleaded, still pulling. It was to no avail. Her body had gone limp.
“What does he mean, Brittle?”
“We have to go!”
Rochelle batted him away, glaring over her shoulder at Rodrick, shoulders heaving as tears streaked down her muddied face. “What did you do?”
Sheriff Rodrick spun the tip of his sword in their direction and advanced, slowly. “I did what I should have done years ago, when you and your blasted family first dared to show your faces in my village.”
Brittle was helpless. He couldn’t move Rochelle on his own any more than he could stop the advancing sheriff. Help was out of the question. He couldn’t run, he couldn’t fight, he could barely breathe around the hot, suffocating fear tightening around his throat. He did the only thing he could think to do, the only thing he’d ever been good at. “Stop!”
To his surprise, the sheriff lurched to a halt. Rodrick was just as surprised. He glared down at his disobedient feet, looking for a logical explanation as to why the pair were suddenly fixed to the ground.
The hot, buzzing sensation from before returned. Brittle flinched as the scorching heat flooded his hollow bones. The surrounding blanket of mist evaporated against his bark hide, causing the air to shimmer with eerie green light. Normally Brittle would have had a lot more to say. He would have tried to reason with the sheriff, convince him that turning back was in everyone’s best interest, and offer a hundred different reasons as to why, but something was different. A single word issued from his tightly clenched mouth. Its weight struck with the force of an iron anvil.
“Leave.”
Rodrick’s spellbound feet started to obey. The sheriff fought them, wrangling the disobedient pair back under his control. His bloodshot stare lifted from Rochelle to Brittle. “Your witchcraft has no power over me, foul demon.”
“I said leave!” Brittle slammed his foot against the ground. The soil buckled, rolling forward like a giant mole underground.
The tremor nearly knocked the sheriff from his feet. He staggered several steps before finding stable footing once more. Unlike his balance, the mad gleam in his eyes was unwavering. Rodrick slid his front foot forward, unperturbed by the dazzling cloud of green, crystalized light that danced in the early morning sun. His back foot followed, steadily closing the gap between them.
Rochelle was frozen in place, her face contorted in horror. The green glow grew brighter as the crisp air turned hot. Sparks snapped and popped overhead, but Sheriff Rodrick pitched forward unfazed. Dried pine needles crunched underfoot with each laborious step.
“Stay back or I’ll–” the rest of Brittle’s warning was drowned out by Sheriff Rodrick’s scream.
It was unworldly. A sound that belonged to neither man nor beast, but monster. The sheriff charged, sword clenched between both hands, and bounded forward. The green air blazed brighter and blinded his path. Amidst the swirl of dazzling green, popping light, Brittle saw Rodrick’s blurred shape trip over his own feet and fall forward. The ghoulish scream emitting from the man’s lips turned shrill.
Brittle fell to his knees beside Rochelle. He held her, trembling, unable to look away as the sheriff’s thrashing body collapsed against the ground and went still. Silence descended. The sheriff’s scream died away, but Brittle could still hear it, ringing in the hollow of his ears. Oddly, the echo was the only thing he could hear. There was no early morning birdsong, or wind whipping through the trees, not even Rochelle’s ragged, sobbing breath.
Fearing the worst, Brittle whipped his head around and searched Rochelle’s face only to find something worse than the worst. Rochelle’s tear-stricken face was motionless, like a statue, frozen in time.
“Rochelle?” He waved his hand in front of her eyes to no avail. Terror tightened like a noose around the base of his neck as Brittle took in his surroundings, realizing the dazzling shimmer of green crystal light had gone eerily still as well. The surrounding patch of forest was as stationary as a painting and the only element capable of movement appeared to be him.
Hot panic bloomed inside his chest. Brittle’s gaze moved along the frozen trees and settled unexpectedly on the cloaked form standing a ways behind him, obscured by the shadows of the trees. Their eyes met and, with a grim smile, the woman stepped hesitantly closer, pulling the hood from her head.
Brittle gasped, unable to form words.
“Hello, little one.”