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The war in the Four Territories had spread rapidly as a spilled glass of water following the fall of the River Cities. Korschey had broken a treaty that stood for a thousand years, and this became known sea to sea within a matter of days.
Even the Midtrade City had not remained neutral in the conflict. Korschey had retained it after the death of Aisultan - its people and resources lost to the rest of the states. The comfort of the inns and respite from the road closed to the few remaining travelers through the harsh landscape surrounding it.
The motivations behind the war itself were unclear. It seemed that Korschey had started it for his own gaiety or perhaps his ego. The North had not been involved in the previously building conflict between the East and South. But now, his armies moved through the lands and pressed back the other kingdoms, leaving behind them only scarcity and grief - if not complete decimation. Requests for negotiations from their officials met only silence from the Northern King.
Val wandered the forest for three days, never reaching the Deep Wood.
The trees remained gently swaying in the breeze, the sunlight peeking through their branches. Not so long ago, the forest stood gray amidst winter. Now, the wildflowers pushed their way through to color the floor of it in purples, yellows, whites, and blues. She had not recalled it taking so very long to get to the dark tangle of trees that housed the Nothing.
Maybe she’d gotten lost.
It felt as if every night, the trees around her would change. Spending evenings by a small fire, she never let the hunter’s journal out of her hands. It spoke mostly of creatures and concoctions, but it was incomplete.
She read those pages repeatedly, but it was hard to imagine some of the nonsense they had notated. Even having seen the Nothing-touched, the claims made in the book had seemed a bit ridiculous.
Like a man as tall as four men made entirely of clay, who walked and talked and gained a month of life for every one man he consumed, and it was written that Erlan had bound him for seven days and on the eighth, he’d dried out and fell apart. It was interesting that the writer had always seemed to come up with these clever, elaborate tasks to save the day.
She suspected maybe the narrator could not be trusted.
And then there were the other entries. She ran her fingers carefully over them, taking care to only barely touch them. She felt the man who wielded the pen jotting down in his broken handwriting the notes that had been so unhelpful in her learning.
Yet, they were his. And they were beautiful.
And once upon a time the journal had been his as well.
She still carried his blanket in her pack, unwashed, and his scent clung to it - intoxicating her with the deepest longing for sandalwood and bergamot oil.
It began feeling impossible to find the Glade.
She could return to the village… to live out her life in misery until the war had come to claim them like it had so many other settlements. It was not so long that all she wanted was to get back there. Now, things were different.
Val realized just how different she had become. She had nothing in common with them.
That is, except for Inna, her mother. She’d known the worst of it: the River Cities and the Wound. But she did not speak of this, and when Val’s father died, she had spent only a year crying over him before settling into quiet acceptance.
Perhaps her heart had been too weak because Val could not do the same. It felt like she had been divided into two and could only keep one of the halves.
She laid out the journal. Several entries in it spoke of rituals - although very few explanations were written down on what they accomplished. The journal had been a sort of reminder for the hunters as to what they’d done and should do again. It was never meant to be a textbook for someone without experience in these matters.
But, one by one, she would try them all. Already, she’d left a piece of bread by a fox’s hollow at midnight. She’d washed her hands thrice in moving waters and thrice in standing. All she’d gotten from that were some hives up to her elbows.
Three times around the oak with the sun, three times against the light.
What did it mean? Night and day? For her to go clockwise?
Val groaned and rubbed her eyes. Half her time was spent trying to interpret Erlan’s train of thought, the other half figuring out the other handwriting.
She stood, keeping her hands with her fingers running across the uneven, dark bark, and she went counterclockwise three times. Then, turning, she did the same in the other direction.
Again, nothing happened.
“Gods.” She sighed again, her arms falling at her sides, dejected.
“Which ones?”
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Val yelped and jumped away from the tree trunk. A long white beard protruded from behind it, but its owner remained unseen.
“The tree ones? The swamp? The butter? Which ones?” The beard repeated.
“The tree?” Val said carefully, thinking quickly of everything she had read - and trying to figure out if this was what she intended to summon. The ritual was listed under guides…
“Well good thing, because look at all of them. You’ll get lots of answers from the tree gods here. Lots.” He stepped forward from behind the oak.
It was a kindly-looking old man with a long white beard. He’d worn a traveler’s hat and leaned lightly on a walking stick. His clothes were simple, and his shoes looked awfully worn… and backward...
And, they were not backward as one would accidentally put the left shoe on the right foot. They were backward because his heel had pointed forward - and toe behind. Two bushy eyebrows matching his beard in their snowy color concealed his eyes from view.
“I was asking them to help me find a path.” She watched him with cautious interest. He seemed to be taking a break from a long walk, but she had not even heard him come up.
“What path is that? I know many!” He exclaimed excitedly, turning ever so slightly more toward her. “A path to the stream, a path to the valley, a path full of wisdom and a path full of folly!”
Val’s eyes again stopped on his backward feet. She couldn’t recall reading about anything with backward feet.
A price would have to be paid for the way forward. She did not wish for the price to be her life as it often was with the Nothing-touched, but he was already here, and she had little choice. She’d already begun.
“I seek the Hag’s Glade.” She said firmly.
The muscles of his face shifted, although it did not betray what emotion that indicated.
“You have summoned, and I came; for you to waste it would be a shame!” He sang out. “How do you like my rhymes?”
Caught a bit by surprise, Val could not help but give a little smile. He was… pleasant.
“They’re lovely, Grandfather.” She told him. At this, he, too, smiled.
“No sense in calling me a grandfather of yours, Bandureek will do.” He said cheerily. “Come now, let’s be on our way.”
She barely had a moment to gather her things as the old man walked off. He did not wait for her, and she had to run to catch up.
They walked for a long time, the old man chirping to himself about one thing or another.
It seemed that he was perfectly content with the sound of his own voice and company alike.
But then, he stopped, spinning around to face her. It was so unexpected that Val nearly ran into him at full speed.
“And not another step I’ll take until in a riddle you partake.” He said with a big grin on his face, “And should your answer not be true, I’ll break your bones, and I’ll eat you.”
There it was.
Val swallowed the initial feeling of fear, reminding herself that this was not unexpected.
“Go ahead.” She assured him.
“In shadows deep, I make my bed,
Leaving but questions where I tread.
With feathers fine and eyes that see,
I haunt the night, up in a tree.
What am I?”
He’d nearly danced with glee. She could only nod, lowering her head in thought. It had been a bird, but was this to be a trick question? A trap?
“An owl.” She told him suddenly. “It asks questions, like ‘who?’ in the night.”
“Correct!” He turned back around, continuing through the forest in the best of moods.
It was still light, but Val’s legs ached as if they had not stopped walking for days. She hadn’t eaten since the night before but was afraid to ask him for a break—creatures such as he were unpredictable.
“Into the woods, we will not go until the answer I should know.” He turned again to her, “And should your answer not be true, I’ll break your bones, and I’ll eat you.”
Again, she nodded to him.
“A creature of darkness, in the forest I live,
My voice is a bellow, a bite I will give.
On four legs, my mouth is a maw,
I prowl in the night, and my feasts are raw.
What am I?”
This one had been easy and Val began to become suspicious.
“A wolf.” She said, and he clapped rapidly.
They walked again. The feeling descended on Val that perhaps he was leading her in circles, as the scenery around them did not particularly change despite the hours upon hours of moving forward. Thankfully, she’d been able to pull a crust of bread out of her pack and eat it as they walked, although it did give her very untimely hiccups.
“Toward the Glade toward the mire, answer my riddle as I desire.” A third time, he stopped without warning, “And should your answer not be true, I’ll break your bones, and I’ll eat you.”
“For god’s sake…”
“Which one?”
“Please, go on.” She cringed but felt a semblance of pride at the exchange as his cheeks flew up in a smile, reddening. She could play at the game, too.
“With twisted limbs and scales that whisper,
In ancient groves, I am their master.
My age is old, my wisdom vast,
In tangled woods, my secrets last.
What am I?”
Gods. Val looked at him blankly. Where the other two seemed fairly obvious, this had not been. She recited it back but had been so nervous on the spot that she had forgotten nearly half the words.
“Could you repeat, please?” She asked politely.
“No!” He answered with the enthusiasm of a yes.
Her first thought was that he meant the Leshy, the Eternal Evergreen. But, the first line had thrown her off.
She stared into the trees ahead, wondering if she had just taken off - could he catch her?
The answer was a very likely yes. And so, she stood dumbfounded. The Bandureek watched her with such intensity one would think he had eyes to watch her with at all.
Val panicked.
It spread through her body as her heart begged to run. A breeze rustled the leaves above, and somewhere, it broke off a small branch from a poplar tree. Its rough shape fell only mere feet from them, the silvery leaves catching the light and shining as metal would. As fish scales would.
“A tree!” She exclaimed before she could even think about it. At this, his face fell a little, and she thought for sure that she was wrong.
“You’re right.” He said, and without anything further, pushed his way through the brush ahead.
As Val followed, directly through the scratchy bushes was a clearing—a vast clearing with a hill lined with big white boulders and a dark wooden hut atop it.
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