“It looks like some sorta metal flask.” said the second. The drooping branches shuddered, and Nevin could hear someone trying to push through the foliage. He instinctively slid his feet closer, hoping the abruptness of the motion didn't give away his presence. They didn't move far before the tangle of branches got in the way.
“Hold on there, Biggan. Better to leave it be.”
A short pause, and the rustling stopped. “I mean, it's probably not worth much, but it'll make for a decent souvenir, right? Maybe even bless us with a bit of local wine, you think?”
The first voice grew serious. “Come on, we've got a job to do. Let's get back to the team.”
“Vincht can wait, and you're crazy if you think I'm leaving this worthless forest empty-handed.”
“Look, I don't want to be out here any more than you. The woods aren't a place for men. Not...normal men at least. These country bumpkins make me just as nervous as this trackless forest. They're nothing like the people back home. The things they pray to out here...”
“Oh yeah?” Biggan chuckled. “Like the turnip god?”
Not-Biggan spoke again, his voice low and brimming with agitation. “Don't joke about things like that. Not out here. There are...things...listening. Things without a sense of humor. Things that care very little for the needs and dreams of men.
“Spirits. Ghosts. Forgotten gods.”
Biggan chuckled again. “Oh, come off it, Watts.” Despite his protest, his tone had a edge of uncertainty now.
“Kid, I'm serious.” There was a deep sigh from someone, and Nevin imagined the man named Watts putting his hands on his hips and regarding his partner with a troubled look. “Look, this isn't the first time I've been out to these parts. A few years back, the baron sent a small group of us soldiers into Elbin to investigate a rumor.”
Soldiers? He didn't like the sound of that. Ishen had always warned him to give the baron's military a wide berth should they decide to show themselves on the peninsula. Elbin was under the barony's jurisdiction, but only just. The distance from the capital and difficulty in reaching the little town meant practically no ruling body wanted anything to do with them, leaving them to their own devices for much of their existence. It took a special circumstance to draw them out to the Traagen, and Ishen had explained that many of them didn't appreciate being sent so far from home, sometimes taking advantage of the situation in questionable and immoral ways.
Watts continued. “Rumor was, a local trapper had taken some pelts into Comelbough to trade, and during a conversation with an off-duty constable, he happened to mention running across a strange man out in the deepest parts of these woods.
“Tell me if this sounds familiar. All black garb, wooden mask, glowing eyes...”
Biggan scoffed. “Now I know your just busting my-”
“Hey, I'm just telling you what the guy said. Maybe he was just telling tales, or maybe he really did see exactly what he claimed. We never found that man out here, not for all our looking, but that's not the point. Was a fool's errand from the get-go. Anyone with a half a brain and a tick's knowledge of the land could vanish out here, and we knew it when we set out, but when the baron gives an order, you pack your bags. We made the trek, set up base camp, and spent a few days half-assed combing the woods for any sign of this guy.
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“It wasn't until the last day that we stumbled upon the altar.”
Nevin pressed his free hand into the moist earth and slowly lifted himself, taking some of the weight off his aching shoulder and relaxing the strap's grip on his wrist. The veins in his palm throbbed and bulged as fresh blood rushed through his hand, filling his senseless fingers with warmth and the sting of a thousand needles stabbing in and out of his flesh. He held his breath and waited for it to pass.
Luckily, Watts' story had temporarily convinced Biggan to stay his advances. “What you mean, 'altar'?”
“We'd hired a guide for the first two days,” Watts continued. “A scrawny old goat with what looked like guinea moss growing in the gaps between his rotten teeth - but the field commander got a bad vibe off the guy, like he was leading us in circles and deliberately keeping us from certain areas.
“We still had a day left before we needed to head back, so on the third day, we set off before sunrise without him. We'd already acclimated to the area, and successfully put a lot of country behind us that last day. Feeling confident in our efforts - wasted as they were - we turned back south as the sun began to set.
“We found it in a clearing up in the foothills. Honestly, I don't know how we'd missed it heading up. A number of trails turned and converged directly into that clearing. The trees and underbrush thinned as we got closer. Even the ground itself seemed to funnel us in that direction, rising up each side like it wanted to ensure that the easiest path available to us led directly into that opening in the trees. A focal point.”
There was a sigh. “I don't know. Maybe I'm crazy, but it just felt...purposeful. Like there was no other way it could have happened.”
“Like Fate?” Biggan asked, the energy previously present in his voice now missing, forgotten at the feet of a growing trepidation.
“Like I said, I don't know. Maybe, maybe not.” Nevin pictured Watts shaking his head. “Fate can be a cruel bitch, for certain, but this...this was something else. The clearing itself was nothing special. A field of wild grasses and flower blossoms. A barely noticeable slope leading down from the mountains. A pile of old stones and rotting planks where a hovel once stood.
“But the altar...It stood right at the center of it all, ringed by clusters of delicate white flowers no bigger than your pinkie. At their center, a monument with the grizzled head of a ram carved from a chipped stone the color of bone meal. Bits of animal and plant matter in various stages of decay occupied any surface flat enough to hold them. It reeked of death, and a hint of something...else. Like the air surrounding a smith's shop on a windy day. Metallic. Acrid. The kind of smell you feel in the back of your throat.”
Nevin cocked his head as he listened, growing more and more disconcerted by the man's story as Watts continued. The Traagen Peninsula stretched out for well over a hundred square miles this side of the Hyret Gorge. Not a small area by any means, but having spent nearly a decade of his life exploring the tangled woods and open fields, navigating the quiet streams as they meandered south from the mountains to gather in shallow ponds teeming with speckled trout and orange-fin perch, and dozing beneath the drooping boughs of silver maples and ageless elms, Nevin felt at home in these woods. Safe, and at peace in ways that living in Dalen's barn had never provided.
When he could, he and Aidux would spend days at time lost in the wilderness with nothing but each other's company, before slinking regretfully back to the meager civilization that Elbin had to offer. He eventually grew into a comfortable familiarity with the layout of the peninsula: the places frequented by local trappers, the southern cliffs, the hidden groves of wild pears and blackberry bushes, abandoned animal dens, areas of unusually stunted or blighted growth, even places so deeply removed from the touch of man that the air literally vibrated with the raw energy of unbridled nature.
Many of these places held special significance to him, having been used by he and his best friend as a temporary refuge from the uglier sides of life, minuscule slices of an idyllic existence he'd often dreamed he would finally find once he worked up the nerve to set out and leave the Traagen behind.
And in all those excursions, in all those days spent combing the woods, Nevin had never once happened upon a clearing with a ram's head altar. It made him question how much he really knew about the lands he called his home.