13 | The Reaper
Eli has always hated snakes.
This one can hardly be called such, more a skeleton kept alive by vines and sickly pink flowers Eli has never before seen. Its jaw is large and unhinged from its skull. Eli doesn’t know what it plans to do with them once it’s caught them—it has no stomach to feed.
“Be very quiet,” he whispers to Klia.
Wondering if the new Order will help him identify this creature, he focuses on it as he once did, but is rewarded with nothing, not even a mocking poem. Unhelpful. Always unhelpful at the worst of times.
But the creature is massive. As it slithers down the trunk with a crack of bones, it bends and breaks one of the branches. As its tail end curls around the trunk, it cracks it. Eli cocks his head. If it is strong enough to break a younger tree’s trunk, certainly, it can do so with this one. Not much of a helpful thought, not when there’s no reason it would attempt to do so, but Eli wonders if there is perhaps some way to trick it, as this forest has tricked him.
Klia’s breath hitches. He wonders if any of her magic matching her brother’s could be used against this creature. Now is likely not the best time to try to get a small child to fight a monster, particularly when she wouldn’t even perform a little demonstration for him earlier. Stepping out from behind the tree, he attempts to attract the snake to him as he had with the cat, but its flat face is trailed on Klia, even when he strikes his hands together sharply.
He steps back in front of the little girl.
It strikes.
Eli barely steps out of range of its face, biting snout and large fangs digging into the dead bark before ripping out splinters.
Something moves beneath his feet.
Glancing down, he finds the ferns bending their fronds toward his pack and is momentarily too confused to know what to do, before remembering just what he packed away in there.
His old sword.
His old sword, which the Order wants to consume.
Eli wonders…
Carefully, never taking his eyes off the coiling creature, he crouches and withdraws the hilt from the blankets and scabbard, the blade gleaming in the dying sunlight. With jerky movements, the snake’s hollow eye-sockets follow the sword, distracted from Klia. With grim satisfaction and the wish he’d sharpened the thing, Eli backs away, shooing Klia farther from him, drawing the monster toward him. He hates to lose it, hates to let go of something such a part of him for such a long time. Carefully, he rubs his thumb against the worn hilt, regretting its loss.
“I’m so very sorry, my old friend,” he murmurs and hopes the girl does not hear him.
Grasping the hilt with both hands, he drives it into the crack of the tree with all his might. With a breath to spare, he twists around the tree’s dead trunk, ducking down as the snake strikes where he was moments ago. Scrambling away and to his feet, he watches the monster wrap itself around the blade, giant body twining and twining around the tree, trying to squeeze the blade in the trunk to death as it would its prey.
The trunk snaps and topples to the ground, a massive curved structure enough of a hole to crawl under.
“Klia,” he orders, calmer than expected, “go under the trunk now, it’s hollow. Hide under there. I’ll join you in a moment.”
Eyes trailing the snake and wide with terror, the girl scampers under the shelter of the trunk, small enough under the large thing she doesn’t even have to fully crawl.
Retrieving his sickle, Eli slices the head off the snake where it slowly cuts itself to death on the dull blade of his ancient weapon. It writhes tighter, further crumbling the base of the stump it’s attached to. With the snap of metal, he hears his sword shatter. Well made as it was, some strength is even too much for fine steel, and the strength of the mutated Order is unknowable.
With a too-tight throat, Eli watches the pieces of it hit the ground as the snake finally drops, movements becoming less and less violent. For good measure, he cuts it into dozens of small pieces, slicing through the joints of the spine, kicking the head far into the ferns, and kicking aside the bloody dark petals in disgust.
Bone Soul Snake
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Steal the breath from within your lungs, curse it in a thousand tongues—
Bitterly, Eli dismisses the too-late message and snatches up his pack. Wriggling down into the spacious cavern created by the fallen log, he drags a larger section of the shattered trunk over the hole, sealing them in completely.
* * *
In the dark, Eli observes the faintly shimmering message of his Order
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Elijah Jyce
the Reaper, the Unknown, the Elder
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10/10 Buds | 4/10 Roots | 1/5 Filaments
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Stems
Bladewielder (15)
Klia is asleep in the crook of his arm, both of them laying in the fragrant soil in the dark safety of the fallen trunk. Sporadic sounds can be heard outside, but nothing has so much as thumped against the hollow bark in the hour they’ve been beneath it. His satisfaction at a plan decently executed is only out-shadowed by the loss of the weapon he held dear for so long. Such is the way of things, and he has lost much worse, but perhaps this is why it aches. One more little thing to add to all his little—and not so little—griefs.
Putting a mushroom in his mouth, he stuffs the pack of them away. Klia only ate a few before turning them down. Likewise, she didn’t seem to want much water. Eli wonders, a little offhandedly, if she is entirely human. Certainly, she seems human enough. Either way, it would not matter. She is his granddaughter, and Abner’s little girl, he will love her no matter what he learns her and her brother to be.
He will love Thistle as well, he knows, even if the boy hates him for the rest of his life.
the Reaper.
Focusing on it, he’s presented with something akin to the messages the Order once gave him.
the Reaper
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Kill the monsters we have made, slay each one with the curve of a blade.
Human blood will always be paid, your heart and kin will never fade.
Morbid. Nothing Eli would not have expected from such a title. He touches his fingertips to the wrapped handle of his sickle, comforted by its presence and the lack of draw it has to these monsters and corrupted magic. It must know the weapon is here, for the title of Reaper, but doesn’t seem to realize it is as much a foe as his old sword.
Fascinating.
The thought is more than a little dry. Eli is exhausted. He has slept on much harder surfaces than soft earth and fern fronds too dead to harm them, but he was a much younger man then. Things could be worse, but it’s no use telling his body so. There should be a river close since they are somewhat following the same direction as the path if the trees do not trick them again in the morning, and it will do both him and the little girl good to have fresh water and something hot to drink.
She did well today. Eli himself doesn’t know if he would’ve done so well in such circumstances when he was a child. He readjusts his arms around her. She’s very light, not causing him any discomfort, and it’s nice to have her warmth inside his coat. Certainly, he’ll keep her plenty warm, even in the bitter cold of these nights without a fire. Under the log, and with her inside his warm coat, he doesn’t believe he’ll shiver.
Certainly, he should be better attempting to sleep.
When he does, he dreams of Abner and snakes.
* * *
Morning comes for them, and Eli wishes it hadn’t.
Groaning, he rubs at his face. One thing he’ll say about such utter exhaustion: he slept all the way through the night. Not an easy task. Despite his grumblings, Klia doesn’t stir.
Though the slight cracks in the hollow trunk, he spots the faintest early morning light. Part of him wishes to get the quickest, earliest start he can, the smaller and wiser part of him knows this is still the time for prowling monsters. He will wait just a little while longer, and let the kid sleep.
Instead, he tries to plan out where to go from here. Follow the path through the ferns, certainly. Hit the river he knows to be in this area, hopefully. Pray he sees no signs of blood or clothing or anything that would spell Thistle's distress as they follow the path, definitely.
But afterward? When I’ve retrieved the boy, what will we do?
He wishes to return to what remains of the city he once called home, but wonders if the world is similar enough that he will even find his way. People in the village should help him—he was always friendly as he could be when he hauled his wares down the slope once a year. If nothing else, he will be able to gather some information. He has visited before, there is nothing different in visiting again.
But somewhere in his chest, this time feels different. Perhaps it is only because he discovered he has two grandchildren only the day before yesterday, and that his son may be in grave danger. But he is worried what he will find when he meets other people once again. Will more people be as those Unknown monsters? Eli knows there is no proof they were once men but feels a sick twist to his soul when he considers them, and more worried still when he wonders what they could want with the children. Lack of mindless killing is a relief but also rather unsettling. It means there is something stranger going on, and Eli feels too old and overwhelmed for the test.
This needs a younger man.
But no younger men are to be had, at least none Eli would know to trust. He thinks of his brother, older than him and always weaker, and where he knows him to be safe. No, he will not go to him, not unless he is desperate, because he is old and sickly and Eli doesn’t wish to drag trouble to his door. It is the only reason he’s stayed away as it is—he will not appear now things are even worse.
Klia stirs and blinks up at him, rubbing her face. She makes a gesture he doesn’t understand, and Eli thinks this will be much easier when they get some paper or at least open dirt she can write in. Not much room in this fallen tree.
“I still don’t know what you’re saying, dear,” he grumbles. “It is time to leave this place. Hopefully, the sun is up enough.”
She dramatically thumps her face into his chest but wriggles out of his coat. Eli chuckles dryly. Swearing at his aches and pains, he shoves aside the broken slice of wood he used to block their entrance, pushing himself out into the warming air, taking in their surroundings before Klia crawls out after. Ferns are still reaching for them, but nothing large and threatening has yet presented itself. Eli strains his hearing and picks up nothing but the gentle breeze.
Hopefully, whatever spell was upon them the evening before was broken with the tree.
Glancing at what remains of the splintered stump, Eli nudges a few of the snake’s vertebrae with the toe of his boot. Already, what remained of the shards of his sword are overgrown with little vines, pulled into the earth as weapons tend to do with this new Order. Eli knew, before he crawled into the log, that this would be its fate. He kept nothing of the tiny pieces of metal because they will serve him no purpose other than to draw more attention to their path. Bending, he picks one of the hilt’s silver pieces out of the grass, a harmless lump of metal no larger than his fingernail, ignored by the forest. Into his pocket, he tucks it and turns to find Klia’s ever-watching eyes upon him.
“Let us hope these trees do not turn us in circles again, hmm?” When she makes no acknowledgment, he asks, “What were you trying to say earlier?”
In the dirt, she writes, Thistle.
“We’ll find him. Can you still tell he is alright?”
She nods.
“And we’re in the right direction?”
She points down their path.
“Then let us catch up to him, shall we?”
Grabbing his pack, he uses the tip of his sickle to find and pick up whatever rodent he speared the night before, holding it up to eye level. This one is not turned to earth, just violent, and he has eaten plenty of animals in such a state since the magic was corrupted. He will take a quick stop to cook it when they reach the river, and Klia should like it better than the mushrooms.
Keeping a hand on the girl’s shoulder, Eli starts down the path and prays the forest does not test him.