”And then you woke up here?” the man asked, confusion in his voice, as the crackling fire lit up his face in an irregular pattern of splashing light. However faint the light was, it still managed to reveal the man's vague cheekbones. Wymond was his name. He had revealed it on the way to the camp. Hints of his square jaw showed through the contour of his dark beard, his bushy eyebrows mercilessly laid shadow upon his forehead. Somehow, the stoicism of the man was betrayed even by the way he sat, opposite to Godwyn.
”There’s another thing,” Godwyn added.
”What other thing?”
”In that darkness… there was something… someone.”
Wymond lowered his eyebrows as he sat in silence, patiently waiting for Godwyn to continue.
”It talked to me… but not exactly” he said. ”The words echoed through my mind but no voice was to be heard.”
”And what did this voice-without-a-voice feel like?” He leaned forward out of intrigue.
”It felt… motherly,” he answered. The answer had come to him as clearly as the fire that burned beside them. It was instinctive, a thoughtless thought.
”Gods…” Wymond mumbled to himself. Breaking his apparent train of thought, he continued, “Well, we better get you someplace to stay if you’re not to be eaten out ‘ere.”
Godwyn silently agreed, as he continued to sit there, staring blankly into the fire, lost in an ocean of thoughts.
“You can stay here for the night, of course,” the man said with a great exhale as he stood up from his seat. “I’ll get another bedding for you, so you don’t ‘ave to lie on the ground.”
Lying there in the pitch black darkness of the night, the only thing Godwyn could do was to seethe in the absurdness of his situation. But beyond all the fear and confusion there was still a sense of comfort resting on his shoulders, still managing to hold him onto the ground. It was the vast wilderness surrounding him and, in a sense, he now felt more connected with it than ever before.
Waking up the next morning as the sun started to shine upon him, he felt surprisingly well rested for the miniscule amount of sleep he had managed to cram out of the night. As he sat up from the attempt of a bed he saw that Wymond was sitting on one of the logs around the fire, facing away from Godwyn, and seemed to be writing in a notebook of some kind. On his back Godwyn noticed a blade. It had been too dark for him to notice it the night before, but now he saw it clearly. It wasn’t long, but wide and double sided, with one edge curving in towards the handle, opposite the guard. The thing seemed mechanical in some way, and he had certainly never seen or heard of any blade like it. From the pommel of the blade there hung a small chain that reached behind the man’s right side.
“There’re rations in that bag by the tent if you’re feelin’ hungry,” the man said, still faced away from him, and feeling like not having eaten for days, Godwyn reached for the bag without much thought. The tent itself was barely that – more akin to a mildly large garment strung over a few rods, merely as an effort to keep their packing dry in the event of sudden rainfall. He pulled out what seemed like a stiff piece of bread, almost small enough to fit within the palm of his hand. As he was taking a bite out of the dense, dry bread he barely noticed Wymond walking over and sitting down beside him. “One o’ those’ll feed a grown man for a day, you know,” he stated with great confidence as he grabbed one of the rations, wrapped it in a thin piece of cloth, and slid it in a side compartment of a small bag hanging from his belt.
Wymond stood up and started packing up the tent, shoving it within another compartment of the bag where the rations were, before stringing the whole thing up on his shoulders. The bag had a clearly designated space between it and Wymond’s lower back to leave room for the blade upon his back.
“Have you no horse?” Godwyn spoke in what he only realised after was an act of rudeness.
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“What need have I for a steed, if my business is on the road?” Wymond said nonchalantly, explicitly forgiving Godwyn’s crude tone.
Godwyn could now see that the chain from the blade on Wymond’s back connected to a shackle on his right hand wrist, posing the question of if he could ever be separated from the blade should he even wish for it.
They walked for a few hours along the road through the woods, Godwyn following Wymonds every step. After a long period of silence Wymond stopped – Godwyn following his example directly after. A thin layer of mist had laid its grasp upon the woods around them. Wymond, still facing ahead, continued to stand there for a few seconds, before relieving the silence, “stay close, and tell me if you see anyone.” There was none of his previous charm in his voice as he said this, and the way he said it was almost fear inducing compared to their previous interactions.
Now on edge and not knowing what to think, Godwyn continued to follow the man in silence as he proceeded onward.
The mist grew ever denser as they walked on through the deep woods. Godwyn could barely see the trees closest to them at this point, which filled him with a great sense of dread and paranoia. They were now following a path that had split from the road some few kilometres ago. Godwyn wasn’t exactly sure of where Wymond was taking him, but he trusted that it would be somewhere he would be safe to orient himself in this strange part of the land. After all, Wymond had told him he would find him some place to stay, and it was clear that he had a place in mind.
A gut wrenching scream of pure agony echoed through the surrounding forest as Wymond instinctively drew the blade from his back. As if someone being repeatedly stabbed with a serrated blade, before having all their intestines ripped out and laid beside them as they could do nothing but watch and scream in anguish for the pain and torment to stop. The voice seemed female of origin, but due to the echo, it was unclear to Godwyn which direction it came from. He glanced at Wymond some five metres ahead of him and saw that he was equally confused regarding the sound's direction, as he glanced around them in a focused, attentive manner.
“Help!” the woman blurted out again. Godwyn could tell that the woman was of deteriorating health due to the voice’s almost inhumane distortions.
“Gods please, please help me,” she proceeded. It was soul crushing to have to witness someone go through such pain. After stepping off the path he could hear that she was getting closer.
“No, leave it!” Wymond shouted towards him, just having noticed what Godwyn was doing as he hastily walked through the forest towards the screaming woman.
He could see the violence taking place in his head without making an effort to imagine it, as he frantically looked around him for any sign of the woman, and just as he turned around, there she stood. She was some 15 metres away from him, slowly walking towards him with the strange, short stepped walk of someone clearly hurt. Her arms hung on either side of her body – limp. As she grew closer the unsettling nature of this person grew clearer in his head. Her body proportions were off, as well as her movement. Her skin was an inorganic shade of grey and the closer she grew the more apparent it became that her face was distorted in an inhuman manner, and what Godwyn had at first thought to be hair was just the bulbous, oblong head of the thing.
It stopped a mere five metres away from him before tilting its head back as an ensemble of spikes and limbs began to protrude out of its chest cavity that opened up akin to the sight of a fed upon carrion. As the creature lashed out towards him he could see Wymon in the corner of his eye, launching himself at the creature in a spinning motion, unleashing a flurry of attacks. It redirected its attention towards Wymond and launched sporadic counter attacks using its array of violent spikes and limbs, while also using a few of the limbs to support its new form off the ground.
Godwyn stood frozen and watched as Wymond and the creature battled, the paralysing fear rendering him unable to move a muscle of his own accord.
“Godwyn, run!” Wymond shouted as he glimpsed that Godwyn was still standing where he stood. “Back to the trail!”
But Godwyn remained. He watched as the evils of this world tried to take his one and only hope of survival away from him.
A lash of the creature forced Wymond into a collision with Godwyn where he stood.
“Fuck, Godwyn!” Wymond grunted as he tripped backwards, pushed Godwyn out of the way and spun around to land in a more recoverable position while the boy fell backwards with little resistance.
As it approached Godwyn lying on the ground he felt a sudden switch inside his mind – from terror, to an asserted dedication fueled by rage and resentment. You will die for that of what you are, he mumbled to himself as he felt a supporting force helping him up onto his feet, while the creature halted, hesitated for a second, and started backing off. Letting off an almost whimpering sound, it started waving its limbs around sporadically. The demon lifted off the ground as Godwyn felt the entire force of the action flowing through him, elevating it and banishing it from this realm in which no love for it resided – only terror and resentment.