Forging the Blade/The Wilderness Years, Chapter 3, pt. 2/2
kageorge@EROLS.COM
Fri, 11 May 2001 12:42:44 -0400
Forging the Blade/The Wilderness Years
by MacGeorge
For ratings, acknowledgements and disclaimers, please see
part 0, previously posted.
Chapter Three, part 2
The old woman had been right. Winter came early and hit
hard. Sleet covered the trees and hillsides with ice, and
game became harder and harder to find. The venison stew he
had made steeped with the old woman's vegetables became a
fond memory, and he subsisted on the dried meats he had
stored, plus whatever small animals he managed to catch.
He did manage to bring down a big stag just before the snows
closed in, but it was an enormous struggle to get it back to
his cave when the ground was slippery with mud and ice.
Cutting up the carcass and working the hide in the bitter
cold was equally as difficult, but at least the antlers
served as useful tools, including new needles for piecing
together hides.
He visited the cottage three more times that long, difficult
winter, once to dig again in the garden, but his pickings
were sparse in the near-frozen ground, only a few stunted
carrots and some beets gone to seed and partially frozen.
Once he reluctantly took a handful of grain from the mare's
feed pail. He left a pelt, or couple of rabbits in trade
each time. They were the only live game he could reliably
find, now.
Gradually, he realized that he went to the cottage at least
partially to remind himself that he was not the only
remaining person in the world, to catch a glimpse of a
normal life, to hopefully hear the sound of a human voice.
Sometimes he thought he'd go mad, sitting alone in the dark
of his cave, the wind whistling mournfully through the
barrier of branches and hides he had built over the
opening. He tried to remember all the songs he had ever
heard sung, all the stories he had ever heard told. He
relived his youth, straining to recall each detail, every
word, every face. Then he would invent stories of his own.
They usually involved great heroes, whose true worth was
only recognized after they were gone.
Eventually, though, no matter how hard he tried to avoid it,
his thoughts ultimately returned to the same dark place.
Who was he? What was he? Was he truly evil, some blight
upon the earth doomed to live out his years alone in a
cave? But there were no answers to be found, only a renewed
determination to not be what everyone believed him to be, no
matter the cost.
Solstice had passed, and the woods were now permanently
white with snow and ice, making his footsteps crunch noisily
no matter how carefully he walked. At least the foot or so
of permanent frost on the ground made tracking animals
easier. His snares had garnered a rabbit and a white fox,
an excellent haul which would last him several days. His
supply of dried and smoked meat was practically gone, and
what remained was barely edible.
He wondered how the woman and her horse and chickens were
faring. She was old, and a long distance from any help,
with no one to hunt for meat or chop wood. It had been
weeks since he had looked in on the cottage. It was too far
and too cold for a casual walk. Still, it bothered him. He
looked at the rabbit now hanging from his belt, checked the
low-hanging clouds above, then set out to the west.
It began to snow on the way there, big fluffy flakes that
quickly covered the crust of ice with a new layer of
softness, muffling the sound of his steps and quickly
covering his tracks. He reached the cottage in a couple of
hours, and squatted under the low hanging boughs of a young
pine tree, its branches laden with snow until they were
almost touching the ground. The sun set early this time of
year, and light was beginning to dim, but Duncan could see
the imprint of fresh footprints in the snow outside the door
and leading into the pen. He could not tell if the woman
was inside, but it was a pretty safe guess.
The shadows lengthened, the snow began to fall in earnest,
and still he didn't head back, not really knowing why he
lingered. At last he crept forward and let himself into the
pen, glad to hear the breathing and see the movement of the
horse inside the shelter, where the woman had hung a thick
blanket on the exposed side to keep in the warmth. The
mare's coat was shaggy, but it felt really good to feel and
smell the warmth of the trusting animal. She snuffed gently
at his proffered hand, the soft lips nibbling to see if he
had anything to eat.
"No, my friend," he whispered. "I have nothing for ye, but
I'll try to find something to bring when I visit again."
The food pail had been left in the hay manger, and it still
had several handfuls of oats inside. Duncan looked at it
longingly, but left it alone. He would not take food, even
from an animal, when there was obviously so little to spare,
and no grass on which to graze. "How fares your mistress,
eh?" he asked the horse. "Does she have enough to eat? I
bet not, with no one to hunt for fresh meat for her." He
scratched his hand over the horse's heavy winter coat and
smiled when she leaned into his touch. He stood with her
for a long time, taking great comfort in her company.
When he reluctantly slipped out of the warmth of the mare's
enclosure and quietly let himself out of the pen, he
realized it had gotten completely dark, and the snow was
falling heavily now. It was going to make it a long, cold
trek back to his cave. He untied the rabbit from his belt,
made a loop of the leather thong and crept up to the cottage
door. As quietly as he could, he hung the rabbit onto the
latch of the door, and quickly crept away to the edge of the
clearing. He groped around in the snow for a few minutes
before digging out an acorn and tossed it hard at the door.
It didn't make much of a noise, but a few minutes later, the
door opened and a shadow peered out into the darkness.
"Anyone there?" she called, her voice slightly muffled by
the falling snow. She stood in the doorway, clutching her
shawl around her, then shook her head, mumbling to herself,
then stopped, her eye caught by the large hare hanging from
her doorlatch. She pulled it off and held it up to the
light, then turned and peered again out into the clearing.
"My own Daoine Sithe is back again, eh? What did ye take
from Old Mog this time? Show yoursel'! Ye think I fear the
Domhnull Dubh? I know all yer tricks, Black Donald!" she
shouted. Duncan sank back further into the shadows and
waited until the woman shook her head with a low cackle, and
the door closed. Then he began the long walk back to his
cave.
He made two more trips to the cottage to check on the old
woman, each time taking a small offering of food, such as it
was. It was getting harder and harder to find the energy to
hunt and gather wood to keep his small fire going, and he
spent long hours in the cave, sleeping or just letting his
mind drift into daydreams. Sometimes they became so real he
could have sworn he heard his mother's voice calling him and
he would start awake, answering her before he realized he
was alone.
He no longer knew how much time had passed, had lost track
of the cycles of a moon perpetually hidden behind gray
snow-laden clouds. The daylight was short and the nights
were long and cold. Sometimes he feared entire days would
pass and he hardly moved, like some hibernating beast. One
morning he struggled out to relieve himself, check his
snares and to find some wood, but the wind was howling
through the trees, blowing snow in blinding sheets that
stung the eyes. He had virtually no food left, and only a
small pile of kindling to keep warm, not enough to last the
day, much less the long night to come. He took a few more
steps, then realized he could see nothing except white.
Snow was blowing into his face, stinging his skin and
collecting in his beard. He slitted his eyes and tried to
peer ahead, hoping to see enough landmarks to find one or
two of his snares, but even the surrounding trees were
invisible behind the curtain of white.
A surge of cold that came from inside wracked his whole body
with a shiver as he turned in a circle, unable to discern
enough landmarks to even find the cave, which could be no
more than twenty paces away. For long moments he stood in
abject panic, feeling the icy wind freeze his face and
fingers. He knew this clearing as well as he knew the
contours of his own palms, but had not the slightest idea
where he was. At last, he dropped to his hands and knees,
groping through the thick layer of snow and ice, feeling for
something, anything that might serve as a landmark,
something to orient his sense of direction.
By the time his hand scraped against a boulder, then a tree
he knew to be to the right of the cave opening, he was
shivering violently and had to force every movement as he
stayed on his hands and knees, chest deep in snow, pushing
forward, feeling with limbs that seemed too frozen to do the
job properly. At last he fell into the thick pine boughs he
had used to cover the cave entrance, and crawled through the
hole of an entrance he had left at the bottom.
The sudden absence of stinging wind and snow left him
gasping, but more snow tumbled in from the unsecured
entrance. With fumbling, numb fingers he tied the hide
covering into place. Even that much effort was exhausting,
and he leaned back at last against the cold, cold stone.
He should make a fire from the small bits of kindling he
had. He should crawl underneath his hides and pelts for
warmth. But he didn't seem quite so cold now. It was
really almost warm, pleasant, and he was so very, very
tired.
~~~~~~~
He must have slept. He jerked awake with a gasp, as though
he had been dreaming, but he could remember no dreams, only
darkness. And cold. He would have expected the drifting
snow to have blocked the small amount of light that filtered
in through the branches and the hides, but sunshine was
leaking through the cracks and seams and edges. When he
tried to move, his limbs were painfully stiff. Then he
started to shiver from the cold and had barely enough
control to crawl over to his pallet and pull the soft fur
over his body. Very slowly his own body heat seemed to
gather around him. The shivering eased, and he slept again,
this time dreaming vivid dreams of bright summer days, lying
in the heather and daydreaming of performing great, heroic
deeds, while the herd of sheep he was watching managed to
watch themselves for awhile.
He awoke again, but now thirst and hunger forced him out
from under the pelts. The water skein he had filled with
snow before he had taken shelter was inexplicably empty, so
he crawled weakly on hands and knees to the opening,
expecting to have to dig through snow to reach the
outdoors. It took him long moments as trembling fingers
pulled at knots in the leather ties that refused to come
loose, as though they had almost melted together.
In frustration, he used his dirk, slicing away the
fastenings, and pushing outward. He forced himself to his
feet, his knees wobbling underneath him, looking around him
in dizzy confusion. Instead of the several feet of snow he
expected, there were large brown patches of earth, and the
sun shone with painful brightness after the long darkness of
the cave. The air was almost warm, and Duncan stumbled to
the nearest remaining patch of snow. The top of it was
crusty and flecked with dirt, as though it had been on the
ground a long time. He broke through the crust, digging out
cleaner snow underneath and sucking on the crunchy pieces of
ice to assuage his thirst.
He pushed the oddity of it all to the back of his mind and
concentrated on his immediate needs. He needed food, and
soon, or he would be too weak to hunt at all. He gathered
his strength and went to find the snares he had left out
before the storm had forced him into the cave.
All but one had disappeared. The one remaining had a ferret
caught by the hind leg. Or at least it had been a ferret at
one time. Now it was just a few bones and some shreds of
dried, shriveled skin. Duncan's legs folded up underneath
him, and he looked up into the sky, acknowledging what he
had known since the moment he had emerged. The sun was in
the wrong place entirely, its angle indicating early Spring,
not mid-winter. The implications left his mind whirling.
But as he had done so many times in the past year, he
deliberately pushed them aside in favor of dealing with the
problems of the moment, problems that presented possible
solutions, questions that had answers he could understand.
~~~~~~~
It was weeks before he had caught enough game to truly fill
his stomach, and as his strength returned, he could search
for food harder and longer. He brought down a fawn born too
early to survive the Spring, ignoring the twinge of regret
at destroying the young animal with the big, soft, sad
eyes. The meat was tender, the small pelt soft and supple,
and it fueled his strength to find bigger game.
The snow was completely melted and new greenery was pushing
up through the forest floor by the time he made a pilgramage
to the old woman's cottage, bearing a brace of hares that
made him feel quite proud of himself. She was working in
her garden, turning the soil with a hoe, her strokes firm
and strong. He watched until she went inside, then crept
forward to hang one of the hares on the fence gate.
"Well! If it isn't my own Daoine Sithe come back to visit,"
the old, rasping voice spoke behind him.
He jerked around, flushing at being caught. He had gotten
careless by not waiting until dark.
"I...I mean ye no harm," he whispered, raising his hands and
backing off.
She laughed. It was an unpleasant cackling noise. "Oh,
yes, and I'm supposed to believe you? You steal my food,
leaving a few mangy hides for payment? Can a woman eat
hides, eh? I know you. You canno' trick me, Black Donald!
I thought the storm had got ye, but I guess your kind isn't
easy to kill."
The insult to his good intentions sparked a hot surge of
anger. "I'm no devil, old woman," he spat. "I never took
without leaving equal value, or better, and well ye know
it."
She glared at him for a moment, then smiled a gap-toothed
sly grin. "Ah, well, even if ye are the Black Donald, ye
have no power over me. I have my own magics, ya know." She
waved vaguely at her cottage, and Duncan recalled the
patterns inscribed around the doors and windows. She
squinted her eyes at him, coming a little closer. "Are ye
the incubus they've been talking about in the village,
then? A changling with a devil-made face that seduces women
and takes their souls?"
"Stop that! I'm no..." but he was, so his denial stopped in
his throat.
The woman cackled again, lifting her skirts til the tops of
old ragged stockings showed. "Ye want this, eh, lad? Ye'd
be the first to try that dry hole in years too long to
count. And ye'd no get my soul, for all tha.'" She laughed
hysterically at her own baudy joke, finally hiccuping to a
stop, and cocking her head at him. "Well, ye look more like
a beast than any incubus I've ever heard tell of."
"I'm no' a beast either, old woman. I came only to bring
you these," he held out the rabbits. He hadn't intended to
give her all of them, but his pride made his decision for
him.
She looked at the string of fat hares, then back up at him.
"Why?" she asked suspciously.
"Why?"
"You heard me. Why are ye bringing me food?"
"Because...because yer an old woman living alone with no one
to hunt for ye. 'Tisn't right. Your clan should be taking
care of you."
She put her hands at her waist and just looked up at him,
her mouth twisted in disgust. "My clan? They turned me out
years ago, though they come to me quick enough when they
want to see if the old ways will sooth a boil or rid a woman
of an unwanted babe. I need no one to care for me."
"Then I guess you won't be needing these," Duncan snapped,
but before he could hook the hares back onto his belt, the
old woman had snatched them out of his hand.
"But it's only right that the young should show respect for
an old woman," her tone had changed, and was even more
grating when she attempted to sound sweet.
Duncan barely managed to hide his smile. "Aye, I suppose
'tis only right," he agreed. After a moment of awkward
silence, he turned to leave.
"But don't ya try putting any spells on Old Mog!" he heard
the woman shout behind him, "or I'll twist that devil's tail
'til ye howl for mercy!" Somehow being labeled an evil
spirit by Old Mog didn't carry any sting, and Duncan smiled
all the way back to camp, even when he realized he hadn't
any fresh meat for dinner.
To Be Continued