The Lair — Part Two
She was dressed in hardly anything more than a loose, cotton dress, her features as bleached as the rocks, her eyes as dark as wet stones. But who was she? And what was she doing wandering in the forest alone?
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They progressed ever closer to the forest. Glowering clouds threatened, blotting out the sun, but they were spared the rain for now. By the time they had reached a ragged slope that preceded the treeline the landscape was livid, as if snow were about to fall. Vayan studied the endless ranks of pine trees that marched away and into the mountains. His horse whinnied, breath coming out in gouts of steam. The boy seemed nervous too.
“Get on there,” Vayan muttered, jabbing at the horse’s flanks. Slowly they rocked down the slope, hooves dulled by the damp grass. The trees loomed like the ramparts of an ancient, abandoned castle until they were enveloped by dull silence. There was hardly any birdsong here, Vayan noted, only the rasp and bark of crows high in the canopy. It was as if they were moving through a cemetery, the great pine trees like gigantic headstones. And already the comfort of the empty mountainsides seemed far away.
They rode for most of the afternoon without stopping, the jostling of the horses’ heads and the tinkling of their bridles the only sound as they picked their way through the morbid hush of the forest. The boy remained stubbornly silent too, hardly grunting at the few questions Vayan muttered at him. But in a way Vayan was glad of it- when he heard his own voice, it sounded loud and unnatural.
Then it began to rain. Finally, the heavens could hold off no longer and swollen, icy droplets penetrated the forest forcing them to bow their heads. At least the rain ushered away the strange silence, Vayan thought, but it was small consolation. By the time they stopped to make camp they were both soaked to the skin and it was a miserable exercise trying to light the fire as the boy constructed a crude lean-to. Shivering with cold they crawled into their mean shelter and listened to the hiss and spit of the fire until the rain slowly stopped and the forest fell into yawning blackness, suspending them in an island of flickering light. They ate and shared a few words and the fire burned low, while in the far distance they heard wolves for the first time, their high, mournful cries singing through the night.
Instinctively, Vayan reached for his musket and laid it over his lap. Even after all the wolves he had killed there was still something chilling about the cry of the pack. In contrast the boy seemed hardly frightened. And when they finally rested their heads, the wolves’ music seemed to lull him into sleep. For Vayan the prospect of rest was fearful. He feared the wolves that doubtless ranged through the forest close at hand and he feared his dreams that would come to him should he tire. But as the hours crawled by the crackling of the fire whispered sweetly to him. He dozed, taken once more to the stinging heat of the burning farm house, a baby screaming, and the legs of a pale figure knocking against the rough bark of a tree.
Once again, Vayan awoke with a start, his hand clawing for his musket, and breath coming out in gasps. Slowly he steadied his nerves and looked to the boy, defined by a pre-dawn light. He was fast asleep.
Peeling the dew-pricked blanket from his shoulders Vayan looked out into the mist, clinging like spidery skirts around the tree trunks. The forest seemed to be holding its breath. The only sound was the faint pops of moisture that dropped from the high branches above.
Pushing to his feet, Vayan wondered if he should wake the boy. There was no telling how far they were from the cabin, so it might be a long trek. Nevertheless, it was hardly light and there was plenty of hours left in the day so he decided to prepare breakfast and wake the boy when it was ready. Crossing to his horse he took out a length of cured sausage which he had bought from the innkeeper the day before and was unhooking a pan when he spotted something flitting through the trees. The movement was so unexpected and startling Vayan immediately crouched down behind the saddle. He peeked over the top of the pommel, senses suddenly alive as he watched the pale figure, far enough away so that it was impossible to define any distinct details, and close enough for there to be no mistaking that it was a woman.
Heart galloping Vayan glanced at once to his musket which he had left by the fire. Yet by the time his eyes snapped back again the phantom had gone.
Cursing his hesitation, Vayan slung the pan back on the saddle and crossed to the fire. He picked up his musket and checked it over. Then he kicked the boy’s boot.
“Wake up,” he said.
The boy sat up quickly eyes blinking. “What’s wrong?”
“I’ve seen something. Someone walking through the trees.”
“Is it Chaufrain?” There was a note of confusion in the boy’s voice.
Vayan shook his head. “It was a woman. Stay here and keep your eyes open. There’s a knife in my saddlebag.”
“You’re not going to leave me!”
“Just stay here.”
Without waiting for any further protest, Vayan shouldered his musket and strode out into the forest, picking his way through the trees. He looked behind him briefly and saw the boy at this saddle rummaging around for the knife. Then he thrashed his way through boot-high nettles until the campsite was out of view. Vayan reminded himself not to stray too far. If he got turned around in the forest, he could easily lose his bearings.
He tramped on, the smell of pine needles sweet and sickly underfoot. He moved with all the skill of his experience, soundless save for the creak of his leather jerkin. Every so often he would stop and try and mark his route, and as the mist began to burn away and light began to filter in from above, he became more confident and moved more swiftly. It was this very rashness that almost cost him.
He heard the sound of water before he saw it, but as he mounted a rise, he didn’t realise it was a good ten feet below and the earth gave way under foot. He tumbled. The musket jarred from his hands and his knee struck a tree stump on his way down. When he came to a halt he was lying on the bank of a stream, the water chattering and tumbling through fingers of hazy light. Vayan let out a hiss. His knee sang in agony, and more loudly as he clambered to his feet. Beneath the rip in his stockings there was a gash. It stung but he was confident he hadn’t broken any bones. Then he looked back up the muddy slope where he had fallen. It was quite a way down, and there was no sign of his musket. Muttering an oath, Vayan began to limp toward the rise. He was considering how he might scramble his way back up into the trees when a shiver ran the length of his spine and he was compelled to look back along the stream. He turned. The woman was standing watching him from the opposite bank.
She was dressed in hardly anything more than a loose, cotton dress, her features as bleached as the rocks, her eyes as dark as wet stones. Vayan remained motionless as he might when watching a deer come down to the stream to drink. He was certain that one move might see her leaping back into the undergrowth. But who was she? And what was she doing wandering in the forest alone?
“Do you need help?” he said when he found his voice, lifting his hands in what he hoped was a gesture of supplication.
At first, she was silent, her eyes remaining focused on him, like pools sucking him down into icy depths. Then she spoke in a flat, unfeeling voice: “Have you seen my baby? I left her in the snow.”
These few simple words cut as deeply into Vayan as any knife. He took a step backward, an instinctive flinch only for the weakness of his knee to force him back onto the ground. Sprawling amongst the pebbles, the sound of his startled cry shook crows from the tree tops, cackling as they wheeled up into the sky. Then Vayan’s innards seemed to freeze as memories crowded into his thoughts: of a baby shrieking and wailing and the fire crackling up into the night sky. For a moment he was paralysed with the fear of that memory, and he screwed his eyes shut as if to force it away. But then when he opened them again there was no sign of the woman that had been standing by the stream. She had silently disappeared back into the trees and he was once more alone.
“Did you see who it was?” said the boy when Vayan limped into camp.
Standing gazing vacantly on the edge of the clearing Vayan shook his head. “No. It was probably just the mist. I wasn’t fully awake…”
“It was a dream then?” the boy murmured.
A dream made real, Vayan thought as he hurriedly gathered their effects together. “We should move on.”
“Are you alright?” said the boy. “Your leg. You’re injured.”
“I’m fine,” Vayan snapped furling his blanket over his horse. Then he turned sharply. “I found a stream. It’s not far from here.”
“Then we can follow it to the cabin,” the boy replied.
“Good. Douse the fire and get your pony ready.”
The boy did as he was told, but Vayan could feel his eyes on him as they struck camp. It was a sly look, he thought, like the watchful, narrow look of a bird.
The stream took them along a winding route flanked by high muddy banks. Vayan kept his eyes on the trees as they rode, wondering if he might catch a glimpse of the pale woman. There was no sign of anything to emerge from the trees however; only the movement of their shadows and the gurgling of the water which had become faster flowing, its green banks thick with drooping dropwort.
By the time the sun was high above them Vayan began to have suspicions. Perhaps the boy had misled him? Perhaps they were going the wrong way? Then when they paused to eat and rest, taking a drink from the cool waters, the boy shook Vayan’s shoulder. “What is it?”
“Can’t you hear it?”
The hiss of the stream was the only sound Vayan could hear. He shook his head.
“It’s the waterfall!” the boy said. “We’re getting close. We’ll have to climb the bank if we’re to go on.”
They led the horses up the bank and back into the forest the sound of the stream dampened by the cloying vegetation. They moved steadily, not least because of Vayan’s barking knee, negotiating a thick barrier of brambles until they were able to climb into the saddles again, picking their way steadily through a sea of tall, dark ferns. The afternoon deepened toward evening. The sun began to drop into the arms of the waiting trees. And then the boy jerked his pony to a stop and climbed from the saddle. He pointed through dying sunlight.
“There’s a meadow ahead,” he told Vayan. “The cabin is on the other side of it.”
They approached the tree line on foot, leading the horses, until they came upon a wide, open clearing thick with autumn crocuses. The last milky gasp of the day dappled this cool oasis in the forest, although the trees were always close at hand, suffocating.
“We should leave the horses here,” said the boy. “The cabin is too awkward to reach on horseback.”
Leaving the horses to roam through the meadow Vayan followed the boy back into the dinginess of the forest, weaving between the trees, snagged by brambles and hampered by moss-ridden logs until they eventually found themselves on the edge of a steep drop. Here they shrank down to their haunches and through a tangle of greasy roots. They looked into the pit and to the hunting cabin below.
Although it was rudimentary in its construction the building was large and sturdy with stone walls, a soot-stained chimney, and a long wooden veranda. The windows had rather ornate shutters which were closed; the door a hefty piece of pine. Somewhere beyond the hollow Vayan could hear running water and assumed this was the sound of the nearby waterfall.
“You say you found a body here?” Vayan asked the boy after a while.
“The trapper, yes…Or what was left of him.”
“Was he inside the cabin?”
The boy nodded.
“And this is the place you brought Chaufrain?”
“Yes.”
“Did you go into the cabin with him?”
The boy shook his head. “I left Chaufrain where we are now.”
A soft wind ruffled through the boughs of the trees. Vayan could see clouds scudding quickly across the sky. Every now and again a ghost of a moon became visible.
Vayan looked at the cabin again and wondered if they might be forced to stay the night there. It was an unsettling prospect. Thoughts of the ghostly apparition by the stream came back to him. He clenched his fingers to stop them trembling.
“Alright,” he said at last. “I’m going to look around.”
“Then I’m going with you.”
“Would you not rather start back to the village? You’ve led me here. You’re free to go.”
“I’m not leaving now. It’ll be dark soon.”
“Then wouldn’t you rather stay up here?”
“Up here alone you mean?”
The boy is putting on a good act of being frightened, Vayan thought, yet it seemed to him to be unconvincing. Ever since they had entered the forest each passing mile had appeared to make the lad more confident while Vayan’s nerve had wavered. Still, such mysteries would have to wait. There were more immediate problems to solve.
The path down into the hollow was muddy and slick and latticed with roots. Vayan went first, clinging onto the jutting trunk of a birch tree half way down until he came to a running stop and pulled free his hunting knife. The boy followed more nimbly and soon Vayan was climbing the creaking steps onto the veranda. Shutters stood on either side of him. A pile of chopped wood lay under one of the windows. At his feet Vayan noticed a dry, rusty patch soaked into the grain.
“Blood,” he said kneeling. The patch streaked under the door as if something had been dragged. “You said you didn’t move the body?”
“No.”
Vayan approached one of the shutters and peered through a crack between the hinges. It was very dark inside but he could make out the sweep of a table, a wooden floor, the corner of a fireplace. Then he went to the door and pushed it slowly open. It whined into shadow. Standing at the threshold Vayan could see the huge hearth to one side bookended by roughly hewn birch trunks, a threadbare bearskin on the floor and what looked to be a large cot in one corner piled with animal pelts. The smell inside the room was sour and unpleasant, of human sweat and rodent droppings and the processes used for tanning.
Ushering the boy to follow Vayan stepped further into the room. The blood marks he had seen on the veranda streaked across the room and stopped at the bed. Then his eyes drifted to the only other door, nestled in the corner. He stepped to it and slid it open. The boy came to stand behind him and they peered into the gloom as a pungent reek wafted up to greet them: earthy and sweet and mouldering.
Wordlessly they entered the chamber. There was a dirty, patterned chair in one corner and footstool under it. A woollen rug spanned the floor.
“There’s nothing here,” said the boy.
Clumping across the floorboards Vayan looked around him. He sensed not all had been revealed. He knocked on the floor with his heel and then backed up to the wall, taking hold of the rug and throwing it aside, the air tingling with dust. He had found a trap door. For a long while he stared at it.
Putting his knife away on his belt Vayan found a lantern hanging on the back of the door. From his pocket he brought out a tinder box and managed to ignite the thin reservoir of oil and soon had it glowing. The light soaked in around them. Crouching down he grabbed the handle and yanked the trapdoor free. Immediately a thick, viscous, fetid stench roiled up to greet them. Both he and the boy stepped back suddenly, hands to their faces. The odour was almost overpowering.
“You’re not going down there, are you?” the boy said, his voice muffled by his hand.
“You don’t have to come with me,” Vayan said to the boy. “I’m just taking a look.”
Pulling a rag from his pocket, Vayan quickly tied it around his nose and mouth. He moved back to the hole, black and impenetrable, and shone the lamp onto the first steps.
“Don’t close the door,” Vayan warned the boy. “If it shuts, I may become trapped.”
Jagged steps delved into blackness. The wolf hunter hesitated, eyes wide as he peered down the sloping tunnel that had been hacked out of the earth and re-enforced by wooden struts like a mineshaft. The heavy lamp swung in his hand exaggerating the shadows. But this was no time to be faint of heart, he told himself, even though there was obviously something rotting down here in the darkness. He began to descend. Wooden steps moaned as his light was slowly drowned by the blackness and the chill of an open space beneath. A faint breeze flapped the flame and Vayan held the lamp higher, reaching out toward the bottom of the steps and the dirty floorboards below.
It was a crude space. But it was not empty.
The first thing Vayan noticed was the glitter of the belt buckles and some scattered pennies. He saw a hair pin too, and a silver comb; personal valuables lying scattered at his feet and picked out in the lamp shine. And there were clothes here too: jerkins and leather topcoats, shoes and boots piled up in the corner. Two muskets were propped against a wall. Another was tossed in a corner. One of which seemed vaguely familiar.
But that wasn’t all.
Despite Vayan’s mask, the smell penetrated the thin fabric. He could almost taste it, so it kept him from delving too far into the darkness, forcing him to outstretch his lamp to pick out the tobacco-stained bones and the corrupted, festering flesh. Even though he had expected to find death down here in the darkness, he did not expect to find so much of it. There had to be at least half a dozen bodies, each in various stages of decay. Vayan swallowed, his gorge rising. Was Chaufrain amongst the corruption? A quick glance couldn’t confirm it. All he knew for certain was that something monstrous had been at work in the pit.
“What do you see?”
It was the boy’s voice. Vayan craned up the steps and saw the opening above him. He couldn’t articulate this horror. Nor could he stay for a moment longer. The stench was overwhelming him and the dread that it evoked was already upon him. He began to climb hurriedly back up the stairs. But his weakened leg gave way on the greasy wood and the lamp slipped from his fingers, clattering onto the floorboards below, sending up whirling shadows. He didn’t care. His only thought now was to escape into the light above, using his hands as much as his feet. Yet even as he fled, even as he scrambled to safety, he saw the opening above him begin to contract. The door was being closed.
“No!” he cried. “Don’t close it!”
The trapdoor dropped and rang shut.
Knee burning, Vayan scrambled up the last few steps and threw his shoulder at the wood. The door shuddered. It creaked and groaned. It did not open. The boy had fastened it! But why?
“Open it!” he raged. “Open this door! Do you hear me?”
No response. Only muffled footsteps above his head and the sound of another door closing.
Then silence.
Black, impenetrable silence.
Breath hissing, every fibre in Vayan’s body now alert to the terror of his predicament, he looked below again and saw the fidgety light of the lantern, lying on its side, sputtering and dying and licking at the tangled feet of the corpses. He should go back down there he reasoned and see what he might salvage to help him open the door. There had to be something amongst all the detritus. And yet he was prevented: at first by his own fear as he huddled against the thin comfort of the door and then by something more palpable.
Slowly an overwhelming certainty that he was not alone in the dark crept into his bones.
He tried to convince himself that it was his imagination. It was not the only time he had been amongst the company of the dead, after all, and a reminder of mortality could play tricks on a man’s mind. But this did little to persuade him.
His hunter’s awareness told him differently. And every one of his senses strained, reaching out beyond the skittering of the mice and the rats for the slightest movement. He did not have to wait long.
The woman stepped out of the blackness and up to the edge of the stuttering light, appearing to him now as she had in the forest: draped in a thin, muddied dress like a shroud, her hair hanging lank around her face; her limbs pale and thin. She seemed even slighter to him now that she was up close, and yet she was possessed of a strange unnatural power that kept Vayan at bay. Her eyes shone like silver pennies in the gathering dark. Vayan grappled for his knife.
“You…” he croaked. His body was gripped by the stiffness of fear. “What…What are you doing here?”
Vayan showed her the knife. The woman’s silver eyes dropped to the blade and she stopped her approach, but she didn’t seem alarmed. Instead, a small, eerie smile surfaced on her face. The eyes lifted.
Vayan continued: “I saw you in the forest. I saw you by the stream.”
“You saw me before that too, Vayan,” she said. “Not so long ago.”
Vayan’s pulse was sickeningly quick. He refused believe his dream was made real and said: “You know me?”
“Of course.”
“I don’t know you,” he lied.
“That’s not true.” The woman glanced to her left, and Vayan followed her gaze. A bloated, half-naked corpse was sprawled in the dirt. Now, at last, Vayan saw the tangled black beard against a hollowed-out face. Chaufrain.
“I knew him too,” the woman added.
Vayan shuddered. As the memories returned, he looked at the woman again with new eyes and was given another jolt of horror. Not that it could be possible. Not that she could be here, with him, in the dark.
But it was difficult to deny, even so.
“You died…” he managed, trying to keep a grip on his knife, even though his fingers were twitching. “I…I saw you die. I saw your corpse. Hanging.”
“Yet I lived on.”
“How?”
The woman’s smiled broadened. But it was an ugly smile, full of sharp teeth.
“You’re an unbeliever, Vayan. You think the world is fixed. But how is it you found yourself as a Luparii? How is it you have been led back here…to me?”
Vayan had no answer for her. His mind was a pinwheel.
So, the woman went on: “My boy knew what to do,” she said, her stare unwavering. “When you and your rabble had gone, he cut me down from the tree. And it wasn’t long before she came.”
“Who?” The light was fading fast. The woman was a ghost in the blackness.
“The she-wolf, old and injured. I’d befriended her in life. I’d kept her from starving when she was unable to run with the pack any longer. I fed her scraps. And when I was gone, I kept her alive in death too — letting her feed on me, making her strong again. We bargained our souls, Vayan, so that I might hunt those that hunted me; those that took my child; those that left my boy an orphan. And that she might be strong again. And while some I had to stalk, others I had to lure. So, I made my spells during the day. I made my pacts with the Devil again. And all have been consumed. All have gone back to the earth. Save you.”
Vayan shook his head. “I don’t believe it.”
“Like I said, you think the world is fixed, Vayan. But it has been your undoing.”
Then the woman shrank back and into blackness, and Vayan was left with only the smells of corruption and his wheezing breath.
“What’s this?” he said eventually, his voice sounding flat and dull to his ears. “Where have you gone? Don’t think I won’t use this knife!”
There was no answer.
There was only silence.
At first.
Until those silver eyes soaked into view again, glaring from the dark; a muzzle too, and a snout and a row of hard, and curved glistening teeth.
“Vayan…” His name was suddenly guttural by the imprecision of that palate. “Vayan…”
And then a fearful flash of movement, with jaws at Vayan’s throat, and a monstrous weight on his chest.
Vayan stabbed down with his knife and there was the warmth of blood on his fingers. But it did nothing to prevent the attack. Instead, he began to wail, a spiralling, hysterical cry that filled the lair as he was thrown up against the trapdoor. The last of the shadows fluttered in the fading light; the stink of death and sweat were cloying as he was dragged down into the blackness. And his cries became distant and removed.
