THE BEAST IN THE WOODS

THE BEAST IN THE WOODS, by Peter Fugazzotto

Hwaeth, half-orc, crouched in the sodden gray grasses, and squinted down the hillside trying to see the enemy. But the fog was impenetrable. The line of trees blurred into a fuzzy black swath. As much as he tried, he could not discern the enemy from the trees. Too hard in these conditions.

So he cupped his ear. But the human soldiers jostling behind him made too much noise – panting, rasping their swords against shields, whispering amongst each other.

As a last resort, he flared his nostrils and inhaled. At first, he only smelled the sweet grasses and the sour sweat of the men in their leather armor. Then he caught a whiff of something, a malodorous stench – a jumble of rotting flesh, overripe fruit, and sulfurous earth. He gasped in shock.

He bit into his suddenly trembling leathery lips. What had the enemy brought with them?

Clenching his fists, he wished that his companions trusted him with a sword. Or a club. But weapons were still to be earned he was repeatedly told, after all he had orcish blood, and once again he would be thrust into another battle only with his strong hands and his cunning.

Alion stooped in the grasses beside him, unable to fully squat because of his bad knees. He elbowed Hwaeth hard in the ribs. “What do see, orc? How many are there?”

“Fog’s too thick. But I smell something. Foul.”

Alion pursed his lips as if he were going to spit on the young half-orc. The human’s blind eye, milky and crusted, seemed to stare right through him. “I smell something rancid too.”

Hwaeth rubbed his side. Lately Alion had become too enthusiastic with his slaps, elbows and punches. They had been playful at first but now they were delivered with a cold, intentful look. Hwaeth wondered whether he had done something to offend the lead scout. He could not remember any offense. He worried that he had done something that would set him back even further from earning a sword to carry and finally be accepted as a member of the Southern Army.

Major Prartho atop the single horse among the company of soldiers rode up alongside his two scouts. His plate mail shimmered even in the dim pre-dawn light. “What does our esteemed young scout tell us?”

“Major, sir, I smell something in the woods. Not the soldiers. Not dogs. Something else.”

Alion shook his head. “The little shit smells his own arsehole. He can’t see any better through this soup than the rest of us. His kind belongs in the mines.”

Hwaeth wondered what he had done to offend Alion. The old man was always grumpy but lately he had become mean. Hwaeth would talk to him later. He would apologize if he needed to.

Major Prartho leaned back on his prancing mount, gently clearing his throat and tugging at the curls of his oiled mustache. “No matter, boys. We have the numbers, and the tactical superiority of the hillside.” He chuckled suddenly, eyes sparkling. “One more slaughter of the Northern traitors to add another notch to our swords and then a jubilant march back to Fort Blackstone. Wine and song for my shining Southern soldiers. Dancing girls! Prartho’s Peerless Patrol.”

The major drew his sword, and lifting it to the sky, whooped and kicked his stallion into a charge down the hillside. A cry rose from the assembled Southern soldiers and the ground trembled with the pounding of feet. Hwaeth leapt up and loped alongside Alion, swept along in the blood-thirsty flood.

Hwaeth, despite barely being in his teens, towered above his human companions, and the sudden sour sweat of his fellow soldiers filled his nostrils and he was consumed with a bloodlust. He wanted nothing more than sword or even a club in his hands, and to be drawn into the heart of the battle where things were simpler, where the only objective was to kill and survive. Where the hot smell of freshly spilled blood would envelope him. Then he could show Alion how useful he could be.

When they were almost to the foot of the hillside, he began to see the individual trees separating from the blur of the woods. Then he saw the enemy they had been tracking. The Northern soldiers, differing only in that they tied red rather than blue ribbons to their arms, massed in one clump.

Prartho was halfway across the meadow, a lone horseman leading the charge, when the spear flew from the Northern soldiers. It lifted high enough over the ground fog so that its iron head blazed orange in the rising sun for a moment before returning to a dark arrow. Whoever threw it was the most incredible soldier or the luckiest man alive.

The spear descended quickly and with a scream of metal bounced off Prartho’s shimmering chest plate. The major tumbled off his horse, but somehow landed on his feet still running towards the Northern Army. Hwaeth’s chest filled with hope. Another victory would be theirs.

Then the beast arrived, a shadow bursting from the woods, and it struck down Prartho with a single swipe of its claws. Without hesitation, it turned on the rest of the Southern army, a trail of blood and corpses left in its wake.

As quickly as that, the storied history of Prartho’s Peerless Patrol ended. The slaughter began. And the men so brave a moment before turned and ran for their lives.

###

The handful of Southern army survivors had retreated to a wooded hollow half a league from the field of battle. They cupped water from a muddy rill into their mouths, sprawled against boulders, or peeled back torn clothing to inspect the gashes and bruises they had suffered in their sudden and unexpected defeat.

Hwaeth, uninjured, felt like crying. He closed his eyes for a moment, remembering the fall of the blades and the screams of Prartho’s routed company. One single blow and their fortune had changed.

But his remnant unease was from more than just the enemy. It was also from the beast that the Northerners had released into battle. A shadow darting in the fog, its location marked by the screams of men and the cracking of bones between powerful jaws. Always a shadow, lost in the mists, but Hwaeth had smelled its rancid odor, so vile he had nearly gagged.

He stared at Alion sitting with his back against a tree, gnawing on a piece of dried meat. He thought about asking Alion for a small piece. But he knew what would happen. The one-eyed scout would spit at him. Or worse. Better to keep quiet. Better to be the invisible half-orc.

He grabbed a handful of grasses and stuffed them in his mouth, grinding them between his teeth to suck out the moisture. Like a cow he thought. First his incisors pulled out, and now resorting to eating grass. How far the orcs had fallen in defeat.

“What was that demon?” asked Ipithio. He was bright-eyed and clean-shaven. The best of the new recruits that formed the bulk of the company. A natural leader. He cradled his dented helmet, tracing his fingers over a fresh scour. “Some creature from hell?”

“I smelled it. I tried to warn Prartho,” said Hwaeth.

The soldiers looked at him mutely and then at Alion.

Hwaeth shrunk back wishing he could fade into the shadows.

“The orc is right. Prartho was a fool,” said Alion. “We need to get out of here. Back to the fortress.” He had suffered no injuries, Hwaeth having torn the throat out of the only man to come close enough.

Ipithio glanced to the south. “The enemy is in the woods. We would have to get past them. Six of us against three dozen, at least. And that demon. We won’t make it.”

“So we wait here to die?”

“We could go east,” said Hwaeth. “Those mountain villages would take us in. We bide our time until the main force has dealt with this.”

Alion smirked past his scarred cheeks and sparse beard. “Those villages? Are you talking about the ones we burned to the ground? Yeah, they’ll welcome us back with open arms.”

The other men, haggard, eyes filled with fear, stared at him.

“We do what I say. Back to the safety of the walls of Fort Blackstone. A battalion nests there.”

“But the beast,” said Ipithio. “You saw what it did.”

“Anything that breathes, bleeds,” said Alion. “We were routed because of Prartho, not the beast. The fool charging headlong into battle. Thinking he’s some sort of hero. See what happens to heroes? Then you little shits broke rank. Fresh-faced. Never having been on the weak end of a charge. You hold your ground. You never turn. I survived The High Mill Slaughter and the Battle of the Arno Valley against an army of orcs. I saw darkness, held my ground, and came back to tell the tale. But you… you broke ranks. You forgot everything we’ve been teaching you. That’s why we were routed. Not Prartho. Not that beast. Simple as that.”

“Back to Blackstone, then?” asked Ipithio, looking less like a soldier and more like the teenager he was.

“We move fast and quiet and we’ll be fine,” said Alion. “Worse comes to worse, we leave bait. Buy us enough time to get back home.”

###

Hwaeth could have kept running, all the way through the darkest part of the woods and the never-ending fog to the gate of the fortress.

But the human soldiers had no stamina. After an hour, they begged for yet another rest and Alion, also haggard from the effort, gave in.

They had made little progress. They had not even crossed the Feather River. If he were on his own, Hwaeth would have been climbing out of the waters by now, and on the final stretch towards the walled safety of Fort Blackstone.

Now, pausing on a small rise, hidden by the fog, they leaned against trees or fell to the ground, spittle-lipped staring at the diffuse sky.

Alion sat apart from the others, rubbing his thumb hard into the palm of his perpetually curled fingers. His left hand and forearm were cross-hatched with raised scars, injuries that had not healed well. He caught Hwaeth watching him and glared back.

“A gift from your kind, pig,” he hissed. “And the eye too.”

“You won the war,” said Hwaeth.

“We won the war?” Alion snarled his lip. “Who the fuck ‘we’ was I’ll never know. Certainly not me. Years later I’m still a foot soldier. Just fighting a different war. And I won nothing. The wife who threw flowers when I marched off was long gone when I returned. The little home once bright and warm, now infested with rats and fleas. What did I win? A few coins and one less eye and a mangled hand. After all this winning, I trudge through the mud fighting for my masters. Not so different than you damned orcs.”

“I’m half human. We’re not so different.”

“You’re really going to press it today, aren’t you?” He stood and kicked at Hwaeth, who hopped away. “Prartho’s not here to rescue you. No false promise of rising in the ranks in exchange for good behavior. You know he was lying to you? He was never going to give you a sword. Not you, an orc, an enemy of the humans. He was always going to keep you in your place. Just like he did to me.”

“We’re the same,” said Hwaeth. “If we stick together, we can survive. Why are you treating me this way? You were kinder before. I can help you get what you want. I’m strong. I’m a good scout. We make a good team.”

“Always be suspicious of anyone who pretends to be kind. We’re just meat to them.” He drew a crooked forefinger across his own throat.

Hwaeth’s jaw trembled. Words trapped in his throat. He wanted to tell Alion that it did not have to be that way, that people could be good, that the two of them could survive the cruelty of others, maybe even be a family of sorts, but before he could speak the other soldiers called for Alion, leaving Hwaeth to his own thoughts.

He stared into the fog. In the distance, he heard the sounds of their pursuers: branches snapping, the squeak of leather armor. Men hungry to taste revenge for a season of defeats. But they were still far away, well beyond the hearing of Alion and the other survivors. No reason to warn them yet.

He tilted his head and sniffed. The stench of the beast clung in the air. It had passed so closely on the battlefield, ravaging through the company of soldiers like a scythe felling ripe grasses. He remembered the closeness. A foul mix of odors. Even when the soldiers had fled from the battle and run, the smell lingered, soaking their hair, their skin, mixing with their own sour fear. Hwaeth inhaled again lightly. He could not tell whether he smelled the remnant of their battlefield encounter or whether right at that moment the beast stalked the edges of their resting spot.

He decided if it came for them, bursting through the bushes, he would grab Alion and run. He owed these other men nothing. Alion was right. Not after they had stolen his freedom.

He remembered the day they had come for him. Three years ago. He had believed that he was safe, that being half-human weighed in his favor. That the war and the purges were over.

It had been a morning clear and bright in the city of Firens, the white-washed walls blinding in the sun, swallows looping over the red-tiled roofs, the bells of the church ringing incessantly in the distance. From the kitchen, the burnt sugar aroma of sweet raisin bread drifted. He had woken to the bells wondering if it were a holiday. Why else would they be ringing the bells over and over?

But then he heard the soldiers in the Foreign Quarter, the stomping of boots, the jangle of swords and armor, and the screams of orc-children. His mother, pale, his human side, dragged him from the warmth of his blankets. “Run,” she had pleaded. “We need to run.”

But the gates of the Quarter had been barricaded. He had nowhere to go.

His last memories of his mother were of her on her knees, her gown revealing one shoulder, her soft hand slipping from his. As the soldiers dragged him away, a circle of neighbors, their fear unleashed, tightened around his mother. The coppery tang of her blood twined through the air. That scent lodged deep.

They told him he was one of the lucky ones. After the beatings, the brandings, and the murders, he had been pulled from the mass of orc-children held in the abandoned lime pits. A choice they said, smelling of stale sweat. The mines of the south where death was certain, or to serve as a scout in the war with the rebellious Northern cities.

The screams of Ipithio and the other soldiers broke Hwaeth’s memories. He was in the forest again. Pursued.

The stench of rot swam through the mists. A shadow darted among the screaming soldiers. Bones snapped.

“Run,” cried Alion.

###

“I don’t hear it anymore,” said Alion panting, bent over, one hand resting on a tall black pine.

Hwaeth craned his head. The fog had thickened, shrinking the world to a few meters. Further beyond, he heard the soft pad of footsteps in the duff, the slither of ungodly flesh, a sodden snuffling. “It comes. On us soon.”

He listened again but this time all he heard were the memories of the screams as the last of their companions had been pulled into the shadows of the fog.

“This fog, will it never break? We have to keep moving.” Alion stumbled down the hill. “We can’t have far to go.”

They were close to the Fort Blackstone. Hwaeth smelled the musty river and the wood fires. If they could survive another fifteen minutes, they would be at the gate, pounding, begging to be let in.

“We should turn and fight,” he said trailing behind Alion as they wove through the trees. “We can’t escape.”

“You think we have any chance against that monster?” Alion’s eyes were wide, and he suddenly looked to Hwaeth like an old man, out of place, weary.

“I can fight. You’ve seen me tear out the throats of our enemies. But with a sword in my hand, I can even our odds. Together we can slay this beast. You and me.”

Alion stopped. “All these years and I never thought I’d die. I always survived. The gods smiled on me. But these last few months, I wake up every night gasping, covered in sweat, panic gripping my throat. I’m going to die. All this will end. I’m not ready. This can’t be all that there is. This can’t be the whole of my life. Too much left undone. I’ve wasted all these breaths. I need to get back. Find my wife. Live.”

Hwaeth extended his hand. “Give me a sword, brother, and we’ll fight our way back home.” His eyes filled with tears at the memories of sweet raisin bread, the warmth of the wool blankets on his skin, and the sight of his mother’s rosy cheeks.

Alion drew his sword, stepped forward, and, with a sudden slash, cut Hwaeth’s hamstring.

Hwaeth fell to the ground, clutching his leg and choking back a scream.

“I need to get back. Too much left undone.” And Alion turned towards the Feather River, and was quickly swallowed into the curtain of fog, as he strode away from Hwaeth’s whimpering for help.

###

Hwaeth, tears blinding him, limped through the forest, one hand clamping his leg. After Alion had disappeared into the mists, he had ripped off his shirt and used it as a tourniquet around his thigh. Still his leg bled. The pain burned a sharp line up into his back. He had been betrayed.

And worse he stunk of fresh blood.

The cracking of branches grew louder and the beast snorted and snuffled so loudly that at any moment Hwaeth expected its shadow to take shape in the wall of fog. He cried out suddenly at the thought of never seeing his mother again.

At the same moment, a deep rage crowded his head, blinding him with its blackness so that the world around him tunneled. Humans. He hated them. They had beaten the armies of his people. They had enslaved him. They refused to see that half of him was human.

A sword. He would give anything for a weapon. He imagined tracking down Alion and gouging out his other eye, smashing his good hand to broken bones, and dragging him along the muddy ground until he was nothing more than bloody pulp.

Why had Alion betrayed him? Were they not as close as brothers? Had he not saved Alion’s life several times over on the fields of blood? Had Alion not called him brother and broke bread and guzzled wine with him?

Now all he could think about was a weapon in hand.

The beast’s growls shocked him out of his dream of vengeance.

Hwaeth’s lips suddenly quivered. He stared at the dark trunks of the trees, narrowing his eyes to find the monster. But still he kept moving, hobbling through, one hand pressing against the trees to provide support.

He heard the river now, the deep hum of the water, the gurgle against the rocky shore. Then through a break in the trees where the land sloped downward, he saw it, black and sinewy, like a velvet snake cutting through the forest. Beyond it, minutes away, the orange torches on the walls of Fort Blackstone flickered and winked, inviting him back.

A branch cracked behind him, so loudly that the hairs on his arms rose. He hesitated and then stole a glance over his shoulder. Devilish red eyes stared out of the gloom. His breath rushed from his chest in a desperate wheeze.

Suddenly the crippling pain in his leg did not matter and he sprinted down the slope. With every step, he heard the rising roar of the beast’s breath, its fetid hot odor seemingly grasping the nape of his neck.

His foot caught an exposed root and he lost his balance, tumbling over rocky ground, before landing hard in a sink of mud along the riverbank. The beast charged over the top of the hill behind him, a dark cresting shape. Hwaeth knew running was futile. He would never be able to make it across the river ahead of the beast. He closed his eyes and sank further in the mud, letting the cold muddy clay paint him.

He should have opened his eyes and faced his death like a brave orc. After all did he not dream of the deeds that he would do if given the chance? But instead he trembled and silently chanted for his mother, wishing she would fly out of the sky and scoop him from the hell in which he had found himself.

He heard the beast skid to a stop with a rending sound as its claws tore into the earth. Twigs and pebbles flew up and rained on Hwaeth’s cheeks. But still he pressed his eyes shut, misguided in the thought that if he could not see his attacker that somehow all of what would come would be less horrible. The world behind closed eyes had been his refuge: when his teeth had been pulled out by the crying man, when the pain of his missing mother had swelled in his chest, when his fellow soldiers spit at him and cursed his kind.

The beast’s breath rattled in its chest and hot putrid air, like the sour rot of vegetables, washed over his face. Snorting air burned across his skin. A low growl rose and his bones vibrated.

He had nothing left and allowed himself to sink into the mud. He wished he could see his mother one last time. That was all he wanted. But then sudden terror pitted his stomach. He remembered the closing circle of neighbors in the ghetto. He had seen clubs and knives in their hands. He would return to nothing. The humans of Firens had destroyed all hope.

The blackness behind his eyelids filled him, a darkness that ran tendrils into his heart. He had nothing left. Only death.

He was ready.

He was not afraid of the beast.

He opened his eyes.

The beast was gone, its massive footprints marking the muddy ground where it had stood. Moments ago, it had glowered in that spot, salivating, growling, and it had not seen him. He lifted a hand. It was covered in mud, painted with cold slime. The mud had disguised him, thrown the beast off.

His breath bubbled out in silent laughter. He had been given another chance.

He peered into the forest and at the wall of black trunks edging the impenetrable mists. He had heard of remnant orcs, survivors of the purge, retreating far to the north. He wondered if he could find his way there and if even if he did, whether they would accept a half-blood like him.

But to reach safety he would need to get the beast off his scent.

He rolled over and stared across the silky skin of the Feather River. Fort Blackstone was so close.

He crawled through the mud until he reached the river, its water so shockingly cold that his breath emptied from his chest, but soon he was floating, his long gray limbs pulling him towards the opposite bank and flickering orange torch light.

###

Hwaeth pounded on a wooden door set in the fortress wall. “Open the gate,” he called up to the mist-shrouded catwalk. Night had descended. A deep silence hung over the compound.

He shivered, sodden with icy river water. He wrapped his arms around himself. So cold. At least his leg was numb. He touched at the wound. The bleeding had been stemmed.

The shape of a head, a silhouette, appeared over the top of the wall. “Go away. Tomorrow at dawn. Come to the main gate.”

“I am with Prartho’s company.”

“You are alone.”

“We were attacked. Only I survived. And maybe Alion.”

“That’s impossible.” The man leaned forward and through the mists Hwaeth recognized him as the one they called Fatty, an obese pimpled teenager unfit to join them on patrol, a jiggling mass of flesh ridiculed by the others, an outsider like Hwaeth. The boy had shown some kindness to him, making sure he had a fair portion of food in the mess line.

“It’s me, the half-orc, the scout.”

“Hwaeth?” gasped Fatty. “Hold on.”

The half-orc rubbed his hands together, skin rasping, the blood and feeling slowly returning. He flexed his fingers.

He waited patiently as the catwalk steps shook with the weight of the boy and the wood beam groaned and thumped loudly as it was dropped to the ground.

The door opened. Fatty panted, his breath fast and deep, whistling in his chest. He could not speak but waved at Hwaeth to hurry into the safety of Fort Blackstone.

Hwaeth lifted his hands to Fatty’s shoulders, clamped his throat, and yanked him through the doorway. The boy was big, his mass hard to move. But Hwaeth had orc strength and twisted him to the ground.

Fatty fought back, hands gripping forearms, nails clawing, but Hwaeth’s fingers were like iron and he did not release his hold even after the boy’s eyes fluttered and rolled.

When he was sure he was dead, Hwaeth stole the boy’s sword, a solid weight in his hand, and backed away, shrinking in the darkness and the mists.

Now it was just a matter of waiting.

Soon a shadow would separate from the mists. Soon a fetid odor would flood his nostrils. Soon the men and women inside the fortress would wake to a nightmare and learn what it was like to be betrayed.

________________________________________

Peter Fugazzotto is a fantasy, science fiction and horror author who fights to protect the earth by day and battles his ego with armbars and heel hooks by night.  He lives in Northern California with his wife, daughter, bird and dog. 

His short stories have been published in Heroic Fantasy Quarterly, Grimdark Magazine, and Siren’s Call.