(A continuation of: https://bryn.shivtr.com/forum_threads/3224369)
It started out with me just being curious.
Well, first there was worry. Worry over myself and the man. We couldn’t just sit there in the mud and the pouring rain, with three knocked-out Blackwolds beside us. And he was bleeding after that strike to the head. I tried talking to him, but he wouldn’t answer, he only ever just looked at me. I thought he must be mad. One of those crazy folk that live in the woods alone. I asked him to come with me, away from the brigands, for his own sake. Whether he was dazed from the blow to his head or whether he was not all “there”, I couldn’t say. He finally grabbed his wet pack from the mud and got up and walked into the trees, away from me.
Then I got curious. I could have left him to go his way and be as mad as he liked. But there was something about the way he walked. His head was down, his back all hunched, holding the bag to his chest like it was his favorite child. The rain was slowing down by then and I could see his blood where he’d been sitting. It was running into the mud, the red mixing with the brown. Splatters of it followed him into the forest. I had to make sure he was all right.
He wasn’t difficult to find and follow. Big like an ox, taking no care to keep himself quiet, snapping twigs and running into thin branches without trying to go around them. He was heading deep into Far Chetwood, the part of the wood where few folk wander unless they be hunters. Or mad men.
He didn’t speak, and neither did I. The only sounds were the soft, pattering rain and the squish of boots in slick, muddy leaf litter. He went on for an hour at least, climbing east where the ground slopes up and becomes more rough. Where the wood runs up against the Weather Hills and the trees slowly fade and spread out. Now and then he would slow his pace and look back at me over his shoulder. I wasn’t trying to be stealthy. I wiped the rain off my face and smiled. He didn’t smile back, but he didn’t shoo me off, either. I could see the blood staining the right side of his face, like someone had just dragged a paint brush from his brow to his beard.
The light was fading in the sky by the time we reached the shack. Just a tiny thing, hidden up against the side of a bluff, a wall of trees keeping it out of sight from passersby. Lots of little hunting shacks scattered around Bree-land, and this one didn’t stand out to me anymore than the rest. The yard was wild and overgrown. Bits of an old fence were just broken wooden teeth, sticking up here and there. The bucket at the well looked good and used. But the firewood pile alongside the house was covered in creepers and ivy. He opened the door and went inside without giving me any notice. But he didn’t pull the door quite to. A little crack was left open.
I stood outside for a good while. My wish to see if he would be all right with his bleeding head didn’t override my wits. A small woman alone in a nowhere part of the wood with a huge man who’d just nearly strangled her, couldn’t be too careful. Of course, I believed he’d grabbed me out of fear and confusion, and I had my dagger and wasn’t afraid to use it. But still. Sense is sense, as Pa would’ve said.
When he didn’t come back outside, and I didn’t hear anything too alarming from inside, I stepped up and pulled the door open a smidge. The inside was cozy. Cozier than I thought it would be. He’d lit a lantern on a table and was sitting in the chair beside it, with a dented, blurry looking-glass held up in one hand. He was turning his face from side to side, looking at his bloodied head.
He saw me then, in the reflection. He didn’t turn around. He kept staring at me in the looking-glass.
I crept inside, moving slow, like he might be a hart I was hunting and didn’t want to spook.
“That looks bad,” I said, pointing at his face. I heard a pattering sound and glanced down. Rain was dripping from my clothes and hair onto the floor. “If you have a needle and thread, I can try and sew it up for you.”
The man gave a loud grunt. Loud enough to startle me a bit. It wasn’t a laugh, but it sounded rather like one. He put the looking-glass down on the table and waved a hand roughly at me. Dismissing me.
I took a step back and felt the doorframe pressing into the pack between my shoulders. I waited there to see if he would shove me the rest of the way out. His head was bending down to be cradled in his hands.
“You’re in no shape to look after that yourself, aye?” I kept my voice soft. Coaxing.
He grunted again. I saw his big shoulders jump slightly with the sound.
So he wasn’t deaf. And… not exactly mute. Could he talk at all? Was he just being difficult? Maybe the head wound had done something to his brain.
“If you’ve got some ale about,” I said quietly, looking over the little room. “Or whiskey? Could use that to clean it up a bit. And it’d help with the hurt.” The windows were covered in threadbare curtains. Outside, evening was falling early under the light-swallowing clouds. I saw a cupboard in a corner, but it was on the other side of him and his table. I waited.
He sat there like a statue. He sat still and quiet so long I thought maybe he’d fallen asleep like that.
“It’s all right,” I offered after a few minutes. “I’ll leave soon as I’m done. I promise. I won’t touch anything. My name’s Narys. You don’t have to tell me yours. You don’t have to say anything at all.”
His hand flew out at me. It was so quick that I jumped and gasped out loud. But just as quickly, I knew it wasn’t a threatening move. He was waving me forward. Pointing between me and the cupboard.
Swallowing back my pounding heart, I slipped my pack off and set it down by the door. I walked round the table, avoiding looking right at him. In the cupboard, I found a grimy dish, plate, and cup piled together, a load of cobwebs, and an old brown bottle. “This?” I said, turning around to show it to him.
He looked up at me then, and for the first time, I felt something from him. His eyes weren’t wild with rage and pain now. They were guarded, suspicious, weary. And full of pain. I saw them flick down to the bottle and then back to my face, and he nodded slightly. I uncorked the bottle and made the mistake of giving its contents an inquiring sniff. The smell nearly knocked me onto my arse, and behind my coughing I could see the man’s lips twitching.
I still don’t know what was in that bottle. It wasn’t any spirit I’d ever smelled. I tipped it sideways to douse my fingers first, trying to rub away what mud remained. “You got a handkerchief?” I asked him.
He produced one from his pocket and held it out to me. I stood there stupidly for a moment before my feet unglued and I closed the gap between us. The kerchief was damp from the rain, but surprisingly free of the mud in which he’d fallen. I held it, folded up into its square, and poured the liquor on. Behind its pungent odor, as I stood so close to this stranger, I could smell him. Musk and sweat. But not the foul reek of a man who never bathed. Perhaps he wasn’t mad after all. “Tip your head back,” I told him.
He did so, and his eyes locked on mine. I hadn’t noticed their color before. In the light from the lantern, I saw shimmers of gold and silver. Never had I seen such eyes. His stare was so direct, it was unsettling. I had to look away to gather my scattered thoughts and remember what I was doing. The wetted square of cloth began to wipe away the smeared blood from his temple. He winced, gritted his teeth, and grunted.
The wound was ugly, once I’d cleared the half-clotted blood, dirt, and hair from the flesh around it. “Gods,” I breathed when I saw it fully. “You are lucky I followed you. This might have been the end of you.” The wooden plank with which he’d been struck had torn the skin in a ragged fashion. Fresh blood still seeped from the shredded fringes of skin.
Once I’d wetted the kerchief again, I handed him the bottle. “Drink,” I said.
He put the mouth of it to his lips. His eyes never wavered from my face as he swallowed it deeply, and his throat pulsed in and out. I felt the weight of something - some sort of expectation - on my shoulders, and it tightened my heart within my chest. That gaze said, “I don’t particularly care if I die. But if you want to do something about it, go on and do it and don’t pussyfoot around.”
“Must be something mighty special in that bag of yours, to put yourself through this to keep hold of it, aye?” A feeble attempt at humor. I hoped to distract him from the impending discomfort, perhaps. The cloth was positioned over his brow, but paused there. I felt my mouth twisting into its familiar, easy smirk, even if my guts didn’t follow the feeling.
He didn’t laugh. He didn’t even smile, really. But the corners of his lips turned up the tiniest bit.
Stop dragging it out, I told myself firmly. Get it over with!
I pressed the cloth down. Not slowly, not gently. It was better to have pain all at once, than torture a soul with a gradual, relentless building of it. I felt the warmth of his raw, exposed flesh and bone seeping quickly through to my palm. My opposite hand was on the other side of his head, gripping his skull so that he wouldn’t tip it back instinctively.
I still didn’t know whether this peculiar, unfortunate man could speak. But boy, did he know how to bellow.
