Chương 46: Orian’s Tale, Part 2

For several heartbeats, no one in the galley spoke. Arien found himself staring at Orian, waiting for the old sailor to explain. A Skill. Possession. Some trick the frightened villagers had misunderstood. Anything that would make the boy's words less disturbing. Orian merely drew on his pipe before continuing.

"After that, the lad went empty again. Heid shouted at him, hit him, demanded to know what he meant. The boy wouldn't even look at him." The old sailor's mouth tightened.

"And that night, three more families died." A murmur swept through the galley.

"That makes no sense," one sailor said.

"At first I thought the twins were doing it somehow, but three houses in one night? They couldn't be in all of them."

"There are Skills that can make copies of you," another offered.

"Or something close to it."

"Or you could let him finish."

"I'm only saying—""Enough." Orian pointed his pipe at them.

"You can solve the mystery yourselves after I'm dead. Until then, it's my story." A few men chuckled.

"By sunrise, three more houses had been opened to find blood inside. In each one, the father had chosen to stay with his family instead of joining the night patrol.

"After that, people had had enough of waiting behind locked doors. Some began loading wagons before breakfast. Others went looking for axes, torches, anything that would burn. By midday, half the town seemed ready to march into the Forest and set fire to every tree they could reach.

"Only Heid and Samara tried to stop them, though neither agreed on what should be done.

"Heid wanted everyone together after dark. One place, one crowd, every watchman and able-bodied man around it. If whatever was hunting us wanted another family, it would have to come through the whole town first.

"Samara thought that was madness. She begged people not to enter the Forest. Then she threatened them. Then she started naming families that would die if they ignored her. According to Samara, we had offended something ancient, and every torch carried beneath those trees would only make it angrier." He paused.

"Her solution was worse. She wanted the twins killed and their bodies carried to the edge of the Forest as an offering." Someone near Arien muttered a curse.

"That nearly tore the town apart on its own. Verna swore she would put a knife into anyone who touched the children. Some agreed with her. Others had already buried relatives and were willing to try anything.

"We argued until the sun was nearly gone. In the end, Heid won.

"That night, everyone gathered in the town square.

"Families brought blankets, stools, baskets of food. Anything they thought they might need. Fires burned all around us, so many that smoke stung my eyes and sparks drifted over the rooftops. The square was packed so tightly that if you wanted to piss, you had to convince twenty people to move first." A few sailors laughed.

"Funny as it sounds, I remember feeling safe. My father was there, my mother, both my sisters. The watchmen were there. Heid was there. Hundreds of eyes were watching the streets around us.

"And when morning came, everyone was still alive. The next night, we did it again, and no one died then either." Orian reached for the pouch beside him and began packing fresh herbs into his pipe.

"So Heid's plan worked. There was only one problem. We couldn't spend the rest of our lives sleeping in the town square. You have to understand what we were like by then. For a week, people had barely slept. Meals went untouched. Every creak after dark sent hands reaching for knives.

"Since the first night, everyone had blamed the Forest. But after a week of fear and sleepless nights, people started looking for someone closer.

"The couple had been warned not to build there. Everyone remembered that now. Every argument they had made, every warning they had ignored. More people began saying the same thing: none of this would have happened if they had listened.

"It didn't take long before some started blaming the twins as well.

"Samara's idea no longer sounded quite so mad to frightened people. Every morning, more voices joined hers. Give the children back to the Forest. End whatever their parents had started. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it's taken without the author's consent. Report it.

"Verna stood against them." Orian smiled faintly.

"I had known her all my life. A widow with a bad knee who complained whenever someone tracked mud across her tavern floor. I'd never heard her raise her voice at anyone who wasn't drunk.

"That week, she made grown men look at their boots.

"She stood in the square with the twins behind her and called people out by name. Men who had eaten at her tables for twenty years. Men whose children she had fed when they couldn't pay. Whenever someone shouted that the twins should be sacrificed, Verna would ask whether he planned to hold the knife himself.

"Very few answered yes.

"She told us they were frightened children who had already watched their parents die, not offerings to be thrown into the woods because the rest of us were afraid. Then she asked whether we intended to start behaving like the savages we spent so much time mocking beyond the northern border.

"By late afternoon, she had won. The twins would live." Orian paused.

"And then we heard horses. At first, just a faint pounding from the southern road. Then louder. Hooves striking frozen earth, harnesses rattling, someone shouting for people to clear the way.

"Funny what you remember after all these years. The horses were white with foam. One nearly stumbled when its rider pulled it to a stop. The soldiers looked as though they hadn't slept since leaving the city. A priest rode with them. Orian gave a quiet laugh.

"Gods, did we cheer."

"To us, uniforms meant trained fighters. The priest meant the gods had finally noticed us. For the first time in a week, I remember Mother smiling.

"We thought we were saved.

"The priest barely waited for his boots to touch the ground. He handed his reins to a soldier and went straight to Heid and the elders. They spoke in the middle of the square while the rest of us crowded around trying to hear.

"I caught almost nothing.

"Not long afterward, Heid told everyone to go home. The soldiers would watch the streets. The priest would deal with whatever had been haunting us. By morning, he promised, it would all be over." Orian snorted softly.

"These days, if a man in authority told me everything would be fine by morning, I'd start looking for the nearest boat." A few sailors chuckled.

"But I was a child. There were soldiers outside, a priest in the square, and my father was finally sleeping under our roof. That night, I believed them, and I fell asleep almost as soon as my head touched the pillow.

"I woke to sunlight coming through the shutters and lay there for a while, listening. No shouting. No bells. No boots running through the street. For a few moments, I really thought the priest had fixed everything.

"I had dreamed of screaming during the night. At least, I think I had. Even now, I couldn't tell you whether it was real.

"By breakfast, word had spread that Verna and the twins were gone." A few sailors shifted in their seats.

"Not missing in the sense that they'd wandered off. Their clothes were gone. So were Verna's travel bags and what little money she kept upstairs.

"Before people could decide whether to search the roads, the Forest, or drag Heid out of bed and demand answers, the mayor came to the square with the priest beside him. He told us the proper rites had been performed. Whatever had reached into our town had been driven back, and everyone could return to their normal lives.

"Normal." Orian snorted.

"After a week like that.

"People wanted to know where Verna had gone. Where the children were. What the priest had actually done. Whether the Forest was truly responsible. Heid answered some questions, avoided others, and repeated that the danger had passed until people grew tired of hearing it.

"Not everyone believed him. That night, several families slept in the square anyway. Others kept their lamps burning until dawn." Orian paused.

"No one died."

"The following night, no one died either. Nor the night after that.

"Eventually, people started going back to their old routines. Shops reopened. Farmers returned to their fields. Children were allowed outside without someone watching from the doorway.

"But no one forgot the Forest."

"Within a few weeks, a watchtower was going up between the last houses and the tree line. Stone, not wood. There was always someone stationed there after that, and anyone foolish enough to approach the Forest was turned around." Orian stretched, knocked the remains of his pipe into a small dish, and pushed himself up from the chair.

"And that," he said, "was the end of it." Silence. One sailor blinked.

"That's it?" Orian looked at him.

"That's it."

"Oh, come on."

"How was the curse broken?" another demanded.

"Was the priest some kind of Paladin?"

"I told you this was a story from my childhood." Orian grinned.

"Sorry if you expected me to charge into the Forest, slay an ancient evil, and ride away on a white stallion with a princess thrown over the saddle."

"You can't end it there!"

"What happened to the twins?" someone else asked.

"Verna couldn't have taken them far."

"The Forest took them," Ned declared.

"I told you. Curse."

"You think every bad thing is a curse."

"Because half of them are." Three sailors answered Ned at once, and within seconds the whole table was arguing. Arien remained quiet while the sailors argued over priests, curses, Skills, and whether the twins themselves had somehow caused the killings. There were too many possibilities and too few facts, but the timing bothered him. The priest had arrived. Verna and the twins had disappeared that same night. Then the killings stopped. Maybe the rites had truly worked.

After everything Arien had seen in this world, dismissing divine intervention outright would be foolish. The raiders who destroyed his village had avoided the temples, after all. Or perhaps the twins leaving had mattered more than the priest arriving. He looked around the table. Several of the older sailors were not arguing at all. They sat back with knowing smiles, watching the others tear the story apart. They had heard this before. One of them finally took pity on the rest.

"Orian," he called, loud enough to cut through the argument.

"Have mercy on them. Tell them the rest."