Chương 47: Orian’s Tale, Part 3

Orian chuckled. The grin spreading across his face made Arien suspicious. He lowered himself back into the chair and began packing his pipe again.

"The rest I didn't learn until a few years later, when Father finally decided I was old enough to drink with him. I was fourteen." He raised a finger before anyone could comment.

"And already taller than him. Besides, my friend's older brother brewed something behind his barn that we occasionally borrowed, so I could hold my liquor reasonably well." Orian took a dignified puff from his pipe.

"For a landlubber, naturally. Only men of the sea truly know how to drink."

"Aye!" several sailors roared. Someone thumped a cup against the table. Orian waited for the noise to fade.

"For years after the killings, everyone had a theory. Mostly children and young fools like me. The adults preferred not to talk about it. Some wouldn't even answer when you mentioned the twins.

"But I remembered what the boy had said. The Forest. Its hunger. And I never quite believed that a priest had simply arrived, waved his hands, and solved everything before breakfast.

"So one evening, when Father had reached the stage of drunkenness where he kept insisting he was perfectly sober, I started asking questions." A few sailors chuckled.

"At first, he claimed he knew nothing. That only made me more certain he did. After everything happened, he and Mayor Heid had become strangely friendly. Men who had barely exchanged greetings before suddenly found reasons to drink together every few weeks.

"It took another cup. Then another. Eventually, Father stopped pretending." Orian's smile disappeared. He stared for a moment at the ember glowing in his pipe.

"And that was when I learned why it mattered that our town was so old.

"After most people went home on the night the priest arrived, Heid quietly summoned several men back to the square. My father was among them.

"The priest was waiting with the soldiers." Orian leaned forward slightly.

"He told them this had happened before.

"Not recently. Not within anyone's living memory. But when the priest had taken charge of our temple, he inherited records kept by generations of priests before him. They described strange events, dangerous places, and things the clergy believed should never be forgotten. Among them were records devoted to the Forest. They described something very similar happening centuries earlier, not long after our town was founded." Orian leaned back in his chair.

"The town was larger then. Much larger. Until families started dying. One house the first night. Another the next. Then another. Always after dark.

"And just like in our case, someone survived the first attack. A girl, the miller's daughter. Her name wasn't preserved in the records. By the time anyone understood that she mattered, half the town had fled and another quarter was dead.

"The priest who came then apparently possessed a Skill that let him uncover more than ordinary questioning ever could. What exactly it did, my father didn't know. But according to the temple records, the girl hated her father.

"He had arranged for her to marry a wealthy man from another town. Much older than her. She begged, argued, threatened to run away. None of it mattered." Orian's eyes narrowed slightly.

"So she did run. Just not away from town." Orian paused.

"She ran into the Forest. She had been going there for months whenever she wanted to be alone. And one day, something answered her.

"A voice inside her head. It promised that no one would ever control her again. That her father would never force her into that marriage." Orian lifted one finger.

"But nothing from the Forest gives gifts freely. The voice wanted something in return: lives. Not hers. Everyone else's." Orian let the silence sit for a moment.

"The records claimed she agreed." Arien frowned.

"Knowing what would happen?" Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.

"That part was less clear," Orian admitted.

"Maybe she understood perfectly. Maybe she thought the voice was lying. Maybe she only cared that her father would suffer first. The priest who wrote the account certainly believed she knew enough." He shrugged.

"Either way, people began dying."

"Ha!" Jug slapped the table.

"I told you. Children. Nothing but trouble."

"Jug, you have five."

"Exactly. I speak from experience." A few men laughed.

"Will you idiots let me finish?" Orian growled.

"I was just saying," Jug muttered. Orian waited until the galley settled again.

"So when our messenger reached the city and described what was happening, the priest recognized the pattern. He didn't stop to investigate. He gathered soldiers and rode straight for us." Orian's expression hardened.

"According to him, the twins hadn't brought back a curse. He believed one of them had become a vessel for something connected to the Abyss. After a week of blood, no one was eager to argue. He was a priest with old records and armed men behind him, and now the town finally had someone to blame." Orian gave a humorless smile.

"Father said, they waited until the middle of the night. Then they took the twins from their beds and Verna from the chair beside them. Bags over their heads, hands tied, mouths gagged. At the same time, two other men emptied Verna's room and took the twins' belongings. By morning, it was supposed to look as though she had simply taken the children and fled.

"The priest couldn't tell which twin was the vessel. The fact that the voice had spoken through the boy apparently proved nothing, and he couldn't rule out that prolonged contact allowed it to move between people. Verna had spent days feeding the children, washing them, sleeping in the same room, and holding them when they woke screaming.

"So the priest decided all three had to go."

"My father went with them. So did Heid, several soldiers, and a handful of the men who already knew the truth.

"The closer they came to the Forest, the harder every step became. Father compared it to trudging through deep snow, though the ground beneath their boots was clear. Every step felt heavier than the last. The torches burned lower too, though there was barely any wind.

"The priest walked at the front, holding a small figure of Sul before him. According to my father, without it, every one of them would have turned around long before they reached the trees." Orian stared past the sailors gathered around him.

"Father said he kept feeling as though something stood between the trees just beyond the torchlight, no matter where he looked.

"When they reached the tree line, one of the men threw his torch between the trunks." Orian snapped his fingers.

"Gone.

"Not extinguished. They didn't see it strike the ground. The flame simply vanished the moment it crossed beneath the branches, like a stone dropped into deep water.

"That was when the twins started fighting.

"Until then, they had barely moved. Suddenly the girl was kicking hard enough that the man carrying her almost dropped her. The boy twisted free of the soldier holding him and ran. Blindfolded. Hands tied. He stumbled twice but kept going toward town.

"A soldier went after him, but the priest was faster. He snatched a stone from the ground and hurled it." Orian tapped two fingers against his temple.

"Hit him here. The boy dropped and didn't move.

"That was when Verna began fighting too. She tried to scream through the gag and kicked at the men carrying her. It made no difference.

"For a moment, no one wanted to be the first to step closer to the Forest. Then the priest gave the order.

"First they threw the boy beyond the tree line. Then his sister." Orian paused.

"Then Verna.

"Alive."

"Why alive?" someone asked quietly.

"Heid asked the same thing. The priest told him the old records were clear on one point. Killing the vessel might only release whatever had attached itself to it. Centuries earlier, they had taken the miller's daughter back into the Forest alive, and the deaths stopped that same night." Orian shrugged.

"So that was what he meant to repeat. Take all three of them back to the Forest and hope whatever had come out of those trees would stay there with them." He fell silent for a moment.

"I can barely picture my mother's face anymore. Father's face that night, though, I remember. His words were slurring by then, but his eyes were clear. I think he had wanted to tell someone for years. Father said that after they threw Verna in, nothing happened. Ten heartbeats. Twenty. Maybe a full minute.

"Then they heard a child giggling somewhere between the trees." Orian's pipe had gone out. He didn't seem to notice.

"Another laugh answered farther inside. Then branches began snapping. Leaves rustled beneath footsteps. Not one pair. Many, coming from different directions."

"Verna screamed.

"The priest told them to back away and not turn their backs on the Forest. So they did. One step at a time."

"And then they heard the chewing. Not one mouth. Many.

"Verna stopped screaming. The chewing didn't. Then came the sound of bones breaking." Orian finally looked down at the dead pipe between his fingers.

"That was the last time the Forest fed on our town." No one spoke. A wave struck the hull hard enough to make the timbers groan, and someone near the door flinched. Arien glanced toward the small window. Beyond the glass, there was only black sea. For an instant, he was a child on Earth again, staring at a partly open wardrobe while a branch scratched against his window and shadows seemed to change shape whenever he looked away. His parents had always told him there was nothing hiding in the dark.

On Earth, they had been right. Erador had made that reassurance considerably less convincing. Usually, the end of a story brought arguments. Sailors picked apart every decision, claimed they would have done better, or accused the storyteller of lying. Tonight, chairs began scraping against the floor instead. One by one, men found reasons to leave the galley. Someone muttered about the morning watch. Another suddenly remembered work he had left unfinished.

Within minutes, only a handful remained, and no one offered another story. Much later, lying in his berth and listening to the hull creak around him, Arien kept returning to the same problem. Orian's story explained why the priest had blamed the twins and offered an answer for why the killings had stopped. It still didn't explain how the Forest had killed people inside their own homes.