Hungry Heart - Book #2 - Ch. 3 (Patreon)

Chapter One / Chapter Two 

Chapter Three – War Stories

The entire Shroudharbor was there to see them off. Toru didn’t want to admit it, but he was overwhelmed. During his travels, he had never lingered for too long inside cities, the closed hearts of their residents being the main reason. He had always preferred smaller human settlements, where he could easily find a warm bed and a plate of food, as well as the occasional lover.

Dozens of hands reached to touch him from the sidelines, and he touched them back, squeezing them briefly, as the people, some happy, some in tears, wished him and his companions a safe journey, or expressed their hope that he would find his way back to them. Naella with Moony and her husband were sitting a bit farther back from the rest of the crowd, and they were waving at them. The woman’s kind heart probably decided for her entire family that they had had the luxury of a proper goodbye. Still, Toru wished he could just walk over to them and give them one last hug.

Varg’s heavy arm hooked around his shoulders. “It is goodbye, but only for now, friends,” his voice boomed, cutting through the ruckus of the crowd. “We can’t say when we’ll be back, but what we know is that we will back, without a shadow of a doubt. In the name of my companions, I want to address my deepest gratitude to you for having us here.”

Toru no longer listened, as his eyes just moved over the people gathered there. Everywhere he looked, there were only friendly faces, and in his life, he would have never thought such a thing to be possible for him, to be welcomed in one place and loved by so many.

They were seen off with wishes of goodwill and flower petals, and it was only after they were at a fair distance from the city that the reality of the new road ahead began to settle in.

“My nose,” he exclaimed and touched it like there was something he could do to make it show them the way.

“What’s wrong?” Duril hurried to ask him.

“I’m not smelling anything,” he said. “What if I can’t sense where we need to head to?”

“We’re going to The Quiet Woods for now, and the road is long, as Claw told us,” Duril hurried to assuage his fears. “And it’s not like you sensed that scent you told us about all the time, right?”

“Oh, all right,” he admitted, feeling a bit silly over getting worked up about such a thing.

Varg laughed and patted him on the back. “Are you starting to feel responsible for all the lives you’ve saved so far, kitty? I’d say that feeling should have come first.”

Toru poked Varg’s side with two fingers, making the wolfshifter wince and move away from him.

“Varg is just teasing you,” Duril said. “But you don’t have to worry. There are some things we’ve noticed so far in regard to our faceless enemy, aren’t there? First of all, no matter where we went, it surely had a way to find us and confront us, whether it so wanted to or not.”

“That’s true,” Toru admitted. “What if I’m the one that keeps dragging it from where it lays? What if --”

Varg shook his head. “Toru, it’s not you. This evil, whatever it is, has been here for hundreds of years. Actually,” he added, “it feels like it surfaced about three hundred years ago. In Fairside, when Onyx got trapped by that evil spirit, and here in Shroudharbor --”

“—when the pearl was washed up on the shore,” Claw completed his words. “I wasn’t, so to speak, on the face of the earth for the last three hundred years, so what you people are telling me is quite strange. Shouldn’t the world have succumbed to madness and this evil during all that time?”

“It almost did,” Varg replied. “Eawirith is a large continent, but throughout this time, there have been wars everywhere. Until only forty years ago, we up north were also engaged in a long and gruesome conflict.”

“What was it about?” Claw asked.

The bearshifter was eager to hear some war stories, and Toru had to admit that he was curious, too. He knew that Varg and Duril had been combatants in such an event, but they had never had the time to sit and talk at length about it.

Varg hiked up the large bag on his shoulder filled with supplies the city dwellers had managed to ply them with, after all. Toru thought that the wolfshifter wouldn’t have to worry about carrying the burden for long, as he planned on feasting on some of the most perishable foods quite soon.

“We’re hard people up there,” Varg began. “We do not get easily frightened, and our lives are never easy. But the war.” He stopped for a moment, as his eyes became misty. “I have to admit that until I joined Toru in his fight against this horrendous evil, I thought that I would never face the same atrocities I had to while fighting alongside my comrades.”

Duril seemed to remember those things all too well. Toru felt him shivering by his side. “Those were indeed bleak times,” he confirmed. Toru wrapped an arm around his neck and pulled him a little closer.

It was strange to imagine an all-engulfing war while walking a sinuous path through the lush forests stretching east of Shroudharbor. The start of summer was already there, and it was Toru’s favorite season. The days were long, the food was plenty, and he could bask lazily out in the sun for hours.

But those days were gone, he told himself. Now, he was responsible for something much greater than he had ever faced in his entire life. Still, the pleasant coolness of the shadows thrown by the trees as the sun moved across the sky on its journey made him take a long and deep breath and enjoy the scents of the flowers and grass. The birds were chirping happily, and the bugs hummed their own tune.

“I don’t know about the other wars fought in different part of the continents,” Varg began talking again. “But ours was bloody, wretched, and it tore our souls apart.”

Claw nodded thoughtfully. “That may be the sole thing I don’t regret about being trapped in that labyrinth. What am I saying?” He laughed to himself. “I would have been part of it if it happened that the sanctity of my forest was threatened.”

The bearshifter fell silent. No one had to say it, as they were all thinking it. Who knew what could have happened on the other side of the continent after such a long time?

“The Quiet Woods deserve their name,” Claw continued. “Few people live there, as they would have had to cross and survive Zukh Kalegh to get there.”

“In a way, the horde keeps any other monsters at bay,” Varg concluded. “Talk about a bad thing being a good thing.”

Toru stole a quick look at Duril, to see if the mentioning of the orc horde had any effect on him. But the healer had the same serene look on his face, and he didn’t appear in the least bothered by it. Toru wasn’t sure if Duril knew of Zukh Kalegh, and what it meant, but he wasn’t about to bring the topic up just like that.

“I suppose,” Claw said with a small chuckle. “The woods are quiet because they never heard the clamor of battle. Those living in the desert don’t care for the sweet water in our rivers, or the smell of the forest. They are used to the aridity of their place, so they never invaded ours. Who was engaged in your war, Varg?”

“On our side,” Varg began again, “we had humans and shifters, mostly wolves. We are the kind used to the harsh northern conditions. We keep to ourselves, and we see about our business. But there wasn’t anything we could do to prevent the conflict that descended upon us like a curse.”

Duril sighed. “So many good people died.”

Toru knew that had also been when the healer had lost his arm. He shivered at the thought that his now close friends and lovers had been in so much danger. It seemed like such a whim of fate that he had been allowed to get to know them and had them become so close to his soul right now.

“It all started,” Varg continued, “with what seemingly could be considered a random event. Far to the east of Whitekeep, at Gaelnarum, a pack of Vrannes launched a raid. That wasn’t unusual at all, as their kind favors thievery and violence.”

“What are Vrannes?” Toru asked.

Claw was, as it seemed, all eyes and ears, as well.

Varg let out a long sigh. “They are also dwellers of the north, except that they live far to the eastern part of the icelands. Their home was Knaeus, mostly mountainous and peppered with rotten woods. I’ve never been there, but so people talked about it at the time. It rains so much there that the trees grow together with fungi, always soaked, their bark splintered and exposing the soft wood underneath.”

“Brrr,” Toru shivered, “I can tell these Vrannes couldn’t be a cheerful bunch, forced to live in a place like that.”

“Nobody forced them,” Varg commented. “And they are part trees, part creatures. They come alive from that mixture of a fungal forest with other living creatures. Or, at least, that was how we thought everything happened during that time.”

Toru was getting more and more curious about the Vrannes, but he didn’t want to hurry Varg, as the wolfshifter seemed to be having a little bit of a hard time remembering all those things from such a long time ago.

“What do they look like? Not too appetizing, I guess,” Claw said.

Duril was the one to reply, as Varg was lost in thought at that moment. “At first glance, you’d think that the forest decided to unroot itself and come loose. Their bodies are long, of a dark color, and their skin is nothing but rotten bark. But they do have legs and arms, but not like a human, mind you. Their members are gnarled branches, and from them sprout sharp claws and fangs.”

“They have fangs in their hands?” Toru asked. “That’s so disgusting.”

“And frightening,” Varg continued. “To the unaware person, seeing a Vranne for the first time can be a near death experience. The Vrannes count on it; they use their abhorrent appearance to make their victims tremble in fear before them and lose all will to fight.”

“Can they be vanquished?” Claw asked, but it sounded as if he was simply musing about it without expecting an answer.

“They can,” Varg replied. “They aren’t the most courageous types, but their power lies in numbers. Laid,” he added after a short while. “We might have exterminated them, for all I know.”

“After the war, there were no more signs of Vrannes to the east,” Duril said.

“Tell us more about the war,” Claw urged them, and Toru was, once more, all eyes and ears.

Varg was the one to take upon himself the task of recounting the events. “As I was saying, their first attack was on Gaelnarum. The place was nothing but a farm. The people there raised cattle, goats, and pigs. They only grew corn, and only they knew how they had managed to survive in their harsh surroundings. The Vrannes came at the break of dawn, just as the farmers were waking up, ready for a new day of hard work.”

The wolfshifter took a short break while collecting his thoughts. “They slaughtered everything and everyone. They went through all the animals and people alike, like they wanted nothing but their blood. They left everything else; their flesh, their guts, their hair, their bones.”

“There were no survivors,” Duril said.

“Then how did you know it was the Vrannes who massacred that settlement?” Claw asked.

“A milkman from an adjacent town had traveled to Gaelnarum that morning. He was horrified by the scene playing out in front of his eyes as he set foot there. It was suddenly a ghost town with no living souls anywhere to be seen. But he didn’t run when he saw the first bodies. You see,” Varg said with a small frown, “he was a young man with more guts than wits. He began going through the entire town, searching for survivors. At one point, he reached a large enclosure where one of the biggest herds of cattle was corralled in Gaelnarum. There he saw a group of Vrannes tearing cows and humans apart and sucking at their bodies, draining them of blood.”

“Do they have heads? And mouths? These Vrannes?” Toru asked.

“There is a mouth, but it’s placed in the middle of the body,” Duril explained. “Unlike the members that have claws and teeth, the large mouth only has a long tongue that can be used to wrap around a victim and strangle it.”

“The milkman saw them, and, needless to say, the next thing he did was to run away screaming. He was plain lucky in that the Vrannes must have been already satiated with the many animals and people they had killed. They didn’t follow him, and so he lived to tell the rest of the world what he had just seen.”

“Rumor has it,” Duril continued, to help Varg piece those memories together, “that something must have pushed those Vrannes out of their native lands. You see, since they were creatures of the earth, they weren’t well-equipped for movement over long distances. Very few people were brave enough to seek them out to study them in their native soil.”

“Brave enough or crazy enough,” Varg said. “That’s true, indeed. The Vrannes didn’t enjoy being awakened from their slumber. They drew all of their nutrients, all they needed, from the soaked soil and trees of their homeland. And they considered it their duty to protect it.”

“If they were such a peaceful bunch with no ambitions to invade others, why did they have such a horrible appearance?” Claw asked.

“To deter anyone who wanted to take over their forest. I wouldn’t call them peaceful. There had been incidents before, but few and far between. Time and again, a Vranne would lose its mind and start to wander. Killing cattle, scaring the children, all that. But that attack at Gaelnarum was different. No one had ever seen such a large group of Vrannes before until they had ventured to their forest. And no one had ever known them for their bloodthirstiness, either.”

“What happened afterward?” Toru could feel the disquiet growing inside his companions, little by little, as they recalled those bleak times. Even the wind passing through the branches, a summer breeze and nothing more than that, seemed to whisper in a wailing voice, changing its tune.

He shook off the sensation and focused again on Varg’s words.

“Up north, we don’t believe in kings and nobles who do nothing but prey on the wealth created by the rest of us. We keep to ourselves, each to their town, their tribe, their kin. But we do recognize the harsh nature of the north in everyone who lives there. So, when Gaelnarum fell to that horrendous fate, word got around. All of a sudden, the peace we had known for so long was no more. There was another enemy beside the cold and poor crops and wild creatures that we needed to be aware of.

“Gaelnarum was the start of it all. From that first attack, others blossomed. In Whitekeep, we learned of the horrible acts of the Vrannes after one year or so. By then, the north had caught fire.”

Toru could tell by the solemn quality of Varg’s voice and the way his eyes wandered that those events had been forever etched on his heart.

“And it’s not just a way of saying,” Duril continued as Varg’s silence lingered. “The Vrannes appeared to have become prey to a madness of sorts, one that urged them to set everything ablaze, no matter where they went.”

“But they were trees, right?” Toru asked. “Why would a forest like fire?”

Duril shook his head. “That was why we called it madness. It was like nothing we had ever seen before. And the Vrannes just kept on feeding on the blood of humans and animals. It was like there was an unsettling thirst forcing them to act that way. They tore apart everyone standing in their path, drinking the blood straight from their necks.”

“And when there was no drop left, they filled their ugly mouths with the soil soaked in blood and sucked from it like they couldn’t live another moment more without devouring everything they could ensnare.” That was Varg again.

“So you called all surviving people and raised them to war?” Claw asked.

Varg nodded. “For some reason, the Vrannes stayed clear of shifters. They didn’t dare to attack them, and being the cowards that they were, they attacked only small settlements like Gaelnarum at first. But soon, they became bolder, more organized. Their groups moved in throngs, and from afar, it looked like there was an entire forest moving toward you.

“Once they were done with a settlement, they set it on fire. They didn’t stay behind to watch their destruction, and they just moved farther and farther, guided by nothing but that abominable thirst that seemed to have taken possession of their minds.”

“How did you win against such mad creatures?” Claw asked.

“We fought fire with fire,” Varg replied. “A way of saying, but one that would take shape later. I’ll tell you about it. We noticed soon that the Vrannes set fire to all the places they destroyed only to run away from them like they feared being flayed by an army of demons. That was the nature of their madness and destruction. At first, small groups fought their attacks. Settlements were taught how to organize their defenses. And humans pushed back.”

“Yet, their attacks were relentless. People were starting to wonder whether their lives would become nothing but ceaseless warmongering. Some decided to try and destroy the Vrannes, not by waiting for them to attack, but by searching for them in their temporary lairs,” Duril continued.

“There are many forests up north, so there were no shortage of places to hide for the Vrannes. The war gave birth to adventurers, people who sought fame and glory by trying to defeat those creatures. But it was no use trying to confront those abominations in their nests.” Varg nodded thoughtfully as he recalled all that.

“What happened to those people who tried to find the Vrannes?” Toru inquired.

Duril exchanged a meaningful look with Varg. They appeared to be in an accord over what the wolfshifter said next.

“No one really knows. They never came back from their quests. And it was like the same madness was creeping into people’s minds, too, because the more adventurers didn’t come back, the more wanted to join their ranks in that tenebrous end they had surely met.”

“Then new legends appeared,” Duril added. “Stories about how the Vrannes could no longer live on soil alone, and how their taking to blood was transforming them. Some thought that all those adventurers were now part of the army of Vrannes populating the woods. Those were just tales, but --” he broke off abruptly and turned toward Varg again.

The wolfshifter let out a long sigh. “I wish that they were only stories. As we went against the Vrannes, more and more people began reporting that they had seen human faces trapped inside the rotten bodies of our enemy. It could have been nothing but hallucinations, as it appeared to be reported only by those who were of human descent. I never saw a human face in all the Vrannes I killed in battle. Did you, Duril?”

The healer shook his head. “No, I can’t say that I did.” He touched the arm he no longer had whole with his only hand in an absent-minded manner.

“How did you lose your arm?” Claw asked, startling the others. “Was it during the war?”

Toru let out a small protective growl.

“Claw,” Varg warned in a stern tone that brooked no contradiction.

“It’s all right,” Duril hurried to appease everyone. “It’s not a story I like remembering, but I’ve never liked being treated like a curiosity, or a… freak. I lost it in battle, yes. It happened as the war raged on, so the least I can say is that I did my fair share of fighting.” The chuckle that followed was devoid of any trace of humor.

No one pressed the healer to talk about it and waited patiently.

“We had just received a lot of wounded people. They were all in bad shape. With their thirst for blood, the Vrannes had become shrewder, more dangerous. If before they had used their fangs and claws mostly to defend themselves, now things were completely different. They were vicious and determined in their madness. Their claws had grown longer, their fangs sharper. So we had a lot of people with deep cuts, severed members, and the like. We were amputating what couldn’t be salvaged like we were inside a butchery, not a camp for treating people and saving them.

“The Vrannes attacked us so suddenly. To witness such a thing,” he said and closed his eyes. “It was as if the earth had decided to open up and swallow us whole. We didn’t stand a chance. The patients we were treating, even less. I suppose I was lucky I survived. A Vranne cut through my arm like it was butter. I thought I was as good as dead. I had been just closing a wound. The man I was treating, he was so young. I can still recall how his face turned white like snow when the Vranne rose behind me. Little could I do. To my shame, I lost consciousness immediately after I lost my arm. When I woke up again, I was in a wagon dragged by oxen, together with all the people that had been found still breathing.”

“Do you know who saved you?” Toru asked. “Those people in Whitekeep were pretty mean to you.”

“Not all of them. It was Rory’s grandfather. Kindness runs in that family like the good sap inside the body of a strong and healthy tree. He sat with us as we traveled back home, telling us stories.” Duril laughed at the memory. “We were in such great pain, all of us. But he didn’t just sit there, offering compassion and condolences. He knew that the last thing we needed was a constant reminder of what we had been through. So, he told us happy stories that didn’t include anything about the war or horrible creatures attacking in the dead of night. He helped us live and look forward to living again.”

“How did it all end?” Claw asked.

Toru held Duril by the shoulders, not knowing what comfort to offer in the light of such horrible memories. Duril looked at him with loving eyes. “It’s all right now. It’s all left behind, in the far distant past.”

Varg paused, allowing the small exchange between them before continuing. “It wasn’t easy, that I can tell you. The more Vrannes we sent to their graves, the more appeared. Forests came alive with them, and up north, we have nothing but forests all around. And the fact that the woods were infested with their abomination made it hard for us shifters to find food during those lean times.”

“But I thought you said they didn’t attack shifters,” Claw reminded him.

“True, but they were thinning our numbers in other ways. Shifters found themselves moving closer to human settlements. They had to uproot their lives as they knew them, and it wasn’t everywhere that they were welcomed with open arms. So we offered our services in battle, in higher and higher numbers.”

“That must have changed the course of the war, didn’t it?” Claw asked.

“We evened the odds, but there seemed to be no end to the overwhelming numbers of our enemies. And we began to lose some of our brothers and sisters, too,” Varg said. “Something had to be done, but what? And then Agatha --”

“The old witch!” Toru exclaimed.

Varg smiled and ruffled his hair. “Yes, the old witch. She started asking the earth what it wanted from us. In all honesty, not many thought that there was anything worth getting from her gibberish. It’s not like she makes it easy for anyone to understand what she is saying.”

“I guess there is a price for any gift,” Duril remarked. “She only wants what’s good for us, regardless of how she chooses to manifest her goodwill.”

“There is an old witch in The Quiet Woods, too,” Claw said. “Or, at least, there was. I wonder what she might be doing now.” He said the last words as if he was saying them to himself.

“She talks to the earth, too?” Toru asked, filled with curiosity.

“No, but she might have been talking to the water. More often than not, I saw her bent over the rapid river waters, resting against her cane, one wrong move away from falling in and being dragged away.”

“Did she ever fall?” Toru asked again.

“No, as far as I know,” Claw replied. “And she might just as well have been talking to the fish for all I know. I never talked to her, only saw her from afar. But she was part of the forest, so I guess I cannot imagine my home without her. How did the war with the Vrannes end?” he asked Varg. “What did your old witch do?”

“She taught us how to fight fire with fire,” Varg said with a small smile. “It was so simple that we should have thought of it already. Trees don’t like fire, indeed. She had us make a huge pit and throw into it every piece of wood we could find. And when I say huge, it was something like none of us had ever seen. At her advice, we turned the layers below into burning coals and then we covered the pit with leaves and branches. We had to mark the place so that we didn’t end up wandering straight into our own trap.”

“And the Vrannes fell into the pit?”

“It was a hard task to lure them in. They had grown shrewder, as I told you. But the moment the first of them fell into the pit, the others followed. It was an incredible sight. While the ones fallen inside and being engulfed by flames struggled to get out, the others were falling on top of them as if they couldn’t stop. And the noises they made, it was like the belly of the earth had been split open. Agatha prevented us from trying to kill the ones on top that seemed to be still alive. She said something about it having to endure the pain of fire, as that’s where it came from.”

“It?” Claw asked the same question that had been on everyone’s minds.

“I didn’t pay it much attention at the time. Agatha says whatever she wants whenever she fancies. So, no one paid any attention to her words, except when they served us to get rid of that scourge.”

“Could it be that she knew about this evil that seems to lurk beneath the surface of the world?” Duril asked. “Since I was still recovering from my wound, I wasn’t present at the end. The echoes of the war traveled quickly to Whitekeep, nonetheless. I remember so well how relieved I felt when news of our victory came. We were all so happy, like we had just been born again.”

“What did you do with the giant pit?” Claw inquired.

“For days and nights, it continued to burn. Agatha stood there, by the edge, her eyes never faltering. All of us went to sleep, took shifts, but she remained there. The smoke didn’t bother her. But she may be one with the earth if what people kept gossiping about her is true. She had us mix the ashes with tar and resin gathered from healthy trees, while saying something about impurity. Now I wish I paid more attention to her, while she was mumbling on and on.”

“If it’s any consolation, I doubt you would have understood more than she wanted to let out,” Duril offered.

“Why do all witches talk weird like that?” Toru asked with a deep frown on his face. “And that monk in Shroudharbor.”

“He’s a librarian,” Duril corrected him. “And Elidias wants only the best for us, just like Agatha.”

“They swore an oath,” Claw intervened before someone else had a chance to reply to that. “That’s what I know. People who turn to witchcraft are not allowed to share their knowledge with the world. They have to go about it in roundabout ways. And more, it appears that it is ever their duty to use what they know for good, but doing so may be an arduous and difficult task.”

“Then we should consider ourselves lucky for understanding as much of what Agatha told us as we do,” Duril said. “Good thing that war is long past. Not gone from our memories, it’s true, and we could never forget about it. But the Vrannes, they might have been destroyed for good.”

“What lies in Knaeus now?” It was again Claw asking the question.

“Who knows? After the war, no one had the guts to venture there. Could it be that there are still Vrannes out there?” Varg addressed the last words to no one in particular. “I wouldn’t bet on it, but I’ve been wrong before. But enough of war stories. We have a new road ahead of us. It wouldn’t serve to let us be held back by memories and whatnot.”

TBC

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