The Accurst (First Excerpt)
It was a good night.
The cool air rustled the trees surrounding the cozy mountain village, with candle lights visible in windows, and torches on sconces on gateways of houses or buildings. Some folk stayed awake into the late hours, like guards in their towers, and cooks in their kitchens. It was a quiet village, though not too quiet. Some other folk stayed awake in joke or in game with friends, and some folk just liked the simple late-night hours to enjoy the peace of their homes. That was, of course, to the exclusion of this wiry, young red-head who was doing none of this.
“Help!” He coughed out, smoke escaping his lungs through his mouth as he ran past the inn, startling the game players. His eyes were alight like hot coals in their sockets as he carried himself further, terrified. His veins lit up, from his heart to his fingertips as he crossed the village square, waking up children and grown folks alike with his hollering. ‘To the Abbot,’ he thought in his mind ‘To The well-learned man. He could help.’ Or so he hoped and prayed when he felt his skin flaking off as he began up the hill the Abbey was built on.
He pushed the great door open; hearing the crunch of what he was sure was the charcoal of his flesh and bone against it. He stumbled forward, and a monk who’d been sweeping rushed to him. “No!” he coughed, all fear and smoke in the monk’s face, but when the monk had touched him his own skin started to flake, and his own flesh started to burn. He pulled away from the man and his veins lit up as well.
“Water!” The monk yelled, but alas; it was too late. The man’s every step lit the abbey floor. Monks came out to help from their studies, with buckets and buckets of water to no avail. The Abbot entered upon the screaming and panicking, and flame in time for what was left of the redhead’s body to combust, taking the building with him. Fire and light streamed up like a flare into the night sky. Some sort of beacon into the heavens, pillaring above the trees, visible for miles. The flame burned on well into the night but by morning every ember had gone out.
Upon the first crack of dawn, as the sun crested the tops of the pines, and smoke rose from the ashes of the holy place, the villagers sifted through the rubble to find the remains of those lost. Instead, what they found was a man. His body lay coated in pitch and in some sort of perverse prostration while the others’ bones lay around him. He forced his eyes open, and his body upright. The villagers backed away from him, and turned to run.
Despite everything he felt new. And like the new, he felt fear. It wasn’t a good night.
--
I
It had been about a week since his . . . departure from his home, and the red of his sclera gave away how few of those days he had gotten a sound sleep. The rumble of the rain on the tarps of the wagon he rode in, cramped by the other passengers, beat over the waterproofed leather in a calming rhythm. His eyes began to lower, his exhaustion finally giving in and giving him over to a more benevolent force. For a moment the crowding of the wagon, the pressure on his either side and the hurriedly put together mess that was his luggage, was comfort. For a moment. His eyelids met and as he began to drift off his consciousness roiled with the fear that kept him awake these past days. He made every effort to push it down, though he did not know how. Images of fire and of the monks, those poor monks, flooded his thoughts and begged him to wake up.
The loud crack of the thunder pried his eyes open all of a sudden. It felt like ages under the oppression of his nightmares, but from the soreness of his eyes he knew better.
“What’s your problem, red?” Sneered the woman who’d been sleeping leant up against him. “Wakin’ people up with your jumpin’!” She wasn’t very happy.
“N-nightmares, ma’am.” He whined, and waved a fingerlessly gloved hand.
“What are ya’ a babe? Toughen up.” She shoved him, and leaned away, onto the person on her other side.
“Quit all the ruckus back there,” barked the driver. “We’re all in here t’gether until we make it to the next village so ye’all had better get along. Introduce yourselves. Share stories. Ye’re the unfriendliest lot I’ve pulled all season.
“Olaf,” Piped up a mustachioed man with a long nose. “I kept an inn out east until the one or another of the Jerls burned it down for my serving the other’s men. Now I’m goin’ to see my family in the Weillands.”
“Mm. Ebby,” Said the previously angry woman, a bonnet over her hair and pock marks under the curve of her cheeks. “I’m gonna be visitin’ my mother who lives all the way out west in Opskialland. I make th’ trip once a year, all ‘o my sisters do.”
“Derik.” The redhead managed to say. “I er . . . used to kill monsters.”
“Like a Jotnar!” A child asked in that overly loud voice children often use.
“No, I . . . no, Jotnar don’t exist.”
“They do! I saw one with my own eyes.” The child’s father chimed in. “Tall as a house, hands bigger’n your red head. Ripped the legs offa’ my heifer n’ then waded away in th’ mist same as it came, no sign aside from th’ bleedin’ out cow on the field.”
“You sure that wasn’t just a Troll. Like a mutant Troll of some kind?”
“Nay, Trolls don’t travel in the mist!” Another passenger jumped in.
“Neither would Jotnar. They aren’t intelligent enough to do that, and if they were they’d just ask you for the cow.” Derik sighed.
“Do men just ask for cows!”
“No, but men don’t just steal parts of cows either. Whatever that was is clearly more like an animal than a human.”
“If ye’ don’t believe they exist how could ya’ say for sure?” The woman stuck up her nose.
“Alright, alright,” the driver hushed them. “Can’t go for two seconds without arguin’ can you? Finish the introductions.” The introductions continued, counting merchants, pilgrims, trappers and sailors among the travelers, though conversation always circled back to the exciting art of slaying monsters, be they werewolves in the forest or serpents in the sea.
The introductions went on for a while, until some folk got to know each other and started casual conversation, and sharing stories of where they’ve been and where they’re from, and where they’re going. Derik, through all of this, remained silent; Or as silent as he was allowed to be, when he wasn’t deflecting questions about his monster killing. He instead busied himself adjusting and readjusting the satchel he was sent off with.
--
“Get out of here!” A broad man roared, waving a sharpened farming tool. He was aggressive, but too afraid of what might happen to him if he got too close. Would he end up like the abbey: burned to cinders? Worse, he could hardly imagine what might happen to him, but he and others of the village gathered their tools, and cooking knives, and old weapons and came down to Derik’s shack and banged on the door. He could hear them through the wood and out the window chanting against him.
“Leave!” One would say. “And take your god blasted curse with you!”
“Begone! We don’t want your damnation or your omens!”
“Get out before we kill you!” One of the shouted, though none of them knew if they could. It served its purpose, though, as Derik hurriedly packed everything he could. His hands were shaking, and he didn’t know why—wasn’t familiar with it. The threats sent chills down his spine and heightened his blood pressure. He had to get out, he had decided very quickly. He wanted to apologize to the townsfolk, but words got caught in his throat. Would they even care to hear? He would do best to just leave.
--
The sound of a man shouting snapped him out of his thoughts. He could hear the fear in his voice, and it resounded with him. It was a familiar fear.
“Turn back!” The man was yelling. “Turn back, the road is too dangerous!” He stood in front of the wagon, cloak over his head protecting him from the heavy rain.
“What’s the matter?” Answered the driver.
“The road! There’s a monster down the road, a werewolf! It attacked my wagon, n’ got my brother! Turn back and find another way ‘round!”
“No need,” piped up one of the passengers confidently, to cover their own worry about any monsters. “We’ve got a monster-slayer on board!”
“Yeah, we’ve got a monster slayer!” The driver grinned past his beard and chucked a thumb back into the carriage. Derik felt his heart sink lower and lower with every word. He was afraid.
“Pagh! I dare say one monster slayer won’t be enough! This beast was no simple minded, deranged wild dog! Pagh! This was a werewolf! All teeth and claws and howls! You’d do well to just turn back before it catches your scent! It tore into our horse, and we shot it with our crossbows and nothing! We just drew its ire! Turn back I say! My brother and I tried to run, but my brother tripped and the beast caught him! He told me to run, my dear brother, and I cried on the way and I swore I wouldn’t let anyone else face such a sight! And so I say to you: turn back! Save your selves!”
“M’ sorry for your loss,” spoke the driver solemnly. “Derik, was it? Yeah, you. No, the redhead. Behind you. Aye, Derik. It’s time to earn your keep! Put your words to action, kill this werewolf! You talk like you know what’s what! Time to show the others that you mean business! Give him your weapons, lads! What’s with that face? Get off the wagon, go on! And be quick about it, ‘fore the sun goes down!”
Derik stepped off the wagon, rain still beating down, drenching his cape and his hat, and all the trappings they set him off with. He wanted to argue to stay, but they shuffled him off the wagon despite whatever he had to say. The next thing he knew he was down the road, and the way back was obscured by rain and fog.
“Werewolves,” He muttered aloud. “Blasted werewolves. What am I supposed to do against a werewolf with nothing but a knife, a crossbow with one bolt, and a hatchet? Bah, blast it. Curse this blasted rain, curse that blasted werewolf, and curse this blasted curse!”
The curse.
Derik wondered what he could have done to cross his god so. To ruin his life, to drive him from his home. Was it a curse on his blood, he mused, cast upon the father he never knew?