Rise of the Degeneracy

Chapter 51 - The Burning Forest

Close to Oma. SE Britain

Trapped within a stormy, burning forest. Painful heat, inferno flames catch on gusts of wind, sweeping through these woods. Recent dry weather, ring barked trees, and modified pastures have presented the ideal conditions for this fire to catch. Cinders and hot embers blow onto dead wood. Su’lan coughs, running through smoke with Qan in his arms. He splutters,

‘Tashkilla, caught here between fire and the open lands of the barbarians, I’m afraid we need to return to the latter’.

Poor Qan buries his curly head into Su’lan’s shoulder. First we faced a grumpy bear, then we were pursued through a storm by foreigners and orphans. Now we’re in hellfire. We had thought ourselves clever in bringing farmers and bear together. But our lives are endangered by an act of Nature. Much as we're adverse to facing angry barbarians, we prefer that to being burned alive. We’re not alone in this conclusion. More than one deer and wild pig rushes past us in an escape from flying embers, as they bolt for the gardens of the Leva.

We make it to the dirts of the clearances. This wind still blows strong out here in the open countryside. All incinerates behind us, while before us lies the hovels of farmers, each mapped out by more peaceful lights of their hearths. Ugh, the watchdogs have detected us. Yet only out here in this storm may we breathe air free of smoke. We pull our furs closer to flesh, and squint through darkness for somewhere safe to hide.

Paaxti wrongly thought his long day’s excitement was finally at a close. He’d been ready to enjoy his bread and broth when the dogs began to bark once more. He released a long groan, pulled on his furs, then reached for his long handled axe, moving back towards the door of his lodge. He grunts to Gorka,

‘Damn these bloody savages. Why don’t they just die with their burning forest?’

She fakes a frown to empathise sympathy with her husband. When he has gone, a smile returns to her face. Life has improved for Gorka.

The winds whistle around thatched mud houses of the camp. The skyline to the north illuminated by the raging forest fire. Paaxti battles against squalls to call upon men of Oma to rejoin a posse. Aarva is the first to respond positively. Mazde refuses. Hippo and his friend Alaax come reluctantly, while Lanella and Saabiaske actively volunteer once more. Paaxti praises them both,

‘Such excellent neighbours, I'll call out your names at the next council of Oma’.

The new posse searches the storm battered camp for signs of intrusion. They inspect each hovel. They raise torches that snuff out in the wind, search the wheat gardens. They check the cattle enclosure for signs of intrusion.

We don’t hide in any of those places. We keep company with ghosts within the dens of the abandoned orphan camp. Our luck expires, when we hear the approach of Paaxti’s mob. I peek out of a decaying hatchway to hear them stumbling over the deadened stumps of trees. I whisper to my man,

‘We can’t remain in this trap, but must run’. He nods in the darkness and we bolt from our burrow. I hear a familiar female voice call out from the mob. I snarl to the Storyteller,

‘It’s that Lanella!’ Again, the old game is on, and we're hunted.

A heavy downpour announces. Arriving as a deluge to harass our spirits. Su’lan carries Qan as we run through sudden, pouring rain. We bolt in darkness over the blackened soils of ashy soils of a fresh clearance. Dark tree stumps still smoulder here. It is as if the Earth is dying all around us.

Despite the sudden downpour, our pursuers don't abandon their hunt. I hear their treacherous voices follow. The ash beneath our feet is rinsing into a slimy mulch. My furs and hair are drenched. Waters leak through the seams of my oiled deer-hides. I feel I cannot persevere, then I see dry shelter and share this with Su’lan,

‘Look, over there, that house, the door is wide open and I see its unattended hearth inside’.

It is a turf-walled shelter, a small den nearby in a yard. The hearth within the house beckons to me. I see no barbarians there, and I so much want to rest in the dry and warm. I petition,

‘We could hide and rest in this empty abode. I’ve not recently heard pursuers. Perhaps the rain has dampened their desire to hunt?’

He’s more cautious and dismisses my plan as reckless, ‘No, they'll find us and we'll be cornered’.

To confirm his dire prediction, I hear the shrill calls of the approaching orphans. Even in darkness and rain they persist. Su’lan says,

‘Tashkilla, peer up to the woods! This rain quenches the fire. The spirits grant us a chance to return to our wilds where we can thwart these enemies’.

‘Yes’ I rasp eagerly, ‘let’s do it’.

With Su’lan carrying Qan, we divert back to smouldering woods. I hope the heat and smoke has diminished sufficiently for us to breathe. It is as we scarper that I hear another familiar voice call out from our enemies,

‘Storyteller, I come to avenge my brothers. I'll feast on your liver’. It was the tone of the exile named Saabiaske. He survived Su’lan’s javelin.

We reach the wilds and step inside the smoky woods. So dark and unpleasant. It stinks of damp, burnt greenwood. The fumes reignites my cough. Hot glowing cinders still blow around as droplets of rain strike them cold. In such poor nighttime visibility, we can only move cautiously, to avoid hazards of heat. I hear Lanella shout out in our own tongue, an attempt to unnerve us,

‘Kill these pigs and roast them in their destroyed paradise’.

I turn to face Su’lan, ‘Nothing will stop them from chasing us, they'll follow us into hellfire’.

‘The exile can’t be fighting fit, and there are few of them. We could choose a stand from which to tackle them. The spirits of this violated wilderness would lend us their support’. He gestures at the boy in his arms, ‘First we need to find a safe place to hide our child’.

I’m tired of this running, and readily agree. I’m ready to fight these rogues.

Resurrection

Ur’salla had experienced her own death. Brutality and pain followed by cold darkness. A distant light approached. She'd found herself as a ghost on a foreign battlefield, where she fought valiantly alongside her moon sister. Together as two, they’d defeated a terrifying demon. Then she returned to peaceful darkness.

Another distant light approaches. She peels back her encrusted eyelids to see it's the real brightness of a bonfire blowing wildly in a nighttime storm. Rain pelts down on her torn skin to bring the renewal of life. This moisture irritates on her earthen side where it mixes with an alkaline soil. Rain splatters to wash ash from her naked skin.

Hearing is the next sense to heal. She takes in her friend Amaia, chanting through the pelting rain. Ur’salla opens her eyes to focus on the flames of the witch’s bonfire. Amaia doesn’t only chant. In her bearskin she dances around her sacred storm fire. The shaggy fur of her damp coat swishes with her dance moves. Amaia’s small, rounded face peeks out from beneath the face of the bear. Rain washes away the spirals painted onto her wet forehead. Ur’salla translates the words of Amaia’s magical chant,

A wide gap parts around a full moon. This parting grows, while, wind drops to a calm, and rain ceases. Ilua or Nanna, a power falls from the Moon onto Ur’salla’s broken body. Broken bones fix. As a wild bull once rose up from death, so Ur’salla climbs up from her ashy grave to stand, not as a ghost, rather as a Moon daughter resurrected. She smells the stench of a smouldering forest.

Amaia watches on and jumps up and down in joy. Excitedly she welcomes Ur’salla back to the mortal world,

‘Ur’salla you returned as Ilua had prophesied. Now is the time for you to run back to your wilds’ she points up to the moonlit woods, where smoke still rises.

Still confused, Ur’salla places her hands onto her own womb and feels for life there. The young witch sees her action and assures,

‘Don’t fear my Sister. Ilua has preserved both of our daughters. She'll be born well. Now you must return to your paradise’.

Ur’salla turns to leave, but pauses to gaze back at Amaia. She says to her,

You are a friend. You are barbarian but you're kind. I thank you’.

Amaia responds, ‘I promise that in future dreamtime, our daughters will meet each other’.

The bonfire is doused by the rain. Amaia disappears into darkness. Ur’salla scrutinises the smoky, moonlit woods and steps forward.

Dreamy eyed, Su’lan admits, ‘I know this place. I’ve been here in a vision’. I don’t doubt him, for I too know this place is our final stand. The rain has stopped and all storm, passed. The sky cleared, and a full moon fills the glade with silvery light. I take Qan, hiding him in soaking undergrowth. He shivers with dampness and cold. We're so wet and muddy from our running around in a downpour. I ask of the boy,

‘Here Qan, you must stay still in this spot until we come back for you. I sense his anguish. He trembles with chill, and raises his small mitts into fists. Our new son is so brave. I insist, ‘No Qan. You must wait here until all violence has been done’.

I rise up from my crouch, and stumble through darkness to rejoin Su’lan who watches the glade. We don’t know our dastardly adversaries have guessed this trap, and bypassed the clearing. Before I reach Su’lan, I am grabbed from behind, and a hand covers my mouth. A barbarian speaks with a broken tongue,

‘You Aarva’s new wife to replace the broken girl’.

bite down on the rough palm of the brute’s hand, and in this shock, he lets me go. I yell, ‘Don’t touch me you treacherous shit’.

Aarva reacts by punching me hard in the face. I fall back into the ferns. The monster kicks me into submission. He jumps with all of his weight onto one of my knees. I howl with agony and with defeat. Aarva laughs at my discomfort and declares,

‘You do not run away. I take you home to my den. But first make son’.

Aarva lifts his loincloth and fumbles. Warm blood sprays over my face. A javelin has passed straight through Aarva’s torso from behind. It is ripped back out by his killer, and the jerking corpse of a barbarian falls by my feet. Su’lan stands there with his guilty javelin.

Another barbarian emerges to assault him. Moonlight suggests a grey beard, an elder of the Leva. Yet despite his age, this barbarian is thickset and determined. He swings his farmer’s axe at my man who swerves to avoid its blow. I hear the woosh of air on each pass of the stone axehead. I cannot help my man. I fear Aarva has broken my leg.

I’m sure Su’lan would soon get the better of the old man, but two more assailants arrive to harass. They gang up with the elderman to fight Su’lan. I know these two rogues. One is a small woman armed with a javelin. The other carries a war club in his left hand, while his right hangs useless. Saabiaske brags,

‘Storyteller I come to avenge my brothers’.

Su’lan fights skilfully but this is three to one. My heart sinks when I see two more barbarians making their way across the glade. We underestimated their numbers. My leg is ruined, and we're doomed. I see the figure of a small boy emerge from his hiding place.

I don’t wish for them to hurt him, so I shout, ‘Qan, run, run like the wolf, run for your life!’

He doesn't. Qan ambles up to the moonlit clearing, and his lips part to release a sweet voice. I hear him speaking with an old fashioned dialect,

‘O A’killao, Bearded Bull, come forth to the moonlight. Come to my aid Grandfather. I Qan of the Galarri ask for you to descend back to our wilds. Ancestor of my kind, I beg of you. This is my time of need O A’killao’.

Laying injured in the ferns, I feel the earth shake beneath me. Something large and heavy charges its way through this smoky rainforest. I hear branches creak, and twigs snap, then a thunder of hooves. The apparition bursts into the moonlit glade. A luminescent, and enormous bull. A large head covered with woolly hair, and bearded. Strong horns held forward as it lowered its head to charge. The bull glows silver with the energy of the moon. I hear Qan announce,

‘Grandfather, thank you for hearing my call’.

The bull lowers its horns at the two thin barbarians who are caught in this glade. I hear them both fret. One attempts to run back towards Oma. Bearded Bull reaches him first. With a gruesome thump, the man is rammed down and then trampled into the ground.

His mate screams with foreboding, ‘Paaxti, help me!’

The barbarian elderman drops his assault on Su’lan, and rushes out into the glade to attack the bull with his axe. Bearded Bull charges at the fool. Paaxti is impacted by the horns, and lifted up from the ground. He falls, to where the bull tramples to break every bone in his body. I hear his death creams release.

The surviving thin man falls to his knees, too frightened to run. Bearded Bull charges. He picks the barbarian up in the crown of his horns and tosses him high. Horn breaks his fall. A cloud passes the moon, Bearded Bull rambles up to our son, and nods. Then the spectre vanishes into the smoky air. His work is done.

The two orphans gape at this sight. Su’lan takes this opportunity to thrust his javelin at Saabiaske. He misses as the exile jumps aside and swings back using his left handed club to smash Su’lan in the side of the head. My man collapses to the ground. I shout out at the exile,

‘I squatted and pissed where they buried your name beneath the yew of Banat’.

He laughs at me, ‘so you met the old hag. My new name is Saabiaske, and I am going to give you plenty of stinking old Leva men’.

Lanella chuckles by his side.

The fools don’t realise I have distracted them with my insults. Saabiaske’s left handed swipe of a club was pathetically feeble. Su’lan recovered from the impact, and is once more ready with his javelin.

Qan stands at the side of the glade, even though his guardian spirit has gone. He stands there watching for something else to emerge. I think that I see the silhouette of a figure walking across the glade.

Su’lan jumps up and with speed, plunges his javelin deep into Saabiaske’s side. The exile stiffens, groans like a deadman and falls.

Lanella screams out in horror, ‘Nooo!’

I feel a heat against my chest. It comes from the moonstone I still wear. It vibrates with energy.

Lanella stands above me with her javelin held high. She’s ready to strike, and Su’lan pulls his own spear free, rushing to defend me, but there’s no time. I’m done for.

A stone axehead smashes into the side of Lanella’s lovely head. Blood sprays. Her eyes roll as she collapses to join the corpse of her man. Ur’salla stands before me with a barbarian’s axe in her mitts. Qan runs over to us. It is over.