Marek (Buried Lore Book 1) (7 page)

‘We
are heading north. I go in search of my sister, and my friend here is also
searching for her family. We have spent a week travelling through the woods and
seek shelter for the night out of the cold. And we are hungry.’ Already I had
lost weight around my shoulders and Celeste’s nose was red and peeled from the
whipping needles of cold air.

‘Where
are you from?’ asked the speaker of the group. He was a square jawed man with
thick wrists. Several of his teeth were missing and he wore a red scarf around
his neck to signify leadership. The backs of his knuckles were purple and blue,
and several of the men’s faces were bruised from fighting. They were rough, the
sort of men who could turn on you if you said the wrong thing.

I
explained about my island but left out any details about Celeste.

‘So far south?
How do you speak our language so fluently?’

It
was more an accusation than a question. Language?

Celeste
looked at me frowning. She was wearing the same question in her face. I was
speaking an eastern language that I did not know I knew. Could it have been my
mother’s influence? Could it perhaps be one of the benefits of my craft? It
would explain the nausea and the slight weakness in my knees when the child
first came to speak with me. Any use of the gift weakened me temporarily.

‘My
mother taught me.’ I said. ‘She came from these parts.’ I felt the eyes of the
men burning into me.

‘Well,
for silver you can sleep in the barn behind this house.’

He
walked over to me for one final look, to make sure I would not be a threat in
any way. Suddenly I was worried about Celeste. The men had the same look as a
falcon before it swoops on its prey. Several who were bored with us turned back
to their game. One held up a glass of clear liquid inviting me to share with
them and I shook my head. The man scowled and nodded to his friends. I had
insulted him. I remembered what my father said – that men who do not mix
with other men are guilty of something, and likely to be watched. But something
told me that I would need my full senses that night, and perhaps leaving Celeste
in the barn alone, for any length of time, might be unwise.

The
leader barked instructions to a woman who was working quietly behind them. He
was keen to get back to his game. The woman led us outdoors to find that the
group of children hovering outside had grown. They were calling us life-takers
and other names I did not understand.

The
woman waved her arms and yelled for them to go away. I asked the woman why they
were so hostile towards us. She was reluctant to speak at first, her eyes
darting around her to see if anyone was listening.

She
looked me up and down and stared at Celeste, then shrugged. She agreed I was
probably harmless – my lack of guile apparent. I was still just a boy in
many ways.

‘Evil
witches,’ she whispered. ‘They wander the land in search of people to implant
their evil souls. They commit the most unspeakable horrors in their stolen
bodies. If they don’t steal your body then they steal your blood.’

I
forced a laugh.

‘Some
people have died in strange ways in this village. Wandered too far away and
then not returned. We have found their bodies, those that have not been eaten
by the wolves anyway. Their bodies are lifeless and not a drop of blood left in
them.’

I
felt the cold prickling of fear at the back of my neck. I was relieved not to
be travelling that night.

We
were taken to a dilapidated shed, barren of hay and roofless in places. The
earth was dry in one corner where we camped, partly covered at least from the
rain clouds looming. I began to tell Celeste what the woman told me but it
appeared, from a dismissive nod of her head to end my speech, that she
understood this language.

The
woman returned. She avoided looking in our eyes and put down two steaming bowls
of watery soup with pigs’ trotters. It had little substance but it warmed our
bones. We listened to the men play their dice game in the house. They were
drinking and arguing loudly. I could feel Celeste tense beside me. Outside was
the patter of rain. Their shouts eventually died down and finally sleep
overcame me, and I fell into a dream. This time it was of Celeste in the
stream.

Chapter 3

Celeste

I
was awoken by a scream outside.
Marek
sat up beside
me. It was still dark and there was much shouting. The doors to the shed were
thrown back, snapped from their rusted hinges. Several of the men stood there
with fire torches, the light revealing their shades of fury.

‘
Strigoi
!’ they yelled at us as they stepped forward.
Marek
stood up to protect me and the men descended on him
like the wind in a storm. He was pushed over and trampled. I heard the breaking
of his bones. He was face down and blood seeped from his head wound. It was not
Marek
they were after.

One
of the men hit me with such force that my head was flung backwards. Someone
took hold of my hair and pulled me out the door. There were fire torches
everywhere in a sea of faces. Women, children and other men were chanting and
yelling.

They
dragged me, all of the men, by my hair, my arms,
my
legs. The ground was sodden and muddy from rain. I was dropped near a pyre.
There was a roaring sound and a rush in my ears as the fire took hold of
tinder. There they tied me to a pole, my arms twisted behind me at a strange
angle, my ankles and head bound so tightly I could barely move at all.

It
was terrifying. I wanted to call
Marek’s
name but the
sounds did not come.

People were calling me a witch
,
some called me a demon
.
Then they dragged something in front of me. It was black, a tree stump or
effigy. I could only see it in the shadows of the firelight. As the fire grew
and the circle of light widened, the real image emerged. This thing was once a
man,
his neck twisted upwards, his arms reaching for the sky
with claw-like fingers.

The
men pointed to me and said I did this. I wanted to shout no. I wanted to tell
them that it wasn’t me but I could not even shake my head. My eyes wandered
wildly to the faces in front of me but they were calling for my death, spitting
and cursing. Even the children picked up handfuls of dirt to throw at me.

An
older woman appeared from the murkiness in front of me, a scarf wrapped around
her withered face. She closed her eyes as if the sight of me would burn out her
eyes. She was praying, and from a water bowl, flicked droplets from her fingers
in my direction.

The
men lifted up the pole. I was hanging like a pig for roasting. They placed the
pole on four larger poles forked at cross-angles into the ground and above the
flames. I tried to squeeze my knees together to stop my skirt from slipping
into the fire but I could not hold onto it. The flames licked at the fabric.
Water drizzled from the sky but it was not enough to smother the fire.

There
was a scream from the group. I strained my neck to see someone walking towards
me. It was
Marek
with thick blood matting the hair
near his temple. But it could not be! I had heard his bones break. Someone
rushed for him only to be flung to the side.

I was distracted by the fire that had taken hold of my skirt
. I wriggled wildly but it made no
difference, and the flames spread slowly across the fabric like black and
orange marching ants. The heat was becoming unbearable and I silently screamed
when the fire licked at my leg. Smoke burnt my throat and filled my lungs. I
could not breathe.

Suddenly
I was jolted high and away from the fire.
Marek
wrapped me in a rug to smother the flames and lay me gently on my side. My
watery, stinging eyes opened just a fraction but he was gone.

Squinting,
I saw him raise his dagger and aim it at the man with the red scarf, the one who
was calling for my death. Barely a moment later, this man writhed like a
burrowing worm on the ground. The villagers who had started to descend on
Marek
drew back as another person parted the way.

A
girl, perhaps some years older than me, entered the group and stood before the
leader who now lay still. She retrieved a dagger from his neck and waved it
above her head, teasing them all, her eyes darting and watchful. When another
man stepped towards her, he sailed back into the air like a cloth doll, before
flipping and spearing into the ground, his head twisted. The rest of the group
had become still. They eyed the girl warily; some turned their heads in fear.

‘Go!’
she yelled. The group dispersed quickly with faint cries of ‘witch’ when they
thought
they
were
a safe enough
distance away
. And then it was just the girl and
Marek
.

‘Come,’
she said. She did not look at me as she handed the knife back to
Marek
. His gaze had been fixed on the girl as in a trance
before finally tearing himself away and turning to me. With his knife he cut my
bond and examined the burns on my leg.

‘We
do not have much time,’ said the girl. ‘They will come back for they are
idiots. I will take you to a safe place. Leave her. Save yourself.’

Marek
paid no attention to her; instead he continued to help me up. When I coughed
harshly it redirected her focus. She looked directly at me as if seeing me for
the first time, her eyes narrowed and unsympathetic.

He
helped me stand as I struggled to breathe from the smoke still trapped in my
lungs. There were strips of flesh missing from my ankle and raw flesh on my
thigh. Although I was in great pain I knew I had to move quickly to put those
barbarians far behind me. We followed the girl away from the village and into
the Black Forest where dense, tall black conifers stretched for hundreds of
lonely miles. I had a vague memory of this place where many had died in the
winter, losing their way in its vastness.

There
was a partial moon to light our way, enough to see tints of gold bounce off the
girl’s hair. I leaned much of my weight on
Marek
, and
it was only when we had put some distance
between ourselves
and the village that I noticed
Marek’s
difficulty in supporting me. He was also very poorly.

‘They
were yelling
strigoi
. What does that mean?’
Marek
asked the girl.

‘It
is another word for demon or blood-taker.’

‘Why
are you helping us?’

‘Later.
Don’t talk now.’

It
must have been an hour of walking over slippery, rotting leaves on narrow, dark
trails and I stumbled often. The throbbing pain in my leg, which increased with
every step, made me feel nauseous and cold. I leaned closer to my master to
feel the warmth from his body. Eventually we came to a hut where an old woman
sat by a fire. She was singing softly to herself and unaware of our arrival
until the girl tapped her on the shoulder. Her expression was vacant, as if she
had never laid eyes on the girl, and then she turned back to the fire to
continue her tune. I suspected her mind was also vacant.

The
girl instructed me to lie on a low hammock.

‘Just
let her sleep. In the morning she will be much improved.’

‘I
can’t,’ said
Marek
. ‘I must help her.’

‘You
can heal her if you wish but I must warn you that if you do, you will be
depleted of strength and we do not have the time to rebuild.’

‘How
do you know about me?’ asked
Marek
incredulously.

‘I
can sense your power. You could have killed all the villagers if you really
understood what you are.’

His
eyes widened and I could tell he was curious but too distracted by my leg with
its gaping wounds, where the flesh had been burnt away.

‘I
cannot leave her like this. If it wasn’t for me she wouldn’t be hurt.’

‘Courageous
and admirable I must say, but sometimes you have to let go of things you don’t
need.’

‘It
is not a question of need. It is called humanity,’ he replied curtly.

I
did not understand the girl’s words. They frightened me and
Marek
looked like he might collapse with exhaustion. He was badly hurt too – I
had witnessed it happen – but somehow he miraculously escaped death. He
reached for my leg and I flinched at the touch of his fingers. With his other
hand he pressed my forearm to comfort. I was confused.
Marek
acted strangely, and the pretty girl’s eyes wandered over him intimately, as if
she had known him forever, as if she was testing him.

I
felt my leg, right up to my groin, go warm and then numb.
Marek
stumbled backwards his eyes rolling into the back of his head before he hit the
floor. The pain in my leg was gone and the girl threw me a skirt to replace my
burnt one.

‘Put
it on,’ she barked, and only then did I notice my naked and perfectly healed
leg.

It
could not be! My wound was sealed. My master was a fallen angel. And the girl,
she was something else – something worse – whispering in my ear
that she wished me gone.

Marek

My
head felt strange and the room seemed to move around me as I lay on the
hammock. I found that my eyes just wanted to close and when they opened it took
several moments to focus. The girl was talking to Celeste in low tones in the
corner, and then crossed the room to sit beside me on the bed.

‘Who
are you?’ I asked, groggily. I tried to sit fully upright but my head felt
almost too heavy to lift. The girl pressed her hand against my chest to lie
back down and I was too weak to resist.

‘My
name is Zola.’ Her hand then rested on my leg with familiarity. It was both
unnerving and appealing at the same time. ‘In time you will grow stronger. Your
skills will not deplete your body of so much strength.’

‘How
do you… how did you know?’ Zola stood up to pour some hot water into a cup then
sprinkled in some herbs. She explained that the herbs would restore my health
quicker than my own body could, along with a good sleep. With long graceful
arms she spooned the liquid into my mouth, and this allowed me time to examine
her properly. The reflection of the flickering fire made her red hair glow,
long curls spilling loosely over her shoulders. Her skin was the
colour
of the Madonna lily, and several freckles dotted her
nose and the top of her cheeks.

‘I
have a skill and eventually you will be able to sense others with it when they
are nearby. You might have done this already – maybe thought you heard
someone whisper to you and turned to look over your shoulder, only to find
no-one there. Or perhaps you felt a cold rush of air on the back of your neck
when there was no breeze. These are the signs of someone with the skill.’

‘Is
that how you found me?’

‘I
felt you near, yes, as I can feel others now: others who aren’t even aware that
I am here. This special tracking sense is my gift, and much stronger than many
of our kind. We are all healers, but we each have certain levels of power and
sometimes with unique gifts also. You showed some of your potential back at the
village.’

I
remembered leaving the barn and feeling so much rage I was almost blinded. And
when I saw Celeste tied up over the fire all I wanted to do was kill. There was
shouting. People were pointing at something near the fire and throwing rocks at
me.

‘There
was a dead man near the fire.’

‘Yes,’
said Zola. ‘They thought that your little girlfriend killed him with magic.’

‘Was
he murdered?’

‘Perhaps,’
said Zola.

I
thought of the other man who was killed and guilt compelled me to confess. ‘I
killed another man.’

Zola
laughed softly. ‘Are you sure?’ she challenged.

‘Yes.
The knife pierced through his neck. I saw it.’ My aim was perfect. The rage did
not seem to cloud my judgment of distance; in fact, my anger seemed to enhance
it.

‘But
are you sure you killed him?’ she asked, her voice low and hypnotic, drawing me
into her. Something was not quite right with the memory. The knife left my hand
cutting through the air before I
realised
what I was
doing. The man was knocked to the ground, blood oozing from his wound. Could I
have guided the knife with magic?

Zola
answered. ‘Sometimes in the early stages we need some help with our craft.’

‘Are
you telling me that I did not kill him?’

‘
Marek
, your knife hit him in the neck but it was my skill
to guide the weapon that put an end to his life.’

I
did not know which shocked me more. The calmness with which she admitted such a
deed, or the fact she knew my name. I was relieved that I had not killed
anyone. I thought to check on Celeste, but I was unable to move with the
feeling that my body was being weighted down with invisible forces. The herbal
concoction had eased my headache and warmed my chest, and tiredness shortly
overwhelmed me.

‘Sleep
now,’ whispered Zola, and I do not remember anything else from that night.