The Urn Page 5

  On top of that, the far side of the valley still showed great swaths of brown-green grass higher up near the trees, suggesting a more welcoming climate than the cold mountain forest we’d just traveled. Additionally, the rise was gradual and would allow us an easy pace that could offer some respite after our sleepless toil on the sheer and tree-clotted hill trails behind.

  Baba snorted uncomfortably, and I let out a sigh of relief, for black, darting shadows ran east across the valley floor. The wolf pack had survived! They were fewer in number, there was no doubt; but a strong force of ten or more charged across the snowy expanse like they were borne on the wind. The beasts angled toward the far side of the valley, intent upon clearing a safe way for our master.

  The promise of swifter passage raised my spirits and Baba’s as well, and added vigor to our pace. However, the distance through clear mountain air as seen by weary eyes was misleading, and we did not reach the line of tall beech trees until almost sunset when I reined Baba in and turned her to cast a look back across the expanse we’d travelled.

  There had been no sign of the wolves since we’d seen them at midday, but I did not doubt that they’d be surging ahead of us seeking the blood of enemies.

  So I set the master’s urn aside and squatted by my horse to look the valley over while contemplating my weary bones. I couldn’t long delay, and needed to search out dry wood for a fire before making camp—and the sun was sliding from the sky.

  It was then that the breath caught in my throat for I saw something across from me—something tall and man-like lurked at the edge of the dense wood where I’d stood gazing not five hours before.

  But it could not be a man. Its pale flesh had revealed it to me, contrasted against the grim, dark forest. The thing crept along the shadowed border of the wood with unnatural strength and speed, and I got the feeling that it only paused in its determined movements to glare at me.

  There was a rigid, busy character to the actions of its distorted limbs, as though it were anxious to come after me, but the stronger sunlight past the eave of the wood warmed the slopes below us, and seemed to deflect the creature’s purpose.

  The anxious figure was draped in rotten rags, and the exposed flesh must have been frozen solid by the cold, but it was undaunted. It would press the edge of the sliding shadows on the east slope before the light sent it scurrying back into the darkness beneath the trees.

  My hand shifted to the hilt of my sword, but I overpowered the urge to raise it and answer the unspoken challenge. Whatever this thing was that dogged me, it had raised my fierce Szgany blood with its impudence. It was clearly on my trail, and if it did not hunger for my flesh or poor Baba’s, then something else was leading it on.

  I resisted the terrible thought that something about the urn impelled it forward.

  With only the setting sun to hold the creature back, I clamped down on my ire and lifted the master’s urn onto Baba’s back before snatching up her reins and leading her east under the branches.

  It seemed my follower had to wait for the sun to set before pursuing me, and I knew, oh, too wearily, that it had taken me hours to cross the valley mounted. I could only hope the creature following me would find its trek even more onerous.

  I shook myself out of my reverie, slid the urn forward on the saddle and climbed up behind it, deciding to ride until well after nightfall before finding another guarded location for my camp.

  10th November. There was nothing to mark the fifth day except more travel, and another change in landscape. After a restless but thankfully uneventful night deep in the beech forest, we ate and started moving along the master’s secret path, now in a more southerly direction, and also with more haste.

  The beech forest had risen over a broad rounded mountain before it began to thin out and then fall away altogether as a valley opened up before us, and then widened as it continued southeast.

  Soon tended fields were spreading out on the gently sloping ground, and in places, I smelled wood smoke. Later, columns of gray marked the distant chimneys of small peasant hovels—sod and stone farmhouses with ramshackle barns, and uneven fences enclosing tiny herds.

  My master’s map was an exacting document, and with it I passed along the banks of many flowing streams, some narrow and others broad, either with a quick canter over a public bridge, or by slowly navigating natural fords.

  I was impressed with his knowledge of these lands, for I knew nothing of the places south of the mountains, save what had been told me around Szgany fires as a boy. Back then I’d heard there was a way to cross the Mangalia River. A ford there was between Ruse and Dobrich, or was that a bridge?

  But, I’d need to find the Mangalia River first! Pah, a Gypsy will go and look, and if his feet are getting wet he has found a river.

  It was the Szgany way to know every rock and crevice around our homes, and in our lands, and to give not one care for what lay over the horizon.

  Oh, we knew how to get to the horizon, and there were always those among us who had been to the greater places and distant lands to which our tribe had spread out for generations, so a way or map could be found.

  Most folk believed that Gypsies were wanderers, and had no care for home. In fact, we do not care for borders or laws of other lands, for we recognize no sovereignty but our own.

  However we are practical people who know the value of compromise. My tribe had sworn a pledge of loyalty to the master because he was the strongest in the land. There were other lords but none could compare in power and renown or offer such protection.

  So we would serve him because it suited our needs, and would continue to do so until his strength waned, or until we needed something else.

  Such was my rationale when I first swore the oath, but that was long ago, long before love for him had conquered my very soul.

  I was left to follow the master’s map and marvel at its accuracy. Yet, I had to think that all of his years had given him the time to see everything within his kingdom and jot down those marks that defined the lands around it.

  And he had challenged territories also, in his early days, the stories said. As a general at war he’d marched against the Turks and every other country on his borders. So like the Gypsy, he too respected no one’s sovereignty but his own.

  As the peasant farms became more prosperous and fences popped up out of the green, or where I spotted smoke arising from fire or hearth, I would give a wide berth. So I kept Baba to a course center along the valley where the uncovered lands were still blessed with dark green weeds and undergrowth that choked the edges of the several small streams that converged as one noisy watercourse that followed a winding clay-bottomed way.

  Several times, I drew the interest or a wave from farmers or laborers at work, but I’d taken to traveling with my large fur hat pulled low over my eyes, and the heavy collar of my coat tucked up under my thick beard, causing the whiskers to stand straight out. That harsh profile was all I gave them in reply, and in this way did I steer clear of all interaction.

  I do not know whether it was the sudden presence of these tenanted lands or the general openness of the landscape, but it was near nightfall when I came to understand that I’d lost track of our wolf pack altogether.

  Before this, they had appeared at intervals, in the distance, only to disappear again beneath bough and branch in cold mist, gray drizzle, or snow. But I had counted a whole day since their last sighting.

  Baba was calmer with them absent from her flanks.

  However, my horse still refused to settle and balked at every command or suggestion that I gave her. Instead of picking her way over uneven rock as she previously had done, she would stop and stand in place.

  I assumed she was deferring to my judgment and attempted to choose a path for her, but she would only stamp, throw her head and flick her tail without moving forward one inch. I finally had to dismount and pull at the nag’s rein whenever the uncooperative mood came upon her.

  I quickly grew impatient with ge
ntle persuasion, and while I refrained from whipping her, I lashed Baba with every foul word in the Szgany vocabulary. It would have been easy to suggest that the poor creature’s behavior was a paralysis created by fear, but such thinking would not get either of us to our destination.

  Her stubbornness irritated me no end and slowed our progress, but when she began shying at every little sound or movement, I started to remember her mulish obstinance almost fondly.

  Because Baba started at everything. A pair of swallows swooped near, and the horse bucked, almost unseating me and the master’s urn. Another time, the wind rattled some dry grass, and she charged recklessly toward a fence only to veer off at the last moment instead of jumping.

  While I managed to stay in the saddle, if only narrowly, my pack had come unmoored on the cantle and it fell open as it tumbled across the field.

  After dismounting and tying the frightened Baba to a wild apple tree, I lavished her again with Gypsy curses before I started wearily dragging my pack through the grass, picking up what had fallen out.

  As I reloaded the gear and gave the knots a final pull, I looked into my horse’s eyes and asked her calmly what had gotten into her silly brain to cause her such distress. She was a fine animal, and her nervousness was out of character.

  But all she managed in response was a roll of her dark eyes and flutter of long lashes before a frightened whinny escaped her.

  I could only shake my head and mount, thinking that the small farms and rustic people we had passed must have been preying upon her nerves. Certainly, their scent would be everywhere and the poor horse did not understand that civilization in any form gave some protection from the wild creatures in the woods.

  Baba calmed as the day wound down to sunset, and I hoped that the causes of her dismay had been left behind. We had seen few signs of habitation as the day continued. Perhaps she had grown used to the unfamiliar landscape.

  The master’s map continued to aid me with its discreet marks showing hidden places for making camp, eventually leading us to a secret footpath into a small forest of fir and spruce where the tree cover would keep us warmer at night, and minimize chance encounters with the local populace. In time, I found a flat-topped limestone rise that was surrounded by dense trees of every kind and age, and there I made my camp.

  I opened my eyes halfway to see ice crystals twinkling where they danced in the moonlight over me. Beyond them, the clouds glowed dully behind twisted branches. I blew out a white plume of breath and as the action dispelled the moving motes of frost it also deformed my face, and I felt the whiskers tug where my beard had frozen to the blankets.

  It was the middle of the night; the moon was setting. What? Oh. Hooves rapping against stone. I had awakened to the sound of my horse snorting and kicking.

  “Baba!” I snapped, just as she bucked so violently that the leather rope restraining her forelegs tangled with the rear, and she fell in a struggling heap upon the rock.

  I rolled clear as she dropped, but lunged quickly toward her, anxious to calm the beast before she broke a leg. She lay struggling on her side as I came near.

  The horse kicked and wriggled and fussed at the ropes about her ankles.

  It wasn’t until my shock had brought me fully awake that I understood her fright.

  The ruckus caused by Baba’s dismay had drowned out the sounds from the distant forest where the wolf pack was fighting again, but this time the despairing man-like groans came more often, at times overlapping to cover our fearsome allies altogether.

  To me there could be no doubt about what I heard. The surviving wolves had joined in battle, yes; but instead of one groaning mystery, the pack had challenged many.

  I imagined them fighting several of the pale, distorted man-things that had dogged our footsteps, like the one that had shown itself the day before. Its malevolent glare had made it impossible to forget.

  And as I listened to the battle, I stroked Baba’s forehead where she still lay trembling on her side. With my chest against her withers and arm across her shoulder, I could feel the beast quivering with fear; so I hummed a song that Gypsy mothers sing to calm their children, hoping to distract my horse from the fearsome din.

  Yet even as I did this, I wondered if the song was for me also, for I could not bear the echoing cries as the wolf pack’s fury turned again to terror, as those sounds changed to hideous screams. I could not deny it. Something was killing the wolves!

  When the cold night went quiet some minutes later, I helped poor Baba to her feet and stood with her awhile, still crooning and stroking her shaking flanks. The pair of us kept glancing into the trees that ringed us on every side. It was no longer safe there in our camp, but we dared not attempt to travel without some light—and rekindling a fire would doubtless summon the threat to us if we stayed.

  Certain that neither of us could sleep but desiring warmth, I led Baba close to my blankets where I wrapped myself and lay there looking up at her dark eyes where she stood over me.

  Her breathing began to slow, and my own deepened with it. I said something to cheer her about the sky turning from black to dark blue in the east.

  Exhaustion must have got the better of me for I fell asleep.

  ...only to awaken to Baba’s screams! My eyes flashed open, and I looked up at a terrifying thing standing over me. It was human in shape though its movements appeared stiff and somewhat labored. It was naked but for rotting rags that hung down from its oddly angled shoulders. These had been raised up by some trick of its distorted spine to cradle and shield the back of the creature’s ugly face and head.

  And it was ugly! The early morning dim spared me nothing.

  Its lower jaw hung open like it had been dislocated and displayed a mouthful of sharp yellow teeth that glistened in a plume of steaming breath. The mouth was stretched very wide with the lower teeth dropping well down onto its chest as if the jawbone was hanging by muscle alone, and each time it gnashed its fangs this way, a horrific groan came out.

  The swollen red mouth was filled with teeth that snapped behind puckering lips, and it seemed the lower jaw was not broken after all, but was native to its position below the breastbone giving the creature a horrific gaping aspect of terror.

  The blubbery lips that quivered over the orifice sucked at the dark blue dawn, before lashing downward at me, telescoping out from the body in a muscular ring. I slid back a foot, and the lips kissed the air by my hips—that close, I saw a finer set of hooked teeth encircling the lips themselves.

  Dear master! What hideous thing was this?

  It was no ghostly shape in a graveyard, or sprinkling of blue witch-light in the woods. This thing was roaring flesh and fang come to kill and to devour.

  I had fallen asleep with my sword in one hand and Baba’s reins in the other, but they had slipped out of sight with the horse as I drowsed. I reached for the musket that lay on my blanket by my left leg, before bellowing more from fear than fury. I heaved the gun upward to loose a single shot into the ugly creature’s pale and nacreous eye.

  Its hideous mouth fell open at the report, and a great groan and scream brayed out as the left side of its face was reduced to dripping gore by the lead shot. The startled beast leapt back yowling, snapping its horrible teeth as it tore at the rocks with its claws, as its remaining eye glared at me with burning hate. Did it not feel pain?

  I cast aside the musket and sprang to my feet hacking at the creature with my sword, but it lunged out of reach.

  It was only then that I could spare a glance to see others like it. The pale gray skin on their misshapen bodies moved against the black forest near the edge of our camp, and showed poor Baba’s plunging hooves in sharp relief as they swarmed her on every side.

  I charged forward to hack at my own opponent and the sword cut a deep black furrow in its belly. I slashed on and on until the creature slipped into the trees at its back.

  Wheeling about, I saw in the twilight that Baba’s attackers appeared more dead than alive.
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  Their bodies were broken in places; the skin and muscle was torn to expose dripping innards and sundered veins. Their forms had a flattened, or crushed appearance as if they had spent much time with great weight pressing down upon them like they’d been caught in glacial snows or avalanches, been swept away in landslides or been buried in a grave.

  Their limbs had been locked in contorted positions and their faces were twisted beyond all reason; the crushing effect had shifted eyes loose of the bony sockets themselves, and the features were smeared all over their pulpy heads.

  I drew the pistol from my belt and with sword raised took a step toward the fiends as their claws gouged strips of hide and flesh from my lunging horse. Baba’s screams were answered by the monsters’ gibbering moans as their ghastly mouths kept sweeping open and lashing outward to latch against the bloody flesh on my mount’s neck and back.

  It was then that I understood, to my great horror, the simple but deadly usage of the small hooked teeth that ringed those awful lips for as the creatures’ hideous mouths stretched outward these curved spines caught in Baba’s flesh.

  With jerking motions of their upper bodies, the monsters set these sharp anchors in place then they pulled and heaved until the skin and flesh began to tear away from the poor horse exposing the muscle and veins beneath. As blood sprang from Baba’s wounds the ghoulish creatures latched on again; their horrid mouths dribbling thick red blood where their lips pressed tight to the streaming flesh.

  The skin on their misshapen faces went scarlet as they fed.

  But there was nothing I could do with five of them upon her, rending her flesh and feeding upon it. She kicked and jumped within their clutches, but despite their mangled shapes the strength within the beasts was more than a match for the horse.