The Bones of the Earth (The Dark Age) (20 page)

Danisa just looked up at him. “How?”

Javor reached down as low as he could, grabbed her hand and pulled her up. They were both astonished at his strength. She clung to the tree’s bole.

“
Climb up higher with me, so we can see farther,” he said.

Danisa just shook her head. He saw that she was trembling. “You won’t fall. Just hang on. Look how steady these branches are.”

She squeezed her eyes shut and said “Please take me down.”

Javor did not understand it. He looked up then at the view. He could see rolling hills and the ever-present mountains. Closer, an exasperated Photius walked toward them.

“
Come down from there, you two! We still have a long journey ahead!”

Javor looked farther down their path: nothing but trees under a clear sky. He shook his head and then carefully helped Danisa down.

Then next day was very hot, and even Photius slowed his pace. They came upon a pond and Photius announced they would rest there for the day. They set up a camp. Photius swam in the pond and then said he was going to look for herbs.

Javor took off all his clothes but his trousers. Danisa looked at him for a long moment, her lips apart. She saw a tall young man with a deep and broad chest and muscles rippling under fair skin. He looked back at her, liking what he saw: a slender brown-haired girl smiling at him, wearing his own tunic. It gaped open at the top, exposing enough of her breasts to stop his heart. Together, they jumped into the pond and splashed each other. The wet tunic clung to Danisa’s skin and became almost transparent. Javor stayed low in the water to hide his arousal, but she saw it and laughed merrily.

Drying under the summer sun, Javor had never felt better in his life.
Is this what happy feels like?

A sudden summer storm came that evening. Photius found his own shelter, leaving the two young people in each other’s arms under a huge fallen tree. The thunder startled Danisa and the rain chilled them both. They cuddled closer together and as suddenly as the lightning they were kissing. As the rain ran down over their skin, they were making love, softly yet intensely. And as the rain lightened and stopped, they held each other’s naked bodies close and fell asleep.

Danisa woke with a gasp in the morning and pulled away from Javor. She covered herself quickly with the old tunic and wouldn’t speak to him the rest of the day.

Javor could not understand her. Making love to Danisa was the culmination of his hopes since he had rescued her. But she would not walk with him anymore, instead staying close to Photius.

The first time they were alone, Javor put his hand on her shoulder, but she slapped it away. “Danisa, what’s wrong? Did I hurt you last night?”

“
Shut up!” she hissed, and stalked away. Her face was red and he could not see her lips. “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he said.

“
You didn’t hurt me, you idiot!”

“
Then what’s wrong?”

“
Just shut up, will you? Never mention last night again, to anyone!” And that was all she would say to Javor for a long time. She asked Photius about the Roman Empire, and Photius, delighted to be asked, talked the rest of the day.

Chapter 13
: The stricken village

Danisa never took a watch at night; that was left to Photius and Javor. The old man did not say anything about it, and Javor would not let himself resent the fact that, of the three of them, only Danisa could sleep through the night.

But Javor started to feel that resentment at the end of an especially exhausting day. It seemed that they climbed up hills all day long. At night, clouds hid the moon and stars and stifled the wind. The air was damp, heavy, oppressive. Danisa ate the food the men found without saying a word, then stretched out on a mossy bit of ground and closed her eyes.

Photius took the first sleeping turn and was soon snoring. Javor found it harder and harder to keep his eyes open. It seemed pointless: without a fire, he could barely make out Photius’ head in the darkness, couldn’t see Danisa except as perhaps a slightly darker shadow on the ground. he couldn’t see whether there was anything between the trees.

He experimented, closing his eyes and opening them suddenly.
Almost no difference,
he decided. With his eyes closed, he could see diffuse, dim blue lights that, when he opened his eyes, were replaced by deep grey and black shadows.

Gradually, Photius’ snoring faded. Javor closed his eyes one more time and then saw Elli from Nastasciu. They walked hand-in-hand across a meadow scattered with white flowers. The sun was warm on their shoulders, and they were laughing.

They came to a stream, and then Elli wasn’t Elli, but Danisa, and then she changed again into another woman he had never seen before. He realized they were both naked.

Javor leaned forward and kissed the strange woman on the mouth. She parted her lips and drew his tongue into her mouth. They lay on the ground. He could see—no, somehow he just knew, she was much older than him. She rolled on top of him, trailing kisses over his jaw, his chin, onto his throat. Every kiss made her seem older. Her hands roamed over his naked skin, and her kisses became nips and bites. She kissed his throat hard, sucking the skin into her mouth until it hurt.

A sharp pain penetrated his neck, and his eyes flew open as he gasped. The sun was gone the sky was dark, and Javor felt cold. He was back in the night under the oak tree, and there was a terrible pain in his neck. He groped at it and felt something …
hairy
. It fluttered and Javor cried out.

Photius was awake instantly, reaching for Javor. “What is it, boy?” Something at his neck squirmed and fluttered and sprang away into the darkness and Javor felt blood trickling down the side of his neck.

“
Strigoi
!” Photius hissed. He held his staff near Javor’s face, illuminating a wound on Javor’s neck: two small round incisions. “Bloodsuckers! We’ll have to be more careful.”

Danisa woke and gasped when she saw the blood on Javor’s neck. She found a piece of cloth to dab it as Photius reignited their cooking fire. He rooted through his pack for some dry leaves, crushed them and rubbed them onto Javor’s wound. He gave the young man water to drink and told him to sleep. But Javor could not sleep—he was terrified. He remembered hearing stories of the bloodsuckers, who would bite people on the neck and turn them into more undead bloodsuckers, doomed to hide from the sun and roam only at night, always hungry for human flesh.

After that, they chose their campsites earlier in the day and kept the fire burning through the night.

Two days later, they came upon a village. It had no stockade, no wall; its only protection was a low ridge and a stand of trees. In a rough clearing stood a dozen or so low, crude round huts. In the centre, a small communal fire gave only smoke, no warmth. Javor didn’t see any gardens or fields for crops.

And there was almost no sound. No one spoke. Even the wind was still. A few apathetic faces turned toward them as they entered the circle of huts, then turned away. Javor saw that every person who looked at them tended someone else who was lying prone on the ground. No one spoke; a few chewed slowly on dry crusts of bread.

Javor drew back when he saw their emaciated faces, grey skin and lifeless eyes. “It’s a pestilence! Let’s get out of here before we catch it, too!”

But Photius wouldn’t go. His brow furrowed more deeply than usual. He took one of the villagers by the chin and looked into her eyes. A thin young woman wasted well beyond her years, she did not react. He went to another villager kneeling in the dirt. Javor thought he looked like a grandfather, but he was really no more than thirty. Again, Photius lifted his chin, gazed into his eyes and looked at his neck. He checked four more villagers the same way. “It’s not a pestilence. It’s strigoi. The bloodsuckers that attacked you the other night. They’re minor demons that feed on the blood of the living. Look here,” he said, and lifted another villager’s chin. He pointed to two small wounds, angry red on the grey neck of the thin man. “You had these same wounds the other night.”

“
The
strigoi
have colonized this village. They come every night and drain their victims’ blood until they’re just barely alive, then return the next night. In this way, they can survive for months before the village succumbs and they move on to the next village.”

“
Have you seen this before?” Danisa asked.

“
Strigoi
infest this region. They are notorious among my order. Javor, do you want to help these people?”

Javor wanted to run as fast as he could, but something in him made pity stronger at that moment. He nodded.

“
Good. I’m going to gather some herbs in the forest before nightfall. While I do that, I want the two of you to look through all the huts here and gather all the garlic you can find.”

“
Garlic?” But without answering, Photius disappeared into the trees. Danisa and Javor started looking through huts.

The first one that Javor entered disgusted him. Rats rustled in the darkness, squeaking in protest as he shuffled through the villagers’ meagre possessions. He found a strand of garlic cloves tied together near the door. A villager sprawled on a straw mat, staring at him silently. He took the garlic and went to the next hut.

In hut after hut, he found the same situation: one or two people lying down, alive or dead, he couldn’t tell. Rats ran without fear through the homes, their droppings crunching under his feet. Some homes had garlic, others none. By the time he was done, he was carrying a score of garlic cloves plus two heavy strands, and his hands stank. He put them in a pile on a flat, clean stone near the centre of the village. Danisa had found even more and piled them together. In all the time they had rummaged through every hut, none of the villagers had spoken; they barely even moved. Only a few looked at Danisa, but without interest, the way sheep would.

Photius returned carrying leaves and weeds. He started pulverizing leaves and boiling water, mixing things together. The villagers sat listlessly. Not one has even asked who we are or what we’re doing. Photius filled a bowl with mixed, crushed leaves and boiling water. He blew on the mixture to cool it, set it aside, and poured more water into other bowls. He touched his lips to the first bowl and judged it to be cool enough, then brought it to the thin young woman he had examined earlier and held it to her lips. “Danisa, come help me,” he ordered when the woman didn’t respond.

Reluctantly, Danisa stepped closer to the village woman. “Hold her head up,” Photius said. Danisa fluttered her hands and shook her head. Photius glared at her impatiently. Danisa brought her hands close to the sick woman’s head, then stepped away. “I cannot,” she whined.

Photius shook his head and called Javor over. The young man tilted the sick woman’s head up and held her jaw as Photius poured some of the liquid into her mouth, but she wouldn’t swallow; her mouth overflowed and the liquid dripped off her chin onto her lap.

Shaking his head, Photius dipped his fingers into another bowl that held some paste he had mixed, and smeared it onto her throat. They went to another villager, an emaciated man who looked old, but something told Javor he could not have been more than 20. They repeated the process, but this time the man drank a little of Photius’ potion.

Holding the man’s head, Javor shifted uncomfortably. The amulet, against his skin under his thin tunic, chafed his chest. He slipped a hand under his tunic to move it, dropping their patient’s head. Photius scowled and muttered.

As Javor’s fingers brushed the amulet, it seemed to … vibrate. He jerked his hand away, jostling the patient. Photius glared at him again as the villager slumped lower. Javor shrugged.
How could it be vibrating by itself? What does that mean?

Photius gently lowered the villager to the ground and then went to another, who also apathetically sipped a little of the potion. They dosed several more villagers before Photius said they should eat. “Look to see what stores we have in our packs, Javor. I wouldn’t touch any of the food in this place,” said Photius.

Javor found some nuts and dried fruit, remnants of the gifts from the people of Bilavod. They stepped outside of the village and ate as much of these as they could, sipping water from the skins they carried. “Don’t drink the water here, either,” Photius warned.

“
Why didn’t you help?” Javor asked Danisa.

Danisa shook her head. “I just could not …
touch
them.”

“
Sometimes, to help people, you have to get messy, Princess,” said Photius drily.

Danisa glanced over to the circle of huts where the villagers slumped and sprawled.  “It does not look like you have helped them at all,” she said, her lips compressed thin. Javor could tell that she meant to sound sarcastic, but she only came across as very scared.

He looked up. The day had begun bright, but clouds had gathered as they had worked. Now, the sky seemed unnaturally dark. Evening seemed to be drawing on faster than normal. And Javor’s amulet was vibrating again.

Thunder growled low in the east without lightning. Photius peered into a villager’s eyes again. Javor look to the west, but the sun was hidden in almost solid grey clouds.

“
Danger
.”

Javor turned. “What? Where?”

Danisa looked up. “What? I didn’t say anything.”

“
Didn’t you just whisper ‘danger’?”

Photius came back quickly, loosening his sword. “Did you hear a voice?”

But Javor didn’t answer. He reached for his grandfather’s knife, just to feel it in its sheath on his thigh. The amulet was quiet under his skin now, but the villagers were beginning to stir. One by one they stood and turned toward their visitors. Some shambled closer, jerking and awkward with dead eyes. Some drooled, others moaned quietly.

“
Photius, I don’t like the looks of them,” said Javor, backing away.

“
Make them stop,” said Danisa, hiding behind Javor.

Photius looked nervous, but stepped toward the villagers. “Well, I’m glad to see you on your feet again. My name is Photius…”

One of the villagers, the wasted young woman who looked old, reached for his arm. For a moment Javor thought she was going to kiss Photius’ hand. “Well, that’s… ” Photius’ expression turned to horror as she parted her jaws and sank her teeth into his forearm. He screamed and yanked his arm free.

Javor drew his sword. He and Photius stood back to back with Danisa between them, swords held out. They hurriedly shouldered their packs. “To the stream, Javor,” Photius ordered, and they moved awkwardly away from the villagers.

An owl hooted, and then another. Javor felt his amulet trembling again as owl after owl screeched from the trees. Fluttering like a hundred wings came from the tops of the huts, and then from under the trees that surrounded the village they saw human forms approaching.

The light was almost gone. Photius stamped his staff on the ground to make it glow. In its bluish light, they could see three women, emaciated, naked and grinning, striding toward them. Their faces were drawn and bones stood out from their shoulders, chests and elbows. They all had red hair and black eyes. Their hands were hideous, bony and cracked with long nails like talons.