It was noted by the village folk, the old men and women, who were all that were left of the village, God's Fortune...that the forest, an hour's walk into the sunset, had a strange effect on those who ventured to its edge.
I say to its edge because those who had the courage to approach the forest,never went any deeper...at least, no one the old villagers knew.
Maybe the people from the Trust in the Heavens, had other experiences, but on the rare moments when the citizens of the two villages met, there was NEVER any talk about the forest.
Although the forest was directly in a line with the two villages, no path that anyone knew of, crossed through it. Well-worn trails passed to either side, and although the roundabout route took twice as long, no one complained.
It was rarely acknowledged that the forest was there; let alone, that it was an inconvenience to travel.
There was something ultimately shameful about that forest, it was mentioned so seldom, if ever, that it had never in the memory of the most ancient residents, had a name.
Travelers rarely passed between the villages -- they were both so unremarkable, that no one had any business there. With no young people, there were no children; as the population of both were elderly, the trade was so small that merchants had ceased traveling there.
The locals of the two villages made do with their small fields for crops, and the animals they could raise in their pens. The women and men were clever, and could mend their ragged clothes, so that they were always serviceable.
The death of any resident was a bounty for the others. All the dead person's possessions were divided evenly amongst the survivors. Clothes were refashioned to suit men or women. The fields that the departed had filled, were now available to feed others. The animals that could not be divided were slaughtered and made into salted, or otherwise, preserved meat.
There was a mist that surrounded the two settlements, encircling the two towns with the forest in the center. The mist never penetrated the streets of the villages or the confines of the woods.
It was assumed that there were wolves in the forest, but they never bothered the livestock of the villagers, so were not feared. The wolves howling could be heard on dark, still nights, but still the villagers did not fear this sound. Some ancestral memories told them it was nothing to be feared.
The truth was known to no one in the villages. The secret was kept by a woman who lived in the center of the woods. I, alone, was blessed to know her story. Many years after the events described in this tale, a terrible war raged in the region. The villages were destroyed in the fighting.
The villagers who survived were disheartened and moved away; there were very few at this time, and they moved on in the wake of one army or another, the women earning their keep as cooks, the men as wagon drivers or laborers.
Only the Forest remained. Untouched by the war initially...it was first logged for timber. After several of the foresters were overcome with a 'brain sickness' or were enchanted depending on the supervisor's level of enlightenment, it was decided to purge the forest of evil, or the infection it harbored.
The purge was fire, the officer in charge of the burning was Pawel of the Steppes.
Pawel hated this duty, but he was a mercenary and bound by oath and contracted to carry out the will of his employer. This war, like many others, had hurt the poor folk the most. Pawel would never deliberately target the peasants, as he came from similar stock. But in the midst of general carnage, the little folk suffered the most. By the time Pawel had arrived on the scene, all the villagers -- the aged villagers -- he was told, had either died or fled.
There was the problem of this mysterious forest. It had not been exploited by the twin villages that bordered it. This was strange. If there was a lord that owned the forest, he was unaware of who that might be. For a lord might forbid the cutting of trees because the timber was his by right, and he might have forbidden the taking of game because that was the property of the nobility.
The little folk could, at least, legally clear the dead wood and the brush for firewood, and snare rabbits for food; for the lords did not care for these.
But it seemed that in these woods, none of this had happened and yet, when the timber was harvested for the army, the men who cut the trees were ill.
It was whispered that there was a witch in the midst of the forest, enchanting the men because in their delirium, they claimed to see a spirit woman, either naked, or clothed only in leaves and branches.
This woman enthralled them, making them desirous of lying with her because with her spell, she made herself irresistible to men. After they lay with the witch, they were greatly weakened and could not cut timber. After they recovered, they did not remember the witch, but would not reenter the forest even under the threat of lashings.
After the first few refusers were lashed nearly to death, and still refused to enter the forest, the leaders of the army determined there was an unhealthy spirit or vapor in the woods, that could only be cleansed by fire.
Pawel was certain this forest, untouched for centuries by man, harbored some ancient disease, that, indeed, fire would cleanse it.
He had seen a great rebirth of life after great fires in the many wars he had seen...the wars were always wasteful, but life was tenacious and would sprout from the ashes.
So he had no misgivings. All the soldiers and foresters were removed from the area. Pawel, alone, remained. This was his responsibility, and he would see it done correctly.
He spent days doing nothing, well it appeared that he was just resting, but he listened, he watched, he got the sense of the winds, the movements of the animals. He wanted a fire that would move steadily with the prevailing winds, but burn slowly enough that the wildlife, or at least most of it, could escape the smoke and flames.
On the third day, he made his plan and set the tinder -- the firestarter...The next day, he waited 'til the morning dew had burned off, leaving the firestarter dry.
He mounted his plain, steady, small horse, Hatchet, a gelding of a mousy-gray color. Of a long face and droopy ears, it was not the impressive charger, civilians imagined a soldier riding. But Pawel did not charge into battle, his horse saved his aging legs from long marches. It was calm, reliable, and as covered in wounds as Pawel.
Pawel lit the torch he carried from his campfire, where he had just brewed his morning tea...steppe tea...a blend of herbs that he knew from his youth. Flaming torch in hand, Pawel rode to the tinder, the firestarters he had laid out on one edge of the forest
They all caught fire quickly, and soon had the undergrowth at the edge of the forest ablaze. The nature of the trees and brush in the forest made for a smoky blaze. Pawel was surprised...the forest was dry, old with much dead wood...but it smoked like green wood.
And a green wood that smelled of the incense from Eastern Lands!
The dense, fragrant smoke clung to the earth and snaked through the forest like a primeval beast, a beast that crawled on its belly.
Slowly, Pawel rode Hatchet to the end of the forest, opposite from where he had started the fire.
He freed his war bow from its saddle scabbard and chose the proper arrow for his quarry. His quiver held war arrows that could pierce armor at close range, and steel-tipped arrows with sharp barbs for wounding war horses. The majority of the arrows were long-flight arrows for harassing the enemy from a distance. Mounted people of the steppe, would ride at their enemies and lose a stream of arrows at extreme range, retreat, and repeat.
The enemy would be wounded, annoyed, their horses fearful, their ranks becoming disorganized. The horse archers did the job of weakening the enemy, so that the men on the giant armored warhorses would have an easier job, thundering down on the disorganized enemy.
That was the theory, but it was an old trick, and a well-trained enemy found ways of countering it, so that the charge of the heavy horse or the heavy infantry was not easy; many would die in the fray and the side that won, was often the first to break, their morale dissolved often only minutes before their opponent.
Battle was such a game of chance. Little wonder most commanders preferred to outmaneuver their enemy and force them into a spot, where they were forced to retreat, surrender, or negotiate.
But now, Pawel did not need any of those arrows. He picked a light-shafted arrow with a small deadly tip. It would fly fast, but only for a short distance. Thus, he could kill game on the run from the fire and have it for his midday meal.
But the smoke was driving the animals more than the fire, so they left the forest on the trot, not a full-panicked run.
After passing on some young deer, Pawel loosed on a fat doe. She fell at the shot, but still breathed. Pawel brought Hatchet up to his prey, and dismounted to slit its throat to kill the animal and bleed it out.
Pawel gutted the deer, saving the heart and liver, putting the lungs, stomach and intestines to one side. These would be devoured later by the predators of the area, the four-legged predators.
As he worked, the last of the forest creatures left the forest. Pawel could now feel the heat of the flames, though he was one-hundred meters from the tree line.
"All my children have left their home. Now they have no home."
This he heard over and over, first a whisper on the wind, then amid the crackling of the fire, now as a howl of anguish.
