Chapter 28 – Rescue / There’s Something Strange in the Neighborhood

Chapter 28

Rescue / There’s Something Strange in the Neighborhood

            With the sound of fighting above us now gone, the inside of the carriage feels almost too quiet, and then I hear the sound of my father’s voice calling out our names.   Both my mother and I yell, hoping he can hear us, and after just a few seconds, the carriage lurches.  The carriage, with us inside, is lifted out of the hole it was in and, as the dirt around us falls away, I see what looks like roots wrapped around it.  The roots deposit us off to the side of the road, and as they untangle from around us, I see my father with a large sword shoved into the earth of the road.  Seeing movement in the window of the carriage, my dad rushes to it in order to offer a hand in climbing out.

            “Are you both ok?” he asks a moment before his expression darkens as he sees the tear surrounded by blood on my mother’s dress.  His eyes flick over to me, and I realize my face is likely still covered in the Knocker’s black blood.  I reach up to wipe my face off only to find that it appears to already be clean, though that is to say nothing of my dress which is still covered in both the blood of the Knocker and my mother. 

            “I’m alright, dear,” my mother replies, hugging my father.  “Thanks to our daughter, I’m alright.”

            He looks to me.

            “And you, lass?” he asks.

            “Other than b-being a b-bit shaken up and b-b-bruised, I think I’m ok,” I reply, trying to give him a cheery smile.  “I need a c-change of clothes though.”

            I look at the other carriages of our caravan, and they all seem to be okay, with only one other, the one that was directly in front of ours, looking like it had been dropped into the earth.  The horses that were pulling the two carriages are standing off to the side still attached to the shafts which had been sheared off, likely cut before dropping the carriages into the holes.  All along the road lay dead creatures similar to the one that had attacked us.  From what I can see, there are at least twelve of them.  Aside from a few injured guardsmen, it appears that nobody is hurt, and those few guardsmen that are, aren’t seriously injured, with Sir David being the worst off of the lot with a twisted ankle from stepping in a hole.

            The door on the lead carriage opens and a familiar head pops out.  Finding me instantly, Mary hops to the ground and rushes over to where I am standing.

            “My Lady, are you okay?” she asks, worry in her eyes as she takes my disheveled state in.  Realizing that the blood on my dress isn’t actually mine, she quickly adopts a calm demeanor. 

            “My Lady, I am glad to see that you are unharmed.  Shall I find you a change of clothes and help you get cleaned up?” she asks as if it were any other day and I had just happened to get a stain on my clothes.

            “That would be l-lovely, Mary,” I reply, and soon she has me in an area off to the side that is walled off by blankets hastily hung up to offer some privacy. 

            She brings in a small tub of water and helps me out of my soiled clothing before retreating to retrieve me a clean dress.  I take a sponge that is floating in the water and wipe myself down, removing any dried blood as best as I can without the aid of a mirror.  After a few minutes, I hear Mary’s voice call softly, asking if I need any help.  I take up her offer and she enters quickly, hanging the clean dress on one of the poles supporting the wall of blankets.  Looking at me with a critical eye, she takes the sponge and, after rinsing it out, proceeds to wash the skin along my hairline and neck before moving on to my back.  Tutting, she sets the sponge down beside the tub and mysteriously produces a bottle of shampoo from somewhere. 

            “You’ve got blood all in your hair, My Lady,” she explains, before motioning to the tub of water.  “Dunk your head to get your hair wet, and I’ll give it a good scrubbing to make sure we get all of it out.”

            I do as she instructs and soon she has me dunking it again to rinse all of the shampoo out.  After toweling my hair mostly dry, where she got the towel from is a mystery just like the shampoo, she helps me to get dressed.  Once I am tidied up and mostly presentable, wet hair aside, I step out from behind the blankets and Mary changes the water so that my mother can clean herself up.

            As my mother steps behind the blankets, I see my father pulling the great sword out of the road, and he runs an oiled cloth over the blade.  The sword itself is massive, from blade tip to pommel it is almost as long as from his mid chest to the ground.  The dark wooden inlay of the blade gleams almost as brightly as the metal.  Seeing him hold the sword in one hand while lovingly cleaning it with the other makes me wonder how he can manage to hold it so effortlessly.  It has to weigh a lot.  I wander over to him, looking at the sword and he notices my interest as I approach.

            “Feeling better now that you’re all cleaned up?” he asks with a smile, and I nod.  “Good, good.”

            “Have I ever shown you Oakheart?” he says, gesturing with the blade.

            I shake my head.  None of the memories I have from my predecessor’s life show the sword so I assume she never really got to see it.   

            He holds it out to me, pommel extended, clearly offering it.  I grasp it with both hands, expecting it to be heavier than I can manage considering it is almost as tall as I am, but when my father releases it, I am surprised to find that while heavy, holding it aloft is manageable even for me.  The twisted dark wood that makes up the grip is still warm from being in his hands.

            “Oakheart was given to me by my father back when I was only sixteen, back before I ever took over the title of Duke.  You never met him, since he died before you were born, but I think you would have liked him, even with all of his rough edges.  The ore this blade is forged from was gathered by his own hand, and not by using his affinity for earth.  He went to the dwarven mines in Muirven and, with their permission, used a pickaxe to mine the adamantine himself.  He then had them forge the blade, hilt, and pommel for it.  Then, obtaining the help of the Summer Court, harvested the heartwood of a thousand-year oak, to make the grip and inlays you see.”  He smiles, his eyes distant for a moment.  “To you, this wood probably seems like any other, but anyone with wood affinity could tell you, it’s still alive.  To me, Oakheart is a constant companion on the road and in battle.  It has saved my life in more instances than I can count, and while you may not be able to hear its voice, it’ll still protect you as it has me when I’m no longer here.  And who knows, maybe one day, when you have wee little lads or lasses of your own, maybe one of them will have an affinity for wood as well and can use it to its full capabilities.”

            “You don’t expect me to s-suddenly start swinging this sword around, do you?” I ask, not sure where he is going with all this.  “B-because I don’t know the first thing about using a sword, D-daddy.”

            He takes Oakheart back from me with a little laugh. 

            “Nay, lass,” he replies.  “Just letting you know that when I’m gone, if you keep it near, it’ll protect you.  That is all.  Pardon the ramblings of an old man, will you?”

            “You’re n-not that old and why are you t-talking like you are going to die?  You better live for a hundred years,” I say with mock indignation.

            He reaches out and ruffles my still damp hair, the action causing warmth to bloom within my chest.

            “I don’t plan on dying anytime soon,” he says, grinning widely.  “Your mother should be done soon, so let me get started on growing these shafts back together so we can get moving as soon as she is finished.”

            I spot a large rock nearby, walk over to it and sit down to wait.  While my father works on repairing the shafts, one of the guardsmen, Sir Ashley, walks over to talk to him.  Ashley gestures to the pile of dead fae that the uninjured guardsmen are making.  My father stops what he is doing and walks over to the pile to examine something, but at this distance I can't tell what.  It has something to do with one of the creatures that appears to have a deer skull for a head.  It is different from the other fae, all of which appear to be Knockers or some cousin to the Knocker.  I recall what my mother had told me about the species and deduce that the others might be Redcaps.  As if to confirm my suspicions, a bloody cap, which appears to be the scalp of some creature, rolls off the pile.  A nearby guardsman picks the ‘cap’ up and tosses it back onto the pile before putting a torch to the pile.  Regarding the body of the fae with the deer skull head, my father picks it up and carries it off to the side of the road across from me.

            Father gestures for me to come to his side and I comply.  At his side I can see that the body of the fae appears to be that of a child, no older than ten.  The clothing it is wearing suggests that it is a girl.

            “Beira, this is a Woodkin,” he explains, a troubled look on his face.  “Woodkin belong to the Spring and Summer Courts.  This one was associated with the Spring Court; you can tell this by the flower crown on its head.  The Summer Court’s Woodkin have moss growing on the crown of their skulls instead, that is how you can tell which Woodkin belongs to which court.  The troubling thing about this one being here is that the Spring Court has always been at odds with the Autumn Court, which both those Knockers and Redcaps belong to.  They must have had something to hold over this little one to make her work with them.”

            I look at the childlike body on the ground in front of me and I notice something on the side of its neck that I think is blood at first, but appears to be a pattern the longer that I look at it. 

            “Daddy, can you roll her over?” I ask.

            He gives me an odd look, but complies with my request and rolls her body over.

            On the back of her neck is a pattern, tattooed in what looks like blood, that starts at the base of her skull and flows down her neck.

            “D-do you have a knife?” I ask him, and again he complies though more hesitantly this time.

            “What is it, lass?” he asks.

            “This pattern, have you ever seen it b-before?” I ask as I kneel and cut a slit from the collar of her dress to the midpoint of her back and butterfly it open confirming my suspicion that the tattoo extended down her back.

            “What pattern?” my dad asks, confused.

            “The p-pattern of this t-t-tattoo in red.” I point to the design which honestly reminds me of some of the demon summoning runes in the Diablo games.

            “I don’t see any tattoo, lass.”

            “You don’t see this?” I trace the pattern with my finger and he shakes his head.

            After a moment, he calls Ashley over and asks him if he can see any tattoo.  Ashley looks confused and confirms that there are no tattoos that he can see on the body, so my dad sends him to fetch some parchment and quill with ink.

            “Do you think you can draw what you see, lass?” my father asks.

            “I-I can try,” I reply.

            With that, I set about the task of copying the tattoo onto the parchment and by the time I finish, I feel that, while not exact, I got a very close approximation to what I see.  Father sprinkles some drying powder on the drawing before blowing it off and studying the rune-filled design.  After a minute, he rolls the parchment up and ties a ribbon around it to hold it closed.  He hands it to Sir Ashley and orders him to store it someplace safe. 

            “Now, to tend to this little one and then finish repairing the carriages,” my dad says with a sad smile on his face.

            He walks over to the edge of the road where the grass meets the waves of golden wheat.  With a sigh, he drives Oakheart into the earth and I see roots sprout from the wooden inlay.  The roots start digging a small hole about the size of the Woodkin’s body and several feet deep.  Once the hole is deep enough, my father gently lays the childlike body to rest in it and then the roots of Oakheart fill the hole back in.  As my father moves to extract Oakheart from the soil, he pauses.

            “Are you sure?” he asks no one in particular.  “Okay, if that is what you want, old friend.”

            “Daddy?” I ask, not sure what’s going on.

            “It’s nothing that you have to worry about, lass,” he answers.  Instead, he kneels beside the grave and pops a small acorn out of the pommel of Oakheart.  Placing the acorn over the center of the grave, he cups his hands over it and soon a small sapling springs up, growing at an alarming rate.  Soon, the sapling grows nto a small tree that soon becomes a large tree with roots sticking out of the ground, which form several natural benches.  Seeing the job done, he removes Oakheart from the soil and returns to fixing the shafts on the carriages. 

            Once the shafts are repaired, my father and a team of guardsmen set about getting the horses hitched back up to the carriages they had been cut free from.  My mother and I had already gotten back into our large carriage, which has been cleaned and repaired at some point.  Even the smell of blood has somehow been removed.  I have my book in hand, or rather, her novel, and apparently she can see the question on my mind when I look at her as she sits across from me. 

            “I wrote that when I was much younger and had a bit of a wilder side,” she says with a smile. 

            “A-are you attracted to women?” I ask, considering the nature of the novel’s subject matter.  “N-n-not that I w-would think any l-less of you for it.  I-I’m j-just curious.”

            I look down in an effort to hide the red creeping up my face from asking such an embarrassing question.

            “It’s fine, sweetie,” my mother replies, a wistful smile on her face.  “And to answer your question, yes, I am.  But I am also attracted to your father, and since I love him, I gave myself to him, and him to me.  Were our marriage a loveless one, things might be different, but it isn’t.  Does that answer your query?”

            I just nod, not wanting to say anything.

            “By the way, do you remember how you got that copy of my novel?” she asks.

            I shake my head.

            “Hmm, shame,” she says, and turns her attention to the window as my father climbs into the carriage and we start to move once again.