South of Paradise, Chapter 3, Part 1
This is a bit of a longer chapter, so I decided to break it up (if the ending seems abrupt haha).
3- Two as one
Generally he who occupies the field of battle first and awaits his enemy is at ease; he who comes later to the scene and rushes into the fight is weary. And therefore those skilled in war bring the enemy to the field of battle and are not brought there by him.
-The Art of War, Weaknesses and Strengths
After a full 8 years of training, hours upon hours of practice in the yard and on the field, our wake began the initiation process, at the age of fifteen. The end goal of a Vulture’s training is to unify his thoughts with his/her brethren. This unity is a supernatural feat for a couple humans to maintain, let alone to achieve this unity among a group of ten. To make the process more manageable, the Vultures employ the divide and conquer technique.
The process begins with one of your wake-brethren and then spreads out from there. Wanda and I were paired together, as we physically complemented each other quite well. She was fast and cunning, and I was bulkier and decent with a staff, my weapon of choice. However complementary we were, our personalities clashed; her caution and perfectionism with my brashness. We were given a week’s notice, and set about planning and packing before we sojourned.
Each sojourn was always paired with a difficult task. The only probable way to achieve the task was to reach a level of superhuman coordination, what the Vultures called mindweaving. The master gave us hints of it during meditation and training, but he knew we were too immature to understand it at the time. Only upon coming of age were we ready to perform the first weave.
“Mindweaving is more than an art; it is a mental state,” our master told us, “You must guide the actions of your partner, who will in turn guide yours. You must become one being: be two as one.”
We set out with meager rations, a dull knife, and a flint and tinder for our task. We were to head a few days north, into the Northern forest, and kill a deer. It seemed simple enough, but there were certain stipulations/complications associated with the task. We would not be allowed to use any sort of projectiles, so our knives were not well balanced and simply good for gutting and skinning. (I attempted to throw mine at a target in the yard, and after a few wide misses, the knife bounced straight off the target.) Self made spears were not allowed either: only a clean cut up close would be allowed, no long range stabbing. The point of the task was to kill the animal with cunning and coordination. “A task more fit for wolves than humans,” Wanda said to the master, to which he responded, “Wolves are exemplars of mindweaving, of course, that is why this task is called ‘The Wolf’s Bite’.” He flashed us a smile that glibly turned into ferocious teeth gnashing before sending us on our way. Our master was always a little off.
To make sure that we didn’t fashion any sort of bow or spear, and to ward off any unexpected visitors, an overseer followed us, keeping back about a quarter-mile, just in sight. He would observe the kill and help us bring it back.
Wanda and I went over a few techniques we could employ on the way over, but most of them met with difficulties. Stalking the animal would be much too difficult, as getting too close would give us away via our smell or sound. Camouflage seemed like a good idea, but the deer would most likely sprint off much too quickly before we could land a killing blow. We decided a trap would be our best bet, but even a trap was a difficult concept to devise for a deer. They were much too big for a snare, and much too agile to be trapped in a larger device suspended from a tree. We spent the entire walk of the first day arguing over effective ways to perform the task.
“Wouldn’t a full-body mud smear of camouflage be effective? That would eliminate the smell at least.” Wanda said.
“But how would we get close enough? If we jumped up from the ground the animal would simply scare and bound off.” I responded
She thought for a moment, “We could go to the nearest stream, lie in wait, and pop up from under a pile of leaves or mud to slit the deer’s throat.”
“But the deer would notice either of us if we were too close and the wind blew just right…” I paused. “Distance is the issue here: we need to get close enough to kill the deer but we need to make sure that we’re capable of landing a deathblow without the animal fleeing.”
“I’ve got it!” she exclaimed, “We can spook it and maneuver her into the other’s location, wherever the other one of us is lying in wait. That way the other can be sure to get close enough, since the deer might fail to notice another predator in its flight.”
“That seems reasonable, except that a sprinting deer is quite a challenge to catch.” I retorted.
“No no, not like that, here let me explain.” And as we set up our camp for our first night under the stars, she went into detail with a stick in a piece of dirt, drawing different arrangements of a water source, the deer, herself and me, poised among randomly assorted bushes and trees. She’d point and I’d shake my head, then she’d shake her head at me and cross out something or point to something to give emphasis. Then I’d smear it away with my hand and draw with my fingers something she’d stare blankly at.
After a few more hours of arguing and conversing, we decided that we weren’t too sure what we would be running into. Once we got a lay of the land, we’d stage a more concrete plan, but until then, we practiced our mindweaving.
The master had given us a sheet listing practice exercises to perform. The first was when sleeping, we slept with our heads touching (which didn’t seem to do much except frighten me when the wind blew her hair into my face).
At dawn, we also sat up and silently stared at each other. Wanda had dark black eyes and her hair was cut short like everyone at the Nest (nothing for the Carrion to hang on to). But those dark eyes had a fire, and in them I saw myself withering in its flame.
We stared at each other for quite a while, until we decided to break our camp and move on.
The main techniques listed on the sheet were to form word associations, the idea being we’d be able to finish each other’s sentences. It was quite difficult on the morning of the second day when we started, but became easier and easier as time passed. I couldn’t even eke out a single syllable initially, having no idea how her mind functioned.
“Straw.” She said.
“Uhhhh, mmm, be-rry?” I replied with uncertainty
“No, man.” She said.
“Tree.” I said.
“Branch.”
“Well that one was too easy!”
“Then come up with a harder one.” She scoffed.
It turns out I wasn’t very good at coming up with words; all the associations were fairly obvious. Hers were more ambiguous, but they had a certain pattern that I eventually picked up on. They all concerned social relationships; the pairs of words she produced were all related to people, personified objects or other living creatures. She told me all my associations were just stupid. What a jerk! I thought.
After almost a whole day of practicing, I began to see how her thoughts were directed. Her social word associations expanded out to more; it came from her views of interconnectedness of the universe. She was a heck of a lot smarter than I was, and she knew it. Three days in we were able to form whole sentences, after much trial and (mostly on my part) error. One of the exercises was to speak poems.
“The wind blows-“ she said.
“-the wheat bends. A storm moves-“
“over the mountain tops. The air is silent-“
“-all the trees are swaying. The Vulture”
“watches for the Carrion. The Carrion watches”
“for the Vulture.”
It was surreal. After a few days of speaking with her and performing these exercises, I felt like I knew her better than ever. I could turn her mind over within my own. We started to just talk afterwards, about anything that came into our heads, though we could almost feel what the person would say next.
“What was your dad like?” she asked.
I tightened up, unsure how to respond. “I-“
“Never knew him. I understand, most of us don’t know our dads. My dad was apparently an interesting character, but I barely knew him as well. He traveled a lot.”
“What did he do?” I asked.
“Helped build roads, all around the country. He sent money back once in a while but it was just my Mom and Grandma on the farm. One day, Dad…”
“Didn’t come home. The story is the same everywhere now.”
“The story is always the same, just told differently. Except-
“for us. Our story will have a good ending.” I smiled wanly at her and we walked on in silence for a while. We had passed through fairly barren land the past week, with only blades of grass and scraggly bushes strewn about. The forest started to come into view after passing over a large hill.
It enveloped us.
It was quite a sight at first, lines upon lines of pines stretching west and east for miles, swallowing hills and mountains in a giant green mass. Every moment it soaked in as much air as we would ever breathe out, and it had stood for much longer than we ever had or would. The sunlight splashed over the hills as the sun set for its fourth time during our trip, letting us know that we had made good time getting to the forest. I looked over at her and saw her soaking up the sight with joy; she loved the color green, I had just recently discovered.
Or maybe I had simply felt it. I never remembered her saying so.
The larger pines cast large shadows over their smaller cousins, casting light and shadow as the sun made an acute angle with the horizon. We kept our pace steady as we passed under the first few trees and heard the calls of birds and other small creatures. The air was teeming with life.
But it hadn’t always been that way in this forest. According to the tales we had learned as children, this forest was the first place the dead had ever walked from. The lands to the north had been brimming with humans, but one day, a shipment failed to arrive destined for a southern town. And then another, and by the end of the day, not a single good slated for delivery had made it through the forest.
At first the southerners didn’t know what to do, but they didn’t have to wait long. The dead came streaming out of the north, and those who were stationed near the forest were overcome almost immediately.
The townspeople south of the forest burned their crops and homes, and fled when they heard of an unstoppable army approaching. Not a single town remained within a week’s journey of the forest. The Nest was now the closest remaining settlement to this forest. No one had ever traveled north of the forest since that day, now a few hundred years in the past. It was known to all the “southerners” (there were no more northerners) as the Northern Forest, and was referred to only as a punishment for small children. As we entered the forest, the sun slipped away behind the horizon, and the moon shone low and bright in the dark sky. Pinpricks of light formed a canopy above the pines jutting out into the cool night air.
Wanda reached out and stroked the trunk of a very tall pine, covered with a thick coat of moss. How soft. She thought. I gave her a strange look.
“Did you say something?” I asked.
Wanda turned away from the tree. “Me? Not a thing. Feel how soft this is.”
Weird. I thought, and began feeling the moss. It had a soothing feel, but was a bit too hairy.
“It’s like this tree forgot to shave.” I joked, “It might be taboo in the forest community to bring in sharp objects.”
Wanda didn’t dignify me with a response.
The sound of movement a short distance away snapped us to attention. We moved slowly through the forest, stepping around every twig and tiptoeing through the underbrush. Our eyes strained in the moonlight. The sound of movement was closer; it sounded as if a stick was brushing some leaves back and forth. Then a long moan drew out, and we quickened our pace, but kept as silent as we could. A clearing came up ahead, and we saw a sight that would have made an average person lose his/her lunch.
It was a deer, but half of the deer was missing. Large hunks of meat had been pulled off its torso, its front legs were missing, and its eyes had been taken out. As we crept closer, we thought that what had been the work of wolves was clearly not. These were not bite marks, but human nail marks, and the wolves wouldn’t have left their kill out in the open without finishing it or bringing it to a den. The deer had been freshly torn apart, less than a few hours ago. Its back leg was broken, which led us to believe that it had been injured before being consumed alive. Wanda brought the knife behind its skull to end the creature’s suffering.
Wanda and I met eyes then began a spiraling sweep, moving out diametrically from one another, but always keeping the other in line of sight. About 100 hands out, she stopped and lifted up her finger to signal me. I came over to her and she pointed in the direction of some faint rustling. We moved as stealthily as possible, and saw a trail marked with blood as the clearing faded. The sound of crunching grew louder. The sound was of sharp teeth clacking against slim bones.
We drew up close, and peeked out from behind a thick pine. Their dead eyes were focused on their work, severing sinew from bone with teeth and hands. Blood covered their withered flesh, and their tirelessly working mouths. The smell was beyond horrible. This was the true reason no one dared venture into the forest, beyond all the fairy tales; it was still full of Carrion. We looked back and made sure we were well alone, then set about with a quick plan.
We were going to have to simply avoid them, because our hunting knives were not nearly good enough to sever their necks, though the fact that they outnumbered us three to two was more than enough to deter us. We decided the best way to avoid them would be to move downwind for now, and then we’d try and walk through a stream or two to dampen our scent.
We were extra careful about leaving a trail, taking careful steps to avoid twigs and thick pieces of underbrush, and doing our best to walk on bare ground. Wanda agreed that avoidance was our best plan. Distance is the key to survival, the Vulture’s mantra. We dearly hoped our overseer would deal with the Carrion, but even he/she might avoid a fight when it came to three roamers. We could still hear the leg bones cracking in between their jaws as we moved through the moonlight.
