Black Angus – Chapter 15
This is a working draft and not a final product.
Content Warnings: Rotting flesh, Body Horror, Too many insects, Salmon milking
In which there’s a Monster in Anatoliy’s dreams.
The air was fragrant, muddy, and moist. Following, there was the trickling sound of a shallow brook. Anatoliy heard the water running over the slick, algea-coated stones before he saw them. He awoke, reclining against the base of a willow tree, its roots raised high and tangled among large stones.
Near his boot, a snake had shed its skin. When he reached out to touch the skin, he found the snake was still inside -wearing the skin- but it slipped out, shiny and new. The reborn snake slid away and escaped into the labyrinth of the tree’s roots. It wasn’t until after the snake disappeared that Anatoliy noticed he was missing most of his right arm. Anatoliy spied his dirt-covered hand -pruned, gray, and almost as terrible looking as the appendage Angus had given him- half-buried below the gaps of the willow’s roots. There wasn’t enough space between the roots for Anatoliy to reach in and grab it with his one good hand.
A shepherd hiked up the mound where the willow grew, wearing a bear skin over his shoulders and carrying a tall walking staff and a zither, which rested on his hip. The man was tall, his hair and beard were silver in color, his nose was large and hooked, and -as hard as Anatoliy tried to ignore it- his glistening pink intestines hung free from a wide gash across his middle.
“You got away from me for a moment, but you always knew I’d find you,” he said. There was a comfort in his voice that was equally scolding; it neither praised nor punished. The shepherd motioned to the base of the tree with his staff. “Now, how about you crawl below those roots to get your arm back?”
Anatoliy puzzled over the suggestion, looking back down at the coiled phalanges that pierced black soil. “I can’t. I don’t fit,” he answered stupidly.
“Then spill a drink over the roots instead, and I’ll pluck you a song,” the shepherd offered, taking the zither in hand.
“I have nothing to drink,” Anatoliy said. He didn’t see what a song would do in this situation anyway.
“Yes, you do. You offered some not long ago. You can spare a little more.”
Anatoliy understood. Raising the raw stump of his arm, he dribbled his brilliant red spirit onto the interwoven roots.
“That will do,” the shepherd thanked him. He lifted the instrument.
“My father doesn’t know how to play,” Anatoliy replied, looking the man up and down.
The shepherd laughed at this. “I am not your father, Tol.” He ran his fingers down the zither’s strings
Veles played him a song, bittersweet and composed of wordless truths. It started as a storm, a vast sky returning its water to the earth, but it also brought down fire in the form of jagged lightning. In the morning, however, the sun rose -returning fire to the sky- though new clouds were already rolling in. All things had their place, and they’d return to where they belonged, in time. But by bravery and curiosity, or fear and greed, those same things always kept moving. Movement and change —this was the way of things. The world itself was not but one grand song, with new notes at all times being played, stopping only when the last death came to make everything go still.
Snakes unraveled from the roots of the tree, carrying out Anatoliy’s arm, bound by their long bellies. It fit back into place just fine, but the tips of its fingers flickered orange, the gray flesh catching flame. His hand became ash, which gave way to smoldering steel, revealing a four-foot-long blade. Words of power were etched along its edge, which obscured into illegible marks wherever Anatoliy tried to focus so that he might decipher their meaning. —A magic sword -hidden under a tree- just like in byliny. This should have been the greatest moment of Anatoliy’s life, but something felt off.
Even more serpents appeared, bursting from the hanging viscera of the shepherd’s gut. Anatoliy rose to his feet, where they swarmed about him, weaving in and out of the tree’s roots and through the grass like rapids.
“Give the roots a little more to drink. I can play another song to send them back to their den,” the shepherd suggested. He smiled at Anatoliy and -for a fleeting moment- his eyes flared the same electric violet color as lightning, almost white.
“You are not my father, nor are you Veles,” Anatoliy said firmly. He released the sword, which stood upright where it planted itself into the ground.
“What makes you say that, Mighty Bogatyr?” the shepherd asked, no longer even trying to maintain the mask as he mocked Anatoliy. He wasn’t even speaking Rodkiy anymore.
Anatoliy sniffed. “It was your song. It asked me to accept my death. Beautiful and true as its message was, Veles knows perfectly well this is not something he needs to ask of me. —And this sword?” He swung his meaty stump at the blade. “For what reason would you give me this? Are you trying to convince me to die, or to live? Though Veles may be the patron of magic, treasures are the concern of witches and sorcerers —not gods. No. I don’t think I’m the one who’s afraid to die.” Anatoliy lifted his chin, but his one remaining hand trembled at his side.
The shepherd choked over soft, punctuated laughs. Clumps of his silver hair sloughed off his scalp, and his skin seemed to both loosen and tighten around his frame at the same time. Purple, yellow, and burgundy organs cascaded from the gash in his stomach, plopping into wet piles, smelling sulfurous and too ripe. His nose caved inward, as did his eyes, leaving glistening shit-colored pits behind. The lips receded, fracturing along their seam as they dried up, exposing moist rose webs between their cracks. Below them, yellowed topaz teeth -too sharp and too long to be human- revealed themselves. Skin dropped away like autumn leaves, then fell his bones, until all that was left was that awful skull, sitting on top with its wretched, jagged smile sputtering out endless laughter.
Those violet lights still hovered in the depths of its ocular cavities, maintaining a sense of false life within that loathsome ivory cameo. It hopped off its foul-smelling hoard of offal, bones, and shed-skin onto the moist grass -then hopped twice more to land inches from Anatoliy’s feet- leaving a cloudy trail of burnt, ashy syrup with every jovial skip.
“I wonder, Mighty Bogatyr, who will savor your taste more: Me? —Or the worms when they come for my scraps?”
On cue, the insects swarmed, erupting from the ground to obfuscate every blade of grass and pebble of soil. The floral, mossy scent of Veles’s realm vanished and was replaced with the derelict notes of mildew, sewage, and decay. Thousands of pulsing bodies swallowed the rot left behind by the skull, in short time blanketing Anatoliy’s boots, climbing his leggings, and burrowing under the textiles to reach his skin. Slime-covered bellies, paper-thin wings, spined limbs with their many articulated joints, oozing poison sacs, tongues unfurling from tightly wound spirals, barbed stingers, mandibles with their many coarse hairs, and vellicating antennae caressed every surface they could find. They became tangled in Anatoliy’s hair, crawled up his nose, and latched onto the tender skin of his armpits. Somehow, they’d already delved their way into his stomach, hungry maggots writhing in his gut. And he found, much like riding a horse or driving a carriage, his body transcended into that particular oneness with his surroundings so that it was no longer clear where his body began and the insects ended.
The women were already gone when Anatoliy burst awake on the couch. Icy sweat dripped down his hairy jaw as he tried to regulate his shallow, uneven breaths. Only a dream -it had to be- not a premonition, nor a supernatural entity exploring his innermost thoughts. Anatoliy couldn’t stomach the possibility that the monster he was hunting had found him first.
He bundled the silver treasures in the patterned cloth and secured them deep at the bottom of his leather backpack. His head spun unevenly as he rose to his feet. Esther had given him more than he could have asked for, though she owed him nothing, and now he had to uphold his end. It would take likely close to a week to travel from Gryllcrosse to Ulvenkeep. He would have recovered from the blood loss by then. And he would be ready.
Esther’s office had an eerie, unlived-in quality this late in the morning. Floating dust glowed in the air, illuminated by the light which cut through the blinds of the door that led to the garden out back. Anatoliy walked past the spot near the vestibule where the corpse of last night’s victim had fallen. It was missing now, though a peculiar ring lingered in its place, staining the dark wooden floor. Anatoliy couldn’t help but wonder what shade the floors had been before the vampire women had moved into the house.
He borrowed a sheet of paper from Esther’s desk. As he hunched over, Esther’s tricky pen splattered dots of ink onto the page and his hands, casting smears that added a dramatic flair, which Anatoliy would have preferred to understate. But the paper he was using was heavy in weight -and probably not very cheap- so he didn’t dare start over on a fresh sheet. When he was done, Anatoliy folded the letter and tucked it into an envelope, which he addressed, but did not seal.
The sun was already high when he stepped out the door. Anatoliy winced as the light hit his face, but the air was perfumed with autumn leaves, filling his lungs with fresh vigor for the day ahead. Already he felt his strength returning as he made the walk back to the establishment where he’d rented a room for the previous night, stretching the long cords of muscle in his legs with each stride.
As expected, Zorya was in a testy mood about him greeting her at an hour so close to lunchtime -when she hadn’t even yet had her breakfast- and she too was ready to get her exercise in, though her restless legs would have to wait a while more. Anatoliy fed her boring grains mixed with flax seeds, staying behind to comb her hair until her spirits became more amiable.
Inside, Anatoliy purchased a bowl of creamy porridge and hot curds fried in butter, and wet his throat with a cup of beer. The abundant dairy in Ériush food often reminded him of the meals he used to eat during the brief period of his adolescence when he had labored for Teregchin herders. He hadn’t yet been old enough to be sold to his first company. Despite everything, he still preferred yak milk to cow, although the access to fresh bog butter in Gryllcrosse and various other Ériush cities was a certain luxury. He stared covetously at the seared plates of pollan and trout dined on by the other patrons, but such dishes would be a waste of money when he could simply catch them himself. Anatoliy resolved that he and Zorya both would eat much better before the day was done, while they were still so close to the river.
Zorya still remembered her grudge about breakfast by the time they were set to travel -making her a quite stubborn companion- but she was appeased with a quick stop to the river. The fresh flowing water was much more to her liking than what the still well had offered back in the city.
By early evening, as if the gods were watching them, Anatoliy spotted salmon jumping upstream. In little time, he had caught three of them. He pierced their tiny brains with his knife, strung them up through the gills -and just before leaving that part of the river- he discovered a mass of horseradish clustered together in the tall grass. Zorya sniffed curiously at the wide leaves of the specimen he’d unearthed, but Anatoliy shooed her fluttering snout away.
“I know the Ériush names are confusing for you, but khren is not for horses,” he lectured as he packed the forage away.
They took advantage of the remaining daylight hours, traveling north until they were about an hour away from the next settlement and the sun was nearing the horizon. Zorya wandered about, barely lifting her nose as she sniffed from one patch of clover to the next, while Anatoliy set up camp. First, he arranged a fire, so he’d have light ready near him before it was dark, then he laid down an oil cloth, topping it with layers of sheep skins and blankets. Exploring this second area, he uprooted a small handful of dandelions and happened upon a tree bearing some of the last damsons of the season, though it was clear from their complexion that browsing insects had found them first. Anatoliy filled his pockets with as many as he could carry.
Back by the fire, he examined the salmon, delighted to find that one of them was female. Massaging its belly, he milked bright orange pearls of roe from its egg sac into a bowl, feeling that he was about to eat like a king. He cooked the salmon on sticks, rubbing their skin first with a bit of oil. While they charred, he severed the horseradish root from the green and stripped the leaves from their thick stems, doing likewise with the dandelions and their roots. Tears welled in Anatoliy’s eyes -partially brought on from happiness, but mostly the stinging toxins released by his blade- as he peeled the outer skin from the horseradish root and cut it into thin slices. Next, he removed the pits from a few of the damsons, cutting them in half and separating the prettier sections for himself and the more insect-torn portions for Zorya; the rest he saved for the days to come. On a wooden plate, he arranged the greens, slices of horse radish, and chunks of fruit, finally laying a cooked salmon on top. He whistled for Zorya to return, feeding her the dandelion roots and chuckling as she licked the damsons and their sticky nectar from his fingers.
Anatoliy ate the roe first, scooping it with a bit of bread that had gone half-stale. The fish and the salad he ate with his hands, periodically tossing the needle-thin bones into the fire. When he was done, he scooped handfuls of dirt over the flames until the fire went out, so as not to make an obvious target of himself to any miscreants along the road. He washed his hands and face in the stream, and wet a cloth to wipe down the other parts of him.
With Zorya tied up and already sitting down to rest, Anatoliy laid on his sheep skins with the flecked black sky above him. Nearby, river water gurgled swiftly around cattails and spikerush, casting great webs of vibrant green algae around their stalks. The sound was so like the beginning of last night’s dream, but Anatoliy cast that thought from his mind. With his stomach full, sleep would find him easily. The only thing that could’ve brought it on better was if he were drunk —or if he had a krasavchik nestled under his arm. The sky was beautiful and clear that night, and the air was crisp with the cool flirtations of the steadily approaching winter. Frogs creaked along the river’s edge, defining their territory to one another in company with the throaty chirps of nightjars that whorled like a child placing a stick to the spokes of a wheel. In every direction, beyond the edge of human sight, nighttime pulsed with signs of life, soft and breathing, hungry and dreaming. And if aberrant shapes revealed themselves along that obscure border where they lurked, unmoving and unknowable, with eyes that glinted like bright cabochons in their many colors, leering at the man alone in the dark with his speckled horse, then Anatoliy would simply close his eyes shut, and pretend that were not there.