THE WEAPON OF SURVIVAL

A short story by Dan Jire

The edge of the forest might as well have been the edge of a cliff. The proximity of the foliate to where Selma stood was too close for comfort—as if she was on the verge of teetering forward and falling in.

Or worse—she could be snatched up by a beast.

Selma was sober now. She fought her long dark hair from her face, having long disheveled the braid she normally kept it up with. She was so much more sober now. It had been a drunken boast that led her out into the night. She had been so sick of working the mines. But that’s all this particular town had to offer, since he blood could not be traced back to a name of any importance. She worked along side men and women whose parents were in the mines below, and grandparents were even further below if not buried along the way. Selma watched the whole mining town cap their lives with ales every night going on three full moons.

Selma had moments earlier proclaimed for all the bar to hear, “I fear not the land of beasts. I walked along it to get here, unaccompanied, easy pickings as hungered and tired was I!”

Or something close to that, as she had put on enough that her slurs might have been less discernible than she imagined, given the results of her boast.

The old man who laughed the loudest no stood between Selma and a battered old armored caravan. The old man had mocked Selma for the mispronunciation of his name. He called himself, Aleyn, but Selma called him Old Man. Again, this was before she was sober enough to understand where she stood, and just bleary eyed enough not to notice Aleyn’s scared face and thick calloused hands.

Aleyn prided himself as a former member of the original militia, before it became what is known today as the Green Militia. It didn’t have a name back then, just a goal. That army cleared the lands of beasts many decades ago, driving them deep into the forests and way from the roads between the castles, towns, and villages that made up the Kingdom of Callum.

But the beasts bore offspring in dangerous numbers and it was the duty of the Green Militia to dwindle their numbers and properly educate them on territories and borders of humankind.

Despite Aleyn’s girth and fierce stature, he was not a soul of sternness. Her bore a smirk nearly every moment, at least so long as he’d been in Selma’s presence. His rosy cheeks were either signs of intoxication or his jolliness.

“Since you will be merely observing tonight, you will carry all the tools of our trade,” Aleyn said as he rolled up the leather tarp on the back of the caravan. The first item he removed was a poncho made three sizes too big for Slema. It was littered with pockets—all empty as Aleyn pulled it over Selma’s head.

“You never want to find yourself in the forest without every tool at your disposal. Every tool, every weapon of our trade serves a specific purpose for a specific enemy. For we call them beasts that same as we call you and I human. But we would present different fights for our enemy, wouldn’t we, eh?”

Selma nodded, at the same time she was sizing up the old man, looking for his weakness. This was an act she typically did upon meeting anyone, but as noted before, she hadn’t been in the correct state upon introductions.

“You must learn each weapon and its purpose if you wish to survive in this business.”

As Aleyn unveiled the weapons of the trade, Selma doubted she’d struggle, despite the sheer quantity.

“Now then,” Aleyn said plucking the first item and twirling it around his fingers. “You are a woman that can hold her drink. So you must be capable of holding the two pronged dagger of Able. Only a tagrem blade can sharpen it. And it’d take a bit more than that to break it. It’s made of thrallstone.”

“Strongest stone in all of Callum,” Selma repeated the one thing everyone in the mine always told her. If they were lucky enough to find a vein of thrallstone, they would be rewarded well enough to drink themselves to a happy death.

“Not just Callum, mind you. Of all the lands. Heaven and hell and all that lay between. It is the rarest of all. Said to be the afterbirth of the day the lands were carved. Said to be that which separated the lands. You see it, even in day, thrallstone is as dark as the sunless sky.”

Selma nodded, and wanting to prove an attentive pupil added, “Before the world was turned.”

Aleyn gave a solemn nod. The belief among the people of Callum was that the world turned the wrong way. That the sun used to rise in the west when there was no death, only life. But since the world turned, death greeted all and night rose in the west. Those in the mines, preferred it down there, seeing as how every thing above the earth died, as if they were cheating death below.

“Thrallstone, the cursed blade, though short as you see it because it is all that can be afforded. It won’t kill most beasts. Not unless they gobble you whole. Then twist and turn and scrape and slash. From the inside out. Seen it done before myself, hope to never have the opportunity.” He placed the dagger of Able in the breast pocket. “You’ll want to remember where that one is just in case.”
Aleyn reached back into his caravan and removed three bags, tied at the ends.

“Kimp for your courage. Tallon for the beast, Levender for its slumber—though, I will tell you this, young Selma. I’ve spent a night in the least comfortable position hiding from a beast that slaughtered three of my best. It got me through the night. I woke rested and had bested the beast’s patience. As it snored beneath the tree, I dropped down and ended its reign.”

Aleyn pointed to the pockets for the three bags. Selma took them and placed them in each while Aleyn drew another item. With a shake of his wrist  the rod extended triple in length—slightly longer than Aleyn’s arm. The end of the staff shimmered—infused with the same magic that powered the tagrem blades. It flickered blue like lightning.

“Half the time, the sparkle at the end spooks the beast. But if they get in close, you’ll learn them.”

Aleyn continued, adding poison tipped arrows, and blades meant for eyes and tender parts of flesh among basic survival items like thread, chain, and a striking stone. Each object he shared some anecdote of his long-lived life as a warrior and hunter. Selma couldn’t help but be bewitched by the old man’s triumphs. Hers was a life less lived at this point.

“The clegg shells are loved by the finest of women and men. Their sounds as you know are from the heavens. But if you listen closely, their sweet song is troubled when a beast nears. Little known trick of the wealthy not to share that information with commoners. Lest all would be scrounging them up and refusing to sell.”

Aleyn held the clegg shell to Selma’s ear. The song was truly beautiful, like a spring breeze or the warmth of a bath.

“Beauty is a distraction,” Aleyn said, smirking wildly.

Aleyn held a blade that wrapped around his knuckles, mere inches from Selma’s throat. She hadn’t noticed it, or his hand until he’d pulled the shell away. He placed the blade in her front bottom pocket, and the shell along with it.

“When you listen, be ready, be armed. Always be armed, they say.”

Selma nodded. “I could listen to that song all night. And it would let me know there is no beast with a mile?”

“Give or take. But you wouldn’t notice the stealthy ones. The ones that have been hunting you since before you were born. The true predators of our world. They can smell clegg shells. They will stand upright like you or I, and their two-legged steps deceive the shell.”

Selma trembled, though she wished not to show it, it was clear that Aleyn recognized her fear. She’d slain a creature or two before and bested a few swords, but the way the people in the mines spoke. How they actually believed beneath the earth was the best place to be, it had given her the impression she should be fearful.

“I like you, Selma. You don’t belong in the mines. And you don’t need to be frightened when you’re with me. It is rare I take on an apprentice. But as you have said, you are not of this town. Your blood has no family here. That is what makes me so sure you will be an excellent member of the Green Militia.”

“Thank you, Old Man.”

Aleyn almost corrected her pronunciation again, but left his mouth hanging in pause as he wet his lips. Then he said, “Let me tell you a secret. Come close.”

Aleyn looked over Selma’s shoulders, and then back of his own, then stepped in until they were ear to ear. “The stories of the beast being vanquished from the Kingdom of Callum are true. I can assure I was there and I fought hard. Survival is all that matters in this world.”

Selma nodded. It’s what she’d been doing since she found herself lost and wandering this land. Far from a home no one seemed to have any recollection of.

Aleyn stepped backward, paused, and then continued, entering the forest with his back turned to it.

Selma had many teachers, and this reminded her most of her time on a pirate ship, when team work was demanded and a fallen rower’s place must be taken in the heat of a theft the moment they fall. Was, Aleyn expecting her to protect him if a beast should spring out of the darkness?

Aleyn smirked wider than normal, then turned and faced the forest, beckoning Selma to follow.

“Bring the three jugs as well. It’s always longer ‘til dawn than one knows.”

Selma spotted the three jugs attached to the back of the caravan. She unbuckled the harness and realized they were heavy, heavy with liquid of some sort. She wondered, again thinking on her past experiences, if this was some lure for beasts, and if Aleyn sought to use her as bait.

She followed with the jugs anyway.

As she entered the forest, it reminded her of home, beyond the castle walls and the field of boulders that protected them from organized armies. Beyond all of that was a jungle her people rarely dared to enter. Not for a fear of beasts, but a respect for their domain. The animals of her home, in turn, respected the boundaries. All except the birds, they shat on everything.

Selma worried she’d broken whatever truce had kept her safe thus far.

“It’s best to camp furthest from the road,” Aleyn said.

“Is that so beasts don’t catch our scent and see a new hunting ground?” Selma asked, her voice suddenly much louder than she thought it should be.

“Precisely. Exactly. Couldn’t have worded it better myself, young Selma.”

The heavy jugs made it difficult for Selma to keep up with Aleyn. For the first hundred yards, thick brush forced turns and backtracking until the reached the older woods. Thick trees with roots that covered so much ground, one might mistake the hardness as stone.

“Here will do,” Aleyn said.

“Here?” Selma asked, looking at a clearing that she soon realized had been used more times than she could expect. There was an iron fire ring, metal grates for cooking and three hammocks strung between trees.

“When’s the last time you slept beneath the stars?”

“Been a few months,” Selma said honestly, but confused. She expected hunting blinds or some kind of stronghold they could easily defend themselves from.

Aleyn smirked. “Remember that secret I told you? All the beasts. All of them.”

Selma wasn’t dense, but she had a hard time jumping to the conclusion that he meant the Green Militia had successfully removed all the beasts from the lands. When it clicked, Aleyn nodded.

“You mean . . .”

Aleyn didn’t stop nodding.

“But don’t the people . . .”

Aleyn shrugged, waiting for Selma to finish reconfiguring her mind and all the questions that flooded it.

“Won’t they be expecting us to bring back the carcass of a beast?”

“Silly, young Selma. Where do you think the fact that dead beasts attract more beasts came from? Only heroes return. That is all that is expected.”

Selma understood the grift now. The Green Militia for years now, had kept themselves well-fed, well-treated and out of duty of the mines and places worse. When Selma guffawed, it was more about her former cowardice. She felt ridiculous, and worse—she knew Aleyn had thought her ridiculous.

“If you ever do need to produce the corpse of a beast, I do have a guy on the front lines that can acquire one. That’s seven day’s journey from here though. He is quite expensive. But sometimes, a grieving father needs an answer. The Queen has called upon us to provide evidence from time to time. That’s why, I mostly return to the bar with tales of old and not tales of last night. Got it?”

“You picked me because I’m not around from here. I’m not likely to tell a brother or sister.”

“I picked you because no one at the bar liked you,” Aleyn said. “half your stories sound made up, and the other half you slurred so much, Scary Mickey was filling his tankard with the beer you spilled.”

Selma smiled. For all that Aleyn had just said, it meant she was out of the mines, and a sweet life was ahead of her. She had been raised to be a warrior until she had gotten lost. She’d spent time on ships at sea, ships on the river, in fields both of battle and kimp, and then the mines. The soulless, hollow dark mines.

Then she noticed that Aleyn had been armed, ready to remedy any reaction Selma might’ve had to expose his lie. She sat down next to the fire ring, to prove her allegiance.

“It’s beer, isn’t it.” She said, ready to pop the cork.

Aleyn looked concern that she was about to drink his stash, but then smiled back.

Selma opened one of the jugs and lifted it with both hands to her lips. She took a swig. A bigger swig than she should’ve.

She spit the liquid out. Her throat burned, it felt dried and scratched. Her nostrils felt warm and the vomit gave such a swift rise she expected to empty her stomach. But she hacked and coughed, desperate for any other taste.

“That, young Selma, is how an old man starts a fire.”

“You’re a sadist, deep down, Old Man.”

“Aleyn. You say my name wrong again and I’ll have to rethink your apprentiship.”

Selma shrugged it off eyeing the other two jugs. “Which one to glory?”

“That one.” He pointed haphazardly. It could’ve been either jug.

Selma opened one anyway, and snifted it first. It didn’t smell like what she just tasted  so she gave a slow careful sip.

“That’s water.”

“Right. They both are. I only do my drinking in the bar, young Selma. If you want to do your drinking out here, you’ll have to spend your coin.”

Selma didn’t believe him. She opened the next jug and recognized the smell of barley.

“Sadist,” she said. Her sip confirmed her suspicions.

“That’s the next lesson, by the way. Learning to act the role. Learning to lie about anything and everything.”

Selma felt better drinking the ale than she’d felt all night. It took the edge off.

“You aren’t from around here thought. It’s clear to most. If not all. Perhaps from beyond the front line?”

Selma drank and shook her head.

“I fought briefly among the soldiers at the front lines, but it was not where I’m from. Seems you all do not know my people. And for that, I am at a loss.”

“They found you out at sea?” Aleyna asked.

Selma had learned to lie. She knew most people offered her the explanation she wanted to hear. So she nodded. And between swallows added, “And I don’t remember how I got here.”

“You’ll work on that,” Aleyn said. “The lying.”

“I’m not—”

The ground was crunched. Just behind the campsite—back the way they came.

Aleyn’s smirk went away. His shoulders tensed. He’d removed his own poncho, but he was upon it without notice or sound.

Had they been followed? Selma wondered as she trained her eyes on the dark woods behind her. She started to plot her excuse and escape. She’d uncovered the Green Militia’s secret, she hadn’t ever actually taken part in it—and who, convinced there were beasts as most were, would be brave enough to follow them out there?

The silence of night swelled with a symphony of insects either ignorant or resigned to their fates. The look in Aleyn’s eyes had changed to. He too had decided what must be done next. The look reminded Selma too much of those that murdered. It troubled her that she needed to decide—Aleyn or the mines. Whatever happened next, those seemed her only options.

But her options changed with a swiftness she was ill prepared for.

From the woods, the beast sprung, landing atop Selma as she twisted around. It pulled her down into the ground, dragging her so it could take out Aleyn as well.

But Aleyn’s age had caught up to him, he couldn’t get away in time. Only the fact that Selma had dragged her armory of a poncho along with her, and in some luck found the right pocket.

She stabbed with the dagger of Able. The beast let out a surprised yelp. It defended itself with animosity aimed at Selma. Its large jaw pressed down against Selma’s head as she stabbed. It sought to suffocate her in its thick mane.

The snap of a tagrem charge shocked the beast. Aleyn had managed that much. The beast scrambled from Selma, darting behind a thick root outside of the clearing. It gnarled its teeth.

Aleyn spun the staff like a baton. Then he tripped and fell. The beast saw its chance and attacked again.

Selma retrieved the staff and swung wildly.

The beast rethought its approach, slinking back among the trees. He watched them for a moment and then retreated into the darkness like a spooked doe, bounding with reckless abandon.

“Sadist,” Selma said, still breathing heavily. “You tricked me again.”

Aleyn didn’t say anything. His arms quaked at the elbows, unable to rise from the ground.

Selma offered him a hand. He took it, proving to be heavier than Selma expected. She used both hands to help him up.

“What do we do now?” Selma asked. “Is it waiting for us? Do we set a trap?”

Aleyn stood there. He took too long to answer, but just before Selma repeated her question he said, as softly as he had ever spoken.

“We don’t do anything. We saw nothing.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean nothing.”

Selma was confused. “Like we scared it off and it won’t be back or . . .?”

“Do you want to die?”

 “You fought back the beasts before. Train me. Tell me what to do.”

“I haven’t seen a beast, an actual beast in decades,” Aleyn said. “I wasn’t lying to you. We drove them back. We removed them from our lands.”

“That’s a lie, when I served on the front lines. The enemy armed their beasts. Beasts like that very one.”

Aleyn was angry now, his face looked a hundred years older with his normal smirk.

“The front lines, sure. But not here. Not this far in land. We’re all old men, the Green Militia.” He started looking around the camp, and then hastily began to pick up his things, and take down the hammock. Then he noticed he hadn’t told Selma to help.

“Come on now, I’ve only got two arms and you saw how good they were.”

“Someone once told me that lies are not invincible, they are only as strong as the man who speaks them. You just reminded me of that,” Selma said.

“Lies are a means to survival. Just as a butterfly’s wings look like the eyes of a larger predator. You think I’d last a day in those mines? How long do you think you’d last?’

“Survival is the lie. We’re dying as soon as we’re born. It’s how we do it that matters.”

Selma left Aleyn there. She didn’t ask for the poncho, wasn’t even sure if any of the tools he’d armed her with would help her. But she would protect the people the Green Militia claimed to protect. She would hunt the beast down and kill it.

But that’s another tale.

THE END

(C) Copyright 2022 Dan Jire