Weeping Willow

Join Sibling Kabecka as they and their squad spend the night in Grienteen, only to discover dark and secret happenings. Written in 54 AS.

 

We were in Grienteen for the night. We had come upstream from Winsterdam to where the Winste and Soer meet in the wetlands, and with autumn winding down into winter we would wait out the chilling night in town before passing on.

 

We were welcomed cordially enough, though my squad leader, Brother Vernon, noted there was a peculiar tension in the air. However, since Grienteen lives essentially solely off the trading of willow withies and products made from them, and the cold and tough harvesting season was about to begin, we ascribed this to a sense of anticipation among the townsfolk.

 

My squad was given a small one-room house to warm ourselves and sleep in, and we were invited to join the Grienteeners for a simple supper, which we gladly did. Still, Vernon was uneasy when we went to sleep, and ordered Brother Stanley, Brother Frank, Sister Alfreda, and me to take our sabres with us should we need to go outside to relieve ourselves during the night. We said we would, and with that, we went to bed, falling asleep to the sound of the wind moving among the willow trees.

 

I woke in the middle of the night, with the pressing urge to pee. I snuck out of my bedding, quickly put on my trousers, gambeson, and shoes against the chill, and silently took my sabre, not bothering to strap it to me but simply holding it by the scabbard.

 

Once outside, I stopped for a moment, surprised by how bright the night was. The sky was cloudless, and the moon was full, its light reflecting from the waters, bathing Grienteen in its pale shine. Back home in Fenblith, I realised, people would be celebrating. Here, though, the atmosphere was morose to the point of deathliness, as if people were afraid to see the night.

 

However, as there was no immediate threat, I obeyed my bladder when it sent out another pang to order me into action. I relieved myself and started going back to bed as swiftly and warmly as possible.

 

That’s when I saw her walking.

 

She was small, perhaps not even eight years old, walking in her nightgown, shivering more fiercely than the reeds along the river in the nightly breeze. Had it not been such a clear night, with a full moon to boot, I would have missed her, and we’d have left the next day none the wiser.

 

But I didn’t miss her, and I would not go back inside until I saw her home safely. Not wishing to wake anyone by calling out to her, I began walking towards her instead. But then I saw her look over her shoulder, not towards me but away from me, and I followed her line of sight.

 

Her parents were standing right there, in the opening of the door to their home, backlit by a measly fire, silently watching her as she walked away from them. I sank through my knees at the sight. Something was deeply wrong here, and I did not want the parents to notice me.

 

Thankfully, without my armour on top of it, my black gambeson and trousers were solid camouflage even in the bright night. I hung my long dark hair to the parents’ side of my face and tucked my sabre and its reflective scabbard tightly to my other side. With my cover thus complete, I crept after the girl, now clearly walking out of town, scared and alone.

 

Once I was outside Grienteen’s bounds, I straightened again. Not having a ribbon on me, I quickly tied my hair into a ponytail by pulling it underneath two locks of hair I lifted on either side of the back of my head – a trick I learned from an outgoing Trader. I then picked up my pace.

 

The ground sloped gently away from Grienteen, an uneven passage into the wetlands. Tall grass flanked me, soon supplemented with and then replaced by countless reeds. The waters shimmered in the moonlight, the shadows of gently shifting tree branches clawing at the stars. 

 

The girl was hesitating at a shallow passage. I contemplated running up to her, or elsewise running back to fetch the others, but I didn’t want to interrupt her because I had to know what was going on, and I also didn’t want to risk something happening to her while I was running back. So, I watched, careful not to make a sound but ready to dash forwards if something happened.

 

With a small gasp, the girl walked barefoot through the frigid water, and onto an ait. The small island, set in the middle of the slow-flowing river, was covered in grass and rimmed by reeds, and on its opposite side the starry sky was broken up by the branches of a truly massive willow tree. There were barely any leaves left on it, but those that were there rustled, even though, right then, there had been no wind.

 

Still the girl walked on, towards the tree, and I heard a soft sobbing. Careful not to make a sound, I snuck through the water, ignoring the cold wet slipping into my shoes. I snuck closer, but the girl did not notice me, her attention focused entirely on the willow.

 

She stepped underneath the tips of the first branches, and as she did they shuddered, and she let out a sharp gasp.

 

I blinked.

 

The sobbing had continued through her gasp. Frowning, I cast around to see if anyone else was there, but I saw no one.

 

Then I turned back towards the girl, and spotted movement in the tree.

 

It hadn’t been just the branches blocking out the light, and it hadn’t been the girl sobbing. A dark shape unfurled itself from atop the tree’s trunk, like an abyss come to life, its beckoning tendrils reaching down towards the girl, who stood frozen at the trunk’s base.

 

A Beast.

 

I burst forwards, drawing my sabre as I ran. The Starsteel caught the moonlight and was set ablaze with a cold glow as the girl turned around, startled. I saw a tendril move downwards behind her, curling as if to wrap itself around her body. Without hesitation, I swung my sword horizontally over the girl’s head, lopping off the tendril’s tip. Ichor spurted from it as the sobbing turned into a howl.

 

The girl began to say something, but I was not about to stop and listen to her. With practised movement, I slung her across my shoulder with one arm, managing to hold onto my scabbard as I did. I struck off the tip of another tendril that tried to grab me, then started running away from the tree and back to Grienteen, the girl barely weighing me down as the Beast’s howling filled the night.

 

I splashed through the water and sprinted back to town. The girl protested in Modlands, but I didn’t understand what she was saying and I wasn’t stopping. I all but flew into Grienteen and straight towards the house in which my Siblings still slept. Several people were outside, looking towards the direction of the Beast’s howls, which had carried all the way into town. The girl screamed, and roughly half of the waiting people ran towards me, barring my way forwards as they began shouting in yet more Modlands.

 

I slid to a halt on the damp grass, telling them in Deltastrait to move, that there was a Beast. Most kept repeating themselves in Modlands, but a few switched languages. In thick accents, several of them told me that I had to send the girl back. At this, the other half of the small crowd came running over and began shouting at their neighbours instead. In between what felt like the rehashing of a worn-out argument I could not follow, they spoke to me in halting Deltastrait, saying that I had done right, and that the girl’s parents had succumbed to madness.

 

The girl herself writhed on my shoulder, screaming as if I was about to kill her. Her parents turned up, and I aimed my sabre’s tip at them, clutching the girl a little tighter. The couple was weeping, trying to approach but darting backwards at the sight of my shifting blade.

 

Pandemonium was complete. More and more people were surrounding me, crowding me as they argued in two tongues about whether I had done right or wrong, and I was beginning to struggle with holding the girl and keeping people at bay when a musket shot rang out.

 

My Siblings strode through the crowd, pushing people resolutely aside with their gunstocks. Stanley, Frank, and Alfreda formed up around me, keeping their muskets across their chests but making it clear no one would be getting any closer. Vernon, meanwhile, stepped up to me, his gun barrel smoking in the cold of the night.

 

In Iseronian, he asked me what was happening, and I quickly explained. The girl had gone still again, but I was unwilling to let her go, and so I held on as I spoke. When I said some of the Grienteeners wanted me to send the girl back, I heard a musket hammer being cocked back as Stanley growled a curse, but Alfreda hissed at him to be quiet. Meanwhile, the only one of us who knew Modlands, Frank, was getting into an increasingly heated argument with the girl’s parents. Vernon told him to stop and to translate for him.

 

He then turned to the crowd and asked what was going on. Over a dozen voices answered, prompting Vernon to shout them down and point at one of the people who had responded to explain.

 

In a desperate voice, they regaled us with how the willow had been home to the Toppers since before people resettled Grienteen. They were benevolent Spirits, welcoming celebrations underneath the tree’s branches, drowning out words spoken in malice with the rustling of their leaves.

 

Recently, however, the Toppers had been replaced by something soon called the Weeper. Some held that it was a Beast, waiting in anticipation of people coming to visit the Toppers to strike at them. Others maintained that the Weeper manifested at the Toppers’ behest, or even that it was the Toppers, melded together and turned corporeal at some insult the Grienteeners had unknowingly levelled against them.

 

Some of these people had decided that the only way to assuage the angered Toppers, usually content with humble offerings of food and drink, was to offer children to the Weeper. Those who thought this madness had only discovered it after the first sacrifice had been made on the previous full moon – the time of sacrifice to the Toppers –, leading to a split in the community. This split had subsequently turned deeper and deeper.

 

The Weeper did not disappear, but roughly half the community argued that they simply had to keep performing the sacrifice every full moon until the Toppers were satisfied and turned gentle again. The other Grienteeners were fiercely opposed to this, but when we had arrived, they had not dared to speak up, fearing what we’d do if we deemed the culprits – or even the entire town – Darkhearts.

 

They explained that, because of the Weeper, the people of Grienteen could no longer go out to do their jobs, meaning they would soon be unable to trade for food and medicine. Indeed, it was this knowledge that had caused a fear and desperation deep enough for the girl's parents to go through with her planned sacrifice. It had apparently been agreed that they would at least wait another month, so that we would not be there to possibly witness the event, but this agreement had clearly been broken.

 

Naturally, we were furious, but Vernon forced us to remain calm and told me to set the girl down and let her go to her parents. I obeyed, and the girl rushed towards her crying mother’s waiting arms, sinking into an embrace that left me cold with rage.

 

In no uncertain terms, Vernon then told them that I, a Ranked Hunter of Fenblith, had seen the Weeper, and was convinced it was a Beast, nothing more. I had even injured it with my Starsteel sabre, he explained; something he doubted I could have done to a Spirit, though he did not fault the Grienteeners for not trying this with their own few Starsteel blades, scared as they were of angering the Toppers. Thus, with this certainly being a Beast, we would Hunt it. Tonight.

 

There were sighs of relief and groans of protest, but Vernon made it clear he would not take no for an answer, layering enough threat in his voice to make the dissenters wonder, even if only for a moment, who they should fear more: the Weeper, or us.

 

With this decided, we hurried back to our house, pulling on our armour, putting our medicine pouches on our belts, and properly preparing our weapons. We asked Vernon why we would not wait for sunrise, but he said he was afraid someone would follow through on the sacrifice while we slept, and he worried the Weeper might flee. Satisfied, we set off, checking constantly to make sure that no one was following us to do something foolish.

 

The Grienteeners had realised we were right, however, and let us help them unobstructed. I led the way out of town, down the gentle slope, through the water, and onto the ait. There, across the grass and backed by reeds, stood the willow tree, and from it hung the Weeper, once again softly sobbing as the moonlight washed over it.

 

It had the body of a small bear, with broad paws sporting curved claws. Utterly black, its smooth skin shone in patches in the moonlight, while the folds of its flesh formed the deepest shadows. From its back sprouted long tendrils, half a dozen of them, four of which it used to keep itself suspended in the air, dangling from the willow, while the other two were curled up against its body. They were the ones I had cut; it was nursing its injuries. As we watched, one of the injured tendrils unfurled towards its head, inky black eyes set in shadowed sockets peering at us as a thick, dark tongue escaped its flat face and lapped at the wound. Teeth flickered as its lips curled back, forming an almost disembodied grin in the darkness.

 

Our muzzle flashes lit up the night, casting the Beast and the willow in ghostly light. The Weeper howled again, and there was a dull thud as it let go of the tree and dropped to the ground. It charged at us with surprising speed, its tendrils, even the injured ones, swinging wildly as it ran.

 

We drew our sabres and defended ourselves, making defensive cuts as the tendrils swung at us. In the darkness, we couldn’t see every attack coming, but the moon helped us stay together, allowing us to protect each other where necessary, making the Beast strike at our sabres’ edges.

 

With its tendrils cut and sundered, the Weeper had to flee or come in close. It chose the latter, pouncing forwards with a smack of its claw that set Frank’s cuirass ringing, before switching to the former, running to the water.

 

We weren’t about to let it escape, however, and ran after it.

 

Again, the Beast was surprisingly fast, but its injuries were taking their toll. The Weeper howled as we caught up with it, making dragging cuts at its hind legs. It splashed into the freezing water, perhaps hoping to submerge and escape us, but its speed had drained out of it with its ichor.

 

Thinking of that frightened girl, I went after it, my sabre held high like a tower. The Beast stalled, looking around desperately for an escape. It turned to face me, another grin splitting its black disc of a face as it let out a single mewling sob.

 

My sabre came down with the full force of my body behind it and split the Weeper’s face in two. With a gurgle, it sagged through its legs, ichor streaming so heavily it turned the reflective water into a black whorl. My Siblings caught up with me, and added their sabres to the assault. The first cut elicited another gurgle, the second a muffled choke, the third nothing but silence.

 

The Beast was dead.

 

Now to show it to the frightened Grienteeners.