The Arsenic Melody

Chapter 5

Odis raised his head, and felt the cold ground around him. Despite being in the midst of the swamp it was dry and untouched by the frost. With a pillow of grass by his head, and no signs whatsoever of an ethereal being. There were robins which sang in the morning light, and insects which flew effortlessly over the bog. When he stood, he was surprised as his bones and muscles did not ache as though they had been left on the forest floor, he felt as light and rested as though he had slept in the inn by the riverside.

The feeling of rest, and the fleeting memories of a dream the night before were partly enough to convince him that he had finally lost his mind, but although this was the easier conclusion for Odis, he felt a desire to follow the instructions given to him.

He collected his thoughts and pulled himself together. He checked his sword hilt and was relieved to feel the same blade as always. He dusted him clothes but found there was no need as they were completely clean, more so than the day he had found them on a corpse besides a well-travelled path. He re-tied the laces of his boots, searched the nearby area, attempted to use his compass, and boiled some bog water in his travelling kettle. Then he drank the sterilized water and decided what he would do next. By the time he had finished thinking and analyzing the events of the day before, the sun had crossed half the sky. He was still sitting on the same patch of dirt when he saw the trees and bushes ruffle. And a rabbit appeared, it ran up to him without hesitation.

As it moved to leave Odis found himself following the rabbit, in truth he had not truly considered why, he moved without consciousness as his mind still pondered the figure from the night before, and the rabbit simply ran towards its burrow to the East; it wandered away from the swamp, into the forest, over the roots and through the brambles, it didn’t run at a usual rabbits pace instead it ran quite leisurely as though its mind was also challenged by inexplainable anomalies which it sought to understand.

Of course, those thoughts were not truly the rabbits, they were Odis’s as he walked under the forest canopy. Eventually the rabbit dipped itself into a burrow at the top of a hill, which looked down at a stone fortress, which had been mostly restored with wooden patches on the outer walls and roof.

The thought dawned on him that he needed to go there, quickly. The impulse drove him down the hill, he angled his foot and caught it on roots and stones trying to find the gentlest path. As he walked down a woman and a man, both dressed in leather saw him. They approached him carefully. They had knives at their sides, and the leather around their bodies were splattered with dry blood and they omitted the most putrid smell. Metallic, decaying and unnervingly human. It smelled of a fever, vomit and cooked meat all at once and he noticed that tied to their other hips were two linen bags which attracted flies and were stained yellow, red and black at the bottom.

“Are you lost, traveler?”

“No, I am looking for my travel mates, a girl with a baby and an old woman.” said Odis.

“We may have seen them.” The man at her side snickered and put his hand towards his bag but the woman snapped her hand back whipping his upper arm. “They might be inside if you’d like to come in?”

“Of course, lead the way.”

“Just ahead and through the gate, we’ll be there soon, go ahead.” The man smiled and nodded as Odis looked towards him and the woman who spoke gave him a side glance.

“Just straight ahead~” the man half sang.

“What is in the bag?” The man smiled awkwardly, blinking a few times and looking at the woman instead, who was moving towards his left side. “Show me what is in the bag.” The woman lined herself up to his left and the man nodded.

“If you’d like.”

The man untied the loose binding of the bag to reveal the pearl within. Fingers, toes and bits of ear. Some cooked and others nearly raw, all stuffed together with salt at spices; and Odis reared back from the smell as the woman to his side brandished her knife and stabbed towards his stomach. He grabbed at the knife with his gloved hand, catching the blade and sliding to the hilt. With his other hand he jabbed forward with a direct punch to the nose, it cracked. She fell backwards holding her face in her hands as the man moved forward with his own blade. This time Odis was able to draw his sword and moved to match the metal.

He again moved to catch the knife, aiming to use what remained of the glove to brace the blade, before cutting with the sword. The man however, moved his foot to the side moving fast and slashing him on his side, he lost balance as he passed though and Odis used the chance to cut him down. At this point the lady bandit had already corrected her stance and dived forward. Tackling him at his waist and sitting on top of him, she raised the dagger high and her short blonde hair swung forward as she raised her arms, and she moved to stab him, he grabbed the knife with both hands and shoved her to the side. Once they were both grounded, he moved to grab his blade, except she grabbed hers first and returned, grabbing his braids in her hand and holding a knife to his throat.

Odis stood slowly with the woman as she led him towards the gate. She held him tightly and they moved scarcely a cm with each movement, when they got to the gate, which had been left ajar she called out for help. But no one came to assist, there was a commotion within the fort as well, Odis quickly jabbed his elbow into her side and though the knife slashed his skin, she was aired and hunched to catch her breath. Odis pushed her back and grabbed a rock from nearby which he brought down on her head.

There was still a commotion within the fortress, but Odis went to receive his blade before entering. He took it by its hilt, in a single hand and took a worn buckler off the table near the outpost entry, but he still felt unarmed and in any usual situation, he would have normally nursed his wounds before entering. But instead, he opened the door, no one was near the entry hall, a square cobblestone room with a fireplace and a few wooden chairs, but up the stairs he could hear the clearer shouts and grunts of an ongoing fight, as he walked up the stairs the song of metal grew louder, as did the curses and screams, and when he approached the top of the steps he saw why.

The old woman, which had once been described by Dayna as a gentle midwife, stood on all four limbs. The bones of her legs and arms had been broken, but not by any man. They twisted like the limbs of a spider so that she could walk with ease and quickness. Her head was also twisted around an elongated neck and her head twitched from side to side as she looked from bandit to bandit with blood filled eyes and broken teeth. She leapt onto one and he stabbed her, but her chest absorbed the hilt of the blade, the point of it stuck from her back, with four others, dripping blood near where her spine to was sharped with each vertebra representing another puncture from the skin. Soon her jaw clamped down on his neck and he screamed as she ripped him to pieces.