Page 1 of Burn Bright
1
Don't go into the Gravenwold Woods, they say in my village. Or if you do, then don't expect toreturn.
The woods are old and hungry, and no man ventures into the heart of the forest for fear they'll never return. Something lurks deep in the core, and you can hear strange noises if you venture too close to it. It's difficult enough to enter the edges, which are overgrown and wild, though you can make a living if you'rebold.
The men of Densby earn their living from the lumber, and if they're not quite content to live within the shadow of Gravenwold, then they make good use ofit.
My father wasn't a lumberjack like the rest of them. He spent his days hunting beneath the heavy boughs, selling furs in the nearby town of Marietta. He taught his craft to me, along with the Old Ways he claimed kept him safe from the dangers to be found in theforest.
But with danger cameopportunity.
And sometimes, the need was great enough to counter therisk.
Ten days after Frost Night, I clutched my bow and swung my quiver over my shoulder, trying not to think of how empty the larder was. Winter this year brought with it a killing chill, and we'd lost three calves to something that came out of thewoods.
The choices were growing narrower by the day. Densby wasn't the sort of village you could expect to find charity within, especially when your last name was Bane. Everyone here in the Borderlands scraped by, and the only items of value my two sisters and I had were things I didn't wish to trade. Just the other day I'd seen Master Vasham eyeing my sister, Eloya, like a prize mare the widower was considering. He had three children who needed a mother, but the very thought set my teeth on edge, for Eloya was only six years older than hiseldest.
We neededfood.
And I would prefer to risk the woods, than to pay any other sort ofprice.
"Be careful, Neva," Eloya told me, handing me a small wrapped package; bread and cheese wrapped carefully in waxed paper. "Goodwife Amiss told me the woods took another huntsman the other day. It's hungrytoo."
My youngest sister's skin was slightly darker than mine, though she shared the same brown eyes. Hers were kinder though, and there was a softness about her face that hadn't been sloughed off in the past three years, when father began to takeill.
"I heard that as well," I muttered, taking the bread and cheese, and secreting them in the pouch around my waist. "Though there's equal chance Bennett Hapslow simply drank himself stupid, then fell into a river anddrowned."
It wouldn't surprise me. Hapslow was renowned for liking a good drink. Orten.
Eloya bit her lip as I fetched my fur cloak. "Equal chance," she conceded, "but it doesn't set my mind at ease one whit. They say you can hear the wolves howling inthere."
"If there are wolves in Gravenwold, then there are deer or smaller prey." I headed for the door. "And I'll bring something back, I promise. Besides... father made a deal with the woods. No Bane can fall to their touch, as long as we keep to thepact."
Father's cough barked through the house. We both looked up. The sound of that cough was like an arrow straight to the heart. He wasn't getting anybetter.
"I'll keep an eye on him." Eloya squeezed my hand, clearly recognizing the worry on my face. "Don't be toolate."
"I'll be back beforedark."
To stray outside any longer was toodangerous.
My other sister, Averill, was nailing boards to the back of the chicken coop as I left our small homestead. I nodded toward her, but we were both caught up in our own worlds; trying to put one foot in front of the other every moment, every day, in this quest forsurvival.
We needed meat. Blowing steaming air into my gloved hands, I headed for the frozen woods, sinking up to the ankles in soft snow. Another snowfall last night had turned the world into a fairyland, if one didn't look too closely. I could remember better years, when Eloya, Averill and I squealed with laughter and chased each other around the garden in snow like this. My mother would yell at us for getting wet and cold, but she couldn't quite hide her smile as she watchedus.
A long time ago now. My mother died when I was thirteen, her warm southern blood finely succumbing to the northern chill. I never did find out what drove her so farnorth.
I slipped past the hill of sawn-off tree trunks that ringed the forest, where once mighty timbers had stood. A certain sort of silence lingered; almost like the forest itself mourned the loss of those trees, and the fog didn't touch the ruined stumps, as if even it dared not cross the boundaries of thewoods.
Then the woods were there, standing thick and solemn before me likesentinels.
"Vashta watch over me," I whispered, reaching for the rabbit I'd killed earlier. I laid its cold carcass on the flat stone my father had shown me when I was ten, and followed him on the hunt, desperately wanting to learn the skills he taught. I'd wrung its neck earlier, and it was short work to slice it open, letting the congealed blood inside it ooze onto the stone. Dipping a finger in the blood, I painted it across my forehead in a symbol of theTrident.
To enter Gravenwold, you have to gift it with a life to safeguard your own. The rabbit would have served as half a meal for our little family, but despite my earlier bravado I didn't dare forgo the sacrifice. My father believed in the Old Ways, and so did I, even as the Bennett Hapslow's of the world laughed atus.
But Bennett Hapslow didn't comeback.
Sticky rings of sap congealed on the nearby trunk of an alder, felled before its time, almost like blood had flown here recently. The lumberjacks were creeping closer to Gravenwold, and they'd crossed the forest boundaries. It made me shiver. Was that why the forest was beginning to creep over its own boundaries? Something had stolen our calves, leaving a bloodied trail in the early winter snows. And something killed all of Widow Hashell's chickens a monthago.
