Page 5 of The Withering Wood

The bear whined, head tucked down as it backed away from her, stubbed claws scratching on the wooden floorboards while scooting away.

Eirwen ran out of her room, eyes wide as she wrapped a shawl over her shoulders and stood beside the bear. “What are you doing?”

“Killing the damned thing, as I should have done yesterday.” Cerise braced into her fighting stance, Beloved aimed at the bear cowered behind Eirwen. “Look at the scars on its back, behind the hunch.”

“You mean its wound? I told you about that.”

“You didn’t say it was a rune of Azkanix!”

Horror spread over Eirwen’s face, mouth dropping open as she stammered, “How are you certain?”

“How do you think? I saw those symbols every day on the battlefields. Not that exact one, but similar runes were carved into the flesh and bones of his armies. It’s what tied them to the necromancers’ will, what kept their decayed bodies animated and intact. I may not know exactly what this one does, but I know it cannot be good. The animal needs to die. Now.”

The bear whimpered, high-pitched and keening. Pathetic.

“What if you’re wrong? What if the rune isn’t as bad an omen as you think?”

“Eirwen, you let a creature of the Lich God into our home. It could carry the curse without symptoms. It could corrupt us. Kill us.” Cerise sucked in a steadying breath, fighting down the rage that bubbled in her throat. “Listen to me. There is only one remedy for this, and it’s to put the creature down.”

The bear continued to whine, dropping to the ground, covering its snout with its paws. A pang of guilt twisted Cerise’s heart. But that’s what it wanted. To guilt her into letting the evil thing live.

“I think you’re wrong,” Eirwen said, quiet. She ran a delicate hand through the bear’s fur, while the beast stared at Cerise with those eerily familiar, fear-filled eyes. “What if it’s a victim, like we are? You said you do not know what this exact rune means. Maybe it is just as cursed as the rest of the world.”

“All the more reason to offer it mercy from this wretched place.”

“If you really felt that way, you would’ve killed both of us as soon as the Celestials closed the heavens. But you know there is still worth in life. This creature deserves as much a chance at living as we do. Let it go.”

Cerise grunted. She didn’t know there was still worth in life. Surviving was just what she did. She didn’t persist in hopes that things would get better. She just didn’t know another way to be. But no matter how many times she told Eirwen this, it went in one ear and out the other. There’d be no point in reiterating the sentiment now.

Her grip remained firm around the shaft of Beloved, its knife point aimed at the bear’s eye socket. She flicked her gaze between the beast and Eirwen, sucking in her cheeks and chewing on them as she thought. True, the beast hadn’t attacked them, despite the repeated threats Cerise posed. It could’ve killed them in their sleep. It could’ve snapped her face when sitting beside her this morning. And it could truly be docile, as Eirwen suspected. But with the rune carved into its skin, she doubted it.

It could be a sentinel. Searching for stray living creatures in the woods to use for whatever Azkanix’s disbanded necromantic army planned next. Their house, stocked with wood, a garden, protected by Zyrdriel, and within a few day’s walk from the capital, would be a perfect hideout for a small force to reside while building strength.

She fought tooth and nail for the life they had. She’d sacrificed her own body to keep Azkanix’s forces from decaying all living tissue.

Now the rune of her enemy was in her house.

A game was being played. She would not be a pawn. Ever again.

Yet Eirwen’s delicate fingers remained in the bear’s golden fur, icy-blue eyes beseeching. Her sister would never forgive her if she slaughtered the bear. Especially in their home.

“Fine.” Cerise’s jaw clenched. Looking at the beast in its terrible, pink eyes, she said through grit teeth, “Leave. And if you ever step foot on my land again, your hide will be mine. Understood?”

The bear rose to its feet and nodded once, head still tucked low and submissive.

“Good. Now, get out.” Cerise straightened her posture but kept Beloved’s dagger aimed at the beast while it stalked out of their cabin with slow, heavy steps.

She followed the bear out the door to the porch, where a light snow fell. Cerise watched the creature crunch through the frost in the front yard, staying to the path rather than trampling the vegetation. It shivered on the other side of Zyrdriel’s barrier and looked over its shoulder with one last sorrowful, begging glance. Cerise kept her expression firm, and it lumbered into the black woods, the faint glow of green necromantic energy from nearby broken Ix-God bones pulsing through the snow.

“Thank you,” Eirwen said, stepping beside her with bare feet on the ice-crusted wood. “For not killing it.”

“Don’t thank me now. I may not have killed it today, but that does not mean I will not someday.”

Eirwen clicked her tongue. “Let’s go inside and have some breakfast.”

Cerise grumbled in response but remained outside until the only sign of the bear was its prints in the snow. Snow drifted down, filling the spaces. With a sick sense of dread, she knew it wouldn’t be the last she saw of the cursed creature.

The bear returned at twilight, mouth full of fish.