A Short Story

Chapter 2

The villagers always kept our distance away from us ever since I can remember. They would whisper things every time we went past them. All I would hear from them was one word: Scatha. I had always thought that was my mother’s name, but, from what I had heard, it turned out that it actually meant ‘witch’ in the villagers’ ancient tongue. I remember calling her that out loud. I was young then, so I covered my mouth, thinking she was going to scold me. But she just chuckled and patted my head instead. She didn't seem to care. My mother tried to be pleasant with the villagers, but they wouldn’t have it. We were outcasts to them. The children were told to stay away from us as well, which affected me. I remembered that when I was a kid, I would go down to the village to see the other children playing games. Some would notice me and would invite me to play. It would be so much fun until their parents noticed me. They would gather their kids, and shoo me away like a stray dog. I would run all the way back home, and into Scatha’s arms, crying. She would carry me back into the cabin and console me, running her fingers through my black hair, holding me close. I would ask her why the entire village hated us so much. She would say that it was not me they hated, but her.

“Why?” I would ask her. She would just sigh and say that it was a long story that she would tell me one day. But she never did. I wondered if ever she ever would. We approached the village, Scatha still dragging the dead boar behind her. We stopped at the large gates of the village.

“Guess we leave it here then.” I said.

“Nope.” Scatha said as she pushed the gates open. We were greeted with confused and angry faces, but we didn’t care. We kept going until we reached the center of the village and we left the dead boar there.

“What’s going on here?” A voice croaked. We turned to see a tall middle aged man with a big brown beard. He was covered in animal skins and armor. The chieftain of the village, I presumed. He saw us, and an instant look of annoyance appeared on his face.

“You two. I should’ve known. What now?”

“I heard you had a bit of a pest problem, so she took care of it.” Scatha said, gesturing me. The chieftain looked at the giant boar, then at me. I could see that he was having a hard time believing that. He looked around at the villagers.

“And how is this a problem?” He asked them. Everyone was silent. The old man just sighed in slight frustration.

“You have my thanks. And even though it doesn’t seem like it, you have their thanks too.” Scatha looked at the villagers, who still seemed on edge because of her presence.

“You’re right. It doesn’t look like it. Let’s go.” She walked to the exit. I hesitated, looking at the villagers. I saw some faces that smiled at me. They were the ones that played with me when we were children. I smiled back at them, then quickly turned back to follow Scatha out the door.

As we walked back up the mountain we called home, I thought about how much strength Scatha needed to have to bring that beast down.

“So, how strong are you?” I asked her.

“Why do you ask?”

“Well, you just took down a pig the size of our house.”

“You have to be strong to live in a place like this.”

“But. It’s a pig. The size of a house.”

Scatha just shrugged. She was probably tired perhaps didn’t want to explain, so I left it at that. We returned to our cabin, took our armour off, and relaxed on our beds made of animal hide and cloth. That fight had tired me out, but I wasn’t completely tired.

“I’m going to take a walk.” I called out.

“Don’t go too far.” Scatha replied.

I went out walked to the woods that surrounded our cabin. This was something I would always do a lot. I would look at the frost covered trees, the animals scurrying around the forest, listening to winter birds sing their song. There would always be a large, majestic white stag that would wander near our house. I looked around the trees, where he usually would be at, but strangely enough, he wasn’t there. Intrigued, I kept walking through the woods trying to see if I could find the buck. I must’ve gotten deep into the woods because I didn’t recognize where I was. I heard some rustling behind me. I turned to see the white stag rising from the undergrowth, eyes wide and ears perked up. It was looking at all sides, like something was following it. It turned to my direction, looking at me, and it seemed to relax, for a minute. Its ears perked up again, and I heard it too. Twigs snapping, quick footsteps, low growls and groans. The stag leaped away, and I started feeling nervous too. I have lived in these woods for all my life, but never before have I heard anything like this. The sounds were getting closer, I had nowhere to run, so ducked into the bushes and shrubs, hoping that whatever this was wouldn’t be able to find me. I peeked out of the leaves of the bushes. Out of the undergrowth, stepped out something that looked human. But looking again, I realized it was all but human. This thing was sickly gray and thin. It carried armor on its body, but the armor seemed to be fused to its skin, or, at least what was left of it. The creature had glowing yellow eyes and seemed to be drooling. It was carrying what seemed like a sword, but the thing was so rusty and decayed that it was hard to tell. I held my breath, as I almost gasped at the sight of the creature. A while ago I thought that a giant boar was crazy, but I could tell now that was the tip of the iceberg. The creature looked around the forest making unholy groans and growls. Then, all of a sudden, another appeared, and another, and another. There were four of these things. They all started swinging their swords at the surrounding bushes. I started sweating as the first creature started approaching the bush I was hiding in. I held my breath as it swung its sword in my direction.