Garden of the Hungry

The Murmuring Forest

Yekun brought a clay jug with him, removed the seal, and anointed his hands in the colorless broth that filled its interior. He rubbed, spreading the liquid between his fingers and around his forearms, letting a few drops fall on the dark skinned trunk resting on a wooden plaque.

On the floor of the wagon, Demetrius agonized. His arms and legs were no longer attached to his body; in their place, there were only cauterized stumps. He hardly had the strength to move his face, his eyes aimed at some unattainable spot. He was awake, though the thread of life that kept him among the living seemed about to break any moment.

"Start farming," Kael Onin ordered, his cloak swaying gently in the cold wind of that night.

Immediately, the servant spread the viscous contents of the jug over the dying man. "Your flesh will be Mahedra and Mahedra will be your flesh. Your pain will become a life that will be distributed everywhere. Now you are no longer a man. You are our offering. Let the earth swallow your body and keep the everlasting covenant," declaimed Yekun, under the stunned stares of the others: Santi, the First Bond of Akhilon; Babul, the commander of the archers; the frowning and bent coachman of the secondary carriage; and the four mounted Guardians, carrying bows, arrows and torches.

The full moon and the flames brightened the dirt road that cut through a vast plantation, where the plant stems resembled reddish goblets rose. There was a macabre murmur coming from the ground, as if the roots chanted a distant, almost inaudible groan.

Santi had never been so deeply into the heart of the Murmuring Forest. He drummed his bald head nervously and could not take his eyes off Demetrius's half-dead body as Yekun rubbed it with oil. Unable to disguise his apprehension, he turned to his brother and whispered, almost choked:

"Babul, what devilish crap is going on here?"

"Silence! We must not question the commandments of our Lord of Akhilon."

A crack echoed, breaking the silence, and Yekun approached his master carrying a wooden chest with the lid ajar. He knelt and lifted the object, displaying what he kept inside: a twisted vegetable the size of a human arm, blood-red, shaped like an inverted cone, exactly like the thousands planted around it. At its upper end there was an opening that emulated a flaccid mouth with pointed spines, and at the lower end a slowly moving root, like curious fingers in search of contact.

Gently, Kael settled the creature over Demetrius's chest and they all watched silently as the root of the plant crawled toward the man's face.

Babul was disgusted and looked away. This way, he didn't have to see when the thing invaded the numb victim's throat and esophagus, lodged somewhere in his belly, leaving only an inch exposed outside the mouth. Soon after, a rope was tied twice around the trunk of the black man. He was pulled to the ground and dragged by Yekun in the middle of the red plantation.

Kael gestured for Santi and Babul to follow the same course, and so they did, without blinking.

The pale servant, though frail in appearance, hurried forward. He pulled Demetrius and made some distance ahead of the others, while the brothers followed heavy and tangled like cattle.

"Come on!" Kael shouted.

At one point, a static person on the way made Yekun stop: a man in a dark cloak, whose bare, oily head reflected the moonlight. His eyes were just holes punched in the face, as if pushed by two thumbs into the cavities. His mouth was cracked and pale, displaying a chilling smile. He carried a twisted wooden shovel in his hands, and on the floor in front of him was a deep hole.