Exousia - The Patron Saints of the Damned -Book II
Chapter 21 - The Price of Rest

Chapter 21 – The

Brennan felt the air move around him for the first time since he’d woken up in these woods, but he hardly noticed. Across the field dry plants were still alight with fire, and something burned from within the pits. This produced black smoke that merged with the risen dust to shroud the field in a darkness that the noon sun could not penetrate. The smells of smoke, sulfur, and burning meat filled the air. The wolves had stopped several feet away from the tree, not daring to step closer. With a final snarl, they retreated into the cloud of dust.

The Woodcutter reached the tree and collapsed at its base. For a moment, all she did was pant as her face contorted and her eyes boiled in rage. Finally, Jodie and Marshal fell to the ground. They seemed to be asleep within minutes. Sam sat against the tree, breathing deeply. Only Megan stood and stared with tear-filled eyes at the dusty field that they’d barely managed to escape. Brennan turned to the side and vomited … but it was very little as he hadn’t eaten since the day before.

After a minute or so, the Woodcutter rose to her feet and looked over the scene that could have easily been mistaken for that of a war-zone. The fury seemed to have dissipated from her countenance, replaced by her usual, expressionless stare.

“Ted,” Derrick whispered with a haunted expression. He stared at the direction from which they’d come.

Ted was … gone. This fact struck with a light and surreal, dreamy feeling. Brennan felt dazed, and his thoughts were jumbled until he saw something move in the field of dust and smoke. After a few seconds, he realized that the form hobbling towards them was David. He stood and began to walk towards his friend.

But the Woodcutter stood and lifted a hand to stop him. “It’s a trap.”

David slowly limped towards them, blood dripping down his forehead and especially from his left arm. Tendrils of smoke began to snake their way around his body, and the light of the sun glimmered off black eyes within the cloud. He seemed blind to all of it.

Brennan swallowed, knowing that he had to save his friend. He gathered his courage and prepared to sprint onto the field as fast as he could. But something new caused him to freeze in place.

A wolf, more massive than any of the others, stepped out of the cloud of dust and smoke. Its fur was white like moonlight and seemed to glow just as brightly. It was magnificent, beautiful, and the most terrifying thing Brennan had ever seen.

David turned his head and saw it too. But it didn’t seem to faze him any more than the smoke. He just kept walking. The wolf seemed to allow it until they were only about ten feet away from the tree. Then, it stepped in front of him so that he could not move forward. David looked down at it, and then back up at them, with a few tears dripping down his face. In a soft tone, he asked, “Did I beat them?”

The Woodcutter didn’t respond at first; she only looked confused. But after a few seconds of peering at him with a strange expression, she nodded.

Panic and adrenaline created a prickly sensation on Brennan’s back. Between David’s eyes and his words, it seemed like he didn’t even want to move forward. Brennan shouted, “You don’t have to do this! We can still fight. If you just jump really quickly and-”

David looked heavily at him and then down at the wolf.

Then something glimmered as it twirled in the air. It shattered loudly upon David’s skull. His body crumpled and became a bloody mess on the ground, unconscious and unmoving.

The albino wolf stepped over his head and something in its black eyes twisted. It went from a serene look of a noble animal to a wild and voracious monster. With this rabid expression, it began to lap at the blood pouring from David’s head. Then it turned and bit into his leg while it pushed at his torso with a massive paw, trying to separate the limb from the rest of the body.

The Woodcutter whispered something and took a threatening step forward. Something like a dark fire became alight behind her eyes.

The wolf glared up at her and growled deeply, baring its enormous teeth.

The Woodcutter opened her mouth, but what came out could not have been words. The sounds could have only been another language but … they carried a feeling. Like the saddest note of a piano and the pained utterance of someone on their deathbed.

The wolf’s fur stood on end as it took a threatening step of its own.

The Woodcutter only glared, unmoving, continuing to whisper the words.

Then the albino wolf finally seemed to calm, and the quiet expression returned to its face. Its mouth closed and it then placed its massive paw on the back of David’s neck. The wolf pressed there until bones snapped. It then lifted David by his broken neck and retreated toward the woods.

Brennan realized that he was trembling violently, but could not stop.

Derrick screamed before anyone else could, through sobs and tears. “You bitch, you goddamn bitch! You killed them! You killed my brother, you fuck!” He charged.

The Woodcutter effortlessly grabbed his outstretched arm, twisted it, and span him so that he was turned away with his arm across his own throat.

“I’ll kill you!” Derrick said, his voice choked by exhaustion and mucus.

But the Woodcutter didn’t respond. She just held tightly until her attacker gave in to exhaustion. Then she dropped him to the ground and took a step back.

Jodie stepped forward to help Derrick to his feet. But Derrick pulled his arm away violently and looked at him with the same loathsome look. “Why didn’t you save him? He cared about you more than anyone, and you just left him to die.”

“You know why,” Jodie replied, looking back at the hole with his jaw clenched, his face red, and the veins in his temples visible. It was clear that he was angry … but not who his anger was directed at.

Derrick didn’t say anything after that. He sat down in the grass, faced away from his friends, and lowered his head.

Brennan felt unable to do or say anything, but he too was angry. He knew that the Woodcutter could have tried to save David if she’d cared to … or even showed a little remorse. But there was none of that, only the same callous nothingness. And the more Brennan thought about this, the angrier he became until he could no longer contain it. He glared and asked, “Why?”

The Woodcutter turned and looked at him with a cold stare. Beads of sweat drenched her face, and her hair had a thin layer of dirt on it. She said nothing.

“We’re running in these woods, being hunted by god knows what,” Brennan said. He was not sure what he was trying to say but knew that he couldn’t take another second of this confusion and anger. He needed to understand why their lives had been destroyed, why his best friend was … was dead. Oh god, he was really dead.

Jodie, Megan, and Marshal made a circle around the Woodcutter—almost like a dog pack. They clearly wanted answers too and were now ready to fight for them. Any hesitation they might have had at the prospect of attacking her had disappeared the moment their friend had been dragged away by a wolf.

“Tell us why we’re here!” Brennan shouted, blood rushing to his head. Before he realized what he was doing, he had struck her with an open palm and shouted, “Are you the Woodcutter?”

For a moment, his friends stared at him with shocked expressions.

The Woodcutter squinted her eyes; the corners of her mouth began to twitch as if she too were part wolf and about to bite. As she opened her mouth, the clouds started to darken above them, and the wind picked up. Her eyes became darker until they were nearly black. But then, she forced herself to blink and her face to become blank so that the sky no longer responded.

Brennan looked around at the others and realized that they had taken several steps back.

The Woodcutter said with a monotone voice, “I am the Woodcutter. But what that reveals about my true nature is much less than what you would like to think. I am not a crazed kidnapper who replaces hikers in the woods and cuts them up for fun.”

“Then why are we here?” Megan asked

The Woodcutter turned to face her and replied, “People are watching us, people who have put bets of tremendous importance on your lives. They have bet on your turning on one another and enduring spiritual corruption. It’s my job to get you out of this forest before that happens.”

Brennan stepped beside his sister and shouted, “You never told us any of that! We might have been able to do something different. Maybe we could have saved-”

“It wouldn’t have made a difference,” the Woodcutter said, without even bothering to look at him. “You wouldn’t have believed me. And if you had, it would not have changed the actions of those wolves, your exhaustion, or the decisions your friends made in the heat of the moment.”

“You have no right to decide that for us like we’re not even people. Like … we’re nothing but your bullets,” Brennan said, remembering the words that the substitute teacher had used.

The Woodcutter shook her head. “I’ve done what I’ve calculated will best serve the people whose lives depend on my actions—which happens to include you. But, seeing as how my enemies would rather see you dead than your spirits corrupted, I can win this Challenge. So it matters not to me whether you stay or wander out into the woods by yourselves. Follow me or take your chances in the woods. You all know where the trail is and what is lying in wait at the tower.”

None of them answered.

The Woodcutter seemed to notice something that caused her forehead to wrinkle slightly. Then she said, “One of you is missing.”

Brennan looked around, trying to count his friends. But every time he tried, he realized that two of his friends could no longer be counted among them; this thought disrupted him completely. So, it took him another moment to realize that Sam was gone.

“I’ll replace him,” the Woodcutter said, walking around the tree to where there was a thick patch of brush and some medium-sized saplings where someone could easily hide. She briefly turned back towards them and said, “You’ll be safe here. But don’t eat anything; the fruit is poisonous.”

Part of Brennan wanted to go join in the search, but the previous discussion made him feel like his efforts could only doom his friend. This sapped him of his remaining strength, leaving him too exhausted to move or say anything. He fell to his knees in front of the tree and found himself shutting his eyes. He pictured that last look on David’s face before it had been hit by a glass bottle.

Who … who could have thrown it? Maybe it had been an accident. One of his friends had been aiming for the wolf and accidentally hit him. Or perhaps the bottle had been thrown by one of the monsters, to mess with their heads. Or … one of them had done it to spare him the pain of being mauled by the wolf.

Brennan sighed in exhaustion as he tried to make sense of it all. Eventually, he fell to his side in the grass. And soon, he fell into a deep but fitful sleep.