Geraint Jones - Blood Forest

‘Three Bears?’ Titus suggested to his companions, drinking foremost in his own mind.

Rufus shrugged with his usual economy. ‘Wife.’

Chickenhead also declined. ‘I’ve got to get back and feed Lupus.’

‘Shit,’ Titus snorted, ‘I don’t know who’s more in love, you or Rufus. How about you? You look like you could use a drink.’

It took a moment for me to realize that the big lump’s words had been intended for my own ears, and I was too taken aback to immediately decline.

‘Well?’ he pressed.

There was an angle in it for him, I was sure, but the section commander was right – I could use a drink. Gods, I could use a drink.

And so I fell in behind Titus, Stumps and Moonface flanking his broad shoulders. As Stumps discussed the size of his comrade’s oval head, I searched my mind for the cause of Titus’s invitation.

Inevitably, I kept coming back to the pile of manure and the three bodies that had slithered from its depths. But if Titus wanted to kill me, why let on that he knew my secret? It made no sense, and I expected I’d find out soon enough, but as it happened, it was the secrets of our high command that were exposed that night.

The source was Metella, the proprietor of the Three Bears. Unlike the German inn that I had visited, this Roman dispensed with security guards, and little wonder – her forearms were as thick as Titus’s, and no less scarred.

‘She’s got the face that launched a thousand ships.’ Stumps smiled, catching my appraising look of the innkeeper. ’Course, they were rowin’ fast as fuck in the opposite direction.’

He had to shout to be heard above the din, for the tavern’s space was crowded with legionaries, and his tactless words were caught by their subject. The big woman grabbed a tight hold of his ear and his smile quickly turned to a grimace.

‘Funny boy, hey?’ She grinned before bouncing his head off the counter top.

Titus and Moonface roared with laughter, and the big woman’s eyes sparkled with mirth. When she eyed Titus, there was a healthy dose of lust in there, too.

He told her about the dead men in the pig shit, and I did my best not to pass out from relief, and revulsion. It gave me no satisfaction to know that the men’s death meant my own survival, but neither was I about to run to Pavo and confess my sins.

I was snapped from my reverie by the feeling of eyes on me. Four sets. The others had ceased their conversation, and were simply observing me. What had I missed?

‘So you’re the one, eh?’ Metella asked, casting a disappointed eye over my gaunt features.

‘The one?’ I managed.

‘From the forest. The bloody one. The ghost. You don’t look like much of a ghost to me. A skeleton, maybe.’

The others howled with laughter at her jibe. So, this was the reason Titus had brought me here: to show me off to his friend, an object for scrutiny.

‘I should be going,’ I murmured, but the big man’s hand shoved me back down on my stool.

‘Ah, sit down and have some wine, you grumpy bastard,’ he told me, before turning to the innkeeper. ‘You’ve hurt his feelings! Must be a free drink in that.’

‘Sure,’ she replied, passing me the cup. ‘But it’s going on your tab.’

Titus made no protest, and as I drank deep of the bitter wine, the pair continued in their trade of camp gossip. I ignored most of it – I didn’t know any of the characters – until one name caught my attention.

‘Arminius,’ she repeated, at my insistence, and then turned back to the others, ‘was a fucking riot at the governor’s dinner, apparently. Young Arminius is there, and a bunch of other commanders and chieftains, then this one German storms in, telling Governor Varus that Arminius is a traitor, and he’s plotting to see us all off.’

‘Who came in?’ Titus asked, seemingly unflustered by the accusations.

‘I forget the name, but he’s the same tribe as Arminius, a bit higher up the ranks. Think he’s his uncle, maybe? Fuck knows. They’re all inbred, these bloody Germans.’

‘Our nobility’s no different,’ Stumps offered.

‘That’s true.’ She nodded, chins wobbling. ‘But don’t interrupt, or you’ll get another clout.’

‘Sorry.’

‘That’s interrupting, isn’t it? Anyway, the uncle wants Arminius put in chains, but Varus won’t believe a word of it.’

‘What happened?’ I found myself compelled to ask.

‘Nothing. Turns out Arminius had eloped with his uncle’s daughter a few months back. The old man was just pissed off, and wanted to mess him around.’

‘Family, eh?’ Stumps shrugged, ending the conversation, at least for their clique. I couldn’t drop it so easily myself. Arminius, accused of treason.

I found that hard to reconcile with the man I had met, however briefly. A man who had offered me – to whom he owed nothing – such kindness and compassion.

I knew treason, and traitors. Arminius was not the type. A family feud was all it was, spilled into the governor’s lap because of the high station of the actors.

By the time I’d convinced myself of this, Metella and the veterans were on to topics new, discussing the occasion when Moonface had been fleeced by a whore, later revealed to be a man in drag. Ridden by laughter as they were – with the exception of Moonface, whose mug was on the verge of curdling – none noticed me slip away and out of the inn’s back door.

As I traced my way through Minden and into the army’s camp, the thought of treason was still foremost in my mind. It was still there when I lay on my bedroll, despite clenching my eyes tight, and begging it to leave me be. It was still there when, hours later, I finally fell into the darkness of sleep.

Was it any wonder that I woke screaming?

I wanted to scream, but there was no sound. I wanted to die, but death would not take me.

Ribs snapped. Skin and muscle tore, and still I could not scream. My voice was not my own to control. It never had been.

The eagle’s wings emerged from my shoulders, bloodied, torn and decayed. They took me to the air, but their beat was heavy, a brutal omen, like the drums of war.

Airborne, I could see my friends. My brothers. I reached out. Beseeched them for help.

Some ran. Some stood as if petrified, faces etched in horror at the vision I had become, a once handsome face reduced to a human jaw, a bloodied, bear-like snout dripping saliva and hot breath from above.

My friends ran, or stood, and I reached out to them. I wanted to hold them, to tell them it was me, their friend, their brother, but where I reached, bodies fell. My hands had always been weapons, held weapons, and now they were reddened talons with the fine points of swords.

This wasn’t fair . This wasn’t my doing. If only someone would listen to me, talk to me, then I could explain all this. This monster was not me . But they would not stop. They would not listen. They never had, even though they knew . Instead, they fled and, one by one, silently wailing as my wings beat against the heavy air, I killed them.

Husks of comrades danced upon by flies looked back at me, damnation and betrayal in their dead eyes. I needed to escape, now more than ever, and so I beat the wings harder, each snap of the bones threatening to bring forth a scream that would never come. I needed to scream; I knew that. It would be my release. My salvation.

The wings took me higher, higher. Below, a forest stretched in every direction, closer to black than green, its canopy as dense as a formation of assaulting shields. Fruit hung from the trees. My eyes adjusted. The fruit was decaying, flyblown. It was men. Soldiers. Women. Children. It was my fruit, born from the seeds I had planted. The same seeds that had taken root in my back to sprout the wings of the damned.