Part 5......

Pirin rested his head back into sun-dried meadow grass and stared up at the sky.  A kite bird lazily spiralled downwards on outstretched wings before sinking into the wooded ridge facing the foxglove-fringed clearing in which he and Karis lay.

“That’s the fourth kite I’ve seen since we’ve been lying here.  I can hear daws too.  Something must have made a kill.  Probably the bear you saw earlier, Karis…..Karis?  Are you listening to me?”

Karis groaned and sat upright, holding his head.

“Falling asleep in the midday sun is never a good idea. I’m too used to the darkness of the forge.  I feel as though I’ve been kicked in the face by an irritable mare.  How long have I been lying here?”
Pirin reached behind himself and pulled a small pouch from his sack.  Out of it he took two small lime-green leaves, passing them to Karis.

“Chew on these with some of that stale goat’s cheese and drink plenty of water.  You’ll soon feel better.”

Karis gratefully accepted the leaves, placing them directly into his mouth.  Immediately his face contorted and he grabbed his leather flask, pulled out the stopper and threw back his head, drinking deeply.  Wiping his mouth with his sleeve, he looked accusingly at Pirin.

“I don’t know about cheese, but those would make goat shit seem appetising!”

Pirin laughed loudly. 

“Feverfew is certainly bitter to the taste, but it’s very effective.  You’ll feel the benefit soon.”

Karis continued to gulp down water in an attempt to rid his mouth of the taste.

“Well at least your sense of humour has returned.  Your thoughts have been elsewhere since this morning. I’ve never seen you look so miserable for so long.  I was beginning to think it was something I had said.”

“I’m sorry, Karis.  I know I’ve not been good company.  My dark mood deserves an explanation.”  Pirin let out a long, audible sigh before continuing.  “Just before we left I visited the badger sett in the old flint digging.  The badgers were more tardy about revealing themselves than usual, but I did see a vixen.”

Karis leaned back, shading his face from the sun with a bracken frond.

“So all this melancholy is down to some absentee badgers?”

“No, not quite.”

Pirin paused and stared straight ahead.

“The vixen told me I was in danger.”

Karis sat up and looked at Pirin, unsure whether to laugh.

“Perhaps she was lonely and just wanted someone to talk to.”

Karis grinned uneasily, noting the continued seriousness of Pirin’s set expression.

“I know it sounds absurd.  Believe me, I’ve mulled it around in my head ever since it happened.  There’s no escaping the fact that I heard her thoughts, and what’s more, she wanted me to.  When I described my experience to Crelda, she told me that I have a gift.  She said I could feel the universal spirit.  I suppose the whole thing could be a liberating experience, a cause for exhilaration, but to be honest Karis, I’m terrified.  I don’t think I want to be party to an animal’s thoughts.  I mean, where are the boundaries?  I don’t want to access the emotions of a soon-to-be-eaten vole, or a beetle chewing through a rotten log.”

Karis shook his head, perplexed.

“I’m glad you can’t read my thoughts.  Some things are just not for sharing.  I don’t have many possessions that are exclusively my own.  What’s inside my head should remain sacrosanct.”

“Absolutely, but who is to say that I can’t.  I’m not sure that it is something I can consciously control.  We are all beasts, after all.  If it is a gift, I suppose I should treasure and nurture it, but to be perfectly honest I feel far from privileged.  I feel uncomfortable rather than thrilled.  I mean, voices in the head – perhaps I’m just mad!”

Leaning forward, Karis rested his chin on his knees and thought for a moment.

There is a grain of insanity waiting to germinate in all of us, Pirin.  My temper is like a viper waiting for its moment to strike, and it often catches me unawares.  At least you question your sanity, which is reassurance enough for me that you are still sound of mind.  Look, there’s another kite.”

Pirin turned in the direction of the wooded ridge to see another large, reddish-brown bird disappear into the green canopy.

“How curious.  Whatever they are scavenging must be big.  Let’s go and have a look.”

Standing upright, Pirin brushed wisps of dry grass from his clothes, lifted his bag and set off towards the tree line.  Looking over his shoulder, he beamed at the young blacksmith.

“Thanks Karis.  Your words have reassured me that I’m not sliding towards insanity after all.”

Karis, watching Pirin turn and continue once more, smiled, relieved at his friend’s lightened mood.  Standing, he opened his backsack and pulled out a short, wooden-handled axe.  Just in case it is that bear, he thought to himself, and strode purposefully after his friend.

For a while they descended a steep slope, using an indistinct deer track as a guide through the birch trees, which were uniformly pale-barked and closely spaced.  Eventually the terrain levelled out and became more sodden underfoot.  Tall, dark green alders billowed upwards and a lush cream and yellow swathe of wild garlic and kingcups covered the ground.  The saturated soil gave way under their feet and progress became increasingly difficult.  Karis cursed loudly as his boot embedded itself in the dark mire, which seethed with tiny flies that took off in irritating clouds.  Looking ahead, Pirin was clambering through a tangle of fallen branches beneath an enormous willow.  Karis shouted after him:

“I take back what I said about you being mad!”

Balancing precariously, he grabbed hold of the lowest branch of the nearest tree to steady himself and leaned forward to lift his boot from the mud.  With a loud crack it gave way and he fell flat on his face.  A flock of daws erupted from the crown of the tree and next to him there was a ground-shaking thud as something very heavy landed in the soft earth.

On hearing the sound, Pirin turned to see Karis struggling to sit upright, barely visible above the lush vegetation.  Carefully testing the ground with each footstep, he made his way back to his friend as quickly as possible.  Next to Karis lay the considerable carcass of a large bull elk.  The bones had been picked clean and the skin and fur had desiccated in the sun.  The remains had obviously been in the tree for some time.

 “Whore’s tits!  That was close.  That thing would have finished me if it had been a direct hit.”

Karis stared, wide-eyed and open-mouthed, at the corpse.

“What do you think killed it?”

Pirin prodded the corpse with a piece of the fallen branch.

“Well, it had to be a large predator to bring down that beast.  A bear could do it.  Or something that hunts co-operatively, like a pack of wolves, but they couldn’t carry it up a tree.  For that matter, I’m not sure that a bear could either.  It’s enormous.”

Pirin gazed up at the daws starting to settle back into the tree.

“I’m going up there for a closer look.”

Before Karis could stop him, Pirin had thrown down his bag and started to haul himself up on the lowest branches, which, although slender, were supple and took his weight comfortably.  As he ascended, the smell of wild garlic receded to be replaced by an increasingly putrid, sickly-sweet odour and Pirin found the need to cover his nose and mouth with the palm of one hand.  With difficulty he tried using his other hand to form a secure grip around a horizontal branch just above his head.  As he did so, his fingers came into contact with coarse fur and instinctively he recoiled.  In doing so, he lose his balance, sliding downwards until prevented from falling any further by a fork in the trunk.  Looking up, Pirin saw that he had dislodged the body of a badger.  Again, almost all of the flesh had gone from the bones and he stared at the animal’s head.  Recognition gradually dawned on him – from the facial pattern of stripes and the size of the animal itself, he realised that this was the dominant boar from the flint diggings.  Pulling himself closer, he saw that its neck had been crushed.  Stifling a surge of panic and a feeling of vulnerability, Pirin scrutinised the foliage and branches above him.  To his horror, they were strewn with impaled creatures, some long dead and others still writhing with maggots.   The stench of death and corruption suddenly became overwhelming and Pirin felt his gorge start to rise and his head swim.  Realising he would fall, he quickly descended the tree, sliding down the rough bark, oblivious to the grazes and cuts caused to his knees and elbows as he did so.

At the bottom, he slumped against the trunk, eyes closed and breathing rapidly, his mind racing.  Eventually he opened his eyes to see Karis looking at him, obviously concerned.

“You look as though you have just stared death full in the face.”

For a moment Pirin said nothing.  Then, leaning forward, he inspected the blood seeping from his wounds.

“I…I have” he stuttered, barely able to comprehend what he had just seen.

Realising his friend did not want to speak, Karis carried on. 

“I’m beginning to feel uneasy about all of this, Pirin.  Look, I discovered these while trying to get my boot back.”

Karis bent down, separating the lush vegetation with his hands to reveal numerous footprints.

“At first I thought these were the marks of men.  But look a little closer.  The soil is very soft and may have distorted things somewhat, but these footprints are all really long and narrow.  Then I noticed that in front of each toe is a small impression in the earth.  Now, perhaps these people are in need of a heavy-duty nail file, but it seems to me they might have claws.  We’re not talking about one individual fellow with exceptional feet either – they’re all the same.”

Karis looked around before stepping carefully towards what looked like a pile of old sticks.  Bending down, he lifted it slightly and peered underneath.  Pirin curiously wandered over to join him.

“Just when I had decided that we were dealing with some sort of animal here, I found this.”

Scraping the ground with his boot, he raked up a pile of ash, which contained charred twigs and bone fragments.

“Whatever killed those animals also cooked them.  These embers are still warm and, at a guess, I would say that this little lot was stacked up for tonight’s meal.  What creature of the forest do you know that plans ahead like that?  Whatever they are, I don’t really want to be here when they get back.  I think we should leave here now.”

Pirin silently nodded his agreement and, grabbing his pack, turned his gaze upwards.  Oily-black claws wheeled and dived around the tree, loudly and impatiently scolding the two humans whose presence had disturbed their feast.

“I think we should share our discovery with Crelda” Pirin suggested.  “Perhaps she can shed some light on the identity of our carnivorous friends.  If we follow the course of the Silkstream we’ll reach her cottage in a few hours.  The terrain may be a little difficult to negotiate, but there should be enough cover to keep us well concealed.”

A clearly relieved Karis hurriedly gathered together his pack and equipment and ran after Pirin, who had already started to head back in the direction from which they had come.  One by one the daws settled back into the tree and were silent.