By Liam Hogan
“Perfect weather, Benji,” drawled Mac.
The forest was cold, it was damp, and it was getting dark. “How so?” I said.
“Snow on its way. That’ll cover the grave.”
Mac, carrying the head end of the shrouded corpse, peered into the gathering gloom. The trees of the Brécilien forest had long since given up growing true, twisted by time and mysterious enchantments, their gnarled, rough-barked trunks looking like a dozen crouching king’s men, waiting to apprehend two dastardly criminals. We weren’t the ones who’d sent the poor sod to the next world, not that anyone would believe that.
The awkward load made it difficult to keep my footing, and mud kept squelching through the split sides of my boots, turning my feet into blocks of ice.
“Ain’t we far enough?” I complained.
“Not yet,” Mac said. “Bit farther.”
What the hell was I doing? Mac, when he recruited me for this shady task, had promised a gold coin. For “a bit of carrying, bit of digging, a whole heap of keeping shtum.” I should have known. A mighty generous fee, though not for such a haunted location. And all I’d seen so far were a few miserly coppers already spent as liquid courage.
I fretted as the first fat flakes drifted between naked branches, and something—a wolf?—howled in the distance. Why go so deep… if not to do me a mischief? What would be better than a shallow grave and two men returning from the forest?
Why, two graves and only one man. It was Mac who knew these gloomy woods, haunted by legend, by dark spirits, and by man’s misdeeds. No doubt he felt safe, knowing my only real chance of getting out—before freezing—was with him leading the way.
Only, the snow was falling much faster now. I glanced behind. Footprints. Heavy and muddled, and appearing to be just the one man where I matched Mac’s stride. I broke step, wanting to leave some trace of myself behind.
“Damn it, Benji!” Mac cursed, struggling to hold his end of the grisly burden. “Keep up! Nearly there.”
I shivered. Mac wouldn’t kill me until after we’d dug the grave. Unless he suspected I knew something. Try to act natural, Benji…
“Why you looking at me like that?” Mac scowled as, huffing and puffing, we dumped the body beneath the boughs of an ancient oak that was no different from dozens we had already passed.
“I’m not,” I muttered. “Just… spooked, is all.”
“Well, don’t be.” Mac handed me a shovel. “No one here but us.”
That was my worry. We set to digging, me making damned sure to never turn my back, racking my brains for how I could best the bigger man.
“For God’s sake, Benji,” Mac cried, when my twitching caused him to stumble heavily into the pit we were digging and sink to his knees in the churned-up mud and snow. “Anyone would think you were work-shy. Or simple.”
I narrowed my eyes. Nobody but my gran got to call me simple.
“Well, give us a hand out, will yer?”
I gave him my shovel instead. Gave it to him flat and hard.
There I stood, darting glances at the blackest parts of the forest to see if anyone—or anything—was watching, two bodies at my feet. But the dark trees stayed silent, no holler of alarm, no clang of armour, no snowy crunch of approaching men.
“Simple, am I?” I crowed, tossing the shovel into the shallow pit. “Got the jump on you, Macky boy. Didn’t see that coming, did you?”
I slid into the half-dug grave and searched his body for the gold I was due. The rotten thief! No coins anywhere to be found, not even in his boots. Well, a deal was a deal. No gold coin, no burial. I’d leave them both for the wild beasts of the forest.
Scrambling out, I eyed the shrouded figure we had hauled all this way, still slumped against the oak. Chances were it was already stripped of anything of value, if not by Mac, then by whoever had done the foul deed. But it couldn’t hurt to look.
How wrong I was.
As I unwrapped the hood, I clocked the distinctive profile, now turned a ghastly mottled white: the King’s exiled brother, one-time claimant to the throne and long-time thorn in the King’s side. Staggering back, I almost fell into the grave we’d dug.
Had Mac known? I could hardly ask him now, nor complain that a single gold coin was scant reward for such a treacherous task. But if he’d promised more, alarm bells might have rung sooner. I began to suspect that three graves was the order of the day, the third probably in a bar brawl, after Mac received his payment but before it could loosen his lips. Tying up loose ends, covering the tracks.
I could only hope that Mac hadn’t told anyone he’d recruited me and that no one had seen us leave. Time to vanish—just as soon as I could get out of this blasted forest. I spun round in the fading light and followed our footprints back as fast as I could.
Until they abruptly stopped, between trees that mocked my confusion.
Then I remembered. Then I cursed.
It hadn’t been snowing when we’d entered the forest, had it? It hadn’t begun until we were deep into the enchanted woods. The only places the footprints led were here, the middle of nowhere with no hint of the path, and back under the oak with two dead bodies for company. Not much of a choice.
I could see my gran sitting by the fire, hear her cackling like a loon. “See? Dung for brains!”
I’d entered the Brécilien forest as a fool, and a fool—lost, and cold, and alone—I would remain. I heard the wolves closing in and wished I was still carrying that damned shovel.
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