Chapter 22: The Scavenger

The forest is an unforgiving mistress. Yes, the Ancients can bless those who live in the Realm of Nature by treating it with respect, but such blessings are only available to those who know where to seek them; and even for the wise, those blessings are usually fleeting. When one is in the forest, the goal is to eat before sunset and survive to see another sunrise. Perhaps it is possible to contemplate the future, but too much thought on the future and too little on the present is vanity.

Danka took her young slave into the mountains with those thoughts in mind. Strange to think, just a year before she had lived a pampered life in the Grand Duke’s castle, and now she was about to embark on a life as a wanderer in the Duchy’s wild country. She tried to remember all of the training she had received when she was a Follower. She would need every bit of that knowledge to make it through the rest of the summer and prepare for the upcoming winter.

Danka and Isauria spent the first week traveling east, ever deeper into the southern Danubian forest. The outcast was determined to get far away from Malenkta-Gordnackta and anyone who had known her during her sojourn in that town. For the rest of her life she would harbor deep resentment against its inhabitants. She hated the men for willingly going out on slave-capturing raids, but she even more, she loathed the town’s women. She had spent months teaching them everything she knew about collecting food in the forest, sharing much of the knowledge passed to her by Babackt Yaga and the other Followers. However, along with distributing practical knowledge, Danka had made the mistake of trying to pass along the philosophical wisdom of the Cult of the Ancients. She subconsciously wanted to influence the beliefs of her neighbors and have them reward her by accepting her as their de facto spiritual leader. She failed to understand that attempting to appoint herself as a spiritual guide was an act of hubris, and the Ancients always punished hubris. Danka’s self-appointed spiritual mission failed miserably and its only result was for the former cultist to be accused of being strange and then to be ignored, ridiculed, and ultimately ostracized. She felt betrayed by her female neighbors and resented the fact they had not accepted her as part of their community. So, she wanted nothing to do with the women of Malenkta-Gordnackta and never wanted to see them again.

As soon as she was far enough from the town that it would be unlikely she’d run into any of its inhabitants, Danka had an important decision to make: which direction to continue her journey. The countryside immediately to the east and southeast was covered with thickly-forested low-lying hills, which contrasted with higher mountains that lay to the north. The mountains were part of a crescent-shaped chain that separated the southwest portion of the Duchy from the southeast part and at that time the highland region was completely unsettled. Beyond the northern mountains lay the Black Swamp of Misery, which was in reality a large marshland that fed into the Rika Chorna River. Either the mountains or the swamp would have been good places to hide, had Danka been a fugitive. However, she considered herself a traveler, not a fugitive, and had no desire to spend her remaining time in the Realm of the Living in a squalid cabin with an illiterate serving-girl in a lonely, isolated settlement. The only hope for either the woman or the girl to have a fulfilling Path in Life was to keep moving and see where the Ancients led them.

Danka decided to journey directly eastward and stay within a day’s walk of the Duchy’s southern border during the entire trip. At that time she had a vague idea of going to the Vice-Duchy of Rika Chorna and seeing if she could settle there. Danka did not know what to expect from the inhabitants of the Vice-Duchy, but it was away from western Danubia, which was what she wanted at the time. So, she and Isauria would continue working their way east, spend the summer in the forest, and eventually emerge into the Eastern Valley.

As was customary for Followers of the Ancients, whenever they were in the Realm of Nature and temperatures permitted, Danka and Isauria walked completely naked, wearing nothing but their boots. Isauria was not bothered by Danka’s order that she carry her clothing in her traveling pack instead of on her body. She already was used to being nude: as a collared slave she had been denied the right to wear clothing at any time. So, the naked girl plodded behind her naked mistress, with the heavy supply pack cutting into her bare shoulders and Danka’s uncovered bottom and thighs always in front of her.

Danka was not a sympathetic or patient teacher, because the Realm of Nature is not sympathetic or patient. Also, the former peasant had experienced very little sympathy in her life, so she did not know how to display it to anyone working under her. Danka was not kind to Isauria as we would understand kindness in modern times. She expected Isauria to carefully listen to everything she said and to follow her instructions exactly. On the few occasions when Isauria did not meet her expectations, she was harsh with her voice and as quick to use the switch as any other impatient slave-owner.

Isauria received her first switching from Danka only five days after they ventured into the mountains. She had been tasked to collect some roots and mushrooms and to start a fire to boil water while Danka climbed several trees to get at some birds’ nests. She nearly fell to her death while trying to grab a large, almost fully-grown cuckoo chick, so she was not in a good mood. Meanwhile, Isauria, who was extremely hungry, had ignored Danka’s warning to only start the water boiling and not to put in the mushrooms until the mistress had a chance to check them.

Sure enough, Isauria had included some poisonous mushrooms in the soup and the entire batch had to be discarded. Danka was furious at her ward’s disobedience. She slapped the girl hard across the face and snapped:

“You can say you’re sorry all you want, but the forest doesn’t accept apologies. I don’t accept apologies either. There’s no point in telling me you regret something, because I don’t care about your emotions. When you commit a stupid act, I will punish you, just like the Realm of Nature will punish both of us. How you feel about that doesn’t matter.”

Danka handed the frightened girl her dagger.

“Now, go to that thicket of willows and cut me several switches and peel them. They need to be about half a fathom long. Make sure they are sturdy and thick enough to hurt when I hit you.”

Isauria was crying, but she dutifully spent the next several minutes cutting and preparing five switches according to her mistress’s instructions. When she returned, Danka ordered her to place her hands on a fallen log, and not to move until given permission. Danka said nothing more, but she took the switches and swished each through the air to test it. The trembling girl flinched at the sound of each swoosh, but she kept her hands on the log.

Danka struck her servant with a cruel blow across the middle of her bottom. The girl flinched and suppressed a painful squeal, but she did not cry out. The woman studied the welt forming on the girl’s backside to make sure the blow had marked but did not break her skin, and struck again.

Isauria shook and cried during her punishment, but she tried to be brave and did not take her hands off the log. Danka was pleased by the girl’s stoic behavior, but she did not openly express approval nor consider showing pity. She felt that she could be no different than the forest. If the girl made a mistake, she’d have to suffer for it.

The girl’s bottom and thighs were completely covered with welts before Danka tossed the switches into the fire. She ordered her whimpering servant to stand up and accompany her to search for mushrooms to replace the ones that had to be discarded. Isauria was still crying, but Danka admonished her that they still had to eat that day and the eggs and chicks she had gathered would not be enough if they did not have vegetables to accompany them. Therefore, they had to search the woods for a replacement meal before sunset. Being forced to move about among the trees with her backside covered in painful welts would be the final part of Isauria’s punishment.

Isauria’s first switching would have been considered unduly severe by modern standards, but it was typical for the time. Danka had endured plenty of similar switchings while growing up, so she did not see anything wrong with treating Isauria the same way her parents had treated her. If anything, she felt that she was being somewhat lenient. It was because of Isauria’s failure to obey instructions that both she and Danka had nearly been poisoned and that a morning’s worth of food gathering had gone to waste. Had she not had the foresight to check the soup, they actually would have been in grave danger, without the strength to gather food or move about, and would have been at the mercy of unforgiving elements for several days.

They didn’t get back to the campsite until sunset. Danka restarted the soup while Isauria cleaned and gutted the chicks. There was no further mention of the girl’s punishment, because as far as Danka was concerned the incident was over. Isauria remained fearful of doing anything to further offend her owner, but she had learned the lesson Danka wanted to teach her. She never again did anything without being absolutely certain she understood exactly what was expected of her.

Isauria’s Path in Life would be to remain Danka’s servant and companion throughout 1756. She continued to wear her slave collar, partly because Danka did not have the tools necessary to remove it, and partly because Danka knew it would be best for the girl to consider herself a slave until her mistress felt she was ready to face the harsh world on her own.

The quiet girl clearly was not ready to fend for herself when Danka purchased her. Yes, she had endured several traumatic events during her short life, but trauma does not necessarily prepare a person to face the world. Isauria’s only practical knowledge consisted of looking after sheep (from the days before she was taken captive) and housework (from her year living in Alexandrekt Bulashckt’s household). As for fending for herself in the forest, she was still a child, as naive as any guild-master’s daughter.

So, it was Danka’s Path in Life to teach her ward how to survive in the Realm of Nature. She trained the girl how to find anything that was edible, how to hide among the trees and find shelter, how to anticipate changes in the weather, how to identify animal tracks, and how to pack supplies and move about undetected. Within days Isauria knew how to forage for roots, mushrooms, and fruit. She knew how to set campfires and prepare a campsite, while Danka was hunting or looking for promising trails. Her daily routine was grueling, but she became invaluable to her mistress.

During her first months in the woods Danka would teach Isauria how to set traps, tie knots, and make snares. She showed her the basics of fishing, which the girl picked up with ease. Isauria was fascinated with everything having to do with fish and became much more adept at catching fish than her mistress. Other skills learned by Isauria over the summer included searching for springs, collecting rainwater, making and reading maps, compass-reading, land navigation, using the stars to navigate at night, and moving about in total silence. The girl learned quickly and became competent at living outside. By the end of the summer Danka knew that if anything happened to her, Isauria would be able to survive on her own, at least for a while, and continue traveling.

In spite of her willingness to use the switch, by the standards of slave owners in eighteenth-century Danubia, Danka was a good mistress and most foreign captives would have been happy to exchange places with Isauria. She never struck from anger or frustration, nor was she spiteful or condescending. She never did anything to humiliate her ward, which was a huge improvement in the girl’s life over the treatment she had received from Alexandrekt Bulashckt and his nephew. Instead, Danka’s treatment directly reflected on how well the girl performed her duties. As long as Isauria followed instructions, she had nothing to fear. If she didn’t understand something, her owner encouraged her to request clarification. It was important that Isauria understood her responsibilities and why she needed to perform each duty in a certain way, so the only stupid questions were the ones she neglected to ask.

The social distance that normally would distinguish an owner from a slave was absent in Danka’s relationship with Isauria. Danka used the lower-class form of “you” when addressing the servant and told Isauria to use the same form when responding. Danka’s speech reverted to her peasant background, with Isauria expected to address her mistress in the same way a guild apprentice would address a mentor. Whatever food was available she shared in equal portions. She cared for the girl’s medical needs and allowed her to rest when she was sick. As for the travelers’ sleeping arrangements, Danka had with her a single sleeping roll, which she shared with her servant. Peasants were used to sharing beds, so Danka shared the sleeping roll with her ward in the same way she had shared her bed with her sister while growing up.

There were other ways Danka let Isauria know that she did not consider her mere property. She began to teach the servant to write during the rare occasions they weren’t occupied with wandering, hunting, scavenging, or gathering food. Isauria recognized the importance of writing, so on her own she practiced tracing letters in the dust whenever she had to opportunity, to the great satisfaction of her mentor. When Danka prayed to the Ancients, she insisted the girl accompany her. Over the summer Isauria learned about Danka’s religious beliefs, to include singing some of the ancient hymns and speaking a few words in archaic Danubian.

Danka had never been as experienced at hunting or tracking animals as she was gathering edible plants. She had some basic information about forest animals from her year in Babackt Yaga’s settlement, but even among the Followers hunting was a task mostly carried out by the men. Out of necessity, her hunting skills greatly improved over the summer of 1756. She snared her first rabbit the day after she punished Isauria. A week later she killed her first deer, a partially grown fawn. Over the month of June there were a few more rabbits and another deer. The dead animals were both a blessing and a hindrance. The hunts meant a better diet and a supply of animal skins, but also considerably slowed down the journey. Every time she killed an animal, she and her servant had to spend time at camp preparing smoked meat, preparing tanning solution with the animals’ own brains, and scraping, stretching, and tanning the hides.

Along with basic survival skills and reading, Danka felt that her servant needed to know the basics of combat. She was concerned about being a woman alone in the forest and wanted the assurance that if she were attacked, Isauria could come to her assistance. Using the second dead deer’s carcass for practice, she taught Isauria several maneuvers with her dagger, making sure Isauria knew how to stab deeply and cut muscles and arteries, in spite of her small size and relative lack of strength. Using sticks, she taught her servant the basics of fencing and sword fighting. The sword-fighting was the hardest skill Danka passed along to her servant, because every time she did anything having to do with sword fighting, she had to struggle against the flash-backs of her final moments in Babackt Yaga’s settlement.

Danka owned two weapons: her crossbow and the dagger given to her by Farmer Tuko Orsktackt. The crossbow would be useless if she ever ran out of bolts. By July running out of ammunition was becoming a real concern, in spite of her efforts to conserve and retrieve used bolts as much as possible. She just had to find more bolts and obtain a weapon for her servant and another for herself. The only items she had that she was willing to part with were a few animal skins, which would hardly suffice for what she needed to purchase. She realized that to obtain the weapons she wanted, she’d either have to steal them, or steal something else of value so she could purchase them. With that thought in mind she decided to make her way back to the settlements of eastern Horkustk Ris province, but would try to avoid getting close to Malenkta-Gordnackta. If she had to dishonor herself by stealing, at least she wanted to make sure she didn’t do so around people she knew.

It turned out she did not have to venture out into the cleared area of the province to obtain the new weapons. As the woman and the girl silently moved through the forest, they came to a clearing where they heard the pitiful crying of the voice of a teenaged boy. As they approached the crying sound, it abruptly stopped. Danka crept along some rocks and saw what had happened, a man was standing over the corpse of a boy that he apparently had just killed. The dead boy was wearing nothing but a pair of trousers and had his hands tied behind his back. The man was too distracted cleaning the boy’s blood off a sword to notice that he was not alone.

Danka decided she wanted the sword. The man was a murderer, so he probably would not be missed. Anyhow, she would avenge the dead boy. She armed her crossbow and crept closer to her target. She slipped behind a bush next to the clearing, stood up, and aimed. The man turned around just as the assailant released her bolt. He had enough time to see a young woman, naked from the waist up, pointing a crossbow at him. He screamed as the bolt pierced his chest. He was mortally wounded, but the shot did not kill him immediately. The scream turned into an agonized gurgle as he flailed on the ground and desperately grabbed at the bolt to remove it. Danka re-armed her crossbow and stood over her victim, her eyes full of sadistic triumph. She didn’t know why the man had killed the boy, nor did she care. The only thought on her mind was the weird joy of watching a person much stronger than herself helpless, struggling, and dying on the ground. Eventually the man coughed up blood and started shaking. His eyes rolled up as his movements slowed and stopped.

Danka looked around to make sure no one else was nearby. She noticed Isauria’s terrified face staring at her through the leaves. She retrieved the sword and held it up.

“Servant Isauria. Come here.”

The terrified, trembling girl approached her.

“Here’s the weapon I promised you. Go to the stream, rinse it off, and make sure it’s completely dry.”

“Yes, Mistress Danka.”

While Isauria was occupied at the stream, Danka searched the clearing and the corpses for anything useful. Her victim’s shirt was ruined, which was too bad, thought Danka, because it looked expensive. However, the man’s boots and trousers were intact, so she pulled them off the corpse. The boy’s peasant vest and shoes were lying on the ground, which she took, as well as the rope used to bind his hands. Best of all, the man had an expensive dagger and a coin purse containing three silver and seven copper coins. She pulled the crossbow bolt from his corpse. It was broken and useless, but she did not want to leave it for anyone to find.

After having taken anything of value from the bodies, she left them. She thought about trying to bury the boy, but abandoned that idea when she heard a dog barking in the distance. She tapped her servant on the shoulder and they slipped away into the brush. Danka never learned what had happened between the man and the boy, or whether there had been any justification for the boy’s death. The dispute between those two was of no concern to her. What mattered was that she now had money and items to trade for additional crossbow bolts.

Danka led her servant to the edge of the forest. She turned northward and reconnoitered the cleared area until she spotted a large village likely to have a blacksmith who could supply her with crossbow bolts. She then put on her trader’s disguise and consolidated her belongings into a single backpack that Isauria would have to carry. She took Isauria’s sword and told the girl that, following protocol for a slave, she would have to remain naked. The girl struggled with the heavy burden as Danka led her into the village.

Danka replenished her depleted supply of crossbow bolts and had both her dagger and the sword sharpened by the smith. While waiting for her weapons, she visited the tanner to have her servant’s boots repaired and to sell a deerskin and the stolen boots. She spent her remaining coins on salt, a specialized hide scraper, flint for starting fires, sewing supplies, two loaves of fresh bread, and a sweet-roll for her ward. Isauria looked at her mistress in dumbfounded gratitude when she was handed the treat. For an ordinary person Danka’s generosity would have been a trivial gesture, but for a slave to be given something like a sweet-roll was a huge signal of goodwill and approval from her owner.

The traveler was enormously relieved when she returned to the woods with her supplies replenished. She stripped and put away her clothes, split the load into two backpacks, retrieved her bucket, and directed her servant to follow her to the southern border of the Duchy.

As they traveled, Danka took advantage of breaks to continue teaching Isauria how to use her sword. She also decided it was time for the girl to learn how to operate the crossbow. Isauria struggled with a weapon that seemed almost as big as herself. Drawing back the bow took every bit of strength she had and at the beginning she could barely keep control when the trigger was released. However, she persevered and eventually Danka felt she was ready to use a few of her precious bolts and aim at targets.

At the height of the summer, in the middle of July, Danka led Isauria southward on the pair’s foraging expeditions. They traveled along the southern border, where the woods opened up to the Lord of the Blue Moon’s territory. They emerged near a village that seemed completely deserted, with every structure in sight destroyed or burnt. The people were gone. Danka commented that the Lord of the Red Moon must have invaded the area.

Isauria, whose family had been massacred by the Lord of the Blue Moon’s men, glanced apprehensively towards the open country, clearly having no desire to leave the safety of the Duchy. However, Danka wanted to explore the settlement and a couple of nearby abandoned manors, hoping to scavenge for useful items that had been abandoned during the fighting. They hid the majority of their supplies and at night forded a shallow spot in the river. Upon crossing, they both got dressed in their trader’s guild outfits, even though no one was in sight. Unlike the relatively casual attitude of Danubians, women in the Kingdom of the Moon absolutely never appeared naked in public, even at night or on their own properties or in isolated areas.

They cautiously made their way towards the ruins, their path illuminated by moonlight. Danka was used to traveling through the forest in the dark, so moving along an open road under a full moon was easy. The ominous ruins loomed at the top of the embankment. The woman and her servant slowly moved uphill, listening for footsteps and smelling the air for anything unusual. Danka heard the light scattering of animals moving about. There was a very slight whiff of carbon and of corpses that had long since decomposed. Apart from that, the only smells were those in any typical open area.

It turned out the village had been abandoned for a long time. Still, it was not a pleasant place. The streets were a labyrinth of ruined buildings and rubble. Much worse were all the skeletons, some still intact and some scattered, which were everywhere. The streets and houses were full of bones. Many more skeletons were hanging on the walls, the victims of impalement. An even worse detail were the numerous skulls that were mounted on poles stuck into the ground, with their empty eye sockets staring at the two visitors.

Danka froze, her feet firmly anchored to the ground. Her world went completely dark. A pair of bright yellow eyes appeared in the distance. They were tiny at first, because they were so far away. They slowly approached and grew much larger. The Destroyer’s face filled Danka’s vision as her knees shook with terror.

“Danka, Danka Siluckt, I’ve been waiting for you. I knew you’d come. I knew you’d return to me. I knew that, because I gave you no choice.”

“Wh, what do you, what do you want from me?”

“I want you to know me. I want you to know me well. You will have to learn my ways, if you want to remain in the Realm of the Living, and if you want your little slave to remain in the Realm of the Living. To know me. That is all I ask of you.”

“I don’t want to know you. I serve the Ancients. I don’t serve you.”

“The Ancients are not here, Danka Siluckt. Do not concern yourself with the Ancients, because they are not here. This is my realm, not theirs. If you don’t wish to believe me, try praying to them. They will answer you with their silence.”

“But, what do you want from me?”

“I’ve already told you what I want, Danka Siluckt. You will learn my ways. And as you come to know me, I will act through you. You will prosper, and your slave’s safety is assured.”

“And, you did this? Everything around me, this is your doing?”

“Mine, or the Lord of the Red Moon, if you prefer, this was a Blue Moon village, you know, the Lord of the Red Moon paid these subjects a visit, on my behalf, as you might guess.”

“Why?”

“Yes indeed, why? Why? Why? Why?”

The eyes vanished and the ground released Danka’s feet. Danka realized that Isauria was holding onto her arm, with her small body badly shaking.

“Mistress Danka, Mistress Danka, the owl.”

Sure enough, a large owl was sitting on a nearby ruined wall, its unblinking eyes staring at the woman and the girl in the cold moonlight. The bird took off and silently vanished.

“Mistress Danka, you were talking.”

“That doesn’t concern you, Servant Isauria. You don’t want to know.”

“Yes Mistress.”

“Come along. It’s getting light outside. We need to search around, see what we can find.”

“I, I’m scared, Mistress.”

“Of course you’re scared. And perhaps, you think I’m not? It doesn’t matter, because fear won’t fill our stomachs. We can be scared all we want, but we still have to see what’s here.”

So, as the sky lightened, they searched the town. It was a cool dreary overcast morning. The forlorn weather seemed perfectly suited for the bleak ruins and their endless supply of skeletons. Each skeleton had its own depressing story, from being the remains of a once-living person who died a horrible death. The woman and the girl were reluctant to go anywhere close to the corpses, but they needed to closely examine each one. Occasionally there would be a ring or a coin next to a set of bones, something that was overlooked when the Lord of the Red Moon’s troops massacred and looted the town. They spent the entire day going through the destroyed houses, finding metal items such as cutlery, tools, and a few porcelain cups and dishes that had miraculously survived the fires and building collapses.

By mid-afternoon Danka had collected enough objects to fill three sacks. She was surprised the town had not been more thoroughly scavenged. She did not know that priests from the Lord of the Red Moon’s army had officially cursed the area, which made it off-limits for anyone in the Red Moon faction. All of the Lord of the Blue Moon’s supporters had been killed or had long since fled, so the only people who would consider coming in were wandering Danubians, who were rightly concerned about being captured and tortured by foreign soldiers who were still bitter about the defeat in Horkustk Ris.

The woman and the girl returned to the Duchy after dark, carefully fording the river with multiple sacks of loot. Most of the items were metal that she would trade to a blacksmith for additional crossbow bolts. However, some of the tools she would keep in case she had to set up a shelter to pass the upcoming winter. Some items, such as a few rings and a necklace, would be very valuable if she could find an honest buyer and negotiate a good price.

The wanderer and her slave stashed everything in a small cave along with Danka’s bucket. They foraged the next day’s meal and rested in preparation to cross back over and look for anything they might have missed on the first trip. Danka already had enough for a very nice day of trading, but she became greedy. She wanted more. So, there would be at least one more dangerous day across the border foraging among the ruins.

Isauria continued to be scared out of her wits, but Danka’s emotions had changed. Instead of raw fear, she felt hostility, determination, and cold anger. She wasn’t sure who to be angry at, but finally vented her emotions against the Ancients, who had forsaken her and forced her into her current situation. So ... the Destroyer was right. The Ancients were indeed silent and no longer watching over her. Maybe the Ancients had departed, or maybe they were never watching over her in the first place. What mattered was that they currently were not part of her life. Her only reality was the Destroyer.