2024 Story Collection

The Marked IV

They arrive at the outskirts of the village the next morning. They decided to enter through the south-eastern gate. It was a small, mostly unused gate, so there would be no traffic.

As they approach, Cedar notices a dark, hunched figure as it steps out from the darkness. They remove their fur hood. The Elder, he recognizes.

"Cedar," she nods at him, a simple greeting. He returns it.

"River," she greets her. She says River's name as if laced with poison.

"Hello Violet," River greets back, mirroring the older's tone with a smirk.

Cedars eyes widen at the sound of the Elders name. No one uses it. It was a sign of disrespect. Some even believed that if you did anything to disrespect an elder, something horrible would happen to you and your family, but River didn't seem to care.

He looks from Elder Violet to River, intrigued.

"Do you know eachother?" He asks.

"No," the elder says. "This is our first meeting."

"You must be the elder of this clan." River speaks with a slight sharpness to her voice that Cedar can't help but notice.

"You must be the next elder," the older woman says, a small smirk on her lips. She looks River up and down.

"No," River snaps. "I am just a warrior from a dead clan."

Dead clan? Is that why she's alone?

"Yes." The elder agrees. "But you are also an elder like myself."

"I will never be like you," River snaps.

Tension builds as they stare at the other, unblinking. It suddenly feels suffocating. Cedar gulps.

"There is a hoard coming and we should really prepare the warriors to meet them-" Cedar cuts in trying to get to the point of their visit but gets cut off by both women.

"She knows," River speaks without looking at him.

"I know." Violet snaps at the same time.

"I will go find the other warriors then," he rides off, but is stopped by the older woman.

"We must give you your marks first," Elder Violet says, finally turning her attention to him.

"Does that really matter when there are hundreds of monsters coming to the village?"

"Yes." River answers. "Do you know why we give these marks?"

---

He stood in the hot hut of the elder, only this time it wasn't the older woman holding a knife. It was River.

She stood beside him and gestured for him to lay on the table. He does. She runs a cold hand over his back and he shivers. How anyone could be cold in a room as hot as this was beyond his comprehension.

"These marks do not just stand for the kills we've made," River speaks softly as she sits on the back of his legs. "They also give us power against the beasts." This was already much different from Elder Violet.

Luckily, his face was already flushed from the heat of the space, so she wouldn't see him blush.

"They weaken the beasts we fight in proportion to our marks." She carves the marks into his back as she continues to explain. He tries not to wince. He never thought Elder Violet to be gentle when she carved into his back with that old knife, but compared to River, she was a feather's touch. "The more we kill, the more marks we get, the weaker they become."

She grabs the charcoal and the molcajete. She ground it into a fine powder. She rubs the powder deep into the fresh cuts.

"But if you take on a mark you are undeserving of, you will become a beast yourself." She takes the burning red metal and presses it into his back before he can ask any questions.

After a moment, his thoughts come back to him.

"What?" he asks, trying to ignore the nausea from the smell of his burning flesh.

"How did you think those monsters got so out of hand?" She rubs her own blend of herbs over the freshly made marks. It makes the burning worse from the first few seconds before suddenly it begins to cool.

Unlike Elder Violet, Rivers marks felt fresh and clean. They hurt worse when she made them, but left him feeling more at peace.

"You need to tell the boy." Elder Violet steps into the tent. "He needs to know what happened."

"No," River turns away from him.

"What do you need to tell me?" he asks, sitting up.

"The pattern will repeat unless the lesson is shared."

River sighs at the older woman's words.

"My clan, my people, were desperate to kill them all. They had taken a thousand men and even more women and children. The warriors got desperate for any edge they could use against them. So they took on marks undeserving of them."

Cedars eyes widen. River's head drops as she turns away, but he doesn't miss the tear that falls from her face.

"As the moon rose, they transformed into beasts. They killed the people they had tried so hard to protect."

"All but one," Elder Violet adds.

"I had been training in secret and I knew how it all would end. I tried to warn them, but they didn't care to listen. I was just a child. And the elder had been killed a few days prior."

"When they began to transform, I lit the fires. I took my brother's swords and stabbed him before he could become a beast, too. With those swords I worked my way through, slaughtering every beast within the walls of the settlement."

"Only, by the time I'd finished, there was no one left. I was alone."

"I took my brother's body and let the fires burn everything to the ground."

"I hadn't realized, my brother was still alive till after. I had burred him deep underground using the biggest rocks I could find. I couldn't bring myself to cut out his heart and burn it, and because of that, he escaped. He lived on as a monster to kill and do everything he'd always wished to prevent. Because I was weak." She sheaths her dagger and walks toward the exit of the tent.

"He leads the hoard here."

She stepped out of the tent. Cedar stood and tried to follow. He had so many questions, but the moment he was outside the hut. She was gone.

To be continued...

January 13, 2024