Chapter 46 - The Ghost Who Is a Man part 1

I only stopped once more after I bathed myself in the river, and that was to search for the body of my companion.

That Brulde was dead was all but a certainty in my mind. It was inconceivable to me that any mortal man could have survived a blow powerful enough to send his body flying into the treetops. Even if the blow did not kill him instantly, my tent mate must have been terribly injured. He would have died of exposure long before anyone thought to come looking for any of us. And if he'd survived both of those things, the assault and the cold, the Foul One would have sniffed him out and fed on him on his way to raid the village. In truth, I did not hold out even a twinkling of hope that my husband still lived. So, about midways between Big River Camp and Bubbling Waters, near the log where we had huddled together to rest, I came down from the treetops and searched the area for his body.

I was so certain he was dead that I would not give up the search. I looked for him long after I should have given it up as a lost cause and continued on to the village to check on the rest of my family. I scoured the grounds in an ever-widening circle, scowling in confusion. I found where he had crashed through the treetops. I located the spot where his body had returned to the earth. His scent was strong there, and there were several splashes of dry blood on the ground. But there was no body! Convinced that some beast had dragged him away, I continued searching, growing more and more agitated. I even shouted his name, though I knew in my heart of hearts that he was dead.

"Brulde!" I shouted. "It is me, Gon! If you can hear me, cry out! Help me to find you! I do not know where you are! Brulde! BRULDE!"

At last, overcome with frustration and loss, I fell to my knees and wept.

"Oh, Brulde," I sobbed. "I am so sorry. I am so, so sorry!"

I felt that I had failed him. I did not feel responsible for his death—that black sin lay on my maker's heart-- but I had wanted to bring his body back home, to inter him properly among his forebears. In that I had failed. Someone, or something, had made away with his body. I could not find it, even with my enhanced senses.

At last, I gave it up. It broke my heart to do it but I needed to check on the welfare of my family. I wanted to see my wives. I wanted to draw my children into my arms and kiss each and every one of them. I needed to tell everyone what had happened. They needed to know they were safe, that I had killed the monsters that had stalked our valley and honor the warriors that had fallen along the way.

I rose, dried my eyes, said farewell to my companion and continued on.

Home.

A number of guards patrolled the perimeter of our Bubbling Waters camp. I divined their presence long before I came near. I could smell the odor of their bodies, hear the tread of their feet— hear even the beating of their hearts! A surfeit of torches illuminated the village with a tremulous golden radiance. Even the looming cliffs were gilded by their glow. My heightened perceptions were a miracle to me, and I paused in my flight through the treetops to test the limits of my newfound abilities, wondering at all I could see and hear and smell.

I crouched in a tree just outside the glow of the village and cocked my head to one side. I opened myself fully to my senses then and nearly tumbled from my perch as a flood of sensory information poured into my awareness. It was like standing in the center of a whirlwind. For a moment, I lost all sense of self in the vortex of sights and sounds and smells and tastes that swept me into its howling embrace. For a moment, I floundered, panicked by my loss of control. And then I thought: Ride them! Ride the winds, Gon!

Slowly, I learned to ride the cyclone. I learned to turn the sail of my thoughts so that those winds carried me where I wanted to go. Little by little, I tamed the vortex. I learned to close my thoughts to the sensations pouring into my brain, to block them out, letting in only what I wanted to hear or smell or taste, and then it was like a ray, a single and very intense beam of light that I could train on anything I wanted to examine more closely. It was like peering at a distant object through a spyglass, only with all of my available senses, not just my sense of sight.

Not very far away, a man was humming softly under his breath. It was one of the night's watch. I trained my enhanced senses on him and recognized the tune. It was a children's song we sometimes sang, a song about rabbits; I forget how it goes now. I caught his scent and realized with a smile that I could identify the man, even though he was standing behind some bushes and I did not have a direct line of sight.

It was a glum fellow named Ludd, one of my father's cousins. The sound of his voice was familiar to me, of course, but that I could recognize him by his smell—that was the miracle!

Good old Ludd, I thought. Good old gloomy Ludd!

I didn't want to frighten him so I dropped from the tree and approached him as a normal man might do. I was pleased to see that I was leaving footprints on the dusting of snow that whitened the forest path. Not a ghost then, I reassured myself. We had legends of ghosts, and in those legends, ghosts never left footprints when they walked. It was how you could tell the difference between the living and the dead.

"Who goes there?" Ludd demanded when he finally heard my footfalls. I could just see him through a lattice of tree limbs and saplings. He was gripping the shaft of his spear with fearful tightness, the lines of his face deep and dark in the torchlight. I could smell his anxiety, a bitter chemical odor that was both repellent and appealing.

"It is I, Gon," I declared.

"Gon?"

"Yes."

And then he said it again because he did not quite believe me. "It is Gon?"

"Yes, I told you."

"Step into the light where I can see your face," Ludd demanded.

I walked forward, coming around the bushes to show myself to him.

"Slowly!" Ludd snapped.

Raising my open hands, I eased forward into view. I winced, seeing the peculiar whiteness of my skin, the way the surface of it glistened in the torchlight, but there was nothing I could do about it now. Ludd would either accept me as I was, or my strange appearance would goad him to attack me. I did not think he would flee.

Ludd crouched down, bringing his spear up menacingly as my form melted out of the shadows. He didn't seem to notice the whiteness of my skin. Perhaps the torch's leaping flames were obscuring the unnatural color of my flesh. Or perhaps he just did not see well. He was rather old. A year older than my father. He looked me up and down with something like puzzlement on his face, but only because I was near naked, dressed only in the rags I had scavenged from Big River Camp. I could tell what he was looking at because I could make out the muscular contractions of his pupils. It was really quite amazing.

"Gon!" he stammered. "It… it really is you!" He did not quite smile, not gloomy old Ludd, but I could tell that he was pleased. I saw a flash of gappy teeth beneath the ivory colored bristles of his mustache.

"Yes," I said, lowering my hands. I almost grinned at him and then remembered my fangs. I smiled without parting my lips. "I come with news of the Fat Hands. And our war party. There were many lost."

"We know of that already," Ludd interrupted. "But how did you survive? We were told you died."

"Told?" I said. "Told by who? I thought I was the only one who survived!"

Ludd shook his head. "No, there are two more. Two other men returned from the battle. Your uncle Kort-Lenthe, and your tent mate Brulde."

I gaped at the old man in disbelief. "Brulde... lives?"

Ludd nodded. "Yes, your mate lives! But what of the others? What of my nephew Strom? Kort-lenthe does not know, and Brulde is very weak and will not speak of what happened. When he is questioned, he wails and tears at his clothing. He says only that you were killed. That a demon came out of the trees and devoured you. What of the others? Do you know their fates?"

"My father is dead," I said. "Tavet, Bukhult, the three brothers... all of them are dead."

"And my sister's son? What of Strom?"

"Dead, I'm afraid. Strom and Hyde both. We were terribly defeated."

Ludd's shoulders sagged, and he began to rub his hands together as if he were washing them. "And the devil-man?" he asked, his eyes shimmering. "The fiend who attacked us these past two nights?"

I glared at him.

"He is dead, too. I was the monster's doom."