The Woman by the side of the Road

She had iron hair and iron eyes. Her face was drawn and pinched. She towered above him, twice again his height. One of her weathered hands gripped a bundle of leashes, the other held an elder-wood scythe set with a wicked blade. And, Adal noted, she also had quite a nice floral pattern on her dress.

Only once Adal had finished taking in the woman did he notice what she held at the other end of her leashes. They weren’t dogs, which was unfortunate, for Adal liked dogs. If he hadn’t gone to the archive he’d have owned several. Dogs had floppy ears and lolling tongues. A dog would look after you. A dog would be your companion through thick and thin.

These were hounds. Hounds were not your friend. They were only companions through sick and sin. Instead of walking they slunk from shadow to shadow, spreading out from the woman like tendrils of ink snaking through water. Some wound about her as though to constrict her with their leashes, others lunged at the end of their tethers, baying at prey in the distance, trying to break free.

Adal’s eyes flickered from the hounds to the woman, and then back to the hounds. Just in case he had missed something, his eyes flicked back to the woman, then, thinking she might find his staring offensive, they went back to looking at the hounds. Then Adal decided he would rather offend the woman than the creatures covered in fangs and claws and red glowing eyes.

He began to notice an ache in his back below the left shoulder. He’d have asked it to stop, but he was afraid the woman would misunderstand him. People sometimes did that. Instead, he forced a smile. Upon considering the dark sky, oppressive forest, circling hounds, and granite faced woman, he decided a smile was not entirely appropriate and adopted a grimmer expression.

“Is something wrong with your face?”

The woman’s voice was stern, but not so stern as to completely frighten Adal. It just made him feel young and foolish and desperate to please. The scythe and hounds were incidental, “Excuse me madam, but I don’t know where I am.”

“I said, is something wrong with your face?”

Adal winced in fear, then thought better of it and quickly smiled, before remembering not to smile, “No.”

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“Are you sure? You did it again.”

He raised his hands in a shrug, which caused the pain in his back to multiply tenfold. Adal screwed up his face in concentration to prevent himself from yowling in pain.

“No,” he gasped, “perfectly fine. Just dandy. So… where am I?”

She rested the scythe on her shoulder, “The side of the road.”

Adal looked around at the dense forest surrounding him in all directions for as far as he could see.

“What road would that be?”

One of the hounds snuck behind Adal and snapped at the base of his leg, causing him to leap forward in fright.

“Heel!” The woman yelled.

“Indeed it was,” Adal muttered as the dog slunk back to the woman. They stood again in silence, Adal casually trying to watch every direction at once, the woman watching him swing his head and eyes back and forth.

“Does the road matter?” She said finally.

“It would help me find my way home. It looks damp out here madam, doesn’t it look damp? I bet I’ll get a chill without my coat. It’ll probably rain. I’d like to get home before it rains you see. I know all the roads, being a historian helps.”

She smiled suddenly, or at least bared her teeth, “I am not a historian,” she said, “so I do not know what road this is.”

“Then could you tell me which dom I’m in?”

“I don’t know.”

Adal kicked the black mossy dirt at his feet, sending another jolt through his back. She took pleasure in her ignorance, he could tell, “Why are you here?”

She gestured to her hounds, “I was looking for you.”

“Oh. Well, you found me. So, why am I here?”

“I don’t know.”

If Adal had not been afraid to sigh in exasperation and kick one of the ever circling hounds, he would have sighed in exasperation and kicked one of the ever circling hounds.

“What now?” he asked.

“Now you tell me your name.”

“I am Adal, the historian. Who are you?”

“I am Holda. I lead the army.”

She gestured and the forest grew translucent, as though it was made from tinted glass. Shadowy figures moved in its depths. They slid through the trees as if their trunks were made from fog. The figures were drawing closer. Larger now. Closer, ever closer. Adal was starting to make out their features. They were wrong, horribly wrong. If it weren’t for the hounds slung about his ankles he would have leapt back in horror. As it was, he stumbled, drawing another stab of pain from his back.

The people looked like the scraps from a surgeon’s table. They were missing arms, rode horses lacking legs, had caved in faces, and shattered ribs sticking from their sides. Their heads hung at angles, their eye sockets were empty, and their entrails hung about their knees. Worst of all was their complete lack of motion. Even their hair was still as they drifted towards him. They stopped behind Holda, forming loose ranks.

“What manner of army is this?” he croaked.

“The army of the dead,” Holda replied. The forest faded away completely. She beckoned and a skeletally thin horse walked from the ranks. Holda took its bridle and offered it to Adal, “The Wild Army.”