by Jamie Lackey
in Issue 126, July 2022
For the first few miles of Tristan’s trek into the woods, the path was wide and smooth and the scent of sun-warmed pine needles filled the air. But slowly, more and more branches tangled overhead, choking out the sunlight and leaving shadows that shifted and jumped when the cold wind blew.
The welcoming smell of pine faded like a memory, replaced with the scent of loam and leaf mold and rot. Mushrooms grew in dense patches and thick roots snaked across the shrinking path, catching his booted toes whenever he took his eyes off the ground.
“Why would anyone choose to live here?” Tristan muttered to himself, straightening his breastplate and sword belt after stumbling for the third time.
But then, he supposed that the wood hag didn’t have a choice.
The path turned, then twisted down a rocky hillside. He picked his way down, one sliding step at a time, then stood at the bottom, where a trickle of dank water moved sluggishly through a thick layer of mud.
Tristan peered around, taking a few steps one way, then another, his boots squelching in the mud. He didn’t see a way forward. “Where does the path go from here?”
“There is no path from here,” a woman’s voice said. It seemed to come from all around, drifting through the air like falling leaves.
Tristan drew his sword. “Who’s there?”
“I’m sure you can guess,” the voice said.
“The wood hag?”
“The very same.” She had a soft, sweet voice, like any country girl who sold flowers or pastries at the market. It was not at all what Tristan expected.
“Show yourself!” he demanded.
“Why should I?” the wood hag asked. “You seem dangerous. You’ve been talking to yourself like a madman, and you have a sword.”
“Everyone talks to themselves,” Tristan protested.
“Is that so? I thought it was only lonely people. Or madmen.”
“If I admit to being lonely and put my sword away, will you show yourself?” Tristan asked.
“Perhaps.”
He sheathed his sword. If the wood hag wanted him dead, he doubted that a couple feet of steel would be enough to stop her, anyway. “I’m here to talk.”
A gust of wind swirled around him, damp and cold. The thick tree trunks all around groaned as they swayed. He looked up, fearing falling limbs. When he looked back down, a figure stood before him.
Her skin was the same mottled brown of the rotting leaves, and her hair cascaded to her waist in muddy clumps. Her eyes were the solid green of summer leaves, without any white or pupil. She wore a long, simple dress that had once been white, but had gone gray with age, and was spattered with dirt and blood. More blood was caked under her ragged fingernails. Her feet vanished into the soil, and Tristan wasn’t sure if they were simply buried, or if she’d grown up like a tree–if she had roots instead of feet.
“I have shown myself,” she said, her voice still coming from all around. “Are you pleased? Is it my companionship you seek?”
“I’m here for the girl,” Tristan said. His voice was almost calm. Only his hands, shaking and empty, held clearly away from his sword hilt, betrayed his fear.
“The girl you seek is called Caelia, and she came to me of her own volition. She is mine.”
“She murdered a nobleman, and must face justice.”
“The justice of men is hollow and lopsided, like a tree with rotting roots. She has come to me for protection, and I have given it. You, however, are protected by no one.”
Tristan pulled a heavy gold bracelet out of his belt pouch. An emerald the size of his thumbnail glinted as he held it out. “I offer this for safe passage.” The king’s wizard had told him that the wood hag could be bribed with jewelry, and he dearly hoped that he hadn’t been misinformed.
The wood hag took the bracelet and slid it onto her wrist. She turned it one way, then another, examining in the weak light. “It is pretty, and I do like gifts. Very well. I will accept this as payment for your life, but I will not give Caelia to you, not for any price,” she said. “Go now, and do not come again.”
The king’s pet wizard, Lanval the Wise, always seemed distracted, like he always had more important matters to be attending to, and he was an insufferable know-it-all.
He was also Tristan’s best friend in the world.
Not, Tristan supposed, that that was saying much.
“She took the bracelet as payment for my life, but she won’t give up the girl,” Tristan said, throwing himself into a chair in Lanval’s book-strewn study. “What should I do now?
Lanval tapped his lips, his eyes distant and thoughtful. Then he shrugged. “I have no idea. The offer of jewelry was my only idea.” He waved toward one of his bookshelves. “I should think any information on the wood hag would be somewhere over there. Feel free to do some research.”
“Why can’t you do the research?” Tristan asked.
The wizard arched an eyebrow at him. “Is justice for Lord Lucin not your assignment?”
“I’m a knight, not a librarian.”
“And I’m not your servant,” Lanval said. “Do your work, I have my own to see to.”
“Some friend you are,” Tristan muttered.
The wizard threw a book at his head. “Thank you, Lanval. If not for you I would have been eaten by a wood hag, Lanval. It was so generous of you to give me that bracelet, Lanval.”
Tristan sighed. “You’re right, of course. Thank you, Lanval.” And so he found himself reading dusty books, searching for references to wood hags.
Eventually, he found an entry in a bestiary, a single, unhelpful paragraph. “Wood hags live deep within old forests. They cannot be harmed within the boundaries of their domain and are fond of feasting upon the flesh of young men. Most are fond of jewelry and trinkets, and are susceptible to bribery.” Tristan stifled the impulse to hurl the tome across the room.
“Anything useful?” Lanval asked.
Tristan just glared at him.
The wizard hummed and tapped his lips. “Perhaps a more hands-on approach would better suit your strengths.”
“What does that mean?” he asked.
“You could go ask the locals what they know.”
There was only one village that bordered the wood hag’s forest. It was where the murderess Caelia had been raised, where Lord Lucin had been killed. Tristan set out for it at first light. He arrived just past midday and settled at a table in the inn for a lunch of cold ham and bread.
Tristan flagged down the innkeeper. “What do you know about the wood hag?”
The woman frowned, crossed her arms over her chest, and kept her eyes on the ground. “Oh, I’ve certainly never seen her myself, sir.”
Tristan suspected that was a lie, but didn’t press her. “Surely you have some local superstitions that you could share.”
She shrugged. “They say that any young men who go into the woods never come back out.”
He also ignored that vague threat, keeping his expression open and friendly. “Do you send young women into the woods, then?”
The woman shrugged. “Sometimes, I suppose.”
“Who goes into the woods most often?” he asked.
“I wouldn’t know,” she said with another frown. “I’ve things to see to.” She hurried away, and Tristan wasn’t able to flag her down again. He ended up leaving the cost of his meal on the table.
Eventually, after hours of shrugs and empty words, he found an old man at the stable who was willing to answer his questions. “Oh, aye, women go into the woods all of the time. Sometimes to forage. Sometimes to just go somewhere we men can’t follow, I reckon. They plot in there, they do. Whispering secrets to each other. I’d burn the whole of it down, if I was you.”
“I’ll keep that in mind. Do you know who among the women I might ask for more information?”
“I suppose you might ask young Felis if she knows anything. She’s the baker’s daughter. She and Caelia were friends, and they used to go into the woods together. I’ve seen them heading in there at all hours, and they’d come out all giggling and flushed. Indecent, it was.”
Tristan thanked the man with a coin, then headed to the baker’s.
The baker was a big man, with arms larger than Tristan’s thighs, and he seemed friendly enough till Tristan asked about his daughter. Then all welcome drained out of him like water from a leaky pot. “My Felis hasn’t done anything wrong,” he said.
“I’m not accusing her of anything. I just want to ask her a few questions.”
“I’ll not allow you to be alone with her.”
“She has nothing to fear from me. I am a knight, not some highwayman.”
“Last stranger who came through was a noble, and I’m sure you know how that ended.”
“It ended with murder. With the nobleman dead,” Tristan said. “The girl didn’t come to any harm.”
The baker arched an eyebrow. “You think young Caelia just up and killed a rich, powerful man for no reason?”
“No reason justifies murder.” Still, Tristan hadn’t ever wondered why the girl had killed the lord.
Her reasons hadn’t mattered.
The baker opened his mouth to reply, but was interrupted by a girl bursting into the room, swinging a basket filled to the brim with mushrooms and blackberries. She was nearly as tall as her father, and shared his strong, heavy build. Her long hair was braided away from her face and dotted with tiny yellow flowers. “I’m back!”
“This here knight would like a word, Felis,” the baker said. “I told him he can ask you his questions here.”
The happiness on the girl’s face crumbled into fear. “Oh. Well.” She placed the basket on a table and folded her arms over her stomach. “Hello, I suppose. What do you want to know?”
Tristan was tired and was discovering that he didn’t like questioning people any more than he enjoyed digging through dusty books. He decided to get straight to the point. “Does the wood hag have any weaknesses?”
“Weaknesses? No, I don’t think so.”
“It is my assignment to seek justice for Lord Lucin. The wood hag is protecting his murderess, so I must slay her in order to bring the girl to justice.”
Felis gaped at him. “You want to kill the wood hag so that you can have my friend hanged, and you think I’ll help you?”
“Your friend killed an innocent man.”
“Lord Lucin was hardly innocent,” Felis muttered.
“What do you mean by that?” Tristan asked.
“What do you think she means, boy?” the baker asked.
Tristan had only ever heard praise for Lord Lucin. But then, he’d only talked about him to lords and knights. No one that he held power over. No vulnerable maidens who might not welcome his attentions. A sliver of doubt wormed its way into his heart. Still, he had a job. And if he completed it, maybe the king would finally grant him some land, as he kept promising.
Tristan sighed. “I am a knight of this realm, requesting your aid. Do you refuse it?”
“I can’t help you, even if I wanted to. I don’t know of any way to harm the wood hag.”
Tristan wished that he didn’t believe her. About any of it.
But he did.
Tristan had never been one to shrink away from unpleasant tasks, so he widened his investigation. What he found sickened him. Lord Lucin’s wife greeted him by flinching when he bowed over her hand. She was a small woman with graying hair and a fading black eye, the old bruise gone yellow at the edges.
None of his subjects seemed to mourn his loss.
Instead of heading straight back to the palace, Tristan visited other lord’s wives, as well. Some were happy to see him, to fill him in on court gossip and feed him tiny sandwiches. Others were cold and formal and sent him on his way as quickly as they could.
But he saw fear lurking behind all of their eyes. They had no trust for him, knight of the realm or not.
He’d always believed that he was working toward a more just world, that by upholding the king’s law he was spreading fairness and peace. He’d believed that the king would grant him a bit of land, and he’d marry and have children and look back on his years as a knight with pride. He’d never seen any reason to question that, before.
Now, he began to doubt.
Some of his fellow knights were married. He had never paid any mind to the wives before. They were quiet. Unassuming.
But now, when he looked, he saw that many were afraid. Bruised. Trapped.
He brought the matter to the queen, who merely sighed and shrugged. “Some men are cruel to the people in their care. But what can we do? Punishing them would be outside our scope, and they would rebel.”
“But surely you can help these ladies, at least. Offer them sanctuary here, with you.”
“It is best not to get involved in other people’s marital problems,” the queen said, and waved her hand to dismiss him.
Tristan went back to Lanval. “Surely, you can fix this,” he said. “With your magic, you’re more powerful than any of these knights or lords. You must be able to enforce some code of conduct.”
“Who am I to say that what they are doing is wrong?” the wizard said.
“They are hurting people!”
The wizard shrugged. “Does the harm they do outweigh the good?”
“What good?”
“They oversee their lands. They keep the peace. They follow our king. They do the same good that you do.”
“But they could do that without hurting anyone.”
“Could they, though? Are you certain of that? Are you willing to gamble the peace of our nation for the sake of a few unhappy women who want you to fix their problems?”
“They haven’t asked me to fix their problems. These women suffer in silence.”
“Then maybe you should follow their example.”
“You can’t believe that,” Tristan said.
Lanval sighed. “Maybe not. But if I used my magic to enforce some code of conduct, wouldn’t that just make me a different kind of monster?”
“Maybe a monster is what we need.”
Lanval laughed. “Oh, Tristan. You don’t mean that.”
Tristan knelt before the king, the man who had required him to vow to uphold the law and protect the people. “How is your assignment progressing?” the king asked.
“I have learned some troubling things about Lord Lucin’s conduct.”
“The man is dead, Tristan. You can’t drag his name through the mud.”
“But he–”
“Have you found a way to bring the murderess to justice?”
“I have not.”
“If you want to maintain your position here, I suggest you keep looking.”
As Tristan left the throne room, he realized that he could no longer imagine settling down on a bit of land and looking back on his service with pride.
Tristan returned to the woods. This time, the path took him to a cave instead of a ravine. Cold air seeped out of the gaping maw gouged into the rock. It smelled like death, inevitable and unchangeable.
“I warned you not to come again,” the wood hag said, appearing out of the shadows.
Tristan drew his sword, and threw it at her feet. “I’m not here for the girl,” he said. “For Caelia. I’m here for you.”
“You cannot harm me,” the wood hag said. “Especially not without your weapon.”
“I am part of a broken system,” he said. “A system that no one else is willing to challenge or change. No one but you.”
“I do not work with men. I eat them.”
“I want to help.”
“What you want does not matter to me.”
“Eat me then,” he said.
The wood hag walked in a slow circle around him. “You truly wish to serve me? To renounce your vows, to turn on all that you held dear?”
“My vows were to justice. But as you said, the justice of men is hollow and lopsided. Like a tree with rotting roots.”
“You would be a monster, if you were to serve me. I would have you ride out and hunt those that you once called your allies. Your friends.”
Tristan thought of his king. Of Lanval. “I know.”
“You really are lonely, aren’t you,” the wood hag said. For the first time, her voice held a note of sympathy.
Tristan nodded.
“Very well.” The wood hag picked up his sword. “You will need this,” she said, pressing the hilt into his hand. Then she ripped his heart out.
The pain of it burned through him. He fell to his knees, sure he was dying. But his fingers closed around his sword hilt, strong and sure.
The wood hag ate half of his heart. The scent of his blood filled the air, and rivulets of crimson trickled down her chin and splattered into the rotting leaves.
Then she held the other half of his heart to his lips. “You may still choose to die, instead,” she said.
Tristan took a bite. His heart was tough and chewy and tasted like iron and power. The wood hag drew sigils on his cheeks with bloody fingers as Tristan chewed, and swallowed, and chewed until his heart was gone.
His bones twisted and his flesh transformed, till his body was a reflection of the wood hag’s. His fingers, still wrapped around the hilt of his sword, looked like roots.
Strong, true roots, with no hint of rot.
“You are mine, now,” the wood hag said. “Would you like to go and carry forth my justice?”
Tristan stood, sword in hand, the taste of his own heart fading on his tongue, ready to do the wood hag’s bidding.
“I would.”
©July 2022, Jamie Lackey
Jamie Lackey’s work has appeared in Daily Science Fiction, Beneath Ceaseless Skies, Apex Magazine, and previously in Swords & Sorcery.