Vedasto's Curse: The Challenge

For part 1: https://vocal.media/fiction/vedasto-s-curse-the-champion

~~~

Chiara's shins splinter with each heave of the cart uphill. Her companion pushed the wooden cart ahead of him for 9 days until they reached the edge of Gois Forest, where his stoicism was beaten down by the uneven track. Each day, Lorenzo collects scars to add to the jagged pink lines already adorning his skin. The same wounds decorate her father's arms. The boy suffered hard labour to build a new road out of their hometown, so it is no wonder she hasn't heard a word of complaint from him on their journey so far.

Now her muscles are searing with pain, and her bones are ready to snap; scars beneath the skin. In a flash, her grip slips on the handles and the cart flies back, smashing into her shoulders. The silence of the forest is pierced by her startled cry. She braces but her foot loses traction on the tree root and the heavy cart forces her backwards, throwing her down the steep incline straight into a tree trunk. The impact seizes her chest and she can’t breathe. Cracked pink lips gape soundlessly, unable to expel sound or intake air. Tears well in her eyes and streak down her sunburnt cheeks. A sudden coldness steals into her arm and she quickly realises her fingers are slick with blood.

“Chiara, where are you?” Lorenzo’s voice isn’t far away. “Chiara!”

Lorenzo rushes to her side. His thumb and forefinger pinch her chin and tilt her head up to meet his stare. She expects anger, but his eyes are wide with fear.

“What were you thinking? I told you I could carry the coins.”

A weak cough is all she can manage before she’s finally able to drag in a ragged, desperate breath. “It hurts!”

Lorenzo’s lips press into a thin line as he studies her wounded arm. She can’t bring herself to look down at the mess she has made. Her companion leaps across to the overturned cart, digging through a sack to retrieve one of his shirts. While he works on tying up her wounds she creates a mantra to get through the pain.

“It’s for my brother. It’s for my father. It's for me. It's for you.” She hisses through gritted teeth.

“Shh, I know it is.”

“It’s for my brother. It’s for my father. It’s for me. It’s for you.”

“It’s for my mother,” he adds. “It’s for our neighbours. It’s for your brother. It’s for your father. It’s for you. It's for me. It's for Pletora.”

Lorenzo continues the mantra while he tries to staunch her bleeding, intently focused on Chiara. He tries to take on the same reverberation in his tone which the lady by Vedasto's fountain had, which soothed and fascinated him and imbued him with strength.

“Can you move?”

Chiara lifts her shoulders and bends her knees. “Yes, I can.”

Lorenzo's thumb sweeps the tears from her eyes. Chiara’s father would have admonished her for crying, but then again, maybe he would be proud of her strength. Such strength dwindles as the shock wears off, and all that soon remains is a searing pain in her arm.

“I could have taken the cart when I woke up. Why didn't you wait for me?”

The flash of anger in her eyes isn't missed. “It’s for my brother. It’s for my father. It’s for me. It’s for you.”

Lorenzo nods, half expecting her answer. “I understand. We bear a heavy responsibility.”

“You won't let me bear it with you,” she says.

“I was trying to protect you.” His brown eyes dart to her dainty wrists still wet with her blood. “But I can see I've done more harm than good. Will you forgive me?”

He shoulders her failure as if it is his own. While he initially recognised he shares a destiny with her, he did everything he could to spare her small frame from the burden of the cart.

“Don't be silly. I can't forgive you when you have done nothing wrong. I suppose now you will have no choice but to let me carry my half.”

Lorenzo follows her dismal gaze toward the cart missing a wheel and tries his best to laugh and lighten the mood.

“Did you think I wouldn't plan for some repairs along the way? Give me an hour.”

Chiara sifts through her bounty from yesterday's foraging and finds galdow root. Chewing on the dry, tough substance dulls the pain and clears her head. It thankfully also makes her forget her hunger.

“We are only at the base of Mount Juyper. How many days’ hike do we have to get across to the valley?”

“I’m not sure. This is the farthest I've been from home before.”

“Really? I am surprised. You seem so much … more… than the people from home. Like you know more. I guessed you were well travelled.”

“I've never left home. My family was sustained well enough in town, and didn't have to go elsewhere for trade. Before the sickness, my family were bakers.”

“Near the library?”

Lorenzo nods whilst he hammers nails into a spare wooden board. “Yes. Were you a customer?”

“My mother took me there early in the mornings but I never saw you there.”

Chiara watches as the boy fixes the wheel to the cart again, albeit slightly unlevel. His fingers poke at his pocket and Chiara frowns. “Do you think she knows what we are up to out here?”

“I don't know. She might, but I don't think she is a full Goddess like Pletora. I am not sure if she knows all and sees all. She is cursed, after all.”

“Can I see her token again?”

Lorenzo hesitates, a desire to protect the coin freezing his limbs. Shared responsibility, he thinks.

By the time he snaps out of his reverie, Chiara has limped to his side with an expectant hand held out.

The coin feels heavy in her palm. She studies it once again, squinting at the inscription like Lorenzo does by the fire every night. He never notices her watching him; he is so enamoured by the coin.

“I still can't make sense of the name.” Lorenzo sounds disappointed.

“Maybe she isn’t known by the mind, and instead known by the heart. Something close, yet far away. Felt, but unsaid.”

“What made you think that?” Lorenzo tilts his head, studying Chiara’s expression.

“Oh.” She blushes. “Well, she is so beautiful… The image of her on the coin really doesn’t capture her essence, you know. I guess I remembered the fairytales my mother told me as a girl. This lady is like that. An element from a fairytale. Like love.”

The harder Lorenzo tries to chase Chiara’s concept, the farther away it gets. Searching for a safer pathway for the cart does little to quell the irritation gnawing at him. “I don’t understand.”

“She could be like love,” Chiara says plainly. “Love can’t be described, can it?”

“Love is loss. It’s ache, it’s betrayal… It’s fear.”

“Ren, I understand why you would say that. You have lost half your family and you’re only sixteen, but that’s a very limited understanding, a human understanding.”

He huffs, frustrated. “I just don’t get it. You’re probably right, though. A goddess of love, perhaps?”

They find a smoother trail up the mountainside nearby and their journey resumes with Lorenzo pushing the cart up the steepest points first. The young girl focuses on her footing for fear of slipping a second time today. It isn’t until the slope evens out that she puts thought into a response.

“The lady might have loved Vedasto, you know.”

Lorenzo grunts as the cart resists going over the next bundle of tree roots. Chiara notices the difference in his strength already from the lack of food. She swats Lorenzo’s hand away from one handle and together they throw their body weight against the cart, forcing it up over the hurdle.

“She hates Vedasto.”

“You just said love is betrayal, and loss, and ache. Maybe she isn’t angry, but hurting. Betrayal from someone you love can be a burn which doesn’t heal, don’t you think?”

Her words are starting to make an alarming amount of sense to Lorenzo, like he is finally beginning to understand how to say a greeting in another language. It is a simple concept, but hard to grasp.

“You’re too wise for your age, sometimes Chiara.”

“It’s all about perspective.”

The lady also spoke about perspective at Vedasto’s fountain, Lorenzo recalled. It’s a problem with the eyes, not the picture, she had said.

The following hours are spent heaving the cart up the slopes and over the forest floor. While Chiara tries to hide her right arm’s bandages soaked in blood from Lorenzo, he hides the raw and broken skin of his palms.

Night falls upon the forest too fast for the couple to prepare a campfire before they are plunged into darkness. Perched on the ridge of the mountain, Chiara gazes at the few stars glittering above the dark canopy but the wide world is still far beyond her reach. Pain lances her right arm again, but she has no more herbs to numb the feeling. After a while, a small fire crackles to life as Lorenzo tends carefully to fuel it. His stomach twists with hunger. They have nothing left to eat. A swig of water won’t fill his belly, but it is all they can spare until they reach the river.

The light of the flames shine in Chiara’s tears.

“Is it the pain? What can I do to help?”

“It’s not my arm. I just - I’m worried. We’ve been away so long already. What if by the time we get back -”

“Don’t say it,” Lorenzo snaps. The same thoughts have plagued his mind, but he refuses to let Chiara dwell on it. “Don’t you dare say it. Our families will be fine. Just a few more days, I promise it will get better.”

She swallows the lump in her throat and nods. His passion and steadfast dedication will bring them to success. It has to. What hope will they have left if they fail?

~~~

By late afternoon the next day, they cross into Facille Valley. Their thoughts are scattered from hunger, unfocused, so they barely talk for the day. Lorenzo feels himself drift from his set path as time crawls onward. The last time he thought he found food, Chiara screamed at him to drop it. Poisonous, apparently. Her shrill panic motivated him earlier, but already his energy is dwindling into nothing.

Without food, they won’t make it. How many days has it been… three?

“I can’t,” Chiara says breathlessly. “We need to stop. Please.”

For a change, he doesn’t have the willpower to push on. They collapse together on the ground, exhaustion set into their bones.

A short rest turns into Lorenzo waking to darkness, shivering, a low growl rippling through the air. It raises the hair on his arms and stops his breath. The deep rumble sounds close, like he could reach out and touch its source. It terrifies him, paralyses him.

His eyes flick about the trees above, then across to the cart, and over to a thick cropping of trees, but he sees nothing.

Whatever it is, Lorenzo knows it sees them. Everything in his body is telling him to run, some basic survival instinct knows what is out there, even if he himself doesn’t.

“Chiara,” he whispers, shaking her leg. “Wake up.”

She moves, but doesn’t say anything. Lorenzo is frozen beside her, a tense hand squeezing her thigh while he looks for the predator. Chiara hears it before Lorenzo can see it; padded steps circle them from the left.

“We won’t be able to outrun it. Do you think it’s a panther? Lorenzo, what do we do?”

He expected they may have to hunt to survive, but he didn’t expect to be hunted. They have little in their arsenal to combat the unseen predator.

“There is a dagger in my bag. I will get it. You should crawl under the cart and stay there.”

The pair move as quietly as they can, wide eyes searching the dark for their stalker. It mirrors their steps, breathes the same crisp night air, and judges the moment in a precise and practised way. It knows their moves before they make them; the predictability of prey.

Lorenzo finds the hilt of his knife but it does little to reassure him of survival. With Chiara sheltered beneath the cart, he stands to attention, ready to meet the beast. It’s cold, but his cheeks are on fire. His heartbeat hammers in his ears and his breathing is short and sharp. He makes more noise than the predator.

Time passes, and the darkness reveals nothing. Chiara’s startled gasp is all the warning Lorenzo has before her scream rips through the valley and tears open his heart. He leaps around the cart to see a black hulking mass with toothy maw clamped onto Chiara’s leg, dragging her out from her shelter.

“Ren, help!” She cries as her small fists beat the nose of the creature but her cries turn to shrieks of pain as it bites down harder and fangs tear at her flesh as she is tugged further out from the cart.

With spring-loaded muscles Lorenzo launches at the animal without thinking, like a primal switch is flicked from defence to attack and all concern for his safety disappears. Chiara’s life is the only thing which matters to him now.

His fist grabs a chunk of fur to anchor him to the beast. The creature arches its back to shake Lorenzo, and with that he understands its shape enough to plunge the knife into its ribcage.

A guttural sound leaves its mouth as its bloody teeth release Chiara, but it still has strength. Lorenzo stabs it twice more before it collapses under his weight.

Lorenzo scrambles to his companion. Her breaths are shaky and fast, her body is quivering. His heart sinks as his fingers touch something wet. Blood. Pressing the material of his shirt to the wound buys him time.

“I’m d-done,” she stammers. “You will need to l-l-leave me here, n-now.”

“I will never leave you. If this were reversed, I know you would refuse to leave me behind, too, so don’t fight me on this.”

The boy is thankful to the darkness which covers his grief-stricken expression from her. His failure to protect her feels like the world is preparing him to face the truth: he won’t save everyone. The quest to redeem his ancestors is a noble one, but deep down he knows that he isn’t worthy of it.

“You saved me. Thank you.”

The words are a gift. Lorenzo blinks the tears from his eyes and grits his teeth. Even if he fails, to have saved one life is enough.

“It’s for my… my brother. It’s f-for my father. It’s for me. It’s for you, Ren.”

Inspired by her unwavering dedication, Lorenzo continues the mantra while he plans their way forward.