We arrived at the burnt down village about two hours later. The Comte’s men had laid down the bodies in neat rows at the center of the village and covered them with whatever they could find. They did what they could, but I could still see puddles of blood and severed digits all over the trodden ground. The scars left on the tree branches told me of the now-removed nooses with dead weights.

The Comte and the soldiers were gathered in the center of the village. They were offering prayers to the victims of this senseless massacre. Sieur Henry noticed our arrival and came over.

“I am glad Your Ladyship did not see what I saw.”

I sensed the rage in his eyes, but I wasn’t sure; was he mad because the people of the land were dead, or because of the shame that this killing had brought onto the noble hommes? I hoped it was the former.

Henry informed us that the Comte had sent some men to the manor of the Seigneur of Forez. They had just returned with the news of finding the manor burnt down, and the Seigneur and his wife hung dead on a tree. The peaceful sunny day Anna and I had enjoyed up to this point suddenly turned very grim.

We got off our horse and donkey and pretended to pray. After that, I looked around the burnt remains of the village. There was a pair of sparrows perched on the charred frame of a small house, which probably was the home of a family of… hang on, something wasn’t quite right. I looked at the dead shapes on the ground, and counted one, two, three…

‘What are you doing?’ Anna tapped on my shoulder and asked.

“Would you count the houses, please? Houses only. No barns and storages. Only where you actually live and sleep.”

She shrugged and started counting the remains of the structures in the village. I went back to counting the dead bodies as best as I could; some were not whole.

“What do you count, my lad?” Henry asked.

Anna came back with the number. Twenty-one buildings.

“Sieur, it does not add up.”

“What doesn’t?” Victor joined in, curious.

I waved my hand over the rows of the dead bodies.

“I count seventeen… nineteen at the most remains. But there are… were twenty-one houses in this place.”

The Sieur and the Vicomte exchanged glances. Then they both started shouting orders to the men.

It took the men a while to finally find a trace. The surviving village folks had mostly walked on solid grounds, but at some point, they had to cross a patch of mud, which by now had dried up under two days of sunny weather. It was found about a mile east of the village, towards the thick forest that enveloped the southeastern border of the kingdom. The footprints were small, and the strides were not long, but the now-dried mud splashed indicated people were running.

“It won’t be necessary for us to go out of our way to look for them. Surely they would come back.” One of the Comte’s men said.

“No.” The Comte shook his head, “Do you know what happens to the peasants who have lost everything and their Seigneur is dead? They become bandits. Bandits are made, not born,” he looked around his men with a determined face, “I must show them my face. My banner. I must tell them. When Comte d’Armas says there is tomorrow, there WILL be a tomorrow for the people of Forez!”

The evening was approaching as we marched closer to the edge of the forest. The men were silent, studying the ground in the hope of finding further traces. We had passed a lone hut on the way, about four miles from the village. It was a modest hut, and whoever lived there was living a very simple life. There was nobody inside, but we found many footprints around the area. Clearly, the villagers had stopped here for a moment.

Anna kept to herself, but something was bothering her. She continuously shuffled on her horse mount uncomfortably and occasionally groaned softly. Her face was pale, and she was sweating. When asked what was wrong, she simply shook her head and blushed a bit. I left her at that, thinking the scene at the village must have upset her somewhat. I turned around and checked the three dozens of fish skewered by arrows hanging by the side of Slinky’s hind. Ever since we entered the village, the mood had been so grim I had had not the chance to show off the fish to the men. It would have been incredibly inappropriate to flash them with a gloating face amidst all that deaths and destruction.

Soon we reached the forest. The men hesitated at the edge, afraid of going in further.

“My Lord Comte, further in is the land of the Treedwellers.” The men informed their lord, worried.

I had never seen a Treedweller, but I had heard about them. Some weird folks with thick bark-like skins and moss-like hairs, and the eyes that can see in the dark, and the ears that can hear your footsteps apart from all the noises in the woods. They were said to be very territorial and would hunt down any outsider who ventured too deep into the forest.

The Comte gritted his teeth. He seemed not wanting to risk his men to whatever threat the Treedwellers posed. But I could see he was tormented. All the signs indicated the villagers had run to the forest. To what end, though?

The marching progression had by now fully stopped and formed into a row with the Comte in the middle, facing the thick wall of trees. The shadows cast by the tall trunks hindered us from seeing any further in. For some reason, the pair of sparrows had followed us all the way from the village, and they now sat on a branch, watching us with curious eyes. I had this odd feeling they were watching me in particular, but I brushed it off as just some meaningless coincidence.

“People of Forez!” The Comte shouted as loud as he could. “I am Marco, the count of Armas. Come out from your hiding, for I have driven Baron Hugo away! You are safe!”

There was no response.

“Come out-” The Comte trailed off as the sparrows suddenly took off, chirping, flying into the forest. And then, slowly, shapes appeared in the shadows. Arrows. Many arrows. Pointing our way. The men took steps back. In unison, the shapes moved forward slightly, and the hands holding the bows become visible. Yellowish bark-like skins; the Treedwellers.

“Greetings, creatures of the forest!” The Comte shouted. I was immensely impressed by this old man. He showed no sign of fear. “I have come with no ill intentions towards you. I leave you in peace and hope you kindly do so in return. Do tell me though. Have you seen my people?”

They did not answer, but the hands that were holding the bows made the way. A frail old woman of the humankind in rags appeared out of the depth of the shadows. She took her time walking slowly and came to a stop several yards out of the forest. She moved her eyes along the rows of the Comte’s men, looking at each of us.

“Lads, who among ye is the Reborn?”

I heard Anna gasp. A sudden chill ran down my spine. The old woman kept looking, her eyes squinting.

“Reborn? Born again?”

“Woman, do you mean René?” asked Victor. Many heads turned my way.

“I know not what I mean. Marion has asked for the Reborn.” The old woman shrugged. I heard the men murmuring in the shared confusion. Who the heck was Marion?

And then the sparrows flew out of the forest. They sped across the field and pecked my head. Trying to shoo them away, I turned to Anna for her help, but alas, she was pale, almost twitching, hanging onto Lilly’s neck. Something was seriously wrong with her, and she clearly wasn’t in the condition to help me.

“Alright! Alright! It’s me. I’m René!”

###

The old woman led us into the forest. We left the horses behind and were walking single file on a narrow trail that I was sure if we had not had the old grandma and the Treedwellers guiding us, we would never have found it. The Treedwellers silently walked alongside, taking long strides between the trees. Apart from the skin and the patch of hairs, they looked just like us humans. Dressed in hemp-like shirts and trousers, carrying longbows and spears. But they were tall. Really tall. Maybe seven feet or so.

Anna was not well. She was having trouble walking, so I tried carrying her on my back, but then she twitched and moaned in pain. I eventually ended up princess-carrying the girl. I couldn’t figure out what was wrong with her, and she refused to tell me. I was getting exhausted thanks to the weight of the armor she had on her. I was on the verge of collapse when the progression stopped. We came to a large clearing, and the ground was covered with a soft bed of moss, and there was a small stream running in the middle. The trees, though, had huts on their incredibly thick branches. And from the huts, humans, mostly women and children, and many Treedwellers were looking down at us through the windows and open doors.

In the middle of the clearing, there was a group of several Treedwellers with bark skins so thick and old it was evident they were the elders. A tall human woman in olive-green hemp robe stood among them. She looked somewhere around the mid-thirties, thin build with long unkempt black hair. But the most striking feature was the wide strip of dark brown linen that blindfolded her eyes and covered her ears in multiple wraps. She had her mouth open as if in awe, and the sparrows landed on her shoulders and chirped away. The strange woman moved her face in my direction as if she could see me.

“The friends of woods have told me of your coming.”

I sat Anna down on a rock, but she sprang up with a yelp and opted to stand and lean onto me. Supporting her, I tried to bow to the strange woman. The Comte and his men were watching the scene with curious eyes.

“René. Of the Tavern. You have asked for me?”

The woman laughed out loud.

“Your parents literally named you a Reborn?”

“They had lost children to illness. My name conveys their wish that I carry over.”

The laughter stopped. It was apparent she felt awkward; she tried to say something, stopped, then something different, but thought better about it, and so on. This was someone who didn’t deal with people very well. Finally, she had decided to skip the part about my name and move onto the next topic.

“What is it that you carry?”

“What do you-”

“You know what I mean!” The woman snapped. She was trembling. “It’s so blinding like hundred suns I have to cover my eyes. It’s so deafening like thousand trumpets I have to cover my ears. It’s so suffocating like a waterfall of fog I can’t breathe. I could feel it from miles away! Answer me, Reborn! What do you carry?!”

One of the Treedwellers put his hand on the woman’s shoulder to calm her down. He spoke in a language I had never heard before, but it was beautiful as if an old oak tree was singing. The woman protested initially, but after some more discussion, she quieted down. The elders and the woman formed a ring and started discussing something, occasionally throwing looks in my direction.

At this point, Anna finally had had it enough.

“Nrrrggh!” She squirmed in agony.

“What’s wrong? Tell me already!” I yelled at her. She put a finger in front of her lips, indicating that she wanted me to use the sign language, so people did not hear what we were talking about.

‘It burns, and it itches!’ she was saying.

‘Where? What burns?’

‘My bottom!’

‘What? Why?’

I noticed people looking at us with great interest. The Treedwellers also had stopped their discussion and were looking at Anna and me. Good that nobody could understand what we were talking about; Of course they couldn’t, for it was Anna and me who had made the language from scratch.

‘Your bottom? What have you done? Since when?’

‘I think it is the leaves that I used to wipe.’

‘What leaves?’

‘Those!’

She pointed at some shrub at the edge of the clearing. Those seemed to be quite common in this area.

‘And your bottom itches and burns?’ I asked.

“Ahem!” Somebody coughed. I looked around and noticed people were trying to look away, whistling. Even the Treedwellers. Then I realized the limitation of our sign language. Even though we were not uttering words and sentences, we actively pointed at our asses, did wiping motions, scratched our asses, and pointed at the shrub. I heard suppressed giggling from the huts above our heads.

“Young lady,” the blindfolded woman spoke to Anna, she herself trying not to laugh, “I don’t know who you are, but I know you need some ointment.”

She took Anna by hand and dragged her towards a crowd of giggling Treedweller women. She turned her head in my direction.

“After I’m done with her, René, you will tell me what brought you here.” Her face turned to the Comte. “You are all our guests. Have a rest. Feel at home.” Then, dragging Anna, she disappeared behind the wall of tall tree people. The survivors of the village and the Treedwellers swarmed us with foods and meads.