Chapter 08

Thwack! Thud! Thwack! Thud! Thwack! Thud!

The rhythmic sound of Beetle’s axe striking the tree was like a metronome, each swing striking the tree and gouging out another small chunk of the wide trunk of the magickal tree he had been ordered to cut down with the magickally weighted and dulled axe. While Beetle was hard at work and more than halfway done with his tree, I was still working on the first quarter of mine. Gasping for air and dripping sweat I leaned on the handle of my axe, similarly enchanted, its head resting on the soil. After a moment I take one more deep breath and raise the axe again. This thing must weigh sixty pounds easily! With a grunt and a gasp, I swing it at the gouge I had made in the side of my own tree. My aim is poor and the tool heavy, so I miss my mark and strike the tree several inches high, it does not cut the tree so much as break a few splinters from the bark and leave an indentation where the tree had been struck. It was going to be a very long night trying to fell this tree and all the while Beetle continued on without pausing.

Thwack! Thud! Thwack! Thud!

Time passed. After a couple of hours Beetle managed to fell his tree and then began using the axe to break a portion of it into firewood before putting the tool away and leaving me to my task. “Hey!” I called out to him “Can you help me with this? It’s going to take me all night to finish at this rate!” Beetle continued on without looking back and retorted that I needed the exercise because I was still far too weak. Cursing the old man, I kept chopping at the tree until at long last I heard the sound I had been so desperate to hear. CRRRRREEEEAAAAAAK! The tree began to fall away from the house and just like that it was over. The axe in my hands fell to the ground with a thud where it lay in an indent caused by its weight. A moment later there was a second thud as my body struck the ground beside the axe handle, completely exhausted from the day’s exertions.

After a few minutes of lying there I began to realize how hungry I was, having not eaten since the thin gruel given to me before being thrown into the cellar, the same as I had been eating since coming to this world, and my stomach began to growl loudly. Looking towards the house I saw that there was a light on in the window, but I did not dare go inside to ask for food. Despairing at the thought of not being able to eat tonight, tears began to form in the corners of my eyes as I lay there completely exhausted and defeated. I now understood why my master assigned this task to those who displeased him. The manual, back-breaking labor of working on starvation rations with a magickally weighted tool had broken my will in a way that beatings and verbal abuse had not been able to.

As I lay with tears forming in my eyes and considering if I would not be better off finding a way to die than trying to continue in this fucked up life I had been dealt by the incompetent lazy God, I began to notice a very enticing smell on the air. I couldn’t quite place it, but it was savory and delicious and had to be some kind of meat being cooked over a fire. I quickly wiped my eyes and dragged myself to my feet, creeping towards the source of the smell quietly so as not to disturb the owner of the meal.

When I reached the source of the smell, I found Beetle with a small fire, disguised from sight from the main house and roasting the rodent carcasses over it on sticks he had trimmed into skewers. It looked like he had taken the time to gut them and remove the heads and feet but for the rest he had simply left the skin and fur attached and allowed the fire to burn them off. Seeing that it was Beetle who was producing the smell and what it was that he was cooking I almost turned away after but while I was considering whether to approach or not my stomach growled loudly again and announced my presence to Beetle who looked up with a start but then calmed upon seeing me.

“Come sit and eat.” He said to me across the small fire, “After all of the manual labor today you will need to eat if you want to maintain your strength and survive here.” So saying, he passed me what looked like a large rat that had been skewered and roasted. Grimacing I grabbed the end of the stick on which it was skewered and brought it close to my face to smell. Here again was that intoxicating aroma that had so drawn me before and despite myself, I found myself taking a hesitant bite of the offered rodent. Hot juices exploded in my mouth as I took a bite off of the shoulder. As disgusting as the thought was to my mind that had been cultured in the United States of modern earth, my body was starved and the fats and proteins that were in my mouth and sliding down my throat were necessary fuel that my body did not want to lose out on. Unable to stop myself I had soon devoured the entire rat, picking the bones for any missed bits and even took a squirrel from Beetle when he offered it seeing that I had finished with the rat he had given me to start with.

As soon as my shrunken stomach had been filled with the rich protein and fat from the ‘game’ that Beetle had caught he quickly devoured the rest of what he had left, leaving nothing for later. Afterwards he buried the fire and bones and removed all traces of our impromptu meal. “Don’t tell anyone about this or we will not be able to eat meat again in the future.” These words came out of Beetle’s mouth and then not waiting for a response he walked away towards the back of the house and through the door that led to the basement. I went to follow him, not wanting Silvan to think that I was trying to run if he went to lock us in and I was not there. Yup, just as dark as I remember down here. Shit, it’s going to be another long night.