Uncharted

[Caira Ayryn]

Part Four: Blind Bandit, the Sheriff, and Merik

After a long time in the parched desert, they came upon the dust covered mountains hollowed with crevasses and niches where the shadows could easily hide and evil dwelled within each of the hidden caves. There were whispered echoes to be heard, carried from the chasms before they had even entered the shade cast by the height of the stone. As they entered a large valley, where it looked as though it had once been set by a rushing river and upon a corner they came upon a large deadened tree, with six skeletons on it. Each hung by a limp noose around their boney necks. One of the corpses still had some flesh hanging off of it and as proof of a hyena’s attempt for food, a leg had been torn off.

Taking in the scene of the sun-scathed skeletons, an eerie chill tingled her spine though the day was ripe with heat. Each skull adorned with bones that hung below, turned to watch her, with necks revolving as an owl’s, the vertebrae cracked past a certain degree. Her eyes swiftly went to Merik for answers, “They are.. dead... right?”

Merik averted her eyes with a repressed sigh, “Sometimes they die, other times the necks don’t break. Their spirits are bound by an enchanted noose.”

A frown weighed on the corners of the female’s lips, “So they...”

“They, the bandits, do it to show that this is the valley of torture. Their land. Unwelcome to not only the Coruscant, but their enemies and anyone that doesn’t belong. Once intruders wrong them, they put them there and the cannibals find them and don’t bother to kill them as they-” Merik stopped himself, after all, he was talking to a lady though he could care less about her knighthood. Caira, whom trembled with disgust looked as though she found the words less than comforting. “Its a horrible process.” he concluded. “Worse than hangin’ they don’t bother to finish the job, sometimes there’s a worse fate, but not much trumps this.” he pointed to the skeleton and the cicerone continued his history.

“The name of this dead tree is the Skeleton’s Hollow, though some call it plainly the Hang’d Tree o’ Destiny. Its rather dark.” He commented, not looking at the newest member of the family, the one that had lost a leg and caused a fresher scent of death to waft through the arid desert and into their noses.

The chattering of a jaw from the skeleton resembled the phonetic clatter of laughter that triturated against its jawbone. Her eyes widened as she realized that the skeletons were alive bewitched with their own spirits as Merik had said. His words were sadly true.

“He-he-he.”

It seemed to laugh, one that was on the highest limb, slightly blackened from decay and adorned with a distinguished colorfully woven sombrero separating it from the rest. From its mouth a lighter voice mocked them with a somber song, spoken however, like a poem.


“Through the valley you must seek,
To venture onward in your week,
But be warned, as to the weak,
You must pass this path of screak,
And unto death you must eke.

If you choose, of all, to wreak
In the ides of blood, you must streak.
Whence chomping bones begin to creeeak,
Within shadows the predacious creek.
Be not careless not to let leak,
The filmy blood that you call fleece,
In the remnants of this creek,
And let loose.., Your terror-filled shriek.

As if you do, that of the wraiths will no longer lay inertly meek.
And no matter how fast ye’ flee, no man can abscond, no matter how sleek!
In your last terrified squeak,
Do not blame me for the very death, in which you will reek.”

“That last part didn’t rhyme.” Caira said to the skeleton, which offered her then, a maddened sardonic laugh.

“It doesn’t have to, it usually prevails to have the same effect.” Merik cringed having hoped to not have heard the familiar poem.

Caira leaned her head near his shoulder and cupped her hand, “How come we are going this way if there is such real danger?”

“Trust me when I say, that this is sadly, the best way.”