It had been the talk of the town, the collapse of that bridge. The elderly had said that it was no good to kill the Troll, but the baron had seen fit, in his infinite wisdom and great piety, to see to it that not only the Troll but her husband and their three children were all beheaded and had their heads put on pikes. The bridge was left alone by the baron's men, as there was no tax or toll from which to pay for its upkeep, and so it eventually collapsed. Adding on to the misfortune of this, it just so happened to collapse from under the tallyman, and many spoke of how it was a stroke of good luck no good man or woman had died, but many more spoke of how it spelled trouble for all of them, since the tallyman had gone down with coin meant for the baron, and the baron would have his due.
 
This was what led to the second tax being gathered that year. The baron ordered, among other things, that "loiterers and lollygaggers" had to be rounded up from the towns and put to heavy labour. Indentured servitude of five years for anyone who had a family name registered with the magistrate or the Church, a lifetime for anyone without one. Such was the authority of the baron, and many praised his infinite wisdom and great piety.
Willis had no other name than Willis, it was all he had ever known to be his name, apart from whatever insult had been flung at him, and he knew not if it was a first or a last name. He was fourteen years old and could neither read or write his name, or anything else for that matter.
The previous winter he had narrowly avoided getting caught stealing a scarf from a clothesline, and he had thought of a career as a thief, up until when he saw some thieves put into cages and left to rot at the gates. After that he had been content to simply pick up things people dropped without returning them.
To keep himself fed, Willis gathered firewood at the nearby woods, that is, sticks and such, and carried heavy things like toolboxes for people who knew proper crafts. Nobody accepted him as an apprentice though, since he had no family ties.
The only home he knew was Nan's place. Nan was an old woman who had gone quite blind from cataracts by this point, but she had still seen something when she bought him from the orphanage to be raised as a servant. The old woman was much too weak to properly beat him, so Willis had gladly embraced his this new life. That had been seven years ago, though, and Willis had grown bitter because of the students Nan, a well known medicine woman, had taken. Her knowledge of herbs and their properties, and quite possibly witchcraft, was being imparted to several girls, and two from the neighbourhood and one Nan adopted from the orphanage, leaving Willis without an education in anything.
 
The census that year had tested Willis and included him in the bowcount, meaning he was required to pay tax, which, by coincidence or design, had just so happened to have been the exact same amount as all of his life savings. The second tax demanded that year was, of course, impossible to pay for him, and so he was deemed a "loiterer and lollygagger", leading to him being registered as a peon.
Willis shed no tears for the loss of his home and caretaker. What he had lamented instead had been those he had called his friends, other youths who he had spent his time with, many younger and many older than him, but all up to no good and without great expectations. Most everyone in that group had called one another by a nicknames or varying terms degradation, and Willis couldn't remember the name of a single one among them when he bid them goodbye in his mind.
Another name he couldn't bring to the forefront of his memory was the name of the town he had lived those years. Everyone who lived in it simply called it the town, and outsiders never mingled with the likes of him. He knew the names of many a town and even city where his former companions had intended to go to become gentlemen of leisure once they became rich, but he never saw any of them.
 
The new peons were marched with armed escort far away from this town along roads less travelled by, and eventually they were joined by others dragged from their homes elsewhere. The further they went, the wilder the territory became, and the more of them there were. It took a week or two for them to finally reach their destination, which was nowhere in particular.
The baron had decreed that the peons be sent somewhere to clear a forest and turn it into productive farmland. This they were told to do with no foremen or organization.
 
It was difficult to do, as one might imagine. The peons tried to make shelters for themselves in those woods out of branches and leaves as nothing else was available to them, they gathered berries and roots and mushrooms to feed themselves and many decided to simply leave after the guards had gone back to where they had gone.
These fools were returned some time later, beaten and bruised and shackles on their ankles.
After a while the peons managed to borrow tools from their neighbours, of course after making contracts about giving a small percentage of their annual yield to pay for their rent once they began to produce something. The barony also made them sign a contract where the trees they cut down would be traded for food and clothing. These deals seemed fairly reasonable at first, though the food was of low quality and the clothing was simply old rags they were expected to make use of however they saw fit.
It took the peons six months to cut down the trees in the area they had been given, and as winter came, their shelters were poorly built and many suffered from frostbite and grew sickly. The first graves were dug and marked.
Come spring, work resumed and they spent a great deal of time, a month or two, getting rid of all the stumps and roots the trees had left behind, as well as beginning to remove large stones and rocks from the earth, as it was common knowledge this was needed for farming to be successful.
That midsummer they held a small celebration, as there was a huge clearing before them. Some of the more enthusiastic among them signed new contracts with the barony, agreeing to give a certain percentage of the yield of their crops after they began to produce in return for masons to make proper wells. A total of eight wells were dug.
Better shelters were also being constructed, and many were feeling optimistic. They had changed their surroundings more than any had ever expected to be possible, and the idea of growing your own food and being lords over the land grew more and more appealing to many, and Willis was among them. He had hated the heavy labour at first, but he could not deny that it felt good to see the world around you being bent to your will in this manner.
As they had sold the lumber they had not already put to use, they worried as to where their meals would come from, and another contract with the barony was signed, promising a certain percentage of the yield of their crops once they began to produce in return for a supply of food up until they were able to feed themselves.
It was around this time many began to turn to the question of actually growing crops and wondering as to whether or not anyone among them knew how it worked, and it was decided that such worries were better left for next year, now was the time to work on habitable houses. So it was done that they began to split themselves into groups, as in such a long time as they had spent together it had been inevitable that those with the capacity for leadership took the roles of leaders, and around them gathered followers. Eight of these groups were formed, each one with their own well, and so they began to work on building log cabins and outhouses and the some few even drew plans in their heads about saunas. Whenever tools or materials were found to be lacking, the neighbours were visited again, and new contracts were drawn with them.
Winter came again, and far fewer suffered from frostbite, but some graves still had to be dug.
 
They finished clearing their fields that spring, and began to apply themselves towards obtaining seeds. This cost them more than anything ever before. Their first harvest was mixed with weeds and rather poor, but it was a harvest, and many wanted to make their own bread for the first time in their lives, leaving for the nearest mill. The wiser ones simply made porridge out of theirs.
Willis was among those who went to the mill. The ones who had built it of course held priority in its use, and the new peons had to wait their turn. Willis caught pneumonia from being forced to wait outside in the rain, and couldn't pull his weight for two weeks.
They had enough time for another harvest that year, and so they made another expensive contract, believing firmly that they would soon be paying off all their debts.
Frost claimed that harvest.
 
Another winter passed, and only one grave was dug. The houses had become quite inhabitable now. Wishing to make up for their losses, they all planted their crops as early as they could, and frost claimed them again.
The only successful harvest that year did them little good. One tenth was taken by the church. Four tenths were taken by the crown. Another three tenths was taken by the barony. A total of fifteen hundredths were taken by their neighbours. The rest they sold to get their own tools.
Willis turned seventeen that year, and he could hardly remember what life had been like before he came here.
That winter they managed to produce the first batch of beer. It was strong and tasted horrible, but Willis drank his fill until he vomited. The people had little cause to celebrate that year, but they all got drunk.
The first children were born the next spring. That year their harvests were not lost to frost, and there was much rejoicing, for this was the first year they could all eat food they had grown and made themselves.
This year there came men from the barony, speaking of the obligation all men of age had to their king and country. With pitchforks for spears the young men, including Willis, were made to march back and forth on roads and to practice keeping pace and to stop and turn when ordered. This to some felt a waste of time, as there was always work to be done at the farms, but for four weeks they were kept from the work they had been bound to do for the rest of their lives, and some welcomed the change that this militia training brought.
Four of the six children born perished during the winter.
 
In the year Willis turned nineteen, there came many a craftsman and merchant to offer their services, and many a piece of furniture and bundle of cloth was bought. The peons were now organized into the eight distinct groups so firmly that when actual money was obtained, the groups stashed theirs separately from their neighbours.
What was the worst though was Willis knowing some of the craftsmen. Those who had a mere five years ago been his companions in the town which he could no longer name were now grown men practicing trades, they had skills with which to earn a far more comfortable living than he could hope for, and their bounds of friendship remained unbroken. Willis recognized them, and he knew in his heart that they recognized him as well, but they looked upon him with pity and pretended not to know him.
This year Willis drank more heavily than ever, and was drilled harder than ever. The militia were now divided into infantrymen and bowmen. Willis had no skill with a bow he could demonstrate, and so he became an infantryman. The sergeants drilling him stressed the importance of learning to thrust with a spear - that is, the sharpened stick he had - and of listening to orders, of marching in formation and not breaking phase, of stopping the moment it was ordered and of turning when it was ordered. He found the military life to be unpleasant. Even more unpleasant to him was the sparring, as the sergeants didn't teach them any techniques, instead ordering them to pummel one another with their sticks for their amusement or be beaten with clubs.
 
The next year it became clear WHY the craftsmen and merchants had made it their business to come visit the previous. The area deeper into the wilderness was to be converted into more farmland, and new hapless fools were brought here, and such a sorry lot they were that Willis couldn't help but wonder if he had ever been in such a state himself.
This marked the first year when those who had been signed on for only five years of labour were no longer present among the peons, and this increased their workload, but the newcomers offered quite the promise to them: just as they themselves had sought help from their neighbours when they first arrived, so too did the newcomers now seek their aid, and now it was Willis and his lot who were the ones benefiting from unfair contracts. They drank and laughed at the fools and the prospect of getting fifteen percent of all they would produce in the future for next to nothing. They believed to be on their way to wealth and leisure.
 
The next year came, and the drill sergeants had the trainees fitted for crude leather caps and tunics to act as armour and uniform should the need for battle arise. The archers were promised relief to their tax burdens, and this meant in practice that those who had been chosen to become bowmen were from here on allowed to keep a small portion of the farms' yields regardless of their efforts, and this promised them more wealth in the future.
The drill sergeants and the sermons in the church began to take on very similar tones. Both spoke to them saying that they lived under the reign of a just and righteous king, a mighty king who had been appointed to rule by Almighty God Himself, that they should be proud to be citizens of this country, the mightiest of all the Earth's nations, second only to the Kingdom of Heaven itself, and they should thank God and the noble lords who made it possible for these worthless sinners to live such privileged lives.
This nation was a nation of the godly, of the lawful and the virtuous, but they were surrounded on all sides by renegades, Monsterfuckers and those who consorted with devils and demons to wreak havoc upon the innocent. A mere fifty miles from where they lived as the border, and beyond that border virgins were sacrificed in abominable rites, and every kind of perversion was not only allowed but downright encouraged and even mandatory. Blasphemies and crimes were the bread and water of the foreigners, and these fiends may one day come to claim these lands that belong to the godly, the lawful and the virtuous.
Willis didn't believe a word of it.
 
The year Willis turned 21, he and his fellow conscripts were made to pack up and march to this distant border to defend God and King, to defend their country, their families and their values against the invaders and villains who sought to destroy all that they held dear. They were joined by many other groups like themselves.
One of them pointed out that they had marched a good 25 miles over the border and into the territory of the neighbouring country, and was promptly executed by hanging as an example to others, for mutiny was not acceptable.
They arrived at a farm very similar to the one they had left from. Willis and the others marched in formation into the fields and were ordered to trample and burn the crops and the houses. There came many to resist, and their formations did not hold.
Chaos ensued, during which Willis stuck his spear into a man but was unable to pull it out. Another attacked him with an axe, and he did his best to dodge. The enraged man, by the looks of it the brother of the deceased, was able to graze Willis' bicep, but lost balance and fell on the ground. Willis beat him to death with his bare hands.
 
Once these farmsteads had been burned, the conscripts were marched to the next one, and here they did the same. Willis' arms and legs trembled before this next battle, and he vomited during and after it, but he lived.
Next they came to mill on an island with a bridge on both sides. They were ordered to burn down the mill and both bridges. They started with the bridge furthest out and moved on to the mill next. It was then that the enemy army showed up in their rear. The archers set themselves up on the hill with the burning mill, while the infantry made a wall of spears on the bridge. The commander of this expedition was in a furious panic, for he had not expected actual soldiers to be here to defend these peons.
Arrows were sent flying in volleys, but very few enemies died, for they had heavy armour and shields. Many of Willis' companions were slaughtered on that bridge, and in the end the weight of the armoured men and corpses was too much and it collapsed.
Willis never learned what became of those who remained on that island, or what became of those who had remained back in the farms, for when he fell in the water, the river took him downstream with it.
 
It took a long time for Willis and his few surviving companions - all strangers to him - to get out of the water, strangers in a strange land.
They managed to start a fire and dry their clothes with great difficulty, after which it became apparent they were hopelessly lost. Where to go from here? Should they be found wearing their armour by these foreigners, they would be tortured for information and executed. Should they leave them and make their way home somehow, they would be tortured and executed as deserters. The solution then, was to remain vagabonds and outlaws for the time being and make way as far from lands where they might be known as possible.
They wandered in those forests downriver for weeks, eating berries and mushrooms and occasionally lizards, frogs and fish caught with their spears.
They arrived in a mountainous region then, the source of the river. Here they sought shelter in a cave and found a sleeping bear. This they killed for meat and safety.
Willis and his companions lingered in the root of those mountains for a long time, occasionally spying out hunting parties, which they then followed and robbed. They became killers when they were resisted, and Willis cried most nights at the bitterness of his fate.
There came search parties then, armed men and dogs, to hunt them, and the gang ran off with no regard for one another.
 
It was during this escape that Willis lost the rest of his companions, save for one, who was named Mario. They never were able to rendezvous with the rest, but didn't cry much at their loss, for it was their greatest priority to avoid their pursuers while still being able to find some form of shelter and sustenance in the wilds. This was not an easy task, but after week or so had passed, they had become convinced they had lost their pursuers.
Disaster struck them again after they were caught in an icy downpour of rain. Willis began to suffer from a fever after catching a cold, and worried he would die from pneumonia. His movements became more sluggish and his efforts to the survival of the duo began to diminish, and Mario admitted to him that abandoning him to die would have increased his chances at survival. He also offered he could take their hatchet and end his suffering quickly. Willis began to feel much healthier right away, saying a little cold never killed anyone and there was no need to be so overly dramatic. Thus their journey continued.
They tried to figure out their way back home, as Mario, the one always carrying their hatchet, was getting homesick. Based on their knowledge of the directions - sunrise, sunset, Polaris and anthills gave them a pretty good idea - they figured that they should be able to not get lost. Willis argued that if they returned home, they would be killed as deserters. Mario argued that if he didn't come with him, he was free to remain in the woods. This was a compelling point.
Then there was more trouble. A viper bit Mario's hand when he climbed through a rocky spot, and although the snake was killed, its venom didn't disappear from Mario's blood, once again making Willis feel the church might have lied to him. They thought that if Mario drank the snake's blood, the venom would then be cured, after all, surely the snake contained an antidote to the venom or else it would have died from it!
With the blood down Mario's gullet, Willis tried to suck out the poison, like he'd heard old women try to handle it, although Mario worried this might be a sinful act. In the end, they went halves on eating the snake's meat and waited things out.
 
The venom left Mario in an awful shape. He asked Willis to pray for him, and Willis did his best. No miraculous cure came. On top of everything else, the bitten hand had become infected. The pain was too great for Mario to move around, and so Willis, who still had his own low fever, had to go gather their food and drinking water. Upon returning he found his comrade crying and writhing on the ground. He asked Willis to end him. Willis couldn't. He was afraid of being left alone, even if the only person around him was unpleasant and now rendered useless. A thought occurred to him. He suggested they amputate the hand. Mario protested, this would leave him bleeding to death. Unless they cauterized the wound somehow.
Willis gathered up plenty of wood for a bigger fire than usually, and gathered up resin into one of their cups until the sticky stuff filled it up to the depth of two fingers. Setting up some sticks, he put this above the fire, waiting for it to begin to boil.
Then came the amputation. Squeamish, Willis aimed poorly, and caught Mario's extended arm not at the wrist, like they'd agreed, but diagonally on the forearm, cutting off a more sizable chunk than he'd intended. No use crying over spilt milk though. Willis grabbed the bleeding stump and sank it into the cup full of boiling resin, and thus cauterized the wound. Mario screamed his throat hoarse during this process, but barely had the strength to make trouble.
 
The next day Mario spent most of his time asleep. Willis was unable to clean the cup of all the resin and threw it away.
The day after that, he woke up feeling better, and the two kept moving, slowly and uncertainly. As Willis was the one carrying the hatchet and both arms, he felt he should be the one to decide where to go. He had no idea where he wanted to go though, and so they kept moving in the general direction of where they assumed home was. Or at least the border.
Mario lost his footing and took a tumble down a cliff. The fall wasn't bad enough to be fatal, but when Willis reached him down there, he found that his friend had a broken leg and couldn't walk. Using some sticks and cloth Willis tried to make a splint, but that was all he could do about it. Grimacing, Mario leaned on him and wobbled on with one leg. They both knew he wouldn't leave this wilderness alive.
 
Mario didn't leave that forest alive, or at all. But after his great misfortunes, something more pleasant happened to him, as the two vagabonds happened upon a sapient creature for the first time in a while.
Never before in his life had Willis seen a Matango, but he had heard a great deal of mushroom people, and recognized it instantly. The creature had a mushroom cap on its head, the body of a young girl, and it made its way clumsily along the forest, sobbing. Even from a distance Willis could see that it had scars on its face, and her constant tumbling and tripping left little doubt as to it being blind. No, blinded.
"What is that?" asked Mario, believing it to be a trick of his delirium.
"Is someone there?" asked the mushroom girl, stiffening up with fear.
What was Willis to make of this encounter? He felt little fear toward the frightened blind girl, mushroom or not. He tried to speak to it calmly, and when it realized it wasn't in danger, it followed his voice and came closer. Finding an old, large oak, Willis lowered Mario to lean against it and began to question the Matango, hoping to find his way out of this place.
Alas, she could be of little assistance in that regard, since she was as lost as they were. Maybe even more so, since she'd had her eyes put out by some knightly types who had come to purge her family. She'd slipped away by chance, and nobody had chased after her. She'd counted the warm and cold times (that is to say, day and night) and it had been 28 days since then, during which she'd been just crying and wandering around.
All Willis could discover was that she'd crossed the border, since she spoke his language, and that her name was Cherry. A strange name for a mushroom.
"But how'd you survive this long?" Mario wondered.
"I just put my roots down when I get hungry" she shrugged. Sure enough, she had rooty feet.
"I've heard Matango grow attached to their husbands..." Willis muttered pondering if this blind girl wasn't the solution to all his problems.
"Every wife should grow attached to her husband, silly!" she rebuked him.
Willis tried to explain to her the misunderstanding, and when she realized what he meant, she admitted she could indeed grant sustenance to her "husband" when they were joined together. Mario was shocked when it dawned on him what Willis was planning.
Willis shook his head at him at explained his view: he couldn't get anywhere with him, and here was an opportunity to survive for both of them. Not only that, but Cherry was miserable on her own as well, and companionship would do her good. Cherry enjoyed this idea greatly. Mario begged for death. Willis refused it. To take a life was too unpleasant an idea for him, this way the two of them would no longer weigh on his conscience.
 
Thus Willis prepared a comfortable bedding underneath the oak from moss and spruce branches, lied him down on it and left one of his ragged pieces of clothing and the hatchet for them, since they would be spending the rest of their lives here.
"Farewell" he said, and left the two without looking back. After that he wondered alone in the wilderness between the deep forests and the mountain range he could not name. He lost his sense of the passage of time, living only from one food or water source to the next until the sun set and he had to seek a place he could sleep in, usually some moss. Moss was soft and this made him think of his bed at home.
He was hungry, tired, and feverish when he saw the smoke. He was not worried about what awaited him. In all the years he had been on the farm, Willis had learned not to think about his situation lest he become sad, and in the wilderness he had tried his best to keep it up, even if the violence he had partaken made him sob and tremble. Caring only for the fire that smoke foretold, he trudged on, tripping over roots, rocks and his own legs many a time.
When he finally reached the fire, the was too worn to pay any heed to those camped around it, and he fell unconscious before them.