The Woodsman, The Witch, and The Necromancer

A Woodsman defends his realm

The weeds in that part of the forest were wildly overgrown. Brilliant green vines choked the trees masking the woody complexion of the bark, leaving sea of green that was nearly impossible to navigate. Impossible for anyone who wasn’t the Woodsman, of course. No, the Woodsman could find his way about the forest on the darkest night of winter without a single star in the sky to guide him or compass to point the way north. The Woods were his woods. He was master and commander, lord of the manor, king of the castle. None of those were official titles, you see, but simple, plain, irrefutable facts. The Woods belonged to The Woodsman and The Woodsman belonged to The Woods.

On this particular summer day, the humidity was creating a sweltering jungle of tangled weeds and scruff. Thick bramble patches clawed at the hardened skin of The Woodsman’s exposed lower legs. No blood was drawn, no scratch was seen. It wasn’t that his skin had hardened over time from continual abuse. That would imply weakness, a vulnerability to the hazards and pitfalls that lived within The Woods. The Woodsman was immune to such hazards, laughed in the face of such pitfalls. He did not adapt. He was perfectly engineered to coexist with anything that lived within the boundaries of the forest. Engineered by whom? Well, that’s a story for another time.

The Woodsman was a great giant of a man. Towering over seven feet tall, he could easily be spotted roaming his woods if you looked in just the right place. The Woodsman was lithe and silent, however, and you were never going to be looking in just the right place. He had a head of shaggy chestnut hair tucked under a deep blue stocking cap with a white fuzzy ball at the top. His iron-like, chiseled jaw was hidden behind a perfectly trimmed beard the same color as his unkempt mane. A pair of chocolate brown eyes scanned the forest with a cool calculation and analysis. He took everything in, leaving nothing unnoticed. Today, as any other day, he was wearing a plain white button up t-shirt over his muscular upper body, and a pair of ragged blue jeans cut off just above the knee and held up with brown leather suspenders. Flung over his right shoulder was an axe large enough to fell any normal sized tree in The Woods with a single swing. The larger trees were not to be touched; they were wise creatures in their age. The Woodsman’s pontoon feet were encased in a pair of scuffed, worn leather work boots that had to be replaced once or twice a month. The Woodsman may be immune to harm, but his boots, oddly enough, seemed particularly susceptible to it.

The Woodsman was moving faster through the forest than he normally would. To The Woodsman, each day was a gift, something to be cherished and enjoyed. When he walked, he did so with purpose and precision. Today, on the other hand, The Woodsman was walking with a wild abandon, unrestrained and full steam on the throttle. He’d been given a most distressing piece of news upon waking from his feather and straw bed in his cozy cabin in the center of The Woods. A small sparrow had landed on his windowsill and chirruped the bad news with a sadness and fear hanging about its burdened soul. The Woodsman dressed immediately and left without looking back, the sparrow’s words ringing in his ears.

A witch, the little bird had squeaked, taken up residence in the Ivy Graveyard.

The Woodsman had arrived at the Ivy Graveyard mere moments later although it was nearly ten miles from his home. The Ivy Graveyard was not, as its name suggested, a graveyard for ivy. Quite the opposite, actually. The ivy thrived in the Ivy Graveyard. It was everything else that withered and died, slowly choked off from the live-giving sunshine by the ivy’s never-ending growth. A wizard had come around The Woods several summers past and placed a protective spell around the Ivy Graveyard so the vile weeds could not take over the forest for good. The Woodsman was grateful, and paid the old man with a pair of roasted pheasants which the wizard gobbled down gratefully, finishing the meal with a toke of his hand carved pipe and a glass of iced goat’s milk with honey.

Since that day, the ivy had stayed where it belonged, and the rest of the forest’s inhabitants lived peacefully knowing that they were safe from the slowly slithering clutches of the emerald, earthen snakes. If a witch was loose in The Woods, that safety would crumble, the wizard’s hard work undone.

Witches were vile, nasty creatures by nature. There’s a reason people with nasty dispositions are referred to as ‘witches’. A witch is not made, however. They are born in the dark lands outside The Woods, a putrid patch of barren land where the sun hid behind a perpetual sheet of storm clouds the darkest shade of gray. They are nursed on the milk of jackals and, when they’re old enough, fed serpent eggs and large heads of lettuce, all of which instilled a hatred for the living, happy creatures the lived within the forest. From the time they are able to speak and move about on their own, witches are trained to perform evil spells, brew wicked potions, and just be generally unpleasant to be around. It is a myth that they fly on broomsticks, though The Woodsman had seen one or two using one as a walking stick. Witches walk around just like any other living creatures only with a sinister air about them. Pray that you never meet a witch, my friends, and if you have the unfortunate luck to meet one, pray that The Woodsman is nearby to intervene.

The Woodsman could smell the faint tinge of smoke on the air. The scent was laced with newt eyes and cat’s blood. It made The Woodsman’s blood boil with rage. He stomped through the trees to find a small stone cottage with a thatched roof sitting somewhat incongruously in the middle of a small clearing of trees. It looked decades old, but The Woodsmen had never seen it, nor was a single vine of ivy touching the outer walls. The foul smelling smoke was puffing lazily out of the chimney of the cottage. The Woodsman could see a faint glow of fire through a crack in one of the shutters on the front of the house. He thought about taking the flat side of his axe to the structure, toppling it in on her miserable head and snuffing the problem in one fell stroke. He did something else though. Something unexpected. He walked up to the front door of the cottage and knocked, three quick raps on the wood.

“Who is it?” the witch hissed from the other side of the door.

“It’s The Woodsman,” The Woodsman announced in a booming, commanding voice.

“I don’t want any of what you’re selling, Wooderson,” the witch spat back. “Go to the house down the way and leave me to my business.”

There were no other houses in the Ivy Graveyard of any kind. The Woodsman knocked again.

“I must insist, madam,” he urged her. “Please vacate these woods immediately. We want nothing of your kind here.”

There was a sound of glass bottles jangling together and the scrape of wood on wood, followed by irregular footsteps on a wooden floor. The door opened with a speed The Woodsmen wouldn’t have thought possible from the tiny woman behind that was now in front of him. She could not have been more than four feet high. Her sickly green skin was pocked with warts and scabs. She was wearing a simple black dress that plunged disgustingly deep in between a pair of misshapen breasts. The witch’s ruby red hair jutted out in all directions from under her pointy black hat. Her nose crooked at an illogical angle and she peered at The Woodsman with beady red eyes.

“What’s this about now?” she asked, wiping her hands off on a filthy rag that couldn’t have cleaned anything.

The Woodsman sighed. He was not used to having to repeat himself, and even less used to not being obeyed. It was a rather large nuisance.

“I am here to banish you from this forest,” he said again through gritted teeth. “The citizens of The Woods do not want you about, even in this dead land. I will give you the option to leave of your own volition, or you can choose to leave by mine. It is up to you.”

The witch cackled under her breath. “Come in, come in,” she croaked.

The witch stepped back from the door to allow The Woodsman inside. He squeezed his massive frame into the door and had to stoop himself over so his head didn’t knock against the ceiling. The inside of the cottage smelled thickly of the same smoke that was pumping out of the chimney. There were bits and pieces of dozens of different animals organized into glass jars all over the house. A cast iron cauldron sat over the gently burning logs in the fireplace, a thick, bubbling liquid brewing inside. A single wooden table sat in the middle of the tiny room with two chairs on either side.

“Sit, sit,” the witch said throatily.

The Woodsman pulled out one of the tiny chairs and sat down. His knees stood well above the table. The witch sat down across the table from him and looked at him again with her beady red eyes.

“So, what’s all this about eviction?” the witch asked The Woodsman, almost snarling the last word.

“Egads, woman,” cried The Woodsman in frustration, “have you not been listening to me? I want you out of my forest, post haste!”

The witch smirked at him. “Ah, I see. Well, that’s going to be a bit of a problem.”

“How’s that, demon?” The Woodsman demanded.

“You see,” the witch cackled slowly, “my boyfriend is on a bit of a walkabout, and I can’t leave without him. Even if he were here, I’m not sure he’d be too keen on leaving. He’s grown rather fond of the place, he has.”

“You haven’t been here a day,” The Woodsman stated in confusion.

The witch just shrugged. “Be that as it may, we’re not leaving. I’d really rather not upset him. He’s quite handsome, if I do say so myself.”

The Woodsman couldn’t help himself. “What man could stand your putrescence for more than a moment?”

The witch smiled the smile of the smitten. “Oh, he’s quite charming. Quite charming, indeed. Has a bit of a fetish though, a real dead issue.”

The color drained from The Woodsman’s face. It felt as if ice were coursing through his veins. He knew of the type of man of which she spoke. The word blasted through his skull like a runaway mine cart.

“You brought one of them into my woods?” The Woodsman roared.

In one quick movement he had stood up, grabbed the witch around the throat, and slammed her up against the wall behind him. She hit the wall with such force that the wind was shot out of her and a few ribs audibly cracked. She didn’t seem to notice. She just smiled wildly at The Woodsman.

“Where is he?” demanded The Woodsman.

“Should be back shortly,” the witch choked out. “He won’t be happy when he sees you manhandling his woman.”

The Woodsman growled. “See how happy he is about this.”

In an expert simultaneous movement, The Woodsman released the witch and swung the axe. The blade cleaved deeply into the stone, nearly destroying the wall in the process. The witch’s head perched atop the axe while her body slid slowly to the floor, crumpling like a busted sack of potatoes at The Woodsman’s feet. Navy blue witch blood poured out of the open wound onto the floor.             The Woodsman heaved the axe out of the stone and let the witch head drop to the floor. The body had begun bubbling and melting into a sticky puddle of slaughtered effluence. He stomped out of the cottage and peered into the woods for some sing of the man who was even more of a threat to The Woods than the witch or the ivy was. He caught a faint scent of death and decay on the gently breeze and knew he had his man. The Woodsman bolted off south into the trees without another moment’s hesitation.