"I'm so sorry," he murmured once more, his voice trembling with the weight of his act as he leaned close to the now-still form. This apology, though softly offered to the departed beast, seemed to beg forgiveness from the world itself.
Beneath the bull's lifeless form, the ground softened and yielded, transforming into a pliant bed that slowly swallowed the beast. Vines, not passive spectators but agents of nature's will, wrapped around the body and drew it into the nurturing embrace of the soil until the animal vanished without a trace.
Carlos stood rooted, jaw slack, a look not of fear but of that sober horror men wear in the presence of old, unanswerable power. The earth had taken the bull without a mark left, and the stillness after felt like a prayer that had ended itself.
Baruch gathered himself and rose. "Rest in peace, brother," he said, voice low and age-heavy. His gaze lifted from the quiet ground to Carlos. "We set one life back into the earth. Yours remains. Hold to that—everything else is light as chaff."
Carlos could only nod. For all his years as steward, he seemed a pupil before nature's hard lesson.
Baruch's eyes went once more to the leveled grass—guilt pricked like thorns—and a swarm of unspoken curses passed behind his teeth. Then he turned from the village and started for the treeline, a tall black cutout against the thinning light, each long step thudding like far thunder.
Carlos, guardian of the village's hearth and heart, trailed in the wake of Baruch's retreating figure, his steps a restless dance as he tried to keep pace with the deliberate strides of the druid's long legs. "Where you goin', el venerado?" he called out, voice heavy with concern.
"To end this," the druid's voice carried the gravity of his resolve, his words echoing through the gathering dark. "I have to clean the forests from this foulness," He declared.
"Foulness?" Carlos drew up beside him. "What sort?"
"Not sickness of flesh. A turning of spirit," the druid answered. "Something—someone—sets rot in the root. It takes the mild first, makes them cruel. Wolves, bulls… it will not stop at them."
"And how do you 'cleanse' a forest turned cruel?"
"I will give the cursed back to the earth." The words tasted of iron. Saying them hurt; doing worse. "No man knows how far it's spread," he went on. "I shall not leave more creatures to suffer."
He lengthened his stride toward the treeline—until Carlos caught his sleeve.
"Night is dangereous, even for you," the steward blurted. "And if you're hurt? Your wife waits. Your boy."
The words struck true. Baruch's pace faltered; roots and shadow seemed to thicken ahead. 'Mad beasts will not heed the heart's tongue,' he thought. 'Even the forest may not cover me tonight.' The old fire still burned in him, banked but bright, a stubborn coal against the dark.
"Let's wait till dawn, el venerado. Tomorrow, we'll gather the men to stand with you," Carlos's voice was a salve to Baruch's churning spirit. The laughter and songs floated across the fields, a vibrant tapestry of sound weaving from the village. "Listen…" Carlos's voice carried, warm and inviting. "Folks're headin' to the cemetry now, eh; We gotta honor the dead. Please, join us. Ven, por favor. You bein' there would honor Lady Aelithra... all who've passed," he urged.
The mention of Aelithra, once a celestial guardian revered by all, anchored Baruch's feet to the ground with the weight of his unmeasurable respect for her.
The question Carlos posed, a gentle inquiry tinged with the sorrow of remembrance, pierced the fog of recent anger that enshrouded Baruch's spirit. "Hear that song, oye? Tis for the lost. You know how many we lost, right? Tonight we sing for 'em." The warmth in Carlos's voice, imbued with the melancholy of loss, reached Baruch as a beacon through the tumult of his concerns.
"Your folks got somethin' like this?" Carlos continued, pulling Baruch's thoughts away from the forest.
"In the Valoria Del Sol, this festival, Noche de las Almas Pasadas, serves as a bridge between the realms of the living and the departed," the druid reflected, his gaze sweeping gently over the serene village. "This gathering is not a mourning of death, but a celebration of the enduring connections that not even death can sever."
"We, Yoshvei haYa'arot," Baruch added thoughtfully, "do not dedicate a specific day of the year to honor the departed." He paused, letting the gravity of his words permeate the quiet that hung between them. "Instead, their memory is eternally woven into the consciousness of the living through our prayers and rituals. Each ceremony strengthens the ties between those who remain and those who have passed, reaffirming the perpetual cycle that unites us."
Baruch continued, his voice imbued with a poignant resonance, "In essence, our entire existence pays homage to our ancestors. We live and remember, and through our deeds, the spirits of those before us continue to shape the world."
"Then you see why we gotta mourn our dead. We need you, el venerado," Carlos implored, his plea underscored by the sincere respect.
The tension between justice and vengeance stirred in the druid's heart, but thoughts of his wife and son softened his earlier fury. Their love was a balm, cooling the fire within. "Tomorrow, our courage will be tested. Tonight, I reunite with my family. Let us return." Baruch declared after a deep breath that seemed to draw in the night itself. He turned from the beckoning shadows of the forest, his expression as warm as a midsummer's breeze in Valoria Del Sol, and faced Carlos.
With a friendly clap on the druid's back, Carlos guided him away from the lurking shadows of the woodland, leading their steps toward the village. With each step, the sounds of celebration grew louder, enveloping them in the village's jubilant spirit.
"An' there'll be plenty o' food, too!" Carlos declared, his voice brimming with the solemnity of his small victory.
Baruch, his features etched with the day's trials, regarded Carlos with a blend of amusement and inquisitive concern. "But moments ago, you spoke of hardships with provisions?"
Carlos leaned in, hat worrying in his hands, a fox's sparkle in his eye despite the dark. "Pues… you and la Reverenda Tabitha can help us, no?" he suggested with a panhandler's gaze.
Baruch exhaled through his nose; the lines at his mouth deepened. This village will be the end of my patience. Aloud, he said, "My wife has spoiled you soft," letting his gaze take in Carlos's comfortable cheeks and belt strained by plenty.
"Grateful, aye," Carlos said quick. "She's sweetened the soil. With fortune, it'll feed my grandchildren yet—folk come here for the yield.'
He lowered his voice to a gravelly mutter. 'If the heavens grant me any at all—what grandchildren, with that blockhead of a boy?'
Baruch inclined his head. His wife asked no thanks and wanted none; she did what was needful and called it good. Even so, pride moved warm in his chest.
"And you'll take your share of the blessing," Carlos went on, jabbing a thumb toward the fat fields. "Lot of that's on you, too. Better a full belly than pretty words—life's a thin caldo without a good soup and a big ol' heel o' bread."
"We, the Yoshvei haYa'arot, take no flesh," Baruch said, his gaze settling on the steward like a hand laid firm. "I fear your feast may sit ill with our ways. How do you mean to mend that?"
Carlos, with a wave of his hand as if to dispel any doubts, proclaimed, "What's got you worried? My daughter-in-law makes the best pumpkin soup in the land! Not a speck of meat in it, te lo prometo!"
"It's great," replied Baruch, his visage softening into a gentle smile, a rare bloom of warmth in the cool twilight.
Seizing the moment of camaraderie, Carlos launched into talk of his son—Miguel, twenty-three winters old, yet still a boy in matters of the heart and responsibility. "Adoptado, sí—but why the hell's the boy so different from me, ¿eh?" he grumbled, half to himself, then louder: "He dodges marriage like it's a chain on the ankle. And takin' the steward's staff after me—la vara? He acts like I'm askin' him to wear a crown o' thorns."
Baruch's thoughts, however, had strayed from the conversation. 'What was that desolation I felt earlier? I've never felt such a void before…' he pondered, his thoughts as dark and profound as a winter's night, pulling him away from the warmth of Carlos's narrative and into the frigid grasp of his own introspections.