The trees flexed in the wind quietly, their long branches twisting and interlocking with the play of the breeze. Down the long slopes of the trunks of these massive trees grew bright green moss. Further down them grew shade tolerant bush, sharp leaves fixed with three bright red berries at the base where leaf meets stem, those same bushes speckled with thick thorns that dug in and refused to back out. Small creatures nibbling off them as a source of food filled the ambient background of the forest. God rays beamed through the few gaps in the canopy, leaving golden rods that transfixed random spots in the earth with the warmth of the sun. All of it was so surreal to Grant from the back of Finch. Beautiful bright greens, dark browns, and crimson red berries for all the eye to see. Ten miles in and it’s all he could see anymore. Unfortunately, they weren’t there for a sightseeing expedition.

  He turned back to look at the cart. Loaded down with about four thousand pounds of material in it. He sighed at the sight of a lodged wheel in a patch of mud. The prisoners sat around the cart and glared at it dumbly. Willis scratched his head as he tried to piece the puzzle together. Grant knew what they needed to do, slipping off the back of Finch as the thought occurred to him. “Looks like we’re going to be crossing hard terrain from here on out.” He said more for himself than the others here. “Get two rolls of rope out and tie it to the tree over there. Grab me two spare axe handles too.” The prisoners sat around the cart, eyes dull, waiting to see whose fault it would become. Grant narrowed his eyes and repeated the command again, his voice edging into a growl. “Get me the rope.” One of the more observant prisoners moved into action and the rest followed.

  Grant took the leads of the rope and tied them to a post on the cart, hitching the other end around the tree thanks to the prisoners there. In a moment, he tied together a windlass rope lever. The cart thereafter took its sweet time getting another quarter mile, burning the rest of the day away as it did.

  Grant looked at Willis, he was standing over the men as they were erecting the camp’s tents. “Your thoughts so far?” Grant ventured. His hands were warming by the small fire that’d been made, the smell of stew bubbled up from the suspended cast iron pot above the fire.

  Willis looked over his shoulder, then back to the group. “I ask them to walk, and they try to run-“

  “I was talking about the trip, Willis. Not your impressions of the labor gang.” Grant corrected himself, shifting his hands back to his pockets, and resting his feet closer to the fire now.

  Willis sighed and strode back to take a seat next to Grant at the fire. “It feels like it’s going to be a long trip.” He remarked plainly. “Most of this trip’s going to be fighting thornbushes. The sap bounty helps, but it’s pulling their focus off the work.”

  Grant rose his voice. “You need to positively motivate men.” Grant dismissively waved his hand at Willis’ mention of the contest. “None of these men want to be here. Hell, I hardly want to be here holding grown ass men’s hands. I would much rather be working with paid men who want to be here. No, the contest will remain in place. Did you have to quell any fights today?” Grant said In a more serious tone.

  Willis nodded, his eyes resting on the cast iron cooking pot suspended above the fire. “Yes. I did.” He said with a sharp biting tone. “They were-“

  Grant spoke up again. “The only fight that happened was the argument over stolen tree sap.” Grant pulled out the bag of collected sap for the day, it was already starting to become heavy. “You need to direct them, focus their minds off their current circumstances. It’s the redroot and stick method.” He said with some pride in his voice.

  “They’re criminals.” Willis said. His tone even and secure. “They aren’t children to be lead.”

  Grant chirped in agreement. “They’re men. I plan on treating them like grown ass men. Just because they fucked up once doesn’t mean it should haunt them for the rest of their lives, Willis. You served alongside criminals a long time too, haven’t you?”

  Willis nodded, looking over at Grant. “Still am. Doesn’t feel like anything’s changed since the service.” He muttered.

  Grant leant forward and stirred the cast iron pot sitting above the fire. “I was a convict. Hell, I served in the penal battalions. Worked my way up a long list of shit.” He lifted the ladle to his mouth and nipped at the meal, his hand reaching for spices to adjust the flavor. “They need to see the light at the end of the tunnel. Fields of Green knows I needed it.”

  Willis watched the men working in the background, finishing the last embellishments on the tents. “If that’s the case, then unshackle them, Grant.” He said carefully, almost spitefully. “You think they wont lunge at you at the first chance they get?”

  Grant accepted the criticism at the heart of Willis’ jab. “I’m not a hypocrite Willis. Besides that, it’s illegal for me to remove their bindings. That would be your job if I needed to do that.” Grant shifted in his seat as he stirred the pot. “No. I’m not going to unshackle them just because you think I’m too soft on them.” He lifted the ladle again and sipped at the food. “Dinner’s almost ready Willis. Get them in line for their rations.” Grant stood up and set the pot off to the side and started prepping for a meal line to form. Before Willis could get up and do anything Grant spoke again. “Work with me on this. These men might become your coworkers before you know it.” Grant started getting the table ready for the meal thereafter.

  Set with silverware, plates, and saucers. It was more than the prisoners deserved. Grant knew Willis wasn’t happy with packing the heavy plates, but Grant didn’t care. “Before we begin, we’re going to recite Bearing.” He said reverently, knowing it would befit more civil men to attempt a nightly prayer before a meal. Grant couldn’t care less himself, but bringing men together after a long day was something he always craved for out in the field.

  The prisoners waddled through the line, hands laden full with a cup of cold drink, and a bowl of steaming hot gruel. As they filtered into their seats, they all waited for the rest of the group to sit down before starting Bearing. Willis was the last to take a seat, wearily next to Grant. Grant looked across the table and laid his hands palm up, prompting the rest of the men to do the same.

  “Fields of Green. We give bearing for this meal, for the hands that prepped it, and for those that carry it forward, let nothing taken from here be small, and let nothing be forgotten. In His keeping, Amen.” Grant looked up and smiled as he dug into his meal.

  Thereafter was the cantor of chiming clinking steel cuffs against the metal bowls and cups. Grant panned his eyes across the group, feeling… hollow. Sure, he enjoyed outdoors work, Grant believed it was the best kind of work a man could do. Kept death staged well behind the rear ranks in his opinion. But… the thought of his first few nights away from his family had left him feeling empty. It just… didn’t feel warm while he was out like this, the fire didn’t feel right when he ate. Grant swallowed his next bite, and returned his gaze back down at his meal. He ate light, needed to stay awake and alert for the first night shift. You couldn’t trust institutionalized men to keep watch over you worth a damn. It was another reason Grant was so disturbed by Mr. Bramwell’s choice to include more state labor.

  He thought on it as he glared out into the open darkness of the world around him. Shackled men formed a cleanup detail, nice and orderly as Grant liked it. Scraping their plates clean of fats and scraps. Keeping the fat of any meat, they didn’t eat and leaving the rest of the scraps in a compost trench. A separate pot of water was brought to boil so the dishes could be washed, then disinfected with wood ash. Before retiring for the night, all the dishes were stacked neatly around the firepit to dry. Three men were expected to handle this duty, and the work rotated on a nightly basis. The roaming gang of chained men were allowed to sleep two to a pair at night. Lowering the strain on Willis at the expense of a heightened risk of revolt. Grant shook his head, knowing that chained men were no real challenge to someone like him head on. His eyes scanned the tents as he thought. A deep sigh bubbling out of him as Willis approached.

  “They’re turning in, you might want to as well.” Willis remarked as he sat next to Grant by the fire. He reached out and grabbed some water to drink.

  Grant looked over and saw the two prisoners who’re keeping labor watch. “Did you volunteer them, or did they do it willingly?”

  Willis shrugged. “I offered and those two walked up right after I asked. I assumed they wanted to do it.”

  Grant looked at Willis sideways. “Why did you shrug?” He searched Willis’ face for a deeper answer.

  Willis shrugged again. “They… were just asking permission to use the latrine. I let them go, but I still picked them to pull labor duty.”

  Grant sighed, his frustration evident with the Lance Corporal. “That is a last resort voluntold position. Did you tell them they’d be on light duty afterward?”

  Willis shrugged.

  Grant shook his head. “Do you have an issue with these men beyond them being criminals?” He glared deeply into Willis’ eyes as he waited for an answer.

  Willis shrugged.

  Grant saw he was getting nowhere and decided to drop the line of questions. “Go ahead and get the first rack. I will take first watch.” Grant sat there, watching the entrances of the tents. “We can do five on, five off.”

  This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there.

  Willis, again, shrugged. “Its up to you.” He walked off, headed towards his tent suspended in one of the dark trees.

  Grant scrunched his brows as he saw the odd man climb the tree like it had a ladder. “Wh-“ He stopped questioning it as he realized the value it had, forgetting that height was not a bad idea after all. He looked back at the group and waited…

  The night stalked through the trees, stars blinking in and out as they intersected the legs of giants that stood around them. Their fingers crawling overhead, looming ripe to pluck their heavenly souls. Grant noticed the way the world peeled open to reveal large blooms of color deep into the night when away from towns or cities. He saw small things like the loss of the beautiful weaving universe overhead bleeding out to a pale imitation of itself at night when the town’s lamps flickered on. His hand rested on his revolver; his staff rested across his lap as he saw the unfolding universe. Looking back down at the men, Grant saw them in idle chat, tending to the fire with a poker and fresh fuel.

  He saw the shadows of night creatures lurking about in the distance. A leaping brown-tail making desperate ground away from a prying grey wide-eye. It swooped overhead silently, like the apex avian predator it was. Briefly he saw its spotted feathers loom orange-gold as it streaked overhead. His eyes tracing the streak the creature became. Grant wondered what he’d do if he didn’t have responsibility, much less of it anyway. It was easy to take game, live like a predator in the wild. Eating food when it came to him in a trap or at the end of his muzzle.

  The night was absent of distractions after that, and the time flew until it was time to rotate watch. Climbing up into the tree, Grant woke Willis and tagged out. He slipped into the sleeping hammock, his arms tired, his back sore, and his eyelids heavy. He took one last look back at the camp below him through the split in the oil canvass tarp. His eyes straining to stay open as he saw Willis circling the camp with a predatory intent. His eyes fluttered once, his arm dropped, and he fell asleep.

  Wild, fast, breathless. His eyes bled stinging silver streams that found handholds in the singing air. The land around him blurred under him, around him. His hands felt the bleeding edge of fury in their grip. The skies above were dusk orange, yellow-white clouds hanging low in the sky. The ground formed churned craters that pock marked the looming expanse of snow coated land ahead of him. He saw small blips in the far distance, large hulking things laboring in the death of winter. The air pelted him with painfully stinging insects that were unlucky enough to be in his way. The outlines grew into impossibly large beasts of rotting flesh. Too many sickly arms plucked out of a hunched back. Too many legs to be of any divine creation. Too many heads with tracking, beady, eyes that sought prey in their milky sunken sockets.

  His hands slipped down the length of his staff, skipping the tip of it along the gossamer thin surface of the snow behind him. He moved faster, time slurring even further into that gossamer thin realm of time. He brought his feet down, sliding for tens of dozens of yards. His hands came in as he slid near horizontal with the ground now as he slammed the leading edge of his staff into the side of the knee of the creature. The weapon shuddered in sympathetic spite against the unnatural creature’s joint. His eyes followed the transmission of force that flowed up the length of the reinforced wooden staff. His hand gripped it harder than ever, stopping the motion and reversed it back the other way. His fuel burnt hotter as he amplified the force with his staff, impacting a dozen times on the same join with the first and only strike. In marching cruelty he saw the edge of the staff burst through the black bile that made this creature’s blood. Time marched on again as he transitioned back into a sprit, the land slipping under him in gleaming white streaks of black craters.

  A vial roar pelted the land around him as his feet drew him vertically. The thing lurched and fell onto its stump of a leg, two others that were awkwardly placed took the strain of the loss of bipedalism. It turned towards him, a thousand beady eyes glaring down in pure malice. All of them bloodshot and blown wide in pain and insanity. Some of the faces still bore half remembered grimaces of personality fluttering from them like a sail. Most of them joined the choir of agony that was bearing down on him now. Lifting two massive arms it blotted out the sun briefly as it brough them down. The earth buckled and shook violently as they made contact. Punching through the snow and earth like hands pelting into a soft mattress. He jumped lord knows how far back, avoiding the spitfire of rock and perforating death the creature had ejected with its fists.

  The abomination lunged forward with great speed, its monstrous gallop was a primal mockery of the elegant stride of any horse. He landed, his feet punching two soft holes into the snow. He waited, collecting himself. The beast kept charging, faster, angrier. His stance lowered as he saw the creature, and felt a small glimmer of terror speaking to him. This thing was massive, limbs dragging in the slow beats of time. He saw the creature slow as he brough his process back into full swing once again. Slipping into that quiet, efficient, streamline. The second knee bore the brunt of the weight in this tri-ped form. He could hear the bone stressing as the creature ignored its necrotic flesh’s limits. No other legs remained on the beast as it charged, no other limbs to keep it upright. His canisters burned hot once more, coating his under arms in soot as he pulsed with speed and strength once more into the breach.

  He heard the deep punches his feet made in the snow, contacting the permafrost ground under them. They sounded long and drawn out as he neared the charge of the creature now. In the background he heard the creature’s monumental footsteps bracketing the world with thunderous applaud. His hands drew low, his feet slid horizontal, and he slid across the snow with all his speed and skill. The end of his staff bowed, buckled, and broke through the knee in a bright flash of dark ichor. The movement was so blindingly fast, the creature kept its momentum, charging through the loss of the limb. Grant plunged his feet down in this slow ethereal molasses of snow and air. Time sped up once more as he turned back. Mulching the snow and ice was the beast rolling in its continued tumble, end over end it flopped and rolled off. Grant turned away, seeing new eyes.

  He woke, his heart thumped hard in his chest as he tried to register what to do next. His eyes scattered across the inside of the oil cloth above him quickly, then found Willis.

  Willis standing over him now. “Time to wake. We got work to do.”

  Grant blinked.

  Willis frowned, and nudged Grant again. “I don’t get paid to wake you up. Time to get up.” He said more annoyed now.

  Grant rubbed his eyes as he sat up in the hammock, his hand found his face and rubbed his eyes. “Any issues last night?”

  Willis shook his head. “Aside from bathroom breaks and late-night drinks of water. No.”

  Grant sighed. “Have them start packing camp.” His hands found his shirt, and started dressing.

  Willis slid down the tree expertly, and barked commands. Their tone sharp enough to shred fabric.

  Grant let Willis do his job. If the Lance Corporal wanted to play as the stick, Grant figured he needed to be Carrot. He packed up the hammock, pulling in and army rolling everything into tight tubes. It was a short time later that he saw everyone chained back up together into two groups of five. Bound at the hip with irons, and connected, they made easy work walking and working. Grant saw Willis look back up to confirm everyone was ready to move. Grant saw Finch nod his head too, flapping his lips in appeasement.

  The air felt good as he started directing them, he saw them clearing small trees and digging out pathway for the cart. Willis circling the group like an attack dog, his eyes dangerously narrow at the men. Heavy wooden mallets pounded the cleared saplings into mud the stabilize the ground for the cart. The cadence ruled by Willis’ army chant. It flooded him with memories of basic training as Willis set cadence. Just fast enough to be acceptable work, slow enough to account for physically average men. The day simmered at this pace. Grant grew extremely bored of this and fought exhaustion from the night prior. Five hours weren’t enough, fields of green, it was never enough.

  Grant closed his eyes and rubbed them, thinking as to what he did to deserve this. His hands circled his small pouch of black sap, its cold contents breathing life back into him with the same shock of cold water. Grant glared at some of the madmen who packed their lips with dry black sap grounds. His lip tightened up into a small sneer, and simmered into a frown as a misplaced step caused them to either inhale the powder or spill what they had in their pockets.

  Jeru Elro stood up from a moment of brutal labor and wiped his head, the rest of the men he was chained to slowed too. “Can-“ He huffed, trying to catch his breath. “Can I get s’more of that black sap?” He asked in an exhausted bleat. Grant sighed and pulled out the precious grounds and took a small scoop out with a spoon.

  Elro shook his head. “I just want to try somethin’” He took the small ration of the grounds and rolled it into some of the sap he had collected for the day. The others glared at him, and before anyone could speak, Elro popped the rolled concoction into his mouth.

  Another man, Caleb Marrin, looked on in horror as Elro threw it into his mouth. “Wh—what in the Fields are you doing?!”

  Hollis Roul picked up his voice and spoke. “He didn’t eat it. Dumbass.”

  Elro’s face contorted in pain, or regret.

  Grant was unsure whether to tell them to get back to work or laugh at the distraction.

  Elro spoke when he had a chance to. “Mhpfh. Burns-“

  Emmett Kline spoke; the last man tied to the left of Elro. “You stick tree glue and grounds in your mouth. Burns. Dipshit.” He got back to work, prompting the rest of the gang to work as well.

  Grant smirked at the distraction, equal parts amused and curious.

  They kept working in the growing sun. Sweat beading down in the cool air. They made it another several hours before lunch was called. Elro sat down and started rolling more of the small wads of the two saps. Grant idly watched as he perfected the process of making them to an acceptable standard.

  Other men had started to copy him, adjusting the amount of sap and using large flat blade leaves to fold a large handheld glob of the mixture. Grant sighed and ventured to try some, mixing it in the same way Elro tried.

  He sighed, knowing what the taste of normal tree sap was. He braced himself and threw a bead into his mouth.

  Sweet, as first. It’s thin, sticky, sweetness. He remembered the lie that sap pretends to be food for the first few moments. Moments later, the bitter astringent tannic taste saps moisture from his tongue. It felt like he was chewing scorched bark then. Grant shut his eyes and sucked his cheeks in. He felt the sting of the bitterness climb into his sinuses, behind his eyes, down his throat as the juices made it back there.

  The mix was something that felt medical in nature. His breaths pulled the feeling down into his lungs, waking him further. It reminded him of the white smoke off a greenwood fire.

  He kept chewing, trying to find the lighter side of the chew. There the punch settled into a dull ringing in his jaw. His mouth felt numb, and he looked down at his fingers. Stained dark by the black sap and resin coating them. Grant sighed as he came to terms with it. The taste was awful, but he could see the merit of it. Maybe it would be better to soak it into a pot of concentrated black sap and stir it. This would work however, for now.

  Grant pulled out his map as the brutal assault of his taste was over, the sap turning over in his mouth leaving a metallic taste behind. His hand parsed the map quietly, navigating the land they’d gone over. Two new tools appeared in his hand, and a few quick glances around told him what he needed to know. Only a mile and a half of progress made before lunch. He sighed, feeling the frustration the work left in a man. His eyes crept up to the sky as he realized this was going to be a very long week indeed.